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What is the value of being freed from the law by the work of Christ? In 1874, Philip Bliss wrote:
Freed from the law, O happy condition,
Jesus hath bled, and there is remission.
Long before that, the Apostle Paul wrote, “But now we are released from the law” by dying with Christ (Rom. 7:6) and “The law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death” (8:2). This is a freedom only in the sense of deliverance from the relentless and righteous claims of the law against us that demanded our death on account of our sin. We’re not absolutely free, as if we may murder or commit adultery or covet whenever we want. Quite the contrary: Paul asserts that all the redeemed fulfill the righteous requirements of the law both positionally in Christ and practically by walking in the power of the Spirit (vv. 2–3). Foundational to this new life in the Spirit is a heart delight in the perfection of God’s law (7:14, 22). For this reason, one of the greatest sorrows of life is that, though we delight in God’s law, we never live it out perfectly.
In heaven, we will be forever delivered from this wretchedness, instantaneously conformed to Christ in our glorification. Though we will delight in the beauty, strength, and health of our resurrection bodies, we will be even more delighted at the perfection of our inner natures. Finally, our hearts, souls, and minds will be like Christ’s, thus allowing us to perfectly obey the Great Commandment to love God at every moment for all eternity.
The great wonder of this is that we will not have to be so commanded ever again. I don’t need to be commanded to love cherry pie or to delight in the beauty of the fall foliage in the mountains or to melt at the most sublime portions of Handel’s Messiah. Any command to do these things lags far behind the delights of my very being. Similarly, I know that I have absolutely never desired to hijack any flight I have ever taken. Any federal laws toward that end are superfluous, except that I am aware that “the world does not know [me because] it did not know [Christ]” (1 John 3:1). Thus I submit to the security screening, as do we all.
Therefore, imagine spending eternity with a nature gloriously conformed to Christ. We will never again need to be commanded to love God with all our hearts, souls, minds, and strength or ordered to love our fellow redeemed brothers and sisters as we love ourselves. Neither will we need to be told not to worship idols or to be forbidden to murder or steal or covet or lust. By God’s sovereign, saving work in our hearts, souls, and minds, we will have forever transcended the law. All its perfect morality we will live out for all eternity. “Freed from the law, O perfect condition.” That will be our song. Forever.