Bible Bedrock
“The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free”
– Romans 8:2 (King James Version)
Bible biographies give plenty of evidence that we move on from a relationship-knowing at our new birth to a total inner knowing. Paul gives us the transforming details in Romans 7 and 8, as we
follow him on from his penetrating understanding of the true facts about himself to his agonized cry, “O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” and to his glorious liberated shout of inner recognition in 8:1-2, “Now I see! There is no more self-condemnation, no more beating my head against the brick wall of failure and defeat! I am set free! I know I am, and am free forever!” In his own written words, “The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and death” (RSV)—has, not might, may or will.
The Spirit was inwardly confirming what Paul had believed as a fact of history–that by Christ’s body-death on Calvary, indwelling Satan was out and indwelling Christ was in; and Paul was underlining for us in this shout of victory that he was a liberated person, not only because Jesus had died and risen in history, but also because the Spirit inwardly confirmed it to him. It was the inner confirmation of the Spirit that set him free. No hearing of given facts, not even a reckoning on them, could do this for him; only the actual confirmation within him had finally “fixed him” in who he really was.
I am free! I am free! Yes, I am! I am! I am!
