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Dead to sin, and butied with Christ by baptism
But alas! in this glorious redemption accomplished by grace,
which substitutes the righteousness of God and the person of the
second Adam for the sin and the person of the first, the perversity
of the flesh can find occasion for the sin which it loves, or at
least to charge the doctrine with it. If it is by the obedience of
One that I am constituted righteous , and because grace
superabounds, let us sin that it may abound: that does not touch
this righteousness, and only glorifies this superabundance of
grace. Is this the apostle's doctrine? or a legitimate consequence
of his doctrine? In no wise. The doctrine is, that we are brought
into God's presence through death, in virtue of the work which
Christ therein accomplished, and by having a part in that
death. Can we live in the sin to which we are dead? It is to
contradict oneself in one's own words. But, being baptised unto
Christ (in His name, to have part with Him, according to the truth
contained in the revelation we have of Him), I am baptised to have
part in His death for through this it is that I have this
righteousness in which He appears before God, and I in Him. But it
is to sin that He has died. He has done with it for ever. When He
died, He who knew no sin came out of that condition of life in
flesh and blood, to which in us sin attached, in which we were
sinners; and in which He the sinless One, in the likeness of sinful
flesh and as a sacrifice for sin, was made sin for us.* We have
then been buried with Him by baptism for death (v. 4), having part
in it, entering into it by baptism which represents it, in order
that, as Christ was raised up from among the dead by the glory of
the Father, we also should walk in newness of life. In a word I am
brought into the participation of this divine and perfect
righteousness by having part in death unto sin; it is impossible
therefore that it should be to live in it. Here it is not duty that
is spoken of, but the nature of the thing. I cannot die to a thing
in order to live in it. The doctrine itself refutes as absolute
nonsense the argument of the flesh, which under the pretence of
righteousness will not recognise our need of grace.** The resurrection of Christ; the character of the new life through Christ
The character of this new life, into which the resurrection of
Christ has brought us, is presented here in a striking way. Christ
had perfectly glorified God in dying; also even in dying was He the
Son of the living God. It is not all, therefore, that He could not
be holden of it, true as that is because of His Person; His
resurrection was also a necessity of the glory of God the
Father. All that was in God was compelled to do it by His glory
itself (even as Christ had glorified all), His justice. His love,
His truth, His power; His glory, in that He could not low death to
have the victory over the One who was faithful; His relationship as
Father, who ought not, could not, leave His Son in bondage to the
fruit of sin and to the power of the enemy. It was due to Christ on
the part of God, due to His own glory as God and Father, necessary
also, in order to show the reflex of His own glory, to manifest it
according to His counsels, and that in man. Christ was raised from
the dead by the glory of the Father. All that the Father is came
into it, engaged to give Jesus the triumph of resurrection, of
victory over death, and to give resurrection the brightness of His
own glory. Having entered, as the fruit of the operation of His
glory, into this new position, this is the model — the character
— of that life in which we live before God.* Without this manifestation in Christ, God, although acting and giving testimonies of His power and of His goodness, remained veiled and hidden. In Christ glorified, the centre of all the counsels of God, we see the glory of the Lord with unveiled face, and every mouth confesses Him Lord to the glory of God the Father.
Our life ought to be the practical reflection of this glory of
the Lord in heaven. The power that brings us into association with
Him in this place, and still works in us, is shown at the end of
the first chapter of the Ephesians.* But there it is to introduce
our resurrection with Christ. Here it is Christ's own resurrection,
the doctrine, or the thing in itself, and its consequences and
moral import with regard to the individual living here below, in
view of his relationship with God as a responsible man. It is an
altogether new life. We are alive unto God through Him. The consequence of death with Christ is resurrection
Identified thus with Him in the likeness of His death, we shall
also enter into that of His resurrection. We see here that
resurrection is a consequence which he deduces as a fact, not a
mystical participation in the thing; knowing this first (as the
great foundation of everything), that our old man — that in us
which pleads for sin as the fruit of the perfect grace of God — is
crucified with Christ, in order that the whole body of sin should
be destroyed so that we should no more serve sin. He takes the
totality and the system of sin in a man, as a body which is
nullified by death; its will is judged and no longer masters
us. For he who is dead is justified* from sin. Sin can no longer be
laid to his charge as a thing that exists in a living and
responsible man. Therefore, being thus dead with Christ — professedly by baptism, really by having Him for our life who died
— we believe that we shall live with Him; we belong to that other
world where He lives in resurrection. The energy of the life in
which He lives is our portion: we believe this, knowing that
Christ, being raised from among the dead, dies no more. His
victory over death is complete and final; death has no more
dominion over Him. Therefore it is that we are sure of
resurrection, namely, on account of this complete victory over
death, into which He entered for us in grace. By faith we have
entered into it with Him, having our part in it according to His
therein. It is the power of the life of love that brought Him
there. Dying, He died unto sin. He went down even to death rather
than fail in maintaining the glory of God. Until death, and even
in death, He had to do with sin, though there were none in Him, and
with temptation; but there He has done with all for ever. We die
unto sin by participating in His death. The consequence — by the
glory of the Father — is resurrection. Now, therefore, "in that he
died, he died unto sin once for all; in that he lives, he lives
unto God." Alive unto God through Him who is risen
Thus He has nothing more to do with sin. He lives, only
perfectly, without reference in His life to anything else, unto
God. In that He lives, His life is in relationship to God only.* We
also then ought to reckon — for it is by faith — that we are dead
to sin and alive to God, having no other object of life than God,
in Christ Jesus. I ought to consider myself dead, I have a right to
do so, because Christ has died for me; and being alive now for ever
unto God, I ought to consider myself as come out, by the life which
I live through Him, from the sin to which I died. For this is the
Christ I know; not a Christ living on the earth in connection with
me according to the nature in which I live here below. In that
nature I am proved to be a sinner, and incapable of true
relationship with Him. He has died for me as living of that life,
and entered, through resurrection, into a new state of life outside
the former. It is there that as a believer I know Him. I have part
in death, and in life through Him who is risen. I have
righteousness by faith, but righteousness as having part with
Christ dead and raised again, as being therefore by faith dead unto
sin. Reckoning oneself dead and its consequences
And this is the essential difference of this part of the
epistle. It is not that Christ has shed His blood for our sins, but
that we have died with Him. There is an end for faith to our state
and standing in flesh. The Christ who is become our life did die,
and, as alive through Him, what He has done is mine; and I have to
say I died. I reckon myself dead.* The apostle deduces the evident
consequence: "Let not sin, therefore, reign in your mortal body."
Do not yield your members as instruments to the sin to which you
are dead by Christ; but as alive, as awakened up from amongst the
dead, yield your members as instruments of righteousness to God
unto whom you live. The body is now the mere instrument of divine
life; and we are free to use it for God as such. For in fact sin
shall not have dominion over us, because we are not under the law
but under grace. Here it is not the principle but the power that is
spoken of. In principle we are dead to sin, according to faith; in
practice it has no power over us. Observe that the source of
practical power to conquer sin is not in the law, but in
grace. Practical righteouness; set free from sin and become servants to God in the liberty of grace
Now it is true that, not being under the law, the rule under
which we are placed is not that of imputation but of
non-imputation. Is this a reason why we should sin? No! there is a
reality in these things. We are slaves to that which we obey. Sin
leads to death; obedience to practical righteousness. We are upon
the wider principle of a new nature and grace; not the application
of an external rule to a nature which was not, and could not be
subject to it. And, in truth, having been in the former case, the
disciples in Rome had given proof of the justice of the apostle's
argument by walking in the truth. Set free from the slavery of sin,
they had become (to use human language) the slaves of
righteousness, and this did not end in itself; practical
righteousness developed itself by the setting apart of the whole
being for God with ever-growing intelligence. They were obedient in
such-and-such things; but the fruit was sanctification, a spiritual
capacity, in that they were separated from evil, unto a deeper
knowledge of God.* Sin produced no fruit, it ended in death; but
set free from sin and become servants to God — the true
righteousness of obedience, like that of Christ Himself — they had
their fruit already in holiness, and the end should be eternal
life. For the wages of sin was death, the gift of God was eternal
life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Now this life was living unto
God, and this is not sin; nevertheless it is grace. Here the
apostle, whose subject is judicial righteousness before God,
approximates to John, and connects his doctrine with that of the
First Epistle of John, who there, on the other hand, enters upon
the doctrine of propitiation and acceptance when speaking of the
impartation of life. The appeal is very beautiful to a man in true
liberty — the liberty of grace, being dead to sin. He is set
wholly free by death. To whom is he now going to yield himself? For
now he is free; is he going to give himself up to sin? It is a
noble appeal.** |
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