Romans 7:1-7:6 - Married to Christ

Calvin (9/1/01)

7:1: Paul takes up the question of the Christian and the Law more thoroughly now, picking up the thread of 6:14. It is known fact to man that the law regulates only this life, and cannot regulate the far side of the grave. While some try to address this passage to the Romans as the seat of law, the context ought to make clear that he still speaks primarily to the Jews, who would have the greatest objection to hearing of the lifting of Mosaic Law. They, as no other, would need a solid reason to set it aside.
7:2-7:3: Paul adjusts his comparison, not declaring the Law dead, as the husband, but rather, us dead to the Law which was our husband. This, so as not to keep his hearers from hearing due to their offense. Footnote: Paul's comparison is only between the Law and the death that releases us from it, as well as the subsequent freedom to bond to another. No correspondence is implied or required as to who died. The Law was our husband until its death. Now, we are wed to Christ, who lives forever, and so divorce is no more, nor widowhood. It must be kept in mind that only the rigid requirements of perfection were ended. The rule of righteous living has no more changed than God has. Holiness has still the same definition, but the curse is lifted by grace.
7:4: At the cross, Christ freed us from the yoke of the Law, but not into the freedom of the widow. Rather, we are now united to Him, sharing His freedom and His righteousness. Woe to the one who attempts divorce from the Law without Christ! It is spiritual adultery to do so. Note the purpose of our new union: it is to be fruitful for God, not to indulge ourselves. In this is no loss of freedom, but only evidence that the bonds of sin and death are truly done away with.
7:5: So long as the Law is applied apart from Christ, it can only produce death. So, the opposing freedom of the Christian in Christ must produce righteousness. While in the flesh, we heard the Law to no good effect. It bore no fruit, for God's grace was not upon us. In this we see the futility of our 'free' will, which could only spread greater sin and evil into our soul. Footnote: Because of our perverse nature, the Law failed to make us holy, and only caused us to sin all the more. The 'members' are of the old man, and not necessarily physical. "There are many sins, and those of the worst kind, are confined to the mind and the heart." Without the Spirit to teach, the Law only excited our passions. "The vicious nature of man … break[s] forth with greater fury, the more [it] is checked by the restraints of righteousness."
7:6: It is sickness to think that the Law was removed so as to allow sin greater freedom. We were emancipated so as to receive the Spirit in whose ways we now walk. We are no longer crushed by the curse. The letter is old, dying as the Spirit regenerates us. The letter may have restrained our actions, but did nothing for our desires. The Spirit frees our desires to desire holiness.

Matthew Henry (9/3/01)

7:1: How is our freedom from the Law a reason for us to be sinless in our new life? (Ro 6:14 - Sin will not rule you who are under grace and not Law.) We are delivered from the condemning power of the Law. Sin has been taken away and so, the accompanying death. (Gal 3:13 - Christ became a curse - being hung on a tree - so as to redeem us from the curse of the Law.) The Law brought the rule, but not the power, the covenant, but not the cure. The rule remains a true rule of holiness, but grace alone now empowers us to follow. And when we fail, grace alone brings forgiveness to the repentant heart. The law of marriage is binding until the death of one partner; either one. This, his audience being versed in Jewish Law, they would readily apprehend, allowing an easier guiding into the greater truth of Christ. Like the marriage law, all law loses its binding power when one dies. (Job 3:19 - In Hades are both small and great, slave and master, but the slave is there free of his master.) As the Law ends at death, so its curse, which is death, is done in its utmost in death.
7:2: Marriage binds until death. The one who remarries while the other yet lives not only commits adultery, but also abuses God's holy ordinance of marriage. So it was with us and the Law. As a wife desires her husband, so we desired sin, ever embracing it and devoting ourselves to it, married to a law of death. Lust was wed to Law and conceived sin. (1Co 15:56 - Sin's sting is death, its power in the Law. Jas 1:15 - Lust births sin, which being accomplished, brings death.)
7:3: That death has come, and so the Law no longer binds, the marriage vows no longer apply. It is not that the Law in itself has died, but that its obligatory punishment, its power to provoke, has died.
7:4: Christ's bodily sufferings answered the Law's demands, and so nullified its demands on us. In baptism, the symbol of our death. In effectual belief in Christ's bodily work, our death to its yoke. On the very day we believed, we died to the Law and to sin, and were married to Christ and to righteousness. As our death to sin conformed to His death, so our new life conforms to His resurrection, our new marriage is most honorable. (2Co 11:2 - I am concerned in most holy fashion that you, whom I betrothed to Christ as your only husband, should be found pure by Him, as a virgin. Eph 5:29 - No one ever hated his body, but cherished it, just as Christ does the Church.) Our marriage to Christ ought to be fruitful. (Mal 2:15 - How did he act, who sought the godly seed of marriage? Be so in your spirit, being faithful to the wife of your youth.) Our fruit consists in love, grace, and good works. "Good works are the children of the new nature." (Eph 2:10 - In Christ, we were created for good works, and God prepared them for us, that we can do them.) It is our marriage to Christ that sanctifies our works, and separates them from hypocritical efforts. (Col 3:17 - Whatever you do, do it in Jesus' name and give thanks through Him to the Father.)
7:5-7:6: Our service is now of a new spirit. What we did before as drudgery, we now do in perfect freedom, in spirit and truth. (Jn 4:24 - Those who worship God must do so in spirit and truth.) We cannot settle for externals, but must serve from the heart. (Lk 1:74-75 - Delivered from our enemies, we can serve Him without fear, holy and righteous before Him all our days. 2Co 3:3 - You are a letter of Christ, not written in ink or stone, but on your very heart. 2Co 3:6 - He makes us able to serve the new covenant of the spirit. For the Spirit gives life, where the letter only killed.) "It becomes us to worship within the veil , and no longer in the outward court."

Adam Clarke (9/4/01)

7:1: Having shown the Law insufficient for justification, Paul now shows it insufficient for sanctification. He begins by showing how it is that the Jew is freed from the Law, and then moves on, first showing the condition of man under the Law alone, and then the state of the believer freed of the Law. This first will occupy us for the remainder of this chapter, with the latter picked up in the next chapter. In pursuing the situation under the Law, Paul shows that the Law addresses every principle of sin, subjecting all to death with no expectation of pardon. He moves on to explain why the Jew was put under the Law, and then proves that as good as the Law is, it is insufficient for sanctification, being unable to free a man from sin. The opening parenthetic shows that Paul speaks to the Jews, for they are the ones who knew Jewish Law. If either the rule or the ruled dies, the effect is the same: the binding force of law is gone.
7:2: The Law is compared to the rule of marriage, the bonds of which are discharged when either partner dies.
7:3: Both parties are equally bound by the law of marriage, and the death of either dissolves those bonds. As the widow is free to remarry, so you, to whom the Law has died, are free to bind yourself to another rule.
7:4: The Law was ever intended to rule only until Messiah should come, which He has. Therefore, the bonds of the Law are dissolved, and you are called to take the yoke of the Gospel in its place, as God has designed. The purpose of the Law was to unite us to Christ. United to Him, we died with Him, and with Him the claims of the Law died, being fulfilled. As He has risen to new life, so do we, and that new life, wed to our Savior, is to be fruitful, producing in us the sanctification that the Law could not bring.
7:5: Even as faithful followers of the Law, we remained carnal and unregenerate. In our fallen nature, each sin had its passion, and each passion had its sin. Every nerve and fiber was stimulated into acts of sin. Sin is by nature rebellious, and the Law is by design restrictive. The more known the rules, the more sin rebels against the rule. So it is that the Law excited a greater propensity to sin.
7:6: We have been delivered from that which could neither bring pardon nor sanctification. We are under a new constitution, for Christ is the 'end of the law for justification and salvation to every one that believes.' Being given a more spiritual understanding, we see that the Law pointed to the Gospel, and that the Gospel is the Law's only possible fulfillment. Having had the true intent of the Law disclosed to us, the literal rites and ceremonies are done. What was sought through the Law, justification and sanctification, pardon and holiness, were never found there, but have been found in the Gospel. Therein, we find we are truly able to serve God.

Barnes' Notes (9/5/01)

7:1: It is common understanding that the marriage vow extends no farther than the death of a partner, and so it is for us and the Law. It can no longer be looked to for peace and life. These must come from the new source of the Gospel. While references to the Law are directed more to the Jewish members of the church, this particular law is widely enough understood to make the argument clear to all. All law is binding only until death, whether that death be of the ruling law or the one ruled.
7:2: The general thought regarding law is brought to the specific example of marriage. It is simply intended to illustrate his argument as a case in point, and need not be struggled with to position the Christian equivalents into each member of the case. In marriage, the wife is bound to the authority of the husband as head of the family, but his authority ends with his death. (1Co 7:39 - She is bound to her husband so long as he lives, but is free to remarry thereafter. Eph 5:23 - The husband is head of the wife, as Christ is head of the church, being the Savior of the body. Eph 5:33 - So, we ought to love our wife as ourself, and she ought to respect her husband.)
7:3: (Mt 5:32 - If a man divorces his wife for reasons other than adultery, he makes her commit adultery, and the one who marries the divorced wife is also in adultery.)
7:4: Death dissolves the connection, removing all obligations associated with that connection. As with marriage, so with the Law. We are no longer under its obligations, and are freed to pursue another union, accepting the new obligations that come of that union. This new union is shown to have greater things in its obligations than the old. (Ro 6:3-4 - Having been baptized in Christ, you were baptized into His death, buried in baptism so that you might be raised with Him into newness of life. Ro 6:8 - Knowing we have died with Him, we believe we will live with Him, as well.) We are not so dead to the Law that we are no longer required to obey it. It remains the rule of our duty. However, it is dead to us as a means of justification and sanctification, and we are obliged to another plan for that purpose. (Eph 2:15 - He abolished the enmity of the Law in His flesh, so as to unite us and establish peace. Col 1:22 - He has reconciled us through the death of His body, so as to present us holy and blameless before God. Col 2:14 - He took our debt of sin and nailed it to the cross. 1Pe 2:24 - He bore our sins on the cross, so that we could die to sin and live to righteousness, thus you were healed by His wounds.) By suffering for us what the Law demanded, He has released us from the Law as our means of justification. Being released from it, we are now free to unite to His law. As the woman remarried is bound to a new authority in her new husband, so we are bound to a new law in Christ, owing Him the obedience that we previously owed the Law. We are the bride of Christ (Rev 21:9 - The angel said "Come, and I will show you the bride of the Lamb." Rev 19:7 - Let us rejoice, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and His bride is ready.) The purpose of this new life of ours is to make us holy, that is its whole tendency, whereas the tendency of the sinful life was to make us die. (Gal 5:22-23 - The fruit of the Spirit [of our marriage to Christ] is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.)
7:5: Whether Christian or not, the effect of the Law is ever to agitate the fallen mind of man. It always brings conflict, and leaves no hope of release, except it be in the 'delivering and sanctifying power of the gospel' (Ro 7:25-8:3 - In my mind I serve the law of God, but my flesh I find serving the law of sin. Thanks be to God that He saves me from this! No condemnation remains to those who are in Him, for the law of life that is in Him has freed us from the law of sin and death. The Law was too weak to accomplish this for us, but God did it for us in the Son, who came in the flesh to be an offering for sin, and so condemned sin in the flesh.) We used to be controlled by our passions before we were converted (Ro 8:8-9 - Those who are still in the flesh cannot please God, but you don't remain in the flesh, but are in the Spirit, if He dwells in you. Anyone in whom the Spirit does not dwell does not belong to Christ.) It is not that the Law was the creator of our sinfulness, but that it excited our passions within us so that we inclined ourselves to sin, and because of our own sinful tendencies, the Law served to turn our members to the work of sinning. (Ro 6:12-13 - Don't allow sin to reign over your bodies any longer. Don't allow your body to be an instrument of unrighteousness, but present it to God as an instrument of righteousness. Ro 6:23 - The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.) Because of our sinfulness, we were brought under the rule of death, ensuring that the result of our actions would be fatal. (Ro 6:21 - The only benefit that could possibly come from our sinful actions was death.)
7:6: By contrast, the consequence of the Gospel rule is new life, which topic will be pursued more at length in chapter 8. The effects of the Law will be the topic of the remainder of this chapter. We are delivered from the Law as the means of justification, freed from its bondage, but not from its role as our rule of duty. Footnote: It is improper to think of the Law as ever having been seen as a source of sanctification. It is the rule, the definition, of what sanctification is, but it has never been the source. Our deliverance was from the covenant of works described by the Law as being our means of justification. The Law had held us as captive slaves, but now we are dead to it, and no longer serve it. We are free to serve and obey God in true spiritual manner. The gospel service is a new kind of service of a spiritual nature, and so is distinct from the practice of the Jews. (2Co 3:6 - He has made us to suffice as servants of a new covenant of the Spirit, for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. Ro 2:28-29 - It is not the outward conformance to ritual that defines the Jew, but the inward state of the heart It is the Spirit and not the letter that determines, and the true Jew will have his praise from God, rather than from man. Jn 4:23 - The time is now, that the true worshipers of the Father will worship in spirit and truth. These are the worshipers God seeks as His own. Php 3:3 - We who worship in the Spirit and glory of God, having no confidence in our flesh, are the true circumcision.) The old dispensation covered by the Law has passed away. It was ineffective, because it involved only external ceremony, and not the sincere heart. (Jn 6:63 - The Spirit gives life. The flesh is of no profit, only those words that I have spoken to you are Spirit, and therefore life. Heb 10:1-4 - The Law is only the type, and not the reality, so its sacrifices were made continually, yet never perfected those who sacrificed. This is clear, because the sacrifices never ceased, showing that sin remained to be cleansed. They became a reminder of sinfulness, because it is impossible to remove sin by the blood of bulls and goats. Heb 9:9-10 - Such gifts and offerings as were made cannot perfect the conscience, since they were only matters of food, drink, and washing. They were bodily regulations put upon us until reformation should come.) While many sincerely holy worshippers existed under the Law, the general rule was that of form without content. The general rule under the Gospel is service and offering from the heart, without the external forms and rites.

Wycliffe (9/6/01)

7:1: It is in the nature of a law to rule over its subject so long as he lives under it.
7:2: Given his audience, it is unlikely that Mosaic Law is specifically addressed here, although it doubtless colors Paul's treatment of the marriage law, which is annulled by death.
7:3: After the husband's death, that law being annulled, she is free to remarry without bearing the stigma of adultery.
7:4: So it is between the Christian and the Law. By our identification with the death of Christ, we have been released from the bonds of relationship we had to the Law in life. (Ro 6:6 - Our old life was crucified with Him, so as to do away with the mass of our sin, freeing us from our slavery.) The Law is deprived of its power, and we now belong to the risen Son of God, so as to be fruitful for God. We have remarried. (2Co 11:2 - I am righteously jealous that, having wed you to one husband in Christ, He might find you pure as a virgin. Eph 5:25 - Love your wife just as Christ loved the Church. Be just as willing to give yourself up for her as He was for it. Eph 5:29 - After all, every man cherishes his own body, and in marriage, you have been united as one body. Even so, Christ cherishes the Church.)
7:5: The Law made men's sins conspicuous, and clearly showed that we were under sin's domination, which would lead inevitably to our eternal death. (Ro 6:21 - What benefit did your shameful past ever bring you? All it had to offer was death.)
7:6: The Law which revealed our sins to us was powerless to remove them, offering only condemnation. When we chose Christ, and died with Him, we died to that condemning claim of the Law by which we had been bound. Now, we are enslaved to our Redeemer, eyes wide open, to serve Him in a spirit of love and dedication. (Gal 2:19 - Through the Law, I died to that very Law, so as to live to God.)

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown (9/7/01)

7:1: Having declared in the previous chapter that the Christian was no longer under the Law, Paul now moves to explain on what principles they have come out from under that Law. Paul looks at Mosaic Law in particular, which the Roman church would be familiar with, even its non-Jewish population. (Ro 1:13 - I planned to come to you so as to make converts among you, as I have among the rest of the Gentile churches.) The Law's dominion ceases with the life it dominates.
7:2-7:3: No comments.
7:4: We have died to the Law through union to the body of Christ, which was broken for us. It is a mistake to think Paul tries to avoid offending the Jews in claiming that it is we who die. The whole argument is that death dissolves the bonds of law, no matter which party may die. Furthermore, the Gospel indicates that we were crucified with Christ, not the Law. The Law was binding until death. We died. Therefore the Law is no longer binding upon us, and we are legally free to pursue a new relationship with Christ. As children are the fruit of marriage, so our acts of Christian obedience are the fruit of marriage to Christ. Our union to Christ crucified and to Christ risen is one. The death we died with Him dissolved all the bonds of the Law, leaving us at liberty to maintain our union to Him in His resurrected life. It must be noted that the requirements of the Law are by no means disregarded in this new union, for the fruit of that union is obedience to that very Law of righteousness. What we could not do by the Law alone (obey it), we are enabled to do in this new union. (Jn 15:8 - My Father is glorified by your proving yourself My disciples by your fruitfulness.)
7:5: The phrase "in the flesh" has become an indispensable phrase to Christendom, expressing as no other the condition we were in prior to conversion; fallen in our nature, entirely under the law of sin and death. (Jn 3:6 - That which is born of flesh is flesh. That which is born of the Spirit is spirit.) This was our condition, which will be explored in detail for the remainder of this chapter. The Law, by forbidding sins, irritated and excited our passions all the more to pursue and commit sin. This pursuit found expression in our bodies, becoming as it were, facts of life, as thought became action. (Ro 6:6 - Our old self was crucified with Him, so as to do away with the body of our sin, freeing us from our slavery. Ro 6:21 - There was no benefit to these actions of ours other than death.) "Thus hopeless is all holy fruit before union to Christ."
7:6: It is not the death of the Law, but the death of the believer, that has freed us to serve Christ in true righteousness. It is not the intent of our freedom that Paul expresses, but the result of it. We no longer serve out of 'mechanical obedience to the divine law,' leaving our hearts out of it. No, we serve from spiritual obedience, learned through our union to Christ. (Ro 2:29 - The true Jew is circumcised in the heart by the Spirit, not solely in the flesh. His praise is from God rather than man. 2Co 3:6 - He has made our service in the new covenant to be adequate, for that covenant is of the Spirit that gives life, not the lethal letter.)

New Thoughts (9/8/01-9/9/01)

It is all too easy to come to this passage and say that there is no longer any reason to worry about righteousness. It is all too easy to come to Christianity, and feel that very feeling. All will be forgiven, we learn. That being the case, the flesh quickly offers the suggestion that it's okay to continue doing what we did before. Sadly, many will stop there, not recognizing the awful implications of what they suggest. If it were true that we could go on unchanged in habit, it would seem that God doesn't care about the actions of those He has saved, only about those who remain condemned. Can there be any justice in that? I think not. But God is just. He cannot be unjust and remain God, any more than He could cease loving and remain God. The fact of the matter is that the rule of right living hasn't changed. God has not changed, and neither has His law. Jesus made that clear in His ministry, declaring that He came with no intention of destroying the Law, but with every intention of fulfilling it. And that is what He did. He fulfilled the Law both by living a life that was righteous by the Law's definition (the only definition), and by dying in payment of the single penalty that the Law could impose. But His payment was made not for His own failure to comply to the Law, but ours.

The Law is not dead to us. It is not the Law that was crucified with Christ, but us. We died on the very day we believed, and, as Paul tells us here, in our death, the bonds of the Law were broken. The Law did not end, only its binding power upon us was lifted. That binding power was the threat of punishment that the Law held over us, a threat that, given our nature, we knew deep inside to be our due, and our only expectation. But on the day we believed, we not only died, but we also remarried. The bonds of Law being broken, we bound ourselves to a new love, to Christ and to the righteousness He is. In this new relationship, this new union, the requirements of the Law are not disregarded. Our new husband did not disregard the requirements of righteousness, but fulfilled them in every detail. He is our husband, the authority over us, and if He considered these requirements important, we also must accept them as the rule of how we ought to live.

But, with all that the Law and our obedience have become newness - a qualitatively different thing. Before we had the rules, but could see only the literal and immediate application. Even at that, we found ourselves miserable failures, incapable of complying. And, as if that did not hurt enough (for nobody seeks to be a failure), we saw the punishment that must come for our inability. Death awaited us, inescapable and cold. Ah, but it's a new day for us! The death sentence that loomed so large has been served by another! We are free of that punishment, and not only that, but we find in our new husband, a man who has found the strength to obey that Law that so plagued us! He is our husband, our teacher, our Lord! We, then, are also empowered to obey. The flesh continues to do its utmost to point out our constant failures, it does its utmost to convince us that obedience is still impossible, that surely we have exceeded the bounds of forgiveness. But that is not the case.

We are empowered to comply, but it's not in the nature of our own perfection, for we remain yet imperfect. But praise be to God that He is interested in the heart. The circumcision of the flesh was to be a reminder, not the concluding evidence. Its intent was to remind us of the righteousness we sought to live by. In this present life, we need all the reminders we can get. That is the purpose of our assembling together. That is the purpose of our soaking in His word. That is the purpose of our maintaining to the best of our ability a healthy prayer life, an open line of communication with our Lord and our Father. We may well have done good deeds before we came to Christ. In fact, that may well have been a huge stumbling block for us, since we thought we were pretty good people already. But those works were always imperfect, always coming short of the ideal in some fashion, and at their core, our best works remained condemned by the Law, for the sacrifices God requires are to be without the slightest stain or blemish. As the authors of the JFB commentary point put it, "Thus hopeless is all holy fruit before union to Christ."

And to such degree as we try to do good works by our own power, either pursuing deeds that God did not prepare for us beforehand, or pursuing those deeds He did prepare by means He did not desire, those works are still just as hopeless. It is in union to Christ that we are made righteous. It is in union to Christ that our works are made righteous. As Colossians 1:22 declares, in the death of His body He reconciled us such that when we are presented before God, we are holy and blameless. How is this? We know all too well (as did Paul) that we are far from that lofty goal. Is it not because in sending the Holy Spirit, He has sent to us the one encouragement that can fire our desire? The Holy Spirit works to free us from a slavish obedience of fear. In its place comes the desire to be holy, the desire to be a worthy spouse for our Husband. That desire has come by the Holy Spirit, sent to our aid by our Husband, Jesus Christ. As I said earlier, He is not only our Husband, not only our Lord, but also our great Teacher. And loving Teacher that He is, seeing His students floundering, He has provided us with a Tutor. That Tutor, the Holy Spirit, works with us constantly, to teach us how to live both bound and free, how to truly live in Christ.

Indeed, I know all too well how much it hurts. It seems daily I cry out over my own actions and choices even as I make them. Entirely too often, I act even though the remorse is present in my heart, and I find myself crying out for the strength to truly repent. Can I be completely honest? I think this is the natural state for the Christian. Before I was reborn, I was fine with who I was and with what I did. If there was sufficient cause to change some facet of myself, I'd incline myself to change, but not with any regret over how I'd been before, only with an eye to some perceived advantage in a new approach. I had a firm belief that I ought not to regret anything that had been part of my life, for it had all contributed to bring me where I was. Now, I know regret for my actions. Now, I know the Holy Spirit within me, pointing out the decisions I ought not to have made, the words I ought not to have said, the opportunities I ought not to have missed. I desire holiness. It hurts me no end to recognize that I don't come anywhere close to attaining it. My eyes cannot see the end from the beginning. My eyes see the present, and occasionally recall the past. That recollection, at least, brings some encouragement, and I thank my Lord that He does not completely erase our memory of what we were. It not only humbles me, but it encourages me, for it's the only means I have of recognizing any progress.

So what has really changed? I am still a sinful man. If anything, the change I feel is that I feel that sinfulness more than I did. But that very feeling informs me of my desire to be otherwise. The Holy Spirit has indeed freed me to desire holiness. And as often as it feels like I'm a hypocrite, because my actions don't always reflect my desires, I must try and recognize, as Mr. Henry points out, that it is solely our marriage to Christ that has sanctified what would otherwise have truly been hypocritical efforts. 2Co 3:6 tells us that He has made our service adequate. In the covenant of the Spirit by which we are bound to our Beloved, we find life, because He has cleansed not only our lives, but also our works. The letter of the Law was lethal because it could do nothing to clean up our imperfect efforts. Every sacrifice we tried to make to our God, every service we sought to perform for Him, was flawed from the start, and unacceptable in His eyes. But Christ our Savior has changed all that. He intercedes for us as our great Mediator, and in that role of mediator, He corrects our mistakes, cleanses our offerings, and makes them presentable, so that they can be and are acceptable to God our Father. Indeed, it is our marriage that sanctifies our works, it is our Husband who works that sanctifying change on our lives, our actions, and our prayers. This, He does not so we can go merrily on our way with no concern for giving our best, but He does so knowing that we are giving our best, that we long for nothing else but to offer our best. He knows, too, that our very best will always fail of perfection, and so, He provides the perfection we so long to offer.

"It becomes us to worship within the veil , and no longer in the outward court." So Mr. Henry declares to us, and so it is. Because of the beauty in which our dear Lord has dressed us, because of the holiness He works in us, we are fit to enter into the Holy of Holies. Oh, Lord God. Today is, as we call it, the Lord's day (as though every day were not Yours). But, today is a day special to us, my God, because it is a day particularly set aside for You. It is a day when we can come into Your house, when we can come together in Your presence, when we can once more celebrate, among those who understand, the fact that we can and ought to be worshiping 'within the veil.' This is my desire today, oh my Lord. Too often, I find myself hovering about in the outer court, warming my hands at the fire, but not daring to enter. But I hear Your invitation to me, my Lord. Where my Husband has entered in, shall I not follow? When my Husband would present me to His Father and mine, shall I refuse? I do not ask, oh Father, that You would let me see Your face today, for I know I will see it in Your time. I do, however, ask that You draw me in to Your very throne room, draw me in to the Holy of Holies. Let me dwell in Your presence oh God. Let me know, if only for a time, the magnificence of Your splendor. Grant today, my Father, a foretaste of the glorious home my Husband has prepared for me. Thank You, Jesus, that You have cleansed this sinner, that You have made these stumbling efforts of mine somehow holy and acceptable. I thank You for every opportunity You have given me to serve as a Levite in Your worship. I thank You for every opportunity You have given me to serve as a student and tutor to one of Your children, to one of my brothers or sisters. I thank You for the desire You have kindled in my heart, that I might long to serve You better every day. I thank You, my Lord and Savior, that it does indeed become me to worship within the veil. May I see You there shortly!