“The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because … he hath sent me … to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound” ~ Isaish 61:1Here is another facet of this “purple stone” verse which throws still more light on Christ’s connection with human suffering. “. “He hath sent me … to proclaim liberty to the captives,” we read in Isaiah. “To preach deliverance to the captives … to set at liberty them that are bruised,” Jesus read that day in the synagogue in Nazareth.
When Jesus came, He came proclaiming liberty! He did not come to show the way to it, He came bringing it with Him. And He saw that those who are in prison are of necessity “bruised.” And so He declared that He had come to “set at liberty them that are bruised.”
Paul spoke of himself as a “bondslave of Jesus Christ.” Those outside of Christ wonder at us when we say we have been set free by Christ. I {Eugenia Price, the author] understand their wondering. Before I became a Christian, I believed myself to be free. I was free. Free to get into trouble! I now know that the only real freedom is in being totally mastered by Jesus Christ. Only then are we masters of our circumstances. “If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.” Jesus said this of Himself. It is true. The alcoholic may think he is free to drink. He is. But he is not free. He is owned by his bottle. I once thought myself free to take what I wanted when I wanted it. I was. But I was not free. I was owned by my own slightest whim and desire.
Christ has already come to set at liberty those who are bruising themselves against the walls of their various “prison houses’. Only in Him can anyone truly be free. Only in him can we own all things.
“For all things are yours … and ye are “Christ’s and Christ is God’s.”
No comments:
Post a Comment