ROMANS 6 (NOTES OF A READING)
[p. 512] ROMANS 6 (NOTES OF A READING)
CAC We have had before us the thought of the glorious Head that has been provided for man by God’s great act of favour, and we have seen that those who believe on Him come into the gain of what is administered by Him and are brought to reign in life and have justification of life, and to be constituted righteous. All that is the truth on the positive side — the positive gain and result of the headship of Christ. Then these great actings of grace necessarily involve a complete severance from the principle of evil brought in by Adam; so we learn now that the relation of the believer to sin is that he is dead to it.
Ques What would be the thought of “dead to sin”?
CAC Well, it certainly indicates a complete severance from it, so complete that it could only be adequately set forth by death.
Rem It says, “identified with him”. Verse 10 says, “He has died to sin once for all”, after it has said we have died to sin. The fact that He has died to it makes it possible for us.
CAC If Christ had not died we should have had no title to separate ourselves from what came in by our former head. The death of Christ is our title to take this ground, and Christians under the reign of grace do take this ground, that they have died to sin. The ground of it was brought before us in a striking way in our baptism.
We come to it under divine instruction, rather than by the exercise of our souls. We take it up as divinely instructed in our affections. People think it is a matter of exercise. Exercise for a thousand years would not bring us to it, whereas instructed affection can come to it at once. People exercise themselves for years instead of understanding the economy of grace which brings everything to them by grace, and that now they have to obey from the heart what they have been instructed in. It all turns on verse 17 — “Thanks [p. 513] be to God, that ye were bondmen of sin, but have obeyed from the heart the form of teaching into which ye were instructed”. That is one of the greatest things God could bring us into, so that our affections could be instructed so as to learn our relation to Christ and to sin — there is no exercise in it. What I see in the early chapters of Romans is nothing else but divine light and instruction brought into the human soul, so that God may be known — no exercise but all divine light. It is the economy of grace unfolded in divine power, unfolded not only for justification, but deliverance. We know many souls are hung up for years, they are not obedient. Heart-obedience to divine instruction is worth all the experience in the world put together.
Ques Otherwise it depends on oneself, you mean?
CAC Exactly. I well remember the laborious and puzzling exercises I went through before I was prepared for heart-obedience to divine instruction. “Ye ... have obeyed from the heart”. It is a heart matter. This is not a mass of doctrine as some people think, all this truth about the Head and the wonderful things that come in by Him in divine completeness; nothing is lacking in it — it cannot be improved or added to. It is all a matter of obedience to divine instruction, so as to bring deliverance from sin and freedom from the law and the flesh. When it comes in, all exercises are at an end.
The apostle Paul is a good illustration. He got the greatest possible light, nothing could be more glorious than the light that shone on him. He learnt all the truth of the gospel and the assembly in one blaze of light, and he learned in light in one minute more than he could have learned in a thousand years of experience.
Romans shows you the structure of grace in the soul of the believer that qualifies him for the assembly; that is why he indicates later on that he has much more to say. It is very evident to us all that if we have obeyed from the heart the divine instruction, we have come in our affections under the new Head; and the great point is that we should come in our affections under the personal influence of the new Head.
[p. 514] Ques Why is it we are so slow to receive divine light?
CAC To put it simply we have preferred to circle round ourselves rather than attend to objective thoughts of God in Christ. You will not make any progress that way. You go on circling round till one day a blaze of light brings God before you in Christ and you see the lines on which the Spirit is moving and it commands your affections, and that is how you come into deliverance. I know no better way.
This whole matter is really determined in relation to our baptism. The man who baptised us understood the relation; we did not. That is, the only ground that is right for a child of Adam to be on according to grace is identification with Christ in His death. On account of the terrible conditions that had come in, it was a necessity for men to be put on another ground, that of Christ and His death, and baptism is the expression of it. The disobedient man cannot be retained in God’s system of grace, he must be buried. This death upon man as a sinner has been taken up by the blessed God in grace: Christ has been in it, and it is our title to sever ourselves entirely from the fallen and disobedient man. We are not fit for the assembly otherwise. The privilege of the assembly is identification with Christ in life; well, we could not know that if we are not dead with Him. As Lord He administers all that there is in Him as Head.
Ques They were baptised to Moses in the cloud and in the sea, is that as head?
CAC Yes, the fifth chapter is the cloud and the sixth chapter is the sea. We can only be baptised once, there is no going back to Egypt; they could not go back through the Red Sea for it is one-way traffic there! There is no need to repeat baptism; it puts you on a certain ground and that permanently. It is most important for us to see that according to grace our links with the fallen and disobedient man are severed for ever and never to be resumed — it is a matter of divine instruction, it is very much greater than experience.
Rem “Buried” would mean forever finished.
CAC The man really which is buried does not come [p. 515] up again. The man who comes up is a new man who walks in relation to Christ, in newness of life. He is the divinely appointed Head. It is God’s will made known and I come into it by my affections being carried by it. We do not need more light, but our hearts touched. There are many things you can only learn by divine light coming into the soul and liberating the affections. With believers who have come under the headship of Christ there is the Spirit as well as faith. The instruction is received on the principle of faith in the power of the Spirit. Faith is the light of God in the soul of man. What could be greater than to have the light of God and of Christ as Head, and deliverance from sin and from law, and to be in the supremacy of life in regard to the flesh; can you think of anything better for the creature? I can go to God as having His light for our blessing in my soul carrying my affections, so that I am in the mind of God in my own soul, seeing as He does, and that delights Him. There is often a mixed condition actually, as we sometimes say, a dissolving view, the new coming, but the old not quite gone.
“With” occurs five times in verses 4 - 8, the word of identification. Grace entitles every one of us brought to the faith of Christ to take up our identification with Him and live in the secret of our hearts with God — it is deliverance from the sphere of sin. The real secret of it is the new birth that has been effected in every soul that believes in Christ — a divine operation in the soul that manifested itself in faith that brought divine light into the soul. All that is done in me has the light of the new Head in view, that I should come into it. God’s thought is that the fallen man, all that is morally connected with fallen Adam, shall disappear. The person that baptised you put you on the ground of the death of Christ; you have to come to it afterwards. I was baptised because I saw it in Scripture and that it was the right thing to be done. And so it is with many, but it is not entering into the import of it! The eunuch apprehended in a spiritual manner the import of the death of Jesus.
Ques Is it a different man as well as a different ground?
[p. 516] CAC Of course it is. It means that the disobedient man is to disappear morally with every one of us. It would not be worthy of God — it would not be like God to leave him in evidence. Therefore the judgment of the disobedient man has been borne by the obedient Man, so that all the features of the disobedient man disappear.
“Our old man” is the man connected with Adam. It is the whole body of sin — not members not correcting this detail or that. The whole man must go, and be replaced by the features of the obedient Man.
Ques Is that why it says, “And ... was buried” (1 Corinthians 15: 4)?
CAC Yes. It was the fulfilment of the original sentence, “Dust thou art; and unto dust shalt thou return” (Genesis 3: 19), and that thought is in burial, man going back to earth whence he was taken. The Lord went into the heart of the earth; it was for our sakes. That means if we are buried with Him by baptism unto death it is that that man who needed to be put out of sight disappears. What is to be seen in this marvellous newness of life which stands in relation to Christ. We let ourselves off by talking about our failures and shortcomings and say we often break down — well, that will not get us anywhere!
Ques Is it connected with putting on the new man?
CAC I think it involves the putting off of the old man and the putting on of the new man, because it is a matter of instruction there (in Ephesians), the truth as it is in Jesus; “If ye have heard him and been instructed in him according as the truth is in Jesus; namely your having put off ... the old man ... and your having put on the new man” (Ephesians 4: 21 - 24). It is the instruction Christ gives me and will tell me — not in my head, but in my heart.
So that this newness of life is all in relation to Christ, and everyone who knows anything about it is delighted it is so. You will be filled with the blessedness of it all the time! It is for lack of this that we are full of our miserable failures.
Rem “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”.
CAC Is it not perfectly beautiful? And newness of life is magnified in glory because it is like Christ. What a satisfaction to the Father to have Him outside the range of sin and death for ever! So he says, “Raised up ... by the glory of the Father”. Well, that is the pattern of your walking in newness of life, “so we also should walk in newness of life”, so that in the end nothing might be seen but God and the glory of God; it is the portion of faith.
Rem Burial does not come in till after resurrection is brought in. Sarah is buried in Genesis 23.
CAC You could not have such a chapter as Romans 6 in the Old Testament. It had to wait till Christ had died, was buried, had risen and ascended to the right hand of God before it could be written.
Ques Why is it “if” in verse 5?
CAC To show the moral connection; that is, it is a necessity that we should be identified with Him in the likeness of His death, if we are to be in the likeness of His resurrection. You cannot have the one without the other, it is on that ground. If we have not died with Him, we cannot live with Him. So if we have not died with Christ we have no right to talk of christian blessing at all. Living with Him stretches out right on through the assembly and to eternity.
Rem What has taken place in Christ becomes our lesson book for our instruction.
Ques Does verse 11 bring in the thought of obedience?
CAC Yes, I think it is taken up in heart-obedience; all these things are taken up in our affections. We might know this chapter by heart, but that does not give it to us. So the reckoning is taken up. I think it is illustrated by what Ittai said to David when the royal city was in rebellion, “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: 21). He took [p. 518] up his relations with David in affection, and we have to. Then Mephibosheth paid no attention to himself, his heart had gone over with David. We have not done so literally, the only way we can go over is in our affections.
Ques Would you say something about Christ living to God?
CAC Well, I do not know enough about it to say much. What I see in it is this, that He had entirely ceased to have any contact with the scene of sin and death, for they were abhorrent to God. He laid down His life. He lives to God, the Pattern of that mighty host that will live to God under His headship. He is not only Head but Pattern; the whole heavenly company will be patterned by Him. God has His thought in fruition in a glorified Man in heaven this minute, it is all in substance in Him. To think that we are able to say we are alive to God in Him — it is enough to take your breath away!
Think of all this being brought in as divine instruction in order to regulate us in our everyday life and regulate our members. It is the inward secret not talked about by the believer, but his everyday practical life is governed by all these precious things he has in secret with God. All is to be regulated in the believer’s life by divine instruction, and if so, what sort of a man should a Christian be? Every detail would be regulated practically in his life at home or in his business. So you do not let sin reign in your mortal flesh, nor let your members be instruments to sin. The believer is a self-controlled person, so that not one of his members becomes an instrument to sin.
Some people think this chapter is all about the flesh. We must not confound it with the eighth chapter. It is not about the flesh. We come to the flesh in the eighth chapter. This is a greater, a universal question, that principle of evil that came into the world by one man, for which Christ died. It is looked at in a certain sense as external to the believer, and he does not admit its power at all.