This chapter gives us the way in which the believer is delivered from the law, and from the state, as in the flesh, to which the law applies; together with the experience of a quickened soul, learning what the flesh is in its sinfulness and helplessness, before being delivered from the law.
It is a regenerate person, using this term to express the possession of eternal life, but one in whom, as yet, the Holy Ghost does not dwell. The state is the effect of life, divine life in the soul, but without the power of the Holy Ghost giving deliverance from the bondage of sin, because still under law in the conscience. Two distinct natures are at work, and in conflict the one with the other. An unconverted, natural man has no such conflict, nor can he delight in the law of God. Such an one not only is not subject to the law of God, but he hates God Himself. He may put himself under law, to satisfy his pride and self-righteousness, whilst hating Christ with an his heart, as Saul of Tarsus did up to the time of his meeting with the Lord on his way to Damascus, but allow that he is " carnal, sold under sin," he never will. On the contrary, the more a man is really under law, apart from grace working in the soul, the more he justifies himself, and judges his neighbor. (Luke 18) He trusts in himself that he is righteous, and never allows that he is " sold under sin," and therefore under condemnation.
Now, it is all-important to distinguish between the possession of eternal life-a soul quickened by the Holy Ghost, and the indwelling in one thus quickened, of the Holy Ghost Himself. The evidences, with the effects that flow from it, of the one, are quite distinct, and in contrast with those that accompany the other. In the one case there is, because of life, right feeling, but entire bondage to sin; for though Christ personally is looked to, His work on the cross is not fully known, and the soul, under legal workings to obtain righteousness and holiness, is occupied with itself and its doings-it is all " I," " I," " I." In the other case, because of the Spirit Himself personally dwelling in the believer, there is liberty, " for where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty" (2 Cor. 3:1717Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. (2 Corinthians 3:17)); and with this the fruits of the Spirit-" love, joy, peace." (Gal. 5:2222But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, (Galatians 5:22).) The heart and conscience have now Christ and His work in view, consequently self and its doings are lost sight of.
In the chapter we are considering, it is not guilt on the conscience before God in view of judgment to come, that is troubling the soul, but a sinful nature, and the inability to rise above the power of evil within and follow what the renewed mind knows to be good, that is the cause of distress. Christ is believed in, and His blood, as cleansing from sin, may be more or less relied on, but Christ dead and risen, as delivering entirely from the law, is not known. Walk is in question, and the law is before the soul, claiming on God's part righteousness, and judging sin. The more divine life works in the soul, and the conscience is awakened under the spiritual power of the law, the more intolerable is the misery, for the more complete is " the captivity to the law of sin" felt to be.
Christ, dead and risen, delivers from this state by delivering from the law, and the apostle states the ground, in these words: " Ye are also all become dead to the law by the body of Christ, that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God;" adding, " We are delivered from the law, being dead to that in which we were held." The question then is asked, seeing it is a matter of deliverance from the law, Is the law sin? As if the law were something bad in itself. Quite the contrary, is the answer. So far from the law being sin, it tells what sin itself is. Looking back upon this state, after having been delivered from it, and recognizing what had been going on, the one speaking says, " I had no sin, but by the law; for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet." The lust was there, but unknown as sin, and the law brought it to light in the conscience. Sin was there in the nature, lying dormant, as it were, the law came, and only stirred up its energies. " Sin," says he, " taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of con cupimence. For without law sin was dead." Thus he learned that the law has only the effect of quickening sin into action. In his conscience, till the law came, he was alive, and sin was quiet; " The commandment came, sin revived, and I died," he states. By the law sin was discovered, and stirred into activity, so that, in. his conscience, he died-was made conscious that death, instead of life, according to law, was his state before God. Sin had deceived him, and slain him by the law. " The law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good." The question now asked, is, " Was, then, that which is good made death to me?" Not at all. Why, then,, had the law been sent? Just for this purpose; that sin might appear to be sin, working death by a good thing, and that sin might be thoroughly brought to light-" that sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful."
The law was given by God to man, to show him, in his own conscience, his state as simply a sinner, helplessly under death and judgment, but never to bring him out of that state. Not ordained to give life, righteousness, or deliverance, it can only work in the conscience of a truly quickened soul, when spiritually applied, the sense of sin, bondage, death, and judgment. " By the law is the ` knowledge of sin;" " the law entered that the offense might abound;" and " the strength of sin is the law."
This is what the soul under law alone can learn, and the conclusion come to, is, that the law is spiritual, but " I am carnal, sold under sin." The discovery is made that, though there be entire hatred of sin, and full desire after good, the practical state, while under law, is one of utter inability to follow what is good, and complete captivity to what is evil. The mind is renewed, a new nature being there; life and holiness are working powerfully in the soul, but it is wrapped tightly round by a thick mantle of darkness. A "law of sin" holds it captive under the power of sin: the misery is complete, and then the agonizing cry bursts forth, " 0 wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" The law has blessedly done its work, and the Spirit now takes up the question, and gives the divine answer to the divinely-wrought appeal for help, by presenting Christ to the soul in all the efficacy of His work for it on the cross, sealing it in the peace and power of that work by His own indwelling presence. The soul is at once set free; joy and peace take the place of the previous misery, and the believer consciously delivered from law, and thus from bondage to sin, is able to praise God with a full heart: " I thank God, through Christ Jesus our Lord." No longer occupied with himself, the " I " and " me" drop out,. and Christ, by the Spirit, fills the scene. Intelligent now as to the real state of the case, as one born of God, he recognized that two natures had been in conflict one with the other, and concludes, " So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh, the law of sin." He distinguishes them characteristically. Delivered from the law, and " the body of this death," by fully apprehending the efficacy of Christ's death, through the Spirit, he now not only understands clearly his practical state, but realizes that his standing before God is no longer in the flesh, but in Christ risen.
It is as knowing deliverance, consequent upon having received the Spirit as the seal of our acceptance of Christ's work for us on the cross, that we can adopt the language of the earlier part of this chapter, and say, as looking back upon a past state, " When we were in the flesh, the motions of sin, which were by the law, did work in our members, to bring forth fruit unto death;" and it is of great moment to see clearly that, while all is based on Christ and His work, it is only as possessing the Spirit Himself that we are no longer " in the flesh." The statement of scripture on this point is absolute: " Ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be the Spirit of God dwell in you." (Rom. 8:99But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. (Romans 8:9).) C. W.