Chapter 8:1. " There is no condemnation," etc. I was looking for myself in the wrong direction, I now turn to Christ as what God sees me to be. There is nothing in Him that God can disapprove.
Verse 2. " The law of the Spirit of life hath set me free from the law of sin and death." The power of the Spirit putting me consciously in Christ enables me to turn away from myself as experience would show it me. God has put the seal of condemnation upon all that we were looking at, " God sending His own Son, in the likeness of sinful flesh, to condemn sin in the flesh."
The law, occupying me with myself, is weak through the opposition of the flesh which it finds there. The law commands me to love God, but I cannot love because I ought. God show's me love in Christ, and produces love in me by it. He sets me in all the fullness of divine favor, as what will turn my heart to Him and occupy me with Himself. Thus it is faith that purifies the heart; faith sanctifies, "faith working by love." There is nothing grievous in serving one that I delight in.
Verse 3. Is the defect in us or in the law? Wickedness is in us, but there is defect in the law, in this way: it not merely gives us no power, but actually gives power to sin against us. Of course it is not defective in what God aims at by it.
Verse 4. " Who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." Up to this it has been one " I " against another; now, when we come to deliverance, it is not the new nature in opposition to the old, but the Spirit of God, a very different thing practically. " Power is of God." The source of strength is in another, not yourself, and yet in you, giving you your place in weakness, yet with a strength that never fails. A Christian who is really strong does not feel strength, but weakness, and has to reckon upon God for every step of the way. Thus we have that to depend on which is more than sufficient for all that can come. If it were a stock of strength in myself I should have to ask if it was equal to the difficulties.
People have an idea as to Christians that they could not do this or that that is wrong; but in Scripture you will find Christians doing what was not even named among the, Gentiles (1 Cor. 5). Why have we these warnings? To prevent us thinking that we stand, for if we " think we stand we must take heed lest we fall." The devil likes very well to get Christ out of His place before our eyes, and put a strong or holy self into it. If the Spirit of God occupies us with ourselves, it is to show us how unlike Him we are, and how we need Him. Again, in the progress people talk about spirituality, they want not merely to make progress, but conscious progress; they want to find satisfaction in it. The fact is, if I am making real progress I find T lose the measure to make it by. For instance, if I measure a living plant by putting a dead stick by its side, I can measure its growth just because the stick is dead; but if I put a living stick instead, and it grows, I have lost my measure. So, if I am measuring myself by Christ and am growing in the knowledge of Him, as he grows in my eyes I lose the measure of my growth.
Q. You Spoke of Trusting Another-the Spirit; Would That Not Turn the Eye in?
A. The Spirit of God always occupies one with Christ when things are right in the soul; if with ourselves, for self-judgment. " We all with open face beholding the glory of the Lord are changed into the same image " (2 Cor. 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)).
Q. How Can We Know These Things Before We Realize Them?
A. Faith leads to, realization; the experience of faith must be the consequence of faith itself.
In 1 John 5 you have the external witness of the Spirit, the water and the blood, and then " he that believeth hath the witness in himself, and just as we take food and eat it we find the result. In the clean animals (Lev. 11) one great thing is the chewing of the cud. In ruminating some portion of the food comes into service immediately; but some is still there, and must come up again, and upon reconsidering, more and more come out of it.
Verse 5. " They that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit."
The great hindrance to souls is the want of deliverance (Rom. 7 is not a matter of peace, but of deliverance); indeed to have heard the divine call, as Abraham. Lot went with Abraham, but the difference is soon manifest; and the plain of Jordan (of death) is to Lot's eyes the garden of the Lord; that justifies him in the choice of it; he forgets that in a fallen world there is no garden of the Lord, and it is really like the land of Egypt.
Just so far as faith is faith it works, so in 1 John • he appeals to what faith has wrought in them. This is never the way to settle souls, but it tests the reality of those who profess to be settled. In some cases it may be good to raise doubt as long as it can be raised. A delivered soul is the only one who can make progress.
Enjoying our own things in Christ makes us free; happy, holy, and strong. If we are not in the enjoyment of them we are as weak as water, not but one with a strong will may go on in a self-chosen path, but it is misery. Our first thing then is to enjoy Christ.
Q. What Is the " No Condemnation" of the First Verse?
A. It is not merely that there is no wrath, but nothing that the eye of God can disapprove of. "Condemning sin in the flesh" is not exactly inflicting wrath upon it, but marking its character. Wrath would be upon a person; this is the nature.
Verse 6. "The mind of the flesh is death." If say " carnally minded," it is a state in me. The mind of the flesh" is what it always is. " The mind of the Spirit is life and peace," as occupying you with Him who is both. The new nature does not know itself, but Christ, where the Spirit of God is really leading (Col. 3:10,1110And have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him: 11Where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free: but Christ is all, and in all. (Colossians 3:10‑11)). The new man is renewed in knowledge. where Christ is all. The man who says "to me to live is holiness" will not be holy; for who is to be holy? It is I, and thus "to me to live is I."
Christians in the present day are using the language of the hospital. In the hospital they speak of good days and bad days, because good days are scarce. A man in health does not think about his head, but he does when it aches. Nature thus illustrates what we find in the Scripture.
Death. If I define what death is, it is separation; in physical death, between soul and body; in spiritual death, between the soul and God. It is never extinction. The seed which dies (1 Cor. 15:3636Thou fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die: (1 Corinthians 15:36)) does not come to nothing. The husk may, but the living germ is the main part of it, and if that `came to an end there would be no harvest. The root idea in death is separation. " The mind of the flesh is death," because it is enmity against God. " Neither indeed can be." It is incurable, never changes into spirit, and they that are in it cannot please God. God's only way with it was to blot it out by the death of Christ, and finally to deliver from, it when the body is changed.
People think that at conversion there is only a moral change, that the evil in us to begin with is gradually changed into good, and this must be complete before death, or they will not be fit for heaven.
In that way it would be hard to see why one should wait for death to have it; but Scripture teaches that if a man has the Spirit of God the flesh lusts against it, and the remedy is, walk in the Spirit and ye shall not fulfill its lusts-not be gone. If I have the Spirit there is never any excuse for walking in the flesh. There is no limit to the practical power over it. (See Gal. 5)
Then, as to fitness, Col. 1:1212Giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light: (Colossians 1:12) speaks of our having been made fit to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light, and this is true of all Christians. Fitness is not title. A babe may be born to an inheritance, and its title be good enough; it is not fit to possess it, because it is a babe. If it is true that the flesh is gradually changed into spirit, all with whom the change is not complete are not fit, which shows that there is something wrong in the idea.
In Scripture the new nature is entirely of God, and according to God, just as the flesh is absolutely and incurably evil. In 1 John 3, " Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin" (not absolutely a sin' but does not practice sin), for his seed remaineth in him, and he cannot sin because lie is born of God. This is the incorruptible seed of 1 Peter 1:2323Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever. (1 Peter 1:23). People say his seed may not remain in him, but the apostle says it does, and cannot be changed into evil any more than the flesh can be changed into good. It will not let him be the man he was before. The very common doctrine on this subject works most sorrowfully. People are not taught to question the reality of a conversion which did little for them and could not stand the contact with the world. Matt. 13 gives us the cause of this backsliding. The stony-ground hearer has no root in him. If the seed had rooted in the man's soul it would never have withered. The heart of stone in this case was really never taken away. Such land cannot be broken up by the plow. The man has never really taken the place of a lost sinner, and the word of God has never got its hold in the depth of his soul. Here there is nothing wrong with the sower or the seed. The first three cases in this parable illustrate the opposition of the devil, the flesh, and the world; but only he on the good ground really understands. The effect of these two natures in one life may be more or less a mixture, like a pool of water fed by two springs, the one salt water and the other fresh; the fresh spring may be entirely so, and if you can stop the other the pool will be fresh.
Suppose the Lord comes, we are fit for heaven-have the new nature capable of enjoying it, and the flesh, which is no part of us as Christians, will be gone.
In Christ, is position.
In the Spirit, is power.
Q. If We Are Fit Already, What About Growth?
A. Growth implies immaturity, but not the presence of evil. A child grows in knowledge as it has before it the perfect thing to which it is growing up, and it grows up to the measure of the life by which it is surrounded. In the same way God puts Christ before His babes, and they grow up unto Him by learning what He is.
In 1 Cor. 1:22Unto the church of God which is at Corinth, to them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, with all that in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours: (1 Corinthians 1:2) we have positional sanctification; chap 1: 30, the principle of progressive sanctification. Christ, as the object before us, sanctifies. These are the two things seen in the 'leper (Lev. 13 and 14.). He is restored to God by the blood of the trespass offering, i. e., the restoration offering, sanctified by blood; then the oil is put upon the blood; he is set apart to God, as purchased by the blood of Christ, and the Holy Spirit then makes this a practical reality (verses 9 and 10). All Christians are addressed as having the Spirit of God.
Gal. 3:55He therefore that ministereth to you the Spirit, and worketh miracles among you, doeth he it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? (Galatians 3:5) shows the means by which the Spirit of God came upon the Gentiles. The Jews having rejected the Messiah, had to take new ground by baptism in order to receive the Holy Ghost (Acts 2 and 19.). Cornelius (Acts 10), as the pattern of the Gentiles, receives the Holy Ghost apart from baptism; so also in Eph. 1:1313In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise, (Ephesians 1:13), the Ephesians who were Gentiles. "If Christ be in you the body is, dead, because of sin." The body is not yet redeemed, and if we allow it liberty it will be only sin. It is to be used by the new man as machinery, so to speak, and kept in the place of death. Not only are the eye and ear avenues of temptation from the outside world, but the very constitution of the body is altered by sin. Sin has disorganized it. It is well known that the child of a drunkard may have naturally a thirst for drink, and in this way how many propensities to evil may there be apart from the fact of what the old nature is itself? Mortify your members which are upon the earth " (Col. 3:55Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry: (Colossians 3:5)). You yourself are a man in Christ, but you have members, and so yield your members (Rom. 6); but our present mortal bodies shall be quickened by the Spirit in the day of resurrection. We see here (verse 11) the distinctness of the believer's resurrection. There is a resurrection of life and a resurrection of judgment.
Q. Is It the Same Body Changed?
A. It is the same body, and yet it is not the same, according to the way in which you look at it. 1 Cor. 15:3737And that which thou sowest, thou sowest not that body that shall be, but bare grain, it may chance of wheat, or of some other grain: (1 Corinthians 15:37), " Thou sowest not that body that shall be." Verse 42, "What is sown is raised."
Q. Does Not Resurrection Prove the Immortality of the Soul?
A. That those who are dead to man are alive to God proves the necessity of resurrection, according to Luke 20 Take the Jews, who are so scattered from their land, and yet preserved nationally. That preservation of the scattered nation implies the divine purpose of bringing them together again. So with the preservation of the spirit, which God has fitted to the body and could not remain apart from it forever.
Q. What Does One Star Differing From Another Star in Glory Imply?
A. The difference between the natural and the spiritual body. It is not a question of rewards, which does not come into the chapter at all. The tendency constantly is to exaggerate the importance of what is special to the individual, and lose sight proportionately of the higher blessing which we have in common. Thus, " In my Father's house are many mansions" is taken by many as implying distinctions in the Father's house, whereas what the Lord is stating is that there is room for them all with Him there. Rewards are not in connection with the Father's house, but with the kingdom; just as in a king's family all are children, but they are designated in dignity before the world outside. The fruit of Christ's work is that which we have in common, and must be infinitely greater, therefore, than the reward of our own. In connection with the coming of the Lord for His own we get the first, the introduction to the Father's house, and there is there no sentry at the door, no challenging of what we are or what we have done. The question of rewards is always in connection with the appearing of our Lord and His kingdom. The principle too upon which they are given is important. That principle is that " the first shall be last, and the last shall be first." Supposing, for instance, the guests are at a king's table, and they take their own places according to their own estimate of themselves, placing themselves nearer or further accordingly from where they suppose the king is going to sit. When the king comes in he takes his place precisely at the other end, then the last will be first and the first last, and that will be exactly right, because the more I think of Christ the less I shall think of any work I have done for Him, and the less I think of Him the more highly I shall think of it. Thus to work for reward is the fair way to lose it, while he who works for Christ gets the reward too.
Verses 12 and 13. The grace that saves from hell saves also from the things which send men there. This is what we are bound to maintain. The holiness of God has to be manifested in connection with the salvation of the righteous. This is the meaning of 1 Peter 4:1818And if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear? (1 Peter 4:18): " If the righteous be with difficulty saved.' The discipline of God with His people has two sides. On the one side, for the saint himself; it is correction of the evil; on the other side, the holiness of His government has to be manifested-His hatred of sin, wherever found.
Verse 14. We are to discern those who are the sons of God by their being led by the Spirit of God. When we see a drunkard we are not to say "I hope he is a Christian; " that is to connect Christ with evil. If a Christian is on the wrong road God will surely chasten him and bring him back. Show me a scripture that says God ever took away a child of His unrepentant if he had fallen. In 1 Cor. 9 there is one on the road home, and he says if any one is not taking this road he will not reach there, though he may even be a-preacher.
Verse 15. Those led by the Spirit of God are not led by the spirit of bondage again to fear; so we must not be legal.
Verse 16. The witness of the Spirit of God and our spirit is a joint witness; co-witness, as the word is. The spirit of man is the intelligent part of him. The apostle has thus been ministering the word to the intelligence that we may be able to say that we are children of God; but it is the Spirit of God that brings it home to the soul and makes it a conscious realization.
A. There is the personal witness of the Holy Ghost now come, as well as the corroboration of it by the Old Testament Scripture. As in 1 Peter 1:1212Unto whom it was revealed, that not unto themselves, but unto us they did minister the things, which are now reported unto you by them that have preached the gospel unto you with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven; which things the angels desire to look into. (1 Peter 1:12), " The gospel is preached with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven." The passage in Heb. 10 refers to Lev. 16, the day of atonement. The high priest goes in with the blood and makes an atonement in the holy place; then he comes out and puts the sins of Israel upon the scapegoat and sends them away. This is the " not remembering any more their sins and iniquities." But this will be for Israel only when He comes out, and He is not yet come out. How then do we in the meanwhile get the witness of atonement? By the Holy Ghost coining out instead; so applying the principle of the scapegoat, " our sins and iniquities are remembered no more."
The indwelling of the Spirit is the distinctive privilege of Christianity. As long as God was claiming to be a Father to Israel, those born of Him, true children did not get their proper place. When he had come to His own and His own received Him not, then to as many as did receive Him, He gave title to become the sons of God (John 1:1212But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: (John 1:12), margin). And when the Jews claimed to be God's children (John 8:4141Ye do the deeds of your father. Then said they to him, We be not born of fornication; we have one Father, even God. (John 8:41)), the Lord says " If God were your Father ye would love me." Gal. 4:1-51Now I say, That the heir, as long as he is a child, differeth nothing from a servant, though he be lord of all; 2But is under tutors and governors until the time appointed of the father. 3Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world: 4But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, 5To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. (Galatians 4:1‑5) shows the effect of the Jewish system, therefore, upon the true children. As long as it lasted they were at school with the schoolmaster, and those at school do not say " Father." Thus if you take the Psalms (for many the inspired book of Christian devotion) the cry of Abba Father is not once there.
Not understanding this distinction between Jewish ".sons " and Christians, causes confusion with many in the interpretation of Luke 15 People think the prodigal son must needs be a wandering child of God, but this would entirely destroy the application to those whom the Lord had before Him, as in ver. 1, publicans and sinners on the one hand, and Pharisees on the other. " This man receiveth sinners " was the objection of the latter to which he is replying. In Matt. 21: 28 there is another parable of two sons, which the Lord Himself applies by saying " the publicans and harlots go into the kingdom of God before you,"
Verse 17. " If children then heirs." The moment you bring in heirship with Christ, you have suffering as the necessary road to the inheritance.
Suffering, with Christ is not merely natural suffering such as all are partakers of. It is the suffering resulting from being in His path and partaker of His Spirit. It is not merely the result of persecution. He must necessarily have suffered, having the knowledge of God as He he had in the world that was far from Him. This suffering flows from the very joy we have in God, just as light let into a room makes shadows, while it dispels darkness.
Suffering for Christ is in Suffering rejection with Him the rejected One. Suffering with Him includes this, but is wider. There is a difference again between suffering for righteousness' sake, and Christ's sake. You have these two distinguished both in Matt. 5:10,1110Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 11Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. (Matthew 5:10‑11), and Peter iii. 14 and iv. 14. People admire righteousness when it does not conflict with their own interest, but they do not like Christ at all, and in that way we find the most bitter persecution and the highest blessedness.
Verses 19 to 21. The whole creation is waiting to get its blessing when the children of God are manifested in resurrection glory. Creatures have not the liberty of grace as we, but wait to share the liberty of the glory (as "glorious liberty " should be rendered). The creature was subjected by God to man, and so fell with him (was made subject to vanity), not willingly, or of its own will, and in hope of deliverance with him.
Verses 23 and 24. We have not yet received the inheritance, the new body or the glory, but we have the Spirit of God as first fruits. Thus we get our grapes of Eschol before we enter the land (Num. 14).
The perfection of the hope is seen by our being ale to wait for it with patience. If it was not certain we should be impatient necessarily. When we are certain to get all that God has promised we can afford to wait.
Verses 26 and 27. In the meanwhile we have the intercession of the Spirit that is in us. "He that searcheth the hearts" knows it. This goes beyond what we may be able to express intelligently, but when we can only groan, God knows what the groan means.
If we get the truth of the Spirit of God personally interceding, we see at once how a form of prayer is only unbelief. People say it prevents irregularities, and enables them to express themselves in a proper way. It is quite true we fail, but it is no remedy for failure to take the whole matter out of the hands of the Spirit, as though He had failed. He makes intercession for the saints according to God, not according to His will merely, but thoroughly according to His mind. Our place is only to be absolutely subject to Him.
Verse 28. We do not know what to ask for as we ought, but " we do know that all things work together for good to them that love God." It is not said to those whom God loves, though that is true, but we have here what is similar to 1 John 3:2222And whatsoever we ask, we receive of him, because we keep his commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in his sight. (1 John 3:22). God can manifest Himself to an obedient child (and obedience is the true test of love to Him) as He cannot towards one who is careless. Those who love God are " the called according to His purpose;" that is what people call effectual calling, as in 1 Cor. 1:2525Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men. (1 Corinthians 1:25), " to them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God." To others, who had just as much the general call of the gospel, He was a stumbling-block or foolishness.
Verses 29 to 39. "For whom He did foreknow," etc.
A. Not that He fore-ordained their character, but their judgment, as foreseen to have this character.
People confound man's responsibility with what grace works in him. He is responsible to believe what God says to him, and to fulfill his duty with regard to it apart from all question of grace. He is not responsible to be born again. That is what God works in him, apart from his own, will altogether (John 1:1313Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. (John 1:13)). He is responsible to believe because God has given His testimony with the fullest evidence that can be needed. The refusal to believe is always based upon moral grounds. " How can ye believe which receive honor one of another," etc.; believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness. Light is come into the world, and men loved darkness, refused the light, not were ignorant of it. So, " he that is of the truth heareth my voice," the Lord has said. In the case of the seed sown by the wayside (Matt. 13), where it lies on the surface of the ground till the birds come and take it away, it is still said " catcheth away that which was sown in his heart." So " the word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth and in thy heart, that if thou shalt believe," etc. The word is already in the heart before it is believed. So again, " commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God" (2 Cor. 4:22But have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, not walking in craftiness, nor handling the word of God deceitfully; but by manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God. (2 Corinthians 4:2)). Upon this testimony thus approving itself to man's conscience man is called to believe and receive it. So, also, Christ died for all, and there is a general offer of the gospel. God would have all men to be saved. He would have gathered, and they would not. That is man's responsibility, but upon that ground all are simply lost; they are ruined by their own will, not God's; 'but then they have- this will universally. There is no difference. We who are saved are not better than they, and if God had stopped here, there would be no result of Christ's death for us, except added condemnation. The trouble is that what is true when applied to the lost (that they are ruined by their own will) has been applied equally to the saved, that they are saved by their owl] will. This is not true, for we are not born of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man. For want of preserving this balance Calvinism becomes a rigid fatalism, which imputes man's ruin to God. Arminianism, on the other side, becomes self-complacency, which puts the goodness on man's side, instead of God's, and makes salvation to be of man rather than God. There is only one difficulty really at the bottom of all this question, and that is, "why does not God save all? " The only thing we can say here is we do not know; but, while we cannot fathom His ways, we know Himself, for He has given His Son, and I can trust Him, therefore. He expressly declares that He has no pleasure in the death of the wicked.
If it depended upon our own will, merely, whether, we were finally lost or saved we could never have confidence how it would turn out with us; but the gifts and calling of God are without repentance. If we suppose that it depends upon ourselves we shall never be able to face honestly the truth of our condition. God's argument begins with Himself and His gift of Christ, and our arguments begin with ourselves, and some reach entirely opposite conclusions as to what He will be for us. Here it is God that justifieth. Who shall condemn? It is Christ that died and is risen again; who shall separate us from His love? This answers Satan in Zech. 3 " The Lord that path chosen, Jerusalem rebuke thee. Is not this a brand plucked out of the fire? "
Verse 38. " I am persuaded that neither death nor life, etc., can separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." A good persuasion, truly. We ought to feel safe enough there. A person once said that no one but rash Paul would have said that. Blessed for us that it is the word of God, who cannot lie, for holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. All Scripture is given by inspiration of God.