The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death. (Romans 8:2)
Let any
of our old man, whether of our old temper, our old way of judging, our old
disposition, any of it come up at all, if we are children of God, we know quite
well that at that point a barrier is set up and we cannot get past, we are held
up in our spiritual life and we have to go back and have that thing cleared up.
It is as real as any other thing in the universe to us. At that moment we stand
still spiritually, and the flaming sword is across our path. There is no way for
that here. Bring that here and you will be judged. You will meet the judgment of
God. You will be broken. It is coming up against the fact that God finished with
all that long ago and we have to accept God’s standpoint. When we have accepted
it then the thing works out, it continually works out. We take that position, we
accept the truth.
We cannot bring an actual end
to the old creation ourselves, but we say in a positive way: "I
reckon as God reckons." Well then we shall find as we go on that
God, having put all that under death, death rests upon it and if
ever it shows its head again, the sentence of death is met. If we
begin to work for the Lord with our own natural strength we meet
death and before long our natural strength will come under death.
If we begin to use our natural judgment in the things of God we
shall meet an arrest and before long we shall come to a deadlock,
unable to get through. Anything which we bring of nature into the
things of God will bring us up against – not some new issue,
but the old issue – death which was made to rest upon the old
creation. In so far as we move in the newness of Life, work by
the Spirit of God, and walk after the Spirit, death is done away and
we are in Life and we can go on and can get through, no matter
how much there may be of handicap and weakness in nature, we can
get through as we go on in the Spirit. "The law of the
Spirit of life in Christ Jesus made me free from the law of sin
and death." We are free!