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Synopsis of the Books of the Bible
John Nelson Darby
1800-1882
ROMANS
Introduction
The Epistle to the Romans is well placed at the head of all the others, as
laying the foundations, in a systematic way, of the relations of man with
God; reconciling at the same time this universal truth of man's position,
first in responsibility, and secondly in grace, with the special promises
made to the Jews. It also establishes the great principles of christian
practice, the morality, not of man, but that which is the fruit of the
light and revelation given by Christianity. It is important to see that it
always views the Christian as in this world. He is justified and has life
in Christ, but is here, and not viewed as risen with Him.
The following is, I believe, the arrangement of the epistle. After some
introductory verses, which open his subject, several of which are of the
deepest importance and furnish the key to the whole teaching of the epistle
and man's real state with God (chap. 1:1-17), the apostle (to the end of
chap. 3:20)
shews man to be utterly corrupt and lost, in all the circumstances in which
he stands. Without law, it was unbridled sin; with philosophy, it was
judging evil and committing it; under law, it was breaking the law, while
boasting of its possession, and dishonouring the name of Him with whose
glory those who possessed it were (so to say) identified, by having
received from Him that law as His people. From chapter 3:21 to the end of
chapter 8 we find the remedy plainly set forth in two parts. In chapter 3:
21 to the end of the chapter, in a general way, through faith the blood of
Christ is the answer to all the sin which the apostle has just been
describing; afterwards, in chapter 4, resurrection, the seal of Christ's
work, and the witness of its efficacy for our justification. All this meets
the responsibility of the child of Adam, which the law only aggravated,
according to the full grace unfolded in chapter 5:1-11. But in chapter 8
they are assumed to be in Christ who is on high, placing him who had part
in it (that is, every believer) in a new position before God in Christ, who
thus gave him liberty and life-the liberty in which Christ Himself was, and
the life which He Himself lived. It is this last which inseparably unites
justification and holiness in life.
But there is connected with this another point, which gives occasion to
notice a division yet more important of the subjects of the epistle. From
chapter 3:21 to the end of verse 11 of chapter 5, the apostle treats the
subject of our sins-individual guilt is met by the blood of Christ who (in
chap. 4), delivered for our offences, is raised for our justification. But
from chapter 5:12 the question of sin is treated-not a future judgment
met, but deliverance from a present state.
One ends in the blessing of chapter 5:1-11, the other in that of chapter 8.
In chapters 9-11 the apostle reconciles these truths of the same salvation,
common to every believing man without distinction, with the promise made to
the Jews, bringing out the marvellous wisdom of God, and the way in which
these things were foreseen, and revealed in the word.
He afterwards sets forth (in chap. 12 et seqq.) the practical christian
spirit. In this last part, he alludes to the assembly as a body. Otherwise,
it is in general man, the individual, before a God of righteousness; and
the work of Christ, which places him there individually in peace. For the
same reason, save in one passage in chapter 8 to bring in intercession, the
ascension is not spoken of in Romans. It treats of death, and Christ's
resurrection as the ground of a new status for man before God.
<61451F:6>Let us now examine the line of thought given by the Holy Ghost in
this epistle. We find in it the answer to the solemn question of Job, angry
at finding himself without resource in the presence of the judgment of God:
"I know it is so of a truth, but how should man be just with God?
"Nevertheless that is not the first thought which presents itself to the
apostle. That is man's necessity; but the gospel comes first revealing and
bringing Christ. It is grace and Jesus which it brings in its hands; it
speaks of God in love. This awakens the sense of need,
while bringing that which meets it; and gives its measure in the grace that
sets before us all the fulness of the love of God in Christ. It is a
revelation of God in the Person of Christ. It puts man in his place before
God, in the presence of Him who is revealed-both in himself, and in grace
in Christ. All the promises are also accomplished in the Person of Him who
is revealed. But it is important to note that it begins with the Person of
Christ, not forgiveness or righteousness, though this is fully developed
afterwards from verse 17.
Chapter 1
There is no epistle in which the apostle places his apostleship on more
positive and formal ground than in this; for at Rome he had no claim in
virtue of his labours. He had never seen the Romans. He was none the less
their apostle; for he was that of the Gentiles. He was a debtor to the
Gentiles. He writes to them because he had received a mission from the Lord
Himself towards all the Gentiles. They were in his allotted sphere of
service as being Gentiles. It was his office to present them as an offering
sanctified by the Holy Ghost (chap. 15:16). This was his commission. God
was mighty in Peter towards the Jews; the mission of Paul was to the
Gentiles. It was to him this mission was entrusted. The twelve moreover
acknowledged it. If God has ordained that Paul should accomplish his
mission in direct connection with heaven and outside the secular influence
of the capital, and if Rome was to be a persecutor of the gospel, that city
was not the less Gentile on this account. It belonged to Paul with
reference to the gospel. According to the Holy Ghost Peter addresses the
Jews in the exercise of his apostleship; Paul, the Gentiles.
This was the administrative order according to God; let us now come to the
substance of his position. Paul was the servant of Christ-that was his
character, his life. But others were, more or less, that. He was more than
that. He was an apostle by the call of the Lord, a "called apostle"; and
not only that, and laborious as occasion presented itself, he was nothing
but that in life here below. He was set apart for the glad tidings of God.
These two last characters are very definitely warranted by the revelation
of the Lord to Paul on the way to Damascus-his call, and his mission to the
Gentiles on that occasion; and by setting apart by the Holy Ghost at
Antioch, when he went forth to fulfil his mission.
He calls the gospel to which he was set apart, the gospel or glad tidings
"of God": the Holy Ghost presents it in its source. It is not that which
man ought to be for God, nor yet the means merely by which man can approach
Him on His throne. It is the thoughts of God, and His acts, we may add,
towards man-His thoughts in goodness, the revelation of Him in Christ His
Son. He approaches man according to that which He is and that which He
wills in grace. God comes to him; it is the gospel of God. This is the true
aspect: the gospel is never rightly understood until it is to us the gospel
of God, the activity and revelation of His nature, and of His will in grace
towards man.
Having pointed out the source, the Author of the gospel, the One whom it
thus reveals in His grace, the apostle presents the connection between this
gospel and the dealings of God which historically preceded it-its
promulgation here below, and at the same time its own proper object; that
is to say, its subject properly so called, and the place held with regard
to it by that which preceded it (the order of things which those to whom
they belonged sought to maintain as a substantive and independent system by
rejecting the gospel). He here introduces that which preceded, not as a
subject of controversy, but in its true character, to enforce the testimony
of the gospel (anticipating objections, which are thus solved beforehand).
To the Gentile it was the revelation of the truth, and of God, in grace; to
the Jew it was indeed that, while also putting everything that regarded him
in its right place. The connection of the Old Testament with the gospel is
this: the gospel of God had been announced beforehand by His prophets in
holy writings. Observe here, that in these holy scriptures the gospel of
God was not come, nor was it then addressed to men: but promised or
announced beforehand, as to be sent. The assembly was not even announced:
the gospel was announced, but as being yet to come.
Moreover, the subject of this gospel is, first of all, the Son of God. He
has accomplished a work: but it is Himself who is the true subject of the
gospel. Now He is presented in a twofold aspect: 1st, the object of the
promises, Son of David according to the flesh; 2nd, the Son of God in
power, who, in the midst of sin, walked by the Spirit in divine and
absolute holiness (resurrection being the illustrious and victorious proof
of who He was, walking in this character). That is to say, resurrection is
a public manifestation of that power by which He walked in absolute
holiness during His life-a manifestation that He is the Son of God in
power. He is clearly shewn forth as Son of God in power by this means Here
it was no question of promise, but of power, of Him who could enter into
conflict with the death in which man lay, and overcome it completely; and
that, in connection with the holiness which bore testimony during His life
to the power of that Spirit by which He walked, and in which He guarded
Himself from being touched by sin. It was in the same power by which He was
holy in life absolutely that He was raised from the dead.
In the ways of God on the earth He was the object and the fulfilment of the
promises. With regard to the condition of man under sin and death, He was
completely conqueror of all that stood in His way, whether living or in
resurrection. It was the Son of God who was there, made known by
resurrection according to the power that was in Him, a power that displayed
itself according to the Spirit by the holiness in which He lived.
What marvellous grace to see the whole power of evil-that dreadful door of
death which closed upon the sinful life of man, leaving him to the
inevitable judgment that he deserved-broken, destroyed, by Him, who was
willing to enter into the gloomy chamber it shut in, and take upon Himself
all the weakness of man in death, and thus completely and absolutely
deliver him whose penalty He had borne in submitting to death! This victory
over death, this deliverance of man from its dominion, by the power of the
Son of God become man, when He had undergone it, and that as a sacrifice
for sin, is the only ground of hope for mortal and sinful man. It sets
aside all that sin and death have to say. It destroys, for him who has a
portion in Christ, the seal of judgment upon sin, which is in death; and a
new man, a new life, begins for him who had been held under it, outside the
whole scene, the whole effect of his former misery-a life founded on all
the value of that which the Son of God had there accomplished.
In fine, we have, as the subject of the gospel, the Son of God, made of the
seed of David after the flesh; and, in the bosom of humanity and of death,
declared to be the Son of God in power by resurrection,
Jesus Christ our Lord. The gospel was the gospel of God Himself; but it is
by Jesus Christ the Lord that the apostle received his mission. He was the
head of the work, and sent forth the labourers into the harvest which they
were to reap in the world. The object of his mission, and its extent, was
the obedience of faith (not obedience to the law) among an nations,
establishing the authority and the value of the name of Christ. It was this
name which should prevail and be acknowledged.
The apostle's mission was not only his service; the being trusted with it
was at the same time the personal grace and favour of Him whose testimony
he bore. I am not speaking of salvation, although in Paul's case the two
things were identified-a fact that gave a remarkable colour and energy to
his mission; but there was grace and favour in the commission itself, and
it is important to remember it. It gives character to the mission and to
its execution. An angel performs a providential mission; a Moses details a
law in the spirit of the law; a Jonah, a John the Baptist, preaches
repentance, withdraws from the grace that appeared to falsify his
threatenings against the wicked Gentiles, or in the wilderness lays the axe
to the root of the unfruitful trees in God's garden. But by Jesus, Paul,
the bearer of the glad tidings of God, receives grace and apostleship. He
carries, by grace and as grace, the message of grace to men wherever they
may be, the grace which comes in all the largeness of the rights of God
over men, and in Himself as sovereign, and in which He exercises His
rights. Among these Gentiles, the believing Romans also were the called of
Jesus Christ.
Paul therefore addresses all the believers in that great city. They were
beloved of God, and saints by calling.
He wishes them (as in all his epistles) grace and peace from God the
Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ, on whose part he delivered his
message. The perfect grace of God by Christ, the perfect peace of man, and
that with God; it was this which he brought in the gospel and in his heart.
These are the true conditions of God's relationship with man, and that of
man with God, by the gospel-the ground on which Christianity places man.
When an individual is addressed, another consideration comes in, namely,
that of his own weaknesses and infirmities: therefore "mercy" is added to
the wish of the sacred writers in the case of individuals. (See the
Epistles to Timothy and Titus, and the Second Epistle of John.)
If the love of God is in the heart, if He has His place there, it is before
God that one is occupied with the objects of grace; and then, the work of
God in them, the grace that has been displayed is the first thing that
comes into the mind, whether in love or in thankfulness. The faith of the
Romans ascends in thanksgivings from the heart of the apostle, whom the
report of it had reached.
<61452F:14>He then expresses his desire to see them, a desire that often
occupied his mind. Here he brings out his apostolic relationship towards
them, with all the tenderness and all the delicacy that belong to the grace
and the love which had formed this relationship and which constituted its
strength. He is apostle by right to all the Gentiles, even although he may
not have seen them; but in heart he is their servant; and with the most
true and ardent brotherly love, flowing from the grace that had made him
apostle, he desires to see them, that he might impart to them some
spiritual gift, which his apostleship put him in a position to communicate.
What he had in his heart in this was, that he might enjoy the faith which
was common to him and to them-faith strengthened by these gifts-for their
mutual comfort. Often he had purposed coming, that he might have some fruit
in this part also of the field which God had committed to him; but he had
been hindered until now.
He then declares himself a debtor to all the Gentiles, and ready, as far as
in him lay, to preach the gospel to those of Rome also. The way in which
the apostle claims the whole field of the Gentiles as his own, and in which
he was prevented by God from going to Rome until he arrived there at the
end of his career (and then only as a prisoner), is worthy of all
attention.
However it might be, he was ready, and that because of the value of the
gospel-a point which leads him to state both the value and the character of
this gospel. For, he says, he was not ashamed of it. It was the power of
God to salvation. Observe here the way in which the apostle presents
everything as coming from God. It is the gospel of God, the power of God to
salvation, the righteousness of God, and even the wrath of God, and that
from heaven-a different thing from earthly chastisement. This is the key to
everything. The apostle lays stress upon it, putting it forward from the
commencement of the epistle; for man ever inclines to have confidence in
himself, to boast of himself, to seek for some merit-some righteousness, in
himself, to Judaise, to be occupied with himself, as though he could do
something. It was the apostle's joy to put his God forward.
Thus, in the gospel, God intervened, accomplishing a salvation which was
entirely His own work-a salvation of which He was the source and power, and
which He Himself had wrought. Man came into it by faith: it was the
believer who shared it, but to have part in it by faith was exactly the way
to share it without adding anything whatsoever to it, and to leave it
wholly the salvation of God. God be praised that it is so, whether for
righteousness or for power, or for the whole result; for thus it is
perfect, divine. God has come in, in His almighty power and in His love, to
deliver the wretched, according to His own might. The gospel is the
expression of this: one believes it and one shares it.
But there is an especial reason why it is the power of God in salvation.
Man had departed from God by sin. Righteousness alone could bring him back
into the presence of God, and make him such that he could be there in
peace. A sinner, he had no righteousness, but quite the contrary; and if
man were to come before God as a sinner, judgment necessarily awaits him:
righteousness would be displayed in this way. But, in the gospel, God
reveals a positive righteousness on His part. If man has none, God has a
righteousness which belongs to Him, which is His own, perfect like Himself,
according to His own heart. Such a righteousness as this is revealed in the
gospel. Human righteousness there was none: a righteousness of God is
revealed. It is all-perfect in itself, divine and complete. To be revealed,
it must be so. The gospel proclaims it to us.
The principle on which it is announced is faith, because it exists, and it
is divine. If man wrought at it, or performed a part of it, or if his heart
had any share in carrying it out, it would not be the righteousness of God;
but it is entirely and absolutely His. We believe in the gospel that
reveals it. But if it is the believer who participates in it, every one who
has faith has part in it. This righteousness is on the principle of faith.
It is revealed, and consequently to faith, wherever that faith exists.
This is the force of the expression which is translated "from faith to
faith"-on the principle of faith unto faith. Now the importance of this
principle is evident here. It admits every believing Gentile on the same
footing as the Jew, who has no other right of entrance than he. They both
have faith: the gospel recognises no other means of participating in it.
The righteousness is that of God; the Jew is nothing more in it than the
Gentile. As it is written, "The just shall live by faith." The scriptures
of the Jews testified to the truth of the apostle's principle.
This is what the gospel announced on God's part to man. The primary subject
was the Person of Christ, son of David according to flesh (accomplishment
of promise); and the Son of God with power according to the Spirit of
holiness. But the righteousness of God (not of man) was revealed in it.
This is the grand theme of all that follows. The apostle had indeed reason
not to be ashamed of it, despised as it was by men.
But this doctrine was confirmed by another consideration, and was based on
the great truth contained in it. God, in presenting Himself, could not look
at things according to the partial communications adapted to the ignorance
of men, and to the temporary dispensations by which He governed them. Wrath
was not merely His intervention in government, as by the Assyrian or
Babylonish captivity. It was "wrath from heaven." The essential opposition
of His nature to evil, and penal rejection of it wherever it was found, was
manifested. Now God manifested Himself in the gospel. Thus divine wrath
does not break forth indeed (for grace proclaimed the righteousness of God
in salvation for sinners who should believe) but it is revealed (not
exactly in the gospel-that is the revelation of righteousness; but it is
revealed) from heaven against ungodliness-all that does not respect the
presence of God-against all that does not comport with the presence of God,
and against all unrighteousness or iniquity in those who possessed the
truth but still dishonoured God; that is to say, against all men, Gentile
or otherwise, and particularly the Jews who had the knowledge of God
according to the law; and, again (for the principle is universal, and flows
from that which God is, when He reveals Himself), against every one who
professes Christianity, when he walks in the evil that God hates.
This wrath, divine wrath, according to God's nature as in heaven, against
man as a sinner, made God's righteousness necessary. Man was now to meet
God fully revealed as He is. This shewed him wholly a sinner, but paved the
way in grace for a far more excellent place and standing-one based on the
righteousness of God. The gospel reveals the righteousness: its
opportuneness and necessity are demonstrated by the state of sin in which
all men are, and by occasion of which wrath was revealed from heaven. Man
was not merely to be governed by God, and find governmental wrath, but to
appear before God. How could we stand there? The answer is the revelation
of God's righteousness by the gospel. Hence, too, even in speaking of
resurrection Christ is declared to be the Son of God according to the
Spirit of holiness. God has to be met such as He is. The revelation of God
Himself in His holy nature went necessarily farther than mere Jews. It was
against the thing sin, wherever it was, wherever it met sin, to make good
what God is. It is a glorious truth; and how blessed that thus divine
righteousness in sovereign grace should be revealed! And, God being love,
we can say that it could not be otherwise; but how glorious to have God
thus revealed!
The thesis of the epistle then is in verse 17, that which proved its need
in verse 18. From verse 19 to the end of verse 20 in chapter 3, the
condition of men, Jews and Gentiles, to whom this truth applies, is given
in detail, in order to shew in what way this wrath was deserved, and all
were shut up in sin (v. 19 and 21 of this chapter giving the leading
principles of the evil as regards the Gentiles). From verse 21 to 31 of
chapter 3, the answer in grace by the righteousness of God, through the
blood of Christ, is briefly but powerfully declared. For we first get the
answer by Christ's blood to the old state, and then the introduction, by
death and life through Christ, into the new.
The apostle begins with the Gentiles-"all ungodliness" of men. I say the
Gentiles (it is evident that if a Jew falls into it, this guilt attaches to
him; but the condition described, as far as chapter 2:17, is that of
Gentiles); afterwards that of the Jews, to chapter 3:20.
Chapter 1:18 is the thesis of the whole argument from verse 19 to chapter
3:20, this part of the epistle shewing the ground of that wrath.
The Gentiles are without excuse on two accounts. First, that which may be
known of God has been manifested by creation-His power and His Godhead.
This proof has existed since the creation of the world. Secondly, that,
having the knowledge of God as Noah had it, they had not glorified Him as
God, but in the vanity of their imaginations, reasoning upon their own
thoughts on this subject and the ideas it produced in their own minds, they
became fools while professing themselves to be wise, and fell into
idolatry, and that of the grossest kind. Now God has judged this. If they
would not retain a just thought of the glory of God, they should not even
retain a just idea of the natural honour of man. They should dishonour
themselves as they had dishonoured God. It is the exact description, in a
few strong and energetic words, of the whole pagan mythology. They had not
discernment, moral taste, to retain God in their knowledge: God gave them
up to a spirit void of discernment, to boast themselves in depraved tastes,
in things unbecoming nature itself. The natural conscience knew that God
judged such things to be worthy of death according to the just exigencies
of His nature. Nevertheless they not only did them, but they took pleasure
in those who did them, when their own lusts did not carry them away. And
this left no excuse for those who judged the evil (and there were such),
for they committed it while judging it. Man then by judging condemned
himself doubly: for by judging he shewed that he knew it to be evil, and
yet he did it. But the judgment of God is according to truth against those
who commit such things: they who acquired credit by judging them should not
escape it.
Chapter 2
Two things are presented here with respect to God; His judgment against
evil-the evil-doer shall not escape (the real difference of right and wrong
would be maintained by judgment); and His mercy, patience, and
long-suffering with regard to the evil-doer-His goodness inviting him to
repentance. He who continued in evil deceived himself by trying to forget
the sure judgment of God and by despising His goodness. The consequences,
both of a life opposed to God and to His truth on the one hand, and of the
search after that which is pleasing to Him, and thereby for eternal life on
the other, were sure-tribulation and anguish in the one case, in the other
glory and honour; and that without more respect to the Jews than to the
Gentiles.
God judged things according to their true moral character, and according to
the advantages which the guilty one had enjoyed.
Those who had sinned without law should perish without law, and those who
had sinned under the law should be judged according to the law, in the day
when God should judge the secrets of the heart according to the gospel
which Paul preached. This character of the judgment is very important. It
is not the government of the world by an earthly and outward judgment, as
the Jew understood it, but that of the individual according to God's
knowledge of the heart.
Also God would have realities. The Gentile who fulfilled the law was better
than a Jew who broke it. If he called himself a Jew and acted ill (chap. 2:
17), he only dishonoured God, and caused His name to be blasphemed among
the Gentiles whilst boasting in his privileges. He then enlarges on the
point that God requires moral reality, and that a Gentile who did that
which the law demanded was better worth than a Jew who disobeyed it, and
that the real Jew was he who had the law in his heart, being circumcised
also in the spirit, and not he who had only outward circumcision. This was
a condition which God could praise, and not man only.
Chapter 3
Having established the great truth that God required real moral goodness,
he considers the position of the Jews. Could they not plead special divine
favour? Was there no advantage in Judaism? Surely there was, especially in
that they possessed the oracles of God. The ways of God were full of
blessing in themselves, although that did not change the immutable truths
of His nature. And if many among them had been unbelieving, this did not
alter the faithfulness of God; and the fact that the unbelief of many did
but the more demonstrate the faithfulness of God, who remained the same
whatever they might be, took nothing from the claims of righteousness.
Unbelievers should be punished according to what they were; it would but
magnify the unfailing faithfulness of God, which never failed, however
unavailing it might be for the mass of the nation. Otherwise He could judge
no one, not even the world (which the Jew was willing to see judged); for
the condition of the world also enhanced and put in evidence the
faithfulness of God towards His people. If then the Jew had advantages, was
he therefore better? In no wise: all were shut up under sin, whether Jew or
Gentile, as God had already declared.
The apostle now cites the Old Testament to prove this with regard to the
Jews, who did not deny it with regard to the Gentiles which he had already
also shewn. The law, says he, belongs to you. You boast that it refers to
you exclusively. Be it so: hear then what it says of the people, of
yourselves. It speaks to you, as you acknowledge. There is not then one
righteous man among you on whom God can look down from heaven. He quotes
Psalm 14:2, 3; Isaiah 59:7, 8, to set forth the judgment pronounced on
them by those oracles of which they boasted. Thus every mouth was shut, and
all the world guilty before God. Therefore it is that no flesh can be
justified before God by the law; for if the world in the midst of darkness
wallowed in sin, by means of the law sin was known.
But now, without law, apart from all law, a righteousness that is of God
has been manifested, the law and the prophets bearing witness to it.
Hence then we find not only the condition of the Gentiles and of the Jews
set forth, together with the great immutable principles of good and evil,
whatever might be the dealings of God, but the effect of the law itself,
and that which was introduced by Christianity as regarded righteousness,
altogether outside the law, although the law and the prophets bore witness
to it. In a word, the eternal truth as to sin and as to the responsibility
of man, the effect of the law, the connection of the Old Testament with
Christianity, the true character of the latter in that which relates to
righteousness (namely, that it is a thing entirely new and independent),
the righteousness of God Himself-the whole question between man and God,
with regard to sin and righteousness, is settled, as to its foundation, in
these few words. The manner of its accomplishment is now to be treated of.
It is the righteousness of God by faith in Jesus Christ. Man has not
accomplished it, man has not procured it. It is of God, it is His
righteousness; by believing in Jesus Christ participation in it is
obtained. Had it been a human righteousness, it would have been by the law
which is the rule of that righteousness-a law given to the Jews only. But
being the righteousness of God Himself, it had reference to all; its range
embraced not the one more than the other. It was the righteousness of God
"unto all." A Jew was not more in relation with the righteousness of God
than a Gentile. It was in fact universal in its aspect and in its
applicability. A righteousness of God for man, because no man had any for
God, it was applied to all those who believe in Jesus. Wherever there was
faith, there it was applied. The believer possessed it. It was towards all,
and upon all those who believed in Jesus. For there was no difference: all
had sinned, and outside the glory of God,
deprived of that glory, were justified freely by His grace, through the
redemption that is in Christ Jesus. Whether a Jew or a Gentile, it was a
sinful man: the righteousness was the righteousness of God; the goodness of
God was that which bestowed it, redemption in Christ Jesus the divine means
of having part in it.
Before the accomplishment of this redemption, God, in view of it, had in
patience borne with the faithful, and His righteousness in forgiving them
was now clearly manifested. But, further, the righteousness itself was
manifested: we come to Christ as a propitiatory that God has set forth
before men, and we find on it the blood which gives us free access to God
in righteousness,-God whose glory is satisfied in the work that Christ
Jesus has accomplished, His blood upon the mercy-seat bearing witness
thereof. It is no longer "forbearance"-righteousness is manifested, so that
God is seen to be righteous and just in justifying him who is of faith in
Jesus. Where then is boasting? For the Jews boasted much in reference to
the Gentiles-self-righteousness always boasts: it is not a law of works
that can shut it out. Man justifying himself by his works would have
something to boast in. It is this law of faith, this divine principle on
which we are placed, which shuts it out: for it is by the work of another,
without works of law, that we through grace have part in divine
righteousness, having none of our own.
And is God a limited God
-the God of the Jews only? No, He is also the God of the Gentiles. And how?
In grace: in that it is one God who justifies the Jews (who seek after
righteousness) on the principle of faith, and-since justification is on the
principle of faith-the believing Gentiles also by faith. Men are justified
by faith; the believing Gentile then is justified. With regard to the Jew,
it is the principle which is established (for they were seeking the
righteousness). With regard to the Gentile, since faith existed in the case
supposed, he was justified, for justification was on that principle.
Is it then that faith overturned the authority of law? By no means. It
established completely the authority of law; but it made man participate in
divine righteousness, while acknowledging his just and total condemnation
by the law when under it-a condemnation which made another righteousness
necessary, since according to the law man had none-had none of his own. The
law demanded righteousness, but it shewed sin was there. If righteousness
which it demanded had not been necessary, when it failed to produce it in
man, there was no need of another. Now faith affirmed this need and the
validity of man's condemnation under law, by making the believer
participate in this other righteousness, which is that of God. That which
the law demanded it did not give; and even, because it demanded it, man
failed to produce it. To have given it would have effaced the obligation.
God acts in grace, when the obligation of the law is fully maintained in
condemnation. He gives righteousness, because it must be had. He does not
efface the obligation of the law, according to which man is totally
condemned;
but, while recognising and affirming the justice of that condemnation, He
glorifies Himself in grace by granting a divine righteousness to man, when
he had no human righteousness to present before God in connection with the
obligations imposed on him by the law. Nothing ever put divine sanction on
the law like the death of Christ, who bore its curse, but did not leave us
under it. Faith does not then annul law; it fully establishes its
authority. It shews man righteously condemned under it, and maintains the
authority of the law in that condemnation, for it holds all who are under
it to be under the curse.
The reader will remark that what is distinctly set forth to the end of this
third chapter is the blood of Christ as applying itself to the sins of the
old man, hence making forgiving a righteous thing, and the believer clear
from sins, because cleared by Christ's blood. This met all the guilt of the
old man.
We now enter on another aspect of that which justifies, but still proves
sins; not yet, however, putting us in a new place-that of resurrection, in
connection with, and consequent on, this.
Chapter 4
In dealing with the Jew, and even in dealing with the question of
righteousness, there was, besides the law, another consideration of great
weight both with the Jews themselves and in the dealings of God. What of
Abraham, called of God to be the parent-stock, the father of the faithful?
The apostle, therefore, after having set forth the relation in which faith
stood towards the law by the introduction of the righteousness of God,
takes up the question of the ground on which Abraham was placed as
well-pleasing to God in righteousness. For the Jew might have admitted his
personal failure under the law, and pleaded the enjoyment of privilege
under Abraham. If we consider him then thus according to the flesh (that
is, in connection with the privileges that descended from him as
inheritance for his children) and take our place under him in the line of
succession to enjoy those privileges, on what principle does this set us?
On the same principle of faith. He would have had something to boast of if
he was justified by works; but before God it was not so. For the scriptures
say, "Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness.
Now to him that worketh is the reward not counted of grace, but of debt.
But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him who justifieth the
ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness." For thereby, in fact, he
glorifies God in the way that God desires to be glorified, and according to
the revelation He has made of Himself in Christ.
Thus the testimony borne by Abraham's case is to justification by faith.
David also supports this testimony and speaks of the blessedness of the man
to whom righteousness is imputed without works. He whose iniquities are
pardoned, whose sins are covered, to whom the Lord does not impute sin-he
is the man whom David calls blessed. But this supposed man to be a sinner
and not righteous in himself. It was a question of what God was in grace to
such a one, and not of what he was to God, or rather when he was a sinner.
His blessedness was that God did not impute to him the sins he had
committed, not that he was righteous in himself before God. Righteousness
for man was found in the grace of God. Here it is identified with
non-imputation of sins to man, guilty through committing them. No sin is
imputed.
Was then this righteousness for the circumcision only? Now our thesis is,
that God counted Abraham to be righteous by faith. But was he circumcised
when this took place? Not so; he was uncircumcised. Righteousness then is
by faith, and for the uncircumcised through faith-a testimony that was
overwhelming to a Jew, because Abraham was the beau ideal to which all his
ideas of excellence and of privilege referred. Circumcision was only a seal
to the righteousness by faith which Abraham possessed in uncircumcision,
that he might be the father of all believers who were in the same state of
uncircumcision, that righteousness might be imputed to them also; and the
father of circumcision-that is, the first model of a people truly set apart
for God-not only with regard to the circumcised, but to all those who
should walk in the steps of his faith when uncircumcised. For, after all,
the promise that he should be heir of the world was not made to Abraham nor
to his seed in connection with the law, but with righteousness by faith.
For if they who are on the principle of law are heirs, the faith by which
Abraham received it is vain, and the promise made of none effect;
for, on the contrary, the law produces wrath-and that is a very different
thing from bringing into the enjoyment of a promise-for where there is no
law there is no transgression. Observe, he does not say there is no sin;
but where there is no commandment, there is none to violate. Now, the law
being given to a sinner, wrath is necessarily the consequence of its
imposition.
This is the negative side of the subject. The apostle shews that with
regard to the Jews themselves, the inheritance could not be on the
principle of law without setting Abraham aside, for to him the inheritance
had been given by promise, and this implied that it was by faith: for we
believe in a promise, we do not ourselves fulfil a promise that has been
made to us. Accordingly the righteousness of Abraham was-according to
scripture-through this same faith. It was imputed to him for righteousness.
This principle admitted the Gentiles; but here it is established with
regard to the Jews themselves or rather with regard to the ways of God, in
such a manner as to exclude the law as a means of obtaining the inheritance
of God. The consequence with regard to Gentiles believing the gospel is
stated in verse 16, "Therefore it is of faith, that it might be by grace,
to the end that the promise might be sure to all the seed" of Abraham to
whom the promise was made; not to that only which was under the law, but to
all that had the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all before God,
as it is written, "I have made thee a father of many nations."
Thus we have the great principle established. It is by faith, before and
without law ;
and the promise is made to man in uncircumcision, and he is justified by
believing it.
Another element is now introduced. Humanly speaking, the fulfilment of the
promise was impossible, for in that respect both Abraham and Sarah were as
dead, and the promise must be believed in against all hope, resting on the
almighty power of Him who raises the dead, and calls things that are not as
though they were. This was Abraham's faith. He believed the promise that he
should be the father of many nations, because God had spoken, counting on
the power of God, thus glorifying Him, without calling in question anything
that He had said by looking at circumstances; therefore this also was
counted to him for righteousness. He glorified God according to what God
was. Now, this was not written for his sake alone the same faith shall be
imputed to us also for righteousness-faith in God as having raised up Jesus
from the dead. It is not here faith in Jesus, but in Him who came in power
into the domain of death, where Jesus lay because of our sins, and brought
Him forth by His power, the mighty activity of the love of God who brought
Him-who had already borne all the punishment of our sins-out from under all
their consequences; so that, by believing God who has done this, we embrace
the whole extent of His work, the grace and the power displayed in it; and
we thus know God. Our God is the God who has done this. He has Himself
raised up Jesus from among the dead, who was delivered for our offences and
raised again for our justification. Our sins were already upon Him. The
active intervention of God delivered Him who lay in death because He had
borne them. It is not only a resurrection of the dead, but from among the
dead-the intervention of God to bring forth in righteousness the One who
had glorified Him. By believing in such a God we understand that it is
Himself who, in raising Christ from among the dead, has delivered us
Himself from all that our sins had subjected us to; because He has brought
back in delivering power Him who underwent it for our sakes.
Chapter 5
Thus, being justified by faith, we have peace with God. Remark here also
the difference of Abraham's faith and ours. He believed God could perform
what He promised. We are called to believe He has performed. Faith in God's
word, believing God, and this faith laying hold on His power in
resurrection, is faith that this has lifted us out
of the whole effect of our sins. It reposes in God's power as having
wrought this deliverance for us, and justified us therein. Christ has been
delivered for our offences and raised again for our justification.
The apostle had established the great principles. He comes now to the
source and application of all (that is to say, their application to the
condition of the soul in its own feelings). He sets before us the effect of
these truths when received by faith through the power of the Holy Ghost.
The work is done; the believer has part in it, and is justified. Having
been justified, we have peace with God, we stand in divine favour, and
rejoice in hope of the glory of God. We believe in a God who has intervened
in power to raise Him from the dead who had borne our offences, and who,
being raised, is the eternal witness that our sins are put away, and that
the only true God is He who has done it in love. I have then peace with
Him; all my sins are blotted out-annulled-by the work of Christ; my
unburdened heart knows the Saviour God. I stand as a present thing in that
grace or favour, God's blessed present favour resting on me, which is
better than life. Through Christ, entered into His presence, I am even now
in the enjoyment of His favour, in present grace. All the fruits of the old
man are cancelled before God by the death of Christ. There cannot be a
question as to my sins between me and God. He has nothing to impute to
me-that has been all settled in Christ's death and resurrection. As to the
present time, I am brought into His presence in the enjoyment of His
favour. Grace characterises my present relationship with God. Further, all
my sins having been put away according to the requirements of God's glory,
and Christ being risen from the dead, having met all that glory, I rejoice
in the hope of the glory of God It is a full well-grounded hope of being in
it, not a coming short of it. All is connected with God Himself, with, and
according to, His perfections, the favour of God, and His glory for our
hope. All is connected with His power in resurrection-peace with God
already settled, the present favour of God, and the hope of glory.
Remark here that justification is distinct from peace. "Having been
justified, we have peace." Justification is my true state before God, by
virtue of the work of Christ, of His death, and of resurrection. Faith,
thus knowing God, is at peace with God; but this is a result, like the
present enjoyment of the grace wherein we stand. Faith believes in the God
who has done this, and who-exercising His power in love and in
righteousness-has raised from the dead the One who bore my sins, having
entirely abolished them, and having perfectly glorified God in so doing. On
this ground, too, "by Him" we have found access into the full favour of God
in which we stand. And what is the result? It is glory; we rejoice in the
hope of the glory of God. It is God who is the root and the accomplisher of
all. It is the gospel of God, the power of God in salvation, the
righteousness of God, and it is into the glory of God that we are
introduced in hope. Such is the efficacy of this grace with regard to us;
it is peace, grace or favour, glory. One would say, This is all we can
have: the past, present, and future are provided for.
Nevertheless there is more. First, practical experience. We pass in fact
through tribulations; but we rejoice in this, because it exercises the
heart, detaches us from the world, subdues the will, the natural working of
the heart, purifies it from those things which dim our hope by filling it
with present things, in order that we may refer more to God in all things,
which, after all, are entirely directed by Him whose faithful grace
ministered all this to us. We learn better that the scene in which we move
passes away and changes, and is but a place of exercise, and not the proper
sphere of life. Thus hope, founded on the work of Christ, becomes more
clear, more disentangled from the mixture of that which is of man here
below; we discern more clearly that which is unseen and eternal, and the
links of the soul are more complete and entire with that which is on before
us. Experience, which might have discouraged nature, works hope, because,
come what may, we have the key to all, because the love of God who has
given us this hope, made clearer by these exercises, is shed abroad in our
hearts by the Holy Ghost who is given to us, who is the God of love
dwelling in us.
Nevertheless, while giving this inward foundation of joy, the Spirit is
careful to refer it to God, and to what He has done outside us, as regards
the proof we have of it, in order that the soul may be built upon that
which is in Him, and not on that which is in ourselves. This love is indeed
in us; it sweetly explains all; but the love which is there through the
presence of the Holy Ghost is the love of God, proved, namely, in that when
we were destitute of all strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.
The due time was when man had been demonstrated to be ungodly, and without
strength to come out of this condition, although God, under the law, shewed
him the way. Man can devote himself when he has an adequate motive; God has
displayed the love that was peculiar
to Himself, in that, when there was no motive for Him in us, when we were
nothing but sinners, Christ died for us! The source was in Himself, or
rather was Himself. What a joy to know that it is in Him and of Him that we
have all these things!
God, then, having reconciled us to Himself according to the prompting of
His own heart, when we were enemies, will much more, now that we are
justified, go on to the end; and we shall be saved from wrath through
Christ. Accordingly he adds, speaking of the means, "If we were reconciled
to God by the death of his Son," by that which was, so to speak, His
weakness, "much more shall we be saved by his life," the mighty energy in
which He lives eternally. Thus the love of God makes peace with regard to
that which we were, and gives us security with regard to our future, making
us happy withal in the present. And it is that which God is that secures to
us all these blessings. He is love-full of consideration for us, full of
wisdom.
But there is a second "not only," after our state-peace, grace, and
glory-what seemed complete and is complete salvation, had been established.
"Not only" do we joy in tribulation, but we joy in God. We glory in
Himself. This is the second part of the Christian's blessed experience of
the joy which results from our knowledge of God's love in Christ, and our
reconciliation by Him. The first was that he gloried in tribulation because
of its effect, divine love being known The second is the love of God
Himself in man. This known, we glory, not only in our salvation, and even
in tribulation, but knowing such a Saviour God (a God who has raised up
Jesus from the dead, and has saved us in His love), we glory in Him. Higher
joy than this we cannot have.
This closes this section of the epistle, in which, through the propitiation
made by Christ, the putting away of our sins, and the love of God Himself,
has been fully made good and revealed: peace, grace possessed, and glory in
hope; and that by the pure love of God Himself known in Christ's dying for
sinners. It is purely of God and thus divinely perfect. It was no matter of
experience, whatever joy flowed from it, but God's own acting from Himself,
and so revealing Himself in what He is. Up to this, sins and personal guilt
are treated of; now, sin and the state of the race. The pure favour of God
towards us, beginning with us as sinners, is wonderfully brought out, going
on to our rejoicing in Himself who has been, and is, such to us.
Having given the foundation and the source of salvation, and the confidence
and enjoyment that flow from it, having based all on God, who had to do
with those who were nothing but sinners devoid of all strength, and that by
the death of Christ, the question of our sins was settled-that for which
each man would have had to be judged according to what each had
respectively done. Lawless, or under law, all were guilty; a propitiatory,
or mercy-seat, was set forth in the precious blood of Christ, peace made
for the guilty, and God revealed in love. But this has carried us up
higher. We have to do with God, and man as he is as a present thing. It is
a question of sinful man; the Jew had no privilege here, he had nothing to
boast of. He could not say, sin came in by us and by the law. It is man,
sin, and grace that are in question. The apostle takes up this fundamental
and essential question-not sins and guilt to be judged of hereafter if not
repented of, but the present state of man.
Man had nothing to boast of either. The God of grace is before our eyes,
acting with regard to sin, when there was nothing else, save that law had
aggravated the case by transgressions. Now sin came in by one man, and by
sin death. This brings us to the condition of the race, not merely the acts
of the individuals. That condition was exclusion from God, and an evil
nature. All were alike in it, though surely each had added his own personal
sins and guilt. Sin had come in by one, and death by sin. And thus death
passed upon all men, for that all have sinned. For sin was in the world
before the law. Nor did the law add much to the advantage of man's
condition; it definitively imputed
his sin to him by giving him knowledge of it and forbidding it.
Nevertheless, although there had been no imputation according to the
government of God in virtue of an imposed and known rule, yet death
reigned-a constant proof of sin (moreover, the history of Genesis made all
this incontestable, even to the Jew)-over those who had not broken a
covenant founded on a known commandment, as Adam
had done; and the Jews also, after the law was given. Men, between Adam and
Moses, when there was no question of a law, as there was both before and
after that interval, died just the same-sin reigned.
We must observe here that from the end of verse 12 to that of 17 is a
parenthesis: only the idea is developed, as in similar cases. In the
parenthesis the apostle, after having presented Adam as the figure of Him
who was to come-of Christ, argues that the character of the gift cannot be
inferior to that of the evil. If the sin of the one first man was not
confined in its effects to him who committed it, but extended to all those
who as a race were connected with him, with much greater reason shall the
grace which is by one, Christ Jesus, not end in Him, but embrace the many
under Him also. And with regard to the thing, as well as to the person-and
here the law is in view-one single offence brought in death, but grace
remits a multitude of offences. Thus it could suffice for that which the
law had made necessary. And, as to the effect, death has reigned; but by
grace, not only shall life reign, but we shall reign in life by One
according to the abundance of grace-by Jesus Christ.
In verse 18 the general argument is resumed in a very abstract way. "By one
offence," he says, "towards all for condemnation, even so by one
accomplished righteousness (or act of righteousness) towards all men, for
justification of life." One offence bore-in its bearing, so to speak,
referred to all, and so it was with the one act of righteousness. This is
the scope of the action in itself. Now for the application: for as by the
disobedience of one man (only) many are constituted sinners, so by the
obedience of one (only) many are constituted righteous It is still the
thought that the act of the individual is not confined, as to its effects,
within the limits of his own person. It affects many others, bringing them
under the consequences of that act. It is said "all," when the scope of the
action
is spoken of; "the many," when it is the definitive effect with regard to
men; that is, the "many" who were in connection with him who accomplished
the act.
This then was outside the law, though the law might aggravate the evil. It
was a question of the effect of the acts of Adam and of Christ, and not of
the conduct of individuals, to which evidently the law related. It is by
one man's disobedience the many (all men) were made sinners, not by their
own sins. Of sins each has his own: here it is a state of sin common to all
Of what use then was the law? It came in, as it were, exceptionally, and
accessory to the chief fact, "that the offence
might abound." But not only where the offence, but where sin abounded-for
under the law and without the law it has abounded-grace has superabounded;
in order that, as sin has reigned in death, grace should reign through
righteousness in eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. If where sin reigns
righteousness had reigned, it would have been to condemn the whole world.
It is grace that reigns-the sovereign love of God. Righteousness is on a
level with the evil, when it deals with evil, by the fact that it is
righteousness; but God is above it, and acts, and can act-has a right to
act-according to His own nature; and He is love. Is it that He sanctions
unrighteousness and sin? No, in His love He brings about the accomplishment
of divine righteousness by Jesus Christ. He has accomplished in Him that
divine righteousness in raising Him to His right hand. But this is in
virtue of a work wrought for us, in which He has glorified God. Thus He is
our righteousness, we the righteousness of God in Him. It is the
righteousness of faith, for we have it by believing in Him. It is love
which-taking the character of grace when sin is in question-reigns, and
gives eternal life above and beyond death-life that comes from above and
ascends thither again; and that in divine righteousness, and in connection
with that righteousness, magnifying it and manifesting it through the work
of Jesus Christ, in whom we have this life, when He had wrought what
brought out divine righteousness, in order that we might possess eternal
life and glory according to it. If grace reigns, it is God who reigns. That
righteousness should be maintained is that which His nature required. But
it is more than maintained according to the measure of the claim God had on
man as such. Christ was perfect surely as man; but He has glorified what
God is Himself, and, He being raised from the dead by the glory of the
Father, God has glorified His righteousness by setting Him at His right
hand, as He did His love in giving Him. It is now righteousness in
salvation given by grace to those who possessed none-given in Jesus, who by
His work laid the full ground for it in glorifying God with regard even to
sin, in the place where in this respect all that God is has been displayed.
The fulfilment of the law would have been man's righteousness: man might
have gloried in it. Christ has glorified God-a most weighty point in
connection with righteousness, connecting it withal with glory. And grace
imparts this to the sinner by imputation, accounting him righteous
according to it, introducing him in the glory which Christ merited by His
work-the glory in which He was as Son before the world began.
But alas! in this glorious redemption accomplished by grace, which
substitutes the righteousness of God and the person of the second Adam for
the sinand the person of the first, the perversity of the flesh can find
occasion for the sin which it loves, or at least to charge the doctrine
with it. If it is by the obedience of One that I am constituted righteous,
and because grace superabounds, let us sin that it may abound: that does
not touch this righteousness, and only glorifies this superabundance of
grace. Is this the apostle's doctrine? or a legitimate consequence of his
doctrine? In no wise. The doctrine is, that we are brought into God's
presence through death, in virtue of the work which Christ therein
accomplished, and by having a part in that death. Can we live in the sin to
which we are dead? It is to contradict oneself in one's own words. But,
being baptised unto Christ (in His name, to have part with Him, according
to the truth contained in the revelation we have of Him), I am baptised to
have part in His death for through this it is that I have this
righteousness in which He appears before God, and I in Him. But it is to
sin that He has died. He has done with it for ever. When He died, He who
knew no sin came out of that condition of life in flesh and blood, to which
in us sin attached, in which we were sinners; and in which He the sinless
One, in the likeness of sinful flesh and as a sacrifice for sin, was made
sin for us.
We have then been buried with Him by baptism for death (v. 4), having part
in it, entering into it by baptism which represents it, in order that, as
Christ was raised up from among the dead by the glory of the Father, we
also should walk in newness of life. In a word I am brought into the
participation of this divine and perfect righteousness by having part in
death unto sin; it is impossible therefore that it should be to live in it.
Here it is not duty that is spoken of, but the nature of the thing. I
cannot die to a thing in order to live in it. The doctrine itself refutes
as absolute nonsense the argument of the flesh, which under the pretence of
righteousness will not recognise our need of grace.
Chapter 6
The character of this new life, into which the resurrection of Christ has
brought us, is presented here in a striking way. Christ had perfectly
glorified God in dying; also even in dying was He the Son of the living
God. It is not all, therefore, that He could not be holden of it, true as
that is because of His Person; His resurrection was also a necessity of the
glory of God the Father. All that was in God was compelled to do it by His
glory itself (even as Christ had glorified all), His justice. His love, His
truth, His power; His glory, in that He could not low death to have the
victory over the One who was faithful; His relationship as Father, who
ought not, could not, leave His Son in bondage to the fruit of sin and to
the power of the enemy. It was due to Christ on the part of God, due to His
own glory as God and Father, necessary also, in order to shew the reflex of
His own glory, to manifest it according to His counsels, and that in man.
Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father. All that the
Father is came into it, engaged to give Jesus the triumph of resurrection,
of victory over death, and to give resurrection the brightness of His own
glory. Having entered, as the fruit of the operation of His glory, into
this new position, this is the model-the character-of that life in which we
live before God.
Without this manifestation in Christ, God, although acting and giving
testimonies of His power and of His goodness, remained veiled and hidden.
In Christ glorified, the centre of all the counsels of God, we see the
glory of the Lord with unveiled face, and every mouth confesses Him Lord to
the glory of God the Father.
Our life ought to be the practical reflection of this glory of the Lord in
heaven. The power that brings us into association with Him in this place,
and still works in us, is shewn at the end of the first chapter of the
Ephesians.
But there it is to introduce our resurrection with Christ. Here it is
Christ's own resurrection, the doctrine, or the thing in itself, and its
consequences and moral import with regard to the individual living here
below, in view of his relationship with God as a responsible man. It is an
altogether new life. We are alive unto God through Him.
Identified thus with Him in the likeness of His death, we shall also enter
into that of His resurrection. We see here that resurrection is a
consequence which he deduces as a fact, not a mystical participation in the
thing; knowing this first (as the great foundation of everything), that our
old man-that in us which pleads for sin as the fruit of the perfect grace
of God-is crucified with Christ, in order that the whole body of sin should
be destroyed so that we should no more serve sin. He takes the totality and
the system of sin in a man, as a body which is nullified by death; its will
is judged and no longer masters us. For he who is dead is justified
from sin. Sin can no longer be laid to his charge as a thing that exists in
a living and responsible man. Therefore, being thus dead with
Christ-professedly by baptism, really by having Him for our life who
died-we believe that we shall live with Him; we belong to that other world
where He lives in resurrection. The energy of the life in which He lives is
our portion: we believe this, knowing that Christ, being raised from among
the dead, dieth no more. His victory over death is complete and final;
death has no more dominion over Him. Therefore it is that we are sure of
resurrection, namely, on account of this complete victory over death, into
which He entered for us in grace. By faith we have entered into it with
Him, having our part in it according to His therein. It is the power of the
life of love that brought Him there. Dying, He died unto sin. He went down
even to death rather than fail in maintaining the glory of God. Until
death, and even in death, He had to do with sin, though there were none in
Him, and with temptation; but there He has done with all for ever. We die
unto sin by participating in His death. The consequence-by the glory of the
Father-is resurrection. Now, therefore, "in that he died, he died unto sin
once for all; in that he liveth, he liveth unto God."
Thus He has nothing more to do with sin. He lives, only perfectly, without
reference in His life to anything else, unto God. In that He lives, His life
is in relationship to God only.
We also then ought to reckon-for it is by faith-that we are dead to sin and
alive to God, having no other object of life than God, in Christ Jesus. I
ought to consider myself dead, I have a right to do so, because Christ has
died for me; and being alive now for ever unto God, I ought to consider
myself as come out, by the life which I live through Him, from the sin to
which I died. For this is the Christ I know; not a Christ living on the
earth in connection with me according to the nature in which I live here
below. In that nature I am proved to be a sinner, and incapable of true
relationship with Him. He has died for me as living of that life, and
entered, through resurrection, into a new state of life outside the former.
It is there that as a believer I know Him. I have part in death, and in
life through Him who is risen. I have righteousness by faith, but
righteousness as having part with Christ dead and raised again, as being
therefore by faith dead unto sin.
And this is the essential difference of this part of the epistle. It is not
that Christ has shed His blood for our sins, but that we have died with
Him. There is an end for faith to our state and standing in flesh. The
Christ who is become our life did die, and, as alive through Him, what He
has done is mine; and I have to say I died. I reckon myself dead.
The apostle deduces the evident consequence: "Let not sin, therefore, reign
in your mortal body." Do not yield your members as instruments to the sin
to which you are dead by Christ; but as alive, as awakened up from amongst
the dead, yield your members as instruments of righteousness to God unto
whom you live. The body is now the mere instrument of divine life; and we
are free to use it for God as such. For in fact sin shall not have dominion
over us, because we are not under the law but under grace. Here it is not
the principle but the power that is spoken of. In principle we are dead to
sin, according to faith; in practice it has no power over us. Observe that
the source of practical power to conquer sin is not in the law, but in
grace.
Now it is true that, not being under the law, the rule under which we are
placed is not that of imputation but of non-imputation. Is this a reason
why we should sin? No! there is a reality in these things. We are slaves to
that which we obey. Sin leads to death; obedience to practical
righteousness. We are upon the wider principle of a new nature and grace;
not the application of an external rule to a nature which was not, and
could not be subject to it. And, in truth, having been in the former case,
the disciples in Rome had given proof of the justice of the apostle's
argument by walking in the truth. Set free from the slavery of sin, they
had become (to use human language) the slaves of righteousness, and this
did not end in itself; practical righteousness developed itself by the
setting apart of the whole being for God with ever-growing intelligence.
They were obedient in such-and-such things; but the fruit was
sanctification, a spiritual capacity, in that they were separated from
evil, unto a deeper knowledge of God.
Sin produced no fruit, it ended in death; but set free from sin and become
servants to God-the true righteousness of obedience, like that of Christ
Himself-they had their fruit already in holiness, and the end should be
eternal life. For the wages of sin was death, the gift of God was eternal
life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Now this life was living unto God, and
this is not sin; nevertheless it is grace. Here the apostle, whose subject
is judicial righteousness before God, approximates to John, and connects
his doctrine with that of the First Epistle of John, who there, on the
other hand, enters upon the doctrine of propitiation and acceptance when
speaking of the impartation of life. The appeal is very beautiful to a man
in true liberty-the liberty of grace, being dead to sin. He is set wholly
free by death. To whom is he now going to yield himself? For now he is
free; is he going to give himself up to sin? It is a noble appeal.
Chapter 7
We have considered the effect of the death and resurrection of Christ with
reference to justification and to practical life. In the early part of the
epistle (to chap. 5:11) He has died for our sins. From chapter 5:12, He
having died, we reckon ourselves dead to sin and alive to God through Him.
Our state as under the two heads, Adam and Christ, has been discussed.
Another point remained to be treated of by the apostle-the effect of this
last doctrine upon the question of the law. The Christian, or, to say
better, the believer, has part in Christ as a Christ who has died, and
lives to God, Christ being raised from the dead through Him. What is the
force of this truth with regard to the law (for the law has only power over
a man so long as he lives)? Being then dead, it has no longer any hold upon
him. This is our position with regard to the law. Does that weaken its
authority? No. For we say that Christ has died, and so have we therefore;
but the law no longer applies to one that is dead.
In bringing out the effect of this truth, the apostle uses the example of
the law of marriage. The woman would be an adulteress if she were to be to
another while her husband was alive; but when her husband is dead she is
free. The application of this rule changes the form of the truth. It is
certain that one cannot be under the authority of two husbands at once. One
excludes the other. The law, and Christ risen, cannot be associated in
their authority over the soul. But in our case the law does not lose its
force (that is, its rights over us) by its dying, but by our dying. It
reigns over us only while we live. It is with this destruction of the bond
by death the apostle began. The husband died, but in application it is
annulled by our dying. We are then dead to the law by the body of Christ
(for we have to do with a Christ risen after His death), that we should be
to Him who is raised from the dead, in order that we should bear fruit for
God; but we cannot belong to the two at once.
When we were in the flesh-when, as man, any one was held to be walking in
the responsibility of a man living in the life of nature, as a child of
Adam, the law to him was the rule and perfect measure of that
responsibility, and the representative of the authority of God. The
passions which impelled to sin acted in that nature, and, meeting with this
barrier of the law, found in it that which, by resisting it, excited the
will, and suggested, even by the prohibition itself, the evil which the
flesh loved and which the law forbade; and thus these passions acted in the
members to produce fruit which brought in death. But now he was outside its
authority, he had disappeared from its pursuit,
being dead in that law to the authority of which we had been subjected. Now
to have died under the law would have been also condemnation; but it is
Christ who went through this and took the condemnation, while we have the
deliverance from the old man which is in death. Our old man is crucified
with Him, so that it is our deliverance to die to the law. It did but
condemn us, but its authority ends with the life of him who was under that
authority. And being dead in Christ, the law can no longer reach those who
had been under it: we belong to the new husband, to Christ risen, in order
that we should serve in newness of spirit, the goodwill of grace in our new
life, and-as the apostle will afterwards explain, by the Holy Ghost
-not in the bondage of the letter.
This is the doctrine. Now for the conclusions that may be deduced from it.
Is the law, then, sin, that we are withdrawn from its authority? By no
means. But it gave the knowledge of sin, and imputed it. For the apostle
says, that he would not have understood that the mere impulse of his nature
was sin, if the law had not said, Thou shalt not covet. But the commandment
gave sin occasion to attack the soul. Sin, that evil principle of our
nature,
making use of the commandment to provoke the soul to the sin that is
forbidden (but which it took occasion to suggest by the interdiction
itself, acting also on the will which resisted the interdiction), produced
all manner of concupiscence. For, without the law, sin could not plunge the
soul into this conflict, and give the sentence of death in it, by making it
responsible in conscience for the sin which, without this law, it would not
have known. Under the law lust acted, with the conscience of sin in the
heart; and the result was death in the conscience, without any deliverance
for the heart from the power of concupiscence.
Without the law, sin did not thus agitate a will which refused submission
to that which checked it. For a barrier to the will awakens and excites the
will: and the conscience of sin, in the presence of God's prohibition, is a
conscience under sentence of death. Thus the commandment, which in itself
was unto life, became in fact unto death. "Do this and live" became death,
by shewing the exigencies of God to a sinful nature whose will rejected
them, and to a conscience which could not but accept the just condemnation.
A man walks in quiet indifference, doing his own will, without knowledge of
God, or consequently any sense of sin or rebellion. The law comes, and he
dies under its just judgment, which forbids everything that he desires.
Lust was an evil thing, but it did not reveal the judgment of God; on the
contrary, it forgot it. But when the law was come, sin (it is looked at
here as an enemy that attacks some person or place), knowing that the will
would persist and the conscience condemn, seized the opportunity of the
law, impelled the man in the direction contrary to the law, and slew him,
in the conscience of sin which the law forbade on the part of God. Death to
the man, on God's part in judgment, was the result. The law then was good
and holy, since it forbade the sin, but in condemning the sinner.
Was death then brought in by that which was good?
No. But sin, in order that it might be seen in its true light, employed
that which was good to bring death upon the soul; and thus, by the
commandment, became exceedingly sinful. In all this, sin is personified as
some one who seeks to kill the soul.
Such then was the effect of the law, that first husband, seeing sin existed
in man. To bring this out more plainly, the apostle communicates his
spiritual apprehension of the experience of a soul under the law.
We must remark here, that the subject treated of is not the fact of the
conflict between the two natures, but the effect of the law, supposing the
will to be renewed, and the law to have obtained the suffrage of the
conscience and to be the object of the heart's affections-a heart which
recognises the spirituality of the law. This is neither the knowledge of
grace, nor of the Saviour Christ, nor of the Spirit.
The chief point here is not condemnation (although the law does indeed
leave the soul under judgment), but the entire want of strength to fulfil
it, that it may not condemn us. The law is spiritual; but I, as man, am
carnal, the slave of sin, whatever the judgment of my inward man may be:
for I allow not that which I do. That which I would I do not; and that
which I hate I practise. Thus loving and thus hating, I consent to the law
that it is good. It is not that I do the evil as to moral intent of the
will, for I would not the evil which I do; on the contrary I hate it. It is
the sin then that dwells in me, for in fact in me (that is, in my flesh-the
whole natural man as he is) there exists no good, for even where there is
the will, I do not find the way to perform any good. Power is totally
wanting.
In verse 20 the apostle, having this explanation, lays stress upon the I
and me. "If that which I myself would" (we should read), and "It is no
longer myself that does it, but the sin that dwelleth in me." I find then
evil present with the myself which would do good; for, as to the inward
man, I delight in the law of God. But there is in me another constant
principle which wars against the law of my mind, which brings me into
captivity to this law of sin in my members. So that, whatever my desires
may be, the better even that they are, I am myself a miserable man. Being
man, and such a man, I cannot but be miserable. But, having come to this,
an immense step has been taken.
The evil here spoken of is the evil that is in our nature, and the want of
power to get rid of it. The forgiveness of sins hadbeen fully taught. What
distresses here is the present working of sin which we cannot get rid of
The sense of this is often a more painful thing than past sins, which the
believer can understand as put away by the blood of Christ. But here we
have the conscience of sin still in us, though we may hate it, and the
question of deliverance is mixed up with our experience, at least till we
have learned what is taught us in this part of the epistle, to judge the
old man as sin in us, not ourselves, and reckon ourselves dead. Christ,
through whom we now live, having died, and being a sacrifice for sin, our
condemnation is impossible, while sin is condemned and we free through "the
law of the Spirit of life in him." It is not forgiveness, but deliverance,
sin in the flesh being condemned in the cross.
Under divine grace the renewed man learned three things. First, he has come
to the discovery that in him, that is, in his flesh, there is no good
thing; but, secondly, he has learned to distinguish between himself, who
wills good, and sin which dwells in him; but, further, that when he wills
good, sin is too strong for him. Having thus acquired knowledge of himself,
he does not seek to be better in the flesh, but deliverance, and he has it
in Christ. Power comes after. He is come to the discovery and to the
confession that he has no power. He throws himself upon another. He does
not say, How can I? or, How shall I? but, Who shall deliver me? Now it was
when we were devoid of all strength that Christ died for the ungodly. This
want of strength is discovered; and we find grace at the end, when with
regard to what we are, and to all hope of amelioration in ourselves, grace
is our only resource.
But happily, when we cast ourselves upon grace, there is nothing but grace
before us. Deliverance is accomplished by our not being alive in the flesh
at all: we have died away from it, and from under the law, which held us in
bondage and condemnation, and we are married to another, Christ raised from
the dead; and as soon as the distressed soul has said, "Who shall deliver
me?" the answer is ready, "I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord." The
answer is not, He will deliver. Deliverance is already accomplished: he
gives thanks.
The man was wretched in conflict under law, without knowledge of
redemption. But he has died in the death of Christ out of the nature which
made him so; he has quite done with himself. The deliverance of God is
complete. The two natures are still opposed to each other, but the
deliverance is not imperfect. This deliverance wrought of God, and the
progress of its manifestation, are developed in the next chapter.
We may here remark that the apostle does not say, "We know that the law is
spiritual, and we are carnal." Had he done so, it would have been to speak
of Christians, as such, in their proper and normal condition. It is the
personal experience of what the flesh is under law, when the man is
quickened, and not the state of a Christian as such before God. Observe,
also, that the law is looked at from the point of view of christian
knowledge-"we know"-when we are no longer under it, and when we are capable
of judging concerning its whole import, according to the spirituality of
him who judges: and who sees also, being spiritual, what the flesh is;
because he is now not in the flesh, but in the Spirit.
Literally, this passage is not the condition of anyone at all; but
principles opposed to each other, the result of which is laid open by
supposing a man under the law: the will always right, but good never done,
evil always. Nevertheless to the conscience this is the practical condition
of every renewed man under the law. We may remark one other important
principle. Man in this condition is entirely taken up with himself; he
desires good, he does not perform it, he does that which he would not.
Neither Christ nor the Holy Ghost is named. In the normal condition of a
Christian, he is occupied with Christ. But what is expressed in this
seventh chapter is the natural and necessary result of the law, when the
conscience is awakened and the will renewed. For to will is present with
him. But he is under law, sees its spirituality, consents to it, delights
in it after the inner man, and cannot perform what is good. Sin has
dominion over him. The sense of unanswered responsibility, and the absence
of peace, cause the soul necessarily to turn in upon itself. It is taken up
entirely with self, which is spoken of nearly forty times from verse 14. It
is well to be so, rather than to be insensible. It is not peace.
This peace is found elsewhere, and it is in this; when reduced to the
consciousness of one's own inability to do good towards God, one finds that
God has done for us the good which we need. We are not only forgiven but
delivered, and are in Christ, not in the flesh at all.
The conflict goes on, the opposition between the two natures continues, but
we give thanks to God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Remark here that deliverance is only found when there is the full
conviction of our incapacity and want of power, as well as of our sins. It
is much more difficult to arrive at this conviction of incapacity than at
that of having sinned. But the sin of our nature-its irremediable
perversity, its resistance to good, the law of sin in our members-is only
known in its legal gravity by experience of the uselessness of our efforts
to do well. Under the law the uselessness of these efforts leaves the
conscience in distress and bondage, and produces the sense of its being
impossible to be with God. Under grace the efforts are not useless, and the
evil nature shews itself to us (either in communion with God, or by
downfalls if we neglect communion) in all its deformity in presence of that
grace. But in this chapter the experience of sin in the nature is presented
as acquired under the law, in order that man may know himself in this
position-may know what he is as regards his flesh, and that in fact he
cannot succeed in this way in coming before God with a good conscience. He
is under the first husband; death had not yet severed the bond as to the
state of the soul.
We must now remember that this experience of the soul under the law is
introduced parenthetically, to shew the sinful condition to which grace
applies and the effect of the law. Our subject is that the believer has
part in the death of Christ and has died, and is alive through Him who is
risen; that Christ, having by grace gone under death, having been made sin,
has for ever done with that state in which He had to do with sin and death
in the likeness of sinful flesh; and having for ever done with all that was
connected with it, has entered by resurrection into a new order of things-a
new condition before God, totally beyond the reach of all that to which He
had subjected Himself for us, which in us was connected with our natural
life, and beyond reach of the law which bound sin upon the conscience on
God's part. In Christ we are in this new order of things.
Chapter 8
"There is therefore now no condemnation to those which are in Christ Jesus"
(chap. 8). He does not here speak of the efficacy of the blood in putting
away sins (all-essential as that blood is, and the basis of all the rest),
but of the new position entirely beyond the reach of everything to which
the judgment of God applied. Christ had indeed been under the effect of the
condemnation in our stead; but when risen He appears before God. Could
there be a question there of sin, or of wrath, or of condemnation, or of
imputation? Impossible! It was all settled before He ascended thither. He
was there because it was settled. And that is the position of the Christian
in Christ. Still, inasmuch as it is by resurrection, it is a real
deliverance. It is the power of a new life, in which Christ is raised from
the dead, and of which we live in Him. It is-as to this life of the
saint-the power, efficacious and continued, and therefore called a law, by
which Christ was raised from the dead-the law of the Spirit of life in
Christ Jesus; and it has delivered me from the law of sin and death which
previously reigned in my members, producing fruit unto death. It is our
connection with Christ in resurrection, witness of the power of life which
is in Him, and that by the Holy Ghost, which links the "no condemnation" of
our position with the energy of a new life, in which we are no longer
subject to the law of sin, having died to it in His death, or to the law,
whose claims 'have ceased also necessarily for him who has died, for it has
power over a man as long as he lives. Christ, in bearing its curse, has
fully magnified it withal. We see, at the end of Ephesians 1, that it is
the power of God Himself which delivers; and assuredly it had need be
so-that power which wrought the glorious change-to us this new creation.
This deliverance from the law of sin and death is not a mere experience (it
will produce precious experiences); it is a divine operation, known by
faith in His operation who raised up from the dead, known in all its power
by its accomplishment in Jesus, in the efficacy of which we participate by
faith. The difficulty of receiving it is that we find our experience
clashing with it. That Christ has put away my sins, and that God has loved
me, is a matter of simple faith through grace. That I am dead is apt to
find itself contradicted in my heart. The process of chapter 7 must be gone
through, and the condemnation of sin in the flesh seen in Christ's
sacrifice for sin, and I alive by Him judging sin as a distinct thing (an
enemy I have to deal with, not I), in order to have solid peace. It is not
all that Christ has put away our sins. I live by Him risen, and am linked
with this husband, and He being my life-the true "I" in me, I can say that
I have died because He has. "I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I
live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me." If so, I have died, for He has;
as one taken into partnership has the advantages belonging to that
acquired, before he was taken into it. That this is so is evident according
to verse 3. God has done it in Christ, the apostle says; he does not say
"in us." The result in us is found in verse 4. The efficacious operation,
by which we reckon ourselves dead, was in Christ a sacrifice for sin. There
sin in the flesh was condemned. God has done it, for it is always God, and
God who has wrought, whom he brings forward in order to develop the gospel
of God. The thing to condemn is indeed in us; the work which put an end to
it for our true conscious state before God, has been accomplished in
Christ, who has been pleased in grace, as we shall see, to put Himself into
the position necessary for its accomplishment. Nevertheless, through
participation in the life that is in Him, it becomes a practical reality to
us: only this realisation has to contend with the opposition of the flesh;
but not so as that we should walk in it.
One other point remains to be noticed here. In verse 2, we have the new
life in its power in Christ, which sets us free from the law of sin and
death. In verse 3, we have the old nature, sin in the flesh, dealt with,
condemned, but in the sacrifice for sin in which Christ suffered and died,
so that it is done with for faith. This completes the deliverance and the
knowledge of it.
The key to all this doctrine of the apostle's, and that which unites holy
practice, the christian life, with absolute grace and eternal deliverance
from condemnation, is the new position entirely apart from sin, which death
gives to us, being alive in Christ now before God. The power of God, the
glory of the Father, the operation of the Spirit, are found acting in the
resurrection of Christ, and placing Him, who had borne our sins and been
made sin for us, in a new position beyond sin and death before God. And by
faith I have part in His death, I participate in this life.
It is not only satisfaction made by Christ for sins committed, and
glorifying God in His work-the basis, indeed, of all-but the deliverance of
the person who was in sin, even as when Israel was brought out of Egypt.
The blood had stayed the hand of God in judgment; the hand of God in power
delivered them for ever at the Red Sea. Whatever they may have been, they
were for that time with God who had guided them to His holy habitation.
Moreover, the first verses of this chapter sum up the result of God's work
with regard to this subject in chapters 5:12 to the end, 6 and 7: no
condemnation for those who are in Christ; the law of the Spirit of life in
Him delivering from this law of sin and death; and that which the law could
not do God has done.
It will be remarked that the deliverance is from the law of sin and death:
in this respect the deliverance is absolute and complete. Sin is no longer
at all a law. This deliverance, to one who loves holiness, who loves God,
is a profound and immense subject of joy. The passage does not say that the
flesh is changed-quite the contrary; one would not speak of the law of a
thing which no longer existed. We have to contend with it, but it is no
more a law; neither can it bring us under death in our conscience.
The law could not work this deliverance. It could condemn the sinner, but
not the sin while delivering the sinner. But that which the law could not
do-inasmuch as it required strength in man, while on the contrary he had
only strength for sin-God has done. Now it is here that Christ's coming
down among us, and even unto death, is set before us in all its
importance-His coming down without sin unto us and unto death. This is the
secret of our deliverance. God, the God of all grace and of glory, has sent
Him who was the eternal object of His delight, His own Son, in whom was all
the energy and divine power of the Son of God Himself, to partake of flesh
and blood in the midst of men, in the position in which we all are; ever in
Himself without sin, but-to go down to the depth of the position in which
we were, even to death-emptying Himself of His glory to be a man, "in the
likeness of sinful flesh," and being a man humbling Himself unto death, in
order that the whole question of sin with God should be decided in the
person of Christ, He being considered as in our position ;
when in the likeness of sinful flesh He was made sin for us-"for sin," as
it is expressed (that is, a sacrifice for sin). He undertook to glorify God
by suffering for that which man was. He accomplished it, making Himself a
sacrifice for sin; and thus, not only our sins have been put away, but sin
in the flesh (it was the state of man, the state of his being; and Christ
was treated on the cross as though He were in it) has been condemned in
that which was a sacrifice of propitiation for the sinner.
The Son of God-sent of God in love-has come, and not only has He borne our
sins, but (He having offered Himself up freely to accomplish His will,
whose will He was come to do, a spotless victim) God made Him who knew no
sin to be sin for us. He has placed Himself, ever without sin (in Him it
was grace and obedience), in the place in which our failure in our
responsibility here below had set man, and, made in the likeness of men,
died to glorify God in respect of sin, so that we are discharged by the
cross from the burden on the conscience of the sin that dwells in us. He
takes on Himself before God the whole charge of sin (but according to the
power of eternal life and the Holy Ghost that was in Him)-offers Himself as
a victim for it. Thus placed, He is made sin; and in His death, which He
undergoes in grace, sin in the flesh is totally condemned by the just
judgment of God, and the condemnation itself is the abolition of that sin
by His act of sacrifice-an act which is valid for every one that believes
in Jesus who accomplished it. We have died with Him and are alive through
Him. We have put off the body of the flesh, the old man; we have become
dead to the law by the body of Christ, our old man crucified with Him, that
the body of sin might be annulled. I have no doubt that the full result
will be the putting of sin out of the whole scene of heaven and earth, in
that new heavens and new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness. But here I
speak of the state of conscience in respect of the glory of God.
What a marvellous deliverance! What a work for the glory of God! The moral
import of the cross for the glory of God is a subject which, as we study
it, becomes ever more and more magnificent-a never-ending study. It is, by
its moral perfection, a motive for the love of the Father Himself with
regard to Jesus. "Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my
life, that I may take it again."
What a perfect work for putting away sin from the sight of God (setting
before Him in its stead that perfect work itself which removed the sin) and
for delivering the sinner, placing him before God according to the perfect
abolition of the sin and the value of that work in His sight! It is
possible we may have known the forgiveness of sins before we go through
Romans 7, and some have said that chapter 3 comes before chapter 7. But the
subjects are quite distinct. In the first part we have God dealing in grace
with the sinner as guilty for his justification, and that part is complete
in itself: "we joy in God." The second part takes up what we are, and
experiences connected with it; but the work of chapter 7 is always
essentially legal, the judgment of what we are, only hence in respect of
what is in us, not of what we have done-struggle, not guilt. The form of
experience will be modified. The soul will say, I hope I have not deceived
myself, and the like. But it is always law, and so the apostle gives it its
proper character in itself.
The practical result is stated in verse 4: "In order that the righteousness
of the law," its just requirement, "might be fulfilled in us who walk not
after the flesh but after the Spirit." We are perfect before God in Christ
without any righteousness by the law; but, walking according to the Spirit,
the law is fulfilled in us, although we are not subject to it. He who loves
has fulfilled the law. The apostle does not go farther in fruits of
righteousness here, because the question was that of subjection to the law
and man's fulfilling it. Grace produces more than this as in Ephesians,
Colossians, and elsewhere, reproduces the character of God, not merely what
man should be for God, but what Christ was. But here he meets the question
of law, and shews that in walking by the Spirit we so fulfil it.
In this new nature, in the life of resurrection and of faith, that which
the law demands is accomplished in us because we are not under it, for we
walk according to the Spirit, and not according to the flesh. The things
now in opposition are the flesh and the Spirit. In fact the rule, from the
yoke of which as a system we are set free, is accomplished in us. Under the
law sin had the mastery; being set free from the law, that law is fulfilled
in us.
But it is the Spirit working in us and leading us which characterises our
position. Now this character (for it is thus the apostle presents it) is
the result of the presence, the indwelling of the Holy Ghost in us. The
apostle supposes this great truth here. That is to say, writing to
Christians, the fact (for it was a fact that is in question here) of the
presence of the Holy Ghost, the Comforter, is treated as a well-known fact.
It publicly distinguished the Christian as the seal and mark of his
profession. The individual knew it for himself; he knew it with regard to
the assembly. But in the latter aspect, we leave it aside here, for
Christians individually are the subject. They had the Spirit; the apostle
everywhere appeals to their consciousness of this fact. "After that ye
believed ye were sealed." "Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law
or by the hearing of faith?" etc. It is the individual moral effect,
extending, however, to the resurrection of the body, which is here spoken
of. The two things are connected: the acknowledged fact of the presence of
the Holy Ghost; and the development of His energy in the life, and
afterwards in the resurrection of the believer. This had been seen in
Christ; resurrection itself was according to the Spirit of holiness.
We come then now into the practical effect, in the Christian on earth, of
the doctrine of death with, and life through, Christ, realised by the
dwelling in us of the Holy Ghost who has been given us. He is distinct, for
He is the Spirit, the Spirit of God; nevertheless He acts in the life, so
that it is practically ourselves in that which is of the life of Christ in
us.
We will examine the apostle's teaching briefly on this subject.
He introduces it abruptly, as characterising the Christian-"us, who walk
not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." Those who are after the flesh
desire the things of the flesh; those after the Spirit, the things of the
Spirit. It is not a question here of duty, but of the sure action of the
nature according to which a person subsists; and this tendency, this
affection of the nature, has its unfailing result-that of the flesh is
death, that of the Spirit is life and peace. Because the affection of the
flesh is enmity against God. It has its own will, its own lusts; and the
fact that it has them makes it not subject to the law of God-which, on the
contrary, has its own authority-and the flesh cannot, indeed, be subject;
it would cease to exist if it could be so, for it has a will of its own
which seeks independency, not the authority of God over it-a will which
does not delight either in what the law requires. Therefore those who are
in the flesh, and who have their relationship with God as living of this
nature, of this natural life, cannot please God. Such is the verdict on
man, living his natural life, according to the very nature of that life.
The law did not bring him out thence: he was still in the flesh as before.
It had a rule for man, such ashe is as man before God, which gave the
measure of his responsibility in that position, but which evidently did not
bring him out of the position to which it applied. So that man being in the
flesh, the workings of sin were, by means of the law itself, acting to
produce death.
But the principle of the believer's relationship with God is not the flesh
but the Spirit, if the Spirit of God dwells in us. It is that which
characterises our position before God. In His sight, and before Him, we are
not in the flesh. This, indeed, supposes the existence of the flesh, but
having received the Holy Ghost, and having life of the Holy Ghost, it is He
who constitutes our link with God. Our moral existence before God is in the
Spirit, not in the flesh or natural man.
Observe here, that the apostle is not speaking of gifts or manifestations
of power, acting outside us upon others, but of the vital energy of the
Spirit, as it was manifested in the resurrection of Jesus and even in His
life in holiness. Our old man is reckoned dead; we live unto God by the
Spirit. Accordingly this presence of the Spirit-all real as it is-is spoken
of in a manner which has the force rather of character than of distinct and
personal presence, although that character could not exist unless He were
personally there. "Ye are in Spirit, if so be that Spirit of God dwell in
you."
The emphasis is on the word God, and in the Greek there is no article
before Spirit. Nevertheless it plainly refers to the Spirit personally, for
it is said "dwell in you," so that He is distinct from the person He dwells
in.
But the force of the thing is this: there is nothing in man that can resist
the flesh or bring man out of it; it is himself. The law cannot go beyond
this boundary (namely, that of man to whom it is addressed), nor ought it,
for it deals with his responsibility. There must be something which is not
man, and yet which acts in man, that he may be delivered. No creature could
do anything in this: he is responsible in his own place.
It must be God. The Spirit of God coming into man does not cease to be God,
and does not make the man cease to be man; but He produces divinely in the
man, a life, a character a moral condition of being, a new man; in this
sense, a new being, and in virtue of the cleansing by Christ's blood. He
dwells-Christ having accomplished the work of deliverance, of which this is
the power in us-in the man, and the man is in Christ and Christ in the man.
But having thus really a new life, which has its own moral character, the
man is, as such, before God; and in His sight, what he is in this new
nature inseparably from its source, as the stream from the fountain; the
believer is in the Spirit, the Holy Ghost being in consequence of Christ's
work active in, and the power of, the life He has given. This is the
Christian's standing before God. We are no longer in the flesh, but in the
Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in us. There is no other
means. And it is indeed the Spirit of Christ-He in the power of whom Christ
acted, lived, offered Himself; by whom also He was raised from the dead.
His whole life was the expression of the operation of the Spirit-of the
Spirit in man. "Now, if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none
of his." It is the true and only link, the eternal reality, of the new life
in which we live in God.
We have to do with reality. Christianity has its realisation in us in a
conformity of nature to God, with which God cannot dispense, and without
which we cannot enjoy or be in communion with Him. He Himself gives it. How
indeed can we be born of God, unless God acts to communicate life to us? We
are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works. But it is the
Spirit who is its source and its strength. If any one has not the Spirit of
Christ, if the energy of this spiritual life which was manifested in Him,
which is by the power of the Spirit, is not in us, we are not of Him, we
have no part in Christ, for it is thus that one participates in Him. But if
Christ is in us, the energy of this spiritual life is in Him who is our
life, and the body is reckoned dead; for if it have a will as being alive,
it is nothing but sin. The Spirit is life, the Spirit by whom Christ
actively lived; Christ in Spirit in us is life-the source of thought,
action, judgment, everything that constitutes the man, speaking morally, in
order that there may be righteousness; for that is the only practical
righteousness possible, the flesh cannot produce any. We live only as
having Christ as our life; for righteousness is in Him, and in Him only,
before God. Elsewhere there is nothing but sin. Therefore to live is
Christ. There is no other life; everything else is death.
But the Spirit has yet another character. He is the Spirit of Him who
raised up Jesus from among the dead. This God did with regard to the
Christ. If the Spirit dwells in us, God will accomplish in us that which He
accomplished in the Christ,
because of this same Spirit. He will raise up our mortal bodies. This is
the final deliverance, the full answer to the question, "Who shall deliver
me from this body of death?"
Observe here, that the Spirit is designated in three ways: the Spirit of
God, in contrast with sinful flesh, with the natural man, the Spirit of
Christ, the formal character of the life which is the expression of His
power (this is the Spirit acting in man according to the perfection of the
divine thoughts); the Spirit of Him that raised up the man Christ from
among the dead. Here it is the perfect and final deliverance of the body
itself by the power of God acting through His Spirit. Thus then we have got
the full answer to the question, "Who shall deliver me?" We see that
christian life in its true character-that of the Spirit, depends on
redemption. It is by virtue of redemption that the Spirit is present with
us.
In verses 10, 11, we have present death to flesh and sin, and actual
resurrection; only, since there is nothing but sin if we live of our own
natural life, Christ being in us, our life, we reckon even now, while still
living, our body to be dead. This being the case, we have that which was
seen in Christ (chap. 1:4)-the Spirit of holiness and resurrection from
the dead. We should observe how (thus far according to the force of the
expression, "the Spirit is life") the Person of the Spirit is linked with
the state of the soul here, with the real life of the Christian. A little
lower down we find Him distinct from it. We understand this: for the Spirit
is truly the divine Person, but He acts in us in the life which He has
imparted. "That which is born of the Spirit is spirit." Thus it is indeed
the Spirit who produces practical righteousness, good thoughts; but He
produces them in me so that they are mine. Nevertheless I am entirely
dependent, and indebted to God for these things. The life is of the same
nature as its source according to John 3, but it is dependent; the whole
power is in the Spirit. Through Him we are dependent on God. Christ Himself
lived thus. Only the life was in Him, and no sin in the flesh to resist it:
whereas, if God has given us life, it remains always true that this life is
in His Son. "He that hath the Son hath life." And we know the flesh lusts
against the Spirit, even when we have it.
But to proceed with our chapter. The apostle concludes thus exposition of
the spiritual life, which gives liberty to the soul, by presenting the
Christian as being thus a debtor, not to the flesh, which has now no longer
any right over us. Yet he will not say directly that we are debtors to the
Spirit. It is indeed our duty to live after the Spirit; but if we said that
we are debtors, it would be putting man under a higher law the fulfilment
of which would thereby be yet more impossible to him. The Spirit was the
strength to live, and that through the affections which He imparts-not the
obligation to have them If we live after the flesh, we are going to die;
but if by the Spirit we mortify the deeds of the body, we shall live. The
evil is there, but strength is there to overcome it. This is the effect
according to the nature of God and of the flesh. But there is another side
of the subject-the relationship which this presence and operation of the
Spirit gives us towards God Instead then of saying "legal debtors to the
Spirit," the Spirit Himself is our power, by which we mortify the flesh and
thus are sure of living with God; and we are the sons of God, being led of
the Spirit. For we have not received a spirit of bondage to be again in
fear (that was the condition of the faithful under the law), but a Spirit
that answers to our adoption to be sons of God, and this is its power-a
Spirit by which we cry, "Abba,
The apostle again connects the Spirit of God in the closest union with the
character, the spirit, which He produces in us, according to the
relationship in which we are placed by His grace in Christ, and of which we
are conscious, and which in fact we realise by the presence of the Holy
Ghost in us: He is in us a Spirit of adoption. For He sets us in the truth,
according to the mind of God. Now as to the power for thus, as to its moral
reality in us, it is by the presence of the Holy Ghost alone that it takes
place. We are only delivered from the law and the spirit of bondage in that
the Spirit dwells in us, although the work and the position of Christ are
the cause. This position is neither known nor realised except by the
Spirit, whom Jesus sent down when He had Himself entered into it in glory
on high as man.
But this Spirit dwells in us, acts in us, and brings us in effect into this
relationship which has been acquired for us by Christ, through that work
which He accomplished for us, entering into it Himself (that is, as man
risen).
The apostle, we have seen, speaks of the Spirit in us as of a certain
character, a condition in which we are, because He instils Himself into our
whole moral being-our thoughts, affections, object, action; or, rather, He
creates them; He is their source; He acts by producing them. Thus He is
practically a Spirit of adoption, because He produces in our souls all that
appertains to this relationship. If He acts, our thoughts, our affections,
act also; we are in the enjoyment of this relationship by virtue of this
action. But having thus identified (and it could not be otherwise) the Holy
Ghost with all that He produces in us, for it is thus that the Christian
knows Him (the world does not receive Him because it does not see Him, nor
know Him; but ye know Him because He is with you, and dwells in you:
precious state!)-when the Holy Ghost Himself is the source of our being and
of our thoughts, according to the counsels of God in Christ and the
position which Christ has acquired for us-the apostle, I repeat, having
spoken of the Spirit as characterising our moral existence, is careful to
distinguish Him as a person, a really distinct existence. The Spirit
Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God. The
two things are equally precious:
participation in the Spirit, as the power of life by which we are capable
of enjoying God, and the relationship of children to Him; and the presence
and authority of the Spirit to assure us of it.
Our position is that of sons, our proper relationship that of children. The
word son is in contrast with the position under the law, which was that of
servants; it is the state of privilege in its widest extent. To say the
child of such an one, implies the intimacy and the reality of the
relationship. Now there are two things which the apostle lays open-the
position of child and its consequences, and the condition of the creature
in connection with which the child is found. This gives occasion for two
operations of the Spirit-the communication of the assurance of being
children with all its glorious consequences; and His work of sympathy and
grace in connection with the sorrows and infirmities in which the child is
found here below.
Having thus completed the exposition of the child's condition, he ends this
account of his position in Christ with a statement of the certainty of the
grace-outside himself-in God, which secures him in this position, and
guards him, by the power of God in grace, from everything that could rob
him of his blessing-his happiness. It is God who gives it him, and who is
its Author. It is God who will bring to a good end the one whom He has
placed in it. This last point is treated in verses 31-33. Thus in verses
1-11, we have the Spirit in life; in verses 12-30, the Spirit as a power
acting in the saint; in verses 31-33, God acting for, not in, us to ensure
our blessing. Hence, in the last part, he does not speak of sanctification.
The first point then we have to touch on in this second part is, that the
Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of
the family of God. That is to say, that as the Holy Ghost (acting in us in
life, as we have seen) has produced the affections of a child, and, by
these affections, the consciousness of being a child of God, so He does not
separate Himself from this, but, by His powerful presence, He bears witness
Himself that we are children. We have this testimony in our hearts in our
relationship with God; but the Holy Ghost Himself, as distinct from us,
bears this testimony to us in whom He dwells. The true freed Christian
knows that his heart recognises God as Father, but he knows also that the
Holy Ghost Himself bears His testimony to him. That which is founded on the
word is realised and verified in the heart.
And, if we are children, we are heirs-heirs of God and joint-heirs with
Christ. Glorious position in which we are placed with Christ! And the
witness of this is the first part of the Spirit's personal office; but this
has its consequences here, it has its character here. If the Spirit of
Christ is in us, He will be the source in us of the sentiments of Christ.
Now in this world of sin and of misery Christ necessarily suffered-suffered
also because of righteousness, and because of His love. Morally this
feeling of sorrow is the necessary consequence of possessing a moral nature
totally opposed to everything that is in the world. Love, holiness,
veneration for God, love for man, everything is essential suffering here
below; an active testimony leads to outward suffering. Co-heirs,
co-sufferers, co-glorified-this is the order of christian life and hope;
and, observe, inasmuch as possessors of the whole inheritance of God, this
suffering is by virtue of the glorious position into which we are brought,
and of our participation in the life of Christ Himself. And the sufferings
are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us.
For the creature waits for the manifestation of the sons of God. Then shall
its deliverance come. For, if we suffer, it is in love, because all is
suffering around us. The apostle then explains it. It is our connection
with the creature which brings us into this suffering, for the creature is
subjected to misery and vanity. We know it, we who have the Spirit, that
all creation groans in its estrangement from God, as in travail, yet in
hope. When the glory shall set the children free, the creature will share
their liberty: it cannot participate in the grace; this is a thing which
concerns the soul. But glory being the fruit of God's power in outward
things, even the creature shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption
and partake in the liberty of the glory. For it is not the Will of the
creature which made it subject (it has none in that respect); but it was on
account of him who subjected it, on account of man.
Now the Spirit, who makes us know that we are children and heirs of glory,
teaches us by the same means to understand all the misery of the creature;
and through our bodies we are in connection with it, so that there is
sympathy. Thus we also wait for the adoption, that is, the redemption of
the body. For as to possession of the full result, it is in hope that we
are saved; so that meanwhile we groan, as well as understand, according to
the Spirit and our new nature, that all creation groans. There are the
intelligence of the Spirit, and the affections of the divine nature on the
one side; and the link with fallen creation by the body, on the other.
Here then also the operation of the Holy Ghost has its place, as well as
bearing witness that we are children and heirs of God with Christ.
It is not therefore creation only which groans, being in bondage to
corruption in consequence of the sin of man; but we ourselves, who have the
first-fruits of the Spirit-which God has given in anticipation of the
accomplishment of His promises in the last days, and which connects us with
heaven-we also groan, while waiting for the redemption of our body to take
possession of the glory prepared for us. But it is because the Holy Ghost
who is in us takes part in our sorrow and helps us in our infirmities;
dwelling in us, He pleads in the midst of this misery by groans, which do
not express themselves in words. The sense of the evil that oppresses us
and all around us is there; and the more conscious we are of the blessing
and of the liberty of the glory, the more sensible are we of the weight of
the misery brought in by sin. We do not know what to ask for as a remedy;
but the heart expresses its sorrow as Jesus did at the grave of Lazarus-at
least in our little measure. Now this is not the selfishness of the flesh
which does not like to suffer; it is the affection of the Spirit.
We have here a striking proof of the way in which the Spirit and the life
in us are identified in practice: God searches the hearts-ours; He finds
the affection of the Spirit, for He, the Spirit, intercedes. So that it is
my heart-it is a spiritual affection, but it is the Spirit Himself who
intercedes. United to the creature by the body, to heaven by the Spirit,
the sense which I have of the affliction is not the selfishness of the
flesh, but the sympathy of the Spirit, who feels it according to
God.
What a sweet and strengthening thought, that when God searches the heart,
even if we are burdened with a sense of the misery in the midst of which
the heart is working. He finds there, not the flesh, but the affection of
the Spirit; and that the Spirit Himself is occupied in us, in grace, with
all our infirmities: What an attentive ear must God lend to such groans!
The Spirit, then, is the witness in us that we are children, and thereby
heirs; and He takes part in the sorrowful experience that we are linked
with creation by our bodies, and becomes the source of affections in us,
which express themselves in groans that are divine in their character as
well as human, and which have the value of His own intercession. And this
grace shews itself in connection with our ignorance and weakness. Moreover,
if after all we know not what to ask for, we know that everything works
together under God's own hand for our greatest good (v. 28).
This brings in, thirdly, another side of the truth-that which God does, and
that which God is for us, outside ourselves, to assure us of all blessing.
The Holy Ghost is life in us; He bears witness to our glorious position; He
acts in divine sympathy in us, according to our actual position of
infirmity in this poor body and this suffering creation; He becomes, and
makes us, the voice of this suffering before God. All this takes place in
us; but God maintains all our privileges by that which He is in Himself.
This is the last part of the chapter, from verse 28 or 31 to the end. God
orders all things in favour of those who are called according to His
purpose. For that is the source of all good and of all happiness in us and
for us.
Therefore it is, that in this beautiful and precious climax, sanctification
and the life in us are omitted. The Spirit had instructed our souls on
these points at the beginning of the chapter. The Spirit is life, the body
dead, if Christ be in us; and now He presents the counsels, the purposes,
the acts, the operation of God Himself, which bless and secure us, but are
not the life in us. The inward reality has been developed in the previous
part; here, the certainty, the security, in virtue of what God is and of
His counsels. He has foreknown His children, He has predestinated them to a
certain glory, a certain marvellous blessing, namely, to be conformed to
the image of His Son. He has called them, He has justified them, He has
glorified them. God has done all this. It is perfect and stable, as He is
who willed it, and who has done it. No link in the chain is wanting of all
that was needful in order to bind their souls to glory according to the
counsels of God.
And what a glory! what a position-poor creatures as the saved are-to be
conformed to the image of the Son of God Himself! This, in fact, is the
thought of grace, not to bless us only by Jesus, but to bless us with Him.
He came down even to us, sinless, in love and righteousness, to associate
us with Himself in the fruit of His glorious work. It was this which His
love purposed, that we should have one and the same portion with Himself;
and this the counsels of the Father (blessed be His name for it!) had
determined also.
The result of all for the soul is, that God is for us. Sweet and glorious
conclusion, which gives the heart a peace that is ineffable, and rest that
depends on the power and stability of God-a rest that shuts out all anxiety
as to anything that could trouble it; for if God be for us who can be
against us? And the way of it shuts out all thought as to any limit to the
liberality of God. He who had given His Son, how should He not with Him
give us all things? Moreover, with regard to our righteousness before God,
or to charges which might be brought against the saints, as well as with
regard to all the difficulties of the way, God Himself has justified: who
shall condemn? Christ has died, He has risen, and is at the right hand of
God, and intercedes for us: who shall separate us from His love? The
enemies? He has already conquered them. Height? He is there for us. Depth?
He has been there; it is the proof of His love. Difficulties? We are more
than conquerors: they are the immediate occasion of the display of His love
and faithfulness, making us feel where our portion is, what our strength
is. Trial does but assure the heart, which knows His love, thatnothing can
separate us from the love of God which is in Jesus. Everything else is the
creature, and cannot separate us from the love of God-a love of God, which
has entered also into this misery of the creature, and gained the victory
for us over all. Thus the deliverance, and liberty, and security of the
saints by grace and power are fully brought out.
We have thus in three ways God's being for us unfolded: in giving,
justifying, and no possible separation. Two triumphant questions settle the
last two points, on which the heart might easily raise questions. But the
two questions are put:-Who shall condemn? Who shall separate? Who shall
condemn when God Himself justifies? It is not said justified before God.
God is for us. The second is answered by the precious fact that in all that
might seem to do so, we have seen, on the contrary, His love proved.
Besides it is the creature which might tend to separate, and the love is
the love of God. The beginning of verse 34 should be read with 33.
We have advanced here to a fuller experimental state than in chapter 5,
following on what unfolds the exercises of a soul learning what it is in
itself, and the operation of the law, and what it is to be dead with
Christ, and to be alive through and associated with Him, and coming out, as
in Him before God, with the consciousness of God for it. But there is in
chapter 5 more of the simple grace of God, what He is in His own blessed
nature and thoughts, as above sin, towards the sinner. We have the
Christian's place more fully with God here, but what God is simply in grace
more fully in chapter 5. Chapter 5 is more what God is thus known through
the work of Christ; chapter 8 more our place in Christ before Him. Blessed
to have both!
Chapter 9
There remained one important question to be considered, namely, how this
salvation, common to Jew and Gentile, both alienated from God-this doctrine
that there was no difference-was to be reconciled with the special promises
made to the Jews. The proof of their guilt and ruin under the law did not
touch the promises of a faithful God. Was the apostle going to do away with
these to place the Gentiles on the same footing? They did not fail also to
accuse the apostle of having despised his nation and its privileges.
Chapters 9, 10 and 11 reply to this question; and, with rare and admirable
perfection, set forth the position of Israel with respect to God and to the
gospel. This reply opens, in itself, a wide door to intelligence in the
ways of God.
The apostle begins by affirming his deep interest in the blessing of
Israel. Their condition was a source of constant grief to him. Far from
despising them, he loved them as much as Moses had done. He had wished to
be anathema from Christ for them.
He acknowledged that all the privileges granted by God until then, belonged
to them. But he does not allow that the word of God had failed; and he
develops proof of the free sovereignty of God, conformably to which,
without trenching upon the promises made to the Jews, He could admit the
Gentiles according to His election.
In the first place, this truth displayed itself in the bosom of Abraham's
own family. The Jews alleged their exclusive right to the promises in
virtue of their descent from him, and to have their promises by right, and
exclusively, because they were descended from him. But they are not all
Israel which are of Israel. Neither because they were of the seed of
Abraham were they therefore all children. For in that case Ishmael must
have been received; and the Jews would by no means hear of that. God then
was sovereign. But it might be alleged that Hagar was a slave. But Esau's
case excluded even this saving thought. The same mother bore both sons of
one father, and God had chosen Jacob and rejected Esau. It was thus on the
principle of sovereignty and election, that God had decided that the seed
should be called in the family of Isaac. And before Esau and Jacob were
born, God declared that the elder should serve the younger. The Jews must
then admit God's sovereignty on this point.
Was God then unrighteous? He plainly declared His sovereignty for good to
Moses as a principle. It is the first of all rights. But in what case had
He exercised this right? In a case that concerned that right of Israel to
blessing, of which the Jews sought to avail themselves. All Israel would
have been cut off, if God had dealt in righteousness; there was nothing but
the sovereignty of God which could be a door of escape. God retreated into
His sovereignty in order to spare whom He would, and so had spared Israel
(justice would have condemned them all alike, gathered round the golden
calf which they set up to worship)-this, on the side of mercy; on that of
judgment, Pharaoh served for an example. The enemy of God, and of His
people, he had treated the claims of God with contempt, exalting himself
proudly against Him-"Who is Jehovah, that I should obey him? I will not let
his people go." Pharaoh being in this state, Jehovah uses him to give an
example of His wrath and judgment. So that He shews mercy to whom He will,
and hardens whom He will. Man complains of it, as he does of the grace that
justifies freely.
As to rights, compare those of God and those of the creature who has sinned
against Him. How can man, who is made of clay, dare to reply against God?
The potter has power to do as he will with the lump. No one can say to God,
What doest Thou? God's sovereignty is the first of all rights, the
foundation of all rights, the foundation of all morality. If God is not
God, what will He be? The root of the question is this; is God to judge
man, or man God? God can do whatsoever He pleases. He is not the object for
judgment. Such is His title: but when in fact the apostle presents the two
cases, wrath and grace, He puts the case of God shewing long suffering
towards one already fitted for wrath, in order to give at last an example
to men of His wrath in the execution of His justice; and then of God
displaying His glory in vessels of mercy whom He has prepared for glory.
There are then these three points established with marvellous exactitude;
the power to do all things, no one having the right to say a word;
wonderful endurance with the wicked, in whom at length His wrath is
manifested; demonstration of His glory in vessels, whom He has Himself
prepared by mercy for glory, and whom He has called, whether from among the
Jews or Gentiles, according to the declaration of Hosea.
The doctrine established, then, is the sovereignty of God in derogation of
the pretensions of the Jews to the exclusive enjoyment of all the promises,
as being descended from Abraham; for, among his descendants, more than one
had been excluded by the exercise of this sovereignty; and it was nothing
less than its exercise which, on the occasion of the golden calf, had
spared those who pretended to the right of descent. It was necessary
therefore that the Jew should recognise it, or else that he should admit
the Idumeans in full right, as well as the Ishmaelites, and renounce it
himself, the families of Moses and Joshua alone perhaps excepted. But if
such was the sovereignty of God, He would now exercise it in favour of the
Gentiles, as well as Jews. He called whom He would.
If we look closely into these quotations from Hosea, we shall find that
Peter, who writes to converted Jews alone, takes only the passage at the
end of chapter 2, where Lo-ammi and Lo-ruhamah become Ammi and Ruhamah.
Paul quotes that also, which is at the end of chapter 1, where it is
written, "In the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people,
there shall they be called-not 'my people,' but-' the children of the
living God.'" It is this last passage which he applies to the Gentiles
called by grace.
But further passages from the prophets amply confirm the judgment which the
apostle pronounces by the Spirit on the Jews. Isaiah declared formally
that, if God had not left them a little remnant, they would have been as
Sodom and Gomorrah;numerous as the people were, a little remnant only
should be saved; for God was cutting the work short in judgment on the
earth. And here was the state of things morally: the Gentiles had obtained
the righteousness which they had not sought, had obtained it by faith; and
Israel, seeking to obtain it by the fulfilment of a law, had not attained
to righteousness. Why? Because they sought it not by faith, but by works of
law. For they had stumbled at the stumbling-stone (that is, at Christ), as
it is written, "I lay in Sion a stumbling-stone and rock of offence: and
whosoever believeth in him shall not be ashamed."
Chapter 10
Having touched on this subject, the apostle, who deeply loved his nation as
the people of God, pours out his heart with respect of the doctrine which
was a stumbling-stone to them. His desire, the aim of his heart's
affection, was their salvation. The object of his affections, they were
clothed in his eyes with their zeal for God, ignorant as it was; ignorant,
alas! on the side of that which God taught. Being ignorant of God's
righteousness, they sought in their zeal to establish their own
righteousness, and did not submit themselves to that of God. For Christ is
the end of law for righteousness to every believer. There was found the
righteousness of God, there the stumblingstone to Israel.
Nevertheless the apostle establishes his argument clearly and firmly. He
establishes it on his own part; but Deuteronomy supplies him with an
unexpected proof of the great principle. He quotes a passage from that book
which speaks on the subject of Israel's condition, when they should have
broken the law and be suffering its consequences. "Secret things," the
lawgiver had said, "belong to our God; but those that are revealed" are for
the people. That is to say, the law was given as a condition to the
enjoyment of the blessing, plainly and positively; what God might do in
grace, when Israel should be under the consequences of the broken law,
remained in the secrecy of His supreme will. Upon this, however, another
principle is distinctly revealed, namely, that when the fulfilment of the
law was impossible, and when Israel had been driven out of their land for
having broken it, if then their heart turned to God in that far country, He
would accept them. It was all over with the law as a condition of
relationship with God. Israel was driven out according to the chapter we
are looking at (Deut. 30)-was Lo-ammi, no longer the people of God. The
testimony of God was nevertheless addressed to them: they might turn to Him
in spirit, and by faith. It was no longer the law, it was faith. But, says
the apostle, if so, it is Christ who is its object. No Jew would have
denied that the testimony of God was the hope of every true Israelite when
all was ruined.
This passage then in Deuteronomy-when Moses has done with the law, and has
supposed other counsels of God, and on them founds the principle of turning
in heart to God when all is over with regard to the law, and Israel is in a
place where it would be impossible to keep it, being in captivity among the
Gentiles-this passage has remarkable significance in the argument of the
apostle; and its being quoted is an extraordinary proof, that in his
reasonings it is the Holy Ghost who acts. It is the apostle who introduces
Christ; but the combination of the truths of the different positions of
Israel, of the law, and of the return in heart when they were lost under
the law-a combination of which Christ was the key-stone and alone could
be-exhibits a comprehensive view of the oneness of all God's ways, morally
and in His dispensations, of which the Spirit of God alone is capable, and
which evidently expresses His thoughts. See Deuteronomy 29 (at the end) and
30.
The word of faith then set forth as being the hope of Israel, was that
which the apostle announced-that if any one confessed with his mouth the
Lord Jesus, and believed in his heart that God had raised Him from the
dead, he should be saved. Precious, simple, and positive assertion! and
borne out, if that were needed, by the testimony of the Old Testament:
"Whosoever believeth in him shall not be ashamed." The words heart and
mouth are in contrast with the law. In the case Deuteronomy supposes,
Israel could not fulfil the law; the word of their God, Moses told them,
could be in their heart and in their mouth. Thus now for the Jew (as for
every one) it was the belief of the heart.
Observe, it does not say, If you love in your heart, or, If your heart is
what it ought to be towards God; but, If you believe in your heart. A man
believes with his heart, when he really believes with a heart interested in
the thing. His affections being engaged in the truth, he desires, when
grace is spoken of, that that which is told him should be the truth. He
desires the thing, and at the same time he does not doubt it. It is not in
his having part in it that he believes, but in the truth of the thing
itself, being concerned in it as important to himself. It is not the state
of his affections (a very serious consideration, however, in its place)
that is the subject here, but the importance and the truth of that which is
presented by the word-its importance to himself, as needing it for his
salvation, a salvation that he is conscious of needing, that he cannot do
without-a truth of which he is assured, as a testimony from God Himself.
God affirms to such a one that salvation belongs to him, but it is not that
which he has to believe in as the object of faith; it is that of which God
assures every one who does believe.
Moreover thus faith is manifested by the proof it gives of its sincerity-by
confession of the name of Christ. If some one were convinced that Jesus is
the Christ, and refused to confess Him, his conviction would evidently be
his greater condemnation. The faith of the heart produces the confession of
the mouth; the confession of the mouth is the counterproof of the sincerity
of the faith, and of honesty, in the sense of the claim which the Lord has
upon us in grace. It is the testimony which God requires at the outset. It
is to sound the trumpet on earth in face of the enemy. It is to say that
Christ has conquered, and that everything belongs in right to Him. It is a
confession which brings in God in answer to the name of Jesus. It is not
that which brings in righteousness, but it is the public acknowledgment of
Christ, and thus gives expression to the faith by which there is
participation in the righteousness of God, so that it may be said, 'He
believes in Christ unto salvation; he has the faith that justifies.'
I have entered here a little more into detail, because this is a point on
which the human heart perplexes itself; and perplexes itself so much the
more because it is sincere, as long as there is any unbelief and
self-righteousness remaining. It is impossible that an awakened soul should
not feel the necessity of having the heart set right and turned to God; and
hence, not submitting to the righteousness of God, he thinks to make the
favour of God depend on the state of his own affections, whereas God loves
us while we are yet sinners. The state of our affections is of all
importance; but it supposes a relationship already existing, according to
which we love. We love too because we are loved of God. Now His love has
done something-has done something according to our necessities, and
according to the divine glory. It has given Jesus; and Jesus has
accomplished what was required, in order that we may participate in divine
righteousness; and thus He has placed every one who (acknowledging that he
is a lost sinner) believes in Him, in the secure relationship of a child
and of a justified soul before God, according to the perfection of the work
of Christ. Salvation belongs to this soul according to the declaration of
God Himself. Loved with such love, saved by such grace, enjoying such
favour, let it cultivate affections suitable to the gift of Jesus, and to
the knowledge it has of Him and of His goodness.
It is evident that, if it is "whosoever" believes in Jesus, the Gentile
comes in as well as the Jew. There is no difference; the sameLord is rich
unto all that call upon Him. It is beautiful to see this form of
expression, "There is no difference," repeated here. The apostle had used
it before with the addition "for all have sinned." Sin puts all men on a
level in ruin before God. But there is also no difference, "for the same
Lord over all is rich unto all," for every one who calls upon His name
shall be saved.
On this declaration, the apostle founds another argument; and by it he
justifies the ways of God that were accomplished in his ministry. The
Jewish scriptures declared that every one who called upon the name of the
Lord should be saved. Now, the Jews acknowledged that the Gentiles did not
know the name of the true and living God. It was needful therefore to
proclaim Him, in order that they might call upon Him, and the whole
ministry of the apostle was justified. Accordingly it was written, "How
beautiful are the feet of those who preach the gospel of peace." For, in
dealing with these questions among the Jews, he naturally rests on the
authority of their own scriptures.
But he applies this principle for evangelisation to the Jews as well as to
the Gentiles (for the law was not the announcement of good news). He quotes
Isaiah to the same purpose. It was in a proclamation-a truth thus publicly
preached-that Israel had not believed; so that there ought to be faith in a
truth thus preached, in the word proclaimed. Verse 18 presents some
difficulty. It is certain that the apostle intends to explain that a
proclamation of the truth on God's part had taken place. Israel was without
excuse, for the report had even gone out everywhere, the words which
announced God unto the ends of the earth. The testimony then was not
confined to the Jews The Gentiles had heard it everywhere. This is plain.
But does the apostle merely borrow the words (which in the passage quoted
apply to the testimony of creation), or does he mean to speak of the
testimony of nature itself? I believe that he uses the passage to shew that
God had the Gentiles in view in His testimonies; that he wishes quietly to
suggest this to the Jews by a quotation from their own scriptures, that not
only have they, the Jews, heard, but that the testimony has gone
everywhere, and that this was in the mind of God. Paul does not quote the
passage as a prophecy of that which was taking place; he borrows the words,
without that form of speech, to shew that this universal testimony was in
the mind of God, whatever might be the means employed. And then, stating
the thing with more precision for the Jew, he adds, Did not Israel know?
Was not the nation apprised of this extension to the Gentiles, of the
testimony of this proclamation of grace to them, of the reception of the
testimony by the Gentiles, so as to bring them into relationship with God?
Yes; Moses had already said, that God would provoke Israel to jealousy by a
people without knowledge. And Isaiah had spoken boldly, formally declaring
that God should be found by a nation that sought Him not; and to Israel,
that all day long He had stretched forth His hands to a rebellious and
gainsaying people; in a word, that the Gentiles should find Him, and Israel
be perverse and disobedient. Thus, the testimony borne to their relative
positions-although the apostle approaches it gradually and quietly-is
distinct and formal: the Gentiles received; Israel at enmity.
Chapter 11
Hereupon the question is immediately raised, has God then rejected His
people? To this chapter 11 is the answer. The apostle gives three proofs
that it is by no means the case. Firstly, he is himself an Israelite; there
is a remnant whom God has reserved, as in the days of Elias-a proof of the
constant favour of the Lord, of the interest He takes in His people, even
when they are unfaithful; so that when the prophet, the most faithful and
energetic among them, knew not where to find one who was true to God
besides himself, God had His eyes upon the remnant who had not bowed the
knee to Baal. Secondly, the call of the Gentiles, and their substitution
for Israel, was not the definitive rejection of the latter in the counsels
of God; for God had done it to provoke Israel to jealousy. It was not,
then, for their rejection. Thirdly, the Lord would come forth out of Sion.
and turn away the iniquities of Jacob.
That which the apostle, or rather which the Holy Ghost, says on this point
requires to be looked at in more detail.
The apostle, in quoting the case of Elias, shews that when Israel was in
such a state that even Elias pleaded against them, yet God had not rejected
them, He had reserved for Himself seven thousand men. This was the election
of sovereign grace. It was the same thing now. But it was by grace, and not
by works. The election then, has obtained the blessing, and the rest was
blinded. Even as it was written, "God hath given them the spirit of
slumber," etc.
Had they then stumbled that they should fall? No! But through their fall
salvation is come to the Gentiles to provoke Israel to jealousy-a second
proof that it was not for their rejection. But if their diminishing and
fall was a blessing to the Gentiles, what should not the fruit be of their
restoration? If the first-fruits are holy, so is the lump; if the root, the
tree also. Now, as to the continued chain of those who enjoy the promises
in this world, Abraham was the root, and not the Gentiles; Israel, the
natural stock and branches. And here is that which happened in the good
olive-tree of promise in this world, of which Abraham was the root (God
Himself the source of leaf and fruit), and Israel the stem and the tree.
There had been some bad branches, and they had been cut off; and others
from the Gentiles grafted in, in their place, who thus enjoyed the richness
natural to the tree of promise. But it was on the principle of faith that
they, being of the wild olive-tree, had been grafted in. Many of the
Israelite branches, the natural heirs of the promises, had been cut off
because of their unbelief; for when the fulfilment of the promises was
offered them, they rejected it. They rested on their own righteousness, and
despised the goodness of God. Thus the Gentiles, made partakers of the
promises, stood on the principle of faith. But if they abandoned this
principle, they should lose their place in the tree of promise, even as the
unbelieving Jews had lost theirs. Goodness was to be their portion in this
dispensation of God's government, with regard to those who had part in the
enjoyment of His promises, if they continued in this goodness; if not,
cutting off. This had happened to the Jews; it should be the same with the
Gentiles if they did not continue in that goodness. Such is the government
of God, with regard to that which stood as His tree on the earth. But there
was a positive counsel of God accomplished in that which took place,
namely, the partial blinding of Israel (for they were not rejected) until
all the Gentiles who were to have part in the blessing of these days should
have come in. After this Israel should be saved as a whole; it should not
be individuals spared and added to the assembly, in which Israel had no
longer any place as a nation; they should be saved as a whole, as Israel.
Christ shall come forth from Sion as the seat of His power, and shall turn
away iniquity from Jacob, God pardoning them all transgressions.
This is the third proof that Israel was not rejected. For while enemies, as
concerning the gospel at the present time, they are still beloved for the
fathers' sakes. For that which God has once chosen and called He never
casts off. He does not repent of His counsels, nor of the call which gives
them effect. But if the counsel of God remains unchangeable, the way in
which it is accomplished brings out the marvellous wisdom of God. The
Gentiles had long continued in the disobedience of unbelief. God comes in
in grace. The Jews opposed themselves to the actings of grace. They lose
all right to the promises through this unbelief, so that they must receive
the effect of the promise on the footing of pure mercy and the sovereign
grace of God,
in the same way as the poor Gentile. For He had shut them all up in
unbelief, that it might be pure mercy to all. Therefore it is that the
apostle exclaims, O depth of wisdom and knowledge! The promises are
fulfilled, and the pretension to human righteousness annihilated; the Jews
who have lost everything receive all on the true ground of the goodness of
God. Their apparent loss of all is but the means of their receiving all
from sovereign grace, instead of having it by virtue of human
righteousness, or an unforfeited promise. All is grace: yet God is ever
faithful, and that in spite of man's unfaithfulness. Man is blessed; the
Jew receives the effect of the promise; but both the one and the other have
to attribute it to the pure mercy of God. There is nothing about the
assembly here: it is the tree of promise, and those who in virtue of their
position have part successively in the enjoyment of the promises of earth.
The unbelieving Jews were never cut off from the church, they were never in
it. They had been in the position of natural heirs of the right to the
promises. The assembly is not the Jews' own olive-tree according to nature,
so that they should be grafted into it again. Nothing can be plainer: the
chain of those who had a right to the promises from Abraham was Israel;
some of the branches were then cut off. The tree of promise remains on the
earth: the Gentiles are grafted into it in place of the Jews, they also
become unfaithful (that is to say, the case is supposed), and they would in
their turn be cut off, and the Jews be reinstated in the old olive-tree,
according to the promises and in order to enjoy them; but it is in pure
mercy. It is clearly not by the gospel they get the blessing; for, as
touching the gospel, they are enemies for the Gentiles' sake; as touching
election, beloved for the fathers' sake.
Remark further here an important principle: the enjoyment of privileges by
position makes us responsible for them, without saying the individual was
born again. The Jewish branch was in the tree of promise and broken off: so
the Gentiles. There was nothing vital or real; but they were in the place
of blessing, "partakers of the root and fatness of the olive tree," by
being grafted in.
These communications of the mind of God end this portion of the book,
namely, that in which the apostle reconciles sovereign grace shewn to
sinners (putting all on a level in the common ruin of sin) with the
especial privileges of the people of Israel, founded on the faithfulness of
God. They had lost everything as to right. God would fulfil His promises in
grace and by mercy.
Chapter 12
The apostle resumes the thread of his instructions, by taking up-as he does
in all his epistles-the moral consequences of his doctrine. He places the
believer at the outset on the ground of God's mercy, which he had fully
developed already. The principle of grace that saves had been established
as the basis of salvation. The ground of all christian morality is now laid
in this fundamental principle:-to present our bodies as a sacrifice,
living, holy, acceptable to God-an intelligent service, not that of the
hands, not consisting in ceremonies which the body could perform-a simple
but deep-reaching and all-efficacious principle. This was for man
personally. As to his outward relationships, he was not to be conformed to
the world. Neither was this to be an outside mechanical nonconformity, but
the result of being renewed in mind, so as to seek for and discern the will
of God, good and acceptable and perfect; the life being thus transformed.
This connects itself with the end of chapter 6. It is not those sitting in
heavenly places, imitators of God as dear children, but men on earth set
free by the delivering power of redemption and grace, yielding themselves
up to God to do His will. The exhortation follows the character we have
seen to be that of the epistle.
Thus the christian walk was characterised by devotedness and obedience. It
was a life subjected to the will of another, namely, to the will of God;
and therefore stamped with humility and dependence. But there was absolute
devotedness of heart in self-sacrifice. For there was a danger, flowing
from the power that acted in it, of the flesh coming in and availing itself
of it. With regard to this, every one was to have a spirit of wisdom and
moderation, and to act within the limits of the gift which God had
dispensed to him, occupying himself with it according to the will of God;
even as each member has its own place in the body, and should accomplish
the function which God has ascribed to it. The apostle passes on insensibly
to all the forms which duty assumes in the Christian, according to the
various positions in which he stands, and to the spirit in which he ought
to walk in every relationship.
It is in chapter 12 only that the idea of the assembly as a body is thus
found in this epistle; and that, in connection with the duties of the
members individually-duties that flowed from their positions as such.
Otherwise it is the position of man in his individual responsibility before
God, and this met by grace, and then the delivered man, that is set before
us in the Epistle to the Romans. The directions given by the apostle extend
to the Christian's relationship with the authorities under which he is
placed. He recognises them as accomplishing the service of God, and as
armed with authority from Him, so that resisting them would be resisting
that which God had established. Conscience therefore, and not merely force,
constrained the Christian to obey. In fine he was to render to every man
that which was due to him in virtue of his position; to leave nothing owing
to any one, be it of whatever character it might-excepting love-a debt
which never can be liquidated.
Chapter 13
Among themselves Christians are exhorted not to seek the high things of
this world, but to walk as brethren with those of low degree: a precept too
much forgotten in the assembly of God-to her loss. If the Christian of high
degree requires that honour according to the flesh should be paid him, let
it be done with good will. Happy he who, according to the example of the
King of kings and to the precept of our apostle, knows how to walk in
company with those of low degree in their journey through the wilderness.
Now love is the fulfilling of the law; for love works no ill to his
neighbour, and so fulfils the law.
Another principle acts also on the spirit of the Christian. It is time to
awake. The deliverance from this present evil age, which the Lord will
accomplish for us, draws nigh. The night is far spent, the day is at
hand-God knows the moment. The characteristics which marked its approach in
the days of the apostle have ripened in a very different way since then,
although God, with a view to those whom He is gathering in, is still even
now restraining them. Let us then walk as children of the day, casting off
the works of darkness. We belong to the day, of which Christ Himself will
be the light. Let our walk be in accordance with that day, putting on
Christ Himself, and not being studious of that which is in accordance with
the will and the lusts of the flesh.
Chapter 14
>From the beginning of chapter 14 to the end of verse 7 in chapter 15
another point is taken up, to which the different positions of the Jew and
Gentile gave rise. It was difficult for a Jew to rid himself of the sense
of difference between days and between meats. A Gentile, having abandoned
his whole religious system as idolatrous, held to nothing. Human nature is
liable in this respect to sin on both sides-a want of conscience, an
unbridled will, and a ceremonial conscience. Christianity recognises
neither of these things. It delivers from the question of days and meats by
making us heavenly with Christ. But it teaches us to bear with
conscientious weakness, and to be conscientious ourselves. Conscience
cannot-has not a right to-prescribe a new thing to us as a duty, but it
may, through ignorance, hold to a traditional thing as obligatory. In
reality we have entire liberty, but we ought to bear with weakness of faith
in another, and not put a stumbling-block in his way. The apostle gives
three directions in this respect: First, to receive the weak, but not for
the discussion of questions that have to be settled; second, not to judge
our brother, since he is Christ's servant, not ours; and every one must
give account of himself to God; third, to bear the infirmities of the weak,
and not to please ourselves; to walk in the spirit of love, and, if we are
in a higher state, to shew it by receiving one another, as Christ has
received us, to the glory of God, which eclipses man and his petty
superiorities, and which kindles charity and makes it ardent, earnest in
seeking the good of others-taking us so out of self, and beyond little
things, that we are able to adapt ourselves to others, where the will of
God and His glory are not in question.
Many important principles are brought forward in these exhortations. Every
one shall give account of himself to God. Everyone, in these cases, should
be fully persuaded in his own mind, and should not judge another. If any
one has faith that delivers him from traditional observances, and he sees
them to be absolutely nothing-as indeed they are-let him have his faith for
God, and not cause his brother to stumble.
No one lives to himself, and no one dies to himself; we are the Lord's. The
weak then regard the day for the Lord's sake; the others do not regard it
because of the Lord. This is the reason therefore for not judging. He whom
I judge is the Lord's. Therefore also I should seek to please my brother
for his edification-he is the Lord's; and I should receive him, as I have
been received, to share in the glory of God which has been conferred on
him. We serve Christ in these things by thinking of the good of our
brother. As to the energy of a man's faith, let him have it between himself
and God. Love is the ruler for the use of his liberty, if it is liberty,
and not the bondage of disregarding. For the converse of this principle,
when these observances are used to destroy liberty in Christ, see Galatians
4, where the apostle shews that, if the observance is taught as a
principle, it is really turning back to Paganism.
Chapter 15
These instructions close the epistle. From chapter 15:8, it is the
exordium, the personal circumstances of the apostle, and salutations.
In verses 8 to 12, he sums up his thoughts respecting God's dealings with
the Jew and the Gentile in the advent of Jesus. He was a minister of the
circumcision for the truth of God, to accomplish the promises made to the
fathers. For to the Jews God had made promises; but none to the Gentiles.
To the latter it was not truth that was in question: but by grace they
might through Jesus glorify God for His mercy. For them the apostle quotes
passages from Deuteronomy (that is to say, from the Law), from the Psalms,
and from the Prophets.
In verse 13, he turns affectionately to the Romans to express his desires
for them, and his confidence in the blessing they had received from God,
which enabled them mutually to exhort one another, while expressing at the
same time his boldness in some sort, because of the grace God had given
him, to be the minister of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles by fulfilling a
public function with regard to them; being, as it were, a priest to offer
up the Gentiles as an offering acceptable to God, because sanctified by the
Holy Ghost (see Num. 8:11). This was his glory before God. This
sanctification by the Holy Ghost was that which took the place of
sanctification by birth, and it was well worth it.
Moreover he had accomplished his task from Jerusalem round about to
Illyricum; notwhere Christ had been preached before, but where they had
not yet heard of Him. This had prevented his coming to Rome. But now that
there was no more place for him, according to the Holy Ghost-nothing more
in those parts for him to do, and having long desired to see them, he
thought to visit them on his way to Spain. For the moment he was going to
Jerusalem with the collection made in Macedonia and Achaia for the saints.
We see that his heart turns to the Jews; they occupied his thoughts; and
while desiring to put the seal of performance on the grace which this
collection betokened, he was pre-occupied with them as Jews, as those who
had a claim: a mingled feeling perhaps of one who was anxious to shew that
he did not forget them; for, in fact, he loved his nation. We have to learn
whether, in executing this service (properly that of a deacon), pleasing as
it might be, he was at the height of his mission as apostle. However that
might be, the hand of God was in it to make all things work for the good of
His beloved servant and child, as well as for His own glory. Paul had a
presentiment that it would not perhaps turn out well, and he asks the
prayers of the saints at Rome, that he might be delivered from the hands of
the wicked, and see their face with joy. We know how it ended: the subject
was spoken of when we were considering the Acts. He saw them indeed at
Rome; he was delivered, but as a prisoner; and we do not know if he ever
went to Spain The ways of God are according to His eternal counsels, and
according to His grace, and according to His perfect wisdom.
Chapter 16
Never having known the Roman Christians as an assembly, Paul sends many
personal salutations. This was the link which subsisted. We see how
touchingly his heart dwells upon all the details of service which attached
him to those who had rendered it. He who by grace had searched into all the
counsels of God, who had been admitted to see that which could not be made
known to man here below, remembered all that these humble Christians-these
devoted women-had done for him and for the Lord. This is love; it is the
real proof of the power of the Spirit of God; it is the bond of charity.
We have also here a precious and most perfect rule for our walk, namely, to
be simple concerning evil, and wise unto that which is good. Christianity
alone could have given such a rule; for it provides a walk that is
positively good, and wisdom to walk in it. As Christians we may be simple
concerning evil. What a deliverance! While the man of the world must needs
acquaint himself with evil, in order to avoid it in this world of snares
and of artifice, he must corrupt his mind, accustom himself to think of
evil, in order not to be entrapped by it. But soon there should be entire
deliverance-soon should Satan be trodden under their feet.
We see also that the apostle did not write his letters himself, but
employed a brother to do it. Here it was one named Tertius (v. 22). Deeply
concerned at the condition of the Galatians, he wrote himself the letter
addressed to them; but the salutation at the end of this, as of other
epistles, was in his own hand in order to verify the contents of the
epistle. (1 Corinthians 16:21; 2 Thessalonians 3:17, in which the feigned
epistle alluded to in 2 Thessalonians 2 gave occasion to state this proof,
which he always gave, that an epistle was truly his.) We see likewise, by
this little circumstance, that he attached a solemn and authoritative
character to his epistles, that they were not merely the effusions of a
spiritual heart, but that in writing them he knew and would have others
understand, that they were worthy of consideration and of being preserved
as authorities, as the expression and exercise of his apostolic mission,
and were to be received as such; that is to say, as possessing the Lord's
authority, with which he was furnished by the power of the Holy Ghost. They
were letters from the Lord by his means, even as his words had also been (1
Thess. 2:13, and 1 Cor. 14:37).
We have yet to observe, with regard to the three verses at the end of the
epistle, that they are, as it were, detached from all the rest,
introducing, in the form of a doxology, the suggestion of a truth, the
communication of which distinguished the apostle's teaching. He does not
develop it here. The task which the Holy Ghost accomplished in this
epistle, was the presentation of the soul individually before God according
to the divine thoughts. Nevertheless this connects itself immediately with
the position of the body; and the doctrine respecting the body, the
assembly, cannot be separated from it. Now the apostle informs us
distinctly, that the mystery, the assembly, and the gathering together in
one of all things under Christ, had been entirely unknown: God had been
silent on that subject in the times which were defined by the word ages,
the assembly not forming a part of that course of events, and of the ways
of God on earth. But the mystery was now revealed and communicated to the
Gentiles by prophetic writings-not "the writings of the prophets." The
epistles addressed to the Gentiles possessed this character; they were
prophetic writings-a fresh proof of the character of the epistles in the
New Testament.
He who has understood the doctrine of this epistle, and of the writings of
Paul in general, will readily apprehend the significance of this
postscript. The epistle itself develops with divine perfection and fulness
how a soul can stand before God in this world, and the grace and
righteousness of God, maintaining withal His counsels as to Israel.
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