Deliverance: What Is It?

Who shall deliver me from the body of this death? (Rom. 7:24).
Deliverance is a very different thing from overcoming. The truth is, believers need a Deliverer because they cannot overcome “sin in the flesh,” but practically find that it overcomes them. We do overcome the world by our faith, and also much activity of evil doctrine and practice around us, but not “sin in the flesh.” Even those who know deliverance are not told to overcome “sin in the flesh,” nor to crucify it, but by the Spirit to “mortify the deeds of the body,” and not let sin come out; to reckon themselves to have died with Christ. In fact, no one is on the Scripture ground of deliverance so long as he is trying to master the “old man”; for this shows he is not reckoning himself “dead with Christ” as leaving thus been crucified with Him. We surely do not contend with any one we reckon and hold to be dead. Hence the Holy Spirit not only says to believers, “Ye are dead” (or have died) “with Christ,” but He also says, “Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, and alive unto God in Jesus Christ our Lord” (Rom. 6:6-11).
DEAD TO SIN
Many who are painfully sensible of the inward workings of “sin in the flesh” are in bondage and distress, fighting against it, and praying and longing to overcome it. A believer once said to the writer, “I prayed a hundred times a day, Lord, help me to overcome this and overcome that, and got no relief,” because he did not know or receive what Scripture teaches as to this. However, as such find out the incurable badness of the flesh, and are so often brought into captivity to this law of sin which is in their members, they thus learn their own helplessness, and find the need of a Deliverer. Then they cry, “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” Such then learn that God has wrought this deliverance for them. Blessed be His name!
But a common and more serious mistake is the supposition that “the flesh” is capable of being made better. Those who think so have not received the divine verdict, that “they that are in the flesh cannot please God,” or that “the carnal mind is” (not at, but is) “enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be” (Rom. 8:7, 8). Such is the divine testimony; and the oldest and most devoted believers know that “sin in the flesh,” unchanged in its moral qualities, is still in them, and gets no better. It is “only evil,” and that continually, and, when active, it is in continual and unchanged opposition to God. Its activity is stirred too by God’s commandment, so that the exercised yet undelivered soul, vainly trying to overcome it, finds it too strong for him, and has painfully to say, “When I would do good, evil is present with me.” More and more he becomes self- occupied, becomes increasingly distressed at being led into captivity to the thing he hates, and is really a wretched man (Rom. 7:8, 9, 13).
Perhaps among the most serious blunders of the day are the statements that “sin is rooted out,” “extirpated,” and that there is “entire sanctification through faith.” Such notions are opposed to every principle of the gospel, and set aside the truth as to the believer’s new position or standing in the full favor of God. That every child of God has “sin” in him — that sinful nature which is born of the flesh and is flesh — there can be no doubt, as he often painfully proves. To imagine that being born again is the changing of a bad nature into a good one is entirely contrary to the truth; for our Lord Himself, when speaking of the new birth, says, “That which is born of the flesh is flesh: and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit” (John 3:6). Moreover, the aged apostle John, when inspired to write to babes, young men, and fathers. in Christ, says, “If we say that we have no sin” (observe, not sins, but “sin” — that evil thing “sin in the flesh”) “we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8). Can any statement be more solemn as to the unsoundness of the doctrine of the sinlessness of the flesh? First, those who hold it are self-deceived; secondly, the truth is not in them. How this admonishes us to be subject to God’s word, subject to God’s Son, and subject to the teaching of the Holy Spirit, if we would please the Father as His dear children whom He loves as He loves His Son!
The delivered soul has been set free; but not by “sin” being “rooted out” of him, or “extirpated,” or there being “entire sanctification through faith,” expressions not known in Scripture, or by being “made better,” or by “overcoming” it; but by knowing, on the authority of the word of God, that he is cleared from it, by its having been judged in the sacrifice of God’s own Son, Our Substitute. “For what the law could, not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin” (or by a sacrifice for sin),” condemned sin in the flesh” (Rom. 8:3). We therefore are no longer looked at by God as in the flesh, but as “in Christ Jesus,” “alive unto God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” On this account the consciousness of sin dwelling in us is now no excuse for sinning, and no bar to communion with the Father, because we know God has judged it, and bids us so to reckon; and it is no hindrance to our saying, “Come, Lord Jesus!” for He is our life and righteousness. Moreover, we filed our springs of joy and strength, and all our resources, in the risen and ascended Son, who loved us, and gave Himself for us.
The doctrine advanced of late years, that dead with Christ means that our old man is actually dead, and therefore incapable of stirring, is so totally opposed to both Scripture and experience, that it seems unaccountable that any child of God can listen to it for a moment. The passage we have already quoted from. 1 John 1:8 is directly to the point, and most decisive; and the sixth of Romans and other Scriptures are equally so.
That all believers on the Son of God for salvation are entitled to know from the word of God that their “old man” has been crucified with Christ is unquestionably true, but it is “with Christ,” so that we are not actually dead (though we were actually dead in sins, which is another line of truth), but we are substitutionally and judicially dead with Christ. But we are actually alive unto God in Christ Jesus our Lord, hence we are spoken of in Scripture as in a totally new position, not in the flesh, but “in Christ Jesus.” But as to fact, the flesh is in us, and ready to act through the members of our body if its “lusts” are yielded to. Therefore those who have died with Christ are told not to “obey it” (observe, it is sin, not Satan, here), “in the lusts thereof.” We are not to yield our members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin, but to yield ourselves unto God as those who are alive from the dead. (See Rom. 6:11, 12, 13, 16.) Is it not evident there would be no sense in such language, if those who are alive to God in Christ had not sin dwelling in them?
But further; that there might be no mistake as to this solemn matter, when the apostle Paul says, “I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live,” he is most careful by the Spirit to add, “Yet not I, but Christ liveth in me”; that is, the life he now actually has is not an improvement or alteration of the first “I,” for that, being too bad to be made fit for God, could only be judicially put out of His sight by the crucifixion of Christ. “I am” (that which is born of the flesh), “crucified with Christ” — substitutionally and judicially set aside, yet have I actually a new life which is totally distinct from the first “I,” for it is “Christ liveth in me.”
Those who are indwelt by the Holy Spirit have therefore to find, all through their earthly pilgrimage, that “the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh and these are contrary the one to the other.” (See Gal. 2:20, 5:17.) The doctrine then that “sin” is not in the true believer, or that it is “extirpated,” or “actually dead” and incapable of stirring; is very contrary to the truth.
Many dear souls are in cloudiness and uncertainty, because they have not received from Scripture-teaching God’s mind as to these things. They may have been quite sure as to the forgiveness of sins, but finding evil desires, pride, self-will, and other workings within, which they hate, and know to be contrary to the holiness of God they become full of fear (no doubt aided by Satan) that, after all, they are deceiving themselves, and do not belong to the Lord. They are terrified at what they discover in themselves, and thus become self-occupied, miserable, and sometimes despair of ever being happy again. The only bit of comfort some have is in finding that others are as miserable as themselves.
That such experiences are often turned to great profit there can be no question, but such persons, though truly converted, have not yet known deliverance; they are occupied with themselves instead of with Christ, where He now is. How can they know their need of a Deliverer unless they have found out that sin in the flesh is too strong for them? Besides, as long as we think we can overcome and deliver ourselves, how can we truly look for a Deliverer?
God will have us learn experimentally that “the flesh profiteth nothing,” and that “in me” (that is, in my flesh) “dwelleth no good thing.” It is a corrupt tree, and cannot bring forth good fruit; and our finding it to be so is very humbling. Old theologians might speak of it as “the plague of our own heart,” and as a necessary kind of law-work before liberty is enjoyed, which is generally, perhaps, but not always, the case. But sooner or later most have to learn that “that which is born of the flesh is flesh,” and so unsubject to God, so opposed to His will, that self-occupied and undelivered souls are brought into captivity to the law of sill which is in their members. Such cry out for a Deliverer, and to their great relief find God delivers them and sets them free by the death of the cross, and, by the gift of the Holy Spirit, has given them power against the perverse will and activity of sin ill the flesh. They are now set free from “the law of sin and death.” They have consciously a new standing, not in the first Adam, but in Christ Jesus; a new state of soul, for instead of bondage and fear as to the law of sin, they enjoy the liberty wherewith Christ hath made them free; a new experience, for, knowing they are objects of God’s perfect love and cloudless favor, in and through Christ Jesus, their hearts respond in love to God, and manifesting love to those around. They have also new relationships; for they know they are children of God, members of the body of Christ, and indwelt by the Holy Ghost, who shall also quicken their mortal bodies. They have a new Master, and their great concern is to please Him. Is it any marvel then that such give God thanks? No doubt all through our pilgrimage we learn more thoroughly the good-for-nothingness of ourselves, and the divine grace and divine power that has thus given us deliverance; and though the more spiritually-minded we are the deeper may be the consciousness of sin in us, yet, knowing God has condemned it and judicially set it aside for us forever in the death of His Son, faith finds its presence no bar to communion with the Father, and can rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Thus we go forward, and, knowing we have two natures, we have to say, “So then with the mind I Myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.” Looking off unto Jesus the Lord, as alive to God in Him, the delivered soul Call sing
“Nothing but Christ, as on we tread,
The gift unpriced — God’s living bread;
With staff in hand, and feet well shod,
Nothing but Christ — the Christ of God.”
“Everything loss for Him below,
Taking the cross where’er we go;
Showing to all where once He trod,
Nothing but Christ — the Christ of God,
“Nothing save Him in all our ways
Giving the theme for ceaseless praise;
OUR WHOLE RESOURCE along the road,
Nothing but Christ — the Christ of God.”
Let us now look a little more particularly at what Scripture further teaches as to this in connection with the law.
DEAD TO THE LAW
God is spoken of in the Scriptures as the Justifier of the ungodly who believe, the Reconciler of His enemies, and the Deliverer from the law of sin and death; and all founded on the death of the cross. We are justified by the blood of Christ, “reconciled to God by the death of His Son,” and delivered “through Jesus Christ our Lord.” All too on the principle of faith, and not by the deeds of the law.
The law instead of justifying condemns; instead of reconciling gives the knowledge of sin; (and instead of delivering brings in all who are under it guilty and under the curse. Yet the law is “holy,” because instead of excusing sin it exposes sin; the law is “just,” because it judges even the motions of sin as well as sins committed; and the law is “good,” if a man use it lawfully. The law also hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth, but has nothing to say to a dead man.
Our sins are forgiven on the ground of Christ’s having “died for our sins”; but we are delivered from the distress and power of that evil principle in us “sin in the flesh,” by death; for Christ having died, not merely for our sins, but “unto sin once,” we have died with Him, and are alive unto God in Him who is alive again, and that forevermore. We are thus “dead to sin” and “dead to the law by the body of Christ,” that we might be to Another, who has been raised from among the dead, that we might bring forth fruit unto God; to whom be everlasting praise for such marvelous deliverance.
The doctrine of the believer, who knows the law, being dead to the law, and of his being now to Another who has been raised up from among the dead as the only source of fruit-bearing, is set forth in the first six verses of Rom. 7. Then follows a supposed case, in which is described the experience of a quickened soul under law trying to obey, struggling to answer to God’s just claims, and at length, finding himself powerless, cries out for a deliverer — “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” This deliverance is set forth by one who has been delivered. Practical righteousness follows the consciousness of deliverance.
It is clear that the person supposed in Rom. 7 to be speaking and crying out in distress of soul for deliverance is quickened — this is, has life — for
1. He knows that “the law is spiritual”; that is, that it is not merely applicable to outward conduct, but to the inward feelings and desires, and that he is fleshly, sold under sin — the slave of sin.
2. He owns that “the law” is “good,” and he resolves to be good, and to do good, but finds that he cannot.
3. He delights in “the law of God,” after the inward man, and allows that the commandment is holy, and just, and good. His understanding is enlightened, so that he consents to the law that it is good; his will is changed, for to will is present with him for good; and he has a heart now that can love according to God, for he delights in the law of God after the inward man. These things show that he is born of God; but the context shows also that he is not occupied with Christ, but with self, for it is “I” and “me” all through He learns, too, his powerlessness against “sin in the flesh.” Hence his wretchedness; and the more conscientious the more wretched such must be. But this experience is turned to much blessing through finding out the incurably bad and insubject state of that which is born of the flesh, and then looking away from self to God, and what He has done for us in the death of His Son.
Though the one brought before us in this passage has life, he is not delivered till the end of the chapter, but goes on struggling with the law, because he has not given himself up as thoroughly bad and powerless, through which exercises he learns experimentally
1. That in him — that is, in his flesh — no good dwells.
2. That sin dwells in him. He finds he has a nature which is opposed to God, and that its opposition is provoked by God’s holy commandment. This is a terrible discovery for a tender conscience; for with all his resolves, all his good desires and struggling he is conscious of the appalling fact that sin dwells in him — that corrupt tree which only brings forth evil fruit; an active principle of evil ever opposed to God, and always ready to war against the law of his mind. Such is “sin in the flesh.”
3. That he has no power to perform the good he would, so that he is brought into captivity to the law of sin which is in his members, With all his good desires and efforts he finds himself unable to overcome indwelling evil, and to work righteousness by law- keeping. He is now consciously “without strength,” and has no resources in himself. He looks for good in his flesh, and finds none. He would have no evil within; but finds evil thoughts, lust, pride, self-will, continually rising up, even if nothing come out. Though he seeks to do good, evil is present with him. He tries to have a better experience of himself, to answer to God’s just claims, and finds he has no power; so that if he be delivered at all, it must be by another, for he has the sentence of death in himself.
These are profitable lessons, but often learnt through deep distress and humiliation. When a soul has to do with an infinitely holy God, and finds out so painfully that his Adam nature is incurably bad, with no good in that thus sin dwells in him, and is his master, so that he has no power over it, can he be otherwise than truly “wretched”? Hence his cry, “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?”
And how does he get deliverance? By efforts? No. By religious duties? No. By bodily inflictions, sacrifices, and self- denial? No. Not even by earnest prayer; but by simply looking out of self straight to God, and believing His testimony concerning Christ’s work on the cross. Then he finds that God, who knew how bad and helpless he was, has gone before him, and wrought condemned sin in the flesh” (Rom. 8:3). This is not “sins,” but our evil nature, “sin in the flesh.” Thus divine grace in the way of righteous judgment has set us free by death with Christ, and by a new life in Christ risen. When this is known and believed, we can praise and thank God. We have now soul-deliverance, and wait for the deliverance of the body; for “He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by His Spirit that dwelleth in you.”
God’s purpose is, that we shall be conformed to the image of His Son.” We are set free from the law of sin and death, our old man having been crucified with Christ; so that we are dead to sin, dead to the law, dead too as to the world, dead with Christ, and thus judicially set aside by God Himself as to any standing in the flesh, and brought into another standing; so that God can now say to. us, “Ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you.” What a deliverance! What freedom! The flesh in us, but we not in the flesh; so that we are to think of ourselves not as in Adam, but as in Christ Jesus; to reckon ourselves to have died indeed unto sin, but alive unto God in our Lord Jesus Christ. What a gracious deliverance, founded on righteousness too, because that evil thing has been condemned and judicially set aside for ever when God condemned sin in the flesh in our spotless Substitute, His own Son.
From the time the believer knows deliverance he has a new experience. Is he not, then, sensible that sin dwells in him? Most certainly, and he may be more so than ever. He has learnt also that neither experience nor self-occupation in any form can give peace, but that faith in the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ always does. He is delivered from himself, “so that as long as the truth engages his heart he dare not give way to self occupation, but he knows that in a Glorified and triumphant Savior all his blessings are forever settled. He lives by the faith of the Son of God who loved him and have Himself for him, and goes on in service to Him, knowing that he has two natures one that is of God, “and the mind which serves the law of God”; and the other, “the flesh which serves the law of sin.”
THE EXPERIENCE OF A DELIVERED SOUL
As to the experience of a delivered soul, then, we may observe that
1. His eye is off self and the law, looks to God in Christ, and becomes occupied with what divine grace has accomplished for him in the death of the cross. He knows (not feels, not hopes for,

for him, by the death of His Son, the very deliverance he longs but on the authority of God’s truth he knows) that his old man has for; and, believing God’s word as to this, he is delivered, so that he gives God thanks — “I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Observe, his distress was not about the things he had been crucified with Christ, and that he has thus died to sin and to the law by the body of Christ, and is now alive to God in Him who is risen from the dead. Before he knew deliverance, it was done, but about what he was. He might have long known the forgiveness of his sins; but it was not forgiveness he now sought, but deliverance from the distress and power of an evil nature, which he had proved in his experience to be too strong for him, and only evil, and that continually; in-subject to God, and incurably bad. As the law could not make it better, and as, as it has been often said, offences can be forgiven, but an evil nature can only be dealt with judicially; therefore we are told, “What the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, self-occupation — “I” and “me”; but now he is before God thanking Him for the deliverance wrought for him through our Lord Jesus Christ. The enjoyment of this new standing in Christ is connected with an amazing change in the state of his soul.
2. He is, now occupied with God’s thoughts from God’s word, instead of his own feelings and thoughts about himself. He knows that he has two natures of very opposite qualities — “that which is born of the flesh” and “that which is born of the Spirit”; the former he knows God has judiciously set aside by the cross; the latter he knows is that in which God now always views him. He is aware, too, that both these natures are unchanging in their moral qualities for “that which is born of the flesh is flesh,” and “that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” Both these natures are in the believer; the one, when it is active, acts out what is “only evil,” the other what is for the glory of God. Therefore, in thinking of himself now, he, having believed God, takes sides with God, and recognizing these two natures, he concludes, as we have before noticed, “So then with the mind” (or new nature) “I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh” (or old nature) “the law of sin” (v. 25).
3. He has power over sin. By the gift of the Holy Ghost he now knows that he is connected with a triumphant and glorified Savior. He is conscious of being set free, and that SIN is no longer his master; so that looking up he can say, “The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death” (Rom. 8:2). All his resources now are in Christ. He draws on Him for all he needs. He lives by the faith of the Son of God, who loved him, and gave Himself for him. If he feels sin in the flesh, which he often will, the workings within of evil thoughts, lust, pride, self-will, and unbelief, he remembers that “God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh” {Rom. 8:3}. It is gone thus for ever to faith under the judgment of God. He is not in the flesh, though he is painfully conscious that the flesh is in him. If he looks within, and learns again and again, as he will all through his sojourn on earth, that in his flesh no good dwells, he looks up again, and knows that his standing now before God nothing can alter, for it is not in the flesh, but in Christ Jesus.
Thus having a new life or nature, and the gift of the Holy Ghost, who sheds abroad the love of God in our hearts, the two righteous requirements of the law are fulfilled in him — love to God, and love to man; though he is not under the law, but under grace, and his practice is, that he walks not after the flesh, but after the Spirit (Rom. 8:1-4).
How gladly his heart can now sing —
“For me, Lord Jesus, Thou hast died,
And I, have died with Thee.
Thou’rt risen, my bands are all untied,
And now Thou liv’st in me.
The Father’s face of radiant grace,
Shines now in light on me.”
THE FIVE LAWS OF THE SEVENTH AND EIGHTH OF ROMANS
It may be well to observe that between Rom.7:5 and 8:2 we have five laws brought before us.
1. “The law” is many times mentioned, and refers to the law which was given by Moses, and is often in the same chapter called “the commandment.”
2. “The law of God,” or the revealed will of God, which a quickened soul delights in, and with his mind seeks to obey but before deliverance finds himself powerless to carry out (vv. 22, 23 , 25).
3. “The law of my mind,” or the resolve and purpose of a quickened soul to obey God, against which he found another principle working within him. (v. 23)
4. “The law of sin and death” the principle of antagonism and enmity of the natural man to God, of insubjection to His law or will. As another has said, “That deadly principle which ruled in us before as alive in the flesh.”
5. “The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus,” the principle and power of that new life which is given us in Christ by the Holy Spirit, who now dwells in us. We are in Christ Jesus, and Christ is in us; and we know it by the Spirit which is given unto us, and “where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.”
IN WHAT SENSE ARE DELIVERED SOULS SET FREE?
Delivered souls are set free —
1. As to sin in us, by having died to sin, having been crucified with Christ, when God in richest grace to such “condemned sin in the flesh.” We know we have thus died with Christ.
2. As to position, we have a perfect and unalterable standing. We are “not in the flesh,” but “in Christ Jesus.”
3. As to the law, as having died with Christ to it, we are not under it.
4. As to state, Christ liveth in us. Christ is our life. The Holy Spirit has been given to us; so that we are so set free from the law of sin and death that we worship the Father in the sweet consciousness of being His children, and have no confidence in the flesh.
5. As to practice, we “walk not after the flesh, but after the
Spirit” (Rom. 8:4).
6. We have a new Master, and are become servants to God.
7. As to relationship, we are children of God, and members of the body of Christ; relationships which can never change.
What a deliverance! What praise and worship the sense of it produces in our hearts! What unceasing thanksgiving to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ it calls forth! What gratitude is manifested in the few words of the delivered one, “I thank God through Jesus Christ!”
Is the reader in the enjoyment of this wondrous deliverance? While you may be often painfully conscious that sin is in you, do you in faith “reckon yourself indeed dead unto it, and therefore have nothing to say to it, but go forward knowing that in God’s sight you are in Christ, and not in the flesh? If so, you will go on, in the power of the Holy Ghost, worshiping the Father, rejoicing in Christ Jesus, bearing fruit unto holiness, and waiting for His return from heaven. Surely we can say to the self-occupied, and therefore disconsolate, believer —