ROMANS 6
It is of the greatest importance that all who believe on the Lord Jesus Christ should take up the truth of this chapter, not merely as a matter of doctrine, but as taught of God to know it in moral reality, Nothing could be more serious or practical than the raising of the question, “Should we continue in sin that grace may abound?” Paul had been speaking of the over-abounding of grace where sin abounded, and that might suggest to a carnal mind that if we continued in sin grace will go on abounding, But he meets this by stating at once in the most definite way the relation in which the believer stands to sin: “We who have died to sin, how shall we still live in it?” He does not pause to explain how it came about, but he assumes as an undeniable fact that “we” — believers — have died to sin. This is, indeed, the only relation to sin which can be contemplated for God’s called ones who live in relation to Him as justified, and who, as having received the abundance of grace, and of the free gift of righteousness, reign in life by the One Jesus Christ. Such persons “have died to sin”. This is not reached on the line of demand, for I do not think you will find that it is ever enjoined upon us that we ought to die to sin. It is grace that brings us to it under the influence of Christ.
The “faith of Jesus Christ” has brought One into [p. 103] the vision of our souls who ever did God’s will and not His own. He came into the world into which sin had entered — that deadly principle of the creature being insubject to God, and doing its own will — and He came into it, and went through it, and went out of it, entirely on the principle of obedience. In Christ we have learned One infinitely greater than Adam, and the principles of obedience and righteousness which He has brought in are greater than the principles of lawlessness which entered by Adam. The principles of obedience and righteousness have been introduced, as we have seen in chapter 5, in pure divine grace, so that as having the faith of Jesus Christ we might live before God as justified persons and reign in life by Him. Grace has introduced a new and divine Head, so that as coming under the influence of His obedience we might be constituted righteous. All turns upon Christ having become to us “fairer than the sons of men”.
The principles of righteousness and obedience are foreign to us as children of Adam, but we have learned them in Christ, not merely in their intrinsic moral perfection, but as the way by which justification, peace, salvation, and every blessing have come to us through the great favour of God. This makes these great principles, as known and valued in their perfection in Christ, very powerful and influential in our hearts.
Philip announced the glad tidings of Jesus to the eunuch, that He had come vicariously into the place of the lawless man, and had glorified God in bearing the judgment due to that man and his sins, and that His life had been taken from the earth. The effect upon the eunuch was that he wanted to be baptised.
[p. 104] If all blessing had come through the death of Jesus he would be henceforth publicly identified with that death, and with the One whose life had been taken from the earth. He could no longer live on the principle that has entered into and dominates the world; he would be at once and for ever severed from it by baptism unto death.
The principle that has come in by God’s One Man, and through which all our blessing has come, is of such a character that it cannot possibly go along with the principle that came in by Adam. To live on the one principle means death to the other. A man cannot be a loyal subject and a rebel at one and the same time. The whole truth of this epistle is dependent for its application on “obedience of faith”. (See chapter 1: 5; chapter 16: 26.) But this means complete moral severance from that principle of lawlessness which came in by Adam. I can have no blessing or life in relation to God save on the principle of obedience, but this involves death to sin. It has been truly said that we need life in order to be able to die. It would be impossible if there were not power in the believer. Hence the importance of chapter 5 as bringing in the wealth of Christ and the gift of the Spirit. The believer in the gain of chapter 5 is sitting under the shadow of Christ with rapture, and finding His fruit sweet. He is baptised in the cloud as under the blessed favour of God, and the Holy Spirit is in his heart shedding the love of God abroad there. There is power in the believer through his vital connection with Christ which enables him to die to sin, so that it is true of Christians, as such, that they “have died to sin”. Chapter 6 answers to being baptised in the sea, as chapter 5 [p. 105] answers to being under the cloud (see 1 Corinthians 10: 1, 2).
If my knowledge of God in grace, and all the blessings of His glad tidings, come through Christ as the obedient One, how attractive does He become to my heart! Is it not fitting that I should say to Him, as Ruth said to Naomi, “Do not intreat me to leave thee, to return from following after thee; for whither thou goest I will go, and where thou lodgest I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God; where thou diest will I die, and there will I be buried”. It is the attractiveness of Christ, known in the heart by the Spirit, that is motive power for this energetic movement of holy decision.
The first move in the soul is self-judgment brought about in the light of grace. I find that my own will has been carrying me on the road to destruction; it has well-nigh brought me to perdition. But, to my amazement, I find that the will of God contains nothing but blessing for me through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus. That turns me to God in repentance. Then I find that He blesses me through the Lord Jesus Christ in the magnificent style set forth in chapter 5. The One I have sinned against is shining upon me in supreme grace through the Lord Jesus Christ. His thought is to bless me, to bestow upon me the greatest and lasting joy! When I realize that, it breaks down my self-willed distrust of Him; I am thankful to come into the “obedience of faith”. The Lord Jesus Christ is now magnified before my heart; I begin to appreciate and love obedience as seen in Him, for all my blessing has come through it. As appreciating obedience as seen in Christ Jesus I am morally separated in my affections from that principle of insubject will which fills the [p. 106] world, and gives character to its politics, its pleasures, and even its religion. It is as this becomes true in us vitally that we can be said to “have died to sin”. It is the only relation to sin which Scripture regards as proper to the Christian.
Baptism is brought in to show that we were committed to this at the very outset of our Christian profession. We have been baptised unto the death of Christ Jesus, buried with Him by baptism unto death. The life of the world, as such, is sin; it is dominated by the principle which came in by one man, and has infected all his race. But a buried man has done with the life of the world; he has disappeared completely from the sphere in which he once moved. There is no doubt that Christ has died and been buried, and our very profession as baptised persons is that we have been buried with Him. There was nothing in common between the world and Christ; the principle of its being was lawlessness; the principle of His was obedience. Death and burial mark the place which He has in relation to such an order of things; they mark His absolute and eternal separation from it.
But, if He has no place in the world of sin, the glory of the Father has embraced and raised Him. It is a remarkable expression as coming in here. It suggests the infinite satisfaction and pleasure with which the Father raised Him, that He might be the Object of the Father’s complacency entirely outside the sphere of sin and death. But this is spoken of here as being in view of our walking in newness of life. It suggests a new world morally. The glory of the world is that men do their own will there without regard to the rights of God. Christ has died to that world, and we [p. 107] have been buried with Him by baptism unto death, that we might live morally in a new world which takes character from everything which the glory of the Father has approved in Kim by raising Kim from among the dead.
But, in order to live morally in that new world we have to learn what it means to have “become identified [the word is literally ‘grown up with’] with him in the likeness of his death”. Christ has passed by death out of the whole scene of man’s will and glory. Having grown up with Him in the likeness of His death seems to suggest that we come into correspondence with His death by moral growth. It is not the work of a moment. The death of Christ was the full expression of absolute obedience, and it, was the breaking of every link actually with the scene where sin was. Not that there had ever been in His case any moral link with it, but He was actually here in the life of flesh and blood in the scene where sin was, though personally wholly apart from sin. It is now our privilege, and true characteristic as Christians, to have “become grown up with him in the likeness of his death”. “Grown up” in correspondence with the obedience that was expressed there, And with the separation from the whole sphere of man’s will and glory which was evidenced in that wondrous death.
Becoming “grown up with him” is a matter of the affections. It seems to suggest that, believers, as having learned what comes out, in chapters 3, 4 and 5 of this epistle, have their affections so wrapped round Christ that they are thoroughly identified with Him. They have grown up morally to the acceptance of the fact that His relation to sin, and the sphere of its activities, must be theirs. We can only go out [p. 108] of the sphere where sin has its place by dying to it, either actually in our own death, or morally as identified with Christ’s death. We have referred to Ruth saying, “Where thou diest will I die, and there will I be buried”. It is only a Ruth who can rightly enter into Romans 6; it can only be understood by an affectionate heart. We all know what it is to be deeply affected by the death of a loved one! But if there is One who has become everything to us the effect of His death must transcend the effect of every other death! Mary Magdalene would have well understood Romans 6; she had become thoroughly attached to Him. If you think of ivy growing up with, and around, an oak tree, if the tree falls, the ivy comes down too. What a blessed thing for our hearts to be so attached to Christ that if He goes in death there is nothing for us but to go in death too! Intense affection for the Lord would be ever prompting us to say to ourselves, “He has died here”. We shall never get morally outside the sphere of sin save in the power of affection for Christ. We do not then need to analyse exactly how much right or wrong there is in different things which obtain in man’s world; it suffices to know that there is no place for Christ in it. We have not been baptised to a Christ received and honoured in the world, but to One who has died here. And “if we are become grown up with him in the likeness of his death, so also we shall be of his resurrection”. Correspondence with His death will ensure correspondence with His resurrection. He was raised because there was everything in Him that was suitable for resurrection. And if we are brought into moral correspondence with His death there will be that about us which will be suitable for resurrection to God’s pleasure. God would have us to think much of the death of Christ; our baptism speaks of it, and every time we eat the Lord’s supper we contemplate it afresh, and announce His death until He come,
“Knowing this, that our old man has been crucified with him”. We are learning now to speak in Christian language; it is good when we can speak, as divinely taught, of “our old man”. It shows that there is some consciousness of that being our former self, but that it is now disallowed and discarded. We read in another connection that “that which grows old and aged is near disappearing”. It belongs to the past rather than the present. “Our old man” is all that we were morally as of the stock of Adam; sin was embodied in that man — the principle of lawlessness — hence he was offensive to God. But we know now through the glad tidings “that our old man has been crucified with him”. That man has been fully shown up as only deserving public condemnation of the most intense character; he has been crucified with Christ. And this is known to us now as divine light through the glad tidings that we may have the comfort of it. For it is a great comfort to every soul that has been distressed by learning the character of that man to know that he has been publicly dealt with according to his just deserts. His history has been terminated under the eye of God and man by crucifixion with Christ.
There is solemn instruction in this, too, for those who may not have realised the dreadful character of their old man. For it is made known to them that, however lightly they think of their natural state as of the stock of Adam, it was such as could only be absolutely rejected by God, and brought under His [p. 110] curse and condemnation in the most public way.
“For it is written, Cursed is every one hanged upon a tree” It is in the crucifixion of Christ that this judgment has passed upon “our old man”, so that his history has terminated in a public judicial act which is probably of all forms of execution the one most revolting and terrible to man. But the complete rejection and judgment by God of that man is made known to us in the way of grace, for our old man has been crucified with Christ. Christ was found publicly in the place of condemnation and curse, but He was there vicariously as representing before God the man who deserved nothing but curse and condemnation, And when He was crucified our old man was crucified with Him.
This is made known to us, not merely for our comfort, or even that we may be instructed in the true character of “our old man”, and the completeness of his rejection by God, but with a very practical object in view. It is “that the body of sin might be annulled, that we should no longer serve sin”. The totality of sin lies in “our old man”, and if we know that he has been crucified with Christ it leads to the annulling of the whole body of lawlessness which resides in that man. It ceases to be the effective and dominant force that it once was. It is seen as absolutely rejected and condemned by God, for the man has been crucified in whom it was embodied. It thus ceases to have any place, with those who are taught of God, as a principle to be acknowledged or served. It is “annulled, that we should no longer serve sin”. That principle which is so active in the world is to become void of effect in the believer. The principle of the creature doing its own will clothes [p. 111] itself often in very deceptive forms; it is made as attractive as possible by the god of this world; and men generally view it in a very favourable light. But God would have it to be “annulled” for every one of His called saints; He would have them to view it as a principle definitely judged by Him, and therefore to be no longer served by them.
“For he that has died is justified from sin”. This is an abstract statement, applicable to any dead man. He has no longer an active will of his own; he can no longer be charged with being a lawless man. But in the case of Christians they have died with Christ. It is for them a question of their identification with Christ — of having died with Him in order to live with Him. It turns on what He has become to us. Are we attracted by the thought of living with Him? He lives as a risen Man completely outside the sphere of sin and the power of death. Living with Him goes on to the full result in actual resurrection, but I think what is in the mind of the apostle here is that we are to be “of his resurrection”, and to “live with him” morally as outside the sphere and power of sin and death. It does not go so far as “risen with Christ” in Colossians, but we walk in newness of life here. Instead of continuing in sin, we live with Christ morally as having come into obedience to God. “Christ having been raised up from among the dead dies no more: death has dominion over him no more. For in that he has died, he has died to sin once for all; but in that he lives, he lives to God”.
It is of the greatest moment that we should see the relation in which Christ stands to things, because that determines our relation to them. We must distinguish between Christ dying for sin and to sin.
[p. 112] One is atonement — the blessed Saviour bearing the judgment of sin; but the other speaks of His having completely done with it “once for all”. There is no question of there ever being any sin in Him. We know well that He was “the holy one of God”; “in him sin is not”; and He “knew not sin”. But He was in the world into which sin had entered, and He had to say to it, and feel the grief of it; and finally He took it up to make atonement for it. No one ever felt the ravages of sin and death as He did. How truly was He the “Man of sorrows”! He felt, too, the character of sin as directed against Himself. “The reproaches of them that reproach thee have fallen upon me”. But He has passed by death out of that condition; “he has died to sin once For all”; and He lives to God now outside the whole sphere in which the will of the fallen creature is active. All that He knew and felt when here enables Him to sympathise with the sorrow and suffering that are here. But He has died to sin once for all so as to have no more to do with it personally. Divine purpose had in view that men should live to God for His pleasure as having entirely done with sin. And the way of this is patterned in the Second Man, for He lives eternally to God as having died to sin. And we are now privileged to take up this wondrous reckoning. “So also ye, reckon yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus”.
We have seen the blessed way in which God has reckoned in chapter 4; now it is for us to reckon. His reckoning was not unreal; righteousness being reckoned to us is one of the great realities of the moral universe. Now our reckoning is also to be a spiritual reality. Of course things are absolute on God’s side [p. 113] in a way they are not on our side. But we are privileged to take up this reckoning as a spiritual reality in our affections. Have we affection enough for the Lord to enable us to do it? He came into contact with sin on the line of obedience, and His contact with it personally and sacrificially cost Him unspeakable sorrow and suffering, but it was all undergone in love to His God and Father, and in love to us. The principle of disobedience cost Him everything that love could suffer. If that does not move our hearts, one doubts whether anything will. Now He has died to sin that we might in our affections take account of ourselves as dead to sin. My impression is that this is a matter of love. “Knowing” in verse 6 is a matter of faith, but it is only love that can “reckon” as in verse 11.
Ruth had been a Moabitess, but she began to reckon in an entirely new way when she said to Naomi, “Whither thou goest I will go, and where thou lodgest I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God; where thou diest will I die, and there will I be buried”. She clave to her mother-in-law in her affections. Nothing but love could have prompted such an utterance.
Then Ittai in his day knew something of love’s reckoning. He had been a Philistine — a man of Gath — and David said, “Why dost thou also go with us? ... For thou art a foreigner, and besides, thou hast, emigrated to the place where thou dwellest... Return and take back thy brethren”. But Ittai answered, “As Jehovah 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”, 2 Samuel 15: 19 - 22.
[p. 114] Mephibosheth, too, illustrates how love would reckon. And in his case it was purely in his affections that he went with David. Owing to his infirmities he could not actually go over with David, but the best part of him went — his heart went. So long as we are in mortal bodies we cannot actually go out of the place where rebellion is active, but we can go out in our affections. Mephibosheth “neither washed his feet, nor trimmed his beard, nor washed his clothes, from the day the king departed until the day he came again in peace”. His whole behaviour and manner of life showed how his heart, reckoned. No one who observed him could doubt that his affections were with David.
Now if Christ has died to sin — and that is an undoubted fact — it is our privilege, if we have love enough for Him to do it, to reckon ourselves “dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus”. Love must ever be the propelling motive. Even the obedience of Christ flowed out of love. “That the world may know that I love the Father, and as the Father has commanded me, thus I do”, John 14: 31.
If we love God — and believers are described in this epistle as “those who love God” — we shall delight in the thought of being alive to Him in Christ Jesus. This gives us the first apprehension of the soul, in the presentation of the truth in this epistle, of what it is to be “in Christ Jesus”. “In Christ Jesus” is one of those wonderful statements in Scripture which we first touch in vital power at a certain point, and our apprehensions of it may not be very great at first, but we find there is in it a power to expand to any extent to embrace the great thoughts of divine favour and purpose. It brings before us the risen [p. 115] and heavenly Man in whom all divine purpose centres. Eternal life is in Him, according to the last verse of this chapter. Indeed, “in Christ Jesus” opens up a vista that stretches right on into eternal glory.
Now is it not blessed to be able to take account of oneself as “alive to God in Christ Jesus”? Alive to God in the Man of His good pleasure! Not alive to the principle of doing my own will, but alive to God, as having touched in my apprehensions a life completely outside all that came in by Adam. The thought of living to God is very attractive to the one who knows His grace and loves Him. And He tells me to take account of myself as alive to Him in Christ Jesus.
The practical outcome of this reckoning is that sin is not to be suffered to reign in our mortal bodies. It reigns in the world, but it is not to reign in the bodies of believers. There is a piece of territory secured for God even in the mortal condition. Young believers often ask what they can do in the way of service. Well, the first thing in the service of God is to hold our mortal bodies as outside the reign of sin. If we obey those lusts which move in the line of the fallen creature’s will the reign of sin will go on. But this is not to be.
Paul uses the word “yield” several times at this point. There are two distinct, sets of influences acting; to which are we going to yield? And this brings us to the detail of things, as to what we do with our “members”. One important member is the eye; what am I doing with my eyes? They are to be yielded as instruments of righteousness to God. That is not going to the pictures, or reading novels! Then what about our ears? Are they to be used to [p. 116] listen to all the siren voices of the world, through what is broadcasted by wireless, or otherwise? How sad if a professed believer says things with his mouth which are untrue, or unkind; or if he speaks evil of a fellow-believer! Then, what do I write with my hand? Am I always working what is honest? Or do I let my feet carry me into places where a Christian ought not to go? Our members are the “instruments” of all our activities, and they are to be “instruments of righteousness to God”. Yielded to the precious influences of grace. The whole being yielded first to God as alive from among the dead, and then the members in detail! We are not under law, which imposes a rule of conduct, but supplies no motive; we are under grace which has brought in the most blessed and influential motives possible.
There is no such thing as being uncontrolled. The only question is, Which control am I under? Am I a bondman of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness? If I am a bondman of obedience I shall do what is right, and there will be no cloud, between my soul and God. I have known a person says, “I am not going to be in bondage about what books I shall read”! But suppose the reading of certain books takes one away practically from the enjoyment of the love of God, and robs one of present spiritual wealth in Christ, and of the comforting ministry of the Holy Spirit, is not that terrible bondage? What do we mean when we talk about bondage? There is great liberty and happiness in being yielded as a bondman of obedience unto righteousness, and it leads to holiness (verses 19, 22). As we move in obedience on the line of righteousness we become holy. There is nothing more important than holiness:
[p. 117] without it no man shall see the Lord. It is inward separatedness from all that has a moral taint, so that there is that about the saint which repels evil. As holiness is perfected there would be immunity even from evil thoughts.
I suppose every one of us can look back and see things in our history of which we are now ashamed. In doing our own will we had to prove that the end of it was death. Believers are addressed here as those who “have obeyed from the heart the form of teaching into which ye were instructed”. I suppose baptism is “the form of teaching”; it speaks of death and burial to the whole sphere in which the will of the fallen creature is active. No one could obey from the heart unless he had come under the powerful influence of grace, as leaving the knowledge of Christ and of the love of God sealed in his affections by the Holy Spirit. The exercise of one’s own will never yields any fruit that is satisfying, and the moment is sure to come when God’s called one will be ashamed of it. To be ashamed of something in our past shows, at any rate, that we have moved away from it morally.
As believers on the Lord Jesus Christ, and having the Spirit, we have got, our freedom from sin, and have become bondmen to God. Now our fruit is unto holiness, and the end eternal life. There are two lines on which it is possible to move. On the line of sin the wages of death will be earned; but on the line of obedience there will be righteousness, and fruit unto holiness, and we shall move in the direction of eternal life. God’s great act of favour to men is to bring in eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Paul presents this great act of favour as an end to be [p. 118] reached by pursuing the moral course which is indicated in this chapter. John speaks largely of eternal life as a gift; and it is ever this. Paul is in full agreement with John, for he calls it, “the act of favour of God”. But Paul presents it as a goal to be reached. Canaan was the gift of God to Israel before they left Egypt. They might have said without question that it was theirs by God’s act of favour. But they had to take the journey by which alone it could be reached. This epistle does not contemplate believers as in the present enjoyment of eternal life, but as pursuing that moral course which leads to it. In other words, they are not yet in Canaan, but they are on the way to it; and they have it clearly in view as God’s act of favour in Christ Jesus.
The truth of this chapter largely turns upon three words — “knowing” (verse 6), “reckon” (verse 11), and “yield” (verses 13, 16, 19.) Knowing is by faith, reckoning is by love, and yielding can only be in the power of the Spirit.