God has pardoned us absolutely, of His own grace, when we were in our sins and afar from Him. What kind of life shall we lead then in response to such grace?
Many a one has said of the gospel grace, “It is too cheap! When you were bad you were saved, therefore, the best thing you can do is to go on being bad—to continue in sin, so that God may be able to show what a good God He is.”
This was an argument raised in the time of the Apostle, and it drew forth this question, “What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?”
The inspired answer is, “God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?” (Rom. 6:22God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein? (Romans 6:2)). These words, “dead to sin,” relate to our very selves; we are dead, or have died to sin. We ourselves, who by nature love sin, have died to sin! A great difference is to be observed between a man’s sins and the man himself. The fruit on the tree is one thing, the tree that bears the fruit is another. There could not be the fruit without the tree. Each tree bears its own fruit. The fruit is the outcome of its nature. It is exactly the same with man; we sin because we are sinners, and our sins are the outcome of our evil nature. No human power can alter the apple tree and make a pear tree or a vine. No man can alter the nature of the tree, much less can any man alter his own nature! Further, God shows us in His gospel that He does not propose to alter man’s sinful nature, but He says to His people, who have the new life in Christ, “Ye are dead,” or have died to sin. When Christ died for sins, we died with Him, hence we are “dead to sin,” or, “have died to sin.”
“I do not feel dead to sins, I feel very much alive to it,” some will say, “for, even this very day I have felt wicked, and therefore I am conscious of being painfully alive to sin.” But faith must triumph over feelings; the first thing necessary for the prosperity of the soul is to take God’s Word as He utters it. In the world we believe what we see, but in God’s kingdom we see what we believe.
There was a lady who had been living for the world and its pleasures; she became a Christian and knew that her sins were forgiven; yet she would say, “What a miserable creature I am! I am a Christian, and yet I have worldly feelings in my heart, and I have no power to overcome them.” She felt that though she was one of the trees God has planted, yet she was bearing fruit not according to the will of God.
“God says you are dead to sin,” she was told. Her reply was, “I do not feel dead to sin, and how can I be so, for I am alive to it?”
“But we are first to believe, then to feel,” was the answer. However, no progress was made, until one day someone said to this lady, “Just try God’s word for a few days; God says you have died to sin with Christ, and this is a fact, and the fact being so, He bids you by faith to reckon yourself to be dead unto sin, and alive unto Himself in Christ Jesus. Now try what God says, and do not fight with yourself. Do not try to make the apple tree bear pears, do not try to make your old self bear heavenly fruit; self never will do this; count yourself to be dead indeed unto sin and alive unto God in Christ, instead of trying to improve yourself.” She replied, “I cannot do it, it is ridiculous, it is imagination.”
A few days afterward the lady was quite like another person. She said, “I have been trying this wonderful thing, to believe what God says, not to improve myself, but to seek by His grace to count myself dead to sin, because He says I have died with Christ, and I found in this a way of victory over myself!”
The first thing for us is to believe.
What does being “dead to sin” mean? We take the illustration of a man who is passionately fond of music, whether it be the music of the human voice or the song of the birds. He will go anywhere or do anything to hear the lovely strains, which charm his ear. Later on in life, however, he becomes deaf, and then wherever he goes, even if the most beautiful music is performed, or the nightingales sing ever so sweetly in the summer night, still, in one way, he is dead to it. Sound has no effect upon him, no charm for his ear. Is there any change in the beautiful sounds? Do not the birds sing as sweetly as they did before? The change is in the man, not in the things about him! This is not a perfect illustration, but it may help toward the understanding of what is meant by one’s being dead to a thing.
Now, saith the Scripture, “How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?” We have died with Christ; and we are by faith to count ourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ.
Jesus has died for us, and we have died with Him in God’s sight on the cross. Therefore there is the death of us on the cross with our Lord Jesus Christ. God’s record is that the end of the flesh is come, and that no good thing shall ever arise out of it.
This is a very humiliating truth as to self, but a very exalting one as to Christ. Christianity does not profess to reform man, to make him rise up out of his fall, to be good or holy. Rather, it condemns sin in the flesh and gives the believer a new life, and says to him, “You are dead, Christ having died; you are now a new man in Christ, who rose from among the dead.”
God’s starting point is not merely the forgiveness of our sins, but our being dead with Christ and our being alive in Christ.
We must seek faith to believe, and to carry out what God says. He says you are dead—“dead with Christ,” therefore to faith there is an end of all further efforts to make self good.
What a relief this is! What a revelation “you have died with Christ” is to the one who has been trying with all his power to improve himself! It is useless to try to be good in our own strength, but the moment we give up trying, we find the blessing of being thrown entirely upon God. “Reckon ye yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God in Christ Jesus.” Cultivate the old tree no more, try to change self or make self better no more. Say of faith, “Christ died for me, and I have died with Him; henceforth it must be the life of Christ in me.”
Endeavoring and struggling to be good, or trying to die to oneself or to this or that pleasure is not Christian doctrine. God’s door into Christianity is that we are dead, not by our effort, but by having died with His Son, who died for us, and that we are alive to God in Christ.