Verse-by-Verse Bible Commentary
Romans 6:23

Clarke's Commentary

Verse Romans 6:23. For the wages of sin is death — The second death, everlasting perdition. Every sinner earns this by long, sore, and painful service. O! what pains do men take to get to hell! Early and late they toil at sin; and would not Divine justice be in their debt, if it did not pay them their due wages?

But the gift of God is eternal life — A man may MERIT hell, but he cannot MERIT heaven. The apostle does not say that the wages of righteousness is eternal life: no, but that this eternal life, even to the righteous, is το χαρισμα του θεου, THE gracious GIFT of GOD. And even this gracious gift comes through Jesus Christ our Lord. He alone has procured it; and it is given to all those who find redemption in his blood. A sinner goes to hell because he deserves it; a righteous man goes to heaven because Christ has died for him, and communicated that grace by which his sin is pardoned and his soul made holy. The word οψωνια, which we here render wages, signified the daily pay of a Roman soldier. So every sinner has a daily pay, and this pay is death; he has misery because he sins. Sin constitutes hell; the sinner has a hell in his own bosom; all is confusion and disorder where God does not reign: every indulgence of sinful passions increases the disorder, and consequently the misery of a sinner. If men were as much in earnest to get their souls saved as they are to prepare them for perdition, heaven would be highly peopled, and devils would be their own companions. And will not the living lay this to heart?

1. In the preceding chapter we see the connection that subsists between the doctrines of the Gospel and the practice of Christianity. A doctrine is a teaching, instruction, or information concerning some truth that is to be believed, as essential to our salvation. But all teaching that comes from God, necessarily leads to him. That Christ died for our sins and rose again for our justification, is a glorious doctrine of the Gospel. But this is of no use to him who does not die to sin, rise in the likeness of his resurrection, and walk in newness of life: this is the use that should be made of the doctrine. Every doctrine has its use, and the use of it consists in the practice founded on it. We hear there is a free pardon-we go to God and receive it; we hear that we may be made holy-we apply for the sanctifying Spirit; we hear there is a heaven of glory, into which the righteous alone shall enter-we watch and pray, believe, love, and obey, in order that, when he doth appear, we may be found of him in peace, without spot and blameless. Those are the doctrines; these are the uses or practice founded on those doctrines.

2. It is strange that there should be found a person believing the whole Gospel system, and yet living in sin! SALVATION FROM SIN is the long-continued sound, as it is the spirit and design, of the Gospel. Our Christian name, our baptismal covenant, our profession of faith in Christ, and avowed belief in his word, all call us to this: can it be said that we have any louder calls than these? Our self-interest, as it respects the happiness of a godly life, and the glories of eternal blessedness; the pains and wretchedness of a life of sin, leading to the worm that never dies and the fire that is not quenched; second most powerfully the above calls. Reader, lay these things to heart, and: answer this question to God; How shall I escape, if I neglect so great salvation? And then, as thy conscience shall answer, let thy mind and thy hands begin to act.

Bridgeway Bible Commentary

6:1-8:39 THE WAY OF HOLINESS (SANCTIFICATION)

Having spoken about justification by faith (how believers can be put right with God), Paul goes on to speak about sanctification by faith (how believers can live lives of practical holiness). In some of the other New Testament writings, ‘sanctify’ means ‘declare holy’, in much the same way as ‘justify’ means ‘declare righteous’. (‘Sanctify’ and ‘holy’ are different parts of the same word in the original languages.) Sanctification, like justification, denotes what God does for believers on the basis of Christ’s death (Hebrews 10:14; 1 Peter 1:2; 1 Peter 1:2). The main emphasis in Romans, however, is on the practical expression of sanctification. Since God has declared believers righteous and holy, they must be righteous and holy in practice (Romans 6:19,Romans 6:22). The following outline will introduce some of the ideas and words that Paul uses in developing this subject.

Sinful human nature

When Adam sinned, he corrupted human nature. This means that all human beings, because of their union with Adam, are born with a sinful nature. Paul commonly calls this sinful human nature the flesh (Psalms 51:5; Romans 5:12; Romans 7:18; Galatians 5:16-17).

People do not need anyone to teach them to do wrong. They do it naturally, from birth. Sinful behaviour is only the outward sign of a much deeper problem, and that is a sinful heart, mind and will (Jeremiah 17:9; Mark 7:20-23; Ephesians 2:3). Every part of human life is affected by this disease of sin, including all that people are (their nature) and all that they do (their deeds) (Genesis 6:5; Matthew 7:18; Romans 7:18). This doctrine, known as total depravity, does not mean that all people are equally sinful, but that every part of human nature is affected by sin. The corruption is total.

Because of such forces as conscience, will-power, civil laws and social customs, not all people show this sinful condition equally. But in spite of the good that they do, human nature is still directed by sin. The flesh is hostile to God’s law and will not submit to it (Isaiah 64:6; Romans 8:7-8). This creates constant conflict in people’s lives, because when they want to do right they repeatedly do wrong. Sin is like a cruel master that they cannot escape, no matter how much they may want to (John 8:34; Romans 7:21-23). Yet all people are still responsible for their own actions, and have the ability to say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ when tempted to sin (1 Corinthians 10:13; James 1:14).

Victory through Christ

Jesus was born with a human nature, but his human nature was not affected by sin (1 John 3:5). He lived in complete obedience to God’s law, died to pay its penalty on behalf of sinners, then rose victoriously to new life. In dealing with sin he broke its power so that people might no longer be enslaved by it (Romans 8:3; Hebrews 2:14-15). The old life that believers once lived, all that each person once was as a sinful descendant of Adam - the ‘old self’, the ‘old being’ - was crucified with Christ. Believers now have a new nature. They share in the life of Christ and are indwelt by the Holy Spirit (Romans 6:6; Romans 8:9; Colossians 3:9-10; 2 Peter 1:4; 2 Peter 1:4).

Nevertheless, believers still live in a world where everything suffers from the effects of sin. Their old nature, the flesh, though condemned by Christ at the cross, is not yet destroyed. It will be with them till the end of his present earthly life, but because of Christ they need not remain in its power (Romans 6:14,Romans 6:18; Romans 8:1-2).

There is therefore a continual conflict in the lives of believers, the old nature fighting against the new, the flesh fighting against the Spirit (Romans 8:5; Galatians 5:17). The flesh always wants to do evil, and if believers give way to it, it will bring them under its power again, ruling them like an evil master and making them useless for God. They can resist the power of the old nature by making sure that their behaviour is directed and controlled by the Spirit (Romans 6:12-18; Romans 8:4; Galatians 5:16).

Christians have no obligation to the flesh. They must not trust it or give it any opportunity to satisfy its evil desires (Romans 8:12-13; Romans 13:14; Philippians 3:3). Paul wants to show that Christ has already won the victory over the flesh, and through the power of Christ’s indwelling Spirit believers can claim this victory as theirs daily (Romans 6:6-7; Romans 8:1-3).

Freedom from sin (6:1-23)

In 5:20-21 Paul concluded that, no matter how much sin increases, God’s grace increases all the more to meet it. He now warns against using that truth as an excuse for carelessness about sin. Christians ought not to sin. Their union with Christ means that with Christ they died to sin, with Christ they were buried, and with Christ they rose to new life. They pictured this in their baptism and they must now show it to be true in their daily lives (6:1-4).
For believers in Christ, the old life has gone, the new has come. When people die, no one can make any more demands on them. So also when believers died to sin through Christ, the full penalty that sin demanded was met for them. They are free from sin. It has no power over them (5-7). But having died for sin, Jesus rose again, and now sin and death can touch him no more. Because believers are ‘in Christ’, this death to sin and victorious entry into new life becomes theirs as well. They must believe it to be true and live accordingly (8-11). If, however, they allow sin to have the opportunity, it will conquer and rule them again. Therefore, they must give every part of themselves to God, so that God, not sin, might work through them (12-13). The law cannot enable people to overcome the power of sin, but God’s grace can (14).
The freedom that grace gives is freedom from sin, not freedom from God. It does not allow people to sin with ease, as some think, for that would lead them back to slavery to their former master, sin. No matter what people do regularly, whether sin or righteousness, it will soon have power over them (15-16). Instead of allowing careless habits to drag them back into the bondage of sin, believers should concentrate on obeying the teachings of righteousness and so become true servants of God (17-18). This will enable them to produce lives of practical holiness (19).
Sinners feel no obligation to righteousness, but neither do they get any satisfaction from sin. They get only disappointment, bondage and death (20-21). Being a slave of God brings satisfaction and holiness in the present world, and the fulness of eternal life in the age to come (22-23).

Coffman's Commentaries on the Bible

For the wages of sin is death; but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

The wages of sin … Paul did not say the wages of great sins, or of some sins, but the wages of "sin" is death. Such unsatisfactory wages of sin, it seems, should make sin a very unprofitable employer, and long ago have resulted in the cessation of all sin; but not so. True, if the full account of sin's wages should be posted and paid at the end of every day, there would doubtless be far less sinning. It is the "buy now, pay later" aspect of the penalty of sin which commends it as an attractive employment for many; but this verse is a warning that payment is certain, and that "death" is the quid pro quo of sin. "This for that!"

Such a word as "wages" also carries the information that the sinner will work for what he gets, that he therefore deserves it, and that the "wages" finally paid are exactly what he undertook to receive by his indulgence of sin. This conception of sin as the sale of one's self is found also in the Old Testament, where is recorded the charge of Elijah against Ahab,

Thou hast sold thyself to work evil in the sight of the Lord (1 Kings 21:20).

Thus, every man who consents to the practice of sin is selling himself, not for anything valuable or beautiful, but for the rottenness of death.

Illustration: The late Grover Cleveland Brewer often preached from this text and illustrated the wages of sin thus: Some young men were watching the Tennessee river rising above flood stage when their attention was arrested by a little rabbit trapped on a diminishing little island in the raging flood. They decided to rescue it, but could find no way to do it. The group, all in their early teens, were strong and vigorous, and fully accustomed to outdoor activities. All knew the danger of the mighty river, especially at flood, and their parents had warned them again that very day to stay out of the river; but there was the problem of that trapped rabbit! One of the boys, stronger than the others and a powerful swimmer, decided to attempt the rescue. He made it to the little island, thrust the trembling little creature into the bosom of his overalls, and plunged in for the return swim. The end of a log riding the crest of the flood hit him in the temple; and four days later, they dredged his body up from the flood far downstream. The boys who had witnesses the tragedy were present for the recovery of the body; and one of them found the remains of the rabbit in his bosom and held it up a moment and then said, "This is what he gave his life for!" What people labor to receive through sin, they get!

Death … as used here means far more than physical death, though it includes that also. Spiritual death is part of the wages of sin, but even that is not the final payment. Beyond the present sphere of time, there looms the mystery of the "second death," described in Scripture with words so dark and dreadful that the mind draws back from contemplating them. Mortal man is not capable of knowing fully what the ultimate fate of the wicked will be; but every man should heed the warnings of it revealed by the Holy Spirit.

The free gift of God … comes from the translation of a word CHARISMA, which indicates the type of gift in which there can be no thought of the merit of the recipient. Thus, it is not merely the gift, but the free gift of God. If God had imposed a million conditions of salvation, and if man fully complied with them all, his obedience could not place God in the position of a debtor regarding the free gift of that salvation. Still, this glorious truth should never be confused with the error that salvation is unconditional, for it is not. "Free" indeed it is; "unconditional" indeed it is not. How is this true? Jesus explained thus:

When ye shall have done all the things that are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants; we have done that which it was our duty to do (Luke 17:10).

Macknight saw in the use of the expression "free gift" a reference to such a thing as

A donative; because being freely bestowed, it may be compared to the donatives the Roman generals, of their own good will, bestowed on their soldiers, as a mark of their favor. James Macknight, Apostolical Epistles (Nashville: The Gospel Advocate Company, 1960), p. 88.

This view of Macknight's is especially appropriate in the fact that such donatives were indeed "free gifts," but in no wise unconditional, the generals not bestowing such favors upon any except "their soldiers." Thus, although the soldier did not earn the donative, he qualified as a recipient through his faithful service as a soldier of the general giving the gift

Eternal life … is so magnificent a conception of so wonderful and comprehensive a gift as to be in its ultimate glorious essence something that lies beyond the perimeter of finite understanding. So unspeakably beyond all powers of fully knowing it, this is the end of all God's gracious designs for his beloved human children. Eternal life will have the quality of possessing all that is best and joyous in the present life, with none of the impediments, and will be the ultimate reality of which the present life is only a type or shadow. Far more than could be imagined by any intelligence, however, will compose that final existence to which .the saints of God are invited.

In Christ Jesus our Lord … To miss the significance of these words is to miss everything Paul was teaching. At the end of each chapter (Romans 5—8), Paul returned to this expression, suggesting the recurrence of the mighty theme of a symphony, the intention of the apostle plainly being that of preventing the Christian's forgetfulness, either of the source of such blessings, or the personal status of the believer "in Christ" which alone makes him eligible to receive them. Just think of what this being "in Christ" really is. "In Christ" the Christian is dead to sin, alive unto God, justified, redeemed servant of righteousness, and has the hope of eternal life. In this commentary, repeated emphasis on the importance of being in Christ has been due solely to the frequency of Paul's stressing it in this letter, where the fact is reiterated over and over again in different contexts, suggesting the comparison with a jeweler who turns a beautiful gem over and over to view its luster from many angles.

The apostle John said:

And the witness is this, that God gave unto us eternal life, and this life is in his Son (1 John 5:11).

Supplementing what has already been written concerning how people come into Christ, the following exegesis of Moses E. Lard is pertinent:

It is proper here to add that immersion is not the only means of transition into him. We believe into Christ, as well as are immersed into him, and the former just as certainly as the latter. "He that believes into the Son has everlasting life" (John 3:36). To be immersed and to believe are similar verb forms, with identical significations. Neither excludes the other, and both are alike essential to the end. We do not pass into Christ by immersion alone, nor by belief alone. We pass into him by the two jointly, and by neither separately. Moses E. Lard, op. cit., p. 197.

Thus, there should be no marvel that Jesus declared that "He that believes and is baptized shall be saved" (Mark 16:16. Lard's exegesis has been included here, not from any perfect agreement with it, but for the purpose of showing that even if faith may be so translated, it could not negate the obvious truth that faith and baptism are both prerequisite to justification, or being "in Christ," which is the equivalent of it. The weakness of Lard's position is seen in the fact that no translation this writer has ever seen so translates the Greek New Testament. As a matter of practical fact, how could it be possible for any person to believe himself into anything? One certainly cannot believe himself into the Masonic Lodge, or the Democratic Party; and, therefore, it would truly be something marvelous under the sun, if one could believe himself into Christ!

Barnes' Notes on the Whole Bible

For the wages of sin - The word translated here “wages” ὀψώνια opsōnia properly denotes what is purchased to be eaten with bread, as fish, flesh, vegetables, etc. (Schleusner); and thence, it means the pay of the Roman soldier, because formerly it was the custom to pay the soldier in these things. It means hence, what a man earns or deserves; what is his proper pay, or what he merits. As applied to sin, it means that death is what sin deserves; what will be its proper reward. Death is thus called the wages of sin, not because it is an arbitrary, undeserved appointment, but

(1) Because it is its proper desert. Not a pain will be inflicted on the sinner which he does not deserve. Not a sinner will die who ought not to die. Sinners even in hell will be treated just as they deserve to be treated; and there is not to man a more fearful and terrible consideration than this. No man can conceive a more dreadful doom than for himself to be treated forever just as he deserves to be. But,

(2) This is the wages of sin, because, like the pay of the soldier, it is just what was threatened, Ezekiel 18:4, “The soul that sinneth, it shall die.” God will not inflict anything more than was threatened, and therefore it is just.

Is death - This stands opposed here to eternal life, and proves that one is just as enduring as the other.

But the gift of God - Not the wages of man; not what is due to him; but the mere gift and mercy of God. The apostle is careful to distinguish, and to specify thai this is not what man deserves, but what is gratuitously conferred on him; Note, Romans 6:15.

Eternal life - The same words which in Romans 6:22 are rendered “everlasting life.” The phrase is opposed to death; and proves incontestably that that means eternal death. We may remark, therefore,

(1) That the one will be as long as the other.

(2) As there is no doubt about the duration of life, so there can be none about the duration of death. The one will be rich, blessed, everlasting; the other sad, gloomy, lingering, awful, eternal.

(3) If the sinner is lost, he will deserve to die. He will have his reward. He will suffer only what shall be the just due of sin. He will not be a martyr in the cause of injured innocence. He will not have the compassion of the universe in his favor. He will have no one to take his part against God. He will suffer just as much, and just as long, as he ought to suffer. He will suffer as the culprit pines in the dungeon, or as the murderer dies on the gibbet, because this is the proper reward of sin.

(4) They who are saved will be raised to heaven, not because they merit it, but by the rich and sovereign grace of God. All their salvation will be ascribed to him; and they will celebrate his mercy and grace forever.

(5) It becomes us, therefore, to flee from the wrath to come. No man is so foolish and so wicked as he who is willing to reap the proper wages of sin. None so blessed as he who has part in the mercy of God, and who lays hold on eternal life.

Living By Faith: Commentary on Romans & 1st Corinthians

6:20-23: For when ye were servants of sin, ye were free in regard of righteousness. 21 What fruit then had ye at that time in the things whereof ye are now ashamed? for the end of those things is death. 22 But now being made free from sin and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto sanctification, and the end eternal life. 23 For the wages of sin is death; but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

The information in verse 20 has often been misunderstood and misapplied by those studying divorce and re-marriage. Some have concluded that non-Christians are not under God’s marriage law and this section of Romans teaches they may divorce and re-marry as often as they want prior to becoming a Christian.

Aside from the word whosoever in Matthew 19:9 (this word shows that God’s law about marriage and divorce applies to all people), the context of Romans 6:1-23 shows that marriage and divorce is not being discussed. Paul dealt with the master/slave relationship. He showed that either God or the devil owns each person, and that each person is in a spiritual war.

This information helps us understand Paul’s point. If we are in the army of Satan, we are free from Christ’s army. If we are in Christ’s army, we are free from service with Satan. We cannot have two masters. This is the point.

Applying this passage to marriage completely ignores the context and it forms a contradiction with Matthew 19:9. Also, if Romans 6:20 means non-Christians are not accountable to God’s marriage law, where did Paul get the authority to say the Corinthians had been guilty of “adultery” and “fornication” (1 Corinthians 6:9-11)? Was the adultery a crime in Corinth, or was it a sin against God? If it was a sin against God, how could it be wrong unless the two partners were bound by God’s marriage law? Furthermore, what may be said of two people today-both of whom are not religious-but are married by a minister who says, “God has bound you together?” Do preachers who make this type of statement to non-religious couples tell the truth? What about cases where one person is a Christian and one is not? In cases such as this, is there a marriage covenant with God that can be violated, or is there no marriage covenant? Romans 6:20 shows that when we were serving sin righteousness was not our master. Sin was the thing that controlled and owned us, not God and His word (compare Matthew 6:24). Bengel (2:78) further elaborates on the meaning of “free” (eleutheros): “This is the liberty of the flesh, which frees us from subjection to God, that it may bind us as slaves to the devil.” People are not forced to subject themselves to God, but this does not mean God’s laws do not apply to them.

In verse 21, Paul asked about the advantages of sin. The word “fruit” (karpos) may be defined as benefit. A fuller definition is “the conduct of one’s life in the realm either of salvation or of damnation” (Exegetical Dictionary of the New Testament, 2:252). Paul wanted to know what these people had received from sin. Had sin been good to them? Was sin somehow helpful? The thought goes back to the information at the beginning of this chapter: “Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?” The questions raised in verse 21 further reinforced Paul’s point.

Other reasons to abandon sin are also found in verse 21. Sin (if it is not forgiven) results in death-spiritual death. Sin also results in shame, a fact to which countless people (saved and unsaved) will attest. “Ashamed” (epaischunomai) is a present tense verb which is also used in Romans 1:16. Here it means ashamed of “former evil doing” (Vine, ashamed). Things that were done prior to conversion often result in years of regret and

guilt.

When believers forsake sin and become Christians (see the commentary on Acts 2:38), they are “made free from sin” (eleutheroo), the same word used in verse 18. This term is also used in John 8:32 (this verse should be read). Associated with this change is becoming “servants of God”

(22a). “Become servants” (doulo) is the same verb Paul used in verse 18. People also enter into a “state of sanctification” (this is addressed more fully in the commentary on Romans 8:1-39) because they were bringing forth (present tense) “fruit” (the same word is used in verse 21). Because of this new and right choice, these and all other Christians have access to the promise of “eternal life.” The whole matter is summarized quite nicely in verse 23. The end result of sin is “death.” The end result of righteousness is “life eternal.” The people who receive salvation are those who have been poured into the mold and those who have obeyed from the heart (verse 17).

The final verse in this chapter shows that sin pays “wages” (compare 2:5). The word wages (opsonion) originally meant a soldier’s pay “which he received above and beyond natural provisions such as cereal and oil” (Brown, 144). As time passed it came to mean “payment which one is entitled to receive daily or monthly, etc., and for which one could eventually sue, if need be” (ibid). These ideas can be found in Luke 3:14 and in 1 Corinthians 9:7 (they have this same term). Furthermore, “On special occasions an emperor handed out a free gift of money to his soldiers. This was not earned and came through the emperor’s kindness and grace” (CBL, Romans, p. 105). The only other place this term occurs in the New Testament is 2 Corinthians 11:8.

The “free money” was for those who were “in the army.” Brown (3:145) words the thought this way: “The wages of sin and the gift of God are set over against one another in antithesis.” Wages “are the provisions which sin pays out to those who do military service for it, and these provisions for life consist in death! Sin promises life and gives death; but this death does not just begin at the end of our temporal life, it is the current payment which we already receive. This is the only right which we can lay claim to, as sinners (v. 23a)” (ibid). Salvation is a “free gift” to those who are “in Christ.” We can only be in Christ by being baptized, by immersion, for the forgiveness of sins (Galatians 3:27; Acts 2:38; Acts 22:16 -see the commentary on these verses).

Calvin's Commentary on the Bible

23.For the wages of sin, etc. There are those who think that, Paul, by comparing death to allowances of meat, (obsoniis ,) points out in a disparaging manner the kind of wretched reward that is allotted to sinners, as this word is taken by the Greeks sometimes for portions allowed to soldiers. But he seems rather indirectly to condemn the blind appetites of those who are ruinously allured by the enticements of sin, as the fish are by the hook. It will however be more simple to render the word “wages,” for surely death is a sufficiently ample reward to the wicked. This verse is a conclusion to the former, and as it were an epilogue to it. He does not, however, in vain repeat the same thing again; but by doubling the terror, he intended to render sin an object of still greater hatred.

But the gift of God. They are mistaken who thus render the sentence, “Eternal life is the gift of God,” as though eternal life were the subject, and the gift of God the predicate; for this does not preserve the contrast. But as he has already taught us, that sin produces nothing but death; so now he subjoins, that this gift of God, even our justification and sanctification, brings to us the happiness of eternal life. Or, if you prefer, it may be thus stated, — “As the cause of death is sin, so righteousness, which we obtain through Christ, restores to us eternal life.”

It may however be hence inferred with certainty, that our salvation is altogether through the grace and mere beneficence of God. He might indeed have used other words — that the wages of righteousness is eternal life; and then the two clauses would correspond: but he knew that it is through God’s gift we obtain it, and not through our own merits; and that it is not one or a single gift; for being clothed with the righteousness of the Son, we are reconciled to God, and we are by the power of the Spirit renewed unto holiness. And he adds, in Christ Jesus, and for this reason, that he might call us away from every conceit respecting our own worthiness.

Smith's Bible Commentary

Chapter 6

What shall we say then? ( Romans 6:1 )

If where sin abounds, grace does much more abound,

Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? ( Romans 6:1 )

No. Let's let God reveal how much grace there is by continuing in sin. Paul's answer is typical:

God forbid ( Romans 6:2 ).

Now he gives to you the new principal of life.

How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein? ( Romans 6:2 )

I have received Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. In receiving Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior I have done that and the result is that I am born again. I am now a child of God through faith in Jesus Christ. If I am born again, then where is the old Chuck? He is dead. That old fellow who used to live after his flesh, he is dead. I now have a new life, a spiritual life, that life from Christ. Therefore, to say, "Well, let's go ahead and just live in sin that grace may abound," is folly. Because I am dead to sin, that old life is dead.

So know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? ( Romans 6:3 )

Don't you realize that water represented the grave? Don't you realize that as you were put in the water it was the burial of the old life? You were buried with Christ in the water of baptism.

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 6:4 ).

It's a whole new life, that new life after the Spirit and, of course, that is the old things. The old life after Adam is a life after the flesh. It is a life where the body is dominant, and the consciousness is occupied by the body needs. It is life on the animal plane--body and soul. The body supreme, the mind subjected and filled with the consciousness of the body needs.

Now, when you are born again, that which is born of the flesh is flesh. If you are born again by the Spirit of God, the new life that you now have is spirit, soul, and body. So now the spirit is the dominant feature and the new life is spiritual life, the old life was a fleshly life. The new life is a spiritual life. A spirit in union with God's Spirit. So a spirit in union with God's Spirit, my thoughts, my consciousness now is upon God and the things of God and how I might please Him by walking in the spirit. These are the things that dominate my conscious state. God's love for me, God's grace for me, God's goodness for me, these things dominate my conscious state. No longer dominated by my fleshly desires or fleshly needs.

That is what baptism was all about. Buried with Christ, but yet raised in that newness of life in Him.

For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, [through baptism] we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection ( Romans 6:5 ):

As I come up out of the water, it's like being resurrected--like Jesus resurrected coming out of the grave. That new resurrected life of Christ.

Knowing this, that our old man was [not is, was] crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed [or put out of business], that henceforth we should not serve sin ( Romans 6:6 ).

This body of sin was put out of business. It can no longer dominate my life. It can no longer rule over my consciousness, because that old man was crucified with Christ.

As Christians our biggest problem is with our flesh. For our flesh is still seeking to make its demands on us. Our flesh will still bring us under its control and power. As a Christian there is a warfare that is going on in me, for the flesh is warring against my spirit and my spirit is warring against my flesh and these two are contrary to each other.

There is this battle going on for the control of my mind, the control of my life. My flesh still wants to sit on the throne of my life and the spirit wants to sit on the throne of my life and there is a battle waging raging, actually, over the control of my life itself, the flesh and the spirit. I don't always do the things that I would as we sang this morning. Then I shall be what I would be, and I shall be what I should be, things that are now nor could be soon shall be our own. The battle will be over one of these days and my spirit leaves this old body of flesh. I am still living in the body, that is my big problem. If I weren't living in this body any longer then I would have no problems. But I am still living in the body, and as long as I am living in this body it is going to struggle for supremacy, and thus, I must keep my body under. You remember Paul the apostle said, "I beat myself to keep my body under."

It is a struggle. It is a fight. My body wants control again. It wants to sit on the throne. I have to keep my body under. The way to do that is to reckon that old self to be dead. It is a reckoning process. "Lord, that is a part of the old life dominated by my flesh. I reckon that to be dead. That flare up, Lord, that belongs to the old life, that bitterness that belongs to the old life, that anger that belongs to the old life, that is dead." Thank God that it is dead. I don't have to live under that domination anymore. That was crucified with Christ and I am now living a new life in the resurrected Lord. So the old man was crucified with Him. But the body of sin might be put out of business, that I shouldn't serve sin any longer.

For he that is dead is freed from sin. Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him: Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death has no more dominion over him. For in that he died, he died unto sin once: but in that he lives, he lives unto God ( Romans 6:7-10 ).

I am now in the risen Christ. I am living in Christ. I have that life in Christ. Sin no longer can reign as king in my mortal body. For Christ now reigns. Likewise, reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Account that to be...how many times I must account that to be in my own life? When the old flesh rears its ugly head and I do that which is not pleasing. The Spirit of God calls my attention to it and I feel so ashamed that I would have said, "I would have done that." I cry out unto God and I say, "Lord, I reckon that to be dead a part of the old life, thank God I don't have to live under its rule any longer. Help me, Lord." So reckon ye also yourselves to be dead. Now reckoning is a word of faith. You see, if my own flesh were dead I wouldn't have to reckon it to be dead. If it were actually dead. One day it will be. I am not going to have to reckon it any more after that. But my old flesh is still very much alive, too much alive. I am painfully, keenly aware of that, and so I have to take the position of faith, the position of reckoning, I reckon that to be dead.

Reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord ( Romans 6:11 ).

Again, through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in the lusts [or the desires] thereof ( Romans 6:12 ).

Don't let sin . . . don't let the flesh reign.

Neither yield your members [that is, the members of your body] 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 6:13 ).

My hands can be tools for God or they can be tools for my flesh. I love that song, "Take my life and let it be, consecrate it, Lord, to thee. Take my hands and let them move at the impulse of thy love. Take my feet and let them be swift and beautiful for thee." My feet have carried me into a lot of mischief. They have carried me away from a lot of mischief, faster than they carried me into it. But, God, take my feet and let them be swift and beautiful for thee.

I can yield my body as an instrument in God's hands for God to use for His glory, or I can yield my body to fulfill the desires of my own flesh and body, and be ruled by the desires of my body. I am not to yield the instruments of my body as instruments of unrighteousness. But I am to surrender them to God that He might take and use my body for His glory. "Take my lips and let them sing always only of my King, always only of my King." Your mouth, your words, they can speak the power and the blessing of God. People's lives can be blessed and transformed by your words, and lives can be cut down and destroyed by your words.

Satan can use my body as his instrument of destruction, or God can use my body as His instrument of glory. Satan can use my life and fill it with hatred and cut people down, or God can use my life and fill it with His love and build people up. We are exhorted here that we should yield our bodies as instruments of righteousness unto God. "For sin," and I love this. This is one of my favorite promises in the whole Bible.

For sin shall not have dominion over you: for you are not under the law, but under grace ( Romans 6:14 ).

God told me sin is not going to have dominion over me. Thank God for that. Doesn't mean that I don't sin. The word sin means to miss the mark, and it doesn't mean that I hit the mark every time. I am not perfect, far from it.

Paul the apostle, after walking with the Lord for thirty years, said, "I have not yet apprehended that for which I was apprehended by Jesus Christ, neither do I count myself perfect" ( Philippians 3:12 ). Oh, move over, Paul. I will join you. God has not yet fulfilled His complete purposes in my life. I've not yet apprehended that for which I would be apprehended. God had a plan and a purpose for my life when God apprehended me and called me to serve Him in His service. I haven't yet completed that call of God, and neither do I count myself complete or perfect. I don't hit the mark every time.

But thank God sin doesn't have dominion over my life anymore. I'm not ruled by sin. I don't have to be ruled by sin. I have freedom, glorious freedom from the tyranny of the flesh, the power of sin, and it shall not have dominion over me. For I am a child of God, born again by the Spirit, living that new life, that resurrected life in Christ.

What then? shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid ( Romans 6:15 ).

They are willing to jump on anything, aren't they?

Know you not, that to whom you yield yourselves servants, they are to whom you obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness? ( Romans 6:16 )

Every man is ruled. No man is supreme; no man is master of his fate or captain of his soul. We are all governed by an outside power. We are governed either by the power of God or by the power of Satan, and it is your choice. You can choose to be governed by God, or you can choose to live after Satan's authority. You can choose to live like the devil, or you can choose to live like God. But whoever you yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants you become. This is the tragedy of the Garden of Eden. God said, "Thou shall not eat of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, and in the day you do, you are going to die." Satan came along and said, "You ought to try the tree in the midst of the garden, it is good. It is delicious, and you won't die. God is just trying to protect himself. He knows that that tree holds the key of the knowledge of good and evil and if you know knowledge of good and evil, you will be just like God, and He is just trying to protect Himself."

"You ought to really try it. How can you put it down if you haven't tried it? You know, just one bite. You don't like it, you don't have to finish it." Now the action of Eve was a double action. It was, first of all, an action of disobedience to God, but in the same token it was an action of obedience to Satan. And she yielded herself in obedience to Satan, and thus, became a servant. Now you know that whoever you yield yourself servants to obey, his servants you become. And so man, through the disobedience, became a servant of Satan, that was the tragic consequence of disobedience to God, and the same is true of our lives. If I choose to yield myself to God and to His word and to His will, then I become a servant of God. But if I choose to yield myself as a servant of disobedience, and I become a servant of the disobedient one.

But God be thanked, that you were the servants of sin, but you have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered to you ( Romans 6:17 ).

Once you were a servant of sin but now thank God, because we have chosen to follow after God. We have chosen to obey the voice of Jesus Christ. We who were once servants to sin are now made servants of righteousness.

Being then made free from sin, you became the servants of righteousness. Now I speak after the manner of men because of the weakness of your flesh: for as you have yielded your members servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity; even so now yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness ( Romans 6:18-19 ).

If we would live just as hard for God as we live for the devil we could turn this world upside down. If we serve the Lord with the same gusto and zest that we served our flesh, think of what we could accomplish. And this is what he is encouraging us to do. Even as we yielded our members once as servants to uncleanness and iniquity, now let's just yield ourselves to God.

Oh, God help us that we might start living full on for Jesus Christ, just totally gung ho for Him. I like that attitude. Let's go for it. In talking about the things of the Lord and serving the Lord, let's go for it. Let's go all out for it. Let's give ourselves totally and completely to live for Jesus Christ, yielding ourselves, our lives to Him, just to see what God would do and wants to do in this area through a bunch of people that are just sold out fools for Christ.

I think of how people make fools of themselves over such silly things. Get a few drinks, what a fool they can make of themselves. And yet, we become so proper and reluctant to step out for Jesus Christ to be considered a fool for Him.

For when you were the servants of sin, you were free from righteousness. But what fruit did you have then in those things wherein you are not ashamed? ( Romans 6:20-21 )

When you were living in sin and you did those things for which you are so ashamed, what real fruit, what lasting fruit did you have in your life? Unfortunately, the fruit was miserable fruit, and it left misery in its wake.

for the end of those things is death ( Romans 6:21 ).

The life after the flesh.

But now being made free from sin, and having become the servants of God, you have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life ( Romans 6:22 ).

Glorious fruit is now coming forth from my life. Fruit of righteousness unto God, the love with its joy and peace and long-suffering and gentleness and goodness and meekness and temperance. And eternal life the glorious ultimate results.

For the wages of sin is death ( Romans 6:23 );

Satan pays his servants. You get your wages. Serve him well, give him your best, you will be rewarded. The wages of sin is death. You can't escape them if you continue in sin. But in contrast to the wages,

the gift of God ( Romans 6:23 )

Not the wages of God, because we can't earn eternal life. It's by grace.

the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord ( Romans 6:23 ).

So we have the extreme contrast. The wages of sin, the life after the flesh, it ends in death. The gift of God, the life after the Spirit, ends in eternal life. Every man is in one of two categories: either a servant of sin, or a servant of God. Using my body as an instrument of sin or yielding my body as an instrument for God to use for His glory.

I agree with that song "I have decided to follow Jesus." I want my life to count for God for eternity. The glorious gift of God, eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord, in Him, through Him, by Him. Oh the blessings that God has made available to us revealed in Jesus Christ, eternal life through Jesus Christ.

Father, we thank You for Thy word, a lamp unto our feet, a light unto our path, for the balanced life through the Word. Thank You for Your grace that abounds unto us. Thank You for this glorious position of justified by faith and the results in peace and joy and rejoicing and access into this grace. Lord, may we walk now after the Spirit, a life in fellowship with You, yielding, Lord, our bodies to You that they might become your instruments to do Your work, to bring Your love and Your peace and Your beauty to this poor sin froth world. In Jesus' name we ask it, Father. Amen.

As we move next week into chapters 7 and 8, they are chapters of extreme contrast. Chapter 7 will take you into the depths of despair as I see the ideal, as I approve the ideal and as I try in my own strength and energy to achieve it. And the struggle, and the pain, and the defeat as I in my own strength try to live by the divine ideal that I accept and approve as desirable. But then chapter 8 will take you out of the despair as we see God's plan for victory for His believer and the provisions that God has made for me to achieve and attain the ideal. Just like us, try first yourself. If it doesn't work, look at the instructions. And so with the things of the Spirit, it seems we have to get our two cents in. Then we have to try it first, experience that failure and that frustration. And then finding God's way, living that glorious life of victory that He has provided for us through His Holy Spirit.

May the Lord be with you and bless and keep you in His love. May you walk after the Spirit and may you indeed yield your body unto God this week that God might use your life as His instrument to do His work in this needy world. May others receive a word of encouragement, of love, of hope from you as you become God's instrument to tell them of His goodness and of His love. In Jesus' name. "

Contending for the Faith

For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord:

This passage provides a solemn conclusion to this section. Sin is still personified and here represents either a general who pays wages to his soldiers, which is more probable in view of Paul’s line of reasoning, or a slave owner who pays his slaves an allowance—what we would call pocket money—as was the common practice of Romans. The wages sin pays his slaves is death—physical, spiritual, eternal.

God, in gigantic contrast, does not pay wages. In the first place, no man can put God in his debt (Romans 4:1-8). In the second place, God in His gracious mercy has provided a system of faith wherein unrighteous sinners can be justly declared to be righteous upon certain conditions by virtue of the sin offering Christ made upon the cross (2 Corinthians 5:21; Romans 3:21-26). In the third place, the "free gift" God gives to the slaves of righteousness is nothing less than eternal life. The idea of a "free gift" here probably arises not from the largess distributed to each soldier by an emperor on his accession but rather from Paul’s previous references to salvation as a free gift in Romans 5:15-16. Clearly, a believer should not sin simply because he is not under law but under grace.

Dr. Constable's Expository Notes

2. Slavery to righteousness 6:15-23

In the first part of this chapter Paul explained that Christ has broken the bonds of sin that enslave the Christian (Romans 6:1-14). In the second part he warned that even though we are free we can become enslaved to sin by yielding to temptation (Romans 6:15-23; cf. John 8:34). Rather we should voluntarily yield ourselves as slaves to righteousness.

"Three words summarize the reasons for our yielding: favor (Romans 6:14-15), freedom (Romans 6:16-20), and fruit (Romans 6:21-23)." [Note: Wiersbe, 1:533.]

Dr. Constable's Expository Notes

Paul brought his thoughts on this subject to a summary conclusion in this verse. The principle stated here is applicable to all people, believers and unbelievers. It contrasts the masters, sin and God, with the outcomes, death and eternal life. Paul also distinguished the means whereby death and life come to people. Death is the wage a person earns by his or her working, but eternal life is a gift free to those who rely on the work of Another.

Wages normally maintain life, but these wages result in death. Employers usually pay them out regularly and periodically rather than in a lump sum. Death also comes to the sinner regularly and periodically during the sinner’s lifetime, not just when he or she dies. Furthermore wages are a right.

"Man has rights only in relation to sin, and these rights become his judgment. When he throws himself on God without claim, salvation comes to him." [Note: Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, s.v. "opsonion," by H. W. Heiland, 5 (1967):592.]

Romans 6:15-23 teach truth by way of contrasts. Obedience to sin yields unfruitfulness, shame, and death. Obedience to righteousness results in progressive sanctification and the fullness of eternal life.

In chapter 6 Paul prescribed four steps designed to promote practical sanctification. First, we must "know" certain facts about our union with Christ, specifically that sin no longer possesses the dominating power over the believer that it has over the unbeliever (Romans 6:3-10). Second, we must "reckon" (believe) these facts to be true of us personally (Romans 6:11). Third, we must "present" ourselves to God in dedication as His slaves to perform righteousness (Romans 6:12-14). Fourth, we must obey God (Romans 6:15-23). If we do not, we will find ourselves falling back under the domination of sin in our lives and becoming its slaves once again. Each of these verbs has the force of an active command. Each represents something every believer should do. These are our basic responsibilities in our progressive sanctification regarding our relationship to sin. [Note: See Chafer, Systematic Theology, 2:351-54.]

Barclay's Daily Study Bible

Chapter 6

DYING TO LIVE ( Romans 6:1-11 )

6:1-11 What, then, shall we infer? Are we to persist in sin that grace may abound? God forbid! How shall we who have died to sin still live in it? Can you be unaware that all who have been baptized into Jesus Christ have been baptized into his death? We have therefore been buried with him through baptism until we died, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the father, so we, too, may live in newness of life. For, if we have become united to him in the likeness of his death, so also shall we be united to him in the likeness of his resurrection. For this we know, that our old self has been crucified with him, that our sinful body might be rendered inoperative, in order that we should no longer be slaves to sin. For a man who has died stands acquitted from sin. But, if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him, for we know that, after Christ was raised from the dead, he dies no more. Death has no more lordship over him. He who died, died once and for all to sin; and he who lives, lives to God. So you, too, must reckon yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.

As he has so often done in this letter, Paul is once again carrying on an argument against a kind of imaginary opponent. The argument springs from the great saying at the end of the last chapter: "Where sin abounded, grace superabounded." It runs something like this.

The Objector: You have just said that God's grace is great enough to find forgiveness for every sin.

Paul: That is so.

The Objector: You are, in fact, saying that God's grace is the most wonderful thing in all this world.

Paul: That is so.

The Objector: Well, if that is so, let us go on sinning. The more we sin, the more grace will abound. Sin does not matter, for God will forgive anyway. In fact we can go further than that and say that sin is an excellent thing, because it gives the grace of God a chance to operate. The conclusion of your argument is that sin produces grace; therefore sin is bound to be a good thing if it produces the greatest thing in the world.

Paul's first reaction is to recoil from that argument in sheer horror. "Do you suggest," he demands, "that we should go on sinning in order to give grace more chance to operate? God forbid that we should pursue so incredible a course as that."

Then, having recoiled like that, he goes on to something else.

"Have you never thought," he demands, "what happened to you when you were baptized?" Now, when we try to understand what Paul goes on to say, we must remember that baptism in his time was different from what it commonly is today.

(a) It was adult baptism. That is not to say that the New Testament is opposed to infant baptism, but infant baptism is the result of the Christian family, and the Christian family could hardly be said to have come into being as early as the time of Paul. A man came to Christ as an individual in the early Church, often leaving his family behind.

(b) Baptism in the early Church was intimately connected with confession of faith. A man was baptized when he entered the Church; and he was entering the Church direct from paganism. In baptism a man came to a decision which cut his life in two, a decision which often meant that he had to tear himself up by the roots, a decision which was so definite that it often meant nothing less than beginning life all over again.

(c) Commonly baptism was by total immersion and that practice lent itself to a symbolism to which sprinkling does not so readily lend itself. When a man descended into the water and the water closed over his head, it was like being buried. When he emerged from the water, it was like rising from the grave. Baptism was symbolically like dying and rising again. The man died to one kind of life and rose to another; he died to the old life of sin and rose to the new life of grace.

Again, if we are fully to understand this, we must remember that Paul was using language and pictures that almost anyone of his day and generation would understand, It may seem strange to us, but it was not at all strange to his contemporaries.

The Jews would understand it. When a man entered the Jewish religion from heathenism, it involved three things--sacrifice, circumcision and baptism. The Gentile entered the Jewish faith by baptism. The ritual was as follows. The person to be baptized cut his nails and hair; he undressed completely; the baptismal bath must contain at least forty seahs, that is two hogsheads, of water; every part of his body must be touched by the water. As he was in the water, he made confession of his faith before three fathers of baptism and certain exhortations and benedictions were addressed to him. The effect of this baptism was held to be complete regeneration; he was called a little child just born, the child of one day. All his sins were remitted because God could not punish sins committed before he was born. The completeness of the change was seen in the fact that certain Rabbis held that a man's child born after baptism was his first-born, even if he had older children. Theoretically it was held--although the belief was never put into practice--that a man was so completely new that he might marry his own sister or his own mother. He was not only a changed man, he was a different man. Any Jew would fully understand Paul's words about the necessity of a baptized man being completely new.

The Greek would understand. At this time the only real Greek religion was found in the mystery religions. They were wonderful things. They offered men release from the cares and sorrows and fears of this earth; and the release was by union with some god. All the mysteries were passion plays. They were based on the story of some god who suffered and died and rose again. The story was played out as a drama. Before a man could see the drama he had to be initiated. He had to undergo a long course of instruction on the inner meaning of the drama. He had to undergo a course of ascetic discipline. He was carefully prepared. The drama was played out with all the resources of music and lighting, and incense and mystery. As it was played out, the man underwent an emotional experience of identification with the god. Before he entered on this he was initiated. Initiation was always regarded as a death followed by a new birth, by which the man was renatus in aeternum, reborn for eternity. One who went through the initiation tells us that he underwent "a voluntary death." We know that in one of the mysteries the man to be initiated was called moriturus, the one who is to die, and that he was buried up to the head in a trench. When he had been initiated, he was addressed as a little child and fed with milk, as one newly born. In another of the mysteries the person to be initiated prayed: "Enter thou into my spirit, my thought, my whole life; for thou art I and I am thou." Any Greek who had been through this would have no difficulty in understanding what Paul meant by dying and rising again in baptism, and, in so doing, becoming one with Christ.

We are not for one moment saying that Paul borrowed either his ideas or his words from such Jewish or pagan practices; what we do say is that he was using words and pictures that both Jew and Gentile would recognize and understand.

In this passage lie three great permanent truths.

(i) It is a terrible thing to seek to trade on the mercy of God and to make it an excuse for sinning. Think of it in human terms. How despicable it would be for a son to consider himself free to sin, because he knew that his father would forgive. That would be taking advantage of love to break love's heart.

(ii) The man who enters upon the Christian way is committed to a different kind of life. He has died to one kind of life and been born to another. In modern times we may have tended to stress the fact that acceptance of the Christian way need not make so very much difference in a man's life. Paul would have said that it ought to make all the difference in the world.

(iii) But there is more than a mere ethical change in a man's life when he accepts Christ. There is a real identification with Christ. It is, in fact, the simple truth that the ethical change is not possible without that union. A man is in Christ. A great scholar has suggested this analogy for that phrase. We cannot live our physical life unless we are in the air and the air is in us; unless we are in Christ, and Christ is in us, we cannot live the life of God.

THE PRACTICE OF THE FAITH ( Romans 6:12-14 )

6:12-14 Let not sin reign in your mortal body to make you obey the body's desires. Do not go on yielding your members to sin as weapons of evil; but yield yourselves once and for all to God, as those who were dead and are now alive, and yield your members to God as weapons of righteousness. For sin will not lord it over you. You are not under law but under grace.

There is no more typical transition in Paul than that between this passage and the preceding one. The passage which went before was the writing of a mystic. It spoke of the mystical union between the Christian and Christ which came in baptism. It spoke of the way in which a Christian should live so close to Christ that all his life can be said to be lived in him. And now, after the mystical experience, comes the practical demand. Christianity is not an emotional experience; it is a way of life. The Christian is not meant to luxuriate in an experience however wonderful; he is meant to go out and live a certain kind of life in the teeth of the world's attacks and problems. It is common in the world of religious life to sit in church and feel a wave of feeling sweep over us. It is a not uncommon experience, when we sit alone, to feel Christ very near. But the Christianity which has stopped there, has stopped half-way. That emotion must be translated into action. Christianity can never be only an experience of the inner being; it must be a life in the marketplace.

When a man goes out into the world, he is confronted with an awesome situation. As Paul thinks of it, both God and sin are looking for weapons to use. God cannot work without men. If he wants a word spoken, he has to get a man to speak it. If he wants a deed done, he has to get a man to do it. If he wants a person encouraged, he has to get a man to do the lifting up. It is the same with sin; every man has to be given the push into it. Sin is looking for men who will by their words or example seduce others into sinning. It is as if Paul was saying: "In this world there is an eternal battle between sin and God; choose your side." We are faced with the tremendous alternative of making ourselves weapons in the hand of God or weapons in the hand of sin.

A man may well say: "Such a choice is too much for me. I am bound to fail." Paul's answer is: "Don't be discouraged and don't be despairing; sin will not lord it over you." Why? Because we are no longer under law but under grace. Why should that make all the difference? Because we are no longer trying to satisfy the demands of law but are trying to be worthy of the gifts of love. We are no longer regarding God as the stern judge; we are regarding him as the lover of the souls of men. There is no inspiration in all the world like love. Who ever went out from the presence of his loved one without the burning desire to be a better person? The Christian life is no longer a burden to be borne; it is a privilege to be lived up to. As Denney put it: "It is not restraint but inspiration which liberates from sin; not Mount Sinai but Mount Calvary which makes saints." Many a man has been saved from sin, not because of the regulations of the law, but because he could not bear to hurt or grieve or disappoint someone whom he loved and someone who, he knew, loved him. At best, the law restrains a man through fear; but love redeems him by inspiring him to be better than his best. The inspiration of the Christian comes, not from the fear of what God will do to him, but from the inspiration of what God has done for him.

THE EXCLUSIVE POSSESSION ( Romans 6:15-23 )

6:15-23 What then? Are we to go on sinning because we are not under the law but under grace? God forbid! Are you not aware that if you yield yourselves to anyone as slaves, in order to obey them, you are the slaves of the person whom you have chosen to obey--in this case, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness. But, thank God, you, who used to be slaves of sin, have come to a spontaneous decision to obey the pattern of teaching to which you were committed, and, since you have been liberated from sin, you have become the slaves of righteousness. I speak in human terms, because unaided human nature cannot understand any others. Just as you yielded your members as slaves to uncleanness and lawlessness which issues in still more lawlessness, so now you have yielded your members as slaves to righteousness and have started on the road that leads to holiness. When you were slaves of sin, you were free as regards righteousness; but then what fruit did you have? All you had was things of which you are now heartily ashamed, for the end of these things is death. But now. since you have been liberated from sin, and since you have become the slaves of God, the fruit you enjoy is designed to lead you on the road to holiness and its end is eternal life. For sin's pay is death, but God's free gift is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

To a certain type of mind the doctrine of free grace is always a temptation to say, "If forgiveness is as easy and as inevitable as all that, if God's one desire is to forgive men and if his grace is wide enough to cover every spot and stain, why worry about sin? Why not do as we like? It will be all the same in the end."

Paul counters this argument by using a vivid picture. He says: "Once you gave yourselves to sin as its slave; when you did that, righteousness had no claim over you. But now you have given yourselves to God as the slave of righteousness; and so sin has no claim over you."

To understand this, we must understand the status of the slave. When we think of a servant, in our sense of the word, we think of a man who gives a certain agreed part of his time to his master and who receives a certain agreed wage for doing so. Within that agreed time he is at the disposal and in the command of his master. But, when that time ends, he is free to do as he likes. During his working hours he belongs to his master, but in his free time he belongs to himself. But, in Paul's time, the status of the slave was quite different. Literally he had no time which belonged to himself; every single moment belonged to his master. He was his master's absolutely exclusive possession. That is the picture that is in Paul's mind. He says: "At one time you were the slave of sin. Sin had exclusive possession of you. At that time you could not talk of anything else but sinning. But now you have taken God as your master and he has exclusive possession of you. Now you cannot even talk about sinning; you must talk about nothing but holiness."

Paul actually apologizes for using this picture. He says: "I am only using a human analogy so that your human minds can understand it." He apologized because he did not like to compare the Christian life to any kind of slavery. But the one thing that this picture does show is that the Christian can have no master but God. He cannot give a part of his life to God, and another part to the world. With God it is all--or nothing. So long as man keeps some part of his life without God, he is not really a Christian. A Christian is a man who has given complete control of his life to Christ, holding nothing back. No man who has done that can ever think of using grace as an excuse for sin.

But Paul has something more to say, "You took a spontaneous decision to obey the pattern of the teaching to which you were committed." In other words, he is saving, "You knew what you were doing, and you did it of your own free will." This is interesting. Remember that this passage has arisen from a discussion of baptism. This therefore means that baptism was instructed baptism. Now we have already seen that baptism in the early Church was adult baptism and confession of faith. It is, then, quite clear that no man was ever allowed into the Christian Church on a moment of emotion. He was instructed; he had to know what he was doing; he was shown what Christ offered and demanded. Then, and then only, could he take the decision to come in.

When a man wishes to become a member of the great Benedictine order of monks he is accepted for a year on probation. During all that time the clothes which he wore in the world hang in his cell. At any time he can put off his monk's habit, put on his worldly clothes, and walk out, and no one will think any the worse of him. Only at the end of the year are his clothes finally taken away. It is with open eyes and a full appreciation of what he is doing that he must enter the order.

It is so with Christianity. Jesus does not want followers who have not stopped to count the cost. He does not want a man to express an impermanent loyalty on the crest of a wave of emotion. The Church has a duty to present the faith in all the riches of its offer and the heights of its demands to those who wish to become its members.

Paul draws a distinction between the old life and the new. The old life was characterized by uncleanness and lawlessness. The pagan world was an unclean world; it did not know the meaning of chastity. Justin Martyr has a terrible jibe when talking about the exposure of infants. In Rome unwanted children, especially girls, were literally, thrown away. Every night numbers of them were left lying in the forum. Some of them were collected by dreadful characters who ran brothels, and brought up to be prostitutes to stock the brothels. So Justin turns on his heathen opponents and tells them that, in their immorality, they had every chance of going into a city brothel. and. all unknown, having intercourse with their own child.

The pagan world was lawless in the sense that men's lusts were their only flaws; and that lawlessness produced more lawlessness. That, indeed. is the law of sin. Sin begets sin. The first time we do a wrong thing, you may do it with hesitation and a tremor and a shudder. The second time we do it, it is easier; and if we go on doing it, it becomes effortless; sin loses its terror. The first time we allow ourselves some indulgence, we may be satisfied with very little of it; but the time comes when we need more and more of it to produce the same thrill. Sin leads on to sin; lawlessness produces lawlessness. To start on the path of sin is to go on to more and more.

The new life is different; it is life which is righteous. Now the Greeks defined righteousness as giving to man and to God their due. The Christian life is one which gives God his proper place and which respects the rights of human personality. The Christian will never disobey God nor ever use a human being to gratify his desire for pleasure. That life leads to what the Revised Standard Version calls sanctification. The word in Greek is hagiasmos ( G38) . All Greek nouns which end in -asmos describe, not a completed state, but a process. Sanctification is the road to holiness. When a man gives his life to Christ, he does not then become a perfect man; the struggle is by no means over. But Christianity has always regarded the direction in which a man is facing as more important than the particular stage he has reached. Once he is Christ's he has started on the process of sanctification, the road to holiness.

"Leaving every day behind

Something which might hinder;

Running swifter every day;

Growing purer, kinder."

Robert Louis Stevenson said: "To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive." What is true is that it is a great thing to set out to a great goal, even if we never get the whole way.

Paul finishes with a great saying that contains a double metaphor. "Sin's pay is death," he says, "but God's free gift is eternal life." Paul uses two military words. For pay he uses opsonia ( G3800) . Opsonia was the soldier's pay, something that he earned with the risk of his body and the sweat of his brow, something that was due to him and could not be taken from him. For gift he uses charisma ( G5486) . The charisma or, in Latin, the donativum, was a totally unearned gift which the army sometimes received. On special occasions, for instance on his birthday, or on his accession to the throne, or the anniversary of it, an emperor handed out a free gift of money to the army. It had not been earned; it was a gift of the emperor's kindness and grace. So Paul says: "If we got the pay we had earned it would be death; but out of his grace God has given us life."

-Barclay's Daily Study Bible (NT)

Gann's Commentary on the Bible

Romans 6:23

For -- The "for" refers to the last statement. - CBSC.

For the wages of sin -- The word “wages” ὀψώνια opsōnia properly refers to the pay of a soldier. That with which he would buy the things he would eat, etc. Luke 3:14; 1 Corinthians 9:7; 2 Corinthians 11:8.

"Wages" implies something one has earned and what one deserves.

is death -- Eternal separation from God and everlasting punishment. Here it stands opposed to eternal life. Ezekiel 18:4.

Wages normally maintain life, but these wages result in death.- Constable

But the gift of God -- In contrast to "wages" earned, or given in payment and something due, eternal life is a "gift," something not earned but gratuitously conferred.

is eternal life -- See note at Romans 2:7; rom 6.22. In opposition to death. Eternal life speaks not only to its duration, but to it supreme quality.

in Christ Jesus our Lord -- Eternal life is to be found only in Christ, Acts 4:12; and it embraces a relationship with Him that is superior to life here

Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible

For the wages of sin is death,.... By sin, is meant every sin, original sin, actual sin, every kind of sin, lesser and greater: the "death" which sin deserves, is a corporeal death; which is not owing to the original nature and constitution of men; nor merely to the divine appointment; but to sin, and the decree of God, on account of it; which is inflicted on Christless sinners, as a punishment for sin, though not on believers as such, because Christ has took away the sting and curse of it: a death of diseases and afflictions also follows upon sin, as its proper demerit; which are properly punishments to wicked men, and are occasioned by sin in believers: there is a death of the soul, which comes by sin, which lies in an alienation from God, in a loss of the image of God, and in a servitude to sin; and there is an eternal death, the just wages of sin, which lies in a separation of soul and body from God, and in a sense of divine wrath to all eternity; and which is here meant, as is clear from its antithesis, "eternal life", in the next clause. Now this is "the wages" of sin; sin does in its own nature produce it, and excludes from life; it is the natural issue of it; sin is committed against an infinite God, and righteously deserves such a death; it is its just wages by law. The Greek word οψωνια, signifies soldiers' wages; see Luke 3:14 and in

"At which time Simon rose up, and fought for his nation, and spent much of his own substance, and armed the valiant men of his nation and gave them wages,'' (1 Maccabees 14:32)

Sin is represented as a king, a mighty monarch, a tyrannical prince; sinners are his subjects and vassals, his servants and soldiers, who fight under him, and for him, and all the wages they must expect from him is death. So the word is interpreted in the Glossary,

μισθος στρατιωτικος, "soldiers' wages"; and so it is used by the Jewish writers, being adopted into their language; of a king, they say a, that he should not multiply to himself gold and silver more than to pay אספניא, which they b interpret by שכר חיילות, "the hire of armies", or the wages of soldiers for a whole year, who go in and out with him all the year; so that it denotes wages due, and paid after a campaign is ended, and service is over; and, as here used, suggests, that when men have been all their days in the service of sin, and have fought under the banners of it, the wages they will earn, and the reward that will be given them, will be death: and it is frequently observed by the Jewish doctors c, that

אין מיתה בלא חטא, "there is no death without sin": sin is the cause of death, and death the fruit and effect of sin:

but the gift of God is eternal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord. These words, at first sight, look as if the sense of them was, that eternal life is the gift of God through Christ, which is a great and glorious truth of the Gospel; but their standing in opposition to the preceding words require another sense, namely, that God's gift of grace issues in eternal life, through Christ: wherefore by "the gift of God" is not meant eternal life, but either the gift of a justifying righteousness, or the grace of God in regeneration and sanctification, or both, which issue in eternal life; the one is the saints' right and title, the other their meetness for it: so that as death is the wages of sin, and is what that issues in, and brings unto, eternal life is the effect of grace, or what the grace of God in justifying and sanctifying his people issues in; even a life free from all sorrow and imperfection; a life of the utmost perfection and pleasure, and which will last for ever: and as the grace of God, which justifies and sanctifies them, is "through Christ", so is the eternal life itself which it brings unto: this is in Christ, comes through his righteousness, sufferings, and death; is bestowed by him, and will greatly consist in the enjoyment of him. All grace is the gift of God, and is freely given, or otherwise it would not be grace; particularly the justifying righteousness of Christ is the gift of God; and the rather this may be meant here, since the apostle had been treating of it so largely before, and had so often, in the preceding chapter, called it the gift of righteousness, the free gift, and gift by grace, and justification by it, the justification of life, because it entitles to eternal life, as here: it may be said to issue in it; for between justification and glorification there is a sure and close connection; they that are justified by the righteousness of Christ, are certainly glorified, or enjoy eternal life; and though this may be principally intended here, yet is not to be understood to the exclusion of other gifts of grace, which have the same connection and issue: thus, for instance, faith is the gift of God, and not of a man's self, and he that has it, has eternal life, and shall, Or ever possess it; repentance is a free grace gift, it is a grant from the Lord, and it is unto life and salvation; and on whomsoever the grace of God is bestowed, so as to believe in Christ for righteousness, and truly repent of sin, these shall partake of eternal glory. It may be observed, that there is a just proportion between sin, and the wages of it, yet there is none between eternal life, and the obedience of men; and therefore though the apostle had been pressing so much obedience to God, and to righteousness, he does not make eternal life to be the fruit and effect of obedience, but of the gift of the grace of God.

a Misn. Sanhedrin, c. 2. sect. 4. b Jarchi & Bartenora in ib. Vid. Cohen de Lara, Ir. David, p. 17. c T. Bab. Sabbat, fol. 55. 1. Vajikra Rabba, parash. 37. fol. 176. 3. Midrash Kohelet, fol. 70. 4. Zohar in Gen. fol. 44. 4. Tzeror Hammor, fol. 115. 1.

Mitchell's Commentary on Selected New Testament Books

The sixth chapter of Romans is absolutely full of foundational truth concerning not the question

of repentance or forgiveness or justification, not the question of S-I-N-S, but the question of being delivered from sin as a master.

Now, Paul raised this question in chapter 5:20 by saying, “Where sin increased, grace abounded all the more.”

“Then, Paul,” we say, “if grace super-abounds— whatever sin is—let us sin that grace may abound.”

So he raises the question and answers it early on in chapter 6.

Mitchell's Commentary on Selected New Testament Books

Now we come to the last part of chapter 6, verses 16 to 23. We’ve been delivered from sin as a place in which to live, and we’ve been delivered from sin as a principle of operation. Now we are delivered from sin as a practice in our lives.

In verse 16, we have a brand new experience. We are going to be living for God instead of sin and self.

Romans 6:16. Do you not know that when you present yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin resulting in death, or of obedi­ence resulting in righteousness?

Some Christians take verse 16 entirely out of context and conclude they can lose their salvation because it says here that, if I yield myself to sin by obeying my members, if I obey the lusts of the flesh, then I become a slave of those lusts and am no longer a child of God.

But Paul doesn’t even have that in mind.

He’s saying, “Don’t you know that, if you yield yourselves to sin, you are its bondslave and the end is death? Don’t you know that if you yield yourselves to obedience the end is righteousness?” You have two different things.

Either your life is characterized by sin as your master or it is characterized by a great desire to please God even though you may fail.

Again, we are getting right down to motives of the heart in the life of a Christian. If you are a real Christian, if you really have taken Christ as your Saviour, even though you may be a failure and have weaknesses and so on, you will have a great yearning in your heart to do the things that are pleasing to God. (When we get to chapter 7, we will see more of this.)

The person who is not regenerated is con­trolled, dominated by sin. He may be a moralist, and he may be self-righteous; but he is not the servant of God. He’s serving himself or serving the devil instead.

Now, in verses 17 and 18, Paul begins to en­courage God’s people. Listen to what he says. And I’m going to put into it what I believe is the thought of the Apostle Paul.

Romans 6:17. But thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed,

Romans 6:18. And having been freed from sin (as a master, as a dominating force in your life), you became slaves of right­eousness.

See, Paul is bringing assurance into the hearts of Christians. His great desire for us is that we not yield our members unto unrighteousness and sin. Sin no longer should dominate the life and the heart of a believer in Christ. This is what he said in Romans 6:12-13.

Now go on to verse 19:

Romans 6:19. I am speaking in human terms because of the weak­ness of your flesh (because ye are living in bodies that are not yet redeemed). For just as you presented your members (that is, your body with all its members) as slaves to impu­rity and to lawlessness, resulting in further lawlessness, so now (having been delivered from sin as a master and having a new Saviour, a Lord who is righteous) present your mem­bers as slaves to righteousness, resulting in sanctification.

In other words, we have a new experience. We’re no longer going to be dominated by sin. We’re going to live for God instead of sin.

Now, if I’ve accepted Jesus Christ as my Saviour and you have too, then we have been delivered, as Colossians 1:13 says, out of the domain of dark­ness into the kingdom of God’s beloved Son. Hav­ing been translated from the place where sin and death reign, we are now in a new kingdom where righteousness and love reign.

You see what Paul is after? He wants us to see our position in Christ so that it will affect our lives and our daily living. This is practical sanctifica­tion. All I need so that I may stand before God is what Jesus Christ did for me at the cross. Our Lord put away our sins. He defeated death and the grave. He made it possible for God to pronounce us righteous. He made it possible for God to love us with an everlasting love and to give us life eter­nal.

But I’m still in a body not yet delivered, not yet redeemed. Now, how shall I live for God when my body has certain desires and certain lusts that are dishonoring to Him? What shall I do?

Paul asks a very technical thing.

Before we were Christians, we just naturally yielded our members to sin, lying, cheating or whatever it was. In fact, we had no righteousness. No unsaved man can produce righteousness.

This is what he is saying in verse 20:

Romans 6:20. For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in re­gard to righteousness (you had no righteousness).

Romans 6:21. Therefore what benefit were you then deriving from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the outcome of those things is death.

We are now ashamed of some of the things we used to do.

You know, here comes a man who has been liv­ing a certain kind of life before he knew the Sav­iour. He comes and accepts Jesus Christ as his own personal Saviour; and he is forgiven every transgression, every sin. He has a new life. He has a new standing before God, a new relationship as a child of God. And some of the things that he used to do, he is ashamed to do them today.

There are some things that I did before I was a Christian, and I wouldn’t think of doing them to­day. I would be ashamed of them.

Now, what has made the transformation?

Paul here is telling these Roman Christians. And I’m also trying to tell you that the very fact we are now ashamed of some of the things we did before we knew Christ is one of the proofs that we have a new master—not sin, but the Risen Lord of glory.

I just trust I have made this clear to you. I’m go­ing slowly, but I want you to get this.

Now verse 22:

Romans 6:22. But now having been freed from sin (having been emancipated from sin as a master) and enslaved to God (you have a new master—and what is the result?), you derive your benefit, resulting in sanctification, and the outcome, eternal life.

Don’t be afraid of that word. “Sanctification” is a good word. It means “saintliness” which comes from the same root word. The joy of it is the guarantee that we have everlasting life.

Now Paul doesn’t mean that everlasting life is the fruit of living a holy life. So he guards that in Romans 6:23 when he says, “The wages of sin is death.”

Then why does he mention eternal life in Romans 6:22? To show the contrast. Before we were saved, we were free from righteousness. We had none. But now, having been made free from sin as a master and having a new Master, the Living Son of God, what is the fruit of it?

A life lived down here glorifying to God.

And what is the end?

Enjoyment, the assurance, the certainty of ever­lasting life—not because of our walk, but because of our union to this Risen Son of God whom we now recognize as our Master.

Then Paul goes on in the last verse:

Romans 6:23. For the wages of sin is death; but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Can I change it? Sin pays wages.

The prophet said, “The person who sins will die.” Sin pays wages, and you can’t quit the job. You can’t go on strike. The wages must be paid. Either you pay the wages or somebody else does. The wages of sin is death.

We find in Romans 3:23 that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

Death reigns today over the human race, and the only way one can be delivered from sin as a master or from its wages is to trust the One who died for us, the One who took our place, the One who died our death. For, you remember, “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”

Isn’t this good news? God has made provision whereby any and all men and women may be saved, wherever they are, whoever they are, what­ever they are. I don’t care who you are; I don’t care what your past is. Sin pays wages; God executes the penalty. But the good news is Jesus Christ, His blessed Son, who came, bore our sins, took our wages and now offers to us—as a free gift— eternal life.

And eternal life can only be received from God as a gift.

The Lord Jesus could say, “He that believeth on me has everlasting life.” The gift of God is eternal life. In Him is life. To have the Son of God is to have life. Not to have the Son of God is not to have life.

I don’t care how good or religious you are. Unless you have a relationship to the Saviour, you are lost. God has made the provision whereby you can be delivered from the wages of sin, and that is by accepting God’s provision for you in Jesus Christ. You come to Christ, receive Him as your Saviour and yield your members unto God so that Christ will be glorified in your life.

This is practical sanctification where the Lord, the Righteous One, lives out His life through you and produces righteousness in you.

As Paul says, “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me, and de­livered Himself up for me.”

Do you know this little poem? In just a few words, it gets to the heart of the matter contained in this marvelous chapter of Romans:

“Oh! the bitter shame and sorrow,

That a time could ever be,

When I let the Saviour’s pity
Plead in vain, and proudly answered—

‘All of Self and none of Thee.’

“Yet He found me. I beheld Him
Bleeding on the cursed tree;
Heard Him pray, ‘Forgive them, Father,’
And my wistful heart said faintly—
‘Some of Self and some of Thee.’

“Day by day His tender mercy,
Healing, helping, full and free,
Sweet and strong, and oh! so patient,
Brought me lower while I whispered,
‘Less of Self and more of Thee.’

“Higher than the highest heavens,
Deeper than the deepest sea;
Lord, Thy love at last has conquered:b
Grant me now my soul’s petition—
‘None of Self and all of Thee.’”

Light of Israel Bible Commentary

BECOMING SLAVES OF RIGHTEOUSNESS

Don't you know that when you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one you obey – whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? Romans 6:16

Now Paul presents us with a sound biblical principle that works at all times, with all people and in all places. We are slaves to the one whom we obey and serve. Jesus once pointed this out in John 8:34 saying, "Very truly I tell you, everyone who sins is a slave to sin." One of the greatest illusions of our time is people thinking that they can be totally free in their own right. The truth is that all human beings are servants or slaves either of good or of evil, either of God or of the devil. There is no middle ground. When the Prodigal Son left his father's house he thought he had found freedom. Yet his fancied freedom eventually made him lower than a slave and consigned him to the hog pen. When he came to himself he returned to his father, begging to become but a servant in the household. It was at last in the father's house that he finally found true freedom (Luke 15:11-24).

Slavery was very prevalent in ancient times. It is estimated that roughly a quarter of the work force was made up of slaves.<footnote>Edwards, Romans, p. 169.</footnote> There were, in fact, many slaves and former slaves who were members of the churches. We are told that in ancient times some folks offered themselves as slaves in order to escape their burdens of debt. This was called voluntary servitude. In ancient times servitude, whether voluntary or involuntary, was extremely rigid, giving the master the absolute right and control over the slave so that the slave had no right and no time that was his or her own.<footnote>Barclay, The Letter to the Romans, p. 104.</footnote> In a similar sense we offer ourselves to Jesus as his servants in order to escape the debt of sin. Thus, we are not our own but we are bought with a price (cf. 1 Corinthians 6:19-20).

"But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you have come to obey from your heart the pattern of teaching that has now claimed your allegiance. You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness" (6:17-18). The Greek word for slave is doulos, and it really describes "one whose will is swallowed up in the will of another."<footnote>Wuest, Romans in the Greek New Testament, v. 6:16.</footnote> It is interesting that this word became the popular one describing Christians in the New Testament. We see that as slaves we are to wholeheartedly obey the "form" of teaching given by the Master. The Greek word "pattern" or "form" used here describes a mold that was used to shape molten metal. God melts us, pours us and molds us using that form of doctrine he has devised until we are useful vessels and instruments in his kingdom.<footnote>Guzik, Romans, Romans, David Guzik's Commentaries on the Bible, vs. 6:16-17.</footnote>

Paul says, "You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness" (Romans 6:18). In comparison with the awful yoke of Satan's slavery, the yoke of Jesus is easy and his burden is light (Matthew 11:30). And when the Son of God sets us free we are "free indeed" (John 8:36). Although we may be serving him with all our heart, soul, mind and strength, we are still free.

Paul develops his argument further, "I am using an example from everyday life because of your human limitations. Just as you used to offer yourselves as slaves to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer yourselves as slaves to righteousness leading to holiness" (6:19). We now have a new Master and we must serve him with all our hearts. We must never seek to serve two masters for this is not possible (Mt. 6:24). We will end up loving one of them and hating the other. Since we were enthusiastic about our old lives in sin and we need to be even more enthusiastic about our new lives in Christ.

We see that the end result of this servitude is holiness or sanctification (hagiasmos). The Greek scholar Barclay points out that all Greek nouns that end in "asmos" describe a process and not a completed state.<footnote>Barclay, The Letter to the Romans, p. 107.</footnote> We are in the process of being made saints. However, we should clarify that sanctification has two sides. There is first a "positional sanctification" which we have instantly when we accept Jesus and then there is the process of sanctification by which holiness is worked out in our lives through the Holy Spirit and the word of God.

This process of sanctification is not an easy one. Stedman tells the story of an old Indian who became a Christian. When he gave his testimony he said, "'You know, since me become Christian, me find have two dogs inside: One big black dog, all time bad, all time fight; and one big white dog, all time good. And these dogs fight all the time.' And someone said, 'Which one wins?' And he said, 'Whichever one I say sic-em to!'"<footnote>Stedman, Simple Christianity, vs. 6:16-19.</footnote>

"When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness. What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death!" (6:20-21). When we lived in sin we were absolutely free from righteousness. The thought of righteousness scarcely entered our minds. We plunged into the thoughts and activities that led to dissipation and death. But what did we receive from all this activity? Lord Byron is regarded as one of the greatest of all British poets. Unfortunately, Byron carried on a rather decadent lifestyle, for which he was later remorseful. At age 36, on the very year of his death, he wrote these haunting words:

My days are in the yellow leaf;
The flowers and fruits of love are gone;
The worm – the canker, and the grief
Are mine alone!<footnote>George Gordon Lord Byron, January 22nd, Missolonghi, 1824.</footnote>

Paul says, "But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord" (6:22-23). The servant of God is now paid in holiness and life eternal but the servant of the devil is paid daily in miserable fare. The Greek word for "wages" (opsonia) is the daily fare of food, bread, fish and vegetables paid to the Roman soldier.<footnote>Barrett, The Epistle to the Romans, v. 6:23.</footnote> We must not forget that just as the righteous are paid, the wicked also receive their pay, and they receive some of it while still living in this world.

Henry's Complete Commentary on the Bible

      1 What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?   2 God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?   3 Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death?   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.   5 For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection:   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.   7 For he that is dead is freed from sin.   8 Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him:   9 Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over him.   10 For in that he died, he died unto sin once: but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God.   11 Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.   12 Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof.   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.   14 For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace.   15 What then? shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid.   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?   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.   18 Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness.   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.   20 For when ye were the servants of sin, ye were free from righteousness.   21 What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed? for the end of those things is death.   22 But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life.   23 For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

      The apostle's transition, which joins this discourse with the former, is observable: "What shall we say then?Romans 6:1; Romans 6:1. What use shall we make of this sweet and comfortable doctrine? Shall we do evil that good may come, as some say we do? Romans 3:8; Romans 3:8. Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Shall we hence take encouragement to sin with so much the more boldness, because the more sin we commit the more will the grace of God be magnified in our pardon? Is this a use to be made of it?" No, it is an abuse, and the apostle startles at the thought of it (Romans 6:2; Romans 6:2): "God forbid; far be it from us to think such a thought." He entertains the objection as Christ did the devil's blackest temptation (Matthew 4:10): Get thee hence, Satan. Those opinions that give any countenance to sin, or open a door to practical immoralities, how specious and plausible soever they be rendered, by the pretension of advancing free grace, are to be rejected with the greatest abhorrence; for the truth as it is in Jesus is a truth according to godliness,Titus 1:1. The apostle is very full in pressing the necessity of holiness in this chapter, which may be reduced to two heads:--His exhortations to holiness, which show the nature of it; and his motives or arguments to enforce those exhortations, which show the necessity of it.

      I. For the first, we may hence observe the nature of sanctification, what it is, and wherein it consists. In general it has two things in it, mortification and vivification--dying to sin and living to righteousness, elsewhere expressed by putting off the old man and putting on the new, ceasing to do evil and learning to do well.

      1. Mortification, putting off the old man; several ways this is expressed. (1.) We must live no longer in sin (Romans 6:2; Romans 6:2), we must not be as we have been nor do as we have done. The time past of our life must suffice, 1 Peter 4:3. Though there are none that live without sin, yet, blessed be God, there are those that do not live in sin, do not live in it as their element, do not make a trade of it: this is to be sanctified. (2.) The body of sin must be destroyed,Romans 6:6; Romans 6:6. The corruption that dwelleth in us is the body of sin, consisting of many parts and members, as a body. This is the root to which the axe must be laid. We must not only cease from the acts of sin (this may be done through the influence of outward restraints, or other inducements), but we must get the vicious habits and inclinations weakened and destroyed; not only cast away the idols of iniquity out of the heart.--That henceforth we should not serve sin. The actual transgression is certainly in a great measure prevented by the crucifying and killing of the original corruption. Destroy the body of sin, and then, though there should be Canaanites remaining in the land, yet the Israelites will not be slaves to them. It is the body of sin that sways the sceptre, wields the iron rod; destroy this, and the yoke is broken. The destruction of Eglon the tyrant is the deliverance of oppressed Israel from the Moabites. (3.) We must be dead indeed unto sin,Romans 6:11; Romans 6:11. As the death of the oppressor is a release, so much more is the death of the oppressed, Job 3:17; Job 3:18. Death brings a writ of ease to the weary. Thus must we be dead to sin, obey it, observe it, regard it, fulfil its will no more than he that is dead doth his quandam task-masters--be as indifference to the pleasures and delights of sin as a man that is dying is to his former diversions. He that is dead is separated from his former company, converse, business, enjoyments, employments, is not what he was, does not what he did, has not what he had. Death makes a mighty change; such a change doth sanctification make in the soul, it cuts off all correspondence with sin. (4.) Sin must not reign in our mortal bodies that we should obey it,Romans 6:12; Romans 6:12. Though sin may remain as an outlaw, though it may oppress as a tyrant, yet let it not reign as a king. Let it not make laws, nor preside in councils, nor command the militia; let it not be uppermost in the soul, so that we should obey it. Though we may be sometimes overtaken and overcome by it, yet let us never be obedient to it in the lusts thereof; let not sinful lusts be a law to you, to which you would yield a consenting obedience. In the lusts thereof--en tais epithymiais autou. It refers to the body, not to sin. Sin lies very much in the gratifying of the body, and humouring that. And there is a reason implied in the phrase your mortal body; because it is a mortal body, and hastening apace to the dust, therefore let not sin reign in it. It was sin that made our bodies mortal, and therefore do not yield obedience to such an enemy. (5.) We must not yield our members as instruments of unrighteousness,Romans 6:13; Romans 6:13. The members of the body are made use of by the corrupt nature as tools, by which the wills of the flesh are fulfilled; but we must not consent to that abuse. The members of the body are fearfully and wonderfully made; it is a pity they should be the devil's tools of unrighteousness unto sin, instruments of the sinful actions, according to the sinful dispositions. Unrighteousness is unto sin; the sinful acts confirm and strengthen the sinful habits; one sin begets another; it is like the letting forth of water, therefore leave it before it be meddled with. The members of the body may perhaps, through the prevalency of temptation, be forced to be instruments of sin; but do not yield them to be so, do not consent to it. This is one branch of sanctification, the mortification of sin.

      2. Vivification, or living to righteousness; and what is that? (1.) It is to walk in newness of life,Romans 6:4; Romans 6:4. Newness of life supposes newness of heart, for out of the heart are the issues of life, and there is not way to make the stream sweet but by making the spring so. Walking, in scripture, is put for the course and tenour of the conversation, which must be new. Walk by new rules, towards new ends, from new principles. Make a new choice of the way. Choose new paths to walk in, new leaders to walk after, new companions to walk with. Old things should pass away, and all things become new. The man is what he was not, does what he did not. (2.) It is to be alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord,Romans 6:11; Romans 6:11. To converse with God, to have a regard to him, a delight in him, a concern for him, the soul upon all occasions carried out towards him as towards an agreeable object, in which it takes a complacency: this is to be alive to God. The love of God reigning in the heart is the life of the soul towards God. Anima est ubi amat, non ubi animat--The soul is where it loves, rather than where it lives. It is to have the affections and desires alive towards God. Or, living (our live in the flesh) unto God, to his honour and glory as our end, by his word and will as our rule--in all our ways to acknowledge him, and to have our eyes ever towards him; this is to live unto God.--Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Christ is our spiritual life; there is no living to God but through him. He is the Mediator; there can be no comfortable receivings from God, nor acceptable regards to God, but in and through Jesus Christ; no intercourse between sinful souls and a holy God, but by the mediation of the Lord Jesus. Through Christ as the author and maintainer of this life; through Christ as the head from whom we receive vital influence; through Christ as the root by which we derive sap and nourishment, and so live. In living to God, Christ is all in all. (3.) It is to yield ourselves to God, as those that are alive from the dead,Romans 6:13; Romans 6:13. The very life and being of holiness lie in the dedication of ourselves to the Lord, giving our own selves to the Lord, 2 Corinthians 8:5. "Yield yourselves to him, not only as the conquered yields to the conqueror, because he can stand it out no longer; but as the wife yields herself to her husband, to whom her desire is, as the scholar yields himself to the teacher, the apprentice to his master, to be taught and ruled by him. Not yield your estates to him, but yield yourselves; nothing less than your whole selves;" parastesate eautous--accommodate vos ipsos Deo--accommodate yourselves to God; so Tremellius, from the Syriac. "Not only submit to him, but comply with him; not only present yourselves to him once for all, but be always ready to serve him. Yield yourselves to him as wax to the seal, to take any impression, to be, and have, and do, what he pleases." When Paul said, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? (Acts 9:6) he was then yielded to God. As those that are alive from the dead. To yield a dead carcase to a living God is not to please him, but to mock him: "Yield yourselves as those that are alive and good for something, a living sacrifice," Romans 12:1; Romans 12:1. The surest evidence of our spiritual life is the dedication of ourselves to God. It becomes those that are alive from the dead (it may be understood of a death in law), that are justified and delivered from death, to give themselves to him that hath so redeemed them. (4.) It is to yield our members as instruments of righteousness to God. The members of our bodies, when withdrawn from the service of sin, are not to lie idle, but to be made use of in the service of God. When the strong man armed is dispossessed, let him whose right it is divide the spoils. Though the powers and faculties of the soul be the immediate subjects of holiness and righteousness, yet the members of the body are to be instruments; the body must be always ready to serve the soul in the service of God. Thus (Romans 6:19; Romans 6:19), "Yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness. Let them be under the conduct and at the command of the righteous law of God, and that principle of inherent righteousness which the Spirit, as sanctifier, plants in the soul." Righteousness unto holiness, which intimates growth, and progress, and ground obtained. As every sinful act confirms the sinful habit, and makes the nature more and more prone to sin (hence the members of a natural man are here said to be servants to iniquity unto iniquity--one sin makes the heart more disposed for another), so every gracious act confirms the gracious habit: serving righteousness is unto holiness; one duty fits us for another; and the more we do the more we may do for God. Or serving righteousness, eis hagiasmon--as an evidence of sanctification.

      II. The motives or arguments here used to show the necessity of sanctification. There is such an antipathy in our hearts by nature to holiness that it is no easy matter to bring them to submit to it: it is the Spirit's work, who persuades by such inducements as these set home upon the soul.

      1. He argues from our sacramental conformity to Jesus Christ. Our baptism, with the design and intention of it, carried in it a great reason why we should die to sin, and live to righteousness. Thus we must improve our baptism as a bridle of restraint to keep us in from sin, as a spur of constraint to quicken us to duty. Observe this reasoning.

      (1.) In general, we are dead to sin, that is, in profession and in obligation. Our baptism signifies our cutting off from the kingdom of sin. We profess to have no more to do with sin. We are dead to sin by a participation of virtue and power for the killing of it, and by our union with Christ and interest in him, in and by whom it is killed. All this is in vain if we persist in sin; we contradict a profession, violate an obligation, return to that to which we were dead, like walking ghosts, than which nothing is more unbecoming and absurd. For (Romans 6:7; Romans 6:7) he that is dead is freed from sin; that is, he that is dead to it is freed from the rule and dominion of it, as the servant that is dead is freed from his master, Job 3:19. Now shall we be such fools as to return to that slavery from which we are discharged? When we are delivered out of Egypt, shall we talk of going back to it again?

      (2.) In particular, being baptized into Jesus Christ, we were baptized into his death,Romans 6:3; Romans 6:3. We were baptized eis Christon--unto Christ, as 1 Corinthians 10:2, eis Mosen--unto Moses. Baptism binds us to Christ, it binds us apprentice to Christ as our teacher, it is our allegiance to Christ as our sovereign. Baptism is externa ansa Christi--the external handle of Christ, by which Christ lays hold on men, and men offer themselves to Christ. Particularly, we were baptized into his death, into a participation of the privileges purchased by his death, and into an obligation both to comply with the design of his death, which was to redeem us from all iniquity, and to conform to the pattern of his death, that, as Christ died for sin, so we should die to sin. This was the profession and promise of our baptism, and we do not do well if we do not answer this profession, and make good this promise.

      [1.] Our conformity to the death of Christ obliges us to die unto sin; thereby we know the fellowship of his sufferings,Philippians 3:10. Thus we are here said to be planted together in the likeness of is death (Romans 6:5; Romans 6:5), to homoiomati, not only a conformity, but a conformation, as the engrafted stock is planted together into the likeness of the shoot, of the nature of which it doth participate. Planting is in order to life and fruitfulness: we are planted in the vineyard in a likeness to Christ, which likeness we should evidence in sanctification. Our creed concerning Jesus Christ is, among other things, that he was crucified, dead, and buried; now baptism is a sacramental conformity to him in each of these, as the apostle here takes notice. First, Our old man is crucified with him,Romans 6:6; Romans 6:6. The death of the cross was a slow death; the body, after it was nailed to the cross, gave many a throe and many a struggle: but it was a sure death, long in expiring, but expired at last; such is the mortification of sin in believers. It was a cursed death, Galatians 3:13. Sin dies as a malefactor, devoted to destruction; it is an accursed thing. Though it be a slow death, yet this must needs hasten it that it is an old man that is crucified; not in the prime of its strength, but decaying: that which waxeth old is ready to vanish away, Hebrews 8:13. Crucified with him--synestaurothe, not in respect of time, but in respect of causality. The crucifying of Christ for us has an influence upon the crucifying of sin in us. Secondly, We are dead with Christ, Romans 6:8; Romans 6:8. Christ was obedient to death: when he died, we might be said to die with him, as our dying to sin is an act of conformity both to the design and to the example of Christ's dying for sin. Baptism signifies and seals our union with Christ, our engrafting into Christ; so that we are dead with him, and engaged to have no more to do with sin than he had. Thirdly, We are buried with him by baptism,Romans 6:4; Romans 6:4. Our conformity is complete. We are in profession quite cut off from all commerce and communion with sin, as those that are buried are quite cut off from all the world; not only not of the living, but no more among the living, have nothing more to do with them. Thus must we be, as Christ was, separate from sin and sinners. We are buried, namely, in profession and obligation: we profess to be so, and we are bound to be so: it was our covenant and engagement in baptism; we are sealed to be the Lord's, therefore to be cut off from sin. Why this burying in baptism should so much as allude to any custom of dipping under water in baptism, any more than our baptismal crucifixion and death should have any such references, I confess I cannot see. It is plain that it is not the sign, but the thing signified, in baptism, that the apostle here calls being buried with Christ, and the expression of burying alludes to Christ's burial. As Christ was buried, that he might rise again to a new and more heavenly life, so we are in baptism buried, that is, cut off from the life of sin, that we may rise again to a new life of faith and love.

      [2.] Our conformity to the resurrection of Christ obliges us to rise again to newness of life. This is the power of his resurrection which Paul was so desirous to know, Philippians 3:10. Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, that is, by the power of the Father. The power of God is his glory; it is glorious power, Colossians 1:11. Now in baptism we are obliged to conform to that pattern, to be planted in the likeness of his resurrection (Romans 6:5; Romans 6:5), to live with him,Romans 6:8; Romans 6:8. See Colossians 2:12. Conversion is the first resurrection from the death of sin to the life of righteousness; and this resurrection is conformable to Christ's resurrection. This conformity of the saints to the resurrection of Christ seems to be intimated in the rising of so many of the bodies of the saints, which, though mentioned before by anticipation, is supposed to have been concomitant with Christ's resurrection, Matthew 27:52. We have all risen with Christ. In two things we must conform to the resurrection of Christ:--First, He rose to die no more, Romans 6:9; Romans 6:9. We read of many others that were raised from the dead, but they rose to die again. But, when Christ rose, he rose to die no more; therefore he left his grave-clothes behind him, whereas Lazarus, who was to die again, brought them out with him, as one that should have occasion to use them again: but over Christ death has no more dominion; he was dead indeed, but he is alive, and so alive that he lives for evermore, Revelation 1:18. Thus we must rise from the grave of sin never again to return to it, nor to have any more fellowship with the works of darkness, having quitted that grave, that land of darkness as darkness itself. Secondly, He rose to live unto God (Romans 6:10; Romans 6:10), to live a heavenly life, to receive that glory which was set before him. Others that were raised from the dead returned to the same life in every respect which they had before lived; but so did not Christ: he rose again to leave the world. Now I am no more in the world,John 13:1; John 17:11. He rose to live to God, that is, to intercede and rule, and all to the glory of the Father. Thus must we rise to live to God: this is what he calls newness of life (Romans 6:4; Romans 6:4), to live from other principles, by other rules, with other aims, than we have done. A life devoted to God is a new life; before, self was the chief and highest end, but now God. To live indeed is to live to God, with our eyes ever towards him, making him the centre of all our actions.

      2. He argues from the precious promises and privileges of the new covenant, Romans 6:14; Romans 6:14. It might be objected that we cannot conquer and subdue sin, it is unavoidably too hard for us: "No," says he, "you wrestle with an enemy that may be dealt with and subdued, if you will but keep your ground and stand to your arms; it is an enemy that is already foiled and baffled; there is strength laid up in the covenant of grace for your assistance, if you will but use it. Sin shall not have dominion." God's promises to us are more powerful and effectual for the mortifying of sin than our promises to God. Sin may struggle in a believer, and may create him a great deal of trouble, but it shall not have dominion; it may vex him, but shall not rule over him. For we are not under the law, but under grace, not under the law of sin and death, but under the law of the spirit of life, which is in Christ Jesus: we are actuated by other principles than we have been: new lords, new laws. Or, not under the covenant of works, which requires brick, and gives no straw, which condemns upon the least failure, which runs thus, "Do this, and live; do it not, and die;" but under the covenant of grace, which accepts sincerity as our gospel perfection, which requires nothing but what it promises strength to perform, which is herein well ordered, that every transgression in the covenant does not put us out of covenant, and especially that it does not leave our salvation in our own keeping, but lays it up in the hands of the Mediator, who undertakes for us that sin shall not have dominion over us, who hath himself condemned it, and will destroy it; so that, if we pursue the victory, we shall come off more than conquerors. Christ rules by the golden sceptre of grace, and he will not let sin have dominion over those that are willing subjects to that rule. This is a very comfortable word to all true believers. If we were under the law, we were undone, for the law curses every one that continues not in every thing; but we are under grace, grace which accepts the willing mind, which is not extreme to mark what we do amiss, which leaves room for repentance, which promises pardon upon repentance; and what can be to an ingenuous mind a stronger motive than this to have nothing to do with sin? Shall we sin against so much goodness, abuse such love? Some perhaps might suck poison out of this flower, and disingenuously use this as an encouragement to sin. See how the apostle starts at such a thought (Romans 6:15; Romans 6:15): Shall we sin because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid. What can be more black and ill-natured than from a friend's extraordinary expressions of kindness and good-will to take occasion to affront and offend him? To spurn at such bowels, to spit in the face of such love, is that which, between man and man, all the world would cry out shame on.

      3. He argues from the evidence that this will be of our state, making for us, or against us (Romans 6:16; Romans 6:16): To whom you yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants you are. All the children of men are either the servants of God, or the servants of sin; these are the two families. Now, if we would know to which of these families we belong, we must enquire to which of these masters we yield obedience. Our obeying the laws of sin will be an evidence against us that we belong to that family on which death is entailed. As, on the contrary, our obeying the laws of Christ will evidence our relation to Christ's family.

      4. He argues from their former sinfulness, Romans 6:17-21; Romans 6:17-21, where we may observe,

      (1.) What they had been and done formerly. We have need to be often reminded of our former state. Paul frequently remembers it concerning himself, and those to whom he writes. [1.] You were the servants of sin. Those that are now the servants of God would do well to remember the time when they were the servants of sin, to keep them humble, penitent, and watchful, and to quicken them in the service of God. It is a reproach to the service of sin that so many thousands have quitted the service, and shaken off the yoke; and never any that sincerely deserted it, and gave themselves to the service of God, have returned to the former drudgery. "God be thanked that you were so, that is, that though you were so, yet you have obeyed. You were so; God be thanked that we can speak of it as a thing past: you were so, but you are not now so. Nay, your having been so formerly tends much to the magnifying of divine mercy and grace in the happy change. God be thanked that the former sinfulness is such a foil and such a spur to your present holiness." [2.] You have yielded your members servants to uncleanness, and to iniquity unto iniquity,Romans 6:19; Romans 6:19. It is the misery of a sinful state that the body is made a drudge to sin, than which there could not be a baser or a harder slavery, like that of the prodigal that was sent into the fields to feed swine. You have yielded. Sinners are voluntary in the service of sin. The devil could not force them into the service, if they did not yield themselves to it. This will justify God in the ruin of sinners, that they sold themselves to work wickedness: it was their own act and deed. To iniquity unto iniquity. Every sinful act strengthens and confirms the sinful habit: to iniquity as the work unto iniquity as the wages. Sow the wind, and reap the whirlwind; growing worse and worse, more and more hardened. This he speaks after the manner of men, that is, he fetches a similitude from that which is common among men, even the change of services and subjections. [3.] You were free from righteousness (Romans 6:20; Romans 6:20); not free by any liberty given, but by a liberty taken, which is licentiousness: "You were altogether void of that which is good,--void of any good principles, motions, or inclinations,--void of all subjection to the law and will of God, of all conformity to his image; and this you were highly pleased with, as a freedom and a liberty; but a freedom from righteousness is the worst kind of slavery."

      (2.) How the blessed change was made, and wherein it did consist.

      [1.] You have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered to you,Romans 6:17; Romans 6:17. This describes conversion, what it is; it is our conformity to, and compliance with, the gospel which was delivered to us by Christ and his ministers.--Margin. Whereto you were delivered; eis hon paredothete--into which you were delivered. And so observe, First, The rule of grace, that form of doctrine--typon didaches. The gospel is the great rule both of truth and holiness; it is the stamp, grace is the impression of that stamp; it is the form of healing words, 1 Timothy 1:13. Secondly, The nature of grace, as it is our conformity to that rule. 1. It is to obey from the heart. The gospel is a doctrine not only to be believed, but to be obeyed, and that from the heart, which denotes the sincerity and reality of that obedience; not in profession only, but in power--from the heart, the innermost part, the commanding part of us. 2. It is to be delivered into it, as into a mould, as the wax is cast into the impression of the seal, answering it line for line, stroke for stroke, and wholly representing the shape and figure of it. To be a Christian indeed is to be transformed into the likeness and similitude of the gospel, our souls answering to it, complying with it, conformed to it--understanding, will, affections, aims, principles, actions, all according to that form of doctrine.

      [2.] Being made free from sin, you became servants of righteousness (Romans 6:18; Romans 6:18), servants to God,Romans 6:22; Romans 6:22. Conversion is, First, A freedom from the service of sin; it is the shaking off of that yoke, resolving to have no more to do with it. Secondly, A resignation of ourselves to the service of God and righteousness, to God as our master, to righteousness as our work. When we are made free from sin, it is not that we may live as we list, and be our own masters; no: when we are delivered out of Egypt, we are, as Israel, led to the holy mountain, to receive the law, and are there brought into the bond of the covenant. Observe, We cannot be made the servants of God till we are freed from the power and dominion of sin; we cannot serve two masters so directly opposite one to another as God and sin are. We must, with the prodigal, quit the drudgery of the citizen of the country, before we can come to our Father's house.

      (3.) What apprehensions they now had of their former work and way. He appeals to themselves (Romans 6:21; Romans 6:21), whether they had not found the service of sin, [1.] An unfruitful service: "What fruit had you then? Did you ever get any thing by it? Sit down, and cast up the account, reckon your gains, what fruit had you then?" Besides the future losses, which are infinitely great, the very present gains of sin are not worth mentioning. What fruit? Nothing that deserves the name of fruit. The present pleasure and profit of sin do not deserve to be called fruit; they are but chaff, ploughing iniquity, sowing vanity, and reaping the same. [2.] It is an unbecoming service; it is that of which we are now ashamed--ashamed of the folly, ashamed of the filth, of it. Shame came into the world with sin, and is still the certain product of it--either the shame of repentance, or, if not that, eternal shame and contempt. Who would wilfully do that which sooner or later he is sure to be ashamed of?

      5. He argues from the end of all these things. it is the prerogative of rational creatures that they are endued with a power of prospect, are capable of looking forward, considering the latter end of things. To persuade us from sin to holiness here are blessing and cursing, good and evil, life and death, set before us; and we are put to our choice. (1.) The end of sin is death (Romans 6:21; Romans 6:21): The end of those things is death. Though the way may seem pleasant and inviting, yet the end is dismal: at the last it bites; it will be bitterness in the latter end. The wages of sin is death,Romans 6:23; Romans 6:23. Death is as due to a sinner when he hath sinned as wages are to a servant when he hath done his work. This is true of every sin. There is no sin in its own nature venial. Death is the wages of the least sin. Sin is here represented either as the work for which the wages are given, or as the master by whom the wages are given; all that are sin's servants and do sin's work must expect to be thus paid. (2.) If the fruit be unto holiness, if there be an active principle of true and growing grace, the end will be everlasting life--a very happy end!--Though the way be up-hill, though it be narrow, and thorny, and beset, yet everlasting life at the end of it is sure. So, Romans 6:23; Romans 6:23, The gift of God is eternal life. Heaven is life, consisting in the vision and fruition of God; and it is eternal life, no infirmities attending it, no death to put a period to it. This is the gift of God. The death is the wages of sin, it comes by desert; but the life is a gift, it comes by favour. Sinners merit hell, but saints do not merit heaven. There is no proportion between the glory of heaven and our obedience; we must thank God, and not ourselves, if ever we get to heaven. And this gift is through Jesus Christ our Lord. It is Christ that purchased it, prepared it, prepares us for it, preserves us to it; he is the Alpha and Omega, All in all in our salvation.

Kelly Commentary on Books of the Bible

The circumstances under which the epistle to the Romans was written gave occasion to the most thorough and comprehensive unfolding, not of the church, but of Christianity. No apostle had ever yet visited Rome. There was somewhat as yet lacking to the saints there; but even this was ordered of God to call forth from the Holy Ghost an epistle which more than any other approaches a complete treatise on the fundamentals of Christian doctrine, and especially as to righteousness.

Would we follow up the heights of heavenly truth, would we sound the depths of Christian experience, would we survey the workings of the Spirit of God in the Church, would we bow before the glories of the person of Christ, or learn His manifold offices, we must look elsewhere in the writings of the New Testament no doubt, but elsewhere rather than here.

The condition of the Roman saints called for a setting forth of the gospel of God; but this object, in order to be rightly understood and appreciated, leads the apostle into a display of the condition of man. We have God and man in presence, so to speak. Nothing can be more simple and essential. Although there is undoubtedly that profoundness which must accompany every revelation of God, and especially in connection with Christ as now manifested, still we have God adapting Himself to the very first wants of a renewed soul nay, even to the wretchedness of souls without God, without any real knowledge either of themselves or of Him. Not, of course, that the Roman saints were in this condition; but that God, writing by the apostle to them, seizes the opportunity to lay bare man's state as well as His own grace.

Romans 1:1-32. From the very first we have these characteristics of the epistle disclosing themselves. The apostle writes with the full assertion of his own apostolic dignity, but as a servant also. "Paul, a bondman of Jesus Christ" an apostle "called," not born, still less as educated or appointed of man, but an apostle "called," as he says "separated unto the gospel of God, which he had promised afore by his prophets." The connection is fully owned with that which had been from God of old. No fresh revelations from God can nullify those which preceded them; but as the prophets looked onward to what was coming, so is the gospel already come, supported by the past. There is mutual confirmation. Nevertheless, what is in nowise the same as what was or what will be. The past prepared the way, as it is said here, "which God had promised afore by his prophets in the holy scriptures, concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, [here we have the great central object of God's gospel, even the person of Christ, God's Son,] which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh" (ver. 3). This last relation was the direct subject of the prophetic testimony, and Jesus had come accordingly. He was the promised Messiah, born King of the Jews.

But there was far more in Jesus. He was "declared," says the apostle, "to be the Son of God with power, according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead" ( ἐξ ἀναστάσεως νεκρῶν , ver. 4). It was the Son of God not merely as dealing with the powers of the earth, Jehovah's King on the holy hill of Zion, but after a far deeper manner. For, essentially associated as He is with the glory of God the Father, the full deliverance of souls from the realm of death was His also. In this too we have the blessed connection of the Spirit (here peculiarly designated, for special reasons, "the Spirit of holiness"). That same energy of the Holy Ghost which had displayed itself in Jesus, when He walked in holiness here below, was demonstrated in resurrection; and not merely in His own rising from the dead, but in raising such at any time no doubt, though most signally and triumphantly displayed in His own resurrection.

The bearing of this on the contents and main doctrine of the epistle will appear abundantly by-and-by. Let me refer in passing to a few points more in the introduction, in order to link them together with that which the Spirit was furnishing to the Roman saints, as well as to show the admirable perfectness of every word that inspiration has given us. I do not mean by this its truth merely, but its exquisite suitability; so that the opening address commences the theme in hand, and insinuates that particular line of truth which the Holy Spirit sees fit to pursue throughout. To this then the apostle comes, after having spoken of the divine favour shown himself, both when a sinner, and now in his own special place of serving the Lord Jesus. "By whom we have received grace and apostleship for obedience to the faith." This was no question of legal obedience, although the law came from Jehovah. Paul's joy and boast were in the gospel of God. So therefore it addressed itself to the obedience of faith; not by this meaning practice, still less according to the measure of a man's duty, but that which is at the root of all practice faith-obedience obedience of heart and will, renewed by divine grace, which accepts the truth of God. To man this is the hardest of all obedience; but when once secured, it leads peacefully into the obedience of every day. If slurred over, as it too often is in souls, it invariably leaves practical obedience lame, and halt, and blind.

It was for this then that Paul describes himself as apostle. And as it is for obedience of faith, it was not in anywise restricted to the Jewish people "among all nations, for his (Christ's) name: among whom are ye also the called of Jesus Christ" (verses 5, 6). He loved even here at the threshold to show the breadth of God's grace. If he was called, so were they he an apostle, they not apostles but saints; but still, for them as for him, all flowed out of the same mighty love, of God. "To all that be at Rome, beloved of God, called saints" (ver. 7). To these then he wishes, as was his wont, the fresh flow of that source and stream of divine blessing which Christ has made to be household bread to us: "Grace and peace from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ" (ver. 7). Then, from ver. 8, after thanking God through Jesus for their faith spoken of everywhere, and telling them of his prayers for them, he briefly discloses the desire of his heart about them his long-cherished hope according to the grace of the gospel to reach Rome his confidence in the love of God that through him some spiritual gift would be imparted to them, that they might be established, and, according to the spirit of grace which filled his own heart, that he too might be comforted together with them "by the mutual faith both of you and me" (vv. 11, 12). There is nothing like the grace of God for producing the truest humility, the humility that not only descends to the lowest level of sinners to do them good, but which is itself the fruit of deliverance from that self-love which puffs itself or lowers others. Witness the common joy that grace gives an apostle with saints be had never seen, so that even he should be comforted as well as they by their mutual faith. He would not therefore have them ignorant how they had lain on his heart for a visit (ver. 13). He was debtor both to the Greeks and the barbarians, both to the wise and to the unwise; he was ready, as far as he was concerned, to preach the gospel to those that were at Rome also (ver. 14, 15). Even the saints there would have been all the better for the gospel. It was not merely "to those at Rome," but "to you that be at Rome." Thus it is a mistake to suppose that saints may not be benefited by a better understanding of the gospel, at least as Paul preached it. Accordingly he tells them now what reason he had to speak thus strongly, not of the more advanced truths, but of the good news. "For I am not ashamed of the gospel: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek" (ver. 16).

Observe, the gospel is not simply remission of sins, nor is it only peace with God, but "the power of God unto salvation." Now I take this opportunity of pressing on all that are here to beware of contracted views of "salvation." Beware that you do not confound it with souls being quickened, or even brought into joy. Salvation supposes not this only, but a great deal more. There is hardly any phraseology that tends to more injury of souls in these matters than a loose way of talking of salvation. "At any rate he is a saved soul," we hear. "The man has not got anything like settled peace with God; perhaps he hardly knows his sins forgiven; but at least he is a saved soul." Here is an instance of what is so reprehensible. This is precisely what salvation does not mean; and I would strongly press it on all that hear me, more particularly on those that have to do with the work of the Lord, and of course ardently desire to labour intelligently; and this not alone for the conversion, but for the establishment and deliverance of souls. Nothing less, I am persuaded, than this full blessing is the line that God has given to those who have followed Christ without the camp, and who, having been set free from the contracted ways of men, desire to enter into the largeness and at the same time the profound wisdom of every word of God. Let us not stumble at the starting-point, but leave room for the due extent and depth of "salvation" in the gospel.

There is no need of dwelling now on "salvation" as employed in the Old Testament, and in some parts of the New, as the gospels and Revelation particularly, where it is used for deliverance in power or even providence and present things. I confine myself to its doctrinal import, and the full Christian sense of the word; and I maintain that salvation signifies that deliverance for the believer which is the full consequence of the mighty work of Christ, apprehended not, of course, necessarily according to all its depth in God's eyes, but at any rate applied to the soul in the power of the Holy Ghost. It is not the awakening of conscience, however real; neither is it the attraction of heart by the grace of Christ, however blessed this may be. We ought therefore to bear in mind, that if a soul be not brought into conscious deliverance as the fruit of divine teaching, and founded on the work of Christ, we are very far from presenting the gospel as the apostle Paul glories in it, and delights that it should go forth. "I am not ashamed," etc.

And he gives his reason: "For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, The just shall live by faith." That is, it is the power of God unto salvation, not because it is victory (which at the beginning of the soul's career would only give importance to man even if possible, which it is not), but because it is "the righteousness of God." It is not God seeking, or man bringing righteousness. In the gospel there is revealed God's righteousness. Thus the introduction opened with Christ's person, and closes with God's righteousness. The law demanded, but could never receive righteousness from man. Christ is come, and has changed all. God is revealing a righteousness of His own in the gospel. It is God who now makes known a righteousness to man, instead of looking for any from man. Undoubtedly there are fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ, and God values them I will not say from man, but from His saints; but here it is what, according to the apostle, God has for man. It is for the saints to learn, of course; but it is that which goes out in its own force and necessary aim to the need of man a divine righteousness, which justifies instead of condemning him who believes. It is "the power of God unto salvation." It is for the lost, therefore; for they it is who need salvation; and it is to save not merely to quicken, but to save; and this because in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed.

Hence it is, as he says, herein revealed "from faith," or by faith. It is the same form of expression exactly as in the beginning of Romans 5:1-21 "being justified by faith" ( ἐκ πίστεως ). But besides this he adds "to faith." The first of these phrases, "from faith," excludes the law; the second, "to faith," includes every one that has faith within the scope of God's righteousness. Justification is not from works of law. The righteousness of God is revealed from faith; and consequently, if there be faith in any soul, to this it is revealed, to faith wherever it may be. Hence, therefore, it was in no way limited to any particular nation, such as those that had already been under the law and government of God. It was a message that went out from God to sinners as such. Let man be what he might, or where he might, God's good news was for man. And to this agreed the testimony of the prophet. "The just shall live by faith" (not by law). Even where the law was, not by it but by faith the just lived. Did Gentiles believe? They too should live. Without faith there is neither justice nor life that God owns; where faith is, the rest will surely follow.

This accordingly leads the apostle into the earlier portion of his great argument, and first of all in a preparatory way. Here we pass out of the introduction of the epistle. "For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness" (ver. 18). This is what made the gospel to be so sweet and precious, and, what is more, absolutely necessary, if he would escape certain and eternal ruin. There is no hope for man otherwise; for the gospel is not all that is now made known. Not only is God's righteousness revealed, but also His wrath. It is not said to be revealed in the gospel. The gospel means His glad tidings for man. The wrath of God could not possibly be glad tidings. It is true, it is needful for man to learn; but in nowise is it good news. There is then the solemn truth also of divine wrath. It is not yet executed. It is "revealed," and this too "from heaven." There is no question of a people on earth, and of God's wrath breaking out in one form or another against human evil in this life. The earth, or, at least, the Jewish nation, had been familiar with such dealings of God in times past. But now it is "the wrath of God from heaven;" and consequently it is in view of eternal things, and not of those that touch present life on the earth.

Hence, as God's wrath is revealed from heaven, it is against every form of impiety "against all ungodliness." Besides this, which seems to be a most comprehensive expression for embracing every sort and degree of human iniquity, we have one very specifically named. It is against the "unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness." To hold the truth in unrighteousness would be no security. Alas! we know how this was in Israel, how it might be, and has been, in Christendom. God pronounces against the unrighteousness of such; for if the knowledge, however exact, of God's revealed mind was accompanied by no renewal of the heart, if it was without life towards God, all must be vain. Man is only so much the worse for knowing the truth, if he holds it ever so fast with unrighteousness. There are some that find a difficulty here, because the expression "to hold" means holding firmly. But it is quite possible for the unconverted to be tenacious of the truth, yet unrighteous in their ways; and so much the worse for them. Not thus does God deal with souls. If His grace attract, His truth humbles, and leaves no room for vain boasting and self-confidence. What He does is to pierce and penetrate the man's conscience. If one may so say, He thus holds the man, instead of letting the man presume that he is holding fast the truth. The inner man is dealt with, and searched through and through.

Nothing of this is intended in the class that is here brought before us. They are merely persons who plume themselves on their orthodoxy, but in a wholly unrenewed condition. Such men have never been wanting since the truth has shone on this world; still less are they now. But the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against them pre-eminently. The judgments of God will fall on man as man, but the heaviest blows are reserved for Christendom. There the truth is held, and apparently with firmness too. This, however, will be put to the test by-and-by. But for the time it is held fast, though in unrighteousness. Thus the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against (not only the open ungodliness of men, but) the orthodox unrighteousness of those that hold the truth in unrighteousness.

And this leads the apostle into the moral history of man the proof both of his inexcusable guilt, and of his extreme need of redemption. He begins with the great epoch of the dispensations of God (that is, the ages since the flood). We cannot speak of the state of things before the flood as a dispensation. There was a most important trial of man in the person of Adam; but after this, what dispensation was there? What were the principles of it? No man can tell. The truth is, those are altogether mistaken who call it so. But after the flood man as such was put under certain conditions the whole race. Man became the object, first, of general dealings of God under Noah; next, of His special ways in the calling of Abraham and of his family. And what led to the call of Abraham, of whom we hear much in the epistle to the Romans as elsewhere, was the departure of man into idolatry. Man despised at first the outward testimony of God, His eternal power and Godhead, in the creation above and around him (verses 19, 20). Moreover, He gave up the knowledge of God that had been handed down from father to son (ver. 21). The downfall of man, when he thus abandoned God, was most rapid and profound; and the Holy Spirit traces this solemnly to the end ofRomans 1:1-32; Romans 1:1-32 with no needless words, in a few energetic strokes summing up that which is abundantly confirmed (but in how different a manner!) by all that remains of the ancient world. "Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man," etc. (verses 22-32.) Thus corruption not only overspread morals, but became an integral part of the religion of men, and had thus a quasi-divine sanction. Hence the depravity of the heathen found little or no cheek from conscience, because it was bound up with all that took the shape of God before their mind. There was no part of heathenism practically viewed now, so corrupting as that which had to do with the objects of its worship. Thus, the true God being lost, all was lost, and man's downward career becomes the most painful and humiliating object, unless it be, indeed, that which we have to feel where men, without renewal of heart, espouse in pride of mind the truth with nothing but unrighteousness.

In the beginning ofRomans 2:1-29; Romans 2:1-29 we have man pretending to righteousness. Still, it is "man" not yet exactly the Jew, but man who had profited, it might be, by whatever the Jew had; at the least, by the workings of natural conscience. But natural conscience, although it may detect evil, never leads one into the inward possession and enjoyment of good never brings the soul to God. Accordingly, in chapter 2 the Holy Spirit shows us man satisfying himself with pronouncing on what is right and wrong moralizing for others, but nothing more. Now God must have reality in the man himself. The gospel, instead of treating this as a light matter, alone vindicates God in these eternal ways of His, in that which must be in him who stands in relationship with God. Hence therefore, the apostle, with divine wisdom, opens this to us before the blessed relief and deliverance which the gospel reveals to us. In the most solemn way he appeals to man with the demand, whether he thinks that God will look complacently on that which barely judges another, but which allows the practice of evil in the man himself (Romans 2:1-3). Such moral judgments will, no doubt, be used to leave man without excuse; they can never suit or satisfy God.

Then the apostle introduces the ground, certainty, and character of God's judgment (verses 4-16). He "will render to every man according to his deeds: to them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory and honour and immortality, eternal life: to them that are contentious, and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of man that doeth evil, of the Jew first and also of the Gentile."

It is not here a question of how a man is to be saved, but of God's indispensable moral judgment, which the gospel, instead of weakening asserts according to the holiness and truth of God. It will be observed therefore, that in this connection the apostle shows the place both of conscience and of the law, that God in judging will take into full consideration the circumstances and condition of every soul of man. At the same time he connects, in a singularly interesting manner, this disclosure of the principles of the eternal judgment of God with what he calls "my gospel." This also is a most important truth, my brethren, to bear in mind. The gospel at its height in no wise weakens but maintains the moral manifestation of what God is. The legal institutions were associated with temporal judgment. The gospel, as now revealed in the New Testament, has linked with it, though not contained in it, the revelation of divine wrath from heaven, and this, you will observe, according to Paul's gospel. It is evident, therefore, that dispensational position will not suffice for God, who holds to His own unchangeable estimate of good and evil, and who judges the more stringently according to the measure of advantage possessed.

But thus the way is now clear for bringing the Jew into the discussion. "But if [for so it should be read] thou art named a Jew," etc. (ver. 17.) It was not merely, that he had better light. He had this, of course, in a revelation that was from God; he had law; he had prophets; he had divine institutions. It was not merely better light in the conscience, which might be elsewhere, as is supposed in the early verses of our chapter; but the Jew's position was directly and unquestionably one of divine tests applied to man's estate. Alas! the Jew was none the better for this, unless there were the submission of his conscience to God. Increase of privileges can never avail without the soul's self-judgment before the mercy of God. Rather does it add to his guilt: such is man's evil state and will. Accordingly, in the end of the chapter, he shows that this is most true as applied to the moral judgment of the Jew; that uone so much dishonoured God as wicked Jews, their own Scripture attesting it; that position went for nothing in such, while the lack of it would not annul the Gentile's righteousness, which would indeed condemn the more unfaithful Israel; in short, that one must be a Jew inwardly to avail, and circumcision be of the heart, in spirit, not in letter, whose praise is of God, and not of men.

The question then is raised in the beginning ofRomans 3:1-31; Romans 3:1-31, If this be so, what is the superiority of the Jew? Where lies the value of belonging to the circumcised people of God? The apostle allows this privilege to be great, specially in having the Scriptures, but turns the argument against the boasters. We need not here enter into the details; but on the surface we see how the apostle brings all down to that which is of the deepest interest to every soul. He deals with the Jew from his own Scripture (verses 9-19). Did the Jews take the ground of exclusively having that word of God the law? Granted that it is so, at once and fully. To whom, then, did the law address itself? To those that were under it, to be sure. It pronounced on the Jew then. It was the boast of the Jews that the law spoke about them; that the Gentiles had no right to it, and were but presuming on what belonged to God's chosen people. The apostle applies this according to divine wisdom. Then your principle is your condemnation. What the law says, it speaks to those under it. What, then, is its voice? That there is none righteous, none that doeth good, none that understandeth. Of whom does it declare all this? Of the Jew by his own confession. Every mouth was stopped; the Jew by his own oracles, as the Gentile by their evident abominations, shown already. All the world was guilty before God.

Thus, having shown the Gentile in Romans 1:1-32 manifestly wrong, and hopelessly degraded to the last degree having laid bare the moral dilettantism of the philosophers, not one whit better in the sight of God, but rather the reverse having shown the Jew overwhelmed by the condemnation of the divine oracles in which he chiefly boasted, without real righteousness, and so much the more guilty for his special privileges, all now lies clear for bringing in the proper Christian message, the. gospel of God. "Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin. But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets" (verses 20, 21).

Here, again, the apostle takes up what he had but announced in chapter 1 the righteousness of God. Let me call your attention again to its force. It is not the mercy of God., Many have contended that so it is, and to their own great loss, as well as to the weakening of the word of God. "Righteousness" never means mercy, not even the "righteousness of God." The meaning is not what was executed on Christ, but what is in virtue. of it. Undoubtedly divine judgment fell on Him; but this is not "the righteousness of God," as the apostle employs it in any part of his writings any more than here, though we know there could be no such thing as God's righteousness justifying the believer, if Christ had not borne the judgment of God. The expression means that righteousness which God can afford to display because of Christ's atonement. In short, it is what the words say "the righteousness of God," and this "by faith of Jesus Christ."

Hence it is wholly apart from the law, whilst witnessed to by the law and prophets; for the law with its types had looked onward to this new kind of righteousness; and the prophets had borne their testimony that it was at hand, but not then come. Now it was manifested, and not promised or predicted merely. Jesus had come and died; Jesus had been a propitiatory sacrifice; Jesus had borne the judgment of God because of the sins He bore. The righteousness of God, then, could now go forth in virtue of His blood. God was not satisfied alone. There is satisfaction; but the work of Christ goes a great deal farther. Therein God is both vindicated and glorified. By the cross God has a deeper moral glory than ever a glory that He thus acquired, if I may so say. He is, of course, the same absolutely perfect and unchangeable God of goodness; but His perfection has displayed itself in new and more glorious ways in Christ's death, in Him who humbled Himself, and was obedient even to the death of the cross.

God, therefore, having not the least hindrance to the manifestation of what He can be and is in merciful intervention on behalf of the worst of sinners, manifests it is His righteousness "by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe" (ver. 22). The former is the direction, and the latter the application. The direction is "unto all;" the application is, of course, only to "them that believe;" but it is to all them that believe. As far as persons are concerned, there is no hindrance; Jew or Gentile makes no difference, as is expressly said, "For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the [passing over or praeter-mission, not] remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; to declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus" (verses 23-26). There is no simple mind that can evade the plain force of this last expression. The righteousness of God means that God is just, while at the same time He justifies the believer in Christ Jesus. It is His righteousness, or, in other words, His perfect consistency with Himself, which is always involved in the notion of righteousness. He is consistent with Himself when He is justifying sinners, or, more strictly, all those who believe in Jesus. He can meet the sinner, but He justifies the believer; and in this, instead of trenching on His glory, there is a deeper revelation and maintenance of it than if there never had been sin or a sinner.

Horribly offensive as sin is to God, and inexcusable in the creature, it is sin which has given occasion to the astonishing display of divine righteousness in justifying believers. It is not a question of His mercy merely; for this weakens the truth immensely, and perverts its character wholly. The righteousness of God flows from His mercy, of course; but its character and basis is righteousness. Christ's work of redemption deserves that God should act as He does in the gospel. Observe again, it is not victory here; for that would give place to human pride. It is not a soul's overcoming its difficulties, but a sinner's submission to the righteousness of God. It is God Himself who, infinitely glorified in the Lord that expiated our sins by His one sacrifice, remits them now, not looking for our victory, nor as yet even in leading us on to victory, but by faith in Jesus and His blood. God is proved thus divinely consistent with Himself in Christ Jesus, whom He has set forth a mercy-seat through faith in His blood.

Accordingly the apostle says that boast and works are completely set aside by this principle which affirms faith, apart from deeds of law, to be the means of relationship with God (verses 27, 28). Consequently the door is as open to the Gentile as to the Jew. The ground taken by a Jew for supposing God exclusively for Israel was, that they had the law, which was the measure of what God claimed from man; and this the Gentile had not. But such thoughts altogether vanish now, because, as the Gentile was unquestionably wicked and abominable, so from the law's express denunciation the Jew was universally guilty before God. Consequently all turned, not on what man should be for God, but what God can be and is, as revealed in the gospel, to man. This maintains both the glory and the moral universality of Him who will justify the circumcision by faith, not law, and the uncircumcision through their faith, if they believe the gospel. Nor does this in the slightest degree weaken the principle of law. On the contrary, the doctrine of faith establishes law as nothing else can; and for this simple reason, that if one who is guilty hopes to be saved spite of the broken law, it must be at the expense of the law that condemns his guilt; whereas the gospel shows no sparing of sin, but the most complete condemnation of it all, as charged on Him who shed His blood in atonement. The doctrine of faith therefore, which reposes on the cross, establishes law, instead of making it void, as every other principle must (verses 27-31).

But this is not the full extent of salvation. Accordingly we do not hear of salvation as such in Romans 3:1-31. There is laid down the most essential of all truths as a groundwork of salvation; namely, expiation. There is the vindication of God in His ways with the Old Testament believers. Their sins had been passed by. He could not have remitted heretofore. This would not have been just. And the blessedness of the gospel is, that it is (not merely an exercise of mercy, but also) divinely just. It would not have been righteous in any sense to have remitted the sins, until they were actually borne by One who could and did suffer for them. But now they were; and thus God vindicated Himself perfectly as to the past. But this great work of Christ was not and could not be a mere vindication of God; and we may find it otherwise developed in various parts of Scripture, which I here mention by the way to show the point at which we are arrived. God's righteousness was now manifested as to the past sins He had not brought into judgment through His forbearance, and yet more conspicuously in the present time, when He displayed His justice in justifying the believer.

But this is not all; and the objection of the Jew gives occasion for the apostle to bring out a fuller display of what God is. Did they fall back on Abraham? "What shall we then say that Abraham our father, as pertaining to the flesh, hath found? For if Abraham were justified by works, he hath whereof to glory; but not before God." Did the Jew fancy that the gospel makes very light of Abraham, and of the then dealings of God? Not so, says the apostle. Abraham is the proof of the value of faith in justification before God. Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness. There was no law there or then; for Abraham died long before God spoke from Sinai. He believed God and His word, with special approval on God's part; and his faith was counted as righteousness (ver. 3). And this was powerfully corroborated by the testimony of another great name in Israel (David), in Psalms 32:1-11. "For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me: my moisture is turned into the drought of summer. I acknowledged my sin unto thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord; and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin. For this shall every one that is godly pray unto thee in a time when thou mayest be found: surely in the floods of great waters they shall not come nigh unto him. Thou art my hiding-place; thou shalt preserve me from trouble; thou shalt compass me about with songs of deliverance. I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go: I will guide thee with mine eye."

In the same way the apostle disposes of all pretence on the score of ordinances, especially circumcision. Not only was Abraham justified without law, but apart from that great sign of mortification of the flesh. Although circumcision began with Abraham, manifestly it had nothing to do with his righteousness, and at best was but the seal of the righteousness of faith which he had in an uncircumcised state. It could not therefore be the source or means of his righteousness. All then that believe, though uncircumcised, might claim him as father, assured that righteousness will be reckoned to them too. And he is father of circumcision in the best sense, not to Jews, but to believing Gentiles. Thus the discussion of Abraham strengthens the case in behalf of the uncircumcised who believe, to the overthrow of the greatest boast of the Jew. The appeal to their own inspired account of Abraham turned into a proof of the consistency of God's ways in justifying by faith, and hence in justifying the uncircumcised no less than the circumcision.

But there is more than this in Romans 4:1-25 He takes up a third feature of Abraham's case; that is, the connection of the promise with resurrection. Here it is not merely the negation of law and of circumcision, but we have the positive side. Law works wrath because it provokes transgression; grace makes the promise sure to all the seed, not only because faith is open to the Gentile and Jew alike, but because God is looked to as a quickener of the dead. What gives glory to God like this? Abraham believed God when, according to nature, it was impossible for him or for Sarah to have a child. The quickening power of God therefore was here set forth, of course historically in a way connected with this life and a posterity on earth, but nevertheless a very just and true sign of God's power for the believer the quickening energy of God after a still more blessed sort. And this leads us to see not only where there was an analogy with those who believe in a promised Saviour, but also to a weighty difference. And this lies in the fact that Abraham believed God before he had the son, being fully persuaded that what He had promised He was able to perform. and therefore it was imputed to him for righteousness. But we believe on Him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead. It is done. already. It is not here believing on Jesus, but on God who has proved what He is to us in raisin, from among the dead Him who was delivered for our offences, and raised again for our justification (verses 13-25).

This brings out a most emphatic truth and special side of Christianity. Christianity is not a system of promise, but rather of promise accomplished in Christ. Hence it is essentially founded on the gift not only of a Saviour who would interpose, in the mercy of God, to bear our sins, but of One who is already revealed, and the work done and accepted, and this known in the fact that God Himself has interposed to raise Him from among the dead a bright and momentous thing to press on souls, as indeed we find the apostles insisting on it throughout the Acts. Were it merely Romans 3:1-31 there could not be full peace with God as there is. One might know a most real clinging to Jesus; but this would not set the heart at ease with God. The soul may feel the blood of Jesus to be a yet deeper want; but this alone does not give peace with God. In such a condition what has been found in Jesus is too often misused to make a kind of difference, so to speak, between the Saviour on the one hand, and God on the other ruinous always to the enjoyment of the full blessing of the gospel. Now there is no way in which God could lay a basis for peace with Himself more blessed than as He has done it. No longer does the question exist of requiring an expiation. That is the first necessity for the sinner with God. But we have had it fully in Romans 3:1-31. Now it is the positive power of God in raising up from the dead Him that was delivered for our offences, and raised again for our justifying. The whole work is done.

The soul therefore now is represented for the first time as already justified and in possession of peace with God. This is a state of mind, and not the necessary or immediate fruit of Romans 3:1-31, but is based on the truth of Romans 4:1-25 as well as 3. There never can be solid peace with God without both. A soul may as truly, no doubt, be put into relationship with God be made very happy, it may be; but it is not what Scripture calls "peace with God." Therefore it is here for the first time that we find salvation spoken of in the grand results that are now brought before us in Romans 5:1-11. "Being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." There is entrance into favour, and nothing but favour. The believer is not put under law, you will observe, but under grace, which is the precise reverse of law. The soul is brought into peace with God, as it finds its standing in the grace of God, and, more than that, rejoices in hope of the glory of God. Such is the doctrine and the fact. It is not merely a call then; but as we have by our Lord Jesus Christ our access into the favour wherein we stand, so there is positive boasting in the hope of the glory of God. For it may have been noticed from chapter 3 to chapter 5, that nothing but fitness for the glory of God will do now. It is not a question of creature-standing. This passed away with man when he sinned. Now that God has revealed Himself in the gospel, it is not what will suit man on earth, but what is worthy of the presence of the glory of God. Nevertheless the apostle does not expressly mention heaven here. This was not suitable to the character of the epistle; but the glory of God he does. We all know where it is and must be for the Christian.

The consequences are thus pursued; first, the general place of the believer now, in all respects, in relation to the past, the present, and the future. His pathway follows; and he shows that the very troubles of the road become a distinct matter of boast. This was not a direct and intrinsic effect, of course, but the result of spiritual dealing for the soul. It was the Lord giving us the profit of sorrow, and ourselves bowing to the way and end of God in it, so that the result of tribulation should be rich and fruitful experience.

Then there is another and crowning part of the blessing: "And not only so, but also boasting in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the reconciliation." It is not only a blessing in its own direct character, or in indirect though real effects, but the Giver Himself is our joy, and boast, and glory. The consequences spiritually are blessed to the soul; how much more is it to Teach the source from which all flows! This, accordingly, is the essential spring of worship. The fruits of it are not expanded here; but, in point of fact, to joy in God is necessarily that which makes praise and adoration to be the simple and spontaneous exercise of the heart. In heaven it will fill us perfectly; but there is no more perfect joy there, nor anything. higher, if so high, in this epistle.

At this point we enter upon a most important part of the epistle, on which we must dwell for a little. It is no longer a question of man's guilt, but of his nature. Hence the apostle does not, as in the early chapters of this epistle, take up our sins, except as proofs and symptoms of sin. Accordingly, for the first time, the Spirit of God fromRomans 5:12; Romans 5:12 traces the mature of man to the head of the race. This brings in the contrast with the other Head, the Lord Jesus Christ, whom we have here not as One bearing our sins in His own body on the tree, but as the spring and chief of a new family. Hence, as is shown later in the chapter, Adam is a head characterized by disobedience, who brought in death, the just penalty of sin; as on the other hand we have Him of whom he was the type, Christ, the obedient man, who has brought in righteousness, and this after a singularly blessed sort and style "justification of life." Of it nothing has been heard till now. We have had justification, both by blood and also in virtue of Christ's resurrection. But "justification of life" goes farther, though involved in the latter, than the end of Romans 4:1-25; for now we learn that in the gospel there is not only a dealing with the guilt of those that are addressed in it; there is also a mighty work of God in the presenting the man in a new place before God, and in fact, too, for his faith, clearing him from all the consequences in which he finds himself as a man in the flesh here below.

It is here that you will find a great failure of Christendom as to this. Not that any part of the truth has escaped: it is the fatal brand of that "great house" that even the most elementary truth suffers the deepest injury; but as to this truth, it seems unknown altogether. I hope that brethren in Christ will bear with me if I press on them the importance of taking good heed to it that their souls are thoroughly grounded in this, the proper place of the Christian by Christ's death and resurrection. It must not be, assumed too readily. There is a disposition continually to imagine that what is frequently spoken of must be understood; but experience will soon show that this is not the case. Even those that seek a place of separation to the Lord outside that which is now hurrying on souls to destruction are, nevertheless, deeply affected by the condition of that Christendom in which we find ourselves.

Here, then, it is not a question at all of pardon or remission. First of all the apostle points out that death has come in, and that this was no consequence of law, but before it. Sin was in the world between Adam and Moses, when the law was not. This clearly takes in man, it will be observed; and this is his grand point now. The contrast of Christ with Adam takes in man universally as well as the Christian; and man in sin, alas! was true, accordingly, before the law, right through the law, and ever since the law. The apostle is therefore plainly in presence of the broadest possible grounds of comparison, though we shall find more too.

But the Jew might argue that it was an unjust thing in principle this gospel, these tidings of which the apostle was so full; for why should one man affect many, yea, all? "Not so," replies the apostle. Why should this be so strange and incredible to you? for on your own showing, according to that word to which we all bow, you must admit that one man's sin brought in universal moral ruin and death. Proud as you may be of that which distinguishes you, it is hard to make sin and death peculiar to you, nor can you connect them even with the law particularly: the race of man is in question, and not Israel alone. There is nothing that proves this so convincingly as the book of Genesis; and the apostle, by the Spirit of God, calmly but triumphantly summons the Jewish Scriptures to demonstrate that which the Jews were so strenuously denying. Their own Scriptures maintained, as nothing else could, that all the wretchedness which is now found in the world, and the condemnation which hangs over the race, is the fruit of one man, and indeed of one act.

Now, if it was righteous in God (and who will gainsay it?) to deal with the whole posterity of Adam as involved in death because of one, their common father, who could deny the consistency of one man's saving? who would defraud God of that which He delights in the blessedness of bringing in deliverance by that One man, of whom Adam was the image? Accordingly, then, he confronts the unquestionable truth, admitted by every Israelite, of the universal havoc by one man everywhere with the One man who has brought in (not pardon only, but, as we shall find) eternal life and liberty liberty now in the free gift of life, but a liberty that will never cease for the soul's enjoyment until it has embraced the very body that still groans, and this because of the Holy Ghost who dwells in it.

Here, then, it is a comparison of the two great heads Adam and Christ, and the immeasurable superiority of the second man is shown. That is, it is not merely pardon of past sins, but deliverance from sin, and in due time from all its consequences. The apostle has come now to the nature. This is the essential point. It is the thing which troubles a renewed conscientious soul above all, because of his surprise at finding the deep evil of the flesh and its mind after having proved the great grace of God in the gift of Christ. If I am thus pitied of God, if so truly and completely a justified man, if I am really an object of God's eternal favour, how can I have such a sense of continual evil? why am I still under bondage and misery from the constant evil of my nature, over which I seem to have no power whatever? Has God then no delivering power from this? The answer is found in this portion of our epistle (that is, from the middle of chapter 5).

Having shown first, then, the sources and the character of the blessing in general as far as regards deliverance, the apostle sums up the result in the end of the chapter: "That as sin hath reigned in death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life," the point being justification of life now through Jesus Christ our Lord.

This is applied in the two chapters that follow. There are two things that might make insuperable difficulty: the one is the obstacle of sin in the nature to practical holiness; the other is the provocation and condemnation of the law. Now the doctrine which we saw asserted in the latter part ofRomans 5:1-21; Romans 5:1-21 is applied to both. First, as to practical holiness, it is not merely that Christ has died for my sins, but that even in the initiatory act of baptism the truth set forth there is that I am dead. It is not, as in Ephesians 2:1-22, dead in sins, which would be nothing to the purpose. This is all perfectly true true of a Jew as of a pagan true of any unrenewed man that never heard of a Saviour. But what is testified by Christian baptism is Christ's death. "Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized unto Jesus Christ were baptized unto his death?" Thereby is identification with His death. "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." The man who, being baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, or Christian baptism, would assert any license to sin because it is in his nature, as if it were therefore an inevitable necessity, denies the real and evident meaning of his baptism. That act denoted not even the washing away of our sins by the blood of Jesus, which would not apply to the case, nor in any adequate way meet the question of nature. What baptism sets forth is more than that, and is justly found, not in Romans 3:1-31, but inRomans 6:1-23; Romans 6:1-23. There is no inconsistency in Ananias's word to the apostle Paul "wash away thy sins, calling upon the name of the Lord." There is water as well as blood, and to that, not to this, the washing here refers. But there is more, which Paul afterwards insisted on. That was said to Paul, rather than what was taught by Paul. What the apostle had given him in fulness was the great truth, however fundamental it may be, that I am entitled, and even called on in the name of the Lord Jesus, to know that I am dead to sin; not that I must die, but that I am dead that my baptism means nothing less than this, and is shorn of its most emphatic point if limited merely to Christ's dying for my sins. It is not so alone; but in His death, unto which I am baptized, I am dead to sin. And "how shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein?" Hence, then, we find that the whole chapter is founded on this truth. "Shall we sin," says he, proceeding yet farther (ver. 15), "because we are not under the law, but under grace?" This were indeed to deny the value of His death, and of that newness of life we have in Him risen, and a return to bondage of the worst description.

In Romans 7:1-25 we have the subject of the law discussed for practice as well as in principle, and there again meet with the same weapon of tried and unfailing temper. It is no longer blood, but death Christ's death and resurrection. The figure of the relationship of husband and wife is introduced in order to make the matter plain. Death, and nothing short of it, rightly dissolves the bond. We accordingly are dead, says he, to the law; not (as no doubt almost all of us know) that the law dies, but that we are dead to the law in the death of Christ. Compare verse 6 (where the margin, not the text, is substantially correct) with verse 4. Such is the principle. The rest of the chapter (7-25) is an instructive episode, in which the impotence and the misery of the renewed mind which attempts practice under law are fully argued out, till deliverance (not pardon) is found in Christ.

Thus the latter portion of the chapter is not doctrine exactly, but the proof of the difficulties of a soul who has not realised death to the law by the body of Christ. Did this seem to treat the law that condemned as an evil thing? Not so, says the apostle; it is because of the evil of the nature, not of the law. The law never delivers; it condemns and kills us. It was meant to make sin exceeding sinful. Hence, what he is here discussing is not remission of sins, but deliverance from sin. No wonder, if souls confound the two things together, that they never know deliverance in practice. Conscious deliverance, to be solid according to God, must be in the line of His truth. In vain will you preach Romans 3:1-31, or even 4 alone, for souls to know themselves consciously and holily set free.

From verse 14 there is an advance. There we find Christian knowledge as to the matter introduced; but still it is the knowledge of one who is not in this state pronouncing on one who is. You must carefully guard against the notion of its being a question of Paul's own experience, because he says, "I had not known," "I was alive," etc. There is no good reason for such an assumption, but much against it. It might be more or less any man's lot to learn. It is not meant that Paul knew nothing of this; but that the ground of inference, and the general theory built up, are alike mistaken. We have Paul informing us that he transfers sometimes in a figure to himself that which was in no wise necessarily his own experience, and perhaps had not been so at any time. But this may be comparatively a light question. The great point is to note the true picture given us of a soul quickened, but labouring and miserable under law, not at all consciously delivered. The last verses of the chapter, however, bring in the deliverance not yet the fulness of it, but the hinge, so to speak. The discovery is made that the source of the internal misery was that the mind, though renewed, was occupied with the law as a means of dealing with, flesh. Hence the very fact of being renewed makes one sensible of a far more intense misery than ever, while there is no power until the soul looks right outside self to Him who is dead and risen, who has anticipated the difficulty, and alone gives the full answer to all wants.

Romans 8:1-39 displays this comforting truth in its fulness. From the first verse we have the application of the dead and risen Christ to the soul, till in verse 11 we see the power of the Holy Ghost, which brings the soul into this liberty now, applied by-and-by to the body, when there will be the complete deliverance. "There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh." A wondrous way, but most blessed! And there (for such was the point) it was the complete condemnation of this evil thing, the nature in its present state, so as, nevertheless, to set the believer as before God's judgment free from itself as well as its consequences. This God has wrought in Christ. It is not in any degree settled as to itself by His blood. The shedding of His blood was absolutely necessary: without that precious expiation all else had been vain and impossible. But there is much more in Christ than that to which too many souls restrict themselves, not less to their own loss than to His dishonour. God has condemned the flesh. And here it may be repeated that it is no question of pardoning the sinner, but of condemning the fallen nature; and this so as to give the soul both power and a righteous immunity from all internal anguish about it. For the truth is that God has in Christ condemned sin, and this for sin definitely; so that He has nothing more to do in condemnation of that root of evil. What a title, then, God gives me now in beholding Christ, no longer dead but risen, to have it settled before my soul that I am in Him as He now is, where all questions are closed in peace and joy! For what remains unsolved by and in Christ? Once it was far otherwise. Before the cross there hung out the gravest question that ever was raised, and it needed settlement in this world; but in Christ sin is for ever abolished for the believer; and this not only in respect of what He has done, but in what He is. Till the cross, well might a converted soul be found groaning in misery at each fresh discovery of evil in himself. But now to faith all this is gone not lightly, but truly in the sight of God; so that he may live on a Saviour that is risen from the dead as his new life.

Accordingly Romans 8:1-39 pursues in the most practical manner the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free. First of all, the groundwork of it is laid in the first four verses, the last of them leading into every-day walk. And it is well for those ignorant of it to know that here, in verse 4, the apostle speaks first of "walking not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." The latter clause in the first verse of the authorised version mars the sense. In the fourth verse this could not be absent; in the first verse it ought not to be present. Thus the deliverance is not merely for the joy of the soul, but also for strength in our walking after the Spirit, who has given and found a nature in which He delights, communicating withal His own delight in Christ, and making obedience to be the joyful service of the believer. The believer, therefore, unwittingly though really, dishonours the Saviour, if he be content to walk short of this standard and power; he is entitled and called to walk according to his place, and in the confidence of his deliverance in Christ Jesus before God.

Then the domains of flesh and Spirit are brought before us: the one characterized by sin and death practically now; the other by life, righteousness, and peace, which is, as we saw, to be crowned finally by the resurrection of these bodies of ours. The Holy Ghost, who now gives the soul its consciousness of deliverance from its place in Christ, is also the witness that the body too, the mortal body, shall be delivered in its time. "If the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by [or because of] his Spirit that dwelleth in you."

Next, he enters upon another branch of the truth the Spirit not as a condition contrasted with flesh (these two, as we know, being always contrasted in Scripture), but as a power, a divine person that dwells in and bears His witness to the believer. His witness to our spirit is this, that we are children of God. But if children, we are His heirs. This accordingly leads, as connected with the deliverance of the body, to the inheritance we are to possess. The extent is what God Himself, so to speak, possesses the universe of God, whatever will be under Christ: and what will not? As He has made all, so He is heir of all. We are heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ.

Hence the action of the Spirit of God in a double point of view comes before us. As He is the spring of our joy, He is the power of sympathy in our sorrows, and the believer knows both. The faith of Christ has brought divine joy into his soul; but, in point of fact, he is traversing a world of infirmity, suffering, and grief. Wonderful to think the Spirit of God associates Himself with us in it all, deigning to give us divine feelings even in our poor and narrow hearts. This occupies the central part of the chapter, which then closes with the unfailing and faithful power of God for us in all our experiences here below. As He has given us through the blood of Jesus full remission, as we shall be saved by this life, as He has made us know even now nothing short of present conscious deliverance from every whit of evil that belongs to our very nature, as we have the Spirit the earnest of the glory to which we are destined, as we are the vessels of gracious sorrow in the midst of that from which we are not yet delivered but shall be, so now we have the certainty that, whatever betide, God is for us, and that nothing shall separate us from His love which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Then, in Romans 9:1-33; Romans 10:1-21; Romans 11:1-36, the apostle handles a difficulty serious to any mind, especially to the Jew, who might readily feel that all this display of grace in Christ to the Gentile as much as to the Jew by the gospel seems to make very cheap the distinctive place of Israel as given of God. If the good news of God goes out to man, entirely blotting out the difference between a Jew and a Gentile, what becomes of His special promises to Abraham and to his seed? What about His word passed and sworn to the fathers? The apostle shows them with astonishing force at the starting-point that he was far from slighting their privileges. He lays down such a summary as no Jew ever gave since they were a nation. He brings out the peculiar glories of Israel according to the depth of the gospel as he knew and preached it; at least, of His person who is the object of faith now revealed. Far from denying or obscuring what they boasted of, he goes beyond them "Who are Israelites," says he, "to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises; whose are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all God blessed for ever." Here was the very truth that every Jew, as such, denied. What blindness! Their crowning glory was precisely what they would not hear of. What glory so rich as that of the Christ Himself duly appreciated? He was God over all blessed for ever, as well as their Messiah. Him who came in humiliation, according to their prophets, they might despise; but it was vain to deny that the same prophets bore witness to His divine glory. He was Emmanuel, yea, the Jehovah, God of Israel. Thus then, if Paul gave his own sense of Jewish privileges, there was no unbelieving Jew that rose up to his estimate of them.

But now, to meet the question that was raised, they pleaded the distinguishing promises to Israel. Upon what ground? Because they were sons of Abraham. But how, argues he, could this stand, seeing that Abraham had another son, just as much his child as Isaac? What did they say to Ishmaelites as joint-heirs? They would not hear of it. No, they cry, it is in Isaac's seed that the Jew was called. Yes, but this is another principle. If in Isaac only, it is a question of the seed, not that was born, but that was called. Consequently the call of God, and not the birth simply makes the real difference. Did they venture to plead that it must be not only the same father, but the same mother? The answer is, that this will not do one whit better; for when we come down to the next generation, it is apparent that the two sons of Isaac were sons of the same mother; nay, they were twins. What could be conceived closer or more even than this? Surely if equal birth-tie could ensure community of blessing if a charter from God depended on being sprung from the same father and mother, there was no case so strong, no claim so evident, as that of Esau to take the same rights as Jacob. Why would they not allow such a pretension? Was it not sure and evident that Israel could not take the promise on the ground of mere connection after the flesh? Birthright from the same father would let in Ishmael on the one hand, as from both parents it would secure the title of Esau on the other. Clearly, then, such ground is untenable. In point of fact, as he had hinted before, their true tenure was the call of God, who was free, if He pleased, to bring in other people. It became simply a question whether, in fact, God did call Gentiles, or whether He had revealed such intentions.

But he meets their proud exclusiveness in another way. He shows that, on the responsible ground of being His nation, they were wholly ruined. If the first book in the Bible showed that it was only the call of God that made Israel what they were, its second book as clearly proved that all was over with the called people, had it not been for the mercy of God. They set up the golden calf, and thus cast off the true God, their God, even in the desert. Did the call of God. then, go out to Gentiles? Has He mercy only for guilty Israel? Is there no call, no mercy, of God for any besides?

Hereupon he enters upon the direct proofs, and first cites Hosea as a witness. That early prophet tells Israel, that in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people, there it shall be said unto them, Ye are the sons of the living God. Jezreel, Lo-ruhamah, and Lo-ammi were of awful import for Israel; but, in presence of circumstances so disastrous, there should be not merely a people but sons of the living God, and then should Judah and Israel be gathered as one people under one head. The application of this was more evident to the Gentile than to the Jew. Compare Peter's use in1 Peter 2:10; 1 Peter 2:10. Finally he brings in Isaiah, showing that, far from retaining their blessing as an unbroken people, a remnant alone would be saved. Thus one could not fail to see these two weighty inferences: the bringing in to be God's sons of those that had not been His people, and the judgment and destruction of the great mass of His undoubted people. Of these only a remnant would be saved. On both sides therefore the apostle is meeting the grand points he had at heart to demonstrate from their own Scriptures.

For all this, as he presses further, there was the weightiest reason possible. God is gracious, but holy; He is faithful, but righteous. The apostle refers to Isaiah to show that God would "lay in Zion a stumbling-stone." It is in Zion that He lays it. It is not among the Gentiles, but in the honoured centre of the polity of Israel. There would be found a stumblingstone there. What was to be the stumbling-stone? Of course, it could hardly be the law: that was the boast of Israel. What was it? There could be but one satisfactory answer. The stumbling-stone was their despised and rejected Messiah. This was the key to their difficulties this alone, and fully explains their coming ruin as well as God's solemn warnings.

In the next chapter (Romans 10:1-21) he carries on the subject, showing in the most touching manner his affection for the people. He at the same time unfolds the essential difference between the righteousness of faith and that of law. He takes their own books, and proves from one of them (Deuteronomy) that in the ruin of Israel the resource is not going into the depths, nor going up to heaven. Christ indeed did both; and so the word was nigh them, in their mouth and in their heart. It is not doing, but believing; therefore it is what is proclaimed to them, and what they receive and believe. Along with this he gathers testimonies from more than one prophet. He quotes from Joel, that whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. He quotes also from Isaiah "Whosoever believeth on Him shall not be ashamed." And mark the force of it whosoever." The believer, whosoever he might be, should not be ashamed. Was it possible to limit this to Israel? But more than this "Whosoever shall call." There. is the double prophecy. Whosoever believed should not be ashamed; whosoever called should be saved. In both parts, as it may be observed, the door is opened to the Gentile.

But then again he intimates that the nature of the gospel is involved in the publishing of the glad tidings. It is not God having an earthly centre, and the peoples doming up to worship the Lord in Jerusalem. It is the going forth of His richest blessing. And where? How far? To the limits of the holy land? Far beyond. Psalms 19:1-14 is used in the most beautiful manner to insinuate that the limits are the world. Just as the sun in the heavens is not for one people or land alone, no more is the gospel. There is no language where their voice is not heard. "Yea verily, their sound went forth into all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the world." The gospel goes forth universally. Jewish pretensions were therefore disposed of; not here by new and fuller revelations, but by this divinely skilful employment of their own Old Testament Scriptures.

Finally he comes to two other witnesses; as from the Psalms, so now from the law and the prophets. The first is Moses himself. Moses saith, "I will provoke you to jealousy by them that are no people," etc. How could the Jews say that this meant themselves? On the contrary, it was the Jew provoked by the Gentiles "By them that are no people, and by a foolish nation I will anger you." Did they deny that they were a foolish nation? Be it so then; it was a foolish nation by which Moses declared they should be angered. But this does not content the apostle, or rather the Spirit of God; for he goes on to point out that Isaiah "is very bold" in a similar way; that is, there is no concealing the truth of the matter. Isaiah says: "I was found of them who sought me not; I was made manifest unto them that asked not after me." The Jews were the last in the world to take such ground as this. It was undeniable that the Gentiles did not seek the Lord, nor ask after Him; and the prophet says that Jehovah was found of them that sought Him not, and was made manifest to them that asked not after Him. Nor is there only the manifest call of the Gentiles in this, but with no less clearness there is the rejection, at any rate for a time, of proud Israel. "But unto Israel he saith, All day long have I stretched out my hands unto a disobedient and gainsaying people."

Thus the proof was complete. The Gentiles the despised heathen were to be brought in; the self-satisfied Jews are left behind, justly and beyond question, if they believed the law and the prophets.

But did this satisfy the apostle? It was undoubtedly enough for present purposes. The past history of Israel was sketched inRomans 9:1-33; Romans 9:1-33; the present more immediately is before us inRomans 10:1-21; Romans 10:1-21. The future must be brought in by the grace of God; and this he accordingly gives us at the close of Romans 11:1-36. First, he raises the question, "Has God cast away his people?" Let it not be! Was he not himself, says Paul, a proof to the contrary? Then he enlarges, and points out that there is a remnant of grace in the worst of times. If God had absolutely cast away His people, would there be such mercy? There would be no remnant if justice took its course. The remnant proves, then, that even under judgment the rejection of Israel is not complete, but rather a pledge of future favour. This is the first ground.

The second plea is not that the rejection of Israel is only partial, however extensive, but that it is also temporary, and not definitive. This is to fall back on a principle he had already used. God was rather provoking Israel to jealousy by the call of the Gentiles. But if it were so, He had not done with them. Thus the first argument shows that the rejection was not total; the second, that it was but for a season.

But there is a third. Following up with the teaching of the olive-tree, he carries out the same thought of a remnant that abides on their own stock, and points to a re-instatement of the nation, And I would just observe by the way, that the Gentile cry that no Jew ever accepts the gospel in truth is a falsehood. Israel is indeed the only people of whom there is always a portion that believe. Time was when none of the English, nor French, nor of any other nation believed in the Saviour. There never was an hour since Israel's existence as a nation that God has not had His remnant of them. Such has been their singular fruit of promise; such even in the midst of all their misery it is at present. And as that little remnant is ever sustained by the grace of God, it is the standing pledge of their final blessedness through His mercy, whereon the apostle breaks out into raptures of thanksgiving to God. The day hastens when the Redeemer shall come to Zion. He shall come, says one Testament, out of Zion. He shall come to Zion, says the other. In both Old and New it is the same substantial testimony. Thither He shall come, and thence, go forth. He shall own that once glorious seat of royalty in Israel. Zion shall yet behold her mighty, divine, but once despised Deliverer; and when He thus comes, there will be a deliverance suited to His glory. All Israel shall be saved. God, therefore, had not cast off His people, but was employing the interval of their slip from their place, in consequence of their rejection of Christ, to call the Gentiles in sovereign mercy, after which Israel as a whole should be saved. "O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out! For who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been his counsellor? or who hath first liven to him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again? For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever."

The rest of the epistle takes up the practical consequences of the great doctrine of God's righteousness, which had been now shown to be supported by, and in no wise inconsistent with, His promises to Israel. The whole history of Israel, past, present, and future falls in with, although quite distinct from, that which he had been expounding. Here I shall be very brief.

Romans 12:1-21 looks at the mutual duties of the saints. Romans 13:1-14; Romans 13:1-14 urges their duties towards what was outside them, more particularly to the powers that be, but also to men in general. Love is the great debt that we owe, which never can be paid, but which we should always be paying. The chapter closes with the day of the Lord in its practical force on the Christian walk. In Romans 14:1-23 and the beginning ofRomans 15:1-33; Romans 15:1-33 we have the delicate theme of Christian forbearance in its limits and largeness. The weak are not to judge the strong, and the strong are not to despise the weak. These things are matters of conscience, and depend much for their solution on the degree to which souls have attained. The subject terminates with the grand truth which must never be obscured by details that we are to receive, one another, as Christ has received us, to the glory of God. In the rest of chapter 15 the apostle dwells on the extent of his apostleship, renews his expression of the thought and hope of visiting Rome, and at the same time shows how well he remembered the need of the poor at Jerusalem. Romans 16:1-27; Romans 16:1-27 brings before us in the most. instructive and interesting manner the links that grace practically forms and maintains between the saints of God. Though he had never visited Rome, many of them were known personally. It is exquisite the delicate love with which he singles out distinctive features in each of the saints, men and women, that come before him. Would that the Lord would give us hearts to remember, as well as eyes to see, according to His own grace! Then follows a warning against those who bring in stumbling-blocks and offences. There is evil at work, and grace does not close the eye to danger; at the same time it is never under the pressure of the enemy, and there is the fullest confidence that the God of peace will break the power of Satan under the feet of the saints shortly.

Last of all, the apostle links up this fundamental treatise of divine righteousness in its doctrine, its dispensational bearings, and its exhortations to the walk of Christians, with higher truth, which it would not have been suitable then to bring out; for grace considers the state and the need of the saints. True ministry gives out not merely truth, but suited truth to the saints. At the same time the apostle does allude to that mystery which was not yet divulged at least, in this epistle; but he points from the foundations of eternal truth to those heavenly heights that were reserved for other communications in due time.