April 5
From Slavery to Sonship
In the Hour of Silence"So Israel was carried away out of their own land."
HOW mournful and how complete is my captivity!
A bondslave in the prison-house of fear, dreading the eternal death which the Scripture says is the wages of my sin; a bondslave in the prison-house of shame, hating and despising myself because of my evil thoughts and ways; a bondslave in the dungeon of helplessness, longing to break the meshes which entangle me and to escape into heaven's free air, but finding all my endeavours of no avail; a bondslave in the dungeon of despair, seeing in front of me nothing but "dreadful time, dreadful eternity, no comfort anywhere": that is what I am.
But how blessed and how complete is Christ's enfranchisement!
In His Book there are a thousand precious promises for me. In His redemption there is a full atonement for my basest and blackest transgressions. In His Holy Spirit there is a sanctification which is intended to rid me from all my defiling corruptions. In His heaven I shall not see my sins any more. The smoke of a great city rises up as if it would darken all the firmament, but by an alchemy of their own the skies change it into the purple and gold of the sunset: and thus my Saviour deals with me and my hateful iniquity.
"Ah, freedom is a noble thing! Freedom makes man to have liking; Freedom all solace to man gives; He lives at ease who freely lives"—
old John Barbour wrote, many centuries ago, about national and civil liberty. But Christ's liberty is more glorious and more gladdening still.