(James 1:23-25)                              

"If any be a hearer of the
Word and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a
glass." He may have ever so clear a view of himself; he sees clearly what
he is like for a moment; but he as soon forgets all. "He beholds himself
and goes his way." The image is faded and gone. He "straightway forgets
what manner of man he was." Oh, how true this is! It is that glimpse of
conviction by the truth that comes before souls when they are forced to discern
what the spring of their thoughts is, what their feelings are when the light of
God flashes over and through a man; but how soon it passes away, instead of
entering in and abiding within the soul! It is the power of the Spirit of God
alone that can engrave these things on the heart. Here the apostle is exposing
the absence of an internal work where intelligence is severed from conscience.
On the other hand, there is power and permanence with him who fixes his view on
"the perfect law of liberty."

What is "the law of
liberty"? It is the Word of God which directs a man begotten by the Word
of truth, urging and cheering and strengthening him in the very things that the
new life delights in. Consequently it has an action exactly the opposite of
that exercised by the law of Moses on the Israelites. This is evident from the
bare terms:"You shall not" do this, "You shall not"
do that. Why? Because they wanted to do what God prohibited. The natural desire
of man is after evil, but the law put a veto on the indulgence of the will. It
was necessarily negative, not positive, in character. The law forbade the very
things to which man’s own impulses and desires would have prompted him, and is
the solemn means of detecting rebellious fallen nature. But this is not the law
of liberty in any way, but the law of bondage, condemnation, and death.

The law of liberty brings in the
positive for those who love it—not the negation of what the will and lust of
man desires so much as the exercise of the new life—in what is according to its
own nature. Thus it has been often and very aptly described as a loving parent
who tells his child that he must go here or there; that is, the very places
which he knows perfectly the child would be most gratified to visit. Such is
the law of liberty. It is as if one said to the child, "Now, my child, you
must go and do such and such a thing," all the while knowing that you can
confer no greater favor on the child. It has not at all the character of
resisting the will of the child, but rather the directing of his affections in
the will of the object dearest to him. The child is regarded and led according
to the love of the parent who knows what the desire of the child is—a desire
that has been in virtue of a new nature implanted by God Himself in the child.
He has given Him a life that loves His ways and Word, that hates and revolts
from evil, and is pained most of all by falling through unwatchfulness under
sin, if it seemed ever so little. The law of liberty therefore consists not so
much in a restraint on gratifying the old man as in guiding and guarding the
new; for the heart’s delight is in what is good and holy and true, and the word
of our God on the one hand exercises us in cleaving to that which is the joy of
the Christian’s heart, and strengthens us in our detestation of all that we
know to be offensive to the Lord.

Such is the law of liberty.
Accordingly, "Whoso looks into the perfect law of liberty, and continues
therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man
shall be blessed in his deed [or rather, doing]."

(From Help and Food, Vol.
25.)

The differences between law and
responsibility are immense, and it is important to understand them. Law
comes to man and says, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart,
and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and
your neighbor as yourself" (Luke 10:27). It says, Do this and live, but if
you fail in any measure, your doom is sure. Such is law, both in
character and purpose. It is unbending. It cannot forgive. It demands of man
what is right, but it gives him no power to do the right. It forbids and
condemns the wrong, but cannot change the heart of man who naturally loves evil
and hates restraint. Like a dam across the river forbidding the waters to flow
on, it stands as a bulwark against evil, only to find out that the flood breaks
over the dam and still flows on. Law manifests the evil but does not cure it.

Responsibility is what
comes with receiving gifts from God. If, as Creator, He has bestowed upon man
abilities, talents, a mind and a will, each and all of which make him a
creature superior to all others, man is responsible for making use of all this
in the way suited to the purpose God had in giving them. If as Redeemer He bestows
new gifts upon man, those new gifts bring their own responsibilities.

When God came to Abraham and
called him to leave his native land and kindred and go to a place which God
would show him, it was because He had bestowed upon Abraham that which enables
a man to confide in God as a little child confides in its father, trusting
implicitly in the love that guides him. Faith had been imparted to
Abraham. "Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God"
(Rom. 10:17). While dwelling in his own country the God of glory appeared to
him and said, "Get out of your country, and from your kindred, and come
into the land that I will show you" (Acts 7:2,3).

Abraham was thus brought into a
new relationship with God, and this relationship brought responsibility. The
true God having made Himself known to Abraham, Abraham could no longer serve
false gods. Having been bidden to leave his native land and go to another, he
could no longer feel at home where he was, but must go on as bidden. He may
have been checked and hindered in this, but his new responsibilities pressed
upon him.

It was not till after his father’s
death at Haran, part way to Canaan, that Abraham seemed free. From that moment,
"they went forth to go into the land of Canaan, and into the land of Canaan they came" (Gen. 12:5). They did not stop this time, but pressed on to
the end. But all those days of Abraham’s dwelling in Haran, the responsibility
of obeying God was upon Him; while he lingered there, we hear of no word of any
appearance of God to him or of any altar built by him. But as soon as he came
to a stopping place in Canaan, the Lord appeared to him and he built an
altar. There is the obedience of faith on Abraham’s part, grace and blessing on
God’s part. The relationship between God and Abraham was of God’s pure grace;
it involved responsibility on Abraham’s part to believe and obey.

The responsibility was a very
different matter from the law which was given 430 years later. "Get out
… and I will make of you a great nation" (Gen. 12:1,2) is very different
from "Do this and you shall live" or "Cursed is everyone who
disobeys." The principle is different, the purpose of both is different,
and should not be confounded. One reveals God while the other reveals man and
leaves God still in the thick darkness and amid the thunderings and lightnings
of Sinai.

Christians are not under law, but
they have wondrous blessing and grace and privileges and promises. This brings
corresponding responsibilities, and this, if we understand our weakness, as displayed
in Abraham, casts us the more upon God for grace to meet those
responsibilities. The more a child of God realizes his absolute dependence upon
God, and what God has in Christ for His people and gives them whatever they
need, the more will he glorify Him, and the more will such an one enjoy the
grace of God. A sense of our responsibility as children of God will bring us to
Him for strength and wisdom and all else we need. It will, of necessity, make
us a prayerful people.

But law sets men to trying in
their own strength to do what is right, to keep the commandments. Under grace a
believer walks in newness of life, walks after the Spirit in love, and thus in
him the righteousness of the law is fulfilled (Rom. 8:1-4). Under law a soul is
in bondage, trying to do what his fallen nature makes impossible. He is never
at rest, always coming short. One’s own doings are ever before the mind of the
earnest legalist, and such a mind is never at peace. What brings peace is the
knowledge of the grace of God through the work of Christ on the cross, thus
keeping Him ever before us as the Friend who loves us better than anyone else,
and is never weary of us.

As the sense of our responsibility
presses upon us, we find all we need in Him. It is not trying and fearing and
hoping under law, but turning away from all else to Christ, finding in Him
strength and wisdom and every need fully me.

(From Help and Food, Vol.
31.)

What is the Christian’s rule of
life? The answer is Christ. Christ is our life, rule, pattern, example, and
everything; the Spirit is our living quickener and power to follow Him; and the
Word of God is that in which we find Him revealed and His mind unfolded in
detail. But while all Scripture, rightly divided, is our light as the inspired
Word of God, Christ and the Spirit are set before us as the pattern, life, and
guide, in contrast with law; and Christ is exclusively everything. Power
accompanies this, for we are "declared to be the epistle of Christ
ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God;
not in tables of stone, but in fleshly tables of the heart…. But we all, with
open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the
same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord" (2 Cor.
3:3,18). In this chapter Christ is presented in contrast with the law. We are
seen to be Christ’s epistle—His letter of recommendation to the world. And
verse 18 shows that there is power in looking at Christ to produce such an
epistle in us. Such power cannot be found in a law. So in Galatians 2:20 and
5:16, in contrast with law, the apostle shows the Spirit to be the power of
godliness.

We have an Object governing the
heart:One to whom we are promised to be conformed, and One to whom we are
earnestly desirous of being as conformed as possible now—One who absorbs our
attention to the exclusion of all else. We are predestinated to be conformed to
the image of God’s Son, that He might be the first born among many brethren
(Rom. 8:29). My delight in Him is the spring of action and motive which governs
me. And my love to Him and the beauty I see in Him are the springs of my
delight in being like Him. It is not a rule written down, but a living
exhibition of One who, being my life, is to be reproduced in me and by me:
"Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the
life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body" (2 Cor. 4:10).

Christ is a source to me of all
those things in which I long to be like Him. Beholding with open face the glory
of the Lord, I am changed into the same image. No rule of life can do this.
"Of His fullness we all have received, and grace upon grace (John 1:16
JND). A rule of life has no fullness to communicate. Hence He says,
"Sanctify them through thy truth:thy word is truth…. And for their
sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the
truth" (John 17:17,19). It is the Spirit taking the things of Christ and
revealing them to us which thus forms us into His image. What a blessed truth
this is! How every affection of the heart is thus taken up with that which is
holiness when I see it in One who not only has loved me, but who is altogether
lovely! Hence I am called to "walk worthy of the Lord unto all
pleasing" (Col. 1:10), and to "grow up into Him in all things, which
is the head, even Christ" (Eph. 4:15).

The Object I am now aiming at is
not now on earth; it is Christ risen. This makes my conversation to be
heavenly. Hence he says, "If you then be risen with Christ, seek those
things which are above, where Christ sits on the right hand of God. Set your affection
on things above, not on things on the earth" (Col. 3:1,2). It is by
looking at Christ above that we get to be like Him as He was on earth, and to
walk worthy of Him. We get above the motives which would tie us to earth. We
are to be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual
understanding so as to walk worthy of the Lord (Col. 1:9,10). No mere rule can
give this. The law has no reference to this heavenly life. So we are to discern
things that are excellent. Even Abraham did not, in the most excellent part of
his life, walk by rule. He looked for a city that has foundations and was a
stranger and a pilgrim in the land of promise. If we are reduced to a mere rule
of life, we lose the spring of action.

The discernment of a Christian
depends on his spiritual and moral state, and God means it to be so. He will
not be a mere director. He makes us dependent on spirituality even to know what
His will is. The perfection of Christ is set before us as attainment. The
measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ is our measure, our model, our
rule, our strength, and our help in grace, the object of our delight, and our
motive in walking.

Happy is he who keeps by His side
to learn how he ought to walk, and who understands the riches that are in
Christ and the beauty of His ways, and who enjoys communion with Him, pleasing
Him every day more and more!

(From Collected Writings,
Vol. 10.)

Let us consider a word of warning
against two opposite evils that are working among Christians at the present
time. These are legality on the one hand and levity on the other.

The first of these evils, taking
up the law as a rule of life, is dishonoring to God and utterly subversive of
one’s peace and liberty. It is needful to set forth the free grace of God, the
value of the blood of Christ, the standing of the believer before God in
perfect righteousness and acceptance in Christ. These precious truths, when
applied to the heart in the power of the Holy Spirit, must deliver it from all
legal influences.

But it frequently happens that
persons, when apparently delivered from legality, run into the opposite evil of
levity. This may arise from the fact that the doctrines of grace are only taken
up intellectually, instead of being wrought into the soul by the power of the
Spirit of God. A great amount of evangelical truth may be taken up in a very
light way by persons in whom there has been no deep work of conscience, no real
breaking down of nature, no thorough subjugation of the flesh in the presence
of God. When this is the case there is sure to be levity of spirit in some form
or another. There will be a very wide margin allowed for worldliness of various
kinds—a liberty given to nature wholly incompatible with practical
Christianity. In addition to these things, there will be exhibited a very
deplorable lack of conscience in the practical details of daily life—duties
neglected, work badly done, engagements not faithfully observed, sacred
obligations trifled with, debts contracts, extravagant habits indulged. All
these things we place under the head of levity, and they are, alas! too common
among the very highest professors of what is termed evangelical truth.

Now we deeply deplore this and
would desire to have our own souls, as well as the souls of all our Christian
readers, really exercised before God about it. We fear there is a great deal of
hollow profession among us, a great want of earnestness, truthfulness, and
reality in our ways. We are not sufficiently permeated by the spirit of genuine
Christianity, or governed in all things by the Word of God. Thus the soul gets
into a bad state, conscience does not act, moral sensibilities become blunted,
the claims of truth are not responded to, positive evil is trifled with, and
moral relaxation is allowed. So far from there being the constraining
power of the love of Christ, leading forth in the activities of goodness, there
is not even the restraining power of the fear of God keeping back from
the activities of evil.

We appeal solemnly to the
consciences of our readers as to these things. The present is a deeply solemn
time for Christians. There is a demand for earnest, deep-toned devotedness to
Christ; but this cannot possibly exist where the common claims of practical
righteousness are neglected. We must ever remember that the self-same grace
which effectually delivers the soul from legality is the only safeguard against
all levity. We have done very little for a person, if anything at all, if we
bring him/her out of a legal state into a light, easy-going, careless,
unconscientious condition of heart. And yet we have frequently marked the
history of souls and noticed that when they were delivered out of darkness and
bondage they became far less tender and sensitive. The flesh is ever ready to
turn the grace of God into lasciviousness, and therefore it must be subdued.

It is necessary for the power of
the Cross to be applied to all that is of the flesh. We need those deep
spiritual exercises that result from positive entrance into the power of the
sufferings of Christ. We need to meditate more profoundly upon the death of
Christ.

The Cross, beloved reader, is at
once the cure for both legality and levity. Christ "gave Himself for our
sins, that He might deliver us from this present evil world, according to the
will of God and our Father" (Gal. 1:4). By the Cross the believer is as
completely delivered from this present evil world as he is forgiven his sins.
He is not saved in order that he may enjoy the world, but that he may get done
with it entirely. We know few things more dangerous for the soul than the
combination of evangelical truth with worldliness, ease, and self-indulgence
… the adoption of a certain phraseology of truth where the conscience is not
in the presence of God … a merely intellectual apprehension of standing
without any earnest dealing with the practical state … clearness of
doctrine as to title without any conscientious reference to the moral
condition.

We trust our readers will allow
the word of exhortation. It is not an agreeable task to call attention to
practical evils, to urge the solemn duty of self-judgment, to press upon the
conscience the claims of practical godliness. But there are times when the
true, practical condition of things among Christians weights heavily upon the
heart and rouses the soul to make an urgent appeal to conscience in reference to
matters of walk and conduct; I believe the present to be such a time. (Ed.
note:This was written well over 100 years ago! How much more needed it is
today!) The devil is ever busy and on the alert. The Lord has granted much
light upon His Word for some years past. The gospel has been brought out with
particular clarity and power. Thousands have been delivered from a legal state.
And now the enemy is seeking to hinder the testimony by leading souls into a
light, careless, carnal condition—leading them to neglect the wholesome and
indispensable exercise of self-judgment. It is the deep sense of this that has
suggested a word of warning on "Legality and Levity."

(From Miscellaneous Writings,
Vol. 6, Loizeaux Brothers, Neptune, NJ; used by permission.)

John 1:17. "The law was given
by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ." Law and
grace are diverse principles; the law demands, grace gives.

Gal. 3:10,13. The law says,
"Cursed is every one who continues not in all things that are
written in the book of the law to do them." The law has cursed every
soul that is under it, for none have fully kept it. In contrast, Christ has
redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us."

Rom. 10:4. "Christ is the end
of the law for righteousness of every one who believes." Christ not only
fully kept the law and glorified God in all His life, but died for our sins,
bore for us the law’s curse, and He is our righteousness before God.

Rom. 7:4-6. "Wherefore, my
brethren, you also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ, that you
should be married to another, even to Him who is raised from the dead, that we
should bring forth fruit unto God. The believer has "become dead to the
law" by Christ’s death, that we should be married to the One who is
raised from the dead.

Gal. 2:16-21. "I through the
law am dead to the law" (condemned, put to death by it, and so dead
to it) "that I might live unto God." This deliverance from the law,
and joy in God’s grace, gives power to please God and walk in His ways.

Gal. 5:1. The apostle’s
exhortation is:"Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith
Christ has made us free, and be not entangled again in the yoke of bondage,
that is, the yoke of the law which, the apostle Peter says, "neither our
fathers nor we were able to bear" (Acts 15:10).

The apostle Paul writing to the
Galatian saints who had received the gospel, had been saved by it, and
delivered from the bondage of the law, asks, "How do you turn again to the
weak and beggarly elements, whereunto you desire again to be in bondage?"
(Gal. 4:9). He also testifies to them:"Christ has become of no effect
unto you who are justified by the law; you are fallen from grace" (Gal.
5:4). These are searching truths for those who would, in this
"dispensation of the grace of God," put themselves under the law.

Some may say, and have said,
"This doctrine of `grace’ for the life and walk of believers is a very
dangerous doctrine, for it allows them to live in sin, to please themselves,
with no restraint. This very question is raised and answered in Romans 6. The
answer is, "God forbid. How shall we who are dead to sin live any
longer therein?" The truth is, the true believer, being born of God,
now hates sin (as before he loved it), and his earnest desire is to live and
"walk in newness of life." He loves God and hates sin. "The love
of Christ constrains us, because we thus judge that … He died for all, that
they who live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto Him who
died for them and rose again" (2 Cor. 5:14,15). Love to our blessed
Lord is the power for the new life.

The standard for the daily walk of
the believer is a high standard; it is higher than the law, it is Christ
Himself. "As you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him"
(Col. 2:6-8).

Col. 3:1. "If you then be
risen with Christ, seek those things that are above, where Christ sits on the
right hand of God."

1 John 2:6. "He who says he
abides in Him ought himself also so to walk even as He walked."

1 Pet. 2:21. "For even
hereunto were you called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an
example that you should follow His steps."

John 10:27. "My sheep hear my
voice, and I know them, and they follow Me."

The believer in Christ is born
again—born of God (1 Pet. 1:13; John 1:13). He is justified by faith, and at
peace with God (Rom. 5:1). This is all of God’s grace. "It is of faith,
that it might be by grace" (Rom. 4:16). Again, in Eph. 2:8-10, "For
by grace are you saved through faith; and that not of yourselves,
it is the gift of God:not of works, lest any man should boast.
For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God
has before ordained that we should walk in them." Think of it,
fellow-believer; what marvelous grace!

Acts 13:39 shows what the law could
not do for the believer:"By Him [Jesus] all who believe are justified
from all things, from which you could not be justified by the law of
Moses." Since "no man is justified by the law in the sight of
God" (Gal. 3:11), how can the law be either the rule of life or of daily
walk for him who is not under it (Gal. 5:18), who is dead to it (Rom. 7:4), and who is by faith united to the risen, glorified Man at God’s right hand? In
Gal. 2:21, the Holy Spirit’s emphatic statement is, "For if righteousness
come by [or, is through] the law, then Christ is dead in vain," that is,
has died for nothing. With the Word of God in his hands, how can the believer
go back again to the law, when the law is not of faith, but is the
ministration of death, written and engraved in stones? (2 Cor. 3:6-11).

In what we have had before us from
the Word of God, it is plain that the law has no claim upon the believer. He is
looked upon as freed from the law. His standing before God in grace
is perfect, because it is in Christ, being accepted in the beloved (Col. 2:10;
Eph. 1:6)—not accepted in himself, or anything he has done, or for any
righteousness of his own, but accepted in the full value of Christ’s finished
work for him.

(From Help and Food, Vol.
33.)