Queries, expositions, comments original or selected, references of all sorts, parallel passages and other notes on Romans 10; 11. can be sent by any subscriber, addressed “B. C.” Editor of B. S., 27 Paternoster Square, E. C., on or before the 25th instant.
All communications must be brief and pointed, diffuse commentaries on the whole Scripture being avoided. The papers sent may be shortened, or omitted wholly, or in part, at the discretion of the Editor. No communications can be returned, but each will be acknowledged at the head of the Conversation.
Communications have been received from E. H. S. —G. K. B. —Yod. — A. M. 11. —C. H. P. —E. B. —E.
Romans 7
G. K. B. —We may subdivide this chapter as follows:—
1. Simile of two husbands, ver. 1-6; 2. Is the law sin? I 12; 3. Is the law death? 13-16; 4. Discovery of the two natures, 17-23; 5. Deliverance, 24, 25.
3. Sins dealt with 3:21-5:11 1. Propitiation
a. Blessing by faith (Abraham)
b. Blessing by faith (David)
c. Blessing apart from the law
d. Blessing applied to us
a. Normal Christian position
1. Abstractedly, Adam and Christ
3. As connected with the law
a. Simile of two husbands
d. Discovery of the two natures
5. Complete, triumphant deliverance
1. The Spirit, as life in us
2. The Spirit, as a distinct indwelling Person
3. God for us in everything
G. K. B. —Death is the grand principle. As with sin, so with the law. We cannot have both Christ and the law.
Yod. —The apostle, in this chapter, shows not merely that we possess a new nature, but that this nature is dead as regards its relationship to the law. Till we realize our true position, if we believe ourselves under law, it makes us miserable, for we know good and evil, but cannot perform the good nor resist the evil.
A.M.H. —This chapter seems written to adapt to the Jews the same truth which, in the foregoing chapters, is written for the Gentiles. Here it is “for them that know the law,” and uses a figure more especially adapted to- them, but it is the same truth as is taught in the foregoing—viz. that the believer’s members (his whole body) are the Lord’s, and should be devoted to His service. Chapter 6:12,13, and 6:5, 6.
Many persons say, such an one is in the seventh of Romans, or that everyone must pass through the seventh of Romans. Do you not think this is an error, against which this very chapter is directed? Paul often spoke in the first person as a figure; see 1 Corinthians 4:66And these things, brethren, I have in a figure transferred to myself and to Apollos for your sakes; that ye might learn in us not to think of men above that which is written, that no one of you be puffed up for one against another. (1 Corinthians 4:6). But even if he really had gone through this, it was because he had not then the full light he afterward had. Why, when we are told, “Now ye are delivered from the law,” “ye are dead to the law by the body of Christ,” must we go under it, to go through an experience which is not really Christian, and from which Paul shows us the way of deliverance?
Ed. —We quite agree that if we accept the truth as taught in God’s word, we do not wish to put it to the proof, but, as a matter of fact, there are few Christians who have not at one time or other practically passed through some part, at any rate, of the close of the chapter.
C. H. P. —It certainly seems from verse 1 That this chapter is addressed to Jews. How far would it apply to us? Could we take up verse 4, 6, &c. since we were never under the law.
Ed. —Only in a general way. It is curious how anxious many Christians are to put themselves under law when in the first place they were Gentiles who had no law, and in the second even had they been Jews, they have become dead to it by the body of Christ.
E. H. S. —Are not there two interpretations of the meaning of this chapter? (a) Paul speaking personally in two ways, from 7-13, in past tense describing his unregenerate state, and 14-24 the feelings and actions of his renewed nature. (b) That Paul is simply describing the powerlessness of the law, in contrast with the power of the gospel, and showing the state of man under grace, and that to suppose Christian experience is described is to make his argument self-destructive, as proving the inefficacy of gospel and law.
Ed. —We will consider this question a little farther on. I think G. K. B.-has something to say to us about it.
E. —What answers to the woman in ver. 2?
Ed. —Does not ver. 4 tell us?
G. K. B. —In ver. 4 the image is changed in its application it is not the law (the husband) that dies, but we.
Yod. —Yes. How careful the apostle is not to imply that the law is dead, but that we are dead to the law. What is the distinction between νεκρος here and in verse 8, and αποθνησκω in ver. 2, 6, 9? Does not the former imply utter helplessness, as a lifeless carcass, the latter being a weaker form of expression?
Ed. —The former is a stronger word, and only applied to that which is dead, the latter to that which can die.
E. B. —Ver. 6 should read “being dead to that wherein we were held” (as in Revised Version). The law is not dead, but I am.
G. K. B. —See also Galatians 2:1919For I through the law am dead to the law, that I might live unto God. (Galatians 2:19). The flesh, the law and the world are correlatives, and the Christian belongs to none of them, but to Christ and to Him risen from the dead. Death to law, as well as to sin, is the fruit of Christ’s death and resurrection and the privilege of the Christian. The law lives to condemn every living soul, who pretends to a righteousness of his own.
Ed. —We now approach the so-called experimental verses on which E H. S. has touched, and it is of importance to understand whose experience they represent.
G. K. B. —It has been assumed that the experience described in these verses is that of either a natural man or a Christian. This is an error. It is the case of one born again, but not yet in conscious deliverance. Hence being jealous of God, but ignorant of the full place in which redemption sets the believer, such a soul places itself under law, and the operation of the law is therefore exhibited to us. There is an awakened conscience, but no power. If the new nature were not there, such experience could not be; but if the Holy Ghost were there, power would follow, as in Chapter 8.
Ed. —It is not then really any individual person that is speaking, least of all Paul; but he is putting the case for greater vividness in the first person, and the subject is the judgment of a nature, but a nature which till I know redemption (ver. 20) is myself to my conscience. We may remark that the will is supposed always right, and yet good is never done. This is not the Christian state. We can do all things through Christ who strengthens us. Further, the man is here a slave, in Chapter 8:2 he is set free. In verse 5 we are supposed to be in the flesh, not so in 8:9. If a man be not dead with Christ he is fully in the flesh. But even if he be dead and does not know it, his mind and conscience are on that ground with God.
Ed. —Does it not mean sin in its very root, in its inward workings? Gross sins all can discern, but the hidden principle of lawlessness in the human heart (which is sin) is immediately called forth by any restraint, and it is the restraint, or law, which reveals it. Without the law, sin lay as it were dormant, at least its more subtle forms.
C. H. P. —I can never understand verse 9. Is not, a Gentile as dead in sin as a Jew?
Ed. —A person can go on pretty well in his own sight at any rate, as long as he is left alone. But when a perfect Divine standard is brought to bear upon all his ways, they are seen at once in a very different light, and he sees at once that with such a standard, which only provokes while it condemns the sin within him, which he feels powerless to resist, there is nothing before him but death. Thus though a Gentile may be as dead in sin as a Jew, his transgressions have not been brought home to his conscience in the same way. It is not here speaking of facts abstractedly before God, but only of the way in which they are felt and estimated by the quickened, but not delivered conscience.
E. B. —The law skews me what I am, but does not give me power to do the right.
Yod. —Paul might have had some such experiences as here described during the three days, Acts 9:99And he was three days without sight, and neither did eat nor drink. (Acts 9:9). He uses the pronoun “I” in several cases such as Romans 3, 1 Corinthians 4; 10.
Ed. —Observe how in verse 7 the question is asked, “Is the law sin?” and that being answered in the negative, how the further question is asked in verse 3, “Is the law death?”
E. —The law may well be compared to a mechanical tool, such as a plumb line, a square, or level, or rule; it shows how far the work is from being upright or square.
C. H. P. —Is the one speaking in ver. 14 in the same state as in ver. 15? Because in ver. 15 he seems to be a converted man possessing the new nature.
G. K. B. — “We know,” is proper christian experience.
Ed. —Yes, and the “I” is not. It is the hypothetical experience of a soul that has the instincts of a new life without the liberty, or, in other words, the possession of it without the knowledge of the power. It is not, as has been said, the experience of an unconverted man, neither is it true christian experience.
G. K. B. — “I” and “we” are used 42 Times. What is wanted is not a better self, but deliverance from self.
E. B. —At last in verse 18 I learn there is no good in me. What a long time it takes to learn this; but, having learned it, now I can look to Christ for help.
Ed. —Yes, but observe that first he learns that the “me” is not here self after all, but the flesh.
Yod. —In verses 13-25 the apostle learns four things. 1. That in his flesh there is no good thing. 2. That the flesh is not himself, for he hates it. 3. That the flesh is too strong for him. 4. That there is a Deliverer.
Ed. —Yes, it is indeed a grand discovery when I find out that the old nature is no longer “I” at all. In verse 20 we get, now if I (the old nature) do that I (the new nature) would not, it is no more I (myself) that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.
C. K. B. —But though the “I” is renewed, it is powerless without the Spirit.
Ed. —Yes; it is an immense lesson to learn that we have not power. Thus taught, the man ceases to look to being better, or to doing; he has learned what he is, and looks for deliverance. The moment God has brought him to this, then all is clear. He thanks God, through Christ our Lord.
G. K. B. —Whenever we are without strength Christ is always our resource. (Chapter 5:6.)
C. H. P. —What is the exact meaning of the word “mind” in these verses?
Ed. —The man’s desire or true will, in contrast to his acts, which he feels are contradictory to it.
G. K. B. —The Spirit of God takes care, in the closing verse, to guard the soul against the illusion that the flesh is changed for the better. If the flesh act at all. it can only sin.
E. —Are we not as to our state of soul often under the law, or rather under our old self, while as to our doctrinal knowledge, we have died and risen, and are seated in Christ where He is. How is it?
Ed. —When once we have really grasped the truth of verses 17 and 20 in our souls I do not believe we ever lose it again. Two things are necessary for liberty. One is to see that we are free, that the flesh is not ourselves at all, and the other is to walk in the power of this in freedom. But we must leave the full’ development of the blessings of freedom to the next chapter. Up to this we have learned that at any rate we are no longer slaves to sin, or under the law.