Holy Bible

What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? Romans 6:1-5 Grace and sin T. Chalmers, D. D. 1. This question was prompted by a sentence, the very cadence of which seemed to be still alive in the apostle's memory ( Romans 5:20 ). It is well to trace the continuity of Scripture — to read the letter of an inspired writer as you would read any other, as an entire composition, through which there possibly runs the drift of one prevailing conception. 2. The tenure upon which eternal life is given, and upon which it is held under the economy of the gospel, Paul makes abundantly manifest by such phrases as "grace," and "free grace," and "justification of faith and not of works," and the "gift of righteousness" on the one hand, and the "receiving of the atonement" on the other. And yet the apostle, warm from the delivery of these intimations, and within a single breath of having uttered that where there was abundance of guilt there was a superabundance of grace in store for it — when met by the question of What then? shall we do more of this sin, that we may draw more of this grace? on his simple authority as a messenger from God he enters his solemn caveat against the continuance of sin. Lavish as the gospel is of its forgiveness for the past, it has no toleration either for the purposes or for the practices of Sin in the future. Couple these two verses, and learn from the simple change of tense two of the most important lessons of Christianity. With the first of these verses we feel ourselves warranted to offer the fullest indemnity to the worst and most worthless. Your sin has abounded; but the grace of God has much more abounded. No sin is beyond the reach of the atonement — no guilt of so deep a dye that the blood of a crucified Saviour cannot wash away. But the sinner should also look forward, and forget not that the same gospel which sheds an oblivion over all the sinfulness of the past, enters upon a war of extermination against future sinfulness. 3. The term "dead," in the phrase "dead unto sin," may be understood forensically. We are dead in law. The doom of death was upon us on account of sin. Conceive that just as under a civil government a criminal is often put to death for the vindication of its authority and for the removal of a nuisance from society, so, under the jurisprudence of Heaven, an utter extinction of being was laid upon the sinner. Imagine that the sentence is executed — that by an act of extermination the transgressor is expunged from God's animated creation. There could be no misunderstanding of the phrase if you were to say that he was dead unto or dead for sin. But suppose God to have devised a way of reanimating the creature who had undergone this infliction, the phrase might still adhere to him, though now alive from the dead. And in these circumstances, is it for us to continue in sin — we who for sin were consigned to annihilation, and have only by the kindness of a Saviour been rescued from it? Now the argument retains its entireness, though the Mediator should interfere with His equivalent ere the penalty of death has been inflicted. We were as good as dead, for the sentence had gone forth, when Christ stepped between, and, suffering it to light upon Himself, carried it away. Does not the God who loved righteousness and hated iniquity six thousand years ago, bear the same love to righteousness and the same hatred to iniquity still? And well may not the sinner say — Shall I again attempt the incompatible alliance of an approving in God and a persevering sinner; or again try the Spirit of that Being who, the whole process of my condemnation and my rescue, has given such proof of most sensitive and unspotted holiness? Through Jesus Christ, we come again unto the heavenly Jerusalem; and it is as fresh as ever in the verdure of a perpetual holiness. How shall we who were found unfit for residence in this place because of sin, continue in sin after our readmittance therein? 4. But while we have thus insisted on the forensic interpretation of the phrase, yet let us not forbear to urge the personal sense of it, as implying such a deadness of affection to sin, such an extinction of the old sensibility to its allurements and its pleasures, as that it has ceased from its wonted power of ascendency over the heart and character of him who was formerly its slave. So the apostle (vers. 5, 6) goes on to show that we are planted together in the likeness of His death. He is now that immortal Vine, who stands forever secure and beyond the reach of any devouring blight from the now appeased enemy; and we who by faith are united with Him as so many branches, share in this blessed exemption along with Him. And as we thus share in His death, so also shall we share in His resurrection. By what He hath done in our stead, He hath not only been highly exalted in His own person; but He hath made us partakers of His exaltation, to the rewards of which we shall be promoted as if we had rendered the obedience ourselves. This tallies with another part of the Bible, where it is said that Christ gave Himself up for us, that He might redeem us from all iniquity and purify us unto Himself a peculiar people zealous of good works. 5. Now how comes it that because we are partakers in the crucifixion of Christ, so that the law has no further severity to discharge upon us, that this should have any effect in destroying the body of sin, or in emancipating us from the service of sin? How is it that the fact of our being acquitted leads to the fact of our being sanctified? There can be no doubt that the Spirit of God both originates and carries forward the whole of this process. He gives the faith which makes Christ's death as available for our deliverance from guilt; and He causes the faith to germinate all those moral and spiritual influences which bring about the personal transformation that we are inquiring of. But these He does, in a way that is agreeable to the principles of our rational nature; and one way is through the expulsive power of a new affection to dispossess an old one from the heart. You cannot destroy your love of sin by a simple act of extermination. You cannot thus bid away from your bosom one of its dearest and oldest favourites. Our moral nature abhors the vacuum that would thus be formed. But let a man by faith look upon himself as crucified with Christ, and the world is disarmed of its power of sinful temptation. He no longer minds earthly things, just because better things are now within his reach, and "our conversation is in heaven — whence we also look for the Saviour the Lord Jesus Christ." And this is in perfect analogy with familiar exhibitions of our nature in ordinary affairs. Let us just conceive a man embarked, with earnest ambition, on some retail business, whose mind is wholly taken up with the petty fluctuations that are taking place in prices and profits and customers; but who nevertheless is regaled by the annual examination of particulars at the end of it, with the view of some snug addition to his old accumulations. You must see how impossible it were to detach his affections from the objects and the interests of this his favourite course by a simple demonstration of their vanity. But suppose that either some splendid property or some sublime walk of high and hopeful adventure were placed within his attainment, and the visions of a far more glorious affluence were to pour a light into his mind, which greatly overpassed and so eclipsed all the fairness of those homelier prospects that he was wont to indulge in — is it not clear that the old affection which he could never get rid of by simple annihilation, will come to be annihilated, and that simply by giving Place to the new one. ( T. Chalmers, D. D. )

Benson Commentary Romans 6:1 What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? Romans 6:1-2 . What shall we say then — What shall we think of this doctrine? namely, taught in the latter part of the preceding chapter, that where sin abounded grace did much more abound? Does it not follow from thence that we may continue in sin, that grace may abound still more, and may appear more glorious in pardoning and saving us? The apostle here sets himself more fully to vindicate his doctrine from this consequence, suggested Romans 3:7-8 . He had then only, in strong terms, denied and renounced it. Here he removes the very foundation thereof; proceeding to speak of some further benefits (besides those mentioned Romans 5:1 , &c.) of justification by faith in Christ, namely, the promoting of holiness, and not of sin, as some might imagine: to which subject his transition is at once easy and elegant. God forbid — That such an unworthy thought as that of continuing in sin should ever arise in our hearts! We have disclaimed such a consequence above, and we most solemnly disclaim it again, and caution all that hear us, against imagining that our doctrine allows any such cursed inferences. For though it is true, that where sin abounds grace does frequently still more abound, yet this is not owing to sin in any degree; which of itself brings death, Romans 6:23 ; James 1:15 ; and the more sin, the more punishment; but wholly to the superabounding mercy and love of God in Christ. For how shall we that are dead to sin — By profession, obligation, and communion with Christ our head in his death; or who are freed both from the guilt and the power of it; live any longer therein — In the love and practice of it? Surely it would be the grossest contradiction to our profession, and the obligations we are under to do so: on the contrary, it is apparent that nothing has so great a tendency to animate us to avoid sin, as this doctrine of gospel grace. Romans 6:2 God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein? Romans 6:3 Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Romans 6:3-4 . Know ye not — Can any of you be ignorant of this great and obvious truth, that so many of us as were baptized into Christ — That is, into the profession of the Christian faith; or implanted into and made a part of the mystical body of Christ by baptism, (as ??? ??????? seems to imply,) were baptized into his death — Engaged by baptism to be conformed to his death, by dying to sin, as he died for it, and crucifying our flesh with its affections and lusts, as his body was crucified on the cross; and also were made partakers of the benefits thereof, one of which is the mortifying of sin, and all sinful passions. Being baptized into Christ, or ingrafted into him through faith, we draw new spiritual life from this new root, through his Spirit, who fashions us like unto him, and particularly with regard to his death and resurrection. Therefore we are buried with him — Alluding to the ancient manner of baptizing by immersion; by baptism into death — That is, to engage us to die unto sin, and to carry on the mortification and death of it more and more: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory — That is, the glorious power; of the Father, even so we also — In conformity thereto, should rise again by the same power; and should walk in newness of life — As Christ being raised from the dead lives a new life in heaven. From all this it appears, that baptism, the rite of initiation into the Christian Church, is an emblematical representation of our dying to sin, and living to righteousness, in consequence of our union with Christ as members of his body; as also of the malignity of sin, in bringing death upon Christ, ( Romans 6:10 ,) and upon all mankind, and of the efficacy of Christ’s death, in procuring for all pardoning mercy, renewing grace, and future glory; a resurrection both from spiritual and temporal death, to spiritual and eternal life. Romans 6:4 Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. Romans 6:5 For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection: Romans 6:5-7 . For — Surely these two must go together; so that if we have been united to Christ by faith, (to which baptism engages us,) and have been made conformable to his death, by being dead to sin, we shall also know the power of his resurrection, by rising to newness of life. Knowing this — Not in theory merely, but by experience; that our old man — Coeval with our being; our evil nature derived from Adam; the whole system of our former inclinations and dispositions. It is a strong and beautiful expression for that entire depravity and corruption which, by nature, spreads itself over the whole man, leaving no part uninfected. This in a believer is crucified with Christ, mortified, gradually killed by virtue of union with him; the remembrance and consideration of his cross co- operating in the most powerful manner, with all the other motives which the gospel suggests, to destroy our corrupt passions, and former sinful habits, and inspire us with an utter aversion to and detestation of them: that the body of sin — The body belonging to sin, including sinful tempers, words, and works. The apostle personifies sin, after the custom of animated writers, who, to make their discourses lively and affecting, speak of the virtues and vices of which they treat, as so many persons. Corrupt passions and evil actions are the members of the old man, Colossians 3:5 . Might be destroyed — Utterly and for ever; that henceforth we should not serve sin — Should be no longer under its power, as we were before we became savingly acquainted with Christ and his gospel. For he that is dead — With Christ; is freed from sin — From the guilt of past, and the power of present sin, as dead men from the commands of their former masters. The original expression, here rendered is freed, is ??????????? , which properly signifies, is justified; that is, he is acquitted and discharged from any further claim which sin might make upon his service. The word as here used implies, that a sense of justification by the cross of Christ is the great means of our delivery from the bondage of sin, as it animates and exercises us to shake off its yoke, and is accompanied with the Spirit of adoption and regeneration, the fruit of which is always liberty, 2 Corinthians 3:17 . Romans 6:6 Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him , that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. Romans 6:7 For he that is dead is freed from sin. Romans 6:8 Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him: Romans 6:8-11 . Now if we be dead with Christ — Conformed to his death by dying to sin; we believe that we shall also live with him — We have reason sufficient to assure ourselves that we shall be conformed to him in life too, by living an uninterrupted life of grace here, and glory hereafter; and shall die no more, even as Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more, Romans 6:9 . He died unto sin — To atone for and to abolish it; but he liveth unto God — A glorious eternal life, such as we shall live also. Likewise — ???? , so, in correspondence to Christ’s death and life, Romans 6:8-9 , reckon ye yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin — To be under an indispensable obligation, from duty and gratitude, to die to it, and never more return under its power, or live in the commission of it; but alive unto God — Endued with spiritual life, and thereby enabled to live to the glory of God, in a steady, uniform, and cheerful obedience to his wise, just, and holy commands; through Jesus Christ our Lord — By virtue of his death and resurrection, your union with him by faith, and grace received from him. Romans 6:9 Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over him. Romans 6:10 For in that he died, he died unto sin once: but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God. Romans 6:11 Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Romans 6:12 Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof. Romans 6:12-14 . Let not sin — Any sinful disposition or inclination; therefore — Since you are regenerate and spiritually alive; reign in your mortal body — That is, reign in your soul while it dwells in your body. Many of our sinful inclinations have their seat in the body, and such evil inclinations as are of a more spiritual nature, are always some way more or less turned toward the body. That ye should obey it — Should yield to and be overcome by it; in the lusts thereof — In the irregular or inordinate desires which it excites within you. Neither yield ye your members — The members of your bodies, or the faculties of your minds; the word ???? , here used, as also chapter Romans 7:5 , signifying both, and indeed every thing in us and belonging to us, which is employed as an instrument in performing the works of the flesh, enumerated Galatians 5:19-21 . For some of these do not require the members of the body to their being performed, but are wholly confined in their operation to the mind. Hence, Colossians 3:5 , evil desire and covetousness are mentioned among our members upon the earth which we are to mortify. As instruments of unrighteousness — Employed in its service; unto sin — For the committing of it. The original word ???? , rendered instruments, properly denotes military weapons; and may be here used to signify, that those who employ their powers, whether of body or mind, or any ability they possess, in the service of sin, do in fact fight for it, and for its master and father, Satan; and the principalities and powers under his command, against God and Christ, and all the company of heaven. But yield yourselves unto God — Your lawful king, governor, and captain: dedicate yourselves, both body and soul, to his service; as those that are alive from the dead — Who, after having been spiritually dead, are quickened and put in possession of spiritual life; that is, are no longer alienated from the life of God, but have vital union with God; not as formerly, carnally minded, which is death, but spiritually minded, which is life and peace, chap. Romans 8:6 ; no longer under condemnation to the second death, but justified and entitled to eternal life; and your members — All your powers and abilities; as instruments of righteousness — Instruments employed in the promotion of piety and virtue; unto God — For his service and to his glory; or as weapons, to fight his battles, and oppose the designs of your spiritual enemies. For sin shall not have dominion over you — It has no right, and shall not have power to reign over you. The word ????????? , denotes the government of a master over his slave, and might be rendered, shall not lord it over you. As if he had said, Though it is true sin is strong, and you are weak in yourselves, yet if you faithfully strive against it, looking to God for power from on high, you shall be enabled to conquer. For ye are not under the law — Under a dispensation of terror and bondage, which only shows you your duty, but gives you no power to perform it; and which condemns you for your past violations of it, but offers no pardon to any on their repentance. The Mosaic law seems to be particularly intended, and the propriety of what is here observed is well illustrated, in that view, by the apostle in the next chapter. But his words may well imply also, that we are not so under any law as to be utterly condemned for want of a perfect conformity, or unsinning obedience to it. Not under a dispensation that requires such an obedience, under the penalty of death; which offers no assistance for enabling those who are under it to perform its requisitions, and grants no pardon to any sinner on his repentance. For the apprehension of being under such a dispensation would tend utterly to discourage us in all our attempts to conquer sin, and free ourselves from its power. But under grace — Under the merciful dispensation of the gospel, which offers to all that will accept it, in the way of repentance toward God and faith in Christ, a free and full pardon for all that is past, an entire change of nature, and those continual supplies of grace, which strengthen human weakness, and confer both the will and the power to conquer every besetting sin, and live in the practice of universal holiness and righteousness. For the nature of the grace, that is, of the new gracious covenant, under which we are placed, is such, that it does not require an impossible perfect obedience to the law of Moses, or any law, but the obedience of faith; promising, at the same time, the aids of the Holy Spirit, to enable men to do God’s will sincerely as far as they know it, and offering the pardon of sin to all on condition of repentance and faith in Christ, and in the declarations and promises of the gospel through him. Now under this gracious covenant mankind have been placed ever since the fall; ever since God said, The seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent’s head; ever since that time the apostle’s doctrine here, Ye are not under the law, but under grace, has been true of all the posterity of Adam; a doctrine which, instead of weakening the obligation of the law of God, written on men’s hearts, or the moral law in any of its requirements, establishes it in the most effectual manner. See note on Romans 3:31 . Romans 6:13 Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God. Romans 6:14 For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace. Romans 6:15 What then? shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid. Romans 6:15-18 . What then are we to infer? Shall we sin — Go on in our transgressions; because we are not under the law — Under the law of Moses, or any mere legal dispensation which forbids sin, but gives no strength against it; but under grace — A dispensation perfectly the reverse, offering pardon to the most guilty, holiness to the most depraved, and strength to the most weak and helpless! God forbid — That we should draw any inference so odious and destructive. Know ye not — Is it necessary to inform you; that to whom ye yield — Greek, ??????????? , present yourselves servants to obey his commands, his servants ye are whom ye obey — Not his whose name you may bear, without practically acknowledging his authority; but his to whom ye are in fact obedient, to whom you are subject, and whose will you do. “By the expression, ye present yourselves servants, the apostle taught the Romans, that grace does not destroy human liberty. It was still in their own power to choose whether they would present themselves slaves to sin, or servants to righteousness.” Whether of sin unto death — Which will bring you to eternal death; or of obedience — To God and his gospel; unto righteousness — True and evangelical, and which will certainly be rewarded with eternal life. But God be thanked that ye were — That is, although, or whereas, you were once the servants of sin — A bondage this now passed and gone; ye have now obeyed — Not in profession alone, but from the heart, that form of doctrine which was delivered to you — Greek, ??? ?? ?????????? ????? ??????? , literally, the model of doctrine into which, as into a mould, you were delivered; for the word ????? , rendered form, among other things, signifies a mould, into which melted metals are poured to receive the form of the mould: and the apostle here represents the gospel doctrine as a mould, into which the Roman believers were delivered, in order to their being formed anew, and conformed to the gospel in all its doctrines, precepts, and promises: and he thanks God, that from the heart, that is, most willingly and sincerely, they had yielded to the forming efficacy of that doctrine, and were made new creatures both in principle and practice. The allusion is not only beautiful, but conveys a very instructive admonition: intimating, that our minds made all pliant and ductile, should be conformed to the nature and design of the gospel, as liquid metals take the figure of the mould into which they are cast. Being then made free from sin — Set at liberty from its power and dominion; ye became servants of righteousness — At once enabled and obliged to lead a life of true piety and exemplary goodness. The word ?????????????? , here rendered being made free, is the word by which the act of giving a slave his liberty was signified, called by the Romans emancipation. Romans 6:16 Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness? Romans 6:17 But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you. Romans 6:18 Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness. Romans 6:19 I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh: for as ye have yielded your members servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity; even so now yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness. Romans 6:19-22 . I speak after the manner of men — He seems to mean that his reasoning was taken from the customs of men, and was accommodated to their apprehension; and that he used metaphors and allegories which were well known; because of the infirmity of your flesh — Dulness of apprehension, and weakness of understanding, flow from the infirmity of the flesh; that is, of human nature. Or, as some understand the expression to mean, I recommend a duty to you, suited to human nature; yea, even to the infirmities thereof; that you should do as much for God as you have done for sin, and be as diligent in the service of Christ as you have been in the pursuit of your lusts. For as — In time past, while you were ignorant of the gospel, and many of you the slaves of heathen vice and idolatry; ye yielded your members servants to uncleanness — To various fleshly lusts which defiled you; and to iniquity — Or unrighteousness toward others; unto iniquity — Adding one iniquity to another; even so now — Being enlightened by the gospel to see the evil of such things, and the miserable consequences awaiting them; and being renewed by the influences of divine grace, it is but reasonable that you should be as ready to pursue a pious and virtuous line of conduct, and to do good now, as formerly you were to do evil; and become servants of righteousness unto holiness — Observe, reader, they who are true servants of righteousness, which may here mean a conformity to the divine will, go on to holiness, which implies a conformity to the divine nature. For when ye were the servants of sin — Were under its guilt and power; ye were free from righteousness — You not only had not righteousness enough, but, strictly speaking, had no true righteousness at all; never doing any single action that was truly good, and, on the whole, acceptable to God, because none was performed from such principles as could entitle it to his complete approbation. In all reason, therefore, ye ought now to be free from unrighteousness; to be as uniform and zealous in serving God as you were in serving the devil. What fruit had ye then in those things — Consider, what advantage did you derive from the practices to which you were then habituated, and whereof ye are now ashamed? — The very remembrance of which now gives you pain, and creates in you much remorse and trouble? For the end of those things is death — The word ????? , here rendered end, signifies both the end for which a thing is done, and the last issue of it. It is used in the former sense, 1 Peter 1:9 ; receiving, ?? ????? , the end of your faith, the salvation of your souls; the end or purpose for which ye believed. But its meaning here is, that the punishment of death, to be inflicted on sinners, is the natural consequence, or issue, and reward of their sin. Romans 6:20 For when ye were the servants of sin, ye were free from righteousness. Romans 6:21 What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed? for the end of those things is death. Romans 6:22 But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life. Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Romans 6:23 . For the wages of sin is death — “The word ?????? , rendered wages, properly signifies the food and pay which generals give to their soldiers for their service. By using this term, the apostle shows what sort of pay the usurper, sin, gives to those who serve under his banners. Further, as the sin here spoken of is that which men commit personally, and which they continue in, the death which is the wages of this kind of sin must be death eternal. It is observable, that although in Scripture the expression, eternal life, is often to be met with, we nowhere find eternal joined with death. Yet the punishment of the wicked is said to be eternal. Matthew 25:46 ;” (Macknight;) as also in many other passages. But the gift of God — Greek, ??????? , the free gift, or gift of grace; is eternal life — Or, eternal life is the free gift of God. “The apostle does not call everlasting life ?????? , the wages which God gives to his servants, because they do not merit it by their services, as the slaves of sin merit death by theirs: but he calls it a free gift, or gift of grace; or, as Estius would render the expression, a donative; because, being freely bestowed, it may be compared to the donatives which the Roman generals, of their own good- will, bestowed on their soldiers as a mark of their favour.” We may now see the apostle’s method thus far: — 1st, Bondage to sin, Romans 3:9 . 2d, The knowledge of sin by the law, a sense of God’s wrath, inward death, Romans 3:20 . 3d, The revelation of the righteousness of God in Christ, through the gospel, Romans 3:21 . 4th, The centre of all faith, embracing that righteousness, Romans 3:22 . 5th, Justification, whereby God forgives all past sin, and freely accepts the sinner, Romans 3:24 . 6th, The gift of the Holy Ghost, a sense of God’s love, new inward life, Romans 5:5 ; Romans 6:4 . 7th, The free service of righteousness, Romans 6:23 . Benson Commentary on the Old and New Testaments Text Courtesy of BibleSupport.com . Used by Permission.

Expositor's Bible Commentary Romans 6:1 What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? Chapter 14 JUSTIFICATION AND HOLINESS Romans 6:1-13 IN a certain sense, St. Paul has done now with the exposition of Justification. He has brought us on, from his denunciation of human sin, and his detection of the futility of mere privilege, to propitiation, to faith, to acceptance, to love, to joy, and hope, and finally to our mysterious but real connection in all this blessing with Him who won our peace. From this point onwards we shall find many mentions of our acceptance, and of its Cause; we shall come to some memorable mentions very soon. But we shall not hear the holy subject itself any more treated and expounded. It will underlie the following discussions everywhere; it will as it were surround them, as with a sanctuary wall. But we shall now think less directly of the foundations than of the superstructure, for which the foundation was laid. We shall be less occupied with the fortifications of our holy city than with the resources they contain, and with the life which is to be lived, on those resources, within the walls. Everything will cohere. But the transition will be marked, and will call for our deepest, and let us add, our most reverent and supplicating thought. "We need not, then, be holy, if such is your programme of acceptance." Such was the objection, bewildered or deliberate, which St. Paul heard in his soul at this pause in his dictation; he had doubtless often heard it with his ears. Here was a wonderful provision for the free and full acceptance of "the ungodly" by the eternal Judge. It was explained and stated so as to leave no room for human virtue as a commendatory merit. Faith itself was no commendatory virtue. It was not "a work," but the antithesis to "works." Its power was not in itself but in its Object. It was itself only the void which received "the obedience of the One" as the sole meriting cause of peace with God. Then-may we not live on in sin, and yet be in His favour now, and in His heaven hereafter? Let us recollect, as we pass on, one important lesson of these recorded objections to the great first message of St. Paul. They tell us incidentally how explicit and unreserved his delivery of the message had been, and how Justification by Faith, by faith only, meant what was said, when it was said by him. Christian thinkers, of more schools than one, and at many periods, have hesitated not a little over that point. The mediaeval theologian mingled his thoughts of Justification with those of Regeneration, and taught our acceptance accordingly on lines impossible to lay true along those of St. Paul. In later days, the meaning of faith has been sometimes beclouded, till it has seemed through the haze, to be only an indistinct summary word for Christian consistency, for exemplary conduct, for good works. Now supposing either of these lines of teaching, or anything like them, to be the message of St. Paul, "his Gospel," as he preached it; one result may be reasonably inferred-that we should not have had Romans 6:1 worded as it is. Whatever objections were encountered by a Gospel of acceptance expounded on such lines, (and no doubt it would have encountered many, if it called sinful men to holiness,) it would not have encountered this objection, that it seemed to allow men to be unholy. What such a Gospel would seem to do would be to accentuate in all its parts the urgency of obedience in order to acceptance; the vital importance on the one hand of an internal change in our nature (through sacramental operation, according to many); and then on the other hand the practice of Christian virtues, with the hope, in consequence, of acceptance, more or less complete, in heaven. Whether the objector, the enquirer, was dull, or whether he was subtle, it could not have occurred to him to say, "You are preaching a Gospel of license; I may, if you are right, live as I please, only drawing a little deeper on the fund of gratuitous acceptance as I go on." But just this was the animus, and such were very nearly the words, of those who either hated St. Paul’s message as unorthodox, or wanted an excuse for the sin they loved, and found it in quotations from St. Paul. Then St. Paul must have meant by faith what faith ought to mean, simple trust. And he must have meant by justification without works, what those words ought to mean, acceptance irrespective of our recommendatory conduct. Such a Gospel was no doubt liable to be mistaken and misrepresented, and in just the way we are now observing. But it was also, and it is so still, the only Gospel which is the power of God unto salvation-to the fully awakened conscience, to the soul that sees itself, and asks for God indeed. This undesigned witness to the meaning of the Pauline doctrine of Justification by Faith only will appear still more strongly when we come to the Apostle’s answer to his questioners, He meets them not at all by modifications of his assertions. He has not a word to say about additional and corrective conditions precedent to our peace with God. He makes no impossible hint that Justification means the making of us good, or that Faith is a "short title" for Christian practice. No; there is no reason for such assertions either in the nature of words, or in the whole cast of the argument through which he has led us. What does he do? He takes this great truth of our acceptance in Christ our Merit, and puts it unreserved, unrelieved, unspoiled, in contact with other truth, of coordinate, nay, of superior greatness, for it is the truth to which Justification leads us, as way to end. He places our acceptance through Christ Atoning in organic connection with our life in Christ Risen. He indicates, as a truth evident to the conscience, that as the thought of our share in the Lord’s Merit is inseparable from union with the meriting Person, so the thought of this union is inseparable from that of a spiritual harmony, a common life, in which the accepted sinner finds both a direction and a power in his Head. Justification has indeed set him free from the condemning chain of sin, from guilt. He is as if he had died the Death of sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction; as if he had passed through the Lama Sabachthani, and had "poured out his soul" for sin. So he is "dead to sin," in the sense in which his Lord and Representative "died to" it; the atoning death has killed sin’s claim on him for judgment. As having so died, in Christ, he is "justified from sin." But then, because he thus died "in Christ," he is "in Christ" still, in respect also of resurrection. He is justified, not that he may go away, but that in His Justifier he may live, with the powers of that holy and eternal life with which the Justifier rose again. The two truths are concentrated as it were into one, by their equal relation to the same Person, the Lord. The previous argument has made us intensely conscious that Justification, while a definite transaction in law, is not a mere transaction; it lives and glows with the truth of connection with a Person. That Person is the Bearer for us of all Merit. But He is also, and equally, the Bearer for us of new Life; in which the sharers of His Merit share, for they are in Him. So that, while the Way of Justification can be isolated for study, as it has been in this Epistle, the justified man cannot be isolated from Christ, who is his life. And thus he can never ultimately be considered apart from his possession in Christ, of a new possibility, a new power, a new and glorious call to living holiness. In the simplest and most practical terms the Apostle sets it before us that our justification is not an end in itself, but a means to an end. We are accepted that we may be possessed, and possessed after the manner not of a mechanical "article," but of an organic limb. We have "received the reconciliation" that we may now walk, not away from God, as if released from a prison, but with God, as His children in His Son. Because we are justified, we are to be holy, separated from sin, separated to God; not as a mere indication that our faith is real, and that therefore we are legally safe, but because we were justified for this very purpose, that we might be holy. To return to a simile we have employed already, the grapes upon a vine are not merely a living token that the tree is a vine, and is alive; they are the product for which the vine exists. It is a thing not to be thought of that the sinner should accept justification-and live to himself. It is a moral contradiction of the very deepest kind, and cannot be entertained without betraying an initial error in the man’s whole spiritual creed. And further, there is not only this profound connection of purpose between acceptance and holiness. There is a connection of endowment and capacity. Justification has done for the justified a twofold work, both limbs of which are all important for the man who asks, How can I walk and please God? First, it has, decisively broken the claim of sin upon him as guilt. He stands clear of that exhausting and enfeebling load. The pilgrim’s burthen has fallen from his back, at the foot of the Lord’s Cross, into the Lord’s Grave. He has peace with God, not in emotion, but in covenant, through our Lord Jesus Christ. He has an unreserved "introduction" into a Father’s loving and welcoming presence, every day and hour, in the Merit of his Head. But then also Justification has been to him as it were the signal of his union with Christ in new life; this we have noted already. Not only therefore does it give him, as indeed it does, an eternal occasion for a gratitude which, as he feels it, "makes duty joy, and labour rest." It gives him "a new power" with which to live the grateful life; a power residing not in Justification itself, but in what it opens up. It is the gate through which he passes to the fountain, the roof which shields him as he drinks. The fountain is his justifying Lord’s exalted Life, His risen Life, poured into the man’s being by the Spirit who makes Head and member one. And it is as justified that he has access to the fountain, and drinks as deep as he will of its life, its power, its purity. In the contemporary passage, 1 Corinthians 6:17 , St. Paul had already written (in a connection unspeakably practical), "He that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit." It is a sentence which might stand as a heading to the passage we now come to render. What shall we say then? Shall we cling to the sin that the grace may multiply, the grace of the acceptance of the guilty? Away with the thought! We, the very men who died to that sin, -when our Representative, in whom we have believed, died for us to it, died to meet and break its claim-how shall we any longer live, have congenial being and action, in it, a sin an air we like to breathe? It is a moral impossibility that the man so freed from this thing’s tyrannic claim to slay him should wish for anything else than severance from it in all respects. Or do you not know that we all, when baptised into Jesus Christ, when the sacred water sealed to us our faith received contact with Him and interest in Him, were baptised into His Death, baptised as coming into union with Him as, above all, the Crucified, the Atoning? Do you forget that your covenant-Head, of whose covenant of peace your baptism was the divine physical token, is nothing to you if not your Saviour "who died," and who died because of this very sin with which your thought now parleys; died because only so could He break its legal bond upon you, in order to break its moral bond? We were entombed therefore with Him by means of our baptism, as it symbolised and sealed the work of faith, into His Death; it certified our interest in that vicarious death, even to its climax in the grave which, as it were, swallowed up the Victim; that just as Christ rose from the dead by means of the glory of the Father, as that death issued for Him in a new and endless life, not by accident, but because the Character of God, the splendour of His love, truth, and power, secured the issue, so we too should begin to Walk ( ????????????? ) in newness of life, should step forth in a power altogether new, in our union still with Him. All possible emphasis lies upon those words, "newness of life." They bring out what has been indicated already ( Romans 6:17-18 ), the truth that the Lord has won us not only remission of a death penalty, not only even an extension of existence under happier circumstances, and in a more grateful and hopeful spirit-but a new and wonderful life power. The sinner has fled to the Crucified, that he may not die. He is now not only amnestied but accepted. He is not only accepted but incorporated into his Lord, as one with Him in interest. He is not only incorporated as to interest, but, because his Lord, being Crucified, is also Risen, he is incorporated into Him as Life. The Last Adam, like the First, transmits not only legal but vital effects to His member. In Christ the man has, in a sense as perfectly practical as it is inscrutable, new life, new power, as the Holy Ghost applies to his inmost being the presence and virtues of his Head. "In Him he lives, by Him he moves." To men innumerable the discovery of this ancient truth, or the fuller apprehension of it, has been indeed like a beginning of new life. They have been long and painfully aware, perhaps, that their strife with evil was a serious failure on the whole, and their deliverance from its power lamentably partial. And they could not always command as they would the emotional energies of gratitude, the warm consciousness of affection. Then it was seen, or seen more fully, that the Scriptures set forth this great mystery, this powerful fact; our union with our Head, by the Spirit, for life, for victory and deliverance, for dominion over sin, for willing service. And the hands are lifted up, and the knees confirmed, as the man uses the now open secret-Christ in him, and he in Christ-for the real walk of life. But let us listen to St. Paul again. For if we became vitally connected, He with us and we with Him, by the likeness of His Death, by the baptismal plunge, symbol and seal of our faith union with the Buried Sacrifice, why, we shall be vitally connected with Him by the likeness also of His Resurrection, by the baptismal emergence, symbol and seal of our faith union with the Risen Lord, and so with His risen power. This knowing, that our old man, our old state, as out of Christ and under Adam’s headship, under guilt and in moral bondage, was crucified with Christ, was as it were nailed to His atoning Cross, where He represented us. In other words, He on the Cross, our Head and Sacrifice, so dealt with our fallen state for us, that the body of sin, this our body viewed as sin’s stronghold, medium, vehicle, might be cancelled, might be in abeyance, put down, deposed, so as to be no more the fatal door to admit temptation to a powerless soul within. "Cancelled" is a strong word. Let us lay hold upon its strength, and remember that it gives us not a dream, but a fact, to be found true in Christ. Let us not turn its fact into fallacy, by forgetting that, whatever "cancel" means, it does not mean that grace lifts us out of the body; that we are no longer to "keep under the body, and bring it into subjection," in the name of Jesus. Alas for us, if any promise, any truth, is allowed to "cancel" the call to watch and pray, and to think that in no sense is there still a foe within. But all the rather let us grasp, and use, the glorious positive in its place and time, which is everywhere and every day. Let us recollect, let us confess our faith, that thus it is with us, through Him who loved us. He died for us for this very end, that our "body of sin" might be wonderfully "in abeyance," as to the power of temptation upon the soul. Yes, as St. Paul proceeds, that henceforth we should not do bond service to sin; that from now onwards, from our acceptance in Him, from our realisation of our union with Him, we should say to temptation a "no" that carries with it the power of the inward presence of the Risen Lord. Yes, for He has won that power for us in our Justification through His Death. He died for us, and we in Him, as to sin’s claim, as to our guilt; and He thus died, as we have seen, on purpose that we might be not only legally accepted, but vitally united to Him. Such is the connection of the following clause, strangely rendered in the English Version, and often therefore misapplied, but whose literal wording is, For he who died, he who has died, has been justified from his ( ??? ) sin, stands justified from it, stands free from its guilt. The thought is of the atoning Death, in which the believer is interested as if it were his own. And the implied thought is that, as that death is "fact accomplished," as "our old man" was so effectually "crucified with Christ," therefore we may, we must, claim the spiritual freedom and power in the Risen One which the Slain One secured for us when He bore our guilt. This possession is also a glorious prospect, for it is permanent with the eternity of His Life. It not only is, but shall be. Now if we died with Christ, we believe, we rest upon His word and work for it, that we shall also live with Him, that we shall share not only now but for all the future the powers of His risen life. For He lives forever-and we are in Him! Knowing that Christ, risen from the dead, no longer dies, no death is in His future now; death over Him has no more dominion, its claim on Him is forever gone. For as to His dying, it was as to our sin He died; it was to deal with our sin’s claim; and He has dealt with it indeed, so that His death is "once," ?????? , once forever; but as to His living, it is as to God He lives; it is in relation to His Father’s acceptance, it is as welcome to His Father’s throne for us, as the Slain One Risen. Even so must you too reckon yourselves, with the sure "calculation" that His work for you, His life for you, is infinitely valid, to be dead indeed to your sin, dead in His atoning death, dead to the guilt exhausted by that death, but living to your God, in Christ Jesus; welcomed by your eternal Father, in your union with His Son, and in that union filled with a new and blessed life from your Head, to be spent in the Father’s smile, on the Father’s service. Let us too, like the Apostle and the Roman Christians, "reckon" this wonderful reckoning; counting upon these bright mysteries as upon imperishable facts. All is bound up not with the tides or waves of our emotions, but with the living rock of our union with our Lord. "In Christ Jesus":-that great phrase, here first explicitly used in the connection, includes all else in its embrace. Union with the slain and risen Christ, in faith, by the Spirit-here is our inexhaustible secret, for peace with God, for life to God, now and in the eternal day. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, mortal, because not yet fully emancipated, though your Lord has "cancelled" for you its character as "the body of sin," the seat and vehicle of conquering temptation. Do not let sin reign there, so that you should obey the lusts of it, of the body. Observe the implied instruction. The body "cancelled" as "the body of sin," still has its "lusts," its desires; or rather desires are still occasioned by it to the man, desires which potentially, if not actually, are desires away from God. And the man, justified through the Lord’s death and united to the Lord’s life, is not therefore to mistake a laissez-faire for faith. He is to use his divine possessions, with a real energy of will. It is "for him," in a sense most practical, to see that his wealth is put to use, that his wonderful freedom is realised in act and habit. "Cancelled" does not mean annihilated. The body exists, and sin exists, and "desires" exist. It is for you, O man in Christ, to say to the enemy, defeated yet present, "Thou shalt not reign; I veto thee in the name of my King." And do not present your limbs, your bodies in the detail of their faculties, as implements of unrighteousness, to sin, to sin regarded as the holder and employer of the implements. But present yourselves, your whole being, centre and circle, to God, as men living after death, in His Son’s risen life, and your limbs, hand, foot, and head, with all their faculties, as implements of righteousness for God. "O blissful self-surrender!" The idea of it, sometimes cloudy, sometimes radiant, has floated before the human soul in every age of history. The spiritual fact that the creature, as such, can never find its true centre in itself, but only in the Creator, has expressed itself in many various forms of aspiration and endeavour, now nearly touching the glorious truth of the matter, now wandering into cravings after a blank loss of personality, or an eternal coma of absorption into an Infinite practically impersonal; or again, affecting a submission which terminates in itself, an islam, a self-surrender into whose void no blessing falls from the God who receives it. Far different is the "self-presentation" of the Gospel. It is done in the fulness of personal consciousness and choice. It is done with revealed reasons of infinite truth and beauty to warrant its rightness. And it is a placing of the surrendered self into Hands which will both foster its true development as only its Maker can, as He fills it with His presence, and will use it, in the bliss of an eternal serviceableness, for His beloved will. Romans 6:14 For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace. Chapter 15 JUSTIFICATION AND HOLINESS: ILLUSTRATIONS FROM HUMAN LIFE Romans 6:14-23 - Romans 7:1-6 AT the point we have now reached, the Apostle’s thought pauses for a moment, to resume. He has brought us to self-surrender. We have seen the sacred obligations of our divine and wonderful liberty. We have had the miserable question, "Shall we cling to sin?" answered by an explanation of the rightness and the bliss of giving over our accepted persons, in the fullest liberty of will, to God, in Christ. Now he pauses, to illustrate and enforce. And two human relations present themselves for the purpose; the one to show the absoluteness of the surrender, the other its living results. The first is Slavery, the second is Wedlock. For sin shall not have dominion over you; sin shall not put in its claim upon you, the claim which the Lord has met in your Justification; for you are not brought under law, but under grace. The whole previous argument explains this sentence. He refers to our acceptance. He goes back to the justification of the guilty, "without the deeds of law," by the act of free grace; and briefly restates it thus, that he may take up afresh the position that this glorious liberation means not license but divine order. Sin shall be no more your tyrant creditor, holding up the broken law in evidence that it has right to lead you off to a pestilential prison, and to death. Your dying Saviour has met your creditor in full for you, and in Him you have entire discharge in that eternal court where the terrible plea once stood against you. Your dealings as debtors are now not with the enemy who cried for your death, but with the Friend who has bought you out of his power. What then? are we to sin, because we are not brought under law, but under grace? Shall our life be a life of license, because we are thus wonderfully free? The question assuredly is one which, like that of ver. 1, and like those suggested in Romans 3:8 ; Romans 3:31 , had often been asked of St. Paul, by the bitter opponent, or by the false follower. And again it illustrates and defines, by the direction of its error, the line of truth from which it flew off. It helps to do what we remarked above, to assure us that when St. Paul taught "Justification by faith, without deeds of law," he meant what he said, without reserve; he taught that great side of truth wholly, and without a compromise. He called the sinner, "just as he was, and waiting not to rid his soul of one dark blot," to receive at once, and without fee, the acceptance of God for Another’s blessed sake. Bitter must have been the moral pain of seeing, from the first, this holy freedom distorted into an unhallowed leave to sin. But he will not meet it by an impatient compromise, or untimely confusion. It shall be answered by a fresh collocation; the liberty shall be seen in its relation to the Liberator; and behold, the perfect freedom is a perfect service, willing but. absolute, a slavery joyfully accepted, with open eyes and open heart, and then lived out as the most real of obligations by a being who has entirely seen that he is not his own. Away with the thought. Do you not know that the party to whom you present, surrender, yourselves bondservants, slaves, so as to obey him, -bondservants you are, not the less for the freewill of the surrender, of the party whom you obey; no longer merely contractors with him, who may bargain, or retire, but his bondservants out and out; whether of sin, to death, or of obedience, to righteousness? (As if their assent to Christ, their Amen to His terms of peace, acceptance, righteousness, were personified; they were now the bondsmen of this their own act and deed, which had put them, as it were, into Christ’s hands for all things.) Now thanks be to our God, that you were bondmen of sin, in legal claim, and under moral sway; yes, every one of you was this, whatever forms the bondage took upon its surface; but you obeyed from the heart the mould of teaching to which you were handed over. They had been sin’s slaves. Verbally, not really, he "thanks God" for that fact of the past. Really, not verbally, he "thanks God" for the pastness of the fact, and for the bright contrast to it in the regenerated present. They had now been "handed over," by their Lord’s transaction about them, to another ownership, and they had accepted the transfer, "from the heart." It was done by Another for them, but they had said their humble, thankful that as He did it. And what was the new ownership thus accepted? We shall find soon ( Romans 6:22 ), as we might expect, that it is the mastery of God. But the bold, vivid introductory imagery has already called it ( Romans 6:16 ) the slavery of "Obedience." Just below ( Romans 6:19-20 ) it is the slavery of "Righteousness," that is, if we read the word aright in its whole context, of "the Righteousness of God," His acceptance of the sinner as His own in Christ. And here, in a phrase most unlikely of all, whose personification strikes life into the most abstract aspects of the message of the grace of God, the believer is one who has been transferred to the possession of "a mould of Teaching." The Apostolic Doctrine, the mighty Message, the living Creed of life, the Teaching of the acceptance of the guilty for the sake of Him who was their Sacrifice, and is now their Peace and Life-this truth has, as it: were, grasped them as its vassals, to form them, to mould them for its issues. It is indeed their "tenet." It "holds them"; a thought far different from what is too often meant when we say of a doctrine that "we hold it." Justification by their Lord’s merit, union with their Lord’s life; this was a doctrine, reasoned, ordered, verified. But it was a doctrine warm and tenacious with the love of the Father and of the Son. And it had laid hold of them with a mastery which swayed thought, affection, and will; ruling their whole view of self and of God. Now, liberated from your sin, you were enslaved to the Righteousness of God. Here is the point of the argument. It is a point of steel, for all is fact; but the steel is steeped in love, and carries life and joy into the hearts it penetrates. They are not for one moment their own. Their acceptance has magnificently emancipated them from their tyrant enemy. But it has absolutely bound them to their Friend and King. Their glad consent to be accepted has carried with it a consent to belong. And if that consent was at the moment rather implied than explicit, virtual rather than articulately conscious, they have now only to understand their blessed slavery better to give the more joyful thanksgivings to Him who has thus claimed them altogether as His own. The Apostle’s aim in this whole passage is to awaken them, with the strong, tender touch of his holy reasoning, to articulate their position to themselves. They have trusted Christ, and are in Him. Then, they have entrusted themselves altogether to Him. Then, they have, in effect, surrendered. They have consented to be His property. They are the bondservants, they are the slaves, of His truth, that is, of Him robed and revealed in His Truth, and shining through it on them in the glory at once of His grace and of His claim. Nothing less than such an obligation is the fact for them. Let them feel, let them weigh, and then let them embrace, the chain which after all will only prove their pledge of rest and freedom. What St. Paul thus did for our elder brethren at Rome, let him do for us of this later time. For us, who read this page, all the facts are true in Christ today. Today let us define and affirm their issues to ourselves, and recollect our holy bondage, and realise it, and live it out with joy. Now he follows up the thought. Conscious of the superficial repulsiveness of the metaphor-quite as repulsive in itself to the Pharisee as to the Englishman-he as it were apologises for it; not the less carefully, in his noble considerateness, because so many of his first readers were actually slaves. He does not lightly go for his picture of our Master’s hold of us, to the market of Corinth, or of Rome, where men and women were sold and bought to belong as absolutely to their buyers as cattle, or as furniture. Yet he does go there, to shake slow perceptions into consciousness, and bring the will face to face with the claim of God. So he proceeds. I speak humanly, I use the terms of this utterly not-divine bond of man to man, to illustrate man’s glorious bond to God, because of the weakness of your flesh, because your yet imperfect state enfeebles your spiritual perception, and demands a harsh paradox to direct and fix it., For-here is what he means by "humanly"-just as you surrendered your limbs, your functions and faculties in human life, slaves to your impurity and to your lawlessness, unto that lawlessness, so that the bad principle did indeed come out in bad practice, so now, with as little reserve of liberty, surrender your limbs slaves to righteousness, to God’s Righteousness, to your justifying God, unto sanctification-so that the surrender shall come out in your Master’s sovereign separation of His purchased property from sin. He has appealed to the moral reason of the regenerate soul. Now he speaks straight to the will. You are, with infinite rightfulness, the bondmen of your God. You see your deed of purchase; it is the other side of your warrant of emancipation. Take it, and write your own unworthy names with joy upon it, consenting and assenting to your Owner’s perfect rights. And then live out your life, keeping the autograph of your own surrender before your eyes. Live, suffer, conquer, labour, serve, as men who have themselves walked to their Master’s door, and presented the ear to the awl which pins it to the doorway, each in his turn saying, "I will not go out free." To such an act of the soul the Apostle calls these saints, whether they had done the like before or no. They were to sum up the perpetual fact, then and there, into a definite and critical act ( ??????????? , aorist) of thankful will. And he calls us to do the same today. By the grace of God, it shall be done. With eyes open, and fixed upon the face of the Master who claims us, and with hands placed helpless and willing within His hands, we will, we do, present ourselves bondservants to Him; for discipline, for servitude, for all His will. For when you were slaves of your sin, you were freemen as to righteousness, God’s Righteousness. It had nothing to do with you, whether to give you peace or to receive your tribute of love and loyalty in reply. Practically, Christ was not your Atonement, and so not your Master; you stood, in a dismal independence, outside His claims. To you, your lips were your own; your time was your own; your will was your own. You belonged to self; that is to say, you were the slaves of your sin. Will you go back? Will the word "freedom" (he plays with it, as it were, to prove them) make you wish yourselves back where you were before y