sacred oneness of husband and wife are an emblem sweet, though
inadequate, of the fellowship in love and unity of spirit between
Christ and His Church.

And all this mysterious oneness of life has an intensely practical
side. In Jesus, and by union with Him, we receive a power that
delivers from sin and arrests the stealthy progress of sin's
follower, death. Love to Him, the result of fellowship with Him, and
the consequence of life received from Him, becomes the motive which
makes the redeemed heart delight to do His will, and takes all the
power out of every temptation. We are in Him, and He in us, on
condition, and by means, of our humble faith; and because my faith
thus knits me to Him it is 'the victory that overcomes the world' and
breaks the chains of many sins. So this communion with Jesus Christ
is the way by which we shall increase that triumphant spiritual life,
which is the only victorious antagonist of the else inevitable
consequence which declares that the 'soul that sinneth it shall die,'
and die even in sinning.

III. The process of the deliverance.

Following the R.V. we read 'made me free,' not 'hath made me.' The
reference is obviously, as the Greek more clearly shows, to a single
historical event, which some would take to be the Apostle's baptism,
but which is more properly supposed to be his conversion. His strong
bold language here does not mean that he claims to be sinless. The
emancipation is effected, although it is but begun. He holds that at
that moment when Jesus appeared to him on the road to Damascus, and
he yielded to Him as Lord, his deliverance was real, though not
complete. He was conscious of a real change of position in reference