For if we have been planted together in the likeness of His death.
Planted together with Christ
The idea is not of two or three plants all put into the same ground, though that would to a certain extent express blessedness--to be near Him is blessed, to have walked the same earth is blessed, to have a similar nature is blessed; but the meaning here is far deeper. The idea is of one plant with various branches (John 15:1). The root is Christ; we, the branches, are grafted in by believing. The plant out of the dry ground had no form nor comeliness; He came down and emptied Himself of His glory, and went down into death that we might be planted in the same ground and in the same grave. You see the same thing in your gardens; the plant put down into the ground, no appearance of life, no buds, no fruit there: yet if it were not put into the ground there would never be buds or fruit. So, “except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die it bringeth forth much fruit.” Here we have the planting of the Tree of Life, which, springing up in the Resurrection, “bears twelve manner of fruits, and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.” We are planted in union with Him, in the likeness of His death; but when the spring comes, and the light, and dawn of God operate upon the plant, we know what the consequences are; it puts forth buds, and leaves, and fruit. And what a beautiful thing it is! The branches of the tree whose root was planted in winter, are the very branches which contain its fragrance and beauty in the summer time. It was winter time with Jesus when He was put down into the ground; but springtime and summer are coming, when the Tree of Life shall put forth its fruit, and we shall be in the likeness of His resurrection; even God Himself shall delight to rest under that shade, and eat His pleasant fruit. (M. Rainsford, B. A.)
Planted first
A short time ago a gentleman was preaching in the open air; his subject was growth in grace. At the close of the meeting a man approached him and said, “Our minister has been preaching some excellent sermons on that subject, and I have been trying to grow in grace this long time, but I find I never can succeed.” The preacher, pointing to a tree, said, “Do you see that tree?” “Yes,” was the wondering reply. “Well, it had to be planted before it could grow. In like manner you must be rooted and grounded in Christ before you can begin to grow.” The man understood his meaning, and went away to find Christ; and soon he was rooted in Christ, and brought forth fruit to His praise.
Improving the root of virtue
I will mention a very striking illustration of the difference between men’s striving to improve one or another individual good quality, and the improving the common root of all of them, and thereby improving them all at once. The former is the way in which a human artificer works--a statuary, for instance, sometimes making a finger, sometimes a leg, and so on--while the latter, the workmanship of the Divine Artificer, is like the growth of a plant or a tree, in which all the various parts are swelling out and increasing, or, as we term it, growing at the same time. (William Wilberforce.)
The likeness of Christ’s resurrection
1. The resurrection of our Lord Jesus is apt to be considered mainly as a proof of the truth of the Christian faith, or in the light of the guidance, the support, the comfort it affords in our thoughts about the dead. But the apostle would have us consider it as the mould, the type, the model of our life and character. “The likeness of His resurrection.” How can we be anything like so preternatural an event?
2. Now, one answer may be, that at the general resurrection the bodies of Christians will rise just as Christ rose. This is undoubtedly true, but Paul is not here thinking of that. He is thinking of the soul and character, and he says that this resurrection is to be modelled on that of our Lord. The true Christian here is crucified with Christ; is buried with Christ; and rises with Christ. Call this mysticism if you will; it bears two certificates on its front--the certificate of apostolic authority and of Christian experience. St. Paul will have it that a Christian must die, be crucified with Christ, That mass of undisciplined desires and passions which is the governing body in the life of man in a state of nature, and which the apostle calls “the body of sin,” must not do what it would--its hands must be nailed to a cross; it must not go whither it would--its feet must be nailed to a cross; it must linger on that cross to which the Divine Will would fain attach it until it dies; and then it must be buried out of sight so as to have no further contact with the world in which it lived and worked its evil will in the days gone by.
3. Now, this death to sin must not be a fainting fit or a swoon. Jesus really died upon the Cross, and St. Paul insisted on a real death to sin in the convert to Christianity. The points of likeness between a true Christian’s life and the life of our risen Lord relate--
I. To the past.
1. Each has experienced a resurrection, and if the likeness be a true one, in each case the resurrection is real. When our Lord rose He took leave of death for good and all. “Christ, being raised from the dead, dieth no more,” etc. And a Christian life which is planted in the likeness of Christ’s resurrection, will resemble it in its freedom from relapses into the realm of death. Sin is the tomb of the soul, and if we have risen, let us be sure that we do not return into it. “Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God.”
2. Not that St. Paul would have us believe that a baptized or a converted man cannot sin if he would. He knows nothing of any theory of indefectible grace. There is no absolute impossibility in the relapse of a regenerate Christian into spiritual death, but there should be the highest moral probability against anything of the kind. The strength which has been given the Christian warrants him in reckoning himself “dead indeed unto sin,” although he still may be “overtaken in a fault.”
3. Now, what is the case with a largo number of Christians nowadays? So far are some of us from dying no more, that we might almost seem to sink down into the tomb at regular intervals.
4. One predisposing cause of this is the empire of habit. Habit is a chain which attaches us with subtle power to the past, whether that past be good or evil. It is linked on to the action of the understanding, the affections, and the will. It was meant by our Creator to be a support of the life of grace; but when the soul has been enchained by sin habit is enlisted in the service of sin, and promotes a return to the grave of sin, even after the soul’s resurrection to the life of grace.
5. And do we not too often invite the reappearance of old habits by haunting the tombs from which we have risen, by playing with the apparatus of death, by visits to old haunts, by reading old books, by encouraging old imaginations that are fatally linked to the debasement of the past? “How shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein?” Surely we cannot dally with the ancient enemy, we cannot risk the reassertion of that power of habit of which we had broken the chains, we cannot forget that at our moral resurrection the whole power of habit was to be transferred to the account of the life of grace.
II. To the present.
1. The greater part of our Lord’s resurrection life was hidden from the eyes of men.
(1) During the forty days retirement was the rule, and His appearances to His disciples were so many suspensions of that rule. Now, a Christian life which is planted in the likeness of Christ’s resurrection will be to a great extent withdrawn from the eyes of men. A Christian must, indeed, “let his light so shine before men,” etc.; but the life of private prayer, of self-discipline, of motive faith, hope, and love, must in a true Christian’s career altogether preponderate over his external activities, and if it does it will thereby promote those activities. The forest tree ere it rears its branches to the skies strikes its roots far and deep into the soil beneath; and an active Christian life which is not rooted in devotion to an unseen Master will speedily degenerate into the existence of a philanthropic machine, looking for its reward to imposing statistics, to florid newspaper reports, to the applause of public meetings, and generally to the praise of men.
(2) Publicity is the order of our day, and the press, the railway, the telegraph all conspire to oblige men to live before the eyes of their fellows; everybody is observed, discussed, interviewed. No doubt this publicity has its good side. It may supply motives against wrong-doing, where none of a higher order are recognised; but who can doubt that it tends to impair that disinterestedness which is the very bloom of the higher Christian life; that it tends to make the world’s standard of excellence the standard also of the servants of Christ; that it impairs that note of likeness to Christ in His resurrection, a life hidden with Christ in God?
(3) It was the sense of this truth which was the strength of monasticism. Like other human efforts to give practical expression to a religious truth, monasticism made its full share of mistakes; but the truth remains forever, that the life lived wholly before the eyes of men, and probably with a view to the approval of men, cannot be in the likeness of Christ’s resurrection.
2. Another note of our Lord’s risen life was that when He did appear to His apostles He had a lesson to teach, a warning or a blessing to convey, as the reason for each separate act of contact with those around Him. Consider the account of His interviews; each does a separate work which had to be done, and does it with a point and a thoroughness which we cannot mistake. And here must we not admit that we modern Christians are unlike Him? Our life too often resembles those story books whose aim is to excite continuous amusement in the reader, and yet not to have any discoverable moral whatever attached to them. We shrink from speaking the word in season; we shrink from giving a reason for the hope that is within us. Can we wholly escape responsibility for the consequences of our silence, for the moral downward career, for the darkened or dying faith of those with whom we may have been brought into contact? “You may have forgotten an interview which we had,” so said a stranger to an older friend, “twenty years ago. At the time I did not thank you for what you said; I was angry with you; but I must tell you now that under God I owe you my soul.”
III. To the future. Our Lord’s risen life was passed in anticipation of the event which was close to it--forgetting the sepulchre which was behind, and reaching forward to the ascension which was before. And so it should be with us. Here we have no continuing city; we seek one to come; we look not for the things that are seen and temporal, but for the things that are not seen and eternal, Earthly greatness, as a rule, ends with the grave; the greatness of Jesus on earth begins with it. Why should it not be so in the life of the spirit? We should have done with the tomb of sin for good and all. When this new life is planted in the soul old things indeed have passed away; behold all things have become new! (Canon Liddon.)
Assimilation through faith
1. The text is an effort to convey by a curious and vigorous figure the close spiritual assimilation which faith produces between the Christian and Christ. What St. Paul says literally is, that believers have “grown together into one” with Christ, so as to become of like nature with Him in the matter of His death.
2. But how can any inward change, passing in the mind of a man today, be said to bear a likeness to what happened when Christ bare our sin? Easily enough. Consider the moral significance of Christ’s death for sin. Was it not, to begin with, the first full recognition ever made on this earth of the guilt of sin, and of the integrity of the law? The Son, being of one mind with the Father, owned that sin was hateful, and the Divine law holy, and its sentence just. Now, whenever I with my whole heart accept of that death as reconciling me to God by satisfying His law on my behalf, do I not enter into sympathy with God’s point of view, just as His own Son did? Can we call such an experience anything but spiritual incorporation into the likeness of Christ’s death? The man who has got such a view of his own sin does in a very real sense die in his heart to sin. Seek to know the fellowship of Christ’s sufferings; become conformed to His death; then the old evil self must die within the bosom, killed by the Cross that killed our Saviour.
3. If faith in the Cross of Christ prove thus effectual to cut the nerve of a sinful life, surely we shall also “grow together with Him in the likeness of His resurrection.” The very object for which Christ and our old sinful self died, is that the believer, once set free from sin, should be point by point conformed to the likeness of the risen Jesus. It may appear to some as though this thing which we call faith were too feeble or uncertain for a work so great. What! may one say, shall a man reverse his tastes, break his habits, and change his life into the likeness of One so unlike him as Jesus Christ, merely because he puts faith in Christ to save him? What is there in this “faith” to work so astounding a revolution?
4. The answer to that, in part at least, is tiffs: that we have really no deeper or more powerful agent for working any such change than just this same faith. It combines the strongest motives and most sustaining elements in character; such as confidence, loyalty, affection, reverence, authority, and moral attractiveness. You constantly find that large bodies of men, parties in the State, armies in the field, schools of opinion, whole nations even at critical moments, are swayed simply by the transcendent influence of one outstanding trusted leader. Still more absorbing is the influence which an individual may acquire over one other soul that entirely believes in him. Take a single element in “faith”--the mere persuasion of one man that another is able and willing to aid him in his enterprises. Let it be a fixed idea with a poor individual that some influential friend will back him up in his business, and that in such backing lies his best chance of success. What is there he will not do rather than forfeit assistance from that quarter on which all his hopes are built? Add to such a selfish expectation of help the far deeper bond of personal reverence or of proud admiring love. Let the relation become like that of some tried and faithful lieutenant to a gallant leader, or like that of a maiden to the lover whom she both believes in and dents upon. Can bounds be set to the power of faith like theirs? Let the object of such devotion be really noble and wise, who shall say how far baseness and selfishness may be burnt out of the heart that cleaves to the idol it has chosen for itself? Let that idol be itself erring or misguided, who will wonder if the soul that worships it be dragged down the same devious and unhappy path to share the same fall? If to all this you could add in a rare instance some overwhelming obligation of a strictly moral kind, like a bond of gratitude deep as life for a benefit never to be forgotten, or a claim of supreme authority no less sacred than a father’s, more subduing than a king’s--who does not see that in such a faith as that you would have the mightiest of all forces within human experience?
5. This is our faith in Christ--this, but beyond analogy greater and more masterful, because human parallels are infinitely too weak to express it. The Christian trusts in Jesus, but not as a man trusts in his fellow’s support, for our Saviour is the mighty God. The Christian is tied to Jesus with a heart devotion based on reverence and warming into love; but not as women cling to their lovers, or partisans to their hero-chieftain, for our Saviour commands a reverence which is worship, and wins an affection which is supreme. The Christian owes to Jesus obedience for the service He has rendered, and for the right He possesses to command; but not under such limitations as always environ human authorities, even the highest, since our Saviour is Lord of the conscience as well as of the heart, and His moral mastery is absolute, as His judgment shall be final. Does it seem, then, any longer a thing futile or unreasonable to say, that through such faith as that a man may come to grow together into one with the Divine Object of his devotion, until the man’s life is penetrated with Christ’s spirit and conformed in everything to His matchless likeness?
6. Still, the tie which links a believer to His Saviour offers points of contrast quite as striking. Men do get assimilated no doubt to the objects of their earthly devotion. Still no union wrought by any such faith on earth can adequately represent the unique life junction which, through a special act of God’s Holy Spirit, makes these twain one--the living Head of God’s new family and each lowly, trusting sinner who cleaves to Jesus as his spiritual life. For one thing, the union of a believing soul to Jesus has its roots in a certain mysterious oneness which God’s gracious will has established between the heirs of salvation and their new representative and Second Adam, the Lord from heaven. For another thing, this relationship involves not a portion only of the man’s experience, not some transient, or secular, or subordinate interest, but the believer’s very self--his true and deepest being. It is the old man which is crucified with Christ, that moral personality which has hitherto been the very centre and source of all my words and actions. The believer’s very self hangs thenceforward on Christ’s self. His spiritual being is new made, for it is informed by another Spirit as its inspiring and ruling influence, even by the Holy Spirit whom Jesus gives. Such a change as this is effected, indeed, by faith. But such faith comes of the operation of God. When the old man dies and the new man lives in a human being there is an evident re-birth; and for that we must postulate an immediate operation of the Divine Giver of life. (J. Oswald Dykes, D. D.)
Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with Him.
The old man
Why is original sin called the “old man”? Because--
I. It is derived from the eldest or first Adam.
II. It is first in everyone (1 Corinthians 15:46).
III. It is to be done away (Hebrews 8:13; 2 Corinthians 5:17).
IV. Of its cunning and craft.
As old men, by reason of their abundant experience, are more wise and subtle than others; this “old man” is cunning to deceive. Oh, what excuses does it bring for sin, what pretences! It hath much of Adam; but it hath somewhat of the wise and old serpent too, for it was begot betwixt them both. Conclusion: Observe that when the apostle calls original sin “our old man,” he distinguishes it from ourselves. It is ours, too, nearly cleaving to us; but it is not ourselves. Whence we must learn to put a difference betwixt the corruption of nature, and nature itself. Man’s nature is from God; but the corruption of man’s nature is from himself. (P. Vinke, B. D.)
The crucifixion of the old man
I. The old man.
1. Old as Adam, in nature, habit, spirit.
2. His features.
3. His vigour.
II. His crucifixion.
1. Effected with Christ.
2. The process.
(1) Painful.
(2) Protracted.
(3) Voluntary.
III. The necessity of it.
1. That the body of sin may be destroyed.
2. That we may be emancipated from its service. (J. Lyth, D. D.)
The old man crucified
1. Every new man is two men; he is what he was and not what he was: the old nature and the new exist in each regenerate individual. That old nature the apostle calls a man, because it is a complete manhood after the image of fallen Adam. He calls it the “old man,” because it is as old as Eden’s first transgression.
2. Every Christian has a new nature which was implanted in him through the Spirit’s working. That new nature utterly hates and loathes evil; so that finding itself brought into contact with the old nature, it cries, “O wretched man that I am,” etc.
3. Hence a warfare is set up within the believer’s bosom; the new life struggles against the old death, as the house of David against the house of Saul, or as Israel against the Canaanites. Neither nature can make peace with the other. Either the earthy water must quench the heavenly fire, or the Divine fire, like that which Elijah saw, must lick up all the water in the trenches of the heart. It is war to the knife, exterminating war.
I. The old man is to die in the likeness of Christ’s death by crucifixion. Our Lord died--
1. A true and real death. The Roman officer would not have given up the body if he had not made sure that He was dead, and made assurance doubly sure by piercing our Lord’s side. There was no make believe; it was no phantom which bled, and the death was no syncope or swoon. Even thus it must be with our old propensities; they must not be mewed up by temporary austerities, or laid in a trance by fleeting reveries, or ostentatiously buried alive by religious resolves and professions; they must actually die. Sometimes persons who are really alive appear as dead, because death reigns over a part of their bodies; their hands are powerless, their eyes closed, every member palsied; yet they are not dead. So have I known some that have given up a part of their sins. But no man shall enter heaven while one propensity to sin lies in him, for heaven admits nothing that pollutes. “Without holiness no man shall see the Lord.” Sin must be slain.
2. A voluntary death. Christ said, “I lay down My life for the sheep … no man taketh it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself.” Jesus need not have died. Such must be the death of sin within us. Some men part with their sins with the intention of coming back again to them if they can; like Lot’s wife they set out to leave Sodom, but their eyes show where their hearts would be. They fight sin as stage-players; it is mimic conflict, they do not hate sin in reality. Ah! but we must have our whole hearts burning with an intensity of desire to get rid of our sins; and such we shall feel if there be a work of grace in our soul. The execution of sin, then, must be undertaken with a willing mind.
3. A violent death. By wicked men Christ was taken, and by violent hands put to death. Sin struggles awfully in the best of men, especially besetting and constitutional sins. One man is proud, and what prayers and tears it costs him to bring the neck of old pride to the block! Another man is grasping, and how he has to lament because his gold will corrode within his soul Some are of a murmuring spirit, and to conquer a spirit of contention is no easy task. Yet, cost us what it may, these sins must die. Violent may be the death and stern the struggle, but we must nail that right hand, ay, and drive home the nail.
4. A painful death. The suffering of crucifixion was extreme. So the death of sin is painful in all, and in some terribly so. Read Bunyan’s “Grace Abounding,” and see how year after year that wonderful mind of his had red-hot harrows dragged across all its fields. Some are brought unto salvation much more easily, but even they find that the death of sin is painful.
5. An ignominious death. It was the death which the Roman law accorded only to felons, serfs, and Jews. So our sins must be put to death with every circumstance of self-humiliation. I am shocked with some people who glibly rehearse their past lives up to the time of their supposed conversion, and talk of their sins which they hope have been forgiven them, with a sort of smack of the lips, as if there was something fine in having been so atrocious an offender. If you ever do tell anybody about your wrong-doing, let it be with shame and confusion of face. Never let the devil pat you on the back and say, “You did me a good turn in those days.” “The old man is crucified with him.” Who boasts of being related to a crucified felon?
6. A lingering death. A man crucified often lived for days, and even for a week. Our old man will linger on his cross. Each one of our sins has a horrible vitality about it. Expect to have to fight with sin, till you sheathe your sword and put on your crown.
7. A visible death. If there is no visible difference between you and the world, depend upon it there is no invisible difference. If a man’s outward life is not right, I shall not feel bound to believe that his inward life is acceptable to God. “Ah, sir,” said one in Rowland Hill’s time, “he is not exactly what I should like, but he has a good heart at bottom.” The shrewd old preacher replied, “When you go to market and buy fruit, and there are none but rotten apples on the top of the basket, you say to the market woman, ‘These are a very bad lot.’”
II. This crucifixion is with Christ. There is no death for sin except in the death of Christ. Your killing of your sin is not in your power. If yon go to the commandments of God, or to the fear and dread of hell, you will find such motives as they suggest to be as powerless in you for real action as they have proved themselves to be on the general world. You must get to Christ, nearer to Christ, and you will overcome sin. Conclusion:
1. Fight with your sins. Hack them in pieces, as Samuel did Agag, let not one of them escape. Revenge the death of Christ upon your sins, but keep to Christ’s Cross for power to do it.
2. If you will not have death unto sin, you shall have sin unto death. There is no alternative, if you do not die to sin you shall die for sin; and if you do not slay sin, sin will slay you. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
The old man crucified
I. what does the apostle mean by our old man? Simply our natural self, with all its principles and motives, its outgoings, actions, corruptions, and belongings; not as God made it, but as sin, and Satan, and self have marred it. The old Adam never changes; no medicine can heal the disease, no ointment can mollify the corruption; it can only be got rid of by death. In Psalms 14:1-3 we have God’s view of our sad ease. In chap. 3. the apostle quotes this passage to prove the universal depravity of human nature, and the necessity for the gospel which it was his privilege to proclaim.
II. What does it means to be “crucified with Him”?
1. This expression implies that we have suffered in Christ--
(1) A penal death (Galatians 3:13). I have been crucified with Christ and suffered the penalty which the law demands and the sin of the old Adam deserves. This corrupt self was executed under the sentence of law on the Cross.
(2) A lingering, painful death. The knowledge that I have been crucified with Christ will be a constraining motive for mortifying my members which are on the earth, and make me try to crucify the flesh with its affections and lusts (Galatians 5:24).
(3) A voluntary death. Christ was crucified as a voluntary agent, and the Christian voluntarily identifies his lot with the crucified One (Galatians 6:14).
2. See, then, the importance of the statement “crucified with Christ.” It is--
(1) An act of sovereign grace, for God gives us union with Christ when He was crucified for sin.
(2) The realisation of this union. Christ lives in the man who has union with Christ, and the man who has union with Christ lives in Christ, and here lies the power for the practical crucifixion of the affections and lusts.
(3) It is the knowledge of this union which constrains us to go out with Him beyond the camp, bearing the cross, despising the shame.
III. The object of this crucifixion. “The body of sin” is another form of expression for the “old man.” It is not the human nature defiled by sin, nor the human body burdened by sin, that is to be destroyed (Philippians 3:21), but it is the sin that defiled and possessed it. Because sin has so poisoned the whole body, it is called the body of sin. The word “destroyed” is the strongest possible. It is the same as that used in 1 Corinthians 15:26, and translated “bring to nought” (1 Corinthians 1:28), “put down” (1 Corinthians 15:24), “abolished” (2 Timothy 1:10), “made of none effect” (Galatians 3:17), “done away” (2 Corinthians 3:14).
IV. Its effect--“that henceforth we should not serve sin,” or “be slaves to sin.” How can we be slaves to a thing that is extinct? to a power that is abolished? to a principle that is set at nought, made nothing of, put down? See, then, what inconsistent and infatuated creatures we are when we minister in anywise to sin. (M. Rainsford, B. A.)
The two-fold function of personal Christianity
I. Its crucifying function. It crucifies--
1. Not any of his nature’s faculties or sensibilities. It energises, refines, and develops these.
2. Not any of the ties of his moral obligations. On the contrary, it gives a stronger revelation of duty, and mightier motives to obey. Christianity crucifies the corrupt character, called “the old man,” not because it is the original character of humanity, which was holy, but because it is the first character of individual men. This crucifixion is--
(1) A painful process. Crucifixion was the most excruciating death that the cruelty of the most malignant spirit could devise. To destroy old habits, gratifications, etc., is a painful work. It is as the cutting off a limb, the plucking out of an eye, etc.
(2) A protracted process. No wound was inflicted upon the most vital part, that the agony might be perpetuated. The agonised life gradually, drop by drop, ebbed away. There is nothing so hard to die as sin. An atom may kill a giant, a word may break the peace of a nation, a spark burn up a city; but it requires earnest and protracted struggles to destroy sin in the soul. No man grows virtuous in a day.
(3) A voluntary process. Christ’s crucifixion was voluntary. It is so with the crucifixion of “the old man.” No one could do it for us. No one can do it either without our consent or against it. If “the old man” is to be crucified, we must nail him to the cross.
II. Its resurrection function. “We shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection.” The spiritual life of a Christian is--
1. A revived life. It was not a new life that Jesus had when He came forth from His grave:--it was the old revived. The spiritual life of a Christian is that life of supreme love to God which Adam had, which belongs to our nature, but which sin has destroyed, and buried under evil passions and corrupt habits.
2. A Divinely produced life. “None but God can raise the dead,” etc.
3. An interminable life. “I am He that liveth,” said Christ, “and was dead, and am alive for evermore.” Once the true spiritual life of the soul is raised from its grave, it will die no more. It is an “everlasting life.”
4. A glorious life. How glorious was the resurrection body of Christ (Revelation 1:13-18). “We shall be like Him,” etc. The subject teaches us--
1. The value of evangelical religion: which is to destroy in man the bad, and the bad only, and to revive the good.
2. The test of evangelical religion, which is dying unto sin, and living unto holiness. (D. Thomas, D. D.)
That the body of sin might be destroyed.--
The body of sin weakened
The whole body of sin, indeed, is weakened in every believer, and a deadly wound given by the grace of God to his corrupt nature; yet, as a dying tree may bear some fruit, though not so much, nor that so full and ripe, as before; and as a dying man may move his limbs, though not so strongly as when he was in health, so original corruption in a saint will be stirring, though but feebly; and thou hast no cause to be discouraged because it stirs, but to be comforted that it can but stir.
The body of sin
Sin, in Scripture, in called “a body,” because made up of several members; or as the body of an army, consisting of many troops and regiments. It is one thing to beat a troop, or put a wing of an army to flight, and another thing to rout and break the whole army. Something hath been done by moral principles, like the former; they have got some petty victory, and had the chase of some gross and external sins; but then they were fearfully beaten by some other of sin’s troops. As the sea, which loses as much in one part of the land as it gains in another; so what they got in a seeming victory over one sin, they lost again by being in bondage to another, and that a worse, because more spiritual. But faith is uniform, and routs the whole body of sin, so that not one single lust stands in its unbroken strength (verse 14). (W. Gurnall.)
The body of sin
Original corruption is a body of sin.
1. In that a body though it seems never so beautiful and fair, yet it is in itself but made of base matter, so sin, though it may seem specious and alluring, yet it is but an abomination.
2. As a body, being material, is visible; so original sin discovers itself to everyone that without prejudice will look to find it. It is discernible in its effects daily.
3. As the body hath divers members, so sin.
4. As a body is beloved and provided for, so is sin (Romans 13:12). Who would willingly part with the least member of his body? But if something of this body must be parted with, it is but hair and nails. And thus, till that day in which God puts forth His almighty power to make us willing, we are loath to leave any sin.
5. Sin, as a body, hath strength in it, and tyranny is exercised by it.
6. It is called here especially “a body” by the apostle, to answer to the metaphor of “crucifying.” Only bodies can be crucified, and this sin is “crucified with Christ.” (P. Vinke, B. D.)
Destruction of the body 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 torments of hell; the fourth, to meditate on the joys of heaven; the fifth, to meditate on the blood and sufferings of 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 much upon and apply this precious blood to our own souls. (S. Brooks.)
Destruction of the body of sin
Destroyed, not merely subdued, but annihilated--stripped of its dominion, deprived of its life, annulled as to authority and energy, and finally as to existence. Our sinful nature not to be improved but destroyed. Its place to be taken by a holy and Divine nature. As the old man dies the new man lives. Either grace must destroy sin or sin the soul. Four things observed in the destruction of the body of sin.
I. The meritorious cause. The crucifixion of Christ.
II. The efficient cause. The Holy Spirit (Romans 8:13).
III. The instrumental cause. The gospel of God’s grace (1 Peter 1:22).
IV. The more. The infusion of new principles and affections (Galatians 5:16; 2 Corinthians 5:14). (T. Robinson, D. D.)
That henceforth we should not serve sin.--
The Christian should not serve sin
I. It has cost him enough already. Sin never yields--
1. Real pleasure.
2. Solid satisfaction.
II. It is contrary to the designs of eternal love.
III. Its punishment is very great. It--
1. Destroys peace of mind.
2. Obscures fellowship with Jesus.
3. Hinders prayer.
4. Brings darkness over the soul.
IV. It crucifies the Lord afresh and puts him to an open shame. Can you bear that thought? (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Slaves to sin
When the morning sun is bright, and the summer breezes are gently blowing from the shore, the little riverboat is enticed from the harbour to start on her trip of pleasure on the clear, calm sea. All Nature seems to enlist in her service. The fair wind fills her sails, the favourable tide rolls onward in her course, the parted sea makes way for her to glide swiftly and merrily on her happy voyage; but having thus been her servants, and carried her whither she would, these soon become her masters, and carry her whither she would not. The breeze that swelled her sails has become a storm, and rends them; the waves that quietly rippled for her pleasure now rise in fury, and dash over her for her destruction; and the vessel, which rode in the morning as a queen upon the waters, sinks before night comes on, the slave of those very winds and waves which had beguiled her to use them as her servants. So it is with sin. (Canon Morse.)
For he that is dead is freed from sin.--
Freed from sin
To arrive at the meaning of these words, we must consider that law regards all punishment in the light of satisfaction. By a crime, the law has been aggrieved; and by the punishment, the law is satisfied. When, therefore, the guilty person has undergone sentence, the law has no further claim upon that man.
I. Christ died and underwent the extreme punishment of the law.
1. He was the One, only, sinless being that ever walked the earth. But He “was made sin.” The sins of the world gathered upon that spotless One, and He was treated as if He was one concentrated essence of sin.
2. When He died, it was death indeed. No other death was like that.
(1) Is death the rending of the fine tissue by which spirit and body are mysteriously one? His was the most sensitive and delicate frame that ever was seen--and the soul of Jesus broke through its tabernacle--the body went its way to the sepulchre--the soul winged its flight to Paradise--and Jesus died.
(2) Is death the parting from those whose love makes life? The tender farewell to Mary, and the beloved disciple, showed the dying of the heart of Jesus.
(3) Is death separation from God? Then there was a passage in that dark valley which Jesus walked without a ray of His Father’s presence.
3. But the death passed, and it could never be repeated. It was not compatible with the justice of God that Jesus should die again.
II. See how this bears upon ourselves.
1. It is God’s plan always to deal with man as seen in some federal head. The whole of our race fell in the first Adam, and became involved in his condemnation. Is it arbitrary? See the balance. Christ came to be a federal Head. As the natural members of our body gather up into the natural head, so spiritual believers gather up into Christ.
2. Observe the consequence of this representative system. As soon as ever you are really united to the Lord Jesus Christ, you have died in your covenant Head. There was a sentence of death against you which must be executed--but in Christ you have undergone it. What is the result? You can never be required to pay the forfeit which has been paid, or to die the death which has been died--it is done in Christ, and you are dead--and “he that is dead is freed from sin.” And as impossible as it would be that God should take His risen Son, and nail Him to that Cross again, so impossible is it that God should ever demand satisfaction at your hand for any of those sins, which being once laid on Christ, have already received satisfaction in the death of your Redeemer.
3. This was the only conceivable way in which it was possible that any man should be “freed from sin.” God’s government of this world is a moral government, and it is essential to moral government that every sin should have its retribution. Therefore, God laid it down at the first, “The soul that sinneth, it shall die.” But He vindicated His truth, and upheld the law, when, gathering the sins of all, and laying them upon one great Substitute, He crucified all in One, saw all dead that He might acknowledge all alive--and simply carried out the one grand principle, “He that is dead is freed from sin.”
4. Look at the condition of a man who is “freed from sin.” Had sin never entered into our world--or, having entered, had it been simply forgiven by a word--we should have been, I suppose, just as Adam was. We should have lived in a beautiful garden, where we should have eaten sweet fruit, and done gentle labour, and at times we should have enjoyed the presence of God, and had some measure of communion with Him. Conclusion: It is a certain fact that no other process, except the grace of Christ--no fear of punishment, no hope of reward, no self-respect, no consideration for human affection, have ever proved sufficient in this world to make men really good. But let a man be once brought under a real feeling that through the grace of Christ he is free from condemnation--let him begin to look at that Saviour as his own Friend, and live, day by day, in converse with that love, and contemplation of that example, and we know what is the consequence. We know how the mind of Christ enters into that man’s spirit, and how the pattern of Christ becomes reflected upon his conduct. (J. Vaughan, M. A.)
Dead with Christ
What is it to be dead? We all know what it is to turn away from the grave side, in which we have laid to its last rest the cold body of a friend. All is done and over now. Something has been in the world which will never be again. A story, a presence with its good and evil, with its joys and sorrows is wiped out. Everything is ended. The great silence closes over it, as the waters close over a sunken ship, and leaves no sign. It is all dead and over! We have said the last word; we have taken the last look. Now, let it go! Come away! Leave it to lie hidden! For you must go your way without it. That is death, and we are dead if we are in Christ. We have buried our old manhood. That old natural self of ours--the man in us that is born and lives its little day and dies--the self, as is by human laws, as a creature of this earth--that is with us no longer. It has had its day. It has done its business. We have wrapped it in its white shroud. We have carried it out to its burial; down in the dark grave we have laid it; it is buried, with Christ’s burial. All that old past, so onerous, so tangled, so burdened, so sick--it is all gone and over, as completely as a life that is dead. Never, never can it be again, The blood of Christ’s death lies between us and it; and it cannot touch us. Its sorrows, its sins, are remote and alien, as the voice of a torrent that we have crossed in the night, whose dull and smothered roar comes to our ears only in faint gusts of wind. The old is dead and buried. (H. S. Holland.)
Freedom from sin
The original means justified or acquitted from sin--absolution from its guilt and merited penalty. Law has received its rightful claim in the Person of the Surety. Freed from sin’s penalty, we are also freed from its power. We are dead to sin, because in Christ we have died for sin. Consequently we are also freed from its practice (Job 3:19; Romans 7:24; 1 John 3:6-9). (T. Robinson, D. D.)