FREEDOM IN CHRIST by Milton C. Wilcox

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, Cal. · Jul 7, 1890

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 16, No. 26.

FREEDOM IN CHRIST.

By Milton C. Wilcox

It is a great blessing to be forgiven the sins of the past; but forgiveness is a real blessing only when it is the beginning of freedom from sin and victory over sin. If we are forgiven only to fall into sin again, the blessing of forgiveness but deepens the despair of defeat. God’s object in forgiving, however, is not that we may fall again. He strikes off the chains of the bondage of sin that we may go free; and in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free, we are bidden to stand fast, and not become entangled again in the bondage of sin. Gal. 5:1. Or according to the words of our Lord: “If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.” John 8:36. The same thought is expressed by the psalmist: “There is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared [reverenced],” the reverence and godly fear with which God should be truly served. Ps. 130:4; Heb. 12:28. The greater question, therefore, for the Christian to consider is not, “Will the Lord forgive my sin?” but, “How may I gain the victory over sin? how may I maintain freedom from sin?”

It is a thought clearly and emphatically and frequently expressed in the Scriptures that the natural tendency of mortal flesh is to sin. In fact, it is sin which has brought mortality. The sinful deeds of man are called the works of the flesh, which have their rise in the passions of the flesh. Gal. 5:19, 24, margin. The carnal heart is in harmony with the tendencies of the mortal flesh. It not only has no means of separating itself from these tendencies, but it has no desire to separate. It follows the law of its nature, which is that of sin and death.

From this law Christ delivers by giving the individual a new heart, new life, new purposes, new desires. The individual henceforth is to be controlled by a new law—“the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus,” which makes “free from the law of sin and death.” Rom. 8:2. The warfare is between the new heart and the new life on the one hand, and the tendencies of the mortal flesh on the other. The lusts of the flesh still exist, but the injunction is: “Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof.” Rom. 6:12. The lusts are there, but they need not become passions. In passion the mind and will are responsive to the desires or clamors of the flesh, and passion is sin. But the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus makes us free from the power of sin.

When Satan tempts men, it is through these tendencies and weaknesses of the flesh. Man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lusts and enticed. Satan is the enticer; the uncrucified lusts of the flesh are the means by which he gains entrance to the heart and life of the justified saint. See James 1:14, 15.

It follows then that the true way to meet the temptations of the enemy is to cherish in our heart no evil desire, to allow no lust to reign in our mortal body. When the temptation assails, let faith lay hold on Christ, place him in our stead, claim his righteousness, his strength, his power to resist the temptation, and thus by his Spirit “mortify the deeds of the body.” Rom. 8:13. And the crucifixion of the lusts, the crushing out of evil habits, does not leave the soul naked. While the evil tendencies are put off, the righteousness of Christ in all its manifold manifestations is put on. Col. 3:5-8, 12. It was because no lust of evil was cherished in our Lord, that the devil had no power over him. The human was wholly subject to the divine. The prince of the world came to him, and found nothing in him which responded to his enticing wiles. John 14:30. Thus God would have the followers of Christ stand. Every imagination which would exalt itself against the knowledge of God must, by the presence of Christ kept near by faith, be subdued, crucified. But if we allow these tendencies of the mortal flesh to grow and twine around the affections of the heart, we build again the things once destroyed, and become transgressors. Gal. 2:18; Rom. 6:16. The only way is to ever keep a face resolutely set against every carnal lust, by keeping it fixed upon Christ and the loveliness of his character as revealed in the word of God, and in communion with Heaven through prayer. M. C. W.