Two Laws

E. Stanley Jones was a missionary, a theologian, and a prolific writer. In his devotional book titled In Christ he shows how the higher law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus overcomes the lower law of the spirit of sin and death and enables us to live free:

". . . Sin and death [are] inseparably connected, so much so that it is no chance connection, but a law. If we are caught in this cause-and-effect law, how do we get out?

"This passage points the way: 'For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death.' There is the introduction of a higher law--the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus. This makes me free from the lower law--the law of sin and death. Just as the law of the elasticity of air and of muscular strength makes it possible for the bird to overcome the law of gravitation and thus fly, so when we take advantage of the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus we overcome the law of sin and death. Except with this difference: the law of gravitation seems the universal law and the law of muscular strength seems the exceptional, the occasional. The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus is the universal and all-powerful law, and the law of sin and death is the unnatural intrusion and has nothing back of it except decay and death. One has God behind it; the other has only man's sinful, and hence decaying, will behind it.

"If we do not take advantage of the higher law every moment, the lower law sets in automatically. In a plane you do not struggle and try and get tense in order to fly--you simply surrender to the plane when shut in, let go and relax and trust and the plane does the rest. So you find release from the law of sin and death by surrendering to this law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, by relaxing and receiving and trusting. He does the rest. I say 'He,' for it is not an 'it,' a law--it is a Person to Whom we trust our all. That Person is God available."