Free at Last!
The doors of my prison swing open by this one key turned in the lock! It is now possible for me, as it was with Paul, to do one simple thing. And it is not some self-effort act of consecration, as if getting out of the prison depended on me. Rather, it is recognizing, by heart affirmation now combined with my understanding, that I have always been a person released from sin, as from sins. Jesus settled that 2000 years ago on Calvary in His body death, in addition to His blood death. But I have been slow to recognize and receive what He had settled for me, as me, because I still had that Romans 7 delusion about myself.
And what was that prison? I had to find what I was blinded to at first: my only prison was myself. Taken captive by my false owner, as we all were at the Fall, I had been deceived into thinking I managed myself, as he thinks he manages himself. The lie of lies! So down I had to fall in my many failures of self-management, compelled to follow in many false directions, until at last it dawned on me that actually I was the one who was managed and utilized by my thieving owner. At last, in my misery, I was ready to call for help.
Was there any way out of this prison? It was already provided. My True Owner had already paid the full redemptive price to release me, so that the false one has no further claims on me. So now I am joyfully free from that wearisome lie of self-management (which in fact never was) and love every new interest and enticing adventure of my True Owner. And he is really not so much Owner, as Father and Lover. Along with multitudes of other freed prisoners, I share with Him in His multiple plans for the blessing of His whole huge universe.
With the veil of that independent-self lie removed, I can and do see that Christ freed me, a servant who had changed his owner–not change of me, but change of him! I am free. I just recognize, affirm and thankfully praise. I say, along with Paul in Romans 8:1, that there is no more condemnation, because there is no illusory self-effort self to be condemned. The reckoning of Romans 6:11 is now Paul’s and my word of realization in Romans 8:2–the law (principle) of the Spirit of life in Christ entering and indwelling me as He did Christ in the tomb has set me free from those lying claims of the law of sin and death. No longer a prisoner, I am now free forever in Christ by His body Sacrifice on my behalf (Rom. 8:3).
—Paul’s Key to the Liberated Life: Romans Six to Eight
