In Rom. 6 we are brought down to Jordan after Christ has been there for us. We are not baptized unto repentance, or merely to death, but His death. Of this we have a beautiful picture in Elisha (2 Kings 13:20-2120And Elisha died, and they buried him. And the bands of the Moabites invaded the land at the coming in of the year. 21And it came to pass, as they were burying a man, that, behold, they spied a band of men; and they cast the man into the sepulchre of Elisha: and when the man was let down, and touched the bones of Elisha, he revived, and stood up on his feet. (2 Kings 13:20‑21)). A dead man is let down into the tomb of Elisha-buried to death-a dead man buried to death. When he touches the prophet's bones he lives. We are as dead men buried by baptism unto Christ's, death that we may live.
Q. What Is Meant by Fulfilling All Righteousness Ans. I Believe He Is Looking Unto the Cross Which Is the Full Expression of What He Does Here, Identifying Himself With Sinners in Their Need; and As He Says, "Therefore Cloth My Father Love Me Because I Lay Down My Life," the Father's Voice Here Proclaims Him His Beloved Son.
"Burying" is putting the dead out of sight, and this that "as Christ was raised up from the dead, even so we also should walk in newness of life." The glory of the Father required that He should be so raised up. " Newness of life " is life of a new kind. God deals with all the evil in us by death, and buries it that we may be free for this new life.
In Romans we are seen as dead with Christ, not risen. In Ephesians we are seen as risen with Christ, not dead. In Colossians we are seen as both dead and risen, linking both together.
Death, with God, is His clearing away of the old thing to bring in what is new. Verse 5 shows that death involves resurrection.
"Verse 6. Knowing this that "our old man," etc. This " old man," I believe, is Pharaoh. It is well to distinguish the terms here. The flesh is the old nature. When Scripture wants to speak of what characterizes the flesh, it speaks of "sin in the flesh." Sin is the principle of evil which makes it what it is. Here it is the " old man," not the old nature, or the evil principle; but myself as I was, as I am by nature.
People speak of crucifixion as a lingering Here, however, it is a thing done-" our old man is crucified" and with Christ, dead long ago.
" The body of sin " is sin in the lump, as we say. " Might be destroyed " should be, rather, annulled. This is my deliverance from captivity, just as Israel at the Red Sea.
People might have thought that God would have put arms into Israel's hands to fight with Pharaoh, instead He leads them through the sea-death. The border of Egypt, and the death they passed through untouched, is the end of their enemy.
Q. Does It Mean That the Old Man Was Crucified in Us Before We Were Born?
Ans. It does not say " in us " at all. Christ's death is my death. If it were something in me, it would be experience and not faith. If I have a poison bush in my garden, and I pluck off all the berries, they will only come on again; but take the bush up and all the trouble ends. But this is not what I find, but what I reckon. I find myself one thing; I reckon myself another.
Verse 7. " He that is dead is freed from sin," " justified from sin,"-marginal reading. That is, sin cannot be charged against a dead man. Supposing he had robbed my house to-day, is he a thief? No, he is a dead man. This is said to show that nothing can be reckoned to us as having died with Christ. We are dead to sin in His death once for all. Christ left all in His grave, no more to have to say to it, forever. Well, He says that is just the very same with you. What sin did He die to? Was it not yours? Not your sins, what we have done; but your sin what is in the nature. So if it is not true of us, it is not true of Christ. So reckon yourselves to be dead indeed, unto sin.
Plenty of practical questions remain, and now we are going to have them. You cannot make an unholy doctrine of it. In fact, men do not like to say they are dead to sin, for fear they should not live like it " Let not sin reign." If the dominion of sin is broken and you let it reign, what is the result? You have chosen it as a master, and will get its wages. "The wages of sin is death." The man in chapter vii. is not in this condition; he has not chosen servitude, but has not learned deliverance, is wanting to get free. Thus the profession of freedom tests the actual condition. If he freely yields himself to sin he gets its wages.
Verse 17. " That form of doctrine whereto ye were delivered "-type or mold. If we believe it, we are like metal run into a mold, shaped by the doctrine we believe. If I have obeyed it from the heart, I yield myself up to it with delight.
Verse 18. Made slaves to righteousness. Verse 19, " I speak after the manner of men," i. e., in saying we are slaves. You yield yourselves to become slaves; but it is not bondage, but liberty. " Servants of uncleanness and iniquity " as a principle, for the purpose of iniquity as a fact. So again, servants of righteousness, for sanctification. All this is for the purpose of disconnecting a mere orthodox profession with unholiness of life, from Christianity.
As in chap. 8:12, you are debtors, not to the flesh to live after the flesh, for if you live after the flesh you shall die. He says it to these Roman Christians whom he addresses as saints. With their ideas of correct doctrine, many would not know what to think of it, but it does not exalt grace to suppose that it does not deliver from that which calls for wrath as well as from the wrath itself. " Ye shall die " (Rom. 8), is really " ye are about to die," or at the point of death. Such persons are on the road to death, but God may interfere at any point to turn them out of it. On the other hand, " If ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body," not you are about to live, but you "shall live." Nothing can come in to alter that.
Verse 22 is the path and its end. " Ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life." But eternal life is not wages for all that; but a gift. How does this " end everlasting life " correspond with " hath everlasting life?" In the one case (the latter) it is in me; in the other, I enter into it, as a -general condition.