Our Liberty In Christ by Philip Mauro

minds the idea that being “not under the law but under grace” means that, inasmuch as we are assured of final salvation on the merits of Christ’s atoning work alone, we are free to please ourselves in this present world.

Incalculable harm has been done by this false teaching, which has the effect even of turning the grace of God into lasciviousness, and of bringing the whole doctrine of grace into disrepute. The truth is, and one of the main objects of the present volume is to im­press it upon our readers, that our liberty in Christ is very far from being a state of in subjection to the law of God. On the contrary it is a state of complete subjection to the law of God, and that in the highest and most spirit­ual form in which law has been revealed to men. True liberty in Christ is complete subjection to the law of God in that form wherein the Lord Jesus, while on earth, walked continually, which was in His heart, and which found expression in all His words and actions. It is “the law of Christ” in the double sense that it is both the law He has given to the household of faith, and also that by which His own life in this evil world was controlled.

Hence the verse we have just quoted tells us that the “liberty” into which we are called, is in fact a service; and indeed the word “serve” in the passage “by love serve one another” is the verb-form of the very word, “bond­age,” used to describe the condition from which Christ has set us free. The exact truth of the matter is that we have been called out of one bondage into another. We are now to “serve one another,’’ and “by love.’’

This is, in fact, nothing less than a call to live as God Himself lives. We may say with reverence, that God is Himself controlled by the law of love, never acting contrary there­to; for God must needs act in accordance with what He is; and God is Love.

The next verse enforces the lesson: “For all the law is fulfilled in one word. Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” This is simple and clear.

We cannot mis­understand it.

God requires His children to be like Himself. So we have, in these words, the same doctrine as given by our Lord Himself in Matthew 5:4458: “But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you; that ye may be the children of your Father which is in Heaven. For He maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. * * Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.”