But here, the flesh, which will have its righteousness, and the world, which represents itself as a guardian of morality, proffer an objection in order to resist the truth and grace which show man to be lost on account of sin. They say, if by the obedience of one we are constituted righteous it is just the same whether we be obedient or disobedient. This objection only proves that he who makes it knows nothing of the truth, that he has no understanding of his already lost condition, nor of the new life which the believer has received, and which being of God cannot tolerate sin.
Let us here observe what important truths are contained in the change of foundation on which man’s relation to God rests. The turning-point is the cross, the death of Christ. The old man, Adam’s race, has been tried without law, under the law, and then under the revelation of grace and truth when the Son of God was in this world as Man. God Himself was come, manifested in the flesh, not to impute sins, but “ reconciling the world unto Himself;” and if the blessing of the race of the first Adam had been possible it ought to have taken place then; but it was impossible. People talk much of a connecting-link between God and man, but even God manifested in grace and truth found none. On the contrary, the death of Christ is the positive, decisive, and definite break between man and God. Not only was man without law under sin, not only was he openly disobedient to the law when under it, but in rejecting Christ he thrust back the grace of God which shone forth in His divine Person. The Lord said (John 12:3131Now is the judgment of this world: now shall the prince of this world be cast out. (John 12:31)), in speaking of His death, “Now is the judgment of this world;” and in John 15:2424If I had not done among them the works which none other man did, they had not had sin: but now have they both seen and hated both me and my Father. (John 15:24), “They have seen and hated both me and my Father.” Therefore it says, in Hebrews 9:2626For then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world: but now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. (Hebrews 9:26), “Now once in the end of the world hath He appeared.” The cross was morally the end of man; but at the same time, and by the same fact in the death of Christ, the foundation was laid of the new creation according to the righteousness of God. The same fact which on God’s side had put an end to the first man, inasmuch as his race had rejected the Son of God, had also laid the foundation for the new condition of man in the second Adam. Christ was made sin on the cross; sin was judged there, and the old man forever set aside. Now access to God through faith has been made possible; in the resurrection, the new life, even as to the body, has been actually brought to light, and the second Man has taken His place in the glory. Just as the first man was driven out of the garden, and then became the root of a sinful and lost race, so the second Man is entered into the heavenly paradise as root and head of the saved race, as the righteousness of God which is valid for man; and so life and righteousness are become inseparable. Forgiveness through the blood of Christ is the strongest motive for an upright walk; the resurrection of Christ in itself unites righteousness and life; it is a “justification of life.” (chapter 5: 18) In the epistle to the Romans the truth that we are risen with Christ is not further-developed. As to the part we have in His death and resurrection, it only says that by faith we reckon ourselves dead to sin, that the glorified Christ is our life, and the Holy Spirit is given to us.
If then by the obedience of One we are constituted righteous, and if there, where sin abounded, grace did much more abound, “shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?” “God forbid,” says the apostle. Yet in his answer to this question he does not again place us under the law. That would be none other than to acknowledge the old man, the flesh, and when we are already lost to introduce afresh responsibility and condemnation; for the flesh is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. The answer of the Spirit refers rather to the death of Christ; all, however, that He has done is valid for us. The old man has been proved irremediably bad, and has in fact shown himself to be so in the death of Christ. I, who am crucified with Him, find it impossible now to recognize the same man who put Christ to death. I am come to Christ, because the man (I myself in my old condition) was such, and because I have now received a new life, Christ, risen from amongst the dead; but we must consider this more closely.
In having been baptized unto Christ Jesus (our true confession of faith), we were not baptized to a Christ whom the world has received, or who found a connecting-link with the first Adam. On. the contrary, the world, man, has absolutely and wholly rejected Him, and driven Him away from the earth; and thus it is evident, as has been already said, that a union between God and man as a child of Adam was perfectly impossible. So God has begun afresh; we are born again. Christ, God be praised, as the rejected One, has accomplished the work of redemption; He has acquired justification, forgiveness, and glory for those who believe on Him. But He is the second Man, and in Him man finds himself in an entirely new standing before. God, as well as in an entirely new condition. A risen Christ is our life, a risen Christ is our righteousness; the old man is forever condemned. He who possesses Christ as his life shares in all this, because he has part in His death and resurrection. In Romans the first part only is developed—we are dead with Him, have died with Him. He is indeed presented as our life; but our resurrection with Him is not treated of because the Holy Spirit here looks at Christians as men living on the earth. Christ is dead and risen; we are baptized unto His death. We have part in His death, inasmuch as He is our life. He, who is my life, died, and He died to sin. I acknowledge Him alone as my “I,” and as this new “I” I reckon myself dead to the old “I.” According to this new life I am alive to God; but with regard to my old man I am dead with Christ. How can I live the life of the old man if as such I am dead? Therefore, buried with Christ by baptism unto death, it behooves us to walk in newness of life. If we share His position, as dead to sin, we shall also share in His resurrection. The apostle does not say that we have part in it, but that we shall have part in it. This resurrection-life will be perfected in the glory; but it expresses itself already in a new walk, just as the power of the life of Christ which was brought to light in His resurrection in a positive way was also truly manifested in His walk on earth. “Knowing this,” says the apostle, “that our old man is crucified with Him that the body of sin might be destroyed” (that is to say, that sin in us as a whole might be destroyed) “that henceforth we should not serve sin” (v. 6); “for he that is dead is freed” (or justified) “from sin.” But this requires closer explanation.
We must first bear in mind that the Christian has not to die to sin, but that he is dead, because he is crucified with Christ; and because he has now received Christ as his life, he reckons the old man dead. He is not only delivered from individual sins or lusts, but the old man as a whole is set aside, dead, and to be held for dead by faith which acts according to the new man. It is true that the nature of the old man is still present in us; and its absence from our being does not follow upon our being dead with Christ, but it does not govern—“that henceforth we should not serve sin.” It is not necessary to have even one bad thought, although the nature which produces them still exists; but we in no wise serve this nature, not even in thought, when the new life and the power of the Holy Spirit are active in us. The Christian is freed, not because his sins are forever pardoned, but because he is dead to sin, crucified with Christ. Dead with Christ he is justified from sin, precisely because he is dead; but he is also alive in Christ. It is not only true that sin has no longer dominion, but the Christian is also free to yield himself up; he possesses a new nature, a new holy life. But to whom will he now yield himself? To righteousness and to God. This yielding up of the soul is not the act of the sinner, as is very often falsely affirmed, but of the delivered soul. Being purified, justified, assured of the love and favor of God, and in possession of a conscience rendered perfect through the blood of Christ, because no sin can any more be reckoned to him, the Christian is free, in liberty of heart before God. The same blow which rent the veil also removed all his sins. Through the rent veil the light of God beams now freely upon him, to show that his garments are white as snow. He is free from the power of sin, because Christ is his life, and crucified. with. Christ, and alive now through Him alone, he reckons himself dead as regards the flesh. He is free before God, and also freed from sin. In this liberty he yields himself to God.
Thus the new life, walking also with God, gains already something along the path. We have fruits, even before we reach the glory, Old this fruit is holiness. Blessed fruit! Having been made partakers of the divine nature, we thereby grow also in practical communion with God, inasmuch as holiness grows in us. This growth does not annul the truth that the new nature which we have received in itself is perfect. We belong wholly and entirely to God, are bought with a price, separated from sin and the world. We belong to God, according to the value of the offering of Christ, according to the new nature and the power of the Holy Spirit. We already belong after the inward man to the new creation, although “we have this treasure in earthen vessels.” We are in Christ, and in Him we are perfectly accepted. He is our righteousness, a righteousness which is fit for the glory; for He is in the glory according to this righteousness. But He is also in us as our life, and according to the power of the Spirit. This life in itself is perfect, and cannot sin; yet we must also have an object of holiness outside of us. Therefore the Holy Spirit takes what is in Christ and reveals it to us; yea, He reveals to us all that is up there where Christ is, and where the Father is also.
Thereby we grow objectively in that which is heavenly; we are weaned from the world, live in spirit in the heavenly places, enjoy the Father’s love, and become thus practically holy.
We are sanctified according to the counsels of God the Father, through the offering of Christ by His blood; we are so, as to our being, because we possess a new nature, a new life; we are so through the presence and operation of the Holy Spirit, and we may add, through the word of God the sanctification of the Spirit is wrought in our being born of God. But we must, as has been said, have an object, and the spiritual nature, the life, which we have received is capable of enjoying this object, God Himself. By the word of God, the Holy Spirit communicates to us the things that are holy and divine. We are first regenerated by the Word through faith, then we are nourished by the Word, and the heart is purified likewise by faith, and truly the one and the other through the revelation of Christ in the heart “Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth.... And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth.” (John 17.17-19) If we would be accurate, we could not say that the new man, the life which we have received from God, is sanctified; for the new life itself is holy, and inasmuch as we have received it, we are sanctified for God, therefore believers in the apostolic epistles are called saints. But holiness in us is relative; that is to say, it refers to God, because we cannot be independent. No doubt a true state is thereby produced in us; but we are not holy in independence; for it is sin for a creature to be independent, also it cannot actually be independent. Thus, holiness in us is objective; this is an important principle. All that the Holy Spirit has revealed to us—the love of the Father and of Christ, the holiness of God, the perfection of Christ, His Person which has been given to us and delivered up for us, His being glorified now in heaven—all this operates in us, and forms the heart, the thoughts, the inward and thereby also the outward man, according to the object on which we gaze. All that Christ has done and suffered has its part therein, not only because His walk and His ways are a pattern for us, but because they attract the heart to Him. The affections are occupied with Christ and His perfection, and He fills our hearts. That is sanctification; for this also fills the Father’s heart. “Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life.” (John 10:1717Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again. (John 10:17)) The Father values what Christ has done, and what He was in so doing, and it has been done for us. We have holy thoughts, because we love and value what He has done, and what He was. Thus the same mind is in us which was in Christ. It is one side of the Christian character.
But the power of sanctification is wrought above all by the contemplation of the glory of Christ. The heart is indeed nourished by all that He was down here; we eat His flesh and drink His blood, enjoy also the bread which came down from heaven; but what transforms us into His image (2 Corinthians 3:1818But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord. (2 Corinthians 3:18); 1 John 3:2,32Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. 3And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure. (1 John 3:2‑3)) is the glory in which He now dwells. Beholding this glory we are changed into the same image. The glory of Christ operates in us the energy of the life, whilst we count everything else for loss. The life and the sufferings of Christ attract the heart to Him. (See Philippians 2, 3)
He has sanctified Himself for our sakes, so that we might be sanctified through the Word. Wondrous grace! Wondrous union! This separates us from the world, unites us with what is heavenly, and forms us into the image of the heavenly. The end is eternal life in this very glory, when our earthly vessel also has been transformed into the likeness of this glory.
With regard to holiness we further learn, in Hebrews 12:1010For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure; but he for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness. (Hebrews 12:10), that the object of God’s discipline is to make us partakers in His holiness. In this passage we discover not only God’s ceaseless care of us, but we also learn to understand the precious character of this holiness. We have deserved death as the mournful wages of sad work; eternal life, the gift of God, is become our part through Jesus Christ our Lord; and this is pure grace. Who, but God only, could otherwise give us life—eternal life, divine life? Christ Himself is this life, sent from the Father into the world, and here revealed in manhood. And now “he that hath the Son hath life;” “he that believeth on Him hath everlasting life.” (John 1:1,2; 5:121In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2The same was in the beginning with God. (John 1:1‑2)
12Then asked they him, What man is that which said unto thee, Take up thy bed, and walk? (John 5:12); John 3:3636He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him. (John 3:36)) Although the last verse of our chapter points more to the result in glory, because in the counsels of God life eternal signifies perfect conformity to Christ in glory, yet it is none, the, less given to us now as life, although we are not yet in the glory. It is important for us to remark that it is the gift of God. Through sin, death had acquired man for itself; life, eternal life, in which we are capable of having fellowship with God, must be given of God. This life is Christ Himself. (1 John 1) He is the life which was with the Father, and is come down here. In Him was life; he that hath the Son hath life, and this life will soon be fully manifested in the glory. That is the principle of the new standing: We are dead with Christ to the old standing, and Christ is become our life.
J. N. D.