READINGS ON ROMANS (3)
READINGS ON ROMANS (3)
FER I think the object of the epistle to the Romans is the teaching of saints, that is to put things in order in our minds. It is not something written to those who do not believe. It is not a kind of gospel preaching, but it is the setting forth of the truth in an orderly kind of way, so that it may take proper shape in the minds of believers, so that you could not exactly base gospel preaching on what you find in the epistle to the Romans.
JP Because as you say it is not the setting forth of the gospel to the unconverted. It is addressing the saints in Rome.
FER And intended no doubt by the Spirit to put things in order in their minds.
JP I suppose you would say it is great gain to us as believers when we get things put in order in our minds.
FER I think we must come to it some time or other. It may take a long time.
JSA I suppose that accounts for the way in which baptism is presented in this chapter.
FER Quite so. You see chapters 3 to 5 take up the divine side; then chapters 6 to 8 take up our side.
JP I think you said that in chapters 3 and 4 we get the knowledge of God in the way in which God has come out in righteousness and power.
FER Quite so. But then all that is in a Man, and therefore you can understand chapter 5 coming in to show that that Man is the one Man. I think it is perfectly intelligible, because if God has come out in righteousness and power, revealing Himself that way in redemption and in the resurrection of Christ, of necessity that must give place to the one Man in whom that has all been accomplished, and the latter part of chapter 5 really sums it up [p. 237] in that way, and shows the place which that Man occupies. This has to be taken into account; and that is where the gospel has been really very deficient, I mean the preaching of the gospel has been very deficient. There has been far too much tendency to preach the benefits of the work of Christ, instead of preaching Christ Himself, because really after all, everything depends on the place which that Man occupies. The truth of God’s righteousness and power have come to light, but the secret depends on the introduction of that one Man.
JP The second division of chapter 5 makes that very plain.
FER Very plain. The whole moral universe which is before God depends entirely on that Man.
WM I suppose the gospel is more the presentation of Christ in His official relationship to man.
FER Yes.
JP And I can see the force of what you say because in setting forth so exclusively the benefits of the work of Christ we really occupy people with themselves largely, but if you set Him forth you will occupy people with Him.
FER Yes, because everything depends on Him, just as in the solar universe everything depends on the sun. Apart from the sun we get no fertility; everything depends on the influence of the sun and rain; and if there were no sun there would be no system. It all depends on the sun. So it is in the moral universe. Christ is the Sun and centre, and hence it is everything depends on Christ.
JP You were saying chapters 6 to 8 are on our side; what do you mean by that?
FER Because they take up the question of how we are brought into relation to Christ. We apprehend the righteousness and the power of God set forth in Christ; that is a question of faith; that is, we apprehend the righteousness of God in redemption, and the power of God in the resurrection of Christ. That becomes the [p. 238] foundation, the knowledge of God in that way. Now the point comes of the relation in which we stand to Christ.
JP So it is no longer a question of faith in Christ.
FER No. Of course the apprehension of God’s righteousness and power is a question of faith. Now we want to understand the relation in which we stand to Christ who is the Centre, the one Man, because there is no other man. The resurrection of Christ has left every other man in death. I think we can understand that. “If one died for all, then were all dead”, and the effect of that has been to leave every other man in death. Really before God there is only one Man. Till the death of Christ God was dealing with men in a certain sense on the ground of living; that is, He was testing man, but when the death of Christ came in, the death of Christ proved that all were dead, and the resurrection of Christ has left every other man in death except Christ.
JP I think it is wonderful if we can get hold of that.
FER I think all these chapters, Romans 6 to 8, are based on that.
JP So it is now altogether a question of our relationship to that one Man.
FER But the first thing is what we get in chapter 6, we reckon ourselves alive unto God in Christ Jesus. We are out of death. We have gone into death in baptism, but we have come out of death and we reckon ourselves alive to God in Christ Jesus. I think the basis of everything is really one Man out of death. But then He is the appointed attraction to bring a great many more out of death. “I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me”.
WM How far does this chapter 6 go in presenting the effect on the believer?
FER Only so far that you recognise the fact that the death of Christ has left all in death. You have gone into death in baptism, but you are out of death in Christ Jesus. You have come out of the water of baptism. Christ came out of death, raised by the glory of the Father, and [p. 239] you have gone into death, but you are come out of death in baptism, to reckon yourself alive unto God in Christ Jesus. Baptism is the figure.
WM It is simply a reckoning, it does not go so far as resurrection.
FER Yes.
JP It is rather remarkable that resurrection is in the future in Romans 6 so far as we are concerned.
FER It must be so literally. “If we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection”. But that is not so for the moment. As you say, it is literally future, and in this world we never can go beyond a reckoning. It must be a reckoning, a reckoning which really distinguishes the christian from other people. A man of the world does not think about the reckoning. He reckons himself alive in this world, but the christian reckons himself to be dead indeed unto sin and alive unto God in Christ Jesus.
GWH What is the force of the word ‘reckon’? You mean you count yourself as dead?
FER Yes. Because you have gone into baptism, therefore you reckon yourself dead unto sin and alive unto God in Christ Jesus. You have died out of one door to enter another door. That is what has come to pass.
JSA I suppose it must be by the Spirit that you reckon yourself dead. It is not simply faith, as people say.
FER No; faith does not come into these chapters.
WM I suppose sin is looked on here more in the character of the sphere where man’s will dominates.
FER I think it is looked at in the way in which Scripture generally looks at it, as lawlessness.
WM It is not what people call sin inside.
FER I do not think so. It is more the thought that you have died to the scene of sin.
GWH The principle of sin reigning in the world.
FER You cannot die to anything in you. You reckon yourself dead to what you were in. You were in a [p. 240] kind of way alive in certain things, and now you reckon yourself dead to them. That is what I take it to mean.
JP Because from the outset of the chapter it must be a question of living in it.
FER Yes, continuing. It is not a question of sin continuing in you, but of you continuing in sin.
JP Exactly.
PA So the death of Christ is our title to reckon ourselves dead.
FER Exactly. Christ has gone into death really vicariously, bearing the judgement which lay upon us; that is our title to die because God has not altered the world yet, and the death of Christ has proved all in death. so the great point is for us to accept it. It is a great thing to accept death. You pass out of one door to come in by another. I do not think that is enough understood by people. People look on themselves as being forgiven, more in that point of view, but you are forgiven to die, not to live, but in order that you may come in by another door; that is, the life of Christ.
PA So that the death of Christ has its bearing to all.
FER Exactly. It is a witness to all. If I were not forgiven, I would do all I could to live, not to die. “Skin for skin, yea, all that a man hath will he give for his life”, because he cannot afford to die till he is forgiven. Not a man in the world can afford to die. It is too terrible. I die as in Adam, but in order to live in Christ.
WM And hence in the Acts of the Apostles forgiveness of sins and baptism were inseparably connected.
FER Yes. A man was not ordinarily baptised till he was forgiven. That is to say that he went into the figure of death when he was forgiven. The human idea would be that if a man is freed from death it is in order that he may go on again in life here, but that is not the divine idea. The divine idea is that you are forgiven in order that you may die.
JP I suppose the eunuch apprehended that in some way, and that it led to his desire to be baptised — to die.
FER [p. 241] Exactly. Then it is you come in by another door, that is, you reckon yourself alive unto God in Christ Jesus. One connection is severed, that is with the world scene, but another connection is formed by the Spirit, that is “in Christ Jesus”. You reckon yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin but alive unto God in Christ Jesus.
JSA And in that light death is a privilege and not a necessity.
JP And Christ Jesus is that one Man of whom you spoke.
FER That is the basis of all these chapters.
JP And everything is in that one Man.
WM So when a man was forgiven, his history was ended morally.
FER You get the same principle coming out in the epistle of John (1 John 2: 2 - 5), “And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world”. And then the point is, “Hereby know we that we are in him”.
JP And to be in Him involves what you have been speaking about, you have gone out of one door and entered another.
FER Exactly. And you have cut your connection in one respect and formed another connection.
WM You are alive unto God in Christ Jesus.
FER That is it.
GWH Would you say you have left the world and come into christianity?
FER I would say more; you have left sin and the world, and you have come into Christ.
LPT I want to ask about the reckoning ourselves dead. I mean reckoning ourselves dead to what is around us but not to what is in us.
FER I do not see how you can reckon yourself dead to what is in you. The fact is this, there may be in you a power which is superior to the sin in you, but you do not reckon yourself dead to anything in [p. 242] you.
JP I think that is a helpful remark, because I think especially out this way there has been a great deal of that. It would help a great many souls if they could see that. People have tried it, but it does not work very well.
FER I think in regard to that we take up the language of chapter 8 and say we are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwelleth in us. I do not think scripture ever tells us to reckon ourselves dead to the flesh. You are not in it but you are in the Spirit.
WM Does it not seem clear from verse 10, “For in that he died, he died unto sin once”. No one would imagine that there was sin in Him to die to. It was sin outside.
FER And the exhortation is based on that: “Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Christ Jesus”. You reckon yourselves to be dead unto sin on the principle on which He died to it.
JSA And as you were saying just now, Scripture speaks of being dead to the law and to the world, but not to the flesh.
WM This passage does not take up flesh but sin.
FER Yes; and sin as a principle to which Christ has died.
JP I suppose the nearest would be “they that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts”.
FER Quite so. You mortify the deeds of the body, but that is in a kind of way a continual exercise. You do not mortify your body.
JP You do not put your body to death.
GWH The motions of sin in the flesh are judged, I suppose.
FER Quite so.
JP So that you would say in chapter 6 we are at the beginning of our connection in Christ, and practically it is a most important question for us.
FER Most important. You have cut your [p. 243] connection in one way, but you have entered into a new connection. It would be a great deal for every one of us if we could only remember there is one Man before God. You cannot find another man risen. You know nothing about any other man risen.
JP The apostles are not risen, are they?
FER No. Christ is the one Man out of death, at all events if there be others out of death we know nothing about them. The point was that Christ should be the first to rise from the dead, and He has risen from the dead and He is the only One that we know anything about that is risen from the dead.
WM The Holy Spirit has brought down a report about Him.
FER And His resurrection has been witnessed to.
JSA And it says expressly, “they that are Christ’s at his coming”.
GWH So it is not a question now so much about being true to our baptism as being true to our connection with Christ.
FER The one will follow the other.
JP This is very interesting that the appeal is to their baptism, and the walk is based upon it.
FER I think it is what we have often spoken of. The moment people apprehend forgiveness the point was not for them to live, but to die. That is what was set before them.
JP And then the position itself is at the very outset of things. You come to it at once, not after a long time. Baptism really stands at the very outset of things.
FER You see in the future in regard of Israel the same will hardly apply, because there is a scapegoat for them. We have not a scapegoat. They will have it, and therefore as a matter of fact it will not be a question with them of accepting death, but they will live here in this scene, because the scene will be purged. I have no doubt whatever they will have passed in a kind of way through the experience of death, but the whole character of the [p. 244] scene will be changed, hence it is that it will not be a question with them of accepting death in the sense in which we accept it, but their sins will be carried away into the land of forgetfulness. When Christ comes it will alter everything, because He brings in the moral universe, and people will be blessed in Him. It will not be a question of their accepting death in that way. That will not apply to them.
JP Sin will not reign unto death then, but grace will reign through righteousness unto eternal life.
FER Therefore the thought of acceptance of death will not come in to them.
JSA The application of the scapegoat to christianity has rather tended to confuse people.
CHS Will you tell us a little about the resurrection in Matthew 27, “And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, and came out of the graves after his resurrection”.
FER I am sure I cannot tell you. I am not acquainted with any one of those persons. There were several persons no doubt, but I have not any acquaintance with any one of them, for the simple reason Scripture does not tell you anything about them. That is only brought in as a kind of witness to the power of resurrection.
WM One great point in this chapter would be to emphasise Christ as the one Man. The Spirit is not brought in at all.
FER Quite so.
JSA But then if, as you were saying at the beginning, this is instruction for believers, it supposes they have the Spirit.
FER Yes. The fact is this, we never understand anything much till we have the Spirit. There is the faith of God’s testimony, but no one has any understanding till he gets the Spirit.
JP And when there is faith in the testimony God gives the Spirit.
FER Yes. You know we have had a good deal before [p. 245] us at the meetings that you are never called upon to believe anything about yourself. Scripture never puts before you as an object or ground of faith anything about yourself.
WM Not even that Christ died for you?
FER No.
GWH Would you explain that a little.
FER I think it is obvious, because you are called upon to believe in God and in Christ but not to believe anything about yourself. What can you believe about yourself? There is nothing in yourself that Scripture can present to you for faith. You have not to believe that you have eternal life or that you have forgiveness. That is not the ground of faith.
JP The facts which are set forth in the divine testimony are facts that concern something that Christ has done or that God has done, “how that Christ died for our sins”.
FER But that is universal.
GWH Mr. M. was saying that you do not even have to believe that Christ died for you.
FER But you come to apprehend that by the Spirit. You do not believe it. It is a thing you apprehend by the Spirit.
GWH So you get nothing by believing?
FER You get light, but you get nothing individually by faith, you only apprehend what is applicable to all.
JP Everything you get you get by the Spirit.
FER Everything that you get individually is by the Spirit. It is a question of appropriation.
WM But what you apprehend by faith is as true for every man as it is for you.
FER Yes. That is, it is as much God’s mind for every man as it is for you.
JP No man could say, “who loved me, and gave himself for me”, unless he had the Holy Spirit.
FER No; that is the appropriation by the Holy Spirit. That is [p. 246] not faith.
GWH So all blessings are by the Spirit.
FER The individual appropriation is by the Spirit. What we believe is common for all. That is how the Lord presents it in the last chapter of Luke’s gospel. “Thus it behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day; and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem”. That is, that the name of Christ is presented for all nations.
JP I think I have heard you say God has not got two minds towards man.
FER I do not think He has.
WM And if Christ is the mind of God for every man, that involves everything.
FER Hence it is that He is spoken of as the Head of every man.
GWH Would you speak of Him as your head individually?
FER Yes; when I have appropriated Him. But on His side He is the Head of every man.
JSA And so it is as you were saying elsewhere forgiveness of sins is not really appropriated by an individual until he has the witness of the Spirit.
FER No; I do not think it is. There is the redemption in Christ Jesus which has its application to all men, but then the moment comes when he can say he has redemption. But that does not alter the fact that redemption has its bearing toward all men.
PA “Made known to all nations for the obedience of faith”.
FER Quite so.
WM Was it taken for granted that the Romans knew anything about our old man being crucified with Christ? There is nothing stated about the new man in Romans. Are the elements given which belong to the [p. 247] new man?
FER I think so. You get a good deal of it in chapter 6.
JP You have righteousness and holiness in chapter 6 and they certainly belong to the new man.
FER Exactly. Now if we pass on to chapter 7 we get a little advance (Romans 7: 1 - 4); it is easy enough to see that we have a point further here. The point in this chapter is that really Christ becomes the source, so that we might bring forth fruit unto God. You come to the affection of Christ, and it is in the sense of affection that we bring forth fruit unto God. “Ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God”. You are married to the One that is raised from the dead. The fact is we are brought under the affection of Christ.
GWH There is the divine link formed, I suppose.
FER I think the link is there in chapter 6. In chapter 7 it is that you are married, so that you come under the influence and attraction of the One to whom you are married.
GWH And it is the affection consequent on this link being formed.
FER The link is supposed all through these chapters. If the link were not there you could not count yourself alive unto God in Christ Jesus, but the point is that you should enter into it.
JP I suppose that the reason that the law is mentioned rather than sin is, that the law had the character of a bond which sin never had. Sin was never a bond, but the law was a bond.
FER The law was a divinely appointed bond — a “husband”; but the effect of the law was to throw man upon himself. Man became legal, and I have no doubt one other effect was he set to work to assert his rights. A legal man asserts his rights. That is always the case, if you get a man asserting his rights it is pretty good proof that he is legal.
WH He has not accepted his own disappearance.
JP I never saw a legal man but he was hard on others and easy on himself.
FER That is pretty much the character of a legal [p. 248] man. But now the point for us is this, we are “married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God”. I think it is a great thing for every one of us to come under the influence of Christ, because you cannot do anything right except under the influence of Christ. The apostle says, “and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me”. “The faith of the Son of God”, but then he emphasises that He “loved me, and gave himself for me”, and the practical result of that is we overcome the world to begin with. “Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God?” It is a very great thing for us to come really under the affection of Christ.
JP I suppose in principle this fourth verse perfectly agrees with John 15. (’)
WM You look upon abiding in the vine and marriage, as setting forth the truth of attachment to Christ?
FER Evidently a married woman is in attachment to her husband. Every married woman is tied to her husband, and so we are married to Christ; that is, we are bound to Christ, but then the object is that we may come under the affection of Christ, and under the influence of Christ, just as the earth is under the influence of the sun, so as to bring forth fruit unto God. It is well known the earth would not bring forth fruit except under the influence of the sun. There must be sunshine and the rain.
WM So fruit is the natural result of the bond.
GWH It is proof that the bond exists.
FER But you may get the bond existing and yet people not in the good of it.
WM The Galatians really got back to the law for support.
FER Yes, they did. They had the bond, but they were not getting the good of the bond. The consequence was they were biting and devouring one another. That was not the good of the bond clearly.
[p. 249] JSA Only the fault did not lie with the Husband, but with them.
WM So the apostle states in Galatians what fruit is.
FER It is a very important point in regard to us that we should come under the influence of Christ. It is only in that way we can bring forth fruit unto God. You must get sunshine. People cannot live without it. You may get too much of it naturally, but for all that you cannot do without it. You would not get any fruit without it.
WM The sun which shines upon us, naturally, is not able to adapt itself to us with intelligence.
FER No; it cannot adjust itself. Sometimes you get an excess of sunshine in one part of the world and sometimes an excess of rain. It shines in general for the earth, and the earth circles around the sun, so that every part of the earth is in some way exposed to the sun, but the sun cannot adjust itself to every part of the earth at every moment. The consequence is you may get an excess of sunshine and excess of rain. That may lead to famine sometimes. It is often the case in India. But then suppose they get a proper quantity of rain, they want sunshine too. But the sun cannot adjust itself to the wants of India. There is no intelligence in the sun. That is not the case with our Sun.
JP There is no room for moral adjustment in the material universe, but in this wonderful moral universe there is room.
FER The christian never gets too much sunshine. You may get too much rain but not too much sunshine.
GWH Rain is ministry.
FER You can tell by the very look of people that they do not get sunshine enough.
JP It affects the complexion.
FER I think so. “Shine upon us”. You get that expression in the Psalms. It is a good thing to be shone upon.
WM You get the same thought in Ephesians, “Christ shall shine upon thee”.
FER Yes. The world to come will be fertile in the spiritual point of view, because it will come under the influence of the sunshine of Christ. Now when we come to chapter 8 that brings in the bond. You see chapter 6 brings out the position, chapter 7 brings out the good of the position, and chapter 8 brings out the bond of the position.
JP The Spirit.
FER You want to understand the position, that is chapter 6. Then you want to get the good of the position, just as the earth stands in a certain position in regard to the sun and gets the good of the position, but then we want another thing, and that is to understand the bond; there is a certain bond between the earth and the sun, and the earth is in the position and gets the good of the position and there is the bond of the position, and so it is true in christianity. We want in the first instance to understand the position and get the good of it, but then we have to recognise that next there is the bond of the position.
WM So chapter 8 is largely about the Spirit.
FER Almost entirely, because the point of chapter 8 is that the Spirit is the bond. “If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his”. That is what chapter 8 enlarges upon.
JP And it is a sort of unfolding of what is for us in the bond.
FER Exactly. Another point comes out in chapter 8, that is, that if you are in the bond, attached to Christ, Christ is in you. “If Christ be in you”, and what follows on that is that you are before God according to Christ. What is true in Christ is what is true in you.
JP That is, you get sonship.
FER Life and liberty and sonship.
WM And all that because of the bond that attaches you to Christ.
FER Exactly. Life is in the Spirit, liberty is in the Spirit, sonship is in the Spirit, everything is in the [p. 251] Spirit. But it is the effect and result of your being brought into attachment to Christ.
WM It shows how all these things lie in Christ, in the Spirit, and not in us.
FER Quite so.
PA Why is that Scripture in Galatians about Christ being formed in you?
FER Because the apostle was not confident about the Galatians. Christ had scarcely taken shape in them. He does say afterwards he had confidence in them through the Lord, but he does not appear to have had very much confidence.
JP It was not that they had not the Spirit, but there was very little work of the Spirit in them.
WM “Through” seems a characteristic word of chapters 4 and 5; in these chapters it is “in”.
FER Quite so. I think the word “in” always supposes the bond to be there. I wonder if we all understand in regard to Christ what He is in the universe of God and how we stand to Him, and how we get the benefit of the relation; because that is the one point to us down here. People may be good christians in a kind of way doctrinally and formally. They may meet all right in a scriptural form, and hold sound doctrine, but that is not christianity. They are the externals of christianity but not the power of christianity. The power of christianity is really in the way in which we are bound to Christ, and to Christ as the centre and beginning of a world. If Christ is not apprehended in that light you have not a right thought of Him.
JP It is a poor thing to have nothing more than correct form and sound doctrine.
FER The practical effect of it is that people grow old.
JP Instead of growing young.
FER Yes. They grow old in the wilderness. If they do not get a bit into the land they grow old in the [p. 252] wilderness.
JP Caleb and Joshua did not seem to grow old in the wilderness.
FER Because they had been in the land and had tasted the fruit of the land. It is perfectly certain to my mind that people cannot live on the things by which they first came out of Egypt. You want to live on something else. You cannot live on the past. You must live on what is in the future.
JSA You must live in the light and power of that world. A person might be young in spirit and old in years.
FER If people are constantly calling to mind the things which they first had when they came out of Egypt they grow old.
WM That is the principle of Galatianism. The apostle brought sonship before them to recover them.
GWH You ought to live in the light and power of that in which we are soon to live actually.
FER That is it. Get into the land of promise. How are people going to get into the land of promise? I think the way is simple; it really lies in the apprehension of what Christ is as the beginning and centre of the whole divine system. That is the moral universe.
JSA In this very chapter it is the brightness of what is coming that encourages the believer.
FER Yes.