A Summary of the Epistle to the Romans

This epistle lays the foundation of Christianity. Certain brethren from different parts had taken up their abode in Rome, the capital of the Roman Empire. Several of these had been companions and fellow-workers with the Apostle Paul, and had received the truth from him. (See Rom. 16:3-5, and more). Others had received the truth amongst the Jews who had been “in Christ” before the apostle himself (Rom. 16:7). But neither Peter nor Paul had been in Rome, when the epistle was written. It was written likely from Corinth, some little time before the apostle’s last journey to Jerusalem (see Rom. 15:25-26) in which city as we know he was imprisoned, and finally sent as a prisoner to Rome; but the Church of God had already been founded in the city before his arrival, and the saints met together as the Assembly in that place. The apostle wrote them this letter to the end they might be established in the foundations of the faith (see Rom. 1:11). Blessed it is to have such a letter; it reveals to us what was the ancient doctrine of the Church of Rome. To this we adhere, rejecting the modem doctrines that have come into the Church, and comparing its modem pretensions to the truth, and its claim of infallibility, with the ancient inspired letter of the apostle Paul to it when it was first founded.

The epistle does not rise to the height of the Epistle to the Ephesians, where the eternal counsels of God in regard to Christ and the Assembly are set before us, and our union with Christ in glory by the Holy Spirit sent down from heaven; but treats of God’s righteousness revealed in the gospel, justification by faith, and the Christian’s place in Christ, dead, risen, and glorified. It might be divided into four distinct parts.

Part I goes down to Romans 3:20. It treats of man’s responsibility as a sinner, whether Gentile or Jew, proving both to be under sin, and awaiting God’s judgment against them; ending up with the whole world being shown to be under sentence before God. It brings out the necessity for the gospel of God to be preached, and His righteousness to be revealed, for man had none.

Part II goes down to the end of Romans 8. It treats of God’s nature, His remedy for sin, and His salvation, which again might be divided into four parts.

1st: God’s righteousness, justifying us from our sins is seen, this takes in forgiveness.

2nd: God’s love reconciling us from our enmity. (Rom. 5:1-12).

3rd: Justification of life from sin, and in Christ, and deliverance from its power and from the law (Rom. 5:12-Rom. 8.)

4th: The believer’s full standing in Christ, and his new state by the Holy Spirit, ending up with his salvation from the presence of sin and the redemption of his body when the Lord comes. God’s righteousness is, manifested in Christ, dead, risen, and glorified.

1st: Justifying the believer from all his sins;

2nd: Holding him righteous in Christ, free from all condemnation, and in a position from whence there is no separation up to Romans 5:12, we have what God is for the believer through Christ, in righteousness and love; on to the end of Romans 8 what the believer’s place is “in Christ.”

Part III goes down to Romans 11:36. It is the dispensational part of the epistle. God’s dealings with Jew and Gentile are traced to the end of the age, and are shown to be on the principle of sovereign grace; and God’s promises made to the Jewish nation are reconciled with His present dealings in grace with both Jew and Gentile alike.

Part IV takes us to the end of the epistle, beginning with Romans 12. It applies the preceding mercies of God to the believer’s walk, and is composed of exhortations and rules which enter into the minutest circumstances of daily life.

The whole instruction of the epistle is addressed to those who were the called of Jesus Christ, called saints (see Rom. 6). They had heard the voice of the Son of God and lived.

Romans 1:1-Romans 1:17. This is the introduction of the epistle. Paul begins it by introducing his apostleship, showing how Christ had called him, and separated him to the gospel of God (Acts 9:15-16; 26:15-18). He was an apostle by Christ’s call, the apostle of the Gentiles as Peter was to the Jews (see Rom. 5; Rom. 11:13; Gal. 2:8).

The gospel was the glad tidings of God, showing forth His character and nature, and His actings towards man for his salvation. It was the subject of promise in old testament writings, but now a revealed thing in Christ; prophets searched into it and inquired what or what manner of time the Spirit that was in them did signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glories that should follow, unto whom it was revealed, that not unto themselves, but unto us they ministered these things (that is, this grace and salvation) which are now reported unto you through them that preached the gospel to you with the Holy Spirit sent down from heaven (1 Pet. 1:10-12). But what was a subject of promise in old testament writings, was a salvation now preached, and to be now received.

The subject of the gospel was concerning God’s Son, come of David’s seed according to flesh, but marked out Son of God, in power, according to spirit of holiness, by resurrection of dead ones. (This is the literal translation.)

This was what He was according to flesh, and what faith discerned, according to spirit, even during His life down here, but fully marked out by His own resurrection from the dead! Son of David was Christ’s Jewish title after the flesh (Matt. 1:1). It was His royal title to the throne of Jerusalem. The Jews had all the privileges as to this title (see Rom. 9:4-5), and Jesus Christ became a minister of the circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises made to the fathers (Rom. 15:8). The Gentiles could claim no blessing under this title (Matt. 15:22-24). They had no promises after the flesh.

But He was also marked out as Son of God in power according to spirit of holiness by resurrection of dead ones! As Son of God, He revealed God and overleaped all barriers; He was the God not of the Jews only, but of the Gentiles (Rom. 3:29). He could sit down on a well face to face with a poor Samaritan, could unveil her heart to herself, and then reveal Himself to her as the Christ. He could say of a Roman centurion, “I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel.” As Son of God, He raised Jairus’s daughter, the widow of Nain’s son, and Lazarus; death yielded to His power! Satan, sin, death, and hades could not stop His victorious progress; and He raised Himself triumphant from the grave, declared by this act as well as His previous ones to be Son of God according to spirit of holiness.

As such, also, He reveals God in His nature to us, and as Father, and introduces all believers into His own place before God and the Father, and puts them in a like relationship with God, Jew as well as Gentile, that is, that of “sons of God.” It was under this title that Paul preached Him in the synagogue at Damascus (Acts 9:20), for it had pleased God to reveal His Son in him at that time (Gal. 1:16). The Son of God had given him his apostleship for obedience to the faith amongst all nations! As “Son of David” Christ was not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel. As “Son of God,” the gospel went out to all, Gentiles as well as Jews.

But if Paul was an apostle by call, the Roman saints were also the called of Jesus Christ. When a person is made to hear the Son of God’s voice in the gospel, he is quickened; it is the call of Jesus Christ to his soul, which converts him and turns him to God; none of the blessings of Christianity such as forgiveness, salvation, justification, and sealing, are possessed by him, except as first called of God. It is the first link of the soul with God, not full Christianity in itself, but all important and all necessary as the beginning. It is to these called ones, saints, that the apostle gives the usual salutation of “grace and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” Viewed as the body of Christ, they were perfect, and had no need of mercy (see 1 Cor. 1:3; 2 Cor. 1:2; Gal. 1:3; Eph. 1:2; Col. 1:2; Phil. 1:2; 1 Thess. 1:1; 2 Thess. 1:2; also Philemon), seeing that the Assembly at his house is addressed. Individuals had need of mercy, and when Paul addresses an individual, the word mercy is added, owing to the sin and infirmities still in them (see 1 Tim. 1:2; 2 Tim. 1:2; Titus 1:4).

The apostle now thanks God that the faith of the Roman saints was spoken of throughout the world. “God is my witness,” says he, “whom I serve in the gospel of His Son, that without ceasing, I mention you always in my prayers, making request if by any means, now at length I may be prospered by the will of God to come unto you.” Ardently did he desire to see them that he might impart to them some spiritual gift to the end they might be established, and that they might have mutual comfort from each other’s faith. He had been hindered hitherto getting to see them, but he felt a debtor to the Greek, and to the barbarian, to the wise, and the unwise, so that he was ready at any moment to preach the gospel to them that were in Rome also.

“I am not ashamed of the gospel,” says he, “for it is God’s power unto salvation to every one that believeth, to the Jew first, and also to the Gentile; for in it God’s righteousness by faith is revealed to faith, as it is written, the just shall live by faith.” Mark, dear reader, it is God’s righteousness, that kind of righteousness, not man’s righteousness for God, but God’s for man; man receives it on the principle of faith, and it is revealed to faith, where ever that was to be found. It was no longer a. question of a nation outwardly separated to God, as the Jewish nation was, with the law, who were under it, as the measure of their responsibility; that would be man’s righteousness for God; but this, God’s righteousness for man, was unto all, Jew and Gentile alike, though only upon all that believed (Rom. 1:16-17).

In these two verses, we have a summary of the chief part of the epistle. What wonderful words! The gospel of God is about to be declared; it is the gospel of God as to its source (Rom. 1:1). It is the gospel of God’s Son, as to its subject and character (Rom. 1:9). In Romans 1:16 it is the gospel, as the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth, in it God’s righteousness is revealed. It is for man to stand still, hear, and believe in the salvation of God.

Romans 1:17. The apostle here quotes from the prophet Habakkuk (see Hab. 2:4). He contrasts the governmental dealings of God with the Jewish nation with His present dealings under the gospel. The just Jew of that day was to live by faith in God’s promises, in view of the coming judgment of the Chaldæans. The just man now lived by faith in the righteousness revealed in the gospel, in view of God’s wrath revealed from heaven against all unrighteousness. It is God’s wrath from heaven, not merely a governmental dealing like that of the king of Babylon! The latter judgment had to do with time; God’s wrath from heaven with eternity.

The apostle now turns away from his subject of God’s salvation to show the necessity of it from man’s state as a sinner. From Romans 1:18 to the end of the chapter the state of the Gentile world is described. The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who hold the truth in unrighteousness, because the Gentiles or heathen are responsible to God for two reasons — first, that which is known of God is manifest in them; they themselves were the proof of the existence of the Creator; besides, God had shown it unto them. The works of creation, the sun, moon and stars, heavens, earth, sea, etc., all bore witness to the existence of the Creator. His eternal power and Godhead were thus manifested, so that they were without excuse; but secondly, knowing God they did not glorify Him as God, neither were thankful, they ceased to worship Him, then foolish reasonings ensued (Rom. 1:21), and their foolish heart became darkened; thinking themselves to be wise they became fools, and they changed the glory of the incorruptible God into the likeness of an image of corruptible, man, and of birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things. Thus false worship ensued (Rom. 1:25), and as a judicial consequence God gave them up to uncleanness in the lusts of their heart to dishonor their bodies between themselves. Sad picture of the declension of man from the days of Noah.

The state of his heart is described from Romans 1:21-27, and the state of his mind, from Romans 1:28-33; his body being given up to all kind of wickedness as the judicial consequence. Love was turned into lust. The heart which ought to have centered itself upon God was centered on the creature, the truth of God was changed into a lie, and the creature was honored more than the Creator; thus the truth was held in unrighteousness, idolatry took the place of the worship of the true God, though the form of religion remained.

Romans 1:26. Wherefore God gave them up to vile affections, and so forth. How sad, yet how true. It is an ever true principle, that according to our estimate and knowledge of God, that our worship will be, and a higher or lower morality will ensue.

But not only did their heart go wrong, and as a judicial consequence the body was given up to lust, but their mind too; they did not like to retain God in their knowledge (Rom. 1:28), and the judicial consequence was that God gave them up to a reprobate mind, to practice unseemly things, and to invent all kinds of evil and wickedness (Rom. 1:29-31), and although they knew that the judgment of God was against those that committed such things, they not only did the same, but had pleasure in those that did them. Solemn facts as to the heathen world! God is said to have given them up three times, (Rom. 1:24; Rom. 1:26; Rom. 1:28), bodies, affections, mind, all given up; you might say the whole man. You say, perhaps, my reader, “Ah! this is the heathen world.” Yes, but tell me about the state of the profession of Christianity today; we see, alas! almost the same things committed in Christendom in the present day as those described here; and this state is described in 2 Timothy 3:1-5, with one thing added, “Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof.”

Judgment is the inevitable consequence of such a state of things, and in Romans 2:1-16, we have God’s principles of judgment in reference to the state of things described in the last chapter brought forward.

Judgment is first for acts of sin committed (see Rom. 1:32; 2:2); secondly, for despising the riches of God’s goodness, forbearance and long suffering (Rom. 4-5). Philosophers might judge and condemn their fellow-men, but whilst judging others, man condemned himself, for he that judged did the same things. Would such escape the judgment of God for these like acts of sin? Nay! And did man despise the goodness and long suffering and forbearance of God, not understanding that that goodness was calling him to repentance! Repentance was the only proper attitude for man to take in view of the judgment of God. This signifies literally “an after thought or reflection,” or a change of mind. It is always towards God as the object of the mind (see Acts 20:21) and from sins or dead works, and in a Christian sense from the rejection of Christ (see Matt. 3:2; Heb. 6:1; Acts 2:38). It is produced by believing the various testimonies of God given at various times; thus the goodness of God leads to repentance. The reader must distinguish such faith from faith in the gospel which brings salvation. The latter follows upon repentance. But would God go on forbearing forever, whilst men went on despising His goodness? Nay; but man was heaping up to himself wrath, against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God. To God was committed the right of judgment, and He would render to man according to his deeds, according to the light each man had, whether it be heathen or Gentile, Jew or professing Christian; to them who by patient continuance in well doing sought for glory, honor, and incorruptibility, eternal life; but to those who were contentious, and were disobedient to the truth, but obeyed unrighteousness, there was nothing but tribulation and anguish, wrath and indignation to every soul of man that worked evil, of the Jew first, and also of the Greek; but glory, honor and peace to every soul that worked good, both to Jew first and also to Greek. Here God’s immutable principles of judgment are brought out, to Jew and also to Gentile. The Gentile without law would perish without law, the Jew who had the law would be judged by the law, that is on that principle, each being judged according to the light they had, in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men according to Paul’s gospel.

When the Gentile who had not law did by nature the things contained in the law, these having not law, are a law unto themselves, which show the work of the law written on their hearts; their conscience bearing witness with them, and their thoughts accusing or excusing betwixt themselves. Conscience is here looked at as that faculty of the mind which God took care that man should have after the fall, which gives him the knowledge of good and evil. Every man has that, heathen as well as Jew or Christian. And this gives the measure of the Gentile; responsibility, besides having the light of creation shining upon him, telling him of his Creator.

The Jew besides this had the law, as God’s perfect measure as to what man ought to be for Him, when conscience became perverted through the false rules of good and evil, brought in by heathen idolatry; and this would be the measure according to which he would be judged.

The double ground on which God is going to judge the world is seen in His dispensational dealings of God with man from the beginning. Take first the Gentile world; man fills the earth with corruption and violence after the fall, and God judges him for his sins by sending the deluge, and sweeps every one off the face of the earth, save Noah and his family. But since the flood, according to the principles of Romans 2:4, He has been exercising forbearance, giving His bow in the cloud as a sign of it. When He took up the Jewish nation and gave them the law at Mount Sinai, and they broke it, the word was “Whosoever hath sinned against me, him will I blot out of my book” (see Ex. 32:33). But on Moses’ intercession the principle of forbearance comes in, and God goes on with them on the principle shown us in Exodus 34:5-8, not clearing the guilty, however, and under this principle the people are spared, only aggravating their judgment if they despised God’s goodness.

Under the gospel, the principle of grace comes in, and Christ is presented; but alas! men loved darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil. Greatly aggravated then will be the professing Christian’s judgment; he will be judged not only for his sins, aggravated by God’s forbearance with him as with a heathen and Jew, but also for his rejection of Christ, and despising God’s grace, which is offered, and that continually in the gospel; besides, Christ is His rule, which is higher than that of conscience and the law. This however is not taken up particularly in this chapter.

Thus in Romans 2:1-16 God is presented going to judge men, first of all for their sins, and secondly for their despising His goodness. God will judge according to the light men have; in the meantime He is waiting, and that goodness should lead men to repentance. These are His unalterable principles of judgment, and it is only those who are born again, whether Gentile or Jew, or indeed Christian, that fulfill this responsibility to God, that is who patiently continue in well doing, and seek for glory and honor, and incorruptibility; and that alone is fulfilled in the new nature, or the circumcised heart, as is mentioned at the end of Romans 2; still if it were simply on the ground of responsibility all were lost! Man for himself needs the gospel both to be saved from his sins, and his Adam condition, and to get heaven as his portion. His original responsibility was only in connection with the earth of which he was created head, and by his sin lost. Of course being immortal, losing this he would be banished to hell; but blessed be God, grace offers him salvation and opens heaven to him.

From Romans 2:16-29, the state of the Jew is described, he boasted of God and of knowing His will, as measured by the law, approved of the things that were more excellent, was confident that he was a, guide of the blind, an instructor of the foolish, and teacher of babes. But, alas! Whilst teaching others did he teach himself? No, whilst boasting of the law, he so dishonored God, that the name of God was blasphemed amongst the Gentiles through him. Circumcision verily profited if he kept the law, but if he was a breaker of the law, his circumcision became uncircumcision, and contrariwise in God’s sight. The poor Gentile, if by grace he kept the righteousness of the law, his uncircumcision would he counted for circumcision, yea, it judged him who circumcised broke the law. Circumcision of the heart was what God looked for, and that was the true Jew who had such a heart; true it was that only grace could produce such a heart.

What advantage then had the Jew, and what profit was there in circumcision? Much every way, says the apostle, for unto them were committed the oracles of God. In those oracles were special promises given to them, as to Messiah, the land of Canaan, and others, and if some did not believe, that would not make the faith of God of none effect which were contained in those oracles; He would be faithful and true in all that He said and did, according to what Psalm 51 said (Psa. 51:4). But if cavilers would come in and say, “But if our unrighteousness commend the righteousness of God in fulfilling His promises, then how can He punish us;” the apostle answers, this will not hinder Him judging the world, however opposers might come in and say, “Let us do evil that good may come!” If God’s justice cannot be glorified in saving all through some refusing, His justice will be glorified in their damnation. God will assuredly in righteousness carry out His promises, but this will not hinder Him judging the unjust that refuse to receive those promises. We get a double view of God’s righteousness here, it will be displayed in fulfilling His promises to Israel; secondly, in the judgment of the world. Further down in the chapter it is seen as justifying the believer through Christ!

The argument is now summed up in quotations from the Jewish scriptures. From their own scriptures, the oracles in which they trusted, the Jews are proved guilty; there is none righteous, no not one, there is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are altogether become unprofitable. There is none that doeth good, no not one! Romans 3:10, Man’s state is all wrong; Romans 3:11, his mind and heart all wrong (Rom. 3:12), his ways and works all wrong. And this refers to all, Gentile as well as Jew, none could boast over the other.

Man’s photograph is taken by God, and is held forth to our view. His picture is taken from head to foot (Rom. 3:13-18), his throat an open sepulcher, with his tongue he has used deceit, the poison of asps under his lips, his mouth full of cursing and bitterness, his feet swift to shed blood, destruction and misery in his ways, the way of peace not known, no fear of God before his eyes.

Now God spoke these things to those that were under the law, so the Jew could not get out of it, every mouth was stopped, the whole world was under sentence before God! The Gentiles had already been proved guilty, but now the Jews likewise are convicted out of their own scriptures. But if this is man’s condition, and he is already under sentence of death and judgment, how can the law justify him? By the deeds of law shall no flesh be justified in God’s sight; by law on the contrary is the knowledge of sin. The office of the law then is clearly brought out here. It was not given to justify man; it stops his mouth, it sentences him to death, it gives him the knowledge of sin, but how could it justify the man described, in Romans 3:10-18? In this part of Romans its chief office is to stop the mouth, and to bring man under sentence of death, convicting him that he has no righteousness for God; in Romans 7 its office is to give the knowledge of sin, that is, of sin in its root principle, not in its actions.

Thus, we have had the state of the Gentiles described at the end of Romans 1; God’s principles of judgment described up to Romans 2:16; the state of the Jews described at the end of Romans 2. Their advantages would not hinder God’s judgment in regard to the unjust amongst them, and in Romans 3:10-18, their mouth is stopped from their own scriptures. All the effect of the law was to prove guilt, and to give the knowledge of sin. Thus, the whole world is proved guilty or under sentence before God. Man is like a condemned criminal in the condemned cell waiting the execution of his judgment!

We now come to the second part of the Epistle. God is now revealed to us in His nature in righteousness, Romans 3:21-31 and Romans 4, and in love, Romans 5., and so forth. The guilty sinner is brought face to face with God, not for condemnation, however, but for justification. Jesus and His blood are set before him, as the objects for his faith to rest upon (Rom. 22-25); and the sinner is justified on his side on the principle of faith (Rom. 3:28). Romans 4 presses this side of the sinner’s justification by the great examples of Abraham and David, the two roots of blessing to the Jewish nation. Both are shown to have been justified by faith; and as Abraham was justified by faith before he was circumcised, so he is shown to be the father of faith, not only to Jewish believers, but also to the Gentiles. The principle of resurrection comes in at the end of the chapter, by the type of Isaac being raised up from the dead womb of Sarah his mother, and taken as a type of Christ raised from the dead. Being justified (Rom. 5) the sinner has peace, access into a new resurrection place, rejoices in hope of the glory of God, and is sealed with the Holy Spirit, who by bringing the love of God manifested in the gift of His Son into his heart, enables him to joy in what God is for him through Christ. He is thus reconciled to God as an enemy. From Romans 5:12-8 we are led up to what the believer’s place is in Christ, and are shown his deliverance from his Adam standing, and state in flesh; first as applied to his soul, then as to his body.

But let us return to our subject, Romans 3:21. In the midst of man’s desperate need, as having no righteousness for God, and as being a guilty criminal under sentence of death, God meets him. Now righteousness of God is manifested apart from law; that is, that kind of righteousness, not man’s righteousness for God, but God’s for man And it is now, since the death, resurrection and glorification of Christ: for without that death, the justice of God could only be manifested in judgment. Up to the cross, man’s righteousness, if any, was being manifested, of which the law was the measure, but there was none! Now, in the glory apart from law, righteousness of God is manifested; it is divine righteousness, not human righteousness. The law of Moses was the measure of the latter (see Lev. 18:5). The former could be measured by nothing less than the death, resurrection, and glorification of the Lord Jesus (see also Rom. 10).

Law righteousness was what God required from man, and what man had to give to God. Christ as man kept it perfectly in His life, but that was perfect human righteousness. Man if he did it lived in it, that is he should continue living on the earth! But here it is not earthly, human, law righteousness, it is righteousness of God as contrasted with law righteousness, and manifested in heaven for us, outside this world altogether. It was indeed witnessed to by the law and the prophets. But it is God’s righteousness, by faith of Jesus Christ, the glorified man, nor confined as law righteousness was to the Jew alone, but unto all, and upon all them that believe, for there is no difference between Jew and Gentile, man and man, all have alike sinned and come short of the glory of God! Man has not only sinned, broken the law, and lost his earthly place in paradise, and on the earth, but he has come short of the glory of God. It is no question now of the government of God over an earthly nation, responsible to maintain their place in Canaan in responsibility to God under the law, but God’s nature and being is now made known, to save a people for heaven. Christ was the manifestation of God, and being rejected here, is so in the glory above. He is the manifestation of God’s righteousness! Now therefore nothing less than the glory of God is the measure of man’s coming short; he has come short of the glory of God! Blessed be God, my reader, that there is a righteousness revealed that fits for heaven itself, and that righteousness we see in Christ. If man has sinned and come short of the glory, there is divine righteousness manifested in the glory for man, and seen in the man Christ Jesus!

God then is looked at as the source of the sinner’s justification! It is the justice or righteousness of God that is manifested! But He justifies freely by His grace, or free favor, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus! Instead of law righteousness either in the sinner or Christ, being the ground of our justification, it is the redemption work that Christ wrought on the cross Jesus and His blood are thus held before the sinner as the way and ground of His justification! Blessed be God for it, and it is finished The Lord Jesus laid down His life a ransom for all, and God has brought out from the dead the man that paid the ransom, and so the redemption is in Christ Jesus. And God has now set forth that same glorified man to be a mercy seat through faith in His blood, for the showing forth of His justice, and whilst that justice is shown in the passing over the sins committed in times past, that is in old testament times, it is shown in this present time how God is just, and yet justifies those who believe in Jesus.

We have different illustrations of redemption in Israel’s history and laws: first, they were a nation of slaves themselves under Pharaoh, king of Egypt, originally belonging to God, but having forsaken Him and worshipping idols. Redemption was the setting free of this nation of slaves from Pharaoh’s power, on the ground of the payment of a ransom. In the type of the passover lamb, its blood was shed and sprinkled on the door posts of their houses, for they were sinners under judgment as much as the Egyptians. In the case of the setting apart of the firstborn children, the representatives of the nation itself, every firstborn child had to be redeemed by the blood of a lamb slain (see Ex. 12-13). Then secondly, they were set free by the smiting of the waters of the Red Sea by the rod of judgment; the way was opened through the waters and Israel passed through, a delivered people.

They were brought to God in result at Mount Sinai. The blood of the lamb was the ground of their deliverance, the price paid down to God to satisfy His justice. The passage of the Red Sea delivered them out from the dominion of Pharaoh.

Again if one of the Israelites got poor and had to sell his land, his brother might redeem it. If he got so poor as to be obliged to sell himself to a stranger, his brother might also redeem him. He would first pay down the price, and then restore the land to his brother, or if his brother were a slave, set him free. (See Lev. 25:47, and so forth.)

So man by his sin has sold himself, and lost his inheritance, the earth as well. But Christ has paid down His life’s blood to God, and by that same blood has bought the lost inheritance, (this latter thing, however, we have not here), and every believer is redeemed to God. This part of Romans, chapters 3 and 4., shows redemption by blood, Romans 5 and 6, redemption by power. Here in Romans 3:24-25 we seem to have the combined types of the Passover Lamb, Red Sea, as well as the mercy seat, set up after the people’s arrival at Mount Sinai. Through the blood of Christ and His death, resurrection and ascension, we have been ransomed, redeemed from the power of Satan, and brought to God. God on the ground of Christ’s redemption and what He is as the mercy seat, displays His justice, in justifying every one that believes in Jesus. All that believe are justified from all things.

But some one might ask, “What do you mean by justification?” Justification is the judicial sentence of the Judge in favor of the criminal accused. Romans 8:33 explains its meaning! Who shall lay any charge against God’s elect, it is God that justifieth! First, then, God is the justifier: second, we are justified freely by His grace or free favor (Rom. 3:24). This is God’s side of our justification. Third, we are justified by faith, Romans 5:1. This is our side of it. Faith is like the hand that takes it from the free favor of God who gives it righteously, for it is His righteousness. Fourthly, we are justified in the power of Christ’s blood (Rom. 5:9). This is the ground of it. Fifthly, it is a justification of life, a life perfectly cleared from all charge (Rom. 5:18). This life is in the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ raised from the dead, and is communicated to the soul as a present thing, connecting us now in spirit with the dead, risen and glorified Christ, and second, is communicated to the body when He comes again, so that we are completely delivered from everything that could be touched by judgment before the day of judgment. This however, shows its connection with life communicated. It is definitely in the life of the dead, risen and glorified Christ, the Head of the justified race. Sixth, justification is by works, James 2. But this is before the Assembly and the world, not before God, (comp. Rom. 3:20, Gal. 3:11 with James 2:18.) This last is a test for those who say they have faith. Faith and salvation are connected together in God’s Word. Works come after as a proof to men of our justification. Before God, this epistle teaches there is no such thing as justification by works (see Rom. 4:2). We are justified by faith! In Romans 3 and 4 we however only have developed to us, justification by the blood, clearing us from our sins!

All boasting is now excluded! If justification was by law there might be boasting, for man could have given a righteousness to God, and could have got a reward for it! But being guilty and being driven to faith in the blood of Christ, all this was at an end. He had to receive righteousness from God, and that a divine righteousness. Forgiveness of sins was his by faith. This was righteousness on God’s part. God was righteous in forgiving him through Jesus and His blood. On man’s part it was on the principle of faith. He had to take the place of a receiver. This excluded works. He was justified by faith without the deeds of the law. But since this righteousness is divine God is God of the Gentiles as well as of the Jews. Both are justified by faith, the Jew on that principle, in contrast to law under which he stood, the Gentile through the faith actually now revealed. But is not this making void law through faith! Nay, says the apostle, we establish the principle of law. Supposing a murderer is hung, the law is established, not thrown away. Christ on the cross established law. He submitted to the righteousness of its demands, taking as He did the sinner’s place as his substitute.

Thus the blood of Christ meets all the sins of the sinner, and God’s righteousness is displayed in forgiving and justifying every believer in Jesus. The two principles brought out at the end of the chapter are, first, that justification is by faith, secondly, that this blessing goes out to Gentile as well as Jew, since God is the God of both.

Romans 4 takes the Jew back to the two great roots of blessing in the history of his nation, Abraham and David, to prove these two points. What shall we say then, that Abraham our father according to the flesh hath found? For if Abraham was justified by faith, he hath whereof to glory, but not before God! But what saith the scripture, Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness. Abraham then was justified by faith according to Genesis 15 before God, not by works. He was justified by works, too, as we read in James 2, but not before God, it was therefore before men (James 2:18). Now to him that works the reward is not reckoned of grace but of debt, God would be the debtor to man, on such a ground as that! But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly his faith is counted for righteousness. It was on that principle Abraham was justified. What has David to say about it? He describes God’s imputation of righteousness without works in the words (Psa. 32:1-2), Blessed is the man whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins have been covered, blessed is the man unto whom the Lord will not reckon sin! I lay hold on God’s righteousness in justifying the ungodly. Righteousness is imputed to me; my iniquities are forgiven, my sins covered, and sin will never be imputed to me! Here righteousness imputed is identical with forgiveness of sins, the covering of iniquities, and the non imputation of sin; thus the future safety of the believer is secured, as well as the past. This the quotation shows. It is applied to an ungodly sinner who trusts in Jesus and His blood by the righteousness of God! The ground of it is the blood of Christ as we have seen in Romans 3. My sins are forgiven, my iniquities are covered, sin will never be imputed! Oh, dear reader, may you lay hold of this wonderful simple truth, for God says it in His Word!

But then, secondly, if Abraham and David were justified by faith, does this extend to the Gentiles? When was Abraham justified? Before circumcision or after circumcision? Not in circumcision, but in uncircumcision; says the apostle; Abraham was justified at least thirteen years before his circumcision took place (comp. Gen. 15 and 17). He received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness he had, yet being uncircumcised, that he might be the father of all that believed though uncircumcised, and the father of the circumcision, not merely to those who were outwardly circumcised, but who also walked in the steps of Abraham as having faith. Thus, Abraham was the father of faith both to Jewish and Gentile believers. He was a believer before he was circumcised, God was his God then, why then should not the Gentile have the blessing, and what had the law to do with it? He was justified by faith in God’s promise, and the promise that he should be the heir of the world came before circumcision.

Romans 4:13. Promises were what specially characterized God’s dealings with Abraham, and this was a directly opposite principle to that of law. If they on the principle of law be heirs, then faith is made void, and the promise of none effect, because the law works wrath, for where no law is, there is, no transgression; there was sin, but not transgression. A man might drive across a wooden bridge recklessly, well, there is lawlessness; but if a law is passed imposing a fine against any one crossing at a rate quicker than a walk, the lawlessness becomes transgression, and the wrath of the judge comes down on the offender. Thus the law works wrath; and where there is no law there is no transgression, therefore, it is on the principle of faith that it might be by grace, so that the promise might go to all the seed, not merely to those under law, that is, the Israelites, but to all believers alike as having faith. Abraham is the father of us all, according to the word in Genesis 17, I will make thee a father of many nations, before the God whom he believed, who quickens the dead, and calls the things which be not, as though they were.

Here in Abraham’s faith another principle comes in, it is not simply the blessing of forgiveness, and of non imputation of sin, but of heirship, and of a God of resurrection who quickens the dead. Abraham believed in a God of resurrection who said to him, pointing to the heavens, “So shall thy seed be.” He considered his body dead being one hundred years old, he fully owned, too,* the deadness of Sarah’s womb, but was fully persuaded that a living Isaac would be raised up out of Sarah’s dead womb, because God had promised it. Righteousness was imputed to him He looks at an object outside of himself to God who shows him the stars, and says, so shall thy seed be. Secondly, he reckons his body dead, and trusts God who quickens the dead. He is reckoned righteous.

Here God is righteous in fulfilling His promises, but faith is imputed to us for righteousness if we believe on Him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead, who was delivered for our offenses, and was raised again for our justification. Christ is the seed of promise, and the heir of whom Isaac was the type. He having met all God’s claims against our sins, God is satisfied! God, faithful to His promises raises him from the dead, thus accepting His work, that our faith and hope might be in God. We have not even got to look to the future like Abraham; we believe in a God that has raised up Jesus from the dead. How marvelous how gracious our God is the Actor throughout. It was He who delivered up Christ to death for our offenses. It was He who raised Christ again from the dead for our justification. It is He that justifies or reckons righteous the believer on account of what He has done! To Him be all the glory! God being satisfied with His own work done through Christ, all is at rest. I see, in the Judge opening the prison doors to let my Substitute go free, not only that the full penalty of my sins has been borne, but that I am clear from all the charge of those sins through Him who has gone free.

I think that in Romans 3:25, and here in Romans 4:25, we have what answers to the two goats on the day of atonement (Lev. 16). Romans 3:25 answers to the first goat, the Lord’s lot, when the blood was carried in and sprinkled on the mercy seat. Romans 4:25 answering to the second goat, delivered up to judgment, and carrying away the sins to a land not inhabited.

I would like also to say here that all this part of the Romans is almost purely objective. I mean, that an object is put outside of us for us to believe in. God is the justifier, that is, an object outside myself. Jesus in glory as the manifestation of His righteousness, and His blood shed on the cross, are objects outside myself. We are called to believe on a God who delivered Christ up for our sins, and raised Him for our justification. These are acts of His justice done outside of ourselves. True, we believe, and our faith is counted for righteousness, but it is counted not on account of the value of our faith, but on account of faith taking hold of that which is of all value in His sight, that is the blood of Christ, and the heir raised from the dead. God imputes all the value of His acts to Christ (what He has done, and is) to the believer, and the result is that He is justified from all things, yea, as clear from all charge as Christ is Himself, also getting the new place of a son, but that is opened up afterward in the epistle. The ground of it, however, is laid in Christ the heir being raised from the dead.

This, God the Judge has done Himself. He has justified Christ, who was delivered to death for our offenses. That act is reckoned to those that believe and we are justified by faith. Justification divides itself into this chapter into two parts; first, justification in the power of His blood (Rom. 5:9), the fruit of which is, I have peace with and am reconciled to God (Rom. 5:6-11). Secondly, justification of life, which is in the Person of Christ (Rom. 5:18), the fruit of which is, we stand in grace before God in a new position, and as justified from the evil principle of sin itself. The final result is the resurrection of the body. This second part is seen from Romans 5:12 through Romans 8. We have now got to the resurrection side of the cross, and Christ risen says to us, as it were (as He did to the disciples in John 20) “peace unto you; behold My hands and My feet!” Christ made pence by the blood of His cross, and He now preaches it, as the risen and glorified one, and says, peace unto you. Moreover, He Himself is our peace (Eph. 2), and therefore we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ! Thus, He is our peace, as well as our righteousness, and proclaiming it to us we are introduced into the state which is the opposite of enmity and trouble (see John 14:27; Col. 1:20; 2. Cor. 5:18-21).

I would say here, to help souls, that there are five aspects of peace, as far as I know, in the Scriptures. Three connected with the believer’s standing, and therefore unconditional, and which cannot be lost. Two connected with his practical condition of soul, and which, therefore, can be lost.

First, “Peace with God,” as is mentioned in Romans 5 is founded on the fact, that Christ was delivered for our offenses, and raised for our justification. Thus, I find that God who I thought was against me, is the very one who delivered up Christ for my sins, and has now justified me through Him whom He has raised from the dead. My whole mind is changed as to God, I thought He was my enemy, I now find He is love, whilst I find that was His enemy; I receive what He has done and, given, and am reconciled and brought nigh to God through our Lord Jesus Christ, and have peace towards Him. I repeat, it is a settled state of peace towards Him through believing in His love and righteousness, as having settled the whole question of my sins, and in having accepted Christ for me. I no longer hate God as an enemy, I am reconciled to Him, have peace towards Him through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Secondly, “My peace I give unto you.” This connects itself with the possession and mind of the Spirit, which is life and peace (Rom. 8:6). After pronouncing peace to His disciples the second time in John 20:21-22, Christ breathed into His disciples His own Spirit of Life, delivering them from their Adam state, and putting them into the state of sons before the Father; peace being the character of the new life communicated! But still it is Christ’s peace!

Thirdly, Christ Himself is our peace. This is connected with our complete bringing nigh to God who were far off, Gentile as well as Jew, all enmity being removed through the middle wall of partition being broken down, (that is, the law of commandments contained in ordinances) by the cross; and believing Jews and Gentiles united into one, in Him who is the Head of the body, the peace. These three aspects are connected with three parts of our standing.

Fourthly, in Philippians 4:6-7, we have the peace of God keeping our hearts. But this is dependent on the way we conduct ourselves in passing through the various circumstances of this life. If we take all our trials and difficulties to God in prayer, like any little child does to its father and mother, and leave them there, God’s peace garrisons our hearts. This is in regard to the circumstances of this life, not to our salvation for eternity.

Fifthly, Philippians 5:8-9, The God of peace shall be with you. When we are divested from the cares, we can be occupied with the good. And if we carry out what we have received and heard and learned of the Apostle Paul in his writings, then the God of peace shall be with us. This is also to be enjoyed practically, and is dependent on our following the directions of Romans 5:8-9. In Romans 5:1 however, we have only the first aspect of peace, peace towards God through our Lord Jesus Christ!

But not only have we peace towards Him as to the past, but we have also access through Christ, the risen Saviour, into a new place entirely. We stand in the free favor of God as manifested in Christ raised from the dead. When Christ was raised, He stood with death and judgment behind Him, and glory in front of Him. Such is the grace in which we stand, blessed be His name, and we boast in hope of the glory of God. This truth is developed in its fullness from Romans 5:12 through Romans 8. It is the grace of God, or God’s free favor, as seen in Christ, wherein we stand as our present, and unalterable place, and His glory is our hope. It is God’s glory, as it is God’s righteousness and God’s love further on. In Romans 8:18, where we get more the result of our getting our place with Christ in that glory, it is the glory that shall be revealed unto us. This is, however, our hope in the future; but now we boast in tribulation because we are in Christ’s path here; and this gives us confidence, knowing that tribulation worketh patience, and patience experience, and experience hope; and hope maketh not ashamed, because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit which is given to us.

This is somewhat like the tree put into the bitter waters of Marah, after the Israelites had passed triumphantly through the Red Sea with Moses their leader. They then sung the song of salvation, looking back and seeing all their enemies dead on the sea shore; but three days afterward they tasted of the reality of the wilderness path, in the waters of Marah.

But as the tree cut down and cast into the waters made them sweet, so the cross of Christ brought into our circumstances, where we find the sentence of death now written, enables the believer to find refreshment and healing out of those very trials which were bitter to him He boasts in tribulation; the death of Jesus brought in, the life of Jesus manifests itself in His mortal body (see Ex. 15, compare with 2 Cor. 4:10-11). Thus though we have redemption in Christ, of which the passover lamb (Ex. 12), and the Red Sea (Ex. 14) are beautiful types, and can sing, boasting in hope of the glory of God, we have to learn in the meanwhile, whilst left down here, the trials of the wilderness journey. But then we have the love of God shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit which is given to us.

Thus the presence of the Holy Spirit in our bodies is the power by which the Christian boasts in hope of the glory of God. This is more than justification, peace, standing in the favor of God, in and boasting hope of His glory. Not only have we these blessings through Christ given us outside of ourselves, but the Holy Spirit makes good in our souls the love of God that has given us all these things in Christ. Here is another gift of God! Christ is the gift of God; but He is outside of us! He came down from heaven, died, and was raised again, and we have justification, peace, the favor of God, and the hope of glory through Him. But He having gone back to heaven, the Holy Spirit came down and He also is given to us. He sheds abroad God’s love in our hearts, and is the earnest to us of the glory. Hence, hope makes not ashamed!

But the apostle cannot have done with this love of God! He must go back to its source, and let us know all about it! When we were yet without strength, he says, Christ died for the ungodly; for scarcely for a righteous man will one die, yet perhaps, for a good man some would even dare to die, but God commendeth His love towards us, in that whilst we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Here we get two things, God’s love as the source of our reconciliation, and Christ’s death the channel and way of it. And it is a manner of love not seen in man. Scarcely for a righteous man will one die, but here is a love that in Christ dies for one without strength, yea, for the ungodly, yea, for sinners! And is this after the manner of men, O Lord God? Oh my reader, think of this; it is the nature of God to love His very enemies!

I ask you, do you believe this? After God had put His creature through a four-thousand year test to see if there were any that would understand, and seek after God, God came down in the Person of His Son to reconcile the world to Himself! And forasmuch as only death could make the peace, and lay the ground of the reconciliation, for those without strength to do it, who were moreover ungodly, sinners and enemies, so Christ died for us.

How then can He ever give up the objects of his love? The apostle argues down from God to the sinner; he argues in fact, if God gave Christ to die for us whilst we were yet sinners, much more then being now justified in the power of His blood, shall we not be saved from wrath through Him? For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more being reconciled we shall be saved in the power of His life. Oh, my reader, consider this! Never argue as men do from your side up to God; that is, if I am in such a state, God will be in such a state to me; but argue as the apostle does, from what God is down to yourself. Think, if God loved me so much, when I was without strength, when I was ungodly, when I was a sinner, yea, when I was an enemy, and by faith I took hold of His love and Christ’s death for me when I was in that state, and became justified and reconciled; how can He ever cease to love me, after I am justified and reconciled? Nay, much more, says the apostle, we shall be saved from wrath, saved in the power of His life through Him.

But what is the life in which we shall be saved? For salvation is here looked at in its final result in glory! It is the life of the risen, glorified Saviour, whom a God of righteousness and love has raised from the dead, which is in the glory already and beyond the power of wrath! It is eternal life in the Son of God which is given us by the love of this Saviour God. Thus we do not rest on experiences going on inside ourselves, though they be all the Holy Spirit’s work, and we may glory in them all, but we rest for peace on God’s love towards us in giving His Son to die for us, a gift entirely outside of ourselves, and in a life which has been raised out of the dead, which is ours by God’s gift forever! But, besides this, we boast in God Himself! He is fully revealed in His nature! It is the righteousness of God. It is the love of God; all for us instead of being against us. Through Christ whom He has given to die, and whom He has raised from the dead, we have now received the reconciliation. He made peace by the blood of His cross. The God of peace has brought Him again from the dead! We by grace have received this one, and are thus brought nigh to God in perfect peace! We have received the reconciliation. (“Atonement” should be here translated “reconciliation.”) We boast in hope of the glory (Rom. 5:2); we boast in present tribulation; we boast in God Himself. Oh I what a God we know! May the reader find his rest in Him.

I would mark here, first, as to the difference between justification, and reconciliation. We are first justified by faith, and the first fruit is we are reconciled to God, have peace towards God through our Lord Jesus Christ. It is a guilty criminal that is justified. It is an enemy that is reconciled. We are not only guilty criminals under sentence of death, but enemies of God as well, hating His perfect love as seen in the gift of His Son, and displaying the height of that enmity in rejecting Him. But, blessed be God, His love has mounted above the enmity; the very spear, mark of enmity, brought forth the blood and water by which we are reconciled and justified, made fit for His presence Second, the word boast translated “rejoice” (Rom. 5:2), “glory” (Rom. 5:3), and “joy” (in Rom. 5:11) signifies the unalterable state a soul is in that has accepted Christ. It is a different word from that mentioned in Philippians 4:4, rejoice in the Lord alway, and again I say rejoice. Unfortunately our translators, good as they were for the time when the Bible was translated in that day, did not mark the difference between the two words! We do not always enjoy the Lord! But every Christian boasts in hope of the glory of God Every Christian boasts in what God is for him in Christ (Rom. 5:11). It is the normal state of the Christian! It characterizes his whole condition! We are the circumcision, says the apostle (Phil. 3:3), who worship God in the Spirit and boast in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh! But joy and rejoicing is dependent on many things, (see Phil. 3:1; 4:11). It is our privilege to rejoice in the Lord always, but then we have to be above circumstances, as realizing that we are in the Lord who is above them! So in John 15:11; 1 John 1:1-4, joy is the consequence of obedience and unbroken fellowship with the Father and His Son But here, Romans 5:1-11, “boasting” depends on nothing but the possession of the Holy Spirit and knowledge of our standing and hope. We boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have received the reconciliation!

Up to this point in the epistle from Romans 3:21, we have had two great points brought out in regard to our salvation! First, we have been justified from all our sins and their consequences! Second, we have peace, and are reconciled to God from our enmity. In the former case His relation towards us is that of justifier, in the second that of reconciler. The Holy Spirit seals this double condition, new birth may have taken place before, but the knowledge of redemption, and of God’s acceptance of it brings the seal of the Holy Spirit! (comp. Acts 10:43, 44; Eph. 1:13).

From Romans 5:12 to the end of Romans 8. we have full justification of life in Christ from sin, as a principle (not sins), as well as deliverance from its power, giving us a new place in Christ before God which connects itself with a new state in spirit through the Holy Spirit being given, first applied to the soul now, and finally to the body at the return of the Lord!

From Romans 5:12-21 the heads of the two races are compared. Adam and Christ! If God is love, it must flow out to the whole Adam race, not merely to those under law as the Jewish nation was. And so the whole question of man’s state universally is raised, and the apostle has to go back to the beginning, before the law came in, to show that condition. As by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men, for all have sinned! We inherit sin and death by virtue of our personal connection with Adam by birth. But we also inherit death by virtue of our personal sins. Now from Adam to Moses sin was in the world, but sin, as a principle and in the form of transgression, was not put to the account of persons, when there was no law. Man was under the power of sin, but unconscious of its presence, as a distinct principle in him, till the law came in. By the law is the knowledge of sin, not sins, except in the form of transgression in the act. The apostle is speaking all through this part of Romans of our natural state as connected with Adam. Nevertheless, death reigned from Adam to Moses, proving sin’s presence, even over them that had not sinned after the manner of Adam’s transgression, who is the figure of Him that was to come. The character of sin was not transgression before the law. Adam transgressed a given law, not to eat of the tree; the children of Israel likewise transgressed the ten commandments after they were given, but between that time there was no transgression; still there was sin, and death reigned in the case of those who sinned, even over those who died in infancy, and had not committed personal sins. All this proves that man was born in sin, and under its consequence, death, independently of law and transgression. Adam being in Romans 5:14 introduced as the figure of Him that was to come, the two Heads of the two races of men are now compared (Rom. 5:15-19). Then the law came in by-the-bye, that the offense might abound (Rom. 5:20), and the excess of grace to meet all the consequences of Adam’s transgression is shown.

Romans 5:15. Not as the offense so is the act of favor! For if by the offense of the one man the many have died, much more the grace of God, and the free gift in grace, which is of the one Man Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto the many. Romans 5:16, And not as through one that sinned, so is the gift. For the act of judgment was of one offense to condemnation, but the act of favor was of many offenses unto justification. Romans 5:17. For if by the offense of the one man death reigned by the one, much more they that receive the abundance of grace, and of the free gift of righteousness, shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ. The persons, their acts and the results in death and life are compared, and the excess of grace over the results of Adam’s sin is beautifully shown.

Here we have a threefold comparing of the results of Adam’s transgression, and of God’s grace in Christ—

1st, through the offense of the one man, the many have died;

2nd, the judgment was of one offense to condemnation;

3rd, death reigned over all his descendants.

In regard to Christ, 1st, the grace of God and the gift in grace, which is of one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto the many; 2nd, the free gift is of many offenses unto justification; 3rd, they that receive the excess of grace, and of the free gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ.

Romans 5:18-19 are the summing-up. Therefore as by one offense the consequences of that offense went out toward all men to condemnation, so by one act of righteousness, that is, Christ’s death, the consequences of that act went out towards all men unto justification of life. For as by one man’s disobedience the many were constituted sinners, so by the obedience of One shall the many be constituted righteous! Romans 5:18 is the bearing towards all, of the fruit of each act. Romans 5:19 is the application to those connected with each Head. Adam’s act brought sin, death, and condemnation, as the consequences to all his descendants. Christ’s death meeting the threefold consequences of Adam’s sin, brings grace, righteousness and eternal life to all connected with Him The first result on the one side was condemnation; the first result in the other, justification of life and reigning in life by one, Jesus Christ. This is not merely being cleared from all our sins by Christ’s death, but it is in a life that has died to sin and is alive to God, even the life of Christ raised from the dead and in glory. It is by virtue of this that the many connected with Christ are constituted righteous, and finally will be in glory.

Moreover, the law entered that the offense might abound, but where sin abounded, grace did much more abound, that as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord.

At the beginning of the chapter, then, we had justification in the power of Christ’s blood clearing us from all the sins of our first Adam condition; here at the end of it we have justification of life in the risen, glorified Christ, the Head of a new race; Christ’s act of righteousness on the cross being that which glorified God, and in which sin in the flesh was condemned. It is looked at here as a positive act of obedience, which is the ground of our deliverance from the Adam condition, and our full justification. What a marvelous summary of the history of man from the beginning we have in these verses Adam falls, and brings sin and death into the world. These two principles are personified in these verses, and are said to reign over man (Rom. 5:14-21). Until the law sin was in the world, man was lawless (comp. 1 John 3:4; Rom. 2:12), doing his own will, but sin was not imputed, either as a principle nor in the form of transgression, nevertheless death reigned over him. In Moses’ time the law entered, giving the knowledge of sin, and that the offense might abound. The law now became as a husband to the Jew, and exercised dominion over him But this marriage, instead of checking the dominion of sin, caused the offense to abound, as is said in Romans 5:20; Romans 7:1-5,8. But now the conscientious Jew was in a miserable plight. Sin exercising dominion one way, the law the other, by forbidding even the first motions of sin in the heart. Hence the spirit of bondage and fear. But thanks be to God, grace has come into the world by Jesus Christ (Rom. 5:15; John 1:17); has met the power of sin reigning in the power of death at the cross; through righteousness has condemned it and put it away, and has reigned victorious unto eternal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord. All that accept this grace are not only forgiven, and justified from their sins, but they stand as justified in the life of Christ risen and glorified, and are delivered from the dominion and power of sin, through having died to sin, and being alive to God in Jesus Christ our Lord. This is, however, anticipating the doctrine of Romans 6.

The death of Christ in Romans 5:18 is rather looked at as the burnt-offering, the peculiarity of which was, that the whole animal underwent the judgment of God, but it was for the offerers acceptance, not for the pardon of his sins (comp. Lev. 1:1-9). At the cross of Christ not only was the justice of God satisfied, as to the sins committed by man, but God was glorified in His nature in the very place where sin was condemned. His love and righteousness were fully manifested and glorified by an obedient man, so that God gave Him glory in answer to it, and we are accepted in the Beloved! This explains the term “abundance of grace” (Rom. 5:17). Adam and Christ are here looked at as the Heads of two races, but not so till after their acts of disobedience or obedience. Adam became Head of a fallen race after his disobedience (See Gen. 4:1). Christ became Head of a new race after His obedience unto death. We are attached to one or the other. Reader, which are you? In Romans 6 two masters, sin and righteousness, attach themselves to the Heads of these two families, and of those that belong to them. In Romans 7 two husbands, law and Christ, that apply themselves to descendants of each in these two conditions. If I am in Adam, sin is my master, and the law was the Jew’s husband in that condition. But if Christ’s, righteousness is my master, and Christ is my husband, and the new rule of my life!

We are taught here the means of our deliverance from our connection with the first Adam, with sin, death and condemnation attached to that connection! It had been said, “Where sin abounded, (that is, before law came in, or after law came in) grace did much more abound.” A man might then say, “Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?” Let it not be thought so for one moment! How can we that have died to sin live any longer therein? It is a question of living under the power of sin or not. But if we have died to sin by the act of Christ’s death being applied to us, How can we live any longer in that life over which sin had dominion, and to which it attached itself? Now the apostle brings in two ways and means by which we have been delivered. Externally by baptism, really by faith. Romans 6:3-4 show the former way, Romans 6:7 and following verses the latter. “Know ye not,” says the apostle, “That as many as have been baptized unto Jesus Christ, have been baptized unto His death? Therefore we have been buried with Him by baptism unto death, that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, we ought also to walk in newness of life Here clearly baptism is the external means of our connection with Christ in death. The baptized person is put into the water, which is the figure of Christ’s death. He is buried under the water, the figure of being buried with Christ. Now as Christ was raised by the honor the Father put upon Him, the baptized person ought to walk in newness of life. Mark, my reader, this is his responsibility. There is nothing said about his having life or not, but he ought to walk in newness of life. Unless he has faith besides baptism, this he will not do. But if we have been planted together in the likeness of His death, we shall be also of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old man has been crucified with Him, that is, I take it by imputation when He was crucified, that the body of sin might be annulled, that henceforth we should not serve sin. For he that has died has been justified from sin.

But this introduces a second means of connection with Christ in death. It is by faith (comp. Rom. 5:1), not only by baptism. Baptism gives me externally a place with Christ in death, and so I am placed on Christian ground, where I ought to walk in newness of life; but as I said before, if faith is not added to baptism, there is no living connection with Christ. Baptism is not unto life, but unto death; but if I believe, I am justified from sin; and I have really as well as externally, a part with Christ in His death. He that is dead is justified from sin, that is from the very root and principle of it, not only from its acts. But if we be dead with Christ, we believe we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ being raised from the dead, dieth no more, death hath no more dominion over Him. For in that He died, He died unto sin once, but in that He liveth, He liveth unto God. Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to have died indeed unto sin, and alive unto God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Thus God accounts to us all the value of His Son’s death and resurrection so that we, believing, reckon ourselves as having died to sin with Him, and to be alive unto God in Him. This is the reckoning of faith, as water baptism gives us that place externally, short of living unto God. This truth is now applied to our walk from Romans 16:18-28. Let not sin reign in your mortal bodies; ye are dead. Yield yourselves unto God as those who are alive from the dead, for sin shall not have dominion over you, for ye are not under the law, but under grace.

Thus the law is looked at as the strength of sin, and applies to the condition of the first Adam, over which sin has dominion.

But then, Shall we take advantage and sin because we are not under law, but under grace? God forbid. Sin is looked at all through these verses as a master; if I yield myself a slave to that master, I am a slave to that master, whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness. But thanks be to God, that we are not the servants of sin, but we have obeyed the form of doctrine delivered unto us, that is, of Christ’s death and resurrection; and we are set free. But then, having been set free by faith in Him dead and risen, we have become servants unto righteousness.

Wherefore yield up yourselves to this new master, to righteousness unto holiness.

Did you gather any fruit from the things whereof you are now ashamed, for the end of those things is death? But now being made free from sin, and having become servants of God, we have our fruit unto holiness, and the end eternal life; for the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Sin is always looked at in these chapters as a master reigning over man, and to whom he is a slave. It is not the responsible man, either unconverted, quickened, or delivered; but it reigns over the unconverted Adam man, and even over him converted, as we see in. Romans 7, till delivered and in full salvation. Adam was first created upright, spirit, soul and body. Sin entered at the fall. The old serpent then put poison into man’s nature, and from that time it has been transmitted to all Adam’s descendants as we have seen. It entered the world by Adam (Rom. 5:12). It hath reigned since in the power of death (Rom. 5:21). It exercises dominion over (Rom. 6:14) and pays wages to its slaves (Rom. 6:21). Death alone can close its reign. Thus what the awakened soul looks for is deliverance from its power and empire, as indeed the bitten Israelite looked for from the bite of the fiery serpent! That deliverance is effected by the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, and is identified in this chapter with our full justification (Rom. 6:6), not only from sins, but from the principle of sin, the character of which is lawlessness (see 1 John 3:4).

This brings in the principle of association with Christ. Externally by baptism, but really and virtually by faith, and as to the new state (Rom. 8:9), by the Holy Spirit. We are dead with Christ, buried with Christ, risen with Christ, only Romans does not mention this latter, which we have in Colossians and Ephesians; but we are alive to God in Jesus Christ our Lord! The gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord (Rom. 6:23).

Thus we see how Christ is our life, as well as our righteousness. And it is not only that He is given to us by a God of love from the other side of the cross to die for us, thus meeting our state as ungodly sinners, but He is given to us here, as a present gift from the glory side of the cross. This gift received puts the receiver in Him who has died to sin and lives to God. We therefore, are to reckon ourselves to have died indeed unto: sin, but alive unto God in Jesus Christ our Lord. In Romans 8:2-11 this connects itself with the: communication of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, that sets us free from the law of sin and death, and in final result leads on to the quickening of: the mortal body at the return of the Lord from heaven. But in Romans 6, it is the life of faith which reckons itself dead to sin, and alive to God in Christ, yields itself practically up to God, and as the result obeys; and these are the two great principles of the Christian life, faith and obedience.

In this chapter the Christian’s deliverance from law is described. “I speak to them that know law” (that is as a principle), says the apostle; “That the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth.” The Jewish nation was dispensational under the law. It was needful then specially for the Jewish believer to know his relation to the law now he had become Christ’s. He was under it as a husband, to raise the question of righteousness after man had become a slave of sin. The apostle uses the illustration of a: woman married to a husband. She was bound by law to her husband as long as he lived, but if he died she was loosed from the law of her husband, so then if while her husband lived she was married to another man, she should be called an adulteress; but if the husband should die, she was free to be married to another man. Then applying the double illustration, the apostle says, “Ye therefore, my brethren, are become dead to the law by the body of the Anointed One, that ye should be married to another, even to Him who has been raised from the dead, that ye might bring forth fruit unto God.” The law and Christ are here therefore compared to two husbands, the law applying to the condition the Jew was in as a child of Adam, only put into relationship with Jehovah on that ground. As long as he lived in that relationship he was under law’s dominion, and law’s rule, but having accepted Christ, as seen in His death, he became dead to the law. Death dissolved the relationship, and resurrection introducing him into a new place, he was married to another, even to Him whom God raised from the dead, now to bear fruit to God. Thus he became connected with God’s Anointed as to a new husband, and came under a new rule, the rule of God’s Christ, instead of the law.

It was like a wild briar in its original earth, that produced plentifully the briars and thorns, and as we see at the end of the chapter, the new bud of the good rose put in only seemed to languish as long as the tree remained in the barren earth, but now it is cut down and taken out by the skilful gardener from its original place in the rocky, barren soil, and transplanted into God’s new ground in Christ; where the new bud, unhindered by the growth of the old briar, and fed by the good new soil, brings forth beautiful roses to God’s glory. In the end of the chapter we see the struggles of the new life to bear fruit before it is transplanted, but in Romans 8 we see the new plant in the new place bearing fruit to God.

Thus the law of Moses can never produce fruit for God. “When we were in the flesh,” says the apostle, “the motions of sins, which were by the law, did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death.” The old saplings of the briar would seem to shoot out with all their native strength; and the digging and dunging all made it worse, the earth was such that only produced briars and thorns. But now we are delivered from the law, having died to that wherein we were held, that we should serve in newness of spirit and not in the oldness of the letter. Thus all Christians stand before God as having died to the old husband, law. All Christians stand as related to the new, the Christ! and Him raised from the dead. And as no woman can be married to two husbands at one time without being guilty of adultery, so no Christian can be under the law and under Christ too at one time without being guilty of spiritual adultery.

This at once clearly explains the truth of the doctrine at the end of this chapter. The Holy Spirit could not possibly teach the sin of spiritual adultery; but if the experience at the end of the chapter is that of a man who has the Holy Spirit, then He would be teaching it, for it is nothing but the experience of a man under the old husband, law; and therefore of a man still as to his experience on the ground of the flesh; whereas a man who has got the Holy Spirit is not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, and therefore not under the law, but under grace.

The chapter might be divided into three parts.

1st, Romans 7:1-6 the deliverance from the law is stated.

2nd, Romans 7:7-13 man’s former state in the flesh having been alluded to (Rom. 7:5), the law’s action upon it as giving the knowledge of sin, and condemning him to death who gave way to its first motions is shown. The law is holy then, sin exceeding sinful.

3rd, Romans 7:14-25 sin’s working death in the man through the law, is shown, as also the struggles of an awakened, quickened soul, to get righteousness and life through the law; but then the man finds his mistake, comes to the knowledge of sin, as a distinct evil principle in himself, but not himself, and his captivity to it; and learning that it only works death in him, he looks away to Christ for deliverance, and finds it in God through Christ.

But without this needful experience and knowledge of sin, a superficial hearer would say, returning to Romans 7:7, Is the law sin, for you teach, Paul, that a man must become dead to the law, as well as to sin? “God forbid,” says the apostle, the law made me, as an unsaved man, know sin. I would not have known sin, unless the law had said, “Thou shalt not lust; but sin taking occasion by the commandment wrought in me all manner of lust.” Apart from law, sin was dead, lay dormant in the man; the school-boy cut the table, ignorant that there was his evil will inside him, causing him to do the mischief, but now the schoolmaster issues a command that the boys are not to cut the table. This immediately fills the boys with an evil desire to do it; perhaps some had never thought of doing it before the command was issued. This is lust! The law not only forbids the evil act, but the desire to do it. Now if the boy is attentive to the lessons of the schoolmaster, he will come to the knowledge of the naughty will inside him, that makes him desire to cut the table. And this is what happens when the soul is awakened! but unawakened the man follows his own lusts, and the end is death-awakened he comes to the knowledge of sin, finds he is under sentence of death, forgiving way to its first motions, and accepts the sentence, coming to repentance.

Thus it was with Paul; he says, “I was alive without law once, but the commandment having come, sin revived, and I died.” He accepted the sentence of death on himself when awakened. The law then is nothing but a ministry of death to man, for it forbids lust, under the penalty of death, but every man lusts, and thus the sentence of death is written on him The commandment which was unto life, Paul found to be unto death, for sin taking occasion by the commandment deceived me, and by it slew me. Behold people today going Sunday after Sunday, and hearing the ten commandments read in so called churches. Sin deceives them, makes them think that the law is the way of justification and life. Sin thus deceives them, and uses the holy law of God to kill them. Alas, with the majority it is not like with the apostle, a learning of sin’s deceptions now, and its cruel and terrible nature now to slay him; but they go on sleeping under the venom of the serpent, and die, without rousing out of their sleep of death. And oh, terrible thought, only to wake up to these deceptions in hell!

From Romans 7:14-25 the apostle in answer to the question, “Was then that which is good made death unto me,” still further brings out the horrible nature of sin, and shows the fruitless struggles of an awakened soul under the law to free itself from its dominion, till it looks away to the Saviour God through Christ for deliverance. Sin is thus looked at as a monster that has laid hold of its victim, using the good holy law of God to deceive its victim, who vainly thinks that that is the way of righteousness and life; it stirs up its very motions by the law, and then uses the law to sentence its victim to death. Paul discovered all this when light from the glory began to shine into his soul The law cannot work life in the soul of such a man, sin works death in him by that which is good, that is, the law.

We come now to the struggles, and progress in knowledge of an awakened soul, measuring itself by this spiritual measure, the law, and finding all its efforts to come up to this spiritual standard fruitless. There is no mention of Christ or the Holy Spirit in the whole passage. It is the experience of a quickened soul, born again, turned to God, but still without deliverance and salvation, still under the captivity of sin, and measuring itself alone by law standard. We know that the law is spiritual. This is Christian knowledge, but I am carnal, sold under sin; he supposes the case of a man not yet a Christian, still under law. For that which I do, my conscience does not allow, but what I would that do I not, but what I hate that do I. But then if this is so, the will and affections are right, and the man consents to the law that it is good. And again if the will is right, he is renewed, for naturally the will is on the wrong side, and if so, it is no more he that does the evil, but sin that dwells in him. This is progress in the awakened soul. Now there is the knowledge that the evil principle of sin is distinct from the new I, that wills to do right. In the flesh, that is, the Adam nature, on the contrary, dwells no good thing.

Here there is a decided advance in knowledge. In Romans 7:14, there was confusion between the natures; “I am fleshly,” he says there, but in Romans 7:18 there is the flesh and sin, distinct from the new I. Another thing is found now, that though the will is right, there is no power to perform what is good: he repeats what he had said in Romans 7:15. but there it was to show he was fleshly, here it is, that he has no power to perform what his new I wants to do; for the good he would, he does not, but the evil he would not that he does. Thus a soul if only turned to God and quickened, but not delivered, is still virtually under the power of sin. The Apostle repeats, if my will is right it is no more I, but sin that dwelleth in me. He finds then a law that when he would do good, evil is present with him; but he delights in the law of God after the inward man. Thus he is really born again, but he finds another law, that is, the flesh, warring against the law of his mind, and bringing him into captivity to the law of sin that is in his members. This is insupportable! Born again, he desires the good, he must be free, but the very light he has got shows him that his whole Adam nature is sinful, and too strong for him, so that he cries out, “Oh wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death!” The whole natural man is seen sinful and even as quickened he is without strength. He must be delivered. How get deliverance? He looks away from the man here, to God, and finds Him a Deliverer through Christ dead, risen, and glorified. The man up there he finds as his positive righteousness, and God’s gift of eternal life to him; and is justified and free.

In himself he finds no good, and no strength to fulfill the positive righteousness of the law even with his new nature, and its desires after it, but in God he finds a Deliverer who has already opened the path through death for him by Jesus; and this Jesus in glory God gives him as His gift of eternal life, the life that has passed victoriously through death and conquered. He finds a new man in a new place for him in glory, and learns to connect himself as born of God with Him. Yea, Romans 8:1, he finds himself “in Him.” The experience of this chapter has taught him this great lesson that he has two distinct natures now in him. He himself identified with the new nature serves the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin. At the same time he has found deliverance from his Adam standing and state through Christ Romans 8. shows the reality and power of the deliverance itself. He is in Christ, in a man to whom no condemnation is attached, and the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set him free from the law of sin and death.

The teaching of Romans 7 must not be confounded with the teaching of the 3rd and 4th chapters. There the law proves guilty, it brings under sentence of death for the things done. Here it shows the wretchedness of the man himself under the power and dominion of sin. By law is the knowledge of sin. In Romans 3-4, he finds in God a justifier from his sins, but here also giving him a new place in Christ (at least in Rom. 8), and delivering him from his Adam condition; and the law that applied to it.

It is to be noted in the types, that the law was given at Mount Sinai to an already typically redeemed people, who had been brought to God. It belonged to the wilderness, not to Egypt. And if we see only in the history of Israel the history of a redeemed people that is the reality of the things typified, we shall get into confusion, and be in danger of misapplying the law, that is of applying it to Christians.

Now the doctrine of the new testament is as clear as noonday on the subject, that the law is not to be applied to Christians, it was not made for a righteous man! How then are we to reconcile the fact that the law was given in the wilderness, and not in Egypt before redemption? The simple answer is that the passage of the Red Sea is not only the picture of full redemption, but also of a typically baptized people brought in to external relationship with God, outside the heathen and Jewish world of which Egypt was the type (see 1 Cor. 10:1-13; Heb. 2:14; 15:3-4). By these Scriptures, we see that the Christian profession is in the wilderness, not in Egypt; brought into that place by baptism, which we have introduced as giving an external deliverance from Adam connection in Romans 6:1-5. Now the mass of these Christian professors, as we know, are ungodly people, and it is a lawful use of the law, as 1 Timothy 1 shows, to apply it to such; to test their reality. Real Christians are not under it in any way. Love is the fulfilling of the law, and it is their nature to love., But God allows all this testing to go on amongst His professing people, to know what is in their hearts, and to make them know that grace and Christ are the only ground on which they will ever enter heaven as the rest of God. The sin of profession is, I believe, accepting the law as the ground of entering heaven, just like Israel accepted it, going away from the promises. God allowed it to raise the question of righteousness with them, and so in the lawful use of it today. It is remarkable that before entering Canaan, Israel is brought to the brazen serpent, the type of the judgment of Satan and sin by the cross; showing in type that the way into heaven, and deliverance from perishing by the bite of the serpent is alone through Christ lifted up on the cross, and rising again in eternal life. And this is really only the foundation and beginning of real, vital Christianity according to John 3:14, and yet the type comes at the very end of the wilderness journey. It is the lesson over again of Romans 7-8. Only I believe Jordan teaches fully death to sin, and to the law, and introduction into the heavenly places in Christ! We are just landed there as to our standing in Romans 8:1-2, but that is all. The general practical life is in the wilderness.

We are now landed in the height of our place “in Christ” as shown in this epistle. The full place is summed up in the first three verses. To stop short in Romans 7, is to stop short of the Christian position. That it can be Christian experience is impossible. From the 7th verse to the end of Romans 7 the words I, me, and my, are mentioned nearly fifty times. What is the meaning of the phrases used “I am fleshly, sold under sin,” if Christian experience? What is the meaning of the cry, “Oh, wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me?” Is a man that is “a slave of sin,” who always breaks every commandment of the law, and who is crying out for deliverance out of a condition he is still consciously in, namely, his Adam standing, a Christian? Will you make a Christian an idolater, a blasphemer, a murderer, a thief, a covetous person? Yet this you must teach if you say that the man, who says, “the good (that is, the law) that I would I do not, but the evil that I would not, that do I,” is a Christian. Besides there is no mention of Christ or the Spirit once, till he thanks God, Romans 7:25. It is occupation with self, seeing the holiness of the law in its demands, and finding his utter powerlessness to do good (which is always the law in Rom. 7) though he wishes to do it. That it is the experience of a man dead in trespasses and sins is also impossible, for there is the will to do good; he delights in the law of God after the inward man, and with the mind he himself serves the law of God. We are therefore left to the conclusion that it is the experience of a newborn soul, with the will and the mind turned to God, yet occupied with self, and not yet delivered from the Adam condition and from the law. Directly it accepts the man in glory, instead of the man here, it bursts out in songs of praise, and concludes, “There is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus; for the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.”

First, there is a new standing given in the Head of the new race, to whom no condemnation is attached. Second, there is the positive communication of the Spirit of life in Christ that has set us free from the law of sin and death (comp. John 20:22). Thirdly, what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God has done. Beautiful summary of Romans 5:12-Romans 7! Romans 5:12-21 we have our portion in Christ the Head of the new race, in justification of life; Romans 6, deliverance from the law of sin and death; Romans 7, what the law could not do (Rom. 7:5-24), God has done (Rom. 7:25; 8:8). He has judged sin in the flesh, by sending His own Son, and making Him a sacrifice for sin, that the law’s righteous requirement might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit. Thus the only ones who fulfill the righteousness of the law, are those that have died to it in Christ’s death, and who are alive to God in Him, in possession of His Spirit of life; and grace is the only power over sin, as the law is the strength of sin. It could neither free from condemnation, deliver, nor produce the righteousness it required in us; it could give the knowledge of sin, and condemn the man to death who gives way to its first motions. But God in grace has condemned the sin and delivered the man: what the law could not do We are now in our individual standing place, and this beautiful chapter brings out all the consequences of this position. First, the Christian is in Christ, in possession of the Spirit of life in Christ, delivered, and sin condemned. Secondly, the Spirit of God indwells him, giving him a new state, and as a distinct Person dwelling in him making him know his place as a child of God (Rom. 8:9-30). Thirdly, God is for him (Rom. 8:31-39). What a chapter! May the Lord give the reader sweet thoughts on it.

What we have first is the Spirit of Christ characterizing our new life as born of God. There is an introduction in power of the Spirit in Romans 8:2, that we have not in Romans 7.

Christ communicated His Spirit of life to His disciples in John 20:22, already born of God. It is not merely in Romans 8:5-8 the flesh and new nature as we have in Romans 7, but we are of the flesh or of the Spirit. It is the mind of the flesh or the mind of the Spirit. The delivered man is characterized and energized by the Spirit of God. They that are of the flesh do mind the things of the flesh, they that are of the Spirit the things of the Spirit. The mind of the flesh is death, the mind of the Spirit is life and peace. The mind of the flesh is enmity against God, it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be, so then they that are in the flesh cannot please God. Enoch pleased God in his day, as a man of faith walking according to the light he had, in relationship with God revealed as Creator, yet on the ground of sacrifice pointing forward to Christ who was coming, and waiting for the promise. But in his day God was still testing man, as to whether he could recover himself, and so still owned him so far when there was faith, as walking on that ground. It was not proved that they that are in the flesh could not please God, and so the “common appellation” for saints in the old testament is, “the just.” But now everything has come out, man has been weighed in the balances and found wanting; he has: rejected Christ, as well as broken the law. “They that are in the flesh cannot please God.”

But Christians are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if so be “the Spirit of God” dwell in them. The Spirit communicated to the believer puts him into a new state, taking him out of the flesh, and brings Christ as life into his soul, enabling him to write His death on the old Adam body and condition. It is the Spirit of Christ, because the Head of the new race breathes into us His Spirit of life, and so it is Christ in us. And yet it cannot be separated from the Spirit of God, who is semi further down as a distinct Person dwelling in us. But if Christ be in us, the body is dead  for sin; but the Spirit is life for righteousness. The Christ with whom the Christian is one, is a Christ that died; hence death is written on the old Adam body, which henceforth, as dead for sin, becomes the temple of the Holy Spirit. Without the death of Christ applied by faith to it, it is part of the flesh, the old Adam nature; but now the life of Christ fills it, that has passed through death, and the Holy Spirit indwells it; so that if this last is so, He, as the Spirit that raised up Jesus from the dead, when the Lord comes, will quicken our mortal bodies, on account of His Spirit that dwells in us.

Here is the full answer to the cry of Romans 7:24. Thus the presence of the Spirit of God in the body puts us into our new Christian state, as being no longer in the flesh. It brings Christ into us, writing His death on our Adam bodies, and is the earnest of the future quickening of the body at the first resurrection when Christ returns.

He is now seen as not only forming and characterizing the new Christian state, but as a distinct Person indwelling us (Rom. 8:11,16,26). Surely then we see that we are not debtors to the flesh for anything; if we live after the flesh we are about to die, but if we through the Spirit do mortify, put to death, the deeds of the body, we shall live. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God they are the sons of God. Thus we see that the Spirit not only forms and characterizes the new Christian state, but He is the power of practical Christian life every day. By Him we mortify the deeds of the body, by Him the sons are led. Moreover we have not received a Spirit of bondage again to fear, but we have received a Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ, if so be that we suffer with Him that we may be also glorified together. As we read such wonderful Scriptures the heart naturally breaks out in such a song —

“Happy they who trust in Jesus,
Sweet their portion is, and sure,
When the foe on others seizes,
He will keep His own secure:
Happy people,
Happy, though despised and poor.”

Yes, dear reader, in that poor little cottage home of yours, or in that dark room in the back street, you can sing, if a believer, “Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the children of God” (1 John 3:1).

Suffering here is the Christian’s portion, glory there with Christ as His fellow heirs. We have in the following verses, Romans 8:18-29, a sample of what suffering with Christ is. But in view of the glory that shall be revealed unto the children of God, the apostle, and we also, may well reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed unto us. The anxious expectation of the creature waits for the manifestation of the sons of God; for the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him, that is, Adam, who hath subjected, the same; in the hope that the creature itself shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption, into the liberty of the glory of the children of God. So that whatever the suffering now, there is a glorious future yet for this creation. It groans and travails, but the Lord is coming, then the sons of God will be manifested with Him, and creation shall be delivered; it still groans, and not only it, but we ourselves who are still linked to the creature by our bodies, but having the firstfruits of the Spirit, we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our bodies.

Salvation in this aspect is future; we are saved in hope of this future. The groaning mentioned is a different groaning from that of Romans 7:25. There it was, “Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” a groaning in the sense of an undelivered soul, not in the liberty of grace; and no doubt not understanding the redemption of the body either; but here it is a groan like Christ groaned at the grave of Lazarus, as feeling on His spirit the ruin of creation, and the dominion of sin and death over it. In this way we are privileged to suffer with Christ, and this is the portion more or less of all Christians; only that our bodies are more or less linked with sin, and not fully redeemed.

In another sense Christians are called to suffer for Christ (see Phil. 1:29; 1 Pet. 4:14); through enduring persecution, either from the world, or trials amongst the saints inside the assembly (see 2 Cor. 1:2). But we must not confound these sufferings with what Christ suffered for us in atonement on the cross. There He stood alone under our judgment, bearing the wrath of God for us, that we might never have to bear it. But here the subject is, suffering with Christ, having the same spirit whilst passing through a groaning creation. And even the presence of the Spirit of God in our bodies makes us groan, but He also helps our infirmities, and though we know not amidst the pressure of things what to pray for as we ought, He makes intercessions within us with groanings that cannot be uttered. But He who searches the hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because He makes intercessions for the saints according to God.

But if under the pressure of trials we know not what to pray for as we ought, this we do know that all things work together for good to them that love God, (and now comes the summing up); these are the called according to His purpose. For whom He did foreknow, He did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn amongst many brethren!

Five blessed links of an everlasting chain that connect us with the passed and future eternities follow. Foreknowledge, Predestination, Calling, Justification, Glory! The second is founded on the first. It is not the same as it. See John 6:64-65. Jesus foreknew who would not believe, and should betray Him. Founded on this He added, “Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come to Me except it were given him of My Father.”

But oh, the infinite grace of God! every dear Christian is predestinated to be conformed to the image of God’s Son. This voice makes itself heard in the soul, in due time He calls us. We are awakened, brought to repentance, He justifies us. Finally He glorifies us! God’s grace has never done with us till we are conformed to the image of His Son. Who is He! The firstborn amongst many brethren; the chiefest amongst ten thousand, the altogether lovely! Song of Solomon 5:10-16.

From Romans 8:31 to the end, we have God for us. This is manifested in three ways: First, He has not spared His Son (Rom. 8:32); secondly, He has justified us (Rom. 8:33); thirdly, nothing can separate us from His love as displayed in Christ Jesus our Lord! The Apostle always argues down from what God is to us. It is not, because we are so and so for Him that therefore He will be so and so for us No, but God is for us, just as we were, nothing but sinners. Who then can be against us? He has not spared His Son, how shall He not then with Him also freely give us all things!

But secondly, Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifieth, who is he that condemneth? The apostle here alludes to Isaiah 1:8-9, where Christ is heard confessing His confidence in Jehovah, as the One who justified Him, when man condemned Him It is most interesting to see how the apostle here quotes the very same passage to bring out the justification of God’s people now! the same justification that applies to Christ, applies to the assembly as one with Him.

But then, thirdly, Christ died, yea rather, has been raised up, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us. Who then shall separate us from the love of Christ? That love was tested down here by tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril and sword, and nothing stopped its flow. It has gained the victory, and has been brought into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, so that even though passing through all like circumstances, we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us, though for His sake we are killed all the day long, we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. But it is not only that no circumstances can stop us, but not all the powers of the unseen world which are next mentioned: death, life, angels, principalities, powers, things present, things to come, etc., nothing shall be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

What a chapter! The Christian is seen in Christ at the beginning, Romans 8:1-2. Secondly, the Spirit of God is seen in him, Romans 8:9, first bringing Christ as Life into his soul, and secondly, indwelling him as a distinct person as God, bearing witness with his spirit that he is a son, Romans 8:10-30. Thirdly, God is for him, Romans 8:31-39. The Spirit also intercedes for him on earth, and will finally raise up or change his body; whilst Christ intercedes for him in heaven, and nothing therefore can separate him from the love that does this, till He returns to fetch him home.

The second part of the Epistle is done. From Romans 3:22-26, we have seen God’s righteousness as an objective thing in Christ justifying the believer from all his sins through Jesus and His blood. Justification is by faith, not by works, as Abraham’s and David’s examples show. David’s example showing the negative side; sins forgiven, iniquities covered, sin not imputed. Abraham’s showing the positive side: it was a faith resting in a God of resurrection, raising a living Isaac out of Sarah’s dead womb. In the one case, it was a righteous God forgiving sins; in the other case a righteous God fulfilling His promises, which came before law and circumcision, and went out to the Gentiles through Christ, the Heir now come. This ends Romans 4. It is a present blessing to us, for we believe on a God who has raised Jesus from the dead. Peace, present favor, and glory are the result for us, Romans 5:1-11. We enjoy present; tribulation with hope of glory in front, by the Holy Spirit, who also makes us joy in God Himself, revealed in love, as well as in righteousness! This introduces God as a Reconciler as well as a Justifier, and both in present blessing. Believers are now justified by His blood, they have now received the reconciliation (Rom. 8:9-11). Up to this point sins are treated of, Christ was delivered for our offenses, and was raised again for our justification.

From Romans 5:12, to end, Adam and Christ are compared as the Heads of two races. Adam bringing in sin, death, and condemnation to all his descendants, by his one offense; Christ bringing in grace, righteousness and eternal life, leading on to the full result in glory, by His one obedience unto death. This results in a justification of life from sin for the believer, not merely justified from sins. Romans 6 applies Christ’s death for present deliverance from the dominion of sin, as well as for justification; Romans 7, deliverance from the law, as applying to the Adam condition; both expressed for present deliverance, in Romans 6:22; 7:6, by the words, “Now being made free from sin,” and “Now we are delivered from the law” And Romans 8 shows him his full standing in Christ, in the words, “There is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus” His state as not in the flesh but in the Spirit follows; the Spirit indwelling him making him know his place as a son, and being the earnest and pledge of the resurrection of his body, when the Lord comes. Lastly, God is for him, and nothing can separate him from His love. The little word now, applied to justification in Romans 5:9, to reconciliation in Romans 5:11, to deliverance and freedom from sin Romans 6:22, to deliverance from the law Romans 7:6, and to the Christian’s full standing in Christ, in justification of life from sin, Romans 8:1, shows clearly, that all these different lines of doctrine are only several parts of one great salvation, and that salvation is all received in Christ at once, when the poor sinner believes. He needs to be established in its different parts afterward, as this epistle clearly shows, but the different parts of the salvation are not consecutive, but run in parallel lines, making up one complete whole, though the call takes place first! May the Lord bless this to the help of the reader, is the prayer of the writer!

The apostle now turns back to the subject of Israel, and the Gentiles. He has now gone into the great subject of man’s personal relationship with God, the law question, and God justifying Jewish and Gentile believers alike, on the ground of the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. But then there was the question of promise. The promises were given to the Jew; How was it that the Gentiles had the blessing? Had God cast away His ancient people forever? The apostle answers these questions from Romans 9-11.

His deep affection for his own nation bursts forth. Deep anguish and uninterrupted pain had taken hold of his heart; he could even have wished himself accursed from Christ for his brethren, his kinsmen according to the flesh, who were Israelites, whose was the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises; whose were the fathers; and of whom after the flesh the Messiah came, who is over all God blessed forever. In the dispensations of God Israel had the central place amongst the nations. But now, Where was that nation? About to be handed over to judgment.

Not as though the Word of God had failed, for, He proves from Israel’s own history, that they were not all Israel who are of Israel, neither because they were of the seed of Abraham were they all children, otherwise Ishmael would have come in for a share of the promises, as well as Isaac; but the scripture said, “In Isaac shall thy seed be called.” The same thing took place in regard to Esau and Jacob, for before the children were born, and had done anything good or bad, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works but of Him that calleth, it was said, that the elder should serve the younger; according also as it is written, Jacob have I loved, and Esau have I hated.

The truth was, God was a sovereign, and He acted according to the principles of sovereign grace and His own choice, as was manifested in Israel’s own history, so that on this principle He could let in the Gentiles, as He was indeed now doing.

Israel as a nation was saved from ruin, on the occasion of the golden calf, by the principle of God’s sovereign grace, when all was over on the ground of the law which was then broken, for He said again on that occasion, “I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.” God was a sovereign. He had mercy on whom He would; and whom He would He hardened, as was manifested in the case of Pharaoh, Israel’s enemy. So that Israel had to own that they themselves owed everything to the sovereignty of God. They could not claim an exclusive right to anything. It was no use either arguing against God. Shall the thing formed say to Him that formed it, “Why hast Thou made me thus?” Had not the potter power over the clay, out of the same lump to make one vessel unto honor, and one to dishonor? At the same time whilst He made known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy which He had before prepared for glory, He endured with much long-suffering vessels of wrath fitted for destruction (not whom He had fitted), in order to make known His wrath and His power. On these principles of sovereign grace, He called the Gentiles as well as the Jew, as Hosea had prophesied (Hosea 2:23). In the case of Israel a remnant should be saved otherwise they would have been like Sodom and Gomorrah (Isaiah 1:9).

What then shall we say, as to the present state of things? That the Gentiles have attained to righteousness, that which is on the principle of faith. But Israel, who pursued after a law of righteousness, have not attained unto that law. Wherefore? Because it was not on the principle of faith, but as of works. For they stumbled at that stumbling-stone, that is, the Lord Jesus Christ, as it was written, “Behold I lay in Zion a stumbling-stone and rock of offense; and whosoever believeth on Him should not be ashamed” (Psa. 118:22; Isa. 28:16).

The apostle’s desire after Israel now breaks out again; he confesses to their having a zeal after God, but not according to full knowledge. For they being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, had not submitted themselves to the righteousness of God. For the end of law is Christ for righteousness to every one that believeth. Where the law ends for righteousness, Christ takes its place. So it is in the history of the soul.

Romans 9:5-14. The two righteousnesses are now contrasted. Moses wrote concerning the one, “The man having done the righteousness should live in it.” The law was man’s righteousness, it was God’s perfect measure for His creature. It required man to give the righteousness to God that the law demanded; if he did he lived in it. The righteousness of faith, on the other hand, brings righteousness to man. It speaks on this wise, Say not in thine heart, who shall ascend up to heaven, (that is to bring Christ down from above); He has come down even to death; or who shall descend into the deep, (that is to bring up Christ again from the dead). He has been raised; God has raised Him; a dead, risen, and glorified Christ is set forth as the display of the righteousness of God. This is in direct contrast to human righteousness, which would be keeping the law.

And now what saith the righteousness of faith? The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart, that is, the word of faith which we preach concerning this dead, risen, and glorified Christ; that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth, Jehovah Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation; thus, first, we have a dead and raised Christ set forth as the display of God’s righteousness. Secondly, the word of faith brings it up to the man’s mouth and heart, for him to believe. Thirdly, confessing with his mouth Jehovah become a man to die for him, and believing in his heart that God has raised this man from the dead, and accepted Him, he is saved.

Two scriptures are now quoted in confirmation; “Whosoever believeth on Him shall not be ashamed.” This applies to Gentile as well as Jew, to all that call upon Him. And then the second scripture from Joel 2:32 is quoted, which brings out that Jesus quoted above is the new name of Jehovah after He became a man; “Whosoever shall call on the name of Jehovah, shall be saved.” In the very next verse (Acts 2:21) to where this is quoted the apostle Peter applies the name to Jesus, the man approved of God. This latter quotation seems to answer to the word, “If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus;” the former to, “And believe in thy heart that God hath raised Him from the dead.” Jesus is the name uniformly in Scripture connected with the thought of salvation. It signifies Jehovah the Saviour.

If then it was God’s plan that the Gentiles should attain to righteousness, even the righteousness which is of faith, and that the principle now of attaining it was according to the Scripture, “Whosoever shall call on the name of Jehovah shall be saved;” How could they call on Him of whom they had not believed? And how could they believe on Him of whom they had not heard? And how could they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach except they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the Gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things” (Isa. 52:7). It was the purpose of God that Israel, converted themselves by the gospel, were to be the heralds of God’s salvation to the ends of the earth (Isa. 52:10). But alas, the prophet has to break out in this lamentable strain at the beginning of Isaiah 53. Lord, who hath believed our report, and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? Israel itself had not believed the gospel. Nevertheless the great point was established, that faith came by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.

But had not the Gentiles heard? Yes, for the Scripture said, “Their sound is gone out into all lands, and their words unto the ends of the earth;” (Psa. 19), so Israel ought to have known that it was God’s purpose to bless the Gentiles, seeing that the testimony of His creation power had thus gone forth.

But the apostle says, “Did not Israel know? for Moses had said, I will provoke them to jealousy by those that are no people, and by a foolish nation will I anger you” (Deut. 32:21). Isaiah also testified boldly, saying, “I was found of them that sought me not, I was made manifest unto them that asked not after me;” whilst to Israel he said, “All the day long I have stretched out my hands to a disobedient and gainsaying people.” Thus Israel clearly ought to have known from their own scriptures about God’s purposes to bless the Gentiles, as well as about their own rejection. Thus the present position of Israel and the Gentiles is established from the Jews’ own scriptures. What had they to say now against the Gentiles being blessed through the word of hearing?

But then the question rose, “Hath God cast away His people?” for they had the promises. Nay, verily, says the apostle, for there remained to that day an election according to grace, of which Paul himself was a sample. God hath not cast away His people whom He foreknew, and a witness of this was given to Elijah in his day, when Israel had apostatized from the worship of Jehovah to Baal, and when the prophet himself interceded against them; for Jehovah then said, “I have reserved to myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal”; so the apostle argues, “there is a remnant at this present time, a remnant according to the election of grace.” Be God had not cast away His people. In this chapter this question is answered by three strong reasons. First, because an election remained, which we have already seen; secondly, because salvation had come to the Gentiles, in order to provoke Israel to jealousy (Rom. 11:11); thirdly, because the Redeemer would return to Zion, and would turn away ungodliness from Jacob (Rom. 11:26).

Thus Israel was dependent on the same sovereign grace for their not being finally cast away which now received the Gentiles. But if it was of grace, then it is not of works. It is a totally opposite principle. The present conclusion is, Israel hath not obtained what he sought for, but the election hath obtained it, and the rest were blinded. He quotes Isaiah to show this in regard to all but the election (Isa. 6:9), and also David (Psa. 69:22-23).

But then the question comes in as to the mass that were cast off, “Have they stumbled that they should fall altogether”? Nay, but through their offense salvation is come to the Gentiles for to provoke them to jealousy. Thus Israel is not cast off for this second reason. The Jew still remains in the world, though cast out for a time, and the remnant received into the assembly. What God is doing now is that He is showing mercy to the Gentile, and by that dealing provoking Israel to jealousy.

The apostle’s heart enlarges as he now dwells on the future ways of God in regard to His earthly people: he says, “If their fall is the riches of the world, how much more their fullness! If the casting away of them be the reconciling of the world, what will the receiving of them be, but life from the dead!” The apostle here bursts out with fervent desire in regard to his brethren after the flesh. He seems to have the history of Joseph before him, who after having been rejected of his brethren, and put into the pit and the prison, was exalted to the throne of the world, next to Pharaoh. His advent was the riches of the world, during the seven years of plenty; and then on the return of his brethren to him in repentance in the years of famine, it was like life from the dead! So will it be when Israel is finally restored.

The apostle now gives a lovely sketch of the ways of God from Abraham downwards, to illustrate his previous arguments. To Abraham were the promises made, and to his seed, but if the firstfruit was holy, the lump is also holy, and if the root be holy, so are the branches. The Jewish branches were taken off, some of them, and the Gentiles being a wild olive tree were graffed in. Boast not against the branches. For unbelief the Jewish branches were broken off, and you Gentiles stand by faith. Be not high-minded, but fear. For if God spared not the natural branches, that is, Israel, take heed that He spare not thee, Gentiles!

“The goodness and severity of God is thus manifested; to them that fell, severity, but to you Gentile, goodness, if you continue in His goodness; otherwise you also shall be cut off. And they also, if they abide not still in unbelief, shall be graffed in again, for God is able to graff them in again If the Gentile was cut out of the olive tree, which is wild by nature, and was graffed contrary to nature into a good olive tree; how much more shall these, which be the natural branches, be graffed into their own olive tree!”

And now he finally unveils the purpose of God, to the intent that the saints might not be wise in their own conceits, that blindness in part had happened to Israel, till the fullness of the Gentiles had come in, and so all Israel should be saved, as it is written, “There shall come out of Zion a Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob. For this is my covenant with them when I shall take away their sins” (Isaiah 59:20). Thus God is true to His promises. The gifts and calling of God are without repentance. Israel is still beloved for the fathers’ sakes, and will finally be graffed in again to their own olive tree. The Gentiles could only claim the ground they now occupy through mercy. Israel will finally get the blessing on the same ground. They originally had the promises! God will assuredly fulfill His promises to them. He hath not cast away His people!

Thus we have had a beautiful summing up of the ways of God — Israel first growing out of the original stock of promise; on account of unbelief some of the branches broken off; the Gentiles, or wild olive tree, gaffed in; then Israel again, on Gentile apostacy, graffed into their own olive tree. Well might the apostle burst out in his song of praise (Rom. 11:33-36), as he grasps hold on God’s wonderful ways.

An important truth comes out here, as shown in these chapters, that the Gentiles stand as a dispensation solely on the ground of sovereign mercy on God’s side, and the righteousness which is by faith. This was the wonderful truth recovered at the Reformation! To forsake this ground then, as they are doing, is to forsake their own mercy. To go to the law, which never belonged to them, is to destroy themselves! They stand by faith. Oh the blindness of the Gentile profession! The Gentiles therefore will be cut off, and Israel finally graffed in again. The olive tree is simply a beautiful symbol of the line of promise running down from Abraham to the second coming of Christ. But it is promise, the only standing of the Gentiles is “by faith;” if they depart from this they will be cut off.

The reader will observe that Romans 11 to Romans 11:26 refers entirely to God’s ways with Israel, and the Gentiles. It has nothing to do with the position of the body of Christ, or the Assembly, as such. It is wholly a profession of faith in both cases. Israel failing through unbelief, the Gentiles standing by faith. The principle is the same in John 15:1-7. It is not union with Christ, which is by the Holy Spirit, (see 1 Cor. 6:17; Eph. 4:4; 1 Cor. 12:13) though it may go so far as a profession of unity! The vine is a unity, so is the olive tree. But in both cases branches can be taken away, which in the vital unity of Christ’s one body is impossible. You cannot cut off a member of the body of Christ Union with Christ is more than faith, which is always connected with life in Scripture! (See John 1:12; 3:16, 36; 24, and so forth.) Life is given to sinners! The Holy Spirit seals believers! (Eph. 1:13; 2 Cor. 1:22; Gal. 4:6.)

Of Him, and through Him, and to Him are all things! Let us recapitulate a little! This is true, as a summary of the doctrine of Romans 1-8, concerning ourselves individually! It is also true concerning the ways of God dispensational towards Israel and the Gentiles in Romans 9-11. God is the source of our individual salvation, Christ is the workman, and the result is that by the power of the Holy Spirit we are finally brought to God, body as well as soul. So also in Romans 9-11, God is sovereign in calling and finally blessing Israel and the nations. Thus in Romans 9 we have Israel as God’s chosen nation traced down from Abraham, then God’s sovereignty working through Christ, and letting the Gentiles in; they standing on the ground of the righteousness by faith, Romans 10, and in Romans 11. Israel finally graffed into their own olive tree. Thus God’s promises will be all fulfilled, and Israel with all the nations will finally be blessed and brought to God at the return of the Lord from heaven. The unbelieving mass alone will be cast out, whether Jew or whether Gentile! Well might indeed the apostle burst out in the magnificent strain he does at the end of our chapter!

Thus Part 3, is ended. Paul ends by applying the truth already brought out to practice.

Romans 12 is founded on the doctrine of Romans 1-8. The believers at Rome are thus described as having obeyed the form of doctrine delivered unto them. They had been justified and saved in Christ on the ground of His death and resurrection, and by faith in Him. All was on the ground of pure mercy and grace as we have just seen in Romans 11:31. The Gentiles who once disbelieved had obtained mercy through Israel’s unbelief; so now, Israel had disbelieved in the mercy extended to the Gentile that they also might obtain mercy, that is, might come in at the end, on the ground of pure sovereign mercy, after having utterly failed in their responsibility, and rejected the promises. Now in this practical part of the epistle he applies all this compassion of God shown to objects who had utterly failed in their responsibility, and yet had been picked up and saved and made objects of God’s mercy, as a motive to entire devotedness to Him.

I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the tender mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. What different morality to that under law! Under it, man in the flesh had to obey given commands, and so give a righteousness to God; here the flesh is given up! I am laid on the altar of God, and my body is presented on the ground of the death and resurrection of Christ a living sacrifice, set apart, acceptable to God, which is our intelligent service. It is as we bear about in the body the dying or putting to death of the Lord Jesus that the life of Jesus will be manifested in our bodies. The ministry of righteousness has written Christ on our hearts, and it is as the death has power over the old nature that the life will manifest itself. We are called to be imitators of that devoted One who offered Himself to God for a sweet smelling savor. We are associated with Christ dead and risen; let our walk be worthy of this position and flowing from it! This is Christian morality!

But if I am dead and risen, what have I got to do with the world? I am out of it, just as Israel after having crossed the Red Sea was out of Egypt! What have I to do with Egypt’s fashions, Egypt’s clothes, Egypt’s flesh pots! Conformity to the world is a shame for a Christian! It is linked with the flesh, on which the ministry of the Spirit writes death! But if I let that Spirit work, I am transformed by the renewing of my mind; and the power to do this, is to have the heart occupied with Christ in glory, (see 2 Cor. 3:18). In that way I learn now what good and evil is; it is by a new rule, even by Christ in glory! I prove daily what the will of God is! Thus the body presented a living sacrifice to God, nonconformity to the world, and being transformed by the renewing of the mind fill up the Christian morality of this passage.

When we are thus devoted to the Lord we find ourselves amongst a new set of people, unknown before but now known to us. They are members of the body of Christ. Are we to seek high things for ourselves here, like we did when in the world? No, just the contrary. We are not to think of ourselves more highly than we ought to think, but soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith! We are to find out each our place in the body and to fill; it up to God’s glory.

Romans 12:4. The truth of the Assembly being the body of Christ, is here brought in to show the relative bearing of Christians one to another. All members have not the same office. Thus we being many are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another. The members of our bodies, though many, do not interfere one with another; so is it in the assembly of God! There are different gifts; whether prophecy, or service, or teaching, or exhortation, or giving, on ruling, let each one use his gift according to his faith in responsibility to the Head alone. Here, perfect liberty of ministry is brought out. There is no mention here of man’s interference and man’s ordination. Every one if he has a gift is responsible to the Lord alone to use it. This is not the license of the flesh but the liberty of the Spirit. Notice also, these gifts flow out from one body, not from many bodies. We being many are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another.

Exhortations follow which enter into the minutest concerns of daily life. Let love be without hypocrisy, let not shyness, conventional usages, or selfishness hinder me showing it. Abhorring evil, and cleaving to that which is good, be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love. In honor each one taking the lead to pay it to the other. As to diligent zealousness, not slothful, in spirit fervent, serving the Lord. As regarded hope, rejoicing; as regarded tribulation enduring, persevering in prayer. Is a saint in need? Help him. Is a saint or even a stranger passing by the road? Open thy house to him. Are you persecuted? Bless them that curse you; Do any rejoice? Rejoice with them; Do any weep? Weep with them. In respect to one another, think the same thing, not thinking high things, but going along with the lowly. Not wise in our own eyes, recompensing to no man evil for evil; providing things honest in the sight of all men. Everything is summed up in the little verse, “Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.” If I am insulted, trampled upon, spitted upon like the Lord, what matters it? He gives His power. When He was reviled, He reviled not again, but committed Himself to Him that judgeth righteously. He overcame evil with good in His life; He overcame it in death and rose conqueror over it all. Having been made conquerors through His victorious life, let us be followers of Him Subjection to the higher powers, owing nothing to any but to love one another, and watchfulness in the anticipation of our full salvation, fill up chapter 8. Let every soul be subject to the authorities that are above him. There is no authority except from God, and those that exist are set up by God; rulers and magistrates are the ministers of God in temporal matters for good. If I resist them I resist the ordinance of God.

Second, owe no man anything unless it be to love one another. He that loveth another has fulfilled the law. All the commandments mentioned are summed up in the word, “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” Love therefore is the fulfilling of the law; it is the character of the new nature; it fulfills it by the power of the Spirit without being under it. It is literally the fullness of it.

Third, and now, knowing the time, it was high time to awake out of sleep, for now is our salvation (that of the body when the Lord comes), nearer than when we believed. The night is far spent, the day is at hand. Paul exhibits himself here as the servant waking up God’s household in view of the coming of the Lord; “Wake up,” put off your night clothes, put on your day clothes, the Lord is coming. Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill the lusts thereof. Practical Christian life shows itself in starving the flesh, and putting on more of Christ every day.

One more thing remained, and that was a matter of minor differences between Jews and Gentiles. There were questions of meats and observing days, which brought out the need of forbearance one with another (Rom. 14). The Jews coming out of Judaism had especially difficulties about these matters. Those who saw their liberty are exhorted to forbearance, and to receive the weak brother. Who were they to judge another man’s servant? To his own master he stood or fell. Jesus was their Lord.

If we live, we live to the Lord; if we die, we die to the Lord, living and dying, we are the Lord’s. To this end Christ died and rose again that He might rule over dead and living. Why dost thou then judge thy brother? for we shall all be placed before the judgment seat of Christ. Everyone there would have to give an account of himself to God. This is applied wholly here to those questions that might arise amongst brethren. The judgment of the dead wicked will not take place till one thousand years after this. (See Rev. 20).

The great thing, instead of judging, was not to be a stumbling-block or occasion of falling to my brother. If my brother is offended with my meat, I give it up rather than stumble him. Destroy not him with thy meat for whom Christ died. We are not to let our good be evil spoken of. The kingdom of God was not meat or drink, but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit.

The great thing was to follow after the things that made for peace, and that edified one another. It is not right to eat meat or drink wine nor anything whereby my brother is stumbled or made weak. If I have faith, have it to myself before God. Blessed is he that does not judge himself in what he allows. But he that doubts is condemned if he eat, because it is not of faith, but whatever is not of faith is sin.

If I am strong, and through this see my liberty in such matters, yet I am to bear the infirmities of the weak, and not please myself. We should seek to please our neighbor for his edification by the example of Christ, who in pleasing His Father brought Himself under the reproach of them that reproached God. (Comp. Psa. 69:9, with John 2:17.)

A quotation of the Scriptures is here brought in, and it is connected with the God of the Scriptures, who wrote everything for our learning, that we through endurance and the comfort of the Scriptures might have hope. And then God is shown to be the God of patience or endurance, and consolation. Might He cause the saints to be like-minded according to Christ Jesus, that we may with one accord and one month glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. In this spirit of forbearance the Christians were to receive one another, even the weakest, as Christ also received them to the glory of God.

The general subject of the epistle here closes. The apostle just gives a summing up of what he had said before as to the ministry of Jesus Christ. He was a minister of the circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises made to the fathers. (Comp. Acts 13:32-35.) The Gentiles only had a part through mercy, and through Israel (see Psa. 18:49; Dent. 32:43; Psa. 117:1; Isaiah 9:1-10). The apostle looks on here to the millennial day, and prays that the God of hope might fill the believers with all joy and peace in believing, that they might abound in hope through the power of the Holy Spirit! Beautiful connection between the God of hope and the coming scene of blessing into which believers are to be introduced.

From Romans 15:14-21 he excuses his writing to them by setting before them his own ministry. God had called him by His grace to be the minister of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles. He likens himself, in Romans 15:16, to a priest offering up the Gentiles to God through the gospel service as an accepted offering, being sanctified by the Holy Spirit. This was his special service, as Peter’s was to the Jews, as we have already seen, and distinctly marking off the heavenly character of the present dispensation from all preceding, even from the ministry of Jesus Christ whilst He was on earth, which was in connection with confirming the promises made to the fathers, as we have seen. Thus a heavenly people are being called out to have their part in the future scene, besides the earthly blessing coming to Jew and Gentile mentioned in Romans 15:8-12.

In connection with this ministry to the Gentiles he speaks of his work (Rom. 15:17-22), and then speaks of his coming to them at Rome. But in the meanwhile he was going up to Jerusalem to minister to the saints. There had been a contribution made for them by the Gentile assemblies. When therefore he had performed this ministry he would come to them by God’s will, and in connection with this visit to Jerusalem he prays to be delivered from the unbelievers in Judæa, ending up with the salutation, “Now the God of peace be with you.” He is the God of patience and consolations, if there are difficulties betwixt brethren (Rom. 5:5). He is the God of hope when a coming Christ, and the future blessing of Jew and Gentile are looked for (Rom. 15:13); and the God of peace when he looks for turmoil and trouble in Judæa (Rom. 15:33).

Salutations to various saints, and exhortations to beware of those who cause divisions, close the epistle. A blessed ending! We are introduced into the family circle, and shown God’s delight in His people. The earthly kings of Israel and Judah had chronicles written of them. God writes chronicles of His heavenly saints. Every one of their characters and deeds is written in heaven. The sisters are especially mentioned here. They all have their sphere of services for the Lord. They may be servants of the assembly, (like Phoebe,) succorers of many; helpers in Christ Jesus like Priscilla, who with her husband Aquila, were the first with whom the apostle sojourned in Corinth. These were willing to lay down their necks for the apostle, for whom the whole assembly gave thanks. The assembly apparently met in their house (Rom. 16:5). Others also bestowed much labor on these servants of the Lord, labored much in the Lord like the beloved Persia. Nothing is too little to be put down. Epænetus was the firstfruits of Achaia unto Christ. Amplias is his well-beloved in the Lord. Apelles is approved in Christ. What a bond! The little words, “in the Lord,” “in Christ,” are mentioned ten times in the first 16 verses. They speak of unity! Of Him in whom the saints find their common place above. They speak of the ground of all their union and blessing. Christ is in them all; they are in Christ. The world has no part in this holy circle. They are outside it all, they are “in Christ.”

But if they are “in Christ,” and thus separated, men causing trouble may still come in. He exhorted the saints to beware of those causing divisions and contention, contrary to the doctrine they have learned, and to avoid them. By such strange doctrines parties would be formed, and the doctrine was to be the test. The saints were expected to prove that doctrine, and thus to be able to test the teachers by it. What is it, my reader, as set forth in this blessed epistle?

First (Rom. 1:18; 3:20), the necessity for the gospel is brought out, man, whether Gentile or Jew, being looked at as guilty and under sentence of death for his sins, with no righteousness for God, and God as a Judge going to judge him.

Second (Rom. 3:20; Rom. 8), God is revealed in His righteousness and love, as Justifier, Reconciler and Deliverer through Jesus and His blood. First (up to Rom. 5:12), justifying the believer from his sins, and reconciling him to Himself. Second (from Rom. 5:12; 8), delivering from the power of sin, (man being looked at in this part as a slave of sin by birth) and giving him a new standing in justification of life in Christ before Him, in a life to which no condemnation can be attached, and from which there can be no separation. The Holy Spirit seals faith in the death and resurrection of Christ for justification and peace in Romans 5:5, and deliverance and a new standing in Christ in Romans 8:2-9. Third (Rom. 9-11), Israel as a nation had the place of privilege and the promises, but they failed in responsibility, and were now for a time set aside, the Gentiles taking their place on the ground of sovereign grace, and the righteousness which is by faith; but to be finally restored on the ground of sovereign mercy at the second coming of the Lord from heaven.

Fourthly, the mercies of God are now applied to the believer’s walk. On the ground of his place in Christ dead and risen, his body is to be presented to God a living sacrifice. The world left behind, he is not to be conformed to, but Christ being his present object, he is to be transformed by the renewing of his mind. He has got a new corporate place, too, outside the world, as a member of the body of Christ, and he is to realize his place in it, and act it out as in relationship with Christ and all the members of His body. He is to be subject to the powers that be, owing no man anything but love, watching for the coming of the Lord; tender to and ready to receive his weak brethren, and respecting their consciences, in view of the judgment seat of Christ. Such in short summary is the doctrine of the epistle.

If teachers as tested by this doctrine did not bring it they were to be avoided, as causing division. They might belong to the saints themselves, and even arise amongst the elders (see Acts 20:30). They were to be avoided. No office or gift was to hinder the saints in carrying out this rule. A great mark would be, they serve not our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly. In the midst of divisions the saints are thrown upon the God of peace. He will bruise Satan, the author of divisions, under their feet shortly. Different salutations ensue which close the epistle.

A little appendix is added in which the mystery of the assembly is alluded to (Eph. 3:3-11; 5:32; Col. 1:26-28; 2:2). The apostle desires the establishment of the saints, first, according to his gospel; second, according to the mystery.

The general subject of the epistle has been to individuals. Their corporate relationships have hardly been touched. These are however founded on the truths brought out in this epistle. The doctrine of the assembly is fully brought out in the Epistle to the Ephesians. The mystery had been hid up to this time, but was now made manifest in the prophetic scriptures. Up to Christ God had been dealing with man, or with a nation called out from the other nations, but still, good and evil all mixed up together, and separated from the Gentiles by their legal system.

Now the gospel went out to Jew and Gentile alike, and those who received it were saved out of the world and out of Judaism, and united to Christ in heaven by the Holy Spirit, in which unity they formed one body, to be manifested in this world as such; such was the mystery that was unknown in the Old Testament times. It was now revealed, and all nations were required to obey; God was to have all the glory.

“Now to Him that is able to stablish you according to my gospel,” says the apostle, (this is the first thing); then, secondly, “according to the revelation of the mystery which was kept secret before the world began, but now is made manifest, and by the prophetic scriptures, according to the commandment of the everlasting God, made known to all nations for the obedience of faith; to God only wise be glory through Christ Jesus forever. Amen.”

May the reader be led on to see the beauties of this mystery, and to learn all the spiritual blessings in heavenly places he has in Christ.

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