Abounding Sin; Over-abounding Grace.
I. Grace. Here are the two antagonists grace and sin. Both would be kings; one only has the power to reign. Grace is not just synonymous with love, though love is at the heart of it. It is love in a certain relation the love of a Redeemer working to its ends. It represents the whole sum of the forces and influences by which the love that would redeem aims at the accomplishment of its hope. Ye know the grace of the Lord Jesus, but the measure of it One only knows. That grace is the conqueror of sin. That triumphs where law fails.
II. The relation between grace and sin. (1) Sin is the condition of its manifestation. No sin, no grace, and none of that special glory which grace alone can win the glory of the redemption of the world. God suffers sin to be born because He knows that grace can conquer it, strip its spoils, and reign in triumph over worlds which His victory has glorified eternally. (2) There is a glory which no feat of omnipotence even can create, which grace, by the conquest of sin, can win and wear through eternity. No sin, no grace, and in the highest sense no glory.
III. The relation between grace and righteousness. Grace must reign through righteousness, if it reign at all. (1) None but a righteous soul can be a blessed soul. (2) The righteousness which is by grace has a glory and blessedness which is all its own.
IV. The complete and final end of God "unto eternal life." Death is simply isolation. Life is the opposite of isolation. It is the faculty of communion with all things receiving their tributes, and repaying them with fruits. The work of grace is as the "baptism of a new life for man. The eye kindles again when it feels the inspiration, the blood glows, the limbs and organs of the spirit brace themselves to new vigour and swiftness, while a solemn joy fills the heart which is unspeakable and full of glory.
J. Baldwin Brown, The Divine Mysteries,p. 81.
References: Romans 5:20; Romans 5:21. S. A. Tipple, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xxxi., p. 104.Romans 5:21. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. vi., No. 330; Christian World Pulpit,vol. xxv., p. 56; C. J. Vaughan, Lessons of the Cross and Passion,p. 201.Romans 6:1; Romans 6:2. F. W. Farrar, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xii., p. 385.