A Christian Under Law
When a Christian sins, transgresses the law, he is building up that which he has destroyed.
He is acting as though he were back under the law.
He is doing the deeds of the old man that has been crucified with Christ.
He is denying the resurrection life of Christ which is in him.
He is walking after the flesh and not after the Spirit.
He is back on the basis of working instead of resting in the finished work of Christ.
He is under the works of the law instead of the hearing of faith.
He is not standing fast in the freedom wherewith Christ has set him free.
There is but one thing to be done in order to get back at once under grace and the faith life,—confess the sin and take cleansing in the blood of Jesus. This is wholly of Grace; no Christian would be so foolish as to try to atone for his sin or to help the Lord Jesus do a complete work of cleansing.
It is exactly the same sort of folly that leads the Christian to seek to add his own effort in the business of winning victory over the next temptation that assails him. “If we live by the Spirit [if we have been born again by the Spirit], by the Spirit let us also walk” (by the same supernatural power let us live day by day and hour by hour, letting God do it all by the Spirit) (Gal. 5:25).
God’s new spelling for “obey” is “believe.” And, as Mr. Trumbull put it to a Christian who was grieving because she did not have the faith to believe, “The faith for salvation is the faith for victory.” Faith is just believing the word of God.