THE KNOWLEDGE OF CHRIST IN RELATION TO THE GOSPEL AND THE ASSEMBLY (2)

THE KNOWLEDGE OF CHRIST IN RELATION TO THE GOSPEL AND THE ASSEMBLY (2)

Romans 6: 1 - 6; Romans 7: 1 - 4; Romans 8: 31 - 39

SMcC In view of the fact that a number were not with us this morning, we might refer to what we considered. Our subject is how our souls are built up in the knowledge of Christ in relation to the gospel, and in relation to the assembly. We shall come to the subject of fellowship and the assembly tomorrow, but we are dealing today with the gospel in Romans, and this morning we looked at chapter 3 and the end of chapter 5, noticing how Christ is presented as the mercy-seat. We are told that the Mediator of God and men is one, the Man Christ Jesus, and we often think of His mediatorship entering into the service of God. But we need to think of how His mediatorship enters into the matter of the sin question; how the great question of sin between man and God has been mediated. The mercy-seat thus in Romans 3 brings Christ personally on to our view, in a peculiar way. It was noticed that God set forth the mercy-seat and that it is through faith in His blood. That is where we come in, for faith in the blood brings us in in regard to the matter of our sins being dealt with. Then God’s righteousness enters into it. God’s righteousness is not presented in our dispensation, on the line of demand, but on the line of supply. Then forgiveness of sins comes about through it. We also noted in chapter 5, the headship of Christ. It is important that the believer should apprehend Christ’s headship in relation to man, as over against Adam, the first head, who failed and brought such sorrow and disaster into the human race. Christ has come in, on the side of the race, as the divinely-appointed Head, so that over against the negative conditions which came in through Adam, we have the “much rather” referred to, on the positive side, in connection with the new Head, Christ. It was remarked that apostasy is about to be manifested, when the world will set up a rival head to Christ, in the man of sin, the antichrist. It is important, as believers, that we should be established in our souls in the fundamentals of the gospel so that we should see what Christ’s headship means to us, and our attachment to Him as constituted righteous, so that we are not lawless, independent persons, but we are held in righteousness in relation to Him, who is the Centre of God’s world. We referred too to the fact that Romans 5 brings in the wealth of what is toward us, so that we get salvation from wrath as justified through blood and we have reconciliation to God through the death of His Son. These are matters for faith to lay hold of, involving a work done outside of us. But then there is what is wrought in us, which of course, in its teaching, goes beyond Romans 5, but it is brought in there to impress us with the wealth of divine giving, and to help us in view of our souls being built up, morally and spiritually. We are not to be in spiritual poverty, but in wealth. Salvation by Christ’s life involves what is wrought out in the believer. In contrast to eternal life, we referred to life in an active and operative way, consciously in the believer by the power of the Spirit. Eternal life is presented in Romans in an objective way, as something to be reached, referring to what is fixed and positional. Salvation by the life of Christ in Romans 5 is not exactly a realm or sphere into which we are introduced, but it refers to what is operating and active in the soul of the believer. Participating in the life of Christ involves immediate contact with Him, and this means our salvation from things here.

Now this afternoon, Christ comes before us in relation to the wilderness position. In chapter 6. He is the great Leader - “the leader of their salvation” as referred to in Hebrews 2. It is a matter of leadership in the wilderness. We need leadership. The young people are very much in mind in our subject, because of the felt need of the cardinal truths of the gospel laying hold of their souls. So that instead of being superficial, we should be marked by inward stability, as there is the digging deep and our foundations being laid on the rock. If that is so, we shall not yield easily to the principle of sin as it operates. Now the Leader of our salvation comes before us in chapter 6, for “baptised unto Christ Jesus” involves Christ’s leadership in the wilderness. In type it is seen in Moses; they were all baptised unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea. The leadership of Christ in the wilderness involves that the believer is brought into newness of life. He is no longer walking according to the flesh, but, as identified with Christ in the likeness of His death, newness of life comes into view. Our souls are to be built up in the knowledge of the leadership of Christ in that way. Then, in the opening of chapter 7, we have the new husband, and Christ as the Deliverer at the end of chapter 7. Then Christ as priest comes in at the end of Romans 8. These are cardinal features of Christ’s mediatorial service in the truth of the gospel, and are brought forward in order that our souls might be solidly built up in the truth. This section links with the type in the Old Testament, which involves the covenant, and the tabernacle system; it involves the use that is to be made of the property and the material that is available, because God’s intent is that our souls are to be built up substantially in the knowledge of Christ in view of the tabernacle and His service. Romans 7 brings in the law, the covenant, and the truth of Romans 7 adjusts us as to the truth of the covenant of old, the death of Christ coming in to bring about the termination of the bond so that we should be to another. But Romans 6 brings up this great matter of the wilderness and life for the believer in the wilderness, and into this life in the wilderness enters the glory of the Father. We are to note that it says: “even as Christ has been raised up from among the dead by the glory of the Father, so we also should walk in newness of life”. That is, the glory of the Father that entered into the act of raising Christ from the dead enters into the fact of newness of life in the believer. It is important thus that we should take full account of this position in the wilderness. The wilderness is what the world has become for the believer. Egypt is not the world exactly for the believer; Egypt is what the world is for the unconverted, for the unregenerate. It is man’s world, the enemy’s world, but the wilderness is what the world becomes to the believer as baptised unto Christ Jesus. The brethren will notice now the change in the preposition, as we were alluding to this morning. Then it is was ‘by’ and ‘through’, now we have ‘unto’ and ‘to’. That is, the chapter is contemplating what we are entering upon, in our souls’ experience, in the truth of the gospel in our relations with Christ. What we had this morning is more what is towards us, save for the reference to the participation in the life of Christ, which is experimental, as we have contact with Christ through the Spirit. One has been feeling very much of late, especially as things come so near in regard to the working out of the truth amongst us, that there is a good deal of superficiality and there needs to be more help in relation to the solid foundations in the gospel, so that we are more firmly held in our souls in relation to Christ, and thus the principle of the virgin daughter of Zion will be built up. That suggests what is impervious to the approaches of the world and the power of Satan working through Amalek, through the flesh.

LES That is just what I have been thinking. Your reference to the virgin daughter of Zion would stress the great need of our roots being looked into. It says: “shall again take root downward, and bear fruit upward”, Isaiah 37: 31. You feel there cannot be any real taking on of the substantial glory of the assembly and the service of God, apart from this basic matter being looked into.

SMcC I am sure that is right. We were referring this morning to the need of having a real apprehension of the Person. Being justified by the blood should affect our souls as to how our sins have been met and dealt with. Sometimes, when we are discovered in sin, there is a good deal of remorse and a good deal of bitterness because we have been found out, but we want to be with God about the matter and take it up, not just superficially, but in the light of how God has dealt with it in the death of Christ as the early chapters of Romans stress.

Rem You have sinned really against God.

SMcC Well, that is where it is. It is independence of God and the whole matter of sin has been mediated by the coming into manhood of a divine Person; and more than that, for it necessitated the abandonment, when He was made sin, and His actual entrance into death and the grave and then the resurrection, showing how great a matter it is.

Rem Is that the reason why the apostle Paul tells the Corinthians, “Ye have been bought with a price”? Is it to bring them back to these things, that they may be basically sound?

SMcC That is interesting, because it would remind them (although it is referred to there in connection with our bodies being the temple of the Holy Spirit) of the infinite purchase price that has been paid. We have been bought with a price; we are not our own, therefore we cannot act as we like. One has been impressed a good deal of late with that chapter to which you refer and Romans 12 and other sections as to the close link between what is physical and what is spiritual. We try at times to make the physical entirely separate from the spiritual, as if the physical is one department of life and the spiritual another department of life. But Romans 12 and 1 Corinthians 6 show that the physical is allied to the spiritual; the physical merges into what is spiritual. That is, our bodies are to be presented a living sacrifice. It is our bodies, not our souls. These actual bodies of ours are to be a living sacrifice and then in 1 Corinthians 6, the apostle says, in regard to the great matter of the sin there: “Do ye not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then, taking the members of the Christ, make them members of a harlot?” That is our bodies (not our souls, nor our spirits), but our physical bodies are the members of the Christ. What we are in public and what we are in the meeting cannot be divorced. We cannot put our ordinary life into one department, and our life in the assembly into another department with no link between them. The one merges into the other; the one is linked with the other.

Ques In that connection would you say something as to holiness?

SMcC The chapter we begin with brings it up as an objective. As our souls are built up in the knowledge of Christ, as presented in Romans 6, it eventuates in holiness, as it says, “ye have your fruit unto holiness and the end eternal life”. Holiness is essential for our relations with God and the service of God. But the remarkable thing here is that is says “your fruit”; in the next chapter we shall see it is “fruit to God”.

JAK We might do a matter because of righteousness, but is not holiness something further? Holiness is more abhorrence of that which is contrary to God.

SMcC Righteousness is linked with the attributes of God, holiness with the nature of God. Holiness is never imputed, whereas righteousness is.

JHS Is it interesting in that connection that it says: “let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body”, Romans 6: 12?

SMcC The mortal body is an allusion to our physical bodies. The Lord Jesus Himself was not any different when He was with men than when He was with God. He was the very same, in His relations with men and in His relations with God, and we are to be the same.

LES So the working out of these great matters involves what we are here in relation to our bodies, and the “perfecting of holiness” in 2 Corinthians would have this in mind.

SMcC The Lord is aiming at that. There has been a good deal of exercise in the years that are past, for well nigh thirty years or more, as to trade union matters, that as believers we could not have part in them. But then the issue has been raised as to the other side, namely those who may be in authority and in positions of influence. It is just as much an unequal yoke for a brother to be vice-president of a worldly corporation as it is for a brother to be a member of a trade union. It is an unholy association. You could never think of the Lord Jesus being secretary or vice-president of a worldly corporation. Why, the thing is the furthest from your mind to entertain the thought! But there are some amongst us who have no compunction about these matters.

WBG Does the apostle then bring in this very matter in the beginning of chapter 6: “Should we continue in sin that grace may abound?”

SMcC That is, the dispensation is one of grace, but then shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Now sin here is not so much the acts of sin, as in the early part of Romans up to chapter 5: 11, but it is more sin as a principle outside of us. It is a principle that is operating in the world and believers are to take account of themselves as having died to it; that is, it should find no reaction in them. They cannot count on grace to help them, and to abound, if they continue in sin. If they continue in sin, virtually speaking they may go into apostasy.

WBG I thought it became a challenge to us at the beginning of this chapter.

SMcC It does. To continue in sin would be making little of grace. But the knowledge of Christ, as the Leader in our salvation in these matters, makes a difference in our lives. “For if we are become identified with him in the likeness of his death”, which would involve our baptism, then it is right to look for newness of life.

LES Does this involve an inward, basic state of soul in our experience with God? The footnote helps, it says: “Lit. ‘grown up with’ and so thoroughly one”.

SMcC It shows that our baptism is not a superficial matter, and life as entering into our souls in Romans 6, as to the truth of our baptism, involves this matter of identification with Christ. “Grown up with”, it is no light matter. It is not just a matter of taking on the ways of the brethren; it is our identification with Christ and taking on His ways, and the glory of the Father enters into this matter.

JHS Would the verse in Galatians link on with this, where Paul says: “For ye, as many as have been baptised unto Christ, have put on Christ”, Galatians 3: 27?

SMcC That is what baptism involves. Persons who are baptised have “put on Christ”. It is their whole profession and position. So that a person who is not baptised, is not rightly in Christianity.

LES Do you think we are being tested as to whether we know practically and vitally our intimate links with the Holy Spirit? Does not what we are speaking of involve that? We have had much ministry as to this great matter, yet one feels how little we know in regard of the intimate links in our real history with God.

SMcC While the Holy Spirit is not formally alluded to in Romans 6 and 7, the Holy Spirit underlies the teaching of that section. In the type the Holy Spirit is given in the light of Romans 5, for at Rephidim the rock was smitten and the water flowed. The Spirit is given, as it says “the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit which has been given to us”, Romans 5: 5. The Holy Spirit underlies all this matter, so that Romans 5 is the way in which our souls are to be built up in the knowledge of the wealth of divine giving. That is a great matter. The believer, thus, has an advantage to begin with, for everything is toward him on the ground of divine gift. But when we come to Romans 6, it is not what is toward us on the lines of divine gift, although it is there objectively, but it is what we are now in the responsive movements of our souls towards the truth of that giving.

Ques Is that why the apostle starts chapter 6 by way of a question as though there is something there to call upon?

SMcC He says, Are you ignorant? He talks to persons who should know these things. In connection with our baptism, it says first we have been “baptised unto Christ Jesus”, that is the Person. Then it says “have been baptised unto his death”. Thus we have the Person and His death. We were noticing this morning, the mercy-seat and the blood, in Romans 5. Now, in Romans 6, it is the Person and His death.

LES Say a little more as to the great bearing of the blood. One has felt that we have had very little conception as to the greatness and glory attaching to this great matter. We can never know anything of the yearnings, the groanings, connected with deliverance, unless we know something of the value of the blood.

SMcC It is important to see the side of the teaching that is connected with the blood, because it is intended to affect our souls. It brings in the judicial side, that sins could only be dealt with on that line; there is no other way. The blood brings in the great thought of the tremendous cost that was involved for God to mediate this question of our sins. Some may sometimes say in the gospel that after the hours of abandonment were over matters were finished, but where do we get that in the word of God, except in an anticipative way when Jesus said, “It is finished”? In the matter of atonement it was not only necessary that sins should be dealt with vicariously in Jesus on the cross, but it was necessary that the life to which in us sin attached should be laid down and the blood stands related to that side. The blood of Jesus flowed from Him after He had died. That is, the blood flowed from a dead Christ. Death had come in. Death is the penal sentence of God against sin. So that the question could not be fully met, until vicariously, in Jesus, the life to which, in us, sin attached, was laid down. Sin did not attach to Jesus; He knew no sin, did no sin, and sin was not in Him, but vicariously the life to which in us sin attached was laid down.

JHS The completing of the matter required, speaking reverently, the burial.

SMcC It did and it required His resurrection. It says, “Jesus our Lord, who has been delivered for our offences and has been raised for our justification”, Romans 4: 25. That shows the great vicarious import of the resurrection of Christ. It was essential to complete the matter. Before God, in the abandonment, the claims of the throne were met in the righteous administration of wrath, against sin. But then on our side there was necessary all that we have referred to.

JHS So that in the gospel where He says, “It is finished”, it involved anticipatively the carrying through of the whole matter.

SMcC Exactly. Sometimes that is referred to as if it was a backward reference only. But it involves the Lord’s entrance into death and His burial and resurrection and ascension into glory. In the type and according to Hebrews, the blood must be carried within. Not that that is physically and materially so now, but the type would show that the blood had to be carried within.

LES I think what you are saying is most important, because we are sometimes clear so far as to the matter of our sins, but we are not dealing with the matter of our sins here, it is a question of sin, “Knowing this, that our old man has been crucified with him, that the body of sin might be annulled, that we should no longer serve sin”.

SMcC That is a great matter. Our salvation according to Romans 6 involves our deliverance from the active power of sin as a principle that governs the world. People might say as they do: Well, there is not much after all in taking on worldly ways and worldly things. Is there not? If we do, as believers, we are living in sin, because the whole principle of the world’s living is sin, and that is what Romans 6 is dealing with. The believer is to take account of himself as dead to that principle as identified with Christ in His death through baptism. We do not die to sin in ourselves; when it comes to sin in the believer, as in Romans 7 and 8, it involves experimental deliverance in the power of the Spirit. But when it is sin outside of ourselves, as a motivating principle of the world, we die to that.

WBG “Sin shall not have dominion over you”. That is the great end, is it not?

SMcC We are to become bondmen to righteousness and have our fruit unto holiness. The prepositions ‘to’ and ‘unto’ are very fine in this chapter, because it is all a question of movement towards. We are moving towards principles as well as persons. There is not only the leadership of Christ, but there is the leadership of principles. That is we are bondmen to righteousness unto holiness and the end is eternal life. Eternal life is thus viewed as an objective in regard to this matter of our deliverance from sin, as a principle in the world.

JAK This morning you were speaking of our link with Him. Hebrews speaks of the Lord as having passed through the heavens, is that the finishing of the matter?

SMcC The Lord carries the tokens of His finished work right into the presence of God. Of course we are speaking typically and figuratively; but the completing of the matter involves that the tokens of the finished work be carried right into the presence of God.

WBG Why are the titles of the Lord changed in this chapter? It is Christ Jesus and Christ.

SMcC It is important to see the change in the titles. When it is ‘by’ and ‘through’, as in Romans 5, it is Jesus Christ. When it is ‘to’ and ‘unto’ it is Christ Jesus. The ‘by’ and ‘through’ is the administration of divine wealth, through this Person, and Jesus Christ is what He is from God towards us in the administrative position. But Christ Jesus brings up the responsive side on our part, how we are responding to the light objectively presented in the truth of our baptism.

Rem It is not only dead to sin, but “justified from sin”.

SMcC That is the whole thing, that we are completely cleared from this principle of sin. Not only saved from it, but justified in relation to it, so that no charge can be laid to us. The figure of course is employed of one who has died, “he that has died is justified from sin”. That is, you could never lay sin to the charge of a dead man. That is what the figure would have in mind.

LES The note says, “’Free’ is ambiguous. It is justified, cleared, discharged. From sin, note, not sins”.

SMcC It is this great principle, that we are speaking of, of independence and lawlessness in the world. The young brethren amongst us should see the need of eschewing the great matter of independence and lawlessness. In our teens, we want to do what we like, we do not want to do what our parents tell us to do; we do not want the brethren to tell us what to do. We want to be left on our own to assert our own personality and it leads into disaster. We want to see the great value - let us compare values - of dependence upon God and obedience to God.

Rem Independence is the spirit that marks the world and it may affect us who are parents, and be transferred to our children.

SMcC It has often been said that we try hard to stamp out in our children what we have never judged in ourselves. The lessons we have to learn are salutary lessons in that regard, and God would help us to give a right lead in the matter of dependence. But that as to which the chapter is flooding our souls with light, is all that is on our behalf. Christ is our Leader in the wilderness and we want to get our eyes on Him. Sometimes we get our eyes on the wilderness, or on difficult circumstances, on things we do not have, the things we have had to deny ourselves, but Christ Jesus is the Object that is to engage us.

Rem Having our eyes on Him, every obstacle would be met.

SMcC The Spirit’s power and the activity of faith all help us in relation to having Christ before us. The glory of the Father is very important here, because we have been inclined to link it entirely with the raising of Christ from the dead, without seeing sufficiently that the glory of the Father enters into our walking in newness of life. It says, “even as Christ has been raised up from among the dead by the glory of the Father, so ...” the adverb ‘so’, “… we also should walk in newness of life”. The glory of the Father, in the raising of Christ from among the dead, is to act and react on our walking in newness of life.

Rem That involves another world.

SMcC It involves that there is another world. We are not in a vacuum, we are not in any empty position, but our souls, in walking in this path of newness of life, are bathed in the glory of the Father. It is the glory that belongs to another world and another order of things.

Ques. Do we glorify Him?

SMcC The net result would be in mind, that God should be served. Because in Romans 6, 7 and 8, mount Sinai, the tabernacle, and Horeb, are all in mind. It is the whole wilderness position. In the first part of the wilderness, when the tabernacle was set up, the children of Israel, when moving forward, were governed by the tabernacle, that is like Romans 6 and Romans 7. They are governed by something outside of themselves. God was in relation to a system, which He has set up, in which He dwells on the ground of redemption. But when you come to Numbers 21, you have, “Rise up, well! Sing unto it”. From then on they are governed by a spring and source of energy within them. Romans 8 is not exactly that we are governed by what is outside of us, as in Romans 6 and 7, but, “as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God”. The leadership now is an inward matter, involving the Spirit’s presence and power in us, going on to the inheritance and the purpose of God.

Rem Do we see that in the one in Luke 17 that returned to give God glory? How the Lord valued that!

SMcC He did. That brings up this great matter of what can be expected in the service of God, and when we say the service of God, we are not just thinking of Lord’s day morning.

Rem “Were not the ten cleansed? but the nine, where are they?”

SMcC So that the Lord looks for a net result. If brothers remained continually silent in the testimony, there would be something seriously wrong. In fact, for a brother who has been affected by the grace of God’s delivering power in redemption, to remain always silent and never to open his mouth, is almost tantamount to sin.

Ques What are you connecting that with?

SMcC The service of God, and that is a very full thought. Life, as we were speaking of it this morning, as we reign in life, and the justification of life, and now we take account of life as it is presented in Romans 6, “alive to God in Christ Jesus”, all enters into our meetings, our gatherings. It is active and operative life. As we assemble, we know for example that a hymn has to be given out. We do it; we do not ponderously wait for some unique movement from heaven. Life involves that we know what to do and do it. The same with prayer. The time is valuable, assembly time is costly, and we do not want to waste it, but to fill it out as it should be filled out, as life would fill it out, and life is a normal thing.

Rem The Spirit comes in to support.

SMcC As has often been said, the Spirit does not help you exactly on your seat; He helps you on your feet. We may sit on our chairs waiting for something to help us up, but we have got to get up. That involves physical movement on our part. Then as we get up, and are on our feet, we find, like Ezekiel, the Spirit entering in. On that principle, we shall get the Spirit linking on, as Ezekiel says, “the Spirit entered into me”. You will always notice, in ministry honoured by God, that the power of the Spirit comes in as the teaching proceeds and you will find that also with any part that may be taken by any one of us in the service of God, power enters into it as we proceed.

WBG So faith and the power of the Spirit go together.

SMcC If I have faith to get on my feet, I shall find the power of the Spirit entering into me, and supporting me, because the Spirit is there. I am using an Old Testament figure, but as we get on our feet we find a divine Person helping us to fill out the service in power.

CAH The Spirit lifts us up.

SMcC That is the thought in Ezekiel. He says “the Spirit entered into me” (chapter 2: 2) and he also says “the Spirit lifted me up”, chapter 3: 14. That is the trouble with most of us; we get occupied with ourselves, and our expressions, and the formulation of them. We should not think of the formulation of our expressions exclusively, we should be concerned that we give expression to what the work of God is in us however small it may be in its formation.

EG We often think ‘So-and-so’ can do it better than I can.

SMcC That is very true. We are often occupied with how well other persons can express their thoughts, but what is to be noticed is that they do not express the work of God better. They may express their thoughts better, but they do not express the work of God better, because the work of God is the work of God, whether it is typified in a turtle dove or in a bullock. It is the same work of God wherever it is expressed. If a young person stood on his feet on Lord’s day morning and said, ‘Lord Jesus, we thank Thee for dying for us on the cross’ - surely we would say a hearty ‘Amen’ to that! It would rejoice our hearts to see the work of God breaking through. Where there is affection, the intelligence will come.

WBG Does the glory of the Father then attach to the work of God expressing itself?

SMcC That is what I am thinking of in this matter of newness of life. The glory of the Father is in connection with the work of God in us. This ‘to’ and ‘unto’ involves that we keep right principles before us. Sometimes you hear (you hear it in your house as I do in my house). Well, what is wrong with this? Why can we not go here? Why can we not do this? Well, the whole point is, What principles have you got before you? Have you righteousness before you? Have you holiness before you? We should see that we are bondmen to these great principles and we are bound to serve them. That would help us as to what is right or wrong in a matter.

JHS Christ is both “the leader and completer of faith”, Hebrews 12: 2.

SMcC That is very important. He not only sets the matter on, but He completes the matter. Romans 6 is a wonderful chapter! Would to God that our souls were bathed in the light of it and the experimental deliverance it involves! Life in Romans 6 is not exactly in us, for the believer, in Romans 6, is “alive to God in Christ Jesus”. When we come to Romans 8, it is not the believer alive in Christ Jesus, but the Spirit being life in the believer. Romans 6 is the great objective view of the believer, as regulated in his mind by the truth of the gospel.

He is one who can take account of himself as alive to God in Christ Jesus. He is no longer going on with the man that God has set aside in the death of Christ. He has changed his man, he has Christ Jesus before him, and governing him. That brings us to Romans 7, where we have the great thought of the new husband. Romans 7 brings up, in figure and type, the great thought of the covenant; only that we are delivered from the Sinaitic idea of law, and we come under God’s law, spiritually according to the inward man. The chapter opens with the thought of a marriage bond, which was linked with Sinai and the covenant given at Sinai. But the believer is delivered from the law in its Sinaitic aspect as made dead to it by the body of Christ that he should be to another. That is in principle, the marital bond in a new way, in order that we might bear fruit to God. Christ as the Husband is thus before us, the knowledge of it helping us in deliverance from the law. The truth of the gospel adjusts us now in relation to the law as given at Sinai.

LES “Thou shalt abide for me ... and I will also be for thee” (Hosea 3: 3) - a wonderful allusion to this!

SMcC Yes, it is indeed. How God and the Lord Jesus affectionately appeal to our hearts and to our souls in that light! If we are not for another, He will be for us. We may allow alien objects to come on to our view and to control our thoughts and our affections and God is concerned about it. He would say to us this afternoon, in regard to the current condition of our souls, “thou shalt not be another man’s, and I will also be for thee”.

LES “And shall turn with fear toward Jehovah and toward his goodness at the end of the days”, Hosea 3: 5.

SMcC God betrothing them to Himself in righteousness involves the truth of the gospel in Romans, because it brings up the thought of the bond of righteous obligation as affected by God in the manifestation of His grace.

JHS Does not the passage suggest what God is prepared to be to us in Christ?

SMcC It is what God is prepared to do for us. This chapter opens up our response to that and how Christ, as Husband, is going to sustain and support us in this new position of deliverance from law, as committed to Himself.

WBG God allures into the wilderness because of this. It says, “I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak to her heart”, Hosea 2: 14. Conditions are only right as we face the world, in the wilderness character.

SMcC How God would speak to our hearts! Romans 7 helps us greatly as to the hearts, as well as the mind. In fact it is very interesting to see that, as the chapter opens, it is a moving appeal to the heart: “So that, my brethren, ye also have been made dead to the law by the body of the Christ”. The instrumentality of the body of Christ, effecting our deliverance from the law, is a moving appeal to our affections, because the body of Christ enters into the Lord’s supper and the principle of the Lord’s supper is here. It is the love that would have us free and delivered from what would detain us and hold us so that we might be wholly for Him.

JHS Does the new Head of chapter 5 become the Husband of chapter 7?

SMcC That is it, exactly. He is the Leader in chapter 6: the Husband and Deliverer in chapter 7; and the Priest in chapter 8. The new Head is a great general reference to Christ in relation to humanity, but these other references as to Christ bring out the detail and application of what He is to us in His service toward us.

LES So the great principle of sin in chapter 6 is really what is in the world, whereas chapter 7 is what is in our members.

SMcC Some of us may not be so much troubled with what is around in the world; indeed some of us may be very devoted and have very great interest at heart in regard to divine things and be desirous of being wholly for the Lord, but we are greatly bothered and troubled by sin in us. Our minds get filled with the most terrible thoughts; we dream the most terrible things, and we are upset and troubled about it. Romans 7 is to bring about deliverance as to that side, involving what is inward and it is effected in the power of the Spirit. Deliverance is not exactly by faith, although faith enters into it, apprehending the Deliverer, but the power of the Spirit underlies it. That is, the power of the Spirit is a positive power effecting our deliverance from the power of sin in us - not exactly sin in the world, but sin in the believer. That is the truth of John 4, the fountain of water springing up within the believer.

LES “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and of death”.

SMcC Paul does not say, Set us free. He speaks about the plural in verse 1 and in the verses that follow, but in that particular verse he brings in the singular, personal, side. “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free”. The bearing of that, on every one of us this afternoon as we read it, is - What can I say? Am I free? Has the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus set me free? That involves the Holy Spirit in relation to what is in Christ Jesus. It is extremely experimental, in this sense.

Ques In deliverance are we set free?

SMcC That is what deliverance is, because we get all tied up. The reason why liberty in serving God is not there, is because we are all tied up within.

We may not be tied up without, although some persons are so tied up without, in business, for example, that they are not free either. That would be Romans 6, but Romans 7 refers to believers that get so tied up within and so occupied with themselves. Devoted as they may be, they are in bondage; whereas, “the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus” is operating to set me free from “the law of sin and death”. “The law of sin and death” is these evil thoughts that fill our minds. You say to me, or I to you, What can I do about it? You cannot do anything about it! That is the whole point. You see I am trying all the time to get rid of these thoughts and I will never get rid of them; they will be with me until I die! You say, What am I going to do? Well, ignore them; it is the only thing to do! Ignore them! That is, you are not regulated by them, they are a stranger to you. They belong to a nature that is not proper to you as a believer. The believer has not got two natures. He has only one nature and that is the nature answering to the work of God in Him. The other nature we refer to is the nature of the flesh and that does not belong to the believer.

GF The Spirit will help you on that line.

SMcC We want to see the lines on which divine Persons will help us in this great mediatorial service. The Spirit will not help us on the line of being occupied with evil, whether it is evil thoughts in ourselves or evil in others, but He will help us as we are occupied with what is good and right.

LES The Lord Jesus died for my state as well as for my sins.

SMcC That is a great matter. I realise that my sins have gone, and God will not demand payment twice; the payment has been met by Jesus and His precious blood. But what is troubling me is my state.

I may have set up a standard that I will read the ministry, devote time to prayer, keep at the meetings, but then things have not gone as I thought they would, and my soul is down! I am disappointed in myself; I am full of grief inwardly over the things that I even thought about, that I never dreamed I would ever think. Well, that tunnel of darkness is Romans 7, and the standard I have set up in seeking to devote myself, may be the law and I thus put myself under bondage instead of having my eye on Christ. By the Spirit’s help I get my eyes on the new Husband and the Deliverer and that is my salvation. I see that God now is no longer looking to me, and I am no longer to look at myself in this light; I am to look at the new Husband, at Christ.

GF Does that work out in regard to service and other matters?

SMcC Certainly. That is what we should do all the time, and especially as to this matter of deliverance. It is a wonderful thing to be in the presence of a person who is free. There is something very contagious and infectious about a person who is free. You feel a lift, and it introduces something into the meeting that is very fine.

LES The actual difficulty is that we seek to attach Christianity to the wrong man.

SMcC And the wrong state. We get into the Psalms, and we feel like the psalmist. Well, Christianity is not in the Psalms. Oh, you say, That is a terrible thing to say. What are you saying? It is the truth. Christianity is not in the Psalms. We carry Christianity into the Psalms, of course, and apply the Psalms in the light of Christianity, but, in the Psalms, you have a man under the law, and believers are not under the law, in that sense, but under grace. Grace is the spring and power of separation in our souls, not the law.

LES The presence of the Holy Spirit right from the outset brings about a sanctified person in relation to another Man.

SMcC Deliverance in this sense is a very important matter. It is affecting to think that both the Lord Jesus and the Holy Spirit are on our side to help us in getting free. And if They have come into such a subordinate position to help us to get free, surely we should be concerned to make full room for Them, so that we are free - free in ourselves and free in the assembly.

CAH In chapter 7 it says, “For when we were in the flesh” and in chapter 8 it says “But ye are not in flesh”.

SMcC That is the truth. All the time that I have been spending, occupied with myself as in flesh, God tells me I am no longer in flesh, and I have right and title to take account of myself now as a believer, as God takes account of me, no longer in flesh, but in Spirit, as it says, “if indeed God’s Spirit dwell in you”. That is, it is contingent upon the dwelling of the Spirit. Evil thoughts do not spring from the Spirit, they spring from the flesh. Why should I be occupied so much of my time with what God has set aside and does not regard any more? Let me be occupied with my new state before God, in which there is no condemnation.

Now just a reference to the Priest in Romans 8. Perhaps we have not thought enough of the Priest in Romans 8. Because the expression is not used, we may not have thought of it as being there. The whole point, in the end of Romans 8, is that in the light of the early teaching of the chapter, in the light of the calling and purpose of God. Christ is on high in priestly office and service, interceding for us to sustain us and maintain us in the light of these glorious things. So that nothing shall separate us from His love and nothing shall separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. It is a beautiful reference to the mediatorial position. The love of God has come into the mediatorial position in the Man Christ Jesus, and nothing is going to separate us from it, and that is contingent upon the priesthood of Christ.

JHS Would that be the connection in Exodus 17 where you have Moses and Aaron and Hur?

SMcC That is it; you have the system. What Romans 8 unfolds and develops so wondrously before our souls is a great divinely-devised system of help involving the priesthood, and involving personal purity in the believer.

Rem So the word says: “Who also intercedes for us”. That is His present priestly service.

SMcC That is it. And the ‘also’ is very noticeable and affecting, is it not? Beginning with verse 30 it says, “But whom he has predestinated, these also he has called; and whom he has called, these also he has justified; but whom he has justified, these also he has glorified”. And then verse 32: “He who, yea, has not spared his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not also with him grant us all things?” Then verse 34: “It is Christ who has died, but rather has been also raised up, who is also at the right hand of God; who also intercedes for us”. The truth of the gospel is flooding our souls with the light of what is additional; the repetition of the word ‘also’ is like God adding blessing to blessing in view of our being maintained triumphant and in overcoming. We are more than overcomers through Him that has loved us!