FEBRUARY 10TH, 1899

FEBRUARY 10TH, 1899

MY BELOVED BROTHER, — As to Romans 5, I think I apprehend your thought, and it seems to me that it does not go far enough to meet the scope and drift of the passage in question.

I think, if you analyse your thoughts as to the latter part of the chapter, it will appear from them as if the apostle was only repeating in a different shape what he had already said in 4: 25, and 5: 1. Are we not set up as righteous before God in the most complete way in verse 1? I am of the opinion that the apostle is passing on to the moral effect of the knowledge of righteousness in the souls of those who receive that knowledge through God’s infinite grace. He is thus laying the moral basis for chapters 6, 7 and 8.... I cannot help feeling that the greatness of the chapter has been very much overlooked. I do not see how you could have chapters 6, 7 and 8 unless you have a race not only accounted righteous but characterised by righteousness. Indeed, the very fact that “our old man” is spoken of implies the existence of a new man. I own fully that the scope of the thought does not appear in this epistle — that the individual side of it is prominent — but all the elements of the new man are here — a man created according to God in truthful righteousness and holiness. He can even speak in chapter 8 of Christ being in us.

I do not attach any special importance to the word “constituted” except that I think it invariably sets forth that the person or thing is actually in the position or state spoken of. The one who will be a friend of the world is constituted an enemy of God (James 4: 4), and Peter says, “If these things be in you and abound they constitute you neither idle nor unfruitful, etc”. These are the only two occurrences of the word, used in a moral sense, in the New Testament, except the twice in Romans 5, and in each the thought conveyed is that of what the person is characteristically.

I am writing all this just to lay myself open to your correction in the points wherein I appear to you to be in the wrong.

February 10th, 1899.