DELIVERANCE
[p. 45] DELIVERANCE
The subject of Deliverance is one to which our attention has often been directed of late, but its great importance will, I think, justify me in bringing it before you again. And I do so the more willingly because I know it is a subject about which many are exercised. Indeed, I trust we are all exercised about it, for not one of us is beyond the need of it. When I speak of Deliverance I do not mean Peace with God. It has frequently been said, “So-and-so has got deliverance”, when what was meant was that the one in question had entered into peace with God. I do not use the word in this sense, but this will be evident as we proceed.
There are three things from which we need to be delivered in order to have spiritual liberty. They are brought before us in Romans 6, Romans 7, and Romans 8.
- Sin, or the world.
- The law.
- The flesh.
I believe that Romans 6 is regarded by many as a merely doctrinal chapter. So far from this being the case it is a chapter the truths of which all turn upon affection for Christ, and a more intensely practical chapter it would be difficult to find. It is a chapter that can only be fully appreciated by those in whose hearts the Lord Jesus Christ has acquired a supreme place. Then it is of great moment that we should see how His supremacy in our affections is established. And I think we have a fine illustration of this in the history of Mary Magdalene. Let us read three passages from the Gospels.
“The twelve were with him, and certain women, which had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities, Mary called [p. 46] Magdalene, out of whom went seven devils” (Luke 8: 1, 2). “And many women were there beholding afar off, which followed Jesus from Galilee, ministering unto him: among which was Mary Magdalene” (Matthew 27: 55, 56). “But Mary stood without at the sepulchre weeping: and as she wept, she stooped down, and looked into the sepulchre, and seeth two angels in white sitting, the one at the head, and the other at the feet, where the body of Jesus had lain. And they say unto her, Woman, why weepest thou? She saith unto them, Because they have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid him. And when she had thus said, she turned herself back, and saw Jesus standing, and knew not that it was Jesus. Jesus saith unto her, Woman, why weepest thou? whom seekest thou? She, supposing him to be the gardener, saith unto him, Sir, if thou have borne him hence, tell me where thou hast laid him, and I will take him away. Jesus saith unto her, Mary. She turned herself, and saith unto him, Rabboni; which is to say, Master. Jesus saith unto her, Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father: but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God” (John 20: 11 - 17).
Four steps in soul-history are brought before us in these scriptures. (1) She was healed; (2) she was in the company of the One who had healed her; (3) she followed Him to death — to the end of all hopes and expectations here; and (4) she reached Him in another order of things as the Risen One. I would like to use these four steps as illustrative of truths in the epistle before us, though what answers to the last is more properly to be found in Colossians. But using them by way of illustration, I would say that in chapters 3 and 4 we see (1) how we have been “healed”; in chapter 5 we are (2) in the company of the One who has healed us; and in chapter 6 we recognize (3) that this is the sphere of death — Christ has died here; while (4) on the other hand we [p. 47] come into touch with life in being able to account ourselves “alive unto God in Christ Jesus”. But I must open this out a little more in detail.
1. We learn what has been done for us. Christ Jesus has been set forth as a Mercy-seat “through faith in his blood” (Romans 3: 25), and it is by His stripes we are healed (1 Peter 2: 24). By the death of Christ God’s righteousness is declared, and He is “just and the Justifier of him which believeth in Jesus” (Romans 3: 26). The believer’s iniquities are forgiven, his sins are covered; God will not impute sin to him, he is justified (Romans 4:7,8; Romans 4:24,25).
2. We are with One who ministers the favour of God to us. I am sure that when He was here He ministered a sense of divine favour to those who were with Him. It was not only that He had done great things for them whereof they were glad, but He ministered to them the favour of God. They must have known what it was to sit down “under His shadow with great delight”, and to find His fruit sweet to their taste. Now in Romans 5 we are brought to the Lord Jesus Christ as the risen and glorified One who ministers the favour of God to the hearts of those who believe on Him. And, beloved brethren, I do not think we can learn the favour of God apart from Him. Learning the doctrine of it does not feed the heart. If you want to have the joy of divine favour, you must be near the One through whom it is all ministered.
It has often been pointed out that the preposition “through” is characteristic of this chapter. There are seven things in the chapter which come to us “through” our Lord Jesus Christ. He ministers to us the favour of God in its blessed perfection. (1) “We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (verse 1); (2) “Through whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand” (verse 2); (3) “Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him” (verse 9); (4) “We also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (verse 11);
(5) “Through whom we have now received the reconciliation” (verse 11); (6) “They which receive abundance of grace, and of the gift of righteousness, shall reign in life through one, Jesus Christ” (verse 17); (7) “That as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign, through righteousness, unto eternal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord” (verse 21). Here we see the scope and fulness of divine favour, and every bit of it, from “peace with God” up to “eternal life”, is ministered “through” the risen and glorified Saviour. We only touch the positive blessings of Christianity as we reach HIM. It has sometimes been said that souls may have blessing without having the Blesser, but this is hardly the truth. Of course one may have a measure of relief and the assurance of eternal security because we trust the precious blood and finished work of Christ, but when we come to divine favour and the positive blessings of Christianity, they are all connected with a PERSON, and they are inseparable from that Person. God would thus connect our every thought of blessing and life with the Lord Jesus Christ, and would lead us into the wondrous thought that we are bound up with Him. And the blessings we have as bound up with Him infinitely transcend everything in this world. I am sure that if we esteem the blessing and favour of God greater than anything on earth, the One who ministers that favour to us must acquire supremacy in our affections. We bow before Him in affection and adoration. He becomes our hearts’ “Object, bright and fair”.
3. Then in chapter 6 we come to the intensely solemn fact that the One who ministers the favour of God to us, and has thus made Himself precious to our hearts, has died here. And as we apprehend this great fact we realize that life is not here — this is the death sphere. Do you not think the disciples realized this in their hearts when Jesus died? The One who had ministered the favour of God to them, and made Himself everything to them, went into death. This is the way in which [p. 49] we reach death on the privilege line. That is, as our affections go after Christ we find He is not here — He has died here; and our hearts count it their holy privilege to be associated with Him. “Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized unto Jesus Christ were baptized unto his death?” (Romans 6: 3).
Before I go further into this, I may say that there is another way of reaching death, and that is on what may be called the experimental line. This is brought before us in type in connection with Marah. “So Moses brought Israel from the Red Sea; and they went out into the wilderness of Shur and they went three days in the wilderness, and found no water. And when they came to Marah, they could not drink of the waters of Marah, for they were bitter: therefore the name of it was called Marah. And the people murmured against Moses, saying, What shall we drink? And he cried unto the Lord: and the Lord shewed him a tree, which when he had cast into the waters, the waters were made sweet” (Exodus 15: 22 - 25).
I am sure we have to learn that death is on things here. We may learn it on the privilege line or on the experimental line, but it must needs be learned. “They went three days in the wilderness, and found no water”. We have to learn that there is nothing here to minister to us; there is no refreshment here — not a blade of grass or a drop of water for the lambs and sheep of Christ’s flock. We may think, in our folly, that if we had this or that it would minister satisfaction to us. We may set our eyes on some pleasing prospect; certain things may seem full of promise; we may turn aside to quench our thirst at what appears to be an attractive pool — only to find that it is a delusive mirage. Companionships, hobbies, books, music — or any of the thousand and one things which engage the minds of men — must fail to minister satisfaction to the believer’s heart. God will not have us to find satisfaction in the things which are here.
Then when they came to Marah “they could not drink of the waters of Marah, for they were bitter”. It is the will of God that we should prove that death is here. Life is in another place, and in connection with another order of things. If there is anything in this world in which we are looking for satisfaction we shall find that, in one way or another, death will come in on it. Sooner or later death touches everything here, and we are made to taste its bitter waters. But, thank God, there is that which enables us to expect and accept death in this world. “The Lord shewed him a tree, which when he had cast into the waters, the waters were made sweet”. It is at this point that the privilege line and the experience line meet. In Romans 5 God shows us the Tree, and we sit down under His shadow with great delight, and find His fruit sweet to our taste as He ministers to us the favour of God. But in Romans 6 we see that that lovely Tree has gone into the bitter waters of death. Has God showed you that Tree? Has He attracted your heart to the One who was here as a “tender Plant”, as a “Tree planted by the rivers of water”, and as a “green olive Tree in the house of God”? I say, has God attracted your heart to that Blessed One in His fruitfulness and beauty — the only lovely and perfect Object ever seen in this wilderness world? Then I am sure you will be deeply affected as you think of His death. I feel that one of the greatest needs of our souls is to have more present with us the great fact that the Lord Jesus has died here. What an effect it would have upon us! How it would set us apart from things here! How it would bring home to us that death is here! Yet we should learn this not as a thing to sorrow over as if we regretted it, but as a privilege, for it is in death that He has brought divine love to us. And we cannot touch life without accepting death here. If we are conscious of being bound up with our Lord Jesus Christ, we shall not want to live where He died. This is involved, so to speak, in our baptism; we have been baptized “unto his death”.
[p. 51] The act of baptism is not the important thing for a Christian (though it has its place), but the moment when in heart and spirit he realizes what is involved in it and accepts it. We are then prepared for death here; we accept it, for we have been baptized “unto His death”.
If Christ has died, it is evident that He is not in things here. “His life is taken from the earth” (Acts 8: 33). Now, beloved brethren, have we enough affection for Him to be willing to “pass over unto the other side”? The truths of Romans 6 turn upon this. It is beautifully illustrated in 2 Samuel 15: 19 - 22. “Then said the king to Ittai the Gittite, Wherefore goest thou also with us? return to thy place, and abide with the king; for thou art a stranger, and also an exile. Whereas thou camest but yesterday, should I this day make thee go up and down with us? seeing I go whither I may, return thou, and take back thy brethren: mercy and truth be with thee. And Ittai answered the king, and said, As the Lord liveth, and as my lord the king liveth, surely in what place my lord the king shall be, whether in death or life, even there also will thy servant be. And David said to Ittai, Go, and pass over. And Ittai the Gittite passed over, and all his men, and all the little ones that were with him”. Here we see one whose heart was so knit to David that in what place David was, “whether in death or life”, there would he be. The best place on earth was nothing to him without David; for his heart there was no life where David was not. And in this noble language of a devoted heart we have strikingly presented the truth of Romans 6. The great point of the chapter is that it is the believer’s privilege to be in the same relation to things as Christ, and where there is true affection for Him this privilege will be appropriated with holy joy. This is how the believer becomes dead to sin.
Another illustration of the same thing can be found in 2 Samuel 19: 24: “And Mephibosheth the son of Saul came down to meet the king, and had neither dressed his feet, nor [p. 52] trimmed his beard, nor washed his clothes, from the day the king departed until the day he came again in peace”. In this case the application to ourselves is very distinct and striking, inasmuch as Mephibosheth had not actually gone over with David, nor have we actually passed out of the sphere of sin and death. But Mephibosheth’s heart had gone with David; his life was bound up with David, and he had no interest in what was going on in the place where David was not. He would not assert himself, or make anything of himself in Jerusalem; he would only appear there in the character of a mourner. It was, no doubt, a fine time in Jerusalem — people having their grievances redressed and benefits conferred on them by the usurper — but Mephibosheth was dead to it all. For him it was all sin, and his affection for David made him dead to it.
I should like to refer to another thing in Mephibosheth’s case, because it illustrates an important point in Romans 6. I mean the full and practical acceptance of judgment upon what we may speak of as his “old man”. What Ziba said of him so slanderously was just what we might have expected him to say according to nature. “Behold, he abideth at Jerusalem: for he said, Today shall the house of Israel restore me the kingdom of my father” (2 Samuel 16: 3). But Mephibosheth’s account of himself and of his father’s house is in perfect and beautiful contrast to this. He says, “For all of my father’s house were but dead men before my lord the king: yet didst thou set thy servant among them that did eat at thine own table” (2 Samuel 19: 28). It is lovely to see him acknowledging that death was upon him as of his father’s house. Nor does he wish it otherwise, for all the associations and interests of his life had been transferred to another centre. All that was life in his estimation was bound up with David. He lived not as of the household of Saul, but by David’s grace; his life was in those things which were ministered to him by David. There was not the smallest disposition on his part to [p. 53] allow the activity of that which he recognized as being under death.
In Romans 6: 6 we see what answers to this for ourselves. “Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin”. As children of Adam we “were but dead men”, and we rejoice to know that before God our history as belonging to that race has terminated. “Our old man has been crucified with Him”. But this is a fact with an intensely practical bearing, for when it is really accepted the body of sin is annulled, and henceforth we do not serve sin. That is, when we recognize that as children of Adam we are under judgment, and that we have gone from the eye of God in judgment, the body of sin is annulled for our hearts. That life in which the totality of sin is found is recognized by us as a condemned thing. And when this is the case its power over our hearts is annulled. Mephibosheth recognized that as of the house of Saul he was under death, and the power of every motive connected with his position in that house was thus annulled for his heart. He was no longer controlled by those motives; he no longer served sin.
The enjoyment of David’s grace and responsive affection for David sustained him in complete separation of heart from every motive that would have been natural to him as of the house of Saul. And it is not otherwise with ourselves. The knowledge of doctrine gives no power. One might be very well up in the doctrine of deliverance, and know absolutely nothing of its reality and power. It is as our hearts are under the sway of that grace which is ministered to us through our Lord Jesus Christ, and as we are knit to Him in affection, that we touch and taste a new life, and are severed in heart from everything that constituted the life of “our old man”. Thus the body of sin is annulled for our hearts, and we do not henceforth serve sin.
It is important to see that “sin” is used in Romans 6 [p. 54] in a very wide sense, as setting forth the whole circle of things in which the will of man acts. Indeed, “sin” in Romans 6 is almost the same thing as “the world” in 1 John 2. The world is that great moral system of which man’s will is the animating principle. It is a very solemn thing to see that there is but one thing in which man glories, and that is the power to carry out his own will. If it is only a child acting in known disobedience, he glories in it because it is his will to do it. Ambition is the highest form of the same thing. An ambitious man would like to be monarch of the whole world just because it would give his will the greatest scope to act. The root principle of politics is the will of man. I admit that Parliament may make laws which benefit men, but they are all put in force on the principle that it is the will of man to have them so. Now, dear brethren, it is of vital importance that we should recognize that the action of the creature’s will is sin. It is that upon which the judgment of God rests, and which is under death. And this is the reason why man fears death. It is that awful moment when his will can act no longer. Then there is an end of all his glory, for it is the sad and fearful truth that sin is the only glory of man.
Now think of what it must have been to the blessed Lord to come into a world of creatures whose very glory it was to carry out their own will. He was indeed a “Man of sorrows”, as the prophet so touchingly says, and He could not be otherwise in such a world. I do not think we can conceive what it was to Him — whose meat and drink, whose delight it was to do the will and to seek the glory of God — to be in a world where everyone gloried in his own will. That Blessed One shone amid the darkness of this world in unique and heavenly lustre, the solitary Object of God’s delight, the One on whom the eye of God could rest in infinite complacency and satisfaction, the One to whom He could say, “Thou art my beloved Son; in thee I am well pleased” (Luke 3: 22). He was as little of the world when He was here as He is now, but He [p. 55] was in it. There was no moral link between Him and the sphere of sin. He was as distasteful to the world as the world was distasteful to Him. The sphere of the glory of man could not tolerate Him, and as soon as God allowed the will of man to act they cast Him out. His death has brought out in strong relief the fact that there is a great gulf between Christ and this world — death is between Him and everything in the sphere of sin. “For in that he died, he died unto sin once”.
I need hardly point out that His death is not here looked at as being for sin. It is not atonement which is presented to our thoughts in this scripture. We find the atoning character of Christ’s death abundantly in other scriptures; but here His death is viewed as that which has entirely and for ever separated Him from the sphere of sin. We read in John’s gospel of His death as the hour when “He should depart out of this world unto the Father” (13: 1); and He said, “If ye loved me, ye would rejoice, because I said, I go unto the Father” (14: 28). His death, in this sense, must have been an unspeakable relief to His spirit. While He was here He was in the presence of sin: all its miseries and woes pressed upon His spirit; while the haughtiness and pride of vainglorious man, boasting in that which was really his shame, must have filled His heart with a sorrow which we, with minds familiarized with sin, can little understand. What He felt in the presence of the sorrows of this scene we may see in the tears of Bethany, and what He felt in regarding the pride of man we may learn from His weeping over Jerusalem. But He has left the whole scene of man’s will; He has died unto sin.
And now for the believer the world is marked by the absence of Christ. Sin is there — the will of a fallen creature — and death is there; but Christ is not there, and affection for Him is the real power of deliverance from the world. We turn from it because CHRIST is not there. Beloved young Christian, surely you do not want to go on with things in which CHRIST has no place or part? Am I not right in saying that you [p. 56] desire to know more of Him, and of your association with Him who “in that he liveth, he liveth unto God”? I am sure that if we know what it is to be bound up with Him, and to have all our thoughts of blessing and life connected with Him, we shall count it a most precious privilege to be in the same relation to things as He is. Affection for Christ would draw us after Him to the sphere in which He lives unto God, and this would result in a clean break with the world. We should be able to take account of ourselves as being “dead unto sin”.
This chapter, which states so plainly that He has died to sin, brings with equal distinctness before us the circle in which He lives. “Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father” (verse 4). The sphere of man’s glory has refused and rejected Him, but the glory of the Father has raised and received Him. These are the two great moral circles brought before us in Romans 6. These circles subsist today, and death rolls between them. Now, I ask, in which circle is your life? Are you drawn in affection to Christ in that new world of light and love where He lives unto God? Can you say that you know what it is to be bound up with Him? Then I am sure the power of the world is broken for your heart. For you could not be drawn to Him without finding His death between you and the whole sphere of sin. You could not be drawn to Him without having in your soul something of what Paul expressed when he said, “God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, whereby the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world” (Galatians 6: 14). And the one of whom this is true is dead to sin. He would take as little interest in what is going on in the sphere of man’s will as Mephibosheth took in what was going on in Jerusalem in the absence of David. It is in the power of affection for Christ that we can reckon ourselves “to be dead unto sin, but alive unto God in Christ Jesus our Lord”.
We are not “dead to sin” by faith, or by the mere acceptance of truths and doctrines. It is as the Spirit of God attaches us in affection to Christ in the place where He is that we discern the true character of everything here. We see the world in its true colours as the sphere of sin, and we are dead to it. Our life is not in that sphere, it is bound up with Christ, and we can in simplicity of heart take account of ourselves as being “dead unto sin, but alive unto God in Christ Jesus our Lord”. It is not an artificial reckoning, but a simple spiritual reality. And the secret and power of it is affection for Christ.
The practical effect of this is that we are here only for the will of God. We take up our responsibilities and relationships in this world on an entirely new principle. We yield ourselves “unto God, as those that are alive from the dead”, and our “members as instruments of righteousness unto God” (verse 13). The effect of His grace reigning in our hearts, and of Christ being supreme in our affections, is that we are won for God, and His will becomes our glory. This necessarily involves a clean break with the world in heart and spirit. The believer cannot be entirely separate from “the fornicators of this world” so long as he is in the world; he may have to work among ungodly men, or live in a family where he is the only one converted. But he is morally separated from everything around him by the entire difference of the motives that control him. And he refuses to be identified with anything in which he cannot recognize the will of God. For that which is not the will of God is the will of man, and this, as we have already seen, is sin. Thus the believer walks even as Christ walked. In the midst of a dark scene, where the will of man marks everything, he shines as a light doing the will of God as one set free from the dominion of sin by being brought under the sway of Grace. “For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace” (verse 14).
[p. 58] II. DELIVERANCE FROM LEGALITY
It would hardly be of much interest to an unconverted man, or to a worldly believer, to unfold how we are delivered from the law. The soul must, in some measure at least, be in the good of what is presented in chapter 6 before it would be prepared to appreciate the aspect of Deliverance which is brought before us in chapter 7. There would be found in anyone who was really “in the seventh of Romans” an intense separation from the world, a holy abhorrence of sin, and a vehement desire to do the will of God. The will of God has become the glory and delight of his heart; sin is no longer any glory or pleasure to him. Now his distress and complaint is that he finds himself perfectly incapable of carrying out that on which his heart is set. He finds himself altogether incompetent for the will of God, though it commands both his conscience and his heart. But this helplessness arises from the fact that he is under the law, and therefore in his conscience, on the ground of a man living in the flesh; for “the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth”. It is the supposed case of one who is set for the will of God; but who is, as to his consciousness, dissociated from Christ. From the seventh verse to the twenty-fourth there is no mention of Christ, and, so far as the soul’s consciousness is concerned, there might be no such Person in existence. Hence there is absolute weakness, no fruit for God, and the soul can only cry, “O wretched man that I am!” Here we see the realization of those words of Christ, “Without me ye can do nothing” (John 15: 5). I will now seek to show the way of deliverance from this legal bondage.
It is important to observe that the apostle, in writing as he does in this chapter, has Jewish believers specially in view that is, those who had been under the law, for he says “I speak to them that know the law” (verse 1). It was most essential for such to know the divine way of deliverance from [p. 59] and a divinely created obligation could only be set aside in a divine way. The apostle recognizes that the bond between the law and those who were under it was as inviolable as the marriage bond, which he takes up as an illustration. That is, death alone could annul it. If God has put a man under the law, the law will have dominion over him “as long as he liveth”.
But death has come in. Christ was “made under the law”, and fulfilled it perfectly in His holy life, and on the cross He bore its curse for those who were under it. But when His dead body hung upon the cross He had passed out of the condition of life to which law applied. We saw in the previous chapter that He died to sin, and it is just as true that He has died to the law. And we have “become dead to the law by the body of Christ” (verse 4). The principle of being in the same relation to things as Christ is, applied to sin in chapter 6, is here seen to be the believer’s privilege in respect of the law. But in this case it is not only a privilege that may be entered upon, but it is the place in which the believer is set by an act of God. “Ye also are become dead [or, have been made dead] to the law by the body of Christ”. The law and those who were under it had been joined together by God, but death has come in and the bond is severed. So that “now we are delivered from the law, having died in that in which we were held” (verse 6).
If this was so in the case of those who had been put under the law by God, it must be perfectly evident that Gentile believers are not under the law. If God takes pains to show us that the bond is dissolved where it did exist, we may be quite sure that no such bond has been formed in the case of Gentile believers who had never been under the law. We are not come to Mount Sinai, but to Mount Zion. “Ye are not under the law, but under grace”.
But there is no power in the fact that we have become dead to the law. It is a great thing to see that we are not, in God’s [p. 60] account, associated with that which could only demand and exact without conferring upon us any ability to answer to its claims. But to see this is not enough to deliver us from legality in our own spirits. The power of deliverance from legality lies not in the dissolution of the old bond, but in the apprehension of a new bond formed in divine grace between Christ and the soul: “That ye should be married to Another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God” (verse 4). Hence, as I have said, this aspect of deliverance, like the first, turns upon the place CHRIST holds in our hearts.
I will take for granted that we rejoice in the fact that we are under obligation to the will of God, and that we also recognize that we have “become dead to the law by the body of Christ”. Now it becomes a matter of the greatest interest to us to know how the will of God comes to us. The answer is very simple and blessed. It comes to us in CHRIST. We do not acquire our knowledge of what is pleasing to God through the law, but by being brought under the sway of Christ — by being “married to Another, even to Him who is raised from the dead”.
Three things present themselves at once to the mind in connection with the figure which is here used. A wife would count upon having the company, the love, and the support of her husband. Now connect these three thoughts with the scripture before us. To be married to Christ is to have His company, the enjoyment of His love, and the constant assurance of His support. I will seek to unfold this a little.
I should like to make clear, in the first place, what I mean by the company of Christ. The great beauty and power of the gospels, to my mind, lies in the fact that through them we can be, so to speak, near to that Blessed One. The evangelists present Him to us in the scenes and at the time when He put Himself near to men. And I believe God has given us the Gospels that we might find ourselves near to Him, and learn [p. 61] what He was in the midst of His little company of disciples. We find Him here with those who were much like ourselves. The spiritual dullness, the weakness, yea, and the self-confidence which we find in ourselves we may see also in them. On their side the one bright feature was that they were bound to Him in affection, and to His heart, and to the Father’s heart, this was everything. He “rejoiced in spirit”, even at a moment when His rejection by the world was most manifest, to know that these few “babes” had seen something of His worth; and He could say at another time, “The Father himself loveth you because ye have loved me”. On His side, there was a love that nothing could stay. Faithfulness was there too, but it was the faithfulness of an all-prevailing love. Beloved brethren, it is a wonderful study for our hearts, to see what He was with His own here. To be thus in His company, so to speak. Not reading the Gospels merely as a history, but following that Blessed One in His pathway here, beholding His service of grace and listening to His words, that we may make acquaintance with Him. The apostles had this privilege immediately, but we have it mediately through their inspired writings. As John says, “That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us” (1 John 1:3). In this way God would lead our hearts into company with Christ, and I am sure this would be a good cure for legality, for we could not be near Him without learning His love, and a heart breathing the atmosphere of divine love could not be legal.
How did John learn the love of Christ? Surely by being with Him. The planet Mercury is not often seen because it is so near the sun, but when we do get a glimpse of it it is very bright. John is like that planet; we do not see much of him, but when he does appear it is in the bright light of the love of Christ. He was “that disciple whom Jesus loved”. Who would not covet to share his place? Thank God, it is open to all.
[p. 62] I have spoken of the way in which we may get near to the Lord, and learn His love to His own, through the Gospels. But I would not have you forget that His death came in, and was the crowning expression of His love. He could say, “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (John 15: 13). And we know Him now on the other side of death. The same blessed Person, with unchanged love for His own, but in a new condition. Every natural link with Israel severed, and all association even with His own after the flesh terminated in His death, He is known now outside everything that is of the present order of things. He is dead to sin and the law; we cannot bring Christ into association with things here, or with anything that pertains to man after the flesh. He has died to everything of that kind, and we are married to Him as the “One who is raised from the dead”.
In the company of Christ we learn His love, and as we know His love we can count on His support. Do you not think John could have counted on the support of the One whose love he knew so well? If he had a need or a consciousness of weakness, do you not think he could have counted on that Blessed One affording him all the support he needed? If we knew His love better we should be assured that we might count on Him for everything. And with a sense of this in our hearts how could we be legal? We should know that there could not arise any exigency or need in our path, there could be no weakness in ourselves which would not be an opportunity to prove how His love and power would support us. It is only as we are maintained in this assurance that we are kept free from legality. Believers say, “I got deliverance ten years ago”. My brother, have you walked in liberty of heart today? Have you been maintained in the consciousness of Christ’s love and support today? What is the good of deliverance if you are not maintained in the power of it? If you get in spirit dissociated from Christ, you will find that [p. 63] you are powerless for the will of God. And many a believer who has known something of deliverance has the present experience of one who cries, “O wretched man that I am!” Dissociated from Christ I am as helpless as ever.
It is in the company of Christ that we learn the will of God. The pleasure of God is fully set forth in Him, and as we are in His company we learn our obligations in the presence of love that we can count upon to support us. The legal believer has a greater sense of the divine claim than he has of divine support, and hence his life is an effort, and he is always more or less under a cloud, because he does not find himself equal to his obligations. The spiritual believer, on the other hand, has a greater sense of divine support than he has of the divine claim upon him, for he knows what it is to be married to Christ, he knows that he can count upon the all-sufficient support of Christ for everything that is the will of God. And thus he is kept in real liberty of heart.
If we get dissociated in spirit from Christ, the more we read the Scriptures, and the more intelligence we get as to the will of God, the more legal we shall become. I do not believe that God would have us to read His Word, if I may so say, apart from Christ. He would keep the Scriptures always connected in our hearts with Christ. A simple illustration may convey my meaning. I might read a letter written by a husband to his wife, and find much instruction and good counsel in it, but I am sure the wife to whom it was written would read it with a very different feeling. She would read it in the light of her husband’s love, and it would command her heart. This is how God would have us read the Scriptures. This would preserve us from legality, and it would also give living interest to the Word of God. It would all become to our hearts the expression of His loving thought and care for us. You could not be indifferent to the first epistle to the Corinthians, for instance, when you read, “The things that I write unto you are the commandments of the Lord” (1 Corinthians 14: 37).
[p. 64] You would not neglect the Revelation so much, perhaps, if you had weighed the fact that it is “the revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him, to shew unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass” (Revelation 1: 1). It is all put in touch with the One who loves us.
We have an illustration of what it is to be married to Christ in the case of Ruth. There was a kinsman who was willing to redeem Ruth’s inheritance, but he could not perform a husband’s part to Ruth. This is like the law — willing to take all it can get, but unable to render any support. Boaz, on the other hand, was able and willing to take Ruth, and to put the strong arm of his loving support round her. Christ is the true Boaz. There is an intense desire in the heart of Christ that we should know all that He can be for us in the way of strength and support, and in proportion as we enter into this we shall be here for Him. If He says to us, “Thou shalt abide for me”, He also says, “So will I also be for thee”. And the result would be that in liberty of heart we should “bring forth fruit unto God”, and we should be perfectly free from legality.
III. DELIVERANCE FROM THE FLESH.
We come now to the third part of our subject; that is, deliverance from the flesh. It is possible to make a distinction between “sin” and “the flesh”, because innocent Adam was in flesh without sin. The Lord Jesus, too, was in flesh without sin. But by the fall that terrible principle of evil, which had already manifested itself in the devil and other spiritual beings, came into connection with flesh, and flesh became “sinful” (Romans 8: 3). Sin has become characteristic of the state and condition in which we are found as Adam’s children in this world. Hence the expression “the flesh” is frequently used in Scripture to convey in one brief and striking term the thought of all that is morally connected with us as children of fallen Adam. Now the question is,
[p. 65] How can we be completely superior to it? We shall find from the chapter before us that the power of deliverance from the flesh lies in the Spirit of God.
The first verse of the chapter (Romans 8) is of the deepest importance, as indicating how alone the believer can be clear of condemnation. “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus”. It is not exactly here the condemnation of God that is in question, but condemnation in one’s own soul. The believer takes the ground with God of one who is in spirit completely apart from all the imperfection that attached to him as in the flesh. He recognizes that not one whit of the flesh will do for God, and that he can only be with God according to the state and acceptance of another Man, even Christ Jesus, in which state and acceptance there is no flaw, but the most complete suitability to the thoughts and love of God. So long as the believer is in his conscience “in the flesh” he is under the law, and therefore under a sense of condemnation.
Then from verse 3 we learn that the law was incapable of giving effect to the pleasure of God. “For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh”. The law could neither put the flesh right, nor remove it for the glory of God. The first was impossible, but the second has been accomplished in the death of Christ, and it is on this ground that the Spirit is given to believers. God has condemned sin in the flesh. The flesh is a condemned thing, and, as far as God is concerned, it has gone from His eye in judgment. Now the Spirit is given to set us on another line altogether, and to form us in an entirely new state. And as we are formed in that new state, we are necessarily delivered from what was characteristic of our old state. I can only now ask you briefly to consider three points in the chapter.
“That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us,
[p. 66] who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit, the things of the Spirit” (verses 4, 5). It must be apparent to all that tastes and motives which are formed by the Spirit are necessarily quite diverse from the tastes and motives of the flesh. Now I could not conceive such a thing as a Christian having the Spirit without having a wholly new set of tastes and motives. You see the proof of this in every good convert. He has acquired new tastes; he loves the Word of God, and prayer, and the company of the saints; and he abhors the things that formerly were his greatest gratification. The truth is, though he may know nothing of the doctrine of it, he is now walking according to the Spirit, and is maintained in superiority to the flesh.
The Christian, as such, is “according to the Spirit”. His desires, motives, and tastes are entirely new. He no longer “minds” the things of the flesh; they are no longer objects of desire or pursuit with him; but as he formerly minded those things so he now minds the things of the Spirit. If a man has a taste for horses, pictures, or music, he minds those things. He makes them his object; he seeks them; he goes where they are to be seen or heard; he is characterized by the things for which he has a taste. And, as a rule, a man of the world will make everything bend to the gratification of his tastes. Now those who are according to the Spirit mind “the things of the Spirit”. I suppose many here know what it is to come into an entirely new world of interests and affections, and in minding these new things to find the power and control of the old tastes completely broken. This is the way of deliverance from the flesh.
But it may be said that there are many who profess to be converted in whom these new tastes are very feeble, and for whose hearts the “things of the Spirit” do not seem to have much attraction. Well, this is very sad, but it is easy to account for it. It will be found that in the majority of such cases [p. 67] peace with God is not known, and what such souls need is the ministry of the Gospel of the Grace of God in power to their hearts. The truth is their hearts are not really won for God, and they are not in the enjoyment of His grace. Then, no doubt, there are many cases where the Spirit is so grieved and hindered that souls have hardly any of the good of His presence. If you are going on with the world, or there is a want of uprightness about you, your spiritual development will be greatly impeded. In such a case the Christian is not true to his colours; he is not true to his proper character; practically he is more “after the flesh” than “after the Spirit”, and this is not Christianity at all. He is one to whom it might well be said, “Now it is high time to awake out of sleep”.
It is of great importance to “mind” the things of the Spirit. If your spiritual tastes are feeble, it is probably because you cultivate them so little. I have heard believers complain that they had not much desire for the Word of God and prayer, and I have often found in such cases that story books and religious novels were being read with avidity. You will never make any headway until you break with this kind of thing. Minding the “things of the Spirit” will bring you into touch with your brethren, and you will find that there are many whose hearts are, through grace, after those things. And in this way we come into a new circle, outside everything that is of the flesh, where divine affections are found. We love the brethren; the saints become to us the excellent of the earth; and thus, in the exercise of those affections which are of the divine nature, we find deliverance from the flesh.
“But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you” (verse 9). Here we see how entirely new is Christian state. The Christian is “not in the flesh, but in the Spirit”. The fact that the Spirit of God dwells in him is the proof that, for God, the flesh is completely set aside. God could not recognize the flesh in any way, and the [p. 68] fact that His Spirit dwells in the believer is the sure evidence that according to God the believer is no longer “in the flesh”. This is the new state of the Christian; he is in the Spirit. According to his divine state the Spirit of God characterizes him and not the flesh. Practically he is formed in this new state as he walks according to the Spirit. As he cultivates and ministers to those tastes which are of the Spirit, they become increasingly characteristic of him. A taste may be feeble to begin with, but if it is cultivated it becomes characteristic. I am sure that the youngest believer in whom the Spirit dwells has divine tastes. There is affection for Christ and for His own in his heart, and at least some degree of desire after His things. It may be that, like the faculties of a child, these things are not much developed as yet; they need to be fed and cultivated; but these things constitute the elements, of your new state, and it is in the minding of these things that you will find practical deliverance from the flesh.
“Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh. For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live” (verses 12, 13). We are under no kind of obligation to the flesh; we recognize it as a condemned thing; and as we walk according to the Spirit in the exercise of spiritual tastes, and in the activity of divine affections, we are able by the Spirit to put to death the “deeds of the body”. Thus walking in love and holiness, we are maintained in superiority to all the evil that naturally attaches to us as children of Adam. “Through the Spirit” we are enabled to refuse the flesh, because our life and interests are in another order of things. In short, we have touched a circle of things where life is found, and we do not wish to return to that which is morally death. It is thus, as giving no quarter to the flesh, that we are found in the liberty of life. “For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. For [p. 69] ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father” (verses 14, 15). Instead of having his life in the circle of pride and self-gratification, where alone the flesh can move, the Christian lives in a circle of divine affections, and in the power and enjoyment of that which is truly life he is able to put to death the deeds of the body. And in this way he is practically delivered from the flesh.
In conclusion, it must be remembered that this three-fold cord of deliverance has to be woven together in the soul. Deliverance from sin, the law, and the flesh, are presented to us separately in these scriptures for our spiritual apprehension, but they are not so much three distinct things as three parts of one whole.
And it must also be remembered that deliverance is a thing which has to be maintained. The very nature of the thing in itself should make this evident, and yet some have spoken of deliverance as if it was something they got years ago, and had never needed to think about since. If I am worldly, or legal, or carnal today, of what good is it to say that I have deliverance? To do so is to turn a great spiritual reality into an empty word. It is only as we are maintained by the Spirit in dependence and divine affections that deliverance will be a present reality to us.