CRITICAL NOTES
Romans 6:2.—Necessary connection between faith in Christ’s death and abhorrence of sin. Heathen writers speak of the wise and good as dead to sensualities and animal pleasures (Wordsworth).
Romans 6:3. Baptised into His death.—In relation to His death—i.e., faith in it, acceptation, appropriation, and imitation of it. The relation symbolised by baptism is in its own nature moral and spiritual.
Romans 6:4.—Baptism by immersion—and where that cannot be conveniently done, by effusion—represents death and burial, as the emerging again figures a new life (Dean Stanhope).
Romans 6:5.—For if we become connate with Him by the likeness of His death, surely we shall also become by the likeness of His resurrection (Wordsworth).
Romans 6:6.—Sin is here personified. The body of sin is our own body so far as it is the seat and the slave of sin.
Romans 6:7.—The maxim in its physical sense proverbial among the Jews. Thus in the Talmud it is said, “When a man dies, he is freed from the commands.”
Romans 6:10.—Died unto sin once.—Made sin for the Church—a sin offering.
Romans 6:11.—To both, our oneness with Him being the ground of our dying to sin, etc. To fulfil God’s will, live to Him alone.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Romans 6:1-11
Buried, but living.—An evil propensity was generated by the first Adam. A good propensity was generated by the Second Adam. The carnal Adamites moved along a descending scale, while the spiritual Adamites move along an ascending scale. Death brooded over the race—a death that had in it no compensating qualities. Christ undertook death that He might educe life. He died unto sin once, that He and the race might live unto God. Christ’s death was a death for sin and to sin. On Calvary sin received its deathblow. It is true that sin still works, but it works as a maimed force, and finally it must be for ever destroyed. He that is dead is freed from sin’s power, and must walk henceforth in newness of life. Grace does not lead to licentiousness, but to holiness of heart and of life. This is confirmed by a consideration of:—
I. The spiritual facts.—The great spiritual, central, and foundation fact of Christian life is that the old man is crucified with Christ.
1. Crucifixion was a process of suffering. How true is the symbolical teaching! What suffering is sometimes endured while the old man is being crucified! There are gentle natures, good creatures, that seem to be good from their birth and give a negation to the doctrine of original sin, who do not understand the suffering entailed by the moral process called the crucifixion of the old man. But even they sympathetically suffer as they enter into the sufferings of the crucified Saviour. Even they may feel that there is in them an old man that must be crucified. However, there is in other natures—perhaps the natures of the noblest—great suffering as the old man is being crucified. The noblest heroes have strong passions and fierce conflicts. The greatest battles are fought and the sublimest victories won not on earth’s gory battle-fields, but in soul spheres.
2. Crucifixion was a lingering death. It was a surprise to find that Christ was dead already. In some the old man of sin is long in dying. We think he is dead. We rejoice in our freedom; and the moment of rejoicing is the moment of disaster. The old man shakes the bonds, loosens the nails, and gives immense trouble. Perhaps the fault with some is that the crucifixion is not complete. A partial crucifixion is a mistake. Crucified with Christ, we must be crucified entirely. The old man in every limb must be slain if there is to be complete victory.
3. Crucifixion was a sure death at last. There could be no ultimate escape. The old man may seem to assert himself, but he has been nailed to the tree, and must die. If we have been crucified with Christ, then we cannot live in sin with pleasure.
II. The moral teaching.—For if we have been planted together in the likeness of His death, we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection. This is a moral likeness. Christ’s death is lifted out of the mere material aspect. We do not sufficiently consider the death of Christ in its moral and spiritual relations. Socinianism derives some of its false force from our materialism. Morally we are assimilated with Christ in His death, and so are we in His resurrection. And resurrection is not a resurrection of skin, nerves, bones, and muscles, but a resurrection of soul power. Christ rose to be the dispenser of blessings, to live a crowned life. The believer rises to live a crowned life—the life of peace, of joy, and of holiness. The believer rises to be in his sphere the dispenser of blessings. The believer is a king and a priest—royal being master and king over himself, sacred being dedicated to God and to the promotion of the universal sanctities. He walks in newness of life. If there can be anything new to Jesus, then we may say that He walks in newness of life amid the bright sons of life and of glory,—newness of life to the Unchangeable—newness of life, for He is now the mediator and intercessor. Being assimilated with Christ, we walk in the spirit world. Life is ever new. Fresh breezes blow over earth’s dreary plains. Heaven’s zephyrs fan the brows of the new immortals.
III. The public profession.—The early Christians were baptised into Jesus Christ, into the name of Jesus Christ, into the death of Jesus Christ. There was first the change and then the profession. Public profession is against open sin. Some say that the doctrines of grace promote sin, and these objectors would not be the last to point the finger of scorn against the professor who leads an unholy life. The man who professes to be a Christian should be Christlike. We profess in baptism by our sponsors. How few earnestly take up the obligation! Some few profess too much. A vast number practise too little.
IV. The inward account.—This reckoning should be constantly carried on. “Reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” This moral arithmetic is ennobling. Dead to sin. Alive to God,—alive to the Source of the highest life; alive to the infinite goodness; alive to the enriching outcome of the divine nature; alive to all the stirring motives to nobility of character which come from the eternal throne. The outcast from God becomes the friend of God, being alive to and by God. The soul of man is ever reaching upwards when it is reckoning itself to be alive unto God. It is opening itself out to be kissed into moral beauty and sweetness and fragrance by the refreshing beams that flow from the eternal Light.
Romans 6:4. Newness of life.—If Christ died for our sins, He rose for us too—He rose for our justification. If He is our model in His death, He is also our model in His resurrection from the dead. We have been “buried with Him by baptism into death,” says the apostle, “that like as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.” The great apostle cannot be understood to ascribe Christ’s resurrection to the Father in such sense as to exclude the agency of the Son or of the Spirit. St. Paul’s point is, that the Resurrection is the work of God, and as such it occupies a common ground with the new birth or conversion of the soul; for, indeed, no truth is so clearly revealed to us as this—that spiritual life, whether given us at the first in our new birth to Christ, or renewed after repentance in later years, is the free, fresh gift of the Father of our spirits. Nature can no more give us newness of life than a corpse can rise from the dead by its unassisted power. “That which is born of the flesh is flesh.” A sense of prudence, advancing years, the love of society around us, family influences, may remodel the surface form of our daily habits; but divine grace alone can turn the inmost being to God—can raise it from the death of sin to the life of righteousness—can clothe it in that “new man which, after God, is created in righteousness and true holiness.” There are three characteristics of the risen life of our Lord which especially challenge attention. The first is its reality. The resurrection of Jesus Christ was a real resurrection of a really dead body. The piercing of our Saviour’s side, to say nothing of the express language of the evangelists, implied the literal truth of His death; and being thus truly dead, He really rose from the dead. As St. Luke says, epitomising a history in a single expression, “He showed Himself alive after His passion by many infallible proofs.” The nearer men came to the risen Jesus, the more satisfied they were that He had risen indeed. So it is with the soul. Its newness of life must be, before everything else, real. What avails it to be risen in the imagination and good opinion of other people, if, in fact, we still live in the tomb of sin? Were it not better for us if we were dead than that men should think and speak of us as being what we are? Even if our new life be not purely an imagination on the part of others, what is the value of a mere ghost of a moral renewal, of prayers without heart in them, of actions without any religious principle, of religious language far in advance of our true convictions and feelings? The first lesson which the risen Christ teaches the Christian is reality, genuineness. A second characteristic of Christ’s risen life—it lasts. Jesus did not rise that, like Lazarus, He might die again. “I am He that liveth and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, and have the keys of hell and of death.” So should it be with the Christian. His, too, should be a resurrection once for all. It should be. God’s grace does not put any sort of force upon us, and what it does in us and for us depends on ourselves. The Christian must reckon himself to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ. A last note of Christ’s risen life. Most of it was hidden from the eyes of men. They saw enough to be satisfied of its reality; but of the eleven recorded appearances five took place on a single day, and there is accordingly no record of any appearance on thirty-five days out of forty which preceded the Ascension. His visible presence after the Resurrection is the exception rather than the rule. Here is a lesson for the true Christian life. Of every such life the most important side is hidden from the eyes of man. It is a matter of the very first necessity to set aside some time in each day for secret communion with God. In these three respects the true Christian’s life is modelled upon the Resurrection. It is sincere and real. It is not a passing caprice or taste, for it lasts. It has a reserved side apart from the eyes of men, in which its true force is nourished and made the most of.—Canon Liddon.
Life in Christ here and hereafter.—The death and resurrection of Christ constitute the substance of the gospel, and our concern with them as doctrinal truths includes more than our admitting them into our creed. They must become internal principles, and produce in us corresponding effects. He died, and we must be dead,—dead to the law, not as a rule of life, but as a covenant of works; dead to the world, not as the scene of God’s wonderful works, nor as a sphere of duty, nor as a field of usefulness, but as the enemy of God and our portion; dead to sin—this includes nothing less than our avoiding it; but it intends much more: we may be alive to it even while we forsake it; but we must no longer love or relish it, and thus no longer live in it. “How shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein?” We must be dead with Him. We are dead with Him virtually; for He is the head and representative of His Church, and therefore what He did for His people is considered as done by them. We are dead with Him efficiently; for there is an influence derived from His cross which mortifies us to sin; and this influence is not moral only, consisting in the force of argument and motive—though this is true, and nothing shows the evil of sin or the love of the Saviour like Calvary—but it is spiritual also. He died to purify as well as to redeem; and He not only made reconciliation for the sins of His people, but received gifts for men, and secured the agency of the Holy Spirit. There is no real holiness to separate from the grace of the cross. There He draws all men unto Him. We are dead with Him as to resemblance. We are planted together in the likeness of His death, and therefore our death is called, as well as His, a crucifixion. “Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.” I am, says the apostle, not only dead, but crucified, with Christ. Because Christ lives, we shall live also. For we are quickened together with Christ, and are raised up and made to sit together in heavenly places—that is, in His company. “Where I am, there shall also My servant be.” We have much in heaven to endear it. We may live with another, but not live like him; we may be with another, and behold his estate, but not share it. But “when He who is our life shall appear we shall also appear with Him in glory.” “I appoint unto you,” says He to His disciples, “a kingdom, as My Father hath appointed unto Me; that ye may eat and drink at My table in My kingdom, and sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel.” Even our vile body shall be fashioned like His own glorious body. And the same duration attaches to His blessedness and ours. “I am alive,” says He, “for evermore”; and our end is everlasting life. Finally, Paul believed all this. And let us do the same; but let us believe it as he did—that is, let us believe that we shall live with Him if we be with Him. Some believe it without this. Their faith is only presumption Whatever they rely upon, whether their knowledge, or orthodoxy, or talking, or profession, they are only preparing for themselves the most bitter disappointment—if they are not dead unto sin and delivered from the present evil world; for if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His.” But let us also believe that “if we be dead with Him we shall also live with Him.” The inclusion is as sure as the exclusion, and takes in every diversity and degree of grace. Whatever be their apprehensions of themselves, none of them all shall come short of this glory. It is as certain as the promise and oath and covenant of God, and the death and intercession of the Saviour, and the pledges and earnests of immortality, can render it. Therefore “be not faithless, but believing.” It was used by Christians to animate and encourage each other in the apostle’s days, as a common and familiar aphorism; and they gave it full credit: “It is a faithful saying: for if we be dead with Him, we shall also live with Him.”—W. Jay.
Romans 6:1. Was the Sabbath abrogated?—The apostle wrote thus because certain men had perverted a gracious doctrine into an excuse for continued indulgence in wickedness. They heard of the grace of God, and then concluded that, since the presence of sin in the world gave God a splendid opportunity for exhibiting His grace, it were well to sin so that the grace of God might never cease to be manifested. Paul refutes this in this chapter. Bearing this in mind, we may pass on to the question, If we say that we may continue in sin so that grace may abound, may we not take any of God’s laws, and say, “I will break this, and thus afford God greater scope for the exercise of His grace”? If we answered affirmatively, we should clear the way for a violation of all the moral laws. To arrive at a conclusion as to whether God’s commandments are binding on Christians, we will take the fourth. Was the Sabbath abrogated? If not, then argue that the whole law stands good to-day. Arguments advanced to prove that the Sabbath is of universal and perpetual obligation:—
I. The historic aspect of the question proves that the Sabbath was not an exclusively Jewish institution, and therefore the advent of Christianity did not annul it.—
1. Evidence coming from times before the Christian era.
2. Evidence from history of other nations. Uniformity of a septenary division of time throughout the Eastern world. The ancients—Homer, Hesiod, Callimachus, and others—indicate the seventh day as sacred.
3. Evidence from the doings of Christians. A change of day, but not a change of principle.
II. Which of the laws was abrogated by the advent of Christianity?—[Note.—There were three separate deliverances of the law—the civil, the ceremonial, and the moral.] Christ did not come to destroy the moral law; but His advent did away with the necessity for the civil and ceremonial.
III. Notice the relation of the fourth commandment to the other portions of the Decalogue.—Objectors say it differentiates from the other nine; but no reason for declaring it ceremonial and the others moral, and that Christ therefore sifted the law and eliminated that which referred to the Sabbath.
IV. Christ did not repudiate the Sabbath.—
1. Would He expose the whole race to the disabilities Jehovah designed to save the Jews from? If men were to be free in the one point, why restrict them in nine other directions?
2. In dealing with Pharisees, etc., not a word did Christ speak which tended to degrade the Sabbath. He set the Sabbath right; Jews had deified it, and degraded man.
3. While admitting that Jesus modified Jewish notions regarding the Sabbath, modification is not abrogation.
V. The New Testament does not countenance any contention for the abolition of the Sabbath.—
1. Some say Romans 14:5 implies a revocation of the divine institution at the dawn of Christianity (see following outline).
2. They also rely on Galatians 4:10.
3. The Colossian Christians thought good works a necessary security of salvation (Colossians 2:16-23).
VI. The presumption is against the abrogation of the moral law, and therefore against the abrogation of the Sabbath.—
1. Suppose the abrogation of the seventh commandment. What terrible results might be anticipated, considering the awful wickedness of the pagan world when Christ lived!
2. Suppose the abrogation of the first commandment. Think of the idolatry of the Greek and Roman worlds in Christ’s time, and the character of the idol-worship was so bad.
3. Suppose the abrogation of the sixth commandment. The world, in Christ’s time, reeked with blood—e.g., the arena. Could it be supposed Christ would abrogate any of these laws? Surely there was no slackening in any of them, and why suggest a slackening in the fourth?
VII. The Sabbath is a “sine quâ non” of human life.—Hence abrogation, in the light of our knowledge of God’s feeling for man, is impossible.
1. Man has always required a day of rest.
2. Never more so than now.
3. The growth of secularising tendencies rendered a Sabbath necessary, to afford opportunity for spiritual growth and worship. So long as human nature holds sway, so long will men require safeguards in things moral and social. The spirit of the age is such that men need such safeguards; hence God will not remove those which He has established. The foregoing arguments having established the continued necessity for the Sabbath, so it is argued that all the other commandments remain in force to-day. All God’s commandments are binding on Christians, who have no right to ignore any of His laws under the plea that they do not belong to the present dispensation.—Albert Lee.
I. Sabbath not a Jewish institution.—The Sabbath not an exclusively Jewish institution.
1. Evidence coming from times before the Christian era—e.g., the periodical worship of Cain and Abel. Also, the Sabbath mentioned as a well-known solemnity before the promulgation of the law. It is expressly taken notice of at the fall of manna; and the incidental manner in which it is then mentioned is convincing proof that the Israelites were no strangers to the institution.
2. Evidence from history of other nations leads us to believe that the Israelites were not alone in their observance of a week of seven days—e.g., the Assyrians and Babylonians in the native account of the Creation speak of Anu having put the finishing touches to the work, and “on the seventh day a holy day appointing, and commanding on that day a cessation from all business.” Uniformity of septenary division of time throughout all the Eastern world—Israel, Assyria, Egypt, India, Arabia, Persia, etc. Homer, Hesiod, Callimachus, and others constantly indicate the seventh day as sacred to their countrymen. No one would venture to suggest that this idea was borrowed from Moses; for Linus, e.g., who flourished before Moses, speaks of the seventh day as observed by pious persons.
3. Evidence culled from the doings of Christians. There was a change of day, but not a change of principle.
II. Moral law now in force.—It must be remembered that there were three separate deliverances of the law to the Jews—the civil, the ceremonial, and the moral. We admit that there was a repeal in the case of the first two; but nowhere do we find a particle of evidence to sustain the contention that the moral law was abrogated. Those who contend that this was the case forget to clear their minds of local considerations. They need to be reminded that the civil law, rehearsed in the wilderness, was set forth only for the Jews, for their especial guidance, under the peculiar circumstances of their residence, both in the wilderness and Canaan. When we consider the typical or ceremonial law, then, inasmuch as that law was a “type of Christ and good things to come,” we are fully prepared to see it pass away when Christ appears upon the scene. To declare that the Sabbath, together with the whole law, had its fulfilment in Christ is a strange idea to spring upon the Church. Christ certainly did not annul the moral law, whatever action He may have taken in regard to the civil and ceremonial. He distinctly rehearsed the moral law in a comprehensive sentence or two: “Thou shalt love,” etc. It is true that the Sabbath receives a large share of attention in the civil and ceremonial laws; but it is equally true that it is brought into prominence in the moral law. Since Christ did not come to destroy this last, and actually insisted upon its observance, who shall say that He eliminated the Sabbath portion, but left the others undisturbed?
III. Review of disputed passages.—Passages presented by anti-Sabbatarians.
1. Romans 14:5. It is contended by them that this passage implies a revocation of the divine institution at the dawn of Christianity.
(1) But the discussion had reference only to the peculiar customs of the Jews, to the rites and practices which they would attempt to impose on the Gentiles, and not to any questions which might arise among Christians as Christians.
(2) Alford, predisposed to argue the abolition of the Sabbath, says that Paul’s language is so sweeping as to do away with the divine obligation of keeping the Sabbath. And yet the apostle says, “Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind.” Could such a vital question as that of Sabbath observance be left to men to interpret, according to every crotchet, especially of the ignorant and godless? It is a question whether there was any allusion to the Sabbath; and even if so, it would not be a question of observing the Sabbath, but rather one of observing the seventh day rather than the first, as Christians were beginning to do.
(3) One of the most able comments on this passage runs thus: “It will not do to take it for granted that the Sabbath was merely one of the Jewish festival days, simply because it was observed under the Mosaic economy. If the Lawgiver Himself said of it, when on earth, ‘The Son of man is Lord even of the Sabbath day,’ it will be hard to show that the apostle must have meant it to be ranked amongst those banished Jewish festival days which only ‘weakness’ could imagine to be still in force, a weakness which those who had more light ought, out of love, merely to bear with.”
2. Galatians 4:10. Objectors use this to prove that the observance of the Sabbath is a matter of indifference. Note that in the passage the terms “Sabbath” or “Lord’s day” are not here mentioned; but assuming that they are implied, we must convict Paul of instability, and shall have reason to doubt his authority if he should allow the Romans to take one course and the Galatians another. Paul, as Olshausen observed, wished to assure the Galatians that the solemnisation in itself of certain ceremonies is not blamed (the old Church, too, had already its festivals), but what was superstitious in it—i.e., the opinion that it was necessary to salvation. Men were not to rest their hopes upon the false assumption that if they observed days and months and times and years superstitiously, they had done all that was necessary to salvation. Findlay, in his work on the Galatians, explains the attitude of the Christians in Galatia. They had already fallen in with the directions of the Jewish teachers. These had made the keeping of holy days a prominent and obligatory part of Christianity, and, as the Romish Church has done, multiplied them superstitiously beyond all reason. Paul called such things “beggarly elements,” and meant, doubtless, to convince the Galatians that they were falling into the mischievous tendency to regard the observance of certain days as meritorious. There is not a particle of evidence to prove that Christians were freed from the observance of the Sabbath day.
3. Colossians 2:16-23. In the Colossian Church there was the idea that good works were a security of salvation. This would tend to divert Christians from relying solely on the complete work of Jesus. This explanation is applicable to Colossians 2:16-23. They had trusted to philosophy, and vain traditions, and worshipping of angels, and to legal ceremonies, whereas all these things had ended in Christ. Some might be disposed to think themselves under obligation to keep the last day of the week, and the first. If so, they were not to judge those who kept the Lord’s day only. Dr. Maclaren points out that Paul does not say, Therefore let no man observe any of these distinctions of meat, feast, and Sabbaths any more; but takes up the much more modest ground, Let no man judge you about them.—Albert Lee.
Romans 6:9. One victorious life.—Two things we are said to know in connection with the death of Christ. The one is the resurrection of Christ as an historical fact. We have no reason to suppose that sacred history is less reliable than secular history. The former more reliable than the latter, for it has been assailed, and yet its testimony is unshaken. The witnesses of the Resurrection are numerous and unimpeachable. We too often lose sight of the fact that our Lord was seen after His resurrection by the large number of five hundred brethren. St. Paul could not have mentioned this number to the Corinthian Church if it were not a well-authenticated fact. The other is a revealed truth that Christ dieth no more, and arises as a natural consequence—perhaps rather a moral consequence—from the Resurrection. If He rose from the dead—and certainly He did rise—then there is no need for a second encounter with death. Let us look at the:—
I. One death.—What a vast multitude is that of the dead! It seems almost impossible for us to grasp the number of the living that tread this thickly peopled planet! When a man who has led a lonely life in the country goes to London, he is astonished and bewildered as he gazes at the seething mass of humanity. What would be our feelings if from some eminence we could look at the race collected together on an extensive plain? But what is the army of the living when compared with the army of the dead? We see, as we look at the living, one or two generations; while, as we consider the dead, we have to consider generation after generation, through thousands of years, that have passed into the dark and silent shades. Now of all the multitude of deaths which have occurred from the time of Adam to the present day, the death of Christ is pre-eminent and conspicuous; so that we speak of it as the one death to which the ages before Christ’s coming look forward, and to which the ages after His resurrection look backward—the one death in its solemn grandeur, in its sublime portents, in its moral and spiritual significance.
II. One conquest.—Christ died once, but, being raised from the dead, He dieth no more. And why?
1. Because the conquest is complete and final. We fight our battles, both natural and moral, over and over again. One nation conquers another, but the conquered nation recovers strength, recruits its exhausted resources, and then returns to the attack. Individually we conquer our vices, and suppose them dead, when they astonish us by a return, and the conflict is renewed. Christ, by His one death, conquered death and sin—so conquered that they cannot appear as formidable opponents. They may skirmish and do immense damage, but we must believe that their ancient power has departed. Death and sin still work, but surely not as regnant forces in Christ’s redeemed world. They move about in chains, and can only do as He permits who has the keys of Hades and of death.
2. Because the conquest has served the designed moral purpose. The death of Christ is the one death, for it answered to the movings and designs of infinite love. The death of Christ is the darkest mystery of our humanity if there be no demand for it in the moral government of the infinitely just, holy, and merciful. It is said, Why should Jesus suffer because a vindictive God so demanded? It may be asked, Why should Jesus suffer if He only died the death of a martyr? Let us remember that His sufferings were more than physical. He suffered in soul. He suffered as no martyr ever did or ever could suffer, for He suffered as sin’s victim. The sharp iron of suffering entered into His holy and sensitive soul; the burden of the world’s sinful load bowed His sacred head, and made the bead-like drops of sweat stand on His immaculate brow. Grief broke His heart of infinite love. The gloomy desolateness of the fatherly love being withdrawn crept over His darkened spirit. Why this intense sorrow? We are not here to satisfy the critical minds who do not earnestly desire satisfaction, but we feel that the only consistent explanation of Christ’s death is the old one of evangelical teachers. And if Christ died as a sacrifice, and His death was accepted, then there is no need that He should die any more.
3. Because the death has evidenced the divine love. If men will not believe in the love of God as shown in the mediatorial scheme, neither would they be persuaded though Christ should come again from the invisible world and go through the same career that He enacted in the land of Palestine. We may say it with all due reverence, that the infinite God exhausted His resources when He spared not His Son to convince men of His vast love. Christ once died at love’s call. He dieth no more to convince unconvinceable creatures. A second death could not accomplish that which the first death has failed to procure. O Love divine, touch unloving hearts, and lead them to see and feel Thy infinite love!
III. One victorious life.—Death hath no more dominion over the risen and glorified Christ. On His sacred head are many crowns—the brightest is the crown of redemption—and He will never be any more as an uncrowned being. The sceptre of life will never again be wrested from His grasp. Strange that the Prince of life should be subject unto death; but the marvel is lessened as we think of the moral purpose, as we consider the infinite love, as we contemplate the victorious life. He sees of the unimagined travail of His soul, and is abundantly satisfied. Can there be new joys, fresh emotions, to an infinite nature? In some way or other there must be fresh emotions stirred in the soul of Jesus, for He, when on earth, looked to the joy before, and now He delights in the newly gained pleasure. He sits euthroned the Prince of life in the kingdom of life and blessedness. He dieth no more.
IV. One blessed consequence.—All true believers live with Him—live with Him in a larger sense than would have been before or otherwise possible. Life is enlarged and glorified by the risen life of the once crucified Saviour. Christ dieth no more: then we have an ever-living intercessor. Christ dieth no more: then we have an abiding helper. Christ dieth no more: then we need no other sacrifice and no other priest. Christ dieth no more: then we need not fear, for the Good Shepherd will ever watch over His sheep, and lead them in pastures of delight.
Romans 6:9. Christ risen, dieth no more.—In these words we have two points which are at the bottom of all true Easter joy:
1. The reality of the Resurrection, “Christ being raised from the dead.”
2. The perpetuity of Christ’s risen life, “Christ being raised, dieth no more.” The Resurrection is not merely an article of the Creed, it is a fact in the history of mankind. If the testimony which can be proved for the Resurrection concerned only a political occurrence or a fact of natural history witnessed some eighteen hundred years ago, nobody would think of denying its cogency. Those who do reject the truth of the Resurrection, quarrel, not with the proof that the Resurrection has occurred, but with the prior idea that such a thing could happen under any circumstances. No proof would satisfy this class of minds, because they have made up their minds that the thing cannot be. We Christians may well say it is the first of miracles, and as such it must be unwelcome to those who make their limited personal experience of the world of nature the measure of all spiritual as well as all physical truth. This is the joy, the happiness, which is brought to many a human soul by such a fact as the resurrection of Christ. It tells us that matter is not the governing principle of this universe. It assures us that matter is controlled; that there is a Being, that there is a will, to which matter can offer no effective resistance; that He is not bound by the laws of the universe; that He, in fact, controls them. The Resurrection was not an isolated miracle, done, and then over, leaving things much as they had been before. The risen Christ is not, like Lazarus, marked off from every other man as one who had visited the realms of death, but knowing that He must again be a tenant of the grave. “Christ being risen, dieth no more.” His risen body is made up of flesh, bone, and all things pertaining to the perfection of man’s nature, but it has superadded qualities. It is so spiritual that it can pass through closed doors without collision or disturbance. It is beyond the reach of those causes which slowly or swiftly bring down our bodies to the dust. Being raised from the dead, it dies no more. The perpetuity of the life of the risen Jesus is the guarantee of the perpetuity of the Church. Alone among all forms of society, the Church of Christ is ensured against complete dissolution. Christ, risen from death, dying no more, is the model of our new life in grace. I do not mean that absolute sinlessness is attainable by any Christian here. “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves.” But faithfulness in our intentions, avoidance of known sources of danger, escape from presumptuous sins—these are possible and necessary. Those lives which are made up of alternating recovery and relapse—recovery, perhaps, during Lent, followed by relapse after Easter—or even lives lived with one foot in the grave, without anything like a strong vitality, with their feeble prayers, half-indulged inclinations, with weaknesses which may be physical, but which a regenerate will should do at once away with—men risen from the dead, yet without any seeming promise of endurance in life,—what would St. Paul say to these? “Christ being … no more.” Just as He left His tomb this Easter morning once for all, so should the soul once risen be dead to sin. The risen life of Jesus tells us what our own new life should be. Not that God, having raised us by His grace from spiritual death, forces us, whether we will or not, to live on continuously. But how, you ask, how can we rejoice in our risen Lord if we are so capable in our weakness of being untrue to His example? I answer, Because that resurrection life is the strength of our own as well as its model. Pray then in the spirit of this text that at least if you have risen you may persevere. Perseverance is a grace, just as much as faith, hope, charity, contrition. The secret strength of perseverance is a share in the risen life of Jesus. Perseverance may be won by earnest prayer for union with our risen Lord.—Canon Liddon.
SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON Romans 6:1-11
Christians dead to sin.—The words, according to their most obvious meaning, seem to refer merely to the engagement to avoid sin, which is implied in the act of becoming Christians. God forbid! exclaims the apostle, that any person should so grievously pervert the doctrine of Christ as to think that it encourages continuance in sin in order to afford the more ample scope for the exercise of divine grace, for by the very act of becoming Christians we became dead to sin. This strong expression means simply that we professed ourselves ready to die unto sin, to resist all its temptations, and through the aid of divine grace to overcome them; and how then can we continue in the practice of that which we have so solemnly renounced? This would be contradicting, in our conduct, the profession which we have made, and showing that our profession is insincere and hypocritical, and that we have no title to the sacred character of Christians to which we lay claim. No true Christian can act on a principle so directly incompatible with the engagements implied in assuming the Christian character.—Ritchie.
Christ died a sin offering.—“For in that He died, He died unto sin once; but in that He liveth, He liveth unto God.” To die unto sin, by the common Scripture use of the words, means to cease to commit sin. But this cannot be affirmed of any but those who have lived in the practice of it, and therefore it is wholly inapplicable to our blessed Saviour, who did no sin. No doubt the words may be so paraphrased as to make them applicable to Him without any paraphrase: “For in that He died, He died by sin once”—that is, died on account of it; sin was the cause of His dying. Or perhaps still more appositely, He died for sin—that is, for a sin offering. The expression He died for “sin once” indicates that this once offering up of Himself was sufficient, and that therefore no further sacrifice was necessary “But in that He liveth, He liveth unto God.” This clause admits of being rendered like the former: “He liveth by God”—that is, by the power of God; the allusion being to what is said in the fourth verse, that Jesus was raised from the dead by the glorious power of the Father. But the more obvious and natural idea suggested by the words is that He liveth to the praise of God—He lives to promote the glory of God by carrying the plan of providence founded on the mediatorial dispensation forward to its appointed issue, and thus accomplishing the holy and gracious purposes which the Almighty hath determined to bring to pass. The verse might therefore be paraphrased: “For in that He died, He died once for all as a sacrifice for sin; but in that He liveth, He liveth for ever to promote the glory of God.” Thése words convey the important and consoling doctrine, so often quoted in Scripture, that the death of Christ is a sacrifice for sin, all perfect in its nature and sufficient to reconcile us to God, and that therefore He needed not repeat it, the once offering of Himself being sufficient “to perfect for ever them that are sanctified.” And they convey the further encouraging truth that Christ, being raised from the dead, is now vested with all power as mediator of the new covenant, and “able to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by Him.”—Ritchie.
Believer’s death to sin gradual.—We conclude by saying that death to sin is not an absolute cessation of sin at any moment whatever, but an absolute breaking of the will with it, with its instincts and aspirations, and that simply under the control of faith in Christ’s death for sin. The practical application of the apostle’s doctrine regarding this mysterious death, which is at the foundation of Christian sanctification, seems to me to be this: The Christian’s breaking with sin is undoubtedly gradual in its realisation, but absolute and conclusive in its principle. As in order to break really with an old friend whose evil influence is felt half measures are insufficient, and the only efficacious means is a frank explanation, followed by a complete rupture which remains like a barrier raised beforehand against every new solicitation; so to break with sin there is needed a decisive and radical act, a divine deed taking possession of the soul, and interposing henceforth between the will of the believer and sin (Galatians 6:14). This divine deed necessarily works through the action of faith in the sacrifice of Christ.—Godet.
Purpose of our death in Christ.—Christ once lived under the curse of sin and in a body over which death ruled. He died, and arose from the dead. By dying once He escaped for ever from the curse of sin, and from death, the result of sin. He now lives a life of which God is the only aim. In former days we did the bidding of sin, and were thus exposed to the anger of God. To make it consistent with His justice to save us, God gave Christ to die, and raised Him from the dead. His purpose is to unite us to Christ, so that we may share Christ’s life and moral nature. For this end we were formally united to Christ in baptism. We were thus joined to One who was by death set free from death, and was raised by God into a deathless life. Therefore if the purpose of God be realised in us, we are practically dead with Christ. And if so, all law proclaims us free. We therefore infer that the purpose of our death with Christ is to free us from the service of sin. And if so, we also infer that our union with Christ is more than union with His death. For we see Christ not only free from sin, but living a life devoted to God; and we know that such devotion to Himself is what God requires from us. Therefore we are sure that God designs us to be united to Christ, both in His freedom from sin and in His active devotion to God. Consequently to live in sin is to resist God’s purpose for us, and to renounce the new life to which baptism was designed to lead us.—Beet.
ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 6
Romans 6:4. A converted Bechuana.—The missionary Casilis told us that he was one day questioning a converted Bechuana as to the meaning of a passage analogous to that before us (Colossians 3:3). The latter said to him: “Soon I shall be dead, and they will bury me in my field. My flocks will come to pasture above me. But I shall no longer hear them, and I shall not come forth from my tomb to take them and carry them with me to the sepulchre. They will be strange to me, as I to them. Such is the image of my life in the midst of the world since I believed in Christ.”
Romans 6:5-7. Carthage must be destroyed.—It is reported of Cato that he never spake in the Senate upon public business, but he ended his speech by inculcating the necessity of destroying Carthage; his well-known maxim was, “Delenda est Carthago.” The believer’s motto is, “The old man must be crucified.” Destruction of sin.—Five persons were studying what were the best means to mortify sin: one said, to meditate on death; the second, to meditate on judgment; the third, to meditate on the joys of heaven; the fourth, to meditate on the torments of hell; the fifth, to meditate on the blood and sufferings of Jesus Christ; and certainly the last is the choicest and strongest motive of all. If ever we would cast off our despairing thoughts, we must dwell and muse much upon and apply this precious blood to our own souls; so shall sorrow and mourning flee away.—Mr. Brooks.