Comments Upon Texts
Table of Contents
Comments Upon Texts
1. Eph. 2:4,5.
PH 2:4-2:5{" But God, who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ (by grace are ye saved)."
The first word, here, is "but"; a little word which shows that what follows it is disconnected from what goes before: in this case, it is in contrast with it. Man had just been spoken of,-but now God is brought in, in contrast to man. It was man, according to what God saw of his ways, when dead in trespasses and sins; thus (ver. 1), dead in trespasses and sins—this was their state; and the marks of this state, as found in man's ways, are thus described in ver. 2:-"A walk according to the course of this world" (which is at enmity against God), and, therefore, a walk according to the god of this world, who is the prince of the power of the air; the spirit who now worketh in the children of disobedience; and the habitual walk, the turn of such, was in the lusts of the flesh and of the mind, for they were children of wrath, even as others.
That was on one side; and an awful view it gave of man. " But," on the other side, in contrast with all this, there was God, and God according to His nature and ways; " God who is rich in mercy, for His great love, wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ." Here is God and His wondrous ways in contrast with man and his ways. First, God in contrast with man—then His characteristic trait, who is rich in mercy- and then a particular proof of it in His love to us. Mark, here, that mercy, in its very nature, excludes every thought of worthiness, merit, or claim, being in the party to whom it comes; it supposes unworthiness, demerit, want, and misery, in the party benefited; and that all the benefit conferred flows forth from the party that confers it, upon the sole ground that He can compassionate and feel pity for the party in need, although He distinctly recognizes, at the very time of doing so, that the said party is in a state other than He counts happy or desirable. We could not say, God was merciful to Christ. If any one used such an expression to us, we should be obliged to point out the impropriety of the expression; it would be a most injurious and wrong word to use in such a connection. For Christ Jesus could say, " He that hath seen me hath seen the Father also"; and the Father could say of Him, "This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased." Christ Jesus came to do God's will, and did it perfectly in all things; and had worthiness and claims before God, which God delights to honor. He was not the object of mercy, nor could be so, because there was nothing in Him to move the compassion or pity of God, hut everything calculated to give God delight—everything that pleased God. To use such an expression would be (however unconsciously it might be done) to speak disparagingly and injuriously of the Lord. For in Christ was life, and the life was the light of men. But when God looked on us, we were dead in trespasses and sins; and God's bearing toward us was a bearing of mercy. Death in trespasses and sins He did not delight in; it might have turned him away offended; but He pitied, compassionated us; had mercy upon us, and He who condemned the sins, desired to save the sinner.
Thus we have man, his condition, and ways; and God, his compassion and ways, set in contrast. I say His compassion and ways, because " who is rich in mercy" gives a trait or mark in His character, and " for the great love wherewith He loved us," gives an acting of that characteristic trait in the salvation which grace has set before us and made ours.
" For His great love wherewith He loved us." What a word is this! To know, with certainty, that, notwithstanding all that we have done and were by nature, yet that there
is one bosom in which there is love toward us; and that bosom the very one in which we should have supposed there would have been displeasure and wrath; for, if we look at ourselves merely as creatures standing before a Creator whom we have dishonored, what else but indignation and wrath had we to expect? Indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish, would have been our just reward for our evil deeds and fallen nature. But it is not so. Vile as we were, and vilely as we acted, God, acting as Redeemer, and not merely in the character of Creator, has loved us freely; has given His Son for us; and we that believe can say, " He loves us and loves us with a great love."
Ver. 5. "Even when we were dead in sins." Here we have our state in nature again brought before us, and brought before us in the most concise way possible. The acorn has an oak tree folded up in it; many a little spring of water is the mother of a river; and a soul that has death in sins in it has all the big tree of sin and all its fruits folded up in it, and is the mother source of all the swollen river of man's wickednesses. Now, if I was such, what had I to expect as such from God? What, if God had acted according to my state and my deserts, would have been my lot? Nothing but the second death. And what motive could God draw from anything which I, who was altogether dead, could give Him. I thought myself to be as God himself; and had no notion that the Lord He is God alone; and had altogether a wrong notion about Himself. No; He could find, He did find, nothing good in me. But where all was death in sins, there He was pleased to act from Himself, to draw forth motives from within Himself; and He could find reasons why He should quicken us together with Christ. If I consider what I was, I can find no reason why God should bless me, and not rather curse; and if I consider that God was the blesser, for His own name's sake, and what the way is in which He has blessed, I say, " It is clear, merit and deserving in the creature is quite shut out of the question." God was the source, the spring of the blessing; why should He have done; it? He is rich in mercy. Ay, He has a character of His own I and 'tis a blessed one too. Fallen man does not like Him alone to be God. But God He is still. Fallen man draws his picture of God according to his own fallen imagination and corrupt lusts and passions. But God has a character of His own. He has no thought of ceasing to be or of ceasing to be God alone—or of changing His character because man has become a wreck and a ruin. He is God, and He is rich in mercy. He has loved us when we were dead in sins. And the how and the why of the blessing, which He has bestowed upon us, both alike declare that it was not according to our thoughts, nor for our sakes, as the end of His acting, that He blessed us thus.
Mark the why of His blessing: " That in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us through Christ Jesus." What could be plainer? " That He might show the exceeding riches of His grace." Yes; God will not give His glory to another. If He, whose very existence and being, fallen man hates, despises, and rebels against, does act in a way to make such happy, He does it for His own glory's sake as an end; does it on the ground of what He God is. In nature and character He is rich in mercy. And this shuts out all thought of its being done because of any deserving in us.
But as the party blessing, His motives for blessing, and His end in blessing, each and all, bid us think of Him, and cease from thinking of ourselves; just so does also His way of blessing. What is His way of blessing? Is it a way that lies, so to speak, in the field of fallen human nature (as the putting forth of our power to stop sin, and to work good works in ourselves does); Or is it a way such as fallen man never thought of, never knew anything about? Yes; it is a way quite above man, quite outside the field of human nature, fallen or unfallen.
" Quickened us together with Christ," is His first word when setting forth that way. What could Adam in the Garden have understood about being quickened together with Christ? What does a sinner know about God's quickening together with Christ? The way is God's way; and as the heavens are high above the earth, so are God's ways high above man's ways: " His ways are not as our ways, nor his thoughts as our thoughts.
God had an only begotten Son. Him He gave, that He might become Son of man, the anointed of God. Man I did he bring in that Christ into the world? No: men, with wicked hands, crucified and slew Him. They did what they could to send Him out of the world, when He had come into it without their leave, and had stayed in it a good bit longer than they liked. And, mark it, this matter whereof He speaks had no place in Eden, did not lie, was not found, in that field which was given to man. Man ought not to have touched the forbidden tree, then would he not have died. But death was the end of all that man could see, so as to reap it by disobedience.
Having a new life, resurrection and glory were not fruits that grew in nature's barren soil. But God, to please Himself, introduced the seed of the woman, this Christ of whom we speak, as the One by whom and for whom He could go on with the earth, after Adam and Eve had altogether failed in the Garden of Eden; saying: " The seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head.' And that He, the Christ, might, as Son of man and the Woman's Seed, not be alone in His glory, He had to die. For, "except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone, but if it die it bringeth forth much fruit." Well! death, the wage due to our sin, He freely took, in obedience to the thoughts of God. He was crucified, died, and was buried, that God might be able to be just while justifying us poor sinners; and He has said, that He reckons us crucified, dead, and buried, as to our old man, together with Christ; and that we are to reckon ourselves so likewise. But His taking of His life again, His rising from the grave, His going up into heaven, His being blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places, was part of what pertained to the second Adam, and had no place in the portion of the first. Now, no man can go beyond what is human in thought. And it was God, and not man, from whom that thought and that way came forth of believers being quickened together with Christ.
Christ was buried in the sepulcher in the garden. But He could see no corruption. And He who had power to lay down His life, had power also to take it again; for this commandment had He received of the Father. Well, on the first day of the week, He awoke, was quickened while in the grave; and, therefore, all that ado outside, of earthquake, of sepulcher door-stone rolled away, etc.; He was quickened-and, says our text, " we were quickened together with Him."
The act and fact and moment of the Lord Jesus Christ's taking His life again, is not sufficiently thought of by us. It ought to be looked at in and by itself. The Roman Catholic religion (religion of fallen human nature) pictures to us a Christ a-crucifying, and gives us images of wood, stone, and ivory out of all number of a human figure on the cross. Of eternal moment to us is the fact, that the Christ of God was crucified, has been crucified, because He bore our sins in His own body on the tree. But, as Paul tells us 1 Cor. 15, His death was naught, if He did not rise from the dead; we are yet in our sins But Christ is risen from the dead; and He left the grave empty, save of those grave-clothes which have since, as has His cross on which He was hung, and our sins also, passed away; never more to be found. God honors the Christ who was crucified, the Christ who was buried, but is alive again.-Now, if I had to prove, as saith Paul, 1 Cor. 15, the forgiveness of sins, I point to the One that is risen: and might, in a figure, say, " Turn to the grave; it is empty. He left there naught but the grave-clothes." But this is not enough when the question comes as to God's way of blessing us-" quickened together with Christ." Then I have to turn neither to the guarded, imprisoning tomb where the body of the Lord lay; nor to the empty tomb, He being gone up on high; but I turn in thought to the tomb burst open now, for He is just alive from among the dead; and because He is therein, and because God gives testimony in the scene; the guards are fled, and the disciples are being drawn, by various means, thereunto. Oh, it is a blessed thought! that blessed One taking His life again; that One, who was all God's joy, and God's delight, quickening into life afresh, as Son of man, in the tomb. Blessed in itself! and blessed to us, because it is written of us-" quickened together with Him."
The life He took, is that of which He has communicated to us, as He did to Paul and to these Ephesians: and, therefore, as that life which He gives to us believers is of that life which He took when He awoke from death, it can be said, and it is said, "quickened together with Him.".Saul 1 where was he when Christ awoke in the grave? These wicked Ephesians! where were they at that time? Both were dead in sins. Well, when Christ had called them, and given them of that life which He took, they were no longer looked upon by God according to the old man, but according to the new man. By reason of the old man in us, Christ has been crucified, dead, and buried. But He took life anew, and has given to us of that life, of a life which the old man had not; and God looks upon us as vessels in which it dwells -a life inseparable from the source whence it flows; a life in us which enables Him to say to us, enables us to say of ourselves that believe, " Quickened together with Christ." The root, the germ, the incorruptible seed of all blessing is in -this life. And I pray you, reader, to mark, that the moment the Spirit, through Paul, has said, 'Quickened together with Christ,' He makes a pause, -marks a bar, -so as to shut this off from all the consequences of it. For, however blessed and important these consequences of life possessed are, they are not the life itself, but consequences of it. Therefore, the moment He has said, " quickened together with Christ," He makes a pause,-introduces a parenthesis,-which seems to be a mark, to mark off what He has just said from that which follows after it: "quickened together with Christ (by grace ye are saved)." Ay! if quickened together with Christ, then we are saved in, and inseparably from, Him. And that is the best part of what God has to give us.
Truly, this salvation is of the Lord God alone. And as man never dared to say to God, " I have sinned, and Thou must bear the penalty," so he never hit upon such a thought as this, " if God quickened in the grave His Son whom we had crucified, we will share all that is His I" But what man never thought of, what, if he had said, it would have been awful, blasphemy on his part, both in the one case and the, other,-that was God's thought and plan. Man had sinned; God manifest in the flesh should bear the penalty; and the reward and glory which He should win for this service, He would freely share with all His disciples: For they should be quickened together with Him.
2. Colossians 2:13.
OL 2:13{" And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath He quickened together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses."
The Epistle to the Ephesians presents us with the doctrine of " ye in Me" (John 14:20), if I may so say; that is, the doctrine of the believer's being blessed in Christ Jesus—as being hidden by God in Christ. The privileges which go along with being in Christ being the special object of that epistle when it speaks of the quickening of a believer together with Christ—the mind has that subject brought before it, as connected with the character and date of the first blessing of having association with Christ in His life, as taken anew after He had borne our sins in His own body on the tree. The Epistle to the Colossians gives us rather, " I in the Father" (John 14:20); and accordingly, as it seems to me, when we have the quickening together with Christ spoken of in it, it is more in that connection. Ordinances and man's doings were being plied by Satan on the Colossians, as things necessary to make their salvation complete, to make their blessing perfect and secure. Such a thought was worthy of Satan; to Paul and the Spirit of God it seemed to be nothing short of calling into question the Sonship of Jesus, and all the counsels, plans, and thoughts of God the Father about that Son. The present day is a day in which the busy energy of man's flesh lends itself, in many places, to Satan in this way; and in Romanism, Puseyism, and a good many other " isms," which are but the expression of the workings of the flesh, it is held and taught that there is an " unless ye do" this or that (in addition to having Christ for salvation), ye cannot be saved. This evil may have two phases of it; the one (as in Colossians),:the being subject to ordinances; and the other (as in Galatians), the subjecting of the flesh to rites and ceremonies; but, in both cases, it is, in essence, the same thing. The flesh in us is accredited, man honored, and worldliness sanctioned; and so the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost dishonored, discredited, and contemned.
Satan is very crafty; he hates Christ with a perfect hatred; and hates those who stand upon Christ as the foundation for His sake. If he cannot injure Christ in His own person, he is glad in any way to show his own hatred against Him, and to mar: His honor in His people. He will attack them, and Christ's honor in them, in foundation and superstructure. Is a soul brought into peace, and at rest, to the praise of God's grace and mercy, upon Christ? Satan sees it, and his spite is kindled. He knows the self-righteousness of our flesh, he knows the love of man for having something to do; he does not like that hanging, that dependance of ours, upon what is above in Christ; he would like to have us occupied for rest with something round us in that world which is enmity against God. Some one comes to the place where such are, no one may know whence or why, and sets forth most beautifully the great work which God has done in Christ, and all the wondrous benefits connected with it; and that all man has to do to get the benefit, is to observe a rite (as circumcision, etc.), or some ordinance, a sabbath-day or a moon. O how little a thing to give for so great a benefit! Only just suffer yourself to be dipped, only just do this or that little thing! What heart will refuse? And oft he so succeeds, and draws the very hearts which were full of mercy and grace, in their folly and simplicity, to allow all the impulse which mercy and grace had to their hearts to be turned round against the Giver. Such a little thing! such a nothing! Yes: but it is man's little thing,-it is a nothing of this world which is at enmity with God. God will not give His glory to another; and if you substitute anything for mercy as the fountain, if you give anything in exchange for Christ, man, and not God, is glorified. The energy that raises my foot to go into the water, or leads me to forbear touching a dog, is quite as bad in this place, little as it be, as the energy which would compass sea and land to make one proselyte. The gift to God of a prayer, even, would be as great an insult, if it were in exchange for Christ, as a bag of gold. The Spirit's severity in meeting both cases is awfully stern: " But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other Gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. As we said before, so say I now again, If any man preach any other Gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed" (Gal. 1:8,9).
And though the rebuke be couched in softer words in Colossians, yet is the judgment of the apostle quite as clear. Such things are tantamount to " not holding the Head, from which all the body by joints and bands having nourishment ministered, and knit together, increaseth with the increase of God" (Col. 2:19).
See who and what the Christ is, in whom we are complete; and then, as a man, say whether we can add anything to Him, and whether, it is not worse than madness to think of doing so. " The Father hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light;.: -bath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of His dear Son, in whom we have redemption through His blood, even the forgiveness of sins." Such is our blessing; and who is He in whom it is?
He is, 1st, the Son of God's love (Col. 1:13); and He is, 2ndly, the image of the invisible God; 3rdly, born. pre-eminent to every creature; (necessarily so, because) 4thly, all things were created by and for Him; who is, 5thly, the one by whom all is upheld; 6thly, He is the Head of the body, the church; the beginning; the first-born from the dead; and in Him, too, it was pleasing that all fullness should dwell -Redeemer, for heaven and for earth. He being such, and the one in whom dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, and we complete in Him, who is the Head of all principality and power, how can we add to or take from him as foundation? If quickened together with Rim, no ordinance, no rite, can possibly be necessary in order that we be blessed; for we are blessed in Him. And to say otherwise was, according to Paul, to give up Christ as the Head, and to compromise the faith.
There is this difference in the two contexts, Eph. 2 and Col. 2 In the first, the quickening comes in as the starting-point of all the vast range of blessing attendant upon faith. In Colossians, it comes in as showing that law and ordinance had no hold of a Christian, because they had no hold upon Christ when He took His life anew—we were quickened together with Him. And the life so communicated is given without ordinances or rites; and it leads us to walk as they could not give us power to do.
Note.-If any have, or make, any difficulty as to the meaning of quickening in Scripture, the following texts will serve them:-
"That which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die; ... the last Adam was made a quickening [or life-giving] spirit" (1 Cor. 15:36, 45).
" If there had been a law which could have given life" (Gal. 3:21).
Comments Upon Texts: 3. Living Together With Christ
"Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him" (Rom. 6:8).
This statement might be taken into its component parts, thus:- There is, first, "death together with Christ;" which is put forward, not in a form which declares it attaches to this or to that one, to those or to these persons, but put with an hypothesis, which is the second point to notice-an if:-" If death together with Christ is true of us "-then there follows, thirdly, the certain consequence thereof, " that we shall reign together with Him."
Or, if you please, you may state it thus:-This is faith's assured statement, " We shall live together with Christ, IF we be dead together with Him."
So far all is clear, I think. But some pass over the mode in which the consequence (of being dead together with Christ) is put, viz., " we shall also live together with Him;" " for," say they, " we know, and assuredly believe, that we do already live together with Him; why, then, is a future tense (we shall live) used, and not a present tense, we do live."
it is quite true, we that believe have life already, and know that we have it together with Christ; for it is written, as of that which is a truth, and true at the present time to the believer. " Yet a little while, and the world seeth me no more; but ye see me; because I live, ye shall live also. At that time ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you" (John 14:19,20). Now this is a truth, which we that believe realize the blessing of now-because He lives, we live also; and the same, also, may be said of vers. 16-18. For the Father has given to us a guardian to supply the place of Christ-and He abides with us evermore, even the Spirit of truth-who is in us. And, again, we are not comfortless (ver. 18), for Christ manifests Himself to us (ver. 21-29). And, again, " God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He that hath the Son, hath life" (not shall have it, but hath it).
First, then, we remark, they are quite right who say, " The believer hath life already, and knows he hath it." Texts might be multiplied to prove the truth of this, but the context of the verse which is under examination suffices, for the whole of chaps. 6, 7 and 8 suppose life to be already in the believers, and to be known by themselves to be there; though they needed instruction from the apostle as to, 1st, many things in connection with it, if they were to understand their privileges, and, 2ndly, as to many other things in connection with themselves, if they were to be workers that needed not to be ashamed; able to walk in liberty, and to keep themselves apart from the world and the flesh and the devil.
Yes, the believer hath life already, and knows he hath it. But remark the difference of taking up a fragment of truth, thus (as the difficulty-finder does) judging of it according to his own blessed and happy experience in faith, and the apostle's handling the same item of truth in connection with God's mode, in theory and practice, of interposing, His Christ—1st, in what He suffered vicariously, between the believer and his sins and their just consequences; and, 2ndly, in what He is as the fountain and source of new and, till then, unheard-of blessings.
Let the verse itself be weighed in the scales of reason and of mere human intelligence, and the vast fullness of the subject will be better felt. "If we be dead with Christ, we believe also that we shall live together with Him." "Too much learning hath made thee mad," would be nature's first comment; her second, perhaps, " Why, how can a dead man be talking of what is to be?" Alas! To-day has its own class of corrupters of the word, Whose senseless insubjection to Scripture shows that the flesh profiteth not. Familiarity with a subject is not the same thing as knowledge of it. But it would be vain and thankless work to attempt, even, to show how the human mind, when in' the place of light and under the responsibility of having God's written Word, has corrupted the doctrines of grace as to Christ's substitution for sinners, and His being the source of new blessings to the believer. I turn to the text.
The following points may be noticed as having been brought by Paul before the mind, previously, in the epistle. First, that man, left to himself on account of sin, had made gods many, after his own corrupt lust (chap. 1); 2ndly, that those who had knowledge (as the Jew) through a law, or standard of right and wrong, having been given to them to see and judge this, did just as badly themselves, and caused, by their conduct, the first-named class to blaspheme (chap: 2) 3rdly, that the law, requiring perfectness in the party it blessed, had pronounced all mere men, without exception, under the curse (chap. 3:1-20). 4thly, that this only tended to make manifest that free-gift righteousness of God, which was by faith in Jesus Christ-not of works, and open equally to Jew and to Gentile (chap. 3:20-31). That this was borne witness to by Abraham, and by David, each in his own way (chap. 4:1-16). But these four points might be looked at (not only thus, as to what they show of man, but, on the other side also) as to what they show of God. Thus, 1st, when man had sinned, and would not seek unto God, God showed Himself a God of patience and goodness toward the Gentile; and, 2ndly, while he waited till the due time was come for him to act fully, He dealt with the Jew, allowing him to use a standard of right and wrong, put into his hand to be a means of showing what it really was which fallen man had in him. 3rdly, was shown where man really was and to what reduced as a creature; and, 4thly, what it was which He, the living God, thought man wanted, if he was to be blessed; and how He knew Himself alone to be sufficient as the Source of such blessing, and His Son the alone able Accomplisher of it. Observe, the law does not go further than to enumerate what a man, under given circumstances, ought to do; and what the reward, if lie does as he should, is to be, and what the curse is if he fails in any one point. The gospel was God's remedy for the confessedly failed ones-His plan and His way of getting to Himself honor in undertaking the cure and the blessing of those whom the law had justly cursed. This brings me to the fifth point. If God had left man to try what he could do,- had God any plan of His own? He clearly had, and it was this-to introduce Himself into the scene of ruin as the God of resurrection, who could raise from the dead, the Redeemer-God, who could say to the strongest enemy, " Give up," and could take back to Himself in a higher and better scene what elements He thus took from the fall. And, observe the time He chose for this was when man, left to himself, had corrupted the very notion of Deity, and when man, placed under light, had used that light to puff up his own heart with before God.
And, mark here, sixthly, what the wants were according to God's thoughts.
1st. There was a righteousness wanted; for all were under condemnation (chap. 3:21, 22).
2ndly. This must be in a way which supposed no power to be in the party blessed-it was, therefore, by faith (ver. 22).
3rdly. It must be "by free grace" (ver. 24).
Now this, 4thly, supposes the introduction of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ (ver. 22-26). Who else, indeed, but He, the Son, could clear the honor and glory of God in working out salvation.
5thly. That it was of promise (chap. 3:13, 14), given long before the accomplishment of the blessing (Rom. 3:3, 17-21), showed how God would have His counsel recognized, and how He meant to make it approve itself and show forth his faithfulness and power, too, by allowing all the waters of the stream of time, and its circumstances, to roll in, and prove their powerlessness to change His promise. And, 6thly, this promise supposed certain things to be in Him, the living God, which were needful if ruined man was to get a blessing. He must needs be God, who, 1st, quickeneth the dead; and, 2ndly, who calleth those things which be not as though they were. And with these thoughts, God separated persons to Himself in time-He gave promises-they believed he was able to perform them-" and therefore it was imputed to them for righteousness" (ver. 22).
This brings us back to the great point of difficulty.
" Now it was not written for His sake alone, that it was imputed to Him. But for us also, to whom it shall be imputed, if we believe on Him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead. Who was delivered for our offenses, and was raised again for our justification" (Rom. 4:23-25).
Observe, Paul is here speaking, not as you and I might speak, experimentally of his own enjoyed portion, but of God's way (theory and practice) of salvation. There is a certain Jesus—the benefits of whose death and resurrection belong to those who believe in Him who raised Him from the dead.
There is a certain abstract manner of putting it here which is just the difference between the handling of the way as the truth of God and the speaking of it as a. matter of enjoyment.
It is just so, I conceive, in our text. " Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live together with him" (Rom. 6:8). But there is another thing to remark, as connected with this, and that is the real -difficulty when one comes to ponder the remedy in Christ for man, and the fullness of the salvation which is in Christ, which will be found, as we pass on, to justify fully the future tense, instead of the present.
If any one will weigh up what Saul was ere Christ called him; what Christ's call to him was; what the change in spirit, in heart, and in mind, and in outward life of Paul was; what that conflict with himself, with Satan, and with all his circumstances, while he was in the body; what the moral education of his soul by Christ; what his state from the time of his decease till the time of Christ's raising his body in glory-if, I say, any one can, however inadequately, run through these things, he will see the magnitude of the subject; and how, too, eternal life in heavenly glory being that for which Paul was called-there is, evidently, great propriety in the life being spoken of, in its fullest future display (" We shall live together with Him"), and not according to its present in-dwelling in us. In us it is a fountain of living waters, springing up to everlasting life, most surely. It and its true eternal character are known to us now, and they are the basis of our actions and of an entirely new life; but the eternal life is to be looked at in its future bright and unhindered display in heaven, if the real privilege of its possession is to be seen.
The truth of God acts upon us, through faith, and by the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is,, there is liberty. But this liberty in the Spirit is a most real and true thing, and is, in one sense, higher than affection and understanding, for it is divine-the Spirit of God witnessing with our (renewed) spirits. But redemption is not merely divine, as to its source, and divine in itself as God's remedy, but is meant for man;-man is to be redeemed; and, therefore, God gives not only His Spirit and spiritual instincts, but He also both divinely forms affections in our hearts, as men, to Himself and His son, and understanding gives us an understanding that we may know and be able to comprehend and understand the why and the wherefore of the truth, and His ways with us.
The testimony of the Spirit Himself, the spiritual instincts, the trained affections of the heart, the detailed knowledge of the understanding, can often be separated the one from the other. But as they are all found necessarily in the common salvation of each soul and in the Church, they cannot always be nicely distinguished the one from the other by us, who are the subjects of that salvation. We shall see this, and the amazing scope, too (its breadth and width), of the salvation which our God has made ours in Christ, if we turn to Rom. 5.
" Being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ" (ver. 1).
[Not only is the Lord the one who is peace, in whom alone there is peace, hut we HAVE peace; He is OUR Lord].
"By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God (ver. 2).
[What an immeasurably blessed position and prospect! Yet the Spirit, the new nature, the heart and the mind here also, each and all, have their place].
Then " not only so, but we glory in tribulations also; knowing that tribulation worketh patience. And patience, experience; and experience, hope. And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us" (Rom. 5:3-5).
Observe it, not only peace within (ver. 1), and a standing place of grace (ver. 2), where we can rejoice, and hope for the glory of God-but here we get two other things marked; let, power of voluntary hearty concurrence with God in His training of ourselves, though by sorrow and patience; and, 2ndly, God's love shed abroad in the heart, as ointment, by the Holy Ghost given to us. What a blessed people we are!
Next we have that which shows what God saw of our state, and what He did. Oh, how unlike the law of Moses! " When we were without strength-ungodly -Christ died for us" (ver. 6).
The law said to us, as creatures, Do the will of God, and live in it; or be cursed, "but God commendeth His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us" (ver. 8).
And, then, see what follows-this divine arguing out of things-the blood stayed all the claims of justice against us-the death of Christ was in substitution for us-but, if saving us from the wrath to come, it has reconciled us, there is yet more for us; we shall be saved by His life. "Much more then, being now justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more, being reconciled we shall be saved by His life" (vers. 9, 10).
This (as ver. 11 shows us) sets us free to rejoice in God Himself. Not only to rejoice in hope of his glory (as ver. 2), nor to glory in tribulation (as ver. 3), but in God Himself. For the believer is brought unto God to find his joy in Himself. " And not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement" (ver. 11).
Then (and mark it well) Paul contrasts the two Adams and their works and fruits.
Adam The First.
By him sin entered the world;—and death by sin;—a death which passed over all, for all were sinners.
The offense of one, led by judgment unto a condemnation, reigning over all, which, alas, harmonized with the sinnership of all.
Him That Was To Come.
By Him came God's grace, and the free gift of grace, even through Jesus Christ.
Righteousness led, by free grace unto a justification of life which was toward all, but upon them that believe; and abounded unto them that believed, that so grace might reign through righteousness, unto eternal life, by Jesus Christ our Lord.
It is wondrous how the Savior and the Redeemer-God does, in this portion, show how He has stooped to measure out a blessing in contrast with all the ruin of creature-work as introduced by man.
And, notice here, that, the blessing is (not merely justification unto life, but is) grace reigning, through righteousness, unto ETERNAL life, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Now, if we are to see what that is, in its full meaning, we must get past the present enjoyment of it in this our time state, into that time and state in which the eternal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord, will be shown and seen in its own proper sphere and scenes hereafter. Thus we see a "why" and a " wherefore" of its being said, in our text, not " Now if we be dead together with Christ, we know that we do also live together with Him," but " Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him."
We have thus far looked at the antecedents of the chapter in which our verse is; and we have seen, on the one hand, tiny man, in the least of all his littleness when in sin; and, on the other hand, God in all the greatness of His patience and long-suffering, and in the grandeur of His mercy. Man was shown out as in progress on the earth,-Gentile and Jew (chaps. 1-3), and, after that, man, as a head, originating the ruin in which his family had been found (chap. 5); and God was seen first in His greatness as Creator, and as the long-suffering God in patience, and then in all that greater greatness, immeasurable, in which He displayed Himself when acting against, and in contrast to, the ruin which man had brought in. His counsel, His plans, His ways, confess Him always and everywhere to be God alone; not one requirement of His own infinite glory has been forgotten; and so fully is it all poured forth in the gift of His Son, and the presence of the Spirit, that the all-pervading testimony of grace and mercy leaves every soul without excuse; they can only be lost through neglect of the mercy. God has not only done a work by which to glorify Himself in the salvation of them that believe, but it is a work which leaves man, guilty unbelieving man, more condemned than even did the broken law. For who will not say that the guilty condemned culprit is without excuse, self-condemned, and condemnable by every one,-the culprit who, having forfeited life to violated law, despises the free forgiveness and mercy of a sin-pardoning God.
Toward the close of the portion already considered-man having been uncovered in all his pitiful state, and God's estimate of what was needed, if he was to be blessed after a divine fashion-we get the grand thought presented to us of " Grace reigning through righteousness, unto eternal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord."
There are, so to speak, five chapters upon this subject. 1st. Chapter 6, in which the connection of a poor sinner with the Christ, by God, but through faith in the sinner, is shown-and shown in. the various parts of the subject; 2ndly (chap. 7) certain things which to man might seem insuperable difficulties in the making good of some parts of the plan are explained; 3rdly (chap. 8), the entire and realized association of the believer thus and now with God;-all difficulties notwithstanding, no condemnation can reach to that which is in Christ, and no separation from God. 4thly. The connection of this, tasted now only in individual experience, perhaps, with the drift of all. the dealings of God upon earth, through all his dispensations which wend onward till mercy fills the heavenlies and fills the earthlies (chap. 9-11); and, 5thly (chap. 11), to the end of the epistle, the entire association in walk and character now, of God's people with Christ-earth-rejected and heaven-honored.
Their present experience may be, as His was, from the earth-and the taste of it may reach them in blows and sorrows, which only draw forth His sympathies [for blessed be God, He is safely housed, and personally is above all the billows and waves of the wicked world we are in], but we hold His position as earth-rejected, which He was in fully, until His cross-He had a mission from God to the Jews, and was a healer upon earth of sickness, etc.
Blessed as the meditating upon each of these five chapters might be, I must confine myself more particularly, now, to the first of them, viz., chap. 6. In which chapter; I conceive, we get an explanation fuller in detail than usual of the salvation in Christ, so far as its application by God to the believer is concerned.
The complexity of the circumstances of the party to whom the salvation has to be applied, as well as the complexity of the evil which is internal, will soon be evident. The born thrall of Satan, man, is in a world of Satan's arranging, and has a body ready in every way to identify itself with all the evil around. Then as to how it is with " the patient," when grace finds him, the disease is very complex; 1st, there is thorough ignorance of God as He really is, and a thorough accrediting of the false picture of God, which the sinner, in his delusion, has of Him. 2ndly, there is an overweening good opinion of himself-by which, in self-complacency, man takes it for granted that he cannot have a lie in his right hand, and, as a result, a self-sufficiency, as though by his own wisdom and power he would be able to settle everything for God and for himself too, in a way better than the best;-a heart, made to be satisfied with God alone, but gone astray from Him, ever filling itself with vanity and discontentment, blowing its own bubbles of lust; there is, too, a will fickle as the weather-cock, but obstinate and unbending as sinews of brass. Now, how -is such a one to be fitted to be happy and at home in the Father's house in heaven, to be a channel, through which the river of divine goodness can flow forth in unselfish heavenly and divine blessing. God will do it by His own application of the rich salvation found in Christ Jesus, through faith and by the Spirit. But then, and here enters what is an enlargement of the difficulty to man's mind; while God's whole mind and heart are pledged to each solitary believer, to make all His full salvation to be that of the individual-individual salvation is part of a present testimony, and of a future glory which shall pervade every field in which redeeming love is known. State it, in a rough way, thus, and the difficulty will be seen: I am to be saved,-but my salvation has connection with God's dealings through the last 5000 and odd years, and more especially with His testimony through the last 1857 years, and issues in a glory which is to fill the heavens and fill the earth in the resurrection-morn. This, while it gives that comparative increase of importance to my salvation which a brick built into a wall has, as part of a house, above a brick by the wayside, at the same time reduces me to my just proportion. The temple would not be a perfect temple without that stone; it is an integral part of the Lord's temple now-little as it was and is if looked at in itself.
The sixth chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, opens with a proposition which is common enough among men of perverse and ignorant mind, when they handle God's truth. Only that which they lay down as, according to their logical reasonings-a self-evident axiom of certain result-Paul, or the Spirit of God by Paul, holds up as an absurd and foolish thing, to be denounced at once. The doctrine of free forgiveness of sins, is to man synonymous with, and inseparable from, liberty to go on sinning. What shall we say then? Shall we continue in "sin, that grace may abound?" [Paul says, once and again, "I speak as a man;" but note that he does not stoop to say so here.] He puts the question. His answer is double. First, an expression of revulsion. God forbid [or, away with it (such a thought)]. Then, an expression of the folly of the idea. " How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein? " (ver. 2). Three things were true of me individually; 1st, I had sin in me; 2ndly, this made me necessarily to be under the penalty of the judgment of God against sin; 1st, in death, and after that, 2ndly, in judgment to come. Sin, death, and judgment, were mine. I was morally dead in sins; and as such my prospect was death, and then judgment. Christ, who was holy, harmless, separate from sinners, in whom Satan had nothing-and who was not of this world-died, as Son of man, under the judgment of the wrath of God due to me. " My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" was his cry. For me, morally dead, He bore the penalty. God has revealed His own grace and mercy in providing such a way for poor sinners. If others do not admit the death of Christ as a substitute through grace, I do. It is an eternal reality, and I know it exists as such, independent of my faith in it, or my want of faith in it. This faith God has given to me, and His Spirit, that I might receive His truth, and, by act of my own, set to my seal to His truth. "I do," would be my answer to Paul's. "Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ, were baptized into His death" (ver. 3). Yes; blessed be God for His grace! I can say, and add, " Therefore we are buried with Him by baptism into death."
I, morally dead, had a future death and judgment before me. Christ has borne that judgment in His own death. God's Christ did that: He was sent of God to settle that matter. Certainly God does not think that His Christ failed, or that His work failed in this matter. They are the parties most competent; yea, alone competent, to pronounce a judgment herein: such a judgment they have pronounced, that " it is finished." Through grace, my Amen has been put in, where God's Amen was long before mine. My Amen has little value, in comparison with His; but it is not without its value; for it is, 1st, the proof of a fresh and present act of His grace-even that He has caused His thought about Christ to be light and brightness to my soul-and this, 2ndly, marks a new and present action of the Holy Ghost, who not only gave the testimony to Christ at first, and wrote the epistles of old, but has now, of recent date, brought home that testimony to my soul. Grace, too, in God, sets a high price in heaven upon a poor sinner's Amen upon earth, to the worthiness of mercy, through Christ, by the Spirit. To the poor sinner's self; the worth is past measure-'tis a measure of eternal, heavenly, divine love. But then, what, if I had done with my Adamic ruined inheritance, and had naught else? Adam's inheritance in Eden is forfeited, I cannot return there-might a poor sinner say, who, having discovered that sin, death, and judgment, were his portion, as a descendant of Adam's, had just learned that God looked upon him as dead and buried in Christ. Well, but this dead and buried together with Christ, is only the first blessing. The second is this,-
" That like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of His death, we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection. Knowing this, that our old man is crucified together with Him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. For he that is dead is freed from sin. Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him. Knowing that Christ, being raised from the dead, dieth no more, death hath no dominion over Him. " For in that He died, He died unto sin once: but in that He liveth, He liveth unto God, Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Let not sin therefore, reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof. Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God" (Rom. 6:4-13).
Mark it well, we are those that are alive from the dead; nothing can be clearer. And, indeed, no one can read the portion down, without seeing how this is quietly assumed throughout the whole of it. It is assumed, that since my identification with Christ, through faith, I have complete power over myself: this certainly was not the case when I was in sin. So far from being greater than myself and my members, I was led captive by them, and they were dragged hither and thither, through lust, by Chance influences from without, in what was around me, guided by Satan. It. is not, note it, a man trying to overcome himself and his evil, that he may get associated with God, or that God may honor him, but a man recognizing that he is, in grace, associated with Christ by God, and so associated, that Christ's penal death rolls in upon his soul, at once a moral judgment upon all that he, the sinner, was, and at the same moment a complete deliverance from all its consequences; not only from its just judgment-that cloud has passed from the sinner, and is seen to have hurtled once for all over Jesus when upon the cross, having no power to descend ever again upon the believer, but also the power of the law of sin is broken. With a new life given to us in Christ, there is the certainty given, that when He is displayed in life, we shall be displayed in the same life with Him. When He has changed these vile bodies, and fashioned them like unto the body of His glory, then will there be indeed a perfect walk in newness of life; then shall we be also in the likeness of His resurrection fully; we shall never serve sin, but be free from it forever; we shall also live with Him; with Him who dieth no more, over whom death hath no dominion; but while this is blessed truth, the Christian antedates, in his conduct here, through faith, the fulfillment of these blessed hopes. This is the third truth Paul is pressing here, viz., this: if, FIRST, you have been cleared out from Adam's standing with its sin, death and judgment, by God's reckoning you through grace one with the Christ that died and was buried; and if you have, SECONDLY, been associated in life with the Christ who dies no more, over whom death has no dominion, who lives unto God; why then, THIRDLY, there is a present acting by you upon this being reckoned of God free from sin and this life together with Christ communicated to you, viz. a life here below, according to the life of Christ Himself-as Paul said to me to live is Christ-and according to the life now hidden with Christ in God; which, when it shall appear, shall alone, without let or hindrance, shine in us, and shine fully. Having already gone elsewhere into the force of this reckoning of ourselves to be dead unto sin, I do not rest upon it now: my subject being, " If we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him " (ver. 8).
I would, however, just notice a few things:-
1st. The positive unqualified statement of ver. 13: the hands of the clock are to give the true time; a Christian life is to be manifest to all; not merely right affections, happy thoughts, but a life, outside life, which will speak for God.
2ndly. The positive declaration of ver. 14: " For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace." With the fair deduction that the soul under grace is more cut off from sin and shut up to good works than a soul under law.
We do not serve Adam with law, sin, and death, but we serve Christ with His grace, obedience, and righteousness.
Holiness and fruit-bearing, and eternal life are ours; " Who boast that though the wages of sin is death-the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." I cannot here enter upon the chapters vii. and viii.; they hardly fall within my subject, though they are deeply interesting, and throw immense light upon what this life of Christ in us is not connected with, and what it is connected with; and how it works amid all the difficulties found in us and around; difficulties of Satan, and of the world in God's past and present dealings dispensationally on earth; and how, too, this life has its own proper range and sphere in Christ, who sits on a throne, under which all the counsels of God for eternity, and heaven, and all the plans and covenants of God for earth and time, roll. Yes; our life is in Him, who is in God; and all God's counsels and plans roll around, and are subject to Him in whom our life is, who Himself is our life (happy, blessed people that we are!). He is the object of them all. Oh that the Lord our God would open wide our hearts, to understand his praise, and to taste the sweetness of that place of Confidante which He has assigned to the Church.
In conclusion, I would remark, there is something unutterably blessed, but withal solemn, in the thought of being a vessel, a member, in which the life of Christ is displayed. Is this my present call and work, to display, here below, the life which is in Christ, as to which Christ is the fountain-source, myself but a channel? And what, if Satan and the world oppose, and if the body has to be reckoned dead? Shall I only comfort myself with the thoughts that soon, in the Father's house on high (the Spirit all pervading), this life shall (in how little a while) have free, and full, and perfect course? No. I have more than this; I can joy and rejoice, not only in what the life will be in courts above, but, in one sense, more purely and more unselfishly, and in the most divine and Christ-like way; I can rejoice, I say, in all these wilderness sorrows and conflicts, which the life brings to me with it. It is fellowship with Christ's own self; it is the realization of the best part of the blessing, apart from the Circumstances of joy.
Comments Upon Texts: Fourth Text
"It is a faithful saying: for if we be dead with Him (Christ Jesus), we shall also live with Him" (2 Tim. 2:11).
So much of what has just been said upon the third text applies to this, that little remains to be added. In Romans, the apostle was laying down the theory, the foundations of the doctrine of the Christian faith. In writing to Timothy, he takes up the practice, the superstructure of a life so built; and, as the times were difficult, stirs him up to enduring hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. His life we have; With Him we expect to live and to reign when we come home to Him-till then, the world under Satan, and heavenly places preoccupied with foes-assure us of suffering if we walk as He, whose life we have, walked here below.
Συ οὐν κακοπαθησον thou, therefore, endure hardness, is almost the key-note of this letter, chap. 1:8, 12, chap. 2:3, 9, chap. 4:5; and this flows out of the life of Christ, possessed now in circumstances, and amid power strangely contrasted with, and opposed to, itself. The circumstances and the powers around, are adverse to the life; but the life of Jesus Christ is already in us; and he that has it can say, in the power of it, I choose rather to suffer affliction with the people of God and of Christ, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season. May we, then, endure hardness, as the God soldiers of Jesus Christ, for the little of that, "yet a little while," which remains. Even so. Come, Lord Jesus.
If, what the Spirit states by Paul is, that " we were quickened TOGETHER WITH Christ" (Eph. 2:3, Col. 2:13), then, clearly, we have one life in common with Him. Not; He possessed of one kind of life, held in one kind of way, and we of another kind of life, held in another kind of way; but one life possessed in one and the same way; for we were quickened together with Himself.
It was a life taken by Himself-upon earth, in the grave—taken by, with, and in perfect divine power. A life not subject to death (Horn. vi. 9, Rev. 1:15), nor in us to corruption (1 Peter 1:23). That it has been, as yet, comparatively little displayed by and in Himself upon earth, since His taking of it, is true; in Him its chief display has been in heaven. Yet this matters not: in Him it has been seen in action among His disciples, He being upon earth (John 20 and 21, Acts 1, &c.).
Now that He has left the earth and abides " the little while" in heaven, He is there as Son of man, and interested in what passes down here. He showed it in Stephen's martyrdom, often in connection with Paul, and does so constantly, as we see at the close of Heb. 4, to the feeblest of His disciples. He will return to earth to show it forth again here, in narrower circumstances, which are to be more limited than those of His present position-more restricted to earth.
In us, it never is separated from Himself. It acts in. us down here, but turns us to the heaven where He is; acts in us to make us know ourselves as members of a body, the Head of which is in heaven; acts in us, poor channels of blessing, which it fills as itself ever flowing ceaselessly down from Himself; the alone Fountain-Head. That He is God over all blessed forever, must never be forgotten: yet we have a life in common with Him as Son of Man, He having taken His life again as man, in other circumstances, and in other connections, than He had it at first.
And what is most peculiar of all to us is, not that the liberty from all condemnation which is His should be ours; not that. we should be graced in Him the beloved; not that we should have experiences and prospects in common with Him, but that the objects and motives which influenced Him in His highest acts, are the objects and motives which influence this life in us. As Paul most abundantly shows in Phil. 2 " Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus," &c. "For it is God that worketh in us, both to will and to do of His good pleasure," &c.