OM 6:14{It is a long time before we fully understand what it is to be under grace. Even where the doctrine is clearly apprehended by the mind, nothing is so difficult as to practically maintain ourselves in grace. Grace is not merely mercy coming to a lost sinner pardoning his sins and saving him, but it is a power under which the one pardoned and saved is brought, so that he is delivered from the state of bondage to sin under which he once lay. It is not simply to be saved from the consequences of sin as to judgment to come, but to be now delivered from sin itself. It is not only to be justified from sins, but to be freed from sin as a nature that controls one. "Sin shall not have dominion over you; because ye are not under law but under grace," says the apostle. The apostle is speaking here to Gentile converts who had never been under law. They had previous to their conversion beers simply lawless and living away from God in a sinful nature. They were not now as saved persons, brought under a religious system such as that under which the Jews already were, and which, as a system, while it separated them outwardly from Gentiles, left their hearts still under the power of sin as much as the Gentiles outside them.
Under the Jewish system there were sacrifices for sins and thus forgiveness of sins, but there was no deliverance from sin itself, as a nature. There was a law to prevent sin acting, with a penalty attached if it did; sin as a nature was recognized as there, and the law, had it been possible, was to have kept it under entire restraint. The history of the Jews up to the cross of Christ, where it fully displayed itself, is the history of a nature that could in no way be held in check by a law imposed upon it. Moreover the sacrifices themselves, we speak not here of their typical import, were rendered useless because the law was broken, and the curse of the law came in taking away, without remedy, so to speak, the transgressor. This will become clear to us if we think of how things actually stood. The sacrifices only touched, as we have said, the question of sins. They never even proposed to take away the sin itself as a nature. Law-keeping was to meet this, as far as not allowing the sin to come out was concerned. Could it have done this, all had been well, but it did not, and consequently the righteousness of God came in and judged the sinner, and the previous sacrifices went for nothing.
A sacramental system, with law-keeping as a condition of blessing, is not only then useless to man as a sinner, be he Jew or Gentile, but positively disadvantageous to him, because it puts him under greater responsibilities, while it gives him no power to meet them. It is even worse than this, because it hardens him in sin, putting him more completely under the power of sin, by opposing a check to it which only calls forth its energies against that which is given to check it. In the wisdom of God the law was given to man, not as a ground of blessing, but as means of teaching him his true state before God, and his need of redemption. It gave neither life nor righteousness, but supposed life to be there, and demanded righteousness as the ground upon which life should be enjoyed,-"he that doeth these things shall live in them."
As to law itself, man being a sinner in his nature, " it is the strength of sin," and " by the law is the knowledge of sin" when the soul is spiritually alive, for "I had not known sin," says the apostle, "but by the law; for I had not known lust unless the law had said thou shalt not covet." Sin, by the commandment, only becomes "exceeding sinful."
The sacrifice of Christ on the cross is the starting point of grace and thus the initiative rite of Christianity, sets forth our participation in the death of Christ, as that through which we enter under grace. As baptized to His name, we are baptized to His death. Baptism puts us outwardly in relationship with Christ, as the one raised from the dead and in power at God's right hand. "Grace reigns through righteousness unto 'eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord.' We can only he under grace by being under Jesus Christ, and we can only be under Christ in grace, by participating in His death. " Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die it abideth alone, but if it die it bringeth forth much fruit."
Not only was Judaism, with its sacrifices and law-keeping, of no good to man, but Christ himself incarnate availed him nothing. Incarnation could no more bring man to God than Judaism. A living and incarnate Christ stands alone. To bring' others into blessing with himself He must die,—as Peter says, " the just for the unjust, to bring us to God." It was the truth of the cross, not of the 'incarnation so much, that stumbled the Jews. They "strove among themselves," we read, "saying, How can this man give us His flesh to eat?" The Lord answers them, " Verily, verily, I say unto you, except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink His blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life: and I will raise him up at the last day."
It is of all importance, in this day, when ritualism with its fleshly religion, is raising its head so imperiously aloft, and repeating its opposition to Christ, to press home the fundamental truth, that it is alone by participation in the death of Christ, that we come into blessing, in other words, "under grace." Outside of grace, all is judgment because there "sin is reigning unto death."
To be brought under grace, is to be brought outside of sin,-and thus outside its consequences. This is far more that forgiveness, and it is here that christianity so contrasts itself with Judaism, where, as we have seen, partial forgiveness of sins was known, but where bondage to sin itself was complete, in spite of the law given to keep it under. 'Grace brings us the double blessing of deliverance from sin as a nature, and of forgiveness of sins as the fruits of that nature. This flows from the double bearing of the sacrifice of Christ upon the question of sin and sins. Christ on the cross by His death put away sin itself, as well as bore the sins of those who believe. If Christ had only put away our sins, and thus procured the forgiveness of sins alone, it would_ practically have put us upon the same ground as the sacrifices under Judaism put the Jews. The nature of sin would have remained, either to be allowed to live along in lawlessness so that grace might abound, or to be put under restraint by law-keeping, the result, of which would be pure bondage to sin and misery. The first of these states, is what the Gentile, never under law, would run into, and the answer to which we get in the 6th of Romans. The latter is where a Jew would find himself, the picture of which we find in the 7th of Romans. In both cases though sins are forgiven, supposing this were possible, sin is reigning.
What is wanted then, is not merely forgiveness of sins, but deliverance from sin itself. This the cross of Christ brings us; "In that He died, He died unto sin once," and "what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and as a sacrifice for sin condemned sin in the flesh." Sin itself has been put away in the death of Christ, and thus grace carries with it, in entire contrast with Judaism, deliverance from sin, together with the forgiveness of sins.
It is the first of these blessed truths that Christianity, so to speak, begins with, and the other follows as a necessary consequence. Participating, as in figure by baptism the believer does, in the death of Christ he walks in newness of life. Knowing this, "that our old man is crucified with Christ, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. For he that is dead is freed from sin."
The believer in Christ has died with Christ out of all that condition of life in the flesh in which he stood as a child of Adam. If in the flesh, he is morally alive under law, for the "law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth." If dead with Christ, he is dead to sin, and has also "become dead to the law by the body of Christ." He is as much dead to the law, as he is dead to sin, and "sin," says the apostle, " shall not have dominion over you: for you all are not under law, hut under grace." " If any man be in Christ he is a new creature: old things are passed away, behold all things are become new. And all things are of God who hath reconciled us to Himself by Jesus Christ," this is the state in which every true believer is as the effect of the act of God in sovereign grace. It is no question of experience and is always true of us. We walk by faith and not by feeling, even as we are saved by faith and not by feeling.
Practically we have to reckon ourselves dead, and to stand fast "in the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ," but whatever our experience may be, we are as believers in Him, dead and risen with Him, and grace, and nothing but grace, is our position before God, and while walking in grace, we not only have a conscience clean through the blood of Christ, which is forgiveness of sins, but we walk in practical holiness outside the power of sin, and grace reigns in practical righteousness, as well as in our judicial standing before God. We have to do with " the God of all grace," and may He keep us; as believers in His Son, ever abiding in the sense of that grace, that we may know the full meaning of not being under law, but "under grace."
I come to God- in the perfection of the grace that gave Christ for me, and in the absolute righteousness in which He has accepted Christ for me.