ADDRESSES ON ROMANS
with some of my old friends, I went to a newspaper office, where I was once employed. As I stood on the stairway, talk- ing to a former fellow-employee, an old man came by and started up the steps. When he was half-way up, he turned around to look closely at me; he had not recognized me at first; but when he did, down he came, saying, "Why, Louis Talbot, where have you been?" And I looked into my old master's face. He had been a hard taskmaster. He knew when we arrived at work one minute late, or when we left early. He could tell me once what to do and exactly when to do it. But now he was no longer my master. I looked at the employees who were still his slaves, but I was free. I had really died to our old relationship. Likewise, the link between us and our old master, sin, has been severed. "RISEN WITH CHRIST" Not only are we crucified with Christ and buried with Him, but we are also "raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father," that we should "walk in newness of life . . . For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection ... 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 hath no more dominion over him. For in that he died, he died unto sin once: but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God. Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord" (Rom. 6:4, 5, 8'"11 ). Do you see what God wants us to do, my Christian friend? He wants us to reckon ourselves alive unto Him. Just as we have been intimately and vitally identified with Christ in crucifixion and burial, so also we are risen with Him. When we died with Him, we died to the old master. By natural birth we were connected with Adam, but when we were crucified with Christ and buried with Him, we were not left without a Page 98)
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