We have considered the effect of the death and resurrection of Christ with
reference to justification and to practical life. In the early part of the
epistle (to chap. 5:11) He has died for our sins. From chapter 5:12, He
having died, we reckon ourselves dead to sin and alive to God through Him.
Our state as under the two heads, Adam and Christ, has been discussed.
Another point remained to be treated of by the apostle-the effect of this
last doctrine upon the question of the law. The Christian, or, to say
better, the believer, has part in Christ as a Christ who has died, and
lives to God, Christ being raised from the dead through Him. What is the
force of this truth with regard to the law (for the law has only power over
a man so long as he lives)? Being then dead, it has no longer any hold upon
him. This is our position with regard to the law. Does that weaken its
authority? No. For we say that Christ has died, and so have we therefore;
but the law no longer applies to one that is dead.
In bringing out the effect of this truth, the apostle uses the example of
the law of marriage. The woman would be an adulteress if she were to be to
another while her husband was alive; but when her husband is dead she is
free. The application of this rule changes the form of the truth. It is
certain that one cannot be under the authority of two husbands at once. One
excludes the other. The law, and Christ risen, cannot be associated in
their authority over the soul. But in our case the law does not lose its
force (that is, its rights over us) by its dying, but by our dying. It
reigns over us only while we live. It is with this destruction of the bond
by death the apostle began. The husband died, but in application it is
annulled by our dying. We are then dead to the law by the body of Christ
(for we have to do with a Christ risen after His death), that we should be
to Him who is raised from the dead, in order that we should bear fruit for
God; but we cannot belong to the two at once.
When we were in the flesh-when, as man, any one was held to be walking in
the responsibility of a man living in the life of nature, as a child of
Adam, the law to him was the rule and perfect measure of that
responsibility, and the representative of the authority of God. The
passions which impelled to sin acted in that nature, and, meeting with this
barrier of the law, found in it that which, by resisting it, excited the
will, and suggested, even by the prohibition itself, the evil which the
flesh loved and which the law forbade; and thus these passions acted in the
members to produce fruit which brought in death. But now he was outside its
authority, he had disappeared from its pursuit, [see note #35]
being dead in that law to the authority of which we had been subjected. Now
to have died under the law would have been also condemnation; but it is
Christ who went through this and took the condemnation, while we have the
deliverance from the old man which is in death. Our old man is crucified
with Him, so that it is our deliverance to die to the law. It did but
condemn us, but its authority ends with the life of him who was under that
authority. And being dead in Christ, the law can no longer reach those who
had been under it: we belong to the new husband, to Christ risen, in order
that we should serve in newness of spirit, the goodwill of grace in our new
life, and-as the apostle will afterwards explain, by the Holy Ghost [see note #36]
-not in the bondage of the letter.
This is the doctrine. Now for the conclusions that may be deduced from it.
Is the law, then, sin, that we are withdrawn from its authority? By no
means. But it gave the knowledge of sin, and imputed it. For the apostle
says, that he would not have understood that the mere impulse of his nature
was sin, if the law had not said, Thou shalt not covet. But the commandment
gave sin occasion to attack the soul. Sin, that evil principle of our
nature,[see note #37]
making use of the commandment to provoke the soul to the sin that is
forbidden (but which it took occasion to suggest by the interdiction
itself, acting also on the will which resisted the interdiction), produced
all manner of concupiscence. For, without the law, sin could not plunge the
soul into this conflict, and give the sentence of death in it, by making it
responsible in conscience for the sin which, without this law, it would not
have known. Under the law lust acted, with the conscience of sin in the
heart; and the result was death in the conscience, without any deliverance
for the heart from the power of concupiscence.
Without the law, sin did not thus agitate a will which refused submission
to that which checked it. For a barrier to the will awakens and excites the
will: and the conscience of sin, in the presence of God's prohibition, is a
conscience under sentence of death. Thus the commandment, which in itself
was unto life, became in fact unto death. "Do this and live" became death,
by shewing the exigencies of God to a sinful nature whose will rejected
them, and to a conscience which could not but accept the just condemnation.
A man walks in quiet indifference, doing his own will, without knowledge of
God, or consequently any sense of sin or rebellion. The law comes, and he
dies under its just judgment, which forbids everything that he desires.
Lust was an evil thing, but it did not reveal the judgment of God; on the
contrary, it forgot it. But when the law was come, sin (it is looked at
here as an enemy that attacks some person or place), knowing that the will
would persist and the conscience condemn, seized the opportunity of the
law, impelled the man in the direction contrary to the law, and slew him,
in the conscience of sin which the law forbade on the part of God. Death to
the man, on God's part in judgment, was the result. The law then was good
and holy, since it forbade the sin, but in condemning the sinner.
Was death then brought in by that which was good? [see note #38]
No. But sin, in order that it might be seen in its true light, employed
that which was good to bring death upon the soul; and thus, by the
commandment, became exceedingly sinful. In all this, sin is personified as
some one who seeks to kill the soul.
Such then was the effect of the law, that first husband, seeing sin existed
in man. To bring this out more plainly, the apostle communicates his
spiritual apprehension of the experience of a soul under the law.
We must remark here, that the subject treated of is not the fact of the
conflict between the two natures, but the effect of the law, supposing the
will to be renewed, and the law to have obtained the suffrage of the
conscience and to be the object of the heart's affections-a heart which
recognises the spirituality of the law. This is neither the knowledge of
grace, nor of the Saviour Christ, nor of the Spirit. [see note #39]
The chief point here is not condemnation (although the law does indeed
leave the soul under judgment), but the entire want of strength to fulfil
it, that it may not condemn us. The law is spiritual; but I, as man, am
carnal, the slave of sin, whatever the judgment of my inward man may be:
for I allow not that which I do. That which I would I do not; and that
which I hate I practise. Thus loving and thus hating, I consent to the law
that it is good. It is not that I do the evil as to moral intent of the
will, for I would not the evil which I do; on the contrary I hate it. It is
the sin then that dwells in me, for in fact in me (that is, in my flesh-the
whole natural man as he is) there exists no good, for even where there is
the will, I do not find the way to perform any good. Power is totally
wanting.
In verse 20 the apostle, having this explanation, lays stress upon the I
and me. "If that which I myself would" (we should read), and "It is no
longer myself that does it, but the sin that dwelleth in me." I find then
evil present with the myself which would do good; for, as to the inward
man, I delight in the law of God. But there is in me another constant
principle which wars against the law of my mind, which brings me into
captivity to this law of sin in my members. So that, whatever my desires
may be, the better even that they are, I am myself a miserable man. Being
man, and such a man, I cannot but be miserable. But, having come to this,
an immense step has been taken.
The evil here spoken of is the evil that is in our nature, and the want of
power to get rid of it. The forgiveness of sins hadbeen fully taught. What
distresses here is the present working of sin which we cannot get rid of
The sense of this is often a more painful thing than past sins, which the
believer can understand as put away by the blood of Christ. But here we
have the conscience of sin still in us, though we may hate it, and the
question of deliverance is mixed up with our experience, at least till we
have learned what is taught us in this part of the epistle, to judge the
old man as sin in us, not ourselves, and reckon ourselves dead. Christ,
through whom we now live, having died, and being a sacrifice for sin, our
condemnation is impossible, while sin is condemned and we free through "the
law of the Spirit of life in him." It is not forgiveness, but deliverance,
sin in the flesh being condemned in the cross.
Under divine grace the renewed man learned three things. First, he has come
to the discovery that in him, that is, in his flesh, there is no good
thing; but, secondly, he has learned to distinguish between himself, who
wills good, and sin which dwells in him; but, further, that when he wills
good, sin is too strong for him. Having thus acquired knowledge of himself,
he does not seek to be better in the flesh, but deliverance, and he has it
in Christ. Power comes after. He is come to the discovery and to the
confession that he has no power. He throws himself upon another. He does
not say, How can I? or, How shall I? but, Who shall deliver me? Now it was
when we were devoid of all strength that Christ died for the ungodly. This
want of strength is discovered; and we find grace at the end, when with
regard to what we are, and to all hope of amelioration in ourselves, grace
is our only resource.
But happily, when we cast ourselves upon grace, there is nothing but grace
before us. Deliverance is accomplished by our not being alive in the flesh
at all: we have died away from it, and from under the law, which held us in
bondage and condemnation, and we are married to another, Christ raised from
the dead; and as soon as the distressed soul has said, "Who shall deliver
me?" the answer is ready, "I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord." The
answer is not, He will deliver. Deliverance is already accomplished: he
gives thanks.
The man was wretched in conflict under law, without knowledge of
redemption. But he has died in the death of Christ out of the nature which
made him so; he has quite done with himself. The deliverance of God is
complete. The two natures are still opposed to each other, but the
deliverance is not imperfect. This deliverance wrought of God, and the
progress of its manifestation, are developed in the next chapter.
We may here remark that the apostle does not say, "We know that the law is
spiritual, and we are carnal." Had he done so, it would have been to speak
of Christians, as such, in their proper and normal condition. It is the
personal experience of what the flesh is under law, when the man is
quickened, and not the state of a Christian as such before God. Observe,
also, that the law is looked at from the point of view of christian
knowledge-"we know"-when we are no longer under it, and when we are capable
of judging concerning its whole import, according to the spirituality of
him who judges: and who sees also, being spiritual, what the flesh is;
because he is now not in the flesh, but in the Spirit. [see note #40]
Literally, this passage is not the condition of anyone at all; but
principles opposed to each other, the result of which is laid open by
supposing a man under the law: the will always right, but good never done,
evil always. Nevertheless to the conscience this is the practical condition
of every renewed man under the law. We may remark one other important
principle. Man in this condition is entirely taken up with himself; he
desires good, he does not perform it, he does that which he would not.
Neither Christ nor the Holy Ghost is named. In the normal condition of a
Christian, he is occupied with Christ. But what is expressed in this
seventh chapter is the natural and necessary result of the law, when the
conscience is awakened and the will renewed. For to will is present with
him. But he is under law, sees its spirituality, consents to it, delights
in it after the inner man, and cannot perform what is good. Sin has
dominion over him. The sense of unanswered responsibility, and the absence
of peace, cause the soul necessarily to turn in upon itself. It is taken up
entirely with self, which is spoken of nearly forty times from verse 14. It
is well to be so, rather than to be insensible. It is not peace.
This peace is found elsewhere, and it is in this; when reduced to the
consciousness of one's own inability to do good towards God, one finds that
God has done for us the good which we need. We are not only forgiven but
delivered, and are in Christ, not in the flesh at all.
The conflict goes on, the opposition between the two natures continues, but
we give thanks to God through our Lord Jesus Christ. [see note #41]
Remark here that deliverance is only found when there is the full
conviction of our incapacity and want of power, as well as of our sins. It
is much more difficult to arrive at this conviction of incapacity than at
that of having sinned. But the sin of our nature-its irremediable
perversity, its resistance to good, the law of sin in our members-is only
known in its legal gravity by experience of the uselessness of our efforts
to do well. Under the law the uselessness of these efforts leaves the
conscience in distress and bondage, and produces the sense of its being
impossible to be with God. Under grace the efforts are not useless, and the
evil nature shews itself to us (either in communion with God, or by
downfalls if we neglect communion) in all its deformity in presence of that
grace. But in this chapter the experience of sin in the nature is presented
as acquired under the law, in order that man may know himself in this
position-may know what he is as regards his flesh, and that in fact he
cannot succeed in this way in coming before God with a good conscience. He
is under the first husband; death had not yet severed the bond as to the
state of the soul.
We must now remember that this experience of the soul under the law is
introduced parenthetically, to shew the sinful condition to which grace
applies and the effect of the law. Our subject is that the believer has
part in the death of Christ and has died, and is alive through Him who is
risen; that Christ, having by grace gone under death, having been made sin,
has for ever done with that state in which He had to do with sin and death
in the likeness of sinful flesh; and having for ever done with all that was
connected with it, has entered by resurrection into a new order of things-a
new condition before God, totally beyond the reach of all that to which He
had subjected Himself for us, which in us was connected with our natural
life, and beyond reach of the law which bound sin upon the conscience on
God's part. In Christ we are in this new order of things.
