"If the Son make you free, you shall be free indeed." When the man of sin is destroyed, and the new man established in the soul, it finds itself in perfect liberty. As a bird let loose from its cage, the soul goes forth, unfettered, to dwell in the immensity of God.
The natural selfish life restricts the soul at every point; and even God, the great I Am, is unseen, or deprived of His glory.
✦ The Cage Was Self
Guyon's images have been growing larger all week. The closet. The walk. The immutable. The vacuum filled. The deep abyss. And now — the immensity of God. The cage is open. The bird does not fly into a slightly larger cage. It flies into immensity. Into something without walls, without ceiling, without the borders that self imposed on everything.
And notice what Guyon identifies as the cage: the natural selfish life. Not persecution — she has already shown that persecution cannot imprison the soul that is hidden in God. Not circumstances. Not suffering. The cage is self. Self restricts the soul at every point. Self draws boundaries around what God can do, where God can reach, how much God can fill. And even God — the great I Am — is unseen from inside that cage. Not because He is absent. Because the bars are in the way.
When the man of sin is destroyed and the new man established — Paul in Ephesians 4:22–24, the old man put off, the new man put on — the soul is the bird released. Not improved in the cage. Not given a nicer cage. Released from it entirely. Into the immensity. Into God Himself. 🙏
Great freedom — to be able to keep my body under control and bring it into subjection to the Lord. This to me is a great gift from God. 🙏
The world hears subjection and thinks bondage. Le hears it and says: great gift. Because the bird that submits to the air is the bird that flies. The bird that fights the air falls. The subjection to the Lord that Le describes is not the closing of a cage — it is the opening of one. 1 Corinthians 9:27 — Paul's own testimony — not spoken as burden but as liberty. Yesterday's blessed abandonment is today's perfect freedom. They are the same thing. The soul abandoned into God's hands discovers that His hands are not a cage. They are the sky. 🙏
"As a bird let loose from its cage, the soul goes forth, unfettered, to dwell in the immensity of God."
Madame Guyon · The cage was self. The sky is God.When Paul asked, "Who shall deliver me from this body of death?" he added, "I thank God, through Jesus Christ our Lord." That is — when by the grace of God, the new man is established in my soul, I shall be delivered.
And subsequently, when deliverance came, he cried out in transport: "I live, and yet not I. Christ lives in me!" He was now no more occupied of himself, but let Jesus Christ live and act in him — he was animated by Him, as the body is of the soul.
If another soul animated our body, the body would obey this new soul — it would become the moving-spring of its operations. Thus Jesus Christ becomes the life of the new man.
And what can be more free, more enlarged, than the soul of Jesus? His nature is divine, eternal, boundless. Alas! to what a narrow point does self reduce us! Who that looks at the freedom and expansion of the soul, as it puts on the new man, Christ Jesus, will not crush the reptile self to the dust, that the life of God may again, as in its first creation, animate the soul?
✦ Three Moments — One Biography
Guyon traces Paul's arc through three moments — three sentences that are the entire Christian life compressed into one biography:
"Who shall deliver me from this body of death?" — Romans 7:24. The cry of despair. The honest scream of a soul that has seen what it is and cannot save itself. This is where every genuine conversion begins — at the end of self-hope. We lost all hope in ourselves.
"I thank God, through Jesus Christ our Lord" — Romans 7:25. The answer that comes not from within but from above. Not self-improvement. Deliverance.
"I live, and yet not I — Christ lives in me!" — Galatians 2:20. The bird released. Not a better version of Paul. Not Paul with improved willpower. Paul animated by a different life entirely — the way a body is animated by a soul. Jesus Christ as the moving-spring of every operation. The old soul displaced. The new soul — His soul — doing the living. 🙏
✦ The Reptile Self
And then Guyon names it with an image that crawls: the reptile self. Not the noble adversary. Not the tragic fallen angel. A reptile — low, cold, clinging to the ground, incapable of flight. She says: look at the freedom of the soul that has put on Christ — divine, eternal, boundless — and then look at what self offers. The narrow point. The restriction at every turn. Who would choose the reptile over the sky?
Who that looks at the freedom and expansion of the soul will not crush the reptile self to the dust? The question answers itself. The bird that has tasted the immensity of God cannot return to the cage and find it satisfying. The soul that has been animated by Christ cannot look at the reptile self and call it home. The cage is not merely undesirable. It is impossible to re-enter once the sky has been seen. 🙏
That was a hard truth to face — that I carried a body of death and gave much attention to it. Thank you Jesus for the new man, the new soul, the new life, and the new body. 🙏
Four gifts. Each one a cage opened. The new man — Ephesians 4, the old man put off. The new soul — Guyon's bird released into the immensity of God. The new life — Galatians 2:20, Christ as the moving-spring. The new body — no longer a body of death but a temple of the Holy Spirit, animated by Christ, brought into subjection not as bondage but as great gift. Not repaired. Not improved. Replaced. The 500 denari miracle — again, and always. 🙏
The Bird Released
As a bird let loose from its cage — the soul goes forth into the immensity of God. The cage was self. Not a slightly larger cage — immensity. Without walls, without ceiling, without the borders self imposed. The sky is God.
The Moving-Spring
Christ lives in me — animated by Him as the body is by the soul. Jesus Christ becomes the life of the new man. The moving-spring of every operation. Not improved Paul. Replaced Paul. A different life entirely, doing the living.
The Reptile Self
Low, cold, clinging to the ground, incapable of flight. To what a narrow point does self reduce us! Who that looks at the freedom of the soul in Christ will not crush the reptile to the dust? The cage is impossible to re-enter once the sky has been seen.
Six days with Madame Guyon. And today she gives us the image that holds all the others: the bird released from its cage. Every day this week has been preparation for this flight.
Day One — The Religion of the Heart: Enter the closet. The bird is still in the cage, but it has turned toward the door. The interior life begins.
Day Two — Walk by Faith: The bird does not see the sky yet — but it walks toward the door by faith, not by sight. Not by the feeling of flight. By the walk itself.
Day Three — Assurance: The bird discovers that the door is held open by something immutable. Not its own strength. His nature. The door will not close.
Day Four — Divine Communications: The cage empties — and the air rushes in. As the air rushes to a vacuum, so God fills the soul emptied of self. Blessed freedom. The first breath of the immensity.
Day Five — Joy in Persecutions: The bird discovers that even persecution cannot rebuild the cage. The deep abyss — the hiding place in God — is larger than any prison. This joy no man takes.
Day Six — Liberty in Christ: The bird is released. Into the immensity of God. Divine, eternal, boundless. The reptile self crushed to the dust. Christ as the moving-spring. I live, and yet not I.
And Le's testimony runs through every day like a golden thread. The youthful atheist from the Canal du Midi — "Who shall deliver me from this body of death?" — is the same soul who now says: "Thank you Jesus for the new man, the new soul, the new life, and the new body." Paul's three moments lived out in one biography across decades: the cry of despair, the deliverance, and the transport of Galatians 2:20.
George Bowen — the Potter and the clay: "Our own volitions cannot purify us." The bird did not open the cage. The Son opened it. If the Son make you free, you shall be free indeed. The freedom is not self-achieved. It is Son-achieved. The Potter shaped the vessel. The Son opened the cage. The Spirit animates the new man. Trinity — working from the inside out.
Steve Stroope — Galatians 2:20 lived: Le's pastor at Lake Pointe Church, five years in Rockwall, Texas. The verse that Guyon builds her entire argument around today — I live, and yet not I, Christ lives in me — is the same verse Le watched being lived out in Steve Stroope's biography. Not theory. Not exegesis. A life animated by a different life. The bird in flight, seen from the ground.
Le said: subjection to the Lord is a great gift from God. The world hears subjection and thinks bondage. The bird knows better. The bird that submits to the air is the bird that flies. The soul abandoned into God's hands discovers that His hands are not a cage. They are the sky. 🙏