ADDRESSES ON ROMANS
LECTURE v RIGHTEOUSNESS REALIZED Romans 6: 1-8:39 OUR STANDING IN CHRIST-DEAD TO SIN 6: 1-23 The first five chapters of Paul's Epistle to the Romans deal with what Christ has done for us. We have seen the whole world guilty before God, Jew as well as Gentile. We have seen also that God requires righteousness, that man has none of his own, but that God has revealed His righteousness in the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ-a free gift to the guilty sinner. In our last lesson we saw that, whereas Adam be- queathed unto us sin, death, and judgment; the Lord Jesus Christ, the second Adam, bestowed upon us a glorious heri- tage, which no power can take away from us. Up to this point the epistle has dealt with what God has wrought for sinful man, and how all is received by grace, through faith, without works. Not a word has been said about the change in the life of the believer. The emphasis has been placed on what God has done for us. Now, however, in chap- ters six, seven, and eight, we are to learn how this righteous- ness, this heritage in Christ, may be realized, how it may become a force in our daily lives. We are to discuss practise now, not theory. This righteousness may be realized; God intends that it should be so. It is not His plan that His blood- bought children should continue in sin. And He makes it pos- sible for us to live a holy life. So far, we have been studying about what Christ has done for us; now we are to see what He will do in us. These three chapters, six, seven, and eight, comprise the fourth great division of the book, which we have called "Right- eousness Realized." It may be outlined as follows: ( 1 ) Our Standing in Christ; (2) Our State in the Flesh; and (3) Our [Page 91
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