In human beings there is a law of trying to do good. This law is in our mind. There is a war going on against this law by the law of sin. This war takes place in our members.
The Chinese saints will be familiar with the classical writing on The War between the Principle and the Lust. Chinese scholars centuries ago realized that within man there was a principle and a lust, struggling against each other. They saw that principle was in man’s mind, his psychological part, and that lust was in his body. Thus they advocated asceticism, the ill-treatment of the body, as a means of dealing with lust. Asceticism was to help the principle in man’s soul defeat the lust in his body. This conflict was the war between the principle and the lust.
When I was quite young, I studied these writings. After I got saved and came across Romans 7, I found that Paul said the same thing. He described the war being waged between the law of good in his mind and the law of sin in his members. The law of good is what the Chinese scholars called the principle. The law of sin Paul also referred to as the evil (Rom. 7:21, 23). Evil is close in meaning to lust, the word the Chinese scholars used. Paul had the same experience, then, as is described in the Chinese ethical writings.
Paul’s experience, however, did not end with Romans 7. In Romans 8 there is something far higher than what the Chinese scholars saw. They never experienced the processed Triune God becoming the Spirit to indwell them.
When I preached the gospel to some disciples of Confucius, some were convinced. I pointed them to Romans 8:1: “There is now then no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.” No condemnation! Now it is blessed man, not wretched man! Then I read verse 2 to them: “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has freed me from the law of sin and of death.”
“What you call principle,” I told them, “the Bible calls law. Here is another principle-the law of the Spirit of life! Are you familiar with this principle? You know lust. You know evil. But the Spirit and life you do not know. The law of the Spirit of life is in Christ Jesus, not in Confucius. Confucius has been dead and buried for centuries. How could you be in him? But we who believe in Christ are in Him! We not only have Christ; we are in Him! This law of the Spirit of life has freed us from the law of sin and of death.”
This is the war and the freedom mentioned in the title of the message. The war is between the law of good in our mind and the law of sin in our members. The freedom is from the law of sin and of death, and it is by the law of the Spirit of life. The freedom we are talking about here is not American freedom; it is not a result of Jefferson’s teachings. It is freedom from the law of sin and of death, and it comes about by the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus.
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