“LET not sin therefore reign in your mortal body.” We are troubled by this very thing. We know well the truth of this. It is this that troubles a Christian, his evil nature; he thought he was going to be very different from what he is.
Perhaps you say, “I remember when I was first brought to the Lord, I was so full of joy, and could sing from morning till night; I had such a happy time, and I thought that I should have no more trouble with this evil nature, but I find I have got it in me.” Yes, and so have I, and so has every Christian, but that is no reason why it should have dominion over me. “Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it.” I have a new master, and that is what the next verse brings before us. “Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin.” I have a new master, and that old master, Sin, I no longer recognize. I have broken with him forever. Death has broken the link between me and that old master, Sin, and these members, my hands, my feet, and — which is perhaps more difficult — my tongue, these are my members, and now I am not going to yield them to that old master, Sin, I have done with him, and I am going to yield my members to a new master — to God.
It is a very important word, that word “yield,” and I suppose it is that which has made so many people talk of consecration, and a very good thing it is to be consecrated. We get it in this verse, “Yield yourselves unto God.” How often can I do that? I believe once and only once. The moment that truth lays hold of me, that I am dead with Christ and alive unto God; I mean when it takes possession of my moral being; when I get to see the blessed truth that God has made an end of me altogether in the cross of Christ, and has given me a new life, and wants me to live in that life, I yield myself to God. “Yield yourselves unto God,” that is, change your master. I was yielded unto sin, now I am yielded unto God. But here is a thing which may go on day by day, “and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God.” That, I believe, is a daily thing. I yield myself to God, that is a change of master, and I yield my members to Him for service. I have broken with my old master, and I am now going to yield my members, and all that I have, to God’s service.
We may fail in practice, but that is the principle. My feet, my hands, my tongue, everything that I am, is to be yielded to God to do His will. I am not left here merely to please myself. What am I left here for? I do not know a single thing that a Christian is left for but to be for God in this world. God might have taken me to heaven the moment I was converted, as He did the thief on the cross. Ah, but He left even him here long enough to do what you and I have never been called upon to do, and that was to be the solitary witness for Christ when the whole world was against Him. There was not a single one witnessing for Christ but that poor thief; not even the disciples! Rejected by the world as Christ was, God gives him the privilege of being the solitary witness for Christ in this world at that time, and, as soon as he had rendered that noble testimony, He took him to Paradise; and He might have taken us to Paradise long ago, but He has left us here to show to this world that we have changed our master and that we now serve Him to whom we belong.
Look at the 14th verse, “For sin shall not have dominion over you; for ye are not under the law but under grace.” That is a very different thing to what would naturally have come into my mind. The flesh would have reasoned that unless the terrors of the law are kept hanging over my head, I shall be doing my own pleasure. Now, let me give you an illustration of that. Suppose you had in your neighborhood a boy who is so depraved that every time he passes your house nothing gives him greater pleasure than to throw stones at your windows and break them. You try to stop it by calling out to the boy, but he does not mind what you say. Then you threaten him, and tell him that if he does not stop you will hand him over to the police. That only makes him more careful to avoid you, but he breaks your windows just the same. And so you take a fresh way of dealing with him altogether, and the next time he passes you are beforehand with him and you say, “Look here, my boy, I see you are in poor circumstances and you do not look as if you had good food; I will take you into my family, and I will treat you as my child; I will bring you into my house, and will clothe and feed you.” That breaks the boy down, and he says, “I cannot go on breaking the windows now that I am not under law outside the house, but under grace inside the house.” We are brought into this relationship with God, no longer under the law but brought into a place of relationship in grace; but God cannot allow me to go on in the old sinful way now that I am under grace. Suppose the boy was to forget the relationship into which he had been brought and to begin breaking the windows again. You would say, “You must not do that, I am going to treat you as my child, I would not give my child up to the police, but I must punish him myself.” Now, that is grace, and that breaks down the heart, and, therefore, sin in a practical sense shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under the law but under grace.
“What then? shall we sin, because we are not under the law but under grace? God forbid.” In other words, shall we break the windows because we are not under law but under grace, “God forbid.”
“Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey.” If I have yielded myself to a person to be his servant, I am his servant. Nothing can be simpler than that. And if you have yielded yourself to God, it is to obey Him, and that obedience is “obedience unto righteousness.” It does not say obedience unto life, mark, because that would make out that I have to obey in order to get life. No, I have the life first, then follows obedience unto righteousness, and, in the 17th verse, it says that we “have obeyed from the heart.” Not obeyed from fear — that would be the law — but obeyed from the heart; it gives new motives altogether. Christianity brings me into such a relationship to God that, instead of the terrors of the law hanging over my head, I obey out of love. “Ye have obeyed from the heart.”
Now, a few words on the 18th verse, “Being made free from sin.” Are you free from sin? You say, “How can you ask me such a question, I have sin in me, how can I be free from it?” That is not the meaning of the word “free” here. In the English language the word “free” has two senses. Suppose a slave is set free. He is free from his master, and that is the sense in which the word is used here. It does not mean free from the presence of sin in us, but we are free from sin as a power outside us. We are free from allegiance to sin; we are free from the power of sin; we are free men. Well, what is to be done then? I can do what I like now; and in one sense that is true. “Being then made free from sin ye became the servants of righteousness.” Yes, I am free from sin now, and I yield myself to God.
We get in this chapter four different reasons why we should not live our old life, I mean the old life that we lived before we were converted. The first is the impossibility of doing it because we are dead, that we see in the 2nd verse, and in two or three other verses. No, I cannot go on as I did, because I am dead. Then we get the second reason in the 14th verse, How can I go on in my old way when I am under grace? We get the third reason in the 17th verse, I have obeyed from the heart. In the 22nd verse we get the fourth reason, I am a servant to God.
What fruit had you in your old life of sin? Did it give you any satisfaction or joy? Do you think the thief gets any satisfaction out of his thieving? or whatever it may be that the lusts of the human heart lead men to? “What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed?” Yes, how truly a Christian can say, “I am ashamed of it all! What was the fruit of it after all? Nothing but disappointment, for the end of those things is death.” That is the end of a worldly man’s life; death for the body and for the soul too in a certain sense: but not annihilation. There is a “Hereafter,” and that is what makes it so serious. But, being made free from sin and alive unto God, we have “fruit unto holiness;” that is to say, we grow in the knowledge of God, We should know more of God today than we did a year ago. If you are always living in somebody’s company you get to know a little more about that person from day to day, and if you are in the company of the Lord Jesus Christ you should get to know more about Him.
Do the five foolish Virgins represent converted or unconverted people? Had they not some oil?
WHETHER the lamps had gone, or were only going out, makes no real difference as to the grand teaching of the parable, and, as far as this goes, either the one or the other is quite compatible with the absence of oil. The statement that the foolish “have some oil” is most objectionable; not a word implies it; nay, what is said both by the wise virgins and by the Lord would imply the reverse, even if we had not the plain and positive declaration that the foolish “took their lamps, and took no oil with them.” Why might not wicks be lit and relit without oil? I agree that “are going out” is a more correct rendering than the ordinary version; but it in no way shows that the virgins had oil, or that they were more than professors without the Holy Ghost, though responsible for and designated according to the position they assumed.
As to the unconverted being called “virgins,” there is no more difficulty there than in the “servant” of the preceding parable. In either case they took that place, and were judged accordingly. There are Christians who love Christ’s appearing in the midst of much ignorance as to its details. There are professors who talk much of the Second Advent, and hold it to be pre-millennial, But I assuredly believe that the former, if they are alive and remain till the coming of the Lord, will be caught up to meet Him; and that the latter, if they abide unregenerate, must have their portion outside, where shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
B. W. R.