J. N. Darby.
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Introduction
Chapter 1
Chapter 2-4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9-11
Romans 5.
How the heart must rejoice in the wonderful way in which scripture is made so plain, as to all that is of greatest importance to our souls! While our minds might be wondering and reasoning about many things that may be, scripture is simple and definite as to what is; although there are depths in it which we cannot fathom. All the simple truths which are necessary to our finding forgiveness and joy, being at peace with God, are contained in this chapter, as the result of what we have been already considering. The general subject of the epistle shows how God and man can be together - how man can come in peace to God. The object of the epistle is not to bring out truths connected with the church as such, but the relationship of individual souls with God.
43 In chapter 3 we saw the way in which the blood satisfied God, to save us from judgment. Christ came down and made propitiation for our sins in His blood, and having gone through all that sin deserved, He rose from the dead, and entered, an accepted man, into the presence of God; and now all that was His by right is made ours in Him. At the close of chapter 3 the instruction as to the blood, as the ground of acceptance, is finished; and the epistle goes on with the result of this, and passes to the resurrection of Christ as God's public seal on the work so far.
Chapter 4 shows righteousness imputed through faith, but identifies it thus far with forgiveness; Abraham believed God, who could - we in God who has - raised up Jesus. Having exhibited the intervention of God in power in His love to bring Christ up out of the place in which He was for us, and so set us before God in righteousness, according to the efficacy of that which He has wrought (proved in the place He holds in resurrection) we have thus peace with God. We are indeed sitting together in Christ in heavenly places, but this is Ephesian truth, not entered on here; only we are said to live by Him, and it is assumed we are in Him. We stand in perfect favour, and rejoice in hope of glory.
This chapter 5 follows out the subject of our acceptance, as founded on the death and resurrection of Christ, showing fully our condition before God. This, as founded on what precedes, closes with verse 11, and then begins quite a new subject; the contrast of our connection with the first and last Adam. This latter part treats of sin, not of sins; of man's disobedience, and one Man's obedience. Chapter 4:25 is properly in connection with the first eleven verses of chapter 5.
Remark, that it is not said, He was raised because of our justification, as is often said, and it is in a certain aspect a truth, but here it is, "for our justification"; and the next verse shows this, for God never separates justification from faith. We cannot have justification without having our souls brought into living connection with God by the exercise of individual faith. The first result of this faith will be peace with God; the second, we have access into the grace, that present divine favour wherein we stand; and third, we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. All the past connected with the old man, all our sins and offences being put away, and a new place given before God, instead of the judgment we deserved, there is perfect peace. Secondly, we have present personal introduction into the full favour of God, but not all yet in possession; therefore we rejoice in hope. Christ has borne all that deserved judgment, and entirely left our sins behind as regards the believer, who can never come into judgment before God for them, although of course there will be the Father's chastening for sin. But it is impossible that judgment can be the portion of those whose sins Christ has wholly borne away, entering and placing them, in virtue of it, in a new place of righteousness before God. As impossible as it is that Christ's work should be inadequate, or that God should punish the same sin twice over, so impossible is it for God to punish the sins of those who believe. If any one had to be shut out of heaven, so to speak, it must have been Christ, because He had taken the sins; but He was accepted, received up to glory; therefore the matter must be settled for me, if I believe; Heb. 9:27-28. He did not hold back: our sins in all their horribleness were laid upon Him (as on the day of atonement the high priest confessed the sins of the people), when judgment was fully passed upon Him. The judgment of my sins has all been settled between the all-seeing God and His spotless Son. There we have not a hope merely, but settled peace. "He by himself purged our sins, and sat down on the right hand of the majesty on high." He must have failed, or else I have perfect peace; and I know He did not fail.
44 Romans 5:1. The reference to faith here often deceives people, who would make their faith the object, and so turn back upon themselves for something to give them peace. Peace never rests upon experience. There will be experience, but peace is the answer of God to all the exercises of my conscience. I cannot trust my own heart, but I can trust God's heart, and it is in believing what this is that I find peace. The more Christ is worthy of being loved, if I bring my own selfishness into it, the more horrible must it be to God: "as dead flies cause the ointment of the apothecary to send forth a stinking savour." I cannot trust my own heart or its feelings, for it is deceitful above all things; but I can trust Christ's - He has never deceived me. True, I shall have experiences - must have them, but I am not justified by experiences: it is the answer of God to them that gives peace. There may be joy at times, when there is not settled peace, but it rests on feeling. There is a joy which flows from a knowledge of forgiveness of sins, and this is justly called peace. But the solid security of the soul flows from the second subject of this epistle, beginning verse 12, not that Christ died for our sins, but that we have died with Him. Peace means that which is settled. Faith looks at its object, not on itself, and through our Lord Jesus Christ.
45 We are not called on to believe that we do believe, but to believe that Jesus is the Son of God, by whom we have access, and are brought into perfect present favour, every cloud that could hide God's love removed, and can rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. "Thy favour is better than life, therefore I can praise thee while I live"; so that in the midst of wilderness weariness we can rejoice. There is a striking description in Revelation 4 of the scene in heaven - the twenty-four elders seated on their thrones in the presence of God revealed in this Sinai character. When terrible judgments are about to fall on the earth, they are sitting in perfect peace; and when it is said, "Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty," instead of it making them tremble and fear, "they worship him that lives for ever and ever."
"Rejoicing in hope of the glory of God." How could I think of being there, if it was not all of grace? He has not only given us blessings, but associated us with the Blesser. "The glory thou hast given me, I have given them." Here is the Christian position as such, and then all brought out: for the past, the works of the old man, peace; for the present, favour; for the future, glory. What more do I want? What more can I have? Yes, there is more, "not only so"; there are present realities for the saint to learn in the wilderness - tribulation. The more faithful the saint is, the more trouble he will have; the more blessings he has, the more trial, because there is much to be removed that would hinder the blessing when given. What need, then, in all the tribulation of the way, to know that my peace is settled; that the matter of my justification is a finished thing! Else, when I come into the trial, I shall be likely to think, How can I suppose now that I have God's favour. All seems against me, and I shall not be able to "glory in tribulation."
But see what the result of tribulation is - "tribulation works patience." I need my will to be broken, I shall expect to get a thing and never have it; I may have to cry to God three weeks, and fast, as Daniel: I have to learn patience, and in it learn the rashness of my heart that would expect everything at once. And so "patience works experience." A man in earnest to do right will, if his will be at work, be in a hurry, but he will have to find out that he must wait for God's help, as Moses had to do, who kills an Egyptian in his haste without God's bidding, and Pharaoh hearing of it, off he goes. He has, in blessed true-heartedness, chosen to leave the court of Pharaoh's daughter, where he had been brought up, and to take his place with the afflicted brickmakers. But though sincere and devoted, and with a right intention, giving up the high position in which providence had placed him, his flesh had to be broken down, and this was through forty years' tribulation in the wilderness, keeping his father-in-law's sheep. He was learning experience, and experience works hope; because what hindered and dimmed the hope is broken away by the process; earthly hope has died away, and the heavenly become more real and bright; and because in it I learn what God is. Moses had more knowledge of what the people were to be delivered for, when he went to Pharaoh by God's sending; he knew nothing of the Canaan they were to go to when he slew the Egyptian.
46 "Hope makes not ashamed." In learning experience it may be I struggle against God; but we shall find it is of no use to struggle in tribulation against God's hand, for He will hold us there until we submit; but in the end it will cause me to hope, "because the love of God is shed abroad in my heart." This gives me the key to all the tribulation, and enables me to glory in it. It is the fruit of God's own love. I confide in Him. How do I get this? By the Holy Ghost which is within me, "the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost." It is not mine but His, God's love shed abroad; God, who is love, is in me, God's own love: this brings us back to a strength of hope which nothing can shake. Notice, it is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, who makes intercession for us.
A man may say in the face of all this, But suppose I do not feel it? Well, then, you are going back from faith, and looking to your feelings. How do I know that I have it? Am I perfect? No; the love is enjoyed within, but God has graciously put the proof of it without me; I know it, because I believe that Christ died for the ungodly. I am simply an ungodly one and have no strength at all, no feeling at all, and Christ died when I had no feeling at all. Christ died when- I had no strength, and could do nothing at all. The greatest thing in heaven was given for the worst thing on earth, a sinner. I am a sinner, therefore Christ died for me. "For scarcely for a righteous man would one die." This is what distinguishes God's love from man's: while man must have some motive on which to act, something to draw out his love, God's love, on the contrary, springs from Himself; for God could find no motive in us, we were hateful.
47 How different is the Holy Ghost's reasoning from that of the natural man, or even it may be of the quickened soul, who, judging of God by himself, would say, He must judge me, for I know I deserve it! But "God commends his love … much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him." The Holy Ghost reasons downwards from what God is in grace, to the full effect of that grace; not upwards as man does, from his responsibility to what God will be. The Holy Ghost unfolds what God is, to meet the wants of my soul. True it is, the sinner deserves judgment, he needs not merely to be made better (that will not do), he wants a Saviour. Here is reasoning God will allow, He will allow it till we have got a Saviour; but here, when the Holy Ghost reasons from what God has done for the sinner, it is quite another thing.
It is much harder to learn that we are without strength than that we are ungodly. If a dead Christ is made a Saviour, a living Christ will be a friend to you. A dying Christ for you (the weakest thing, as it appears in nature, though it was God's strength), and now how will He not do all you want of Him in His life? If He died for you when your sins were on you, how much more will He care for you now your sins are gone! A living Christ cannot be to destroy you, if a dying Christ has saved you (mark, not only the power of the argument, but its grace in taking away all torment from the heart, for "fear has torment").
Verse 11. "Not only so, but we also joy in God," not only joy and happiness for ourselves in our security and in what He has given, but we can joy in God. We first rejoice in the things given, but do not rest here, we rejoice in Him who gives them, and delight in the things that God is in Himself. He is holy; He is love; He is great in goodness. I can boast in Him who has so loved us, and say what a God I have, what a God to me. Holiness would naturally terrify us: but we are in the light, and we can sit down with joy in the presence of Him who is the source of all our blessings.
48 If my will is not broken, it is true I cannot joy in God, I cannot even joy in tribulations; because He has to deal with me in such a way as to break my will, and we never like that process; but afterwards, when we are walking with Him, when He has broken it down, we can joy in Him. And so if I stray in practical walk, I do not doubt my salvation, but I cannot joy in God, though we know joy is there; we only joy in God when walking with Him. If I stray I can reflect about the joy, but I must take a double step in getting back: I must judge the sin according to the judgment of sins on the cross, where the sin I have committed is put away, and return to God's unchanging grace, before I can again joy in God.
This closes the whole subject of our sins, and God's justifying us from them by the death and resurrection of Christ, and the blessed fruits which flow from it, which, as to the revelation of God, go higher than the demonstration of my state in Christ, which follows to the end of chapter 8. The Holy Ghost is going to show in whom we get our place before God, and draws now the contrast between our headship in the first and in the last Adam, thus laying a great foundation for the principles He is going to bring out, and in which, having treated our sins and individual responsibility, He treats the question of sin, and the nature common to us all.
Verses 13-17 are in a parenthesis, and the notice of this makes the passage clear; read verse 18 in connection with verse 12. He heads all up in the obedient Man and the disobedient man. There is no longer the distinction between the Jews and Gentiles as families, nor even between man and man, each one of whom has his own sins and responsibility, but the living ones are all headed up in Christ, the unbelieving ones not, but in Adam only. We have no allusion to the bride, or union of that character here, but it is the individuals all seen in their Head. We get then the doctrine of these two men, from verses 12-18, sources of life to all connected with them, and the obedience of one, and the disobedience of the other, constituting us righteous or sinners, though each of us may have added his own sins.
But before turning more particularly to that, we will look at the contrast of grace with the law, of which the whole passage treats: "until the law sin was in the world," but the times of this ignorance God winked at, inasmuch as He did not treat with them as breakers of the law, when there was no law; but when there was law, they were governed by the law, and therefore Israel had the rod held over them, they were to be chastened for breaking the law, and banished ultimately into captivity. But the Gentiles have sinned without law, and He will judge the secrets of men by Christ Jesus; law never made sin, the sin was going on all the time from Adam to Moses, but law made the transgression. The sign of sins was present when there was no law, for death was there. My child may have a bad habit of running about the streets, but if I command him not, it is another thing, it is disobedience then, but before it was only a wrong thing that needed to be corrected. Though not after the similitude of Adam's transgression; that is, though not disobedience to a positive commandment men are sinners still, though they have not broken a given law. (It is a quotation from Hosea 6:6, "They, like Adam, have transgressed my covenant.") Sin was always there, death was always there to prove it, but law was not always there. "Imputed," in the phrase "sin is not imputed where there is no law," is a different word from "imputed" for righteousness, and the like. It signifies a positive existing act reckoned to the account of a person, as in Philemon 1:18.
49 The argument in this passage is, you are not going to shut up God to the Jews: sin was in the world before Moses, and the sin is not larger than God. If sin had been there God must go there. Christ did not come only for those under law; we must go up to the two heads, Adam and Christ, and so take in those who sinned without law, even between Adam and Moses. Grace overrides it all, "law entered that the offence might abound" - you (Jews) have added offence to offence, you need it all the more, for you have been guilty of positive transgression, but the free gift is of many offences. Verse 17. If God comes in, you will reign in life, not only sin having reigned, now life will reign, but you will reign in life. God's heart comes in, and it is greater in its effects than all the evil there has been. Verse 18. See the generality of all this upon all to condemnation, not in result, but in desert, for grace comes in to deliver.
50 By one righteousness the free gift came towards all, not in the sense of application, the meaning in each case is to or towards all (Greek eis), not upon all (Greek epi). As the one offence did not rest in its effect on Adam only, but run over to all, so the effect of the one work of righteousness did not end in Christ, but passed on toward all, "Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abides alone, but if it die, it brings forth much fruit." Verse 19. When it is a matter of application, it is the "many," not "all," that is, the many respectively connected with each head, therefore I can go to all to preach the gospel - to every creature, saying to the sinner, the blood is on the mercy-seat; but to the believer I can say, You are righteous, "so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous."
What comfort there is in the simplicity of scripture!
In the next chapter we get, as the certain effect of this newness of life, the principle of death and resurrection brought forward. But if you do not see the need of your having righteousness in Christ you do not know yourselves, you do not know the holiness of God's heart, and the unholiness of your own. Christ's death may be considered as in itself glorifying God, apart from its results; but we have the double effect or aspect of the death of Christ shown in the two goats, one of which was the Lord's lot, and the other was for the bearing away into a land of forgetfulness the sins of the people; the first was for the glory of God, the second for the sins of the sinner, in the conscience of what he had done - both were needed. I have sinned, says the awakened conscience; but all my sins were laid on Christ, says the believer.
Verse 20. The entering in of law was that the offence might abound; wherefore the law? not to make sin abound, but to make sin exceeding sinful, and that the offence might abound, "but where sin abounded, grace did much more abound," and abounding grace has been shown, for God gave His own well-beloved Son: and sin was suffered to rise up to its full wickedness, even in putting Christ to death, and then to show how powerless sin is in the presence of God's grace, that very thing, in which its greatest evil was shown as hatred against God, is that which puts it all away; God's grace rolls over it all, yet thus in righteousness. He has thus shown the utter impotency of sin in His presence.
It is not said righteousness reigned: if it had, it would have been for the eternal condemnation of all (righteousness will reign when He comes in judgment), but now grace reigns through righteousness, grace goes on in spite of all the neglect in men's hearts to it - it reigns; it does not give up its ways and purposes; grace reigns over sin, man is unable to get the mastery over Christ's love but Christ's love overcomes man - it overcame everything that lay in the way of His fulfilling His Father's will, and His obedience overcame everything; grace reigned on the cross, yet righteousness was there; grace reigns in the subjection of our hearts - where sin did reign, grace reigns. Grace means love working where there is evil. How? By the obedience of One: hence, it is through righteousness.
51 Then if there is the reign of grace in the heart, there must be practical holiness, a righteousness consistent with it; if God's love works in the heart, it is to produce in it something like Himself. His love is such as has never been seen before in heaven or on earth. His perfect love and grace, and righteousness bring out what God is, Christ is grace reigning: and God has the upper hand even as to our sins, and has put them away.
Romans 6.
We get in this chapter the practical application of the great principle of which the apostle has been speaking at the end of the preceding chapter, namely, our connection with the second Adam, as previously with the first. We shall see that it is practical in its nature, and we shall do well to see the double aspect of it; the power of practice and the real groundwork of that power. Liberty is always the ground on which grace sets us, and liberty is the only ground of the Holy Ghost's power. Liberty is that to which we are called, it is not slavery, even unto holiness, but liberty always, but that liberty death to sin. The apostle first sets forth the ground simply and clearly, and then proceeds to the fruits, for there is actual righteousness which bears fruit. As He says, "Now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life."
There is wonderful depth and value in this chapter, as there must be in that which comes from God. This practical righteousness does not merely produce a fruit down here, that is man's thoughts, and man's thoughts end always with himself; but flowing from Christian life, as we shall see, and walking in the path suited to it here below, it frees from obscuring lusts, and tends to purify the heart practically, so that we see God. It has fruit unto holiness. The daily details of a Christian's life have thus the deepest importance, not only as doing right, but that this produces fruit that goes up in holiness to God, leads to a state of soul in which God is known and enjoyed, the soul being set apart for Him.
52 All that comes from God must go back to God again: so in the meat-offering - the frankincense which was laid on the meat-offering was burnt, and the savour of it all went up to God: the priest might eat of the meat-offering, but the sweet savour of all ascended up to God; just as Christ Himself came down from God, His whole life down here being one continued savour rising up to God, and at the end He offered up Himself, a sacrifice well-pleasing to God. The reality of the fruit of righteousness is that it is living to God, as the apostle says, "Be ye therefore followers of God as dear children, and walk in love, as Christ has loved us, and given himself an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savour." This is Christian morality, it is God's nature in man. Here, however, it is only seen as a fruit or effect - the divine life coming down from God, to God it must return, and where this is wanting, it is all nothing.
All the value of an action is in the motive. Fruit will be manifested; but it is not so much what a man does, as his motive for doing it. Even in nature, two men may do the same thing from very different motives; the motive of the one being himself and his own pleasure, will be evil; while the other, being the good father of a family, and doing it for their good, his motive will be good; it is in the motive of our ordinary actions that we have to be continually judging ourselves, that we be not judged of the Lord. The saint, in judging himself, must be grieved when he sees so many other things come in and mix up with that which he presents to God; self comes in, and like the dead flies, spoils the savour of the ointment. It may not be seen by others, but our own hearts before God know how very much of self comes in, making the ointment send forth a bad savour, yet we know God graciously and lovingly accepts all our service through Christ, being a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. The great principle laid down in chapter 3 is that the blood meets our sins.
53 Chapter 4 brings out faith in the God who had come in, in power, and raised the One who was under death - raised Him from the dead. "Believing on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead." Christ was put to death in the flesh; looked at as man, we see Him going down into death, and a divine power coming in, and raising Him up again. It is precious to our souls to observe in scripture the same divine power is attributed to the three Persons, thus giving us a proof of the Trinity being engaged in the work. The Lord Jesus said, "Destroy this temple (this spake he of the temple of his body), and I will raise it up in three days"; and again, "Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father," Rom. 6:4. And He was "quickened by the Spirit."
In the former part of chapter 5 we get faith applied to justification; the conclusions from Christ's being delivered for our offences, and raised again for our justification, and the results of this are given: we have peace, present favour, and hope of glory; we rejoice in tribulations, for God's love is shed abroad in our hearts, and finally, are able to joy in God.
Then comes, beginning with verse 12, the question of sin in our nature, where all heads up in Adam and Christ, and we see that the law was brought in by the bye, when man was already a sinner, with no thought of producing righteousness, but that the offence might abound and so manifest man's sin. The law is righteous, and comes in, convicting of unrighteousness those to whom it was given, because those to whom it was given could not keep it.
Man's only ways of being with God are, to be innocent, or to be saved. If a man is innocent, he does not want the law; Adam could not have known what it meant. If it had been said to Adam, "Thou shalt not lust, thou shalt not steal" - how would it have applied? Whom was he to steal from? But the law supposes lust to be there, therefore says, "Thou shalt not lust." The commandment which forbids, supposes the forbidden thing to be there, or the tendency to it, where the thing prohibited is a sin in its nature. The fruit of the tree was in the garden, which was the very thing prohibited to Adam; but till Satan got hold of Eve, there was no lust to eat of it. "Thou shalt not eat of it," was a simple test of obedience, but even then the object was before them. A right rule only proves a fraudulent thing to be fraudulent, it does not make it right.
54 It is impossible for a man to be saved by the law, as the law supposes the presence of sin; an innocent person does not know what sin is, but man by the law is addressed as a sinner, that he might be saved by grace; but God having now come in, He could not confine Himself to those merely under law, but extends His grace to all - grace is the only ground He can be upon. Again, the law was not given till four hundred years after the promise. The promise was first.
In chapter 5:19, we have the two headships brought out in their results. By one man's disobedience, etc., and, note here, all are thus alike, the individual's sins do not come into account, though they do in judgment, for we are judged according to our works. But here, one man's disobedience made us sinners, and one Man's obedience makes us righteous. That seemed to make it no matter how we lived; but the subject of chapter 6 is just to meet such a thought as this. The perverseness of the flesh will turn the law to a different purpose from that for which God gave it, and grace for a different end from that for which God bestowed it. The law that was given to convict man of sin, man takes up to make a righteousness of his own out of it; and grace that was really given to make man holy, man turns into licentiousness. Though it is true that souls were quickened before Christ came, by virtue of His divine power to quicken whom He would, yet we get this great fact, that Adam became a fallen man, a sinner, and lost, before he was the head of the fallen family. So Christ finishes the work for righteousness before He becomes the head of the redeemed family.
We have not only come into the position of fallen Adam, but we have got a nature that likes sin; and where there is the life of Christ there is a nature which loves holiness: this is the argument of the apostle. But if a man naturally likes unholiness, how is he to get rid of this? His reply is, "How shall we that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?" It is not an argument as to what we ought to be. That which forms the groundwork of Christian life is that we have died with Christ. It is never said to man, You ought to die to sin. The believer is placed in Christ. How? In a Christ who has died and is risen. That life which I have in Christ is after Christ is dead and risen again; thus I have life in a Christ who has died (that is where I exist), in whom I have died unto sin, for if we are made partakers of justification through Him, it is because we are made partakers of His death. But, if, as regards the old sinful Adam, we are made partakers of death - have our part in and by it - we cannot live on.
55 To follow more precisely the apostle's argument: If I am a Christian, justified by Him, it is that I have part in His death. It is my very profession. I have been baptised to His death. But if I have died to sin to be made righteous, I cannot live in it because I am righteous. You have died unto sin in Christ. There is more than that when we look into it, as to detail: the blood of atonement was put upon the tip of the right ear, the thumb of the right hand, and the great toe of the right foot of the priest, thus showing that we are not only saved by the blood, but that nothing was to be allowed in thought, word, or deed, discordant with its holy claim. There is that which becomes a Christian, but that is not what is brought out here, but the truth of our having part in His death, so that we are to reckon ourselves alive to God through Him, not through the first Adam in his flesh.
How have you got your place, your life, your character in Christ, but through a dead and risen Christ? Well then, if I am dead, I am not still alive. Hence it is that the exhortation is never to us, to die, for we have died with Christ. How then can a man live in that to which he is dead? It cannot be. If I am dead to sin I cannot live in sin, God forbid! There is putting to death, for practically we are to mortify our members, that is power, but we are never told to die to sin. You may try to die to it, but it will not do. It is still there. But the cross of Christ has for faith killed your sin, when He put your sins away.
We first get a new life and a new nature, and then we can begin to kill the members of the old nature, reckoning oneself dead, otherwise it is hopeless. I can now deal with this old thing as not me, for now I have a new thing which is me, therefore I do not admit that old thing to be me at all. I have for ever done with it, having got this new thing by which the old is overcome. In this chapter 6, the apostle is speaking of our liberty, as scripture always addresses the believer as dead with Christ.
What Christ have you a part in? Not one living on the earth before death, but in His death, though He be now alive again. "Buried with him by baptism unto death, that like as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life." Thus we get the glory of the Father as all engaged in the resurrection of Christ, and in result, as the measure of our walk down here. "By the glory of the Father." I can rest upon that expression, because it is that which can feed the heart, for Christ, as man, is brought out by and into the full glory of the Father, and that which meets the subtlety of the world's pretension (for the world had rejected Him), and the subtlety in our hearts, for all that leans to what obscures that, is the old man, which would have, not that which is of the Father, but of the world.
56 The Christian is fed and settled by what shows the perfection of Christ, as raised by the glory of the Father. There is not a single thing that was connected with the glory of the Father that was not made good by the death and sealed by the resurrection of Christ. Take death, for instance, God's righteous judgment, but the ruin of His creature, and the present display of Satan's power. We had all come under the power of death. Divine power comes in, and raises Him who, in grace towards us, went down under death, and by raising Him makes good God's judgment, while it sets aside what it was exercised in, and destroys him that had the power of death, that is the devil. There was the power of God, the love of the Father shown out besides, for it was the Son who was there; and yet His righteousness, too, for Christ had fully glorified Him there, where it would seem impossible, made sin - and in death, its wages - for us. Was ever the love of the Father drawn out in like manner, as in the resurrection of Christ? Never! There was in Christ's death a fresh motive for the Father's love, in the Son's sacrificing Himself to show forth the Father's glory. Then the Father's own glory was concerned in it, because it was the Father's own Son, one with Himself, who was under death; therefore the Father must come in and raise Him up, for His own glory.
Then also the righteousness of God is concerned. The world was to be convinced of righteousness, therefore God could not leave His soul in hell, neither could He suffer His Holy One to see corruption. He was God manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, received up in glory. The angels must be witnesses of this great work of the resurrection of the Son of God. There would have been a hopeless gap in heaven, could it have been possible (which it was not, He could not be holden of it) for Christ not to have been raised from the dead and set at the right hand of God.
57 Now we see (I do not say realise) what this newness of life must be. The character of this newness of life is that I know the Father. Ought I not to see divine righteousness in it? Ought I not to see divine love in it? Ought I not to see the glory of His person in it? When I see Him who went down into the lowest parts of the earth, I see the Father's glory going down, so to speak, there, to raise Him up to His own right hand, and this it is that associates my thoughts with, and gives me the knowledge of, the Father's glory. The soul, in the power of the Holy Ghost, entering into the knowledge of the Person of Him who went down into the grave, must be filled with adoring wonder and praise, for the heart, seeing the Father concerned about Christ, goes up to the glory of the Father. Where God has thus made the soul to comprehend that a once dead Christ has ascended up to God, that is everything. For how could you or I rise up to see the glory of the Father? Impossible! But His glory is brought near to me, when I see the Father raising up a dead Christ, knowing that Christ was in the grave, because of sin, though Son of God, and that He is now with God in heaven.
Thus my affections are drawn out, when I see who it was that went down to death for me. For how came He there? Because I was a sinner, yet He glorified His Father in all that He, the Father, was. And do I not see that He, who was there so laid, deserved to be raised? For who was it? The blessed Son of God, who had taken the form of a servant, and was found in fashion as a man. Do you think that a poor unconverted person sees that the Father must have raised up Jesus, even for His own glory, seeing who He was, and what He had done? No; and therefore, when speaking to the woman of Samaria, when He had said, "If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink," and she replies, "Give me this water," and there was no intelligence of what He presented to her; then He speaks to her conscience, "Go, call thy husband," and that opens her understanding. "I perceive thou art a prophet"; but when Jesus saith unto her, "I that speak unto thee am he," then the divine knowledge of the Person of the Son of God opens out to her soul. And the Person of the Lord filling her heart, she goes and tells others about Him. The revelation of the Person of the Son of God to this woman's soul, was the turning-point in her history. So it is with us. When we have intelligently received the Person of the Son of God, not as a doctrine merely, but as the object and power of a new life in our souls, then our hearts follow Christ, as it were, and go up after Him in spirit in this new life, and everything is dead to us below. This is the victory that overcomes the world, even our faith. I do not say there will be no conflict, but the heart has done with everything out of Christ. Then, how very near it comes to us, yea, is realised in us! "For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death"; that is, entering into, and associated with Him in death down here. Grace comes down to us here, and Christ goes down to death for us.
58 Was divine love the less, because it was down here, and not above? No: it reached even to my state of sin, for it was to sin that Christ died, as He did for my sins. Was divine power the less? No: He has destroyed, on the contrary, the power of death, and him who held it. It is there I learn that the Son of God must go down unto death, if He is to deliver me from sin; and as His heart followed me down here to be made sin, so now my heart is to follow Him in resurrection (for if I have a portion in His death, I shall have also in His resurrection). For I cannot have a half Christ, and it is not merely that my sins are put away, because justification includes not merely the fact that He died, but also that He is personally accepted of God, and if He raised again, it is in the power of a new life. So that our old man is crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin, or as the word is, that you should not be the slaves of sin, for you were slaves unto sin, but now you are freed (justified) from sin. He does not speak merely of sins. But no one can charge sin, the activity of lust and will, on a dead man. You were slaves, properly speaking, under the title of dominion by another, for the slave is ordered wherever his master pleases, not knowing at night what he should do in the morning; naturally we are slaves to sin.
The passage in John 8:33 is remarkable, as showing that it was slavery to sin under the law, for the Jews being addressed as under the law, it says, the servant, or, slave, abides not in the house for ever, but the Son abides ever; if the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed. So we are freed from the slavery in which we were held, and in perfect liberty, all having been left behind in death, for he that has done with sin must be dead to it. When a man is dead you cannot charge him with anything; his life has ceased to exist, he is out of the scene. If you say, How can I be free from sin, when I find it still in me? That is gone to which sin was attached. We are not told to die, for we are dead, and you cannot be charged with sin if you are dead, neither can you be under its power. Do you ask, How can that be, when I find I am not dead? Because it is in Christ you have died. Christ was put in your place. Is Christ in the grave? No; the thing to which sin is attached is gone, is done with, for He has died. Do not say it is not so. Are you wiser than God? for God says it is so. The tree and the fruit are both judged in God's sight. Christ has died for the tree and its fruit, as that which could be charged on you, and died to sin, so that you may reckon yourself dead to it. Christ attached sin to Himself on the cross, and it is gone for ever; there is an utter end of sin for faith; it is the vile thing I hate. Am I distressed about my evil deeds? They are the very things that Christ's death put away. Am I distressed about sin in the flesh? I am not in the flesh, I have died to it, for I have my life in Christ, who has died. "Reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin." I should have no need of such a word as reckon, if there was no more actual existence of sin in the flesh; I am called to mortify, in living power in Christ, the deeds of the body, not to die to sin, but to reckon myself dead. It is holy liberty from sin we have, and not liberty to sin. I am to reckon myself to be what faith shows me Christ is in my place; and walk in newness of life,* then there will be the fruit unto holiness.
{ *Verse 1 of chapter 6 treats of continuing in sin, because of grace; since one Man's obedience saves me, I cannot, for I have my part in death. That is not living in it. Verse 15 supposes me free in the power of a new life. Am I to sin in this freedom, or give myself up to God? Which is the meaning and character of this new life I have through Christ?}
59 I would make two remarks here. First, the fruits are produced; still, the grand doctrine of Christianity is, that I am saved by a mediator; if I have to answer for myself, I am lost; "Enter not into judgment with thy servant," Psa. 143:2. If God enters into judgment with me, all is over with me. The whole doctrine of grace is, saved by a mediator; for, "if I wash myself in snow-water, and make my hands never so clean, yet wilt thou plunge me in the ditch, and mine own clothes shall abhor me." The instant I see God's eye upon me, I shall see myself as one out of a ditch, yea, my clothes shall abhor me. Job wanted a daysman, to lay his hand upon both. My coming to God depends upon some one coming between.
60 The conscience should be delicate as to the slightest approach of evil, only let it be in liberty. The more delicate the conscience as to the sense of the least defilement, the more the need of a mediator is felt. But you say, I find that what ought to be dead in me is still alive. Well, did Christ die for the sin that you have not, or for the sin you have? The very sin you are daily finding out in yourself, this is the very sin for which Christ died.
Jealousy of conscience about sin is right, the more the better, only with it remember the grace which has put it away. Christ has set me in a new life through Himself, raised from the dead, so that death cannot touch it, because He lives beyond its power; judgment cannot touch it, because He has borne it and died, there is not a single thing that could ever possibly come against me, that the blessed One did not allow to come against Him. Yea, He took it all upon Himself, and we are clean out of the Red Sea, on the other side; that life which we now live, we live by Him, reckoning ourselves dead to sin, because He died unto sin; He died not for Himself, but to sin, to enter into a new state of existence as man, and we live through Him. See the holiness of Him who was "made sin." He was taken through everything, He was thoroughly tested in every way, to try if He were in anything unwilling to obey. What if He had shrunk? But no, every evil was refused by His blessed holy nature. He learned obedience by the things He suffered. He went through everything - the scorn of the world - the power of Satan, even to the wrath of God. He was tempted in all points, like as we are, sin apart - Satan found nothing in Him. It was His meat and His drink to do His Father's will.
But it is never said He took delight in suffering for sin, but He says, "If it be possible, let this cup pass from me"; the having His Father's countenance withdrawn from Him, when bearing the sin, He could not find delight in; but He had said before, "I delight to do my Father's will." This cup, He asked that it might pass from Him; no other cup did He ever ask to be withdrawn, and now He said, "Nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt." He would rather suffer this than that God should not be glorified.
61 We can now share the suffering for righteousness' sake, but the suffering for sin we cannot share; He made an end of that, and now He lives beyond it all in resurrection. He had the Spirit of holiness (all His life through this was true of Him), and during His life down here it was fully tested, but now we see Him alive again, "raised from the dead, according to the Spirit of holiness"; therefore He is no half-Saviour, for He died unto sin, and now He lives unto God. Therefore we are to reckon ourselves to be dead unto sin, and live unto God. This is a very practical question, for it is not that you are to say, if you have not the realisation of this, you cannot have the value of the blood; no; you must first know the value of the blood, and so have it all in Christ. The groundwork of living to Him is to be dead to sin; but we are to reckon ourselves dead to sin in Him. It can avail nothing to exhort you to live to God, if you have not the life of God in you. There is the double thing, the position in which God has set you, and the fact that people expect to see what you really are manifested.
It is not said experience yourself dead to sin, but reckon yourself; nor is it said you may reckon yourself so, when you see yourself walking with God; neither does He say, when sin does not reign in your mortal bodies, then reckon yourselves dead to sin. No; that is not grace; but the Holy Ghost draws the practical consequence from all which faith teaches. This is the only means of living godly before the world.
Righteousness, as stated in the end of chapter 5, shows me how I am enabled by it to live before God; I can only be living before the world, then, as belonging to God; so I can only be living before God in the sense of acceptance, being justified from sins by the blood, and now dead to sin, reckoning myself so, because Christ who is my life died unto sin, and I am free. Then how blessedly comes in "yield yourselves," not merely to righteousness, though it be so, but to God, never stopping short of God. If I do a right thing, and do not do it to God, all is short of its true end and character; my heart is not right in its aim and motive. I should really therefore yield myself to God. Did Christ ever do anything for Himself? No; for in the gospels we see His was a life of love. He had not time even to eat; always living for others. He not only did things which were commanded, but because they were commanded; the will of God being not only the guide, but the motive of all He did. He gave Himself for us, but a sacrifice and offering to God.
62 Well, then, if you are delivered from sin, you are delivered from yourself, and what a blessed deliverance, to have a right to have done with myself! It is the best thing in the world to have done with myself. "Sin shall not have dominion over you, for ye are not under the law, but under grace." If we are under the law, we are under the dominion, as well as under the curse of sin. "Oh, but," you say, "sin has dominion over me, therefore I am afraid God will not have me." What are you doing with grace? How can you dare to come before God for anything, if you are not standing in grace? It is only as you are under grace, that you can have any power over sin. If you are standing in grace, you are under favour, because God is good - you are free, but you are under grace; therefore Romans 5 comes before chapter 6, righteousness before holy liberty in life, and if you try to reverse them, you get into chapter 7.
If, because I do not love Christ as I ought, which is a higher thing than the law, I then begin to doubt whether I am His or not, I am still under law, but with a higher standard, Christ being the law, instead of the ten commandments. It is not realising grace. God loves the holy angels, but that is not properly speaking grace. Grace is love towards those who do not deserve it. Oh! but you say, if a man is delivered from the law he may become careless; the subtlety of the heart is such that it is quite true it may abuse grace. Law is given to convict of sin; man uses it to make out righteousness; grace to free man from sin, and give him power over it, and he uses it to licentiousness. But a person is not to be licentious, because he is free from the law - "ye became the servants of righteousness."
If we are led of the Spirit, we are not under the law, but we shall be led in holiness; we have liberty, and not slavery, but it is divine deliverance from the power of sin; we yield ourselves wholly to God, because we are free to do so, and if God has given you liberty, will you be a slave again to sin? But now being made free from sin and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness. What is holiness? Separation from, and abhorrence of what is evil, and for us by separation of heart to God. I should not call Adam holy, but innocent; God is holy, for God abhors evil, having full knowledge of it, and delights in good; Christ is holy; we, too, are holy, for in the new man which we have put on, we hate the evil and love the good, though we cannot do it as God does. Holiness in us must necessarily have God for its object. In walking in righteousness, the heart has to say to God obediently; the will is not in activity, the lusts not at work. The effect, through grace, is growing separation of heart to God, and acquaintance with Him. Thus you have your fruit unto holiness. What fruit does sin bear? None; it only brings to death. I walk in what is pleasing to God, and thus, the new man being active likes what God likes; and what will be the consequence of this? In the moral activities of this new life, I get separated from the influence of evil, increasing in the knowledge of God; not only actual fruits produced (though that is true, as the tree will be known by its fruits), but this practical bringing forth of internal fruit is connected with righteousness according to the will of God, and a walk with Him in the light.
63 The secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him; I get drawn away from the spirit of the world - this practical walking with God is connected with growth in the knowledge of God, leads me on in likeness to Him: in every-day life to have a constant reference to God's will, leads into the light practically. "If the eye be single, the whole body will be full of light." Learning God - going on with God, not merely slipping and then getting on again. It is not simply desiring to live to Christ, but our hearts should be more withdrawn from everything around, a thorough consecration of the heart, a growing up in the knowledge of God in heart and spirit; and there will be this growing up unto God, if our life be yielded to Him - servants to God - having God's will as our blessed privilege. God's own will, flowing from His nature, should be our will. What is higher or more blessed than this? It is what Christ had; Christ thought it worth while to leave heaven to do God's will, that we might be drawn up there, and made to bring forth fruit unto holiness down here.
64 There is a positive joy in pleasing God, it is perfect liberty. The gift of God is eternal life; and it is sweet to see that while grace leads us through the path of righteousness, it is still all grace. I would rather have eternal life as the gift of God, than ten lives of my own, because it is the proof of His love to me. The Lord grant that our hearts may be so grounded in grace, that we may indeed yield ourselves unto God, and be growing up in the doing of His will - remembering it is founded on reckoning ourselves dead to sin, and alive unto God; thus we live out of the world, as to separation from evil. as He is.
Romans 7.
You will remember what we have been treating of up to the end of chapter 3, all under sin, and propitiation made for our sins by the precious blood of Christ. All our actual guilt dealt with; so that we cannot overrate the importance of the subject. So in chapter 4 we have seen the apostle developing the grand doctrine of the resurrection - the believing in God as the One who raised the dead. It is not merely putting away sin from the guilty person, but it is God acting on the very Person who was delivered for our offences, and for a little moment under death.
The power of this raising the dead was first exercised on the Person of Christ, here looked at as delivered for our offences, and raised again for our justification - that is, the application does not go beyond the justifying effect of resurrection, the new position of Christ as delivered for our offences, and so raised again by God, a witness of the efficacy of His work, and the new place He has thus entered into as Man. Elsewhere we learn what the exercise of the same power of God is in us who believe, so that we are viewed as risen with Him, but this is Ephesian teaching. There we see the saints quickened by the Spirit of God, in the exercise of the very same divine power that raised Christ from the dead and quickened together with Christ, the same being thus associated with Christ in resurrection.
In chapter 5:1-11, we have the results of this resurrection of Christ. The justification of the sinner by faith, in putting away sins by the blood, and a full justification through the resurrection of Christ, peace, present favour, hope of glory, rejoicing in tribulations, rejoicing in God Himself.
65 From verse 12 to end of chapter, we get our connection with the first Adam, and the Last, so that not merely individual sins are in question, but a single head involving those connected with it in the consequences of his act, and in the partaking of a life or nature derived from that head - the one constituting his family, sinners; the other, righteous. The flesh says, if one man's obedience makes me righteous, I may continue in the sin of my old nature! No: you are dead to sin, and what you are dead to, you cannot live in.
In chapter 6 the objections of the natural man to the obedience of Christ constituting us righteous are all met, as the apostle connects practical righteousness and a holy life with being dead with Christ, and the reception of a new life to God through Him as a necessary result. This important point we must pursue a little more fully. The Christ in whom we have part, as thus interested in His obedience, is Christ who has died and is risen; and if we are associated with Him, we are associated with Him in death. The public profession of Christianity was baptism to His death. We have been planted in the likeness of His death, we cannot live in what we have died to.
This treats of our continuance in sin, the principle and condition of our Adam nature. But more, if planted in the likeness of His death, we shall be of His resurrection; that is, the power of His life will show itself in us.
He does not say we are risen with Him; which would in itself suppose full redemption, with life, and a place and condition before God. Here it is practical, a new character of life - we are to walk in newness of life. I am, then, to reckon myself dead, and alive unto God, through, or in, Jesus Christ our Lord. Yet it is not as raised with Him, but quickened by Him or in the power of His life. When quickened together with Him, He is looked at as dead, and union is involved in it; not "with" here, but we have the new life through Him. Hence, I am free, for I reckon the old nature dead.
Here comes in the second point of the chapter. To whom am I going to yield myself, if thus free in life - to sin again? God forbid. I am a slave, to use a human figure, says the apostle, to Him to whom I give myself up, not therefore surely to sin, but to God; and my members as instruments of righteousness to God. The law I am not under; that comes requiring, and really addresses itself to me as alive in the flesh. But the absence of legal requirement does not lead me to sin, my freedom is to serve God, to be obedient. Such is life through Christ.
66 But there is more: what fruit had we in the things we are now ashamed of? None; and they end in death. But now we have, in the path of obedience, fruit - fruit unto holiness. "Shew me thy way," says Moses, "that I may know thee." In the path of obedience will is not at work, lusts are not at work; we are with God, we have His mind, our hearts are separate to Him, we know Him better. Hence, in increased spiritual discernment of good and evil, and conscious knowledge of God, there is fruit unto holiness, intelligent separation of heart to Him, ever better known.
The beginning of the chapter raises the question of continuance in sin, when another's obedience makes us righteous; the end, when set free, to what we yield ourselves, and its blessed fruit, yet bringing out all as grace. The gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. And let us remark, that while it is for righteousness and for obedience - for the new nature loves both - it is to God, we yield ourselves to God. What a blessed freedom of heart and position, to be able to give ourselves up, and up to God Himself, in the knowledge of Him! In the chapter which follows he shows how, as dead, we are not under law, which claims, and is not freedom, nor delivers at all, so as to be free to yield ourselves thus to God.
Chapter 7, then, applies this doctrine of being dead to our position in respect of the law. The practical effect of the new nature in me, if not freed from the law, is to give me such a sense of what God is, and what self is, as to make me perfectly miserable. It gives me the sense of good and evil, but good unattained, and evil to which I am a slave. But this chapter 7 shows the effect of my being dead, on my relationship with law: I am delivered from it. It is not merely that we are justified, nor yet merely that we have a new nature, but that we are delivered from the law. The apostle takes care to show that there is no fault in the law, but that we are delivered from it.
As many as pretend to take their stand with God, as being under the law, are under the curse, "for as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse." It is not that the works are bad, but the effect of our being under the law puts us under the curse. It is useless for you to talk of using the law, not for justification, but for sanctification, or as a rule of life: you cannot use the law for this or that according to your own fancies. It will use its rights over you as it pleases. God is saying by the law to those who are under it, "You have not obeyed Me, and I am going to curse you." You cannot deal with God's law as you like; for if you will have God's law, you must take it with all the consequences God has attached to it.
67 There is no power whatever in the law to sanctify. It is not in the capacity of the law to sanctify a sinner. It is holy, just, and good, but when applied it must condemn the sinner. It must condemn all under it. It requires from themselves obedience to it. Nothing ever so fully established the claims of the law as God's Son dying under it. Of course, the positive effect of our being under the law is, that it of itself puts us under the curse. But we know that the law is good, if a man use it lawfully.
Assuredly, the law is good; it would be blasphemy to think otherwise. But the question is, what is the lawful use of it? It is never said that it is good to be under the law, though the law is good in itself. The law is good to detect the state of the heart. Who is there that has not broken the law? Who has not lusted? Who loves God with all his heart? No; you love yourselves better; and who loves his neighbour really quite as well as himself? Not one of us; then we are all under the curse, if we are under the law. The law is good, if a man use it lawfully; knowing this, that the law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient
The law is useful as a weapon, but it is one that has no handle; for if I, a man in the flesh take it to use against others, it pierces me through quite as much as those against whom I wield it. It is as sharp for me as for them. See John 8, where the scribes and Pharisees brought to Jesus a woman taken in adultery; their wicked hearts thought to prove Jesus to be in the wrong, whether in condemning or saving her. If He condemned, He was no Saviour - the law could do as much; if He let off, He had set aside the law - profound wickedness! They quote the law; very well; but it is as much a law to themselves as for her; for Jesus said unto them, "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her," "and they which heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, went out one by one." Christ having thus condemned them all by the law, He then takes up the woman in grace, and says to her, "Neither do I condemn thee; go, and sin no more." The law was made for unrighteous persons. Why do I say to you, that you must not lust? If lust were not there, where would be the use of it? But if lust is there, what can the law do but condemn it? As a system, the law was given 2,600 years after sin came in, and what could it do but condemn? It was never meant to do anything but to condemn, to prove the heart, and to give the knowledge of sin: we should thoroughly understand what deliverance from it is, if we would be truly free in Christ - children of the free woman. It is surely useful always, as God's weapon to convince.
68 In chapter 7, the apostle applies the doctrine of death to the law, and he opens it in this way, "Know ye not that the law has dominion over a man as long as he lives?" It is true even of human law, and physical death. He proceeds with the analogy of husband and wife. You cannot have two husbands at one and the same time - we cannot have Christ and the law both at once. We are bound up with one or the other, as a principle, to God. The woman cannot have two husbands. "Wherefore ye are become dead to the law by the body of Christ." It is not that the law has died, we are dead; the image, so far, changes, but the bond is broken; and this difference is blessed, because I hold also my old evil nature for dead, and this is by the body of Christ. In His death, as we have seen, I reckon myself dead. The law was never abrogated, and the principle of it was sanctioned as of God, and those that have sinned under it will be judged by it. Verse 6 correctly reads: "but now we are clear from the law, having died in that in which we were held." It is not then, that the law is dead, but we are dead to that by which we were held. Hence, note, death to sin goes with it. Therefore, the apostle says, we are dead to the law by the body of Christ, because Christ was made a curse for us, and died under it, as bearing the curse. But how? Why the law applied its full curse to Him, as willingly offering Himself, and He died under it.
The law as a weapon took its full effect on Christ. It did everything it possibly could, by way of its curse coming on Christ. The curse of the law was the death of the sinner, and Christ in grace was made sin for us; therefore, what could the law do more than spend its full curse on the head of Him, who was made sin for us, who died under the law? Christ was born under the law and kept it. He puts Himself under its curse, and goes through it all, and rises entirely out of it. And faith applies Christ's position to the believer. But alas! to how many Christians law is Christianity. But Christ comes as a Mediator, and takes my place, my whole cause: and faith has received all that. He thus was in my place, bringing all the good of it to myself, as if I were in His place. He is not speaking of union with Him now, as in Ephesians. I come and have my place actually and livingly in Christ, for He is the quickening Spirit, the last Adam, who comes and gives me a portion with Himself in His present position. All question of the claims of the law upon the believer has passed away in Christ, for in Christ he has died to the life and position in which he could be under it; and now I have a life in Christ after the whole question of law is settled before God. I am married to another husband, to Him who is raised from the dead.
69 The Jew is still fully under the law. The believer has died to it in Christ. Does this weaken the power of the law? No, not at all, it has all its power. See Galatians 2:19-20. I through the law am dead to the law. But it cannot put forth its killing power on me, if I am dead. It has killed me, and that is what delivers me, for I am in Christ, and it killed Him. The law found sin in me, and executed all its full curse upon Him, who was made sin for me; and now I can reason about it in peace, because its curse is gone, which has been fully borne by Christ.
The law was formerly the religious tie with God, but now another is our tie with God. For it is not now the law, but my new husband, Christ in resurrection; we are dead to the law by the body of Christ, that we should be married to another, even to Him that is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God. And because of this new graft in the heart of the believer, God is looking for new fruit; for God has ceased to look for fruit from man's nature, it has only brought forth wild evil fruit. This was fully brought out in the cross of Christ; but now there is the new thing, on which God's mind is set. Well, then, as we cannot have the two husbands at once, so if in any wise we are under the law, we are under its curse; and what is more, you cannot get from under its curse, for you have sin in your flesh, and the law can never allow the working of sin in the flesh, it must necessarily bring out its curse. You talk of sanctification, but you are not sanctified enough for the law, for it will not let you off in any wise. You may have the desire to be good, but you have not yet owned how thoroughly bad you are. God is not looking for any good in you, for He says, "There is none that understands, none that seeks, none righteous, no, not one." Now this you do not believe, for you are thinking there is some good in you, or hoping for it; you do not believe yourself to be thoroughly bad, as God says you are. And the very way God brings to our consciences what we really are, is that He often leaves us under the condemnation of the law, that it may prove to us what our true state by nature is; and when we have learnt this, we shall be glad enough to be delivered from the law.
70 Do you say, that being taken from under the law leads to licentiousness? What! do you mean to say, then, that Christ's life in us leads to licentiousness? It is true that the flesh will abuse everything; but the living power of grace, the reality, what there is in the life of Christ, cannot be believed in by those who say, that if we are not kept under the law we shall sin.
If you use the law for sanctification, you do not know yourselves; and if you think you will be holier by living under the law, it is plain you do not know what it is. I dare any one of you to be under it in God's presence. No; not one of you could stand under it in God's presence for one single moment: "In thy sight shall no man living be justified." This is the ground the law will take with you; it can take no other, for the law knows nothing of grace - it would not be law if it did. Again, I say, you are not really reduced to the sense of what it is to be brought under the law, if you present yourself to God to be judged by it, and the law always brings into judgment, and then all is over, all is lost. The law allows of no excuse. It will have a perfect righteousness in use.
But farther, when we were in the flesh, the motions of sin, which were by the law, did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death; that was not the fault of the law, for while there is will in man, man can never produce what God desires. The law is applied to man as he is, it does not speak of the new nature. The law says, I must have obedience to God. You say, Oh! but I have flesh in me. I know nothing of that, says the law. I hate these lusts, you reply to it. So do I, says the law, and that is the reason I am cursing you, for you have them. The law allows of no excuses, and this is its value; it would not be a perfect law if it did, for it would be a bad law if it allowed any evil or failure. Do you love God with all your heart? No; you know you do not. Then you are under the curse. Do you love your neighbour as yourself? No; I do not deny there may be much kindness of feeling, sympathy, and the like; but if your neighbour loses his fortune, do you feel it just as much as if you had lost your own? No, you do not. Then you are under the curse. The effect of a law where there is a will is that it brings out the will; for it makes a man strive against that which checks his will, but that is not the fault of the law, but the fault of sin that there is in him. It is in fallen human nature to will to do a thing that is forbidden; for instance, if a cup were turned over on the table, and at the same time it was declared that no one must know what was under it, all in the room would desire to know it immediately. Thus sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it slew me.
Now, we are delivered from the law. But do you really believe that it is deliverance? If not, you do not know what flesh is, neither do you know what holiness is. Still, the law is good of itself: that must ever be guarded. It would be blasphemy to speak ill of it as God's law. But now we are delivered from the law, having died in that wherein we were held, that we should serve in the newness of the spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter. The law is not dead. It is still in full force against the unrighteousness of the man who is under it; but I have died under it. The law has condemned me, and spent its full curse on me in Christ.
The moment I get life in Christ, I am in partnership with Him, and partnership involves participation in all the advantages of the one with whom we are admitted partners. All my debts having been discharged withal, I am brought into the position in which Christ is. I brought nothing in. His kindness brought me in. But then I speak as a partner would of his capital, customers, and the like; so we, of being dead, alive, and the like. And now I can serve in the newness of the spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter. We do not blame the law. God forbid! But I had not known sin, but by the law, "for when the commandment came, sin revived and I died." Thus death was brought into my soul by the knowledge of sin; but will that bring to God? Never! It shows my need of grace and a deliverer. The law says, Thou shalt not lust; then it is all over with me, for I am one with Adam, and I am full of lust. "Sin, taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence"; that is, the law suggested it, by forbidding it.
72 Suppose a person to say, "I am going to do such and such a thing," and I say, "Oh, don't do that," when self-will is at work, he desires the more to do it immediately. It is useless to try and combat with sin in this way. Yet the awakened conscience and the prohibition combine to make one know that it is wrong, and put me consciously guilty before God. The commandment, which was ordained to life, I found to be unto death. This was not the fault of the commandment, but being a sinner, the commandment which should have been the ministration of life, which said, "Do this and live," necessarily became the ministration of death.
Let me return now to verse 5, which contains an important principle, from which all this sorrow flows. "When we were in the flesh": compare this with verse 9 of chapter 8, "But ye are not in the flesh" (though the flesh may be in you). Now this is the key to all that has been said, and gives it its full power. If you are dead with Christ, and have life through Him, you are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit. The natural man, we know, is in the flesh, nor does the law quicken him. But there is a further case. Suppose him quickened and under the law: still the law takes up man in the flesh, in principle, as to his position and conscience, and condemns him in the very thing in which he stands, as to his own consciousness before God, that is, his own personal responsibilities, but according to God's intention.
Now, as regards my conscious position, I am always in the flesh, that is, as a child of Adam, on my own responsibility, till I know myself to be dead with Christ, and redeemed out of it. The being born again only makes me apprehend the spirituality of the law, the force of "Thou shalt not lust." It does not show me sin in nature, but it gives me the knowledge of it by its first movements, and the painful discovery that, when I would do good, evil is present with me. I still do what I hate, and do not do what I would. It does not give the Spirit, which does give power, as it is the witness of liberty, but leaves a man just where he was in his responsibility, according to the first Adam's place, and says, "Keep the law, and there is life; do this, and live"; and if there be life communicated, it does not hinder the working of the flesh, which yet it still condemns, and our conscience says, rightly. Thus the fact of being quickened by God does not give deliverance, while the conscience is under the law, though such have really a part in it; but it gives through the law the deep sense of the need of deliverance, because we cannot succeed in what we really desire. The law and flesh, and sin and death, go together, they are correlative. But if I have died, the other three have lost their power over me. If dead I am clearly no longer in the flesh. I say, When we were in the flesh, the motions of sin which were by the law wrought in our members to bring forth fruit unto death. But as to our conscious place, we all are in the flesh, unless the Spirit of God by virtue of redemption dwell in us. Redemption, therefore, and the knowledge of redemption (of our having died, moreover, with Christ), is what we need for this deliverance. The apostle, while ascribing the effect to the law, yet carefully guards the law: "Was, then, that which is good made death unto me? God forbid! But sin, that it might appear sin, working death in me by that which is good; that sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful."
73 This brings us to the main point of the chapter, not only flesh, of which we have spoken, but the operation of the law, and its effect, and that even on those who can delight in it spiritually. It works death; for we, Christians, know it is spiritual, but I as a child of Adam, am carnal, sold, that is a slave, under sin; and sin only becomes exceeding sinful by the law, working in me all manner of concupiscence. It has not, then, as such, sanctifying power. It cannot make me holy. Is not the law good then? Yes! it is holy, just, and good. But I, as in the flesh, am not subject to it.
The apostle asks two questions here: Is the law sin? No, he says; but he would not have known sin, nor had sin on his conscience, but for it. Secondly, was it made death to him? No doubt sin wrought death in him by it. And this is its use. There is the knowledge of sin, and sin becomes exceeding sinful. Note here, it is all along sin, not sins. Paul had nothing externally on his conscience; but when the law became spiritual to him, then he found lusts and sin. That is what is discovered here, it is not what we have done, but what we are, that is, in the flesh.
74 There are three things in this chapter. In the first six verses, we have the doctrine - we have died to the law by the body of Christ, and we are married to another, even Christ risen from the dead; then verses 7-13, the conclusion, with the inquiry, is it sin? does it work death? and verses 14 to the end, experience, before being delivered from the law. And here it is of importance to mark how the apostle says "I" and "we." When he says "I," he is taking us in our individual state; but when he says "we," then it is as Christians, as believers in Christ, that he is speaking of us. If he says "I," then he is beginning to deal with individual members; for if I begin to talk of myself, then I find sin in myself every day. It is a personal, practical consciousness of what is working in my heart. But that is not my place in Christ, and there is the difference. And this gives us the key to the passage. It is one who has Christian knowledge, judging what flesh is, but what it is in its effect on me in the presence of, and under the law. It is what I am in myself, that is, in the flesh. I am carnal; in me, that is in my flesh, dwells no good thing. In this part of the chapter, all is "I" and "me" therefore, which are used some thirty times; but he never speaks of Christ or of the Spirit at all until the close of the chapter. It is the experience of what the flesh is, viewed in the light of the requirements of a spiritual law, deliverance being yet unknown, and not the knowledge by faith of what I am in Christ. It is the personal experience of myself in flesh, but mixed with the clear knowledge of a Christian, who looks back at it; but not the state of a man in Christ, whom the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made free.
What is in chapter 7, then, is a man under the law. It is not simply the effect of conflict between the new and the old nature, but the effect of being under the law when both are there. It does not say that Christ is good, but takes much lower ground, and says that the law is holy, just, and good. Chapter 7 is the discussion of the law applied to the practical experience of a man, struggling to live righteously under it. A natural man cannot delight in the law of God with his heart, the new nature does; but then, according to that nature, we see he always wills what is right, yet he never does it, because he has no power. Now, do you not find that, in a vast majority of cases, what you want is power to do what is right? Well, then, the law will never give it you; for the law is as weak to give you power to do right, as it is strong to condemn you when you do wrong. The secret of it all is, that when in the flesh there is no power, and it is all self till we see that; and till Christ is known as the Deliverer from the law, it is always I, I, I, and we shall be floundering about, and only getting deeper and deeper into it, like a man in a morass, who attempting to lift one leg out, only sinks the other deeper in the mire; there may be a desire to get out, but he must have a deliverer; there is ever the desire to be this or that, or to do this or that, being thus occupied with self instead of Christ. It is true you ought to desire holiness, but how are you to get power to be holy?
75 Suppose you were, what will never be, a great deal more holy than you are, would that give you peace, when you have not been brought to a righteous standing before God in Christ? If you think your own holiness could give you peace, you are not even depending on His blood, and certainly you do not know yourselves. What then is all this struggling meant for? Just to let you know you cannot have peace in this way, nor righteousness and holiness in the flesh and by the law, that you may know yourselves, and what flesh is.
There is such a tendency in us to be thinking of these I's and me's, thus to set up self in God's place, that God says, Well, you shall have so much of self, that you shall be thoroughly glad to have done with yourself, and to this end, God often suffers us to be brought through all this, to be put under the law, with a new nature and a good will, which only leads to "O wretched man that I am," for it is only man. There is the love of good, but no power to do it, for man is as powerless as he is wicked. He is, through labouring to do, brought to cry out, "Who shall deliver?" He is looking for another to deliver him; he gives it up as a hopeless thing, yet cannot, dare not, do without it. It is not that man is to get a better self, but a deliverance from self. This may be the work of a day or years, according to circumstances; man is brought to his own level, and then God in grace can come in. Then comes thanksgiving, "I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord."
76 The only way by which man gets power is by being shown that he has none of himself, and then he is not delivered by getting victory, and so peace, but by finding he is in Christ, has died to and is out of the flesh, and only in Christ, through whom he lives before God. Then God can give him power. "When we were without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly." Man must know God as his Saviour, before he knows Him as his strength. There must be salvation; then comes peace, and progress.
The doctrine, then, in chapter 7, is that we cannot have Christ and the law, or the two husbands at once; but, that we are dead to the law, and bound to Christ risen. The motions of sin which were by the law did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death. But it is not the fault of the law, yet it brings death into our consciences; the law, moreover, is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin; and it serves to the renewed man to teach him by practical experience what sin really is, and makes it exceeding sinful. The fruit of the experience gained under it is, first, to know that in me, that is, in my flesh, dwells no good thing - not what I have done, but what I am, that is my flesh; next, to distinguish between self and sin, for I hate it, its very pressure makes me know it, thus taught of God; but, thirdly, that if I do hate it, it is too strong for me, has still power over me; a law in my members bringing me into captivity. But this powerlessness, thus learned, when I feel the evil and the burden, leads me to have done with self, and look for a deliverer; a deep and weighty lesson; but having been crucified with Christ, I am delivered; hence, here he thanks God. The doctrine he had taught already; he is now come to the point where the effect is realised. The law has spent its full curse on the person of Christ, and so on us also, as reckoned to our favour, as associated with Christ in death; now we are married to Him risen.
The law is often applied by God to bring home to the soul a sense of its powerlessness, for it is easier to learn we are sinful, than to learn that we have no power. Conscience will soon tell us we are sinful, as regards acts, but it requires this divine teaching to know the sin in our nature. We often need to be brought through struggle after struggle, before we acknowledge that in our flesh dwells no good thing, that we have no power; we may assent to it as a doctrine, but we must also experience the truth of it in the secrecy of our own souls. It is a humbling, but most profitable lesson; the difference is evident always to every experienced eye, indeed, to oneself, as to confidence in self, besides turning to the liberty wherewith Christ has set us free.
77 The Lord give you to weigh well this important principle, that there is no forgiveness of sins but of grace, through Christ's death. For an evil nature, for sin - Christ having died for us, as "for sin," - is condemned in His death, and we are set free, for we have died with Him. Also remember this, that it is the discovery of what we really are, that settles the question of the law. Then we shall be glad to get rid of what only can and ought to bring a curse upon us, and to be brought into fellowship with Christ the Lord.