O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?
Soul despotism
I. The soul’s oppressive despot. “The body of this death.” What is meant by this? Corrupt animalism. What is elsewhere called the flesh with its corruptions and lusts. The body, intended to be an instrument and servant of the soul, has become its sovereign, and keeps all its power of intellect and conscience in subjection. Corrupt animalism is the moral monarch of the world. It rules in literature, in politics, in science, and even in churches. This despot is death to all true freedom, progress, happiness.
II. The soul’s struggle to be free. This implies--
1. A quickened consciousness of its condition. “O wretched man that I am! “The vast majority of souls, alas I are utterly insensible to this; hence they remain passive. What quickens the soul into this consciousness? “The law.” The light of God’s moral law flashes on the conscience and startles it.
2. An earnest desire for help. It feels its utter inability to haul the despot down; and it cries mightily, “Who shall deliver me?” Who? Legislatures, moralists, poets, philosophers, priesthoods? No; they have tried for ages, and have failed. Who? There is One and but One, and to Him Paul alludes in the next verse and the following chapter. “Thanks be to God,” etc. (D. Thomas, D. D.)
The cry of the Christian warrior
The cry not of “a chained captive” to be set free, but of a “soldier in conflict” who looks round for succour. He is in the fight; he sees the enemy advancing against him, with spear in hand, and chains ready to throw over him; the soldier sees his danger, feels his weakness and helplessness, yet has no thought of yielding; he cries out, “Who shall deliver me?” But it is not the cry of a vanquished but of a contending soldier of Jesus Christ. (F. Bourdillon.)
Victory in the hidden warfare
To enter into the full meaning of these words, we must understand their place in the argument. The great theme is opened in Romans 1:16. To establish this, Paul begins by proving in the first four Chapter s that both Jew and Gentile are utterly lost. In the fifth he shows that through Christ peace with God may be brought into the conscience of the sinner. In the sixth he proves that this truth, instead of being any excuse for sin, was the strongest argument against it, for it gave freedom from sin, which the law could never do. And then, in this chapter, he inquires why the law could not bring this gift. Before the law was given, man could not know what sin was, any more than the unevenness of a crooked line can be known until it is placed beside something that is straight. But when the law raised before his eyes a rule of holiness, then, for the first time, his eyes were opened; he saw that he was full of sin; and forthwith there sprang up a fearful struggle. Once he had been “alive without the law”; he had lived, that is, a life of unconscious, self-contented impurity; but that life was gone from him, he could live it no longer. The law, because it was just and good, wrought death in him; for it was a revelation of death without remedy. “The law was spiritual,” but he was corrupt, “sold under sin.” Even when his struggling will did desire in some measure a better course, still he was beaten down again by evil. “How to perform that which was good he found not.” Yea, “when he would do good, evil was present with him.” In vain there looked in upon his soul the blessed countenance of an external holiness. Its angel gladness, of which he could in no way be made partaker, did but render darker and more intolerable the loathsome dungeon in which he was perpetually held. It was the fierce struggle of an enduring death; and in its crushing agony, he cried aloud against the nature, which, in its inmost currents, sin had turned into corruption and a curse. “O wretched man that I am!” etc. And then forthwith upon this stream of misery there comes forth a gleam of light from the heavenly presence; “I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Here is deliverance for me; I am a redeemed man; holiness may be mine, and, with it, peace and joy. Here is the full meaning of these glorious words.
I. They lie at the root of such exertions as we make for those whom sin has brought down very low.
1. They contain the principle which should lead us most truly to sympathise with them. This great truth of the redemption Of our nature in Christ Jesus is the only link of brotherhood between man and man. To deny our brotherhood with any of the most miserable of those whom Christ has redeemed, is to deny our own capacity for perfect holiness, and so our true redemption through Christ.
2. Here, too, is the only warrant for any reasonable efforts for their restoration. Without this, every man, who knows anything of the depth of evil with which he has to deal, would give up the attempt in despair. Every reasonable effort to restore any sinner, is a declaration that we believe that we are in a kingdom of grace, of redeemed humanity. Unbelieving men cannot receive the truth that a soul can be thus restored. They believe that you may make a man respectable; but not that you can heal the inner currents of his spiritual life, and so they cannot labour in prayers and ministrations with the spiritual leper, until his flesh, of God’s grace, comes again as the flesh of a little child. To endure this labour, we must believe that in Christ, the true Man, and through the gift of His Spirit, there is deliverance from the body of this death.
II. It is at the root also of all real efforts for ourselves.
1. Every earnest man must, if he sets himself to resist the evil which is in himself, know something of the struggle which the apostle here describes; and if he would endure the extremity of that conflict, he must have a firm belief that there is a deliverance for him. Without this, the knowledge of God’s holiness is nothing else than the burning fire of despair. And so many do despair. They think they have made their choice, and that they must abide by it; and so they shut their eyes to their sins, they excuse them, they try to forget them, they do everything but overcome them, until they see that in Christ Jesus there is for them, if they will claim it, a sure power over these sins. And, therefore, as the first consequence, let us ever hold it fast, even as our life.
2. Nor is it needful to lower the tone of promise in order to prevent its being turned into an excuse for sin. Here, as elsewhere, the simple words of God contain their own best safeguard against being abused; for what can be so loud a witness against allowed sin in any Christian man as this truth is? If there be in the true Christian life in union with Christ for every one of us this power against sin, sin cannot reign in any who are living in Him. To be in Christ is to be made to conquer in the struggle. So that this is the most quickening and sanctifying truth. It tears up by the roots a multitude of secret excuses. It tells us that if we are alive in Christ Jesus, we must be new creatures. And herein it destroys the commonest form of self-deception--the allowing some sin in ourselves, because in other things we deny ourselves, because we pray, because we give alms, etc. And this self-deception is put down only by bringing out this truth, that in Christ Jesus there is for us, in our struggle with “the body of this death,” an entire conquest, if we will but honestly and earnestly claim it for ourselves; so that if we do not conquer sin, it must be because we are not believing.
3. This will make us diligent in all parts of the Christian life, because all will become a reality. Prayer, the reading of God’s Word, etc., will be precious after a new sort, because through them is kept alive our union with Christ, in whom alone is for us a conquest over the evil which is in us. So that, to sum up all in one blessed declaration, “The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus will make us free from the law of sin and death.” (Bp. S. Wilberforce.)
The body of death
I. What is meant by the body of death of which the believer complains.
1. Indwelling sin is called the body of this death, as it is the effect and remains of that spiritual death to which all men are subject in unregeneracy.
2. The remains of sin in the believer is called the body of this death, on account of the deadness and dulness of spirit in the service of God, which it so often produces.
3. Remaining depravity is called the body of death, because it tends to death.
(1) It tends to the death of the body. As it was sin that brought us under the influence of the sentence of dissolution; as it is sin that has introduced into the material frame of man those principles of decay which will bring it to the grave; as it is sin which is the parent of those evil passions which, as natural causes, war against the health and life of the body, so it is the inbred sins of the believer that require his flesh to see the dust.
(2) But this is not all. Remaining depravity tends to spiritual and eternal death, and on this account, also, is justly called the body of this death.
II. The grief and pain which remaining depravity occasions to the believer.
1. Remaining depravity is thus painful and grievous to the Christian, from his acquaintance with its evil and malignant nature.
2. Remaining sin is thus painful to the Christian, from the constant struggle which it maintains with grace within the heart. Even in eminent saints the contest is often singularly obstinate and painful; for where there is strong grace there are also, sometimes, strong corruptions. Besides, where there is eminent spirituality of mind, there is an aspiration after a freedom from imperfections which scarcely belongs to the present state.
III. The earnest longings and confident and joyful assurance of deliverance from indwelling sin which the Christian entertains.
1. Mark his earnest longings--“Who shall deliver me?” The language implies how well the Christian knows he cannot deliver himself from the body of sin. This is the habitual desire of his soul--the habitual object of his pursuit. For this end he prays, he praises, he reads, he hears, he communicates. So earnest, in short, is his desire of deliverance, that he welcomes with this view two things most unwelcome to the feelings of nature affliction and death.
2. Mark his confident and joyful assurance of deliverance. Weak in himself, the Christian is yet strong in the Lord. All the victories he has hitherto achieved have been through the faith and by the might of the Redeemer. All the victories he shall yet acquire shall be obtained in the same way.
3. Mark the gratitude of the Christian for this anticipated and glorious deliverance. Sin is the cause of all the other evils in which he has been involved, and when sin is destroyed within and put forever away, nothing can be wanting to perfect his blessedness. Well then does it become him to cherish the feeling and utter the language of thankfulness. (James Kirkwood.)
The spectre of the old nature
1. Some years ago a number of peculiar photographs were circulated by spiritualists. Two portraits appeared on the same card, one clear and the other obscure. The fully developed portrait was the obvious likeness of the living person; and the indistinct portrait was supposed to be the likeness of some dead friend, produced by supernatural agency. The mystery, however, was found to admit of an easy scientific explanation. It not unfrequently happens that the portrait of a person is so deeply impressed on the glass of the negative, that although the plate is thoroughly cleansed with strong acid, the picture cannot be removed, although it is made invisible. When such a plate is used over again, the original image faintly reappears along with the new portrait. So is it in the experience of the Christian. He has been washed in the blood of Christ; and beholding the glory of Christ as in a glass, he is changed into the same image. And yet the ghost of his former sinfulness persists in reappearing with the image of the new man. So deeply are the traces of the former godless life impressed upon the soul, that even the sanctification of the Spirit, carried on through discipline, burning as corrosive acid, cannot altogether remove them.
2. The photographer also has a process by which the obliterated picture may at any time be revived. And so it was with the apostle. The sin that so easily beset him returned with fresh power in circumstances favourable to it.
I. The “body of death” is not something that has come to us from without, an infected garment that may be thrown aside whenever we please. It is our own corrupt self, not our individual sins or evil habits. And this body of death disintegrates the purity and unity of the soul and destroys the love of God and man which is its true life. It acts like an evil leaven, corrupting and decomposing every good feeling and heavenly principle, and gradually assimilating our being to itself. There is a peculiar disease which often destroys the silkworm before it has woven its cocoon. It is caused by a species of white mould which grows rapidly within the body of the worm at the expense of its nutritive fluids; all the interior organs being gradually converted into a mass of flocculent vegetable matter. Thus the silkworm, instead of going on in the natural order of development to produce the beautiful winged moth, higher in the scale of existence, retrogrades to the lower condition of the inert senseless vegetable. And like this is the effect of the body of death in the soul of man. The heart cleaves to the dust of the earth, and man, made in the image of God, instead of developing a higher and purer nature, is reduced to the low, mean condition of the slave of Satan.
II. None but those who have attained to some measure of the experience of St. Paul can know the full wretchedness caused by this body of death. The careless have no idea of the agony of a soul under a sense of sin; of the tyranny which it exercises and the misery which it works. And even in the experience of many Christians there is but little of this peculiar wretchedness. Conviction is in too many instances superficial, and a mere impulse or emotion is regarded as a sign of conversion; and hence many are deluded by a false hope, having little knowledge of the law of God or sensibility to the depravity of their own hearts. But such was not the experience of St. Paul. The body of corruption that he bore about with him darkened and embittered all his Christian experience. And so it is with every true Christian. It is not the spectre of the future, or the dread of the punishment of sin, that he fears, for there is no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus; but the spectre of the sinful past and the pressure of the present evil nature. The sin which he fancied was so superficial that a few years’ running in the Christian course would shake it off, he finds is in reality deep rooted in his very nature, requiring a life long battle. The fearful foes which he bears in his own bosom--sins of unrestrained appetite, sins that spring from past habits, frequently triumph over him; and all this fills him almost with despair--not of God, but of himself--and extorts from him the groan, “O wretched man that I am!” etc.
III. The evil to be cured is beyond human remedy. The various influences that act upon us from without--instruction, example, education, the discipline of life--cannot deliver us from this body of death.
IV. The work is Christ’s and not man’s. We are to fight the battle in His name and strength, and to leave the issue in His hands. He will deliver us in His own way and time. Conclusion: We can reverse the illustration with which I began. If behind our renewed self is the spectral form of our old self, let us remember that behind all is the image of God in which we were created. The soul, however lost, darkened, and defaced, still retains some lineaments of the Divine impression with which it was once stamped. The image haunts us always; it is the ideal from which we have fallen and towards which we are to be conformed. To rescue that image of God, the Son of God assumed our nature, lived our life, and died our death; and His Spirit becomes incarnate in our heart and life, and prolongs the work of Christ in us in His own sanctifying work. And as our nature becomes more and more like Christ’s, so by degrees the old nature photographed by sin upon the soul will cease to haunt us, and the image of Christ will become more and more vivid. And at length only one image will remain. We shall see Him as He is, and we shall become like Him. (H. Macmillan, LL. D.)
The body becoming a second personality
The writer represents himself as having two personalities--the inner man, and the outer man, i.e., the body. A word or two about the human body.
I. It is in the unregenerate man a personality. “I am carnal,” that is, I am become flesh. This is an abnormal, a guilty, and a perilous fact. The right place of the body is that of the organ, which the mind should use for its own high purpose. But this, through the pampering of its own senses, and through the creation of new desires and appetites, becomes such a power over man that Paul represents it as a personality, the thing becomes an ego.
II. As a personality it becomes a tyrant. It is represented in this chapter as a personality that enslaves, slays, destroys the soul, the inner man. It is a “body of death.” It drags the soul to death When man becomes conscious of this tyranny, as he does when the “commandment” flashes upon the conscience, the soul becomes intensely miserable, and a fierce battle sets in between the two personalities in man. The man cries out, “What shall I do to be saved?” “Who shall deliver me?”
III. As a tyrant it can only be crushed by Christ. In the fierce battle Christ came to the rescue, and struck the tyrant down. In this Epistle the writer shows that man struggled to deliver himself--
1. Under the teachings of nature, but failed (see chap. 1). He became more enslaved in materialism.
2. Under the influence of Judaism, but failed. By the deeds of the law no man was justified or made right. Under Judaism men filled up the measure of their iniquities. Who, or what, then, could deliver? No philosophers, poets, or teachers. Only one. “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ.” (D. Thomas, D. D.)
The body of death
1. St. Paul was not thinking with any fear of death. Indeed, toil worn and heart wearied as he was, he often would have been glad, had it been the Lord’s will. There was something that to a mind like Paul’s was worse than death. It was the dominion of the carnal nature which strove to overrule the spiritual. The body of sin was to him “the body of death.” Who should deliver him from it?
2. Now, is the feeling from which such a cry as Paul’s proceeds a real and noble feeling, or is it the mere outcry of ignorance and superstition? There are not wanting those who would say the latter. “Why trouble ourselves,” says one of these apostles of the new religion of science, “about matters of which, however important they may be, we do know nothing, and can know nothing? We live in a world full of misery and ignorance; and the plain duty of each and all of us is to try and make the little corner he can influence somewhat less miserable and ignorant. To do this effectually, it is necessary to be possessed of only two beliefs; that we can learn much of the order of nature; and that our own will has a considerable influence on the course of events.” That is all that we need attend to. Any idea of God and a moral law belongs to cloudland. But is there not an instinct within us which rebels against this cool setting aside of everything that cannot be seen or handled? And is that instinct a low one? or is it the instinct of minds that come nearest to Divine?
3. Which is the higher type of man--which do you feel has got the firmer grip of the realities of life--the man calmly bending over the facts of outward nature, and striving to secure, as far as he can, conformity to them: or, the man, like Paul, believing that there was a moral law of which he had fallen short, a Divine order with which he was not in harmony--good and evil, light and darkness, God and the devil, being to him tremendous realities--his soul being the battlefield of a war between them, in the agony and shock of which conflict he is constrained to cry out for a higher than human help? I should say the man in the storm and stress of the spiritual battle; and I should say that to deny the reality of the sense of such a conflict was to deny facts which are as obvious to the spiritual intelligence as the fact that two and two make four is to the ordinary reason, and was to malign facts which are much higher and nobler than any mere fact of science, as the life of man is higher and nobler than the life of rocks or seas.
4. Minds wholly engrossed with intellectual or selfish pursuits may be unconscious of this conflict, and disbelieve its existence in other minds. So may minds that have reached that stage which the apostle describes as “dead in sin”; but to other minds, minds within which conscience still lives, within which exclusive devotion to one thought or interest has not obliterated every other, this conflict is a stern reality. Who that has lived a life with any spiritual element in it, and higher than the mere animal’s or worldling’s, has not known that consciousness, and known its terror and power of darkness when it was roused into active life? it is of this consciousness Paul speaks. Under the pressure of it he cries out, “Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?”
5. And what answer does he find to that cry? Does the order of nature, or the powers of his own will help him here? Does not the very sight of the unbroken calm and steadfast regularity of the law and order of external nature add new bitterness to the conviction that he has forgotten a higher law and disturbed a still more gracious order? Is not the very conviction of the weakness of his own will one of the most terrible elements in his distress? Speak to a man under this consciousness of the power of sin about finding help to resist, through studying the laws of that nature of which he is himself a part, and through exercising that will, whose feebleness appalls him, and you mock him, as if you spoke to a man in a raging fever of the necessity of studying his own temperament and constitution, and of the duty of keeping himself cool. What is wanted in either case is help from some source of energy outside himself, who should restore the wasted strength from his own fountains of life--who should say to the internal conflict, “Peace, be still.” And that is what Paul found in Christ. He found it nowhere else. It is not to be found in knowledge, in science, in philosophy, in nature, in culture, in self.
6. Now, how did Paul find this in Christ? How may all find it? He was speaking about something infinitely more terrible than the punishment of sin, viz., the dominion of sin. What he wanted was an actual deliverance from an actual foe--not a promise of exemption from some future evil. And it was this that Paul realised in Christ. To him to live was Christ. The presence and the power of Christ possessed him. It was in this he found the strength which gave him the victory over the body of death. He found that strength in the consciousness that he was not a lonely soldier, fighting against an overpowering enemy, and in the dark, but that One was with him who had come from heaven itself to reveal to him that God was on his side, that he was fighting God’s battle, that the struggle was needed for his perfecting as the child of God. It was in the strength of this that he was able to give thanks for his deliverance from the “body of death.”
7. The consciousness of this struggle, the engagement in it in the strength of Christ, the victory of the higher over the lower, are in all the necessary conditions of spiritual health and continued life. To deny the reality of that conflict, and of the Divine life for which it prepares us, does not prove that these are not real and true. I take a man who does not know the “Old Hundredth” from “God Save the Queen,” and play him a piece of the sweetest music, and he says there is no harmony in it. I show a man who is colour blind two beautifully contrasted tints, and he sees but one dull hue: but still the music and the beauty of the colours exist, though not for him, not for the incapable ear and the undiscerning eye. So with the spiritual life. It is for the spiritual. (R. H. Story, D. D.)
The body of death
In Virgil there is an account of an ancient king, who was so unnaturally cruel in his punishments, that he used to chain a dead man to a living one. It was impossible for the poor wretch to separate himself from his disgusting burden. The carcase was bound fast to his body, its hands to his hands, its face to his face, its lips to his lips; it lay down and rose up whenever he did; it moved about with him whithersoever he went, till the welcome moment when death came to his relief. And many suppose that it was in reference to this that Paul cried out: “O wretched man that I am!” etc. Whether this be so or not, sin is a body of death, which we all carry about with us. And while I do not wish to shock your taste, yet I do wish to give you some impression of the unclean, impure, offensive nature of sin. And think--if our souls are polluted with such a stain--oh! think what we must be in the eyes of that God in whose sight the very heavens are not clean, and who charges His angels with folly. (E. Woods.)
The body of death
Doddridge thus paraphrases the latter half of this verse: “Who shall rescue me, miserable captive as I am, from the body of this death, from this continued burden which I carry about with me, and which is cumbersome and odious as a dead carcase tied to a living body, to be dragged along with it wherever it goes?” He adds in a note: “It is well known that some ancient writers mention this as a cruelty practised by some tyrants upon miserable captives who felt into their hands; and a more forcible and expressive image of the sad case represented cannot surely enter into the mind of man.” “Of this atrocious practice one of the most remarkable instances is that mentioned by Virgil when describing the tyrannous conduct of Mezentius:--
The living and the dead at his command
Were coupled, face to face, and hand to hand;
Till, choked with stench, in loathed embraces tied,
The lingering wretches pined away and died.--(Dryden.)
Doddridge is not by any means singular in his opinion that the apostle derives an allusion from this horrid punishment; although perhaps the text is sufficiently intelligible without the illustration it thus receives. Philo, in an analogous passage, more obviously alludes to it, describing the body as a burden to the soul, carried about like a dead carcase, which may not till death be laid aside.” (Kitto.) During the reign of Richard I, the following curious law was enacted for the government of those going by sea to the Holy Land--“He who kills a man on shipboard shall be bound to the dead body and thrown into the sea; if a man be killed on shore the slayer shall be bound to the dead body and buried with it.”
I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Christ the Deliverer
I. Man’s need.
1. While man is, in special organs, inferior to one and another of the animals, he is collectively by far the superior of everyone. And yet, large as he is, man is not happy in any proportion to his nature, and to the hints and fore gleams which that nature gives. He has, in being clothed with flesh, all the points of contact with the physical world that the ox or the falcon has. He is born; he grows up with all the instincts and passions of animal life, and without them he could not maintain his foothold upon the earth. But man is also a creature of affections, which, in variety, compass and force, leave the lower creation in a vivid contrast. He is endowed with reason, moral sentiment and spiritual life; but he has learned but very imperfectly how to carry himself so that every part of his nature shall have fair play. The animal propensities are predominant. Here, then, begins the conflict between man’s physical life and his moral life--the strife of gentleness, purity, joy, peace, and faith, against selfishness, pride, and appetites of various kinds.
2. To all souls that have been raised to their true life the struggle has been always severe. To have the power over our whole organisation without a despotism of our animal and selfish nature is the problem of practical life. How can I maintain the fulness of every part, and yet have harmony and relative subordination, so that the appetites shall serve the body, and the affections not be dragged down by the appetites; so that the moral sentiments and the reason shall shine clear and beautiful?
II. What remedies have proposed!
1. To give way to that which is strongest, has been one special method of settling the conflict. Kill the higher feelings and then let the lower ones romp and riot like animals in a field--this gives a brilliant opening to life; but it gives a dismal close to it. For what is more hideous than a sullen old man burnt out with evil? When I see men suppressing all qualms, and going into the full enjoyment of sensuous life, I think of a party entering the Mammoth Cave with candles enough to bring them back, but setting them all on fire at once. The world is a cave. They that burn out all their powers and passions in the beginning of life at last wander in great darkness, and lie down to mourn and die.
2. Another remedy has been in superstition. Men have sought to cover this conflict, rather than to heal it.
3. Others have compromised by morality. But this, which is an average of man’s conduct with the customs and laws of the time in which he lives, comes nowhere near touching that radical conflict which there is between the flesh and the spirit.
4. Then comes philosophy, and deals with it in two ways. It propounds to men maxims and wise rules. It expounds the benefit of good, and the evils of bad conduct. And then it proposes certain rules of doing what we cannot help, and of suffering what we cannot throw off. And it is all very well. So is rosewater where a man is wounded unto death. It is not less fragrant because it is not remedial; but if regarded as a remedy, how poor it is!
5. Then comes scientific empiricism, and prescribes the observance of natural laws; but how many men in life know these laws? How many men are so placed that if they did know them, they would be able to use them? You might as well take a babe of days, and place a medicine chest before it, and say, “Rise, and select the right medicine, and you shall live.”
III. What, then, is the final remedy? What does Christianity offer in this case?
1. It undertakes to so bring God within the reach of every being in the world, that He shall exert a controlling power on the spiritual realms of man’s nature, and, by giving power to it, overbalance and overbear the despotism of the radical passions and appetites. There is a story of a missionary who was sent out to preach the gospel to the slaves; but he found that they went forth so early, and came back so late, and were so spent, that they could not hear. There was nobody to preach to them unless he should accompany them in their labour. So he went and sold himself to their master, who put him in the gang with them. For the privilege of going out with these slaves, and making them feel that he loved them, and would benefit them, he worked with them, and suffered with them; and while they worked, he taught; and as they came back he taught; and he won their ear; and the grace of God sprang up in many of these darkened hearts. That is the story over again of God manifest in the flesh.
2. Many things can be done under personal influence that you cannot in any other way. My father said to me, when I was a little boy, “Henry, take these letters to the post office.” I was a brave boy; yet I had imagination. I saw behind every thicket some shadowy form; and I heard trees say strange and weird things; and in the dark concave above I could hear flitting spirits. As I stepped out of the door, Charles Smith, a great thick-lipped black man, who was always doing kind things, said, “I will go with you.” Oh! sweeter music never came out of any instrument than that. The heaven was just as full, and the earth was just as full as before; but now I had somebody to go with me. It was not that I thought he was going to fight for me. But I had somebody to succour me. Let anything be done by direction and how different it is from its being done by personal inspiration. “Ah! are the Zebedees, then, so poor? John, take a quarter of beef and carry it down, with my compliments. No, stop; fill up that chest, put in those cordials, lay them on the cart, and bring it round, and I will drive down myself.” Down I go; and on entering the house I hold out both hands, and say, “Why, my old friend, I am glad I found you out. I understand the world has gone hard with you. I came down to say that you have one friend, at any rate. Now do not be discouraged; keep up a good heart.” And when I am gone, the man wipes his eyes, and says, “God knows that that man’s shaking my hands gave me more joy than all that he brought. It was himself that I wanted.” The old prophet, when he went into the house where the widow’s son lay dead, put his hands on the child’s hands, and stretched himself across the child’s body, and the spirit of life came back. Oh, if, when men are in trouble, there were some man to measure his whole stature against them, and give them the warmth of his sympathy, how many would be saved! That is the philosophy of salvation through Christ--a great soul come down to take care of little souls; a great heart beating its warm blood into our little pinched hearts, that do not know how to get blood enough for themselves. It is this that gives my upper nature strength, and hope, and elasticity, and victory.
Conclusion: We learn--
1. What is a man’s depravity. When you say that an army is destroyed, you do not mean that everybody is killed; but that, as an army, its complex organisation is broken up. To spoil a watch you do not need to grind it to powder. Take out the mainspring. “Well, the pointers are not useless.” Perhaps not for another watch. “There are a great many wheels inside that are not injured.” Yes, but what are wheels worth in a watch that has no mainspring? What spoils a compass? Anything which unfits it for doing what it was intended to do. Now, here is this complex organisation of man. The royalties of the soul are all mixed up. Where conscience ought to be is pride. Where love ought to be is selfishness. Its sympathy and harmony are gone. It is not necessary that a man should be all bad to be ruined. Man has lost that harmony which belongs to a perfect organisation. And so he lives to struggle. And the struggle through which he is passing is the cause of human woe.
2. Why it is that the divinity of Christ becomes so important in the development of a truly Christian life. As a living man, having had the experiences of my own soul, and having been conversant with the experiences of others, what I want is power. And that is what they lack who deny the Divinity of the Lord Jesus Christ. God can cleanse the heart. Man cannot. And that God whom we can understand is the God that walked in Jerusalem, that suffered upon Calvary, and that lives again, having lifted Himself up into eternal spheres of power, that He might bring many sons and daughters home to Zion. (H. Ward Beecher.)
The believer’s gratitude to God through Christ
I. Souls groaning under the body of sin and death can find no relief but through Jesus Christ. None but an almighty Saviour is suited to the case of a poor sinner. This doctrine reproves the Church of Rome, and others, for directing men, not to Christ, but to themselves; to their vows, alms, penances, and pilgrimages; or, to their greater watchfulness and strictness in life. But as Luther observes, “How many have tried this way for many years, and yet could get no peace.” Now, what is there in Christ that can relieve a soul?
1. The blood of Christ, which was shed as an atoning sacrifice for sin.
2. A perfect and everlasting righteousness. This our apostle, doubtless, had in view: for he immediately adds (Romans 8:1). “Christ is made unto us of God, wisdom and righteousness.”
3. The Spirit of Christ which is given to all true believers, as an abiding principle, teaching them to fight and war with sin.
II. That souls thus exercised, finding relief only in Christ, will actually receive and embrace Him. None will receive Christ, but they only who are taught to see their need of Him.
III. They, who see this relief in Christ, who receive and embrace it, must and will give thanks to God for it. The angels, those disinterested spirits, bringing the joyful news to our apostate world, sung, “Glory to God in the highest, for peace on earth, and good will towards men.” And surely, if we who are redeemed to God by His blood, should hold our peace on so joyful an occasion, “the stones would immediately cry out.”
IV. All those who have received Christ, and have given thanks to God for Him, will look upon Him as their Lord and their God. (J. Stafford.)
Nothing can equal the gospel
There is nothing proposed by men that can do anything like this gospel. The religion of Ralph Waldo Emerson is the philosophy of icicles; the religion of Theodore Parker was a sirocco of the desert covering up the soul with dry sand; the religion of Renan is the romance of believing nothing; the religion of Thomas Carlyle is only a condensed London fog; the religion of the Huxleys and the Spencers is merely a pedestal on which human philosophy sits shivering in the night of the soul, looking up to the stars, offering no help to the nations that crouch and groan at the base. Tell me where there is one man who has rejected that gospel for another, who is thoroughly satisfied, and helped, and contented in his scepticism, and I will take the ear tomorrow and ride five hundred miles to see him. (T. De Witt Talmage.)
Victory through Christ
I can well remember a portion of a sermon which I heard when I was only five years of age. I recollect the cast of the preacher’s features, the colour of his hair, and the tone of his voice. He had been an officer in the army, and was in attendance on the Duke of Wellington during the great battle of Waterloo. That portion of the sermon which I can so well remember was a graphic description of the conflict which some pious souls have experienced with the powers of darkness before their final victory over the fear of death. He illustrated it by drawing in simple words a vivid description of the battle at Waterloo. He told us of the cool and stern nature of the “Iron Duke,” who seldom manifested any emotion. But the moments came when the Duke was lifted out of his stern rut. For a short time the English troops wavered, and showed signs of weakness, when the Duke anxiously exclaimed, “I would to God that Blucher or the night had come!” After a while a column of the French was driven before the English guards, and another column was routed by a bayonet charge of an English brigade. Wellington then calculated how long it would take to complete the triumph. Taking from his pocket his gold watch, he exclaimed, “Twenty minutes more, and then victory!” When the twenty minutes had passed the French were completely vanquished. Then the Duke, again taking out his watch, held it by the short chain, and swung it around his head again and again while he shouted, “Victory! Victory!” the watch flew out of his hand, but he regarded gold as only dust compared with the final triumph. This graphic description made a powerful impression on my childish mind. Young as I was, I at once saw the aptness of the illustration. I often dreamt about it, and told other lads the story. When I was a weeping penitent, praying for pardon, and struggling with unbelief, the scene of Waterloo came before me; but the moment the light of the Saviour’s smile fell upon my heart, I instinctively sprang to my feet and shouted, “Victory! Victory!” Many times, since I have been exclusively engaged in conducting special services, my memory has brought before me the preacher and the part of the sermon which I heard when I was only five years of age, and this has had its influence on me in my addresses to both old and young. (T. Oliver.)
So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.--
I. Of whom does the apostle speak? Of those--
1. Who are enlightened.
2. But still under the law.
II. What does he affirm respecting them?
1. That they naturally approve the law.
2. Yet serve sire
III. What is the necessary conclusion?
1. That there is no deliverance by the law, or by personal effort.
2. But by Christ only. (J. Lyth, D. D.)
Believers serve the law of God, though hindered by the law of sin
I. The life of a believer is chiefly taken up in serving the law of God. For this end the law is written upon his heart, and, therefore, he serves God with his spirit, or with his renewed mind. His whole man, all that can be called himself, is employed in a life of evangelical and universal obedience.
II. The believer may meet with many interruptions while he is aiming to serve the law of God. “With my flesh the law of sin.”
1. Had our apostle contented himself with the former part of this declaration, it would doubtless have been matter of great discouragement to the children of God. But when we find that the apostle himself confesseth his weakness and imperfection, whose heart would not take courage, and go forth more boldly to the conflict than ever?
2. After all the encouragement afforded to the mind of a believer, yet this is a very humbling subject. We may learn hence, how deeply sin is inwrought in our nature.
III. Although the believer meets with many interruptions, yet he holds on serving the law of God, even when he is delivered from all condemnation. I ground this observation on the close connection in which these words stand with the first verse of the next chapter. They are delivered from condemnation, and yet they serve the law of God, because they are delivered. (J. Stafford.).
The place of the chapter in the argument
The struggle has passed away and the conqueror and the conquered are side by side. The two laws mentioned in the last chapter have changed places, the one becoming mighty from being powerless, the other powerless from being mighty. The helplessness of the law has been done sway in Christ, that its righteous requirement may be fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit. The apostle returns upon his previous track that he may contrast the two elements, not as in the previous chapter in conflict with each other, hopelessly entangled by “occasion of the commandment,” but in entire separation and opposition. These two, the flesh and the spirit, stand over against one another, as life and death, as peace and enmity, with God. Do what it will the flesh can never be subjected to the law of God. (Prof. Jowett.)
The connection between chaps. 7 and 8
The eighth chapter of Romans, and the preceding one, are the most profound psychological passages in the Bible; and in the higher spiritual elements they are more profound than anything in literature. The seventh chapter is the problem of conscience. The eighth is a solution of that problem by the formulas of love. In the seventh, a just man, tender of conscience and clear of understanding, with an active ideality, seeks to make a symmetrical life and perfect character--a thing which is impossible in this world. Under such circumstances every mistake rebounds, and every imperfection is caught upon the sensitive conscience, and becomes a source of exquisite suffering and of discouragement; so that, from the necessary conditions of human life, a just man will be made miserable in proportion as he seeks more vehemently to be just. One way out of this trouble would be to lower the standard of character and to lower the moral value of conduct. But the ease that comes from lowering our rule of right and our responsibilities to it is degrading. Thus to seek ease sends us down toward animals; and that is the true vulgarity. It is better to die in the prison house of the seventh of Romans than, missing the eighth, to get relief in any other direction. The problem of the higher moral life is how to maintain a higher transcendent ideal of character and conduct, and yet have joy and peace, even in the face of sins and imperfections. That is the problem. And its solution can only be found in one direction--in the direction of Divine love. A proper conception of God in the aspect of love, and a habit of bringing the instruments, and customs, and laws of paternal love to the consideration of our personal religious life, will go far to enlighten, stimulate, and comfort us. (H. W. Beecher.)
Out of the seventh chapter into the eighth
I defy any man to accomplish this except by that one word “Christ.” He who attempts it is like a leaf caught in the eddy of a stream: it whirls round and wants to get down the stream, but cannot go. The seventh of Romans is an eddy in which the conscience swings round and round in eternal disquiet; the eighth is the talisman through which it receives the touch of Divine inspiration, and is lifted above into the realm of true Divine beneficence. Or the transition may be illustrated thus--During the Indian Mutiny, when the English army were shut up in a city, besieged, almost at the point of death from starvation, and decimated by the constant assaults of the adversary, a Scotch lassie, who belonged to a Highland regiment, all at once thought she heard the sound of bagpipes afar off; and the soldiers laughed her to scorn. But after a little time others heard it. And then there came in note after note. By-and-by the sounds of the instruments of a full military band were recognised. And soon, from out of the forest, came the relief army, that broke up the siege and gave them deliverance. And with flying colours and glorious music they came marching up to the now released city. Such is the difference between the seventh chapter and the eighth. For here, in the seventh, is that first, far-off note of victory. After that descant of his own wretchedness, and poverty, and moral imbecility, comes the exclamation: “I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Then, in the eighth chapter, he breaks into a discussion of the spirit life and the redemption of the flesh, and there are snatches, again and again, of that victorious note, growing stronger and fuller, till he comes clear down to the end, when he breaks out: “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?” etc. and there comes in the flying banners, the band and the full army. (H. W. Beecher.)
Living in the eighth chapter
A minister was once expounding the seventh and eighth Chapter s of Romans to a class of coloured Bible women, deeply experienced as to their hearts, but very ignorant, as he supposed, in their heads. After he had been talking quite eloquently for a little while, an old coloured woman interrupted him with: “Why, honey, it ‘pears like you don’t understand them Chapter s.” “Why not, auntie?” he said. “What is the matter with my explanation?” “Why, honey,” she said, “you talk as if we were to live in that seventh chapter and only pay little visits to the blessed eighth.” “Well,” he answered, “that is just what I think. Don’t you?” With a look of intense pity for his ignorance, she exclaimed: “Why, I lives in the eighth.”
Bishop Temple’s testimony
Bishop Temple, preaching his farewell sermon in Exeter Cathedral, took for his text Romans 8:38-39. This eighth chapter, he said, always had a strange fascination for him above all other Chapter s in the New Testament. He did not speak of himself as having lived in the spirit of such a chapter, but he had found in it a picture of the man he would fain have been if he could. There was support in it which he had turned to over and over again for nearly fifty years and never without finding fresh power within it to help him on. The life therein portrayed was the life, if his weakness permitted, he desired to realise; and he urged upon his hearers to keep the chapter before them, to read it, repeat it constantly, making it the pattern they were endeavouring to realise while they were striving, in accordance with St. John’s exhortation, to purify themselves even as Christ is pure.
The chapter as a spiritual palace
Astyages determined on the death of the infant Cyrus. He summoned Harpagus, an officer of his court, and committed to him the destruction of the royal babe. Harpagus gave the babe to the herdsman Mithridates that he might expose him in the mountains. But Space, the wife of the herdsman, adopted the babe instead. Therefore Cyrus grows up in the peasant’s hut. He thinks the herdsman and his wife to be his parents. Ignorant of his birth, of his rightful destiny, of the palace and kingly state which were really his, he thinks himself only a peasant’s child. At last the secret of Cyrus’s birth and rightful place gets known, and he goes on to be the man standing out in such grand figure amid the dimness of that early time. What may be only legend about Cyrus is too sadly fact about too many Christians. They too often think themselves but peasants when they are really kings. They dwell in huts when God has built a palace for them. And the difficulty is that even when they may they will not see the palace in which God means that they shall dwell. This chapter is the spiritual palace in which God would have His children dwell. Let us glance at it.
I. There is in it no condemnation (verse 1).
II. Real internal spiritual ability (verses 2-4). Christ is not simply for the Christian in the no condemnation; Christ is also in the Christian in the indwelling Spirit of life.
III. The spirit of adoption (verse 15), i.e., there is for the Christian a genuine son placing.
IV. The witness of the Spirit (verse 16).
V. Heirship (verse 17). Poor the Christian may be here, but he walks the earth with all the wealth of heaven in reversion.
VI. The certainty that all things work together for good.
VII. Nothing that can really baffle him, for triumph is his surely since God is on his side (verses 31-39). (Homiletic Review.)
There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus.--
No condemnation
There is therefore “now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus.” This is the result of the complete Divine provision which is made for our justification. There is therefore “now no condemnation”; this does not mean at this time, although that is perfectly true, but the word “now” means in this state of things. “No condemnation.” There is no damnatory sentence against them. There is no curse hanging like a thundercloud over their heads. There is no penal consequence following them. “Who walk”--that is, who act and who live “not after the flesh”--that is, not under the influence of the things which appeal to the eye and to the ear of the body--not under the power of the feelings which these things chiefly awaken and appeal to, and not according to the impulses and desires of human nature in its unsanctified state. Who walk “not after the flesh,” but “after the Spirit”--that is, in obedience to the dictates of the Spirit, and in response to the propensities of a soul possessed, not by the world and by the things of the world, but possessed and moved in all its impulses and in all its resolutions by the Spirit of God and the Spirit of holiness.
I. There is no condemnatory sentence in EXECUTION against Christians now. Believers in Christ Jesus sin. And their sins are noticed by God, and God is displeased with them; and God sometimes chides and corrects Christians for their sins, but He does not treat Christians as criminals. God deals with Christians as with children. There is no sentence of condemnation in execution against the disciples of Christ--none is being executed outwardly. Christians are exposed to suffering, but when they are corrected, the chastisement is paternal; when they are checked, the restraint is pitiful and loving; when they are disciplined, the training is in kindness; when they are called to die, death to them is but the commencement of a new and an everlasting life; so that it may be said with reference to them, that all things work together for their good. No sentence of condemnation is being executed against a Christian now outwardly, and none inwardly. You see that such a sentence might be executed in a Christian’s body, or in a Christian’s circumstances; or it might be executed inwardly without touching the body and without affecting the circumstances through such feelings as fear and remorse. But, “being justified by faith, we have peace with God.”
II. There is no sentence of condemnation recorded for execution. The disciple of Christ is not reprieved, but pardoned; and his pardon is full and complete. Suppose that you wish to save some criminal under a sentence of death, what must you do for him? You must first get a remission of the capital punishment. The next thing that you must do for that man is to get him restored to his family and friends and to his former social position; and when you have done that, you must adopt some means by which to change the heart and the character of that man; and then you must effect the restoration of his possessions. This is the salvation that God dispenses to us. The man who trusts in Jesus Christ is immediately brought back to the position of a righteous being, and all the providences of God and the government of God have toward that man a thoroughly paternal aspect. “Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God.”
III. The absence of all condemnation is accounted for by that which Christ is to the soul that relies upon Him. Christ Jesus is the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world, and faith in Jesus Christ appropriates the sin offering to the believer, so that all its sufficiency becomes ours when we trust to it. Observe further, that Christ Jesus is the High Priest who ever lives to make intercession for us, and faith in Jesus gives us a personal interest in that intercession. Again, Christ Jesus is the second Adam, by whose obedience many are to be made righteous, and faith in Jesus makes that obedience the garment of our salvation. So that if all this be true, you see at once how impossible it is that there should be any condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. But a question may arise, How may I know that I am trusting in God’s Christ? The reality of our reliance in the Christ of God is proved by the character and style of our life--“who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.” Jesus Christ leads all His disciples to walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. (S. Martin.)
The privilege of the saints
I. The persons mentioned. Those which are in Christ Jesus. Yea, so near and close an union as this indeed in the true nature of it, as that sometimes from hence we shall find the Church called by the name of Christ Himself, as 1 Corinthians 12:12. Though Christ, considered personally, is full and absolute in Himself, yet, considered relatively and mystically, so He is not full and complete without believers who are members of Him. We shall further inquire into the causes and grounds of this union.
1. We are knit to Christ, and made one with Him by His Spirit. Look as that member of the body is not united to the head, that is not animated and informed with the same soul that is in the head, so neither is that Christian truly united to Christ who is not quickened and enlivened by that Spirit which is the Spirit of Christ. If any man have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of His (verse 9). The second Adam is made a quickening spirit (1 Corinthians 15:45). And He quickeneth whom He will (John 5:21; 1 John 4:21).
2. Another bond whereby we are knit to Christ is faith, which is a special gift and fruit of the Spirit; whereby, secondarily, we are united to Him, and lay hold on that righteousness which is in Him, and receive all that grace which is offered and tendered by Him in the gospel. The just shall live by faith (Galatians 5:5). We through the Spirit wait for the hope of righteousness by faith (Galatians 2:20). The life only I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God. This is a very high honour and dignity unto them, and so to be accounted of by them; and, accordingly, it should have answerable effects and operations upon them, as--
(1) To exceeding joyfulness and exultation in this their condition: we see how all men for the most part do rejoice in the excellency of their relations, wives in their husbands, children in their parents. The nearer is the union to those who are of worth and renown the greater is the contentment; why, thus it should now be with believers in regard of Christ.
(2) It should work us to a conformity to Christ in our carriage; being one with Him we should behave ourselves suitably to Him. It is a shame for those who are one with Christ to walk in ways of opposition to Him.
(3) It may encourage God’s servants to depend upon Him for all things fitting and convenient for them, and to persuade themselves of His favour towards them. Therefore He will hear their prayers. And, on the other side, those that wrong them may be advised to take heed how they do so, for He takes their wrongs as done to Himself. “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me?” Isaiah 64:9, etc. And so much may be spoken of the first description of the persons here mentioned, taken from their state and condition.
2. The second is taken from their life and conversation; “who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit.” These two they go still together; union with Christ and holiness of life they are inseparable. This passage before us is considerable here of us two manner of ways, separately and jointly. Separately, and so it consists of two distinct branches--the negative and the affirmative. The negative is in these words, which walk not after the flesh. The affirmative in these, but after the Spirit.
(1) To look upon it in the negative. Those that are true believers, and that are mystically united to Christ Jesus, they do not walk after the flesh. This is one character which is upon them. Thus, “They which are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts” (Galatians 5:24). For the better understanding of this point, it is worth our while to inquire what it is to walk after the flesh, and who they are which are said thus to walk. By the flesh, then, we are here to understand not only that part of man which is commonly so called, to wit, the bodily lump; but by flesh here is meant corrupt nature, that is, that part of the man which is unsanctified and unregenerate in him. Not only the depravation of the inferior faculties of the soul, which we commonly call sensuality, but also a corruption of the superior, namely, the mind and understanding and will. Now, to walk after this flesh it is to be wholly led and carried and guided by the motions of it. Then men walk after the flesh when their whole course is carnal, when they are carnal in their judgments, following the dictates and suggestions of carnal reason; and carnal in their affections, setting their hearts and desires upon carnal things; and carnal in their lives, conversing and bestirring themselves in carnal ways. To walk after the flesh is not only to have the flesh in us; but to have the flesh prevailing in us, and to give ourselves up to the power and dominion of it. There is a walking in the flesh, and there is a walking after the flesh, as the Apostle Paul does plainly distinguish them concerning himself (2 Corinthians 10:2-3).
(2) The second is the affirmative, but walk after the Spirit. Those who are the children of God and true believers, they are careful to do this. And so they are represented in Scripture. Hence they are said to walk in the Spirit, to walk in newness of life, to serve in newness of Spirit, to walk with God, to have their conversation in heaven, and such phrases as these are. What is to be understood by walking after the Spirit we may gather from what was said of the contrary, namely, of walking after the flesh; and that is, to be guided and led and directed by the blessed and gracious Spirit of God in all our ways. Walking, it is a continued motion; it is a motion of perseverance; and so does denote constancy in him that uses it. And thus it is with those that are in Christ. They walk thus: the ground and foundation of this truth is the conformity of the members to the Head, and the obedience to the workmanship to Him who is the workman and fashioner of it. The union of a believer with Christ, and the relation wherein he stands unto Him, is not empty and fruitless, but is powerful and efficacious to a godly and holy life. Where there is an union with Christ’s person there is a communion in His graces and an habitation of His Spirit in us. Therefore, accordingly, we may judge of the one by the other° We may know what we are by considering how we walk, and what is the frame and course of our lives (1 John 1:6-7).
3. We may look upon it in its connection and conjunction of the parts of it with one another.
(1) Here is the addition of the one to the other, in that walking after the Spirit must be joined with not walking after the flesh. It is not enough for any to abstain from acts of wickedness, but they must also, and moreover, perform acts of goodness.
(2) Here is the exclusion of the one by the other. Walking in the flesh, it does take away walking after the Spirit (Galatians 5:16; Philippians 3:19-20). There is no man that can serve two masters, especially such kind of masters as these are.
II. The second is the privilege or benefit belonging to these persons; and that is freedom and exemption from wrath and condemnation. There is no condemnation to them. Now for the better prosecution of it at this present time, we may look upon it as it lies here in the text three manners of ways, especially--First, in its specification. Secondly, in its amplifications. Thirdly, in its restriction or limitation.
1. In consideration of what Christ hath done for them. Those who are true believers, and who are incorporated into Christ Jesus, Christ hath done that for them which does absolutely and necessarily exempt them and free them from condemnation. As to instance in some particulars--
(1) He hath by His blood shedding taken away the guilt of sin from them. What is the guilt of sin? It is the desert of sin, which, by order of God’s justice, does bind the sinner over to punishment. This now by Jesus Christ is taken, away from all believers (John 1:29; Psa 32:12). This is that which Christ by His death hath obtained for us, that sin should not be imputed to us (Isaiah 38:17).
(2) As He hath taken away the guilt of sin from us, and freed us from condemnation in that respect, so He hath likewise imputed His righteousness to us, and freed us from condemnation.
(3) Christ hath fully answered the law, which is the strength of sin, fully paying the debt which was owing upon our account, both by enduring the penalty and doing that which the law requireth of us to be done by us (chap. 10:4).
2. Now, further, it is clear also that He hath done so from consideration of what He is to us. God justifies Christ, and in Him justifies us; sanctifies Christ, and through Him sanctifies us; glorifies Christ, and in Him glorifies us. He saves us not only personally, as we are such and such particular men--Peter, or James, or John--considered in individuo; but also relatively, with respect had to His Son, as we are parts and members of the mystical body of Christ, and are knit and united to Him as members to the Head. There is no condemnation to those who are the children of God, because they are in Christ Jesus. From the circumstance of their life and conversation, because they “walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit.” An holy conversation in life shall have a happy condition after life; and there is no Condemnation at all which does follow upon it.
(1) Here is the extent of the benefit or privilege itself in the expression of universality: there is no condemnation whatsoever. This is true according to all the references of it. First, as to the ground or matter of condemnation. There is nothing which does afford occasion hereunto.
(2) In reference to the parties condemning. No condemnation to neither. Where there is nobody to condemn there can be no condemnation.
(3) In reference to the kinds of condemnation itself: neither present nor future, neither temporal nor eternal. The persons to whom the privilege does belong in the indefiniteness of the expression, “Those that are in Christ Jesus, and that walk,” etc., whosoever they be. This privilege of exemption from hell is not restrained only to some few particular Christians, but to all saints and believers in general without exception. The reason of it is this, because all are members of Christ, one as well as another. This is matter of comfort and encouragement to the poorest and meanest Christian that hath the truth of grace in him. The weakest believer hath an interest in eternal salvation as well as the greatest, even as the Apostle Paul himself. This is no ground for any to set themselves any stint or measure in holiness, or the improvement of grace in them; no, but rather to push on to perfection, as the apostle himself did, for his particular (Philippians 3:13-14). Though every Christian shall be alike Saved from condemnation, yet those which are eminent Christians, and do abound in grace above others, they have an advantage in two particulars. First, in the degrees of comfort here in this world. And, secondly, in the degrees of glory in the world to come. The restriction or limitation. “To those who are in Christ Jesus, and who walk after the Spirit,” etc., and none besides. The ground of this truth is this, because all the benefit we have from Christ flows from our union and communion with Him. Now the use and application of all which hath been said to ourselves may be reduced to two heads especially.
1. For matter of comfort and consolation. First of all, here is ground of very great encouragement and rejoicing to all true believers which are regenerate and born again, and incorporated and united to Christ, they are freed from condemnation; and, upon that account, from the greatest evil that their natures are capable of.
(1) If we speak of the evil of sin. God’s children they are not wholly exempt from this while they live here in this world. They have sin still abiding in them. Yea, but it is not in them so as to expose them to condemnation for all that. What a great advantage and happiness is this, if it be but duly and seriously considered.
(2) As to the evil of the affliction. It is a very great comfort and encouragement in this likewise. The saints and servants of God, while they live here in this world, they are subject to various afflictions: “Many are the afflictions of the righteous” (Psalms 34:19). Yea, but as long as they are freed from condemnation, this may very much satisfy and content them. That though they are afflicted yet they are not, nor shall not, be condemned. Freedom from condemnation may swallow all other evils and inconveniences. That because they are afflicted therefore they are not condemned. Their present affliction secures them from future condemnation. This is that which the Apostle Paul does expressly declare unto us there in that place (1 Corinthians 11:31; 2 Corinthians 4:17). The second improvement of this point is in a way of counsel and admonition, and that to a two-fold purpose and effect. First, to be careful to make good our interest in Christ. And, secondly, to be careful to order aright our lives and conversations. (Thomas Horton.)
Absolute safety in Christ
I. The incomparable position Christian believers occupy. “In Christ Jesus.” This expression--
1. Is in keeping with what our Lord said in parable of vine and branches, and may be illustrated by reference to Noah’s safety in ark; manslayer’s security in city of refuge.
2. Means--in His hands, thoughts, company, confidence, heart; to possess Him, and to be possessed by Him; to live in the circle of His love, and embrace of His power.
3. No wonder the highest ambition of the apostle was “to be found in Him.” To be in Christ now is the preparation for being with Him forever.
II. The inestimable blessings Christian believers enjoy. “No condemnation.”
1. This does not mean--
(1) There is no accusation; for Satan and our own hearts will accuse and seek to condemn.
(2) No ill deserts; for the life will not be perfect, there will be a constant falling short of the glory of God.
2. We are free from condemnation, because our Surety has died and satisfied the claims of Divine justice for us. Then--
(1) We can look back with joy. All wrong has been forgiven.
(2) We can look around. No officer of justice ready to arrest us, no sword of judgment ready to fall upon us.
(3) We can look forward and upward. The grave, the judgment seat, have no terrors, for God will glorify those whom He justifies.
3. “No condemnation” is but the negative side of salvation. There is a positive side; for we are not only freed from death, but lifted into life.
III. The infallible evidence by which we may know whether or not such position and blessedness are ours. “Who walk not,” etc. The words have been omitted in R.V., but we may take and use them here as embodying truths frequently expressed elsewhere. (F. W. Brown.)
The great assimilation; or, man christianised
Man in Christ is--
I. Freed from sin. The great inquiry of the world has been, How can man be thus freed? All temples, synagogues, mosques, and churches, have recognised the momentousness of the question. The struggles of expiring victims--the deep groans of humanity--have borne it aloft to the throne of the Eternal. The Eternal Himself has deigned to solve the difficulty, and to answer the inquiry.
1. Though man is not freed from sin as a matter of recollection, or from its natural sequences, or indiscriminately and unconditionally. Still in the highest sense he is consciously and progressively freed from the evil forces that enchain his being, to rise to altitudes far transcending those from which he fell.
2. This freedom is effected by the redeeming agency of Christ. Christ, in the entirety of His history, is condemnatory and destructive of all sin. Let a man be in communion with Christ, and with the certainty and uniformity of law his sin shall be destroyed. No being but Christ can hush the moral thunders which rumble in the conscience; no sacrifice but His can teach the tremendous evil of sin--no power but His can burst the bonds of evil habits--no spirit but His can engage the heart’s affections, and restore them to the right object.
II. Advanced in moral excellency.
1. He realises the true idea of Divine holiness. “That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us.” The law is a transcript of the moral and transcendent excellency of the Divine nature, and man’s heart becomes its abode. His holiness is not among the indigenous conceptions of the human mind, such as Roman bravery, Grecian beauty, Stoic passivity, and Pharisaical sanctity! Christ is our “sanctification.”
2. He minds the Spirit. The Divine Spirit speaks, and he attends to what is said.
3. He has a peaceful life.
4. He has the Spirit of Christ.
III. Destined to future glorification (verses 10, 11). Though he is freed from sin, and advanced in spiritual excellency, still he must die; but born to die, lie dies to live. In the case of Christ Himself, death was the condition of a higher life. The mind must die to one life to live another: it must renounce one set of ideas and dispositions to embrace higher ones. All around us seem to be the germs of the future. Man in the future is the continuation of man in the present. The principle of life casts off its exuviae, and constructs other and higher organisms.
IV. Will enjoy the glory which belongs to Christ Himself (verse 17; cf. 1 John 3:2; Philippians 3:20-21). (J. Davies.)
At peace with God
I. The Christian’s state. “In Christ.” A union--
1. Vital.
2. Visible.
II. His character. He walks--
1. Not after the flesh--crucifixion: regulation.
2. After the Spirit--guidance: cooperation.
III. His privilege. “No condemnation” for--
1. Past offences.
2. The corruption of his nature.
3. His defective service.
4. His involuntary errors. (W. W. Wythe.)
No condemnation
I. The apostle doth not say there is now no affliction or correction. It is one thing to be afflicted, another thing to be condemned (1 Corinthians 11:32). Grace secures from eternal, not from temporal, evils. God cannot condemn and yet love, but He can chasten and yet love; nay, He chastens because He loves.
II. The apostle doth not say there is no matter of condemnation. There is a vast difference between what is deserved and what is actually inflicted. There is in all a corrupt nature, which puts forth itself in evil motions.
III. It is God’s condemnation only from which we are exempted.
1. Men condemn. What more common than for the godly to have their persons and practices, strict walking, condemned. Oh, they are hypocrites, factious, unnecessarily scrupulous, proud, and what not! Sometimes the condemnation is only verbal, going no further than bitter words, wherein their names are aspersed and their cause blackened. Sometimes it rises even to the taking away of their lives (James 5:6). But yet God condemns not (Psalms 37:32-33).
2. Sometimes conscience condemns (1 John 3:21). The inferior judge condemns in the court below, but the supreme Judge acquits and justifies in the court above.
3. Satan too condemns. He that is but God’s executioner will take upon him to be a judge. And as his pride puts him upon judging, so his malice puts him upon condemning.
IV. The particle “now” is to be taken notice of. I suppose the apostle doth not intend by it to point to any circumstance of time, as, namely, the present time of life, or the present time of the gospel. I make this to be only a causal particle; since things are so, as the apostle had made out in his preceding discourse, there is now--or upon all this--no condemnation. The apostle crowds the force of all that he had said by way of argument into this little word, and lays the whole stress of his conclusion upon it.
V. The original will hear it if we read it--“not one condemnation.” Such is the grace of God to believers, and such is their safety in their justified estate, that there is not so much as one condemnation to be passed upon them, the pardon being plenary and full (Jeremiah 50:20).
VI. The apostle speaks indefinitely with respect to the subject. He takes all in Christ into the privilege. Had he spoken in the singular number, many poor, weak Christians would have been afraid to have applied this blessedness to themselves. The difference in Paul’s expressing himself is very observable. Take him in the former chapter where he is bewailing sin, there he goes no further than himself. But now, where he is treating of privileges, he speaks altogether in the plural, as taking in the whole body of believers. VII. The positive is included in the negative. They shall not only, upon their being in Christ, be looked upon as not guilty, or barely kept out of hell, but they shall be judged completely righteous, and they shall also be eternally glorified. (T. Jacomb, D. D.)
No condemnation
We have here--
I. A new era. There has been a transition--
1. In the history of the Divine dispensation. “Now” we are no longer under the law of rite and precept, but under a covenant of gospel, wherein promise takes the place of threat, and the Holy Spirit is given to enlighten and sanctify.
2. In the experience of Christian life. The actual experience of believers comes to correspond with God’s dispensation. In the previous chapter the conflict of sin is described. “Now” we have the victory.
II. A new condition--“In Christ Jesus.”
1. Spiritual incorporation.
2. Vital union.
3. Efficient transfer. The Holy Spirit, on the part of God, and faith, on the part of man, are the instruments.
4. Practical reality. It is no superficial theory which fails before the progress of philosophy and reason. It is a certainty. God’s plan and all things in heaven and earth--conscience, death, judgment, etc.--will arrange themselves finally in accordance with it.
III. A new freedom--“No condemnation.”
1. The state goes before, involves, and it is itself greater than the privilege. You may bestow a gift on a strange child, but on your own you lavish affection and indulgence. The Christian is adopted into the family of God and possesses a child’s privileges thereby.
2. Condemnation is more than sin--the simple transgression of the law. It is more than guilt--liability to punishment. It is doom pronounced after proved guilt.
3. Observe, the freedom does not remove the fact nor the guilt of sin, but arrests its effect--the punishment is repealed. To those who are not of Christ the sentence is still unrepealed.
4. “No condemnation.”
(1) None from God he has cast all our sins into the depths of the sea.
(2) None from the law. Because the penalty has been paid
(3) None from conscience. There is no condemnation like that of an awakened conscience until the blood of Christ speaks peace.
(4) None from sin. If God has forgiven it, it cannot rise to condemnation.
(5) None at judgment.
Conclusion: The subject--
1. Urges those who have the evidence of faith to take firm gospel ground, to realise all that is intended by this negative way of putting the doctrine of justification. Live up to your privileges.
2. Addresses the Christless soul. You may be religious, but you are not falling into God’s method. You are labouring for that which is not bread, and perishing within sight of plenty. (Percy Strutt.)
Real Christians, absolved from condemnation
I. The persons described. Those who are “in Christ Jesus.” There is no phrase more frequently employed in the New Testament to denote a real Christian than this.
1. The phrase means something more than the being a Christian by a baptismal admission to the visible Church. But--
2. They represent Christ as a “refuge,” in which believers take shelter from that “wrath of God,” which naturally, by reason of sin, rests upon every man.
II. The blessing which they enjoy--“No condemnation.”
1. Then we are led to infer that out of Christ Jesus there is “condemnation”; and this is a truth which Scripture everywhere proclaims. Our own state, then, as we stand by ourselves, is one of certain ruin. It is in vain for us to flatter ourselves that we can ward off this impending anger by throwing around our characters the supposed defence of natural moral virtues. God regards us as transgressors, and, viewing us in that light, He cannot but inflict upon us sin’s tremendous penalty. “He that hath not the Son hath not life, but the wrath of God abideth on him.”
2. But for the Christian there is “no condemnation.” Being “in Christ,” God no longer regards him as standing alone, and not as he was in Adam. As one with Adam, he had Adam’s guilt imputed to him. But now, being one with Christ, Christ’s righteousness is imputed to him. Now God loves him, and blesses him, for the sake of Him who has become his Saviour.
III. The evidence afforded of their being in possession of the blessing--“Walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.” You have heard men speak of resting on Jesus; they have talked of His merit, of His dying for their sins, and they have professed to believe on His name. But the profession of faith has been everything, and the practice of faith has been nothing. Now the text only expresses what is expressed in Scripture over and over again; that every child of God will be a lover of practical piety. Faith in Christ will always bring forth the fruit of holiness. (W. Curling, M. A.)
Present discharge from condemnation must produce a present joy
Open the ironbound door of the condemned cell, and by the dim light that struggles through its bars read the sovereign’s free pardon to the felon, stretched, pale and emaciated, upon his pallet of straw; and the radiance you have kindled in that gloomy dungeon, and the transport you have created in that felon’s heart, will be a present realisation. You have given him back a present life, you have touched a thousand chords in his bosom, which awake a present harmony; and where, just previous, reigned in that bosom sullen, grim despair, now reigns the sunlight joyousness of a present hope. Be yours, then, a present and a full joy. (O. Winslow, D. D.)
No condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus
I. When a sinner closes with Christ, God takes him on the instant into reconciliation. He should therefore feel his conscience to be relieved from the guilt and dread of his sins; and, instead of being any longer burdened with them as so many debts subject to a count on some future day, he has a most legitimate warrant for looking on the account as closed. Christ hath made atonement, and with it God is satisfied; and if so, well may you be satisfied.
II. Who they are that have this inestimable privilege.
1. They are in Christ. But lest we should wander into a region of obscurity, let us not forget that, for the purpose of being admitted into this state of community with the Saviour, the one distinct thing which you have to do is to believe in Him. There is nothing mystical in the act by which you award to Him the credit for His declarations; and this is the act by which you are grafted in the Saviour. As you hold fast the beginning of your confidence and persevere therein, the tie will be strengthened; the relationship will become more intimate; the communications of mutual regard will become more frequent, and more familiar to your experience.
2. They walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit.
(1) Your release from condemnation is suspended on your being in Christ Jesus. But it is not so suspended on your walking not after the flesh, etc. The first is the origin of your justification; the second is the fruit of it. Mark the embarrassment of that disciple who postpones his enjoyment of this privilege until he is satisfied with himself that he walketh not after the flesh but after the Spirit. Look to the heavy disadvantage under which he toils at the work of new obedience; and how the spirit of bondage is sure to be perpetuated within him. There may be the outward compliance of a slave, but none of the inward graces or aspirations of a saint. The truth is, that if this immunity from condemnation is a thing purchased by us because of our walking not after the flesh, then will conscience ever be suggesting to us that the purchase has not been made good; and all the jealousies of a bargain will ever and anon rise up between the parties. God will be feared, or distrusted; but He cannot be loved under such an economy.
(2) There is a better way of ordering this matter. Deliverance from condemnation is not the goal, but the starting post of the Christian’s race; and, instead of labouring to make good the inaccessible station where forgiveness shall be awarded to him, he is sent forth with the inspiration of one who knows himself to be forgiven on the way of all the commandments. Delivered from the engrossment of his before slavish apprehensions, he can now with newborn liberty walk after the Spirit on the path of a progressive holiness. First trust in the Lord, and then be doing good. A workman to whom a tool is indispensable, you would never bid him work for the tool, but you would put the tool into his hand and bid him work by it.
(3) But mark this distinction between the consequence and the cause, though it gives to the obedience of a believer its proper place, does not make that obedience less sure. What the worldly or hypocritical professor thinks to be faith is nought but fancy or worse if it be not followed by the walk of godliness. It is just as true as if your virtue were the price of your salvation, that there will be no salvation for you if you have no virtue. The ultimate design of the gospel economy is to make those who sit under it zealous of good works. (T. Chalmers, D. D.)
No condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus
I. The condemnation here mentioned. As to its direct and proper notation, it signifies judgment against one. The non-condemnation of persons in Christ may be proved by, or is grounded upon--
1. Their justification. He that is a justified man cannot be a condemned man, for these two are contrary and incompatible.
2. Their sanctification. Wherever the union is with the Son there is sanctification by the Spirit. Now such as are sanctified shall never be condemned (Revelation 20:6), for upon this the power and dominion of sin is taken away, the bent of the heart is for God, and there is the participation of the Divine nature.
3. Their union with Christ. Those that are so near to Christ here, shall they be set at an eternal distance from Him hereafter? will the Head be so severed from His members? Besides, upon this union there is interest in all that Christ hath done and suffered; he that is in Christ hath a right to all of Christ.
II. The application.
1. This proclaims the misery of all who are not in Christ Jesus. The cloud is not so bright towards Israel but it is as dark towards the Egyptians. There is no condemnation to them who are in Christ; what more sweet? but there is nothing but condemnation to them who are out of Christ; what more dreadful?
(1) It is God Himself who will be your judge, and who will pass the condemnatory sentence upon you.
(2) Think with yourselves what this condemnation is.
(3) The condemnatory sentence being once passed it will be irreversible and irresistible.
(4) The unbeliever will be condemned by himself.
(5) This condemnation will be the sadder to such who live under the gospel, because they will lie under the conviction of this, that they have foolishly brought all this misery upon themselves.
2. I would exhort you to make sure of this exemption from condemnation. What can be so worthy of our utmost endeavours! what pitiful trifles and very nothings are all other things in comparison of these! What are we to do that it may be to us no condemnation?
(1) Let sin be condemned in yon and by you. For sin must either be condemned by you, or you for it.
(2) Condemn yourselves and God will not condemn you.
(3) Speedily get your peace made with God through Christ Jesus.
(4) Pray that it may be to you exemption from condemnation. Of all evils deprecate this as the greatest evil.
(5) Make sure of faith, which secures us from condemnation, both as it is the grace which unites to Christ, and also as it is the great condition of the gospel upon which it promises life and salvation. Unbelief is the damning sin, and faith is the saving grace.
(6) Get into Christ, so as to be in Christ Jesus. For they, and they only, are out of the danger of condemnation.
3. I would speak to those who are in Christ, to excite them to be very thankful and highly to admire the grace of God. How doth the traitor admire the grace and clemency of his prince who sends him a pardon when he expected him trial and sentence to die? And as you must be thankful to God the Father, so, in special, to Jesus Christ; it is He who was willing to be condemned Himself that He might free you from condemnation.
4. The main tendency and drift of this truth is comfort to believers. This no condemnation is the ground of all consolation.
(1) Get assurance in your own souls that there is to you no condemnation. It is a sad thing to live under peradventures about this.
(2) Let this happiness be a great incentive to holiness. It is good to infer duty from mercy. (T. Jacomb, D. D.)
In Christ no condemnation
1. Paul having said, “So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin,” goes on to say, without any break, “There is therefore now,” etc. Believers are in a state of conflict, but not in a state of condemnation. The man to whom every sin is a misery is the man who may with confidence declare, “There is therefore now no condemnation.”
2. The text is written in the present tense. This “now” shows how distinctly the statement of non-condemnation is consistent with that mingled experience of the seventh chapter. With all my watching and warring, yet will I rejoice in the Lord even now; for “there is therefore now no condemnation.”
3. Observe our apostle’s change of expression. When he is speaking about the inward contention he speaks of himself, but when he comes to write upon the privileges of the children of God, he speaks of them in general terms. His is the confession, and theirs is the confidence. Note--
I. A refutation of the old serpent’s gospel. Say “There is no condemnation,” and this false gospel is before you. The serpent promulgated this in Eden, when he said, “Ye shall not surely die.” Some teach that you may live in sin, and die impenitent, but at death there is an end of you. Others tell us that if you die unforgiven it will be a pity, but you will come round in due time, after a purgatorial period. Here is Paul’s refutation. They would be condemned, every one of them, if it had not been that they are in Christ Jesus. The word “now” is as applicable to these condemned ones as to those who are freed from condemnation. “He that believeth not is condemned already.” There is nothing but condemnation so long as they remain in that state. “He that believeth not shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.”
II. A description of the believer’s position--“in Christ Jesus.”
1. By faith. By nature I am in myself, and in sin, and, therefore, condemned; but when I fly to Christ, and trust alone in His blood and righteousness, He becomes to me the cleft of the rock, wherein I hide myself. “He that believeth shall not come into condemnation.”
2. As our federal head. This is the teaching of chap. 5. As you were in Adam you sinned, and therefore you were condemned; and as you were in Christ through the Divine covenant of grace, and Christ fulfilled the law for you, you are justified in Him.
3. By a vital union. This is the teaching of chap. 6. (verses 4, 5). We are actually one with Christ by living experience.
4. By a mystical union (Romans 7:1-4). Shall the spouse of Christ be condemned with the world? “Christ loved His Church, and gave Himself for it”; shall she be condemned despite His death?
III. A description of the believer’s walk--“who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.” In R.V. this sentence is omitted, and rightly so. The oldest copies are without it, the versions do not sustain it, and the fathers do not quote it. How, then, did it get into the text? Probably by general consent, in order that the great truth of the non-condemnation of those who are in Christ Jesus might be guarded from that antinomian tendency which would separate faith from good works. But the fear was groundless, and the tampering with Scripture was unjustifiable. Where did the man who made the gloss get his words from? From ver.
4. A man in Christ has received the Holy Ghost, for he walks according to His guidance. He is also quickened into the possession of a new nature called the spirit--the spirit of life in Christ Jesus. He is no longer in the flesh, he has become a spiritual man. Observe carefully that the flesh is there, only he does not walk after it. Combine the two clauses. On the one hand look to Christ alone, and abide in Him; and then look for the guidance of the Holy Spirit who is to be in you. By faith we are in Christ, and the Holy Spirit is in us.
IV. The absolution of the believer: “There is therefore now no condemnation.” This is--
1. A bold speech. Free grace makes men speak bravely when their faith has a clear view of Jesus.
2. A proved fact. The demonstrations of mathematics are not more clear and certain than the inference that if we are in Christ, and Christ died in our stead, there can be no condemnation for us.
3. A broad assertion. No condemnation--
(1) On account of original sin, though the believer was an heir of wrath even as others.
(2) For actual sin, though he greatly transgressed and came far short of the glory of God. If you read to the end of the chapter you see how unreserved Paul was in his statement (verses 33, 34). Paul makes all heaven and earth and hell to ring with his daring challenge.
4. An abiding statement. It was true in Paul’s day, and it is just as true at this moment. If you are in Christ Jesus there is now no condemnation.
5. A joyful realisation. If you have ever been burdened with a sense of sin you will know the sweetness of the text.
6. The most practical thing that ever was, because the moment a man receives this assurance into his soul his heart is won to his loving Lord, and the neck of his sinfulness is broken with a blow. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
The blessed experience of those who are in Christ
I. They are freed from condemnation.
II. They are most clearly distinguished from those who remain under condemnation.
1. By the temper of their minds (verse 5).
2. By the condition of their hearts (verse 6).
3. By their relation to God (verses 7, 8).
4. By the indwelling of the Spirit of Christ (verse9).
III. They are blessed with the hope of a better life. The Spirit--
1. Lives in them, though their bodies are mortal through sin.
2. Is the earnest of a more glorious life.
3. Will ultimately quicken their mental bodies and fashion them like unto Christ (verses 10, 11). (J. Lyth, D. D.)
The saints’ union with Christ
Note, by way of introduction--
1. The difference betwixt saints being in Christ, and Christ being in them. Christ is in the believer by His Spirit (1 John 4:13; 1 Corinthians 12:13); the believer is in Christ by faith (John 1:12). Christ is in the believer by inhabitation (Ephesians 3:17); the believer is in Christ by implantation (John 15:2; Romans 6:3). Christ in the believer implieth life and influence from Christ (Colossians 3:4; 1 Peter 2:5); the believer in Christ implieth communion and fellowship with Christ (1 Corinthians 1:30). When Christ is said to be in the believer, it is in reference to sanctification; when the believer is said to be in Christ, it is in order to justification.
2. This union in Scripture is set forth sometimes by the saints abiding in Christ and Christ abiding in them (John 15:4; 1 John 3:24); sometimes by Christ’s living in them (Galatians 2:20, etc.); sometimes by that oneness that is betwixt Christ and them (John 17:21-22). And some make that gathering together in one all things in Christ (Ephesians 1:10) to point to this union.
3. The Scripture speaks of a three-fold union.
(1) The union of three persons in one nature, as in the Trinity.
(2) The union of two natures in one person, as in Christ.
(3) The union of persons, where yet persons and natures are distinct. This is the mystical union which is betwixt Christ and believers, concerning which note--
I. Its nature. Here is--
1. Union but no transmutation, confusion, or commixtion. Believers are united to Christ, but yet not so as that they are changed or transformed into the very essence or being of Christ (so as to be Christed with Christ, as some too boldly speak); or that He is changed or transformed into the essence and being of believers. Christ is Christ still, and believers are but creatures still.
2. Union of persons, but not personal union. And here lies the difference between the mystical union and the hypostatical union. There is this nature and that nature in Christ, but not this person and that person. In the mystical union the person of Christ is united to the person of the believer, for faith being the uniting grace, and this faith receiving the person of Christ, it must also unite to the person of Christ. In the marriage-union it is person joined to person, and so it is in the mystical union.
3. But this union is not personal; it is but mystical. Otherwise it would be so many believers, so many Christs; and then the believer would have no subsistence but in Christ.
II. Its several kinds or branches.
1. The legal union. The ground of this is Christ’s suretyship (Hebrews 7:22). In law the debtor and the surety are but one person; and therefore both are equally liable to the debt; and if the one pay it it is as much as if the other had paid it. So it is with Christ and us.
2. The moral union. It is called moral from the bond or ground of it, which is love. There is a real oneness between friend and friend. There is a mutual, hearty love between Christ and believers, and by virtue of this there is a real and close union betwixt them.
III. The scripture resemblances by which it is set forth.
1. That of husband and wife. Christ and believers stand in this relation. He is their husband, they His spouse (2 Corinthians 11:2); married to Christ (Romans 7:4); betrothed to God and Christ (Hosea 2:19); their name is Hephzibah and Beulah (Isaiah 62:4). This union, in the very height of it, the apostle brings down to Christ and believers (Ephesians 5:28-29).
2. That of the head and members. In the body natural there is a near and close union between these two. Thus it is with Christ and believers in the body mystical; He is the Head, they are the several members (Colossians 1:18; Eph 1:22; 1 Corinthians 12:27; Romans 12:5).
3. That of the root and branches. There is also union betwixt these; otherwise how should the one convey juice, sap, nourishment, growth, to the other? So it is with Christ and believers; He is the Root, they the branches (John 15:5). You read of being planted and ingrafted into Christ (Romans 6:5, Romans 11:17, etc.); of being rooted in Christ (Colossians 2:7).
4. The foundation and the building. In a building all the stones and timber, being joined and fastened together upon the foundation, make but one structure. So it is here. Believers are God’s building, and Christ is the foundation in that building (1 Corinthians 3:9, 1 Corinthians 3:11; Ephesians 2:20). As a man builds upon the foundation and lays the stress of the whole building upon that; so the true Christian builds upon Christ; all his faith, hope, confidence, is built upon this sure foundation (Psa 28:26). Hence also they are said, As lively stones to be built up in a spiritual house, etc. (1 Peter 2:5).
5. That of meat or food. That which a man feeds upon and digests, it is incorporated with, and made a part of himself. The believing soul by faith feeds upon Christ, so that Christ becomes one with him and he one with Christ (John 6:55-56).
IV. Its properties. It is--
1. A sublime union, in respect of--
(1) Its nature. Next to the union of the Three Persons in the sacred Trinity, and the hypostatical union of the two natures in Christ, the mystical union is the highest.
(2) Its origin. The more supernatural a thing is the more sublime it is; now this union is purely supernatural as to the thing, and also as to the person to whom it belongs.
(3) The high and glorious privileges and consequents of it.
(4) Its mysteriousness. The union of the body and soul in man is a great mystery; but the union of Christ and the believer is a far greater.
2. A real union. Not a notional, fantastic thing, or something that dull persons please themselves with the thoughts of (John 17:22).
3. A spiritual union. Not a gross, corporeal union. The husband and the wife are one flesh, but he that is joined to the Lord is one spirit.
4. A near, intimate union (1 Corinthians 6:17).
5. A total union (1 Corinthians 6:15).
6. An immediate union. Christ and the believing soul they touch each the other. There is nothing that doth intervene or interpose between Christ and it.
7. An indissoluble union. Christ and believers are so firmly joined together that none shall ever be able to part them. (T. Jacomb, D. D.)