Aug 18
20
FREE INDEED!
Isaiah 49: 9: That thou mayest say to the prisoners, Go forth; to them that are in darkness, Shew yourselves.
All who Christ saves are guilty prisoners by Adam’s one transgression. And receiving Adam’s sin nature we were born in a prison cell in chains which no man could break. Our prison-nature was solitary confinement, complete darkness, with no windows to let in the light. That is what the flesh is.
If we would have been born free then later locked away for our crimes we would have known the difference between freedom and imprisonment. But since we were born in prison, we never knew anything but the total darkness of our prison cell. Therefore sinners boast of their free will. But a sinner under the power of his sin-nature has as much freedom as a prisoner in solitary confinement. Indeed, he can stand, walk, and lay down when he will but only within the confines of his cell. We were in prison, on death row, too blind in sin to know it –“Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? then may ye also do good, that are accustomed to do evil.” (Jer 13: 23; 2 Cor 4: 3-4)
God sent the Deliverer, Christ Jesus his Son, who purchased liberty for those given him from everlasting by his death on the cross. Christ rose from the dead with all power in heaven and earth “to loose those that are appointed to death;” (Ps 102: 20) “to open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison, and them that sit in darkness out of the prison house.” (Is 42: 7)
When Christ spoke with irresistible power into our hearts, saying, “Show yourselves” for the first time, we, who hated the Light and would not come to the Light, did truth by stepping forward in our hearts into his marvelous Light. (Jn 3: 19-21; 1 Pet 2: 9) Christ said, “Go forth” and for the first time, we became truly free to do God’s will–“And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day.” (Jn 6: 40) “Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness.” “If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.” (Rom 6: 18; Jn 8: 36)
Clay Curtis.