1884 188 It is the blessed privilege of the simplest believer to enjoy present and abiding peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ — to know that he is once and for ever brought to God by the death of His Son, yea, that he is made the righteousness of God in Him. Nothing, therefore, should ever be allowed to mingle with the absoluteness of God's grace, and the freeness of His love, or to mar or undervalue the perfect work of Christ, the holy and righteous means whereby divine love can freely display itself, and unlimited grace can flow to the vilest and most needy sinner. To weaken the believer's perfect standing in grace by the mixture of his responsibility in rendering an account to God, would be to darken or nullify the true character of the gospel of God unfolded in the Epistle to the Romans.
There is danger, through either ignorance or preconceived ideas of setting up one line of truth or teaching to the damage of another, — for instance, confusing the work of Christ done for, with the work of the Spirit in, the soul. Both are important; but the former is the basis of the latter, to which the Spirit ever leads for rest and peace. Again, the believer working out his salvation with fear and trembling, in the consciousness that God works in him both to will and to do of His good pleasure, is often confounded with the will of God as accomplished by Christ alone. Hebrews 10 distinctly gives the latter, which is entirely outside the believer, though it is true that he is once and for ever set apart to God in the value of it. Moreover, he is for ever perfected as to conscience in virtue of Christ's one offering. Christ's work therefore is wholly distinct from the work which the Holy Spirit produces in the believer. What therefore is insisted on in Rom. 14, the believer's giving an account to God, cannot be to set up responsibility to the cost of privilege, nor in any way to deny what has been previously unfolded of the gospel or its previous results. It would be well therefore to go over some leading points.
In Rom. 3 man generally (no matter who) is proved "guilty before God." Here the precious gospel starts by making God known as the Justifier. He declares freely His grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, and sets forth His Son as a propitiation, or the ground of mercy righteously acquitting all who have faith in Jesus and His precious blood. If God therefore is the Justifier, it is certain that those who are justified have not at any future day to come into judgment (John 5:24). That Jesus too was delivered for their offences and raised again for their justification, proves that their sins can never rise up again for judgment. His resurrection witnesses to the fact, that they are for ever gone, as God who raised Him is satisfied for ever.
Not only so, but from Rom. 5:12 the question of not our sins only, but Adam's sin, is raised. Thereby we go back to the source of all the mischief, the root or principle of sin in the race, showing both the man who brought sin in, and how all are involved in its solemn consequences; as it is written, "Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men for that all have sinned." Here then is man's sad and undeniable birthright, with its universal effects, as flowing from the head of a fallen race. Nevertheless, if by Adam's one offence, judgment came upon all to condemnation, it is by the second Man, the last Adam, that the one righteousness came for the believer unto justification of life. Death and judgment, the common lot of all, had its blessed contrast of life and righteousness in Christ. The reign of sin and death has also its relief in the reign of grace, and this through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord.
What therefore becomes of the believer's sin which he has by birth? Has Jesus, the Substitute for his sins, gone into and settled that deep question so as to free him from all thoughts of judgment? This the apostle clearly proves, insisting that the believer, when saved, cannot abuse grace by continuing in sin; for he, having died to that state, can no longer, live in it. The old man having been crucified with Christ, there is for faith an end of it. Hence, the believer, having died with Christ, is freed or justified from sin. Here the truth as to sin finding its end is manifested by Christ in grace going under it judicially when on the cross made sin and dying to it. "For in that he died, he died unto sin" once for all. Sin and sins having been judged, according to the claims of holiness and righteousness, in Him who died as a sacrifice, the believer through grace is for ever set free, both from what he is and what he has done. Precious Saviour, and glorious Deliverer! Thou art worthy of the present and everlasting worship of our hearts, for having closed in death the sad history of the flesh or "old man" of every believer.
If Rom. 6 has thus shown the believer's deliverance from sin, chap. 7 also declares that by virtue of Christ dead and risen, the law has lost its power for those believers once under it. Its authority only holds good as long as a man lives; but the believer lives no more as a responsible child of Adam under law, having died with Him who exhausted all its claims, in the same death where the flesh was judged. Not only so; but the believer belongs to Him who is raised from the dead. Such an exchange may well lead up to the conclusive and triumphant language, "There is therefore now no condemnation to thorn which are in Christ Jesus." Surely then such an unfolding of the gospel, with its definite conclusions, could never be weakened by what the apostle says of all being manifested at the judgment-seat of Christ.
What has been stated too, is but the negative side of the truth, as our evil and freedom from it. What then of the positive? Jesus, who died to sin, was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father; and as alive from the dead "He liveth unto God." He who died to sin once now lives for evermore, and this to God. This then is the positive, as to the life in which believers live before God, for it is the privilege of faith to see and own death and life in relation to God, as made good in Christ; as it is written "Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through [in] Jesus Christ our Lord" (Rom. 6:11). Moreover, the apostle declares, that the life in which believers live is one of holy liberty; for, as Rom. 8:2 states, "the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death." Who then or what can attach sin or judgment to the life which believers have in Christ? Moreover, the same Spirit, who is the power of it, begets the cry of "Abba Father," the witness of the new relationship of children of God. Surely the divine challenge may well be raised as to a people so distinguished by the sovereign grace and electing love of God. "Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect?" "Who is he that condemneth?" God the Justifier, and Christ that died etc. are the blessed answers given, which must silence every foe, and every fear of rendering account to God.
When then, and where, does the responsibility of believers come in? Is it not for the believer after the new place and standing in Christ are made good? If alive from the dead, they are to yield themselves unto God, and having life in Christ, they are to walk, not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. The body too, which was once the vessel of sin to carry out the will of the flesh, is now to be wholly for God in doing His will. How fitting therefore, after we are shown how fully and perfectly God has been for believers, is the exhortation of chap. 12, "I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service." Upon this follow the varied duties to be carried out in responsibility to the revealed mind of God. If service, it is to be done to God, in the appointed way, consistent with the relationship He has formed, and according to the measure dealt to each, remembering that believers are members one of another. How important to consider this, first knowing the will of God, and then carrying it out in the little service given and due, never losing sight of God, the object, no matter what the service is, or to whom rendered, on earth. Then, as still in the world (but not of it), let us remember that the powers that be are ordained of God. Hence subjection becomes the Christian, and no less to owe no man anything, but to love one another. The circumstances are then given that lead up to the timely assurance of the judgment-seat, when each believer is to give account of himself to God. If there are no degrees of salvation and life, but all believers equally possess them, it is evident there are the "weak" and the "strong" calling for patient grace and consideration for each other. Meats, drinks, and the observing of days were in question between judging Jewish brethren and despising Gentile ones; not, as in the Epistle to the Galatians, where false teachers were imposing such Jewish things on the Gentile saints, destroying the purity, fulness, and freeness, and indeed the truth and being, of the gospel. In this instance there were different degrees of experience and communion as to what they were doing and allowing. This gave rise to dangerous habits, whether of judging or of despising one another, forgetting their "One Lord," to whom they were severally responsible. The strong are exhorted to consider the weak, as the weak are not to judge the strong, but to judge this rather that no man put any thing calculated to stumble in the way of another; each to walk cautiously and graciously, without giving occasion for the good to be evil spoken of. "For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost" (Rom. 14:17).
"Why dost thou judge thy brother? or why dost thou set at naught thy brother? For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ … So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God." This then clearly shows, that there is a day, or time, of giving an account, not surely as to the believer's standing or acceptance in Christ (seeing that he is predestinated to be conformed to the image of God's Son), but as to ways and works. The time of loss or gain, when (so to speak) the walk and ways of the Lots and Abrahams will appear, the former to suffer loss, and the latter to be owned; when the cup of cold water will not be forgotten, in company with those, who in given grace have laboured much, and with fuller faithfulness to their Lord. If it is by grace we are saved through faith, it is no less the work of grace in us, that alone can produce in any small measure a walk and service consistent with the mind of Him who bought us, that we might be for Him where He is not, until He comes to take us where He is. Till then, may Jesus our Lord, by His Spirit, be increasingly the motive and object of each believer day by day. G. G.