Rom. 8:1-4.
The beginning of Rom. 8 is the full answer to the cry of wretchedness in chapter 7: “O wretched man that I am I who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” There are three great parts in the deliverance: first, the setting free of the soul at the commencement of its career; then practical freedom in its course; and, finally, ultimate deliverance for the body in resurrection at the coming of our Lord. What concerns souls pre-eminently, in the first instance, is that spiritual freedom, without which there can be no practical power, any more than in the service of the Lord, or in worship. Hence it is this first part of the deliverance that it will be my main business to dwell on at present. Not that the application to practice is not of the highest moment; but we should remember that practical freedom and power depend on this primary deliverance. Again, final deliverance must not be supposed to be forgotten; but that is a question of the Lord's intervention by-and-by, when there can be no possibility of a flaw. Now there may be first, failure, in appreciating the soul's deliverance, as in verse 2; and, secondly, in turning practical liberty to the Lord's account in walk. But when the Lord comes to quicken these mortal bodies—and they are called mortal in contradistinction from the soul—no failure will be possible. It was not necessary to call the soul immortal, because immortality is essentially bound up with its nature.
Let us, then, turn to a little consideration of the first grand truth, the setting free of the soul. And this remark may be made at the threshold, that the deliverance in question is quite distinct from quickening. Rom. 7 is the strongest possible proof of this; for we have, from verse 7 onward, exactly the experience of a man quickened, but not delivered. We see there a soul going through much painful exercise inwardly, ending in the cry, “O wretched man,” &c. It is not a careless or unawakened person, but neither is it one delivered. There are two errors to be avoided here, over-rating and under-estimating the condition of the case in Rom. 7. These two mistakes carry away far the largest part of Christendom, and perhaps of real Christians. There are those who consider that the soul in this distress is unconverted; and one reason why they do so is, because in the progress of its exercises it says, “I am carnal.” But such an inference is unwarranted, and arises from confounding carnal with natural, which is ignorance of scripture. There are three classes, and not two only; there are natural, carnal, and spiritual men. Now Rom. 7 describes the intermediate class; the person there is neither natural nor spiritual. This is where the great mistake is made, and by none more than by the theologians. They confound a carnal with a natural man, supposing that “carnal” means one dead in trespasses and sins. But in 1 Corinthians this distinction is plainly drawn. In chapter 2 the apostle, speaking of the natural man, declares that he “receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God.” In chapter 3 he takes up the other term, and distinctly tells the Corinthian believers that they were carnal; not, of course, natural, but “carnal.” They were believers, but in a wrong and low condition. They ought to have been, but were not, “spiritual.”
Thus every believer is not by any means a spiritual person. For this reason the apostle, in addressing the Galatians, says, “Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual restore such an one in the spirit of meekness.” He did not mean by this that every believer is a spiritual man, but, on the contrary, distinguishes certain believers more fitted than others for the delicate work of restoring a man who has slipped aside. And who are they? The men who know best the hateful evil of flesh, as well as what is of far deeper moment, the grace of God. These can therefore feel for souls ensnared and drawn away from the Lord. A carnal man knows God and himself so partially, that he is unfit for such work. He would err, either on the side of easy-going amiability, which would slip over sin, or in overwhelming harshness. The spiritual man, by grace, holds the balance even. He would condemn the wrong, but also meet the soul in a restorative grace.
This distinction appears everywhere. Among believers, who does not know some spiritual, with not a few carnal? As believers, they are no longer natural, but they are not therefore necessarily spiritual. Not that they have not the Spirit, but that they do not walk or judge in the Spirit. The possession of the Spirit does not necessarily make a man spiritual. The Corinthian saints clearly had the Spirit, but there was unjudged activity of the flesh in many. There is a shade of difference between the word, and the sense, I also think, in Rom. 7, compared with 1 Cor. 3, which does not call for notice now. It is only one letter, and the Authorized Version always translates both as “carnal.” Do not suppose that we are going into critical points now; but it surely is of interest and importance to apprehend the difference between being born of the Spirit, and having the Holy Ghost dwelling in me. A man may be born of the Spirit, and yet may require to have the Holy Ghost given to him. Now the word in Rom. 7 does not necessarily suppose that the Spirit is there, the word in Corinthians does. However this may be, we may now turn to the fundamental Christian truth of present deliverance.
In Rom. 7 a struggle is described, and fully argued out; but this conflict supposes life. While a man is dead in trespasses and sins, there is no such conflict. Mark the language of this soul. He has a hatred of evil, and yet falls into it; he loves what is good, and yet fails in doing it. It is a state, not of natural wickedness, but of spiritual powerlessness. At Corinth the fleshly activity of the intellect overruled the mind of the Spirit in too many saints. Here it was a dead weight of evil within, that always dragged him down when he wanted to do the will of God. He is like a person in a quagmire, not drowned, but sunk deeply, and struggling; yet as soon as he gets one leg out, the other is more deeply in. And so his state is most miserable. This increases, though with growing discernment of himself, until he turns to Christ. It is not a man who has not seen Christ, but one who, looking to Him, thought it was enough for all need, and never expected to find, as a believer, evil continually within him. He wakes up at length to the humbling fact that there is this constant inward evil ever seeking to break out, and that having the blood of Jesus for his forgiveness does not fully deal with the ease. It is a question, not of pardon only, but of deliverance. “wretched man that I am I who shall deliver me?” He has life, and the law has probed him as born of God, and killed him in conscience. It is far from true that he is dead in trespasses and sins; but an awakened conscience has given the law killing power, and he is slain in the conviction of sin, which he had not been if an unconverted man. The unconverted knows nothing of this inward exercise and soul trouble. Here I am obliged to part from my Arminian friends, who generally regard this latter part of Rom. 7 as a description of the natural man. “I am carnal,” says the apostle. They are wrong.
But on the other side are those who tell you that this is a description of a spiritual man in as blessed a state as he over can expect here. The apostle, they argue, says, “I,” and from this they infer that he means himself personally, and, moreover, in his then spiritual state. Just as if we did not often see the apostle using the first person singular to put a case. Nothing is more common, even in the language of every-day life. You hear a person who is unmarried say, “I as a husband,” or “I as a father,” would do so and so. The speaker does not assert that he is either, but merely uses himself as an illustration. In his First Epistle to the Corinthians, the apostle speaks of transferring to himself and to Apollos a case which really was meant to apply to others. But we have the beat reason for saying that this mast be the case in Rom. 7. The same epistle goes on to say in continuous argument, “The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.” He could not be spiritually both a slave, “sold under sin,” and made free at the same time.
Therefore it is clear that the latter part of Rom. 7 does not describe the state of the apostle himself at the time; and the Calvinistic view, that the condition of soul there exhibited is the normal state of the Christian, is just as great an error as the Arminian notion that it is the description of an unconverted soul. The fact is, that both Calvinists and Arminians confound the carnal with the natural man. They have not seen the distinction that scripture makes. Appeal to any of their writings you please. Though acquainted with their best writers at different times, I believe that, without a single exception on either side of the controversy, they both confound the carnal and the natural man. I do not say this in any way as a reproach, but for the purpose of our learning the truth more fully and exactly. To omit this distinction obscures the whole subject.
It confounds things that differ, and you never can mistake scripture without being involved in serious consequences. The natural man and the spiritual man do not comprehend all possible conditions of soul. There is the natural man who has not Christ at all, the carnal man who has Christ, but is not yet delivered from himself—there is such a thing possible in believers—and the spiritual man. In the intermediate condition, as I may call it, there is always a craving after that deliverance which is not possessed. It was this that led to the movement, which we all remember, a few years ago regarding what was called” the higher life,” and “holiness by faith.” All that was just a yearning after deliverance. Now I shall endeavor to show that we need only what is in the Bible, not new views. We want rather to be delivered from speculations, and to be more deeply grounded in the imperishable truth of scripture.
The experience of the soul is a valuable thing, and that the state described in Rom. 7 is one of no little moment to pass through. No soul ever values freedom, without having known something of bondage. And I very much question whether those that slip over this seventh chapter ever really know what it is to get into the eighth. In the proper experience of every believer there is a most seasonable breaking down of self, which is the consequence of measuring ourselves before God. We have to learn a grave and important lesson from God in this way, and it cannot be learned by a mere effort of the mind, nor is it without practical working in the soul. Here we have the process followed out in detail. The apostle takes up the case, supposing a person who was quickened but who had not fully learned himself. How is this necessary lesson learned? He tries to do what he knows he should and what he desires, but he breaks down; he tries again, and breaks down again. He betakes himself, of course, to prayer and reading; he tries to better himself by fasting and other forms of self-denial; in short, everything is tried except the one and only right way. He has not yet learned this—to abandon himself, and rest in another. No doubt he himself is proved and discovered. God has not let him try all these ways of his own without profit. He gets humbled about himself as a saint, learns to distrust himself, even as a converted man, and is thus fitted to receive more and more from God of the value of Christ. The truth is, that the effect of sin is far deeper than men suppose. Life and forgiveness are not all that is wanted. Both are given in the gospel: but besides there is present deliverance. And this deliverance comes after there has been practical proof, not merely that we are sinners, but that we are without strength, which is a deeper thing. Here the soul is brought to the pass; “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me?” He looks out of himself; there was the turning-point. He had looked to. the Lord to find life and forgiveness; but when he had Christ, he thought, “Surely I shall be able to soon now happily glorifying the Lord.” He finds out his weakness, he struggles and strives, but finds it out more and more. At last he looks about himself, and not his past sins only, to Christ, and this is the consequence, “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are In Christ Jesus.”
The first part here stated of this deliverance is, that grace puts us in a new place, or position, in which there can be nothing against us. At once we see the contrast with Adam. It was not merely that the first man fell, and that his children were sinners, but the whole thing is involved, and involves them in condemnation. In contrast, then, with fallen Adam stamping the fall on all his family, there is another, or second Man, and last Adam. What is His position? Risen and in glory. The apostle does not pursue all the consequences here, but particularly presses this, that Christ is dead and risen. He is not merely an expiatory sacrifice, but a dead and risen Savior. And thus He is applied to the condition of the man who believes in Him. Nothing so frees from claim as death. Have there been debts? Death cancels them. Claims? Death comes in, and dissolves their force. Do I deny, then, the responsibility of the Christian? The very reverse. But his responsibility is not that of a man naturally, which comes to an end in death (not his own, but Christ's, and the believer's with Him,) and where man ends, the Christian begins. The Christian, therefore, is baptized into Christ's death. It is thus a dead and risen Christ that characterizes Christianity. A living Christ was what the Jew wanted. They would have liked a mighty Messiah born in the world to lead them on to victory and supremacy. And this is very much what many Christians think and crave after. But it is not Christianity, which is founded on the death of Christ; and He is risen.
Therefore it is that the Christian now is not merely forgiven, but identified with a dead Christ; and the consequence is, he is dead to sin. Such is the argument of the apostle in Rom. 6. The Christian is likewise dead to the law. I know there are those who tell you that the law is dead, but they are quite wrong. The law, far from dead, is a living and killing power; and you must therefore pronounce death, not upon the law, but upon yourself. (See Gal. 2) God gives the believer in Christ to take the place of being dead, both to sin and to law: but is this all? Surely not; it is only negative. No, he is in Christ Jesus, the One risen from the dead. The Christ that the believer possesses is One who, after His death, not only for our sins but for sin itself, passed into resurrection life, and that, too, as a life-giving Spirit. Who receives this life? The Christian. As a believer in Christ, and submitting to God's righteousness, he has received new life and the Spirit, and consequently his position is in Christ Jesus. Therefore he partakes of all that Christ is, as risen. All His blessedness—not speaking of Him as a divine Person, the eternal Son of God, but as Man risen from the dead—now attaches to every believer in Him. And for this reason it is that the apostle says, “There is therefore now no condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus.” You might as well talk of condemning Christ as of condemning the Christian. Since Adam's fall, the curse rested on him and on all his seed. So now, since His death and resurrection, the favor of God rests just as thoroughly on Christ and all who are His. For in point of fact they are in Christ as men naturally are said to be in Adam. No doubt it is a mystical way of speaking, but it is a real thing. The expression is a figure, but the fact is certain. Are the effects of connection with Christ less real than of connection with Adam?
What a blighting thing is the unbelief that perverts and distorts, or destroys, the force of such deep realities! Do you say they are not facts? Are the only facts things that you can see and feel? Are you a positivist? Is there nothing real but sin and misery? Is God nothing? or are you as unbelieving, or worse, than a Jew or a heathen? Is not Christ as real as Adam? I admit the reality of sin. Alas, we know it too well! We know it even as natural men, and we felt it even when we were carnal—if indeed we are spiritual now. Let us search and see how far our souls have passed out of human thoughts, for this is carnality in a Christian. The Corinthians were in that state; they allowed the thoughts of men to sway them. We are called, on the contrary, to enter into the revealed truth of God. We are said to “have the mind of Christ.” The Corinthians, as all Christians, had the title to this, but did not make it good; they had the ground, capacity, and power, but did not use what they had, through value for the world's wisdom—surely an important distinction, and a common danger.
Here, then, is the first clearing of the Christian position. “There is therefore now no condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus.” It is not merely no condemnation for this or that—for particular acts or things—but no condemnation whatever; it is absolute. Were there no faults or blemishes? Too many and grave; but for what did Christ die? And Christ is risen, and there is no condemnation. Are you still afraid to rest in Him? Better not be distrustful of Him or the word of God; far better to believe it, and be afraid of ourselves. This is both wiser and humbler. I know there are many who read the word of God, and hesitate to accept the clear and absolute language of scripture. But we ought, in this respect at least, to be calm and confident. Remember that I am not now resting on an isolated bit of scripture, though a single text is stabler than heaven and earth; I refer to what is the very back-bone and substance of this epistle. I am not pressing you with a mere fragment of scripture, torn out of its place and context. I leave that to others; and there are plenty who preach thus on scraps. Beyond controversy, the apostle is sheaving that believers have an entirely new position in the dead and risen Christ. They are as truly partakers of the acceptance in which He stands risen from the dead, as men naturally inherit the condemnation of the first man. No condemnation can any longer touch His person who secures the Christian. We are in Christ.