" THE end of man in the flesh in the cross " is said to be error! Rom. 6 and vii. do not say so. Nor does Gal. 2 " I have been crucified with Christ, and no longer live I," &c. Does not this Scripture prove what our paper affirms? Are you not too narrow in your views of the cross? By the cross God accomplishes a number of things-not atonement only, as you seem to think. The old man is crucified with Christ; the world is crucified to me; the flesh is crucified with the affections and lust; Satan is destroyed. This is the spiritual defect of many converted souls, that they have not seen by faith, and the Spirit that they come to the end of themselves in the Cross of Christ. They do not see that they have died with Christ to sin, and have got clear of its mastership, as well as that Christ has died for our sins to free us from our guilt. Death with Christ (Rom. 6) is the only means of annulling the old man or bringing him to his end. It is sin that is the great giant that tyranizes over God's saints until they see that he is to be reckoned as gone to death in Christ's death on the cross (Rom. 6:1-11), and that we are alive in Christ, who is risen from the dead.
Up to Rom. 5:11, we have sins, and propitiation, forgiveness, justification, peace, favor, hope of glory, reconciliation. From the middle of Rom. 5, we have (Rom. 5:12 to end.)—
Deliverance from our Adam connection by death -we find a new headship in Christ " the Second Man," who was dead to sin and lives to God.
Then in Rom. 6 we have deliverance from our old master, sin, by death with Christ, and we have life in Christ Jesus, risen; and we are exhorted: “Yield yourselves unto God... For sin shall not have dominion over you, for ye are not under law, but under grace."
In Rom. 7 we have deliverance from the old husband, the law, and are “married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we might bring forth fruit unto God."
At chap. 3. he has written, " By the law is the knowledge of sin," but as the subject there was sins, not sin, he leaves the explanation of how the law gives the knowledge of sin till chap. 7. (when it is in place,) and this he does from verse 7-25. First, it gives the knowledge of sin to an unconverted man, verse 7-13 and it thereby kills him in his conscience, for he is brought in guilty. But, second, from verse 14-24, the law gives the knowledge of sin to a converted but undelivered man, in its only producing powerlessness to do good, or to get deliverance, and the man gives up at last in despair, crying, " O, wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?". He at once finds a deliverer, through Jesus Christ our Lord. “I thank God.... there is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath set me free from the law of sin and death." This is the rationale of the deliverance. For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin condemned sin-in-the-flesh." Sins are atoned for chap. 3., sin is condemned in chap. 8., in the-same sacrifice of Christ for sin. We are thus "dead to the law by the dead body of Christ," as says Paul in Rom. 7 and Gal. 2 We are justified by His blood from our sins; we are " justified from sin" by His death. Death alone can deal effectually with a nature. God made Christ to be sin for us when He died; and now that He is risen and glorified we are made the 4‘ righteousness of God in him, and have justification of life." This is also set forth by the Spirit in 2 Cor. 3.-5. The ministry of the Spirit is of life and righteousness in Christ risen and glorified. When we believe in Him and are sealed with the Spirit, guilt is not only gone, but we are in an entirely new place " in Christ Jesus," and living an entirely new life-the life of Christ risen from the dead, so that neither death, sin, nor law, have any claim over us, and we walk in newness of life " (Rom. 6), and serve in " newness of spirit."
1. The guilt of our sins is gone through Christ's blood-shedding and resurrection (for we are justified by his blood), and " being justified by faith we have peace with God"-" with God," mark; not a mere feeling of peace in ourselves, though faith enjoying peace with God or reconciliation will surely give a peaceful sense of the enjoyment of God's favor wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God, and2. “When we were without strength, Christ died for the ungodly." This is shown by our fruitless struggles to do good, under the law—no strength; `Rom. 7 But in Christ's death the life of the flesh, in which there is "no strength," and " no good thing," is „gone for faith, " condemned " with an overthrow like Sodom and Gomorrah, and we are " in Christ Jesus," in life and righteousness. We have a new life imparted, and are strengthened with all might according to the power of Christ's glory.
Now, this thing-the end (to faith) of man in the flesh in the cross, and death of Christ is, as you see, the definite teaching of the Holy Scriptures, and you'll rejecting it shows inattention to the Word, if not the proof that you have not yet apprehended it, or accepted it, by faith in Christ Jesus. But it is as plainly in the Epistle to the Romans as is justification by faith through Christ's blood from our sins. We have justification from sin, as well as from sins. For " He that has died is justified from sin." Christ has died: and so we also died with Him and are justified from sin. " We have died with Christ." This is not merely Christ dying for us: but we died with Hint out of the sphere where we were as living in the flesh under sin, His dying for us in rich mercy, and bearing our sins. has made an entire end of our sins before God; and' we dying with Him makes as entire an end of ourselves, the old man having been crucified with Him. This is given us primarily not as matter of experience, but of knowledge. " Knowing this that our old man has bee ' crucified with Him that the body of sin should b annulled, that we should no longer serve sin." We get out' of the sphere of the mastership of sin, by death with Christ, just as the Hebrews got from under the mastership Cf Pharaoh by the Red Sea—death in figure. They were delivered from Egypt's slavery by that which was death to the old tyrant and all his army. There was no more service of Pharaoh after he was drowned—so death and judgment have come upon the old master, sin. He was destroyed in the Red Sea. So the body of sin is destroyed in Christ's death that henceforth we should not serve sin. Sin is gone as a master; and this is, for faith, a point of revealed knowledge. Do you know it? By God's grace we have changed our place, and changed our master. We are in Christ Jesus. He alone is our Master, not I sin, and we serve Him. For we see that Scripture does! teach that the end of man-in-the-flesh has come to all who have faith in Christ Jesus, that they have died with Him to sin, and now live of his life (the old life having' been annulled in His death)—" So also ye reckon/ yourselves dead indeed unto sin but alive to God in. Christ Christ Jesus." Blessed is the man who knows this; divine fact, and acts upon it.
I have dwelt upon this subject at considerable length because of its great importance. For until this is known and accepted by faith there can be no Christian experience, and no spiritual progress. Wherever we may get to the knowledge of it—" Arabia " or elsewhere, it must be had, or else all pretense to live a Christian life is nothing worth: for Christ in heaven must remain unknown as our new head, life, center, and resource before God, if we have no knowledge o deliverance from our fallen, guilty, and irremediable condition such as the epistle of Paul to the Romans describes. If you are induced to look into the Word of God a little more closely on this all-important subject, from what I have now written, and get to see the end the cross makes of man in the flesh by a fresh reading of it I will be happy, and now, " I commend you to God and the word of his grace."
" For I through the law am dead to the law, that I might live unto God. I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved we, and gave himself for me " (Gal. 2:19-20).