I desire to say a little about the knowledge of grace. It is a great object with God to build up the knowledge of His grace in our souls, and this work of God is often presented to our minds in Scripture under the figure of a structure. The familiar words "edify" and "edification" suggest the thought of a building -- a structure in the soul. We read of being "built up" and of "building up" ourselves, and so on.
It is a fact that a wonderful work is being carded on by God in the souls of His people. God is building up in human hearts the knowledge of Himself in His own infinite and blessed grace. And it is of vital moment that we should know what God is working for, and that we should not hinder His work either in ourselves or in others. There is a solemn word in Romans 14:19, 20 as to this.. "Let us, therefore follow after the things which make for peace, and things wherewith one may edify another. For meat destroy not the work of God". Edification is "the work of God", and it is a very solemn thing to hinder or destroy it. That which is built up in the souls of God's children is the knowledge of Himself and His infinite grace. I hope to he enabled to present this to You from the chapter we have read. But it will he necessary first of all to clear the ground a little.
If a structure of any importance or magnitude is to be reared, the first essential is a good foundation, and to secure that it is necessary that everything that is worthless or unstable should he cleared away. The
site of a palace might he covered with mud huts, or with more or less pretentious buildings, or it might he a jungle thick with noxious weeds, and teeming with venomous reptiles, where the very air was filled with pestilence. It would he equally necessary in each case to clear the ground. And it is this which the Holy Spirit is doing in the first three chapters of this epistle. He depicts man in three aspects as different outwardly as the three states in which we have pictured the palace site. That is, in chapter 1 we have men set forth in all the licentiousness of unbridled lust and manifest corruption; having come into that state because they did not think good to have God in their knowledge, and "because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful". In chapter 2 it is man with light enough to have a judgment about things and able to condemn evil when he sees it in others, and probably with enough conscience to keep his own wickedness as much as possible out of sight, and yet at the same time guilty of that which he condemns in others. In chapter 3 it is expressly the Jew -- the religious man -- that is in view, and he who has the oracles of God is proved to be no better than the profane Gentile whom he despises. In each case man is brought in as lying under the judgment of God; see chapter 1: 18, 32; 2: 2 - 5; 3: 19, margin.
Yes! this is the solemn truth. Whether man appears in open profligacy, or in the guise of a moralist, or invested with high religious privileges or pretensions, he is the same naked exposed sinner before the eye of God, and the heart-knowing God pronounces that "there is no difference; for all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God". Such is man -- the child of Adam. He is corrupt and condemned, and must he removed in judgment if God's thoughts of blessing are to take effect. The ground must be cleared.
If souls honestly faced this at the outset, they would escape many subsequent exercises and difficulties. They would secure a good foundation, for they would get down to what builders in some parts of the country call the "bed-rock". They would come to realise the meaning and value of the death of Christ as that in which the righteousness of God is declared, and as that which alone clears the ground for the blessing of man. The death of Christ has cleared the ground. He has died for all, and this is the most solemn testimony that all were under death as the judgment of God. But this has been made known in grace. The terribleness of man's condition, and of the judgment under which he lies, has been set forth in the way of infinite grace in the death of Christ. For He has come under our judgment in perfect grace that the ground might be cleared for our blessing. It is not that we deserve a thousand stripes and that Christ has borne them. The truth goes far deeper than this. We were condemned to death. Tie extreme penalty had passed upon us. The vilest sinner on earth cannot go beyond this, and the most moral and religious man that ever lived cannot stop short of it, or evade it. Death is upon us as the judgment of God, and if we are to he blessed the ground must he cleared by death.
That this is unspeakably solemn would not be questioned by any right-minded person, but at the same time it is most blessed to see that God has Himself cleared the ground. In the death of Christ we see the sentence executed in such a way that, while the righteousness of God is most completely declared, the ground is perfectly cleared for the blessing of man. The death of Christ is the "bed-rock". It is that on which the whole structure of grace and glory can he securely reared, for it is that in which everything unsuited to God has been removed in righteous judgment. I recognise that I am under the sentence of
death, but "through faith" I know that the sentence has been executed in the way of infinite grace. There never was such an exhibition of grace as when Jesus tasted "death for every man". If you how to the truth you must own that God has searched you, and that you justly lie under sentence of death. But then you learn the grace of God in the wondrous fact that Christ has died for you.
The ground was cleared for God when Christ died, and we apprehend it by faith. The young convert who exclaims, in words which have just acquired meaning and power in his soul, "Jesus died for me", is coming to the apprehension that the ground is cleared. When a man gives himself up as lost and condemned, and realises that nothing will meet his case but the death of Christ, the ground is cleared in the apprehension of his soul. He thinks no longer of good self or bad self -- the death of Christ is his only hope. He finds the true expression of his heart in such words as --
Where this is truly the heart's language the ground is cleared of self-confidence and self-righteousness, and God can proceed with His blessed work of building up the knowledge of His grace in the soul.
The grace of God is all administered "through our Lord Jesus Christ", and we can learn it and have it built up in our souls as He is before us. He not only administrates the grace of God, but it is all set forth in Him. If we have bowed to the solemn truth that we are guilty and condemned, and have realised that nothing but the death of Christ could shelter us from the just judgment of a holy God, we have thought long
enough about ourselves. Indeed we have reached the conclusion of the whole matter. A thousand years of self-examination and self-occupation would not carry
us a step farther. It is all over with us, and we may as well accept this at once. Repentance -- true self-judgment -- is, a great necessity, but continued occupation with our own badness and unworthiness can only keep the soul in darkness and distress. God would have
us to know that the death of Christ has cleared the ground so that His infinite grace might come to us in all its fulness and freeness. And that grace is set forth
in the Lord Jesus Christ and comes to us through Him.
It is not that I am patched up or mended; it is not myself with additions or subtractions; it is Infinite divine favour and blessing set forth in another Person altogether, and administered to me through Him. In short, it is as God establishes our hearts in the knowledge of Christ, and we learn the grace of which He
is the Mediator, that we are edified -- our souls are built up and consolidated in the knowledge of grace. The structure of grace is enlarged in our souls, and we become "established with grace".
I should like to borrow an illustration from the Old
Testament in connection with the building of the temple, but I only refer to it as an illustration and not in the way of interpretation. "And the king commanded, and they brought great stones, costly stones, and hewed stones, to lay the foundation of the house.... And the house, when it was in building, was built of stone made ready before it was brought thither: so that there was neither hammer nor axe nor any toot of iron heard in the house, while it was in building ... So he built the house, and finished it" (1 Kings 5:17; 1 Kings 6:7, 9). I think these stones may illustrate the greatness, preciousness, and divine suitability of Christ as the One in whom all the thoughts of God's grace are established and set forth . And God would lay this
down in the apprehension of our souls as a divine basis upon which the whole superstructure of the knowledge of His grace might be reared. "I have laid the foundation", says the apostle to his Corinthian children in the faith, "and another buildeth thereon. But let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon. For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ". (1 Corinthians 3:10, 11). The foundation had been well and truly laid at Corinth, but there were those who were building worthless material upon it -- who were occupying the saints with what was of man, and thus hindering the work of God in their souls. The whole structure must correspond with the foundation. If the foundation is of God the super-structure must also be of God; if the foundation is "Jesus Christ" the whole building must be of the same material.
There is no human effort or noise connected with true edification; all is the quiet and blessed work of God by His Spirit. But there is need of exercise on our part lest we hinder and grieve the Spirit and stay His work. We are in danger of being like the people in Haggai's day, who said, "The time is not come, the time that the Lord's house should be built", but who were dwelling in their own "ceiled houses". That is, we may put our own things in the first place, and if we do they will soon shut out God's things. Many a man makes his spiritual interests secondary to his business interests, and the result is soul-starvation.
"Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ" (Romans 5:1). We have not peace with God through feeling happy, or through having lived a holy life, or through being obedient. But we believe on God as the One who raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead for our justification, and we have peace with Him through our Lord Jesus Christ. We apprehend the Lord Jesus
Christ as having made atonement, and as now risen and glorified at God's right hand. Our sins are gone, and the One who bore them is now our righteousness. This settles every question, and silences every accuser. We are with God not according to our deservings, but according to His perfect grace through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Then through our Lord Jesus Christ "we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God" (Romans 5:2). The favour in which we stand can only be measured by Christ. He has become Man, and through death and resurrection He has reached the right hand of God in unbounded favour and acceptance. We can say of Him, "Behold, O God, our shield, and look upon the face of thine anointed" (Psalm 84:9). Death has passed upon us; we, as in the flesh, have gone from God's sight in the death of Christ, that we might be in the favour of God according to the perfection of Christ. So that if we wish to know the favour in which we stand we must learn the preciousness of Christ -- the beauty and acceptance of God's Anointed. Our history as children of Adam -- the dark pages of which were filled with sins, imperfections, and inconsistencies -- has been closed in Christ's death. And a new volume is now opened before our faith in which every page records the perfections of Christ, and the blessedness of God's favour through Him. God would have our souls filled with a sense of this favour in His presence. When that blessed One was here a voice from the opened heaven declared, "Thou art my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased". The Father could look down upon Him with inexpressible delight. And now that He is risen and glorified the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ has "made us accepted in the beloved" to the praise of the glory of His grace. He has marked us out for sonship through
Jesus Christ to Himself. The grace of God has bound us up thus with Christ for ever, and He would build up the consciousness of this in our souls by His Spirit.
"God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him" (Romans 5:8, 9). Here we see the unchangeableness of divine love. When we were in the worst possible condition Christ died for us, and the love thus commanded toward us will never fail. Wrath is coming upon the world of the ungodly, but "we shall be saved from wrath through him". It is a moral impossibility that the believer should ever come under an infliction of wrath from God. It sometimes happens that a Christian under great pressure of trial is tempted by Satan to think that God is dealing with him in wrath. The Thessalonians had been troubled, I suppose, by this dreadful thought, but the apostle reminds them that they were "beloved of the Lord", and that God had loved them and given them "everlasting consolation and good hope through grace" (2 Thessalonians 2:13, 16).
Nothing can separate the believer from the love of God, and under no circumstances whatever can he come under an infliction of wrath from God. God may have to correct His saints for their sins, and where there has been no failure He may chasten them for their profit, that they may become partakers of His holiness; but all this is in love, not in wrath. The Corinthians had been behaving badly, and yet the salutation addressed to them was, "Grace be unto you, and peace, from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ" (1 Corinthians 1:3). There is ever grace and peace from God towards His saints. Even to Laodicea the Lord says, "As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten" (Revelation 3:19). Every action of God toward His saints is in grace and blessing; it is ever
the outcome of His love. The love that reaches us through death is an everlasting love, and it is the sure pledge of our salvation from wrath.
"We also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ" (Romans 5:11). There can be nothing greater than this. Everything that God is has come out through our Lord Jesus Christ. We may see something of God's power and wisdom in creation, and many of His moral perfections come out in connection with the law and the prophets, but it is through our Lord Jesus Christ that the full glory of all His attributes and the blessedness of His nature has been revealed. And to the saint everything that is made known of God is a source of satisfaction and joy. Through grace the saint appreciates God. The psalmist said, "Then will I go unto the altar of God, unto God my exceeding joy" (Psalm 43:4). He thought of going to God much as a schoolboy would think of going home for the holidays. How much more can we make our boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ! One could say --
The Sun which smiling lights us
Finally, it is by the Lord Jesus Christ that we have now received the reconciliation. When all the blessedness of God has been brought to light, we could not be happy without suitability to Him. We may see an illustration of this in the case of the prodigal. When his father kissed him there was clearly nothing between them. The full grace of his father was made known to him. But this in itself did not give him
suitability to his father or to his father's house. He needed the best robe for that. The best robe did not produce any change in the father, it did not add to the father's love, but it changed everything on the prodigal's side. It invested him with conscious suitability to the father's presence. That is the result of reconciliation; see Colossians 1: 21, 22.
If we make our boast in God as having manifested Himself to us in full grace and blessing through our Lord Jesus Christ, we have also the consciousness of receiving the reconciliation through our Lord Jesus Christ. We are not only kissed, but the best robe is put upon us.
Everything that is not Christ belongs to the "old things" which have been touched by sin. "If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature [or, there is a new creation]: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ" (2 Corinthians 5:17, 18). As made the righteousness of God in Christ, the joy of reconciliation is ours. But if we accept that Christ alone is our suitability for God's presence, it commits us to the practical refusal of everything that is not Christ. There can he no allowance of the flesh. The soul who has truly apprehended reconciliation sees that Christ is everything and in all. Everything that is not Christ is displaced in the estimation of his heart.
Romans 4:22 - 25; Romans 5:18,19; Romans 6:12 - 14
I have, read these scriptures to bring before you three things of great importance. In Romans 4 we see that Abraham's faith was counted to him for righteousness. And "it was not written for his sake alone, that it was imputed [or counted] to him; but for us also, to whom it shall be imputed [or counted], if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead; who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification".
Then in chapter 5: 19 we read, "For as by one man's disobedience many were made [or constituted] sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made [or constituted] righteous".
Chapter 6: 12 - 14 brings before us the practical righteousness of the believer. He yields himself to God as alive from the dead, and his members as instruments of righteousness unto God.
So that three things are before us: (1) The believer's faith is counted to him for righteousness; (2) he is constituted righteous; and (3) he becomes practically righteous, not as under the law, but as under grace.
To reach the first we have to come to the point that we are as good as dead. Abraham was "as good as dead" (Hebrews 11:12) when he became the father of Isaac according to God's promise. God said to him that his seed should be "as the stars of the sky in multitude" when, according to nature, he was beyond the possibility of having seed. Abraham did not consider himself, or the natural circumstances; he well knew that it was "God, who quickeneth the dead", who alone could effect what was promised. He "believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness" (Romans 4:3).
We have to come to this point, that we cannot move hand or foot in the matter of our justification. We are guilty before God, and as helpless to clear ourselves as if we were dead. An old believer told me that for years she had prayed and devoted herself to an earnest religious life in hope of getting the assurance of forgiveness some day. But this did not bring the desired blessing, and eventually she became conscious that she was as helpless in the matter as if her head had been struck off on the executioner's block.
Have you ever put your head down on the block? The moment you do so, God points you to One who came under the stroke of justice for you. One who was "delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification". A person with his head upon the block gives up considering himself, and he begins to consider God. As long as we are trying and striving it is clear that we have not laid our heads on the block. We have not found out that we are "as good as dead".
Now I ask your attention to four things which are made known as to God.
First, He has shewn forth His righteousness. He has set forth Christ Jesus "a propitiation [or, mercy-seat] through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; to declare, I say, at this time, his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus" (Romans 3:25, 26). God has maintained everything that was due to Himself in relation to sin and sins. The blood of Christ is the witness that He has died for sins, and as made sin for us. It was right that sins should be visited with their due reward, and that judgment should come upon sin. It was right that the sentence of death should he executed on man the sinner. It was also right that God should shew Himself superior to all the power of evil, and able to justify the ungodly in a
way worthy of Himself. And all this is shewn forth in the death of Christ.
Did God pass by the sins of men in times before the cross? Then the blood of Christ shews forth His righteousness in doing so. Is God now just and the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus? The same precious blood shews forth His righteousness as to this also.
Second, God's love is commanded "toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8). There are three persons mentioned in verses 7 and 8: the righteous man, the good man, and the sinner. The righteous man pays twenty shillings in the pound, and will have twenty shillings in the pound from others. It is hardly possible that anyone would die for him. The good man is marked by benevolence, and gracious consideration for others. Perhaps someone might be found to die for him. But who would die for one whose only characteristic is that he is a sinner?
It is in the fact that Christ has died for us when sinners that God commends to us a love peculiar to Himself. For love like this cannot he found in any creature. Human love is often used as an illustration of divine love, but in truth human illustrations utterly fail to set forth the quality and character of God's love. To apprehend that love one must realise the relative positions of God and His creature man; one must take into account what sin is before God and the state into which it has brought man; one must see the greatness of the blessed Person, who came here in flesh that He might die for ungodly sinners. Christ has come under all that to which we were liable that the love of God might reach us in blessing, and His death is the commendation of that love to us. Love has expressed itself in the utmost self-sacrifice, and this in a divine Person who has died to remove from before God in
judgment all that we were as sinners. Who would not praise this perfect and holy love?
Third, God's power is displayed in the fact that He has raised Jesus our Lord from among the dead (Romans 4:24). Death having come in by man's sin, and having passed upon all men for that all have sinned, it became the terrible witness of man's state, and of his utter helplessness in presence of that power of evil which had brought destruction upon him. But where man was impotent and resourceless God has shewn Himself in supreme might, and in wisdom that no power of evil could baffle. Christ has come in perfect goodness into death on man's behalf, and God has raised Him from among the dead. Thus death has been annulled, and the power of God displayed in perfect goodness toward man. Death coming upon God's creature seemed to say that evil had prevailed over good, but when the Son of God comes into death on man's behalf, and God raises Him from among the dead, it becomes manifest that good is mightier than evil, and God is known in the power of resurrection. We are probably so accustomed to hear of the resurrection of Christ that our minds do not consider the greatness of the power displayed therein. Men have wonderful powers and resources within a certain sphere, but where are all men's powers in presence of death? If the science, wealth, and force of the whole world are viewed in relation to death, they are so utterly powerless as not to he worth a thought. Yet men think much of their powers, and very little of that wondrous power in which God has raised from among the dead the One who came there on man's behalf!
Fourth, God has made known His grace; He has manifested Himself in the most unmistakable way as a Saviour God. This is the attitude in which He stands towards men. He is just and the Justifier of him that believeth in Jesus; He justifies the ungodly.
When a man believes on God in this character, as the One who raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead, his faith is counted to him as righteousness. It is not that we believe something about ourselves, but we believe on God who has made Himself known by the Lord Jesus Christ in righteousness, love, power, and grace as a Saviour God. Many have not peace with God because they want to have some evidence of blessing in themselves. One day they think they may he God's children, and the next they are in the dungeons of Doubting Castle. They say, We must be humble; we must take a low place; we must not be presumptuous! When people talk like that you may depend on it they have not laid their heads on the block. They are considering themselves. They have not really learned their own worthlessness, or they would be glad to turn from themselves to the Saviour God.
Christ is the believer's righteousness. God would not give less and He could not give more. The true humility of faith is to accept the fulness of grace in which God makes Christ to be righteousness for every one that believeth. We are worthless sinners, but God has approached us in grace that is worthy of Himself. The true humility of a repentant sinner is to receive with profound thankfulness the riches of grace which are made known in the gospel. What would be thought of a man who, having been invited to dine with the King, continually protested that he was a very humble individual, and not worthy to receive such good things, and on this ground declined to partake of what was provided for him? Would it not be said that he was wanting in humility, and in the feelings proper in a subject towards his sovereign? And in man as a creature of God -- a sinful creature too -- it is true humility to receive by faith the full grace in which God has made Himself known. It is thus that we honour God. The falsely-called humility
which refuses to accept the riches of God's grace on account of its own unworthiness is really self-importance which puts a slight upon God. God's grace is set forth in Christ, and He becomes the righteousness of those who believe. May it be ours to cast every doubt to the winds, and to constantly sound forth the praise of grace so infinitely rich, so absolutely free!
Then in Romans 5:19 we come to a further point. "For as by one man's disobedience many were made [or constituted] sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made [or constituted] righteous". This is evidently a step further than faith being counted to us as righteousness. We had to begin with that -- to receive the gift of righteousness by faith -- but that was in order to set us free to "follow after righteousness" and to learn righteousness so as to he formed in moral suitability to God. A man would hardly he fit to go to court unless he had court manners. It would he a strange thing to see a man in court dress, but with the mind and manners of a ploughboy! Many a believer feels assured that every question is settled, and that Christ is his righteousness, who is not much formed in mind and affection in accord with God. He has court dress, but he is not yet instructed in court manners!
The teaching of grace inclines our hearts to "follow after righteousness" and to "seek the Lord"; it awakens the desire to "know righteousness" (Isaiah 51:1, 7). We become such as "do hunger and thirst after righteousness" (Matthew 5:6). The effect of grace being known is to make us long to he in moral accord with God, and this prepares us to see that God has set forth righteousness in the fullest way, so that we might learn it and he formed in it.
In Romans 5:18 we read of "one offence towards all men to condemnation", and of "one righteousness towards all men for justification of life". Adam's one
offence was towards all men to condemnation, but Christ's own righteousness is towards all men for justification of life. The "one righteousness", as I understand it, refers to what He accomplished on the cross when all that had come in by Adam -- sins, sin, condemnation, and death -- was dealt with in holy judgment, and man in the flesh (to whom these things attached) was removed sacrificially from before God. In this wondrous work there has been a perfect setting forth of righteousness. Men may not perceive it -- they may be indifferent to it -- but righteousness has been set forth towards all men. The death of Christ is the great and solemn act in which God has set righteousness forth towards all men. Have we known what it was to sit down in the presence of that "one righteousness" and learn what it means?
The man of the world will not accept that he is under condemnation, root and branch. He will not admit that his goodness and religion avail nothing before God. If you tell him so he regards it as the most UNrighteous thing he ever heard of. He will not learn righteousness, nor submit to it, because it makes nothing of him but a lost and condemned sinner. But God has set righteousness forth in the death of Christ, and the believer learns it and submits to it. In presence of that death we realise that man in the flesh is rejected by God; we see that all that we are, morally is under judgment, and has been set aside in the death of Christ.
But this is the negative side of righteousness; the positive side comes in when we think of "the obedience of the one". It is not only that Christ has removed sinful flesh by His death to the glory of God, but in that act all His own moral perfection in obedience has come into view. We see Man devoted in love to the will of God; we see One who could and did maintain everything for God's good pleasure at all
cost to Himself; in a word, we see righteousness. Christ is the Righteous One. As our souls learn to appreciate His moral excellence we are constituted righteous. We look at everything from an entirely new point of view. Our estimate of things is according to God. We learn in Christ what is pleasurable to God, and as we learn it and appreciate it in Him, we are morally formed in it before God. In this way the believer is formed in an entirely new moral constitution. He is constituted righteous, by coming thus into relation with the Righteous One. He is held to Christ
Matthew 5:2 - 11 gives us a suggestive epitome of the characteristics of those who are constituted righteous. It is not what they do, but what they are and what they suffer. The unconverted man can go a long way in imitating good works, but he cannot produce in himself this entirely new moral character. It can only be formed in us as we feed upon Christ. The blood was for shelter from judgment, but the lamb roast with fire was for food. We must feed upon Him in order to be formed after Him.
God brings us to see that all that we are as in the flesh must go in judgment. Then He forms our souls in the appreciation of all that moral perfection which has been set forth in Christ, and of which the beatitudes speak. We thus learn righteousness; we learn it in Christ and by the cross; we get a new and divine estimate of everything; we are "constituted righteous".
Then in Romans 6 we get the practical result. In the first place we are able to speak of "our old man" as having been crucified with Christ. Everything that constituted our life morally according to the flesh is
seen to have come under divine judgment. And it is a past and judged thing in the estimation of our hearts; it is "our old man". What happened at the cross was with a view to "the body of sin" being annulled, "that henceforth we should not serve sin".
The totality of sin is found in the life of "our old man", but in the light of the cross we look upon that life as a condemned thing, not to be gratified or ministered to in any way.
I often think of Mephibosheth as illustrating this. Ziba said of him, "Behold, he abideth at Jerusalem: for he said, Today shall the house of Israel restore me the kingdom of my father". But was it so? Not at all. When he met David he said, "For all of my father's house were but dead men before my lord the king; yet didst thou set thy servant among them that did cat at thine own table". He recognised the fact that as of the house of Saul he was a dead man. He wanted no exaltation or gratification as of that house. If we recognise that as Adam's children we are dead men we shall not want the pleasures, honours, and gratifications that the world can offer. In this way we come to take account of ourselves as dead to sin. The actings of our own will do not yield us pleasure; we find the life of our hearts in another system of things altogether. Whatever Mephibosheth esteemed to be life was connected with David; all connected with the house of Saul was death.
In Romans 5, the believer is brought to partake of the abundance of grace on David's table. Our hearts live in that which has been administered to us through our Lord Jesus Christ. The practical outcome of all this is that we do not let sin reign in our mortal body. Sin is there, but it is dethroned.
Then in verse 13 we read, "Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield ourselves unto God, as those that are alive
from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God". The thought suggested by this verse is full of moral beauty. Our members were once instruments of unrighteousness through which the horrid discord of sin found expression, but now they are to be yielded unto God as brought into harmony with His will. To be yielded to God as those who have been brought, through grace, into subjection to Him, is practical righteousness. We are then in our right place in relation to God, and the effect of this must be to adjust and regulate our behaviour in every relationship and responsibility in which we are set by His will. Our members become "instruments of righteousness unto God".
In conclusion, I should like to read two scriptures in connection with this. "The grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world; looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ; who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works" (Titus 2:11 - 14). "He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake" (Psalm 23:3).
Grace teaches us to live "righteously" in this present world, and the Shepherd leads us in the paths of righteousness for His name's sake. The honour of His name is bound up with His saints. In the tabernacle there were 280 cubits of beautiful curtains within, and 280 cubits of white linen around the court. This seems to suggest that while we are invested with the beauty of Christ before the eye of God, we are also called to display His moral excellence in testimony here. May it be so increasingly with each one of us!
Romans 5:17 - 21
On two past occasions we looked at some of the
precious things spoken of in this chapter. I desire now to bring before you the end which God has in view in making known His grace to us. We are told that, "they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ". Then again, in the last verse of the chapter, we read of grace reigning "through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord". It seems to me that these two statements give us the end towards which grace works, viz. that believers should reign in life, and be brought into eternal life. I hope to he able to set before you, in some measure, what is conveyed by these statements.
But we must, in the first place, dwell a little on the blessedness of the grace that has reached us. This grace may be divided into two parts: (1) that which meets our need as sinners, and (2) that which enriches us with spiritual blessing in the favour of God. The "gift of righteousness" meets and settles everything connected with our guilty state as sinners. Then the "abundance of grace" is the excess of God's rich bounty which goes far beyond the meeting of our need.
We may see these two things, in picture, in connection with the Queen of Sheba. In coming to Solomon she first got her need met -- her hard questions answered, and all her desires gratified. But there was an excess above all this which "Solomon gave her of his royal bounty" (1 Kings 10:13).
Most of us have known what it was to have "hard questions" -- questions to which the wisdom of men could furnish no answer. One of the oldest and
hardest questions ever raised in this world is that of job, "How should man be just with God?" (Job 9:2). How can man -- guilty, ungodly, and wholly destitute of righteousness and goodness as he is -- be clear of all his guilt, and happy in the knowledge that God will not impute sin to him? The "gift of righteousness" is the divine and perfect answer to this "hard question".
Man's terrible state as a lost sinner is graphically described by Jehovah's words through the prophet Jeremiah: "For thus saith the Lord, Thy bruise is incurable, and thy wound is grievous. There is none to plead thy cause, that thou mayest be bound up: thou hast no healing medicines .. . thy sorrow is incurable for the multitude of thine iniquity" (Jeremiah 30:12 - 15). Man left to himself is utterly helpless and hopeless. But in such an extremity as this lies the opportunity of a Saviour God. He is not without compassion or resource in the presence of man's desperate case. He says, "For I will restore health unto thee, and I will heal thee of thy wounds, saith the Lord" (verse 17). It may he said that this refers to Israel. That it does so only makes the depth of man's ruin, and the riches of God's grace, more apparent. If the people to whom God had vouchsafed so much divine light, and so many divine privileges, could only he described in such language as this, does it not prove conclusively that no amount of light and privilege can make man other than what he is -- a guilty and lost sinner? Indeed, "there is no difference: for all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:22, 23).
On the other hand, if grace is rich towards those who have sinned against light, and who have abused every divine privilege that God could confer upon man in the flesh, none need despair. The grace in which God says, "I will restore health unto thee, and
I will heal thee of thy wounds" is available for every sinner under heaven, whether he be Jew or Gentile, rich or poor, white or black, religious or profane. In Jeremiah 31:34 you get the same thing in plain words, "I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more".
God does this for His own sake (Isaiah 43:25), that His grace may he known by men. He sets Himself forth as a just God and a Saviour, and says, "Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth" (Isaiah 45:22). The Lord Jesus has been delivered for our offences, and raised again for our justification, that He might become the righteousness of every believer. The believer can say, "In the Lord have I righteousness and strength" (Isaiah 45:24). This being the case, he is entirely cleared of guilt and condemnation, and consequently delivered from all the power of the enemy. "No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper; and every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord, and their righteousness is of me, saith the Lord" (Isaiah 54:17).
Righteousness is a divine gift. We could not earn it or buy it, but God gives it, and it is available for everybody. Those who believe on the Lord Jesus Christ have Him as their righteousness. A dying saint said, "Christ is my righteousness, and that settles everything". Thank God, it does settle everything for the believer. Has it settled everything for you? Have you received "the gift of righteousness"?
Then there is "abundance of grace". This is; as I have said, the excess -- the "royal bounty" that gives more than was needed or asked for. It is one thing to have the conscience at rest because the gift of righteousness has been received; it is another to have the heart satisfied with "abundance of grace". How few
of us know what it is to be in abiding satisfaction of heart! God has given "abundance of grace", and it is for us to gather what He has given.
Jeremiah 31:10 - 14 gives the thought of abundance of grace in Old Testament language. "Hear the word of the Lord, O ye nations, and declare it in the isles afar off, and say, He that scattered Israel will gather him, and keep him, as a shepherd doth his flock. For the Lord hath redeemed Jacob, and ransomed him from the hand of him that was stronger than he. Therefore they shall come and sing in the height of Zion, and shall flow together to the goodness of the Lord, for wheat, and for wine, and for oil, and for the young of the flock and of the herd: and their soul shall be as a watered garden; and they shall not sorrow any more at all. Then shall the virgin rejoice in the dance, both young men and old together: for I will turn their mourning into joy, and will comfort them, and make them rejoice from their sorrow. And I will satiate the soul of the priests with fatness, and my people shall he satisfied with my goodness, saith the Lord". No doubt this scripture speaks of earthly blessing in the millennium. But what will be good for Israel then is good for us now in a spiritual sense. It is not now earthly blessings, but all the grace of heaven. Something better than silver or gold or the cattle on a thousand hills. It is an abundance which fills our hearts with spiritual wealth and joy, so that our souls are as a watered garden. Satiated with fatness and satisfied with God's goodness, His saints are made capable of approaching Him with hearts full of joy and praise. Peter and John could not give the lame man at the gate of the temple silver and gold, but in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth they could meet his need and fill his heart with such joy that he could enter "with them into the temple, walking, and leaping, and praising God" (Acts 3).
The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ. And to each one of us has been given grace according to the measure of the beneficence of Christ. Who can set bounds to this abundance of grace?
But someone may say, "I do not doubt the abundance of grace, but I must confess that I have not the joy of it in my soul". I suppose most of us are conscious that our joy in spiritual blessings is not so full or so constant as it might be. We have to learn that we not only need One to secure the blessings and to give them, but One who is able in His grace to bring us into the enjoyment of them.
In connection with this, note the words, "He that scattered Israel will gather him, and keep him, as a shepherd doth his flock" (Jeremiah 31:10). We need to he shepherded by the Lord. In the East sheep do not choose their own pasture; the shepherd leads. In this country, where the sheep are left to themselves we sometimes see them trying to nibble something in the worst part of the field. As saints we need to be shepherded by the Lord, and we may be sure that He leads into pastures of tender grass. As the Shepherd He leads us into the blessing He has secured for us, and for which He has secured us. There is no limit to His giving, for He has laid down His life for the sheep. And now He lives to care for us, and lead us into the "abundance of grace". It is a great thing to he conscious of His care and grace in this way -- to be under His control, and within the sound of His voice, so as to be led by Him. There is no want in the soul that is shepherded by the Lord. In Romans 5 we get wide pastures of tender grass in which He would lead us. Feeding in those pastures we should he consciously enriched with abundance of grace, and satisfied with God's goodness.
What would be the practical effect of this? We should be superior to all the influences and attractions of the world because satisfied from a source which lies entirely outside it. "Newness of life" (Romans 6:4) is a life which has all its springs outside the world. It is a great thing when Christ becomes the Spring of everything to our hearts. David was the spring of everything to Ittai, so that he said, "As the Lord liveth, and as my lord the king liveth, surely in what place my lord the king shall be, whether in death or life, even there also will thy servant he" (2 Samuel 15:21). As to this world we have been baptised unto the death of Christ. We have been buried with Him by baptism unto death, that we may live with Him. God would have to us pass over in spirit with Him, and find everything that is life for our hearts bound up with Him. It is an important moment for the Christian when he comes to realise what is involved in his baptism, so that he does not look for life here. He then sees that all his springs of life are in Christ. He looks for death where Christ died, and for life where Christ lives. Christ is the turning-point of everything. It is said that a great Emperor took his scat on one occasion at the wrong end of the table. Some of the attendants drew his attention to the fact, but he replied, "Where I sit is the head of the table". So for us everything turns upon the place the Christ has. He is rejected here, and has died here. Then we must look for rejection and death here. He has been raised by the Father's glory and lives to God. Then life for us is bound up with Him where He is.
In the apprehension of this we become superior, as I have said, to the influence and attractions of the world. We are able to take account of ourselves as having died to sin. We reign in life by One, Jesus Christ; we are in the supremacy of life, and thus superior to all that is evil here. Nothing makes one
so superior to this present evil world as having a heart satisfied with abundance of grace, with that which is really life towards God.
Paul and Silas in prison were so full of blessed satisfaction in the knowledge of God that they could sing. They were superior to the power of evil which was active against them. So, again, Paul before Agrippa as a prisoner in chains could say, "I would to God, that not only thou, but also all that hear me this day, were both almost, and altogether such as I am, except these bonds". He was consciously better off than the king. Again, in Philippians 4:11, 12, he could say that he had learned to be inwardly satisfied in every kind of circumstance. He could do all things through Christ who gave him power. He was in kingly supremacy -- reigning in life by Jesus Christ. He was not a spiritual scarecrow, but a living exponent of the divine superiority of a Christian to every form of evil here. In writing to the Colossians he would have them to be superior to philosophy, ordinances, etc., because conscious of being complete in Christ.
The saint reigning in life in this moral sense cannot be crushed by the power of evil. Luther, when urged to flee from his enemies, said he would go on if every tile on the roofs of the houses was a devil to oppose him. He could also withstand seductive influences, for at another time one who was sent to offer him money had to write to Rome, "This German beast has not regard for gold". In these particulars he was in superiority to the evil influences which work in the world. To make His saints thus superior is one great end which God has in view.
Then there is another thing. "That as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord". Grace reigns by the Spirit in the heart of the believer who has received the abundance of grace and
found satisfaction in God's goodness. And, if grace reigns in the heart of the believer, it is through righteousness. Deep and true self-judgment is wrought in the soul. If God's grace dominates my heart, everything that is connected with myself morally will he seen in its true character, and judged accordingly. When we are thus "under grace" and walking in self-judgment, there is nothing to hinder the Spirit leading us into the deep things of God. God has prepared wondrous things for those who love Him -- things which the human mind cannot comprehend -- and eternal life is found in the knowledge and enjoyment of those blessed things. If God has satisfied us with His goodness and grace, it is that we might love Him. And if we love Him we shall desire above all things to know Him in the circle of His own thoughts and delights. To know the Father, and Jesus Christ His sent One, is life eternal (John 17:3). To continue in the Son and in the Father is eternal life (1 John 2:24, 25).
It is as we serve God, and have our fruit unto holiness, that we are delivered from things which hinder us from acquiring the knowledge of God. We thus are set free to enter into the blessed reality of what God has given to us in His Son. God would have us to enter into this by the Spirit -- to reap even now everlasting life -- to have a present knowledge and enjoyment of things that death cannot touch.
Romans 7:1 - 6
The verses we have read bring before us the great principle on which alone we can give pleasure to God. The thought of bringing forth "fruit unto God" is that we become pleasurable to Him. This can only he as we understand that we have become dead to the law by the body of Christ, so that we may he married to Another, even to Him who is raised from the dead.
We can all perceive the necessity for forgiveness and justification. All believers know something of this. But it is not so easy to apprehend that as Christians we have become dead to the law. Every converted person can see that the law is holy, just, and good, and that from cover to cover of the Bible, God never requires anything from man but what is right and morally perfect. The law presents moral perfection, and all its requirements are just and beautiful. Indeed, all God's will for man is full of moral beauty, and is attractive to the hearts of those who are born again.
There are certain books which are popular amongst religious people -- such as Taylor's Holy Living and Dying, and Thomas a Kempis' Imitation of Christ -- which take up almost every feature of moral perfection that can be found in Scripture, and present it as a standard for men td attain to. It is all very attractive and beautiful in itself, but it does not give power. It only brings home to an earnest soul the profound conviction that he is in every respect contrary to what he ought to be. This may be a very wholesome experience, but it is not a happy one. It brings bondage and darkness rather than joy and peace. God's pleasure is that His children should be perfectly free and happy before Him. It is only as being so that we can bring forth fruit unto God.
To be married to the law is to be before God on the ground of what I am as in the flesh. It is true that the law is good, but it is equally true that there is nothing in me, that is, in my flesh, that can be made to answer to it. The more earnest I am, the more quickly do I find this out. What bondage it is to feel that God's will is good, and that I ought to answer to it, but that I do not and cannot bring myself into subjection to it!
The whole principle of the law is the will of God presented as a claim. But it is impossible that any satisfaction can arise from a claim unless the person liable has power to answer to it. If I make a claim upon a debtor, and he cannot pay, the claim yields no satisfaction either to him or to me. But if I am disposed to bestow a gift so that the debtor may be able to pay his debts, and have a portion to live on besides, and my debtor is willing to receive it, there is satisfaction on both sides. The whole principle of grace in one word is GIFT.
It is very important to see that God treats us from the beginning as having "nothing to pay". That is there is no response in us to the will of God, and, as to our flesh, there never will be. "I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not" (Romans 7:18). We thus find ourselves justly under condemnation and death, and God acquires no satisfaction in us; we "cannot please God" (Romans 8:8).
But what a perfect contrast to all this do we find when we turn to Christ! In Him we see the will of God presented as filled up in every detail in absolute divine beauty and perfection. It is a great thing to see Christ as the One in whom God has found perfect delight -- His beloved Son in whom He was well pleased. Many believers know something of Christ as Saviour, Advocate, and Intercessor who have not
really known Him as the resting-place of God's pleasure.
But one may say, "The very fact that divine perfection has come into this world in Christ only serves to make more manifest my utter depravity and helplessness, for I am totally unable to take one step after Him in His pathway of holy obedience and love. If possible the thought of Christ brings greater condemnation upon me than the thought of the law".
All this serves to bring home to our souls a sense of the deep necessity for the death of Christ. If we find out that we are dead morally -- that is, that there is no response in us to God -- it prepares us to appreciate the blessed fact that we have become dead legally, if one may so say, by the body of Christ.
At this point I should like to read Galatians 3:1. "O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you, .. . before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth, crucified?" God has sent His beloved Son into this world, not to keep the law for us, but to come under all the just consequences of our having failed to keep it -- to be made a curse for us (see Galatians 3:10, 13). In the death of Christ we see the penalty and curse of a broken law coming upon One who placed Himself under it in perfect divine grace and love. We also see the very state to which law applied brought to an end in His death. The law applies to men living in this world. It is impossible to impose a legal obligation on a dead man, or to expect any response from him. God sets Jesus Christ before our eyes as crucified -- that is, as a dead Man -- and tells us that we have become dead to the law by the body of Christ. God in absolute grace sets the believer in this position. By the death of Christ God annuls the bond which existed between the law and those who were under it.
And, on the other hand, He has brought us into the light of His grace. He has introduced that which
gives the fullest satisfaction to His own heart, and brings infinite blessing and joy to the believer. "When the fulness of time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons" (Galatians 4:4, 5). Everything now is on the line of promise and gift, and on our side the prominent word is "receive"; see Galatians 3:2, 14; Galatians 4:5. God's approach to men now is not characterised by claim, but gift.
God has freed us by the death of Christ from the Man who ends in dust and ashes (see Job 42:6), and He has connected us with the Man of His counsel and pleasure, and with all the perfection that is set forth in Him. This is not attainment, but the gift of grace. There is but one Man for the pleasure of God, and that Man is Christ. God works by His Spirit to bring us consciously into spiritual relationship with Christ. God would make Christ more to us than everything else -- more than service or fruit -- He would make it our supreme desire to know more of Christ. It is by being married to Christ that we receive power to bring forth fruit unto God.
Turn now for a moment to John 10:1 - 4. This scripture is very distinctly connected with the subject before us. We see here the way the Shepherd takes to bring His sheep out of the fold -- that is, out of the legal system. He first establishes a personal link with them. "He calleth his own sheep by name, and leadeth them out". That is what He did when He was here. He formed links between Himself and the hearts of His own. By giving them the knowledge of Himself, and making them conscious of His company, His love, and His support, He brought them into liberty. They were no longer held by the legal system, but by Christ. Then He left the fold by death, and took a new place as raised from the dead, that in being attached
to Him His saints might be delivered from the law. "The good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep"
(John 10:11). What a pledge of His love! May we not count upon all His power and resources being for us, since His love toward us knows no reserve? By going into death He has put the seal of His love for ever on our hearts. He has bound us to Himself. Each believer is entitled to say with Paul, "The Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me" (Galatians 2:20).
Now just a few words on John 15:4, 5. "Without me ye can do nothing" sums up the lesson that is described experimentally in the latter part of Romans 7. If I view myself as apart from Christ I am a "body of ... death", and I can do nothing that will yield pleasure to God. But it is God's pleasure that we should abide in Christ and bring forth much fruit. We abide in Him as we are conscious of our weakness on the one hand, and of His love and power on the other. It is the abiding of affection, as a wife looks to her husband continually as her stay and support. If we abide in Christ He abides in us, and in this way there is fruit for God. A wife who loves her husband takes character from him, and God would have us married to Christ so as to take character from Him. If we are in company with Christ we shall become morally conformed to Him as Timothy was to Paul (1 Corinthians 4:17).
As we are thus bound to Christ in affection we get His support. He will not support us in money-making, or in the maintenance of social position here, but He will give us every needed support that we may bring forth fruit unto God.
"If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you" (John 15:7). I have no doubt the asking here is supposed to be in connection with the desire to bear fruit. If a saint desires this he will he supported, and
cared for, and, if need be, disciplined that he may bear fruit. "It shall be done unto you".
2 Corinthians 12:8, 9 shows how the Lord becomes the Source of grace and strength to His own. Paul seemed to be crippled for service, and he besought the Lord thrice to take away the "thorn in the flesh". But the Lord gave him something better than he asked for. "My grace is sufficient for thee". He got support from the Lord, so that he was content to he reduced to nothingness. And he also got the blessed assurance that "My strength is made perfect in weakness". Then he could say, "Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me". He knew what it was to be married to Christ.
In Philippians 1:19 we read of "the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ". The apostle needed this to enable him to go through his trying circumstances according to God's will. But he knew that there was a supply of all that he needed. He was consciously married to Christ.
God would have us to be so assured of the love and support of Christ that we should think more of the support and the supply than of the claim. There is a greater supply in Christ than any demand that can possibly arise on our part. The sense of this would deliver us from legality, and instruct us in the blessedness of being married to Christ.
Romans 8:1 - 15
We come now to a chapter in which Christian privilege and state is presented in a very blessed way. And it is important to see that we must, in measure, have apprehended what comes out in the previous chapters before we can enter into what is unfolded here. Young converts are often told to read Romans 8 -- and it is a good chapter for them to read, for it sets before them their privilege according to God's mind -- but no one can really enter into it except in the light of what is in the previous chapters.
The Spirit of God has put things in divine order in Scripture. Every link in the chain hangs morally on the link that precedes it. And in learning to take things up in spiritual intelligence we have to travel along the line in which it has pleased God to present them. No doubt believers get a certain amount of individual comfort and help from Scriptures taken up in a very disconnected way. They have their favourite texts and chapters -- Romans 8 is an attractive chapter to all Christians -- but to learn the mind of God in Scripture we have to take things up in their proper order.
If we take the first verse in the chapter -- "There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus" -- the question is raised at once, "What is it to he in Christ Jesus?" No one could give a very clear answer to this question except in the light of what has gone before in the epistle.
In the first place, the believer is justified; he has received the gift of righteousness (chapter 5). But his righteousness is not in himself, it is in Another. In him, "all that believe are justified from all things" (Acts 13:39). CHRIST is the believer's righteousness.
The believer has also received abundance of grace "for divine satisfaction. This abundance of grace" is all treasured up in CHRIST, and administered through Him. The one who enters into the blessings spoken of in Romans 5 is really sitting down under the shadow of Christ with great delight, and finding His fruit sweet to his taste (Song of Songs 2:3). He eats of the fatness of God's house, and is abundantly satisfied.
Then in Romans 6 we come to the practical result which is, in a word, sanctification. Christians, as such, are dead to sin, and having got their freedom from sin, have become servants to God, and have their fruit unto holiness. But how is this brought about? It is by coming under the influence and attraction of CHRIST that the believer is practically set apart from the whole scene which is filled with the working of man's lawless will. He is thus prepared to take account of himself as being identified with Christ. He parts company with his own will, if one may so say, and becomes characterised by obedience. He takes character from the Second Man.
Then, further, as we have seen on a former occasion, we have "become dead to the law by the body of Christ" that we "should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God" (Romans 7:4). All power and grace for fruit-bearing flows from CHRIST Himself. Without Him we can do nothing. We have all, in some measure, proved this experimentally.
We have had to learn that we have neither righteousness, satisfaction, sanctification, nor power in ourselves. As Christians we have learned, by the grace of God, to find righteousness, satisfaction, sanctification, and power in another Man, even in CHRIST. We have nothing outside Him, but everything in Him. In learning this we come into the
apprehension of what it is to be in Christ Jesus. We are entirely apart from the flesh and the world for righteousness, satisfaction, sanctification, and power. We have all in Christ. We are in Christ Jesus.
In 1 Corinthians 1:30 this is looked at from God's side, and as the outcome of His work. Hence we get wisdom first. Christ is the wisdom of God by whom His whole counsel and purpose of blessing is brought about. "Of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption". The Christian is not under law, he is not in the flesh, he is in Christ Jesus. He has everything in the Man of God's counsel and purpose.
The ground on which we can be brought, by the Spirit, to apprehend that every blessing is given to us in Christ Jesus is set forth in Romans 8:3. God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, has condemned sin in the flesh. No flesh can glory in God's presence; it has been condemned and set aside in the holy judgment of the cross. The law could neither correct the flesh nor remove it; but God's Son having become a sacrifice for sin, all that we are morally as in the flesh has been condemned. And on that ground the Spirit has been given to us as "the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus". The Spirit is given to maintain in the believer the consciousness that he has nothing in himself as a man in the flesh, but that he has everything, by the grace of God, in Christ Jesus. A man going about to establish his own righteousness is not in the line of the Spirit. One who seeks satisfaction in the world is altogether out of the current of the Spirit. If I am striving to make my flesh holy and pleasing to God, I shall not have the Spirit's help; He will rather seek to convince me of the impossibility of any success in this direction. If I am making legal efforts to be what I feel I ought to be, and to bring forth fruit to God in this way, the
Spirit will allow me to learn my utter incompetency and helplessness. But the moment CHRIST is before me and I am self-judged, the Spirit is free to act and to maintain me in liberty. It is self and self-sufficiency that hinders the Spirit. We want to do something or to be somebody. The Spirit delights to make everything of Christ. When we turn to Christ as the blessed source of righteousness, satisfaction, sanctification, and power we are on the line and in the current of the Spirit. He is "the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus". He would ever maintain us in the consciousness that we have righteousness, satisfaction, sanctification, and power in Christ Jesus. To walk according to the Spirit is to walk in the abiding sense of this. There are two great laws that operate in connection with what we are as in the flesh. A law is a principle which acts continually in the same way, like the law of gravitation. Sin is the controlling principle of the flesh, and death is the condemning principle that ever attends upon it by the righteous judgment of God.
The man in Romans 7 has found out that sin is the controlling principle of the flesh. "I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me. For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: but I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members" (Romans 7:21 - 23).
An unconverted man thinks that all that he needs in order to lead a perfectly righteous life is to know what is right and to be willing to do it. It never occurs to him that he is quite incapable of good; he has no idea of his own weakness -- no idea that sin is the controlling principle of his flesh. The man in Romans 7 knows what is right, and is willing -- nay, most anxious -- to do it, but finds he has no power. Sin is the controlling principle of his flesh.
It is a truth of universal application that power for good does not reside in the creature; it has its direct outflow from God Himself -- Father, Son, and Spirit. The apprehension of this makes a man say, in thinking of himself, "O wretched man that I am!" but in turning to God he is able to say, "I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord".
The Christian, having received "the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus", comes under the influence of the "law" of that Spirit. The operating principle of "the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus" ever works in the direction of profound self-judgment, and of the consciousness that we have in Christ not only righteousness, but a divine Source of satisfaction and strength. This "law" operates not to give a sense of claim, but of divine gift and resource and support. And thus it makes the one in whom it operates free from "the law of sin and death". It gives the consciousness that divine goodness is an unfailing resource for our hearts, and that all the treasures of that goodness are stored up in Christ Jesus, that we may learn them there, and use them, and find the life of our spirits in the growing knowledge of Him. This brings us morally into an entirely new region where, in the presence of God's goodness and love, we are free from the controlling power of sin, and the condemnation that attaches to the flesh in which sin works.
The practical effect of this is that the Christian is set free to walk "according to Spirit", and as he so walks "the righteous requirement of the law" is fulfilled in him.
Verse 5 comes in as a serious test for all who take Christian ground. "They that are after the flesh [or, according to flesh] do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit for, according to Spirit], the things of the Spirit". The Christian is "according to Spirit", and the proof of this is that he
has a new set of tastes, and cultivates them. The man "according to flesh" has certain tastes, and does his best to gratify them. Indeed it often seems as if the unconverted knew better what they were about than Christians. They "mind the things of the flesh" with diligence and assiduity. They are not easily diverted from their objects. The Christian, as to his divine state, is "according to Spirit", and his great business is to cultivate his new and divine tastes and instincts -- to mind the things of the Spirit. Would to God that Christians generally were as true to their new tastes and desires, and as diligent in seeking their gratification, as men of the world are diligent in minding the things of the flesh!
"The mind of the flesh is death". Solemn words! The mind of the flesh gives no place to God. It will play with a thousand vanities, it will explore with delight the whole domain of natural science, it will entertain systems of philosophy and schemes of philanthropy, it will keep itself in touch with every human interest, but it will give God no place, and hence it is death. Death is the state out of which nothing comes for God.
On the other hand, "the mind of the Spirit [is] life and peace". The mind of the Spirit is ever upon God and His blessed things. His grace, His faithfulness, His love, His wonderful works, His counsels and purposes are ever before the mind of the Spirit. As these things become attractive to us and are the food and joy of our hearts, we prove that the mind of the Spirit is life and peace. When one is minding the things of the Spirit one is perfectly conscious of a satisfaction and tranquillity of soul that is not to be described.
Then in verse 9 we are viewed as having come into a new state by the Spirit. "Ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell
in you". The Christian is "in Christ Jesus" objectively; that is, he has righteousness, satisfaction, and strength not in himself, but in Christ. But he is "in the Spirit" subjectively; that is, the Spirit dwells in him to form him in an entirely new and divine state. It is a great thing to recognise this, and to identify ourselves in mind and interest and affection with that which is of the Spirit. We have to refuse what is connected with our old state as in the flesh, and to identify ourselves with that new state in which the Spirit would form us. If a man goes in for the things of the world -- its pleasures, wealth, and honours -- he practically identifies himself with the flesh. If he wants to be a politician, or to have a place in the religious world, he identifies himself with the flesh. Beloved Christians, let us recognise that our true state is that in which we are formed by the Spirit. Let us be true to that -- let us identify ourselves wholly in heart and spirit with that. Then shall we have spiritual prosperity.
just a few remarks, in conclusion, on verses 12 - 15. In order to live, there must be the practical refusal of all that belongs morally to the flesh -- the putting to death, by the Spirit, of the deeds of the body. The Spirit dwells in us that we may be empowered for this. We cannot plead weakness as an excuse for allowing the flesh to act. We have power by the Spirit to judge and refuse it, and to put to death the deeds of the body. It is only as we do so that we know what it is to live. The Spirit would make us superior to the flesh so that we may be free to enter into what is really life. "For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God". The Spirit leads into His own domain; He is the Spirit of adoption [or, sonship]; if we are led by Him it will be into the deep and holy privilege of sonship.
"Because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the
Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying Abba, Father" (Galatians 4:6). How wondrous to have the Spirit of God's Son in our hearts! Not only to know that we are taken up for glory with Him, to be conformed to His image that He may be the Firstborn among many brethren! But to have His Spirit in our hearts now, crying "Abba, Father", and so forming us in the affections proper to sonship that we cry, "Abba, Father"! It is in this direction that the Spirit leads; it is in these divine affections that He would form our hearts. We have to be led into these blessed things; we have no natural capacity to apprehend them. As we are led by the Spirit of God we get morally detached from the flesh, and separated from the world; we are formed in spiritual affections so as to respond to the love of God. We find ourselves the happy subjects of God's holy love, and as we live in that love we cry, "Abba, Father". May each of us know more fully the blessedness of this!
Romans 8:15 - 39
The great theme that underlies this chapter is the love of God -- that sovereign love towards His elect in which He has taken them up for His own pleasure, and according to which He ever regards them and acts for them. God's purposes are the outcome of His love, and all that He does for His saints, and in them -- all His ways with them -- is the activity of that sovereign love. It is all from God's side, and we can only account for it as we see what He is.
God has in love appropriated a people for Himself. He could say of old to Israel, "Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love; therefore with loving- kindness have I drawn thee" (Jeremiah 31:3). And again, "I passed by thee, and looked upon thee, behold, thy time was the time of love; .. . yea, I sware unto thee, and entered into a covenant with thee, saith the Lord God, and thou becamest mine" (Ezekiel 16:8). What is said of Israel in these scriptures is true in the fullest way of God's saints today. And if God is pleased to set His love upon His saints, we may be sure that He will prove Himself to he more than a match for all the power of evil. "If God be for us, who ... against us?"
If we advert to the history of the children of Israel we see that God was for them. Pharaoh oppressed them in Egypt; God destroyed his power and delivered them. Amalek sought to overthrow them; God discomforted him. Balak would have used Balaam to curse them, but the hireling prophet was obliged to pronounce Jehovah's blessing upon His chosen people. Then, finally, as to all the circumstances of the wilderness journey -- so humbling to the people on their side of it -- God was for them. Their raiment waxed not old, nor did their foot swell. He fed them with manna,
and brought them forth water out of the rock of flint. Now what God was and what He did thus for
Israel is typical of what He is and what He does for His saints at the present time. And I desire to point out in Romans 8 -- which is very distinctly a wilderness chapter -- what answers to the things of which I have just spoken.
In the first place God delivers His saints from the bondage of the oppressor. "For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father" (verse 15). One is not prepared to enter upon the wilderness according to God until he is freed from "t he spirit of bondage". The oppressor would fain keep us perpetually occupied with ourselves. He would keep our imperfections and our weakness so before us as to hinder us from perceiving the perfect grace and love of God. He would have us engaged with ourselves -- material out of which nothing can come for God's pleasure or our own satisfaction -- and in the vain attempt to make bricks without straw he would fill us with the spirit of bondage.
If I allow the thought that what I am towards God will in some way or other affect what God is towards me, I shall be filled with the spirit of bondage. But when I see that what God is towards me is altogether the outcome of what He is, and that He is this though knowing perfectly what I am, it puts my heart in the right direction for liberty. Indeed, the truth is that when I was in the worst possible state -- without strength, ungodly, a sinner, and an enemy of God -- He expressed His love towards me in the most wonderful way that could be conceived (Romans 5:6 - 8).
The first thing that we see in the type is that God placed His people under cover of the blood of the lamb (Exodus 12). He put a redemption between them and the Egyptians, and He took the firstborn for
Himself. He appropriated them for Himself on the ground of redemption. It was God's side of the matter. The keeping of the passover by faith is not attributed to the people in Hebrews 11 but to Moses.
But when we come to the Red Sea it is more the people's side. "By faith they passed through the Red Sea as by dry land" (Hebrews 11:29). They took the way which God had opened up for them -- a way typical of the death of Christ. If we find ourselves justly under condemnation and death on account of what we are, how blessed it is to see that Christ has come into that condemnation and death for us, and this not only to deliver us, but that He might bring us to the knowledge of God. His death is a firm footing for faith. And there was not only dry ground under the Israelites' feet, but "the cloud" over their heads. They "were under the cloud" (1 Corinthians 10:1); that is, in figure, overshadowed by the love of God.
"The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us" (Romans 5:5). The great positive blessing conferred upon those who believe the gospel is the gift of the Spirit, and by the Spirit God's love is shed abroad in our hearts. In this way the spirit of bondage is displaced. For "there is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear; because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love" (1 John 4:18). God's banner over us is love, and the Spirit gives us the consciousness of it.
Someone may say, "Ah, that is what I want, and have long desired, but all my efforts to attain it have been in vain". Of course they have; it is not to be reached by effort. The word for you is, "Stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord" (Exodus 14:13). All the love expressed in the death of Christ is towards you, and when you see that you can do nothing, and
that you are nothing but an ungodly and helpless sinner, you will be prepared to receive that love into your heart. It is self-sufficiency and self-occupation, or, perhaps, self-gratification, that hinders the Holy Spirit from pouring the love of God into your heart -- that blessed love which flows out of its own fulness and finds in the very guilt and state of its subjects an opportunity to manifest itself in the most glorious way.
Then we see in the type that there was response on the part of the people to the way in which God revealed Himself as being for them. I refer to the song of Exodus 15, which seems to me to answer in type to what we have in Romans 8:15, -- "the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father". In that song the people only view themselves according to God's purpose and grace. They were full of delight in what He had revealed Himself to be for them, and in the thought of all His gracious purpose concerning them. I have no doubt this was the time referred to in Jeremiah 2:2, "I remember thee, the kindness of thy youth, the love of thine espousals, when thou wentest after me in the wilderness".
The response now is the cry, "Abba, Father". Knowing the love of God we are in liberty, and there is response to that love in our hearts by the Spirit. The love of God is poured into our hearts, and it forms affections there that flow back to their Source.
The next thing in the history of the children of Israel was that they were tested by wilderness circumstances. The wilderness is a type of all that disordered and barren state of things on earth which has come about as a consequence of sin. God never created a wilderness. It was His thought that the earth should minister to the satisfaction of man, but sin came in and brought death upon everything. Things here have become affected by sin. And now that we have been appropriated by the love of God we have to recognise
this. As belonging to God, we cannot find satisfaction here. God would have us to learn this by the death of Christ. If we are "joint-heirs with Christ" we should expect to find sufferings and death where He suffered and died. Sin has embittered everything here, and death is upon everything. The springs here are dried up; we must look away from the earth to find satisfaction.
We have to suffer in "this present time", and as being still in mortal bodies we are made to feel what it is to be connected with a creation that groans and travails in pain. We await sonship, that is, the redemption of our body, when the coming glory will infinitely more than compensate for "the sufferings of this present time". But in the meantime those sufferings are very real, and "our infirmities" are such that we ofttimes "know not what we should pray for as we ought". All this brings home to us that we are needy creatures in wilderness circumstances and condition.
Now we get the Spirit acting on a very different line from that which we have before considered. He identifies Himself, as it were, with us in our sufferings and infirmities that He may present them before God in a divine way. He takes up everything on our side, and gives a true account of us to God. He joins His help to our weakness, and intercedes for us according to God. In this way God always has our true condition and need before Him, not according to our imperfect apprehension of it, but according to the mind of the Spirit. Our sufferings and weakness, with all their effect upon us, and all the need which they create are thus ever presented to God by the Spirit with groanings that cannot be uttered. Our true need is ever presented perfectly before God, though as to our intelligence "we know not what we should pray for as we ought".
As a result of the Spirit's intercession we obtain help of God, so that, amidst our sufferings and weakness, we have the consciousness that "all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose". God is always for us in the love which moved Him to spare not His own Son, but to deliver Him up for us all. Hence it is in the very nature of things that they should work together for good to them that love God, for His hand is over everything in power and love. He is for us in view of His own purpose, not in view of things here. The "good" is not in connection with things here, but in connection with God's purpose. Things may work together in such a way that the Christian suffers loss here, but all is for the good of his soul.
I now pass on to what was typified by Amalek (Exodus 17:8 - 16). I understand this to he pressure from without in the way of persecution. That is, such things as are spoken of in Romans 8:35 -- tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, and sword. It is those who are spiritually feeble, and who lag behind, who fall soonest under the power of the persecutor. It is said of Amalek that he "smote the hindmost of thee, even all that were feeble behind thee, when thou wast faint and weary; and he feared not God" (Deuteronomy 25:18). If saints are spiritually feeble, and are not pressing on with vigour in the things of God, a very little touch of persecution is enough to dishearten them altogether.
What will make us spiritually strong? To be nourished by the love of Christ. That infinite and blessed love which has reached down even to death, and which is now active at the right hand of God where He makes intercession for us, is the divine Source of all our strength for conflict here. The uplifted hands of Moses on the top of the hill were the
secret of victory over Amalek in the plain below. Christ is in the place of power on high, but He is there to make intercession for us, and nothing can separate us from His love. As our souls are nourished by a sense of this we shall be more than conquerors through Him that loved us.
Then, finally, at the end of the wilderness Balak hired Balaam to curse the people. No doubt it appeared to the enemy a fit time to bring a curse upon them. All their badness had come out. The desert was strewed with the bones of one generation, and another generation had sprung up as bad as their fathers. Such a moment seemed to present a fine opportunity to the accuser of God's people to bring condemnation upon them. But "who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth" (Romans 8:33).
If the testings of the wilderness had brought to light all the evil that was in the people, the brazen serpent lifted up had shewn, in figure, that God had a way of dealing with sin in the flesh so as to maintain His own glory, and establish in righteousness their blessing. On the ground of what had been set forth typically in the brazen serpent God could view His elect people, according to His own purpose and grace, as being sanctified, justified, and invested with divine beauty. The hireling prophet looked down from the top of the rocks and saw the people according to God's mind and thoughts respecting them. "He hath blessed; and I cannot reverse it. He hath not beheld iniquity in Jacob, neither hath he seen perverseness in Israel" (Numbers 23:20, 21).
The testings of the wilderness may discover to us in a thousand unexpected ways what we are, but all this makes us more thankful to know that all this has come under condemnation in Christ's death. All that in us (that is, in our flesh) which was so offensive to
God has been removed in holy judgment in the death of His Son. And now we are justified and invested with divine beauty in Christ Jesus. "Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect?" God silences every accusing voice; He has blessed, He does bless, and He will bless His people because of what He is Himself. He will make manifest the riches and the glory of His grace.
God is for His saints, and He is above every creature. His saints are before Him for His pleasure in Christ Jesus. Every thought of God's mind has failed of accomplishment in man after the order of Adam, but all the thoughts and purposes of His love have been established in Christ Jesus. God has secured satisfaction for His heart in the glorified Man who is at His right hand. As saints -- God's elect -- we are of that Man and in Him, and thus we come under the love of God.
No creature can dispossess God's saints of their blessing in Christ Jesus, or separate them "from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord". We are blessed in the Man of God's counsel, and in Him we come under the love of God and are bound up with it for ever.
May our hearts be affected and subdued by the love of God! The true blessedness of the Christian lies in the knowledge of that holy love. "I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord".
We come now to the appeal and exhortation of the apostle. And it is important to notice that the ground of his appeal is "the mercies of God". In connection with this it will be needful for us to take into consideration a subject which is plainly indicated in chapter 8, and fully set forth in chapters 9 - 11. That is, the sovereignty of God in mercy.
It is not until chapter 8 of this epistle that we read of "God's elect". We have first a most blessed setting forth of what God is in righteousness, power and grace as a Saviour God. Then the blessings and privileges of those who are justified by faith and receive the Spirit are brought before us. This leads up to the result that there are those on earth who have God's love shed abroad in their hearts, and who are responsive to that love. They love God, and they cry, in affection, "Abba, Father". Now the question arises, Who are they who thus know God and respond to His holy love? The answer is, They are "God's elect".
The gospel is fully and freely proclaimed to all. What God is as a Saviour God, He is towards all mankind. But such is the alienation of man's heart from God that apart from sovereign mercy none would repent or believe the gospel. Indeed this is implied in what is stated in Romans 3:9 - 18. There must be a work of sovereign mercy in man, or none would be justified and saved.
Man after the flesh has no fear of God before his eyes; the mind of the flesh is enmity against God; and they that are in the flesh cannot please Him. There is nothing in the flesh that responds to God, or that He can build upon. God wholly rejects man in the flesh, and if we see the character and state of that
man we must admit that there is an absolute moral necessity for his rejection by God. There must be an entirely new beginning -- a work of God in man; in short, a man must be "horn again" in order to have any capacity to see or enter into the kingdom of God. Man must be the subject of sovereign mercy.
Ishmael and Esau, and the children of Israel who made the golden calf, and Pharaoh (see Romans 9:7 - 17) all represent man in the flesh in different phases of his character. Ishmael typifies man in the flesh as one who will not honour Christ or give place to Him. Esau represents man as bent on self-gratification and heedless of the blessing of God. The idolatrous children of Israel in the desert set forth man as proving false to every obligation which in self-confidence he undertakes in relation to God. And Pharaoh is the type of man as the opponent and oppressor of God's people. Put these four different characters together, and you have a complete picture of man in the flesh. God is entitled to reject that man; indeed his rejection by God is a moral necessity.
The principle of sovereignty is clearly established in the case of Isaac and Jacob, and the children of Israel. All the privilege and distinction of which the Jew boasted had come to him on the line of God's sovereignty. It was not for him, at any rate, to resist the thought of that sovereignty. But what the Jew had to learn, and what we have to learn, is that God's sovereignty makes nothing whatever of the flesh. Israel went about to establish their own righteousness (Romans 10:3); they had not learned the true lesson of their own history -- that God would give no place to the flesh.
God called Abram in sovereign mercy from the confusion of a lawless world, and from that day to this the sovereignty of God has been the only cause and guarantee of blessing for man. The man of the world may cavil at God's sovereignty but the believer loves
it. He sees that nothing but mercy would do fox him; he glorifies God for His mercy, and is thankful to he a vessel of mercy.
It is in God's sovereignty that blessing has come to the Gentiles (Romans 9:25, 26). Israel having sought righteousness, not by faith, but by the works of the law, have stumbled. They have proved themselves to be a "disobedient and gainsaying people" (Romans 10:21) in spite of all their pretensions. Blindness in part is happened to Israel, and because of unbelief they have been broken off from the olive tree of promise. In this we see again that God entirely sets aside man in the flesh.
But while, as to His public dealings, God has now turned to the Gentiles as foretold in the Old Testament Scriptures, He did not do so without securing "a remnant according to the election of grace" even from Israel. Of this Paul was himself a proof, and the "firstfruit" of Pentecost also shewed that God had reserved to Himself a remnant from the midst of the blinded nation. Israel's unbelief and rejection of Christ has been the occasion of their being broken off, but at the same time God secured a remnant from among them in sovereign mercy. Their unbelief has opened the way for the grace of God to go out to the Gentiles, so that through the very failure of man God carries out His own purposes.
But this being so, it is not for Gentiles to boast as if they were better than Israel, or as if they had come into light and blessing by their own will. It is all in sovereign mercy and in the goodness of God that light is now found with the Gentiles. But, alas! there is little sense of this in Christendom. Israel's history has repeated itself among the Gentiles whom God has grafted in to partake of the root and fatness of the olive tree of promise. The Gentiles have boasted and been high-minded and have not continued in the
goodness of God, and we are fast nearing the moment when the great Gentile profession will be cut off in the severity of God.
Consequent upon the cutting off of the Gentile, Israel will be graffed in again. They will come into all the promises made to them of old. It is true that according to the flesh they forfeited everything by their rejection of Christ, but they will come into everything on the ground of sovereign mercy in a. future day. "They are beloved for the father's sakes. For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance".
In view of all the way in which God has wrought to set aside and bring to nothing the boasting, conceit, high-mindedness, and self-righteousness of man in the flesh -- in view, too, of the sovereign mercy in which He gives effect to the purposes of His love -- one cannot wonder that the apostle breaks out in the doxology with which chapter 11 closes. "O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out! For who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been his counsellor? Or who hath first given to him, and it shall he recompensed unto him again? For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen" (verses 33 - 36).
Nothing can be more important than that the believer should have a deep sense of God's sovereign mercy. It is not only that He has presented His grace to us in the gospel, but we are indebted to Him for that distinguishing mercy which brought home to us individually the conviction of our guilt and utter worthlessness. According to the flesh we hated grace and rejected Christ; we preferred the world and our lusts and pleasures to God's favour. He might have left us to take our own course and fit ourselves
for destruction, for we had no claim upon Him in any way. In a word, we were under death and judgment. And it is to His sovereign mercy alone that we owe our blessing and salvation.
This mercy forms the ground of the apostle's appeal in chapter 12: 1, 2. "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. And he not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God". If all that has gone before in this epistle -- the infinite grace, love, and mercy of God -- has in any way got into our hearts, it must have prepared us to respond fully and gladly to this appeal. If God has built up the knowledge of grace in our souls, and shed his love abroad in our hearts -- if He has bowed our spirits in adoring praise for His sovereign mercy to us -- surely the effect of all this must he that we desire to be here for His will and pleasure. We are prompted in this holy desire by every motive with which divine love could furnish our hearts. It is not to win God's favour that we present our bodies a living sacrifice, but because that favour is shining with unclouded ray upon us. It is not to secure freedom that we do so, but because we are in holy liberty. It is not in pursuit of holiness after the flesh that we thus present ourselves, but because we know that we are "not in the flesh, but in the Spirit", and because we have learned through the Spirit to put to death the deeds of the body.
If our bodies are to be a "living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God", it is clear that there must be no working of the will of the flesh. The body must be held as dead towards sin, if it is to be a "living sacrifice" towards God. It must be held now as a holy vessel sanctified by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, and
dedicated to God absolutely. A sacrifice once presented could not he recalled. It became a "holy" thing which could no more be diverted to common uses. If a man regarded it as common he was cut off from his people. I have no doubt there is a moment when the Christian presents his body as a living sacrifice, and then he is responsible ever to regard it as being devoted to God. It is never more to he animated by the will and lusts of the flesh. It is never to be for self-gratification or vain-glory. It is to be for God.
And this is not to be a mere sentiment awakened by reading a book, or the passing impulse of religious fervour roused by a stirring address; it is the "intelligent service" of the Christian. It is the sober and deliberate action of spiritual intelligence energised by the Holy Spirit.
"And be not conformed to this world". Let us dwell a moment upon this! This world [age] is in many respects more seductive now than in the days of the apostles. The whole course of things in Christendom, has to some extent, become coloured by Christianity. Certain ideas of propriety affect most people, more or less. This makes it very easy for believers to drop down to the level of things here without coming in contact with any gross form of evil which might affect their consciences. For example, people give a Christian flavouring to politics, or try to do so, and many believers think it their duty to exercise political rights. But politics certainly belong to this age, and form perhaps one of its most prominent characteristics. There will be no politics, as we understand the term today, in the age to come, or in heaven.
Then again, think of religion. We live in a country where Christianity has a public and recognised place as forming part of what is right and proper in this age. No great state ceremonial would be complete apart
from the presence of those who are supposed to represent Christianity, and to give its sanction to the proceedings. So that Christianity, instead of being quite apart from the course of this age, is looked upon as its crowning glory. But the Christian is not to be conformed to this age.
Take the ordinary social life of the world. It has its pleasing amiabilities, its many devices to pass smoothly the hours of leisure, its entertaining intelligence of everything that is done under the sun, and, it may be, a pinch of religious flavouring thrown in. But it all belongs to "this world", to which the Christian is not to be conformed.
"But be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind". The renewing of the mind is that gracious operation of God whereby saints become capable of entering intelligently into the apprehension of things which lie altogether outside this age. The Christian has a new kind of intelligent faculty by which he apprehends things that are outside the sphere of sight and the range of the senses. He becomes intelligent in the actings and ways of God, and familiar with that resurrection world which is the scene of "the wonderful works of God".
The effect of apprehending these things is that the Christian is transformed; he comes out here in a new way, with new traits and characteristics. He thinks soberly of himself (verse 3); he does not mind high things but goes along with the lowly; he is not wise in his own conceit (verse 16); he does not avenge himself, but overcomes evil with good (verses 19 - 21); he is subject to the powers that be (Romans 13:1 - 7); he puts on the Lord Jesus Christ, and makes no provision for the flesh to fulfil the lusts thereof (Romans 13:14); he bears the infirmities of the weak, and does not please himself (Romans 15:1). If we think of what we are naturally, this is indeed a wondrous transformation.
"That ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God". It is in taking the practical and experimental course to which we are here exhorted that we prove the blessedness of God's will concerning His saints. I understand this to mean that we learn our right place in relation to the saints; we also learn how to behave ourselves in the world, and in our individual responsibility as in the kingdom of God. A few words on each of these three things may not be out of place.
The first thing is to he exercised as to the measure of faith which God has dealt to us. There is a danger of seeking to take a place amongst the saints according to one's natural ability, and thus to have high thoughts above what one should think. We have to learn, through exercise, our "measure of faith". Then there are also "gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us". A gift is some special and divinely given qualification to serve the Lord, but in its exercise it is important not to go beyond "the proportion of faith". A man has to give attention to his gift. A gift is not given to he exercised occasionally at certain convenient times; it is intended to be at all times characteristic of the one who has it. It is his great business, and must not be made secondary to anything else. Finally, love is to be the all-pervading spirit of our intercourse with the saints. Unfeigned love and kindly affection one towards another will enable us in honour to prefer one another; it will move us to distribute to the necessity of saints, and to be hospitable; it will enable us to rejoice with those that rejoice and to weep with those that weep.
Then as to the world we are passing through (chapter 13) it is the will of God that we should be subject to the powers that be, paying tribute and paying to all their dues. It is no part of the Christian's business to control the powers that be, or to choose his own
rulers; his place is to submit to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake, whether it be to the king as supreme, or unto governors (1 Peter 2:13, 14). Of course if the powers were to command something positively against the commandments of God it would be the Christian's duty to obey God rather than man, but this is not a case which often arises.
In our individual responsibility as in the kingdom of God (chapter 14), we have to be careful not to despise a brother because he does not feel free in conscience to eat or drink or do certain things which to us seem perfectly lawful. On the other hand, the brother with a conscience as to certain things must be careful not to judge the one whose conscience is in greater liberty. The great thing is not to put any stumbling-block or occasion to fall in any brother's way. An earnest care for one another's welfare and prosperity would regulate all this, and in thus seeking one another's good we should truly serve Christ and become acceptable to God and approved of men.
It is as we practically take the course which God's will has marked out for us that we prove how good and acceptable and perfect is that will. In that course we find "righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit". We are here for the pleasure of God, and we find that in the path of His will our hearts experience the deepest satisfaction and joy.
"just as I am, without one plea,
But that Thy blood was shed for me,
And that Thou bid'st me come to Thee;
O Lamb of God, I come". (Hymn 446)"The heart within us leapeth,
And cannot down he cast,
Since with our God it keepeth
Its never-ending feast.
Is Jesus Christ alone;
And what to song incites us,
Is heaven on earth begun". RIGHTEOUSNESS
"By law of sweet compulsion strong and sure,
As gravitation to the greater orb
The less attracts, through nature's whole domain". THE PRESENT END OF GRACE
THE NEW HUSBAND
CHRISTIAN PRIVILEGE AND STATE
THE LOVE OF GOD
THE MERCIES OF GOD