Notes On Romans 6 Foundational
Truths for the Believer |
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"What shall we say, then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?" - Romans 6:1, 2
This chapter,
which we now commence, is eminently practical. It teaches us an all-important
matter - the inseparable
connection which exists
between justification before God in Christ Jesus, and sanctification before
God in Christ Jesus.
In the preceding chapter (Romans 5) God is set forth as a Saviour from sin,
as to the penalty of it, and as to the guilt and condemnation attaching to
it.
In the chapter before us (Romans 6) God is set forth as a Saviour from the
power of sin, and the connection is very interesting and all important.
Chapter 5 gives us God as a Saviour
commending His love towards us, as we read in verse 8, "in
that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." In verse 9 we read, "He
justifies us freely through His blood." Brethren, the blood is the life,
and the penalty for sin is death. The Lord God meets the penalty of sin
- death,
by the substitution of the blood, that is, the life, of the Lord
Jesus Christ, His dear Son, our Saviour. There is no salvation but by the
substituted life of the Lord Jesus Christ. "The soul that sinneth, it shall
die," but in
the wondrous way which Divine wisdom devised, Almighty love suggested,
and Almighty power accomplished, the Lord God
brought it to pass that justice should be satisfied without the death of
the sinner, and that the Lord Jesus should take human nature in order that
He might
die, the just for the unjust; to
bring sinners unto God He did die - died as the surety, the representative,
the substituted sacrifice, for every sinner that hath or shall have union
with
Himself. My friends I this union
is enjoyed the moment faith lays its hand on the head of Jesus (see John
17:20). The moment our hearts receive Him as God's gift to sinners, that
moment we
become practically identified
with Him. His death instead of our death, His righteousness the portion
of our souls; and Jesus never afterwards stands before God apart from us,
and
we never stand before God apart from
Jesus; we are one with Him, "accepted in the Beloved," "justified by His
blood," "justified
from all thing's." This is the foundation truth
of the Gospel. There can be no pence but as it is realized; there can be
no salvation but as it is possessed. "We are justified by his blood."
Then, in chapter 5, verse 2,
we have God giving us "access by faith to this great grace,"the
grace of pardon, the grace of justification, the grace of boundless and
bottomless love; and there
"we stand," all all-sufficient standing-ground for time and for eternity. Judgment
cannot assail us there. The sentence of death cannot pass upon us on that
standing-ground, but from it
we look out for glory, and, as the text goes on to say, "rejoice in hope
of the glory of God" there,
also the "love of God is sired abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost " -
we have new motives for service, new principles for conduct, new themes
for conversation,
new subjects for hope - "All
things have passed away and all things have become new."
Thus the victory of free grace
over sin is demonstrated, for we read in verse 10, "If when we
were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more
being reconciled we shall be saved by His life."
Thus God is set before us in chapter 5 as our salvation, saving to the uttermost
all that come to Him by the way He himself has provided, the Lord Jesus Christ.
In the latter portion of the chapter we have all analogy instituted between
Adam, the natural head of the human family, and Christ the spiritual head of
the human family. Now we are all of
us in the one headship or the other. Every one on the face of God's earth
this moment, and every man that ever lived, from the day that Adam was created
to the last of his race, is headed up in,
represented by, and identified with, either the Adam that fell in Eden,
or the second Adam, the Lord Jesus Christ from heaven; and is ruined in the
one or saved in the other, lost in the one or
crowned with everlasting grace in the other - there is no third position.
The Apostle asserts that all
connected with Adam by nature inherit his ruin, death and condemnation belong
to them by virtue of that connection. "Sin came into the world by Adam, and
death by sin, and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned." Then
there is a second headship - the headship of the Lord Jesus Christ; no man
is connected with the Lord Jesus
Christ naturally. It is an act of God's grace which connects any poor sinner
with the Lord Jesus Christ, and the means by which lie is so connected are;
first the Lord Jesus Christ took our
nature, and, having become man, and by His own substituted death satisfied
justice and put away sin, He went up to Heaven, from thence He sent down the Holy
Ghost to every soul that believes on him here. Thus there is a double link;
Jesus lives in human nature in heaven, and the Believer, by the indwelling
of the Holy Ghost, has Christ's
nature indwelling in him here. And the consequence is, we are in union with
Jesus and are accepted before God there. Standing in union with Jesus, it is
no more we that live (in the sight
of God) but Christ that liveth in us. Standing in union with Jesus, our sins
have passed to His head, and His righteousness has passed to us. Standing in
union with Jesus, God never looks at us
apart from Jesus and never looks at Jesus apart from us. This is one of the
most precious as it is one of the most fundamental and most comforting truths
on which our souls can meditate.
Beloved friends, salvation is complete. Christ saves to the uttermost all that
come unto God by Him. There is no other way of salvation, no other peace which
will endure eternally, no other
righteousness which will bear the gaze of God, no other strength, no other
lower, no other fullness that can satisfy the immortal desires, affections,
and necessities of our souls.
What a wondrous, wondrous salvation
is this that God has revealed! All we want is sufficient faith to apprehend
it. How few apprehend it as they might! Instead of taking Christ for
everything, instead of making mention of His righteousness only, instead
of resting on the Lord as made, by free grace to every poor sinner that doth
rest
on Him, wisdom, righteousness,
sanctification, and redemption, we go here and there, in order to find some
matter in ourselves pleasing and acceptable to God, wasting time, labour,
and strength, and "spending our money for
that which is not bread." God accepts no man who is not in Christ Jesus, and God accepts every
man who is in Christ Jesus, sees no spot, fault, or stain in him, sees him "much more" complete
by virtue of his union with the Lord Jesus Christ than He did see him ruined
and lost by virtue of his union with Adam.
This is absolutely true. Oh!
that our hearts did take it in! The moment I believe the Word of God concerning
the Lord Jesus Christ, the moment I take Him as the gift of God to poor sinners
such
as I am, the moment the record of the Divine mind, which tells me the "Lord
has laid help upon one that is mighty," and that He has made Him to be righteousness
and salvation for sinners - the moment that record commends itself to my
judgment and heart,
the moment I take God at His
word, that moment God's honour is pledged for my salvation, Christ's fullness
and merit are pledged for my supply; and I say it solemnly, I say it reverentially
- if the soul that trusts in
Jesus Christ perish, Jesus Christ must perish too.
Dear friends, we want strong, solid truth to rest upon
in these days, when so little of it is taught or believed. Out of Christ I
am wrecked, ruined,
lost and "condemned already." I
have nothing to do in order to be lost. I out lost and condemned. But because
I am lost, because I am condemned, God sent forth His Son for salvation work,
and the
moment, I as a lost sinner, lay my hand on Christ, and Jake Him as God's
gift, my condemnation, and the ground of my condemnation, is gone for ever.
My sin
is blotted out, drowned in the ocean
of Christ's blood, to rise no more ; and by and bye, when I stand before
the great white throne and him that sits on it, from whose face the earth
and the
heaven flee away, neither the eye of
the all-searching God, nor the eyes of all Heaven's hosts, nor mine own,
will be able to discern one spot or stain. This is truth, and it is peace
and happiness
to those who know it ; but, alas
there are many who do not know this truth. Either from neglect of God's Word
they don't know it, or, knowing it, they don't believe it.
The Apostle having closed chapter
5 with this most glorious statement, "where sin abounded,
grace did much more abound," and "as sin bath reigned unto death," death spiritual,
temporal, and eternal, so grace doth reign through righteousness, and that
not ours, for we have none, but
through His righteousness unto life eternal; the life of justification, the
life of holiness, the life of glory-then he asks "What shall we say, then,
to these things?"
I know what we ought to say.
I know what every man who believes them to be true will and must say-" Bless
the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless His holy name; bless
the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits." And I know what
the hierarchies of heaven do soy when contemplating this wondrous salvation
even-" Blessing,
and honour, and glory, and majesty, and dominion be to Him that sitteth
upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever." But,
alas! alas! there are men and women in the world who, though they need
free grace, and free salvation, though they need free justification from
sin and
death, through the substitution of
another, yet do not like free grace. Strange to say, the sinners who most
need it are most offended when it is presented to them. It cuts at the
root of their
pride - they do not like to be
thought so peer, so very poor before God, that they can do nothing for
their salvation. They do not like to be esteemed so vile, so very vile,
that their
best is nothing worth. They need grace as
free as God can make it, they need salvation as full as God can give it,
they need a pardon as vast as God for Christ's sake can bestow it (and
God has made
it vast, and full, and free as the air we
breathe); but they do not like free grace, and accordingly they object
to it. The Apostle notes the objection in the passage we have read, it
is no
new objection; one
often hears it now-a-days; when free grace is preached men say, "Oh, if
we believed that sort of thing, men might live as they like, if salvation
is
altogether free,
and the love of God actually bestowed on the unworthy, and vile, and guilty,
then we need not care about being
unworthy, vile, and guilty. Truly a strange sort of morality is taught
by you ministers."
Now this objection the Apostle
meets. What shall we say to this full, free, great salvation? "Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?" It is the common objection in the minds of
many who hear of free grace-ungodly men turning the grace of God into lasciviousness, not so
much wishing to justify and commend lasciviousness, as to disparage free grace. They say: "If
free grace is proclaimed in this way, it will load to all kinds of carelessness, ungodliness,
thoughtlessness, and inconsistent living." The objectors repudiate free grace, because forsooth,
they say, "your free grace leads to immorality."
"Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?" It
is a very plausible objection. I have never yet in all my experience spoken
of free grace to an unconverted man who did not make some
objection of this kind: "Oh, then a man may live as he likes." No. The
ground we take is this - God finds a man as bad as he can be, admit for
argument sake
he cannot be worse, he cannot be worse
in heart, he cannot be worse in thought, he cannot be worse in his ways,
he cannot be worse in his habits, and as be is there, in all his filth,
and guilt,
and ruin, God forgives him for Christ's
sake. Yes, the moment the poor lost soul hears the salvation of God, and
claims that salvation for the sake of what Christ has suffered, if all
the sins that
oil the world had ever committed were
laid on that soul, God would blot them out for ever. This is our position;
and this is God's truth. And God will never leave that man, He may wander,
but God will go after him, He may grieve
God, but God will never be grieved away from him; he may fall into strange
and fearful inconsistencies; but one thing is certain, for God is pledged
to it, never from any cause, never
under any circumstances, never at any time will He leave him nor forsake
him. "Oh," say
these guardians of holiness, "a strange sort of teaching that!" If it be
so, a man may say, "it is all
right with me, I may indulge my bestial passions, I may follow the course
most dishonouring to God, I may think as I like, I may do as I like, I
shall be
all right, there is no difference between
me and the greatest saint in the sight of God, I shall be in heaven and
glory as surely as he-all will be right in the end; I will follow my own
pursuits,
my own enjoyments, my own habits."
And thus, say they, "truly, free grace is a premium for carelessness, and ungodliness,
and all that sort of thing, for the more vile, and sinful, and unworthy
we are, the more we magnify the grace of God, the more God will have the
opportunity of shewing
how good He is, in blotting out our transgressions, that His grace may
abound over
our abounding sin." I have put the objection as strongly as I believe it
need be put.
Flow does the Apostle meet this objection? Oh, it is very remarkable. I cannot tell you howl
have enjoyed searching into the teaching of this verse, and the way the Apostle meets this
argument. He does not say (though he might have said), it is hardly in human nature, bad as it
is, to treat God in that way, - What! has God taught you that by the sacrifice of His Son He has
put away your sin, and will you take Occasion from this to indulge in sin, and that in the very
face of him who, rather than have you in the blackness of darkness for ever, and rather than not
have you with Himself in glory, gave His Son to die for you? Do you take that as a ground for
grieving Him, as e motive for carelessness? No; none but devils could do that - it is not in
human nature. Let anyone find you in misery and bankruptcy, cast out, neglected, ignored,
forsaken, and forgotten, and let him come to you at great cost to himself, and great personal
suffering, and let hint seek you in your ruin, raise you out of it, love you, comfort you, and
carry you on through life tenderly and graciously - I believe you must be an incarnate devil, if
you would take occasion from his kindness to dishonour and wound him, and because he takes you
to his bosom take occasion to sting him there! No! bad as human nature is, there are not many
examples like that.
But the Apostle does not argue
thus, though I believe the argument might be used, for what is to win us
to God if love will not? To know I am a child, to know I have a place in
heaven, and that
through all the storms of time He will be my shelter, through all the assaults
of time He will be my protector-what is to take my heart, and win my hopes,
and to fix my affections on Himself
and on His service, if not tins? This is an argument the Apostle might
have used, but, I say, he did not, his argument is something deeper. There
is
not
a word about love or gratitude, as the
ground of the Apostle's answer to the objection; he gives a stupendous
and overwhelming answer, be says, "God forbid. How shall we that are dead to
sin live any longer therein?" People
do not know what they are talking about when they speak of Believers continuing
to live in sin. If I have been saved from the guilt and penalty of sin,
what is the state of the case? I died out of
God's sight when Christ was crucified on Calvary; when He bowed His head
and gave up the ghost as a sacrifice for sin, I died in the view of law
and judgment
- there, according to God's own
unspeakable plan and arrangement, I suffered the penalty of sin as much
as the Lord Jesus Christ did. God looks at me there and sees no more sin in
me than if sin did not exist, and He lays no
more sin to my charge than He did to Christ when He raised Him from the
dead. I
fear that
what I say may sound strange to many, but it is God's own truth. If not,
then you are
shut up to this - God does see sin on you, Believer! God does charge sin
on you, child of God! and, if so, then He cannot help condemning you. Now,
if
we be members of Christ (and that is the real
question), have we come to Christ? Have we taken Him for our Saviour? Is
He ours? - that may be an open question - I cannot answer that for you,
but supposing
I have come to the Lord Jesus
Christ and taken Him to be my Saviour, and by faith accepted the blessed
gift of God for life, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption,
then,
I say, when Christ died, my sinful self,
and the tendencies to sin in me, died in the sight of God, and according
to his plan of salvation actually ceased from His view for ever. This is
absolutely
the case; and whether I die tonight, or
live for fifty years to come, God Almighty will never, as my Judge, look
again at anything in me; but He looks at Christ, sees me complete in Him
and sees
no spot in me. As to my sin, then,
where has it gone? "The Lord Jesus hath appeared once in the end of the
world to put away sin."
Whose sin? Not His own sin, but all the sin that was laid upon Him - my sin
and your sin, if we have taken Him for our Saviour; and when He comes again
He
shall appear "the second time
without sin unto salvation." There was sin on Him when he came first. What
became of it? Where is it? Buried in His tomb. The living justified Christ
rose again, but the sin did not rise,
God never quickened that, and He never will. The moment as a Believer in
Jesus Christ you charge yourself with sin in the sight of God, so as to
fear condemnation
on account of it, you are
endeavouring to quicken the body of sin which was buried in the tomb of
Christ, and burdening yourself with the carriage of it. This is a blessed;
and glorious,
and important fact for you to
realize, Believer; but it is also perfectly true for all sinners whatsoever,
for the moment they come to the Lord Jesus Christ as God's gift, they become
united to Him and are interested in Him.
Oh, for faith to realize that when the Lord Jesus died on Calvary, our
sinful selves died in God's sight. God never looks at you who are in Christ
as in
your sinful selves. He only sees you in
Christ.
Now you understand the force
of the statement, "Ye are dead to sin," viz., you are dead in the
sight of God as to sin; you have ceased to exist as regards sinful self before
Him. "How
shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein?"
But some poor soul may say, "I am not dead to sin." "Why do you say so?" "Because
I feel its power."
My dear friends, we never find
the expression "dead to sin" used in Scripture
in reference to the feeling and sense of its presence; but always in reference
to its penalty and
the consequent putting away of the guilt and condemnation due to sin, No
man ever
lived on earth who was dead to the sense of the presence of sin. "If we say
that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us." But
it is God's truth that every soul who believes on Christ is (lead to sin, as
far as the guilt of sin and the condemnation due to sin is concerned.
In his death the sentence has been executed, the guilt atoned for, the charge
is gone: and as you realize this truth you will have strength to battle with
its power, and to put its temptations,
influence, and attractions, under your feet. The same grace which has (by giving
you union with Christ in us death) put away all condemnation, continues to
you union with Christ in His life,
that you may have the living power of a living Saviour to draw upon, in order
to battle with the corruptions you feel, and the sin that worries you. It is
a very different thing -the sins you feel
and that worry you never can condemn you, for Christ died to put away condemnation
from you; and the sins that worry and grieve you, ought to throw you upon God
for strength, and keep you
constantly coming to Him for His fellowship and help, for He has promised to "make
His strength perfect in our weakness," and that, not lest you should be condemned
for sin, but because all condemnation has entirely passed away, exhausted by
the death of Christ; for if we,
being enemies, were reconciled to God (corruption notwithstanding, ruin notwithstanding)
by the death of His Son, how much more the living Christ, will give you supplies
from the fountain
of life, which will enable you to overcome the sins that grieve and worry you,
and which shall never separate you from the love of God, for " neither life,
nor death, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, can separate you from
the love of God,
which is in Christ Jesus our
Lord."
Ah friends, these considerations
are potent - and the faith which realizes them cannot say, "Shall we continue
in sin that grace may abound?" We are delivered from sin - sin is not our
master. We are dead, we have been delivered in Christ Jesus from all charge,
all guilt. We will live for Him who died for us, we must, for we are united
to Him, and evermore we will bless
Him "who though He was rich, yet for our sakes became poor, that we through
His poverty might be rich;" and never- (it cannot be, it could not be,
it is impossible) - will we continue in sin, that grace may abound.
May the Great Teacher Himself teach you!
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