(Notes Taken of Lectures.)
Chap. 5:16 to the end.
IT is very important to have the thoughts of God with respect to “the Spirit” as contrasted with “the flesh,” In the Apostle’s teaching, we find the doctrine of the Cross and life in the Spirit intimately connected. We cannot truthfully hold the one without the other. The Cross of Christ entirely sets the flesh aside. God’s judgment has been passed upon the flesh, by making “Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin;” and then life in the Spirit, flowing from the risen and glorified Jesus, comes out in the proper place. The spiritual man is a new order of man, coming forth after death and judgment have passed on the old man. (See ch. 2:21.)
Ver. 16. “Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.”
Walk according to the new principle which those who are quickened by the Spirit of God have received from Him. The Spirit makes us alive to new thoughts, new affections, new interests. “If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above.” The spiritual man finds everything here antagonistic to him. He cannot be at home in the world. All his interests are in another sphere. He worships in an unseen temple, and has an unseen altar and priesthood—all is spiritual―and only if we walk according to this order shall we be kept from fulfilling the lusts of the flesh. It is a very intelligible principle that the best way to keep out of bad company is to keep good company. And it requires but a small amount of Christian experience to trace our most grievous faults and failures to walking in the flesh; we forget what we have been redeemed from, and at what a price. If we walk not in the Spirit, having our desires, thoughts, and interests in heaven, we shall often fall even below the world’s standard of righteousness; because we have not the restraints which the world is forced to put on the flesh, to conceal its real character. When Israel ceased to regard their peculiar privilege of having God for their King, and desired to be as the nations among whom they were not to be reckoned, they speedily became worse than the nations. If Christians settle down into a conventional righteousness, they make the Cross only a safeguard from punishment, and know it not as a mighty separating power, as that which separates between oneself and oneself, and as that which delivers from the world. Hence their low walk; for the only real safeguard against fulfilling the lusts of the flesh is to walk in the Spirit.
Ver. 17-26. Another great truth is here brought out in strong relief. There is hardly a Christian who has not practically attempted to contradict the Apostle’s assertion, that the flesh and the Spirit are contrary the one to the other. If the doctrine of “progressive sanctification” were true, then would the flesh become gradually annihilated, and the contrariety would necessarily cease, because there would be no flesh to lust against the Spirit. But the Apostle’s doctrine is not so. It sets forth the judgment of the flesh in the Cross of Christ, and leads the Christian very experimentally to know that the flesh is enmity against God, by its constant lusting against the Spirit. We find ourselves constantly disappointed in ourselves and in others; but this only tends to teach us the unchangeable character of the flesh, whether regarded morally, intellectually, or religiously. Christendom is full of religious flesh; the worst kind of flesh, because it uses the name of Christ to sanction itself. But the Apostle does not make a one-sided statement, as if the flesh only lusted against the Spirit―that would be Antinomianism. But the flesh is hindered by a counter lusting of the Spirit, so that it cannot carry out its own enormities. The flesh is still the flesh; and we can never put off our armor as though it would not rise up against us. There is nothing which is our safeguard so much as keeping our eye fixed on the Cross of Christ, and regarding ourselves as crucified with Christ; and then, however, the flesh would say, “Spare thyself,” we shall give it no quarter, but take up our cross. 1t is an important thing to be led of the Spirit. Where did the Spirit lead Jesus? Into the wilderness, to be tempted of the devil. The Spirit leads, and leads, too, into conflict with the world, the flesh, and the devil; but the Spirit ever leads unto Jesus, and guides into all truth, and shows us where our strength is, not in legal endeavors, but in receiving out of the fullness of Jesus. “If ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under law.”
Ver. 19-26. Here we have a catalog of the works of the flesh; while some are morally offensive to us, others are not so, but are equally offensive to God. “Emulation” is a work of the flesh; but it is the principle on which most of us have been educated, and in its spirit the most opposite to Him “who did not strive, nor cause His voice to be heard in the street.” “Emulation,” as rivalry, or competition, is the life of the world―it is honored and respected, but it is but “the potsherd striving with the potsherd of the earth,” to the utter forgetfulness of the real condition of man before God, as a lost and ruined sinner. “Envying’s and murders” are grouped together, even as they came into the world together in Cain. “Drunkenness and reveling’s” are grouped together, and are very often found together. “Reveling’s and such like” comprise all the exciting amusements, for which men are wont to pay so extravagantly, stage-plays, operas, &c. The world is glad to restrain some of the more gross works of the flesh for its own sake―drunkenness, for example; but would any associate together to reclaim men from “emulations, reveling’s, and such like.” By no means. Herod heard John gladly, and did many things; but when he touched his conscience, by saying, “It is not lawful for thee to have thy brother’s wife,” he put John in prison. “Sedition and heresies” go together, party spirit sacrificing the good of the State to support or benefit a few; and party spirit, for such is heresy, preferring one’s own will to the good of the Church. How many of the works of the flesh are unholily sanctioned by the name of Christ! But in this Epistle, while the Apostle presents us with the richest exhibition of the grace of God, he also comes in with a most unsparing hand against the flesh, its lasts, its affections, and its works. “The grace of God, which bringeth salvation, teaches us to deny ungodliness, and worldly lusts, and to live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world.”
There is a happy contrast between “the works of the flesh” and “the fruit of the Spirit.” Where the Holy Spirit is, it works and produces not a single fruit, but a rich cluster of fruits― “love, joy, peace, &c.” Against such there is no law. The law restrained the works of the flesh, the Spirit produces fruit. Here, again, we find the fruit of the Spirit in close connection with the doctrine of the Cross. “They that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts.”
How little of present spiritual joy do even real Christians know. They look forward to happiness to be enjoyed in heaven at some future time. But, says the Apostle, “If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit;” and not attempt the impossibility of serving God and Mammon. This is the root of the misery of so many Christians; they desire to know present safety and security; but they “walk as men,” and think of eternal life only in the dim and distant future. But if “we live in the Spirit,” we enter on “eternal life” now, and taste of its joys.
“Let us not be desirous of vain glory, provoking one another, envying one another.” This is legalism. The moment I become legal, I say in my heart, “Thank God, I am not like that Christian.” He who lives in the Spirit lives near unto God, and being severe in judging himself, has little heart to judge another. He sees the beam in his own eye, and therefore is not quick to discern the mote in the eye of his brother. A legal spirit is a judging spirit.
Chap. 6:1-5. There is a restoring power in the grace of the gospel, of which the law was incapable. The law―the law of the land, for example―can find one guilty and condemn, but it has no power to restore. How legality comes out! A Christian has gone wrong, and brought dishonor on the name of Christ, and on the name of other Christians, and how often do we judge without any thought of restoration. The spiritual man knows how to restore, a power of which the natural man is ignorant; he can convict, but not restore. And in nothing do real Christians walk more as men than in judging others, instead of considering themselves lest they also be tempted. How wonderfully consistent is the doctrine of Scripture. “Considering thyself.” Let no Christian consider himself as proof against a fall, however faithful he may be. It is dangerous to presume on our faithfulness, but safe, in a sense of the unchanging evil of the flesh, to rest humbly, yet confidently on the faithfulness of God. Every Christian must know his own personal need of restoring grace, and to that should we look for the restoration of a fallen brother.
Christ has borne our burdens, even our sins; and His law is, “That ye love one another even as I have loved you.” We should go before God and make our brother’s sins our own, just as Daniel did, identifying himself with the sin of all Israel. “We have sinned, we have committed iniquity.” It is in this way we come into the apprehension of the restoring grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. The very fall of another, which would naturally lead us to thank God that we are not as other men are, leads us into the place of confession, and thus we bear one another’s burdens.
How common and easy it is to glory with respect to another, by drawing a comparison between ourselves and another, to our own advantage; but we are not called to give an account of others to God, but of ourselves. “Every man shall bear his own burden;” and therefore “let him prove his own work,” and not his neighbors.
Men of the world pay highly for their pleasures; but, says the Apostle, “Let him that is taught in the word communicate to him that teacheth in all good things.” Let him show that he appreciates the value of the truth of the gospel, and that he has as much delight in it, as the men of the world appreciate and value their pleasures.
Ver. 7, 8. This is a solemn word to Christians, both as connected with that which immediately precedes it, and as recognizing the solemn truth that “the flesh,” although it has received its judgment on the Cross, still puts forth its claims in the Christian, and craves to be satisfied. It is “the flesh” in the Christian. “He that soweth to his (his own) flesh.” It is easy to see that those who are in the flesh sow to the flesh, and as they sow so they reap. The Scriptures do not draw artificial distinctions, as we are wont to do; and turn the keen edge of the sword of the living God from off our own conscience, by making it apply only to the unconverted. But if the Christian sow to his flesh, he, a Christian, shall of the flesh reap corruption. “God is not mocked”―the flesh in the Christian is as bad as the flesh in an unconverted person. It is sad when the doctrine of the Cross is attempted to be used selfishly, making us only desirous to know that we are safe, and then to sow to the flesh. It does not require any very lengthened experience to prove to the Christian how every attempt to sow to the flesh has issued in disappointment, if not in disaster and corruption. But there is a peculiar form of “the flesh” to which the Christian is liable to sow, and that is to religious flesh in some shape or other. There is the tendency in us all, as in the Galatians, to get off from the true doctrine of the Cross, to turn to ordinances, or to try to please the imagination, or to puff up the intellect; and when this kind of sowing takes place, what a harvest of corruption do Christians reap. And, oh! what a mercy, however smart the discipline, if all their works are now burnt up, and they, stript of everything, are led to the Cross only to be saved by that, and nothing else. But there is an everlastingness in all that is sown in the Spirit. Where the Gospel is received it is everlasting in its effects; and there is an everlastingness in the cup of cold water given in the name of Christ. It is well for us to look to this our sowing time, for whatsoever we sow, that shall we assuredly reap.
Ver. 9, 10. The Lord’s ministry seemed to be in vain; but only seemed―it was His sowing time, and what an abundant harvest shall be gathered in from His death―that one corn of wheat fallen into the earth. The ministry of Paul seemed to end in failure, but his labor in the Lord was not in vain, as we are witnesses this day, getting strength, comfort, and refreshment from his instruction. “Let us then not be weary in well doing.” This is our time of “opportunity.” There are no such “opportunities” in heaven as we have here; no sick to visit, no fatherless, no widows no ignorant to instruct, no vicious to reclaim. Alas! on a retrospect, how many lost opportunities present themselves to our view.
Ver. 11-13. This appears to be the only Epistle which the Apostle wrote with his own hand. In others we find, another wrote at his dictation, as Tertius the Epistle to the Romans, and the Apostle closed with his benediction and signature. The Apostle’s spirit was stirred. Everything seemed to be at stake, by the tendency to fleshly religion which might distinguish man from man, without at all bringing his conscience into contact with God; but all fleshly religion, whether it consists in ordinances, or sentiment, or philanthropy, has one object, and that is to nullify the Cross of Christ. The true doctrine of the Cross can never become fashionable or palatable to the tastes of men, because it is unsparing in its declaration of not only the worthlessness of the flesh, but also of its hatred to God. Hence our danger of turning aside from the Cross to other things, which makes ourselves prominent rather than the Cross. The offense of the Cross has not ceased. Various are the devices to supersede or overlay the true doctrine of the Cross; and as it was in the Apostle’s day, so is it in our own, a busy activity in social improvement is used to conceal the glory of the gospel, which sets man as a sinner in a new and happy relation to God, the only basis of practical godliness. The prominent spirit of the age is glorying in the flesh.
Ver. 14-17. But the Apostle would only glory in the Cross of Christ. At the close of the second chapter, the Apostle propounds the doctrine of the Cross as separating between himself and himself― “I yet not I.”
In the fifth chapter he propounds the doctrine of the Cross in its great practical bearing. “They that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts.”
But in closing, the Apostle presents to us the doctrine of the Cross in its mighty moral power of separating from the world, its religion, its glory, and its judgment. The world crucified the Lord of Glory; and the place maintained by the early Christians, in relation to the world, was as a crucified thing. And the real power of the doctrine of the Cross is to show the world in its true light as a judged world, out of which the believer has, in God’s amazing grace, been rescued (see ch. 1:4), so that if he be true to the doctrine of the Cross, he must be crucified unto the world; not only one who cannot help on its interests and objects, but one who stands in the way of its interests and objects. It may be said, “Christians are not so, the world both accepts their help, and gives them help in return.” And, why? because Christians are not true to the Cross of Christ. They do not look at the world through the medium of the Cross. They do not see the world, and all that is in it, to be not of the Father,” and consequently as much arrayed against Jesus as Judas when he betrayed him with a kiss. The experiment is easy. What place has Jesus and His Cross in the busy interests of men? But better to make the experiment closer. Is the world to ourselves a crucified thing, because we glory in the Cross of Christ, and from the Cross see into a glory, which makes all the glory of this world fall into the shade?
A new creation bursts upon us when we take our stand by the Cross, and see in it the judgment of God on the old creation, and we in Christ Jesus are of the new creation; and this is the rule of our walk. They alone who see the end of the old creation in the Cross, and Jesus as Head of the new creation in resurrection, can take the place of the Israel of God. They have power with God and man, because the flesh is broken and set aside, and life in the Spirit meeting its supplies out of the fullness which is in Christ Jesus. They walk after the Spirit-peace and mercy be on them.
The false teachers insisted on the outward mark of circumcision; but, says the Apostle, I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus. Scourgings, imprisonments, cold and nakedness, sufferings in preaching the gospel of the grace of God to sinners, have left their marks on my body. Let no man, therefore, trouble me with things indifferent in themselves.