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THE KING’S BUSINESS
The context shows that eternal death is chiefly in mind (cf. Rev. 21:8) though physical death (Gen. 3:19) and spiritual death (Eph. 2:1, R. V.) ar,e also results of sin. In exchange for these wages which we have all earned, a free gift is offered to us, a gift that we! do nothing, can do nothing, to earn. This “free gift” is “eternal life,” and this life is “in Christ Jesus our Lord.” We get this free gift by simply believing in Him. Which will you take, the wages or the free gift? Friday, July 6 . Rom. 7 : 1 - 6 . In these verses Paul sets forth the be liever’s freedom from every claim of the law. In doing this he uses a very striking figure, that of the wife’s deliverance from all claim of the husband when the husband dies. Paul appeals to the law itself to prove his contention that the law itself has no claim upon the believer in Christ. He starts out by saying that “the law hath dominion over a man.for so long time as he liveth.” This he proves by the undoubted teaching of the law that a woman can marry again freely after her husband is dead. So the law has no claim upon the dead husband. But if Paul had carried this figure out in a straight line it would be necessary to have the law dead, and therefore the wife (that is the believer) made free to be married to another, even Christ; but, Paul has twe> reasons for not putting it in this way. First, the law is not dead, but we are made dead to it, and Paul will not cast any reflection for a moment on the law by even implying that it is dead. Second, it is the believer that actually died in Christ’s death, as already seen in chapter 6 , so Paul very deftly but perfectly legitimately shifts his figure and has now not a wife delivered from her husband who has died, but a wife made free from the husband’s claim by dying herself. It is perfectly clear, if the living one is set free from the claim of the one who has died, the one who has died is set free from the claim of the one who still lives. Death settles all
flesh,” but Christ does what the law cannot do, sets us free from sin’s dominion (cf. ch. 8:3). Some think that if we preach grace we encourage men to sin, and there fore we must preach law to save men from, sin, but law never saved any man from sin. Grace always saves any man from sin if he fully accepts it. Thursday, July 5 . Rom. 6 : 15 - 23 . Someone might say, “If we are not under law we need not obey God. If we are under grace alone, let us sin.” Indeed that is what many do say in our day, and it is what some who object to the doctrine that we are not under law say is the legitimate inference from this doctrine.' But Paul anticipated all this and showed the fallacy of it. Let us hear what God says through His servant Paul. God’s answer as here given is that “though we are not under law but under grace, still we cannot prac tice sin because that to whomsoever we present ourselves as servants unto obedi ence, his servants we are whom we obey, whether- of sin unto death or of obedience unto righteousness.” Through grace we have been “made free from sin and become servants of righteousness,” so of course we cannot go on sinning. He, therefore, who says we may continue in sin if we ire not under law but under grace does not under stand what grace does. The expression that Paul uses, “bond-servants of right eousness is our obligation but it does not express the exact truth, for the service of righteousness is not bondage, but glad some privilege and glorious liberty. As in the olden time, before our' union with Christ in. His death, we “presented our members as servants to uncleannes,s and to iniquity unto iniquity,” now we should pre sent these same members as “servants to righteousness unto sanctification.” In the old life as servants of sin, we had no fruit and the end was death, but in the new life of freedom from sin and service to God, we have fruit unto holiness and the end is eternal life. He that serves sin earns and gets wages. These wages are “death)’
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