In the 6th chapter I understand the Apostle to be reasoning upon the claims which sin has on the believer. And the Apostle tells us sin has been disposed of. Sin was once the master, or king, holding dominion. It issued its commands through all the members, which were thus instruments of unrighteousness unto sin.
But sin has now, as such master, paid its wages. Its wages was death, and we have died in Christ; and thus sin is disposed of, or, we have done with it; for Christ has done with it; when He died, He died unto sin. It is true, He had to do with sin in His death; for His death owned the dominion of sin, being the wages it paid. But in resurrection Christ had to do with God, and not with sin; He rose by the glory of the Father, and by resurrection lived unto God, as in His death He had died unto sin. So the believer, now one with Christ in His death and resurrection, has done with sin, and has to do with God. Sin in its wages is disposed of, and so should it be in all it claims; for if we no longer receive its wages, so no longer are we to do its service.
It is as those who are alive from the dead that we should walk; and if that condition be rightly apprehended (alive from the dead, or risen), continuance in the doing or service of sin will be found a thing not even counted upon, or reckoned; such indeed have rather to reckon themselves dead unto sin, and alive unto God through Jesus Christ. Such truths their baptism reads to them. If, indeed, sin be willingly served, we own that sin is still alive, and not thus disposed of; and we deny the whole of this truth and our standing in Christ. For when we died to sin; that is, when sin paid us its wages (in Christ put to death), then "the old man," or, the "body of sin," was destroyed. That is, all our members and faculties, once the sphere and instrument of sin's dominion and service, in that character, were put to death also. So all our members and faculties now should own, assert, and exercise themselves in a risen character.
In the 7th chapter the Apostle in like manner entertains the claims of the law upon the believer, and in like manner he shows that they also have been disposed of. He does this very simply. He says that the authority of the law addressed itself only to a living man; that is, a man in the flesh, or man as born of Adam—that the law was given to him as such, but the believer has ceased in this sense to be a living man—has ceased to be of Adam, inasmuch as he has died and been raised again. And, consequently, being a dead and risen man, and not a living man, the law does not address its claims to him-he is not the object for the law. But in this the law is not spoken of in the same relation to us as sin has been. Sin has been spoken of as a master, or a king; but the law is here spoken of as a husband; and the result of our being dead to sin was life to God; but the result of our being now dead to the law is, marriage with Christ, as here shown. These distinctions, you will find, have their beautiful moral forms and meaning.
Then, at the close of the chapter, having shown how that sin and the law have been disposed of, or set aside—the one as a master, the other as a husband—the Apostle tells at the same time that they have been discharged with very different characters. Sin has been discharged with as bad, the law with as good, a character as ever the pen of an apostle could write for them. All evil in us is said to have come from the first, while from the other nothing proceeds but that which is "holy, and just, and good"; and the moment that the real character of the law was understood by the quickened soul, this grievous stage of things arose—the commandment came, sin revived, and the man died. The law was felt to urge one thing before the conscience; sin was felt to exact another thing in the old man, or the members; and this state of things drew forth the sense of death in the soul, and the cry for deliverance. And the answer came in Jesus, revealed in the power of His death and resurrection.
In the 8th chapter of Romans we get the believer escaped thus from sin as a master, and the law as a husband, and in his new place in Christ. Being in Him, the believer has become a spiritual person—no longer in the flesh. Thus the flesh is discharged, as well as sin and the law; that is, we are neither under the old master, with the old husband, nor in the old nature. And, by the way, the Apostle shows that the flesh, thus discharged, could never (let God have done with it what He might) have yielded any fruit or allegiance to Him. So, as we speak, it was sad rubbish in itself, and to be free from it is good riddance.
Having thus cleared his way to look at the believer in his new place in Christ, the Apostle then with delight traces the holy prerogatives of such a one. 1) He is nothing less than a son, having the spirit of adoption, and not the spirit of bondage, as a servant. 2) Being thus a son, the Spirit, the Holy Ghost, is in him as at home. 3) Being thus a son, he is also an heir, having an heirship of God, with Jesus Christ. 4) And as the great principle of this coheirship, he is to shine in the same personal glory by-and-by as Jesus, on the hope of which manifestation of glory in us the whole creation now waits. 5) And though all this condition of the believer may cause him to groan under the sense of his present state in the body, and that he is still only in hope, like the whole creation; yet the Spirit given to him, and being in him, groans also, and groans with so pure a groan, that God has entire fellowship with it. 6) And even more than this. God in His sovereign rule of all things, constrains them all to work together for the believer, that without, as well as within us, He may be for us. And finally, the one great original purpose of conforming the believer to the model or image of the glorified Son, is that which has been the spring-and is ever the constant and abiding spring-of all the divine procedure and action.
This is the train of glorious privileges which flows forth from the believer's union with Christ. Nothing is too excellent for God to do or devise for such a one. All the joy that the fullest love can inspire, all the dignity that the brightest glories an put on us, are ours, thus, according to the counsel of God in Christ Jesus.
"God is for us"; who can be against us? This can easily account for all this train of joys and glories. But if He be for us, who can be against us? Is there an accuser, a judge, or an executioner, still standing out? The first may go away rebuked by this—that God has justified us. The second may go away rebuked by this-that Christ has died- has already suffered the judgment, and His work has been accepted. The third may go away rebuked by this-that all the malice of earth and hell together shall never drag us from the embraces, the firm embraces, of our God in Christ Jesus our Lord. And if there be neither accuser to charge, nor judge to condemn, nor executioner to punish, the court is cleared; we have left the scene, and now wait to be forever with the Lord.