THE KINGDOM OF GOD (2)
[p. 37] THE KINGDOM OF GOD (2)
Romans 6:14 - 18; Romans 7:1-9; Romans 7:22-25; Romans 8:1 - 11
JT In considering our subject last time we ended with chapter 5 of this book. It was remarked that the principles of the kingdom then under review related to sins; this time the subject of sin, a root principle, is before us. At the close of our last reading we were particularly occupied with the reign of grace. “So also grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord”, chapter 5: 21. The use of the word ‘reign’ was noted; authority is the principle of reigning. And now our first verse today, chapter 6:14, says, “For sin shall not have dominion over you, for ye are not under law but under grace”. So that we are taught negatively here; that is, what does not have dominion over us; what does not reign over us.
AAT Where does the kingdom of God fit into this?
JT Well, it is used negatively; sin has no authority over us; it “shall not have dominion over you, for ye are not under law but under grace”. The later scriptures read will deal with the subject in that sense — that we are set free, having power in the Spirit. The negative and the positive agree in that sense. In chapter 8 we shall thus see how deliverance from the dominion of sin is worked out.
ANW “Alive to God in Christ Jesus”, suggests the supremacy of God on the positive side.
APT Do I understand you to say that sin is a principle operating?
JT Just so — a root principle.
APT Perhaps you would help us to see it more clearly.
JT Well, it is seen earlier in the chapter. Verse 1 says, “What then shall we say? Should we continue in sin that grace may abound? Far be the thought. We [p. 38] who have died to sin, how shall we still live in it?” All this relates to baptism. So it goes on: “Are you ignorant that we, as many as have been baptised unto Christ Jesus, have been baptised unto his death? We have been buried therefore with him by baptism unto death, in order that, 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. For if we are become identified with him in the likeness of his death, so also we shall be of his resurrection; 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. For he that has died is justified from sin”, verses 1 - 7. I think the matter is clearly laid down there, baptism coming into view. The believer is not regarded as a Christian until he is baptised. “He that believes and is baptised shall be saved”, (Mark 16:16) — not shall be, or has been, but is baptised; that is, he is actually baptised, and he is on the basis therefore of salvation. But here the salvation involves “from sin”.
CAM The fact that he uses the words “our old man”, in verse 6, and the idea of “the body of sin” would confirm what you said as to sin being a principle, it is bigger than any man, is it not?
JT Yes: it is bigger, involving our old man, the operations being in the old man; our old man is crucified with Christ. There is only one; it is a great moral thought, including all men.
AR It would involve freedom from the body; we are free from this body, which we are carrying about with us all the time.
JT Yes, “the body of sin”: “So also ye, reckon yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body to obey its lusts. Neither yield your members instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but yield yourselves to God as alive from among the dead, and your members instruments of righteousness to God”. The body of sin is regarded as annulled; the body of it would be the totality of it; that is, the root principle that is before us — how it is dealt with and how thus we can be dear in our bodies of it. We are not to let it reign in our mortal bodies, but “yield yourselves to God as alive from among the dead, and your members instruments of righteousness to God”.
JTJr Does that put the responsibility on us? “Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body”, and, “Neither yield your members instruments of unrighteousness to sin”. It is our responsibility, is it not? In verse 14 it is something else, that sin shall not have dominion over you.
JT That is how the truth stands, so that the believer’s body is cleared. These are the basic facts by which we come into the truth in chapter 7, and into liberty; the Spirit supporting all this in our souls.
AR Is this what is going on inside of us; the battle is inside?
JT We shall see that more fully in chapter 7.
ANW Is not the principle more outside? Would not the idea be seen perhaps in the control that Pharaoh had; I disown that authority and yield myself to God?
JT Yes. Sin in chapter 6 is objective; that is, something that we have to contend with externally. We are to reckon ourselves dead to it. It is not sin in us, but a system to which we regard ourselves dead.
WFK Is the thought that we should be “translated ... into the kingdom of the Son of his love”, Colossians 1:13?
JT Well that comes into our subject and will, God willing be considered later on. Now we are dealing with the principles of the kingdom. The kingdom of the Son of God’s love is a Colossian idea, but this epistle precedes that.
CAM Would you say that this chapter of Romans is more on the line of doctrine, the next chapter being more experience? I allude to your statement about the idea of [p. 40] sin in this chapter being objective. Is there not a certain line of things where a doctrine presented to us brings a freedom of soul?
JT Quite so; that is alluded to in verse 17: “But thanks be to God, that ye were bondmen of sin, but have obeyed from the heart the form of teaching into which ye were instructed”. Notice, it is not exactly divine Persons here yet; it is the teaching, involving the principles of the kingdom. Defect lies with most of us in the absence of these. It is quite right to speak of a Person controlling you, and many such thoughts, but the doctrine is intended to affect our minds and stay with us all the time, as you might say; a constitutional thing by which we are automatically controlled as we understand it and are subject to it.
FSC Is baptism to be held in our minds in the reckoning?
JT Quite so; the thing has happened, the believer “is baptised”. “He that believes and is baptised shall be saved”. The thing is there to affect you, and then the consequences. The teaching includes the idea of baptism, so that we become constitutionally automatic in dealing with these matters; there are negative principles and there are positive principles. The great negative principle is in verse 14: “For sin shall not have dominion over you”. That does not mean that it will not if it has opportunity. “Shall not” means that you are authoritative in the thing. You say. It must not be; that principle does not apply now. That is the idea.
WWM Is that the reason why the word “reckon” is used here? It says, “Reckon yourselves ... alive to God in Christ Jesus”. You keep that in your mind?
JT That is it. So that when the thing comes up, you are ready for it any time. You have the thing in your mind. This epistle is intended to affect us constitutionally so that the truth taught becomes automatic.
APT The expression, “Far be the thought” is used [p. 41] in verse 2, and again in verse 15. Does that confirm what you are stressing, that our minds are always ready to refuse any principle operating against the truth?
JT Yes. Let it be far away from you; it is foreign to you; hence, when you are tempted, the temptation is foreign, a foreign element.
JS You cannot go back into Egypt, in that sense.
JT Just so, you are out of it. You are in the wilderness where you are governed by other things. When we come to Sinai we are governed by the code involving the service of God, but we have hardly come to that yet; although in chapter 7 it is said that we should “serve in newness of spirit, and not in oldness of letter”, verse 6. That involves Sinai. Chapter 7 really involves Sinai, but this chapter is more the lusts ministered to in Egypt.
WR Would it imply the co-ordination of the faculties to refuse sin in the world, and to accept what is positive as of God?
JT Quite so; so that you come “over the border”. When you come over the Canadian border you are no longer under Canadian rule. A Canadian law may be as good as an American law, but sin is absolutely bad, and righteousness is absolutely good. It is a question of sin and righteousness, and sin has no dominion over the believer. “Shall not” means you have authority yourself against it.
ANW And while it is a mental process, the obeying is from your heart. Your heart is involved — “obeyed from the heart”, verse 17.
JT That would mean that your affections go out to God, answering to the kingdom of God. Affection has play, and works up to the King Himself, for the “love of God is shed abroad in our hearts”, chapter 5: 5. We get here, “Ye ... have obeyed from the heart the form of teaching into which ye were instructed”, verse 17.
TEH Two freedoms follow: the first freedom [p. 42] you come into is that you become bondmen of righteousness, and the second is that you become bondmen to God.
JT Yes. “But now, having got your freedom from sin, and having become bondmen to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end eternal life”, verse 22. What you come into is wonderful. The possibility is wonderful, everlasting life is involved in it. That is really all we have time to look into in chapter 6. It is a question of how we come into the kingdom by teaching, by the principles of the kingdom: that we arrive at bondmanship to God; also arrive at eternal life. These thoughts are just touched. And then chapter 7 comes into its place, in which the Sinaitic principles are seen as bearing on the subject before us. The point made early in the chapter is the death of the first husband. “Are ye ignorant, brethren” — now we are supposed to know law. “Are ye ignorant, brethren (for I speak to those knowing law,) that law rules over a man as long as he lives?” Anyone can see this is a question of principle that we are to be governed by; the matter of a man’s death and what it means: “For the married woman is bound by law to her husband so long as he is alive; but if the husband should die, she is clear from the law of the husband: so then, the husband being alive, she shall be called an adulteress if she be to another man; but if the husband should die, she is free from the law, so as not to be an adulteress, though she be to another man. So that, my brethren, ye also have been made dead to the law by the body of the Christ, to be to another, who has been raised up from among the dead, in order that we might bear fruit to God”, verses 2 - 4. So we are distinctly progressing here in this matter of deliverance from the first husband.
AR Is that why Moses’ wife called him a “bloody husband”?
JT Yes. It is implied as anti-typical of the Lord Jesus, as enforcing circumcision-He is thus a bloody [p. 43] Husband to us. We have to include that in our instruction, but there are things in Romans, which you just touch and leave. You do not bring in the whole matter because one word is used. Therefore, the Lord has to be regarded as having His rights now, that we are to be to another, that is, to our Moses. Circumcision is fully seen in Colossians as applied to us.
WWM Would you say a word about being made dead to the law by the body of Christ? How does that operate?
JT “So that, my brethren, ye also have been made dead to the law by the body of the Christ, to be to another”. That is, the truth of Christ’s death has acted on you; how the law as to the death of a husband bears in that way — an illustration of the Spirit’s way of using Scripture. The woman is free because her husband is dead; she comes to know that it is so. But it is transferred now to the body of Christ; that the dead man by whom we become delivered from the law is Christ, as having died.
RWS Is your first point that the kingdom resolves the principle of sin, and now the principle of the law is resolved? The one is evil, but is the law right? Chapter 7 says that law rules over a man as long as he lives.
JT We shall see how it works out. We are told that the law is holy and just and good. It has authority, but we are absolved from it through the death of the first husband. The first husband was really the legal system at Jerusalem, for the early Christians; they were relieved from that obligation so as to serve in newness of spirit. But that was the knowledge of Christ having died but now alive. I think we have to carry the idea of Christianity in our minds to see how it works out; how it was in the early days amongst Jewish Christians; how they became intelligent in what they were doing by the knowledge of Christ having died, risen again and having gone into [p. 44] heaven. Thus the saints were free to enter on the service of God, which was initially inaugurated in Jerusalem.
AR Is it like the youths in Exodus 24 offering up the bullocks?
JT That is right; they served as priests; for the moment they were the priests. The system, in principle, was set up there, plenty of blood being applied. But we are now dealing with the death of the first husband — how this is effected in “the body of the Christ ... who has been raised up from among the dead, in order that we might bear fruit to God”. The law has been ended for us in Christ’s death and resurrection, so that we should bear fruit to God, and serve Him in newness of spirit. Affection comes in powerfully in the service: we “serve in newness of spirit, and not in oldness of letter”. The question of affection comes in now in the new husband; that is how the Jewish Christians came into it; the teaching of the twelve apostles would enlarge their minds as to the whole matter of Sinai, how they were absolved from it in the risen Man — Christ now in heaven.
JTJr Would you say Peter and John in John 20 were really clear in their minds as to the resurrection? It says they believed and went home, but Mary’s mixed condition would allude to what might go on in us for a long time. She wanted to find the Lord where He had been laid; she thought they had taken Him away. She did not arrive at the new Husband in this sense that He was living.
JT Just so, but Peter and John had gone home, however; they did not find the service of God there; nor did Mary immediately find it, but she was on the way to it when she said, Rabboni; it showed she had gained from the teaching, and had gained in her heart too, and therefore the Lord takes her up and the whole matter became opened up now. But Romans does not lead us into the service of God fully. The apostle touches the [p. 45] the principle of it, but moves on to something else, so that we should be generally founded as to the kingdom. John 20 goes further than Romans.
WWM Would something of what we have here now enter into the mind of the Ethiopian eunuch when Philip preached to him Jesus, and he wanted to be baptised; he wanted to be identified with the Lord’s death?
JT “His life is taken from the earth”, (Acts 8:33); that is the word there, quoted from Isaiah 53. Well, where is He? The Spirit shows you immediately that you can go to Him quickly; that is, Philip is raptured. Jethro says to his daughters. Where is he? They had left him outside. Exodus 2. The idea of rapture lies in the Spirit. In Acts 8 we are coming to the new order of things in Cornelius and the rapture of Philip is a suggestion of Christianity — what we come into. We get in chapter 10 the thought of ecstasy. We have to learn these thoughts to come into Christianity, but, as we have said, Romans is generally foundational.
AR In chapter 7 it is “serve in newness of spirit”, not the full thought; is that the idea?
JT Yes; “not in oldness of letter”. If you were in Jerusalem in those days you would see how the letter was killing people; they were refusing Christ and dying morally, whereas the believers were coming into life, living to God in the Spirit.
DP When a difficulty arises these principles of which you are speaking begin to work in the believer automatically?
JT They do, so that when we come together to break bread we do not have to open the Bible for everything; I mean to say, when we come to the service of God, we have things in our minds. “I speak as to intelligent persons”, the apostle says. Some of us are not intelligent. We therefore need to see how others act — there are some intelligent persons; we want to see what they do, always [p. 46] bearing in mind that the Lord gives understanding in all things.
AAT It says, “... in order that we might bear fruit to God”, chapter 7:4. Does that relate to the service?
JT I think it is more general. We are to bear fruit in every good work. It is to be worked out later on. In this epistle things are touched and the Spirit moves on to something else; because Romans is especially the foundational epistle and there is a great deal of ground to cover. Thus we get basic truth into our souls, and therefore when you reach a kingdom man you have a man that can tell you something. We want to be kingdom men first; then assembly men, and then heavenly men. Of course, every feature of the truth is normally developed in its relation to the others.
FHL Did you say the legal system was dead in the death of Christ for the Jewish believers?
JT Yes; and so the Lord’s Supper was affected. In it Christ is Husband to the saints instead of the law. Paul doctrinised it. He said that he received it from the Lord; he got it doctrinally more than the twelve did. In the first letter to the Corinthians, he tells us, “For I received from the Lord, that which I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus, in the night in which he was delivered up, took bread, and having given thanks broke it, and said. This is my body, which is for you: this do in remembrance of me. In like manner also the cup, after having supped, saying. This cup is the new covenant in my blood: this do, as often as ye shall drink it, in remembrance of me”, chapter 11:23 - 25. Compared with the gospels, the wording in 1 Corinthians is much reduced.
RWS What you say helps, because when you go back in the light of Christianity the matter of the body of Christ is a marital thought.
JT Yes, but not developed. So that in reading Romans we must not bring everything into it, but go on [p. 47] to other features. Of course, we may refer to Colossians and Ephesians, as occasion may require, to complete any subject.
ANW “To be to another”, and then to “bear fruit to God”: we might go on to speak of the Lord’s supper and the service of God, but what is said in verse 2 is just enough for the purpose in mind.
CAM Touching on it in that way serves its purpose; it takes the believer out of himself, do you not think? It is very comforting and assuring that the immense thing involved in the verse is outside ourselves.
JT Quite so; deliverance from the law. The word deliverance had a great place fifty years ago. The brethren got hold of it, I believe. Mr. Raven was used largely to give the idea. Deliverance was a thing by itself, but it is not so much used now. I think we prefer to deal with it progressively, so that death comes in at the end of our chapter. We have already had the thought of “dead to the law by the body of the Christ, to be to another, who has been raised up from among the dead”. The marital thought in the Lord’s supper is suggested there, leading up to the service of God. But it would not do to bring it all in there. We touch on it, and then we go on to the inward condition we are in; how the law worked, as in Paul, “when we were in the flesh”. Ultimately he says, “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me out of this body of death?” It is “this body of death” now; it is not the law, nor the first husband, nor the “body of the Christ”, it is this body of death. And then he thanks God. “I thank God, through Jesus Christ our Lord”; so we learn to give thanks. It is in this sense that we come really into deliverance. We learn to give thanks to God for what we have come to thus far. The Spirit is essential to this, and hence the victorious eighth chapter following.
ABP What is the distinction between the body of sin and the [p. 48] body of death?
JT This body of death is in verse 24: “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me out of this body of death?” The body of sin is in verse 6 of chapter 6: “Our old man has been crucified with him, that the body of sin might be annulled”. There it is the great general thought of sin viewed as a system. There is only one old man. Each one of us is not viewed in that way. The old man is sinful, and we are crucified with Christ as of it, “that the body of sin might be annulled”. That is the totality of sin. “The body of sin” is the totality of it. It is not the idea of a person, but the body of sin.
ABP And then “this body of death”: do these references to the body suggest that the thing is worked out in our bodies?
JT That is the idea.
ANW In verse 6 it is collective, whereas the verse you are dealing with now in chapter 7 is individual.
JT That is right; each one of us in his own body has experienced the thing, but chapter 6 is a general thought of sin viewed as a system. Our old man has been crucified with Him that the body of sin might be annulled.
ABP Therefore it is the working of this thing in my body culminating in death. Chapter 7 is an experimental advance on chapter 6?
JT Yes. You experience the bondage attached to it, how the truth has worked in you. It has occasioned a state of darkness and death in your soul, and it is a necessary thing that it should be so, that you might judge the whole sinful state thoroughly. The subject begins in verse 5 of chapter 7. “For when we were in the flesh the passions of sins, which were by the law, wrought in our members to bring forth fruit to death; but now we are clear from the law, having died in that in which we were held, so that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in oldness of letter. What shall we say then?” verses 5 - 7. Now this brings us to the real crux of the matter.
What shall we say? “Is the law sin? Far be the thought”. The exercise that has now to be gone through implies that the knowledge entering into it has really become a trouble to me for the moment; until the exercise is completed, I am suffering. And we all have to learn as Abraham. A horror of great darkness came over him. We have got to go through the experience. And then the wail in verse 24, “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me out of this body of death?” And then the thanksgiving, which is itself part of the deliverance. You did not know the blessing was so near, but it breaks in on you, and the Spirit of God comes to your aid in it, so there is a decision reached in your soul. “I thank God, through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then I myself with the mind serve God’s law; but with the flesh sin’s law”. That is, the believer with his mind acts authoritatively, and this makes room for the Spirit who is seen operating in chapter 8. “The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and of death”.
FSC Would you bring in the man that was all leprous and became clean?
JT That would be a sort of type of it. The Lord had to touch him. “I will; be thou cleansed”. Is that your thought?
FSC I was thinking about Leviticus and the one who was leprous all over.
JT You get concrete examples worked out in the Lord’s own personal ministry in the gospels. The cleansed leper is suggestive. He was made clean at once. The Lord had to touch him to do that, showing that He went through the thing, Luke 5:13. He identified Himself with the leper.
TEH When I begin to give thanks in the way in which this chapter ends, would there be an indication that the Spirit’s gracious work has had its way in my soul?
JT Yes. Light has had its way in your soul [p. 50] gradually, and at the darkest moment it breaks through in volume, so you begin to give thanks instead of being worried and troubled, and that introduces you into the glorious facts depicted in chapter 8, that is where the Spirit has scope instead of the flesh.
AR Genesis 15 is very important instruction. Before the sun had gone down Abram got an indication about the 400 years ahead.
JT Yes. That 400 years had to be gone through by Israel, but Abram went through the horror immediately.
APT Is chapter 6 more objective knowledge and chapter 7 more conscious knowledge — what you learn in yourself?
JT I would say that; experimental knowledge, but involving great inward suffering. The state in your soul becomes almost intolerable, but light breaks through. And then you begin to give thanks instead of groaning.
JHH I was wondering whether Jonah would be a type of it? “The bars of the earth closed upon me for ever: but thou hast brought up my life from the pit, O Jehovah my God”, chapter 2:6. It breaks in suddenly.
JT I do not know whether we could visualise what it was to be in the belly of that fish. What an awful thing it must have been! But in chapter 2, what a change! The fish vomits him out on dry land. You can understand the change in the man’s mind; to look around and see and feel solid earth. He anticipated his deliverance in the fish’s belly as we see in chapter 2; he would sacrifice unto Jehovah with the voice of thanksgiving and pay his vows.
APT Jonah said, “But thou hast brought up my life from the pit, O Jehovah my God. When my soul fainted within me, I remembered Jehovah; and my prayer came in unto thee, into thy holy temple. They that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercy. But I will sacrifice unto thee with the voice of thanksgiving; I will pay that which I have vowed. Salvation is [p. 51] of Jehovah. And Jehovah commanded the fish, and it vomited out Jonah upon the dry land”. That is beautiful. ..
TEH Mr. Raven alluded to this matter, saying that it is like coming through a long dark tunnel and discovering at the bend a burst of light.
JT Yes, indeed; would that it might take place in our souls! Most of us know very little in our souls of this burst of light; it changes our outlook and feeling.
ABP Did Ananias help Saul into it?
JT I think he did. He says. Brother Saul, and also, Saul brother. That must have been light to his soul. But then there was a good deal following on that in his soul experience.
ABP I wondered if through those three days and three nights of darkness, being shut up to himself, he may have reached this point where he cried out, and then the light came in. His eyes were opened and he got the light of what the Lord had in mind for him.
JT He tells us about himself later. Ananias had said to him, “And now why lingerest thou? Arise and get baptised, and have thy sins washed away, calling on his name”, (Acts 22:16). His sins must have been a burden to him; showing he needed the teaching of baptism.
APT “I thank God”, (Romans 7:25). We do not want to leave Him out, do we?
JT No; “I thank God, through Jesus Christ our Lord”. That leads us to chapter 8, as already said. “There is then now no condemnation to those in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and of death. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh. God, having sent his own Son, in likeness of flesh of sin, and for sin, has condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law should be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to flesh but according to Spirit”, verses 1 - 5. Now the matter of sin in the flesh is settled; it is dealt with; it is condemned.
WFK Would you bring in Numbers 21 — the totality of the flesh dealt with?
JT Yes, in the serpent of brass, and in the springing well; that is a type of what we are considering in chapter 8.
AR The idea of not being condemned as in Christ Jesus is very comforting. Would you say a little about that? “There is then now no condemnation to those in Christ Jesus”.
JT We must not go too far in the truth of “in Christ Jesus”, although it is in the chapter; it is worked out in Colossians and Ephesians. It is brought in here to show the grandness of the position we are brought into. It is in Christ Jesus; it is the new status that we have; that God has brought us into.
WR Would the close of chapter 7 be power working internally in the believer, and would the features of chapter 8 be seen externally, in our ways and walk, as in the good of deliverance?
JT Yes. Chapter 8 begins with “the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus”. Notice it is “those in Christ Jesus” in verse 1; it is status, it is our position. But then the operative power is the Spirit of life. It is a new order of things, but it is not fully developed in this chapter. We need Colossians or Ephesians for this: the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus — not only “the power of his life”, in chapter 5. There is a “law” attached to the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, also liberating power.
JAP Is this the answer to verse 14 of chapter 6: “Sin shall not have dominion over you”?
JT Just so; you are liberated now; you have left the question of sin far behind; that is far behind you now; sin’s dominion over you is foreign to you now. That is the way it is worked out experimentally, and you come into a new order of things where there is another law, a [p. 53] new law — the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus. Notice the “in Christ Jesus”; the law is there, and I am conscious of its workings. It brings out the greatness of the new order of things, although it is not developed fully. The Spirit is much mentioned but the system involved awaits Colossians and Ephesians because the assembly is not yet brought into it.
DP In passing through the exercise of Romans 7, are not certain marks left on the believer that can be identified?
JT That he is that kind of a man, you mean? Abraham corresponds. The “horror of great darkness”, of which we have spoken, would leave a distinctive effect. He would never forget that experience and it would leave a mark on him. In most of us the experience of Romans 7 is shallow and extended, but it is essential to reality and spiritual fibre. God in faithfulness to us places us in circumstances in which the reality of the bondage of the law through sin is forced upon us. This leads us to the wretchedness of which verse 24 speaks. The liberating light of the gospel affords the relief expressed in the thanksgiving of verse 25, and the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus establishes us in this.
TEH Would you help me as to the vicarious burial of Jesus? Would that in any way help me to understand this matter of the new man coming out?
JT There is an exercise connected with it. The Lord, I need not say, did not need the experience of the three days and three nights. It is for us, and baptism leads us into it. We are baptised unto Christ’s death, (Romans 6:4); but Romans does not say we are raised with Him, only we shall be. Colossians, however, says, “... buried with him in baptism, in which ye have been also raised with him through faith of the working of God”, chapter 2:12. We must therefore go to Colossians for the complete thought of death and resurrection with Christ including the three days in the grave. The Lord said to the thief, “To-day shalt thou be with me in paradise”, (Luke 23:43). But that was in a disembodied condition, and did not include the Lord’s resurrection.
ANW I think the remark about the three days illuminates the lengthy period of the forty days; I think that is a fact to be well noted.
JT The experiences that are spoken of in Scripture in their length and variety are remarkable; as, for instance, the periods of uncleanness required in Leviticus 12 at the birth of children, and the uncleanness occasioned by certain contacts mentioned in Numbers 19. These are all intended to affect us and help us in our experiences.
ABP In the opening of Romans 7 it says, “Law rules over a man as long as he lives. For the married woman is bound by law to her husband so long as he is alive” — might that link on with the period of exercise we go through in apprehending the meaning of the holding power of death suggested in the three days and three nights in which the Lord was in the grave?
JT Yes; no doubt it would especially be understood by the early Christians out of Judaism. Coming into the truth of Romans would affect them in this way. The Lord had showed Himself to them at certain times, and these appearances involved increased liberation for them. The domination of the first husband, the law, would be felt earlier to some extent.
ABP It would seem a considerable time to Abigail after she had seen David until Nabal died.
APT In this section there are interesting links bearing on all this: “... even as Christ has been raised up from among the dead”, chapter 6:4; “Christ having been raised up from among the dead dies no more”, chapter 6: 9; “Christ ... who has been raised up from among the dead, in order that we might bear fruit to God”, chapter 7:4; “But if the Spirit of him that has raised up Jesus from among the dead dwell in you, he that has raised up Christ from among the dead shall quicken your mortal [p. 55] bodies also on account of his Spirit which dwells in you”, chapter 8: 11.
FSC What is the difference between “raised up from among the dead” and the statement in chapter 1, “resurrection of the dead”?
JT By the resurrection of the dead the Lord is declared to be Son of God in power. But raised up from among the dead is an additional thing that He has come up from among the dead, having left them behind. The word up is to be applied as the New Translation shows.
ANW Here it is a matter of favour — raised from the dead by the glory of the Father; an act of power, of course, but also an act of pleasure.
APf The Lord says, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up”, (John 2:19).
JT That specially brings out His deity. The Father did it here — Romans 6:4. But the Lord raised Himself, which is a great thought as to His Person. He can and will raise all the dead, but He raised Himself.