If a piece of iron could speak ...

If a piece of iron could speak, what could it say of itself? "I am black; I am cold; I am hard." But put it in the furnace, and what a change takes place! It has not ceased to be iron; but the blackness is gone, and the coldness is gone, and the hardness is gone! It has entered into a new experience. The fire and the iron are still distinct, and yet how complete is the union - they are one. If the iron could speak, it could not glory in itself, but in the fire that makes and keeps it a bright and glowing mass.

So must it be with the believer. Do you ask him what he is in himself? He answers, "I am carnal, sold under sin." For, left to himself, this inevitably follows; he is brought into captivity to the law of sin which is in his members. But it is his privilege to enter into fellowship with Christ, and in Him to abide. Free from the power of the world or my nature I love that illustration breakfast are so clean. You know you can tell where the cream is just kind of almost on the verge of settling out. I don’t know how man got away from that kind of truth, you know, I mean, he called in a land, a land flowing with milk and honey I meanthe good so surely milk was on the divine menu And there, in Him, who is our life, our purity, and our power - in Him, whose Spirit can penetrate into every part of our being, the believer is no longer carnal, but spiritual; no longer overcome by sin and brought into captivity, but set free from the law of sin and death and preserved in a condition of deliverance.

This blessed experience of emancipation from sin's service and power implies a momentary and continuous act of abiding. The believer cannot glory in himself. He cannot glory in a state of purity attained, and having an existence apart from Christ Himself. He is like the piece of iron. The moment it is withdrawn from the furnace, the coldness and hardness and blackness begin to return. It is not by a work wrought in the iron once for all but by the momentary and continual influence of the fire on the iron that its tendency to return to its natural condition is counteracted. Such is the law of liberty in the spiritual life.

We can thus understand how there may be a continuous experience of deliverance from the law of sin and at the same time a deepening sense of our own natural depravity - a life of triumph over evil with a spirit of the truest humility. - Evan H. Hopkins (1881)