(chapter 6.)
IN the previous part of the Epistle we have the wonderful unfolding of the grace of God towards sinners; God, first of all bringing out in a clear and unmistakable manner the state of ruin in which man lay on account of his sins; then bringing in His remedy and unfolding the blessings which flow to every one who believes, whether Jew or Gentile, based upon the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. And then in the fifth chapter we find how the grace of God reaches to the very limits, and beyond the limits of man’s need — “Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound” — so that the grace of God was infinitely beyond and far superior to man’s state by reason of sin.
But now there comes a question of all importance. The flesh says, If my sin magnifies the grace of God, well, the more I sin the more the grace of God will be magnifled. I have even heard Christians say that the doctrine of the free grace of God will lead people to live carelessly. Now that is the very thing that is taken up in the beginning of this chapter. “Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?” That is impossible, it would be entirely inconsistent with the truth of Christianity for a person to argue in that way. If God’s grace is made to superabound over sin, is that a reason for us to continue in it? It would be impossible, the Spirit argues here, for us to continue in sin if we once remember how we got free from sin.
And notice this, that from the middle of the fifth chapter a new subject is treated of. It is not now a question of the sins we commit; that had been taken up in the earlier part of the Epistle — the way in which God can clear the guilty has been unfolded simply and powerfully in the third, fourth, and fifth chapters of Romans; the work which clears the guilty is a finished work, not a work that is going on now, not a work that takes place in the soul. The work that sets me before God at peace is a work that was done for me, and not a work that is being done in me. It is most important to get that clear, because there are numbers of people who are occupied with the work of the Spirit of God in them. That is all-important, but do not let us confound them. The work that enables me, as a guilty sinner, to stand justified before God is a work that was accomplished more than eighteen hundred years ago by the Lord Jesus Christ upon the cross; nothing can be added to it, and nothing can be taken from it. It is a work that has glorified God about my sins, and the moment I believe the gospel I get all the benefits of it.
But here, in this sixth chapter, we get another subject altogether. Not the sins that I have committed but the sin that dwelleth in me, the nature that commits the sins. We have that nature in us, dear friends, and the important matter is, How is it to be treated? The question which the Spirit of God raises here, “Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?” enables the apostle to bring out a truth that had not been alluded to in the previous part of the Epistle.
In the first part of the Epistle we are taught that Christ died for us, but now we come to our death with Christ. I remember one who told me that when he learned that truth it seemed as if he had got a fresh Bible. He used to tell me that three times in his life he got a fresh Bible. The first time was when he got to see that all his sins were forgiven. Before that time he used to read his Bible as a hard, religious duty, but the moment he learned that through the death of the Lord Jesus Christ all his sins were gone, and that he stood justified from them all, the book became a new book to him; it was food and refreshment to his soul. After that he learned the truth of deliverance; not merely that Christ had died for him and all his sins were gone through that, but that he had died with Christ, and that, therefore, he was gone. That opened up to him the Bible in an altogether different way. The third time was when he got to understand dispensational truth.
The sixth chapter of the Romans brings in the truth that we have died with Christ. Because grace abounds, says the apostle, where sin abounded, is that a reason why we, Christians, should continue in sin? That is impossible. How did we get into our blessings? Through Christ surely, but through a Christ that died, and if we get them through Christ’s death, it is because we are identified with Him in His death. That is the argument here. I am identified with Christ in His death. It is not only that He has died, but we have died too. “How shall we, that have died to sin, live any longer therein?” It is impossible. It is not only an inconsistency but it is an impossibility. How shall we, if we have got our place of blessing through identification with a Christ who has died, continue in that very sin to which we have died?
In Colossians 3:22Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. (Colossians 3:2), we read, “Set your affections on things above, not on things on the earth. For ye are dead.” Now that is the statement of a fact: it is God’s side of the question, and it is true of all Christians. It is not what some Christians have attained to and others are struggling after; it is true of every Christian. God says of all Christians, “Ye have died”. You may say, “I do not feel it.” But there are numbers of things in the gospel which are true of you though you may not feel them. You did not feel that your sins were forgiven until you believed what God said about them; and in reference to this truth God has said, “Ye have died.” Now let us take God’s view of the matter, and do not let us reason about it from our point of view. Let us accept God’s statement of the case and say, “Whether I feel it or whether I do not, God says it of me, and therefore it is true.” I believe that the only way in which we can really have power, is by believing the truth as God states it. Do not let us reason about it because we do not feel it, let us accept the truth as God presents it.
Here, then, it says, “Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive I unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord” (6:11) Faith is privileged to consider what God says as true. In the earlier part of the chapter the question is put, “How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?” and the first step in our Christian path bears witness to this very truth. Have we not been baptized? Now, if we have been baptized, we were not baptized to a living Christ but to a Christ who has died. All our blessings flow to us through a Christ who has died, and we are associated with a Christ who has died.
Then it goes on in the fourth verse, “Therefore we are buried with Him by baptism unto death,” but it does not stop there; the Christian is not going about the world as a dead man. I have died with Him truly, but I have a new life. Is the Lord Jesus Christ dead now? He was dead, but He is not dead now. This verse goes on to say, He was “raised from the dead by the glory of the Father.” And that is a wonderful statement. It is not merely the fact that Christ rose from the dead, but His rising from the dead was intimately bound up with the glory of the Father. It was, of course, due to the Lord Jesus Christ that He should rise from the dead. Look what it says in the thirteenth chapter of John. “Now is the Son of man glorified.” What does that word “now” refer to? It applies there to the cross. The Lord says, speaking in view of the cross and all that was going to take place there, “Now is the Son of man glorified.” And that is remarkable because we should have said it was there the Son of man was humbled; but, to the eye of God, the cross was where the Son of man was glorified, for it was there that He met all the power of sin and Satan, and, standing there alone for God’s glory, He sustained the whole weight of what that glory required. We cannot go into that part of the subject now, but the Lord goes on to say that not only is the Son of man glorified, but “God is glorified in Him.” All that God was was glorified at the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ — His righteousness, His love, His hatred of sin, and His love to the sinner. All that God was, came out and was glorified by the Lord Jesus Christ at the cross. And what has become of Christ? Is God going to leave Him in the grave? That would be impossible: that the One who had glorified God by His death should be left by that God in death — that could not be! He was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father. The glory of God the Father was concerned in the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. It could not be that God should leave in the grave the One — and that His own Son — who had glorified Him upon the cross! God’s own glory was concerned in the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. “Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father,” and that has a direct bearing upon us, for if He was raised from the dead we shall be raised too.
(To be continued.)