DEAD TO SIN

DEAD TO SIN

The grace of God sets us in Christ, in whom the old man was crucified that the body of sin might be destroyed, that we should not serve sin; and yet if we say we have no sin we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. To preserve these two statements intact and inviolate is the truth. If I am not dead before God in Christ, I am still alive in that which is sinful, and I have no peace; and if I say I have no sin I do not admit that I am that being who needed the blood of Christ. In order to be at peace with God I must see myself connected with Christ out of judgment, and that judged which exposed me to judgment. To every quickened soul, knowing through grace that Jesus is the propitiation for his sins, and having peace with God in the faith that God hath raised Jesus our Lord from the dead, the next thing is that I reign in life by one, Jesus Christ. I am a new being, with a new life in righteousness. Thus the side with God is all complete. There is propitiation through the blood of Jesus, there is righteousness through His resurrection, there is life, the result of the abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness, and now it only remains to be free from sin and to know that we are dead to it.

The apostle shows in Romans 6 that baptism expresses the death of Christ. It is declarative of the end of the first man in His death. And hence it would be inconsistent to faith to occupy any ground but that of resurrection, on which we walk in newness of life. There is no peace until we are first assured that we, through Christ risen, are on new ground in righteousness; and hence baptism professedly abrogates the old status in ^[p. 226] the death of Christ, as that which is positively without the title of life. Thus as to profession one cannot consistently resume what has been abrogated; and as to fact, the old man is crucified with Christ. That man was ended judicially in the cross of Christ, that for every one in Christ the body of sin might be destroyed, that we should not serve sin. In the cross the first man is crucified, and is thus extinct to every one who is in Christ. Baptism is the declaration of the extinction of the old in the death of Christ, and submission to the fact that Christ is now the Head of every man. It is not only that I have received through Christ the gift of righteousness by His righteousness, and the justification of life; but the man, as to the race, is crucified in the cross, in order that the body in which sin could be might be destroyed, that we should not serve sin. Thus there is first the positive side, that having received through Christ abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness, we reign in life; but also, the body of sin, through which all the sin came in, has been crucified in the cross; and baptism is the formal act of renunciation of the old man, in order to submit to Him who is now, for all who believe in Him, the justification of life. Thus I am assured in a twofold way; I have received on the one hand everything to fit me for God, and on the other hand I have been freed from everything in which sin could find a place. I have been crucified with Christ, that the body of sin might be destroyed. I am in the vigour of a justified life on the one side, and I am freed from the body of sin on the other, for he that is dead is freed from sin; and as thus dead before God through the cross, the Spirit of God asserts His claim over the members of the body, so that they have no right now to serve sin. I am through grace set in Christ in newness of life, and in the crucifixion of the old man, and hence the one single duty now is to live unto God. Nothing hinders; the Spirit has full liberty. Now, being made free from sin, you ^[p. 227] are servants to God, you have your fruit unto holiness; finally, everlasting life. Here there is holiness, not because I am dying to sin, but because through the grace of God I am in newness of life; and in Christ I am in One who had died unto sin, and who now liveth unto God; and therefore, whichever way I look, whether it be the life conferred through the righteousness of One, or the exemption from the body of sin through the crucifixion of Christ, now living unto God, the fruit is holiness, as touching my position in Christ, and on God’s side.

But besides this and because of this — that is, because I am in this new position, this place of liberty before God in Christ — I am led by the Spirit of God, by whom I live, to walk in Him, and as I do so, I do not fulfil the lusts of the flesh, though they are still there. If they were not, where would be the virtue of not fulfilling them, or where would be that great manifestation of grace which is exemplified in every devoted saint, even that in the same nature in which he dishonoured God, he is now empowered by the Spirit of God in a new nature to answer to the mind of God? I have to mortify my members which are on the earth, but this is not to attain to death. Then death would be a work here in me, and not done for me; and the rest of soul which I can only have because that is dead wherein I was held, would be dependent on my own progress in self-mortification, instead of, as the Scriptures set forth, the fact that I am dead with Christ, and He is my hope; and therefore I am to put to death the members on earth still in existence as to themselves, and as this progresses there is sanctification. Sanctification does not proceed or arise from an improvement in the members, but from a greater subjugation of them in death-like powerlessness; for it is the simple duty now that all the members of the flesh should be in a death-state, for we have put off the old man, and have put on the new, which is renewed in knowledge after ^[p. 228] the image of Him who hath created him. But this is not to attain to a state of death, but because I am dead before God in Christ, that I may practically carry out my true standing in my walk and course here, while still in the body, so that the state may be in accordance with the standing. For the conscience will be wounded if the conduct of the individual tallies not with the faith which, if simple, is in keeping with the calling of God.

Thus there are two ways in which I am dead to sin, and there is a great difference between the two. In the one, I am really and perfectly so, in the mind of God, in the cross of Christ; in the other, I, through the Spirit, do mortify the deeds of the body; for I am in the Spirit, I do not fulfil the lusts of the flesh. But this is always partial work, even though I have a pure conscience, because God is greater than my heart and knows all things; and though I might, through the Spirit, be quite master of the flesh one moment, who can tell what may arise to excite it? And if it can be excited, then, though suppressed, it is not really defunct. The more I enjoy in my spirit the new state, the more do I deny that which would represent me in a character quite opposed to it, and hence there is an avoidance of everything which would minister to the flesh, not because I expect to expel sin from it; but because, being free from it, I would no longer be enslaved by it.

I am no debtor to the flesh, and I prove my freedom by not yielding to it, not in expecting its extinction — for then there would cease to be anything to repel or to act against — but I keep my body under and bring it into subjection, afraid to give the flesh a place, knowing that this kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting, for there is no keeping out Satan if the flesh is suffered. Now here comes in the exhortation of 1 Peter 4: 1, “Arm yourselves ... with the same mind [the death of Christ]: for he that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin” — the practical bearing in the body of ^[p. 229] the death of Christ, that the life of Jesus may be manifested in the body. There is no clear apprehension of the grace of God unless, on God’s side, I am dead with Christ; and as I see this I walk in the Spirit, in order to make true in the body here what is true to me by faith in Christ. And as this progresses, there is more control over the old man, and sanctification increases. Nothing can be more marvellous than to see the life of Jesus manifested in the man here on earth through whom sin came in. That is, that the one through whom sin came in should now, through grace, not only be dead to sin in Christ, but by the power of God’s Spirit should be enabled to set forth the life of Jesus in that very body where sin entered, and thus to perfect holiness in the fear of God.