Down to Earth But Heavenly Minded

Verse

13: But now he answers the further question: Did then that which is good become death unto me? And again his answer is, Banish the thought! But it was indwelling sin that wrought death to me,—using indeed, that which was good. Through the Commandment, thus, Sin was shown to be sin. The more fully and widely the Law resolved itself in new and fresh commands to Paul’s soul, the more intense and desperate became indwelling Sin’s horrid opposition to it. Thus was Sin’s hideous countenance seen in full! It became exceeding sinful!

In general, we may say that in verses 14 to 17, the emphasis is upon the
practicing what is hated,—that is, the inability to overcome evil in the flesh; while in verses 18 to 21, the emphasis is upon the failure to do the desired good,—the inability, on account of the flesh, to do right.

Thus the double failure of a quickened man either to overcome evil or to accomplish good—is set forth. There must come in help from outside, beyond himself! This, of course, is the indwelling Spirit, as the eighth chapter so vividly portrays.

In narrating in particular the account of his great struggle in verses 14 to 23, we find the apostle arriving at three definite conclusions.

First, In doing what he is not wishing, but practicing what he is hating, his conclusion is: “If what I am not wishing, that I am doing, I am consenting unto the Law that it is right.” Verses 14 to 16.

Second, It is indwelling sin, and not his real self, that is working out this
evil: “But if what I am not wishing, this I am practicing, no longer is
it I that am working it out, but on the contrary, sin which dwelleth in
me.” Verses 17 to 20.

Third, There is the terrible revelation of a positive Law (or settled principle) of sin in his members, defeating him despite his inward delight in the Law of God:—“bringing me into captivity under the law of sin which is in my members.” Verse 23.

For we know that the Law is spiritual: but I 158 am carnal, sold under sin. For that which I am working out, I do not own: for not what I am wishing this am I doing: but what I am hating—this I am practicing.

The Law is spiritual: but I am carnal—“Spiritual” may include:

(1) Addressed to man by God, who is “spirit”;

(2) To “the spirit of man that is in him” (I Corinthians 2:11);

Therefore:

(3) Consisting of communications adapted to and only understandable by beings of a spiritual realm or sphere.

(4) “Spiritual,” also, in the moral sense; holy because communicated by a holy God.

Thus Law is spiritual.

But I am carnal: Paul speaks of himself here as he is by nature. He does
not say body-ish (sema, body, as opposed to pneuma, spirit) but “carnal”: The word sarkinos, translated “carnal,” comes from the root, sarks, “flesh.”

1. If Paul had been speaking of himself before being quickened, he would have used the word natural: “the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God” (I Corinthians 2:14).

2. “Carnal” is not used to describe an unregenerate person, but a
Christian not delivered from the power of the flesh: “I, brethren could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, as unto babes in Christ” (I Corinthians 3:1).

3. In this connection, note that while Paul’s condition at the time of this struggle was that of being carnal, there are those that are spiritual: “He that is spiritual judgeth all things” (I Corinthians 2:15). “Ye who are spiritual, restore” (Galatians 6:1).

4. Therefore, by the word “carnal” Paul was describing a state out of which there was deliverance.

We know that carnal, sold under sin—is evidently meant by the apostle in
this fourteenth verse to indicate the state of human nature as contrasted with God’s holy spiritual Law.

Sold under sin: This is slave-market talk: and it describes all of us by nature. Instead of being spiritual and therefore able to hearken to, delight in and obey God’s holy spiritual Law, we are turned back, since Adam sinned, to a fleshly condition, our spirits by nature dead to God, and our soul-faculties under the domination of the still unredeemed body. Now Paul, though his spirit was quickened; and his inward desires, therefore, were toward God’s Law; found to his horror his state by nature “carnal,” fleshly, “sold under sin.” How little humanity realizes this awful, universal fact about man—“sold under sin”!

“Sold under sin” is exactly what the new convert does not know! Forgiven, justified, he knows himself to be: and he has the joy of it! But now to find an evil nature, of which he had never become really conscious, and of which he thought himself fully rid, when he first believed, is a “second lesson” which is often more bitter than the first—of guilt!

For that which I am working out, I do not own [as my choice]: for not what I am wishing this am I doing159, but what I am hating, this I am practicing.

We must constantly remember throughout this struggle that it is not a description by the apostle Paul of an experience he was having when he wrote this Epistle! but an experience of a regenerate man before he knows either about indwelling sin or that he died to sin and to the Law which gives sin its power; and who also does not know the Holy Spirit, as an indwelling presence and power against sin. God let Paul have this experience. And he now writes about it that we may read and know all the facts of our salvation: not merely of the awful guilt of our sins, and our forgiveness through the blood of Christ; but also of the moral hideousness of our old selves; and our
powerlessness, though regenerate, to deliver ourselves, from “the law of sin” in our members.

Therefore Paul said that in that struggle he found himself “working out” a manner of life he refused to “own”—to admit as his real choice. For, he says, Not what I am wishing, that am I practicing. The word “wish” or “desire” is not quite strong enough for the Greek word here, (thelo); but the word will is too strong; for “will” has come in English to have the element of carrying a purpose through; which Paul was unable to do. His holy wish never mounted the throne of I will.

Verse 16: But now he gains a further step: But if what I am not wishing, I am practicing, I am consenting unto the Law that it is right. The wicked man does what he is wishing; and is willing to condemn God’s Law if it interferes with him. But Paul cries in this struggle, “I have just discovered that I am not at all in my heart opposing the Law; but am in my heart of hearts consenting that it is right.” And that is a very real step. In the matter of forgiveness, the thief on the cross took that step, in saying to his fellow, “We receive the due reward of our deeds.” And Paul, forgiven but undelivered, cries, The Law is right! My heart consents to God’s Word and God’s Way,—however far I am from following it! And now he pursues his advantage:

So therefore, no longer is it I that am working it out, but sin which is dwelling in me.

Verse 17: “No longer I!” That was a wonderful discovery! For a forgiven Saul, who had gone on in joy awhile without inward trouble, it was indeed a terrible awakening to become again convicted—not now of sins, but of indwelling sin, of a hateful power that seemed one’s very self—but was really “our old man.”160 But he is making discoveries about himself—amazing things, brought out for the first time in Scripture. He is going much further than “consenting to the Law that it is right” (verse 16); for now, instead of being completely over whelmed by this holy, righteous Law; he arrives at (and writes down for us!) a conclusion that is daring: Since I am doing what I am not wishing, there must be another and evil principle working within me. For it is not my real self that is working out this evil, but sin which dwelleth in me. An unwelcome, hateful presence!

Verse 18: For I know that there does not dwell in me, that is in my flesh, a good thing: for the wishing is present with me, but working out that which is right, is not.

Here is that man who wrote in Philippians Three, “If any man hath whereof to glory in the flesh, I yet more!” And he gave there seven facts he could glory in,—beyond the greatest Greek, or Roman, or English, or any Gentile—“I yet more”! but now saying, “In me dwelleth no good thing.” And also: “I can will, but cannot do!” This great double lesson must be learned by all of us! (1) There is no good thing in any of us—in “our flesh”—our old selves. (2) We cannot do the good we wish or will, to do. Most humbling of all confessions. Renewed, desiring to proceed—we cannot! We are dependent on the Holy Spirit as our only spiritual power, just as on Christ as our only righteousness!

Alas, how incompletely are these two facts taught and learned! We have seen hundreds of eager young believers who are being told to “surrender to Christ,” that all depended upon their yielding, etc. But these dear children, what did they know of the tremendous truths Paul has taught in the early part of Romans, before asking that believers present themselves to God as alive from the dead? (Romans 6:13). He has taught the terrible, lost guilty state of all men; their inability to recover righteousness; then Christ set forth as a propitiation through faith in His blood as their only hope; then identification, as connected with Adam, with Christ in His death; and the command to reckon themselves dead to sin, and alive to God in Christ Jesus; together with, the fact that they are not under law, but under grace.

All this before the real call for surrender for service, in the Twelfth Chapter is given at all!

Our hearts are weary with the appeals to man’s will,—whether the will of a sinner to “make a start,” “be a Christian,” etc.; or the appeal to the will of believers who have not yet been shown what guilt is, and what indwelling sin is. For God’s Word in Romans 7.18 tells us that while to will may be present with us, to work that which is right is not present. Paul told those same Philippians that believers were such as had “no confidence” in the flesh, and that it is God that worketh in us, “both to will and to work, for His good pleasure.” 161

Verse 19: For not what I am wishing am I practicing—that is, the good; but on the contrary, what I am not wishing—that is, the evil, this I am doing.

Now this verse must not be for one moment misapplied, that is, it must not be made to describe Paul’s “manner of life in Christ Jesus,” which was, as we know, victorious, and fruitful and always rejoicing. But verse 19 does indeed express concerning Paul, and all of us, all the time, our utter powerlessness in ourselves (though Christians) against the evil of the flesh: whether we are consciously under Moses’ Law, as was Paul, or convicted by the power of an awakened conscience that we ought to have deliverance from our sinful, selfish selves, and walk in victory in Christ. Verse 19 is not normal Christian experience, certainly. But it may describe our very case, if we have not learned God’s way of faith.

Verse 20: But if what I am not wishing, this I am practicing, no longer is it I that am working it out, but on the contrary, sin which dwelleth in me.

Paul reasserts the blessed fact (which is, alas, no comfort to him as yet!) that it is no longer the real “I,” but indwelling sin, that is working out this hated life of defeat.

Verse 21: I find then the law [or principle] that to me, desiring to be practicing the right, the evil is present.

He now states as a settled conclusion, what he has experimentally
discovered. And we all need to consent to the fact—even if we have found God’s way of deliverance, that evil is present. It is the denial of this fact that has wrecked thousands of lives! For evil will be present until the Lord comes, bringing in the redemption of our bodies.

Verses 22, 23: For I delight in the Law of God after the inward man: but I see a different law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity under the law of sin which is in my members.

Here is first, delight, second, discernment, and third, defeat.

1. First, delight: in God’s Law, Paul delights—this is a strong and inclusive word. And, after the inward man,—thus revealing himself as regenerate throughout this struggle: No unregenerate man would say, (unless profane) “It is no more I that do it, but sin which dwelleth in me:” For,

(1) An unregenerate man is not conscious of a moral power which is not himself: for he has but the one nature,—he is “in the flesh.”

(2) An unregenerate man could not say, “What I hate, that I do.” For only born-again people hate evil. “Ye that love Jehovah, hate evil” (Psalm 97:10), and David could say of himself, “I hate every false way” (Psalm 119:104). But of the wicked he wrote, “He abhorreth not evil” (Psalm 36:4).

(3) An unregenerate man could not say, “What I would not, that I do,—I consent to the Law that it is good.” An unregenerate man resists the Law, that he may “justify himself.” A regenerate man consents to the Law’s being good, no matter how it judges what he finds himself doing! (verse 16).

(4) The unregenerate man could not say, “I delight in the Law of God after the inward man.” For by nature all men are “children of wrath,” “alienated from the life of God”; and “the mind of the flesh is enmity against God, not subject to the Law of God.” Before his conversion, Saul, as we saw, could help to stone Stephen,—“verily thinking he ought” to do it; but Paul was not then seeking holiness (as the man in Romans Seven is), but was secure in his own righteousness as a legalist.

(5) The unregenerate man could not say, “Wretched man that I am!” For he could not see his wretchedness! His whole life was to build up that which was the flesh.

(6) If you claim that the “wretched man” of Romans Seven is an unregenerate man under conviction of sin, the complete reply is, that this man of Romans Seven is crying for deliverance,—not from sin’s guilt and penalty, but from its power. Not for forgiveness of sins, but help against indwelling sin. This man is exercised, not about the day of judgment, but about a condition of bondage to that which he hates. The Jews on the Day of Pentecost, and the jailor at Philippi, cried out in terror, “What shall we do to be saved?” It was guilt and danger they felt. But this man in Romans Seven cries, “Who shall deliver me” (not from guilt) but, “from this body of death?” No one but a quickened soul ever knows about a “body of death”!

(7) But perhaps the most striking argument of all is in the closing words of Chapter Seven—verse 25: “Therefore then I myself with the mind, am subject to God’s Law, but with the flesh to sin’s law.” Here we have both spiritual life and consciousness; also, discernment. and discrimination of both his real true new self, which chooses God and His will and of the flesh which will continue to choose “sin’s law”: and all this conclusion after he has realized deliverance from the “body of death” through our Lord Jesus Christ!

2. Second, discernment: I see a different law in my members. It is the
unwillingness to own this different law, this settled state of enmity, toward God, in our own members, that so terribly bars spiritual blessing and advancement. As long as we think lightly of the fact of the presence with us of the fallen nature, (I speak of Christians) we are far from deliverance. In the law of leper-cleansing (Leviticus 13:2 ff), “if a man shall have in the skin of his flesh a rising,” or even “a white rising”—he was unclean. (See the various degrees of the plague.) But, “If the leprosy break out abroad in the skin, and the leprosy cover all the skin of him that hath the plague from his head even to his feet, as far as appeareth to the priest; then the priest shall look; and, behold, if the leprosy have covered all his flesh, he shall pronounce him clean that hath the plague: it is all turned white: he is clean”! It is significant that at the conclusion of the Sermon on the Mount, (Matthew 8:1-4) two things should be there: (1) A leper—showing the Law could cleanse no one. (2) A leper, as Luke the physician tells us, “full of leprosy” (Luke 5:12). It is because people do not recognize their all-badness that they do not find Christ all in all to them.

3. Third, defeat: There is no strength or power in ourselves against the law of sin which is in our members. God has left us as much dependent on Christ’s work for our deliverance as for our forgiveness! It is wholly because we died with Him at the cross, both to sin and to the whole legal principle, that sin’s power, for those in Christ, is broken.

Verse 24: Wretched man that I am! The word here translated “wretched” meant originally, “wretched—through the exhaustion of hard labor,” (Vincent). But the word reads in the Septuagint of Isaiah 33:1, Jeremiah 4:30 “desolate, bound for destruction,” as also in Revelation 3:17. The hopelessness of Paul’s condition, unless he be delivered, is thus appallingly revealed! Who shall deliver me out of the body of this death? Note now at once that all self-hope has ceased! It is not, How shall I deliver myself? Or even, How shall I be delivered? But it is a frantic appeal for a deliverer! Who shall deliver me? Instinctively and absolutely Paul knows that no process will deliver him. The awful shallowness of the “Christian Scientist,” who would get rid of all evil by “demonstrating” with the human will against it is seen at once! So is the silly (and damning) folly of the Buchmanites, the “life-changers.” Where do such folk come in, in such a struggle as this of Paul with this body of death? They simply do not come in, for they know nothing of it. The Holy Spirit is not in their vain self-processes, any more than in the mumblings of human priests,—pagan or popish.

The body of this death—what a fearful description of the body!—unredeemed, unchanged, under the law of sin in all its members. No matter what the “delight” of the quickened human spirit in the things of God may be, to dwell undelivered in such a body is to find it a “body of death.”

Verse 25: I thank God, [for deliverance] through Jesus Christ our Lord. Ah! The answer to Paul’s self-despairing question, “Who shall deliver me?” is a new revelation,—even identification with Christ in His death! For just as the sinner struggles in vain to find forgiveness and peace, until he looks outside himself to Him who made peace by the blood of His cross, just so does the quickened soul, struggling unto despair to find victory over sin by self-effort, look outside himself to Christ—in whom he is, and in whom he died to sin and to law! Paul was not delivered by Christ, but through Him; not by anything Christ then or at that time did for him; but through the revelation of the fact that he had died with Christ at the cross to this hated indwelling sin, and law of sin; and to God’s Law, which gave sin its power. It was a new vision or revelation of the salvation which is in Christ—as described in verses 4 and 6 of our chapter.

The sinner is not forgiven by what Christ now does, but by faith in what He did do at the cross, for, “The word of the cross is the power of God.” Just so, the believer is not delivered by what Christ does for him now; but in the revelation to his soul of identification with Christ’s death at the cross: for again, “The word of the cross is the power of God.”

It will be by the Holy Spirit, that this deliverance is wrought in us; as we shall see in Chapter Eight. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, and by “the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus,” is God’s order.

To sum up Paul’s Great Discoveries in this Struggle of Chapter Seven:

1.That sin dwelt in him,—though he delighted in God’s Law!

2.That his will was powerless against it.

3.That the sinful self was not his real self.

4.That there was deliverance through our Lord Jesus Christ!162

I thank God [for deliverance] through Jesus Christ our Lord! Paul had cried, Who shall deliver me? The answer is,—the discovery to his soul of that glorious deliverance at the cross! of death to sin and Law with Him! So it is said, “Through Jesus Christ our Lord.” The word of the cross—of what Christ did there, is the power of God—whether to save sinners or deliver saints!

But ah, what a relief to Paul’s soul—probably out yonder alone in Arabia, struggling more and more in vain to compel the flesh to obey the Law, to have revealed to his weary soul the second glorious truth of the Gospel—that he had died with Christ—to sin, and to Law which sin had used as its power!

And now the conclusion—which is the text of the whole chapter! So then—always a quod erat demonstrandum with Paul! I myself, with the mind, indeed—this is the real renewed self, which the apostle has over and over said that “sin that dwelleth in him” was not! “With the mind”—all the spiritual faculties including, indeed, the soul-faculties of reason, imagination, sensibility—which even now are “being renewed” by the Holy Spirit, day by day. Am subject to God’s law [or will]—all new creatures can say this. But with the flesh sin’s law. He saw it at last, and bowed to it,—that all he was by the flesh, by Nature, was irrevocably committed to sin. So he gave up—to see himself wholly in Christ (who now lived in Him) and to walk not by the Law, even in the supposed powers of the quickened life—but by the Spirit only: in whose power alone the Christian life is to be lived.

PAUL’S STRUGGLE NOT CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE

It is of the utmost importance clearly to see that the great struggle of the latter part of Romans Seven is neither a purely Jewish one, nor a normal Christian walk, nor a necessary Christian experience.

It is not a purely Jewish struggle. Jewish struggles are set forth in the Psalms, and are a conflict with outward enemies, or the questioning cry (as in Psalm 88) as to why God seems far off, or even, for the present, seemingly against the supplicator (typically—the Remnant in the Last Days). But not even in the deepest Psalm of trouble is there ever a hint of two natures within the struggler! (For example. Psalm 10, or Psalm 88, or Ps 77, or even such Psalms as Psalm 51, Psalm 32.)

Neither is this struggle a normal Christian experience. For, (1) there is no
mention of Christ until the legal struggle is ended in self-despair,—and, (2) There is no mention whatever of the Holy Spirit—whose recognized presence and power make possible proper Christian experience: which is “walking by the Spirit.”

That it is not a normal Christian walk, we have also shown from Paul’s own triumphant life.

And that it is not a necessary Christian experience, is seen from the fact that Paul is, in this struggle, occupied with the Law,—under which God says believers are not! (6:14.) The complete Gospel believed, makes such a struggle unnecessary and indeed impossible. For the gospel reveals (as in Romans 6:1-11 and 7:1-6, and all Chapter 8) (1) that we died with Christ and are now alive unto God in Christ Risen; (2) that those under Law were made dead to and discharged from the legal economy; (3) that the Holy Spirit indwelling the believer has taken over the conflict with the flesh; and is the whole power of a triumphant walk; (4) that therefore there is no condemnation to those in Christ Jesus, and no separation from God’s love to those in Him!

Doubtless we often see other Christians having a Seventh-of-Romans struggle, and shall easily find ourselves falling into such a struggle. But as the gospel concerning our death with Christ both to sin and to the legal
principle becomes clear to us, and our faith therein becomes strong; and our reliance upon the Holy Spirit becomes more constant, we shall walk as Paul did:—“Thanks be unto God who always leadeth us in triumph in Christ.”

The path of faith is the most hateful path possible for the flesh. Faith gives the flesh no place—leaves no “part” for man’s will and energy. The flesh will go to any degree of religious self-denial, or self-inflicted sufferings—anything but death!

But faith begins right there: we died with Christ, we live in Him! We have
no righteousness, no strength,—and desire none: Christ is our righteousness, and “when we are weak, we are strong.”

Thus the walk of simple-hearted faith is indeed in another realm from the struggle of Romans Seven. God give us to have faith “as a little child,” a cloudless, unmixed vision, as had Paul at last!

When the demand, however, arises in our hearts that we be what we find
written in the Epistles, the effect is the same exactly as in Paul’s case as regards the discovery of powerlessness. The “Holiness” people call it, as we said, “becoming convicted for holiness.” The conscience becomes suddenly awakened. We see that we have been content with a righteous standing, without a really holy walk. If we have seen that we died with Christ; and are properly instructed, we shall, upon such awakening,

(1) Know that there is deliverance in Christ for us, whether we are yet able, or not, in living faith to reckon that we are dead unto sin and alive unto God.

(2) We shall be, or become, willing to have God show us how, or wherein, we are still holding fast to any sin, or any indulgence of the flesh.

(3) We shall be brought, by God’s grace, to agree to the sentence of death that has already been pronounced on this particular thing, when our old man,—all our old self, was crucified with Christ.

(4) Then we shall enter into the place of reckoning ourselves dead to sin, and to this darling sin, and to all sin,—as God commands His saints who have Died with Christ.

(5) We may have, if necessary, a struggle here: as James shows:

“Ye adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity
with God? . . . God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace to the humble. Be subject therefore to God; but resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw nigh to God, and He will draw nigh to you!”

And now see his following words:

“Cleanse your hands, ye sinners”—those saints indulging known sin. “And purify your hearts, ye doubleminded”—those believers who have been half for the world, while half for heaven. “Be afflicted, and mourn and weep.” (Not that God is unwilling, but that we are!) “Let your laughter” (which has been the fool’s laughter of this condemned world!) “be turned to mourning, and your joy” (which has been the joy of worldlings, not of heaven-bound saints) “to heaviness. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He shall exalt you!”

This is the path for worldly Christians. Not that the grace of God is insufficient: but they have been rejoicing with a condemned world! And they must come out of that, though in bitterness.

However, the bitterness need not be,—if we are willing! “If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the fruit of the land.” And nothing will persuade our hearts like the goodness of God, in the gift of His Son, and the work of the cross, already accomplished on our behalf.

Whether, then, it be a soul under law, or one in greater light: there will be the discovery of our own utter powerlessness, and of deliverance—from sin and self, in our Lord Jesus Christ! And this is the object of the revelation of Paul’s great struggle,—not mere information, but application of these lessons to ourselves. For if we go through Chapters Six and Seven unexercised of soul, how shall we learn the blessed walk in the Spirit of Chapter Eight?

For “the flesh” is there—in Chapter Eight—all unchanged! And unless we practically learn,—learn for and regarding our own selves—the great lesson that in ourselves, in “the whole natural man,” there is no good; that even when we will to do good, evil is yet present, and dominant! and that help for us, for our very selves, must come from without: unless we learn this holy self-despair; we will not enter into actual spiritual deliverance in Christ: but will only be “puffed up” by our study. For mere knowledge “puffeth up.” But we all know that Paul was not puffed up when he cried, “O wretched man that I am!” And if Paul found a body of death to be delivered from, you and I have that same body of death! And we too must be brought to say, “I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” It may be that you will be found like the remarkable case below, related by Mr. Finney163: and be ready to step immediately into any new revelation of blessing in Christ164 It should be a true illustration of every believer!

149 “I,” “me,” “myself” are used 47 times in the 19 verses of Chapter Seven,—capital “I” 28 times! In Chapter Eight, “me” occurs once; and that, “Christ made me free”; “I” twice, and that, “I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed to us-ward”; and, “I am persuaded that nothing shall be able to separate us from the love of God.”

In Chapter Eight “we,” “us,” “our,” and like words occur 41 times! For in Chapter Eight we are conscious at last of the blessed indwelling Spirit: and so, of all other saints. While the legal struggle is carried on in a terrible loneliness.

150 When “law” as a principle is spoken of, we have used the small “l”; when the Mosaic Law is evidently meant, a capital “L”; and when the use of the latter is emphatic, we have several times written it “The Law.”

151 The expressions dead to the Law (vs. 4) and discharged from the Law
(vs. 6) cannot possibly be referred directly to Gentiles, who had never been alive to the Law—it never having been given to them; and who could not be discharged therefrom, because they were not under it.

152 To any one who has examined their writings, there is the inescapable
conclusion that the Reformed theologians—truly godly men—have kept the vision of believers confined generally to the propitiatory work of Christ, not seeing—at least, not setting forth clearly, the ending of our history in identification with Christ,—thus freeing us from sin, law, and the old creation, and setting us wholly on resurrection ground, in Christ Jesus.

God’s identifying us with Christ in His death was just as sovereign an act as was God’s transferring our sins to Christ. It did not proceed from His incarnation: for He was “holy,” and “separated from sinners.” There was absolutely no union with sinful humanity except at the cross! There was no “union with humanity” with Christ in His earthly life! We would be horrified at the teaching that Christ was bearing our sins from His incarnation! But, if these were “laid on Him” at the cross, so also was “our old man” then, at the cross, and not before, so identified with Him as to be crucified with Him. It was God’s sovereign, inscrutable act, in both matters: done at the cross, not before!

153 Note that the King James Version wrongly renders that the Law died. But the verb number is plural, as the Revised Version and all the best mss. read. It was believers who died, not the Law!

154 But inasmuch as the endeavor is widely made to make the Law “the first husband,” it seems well to urge the fact that this would be to depart from the illustration entirely.

For the fact to be illustrated is, that law rules humanity till death. The illustration is this universal one of a woman bound by law to a husband; not to the Law as a husband! Death now intervenes, and “the law of the husband” binds herno more. The Law was seen only as governing a relationship,—between husband and wife. A common conception would make the Law the husband! But the husband and wife are both ruled over by law: and if we make the Law the husband, what law would be over that Law? Furthermore, it is said, “if the husband die,” This word excludes all idea of the Law being a husband: for God’s Law does not die, God would not speak thus.

And again, if we are to carry out this illustration, we must find one with whom the person to be set free (here called “the woman”) is lawfully connected, and that connection broken by death. Now who, or what, is this?

Does not the whole passage—from Chapter 5:12 onward tell us plainly? With whom were we first connected except Adam the first? All our standing and our responsibilities were in him. Our relation to him was such as nothing but death could break! We were responsible to furnish God a perfect righteousness and holiness in the flesh. No matter if we could not: we ought to do so. Our inability does not at all diminish our responsibility.

Now, what did God do? “Our old man was crucified.” We shared Christ’s death as made sin for us. We died to our whole position in Adam, and to our obligations connected with him.

However, inasmuch as the Mosaic Law was a complete economy under which God placed His chosen nation, we do not wonder that many who carry the illustration to its limits have regarded the Law as the “first husband.” We do not desire to quarrel with these expositors: only let them confine the Mosaic economy where God confined it—to Israel. Let Israel’s deliverance therefrom be to the Gentile believer a glorious illustration of his own blessed position—not under law as a principle, but under grace (6:14).

155 Note carefully that It is to God that we are to present ourselves, and that as in Christ (Romans 6:11, 13), We are not told to present ourselvesto Christ, for we are already vitally in Him.

156 Wherefore Christian was left to stumble in the Slough of Despond alone; but still he endeavored to struggle to that side of the slough that was furthest from his own house, and next to the Wicketgate; the which he did, but could not get out because of the burden that was upon his back. But I beheld, in my dream, that a man came to him, whose name was Help, and asked him. What he did there?

Sir, said Christian, I was bid to go this way by a man, called Evangelist, who directed me also to yonder gate, that I might escape the wrath to come: and as I was going thither I fell in here.

HELP; But why did you not look for the steps? [The great and precious promises of God,]

CHRISTIAN: Fear followed me so hard, that I fled the next way and fell in. Then said Help, Give me thy hand; so he gave him his hand, and he drew him out, and set him upon sound ground, and bid him go on his way.

Then I stepped to him that plucked him out and said: Sir, wherefore, since over this place is the way from the City of Destruction to yonder gate, is it that this plat is not mended, that poor travelers might go thither with more security? and he said unto me, This miry slough is such a place as cannot be mended: it is the descent whither the scum and filth that attends conviction for sin doth continually run, and therefore it was called the Slough of Despond: for still as the sinner is awakened about his lost condition, there arise in his soul many fears and doubts, and discouraging apprehensions, which all of them get together, and settle in this place. And this is the reason of the badness of this ground,

It is not the pleasure of the King that this place should remain so bad; his labourers also have, by the directions of his Majesty’s surveyors, been for above these sixteen hundred years employed about this patch of ground, if perhaps it might have been mended: yea, and to my knowledge, said he, here hath been swallowed up at least twenty thousand cart-loads; yea, millions of wholesome instructions, that have at all seasons been brought from all places of the King’s dominions, (and they that can tell, say, they are the best materials to make good ground of the place), if so be it might have been mended; but it is the Slough of Despond still; and so will be, when they have done what they can.

True, there are, by the direction of the Lawgiver, certain good and substantial steps placed even through the very midst of this slough; but at such times as this Place doth much spew out its filth, as it doth against change of weather, these steps are hardly seen; or if they be, men through the dizziness of their heads step besides; and then they are bemired to purpose, notwithstanding the steps be there: but the ground is good when they are once got in at the gate.

157 The word epithumia (desire) is used 37 times in the New Testament,—in all but three of these passages denoting evil-desire. The three exceptions, however, indicate that the context must determine the meaning in any case. (Luke 22:15; Philippians 1:23; I Thess. 2:17: contrasted, for example, with Mark 4:19; John 8:44; Romans 1:24; Titus 2:12; James 1:14; I John 2:16; II Pet. 3:3).

158 “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.”

Romans Seven is not the present experience of any one, but a delivered person ascribing the state of an undelivered one. A man in a morass does not quietly ascribe how a man sinks into it, because he fears to sink and stay there. The end of Romans Seven is a man out of the morass showing in peace the principle and manner in which one sinks in it” (Darby).

159 Three Greek verbs expressing conduct are used in these verses: (1) prasso, do! (2) poieo, practise, make a business of; (3) katergadzomai, work out to a result (whether by personal choice or nature). By translating literally we can better get the vivid sense of the original.

160 For, though our old man was crucified with Christ, put in the place of
certain, though not instant death—we find, though we have “put him off”
(Colossians 3:9) we must “put away,” as to every thing of the former life, “the old man” (Ephesians 4:22). And, to be put away, he must be discovered to us, and this is what is so vividly set before us in this struggle.

Note, it is never said the old man is dead, but that we died. We were
federally identified with Christ, and passed on with Him into burial, and. now share His Risen life. The old man is not to be “counted dead” (as some very dear brethren have put it): but to be counted crucified—his place being there only.

161 The author must be permitted to say that he had part in the Student Volunteer Movement for foreign missions of fifty years ago; that he saw hundreds of earnest and honest students “volunteer” for the mission field.

But afterwards, in teaching the book of Romans, especially in China, he had many a missionary say, “We never knew this gospel before.” It is nothing short of tragic to send men and women out against the hosts of hell in heathendom without teaching them through and through and through and through this mighty gospel Paul preached!—which gospel he says is “the power of God unto salvation.” And he comes to further detail in saying, “The word of the cross is the power of God.” Education, medication, sanitation, and general sweetness—what does Satan care for that. The word of the cross is the great wire along which runs the dynamic of God—and it runs along no other wire. If God is permitting great investments of money, men and time along other lines to be swept away, let us remember that the real Church of God, having the Holy Ghost, does not need great outward things. Paul built no colleges, schools, or institutions—which may be useful, never
essential, But Paul’s last epistle, just before his martyrdom, says “The Lord stood by me and strengthened me; that through me THE MESSAGE might be fully proclaimed, and that all the Gentiles might hear.”

162 Archbishop Leighton, on Romans 8:35, says, “Is this he that so lately cried out, ‘Oh wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me?’ that now triumphs, O happy man! ‘who shall separate us from the love of Christ?’ Yes, it is the same. Pained then with the thoughts of that miserable conjunction with a body of death, and so crying out, who will deliver? Now he hath found a Deliverer to do that for him, to whom he is forever united. So vast a difference is there betwixt a Christian taken in himself and in Christ!”

163 In his remarkable Autobiography Mr. Charles G. Finney relates the case of a lady who had always been marked for simplicity and uprightness of spirit. She had been, when a young woman, very highly regarded, but when she heard the gospel, she believed it, immediately entering fully into the admission of her guilt before God, and trusting Him implicitly on the ground of the shed blood of Christ, But in Mr, Finney’s meetings she heard that God had commanded her to yield herself to Him and be filled with the Holy Spirit. She instantly complied again. And her husband came to Mr. Finney saying, “I cannot understand my wife. She was the most perfect creature I ever knew, when we were married. Then she was converted, and has been absolutely exemplary ever since. But she says now that at your meeting the other night she yielded herself in a new way to God; and I myself can see the most astonishing change, but cannot account for it at all.” (We relate from memory.)

This was a case of simplicity of heart and mind, perhaps not often found. Since the work on the cross, anyone can appropriate just as simply the whole benefit of Christ’s work.

164 But if you find yourself not spiritual, not even ready of heart to become so, can at least pray the prayer Mr. F. B. Meyer—of blessed memory! taught so many:

“Lord, make me willing to be made willing!”

There is a blessed walk in the Spirit for you! Believe that. And cast yourself upon the grace of God! He will bring it to pass!