JUDGMENT (3)
[p. 294] JUDGMENT (3)
Romans 5: 12 - 21; Romans 6: 1 - 11; Romans 7: 7 - 25
JTJr It is important to take account of the note to Romans 5: 12, for it shows the epistle is divided at this point. Sin is now in view as distinguished from sins. What is before us in these three chapters, in regard to our subject, is sin and death. These run together. Death is the penalty for sin, so that chapter 5 is to bring home to us the reason for death being here, and that it reigned. But now, Christ having come, grace reigns through Him, as it says, and it is through righteousness. Death is present in the world and we are to know why it is. The three chapters from which we have read give us much more than these things, but in regard to our subject, which is judgment, we may see, in them, the force of death.
AI What is the thought of death reigning from Adam down to Moses?
JTJr It says that it reigned even upon those who had not sinned in the likeness of Adam’s transgression; that is, death reigned because sin had come in through one man; it did not make any difference who it was, everybody in the world died because of sin having come in. All must die. That is the force of the truth beginning with verse 12. Death passed upon all men, which is a most solemn consideration, for not only did Adam sin, but all have sinned. It is a great and extensive thought.
CAM One very deep meaning of the death of Christ is that He brought an end to the condition of sinful man — a history, as far as we were concerned, that was sinful. Christ brought it to an end before God, in His vicarious death.
AR It says, in 2 Corinthians 5, that Christ was “made sin for us”. It is not sins there, but sin. Does that bear on what you [p. 295] are saying?
JTJr Well; I think it does. Romans 3 deals particularly with the question of sins; that is, the individual acts of persons, but what we have from chapter 5: 12 on does not contemplate sins, but the fact that sin is in everyone — it is in the flesh, and as you were saying, Christ was made sin. He was made that. His flesh, of course, was infinitely holy, but He was made sin; that is, at the cross He was made what we are.
CAM So that this is a different thought from the forgiveness of our sins. Man is brought to an end in death.
JTJr Yes; it is good to see that difference. It is not a question, at this point, of remission, or forgiveness, but of the actual end of the condition; that is, the death of Christ is the judicial end of the sinful condition of man.
DP Would the latter part of Hebrews 9 bear on what you are saying? It says there that it is the portion of man once to die, and after death the judgment.
JTJr “The portion of men once to die” would fit in here. That truth is dealt with here; all men must die. Death has passed upon all men. It does not take up the question of the judgment after death here, exactly. It says, in verse 9, that we shall be saved by Him from wrath, which is the future judgment.
ANW It is rather interesting to see that the Spirit, through the apostle, should add, in verse 12, “... and thus death passed upon all men”. That might not seem easy to accept, but the further statement, “... for all have sinned”, brings in the sin question to justify the passing of death upon all men.
JTJr Yes; that is, all have sinned; but the principle is that sin, being in the flesh, there is a state that requires death. The penalty of death is therefore what we should consider in this chapter — that we die because of sin.
FHL So that the link with our subject is that it is a moral necessity that we stand with God in [p. 296] this judgment of the matter. Death must follow the incoming of sin.
JTJr Well, quite so; so that we begin to see, in a practical way, the working out of the meaning of death. The teaching that we get in these three chapters is, therefore, very important. In this chapter, death comes upon us because of Adam’s sin. The race has been plunged into this awful condition through one man; so that we cannot help ourselves.
JAP Seth, in calling his son Enosh, arrived at this.
JTJr The meaning of his name is ‘mortal man’. He is subject to death.
JAP In Genesis 5 they all died except Enoch.
ANW The pronouncement is, “In the day that thou eatest of it thou shalt certainly die”, Genesis 2: 17.
TEH The Lord, by the grace of God, tasted death for every thing, according to Hebrews 2. Does that relate to reconciliation?
JTJr Reconciliation in Romans 5 relates to the believer; we have been reconciled, and we have received the reconciliation. But in Colossians 1: 20, “all things” are to be reconciled. But to get hold of what you have in mind, it is well to refer to Hebrews 2: 9. Jesus “was made some little inferior to angels on account of the suffering of death ... so that by the grace of God he should taste death for every thing”, or, as the footnote says, “or every one”. I suppose that is the infinite extent of the Lord’s going into death — that He should taste death for every thing. The Lord Jesus took part in blood and flesh “that through death he might annul him who has the might of death, that is, the devil; and might set free all those who through fear of death through the whole of their life were subject to bondage”. That gives us an added link with this chapter, in that we are set free. That is what these chapters are to bring out for the believer; that he is set free and that [p. 297] he is reconciled and the reconciliation is through our Lord Jesus Christ.
ABP Would you distinguish between death reigning in verse 14 and sin reigning in the power of death in verse 21?
JTJr I think both thoughts run together. Sin and death run together. The force of verse 14 is that death reigned. That is the pre-eminence of death and it has passed upon all men because of Adam’s sin. And so sin has reigned in the power of death; they are both linked together; death has passed upon all men, for all have sinned.
ABP I wondered if “from Adam to Moses” might be governed by death as the penalty on Adam and his race, but when the law was brought in, sin came into greater prominence by means of the law, and sin reigning in the power of death might refer more distinctly to the period from Moses on.
JTJr I think the law coming in brought out sin in a fuller way, as it says, according to chapter 7, sin became exceeding sinful.
ABP The apostle said, “The commandment having come, sin revived, but I died. And the commandment, which was for life, was found ... unto death: for sin, getting a point of attack by the commandment, deceived me, and by it slew me”, Romans 7: 9 - 11.
JTJr Yes; the law coming in demonstrated in the fullest way what sin was.
AI Does this chapter view sin as an offence?
JTJr Well, it is more the state that is in mind; that is, sin coming into the world by one man and affecting the race. I think the footnote to verse 12 should be considered by us. It points out that the epistle divides at this point. It is not a question of sins, but the doctrine of sin from this point on — sin in the flesh. What is really before us now is man’s state, not his conduct. His conduct has been dealt with up to this point and justification has been brought in [p. 298] in chapter 4, which is amplified up to verse 11 of chapter 5, including the great thought of the Spirit; that the love of God has come into the believer’s heart by the Spirit and that is the great result of man’s sins being washed away. But now it treats of man. It is the same person, but it is the condition that he is in; that is, sinful flesh.
CAM I think that distinction is a most important one. There is a large section of the religious world which has the idea that a man is going to be judged for what is called original sin. The thing is not according to Scripture, for persons are going to be judged for what they have done. Such error excludes the blessedness of this wonderful verse: “much rather has the grace of God, and the free gift in grace, which is by the one man Jesus Christ, abounded unto the many”, verse 15.
JTJr The final thought in the chapter is that grace reigns, and it reigns in regard to us in this condition of flesh and blood; for where sin abounded grace has overabounded, and by the obedience of One the many will be constituted righteous.
GBL Would you say a word as to death as mentioned in 1 Corinthians 11? Many had fallen asleep at Corinth.
JTJr It is death, only it is called falling asleep to bring out that the persons involved were believers. It was God’s discipline.
ANW The Lord makes an interesting distinction: when speaking of infants, or little children (Matthew 18: 11), He says that the Son of man came to save that which is lost, but when He is speaking in regard of adults (Luke 19: 10), He says that the Son of man came to seek and save that which is lost. Both are lost because of Adam’s sin, though one, in one sense, is not responsible; and yet the death of Christ covers it.
JTJr The teaching of death is an important part [p. 299] of our education, and requires that we examine into what God has in mind in it. Death came in by sin, but then God is able to use death for our instruction.
FNW Is the burnt-offering before us from verse 12 of chapter 5, and prior to this would it be the sin-offering?
JTJr The burnt-offering was there before the sin-offering, for Christ came to do the will of God, but Christ’s obedience is stressed in the latter part of chapter 5, which would be the burnt-offering. Christ’s obedience in death constitutes us righteous, in contrast to Adam’s disobedience, which constitutes us all sinners and subject to death.
FNW The will of God required that Jesus should go into death. He was obedient unto death and the fragrance was there as He offered up Himself without spot to God.
JTJr Quite so; so that, as we were saying, it is not the forgiveness of sins that is in mind from here on, but the state of the race.
AMacD How far do you think Abel’s sacrifice would go in that respect?
JTJr We have an account of Abel’s sacrifice in Hebrews 11: 4: “By faith Abel offered to God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained testimony of being righteous, God bearing testimony to his gifts, and by it, having died, he yet speaks”. A remarkable line of thought comes in there, because the sacrifice of Abel was by death. He took account of death and presented that sacrifice and then he died; he died himself, and that through violence. There is a suggestive line of things in regard to Abel that would help us in what is before us. Abel died, and while his was actual death, his spirit was according to the Spirit of Christ, in that there is no evidence that he resisted.
AR It says, in chapter 6, that we have been baptised unto Christ’s death. Baptism is brought in [p. 300] quickly. Does it help us to realise the importance of dying. We should all be prepared to die.
JTJr Well, it is the only means of arriving at life, and life is what is in mind over against sin and death. It is righteousness and life, and these two thoughts are over against the whole system of condemnation.
CN So that the Lord Jesus, having died, brings in righteousness and life, and the believer through the death of Jesus becomes righteous and comes into the system of life, over against sin and death, out of which he has passed.
JTJr I think that is the thought, and as we proceed in the instruction we shall see that, as associated with Christ in His death, we come up here, not as yet raised with Him, for that is not the point here in chapter 6. We shall be identified with Him in the likeness of His resurrection, but we are in the place where we have sinned, and in that sense in the presence of the things in which we had been living, but now in an entirely different way — “newness of life”.
CN So then there is no excuse for the manifestation of the works of the flesh or sin in us.
JTJr We must humbly acknowledge that we come short. We may have entered into the truth of what Christ has done for us in removing our sins, but we are slow to enter into the truth that we, ourselves, have to die. The sinful condition has to be ended morally in ourselves. That is where we are liable to come short in the things of God.
JHE The apostle says, “I am crucified with Christ, and no longer live, I, but Christ lives in me; but in that I now live in flesh, I live by faith, the faith of the Son of God, who has loved me and given himself for me”, Galatians 2: 20. He was in the full gain of this, was he not?
JTJr Yes; it was a present thing with Paul, for he says, “I am crucified with Christ”.
ETP Is the fact that the apostle uses the personal [p. 301] pronoun in chapter 7 indicative that the thing must be gone through personally by each of us?
JTJr As we come to the truth in that chapter, it is the question of working it out in ourselves. It is the meaning of sin and death as it is in ourselves, but the point in chapter 5 is that we are constituted righteous through the death of Christ — through His obedience. We come into this system of things because of Him, and He gives character to it. As Adam gave character to the whole sinful race, so the Lord Jesus now gives character to a new race which is after Himself.
CN So that if sin reigned in the power of death, now grace reigns through righteousness unto eternal life. That is the present position for the believer.
JTJr Quite so, therefore it is grace; it is God’s disposition, we might say, in regard to this present order of things in which we now have part. Grace is reigning through righteousness unto eternal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Eternal life is reached on that line through grace. The act of favour of God, which is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord, is over against the penalty — death as the wages of sin. So that we see these two lines, the one ending in eternal life and the other in death.
WFK Do we see the judicial righteousness of God in removing sin and death by the one Man, Jesus Christ?
JTJr We have in verse 16, that the judgment was of one to condemnation, and that is our subject — the judgment. The judgment was of one to condemnation, and that is to Adam’s race and therefore we are in that. We have to understand that in Adam the judgment was of one to condemnation. That is a sweeping statement of the matter. It suggests much to think about in regard to the whole race.
TEH It is remarkable that death should become an instrument to help us in the appreciation of the truth.
[p. 302] Finally, both death and hades shall be cast into the lake of fire.
JTJr When God is finished with it. He will discard it. So that even death can be used of God for our blessing to bring us more fully into the truth. The end of verse 16 shows that over against the judgment there is the act of favour, and it says the act of favour is unto justification. The meaning of that word justification is ‘subsisting righteousness’, according to the footnote in the better translation: ‘It is the accomplished subsisting righteousness answering to the one offence’. That truth is reached through the work of Christ.
AI Would John not help us when he says that we know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren?
JTJr Well, quite so, only, I suppose, he has in mind a sphere where death is dominant; we have passed from that sphere into life.
FHL Would you say a few words in connection with death itself; the original judgment was the article of death, but is it not introduced here as the moral thought?
JTJr There is an end to life here. God did not allow man to live on when he sinned. He guarded the way to the tree of life, that they should not partake of the tree of life and live for ever. He did not allow a man to live for a thousand years. God could keep a man alive if He wanted to. But death has come in because of sin. We have to learn that death is in the world because of sin.
SM What would you say about the end of all flesh coming before God?
JTJr That would show the place the flood had in God’s mind. It meant the removal of the whole system, and so the death of Christ, in that way as before God, removes the whole system of man. I think it is right to connect that with our scripture [p. 303] today.
AR It is a question also of our facing dissolution now. Every one of us is carrying about a body that will die or be changed.
JTJr That is right; and the moral teaching proceeds out of that. It proceeds out of the fact that Christ has died, and that being understood, it applies to us because of sin, for He died vicariously.
AR We should all be prepared to die, and when we reach that, then work out our whole moral position from that point of view.
JTJr We need to face the reality of death. As a penalty, the wages of sin is death. We often use that expression in the gospel and it is right, for it is God’s determination of things.
GBL We may take this matter too lightly. Would you say a word as to death reigning, and then of sin reigning in the power of death?
JTJr We have spoken of that; but I suppose the reign of sin and death goes on constantly in the world. Death comes into every place; it does not matter where it is, nor who it is. The meaning of this chapter is that death is having sway. But then, in the midst of it all, we have this wonderful truth that Christ has come out of death, for death could not hold Him. The blessing lies at the end of this chapter. Grace reigns through righteousness. That is the present order of things. On the one hand, death is reigning. The cemeteries are a proof of that; on the other hand grace reigns, and our souls are brought into positive blessing through faith, by the Spirit.
CAM In this part of the Scripture God is stating truths for our acceptance, that we might enter into them in our souls. But would it not be safe to say that the impression that is left upon the soul is that God is for us in the midst of all these things?
JTJr Yes, in the midst of this scene of death, [p. 304] grace reigns.
WAT Jehovah made Adam and his wife coats of skin. God came in and clothed them through death.
JTJr The bearing of the truth here is that it is through Christ’s death. He has come through death and God can now clothe us.
CN So that it helps to magnify and make glorious to us the death of Jesus. Not only did He atone for our sins, but He has removed the barrier of death out of the way and has brought us into life.
JTJr Quite so; so that it is not a question of the blood in this section of the chapter, but of Christ’s death. As you say, it is the removal of the man. Christ having been made sin vicariously.
DP Does our committal in baptism have a bearing on what we are now considering?
JTJr In chapter 6 the truth of baptism is brought forward, but it is based on the truth of chapter 5 which we should first get hold of in order to get clear in our minds as to the change over from Adam to Christ.
AR Chapter 5 brings in the new Head, does it not?
JTJr Yes, based on “the obedience of the one”, I think; we were speaking about the burnt-offering and that is in mind here. It is the will of God carried out through the obedience of one Man, and it is over against the disobedience of Adam, which marks every one of us, for we are all disobedient, especially those of us who are younger. But the thing is to see that we change our man. God has judicially ended the man after the flesh and we should come to that conclusion ourselves.
JAP It is interesting to see how Satan acted immediately to divert Him when the Lord Jesus said that He must be killed. Peter says, “God be favourable to thee, Lord”.
Rem Death, as we are speaking of it, becomes teaching for us, and as we learn what it means, God would bring us into life.
JTJr [p. 305] That is right, it is a question of teaching. That is a good way to put it. Enoch’s name means discipline, involving teaching; and that is how this chapter begins. We boast in tribulation. The teaching of death involves tribulation for us.
ABP Moses, as he views the brevity of life, says, “So teach us to number our days, that we may acquire a wise heart”. That fits into our subject.
JTJr Quite so; it really requires a wise heart, for the Holy Spirit is in view as in our hearts, for it says that the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit which has been given to us. Grace is on the throne and it is reigning in regard to all our tribulation. We need grace and we get it from the throne of grace.
AR In chapter 6 it says that they obeyed from the heart the form of teaching delivered unto them.
JTJr Yes; they were beginning to correspond to Christ’s place here in obedience.
TEH Prior to that verse in chapter 6 the Romans were said to be bondmen of sin, and then there is the “form of teaching”, as though we need teaching when it comes to the matter of life and grace and favour.
JTJr That is just the point; we need to be taught.
ANW Chapter 6: 3 says, “Are you ignorant that we, as many as have been baptised unto Christ Jesus, have been baptised unto his death?” He asks this of those who had died to sin and he is raising the question for all of us. I thought the teaching comes in in that connection.
JTJr I think the reference to teaching is important because we may think that we need very little. It is remarkable how casual we are about these things.
FNW Is it a result of the teaching, that the order of man set out in “the one Jesus Christ” becomes attractive to us, and we are helped to accept the judgment of death on the [p. 306] first man?
JTJr You will come to see that you are of His order. We are of His order, not in an absolute sense, for that awaits the actual change of our bodies. But we are of His order for we are constituted righteous. Our weakness comes out in that we fail so much, but it is well to keep the truth before us.
ABP Death being a very sobering matter to contemplate, the Spirit seems to bring in the glory in the wilderness to attract us. After the acceptance of death in verse 4, the glory is brought in, “that, even as Christ was raised up from among the dead by the glory of the Father, so we also should walk in newness of life”. It is the attractive side of the position, is it not?
JTJr Quite so. We are not raised with Christ here, but we are to walk in newness of life, because it has in mind that the believer is still here in the presence of sin in its various features in the world system. We are here now in a different way and our desire is to be done with sin.
DP The gospel brings the glad tidings to us, that God has dealt with the sin question and, in the death of Christ has set the first man aside. But do you not think that the counterpart of this should be in ourselves, and that the Spirit would maintain us in that judgment now?
JTJr I am sure that is so. But we need this light in our souls to work the matter out. Grace is reigning in view of our present circumstances. It is in view of a people that is left here in the presence of the power of the devil; grace is available to meet every matter that comes up, and that is what these chapters teach us.
SM It says, “where sin abounded, grace has overabounded”.
JTJr Grace is over against the judgment and the darkness that is on unbelievers. This world has many that are going on to death and darkness, for sin is reigning, but over against that we have grace [p. 307] which,
for the believer, reigns through righteousness unto eternal life.
AR In chapter 5: 17 it speaks of “the abundance of grace”.
JTJr That gives us a sense of the wealth of christianity.
ANW It is not merely the regaining of what has been lost. Milton’s ‘Paradise Regained’ is not sufficient. It is far more than what was lost through Adam’s sin. There is the one offence towards all men to condemnation, but then the one righteousness towards all men for justification of life, which is a very large term. Then also there is the free gift of righteousness, reigning in life by the one Jesus Christ. Those words “much rather”, in verse 17, are indicative of the much more that has been gained than was lost.
JTJr Therefore, if we get a clear view of the gain of the system of grace over against the loss of the system of judgment, it will greatly help us.
EAL Is it the truth of God’s faithfulness to men?
JTJr Well, death having come in. God uses it — you might say that He rolls it in upon us in order to teach us.
TEH In preaching the gospel we may be imbued with the desire that souls should be convicted and have their sins forgiven. But God, having sent His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, and having condemned all that we are as in the flesh, we should be able to go further than forgiveness of sins.
JTJr We should have the idea of the completeness of the gospel preaching. We should have complete thoughts. The Spirit of God would help us to be full in the presentation of things, so that what we say would help us to arrive at something positive in the preaching. The presentation of the glad tidings should cause us to arrive at complete thoughts.
AMacD Philip’s preaching to the eunuch helped him to see the need for baptism.
JTJr Quite so, in that sense it was a full preaching. That shows, I think, how to present things in such wise that a given point is reached, so that people go on their way rejoicing.
CFE Although death is brought in for our help. God does not leave us there; He has brought in life, has He not?
JTJr Quite so; if we just had death to look forward to how dismal we would be!
WAT Would you say more of what is in mind in regard to the completeness of the gospel?
JTJr Well, I think what has been referred to implies that the Spirit of God would bring us on to the full thought of what is in God’s mind, even in the short space of time in our preachings. It involves that we preach not only that sins are put away, but that the man that sinned has been put away also. It involves baptism.
FSC Is it not beautiful to see that the glory of the Father is brought in here in relation to the glad tidings?
JTJr Yes, it is a great encouragement. So that death is our way out. We learn to take on death as something that is in God’s hands to instruct us, and it is a means to bring us to Christ; whether the actual article of death, or its moral aspect, it brings us to Christ. Grace reigns “through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord”. Eternal life is the terminus on that line. At the Supper we experience the reality of this; that is, an order of things where death has no sway.
DP Would 1 Corinthians 15: 3 be a full gospel? “Christ died for our sins, according to the scriptures; and that he was buried; and that he was raised the third day, according to the scriptures”.
JTJr Quite so, and then the appearings of the Lord to Cephas; the twelve; the five hundred; to James; and then to all the apostles, and finally to Paul. He appeared to them during the forty days, and we know to Paul after He ascended. Also, Peter’s preaching brought out that the Lord had ascended into heaven. His was a full presentation, too.
ABP Israel’s crossing of the Red Sea brought them into the wilderness through the acceptance of death. Then, when the manna was given the glory was seen as the people looked toward the wilderness. Is that not suggested here? There is baptism unto Christ’s death and then the glory of the Father.
JTJr The type of the Red Sea would fit in here. It was a barrier on their way out of Egypt, but God made a way through and then the waters came back again. God uses death in that two-fold way; first for our going out of the world, and then to keep us from going back into it. It should be a help to our younger brethren, especially, to see that the death of Christ affords a barrier to keep us from going back into the world.
AEW The teaching of the serpent to Eve was to disregard death. He said, “Ye will not certainly die”. But teaching according to God would enable us to judge everything rightly, through accepting death.
JTJr Yes; and now death is in the Lord’s hand and He uses it to protect us. “As many as have been baptised unto Christ Jesus, have been baptised unto his death”. We become identified with Him in the likeness of His death. And the truth of this needs to be learned and the Lord is teaching us and we begin to see that death becomes a lesson-book for us.
AR It says that both Philip and the eunuch went down together into the water. The convert and the preacher both went down into the water. Is that important as an example to those [p. 310] who preach?
JTJr Well, I am sure we need instruction in regard to preaching, that the gospel be rightly preached, as the apostle says, Woe is me if I preach not the gospel. He meant that the full thoughts of God should come out in what is said.
BT Would what the Lord says in John 6 apply here? It says, “He that eats my flesh and drinks my blood dwells in me and I in him”, verse 56.
JTJr It is a question of food in that passage, and we need to see where that would come in. It is food for eternal life. He also speaks of Himself as the “bread of God” coming down out of heaven to give life to the world. It is a question of the kind of food that brings in life. I suppose it has in mind that we are to appropriate the death of Christ.
CN Would it be right to say that Romans 5 is the Red Sea and chapter 6 would include the Jordan?
JTJr I do not know that we can go as far as the Jordan in this chapter.
ANW We have to wait for Colossians for that.
JTJr I think the teaching is that Christ is completely and absolutely out of death. “For in that he has died, he has died to sin once for all; but in that he lives, he lives to God”, verse 10. He is entirely out of death. We are here in the same bodies in which we sinned, but we are to walk in newness of life.
WAT Chapter 6 is a chapter of deliverance; our old man has been crucified and we are no longer to serve sin.
JTJr It is persons who are in the same flesh and blood condition, and in the sphere where the sin is, but they are not answering to it.
TNW Would the type of the brazen serpent be a picture for us of this section?
JTJr That would be seen in chapter 8.
ABP Is not “newness of life” displayed in the wilderness? And is not the Red Sea a type of Christ [p. 311] having died to sin? And we are identified with that through baptism in this chapter?
JTJr That is what I thought. The death of Christ is typified in the Jordan also, but the teaching here, I think, is the Red Sea. It is Christ as having died to sin. Of course, He never had anything to do with it in Himself, but He was made sin for us at the cross. And He was here in flesh and blood conditions, but now He is absolutely out of these conditions. He is in heaven.
CAM We really have to go on to chapter 8 to come to the end of the wilderness journey.
JTJr Chapter 6 is where the sin system is still in operation, but the believer is delivered from it through baptism. It refers to our everyday life where the power of sin is; where the whole sin system is in vogue. Christ is out of that absolutely — but we are not out of it absolutely. We are out of it through faith, and living here in newness of life. The believer is thus able to take up his life down here and live in a new way — no longer a sinner but living as an obedient person.
JC “Neither yield your members instruments of unrighteousness to sin”, verse 13.
JTJr The question is, therefore, what are we doing? What are we doing with our members? Are we walking in newness of life before God or are we going on in sin?
AR Does Caleb, in the wilderness, suggest a man walking in newness of life? God says of him, after he came back from spying out the land, that he was a man of another spirit. Does that suggest newness of life?
JTJr He demonstrated that all the way through the wilderness. He and Joshua were the only ones from twenty years old and upwards who left Egypt and got into the land.
TEH The people are said to have been baptised [p. 312] unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea. Would the cloud protect us from going back into the system where sin reigns?
JTJr The cloud afforded them protection as it went from before them and stood behind them as they went through the sea. Going through the sea was an actual experience, but the cloud was objective, it is what they looked at. Then the cloud rested on the tabernacle and when it lifted they journeyed and when it rested they encamped. The cloud would represent how God leads His people, and it would be through ministry that we are led.
JAP Why is it ‘buried’ with him in baptism?
JTJr It is completion of the matter. “Buried therefore with him”. The ‘with’ is that we are with Him in it. It is the final thing. We have quoted from 1 Corinthians 15, how that Christ was buried. The matter ends there; the old man is finished there. It says, “our old man has been crucified with him, that the body of sin might be annulled”. It is the body of sin that is annulled here; that is, the whole sin system in man is annulled through death, that we should no longer serve sin. Burial is the end of it.
CN So in chapter 6: 18 it says, “Now, having got your freedom from sin, ye have become bondmen to righteousness”. And then, the exhortation in verse 19: “For even as ye have yielded your members in bondage to uncleanness and to lawlessness unto lawlessness, so now yield your members in bondage to righteousness unto holiness”.
JTJr It is a wonderful end in view on this line, because the service of God depends on it. If we are to have fruit it is on this line. It says, “yield your members in bondage to righteousness unto holiness”, and, in verse 22, “ye have your fruit unto holiness”. We have fruit; the fruit is for us in this chapter. Each believer gets fruit for himself. In the next chapter it is fruit to God.
[p. 313] Instead of a world under judgment and the whole system of things here from which God is getting nothing and with which He has to deal judicially ere long. He has a people who are moving on this line. He has a people who come up on the first day of the week having something to offer Him.
Rem It is “fruit unto holiness, and the end eternal life”.
JTJr You have the idea of a terminus in this chapter. “The wages of sin is death”, that refers to the whole sin position down here. If you are on that line, the end of it is death. But over against that we have, “the act of favour of God, eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord”.
ABP Would eternal life, the end in view, be the land of promise?
JTJr I think so. Eternal life is viewed objectively here. It is something you arrive at through a certain process.
ANW Do we know enough about being bondmen to God? Fruit unto holiness is acquired by being bondmen to God. “Having got your freedom from sin, and having become bondmen to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end eternal life”, verse 22.
JTJr I am sure that the experimental side in chapter 6 is what the Lord would help us in now.
FHL It follows the thought of being dead to sin and alive to God. That climaxed a great deal of what you have been saying.
JTJr Quite so. Christ is outside of the sphere of sin, having died to sin. He lives to God. You might say that we progress on that line. Christ is living to God, and we want to do that. But we want to live to God down here where He has left us. He could take us up to heaven, but instead of that He leaves us here to prove how we can be superior to sin.
[p. 314] JAP Joshua and Caleb had the fruits of the land in the wilderness.
JTJr That was what they brought back. It was a testimony to what was there and perhaps it links on, in a way, with what we are saying because it is like the knowledge we have of where Christ is. We begin to see where He is, and that He lives to God. He is a great attraction to us as thus we begin to live to God in Him.
WAT “Yield your members in bondage to righteousness unto holiness”. That is a specific action; something that we have to do.
JTJr He is alive from among the dead. And death, in that way, brings about a result in the saints. We begin to see people who are alive from among the things in the world. We begin to see people who have freedom from that order of things and have begun to live.
AI Have you in mind that Christ is in heaven and chapter 6 is aiming at moral correspondence with Him here?
JTJr We are down here. He has been raised up by the glory of the Father, but the teaching does not go further than our position down here where the responsibilities are.
ETP Does Noah’s burnt-offering after the flood bring in what is to be for God on the other side of death?
JTJr I suppose it was intelligence in Noah that led him to take up public worship. The flesh was the same after the flood as it was before. The flood had not changed the flesh. And so our flesh is the same. It is a question of the truth working in us to enable us to walk in newness of life. It is the same condition of flesh and blood in which we sinned, in which we are now to serve God.