January 6

Ye shall be free indeed. - John 8:36.

HERE is the EXCELLENCY of this deliverance. Christ not only makes his people “free,” but “free indeed.” This admits of a fourfold exemplification.

First, The freedom is real. It is neither a device nor a delusion. There is no reality in what men call liberty-for which men have fought and bled and of which they boast-compared with the relief and pleasure of the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free.

Secondly, It is Spiritual. The soul is and must be the seat of happiness or misery. What was Paradise to Adam when guilt had filled him with fear and sorrow? What was a prison to Paul, rejoicing in God’s salvation?-his soul, his ideas, his volitions, his resolves, and his resources were free. No night, no darkness, can hinder the “arising of the Sun of Righteousness with healing on his wings.” No tyrant can touch a soul that he has made free indeed.

Thirdly, It is permanent. Many, after asserting their freedom, have been again conquered; but a freed Christian can never be reconquered. “Sin shall not have the dominion over you,” saith the apostle, “for ye are not under the law, but under grace.” “The God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly.” At death the Christian’s liberty is enlarged and completed; then is brought to pass the saying that is written, “Death is swallowed up in victory.”

Fourthly, This freedom is infinite. There is immensity attached to the advantages connected with it. He is free indeed who is free of Mount Zion, the city of the living God-who is free to commune with God as a man talketh with his friend-who can call God Father, enter his house, sit at his table, lean upon his arm, and repose on his bosom- who has every desirable good thing chartered to him, and who, when he dies, is placed nearer to the throne of God and of the Lamb than angels.

Let us adore the Saviour who has thus made us really, Spiritually, unchangeably, and infinitely free.

“A soul redeem’d demands a life of praise.”

It is the design of such a deliverance, “that we, being delivered out of the hands of our enemies, might serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness, all the days of our life.”