The rebel and the king

(I first posted this about two years ago, but it seems germane, so I am going over the ground again.)

Consider the man born into a family of terrorists. The man’s father had
rebelled against the King of the kingdom in which he lived, and – having
so rebelled – all his posterity were brought up to hate and fight the
King who ruled in this kingdom. It is to this family that the man
belongs. Having been falsely taught all his life that the sovereign is
cruel, vindictive, proud and unjust, and hating him as a tyrant
accordingly, he has racked up a long list of foul crimes and
misdemeanours against the King, all of which bring him under sentence of
death. This life of rebellion takes its toll on the terrorist, cut off
as he is from all that makes life worth living in the kingdom. His
misery and wretchedness increase day by day as he slowly loses his
foolish fight. Finally, he receives an overture of peace from the King.
The King knows of the rebel’s appalling condition, and has had
compassion on the man. Together with his son, the Prince, and his Lord
Chancellor, the King has devised a way by means of which, without any
detriment to the King’s justice and glory, the rebel might be entirely
forgiven, and – even more – brought into the King’s royal family. He
publishes this offer by means of his ambassadors. At first, the
terrorist cannot believe that such an offer can be true. After all has
heard and believed of this king and his character, after all he has done
to merit death, can the alleged tyrant really be ready to forgive all
his sins and actually adopt him as his own?  Then the Lord Chancellor
himself comes to press upon him the reality of the king’s free and
gracious offer: the Prince himself will take the entire punishment that
the law demands and which the rebel deserves. The rebel, finally
persuaded, gratefully accepts his merciful terms and embraces all that
is bound up in leaving his life of crime. The Lord Chancellor conducts
him back to the King’s palace, where he is inducted into the life of a
true son of the King, dearly beloved of the sovereign, and heir to all
that the Prince himself is entitled to receive. Overwhelmed, scarcely
believing his mercies, he yet knows that to him now belongs all the
freedom of the kingdom. However, it is worth noting that while his
relationship to the King has altered radically in some respects, there
are some underpinning realities which have not altered. The King has
become his father, with all the blessings involved in his adoption. The
weight of the law as an instrument of condemnation has ceased to hang
over him. But has the father now ceased to be a King? By no means! And
is the ex-rebel any less obliged to obedience to the law of the kingdom
because he has been delivered from its condemnation? By no means! His
obligations to obedience have been by no means reduced, but only
heightened. He is all the more obliged – love and gratitude and position
all oblige him – to embrace and obey the law of his King and his
father. He has all the obligations that belong to him as one under the
royal authority, as well as all the obligations that belong to him as an
adopted son, overwhelmed by gratitude for the undeserved privileges
bestowed upon him. It is the same law that was in place while he was a
terrorist, the very same law as condemned him to death for treason. The
law has not changed, and he now cheerfully obeys that law both as a
subject under its royal authority and as a son in his father’s
household. The royal law is still in effect, is as potent and extensive
as it ever was, except that now it is profoundly, readily, willingly
embraced by one who has come to have that law truly impressed upon him
as the continuing standard of life in the kingdom of his father, which
his father the King, his natural son, the Prince, and the Lord
Chancellor have all seen fit to honour in bringing him from the
condemnation of death to life and to liberty.

I am that rebel. I
have been condemned by God’s law. And yet, by grace, I have been
redeemed from my sins through the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ,
atoning for my ungodliness, being called by the Father and regenerated
by the Holy Spirit. God having justified me through faith, I have been
set apart to him, called to a life of holiness, and adopted into his
family. I am no longer condemned by the law, but the law still exposes
sin in me. I am no longer condemned by the law, but the law still
expresses my Father’s will for what is right and holy and just. I am no
longer condemned by the law, but that law no longer presses upon me from
without, rather springs up from within, having been written on my
heart. I am no longer condemned by the law, but have come to recognise
it as good and just, and embrace it with a willingness and readiness to
obey it in all its parts. It is that law that is now written not on
tablets of stone, but on the fleshy tablet of my heart. It is as a son,
as a redeemed man, that the law becomes my delight as well as my duty.