Skip to main content

Full text of "St. Paul's teaching on sanctification : a practical exposition of Romans VI"

See other formats 


BS2665  .M585  1886 
Morison,  James,  1816-189i. 
St.  Paul's  teaching  on 
sanctif ication  :  a 
practical  exposition  of 
Romans  VI  / 


ST.    PAUL'S    TEACHING 


SANCTIFICATION. 


ST.    PAUL'S    TEACHING 


ON 


SANCTIFICATION 


A   PRACTICAL   EXPOSITION  OF  ROMANS    VI. 


BY 

JAMES   MORISOjN,   D.D., 

A  iithor  of  Practical  Commentaries  on  Matthew,  Mark,  etc. 


IToiibon : 

HODDER   AND   STOUGHTON, 

27,    PATERNOSTER   ROW. 

MDCCCLXXXVI. 
[All  rights  reserved.] 


Butler  &•  Tanner, 

The  Selwood  Printing  Works, 

Frame,  and  London. 


PREFACE. 


By  Practical  Exposition  I  do  not  mean  Free  and 
Easy  Observations,  or  Pious  Reflections,  carried 
Ho^  the  sacred  text,  and  there  suspended  on  pegs 
of  Scripture  Phraseology. 

All  Scripture-Exposition  —  inclusive  of  that 
which  is  designated  Practical — is,  or  ought  to 
be,  Scripture-Explication.  It  is,  or  ought  to  be, 
the  unfolding  and  exposing-to-view  of  the  thoughts 
which  had  been  infolded  in  the  origination  of 
the  sacred  text. 

It  belongs  to  the  ideal  of  such  Exposition 
as  is  fitly  called  Practical,  to  speak  directly  to 
the  unprofessional  intelligence,  and  as  much  as 
possible  in  the  accredited  dialect  of  culture. 
When  thus  speaking  the  Expositor  should  pre- 
sent to  the  public,  not  so  much  the  processes 
as  the  results  of  scientific  exegesis. 


VI  PEEFACE. 

Men  in  masses  may  be  expected  to  take  in- 
terest in  such  literature,  when  men  individually 
succeed  in  verifying  for  themselves  the  contents 
of  the  sacred  writings,  as  constituting  a  mes- 
sage of  *  good  news '  that  comes  home  to  every 
one's  'business  and  bosom.' 

The  topic  treated  by  the  Apostle  in  Romans  vi, 
is  certainly  exceedingly  practical.  It  is  hence 
all  the  more  likely  to  take  us  near  and  nearer 
still  to  the  heart  of  our  duties,  necessities,  and 
privileges.  It  is  full  of  counsel  to  which  it 
would  be  well  were  all  the  world  to  listen  and 
take  earnest  heed. 

There  is  not  much  of  special  literature  con- 
nected with  Romans  vi,  in  the  department  either 
of  Introduction  or  of  Exposition.  The  Chapter 
has,  on  the  whole,  been  found  to  be,  in  several 
of  its  elements,  somewhat  perplexing,  though 
profoundly  interesting.  Then,  unlike  Chapters 
V,  vii,  and  ix,  it  has  not,  to  any  appreciable 
extent,  been  turned  into  an  arena  of  theological 
gladiatorship.  There  is  scope  for  a  good  deal 
of  fresh  exegesis. 

One  charm  of  the  Chapter  is  imperishable : — 
Its  entire  contents  are  the  genuine  literary  pro- 
duct of  the  Apostle's  own  mind  and  heart.      The 


PEEFACE.  Vll 

authenticity  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans,  like 
that  of  the  '  perfervid '  Epistle  to  the  Galatians, 
is,  by  the  unanimous  verdict  of  critics,  unchal- 
lengeable, so  that,  when  we  reach  the  writer's 
standpoints,  we  tread  the  very  ground  on  which 
the  Apostle  himself  stood,  and  which  he  turned 
into  a  *  clearing '  for  our  occupation.  While 
we  read,  and  ponder,  and  reflect,  we  think  some 
of  the  choicest  of  his  thoughts. 

Florentine  Bank  House, 
HiLLHEAD,  Glasgow. 
1886. 


ST.  FA  UL'S  TEACHING  IN  ROMANS  VI 


V.  1.  "  What  then  shall  ive  saij  ?  "  (T/  ovv 
epoufxev ;)  A  transition-expression,  and  a  debater's 
phrase.  It  was  a  favourite  with  the  Apostle,  who 
alone  of  all  the  New  Testament  writers  makes 
use  of  it.  Here  it  serves  as  a  logical  bridge,  by 
means  of  which  his  discursive  mind  passes  into 
a  new  domain  of  discussion. 

It  is  the  Ethics  of  Ghristianitij ,  or  the  Doctrine 
of  Sanctification  as  distinguished  from  Jiistifica-j 
tion,  of  which  the  Apostle  is  about  to  treat. 

He  does  not  feel  that  it  is  in  a  spirit  of  lone- 
liness that  he  enters  into  a  consideration  of  this 
great  and  most  practical  theme.  His  enthusi- 
asm is  infectious ;  and  he  is  confident  that  his 
readers  will  go  along  with  him,  and  surge  around 
him,  so  that  unitedly  they  and  he  will  have 
fellowship  together.     Hence  the  plural  expression 

epovfj-ev. 

But  the  writer  is  not  about  to  isolate  the  dis- 
cussion of  the  great  theme.  He  is  not  intending 
to  compose  a  distinct  Dissertation  on  Sanctifica- 


2^  ST.  PAUL  S    TEACHING    ON    SANCTIFICATION. 

Hon,  whicli  miglit  be  thrust  into  his  doctrinal 
letter.  His  discussion  is  to  be  part  and  parcel 
of  a  larger  discussion  on  Christian  Salvation. 
Hence  the  illative  particle  '  then '  (ow)  in  the 
transition-phrase  :  What  '  then  '  shall  we  say  ? 
It  looks  back  to  the  discussion  that  precedes, 
and  on  the  crest  of  which  the  reader  is,  with 
the  Apostle  himself,  carried  forward  to  a  doc- 
trinal stage,  that  is  clearly  in  advance  of  the 
positions  reached  in  what  goes  before.  In  view 
of  the  discussion  immediately  preceding,  what,  in 
consistency  -with  logical  thought,  shall  we  'pro- 
ceed to  say  ? 

Shall  it  be,  ^^  Let  us  persist  in  sin  that  grace 
may  increase  ?  "     Shall  we  say  that  ? 

ISTote  the  substitution,  in  our  translation,  of  the 
hortative  expression  Let  us  persist  in  sin,  for  the 
future  expression  in  King  James's  Version,  Shall 
we  continue  in  sin  ?  There  can  be  no  doubt  that 
in  the  Greek  text  we  should,  instead  of  the  future 

eiri/uievov/uieu,  read   the  subjunctive  einiuepcofxep.      It   is 

the  reading  of  Lachmann,  Tischendorf,  Tregelles, 
Westcott-and-Hort ;  and  it  may  be  rendered 
either,  according  to  its  deliberative  usage,  Should 
we  persist  in  sin  ?  or,  according  to  its  hortative 
usage.  Let  us  persist  in  sin.  The  two  usages 
coalesce  in  substantive  import.  (See  Matt.  vi. 
31;  xvii.  4;  Mark  iv.  30;  1  Cor.  xv.  32.) 

It  was  said  in  the  immediately  preceding  con- 


IIOMANS    VI.    1,  2.  3 

text  that  "  where  sin  abounded  grace  abounded 
more  exceedingly."  Tlie  sphere  of  man's  sin  was 
encompassed  by  the  vaster  sphere  of  God's  grace. 
AVhile  m-an's  sin  was  exceedingly  great,  Grod's 
grace  was  still  greater.  Man's  transgression  was 
incalculably  multiplied  by  the  formal  introduction 
of  the  Law  (see  chap.  v.  20) ;  but  this  multiplica- 
tion and  increase  gave  occasion  to  a  still  greater 
multiplication  and  increase  of  the  grace  and  com- 
passion of  Grod.  Well,  ivJiat  now  shall  loe  say  ? 
Shall  Ave  say  this,  Let  us  persist  in  sinning  that 
grace  may  he  multiplied  a7id  abound  ? 


Y.  2.  "  Far  he  it.^'  (M^  yeuoiro.)  Let  aversion 
to  such  an  idea  be  accentuated  to  the  utmost 
degree. 

"  Hoio  shall  ive,  who  died   to  sin,  still  live  in 

it  ?  "    (o'tTives   aireQavoixev  ti]  aixaoTia,  TriJos  €Tl  o/cro/xeJ' 
€V    avTrf  'A 

It  is  assumed  that  it  may  be  said  of  all  truej 
Christians,  They  once  died  to  sin,  i.e.  in  relation'\ 
to  sin.  The  idea  is,  that,  when  they  became 
united  to  Christ,  they  died  in  relation  to  sin. 
In  becoming  united  to  Christ,  they  were  united 
to  Him  in  His  death.  They  were,  so  to  speak, 
absorbed  into  His  personality,  and  thus  identified 
with  Him  in  His  death.  His  death  was  theirs. 
It  was  as  much  theirs  as  it  would  have   been, 


4        ST.  Paul's  teaching  on  sanctification. 

had  tliey,  when  He  died,  been  literally  members 
of  His  body,  parts  of  His  person.  They  get 
the  benefit  of  His  death  just  as  if  they  had 
literally  endured  the  dying.  Now,  when  Christ 
died.  He  died  in  relation  to  sin.  He  died  hy  it 
indeed.  He  also  died  on  account  of  it.  But  He 
likewise  died  to  it ;  so  that,  if  human  sin  should 
or  could  be  regarded  as  impersonated,  it  would 
yet  have  no  farther  claims  against  Him.  Viewed 
vicariously,  as  the  representative  of  sinful  men, 
Christ  was  freed,  when  He  died,  from  farther 
penal  claims  on  the  part  of  sin.  And  we,  who 
believe  in  Him,  go  back  to  the  same  great  crisis 
of  His  being  and  die  with  Him.  Hence  the 
Apostle  says,  lue  died  to  sin.  It  is  not  a  state 
of  sanctification  that  is  described ;  it  is  not  a 
daily  dying  to  the  seductive  influence  of  sin  that 
is  referred  to.  It  is  death  as  the  exhaustion  of 
penalty  that  is  spoken  of.  M.  le  Cene,  though 
representing  quite  a  host  of  expositors,  is  on  the 
wrong  lines  entirely  when  he  bodies  forth,  as  the 
purport  of  the  first  paragraph  of  this  chapter, 
the  following  heading :  "  The  baptised  ought  to  he 
dead  to  sin  for  ever.     The  neiu  life."" 

But  what  is  the  Apostle's  argument  ?  He 
finds  in  the  fact  that  lue  died  in  Jesus  to  sin, 
a  reason  why  we  should  not  continue  unsanc- 
tified,  or,  as  he  expresses  it,  why  we  should  not 
"  persist  in  sinning," — why  we  should  not  "  live 


ROMANS    VI.    2.  5 

in  sin."  Tlie  force  of  the  reasoning  resolves 
itself  into  tbe  might  of  the  motive  to  holiness, 
which  is  involved  in  the  fact  that  the  believer 
in  Christ  obtains  immunity  from  the  penalty  of 
the  sins  of  which  he  has  been  guilty.  This  im- 
munity is  under  another  phase  'forgiveness.' 
It  is  forgiveness  for  the  sake  of  Christ ;  for- 
giveness based  on  the  mediatorial  suffering  of 
Christ,  as  its  "  meritorious  cause."  It  is  for- 
giveness assured  to  the  believer  by  his  union, 
through  faith,  with  Christ.  The  might  of  the 
moral  motive  consists  in  the  magnitude  and 
excellency  of  the  blessing  that  is  realised.  "  We 
love  Him  because  He  first  loved  us," — a  wonder- 
ful and  unspeakable  blessing.  "She,"  whose  for- 
given sins  are  many,  "  loveth  much."  The  love 
of  Christ,  and  of  God  in  Christ,  "  constraineth  the 
believer  to  live,  not  to  himself,  but  to  Christ."' 
That  is  to  say,  it  constrains  him  to  "  follow 
holiness,"  and  to  run  in  the  way  of  God's  com- 
mandments. Hoiu  then  shall  ive,  who  died  to  sin, 
and  whose  characteristic  it  is  that  ive  thus  died 
(o'lrive?),  live  any  longer  in  it  ?  How  shall  we,  who 
have  got  forgiveness  of  sin  in  so  wonderful  a 
way,  and  at  so  wonderful  a  cost,  be  indifferent 
in  our  hearts  to  the  will  of  God,  and  give  our- 
selves up  to  sinning  ? 


6        ST.  Paul's  teaching  on  sanctification. 

Y.  3.  "  Or"  (-;).  It  is  as  if  the  Apostle  were 
to  say,  or  J  let  me  put  the  case  somewhat  differ- 
enily.  There  is  not  much  of  '  disjunction '  in 
the  Apostle's  representations,  and  nothing  of 
*  antithesis.'  Hence  Luther,  and  Tyndale,  and 
other  translators,  leave  the  particle  untranslated. 
The  Yulgate,  followed  by  Erasmus  and  Beza, 
translates  it  by  the  Latin  'aJ^.' 

^^  Know  ye  not?"  (J  Ay  voelre  ;)  Surely  it  is  the 
case  that  ye  know.  The  Apostle  is  about  to  make 
a  statement,  which  he  expected  to  be  instantly 
endorsed  by  his  Roman  brethren ;  and  that,  not 
simply  out  of  their  confidence  in  his  present 
teaching,  but  out  of  the  resources  of  their  pre- 
vious knowledge  in  reference  to  the  nature  of 
Christianity  and  its  institutions. 

"  That  all  ive  luho   tvere    baptized  into    Christ 

JesUSf^  {on   ocroi    ejSaTTTicrOtjjULeu  eh  ^picrrov  ^lijcrovv,^ 

i.e.  who  were  united  to  Christ  Jesus  by  baptism. 
The  expression  eh  X^ofcrroV  is  not  to  be  rendered, 
with  Oltramare,  in  Christ;  nor,  with  Meyer,  in 
reference  to  Christ;  nor,  with  Darby  and  the 
Geneva,  unto  Christ ;  nor,  with  Beet,  for  Christ ; 
nor,  with  Tyndale,  in  the  name  of  Christ.  Luther 
and  Myles  Ooverdale  give  it  correctly,  into  Christ. 
The  phrase  is  a  Pauline  idiom,  but  it  simply 
denotes  inward  union  with  Christ,  effected 
through  inward  baptism.  That  is  the  Apostle's 
idea.     He  is  thinking  of  such  union  as  qualifies 


ROMANS   VI.    3.  7 

believers  of  the  gospel  for  afiSrEQing,  we  died  to 
sin;  we  died,  namely  in  Christ.  We  needed  to 
he  in  Christ,  in  order  that  in  Him  ive  might 
die  to  sin.  The  expression  (rviu(pvToi  jeyovaixev  in 
V.  5,  ive  have  become  grown  together,  makes  it 
evident  that  the  Apostle  is  thinking  of  the 
vital  union  that  subsists  between  Christians  and 
Christ. 

How  can  such  a  vital  union  be  effected 
through  baptism  ? '  Never  through  the  baptism 
of  water.  It  is  a  spiritual  union.  It  is  a 
union  that  is  realisable  and  realised  in,  for 
example,  holy  and  consistent  members  of  the 
Society  of  Friends,  although  they  observe  no 
water- baptism  at  all.  It  is  realised  equally  in 
those  who  are  baptised  by  immersion,  and  in 
those  who  have  been  baptised  under  the  form  of 
some  other  mode.  It  is  a  union  which  is  not 
determined  in  its  date  by  the  date  of  the 
administration  of  the  outer  ordinance.  The 
baptism  of  water  in  infancy  dqes  not  secure  its 
realisation,  either  then  or  at  any  subsequent 
period  of  life.  The  baptism  of  water,  adminis- 
tered in  mature  life  on  the  warrant  of  actual 
faith  and  conversion,  is  an  anachronism,  if  in- 
tended to  secure  vital  union  with  Christ.  That 
vital  union  is,  by  hypothesis,  already  secured. 
It  is  therefore  quite  irrespective  of  outward 
baptism.     It  has  been  realised   by   the   holy   in 


O  ST.    PAUL  S    TEACHING    ON    SANCTIFICATION. 

all  ages,  and  under  all  dispensations.  In  no 
age  or  dispensation  has  forgiveness  or  salvation 
been,  in  any  single  case,  realised  apart  from  Christ. 
It  is  utterly  unrealisable  except  in  union  with 
Christ.  The  name  Christ,  and  the  history  of 
Christ,  may  not  be  universally  known.  But  they 
are  known  to  God.  And  it  is  on  the  footing 
of  what  Christ  is,  and  did,  and  does,  that  the 
Great  Father  deals  propitiously  with  men  every- 
where, and  thus  makes  known,  evangelistically, 
His  propitiousness. 

When,  then,  the  Apostle  says  lue  were  hap. 
Used  into  Christ  Jesus,  he  refers  exclusively  to 
that  spiritual  or  mystic  baptism  which  has  been 
common  to  all  ages  and  dispensations,  and 
which  is  expressly  spoken  of  in  Matt.  iii.  11, 
"  I  indeed  baptise  you  with  water  unto  repent- 
ance :  but  He  that  cometh  after  me  is  mightier 
than  I,  whose  shoes  I  am  not  worthy  to  bear  : 
He  shall  baptise  you  ivith  the  Holy  Spirit  and 
tuithfire." 

The  same  distinction  is  implied  in  what  is 
written  in  John  i.  26,  in  answer  to  the  question 
"  Why  then  baptisest  thou,  if  thou  art  not  the 
Christ,  neither  Elijah,  nor  the  prophet  ?  "  John 
answered  them  saying,  *' J  baptise  ivith  ivater:  in 
the  midst  of  you  standeth  one  whom  ye  know 
not,  even  He  that  cometh  after  me,  the  latchet 
of  whose  shoe  I  am  not  worthy  to   loose."     It 


EOMANS    VI.    3.  9 

is  antithetically  implied  tliat  the  Baptist's  great 
successor  would  baptise  with  something  trans- 
cendentlj  superior  to  water.  We  read  again  in 
the  Acts  of  the  Apostles  i.  4,  5,  that  Jesus 
charged  His  disciples  "to  wait  for  the  promise 
of  the  Father,  which,  said  He,  ye  heard  frpm 
Me,  for  John  indeed  baptised  with  water  :  hut 
ye  shall  be  baptised  with  the  Holy  Spivit  not 
many  days  hence.'*  There  is  then,  over  and  above 
the  baptism  of  water,  a  spiritual  baptism.  In 
its  administration  there  will  no  doubt  be  various 
aims  and  adaptations.  But  if  a  baptismal  in- 
fluence be  indispensable  for  faith,  repentance, 
conviction,  conversion,  sanctification,  then  doubt- 
less it  will  not  be  wanting  in  the  Providence  of 
Grod;  nor  will  it  be  behindhand,  when  souls 
are  being   savingly  united  to  the  Saviour. 

There  is  a  statement  made  by  the  Apostle  in 
his  first  Epistle  to  the  Corinthians,  which  casts  a 
clear  and  st&ady  light  upon  the  passage  before  us. 
It  occurs  in  chap.  xii.  12,  13  :  "  For  as  the  body 
is  one,  and  hath  many  members,  and  all  the 
members  of  the  body,  being  many,  are  one  body ; 
so  also  is  Christ  (viz.  in  His  mystic  or  ideal 
personality) ;  for  in  one  Spirit  were  we  all 
baptised  into  one  body,  ivhether  Jews  or  Greeks, 
whether  bond  or  free ;  and  ivere  all  made  to 
d,rinh  of  *one  Spirit.  For  the  body  is  not  one 
member,  but   many."     V.    27.   "Now  ye  are  the 


10      ST.  Paul's  teaching  on  sanctifioation. 

body  of  Christ  and,  severally,  the  members 
thereof r 

To  be  baptised  into  Christ,  tlien,  is  to  be  iinited 
to  Him  spiritually  and  vitally  by  that  spiritual 
influence  that  baptises  souls. 

^^  Know  ye  not  that  as  many  of  us  as  luere  bap- 
tised into  Christ,  loere  baptised  into  His  death  ?  " 
The  Apostle  is  throwing  light  on  the  expression 
in  the  2nd  verse,  "  we  died  to  sin."  Yes, 
there  is  *  death '  in  the  case.  It  was  primarily 
the  death  of  Christ,  But  secondarily  it  is  the 
death  o£  all  those  who  are  "  in  Him."  For 
they,  who  have  been  spiritually  united  to  Him 
by  spiritual  baptism,  have  been,  by  their  spiritual 
baptism,  spiritually  united  to  Him  in  His  death. 
Had  it  not  been  for  His  death  they  would  never 
have  been  united  to  Him  at  all.  He  came  into 
the  world  to  "give  His  life"  as  a  ransom.  He 
came  into  our  human  nature  to  "  cZi'e."  He  was 
delivered  up  by  the  determinate  counsel  and 
foreknowledge  of  God  that  He  might  "  die." 
His  death  is  the  pivot  of  Christianity.  And 
hence  if  men  are  to  be  in  vital  union  with 
Him  at  all,  it  is  fit  and  meet  that  they  should 
be  baptised  into  His  ^'  death." 


V.  4.  "  We  ivere  buried  therefore  with  Him  by 
our  baptism  into  His  death."     {(jvveTa(prjij.ev  ovv  avrS) 


EOMANS   VI.    4.  11 

Sia  rod  (BaTTTicriuaTO?  eig  tov  Qavarov.^     Very  literally, 

and  un-idiomatically,  the  statement  would  run 
thus:  "  We  were  buried  therefore  ivitli  Him  through' 
*  the'  baptism  into  '  the'  death."  The  two  articles, 
before  baptism  and  death  respectively,  may,  in 
our  English  idiom,  be  fittingly  rendered  as  pro- 
nouns. They  refer  to  '  the  '  baptism  and  '  the ' 
death,  which  are  specified  in  the  immediately 
preceding  context. 

It  is  to  be  noted  that  it  is  not  into  Christ's 
burial  that  believers  are  baptised.  It  is  into  His 
death,  His  crucifixion.    (See  Gral.  ii.  20.) 

But  the  believer's  death,  like  his  Lord's,  is 
not  an  ultimate  state  or  stage.  There  was  to 
Christ  and  there  is  to  us,  something  beyond 
death,  to  which  we  advance.  There  is  much, — 
much  too  that  is  great,  and  bright,  and  good. 
The  Apostle,  in  the  striking  representation  that 
lies  before  us,  traces  the  course  of  our  Lord's 
progressive  experience,  and  of  the  kindred  ex- 
perience of  those  who  have  been  baptised  into 
Him. 

After  death,  burial  naturally  follows.  There 
was  burial  in  the  case  of  our  Lord.  It  was  a 
quiet  pause  between  the  pathos  of  His  crucifixion 
and  the  triumph  of  His  resurrection.  So  far 
as  its  connection  with  His  decease  is  concerned, 
its  chief  value  resolves  itself  into  its  evidential 
relationship.     It  is  evidence  of  the  reality  of  the 


12      ST.  Paul's  teaching  on  sanctieication. 

death.  No  mere  siuoon,  such  as  Bunsen  conjec- 
tured, no  mere  lethargy,  such  as  Schleiermacher 
fancied,  had  taken  place.  Christ  literally  died 
and  was  literally  buried.  But  His  burial,  like 
His  death,  was  only  a  stepping-stone  to  an 
ulterior  condition.  While  His  body  was  in  the 
grave,  and  His  soul  was  in  Hades — "  the  world  of 
the  disembodied,"  He  looked  calmly  forth,  anti- 
cipating translation  to  the  glory  that  is  beyond, 
and  to  the  "fulness  of  joy"  that  is  "for  ever- 
more." A  corresponding  spiritual  experience 
is  the  prerogative  of  all  His  people.  In  the  first 
moment  of  their  faith  they  are — so  to  speak — 
absorbed  into  the  Saviour's  ideal  personality. 
They  are  "  in  Him "  for  participation  in  the 
decease  which  He  accomplished.  "In  Him"  they 
"died  to  sin,"  and  were  thus  freed  from  its  penalty 
on  the  ground  of  His  vicarious  dying.  Hence, 
while  consciously  realizing  this  marvellous  mani- 
festation of  Divine  goodness  and  mercy,  they 
can  pause  a  little  for  contemplation  "  aft  and 
afore."  They  are,  for  a  brief  space,  put  apart 
and  "  buried  with  Christ."  The  spiritual  death 
is  past.  The  spiritual  resurrection  is  about  to  be. 
And  meanwhile,  between  the  two  there  is,  in  the 
Christian  consciousness,  the  vital  touch  and  feel- 
ing of  that  link  that  binds  into  unity  an  un- 
speakably momentous  past  and  an  unspeakably 
momentous    future.      Hence,    in    the    Apostle's 


EOMANS    VI.    4.  13 

actual  and  practical  preaching  of  the  gospel,  he 
went  into  consecutive  detail,  and,  wherever  he 
unfurled  his  blood-stained  banner,  he  proclaimed, 
"  Christ  died  for  our  sins  according  to  the  Scrip- 
tures :  and  He  toas  huried ;  and  He  rose  again 
the  third  day  according  to  the  Scriptures"  (1  Cor. 
XV.  3,  4).  That  announcement,  said  he,  "  is  the 
gospel  which  I  preached  "  (1  Cor.  xv.  1). 

^^  In  order  that ^  as  Christ  was  raised  from  the 
dead  hy  means  of  the  glory  of  the  Father,  so  ive 
also  might  loalh-ahout  in  neivness   of  life.^'     (lua 

axnrep  ijyepOr]  Xotcrro?  e/c  veKpcov  oia  r?}?  oo^tjs  tou 
TraTjOO?,    ouTO)?    Kai    rj/mei?    ev   KaiPOTtjTi     yo*y?  TrepiTraTi/- 

crooixev).  This  is  the  end  intended  by  God  in  our 
union  'with  Christ  as  regards  His  death,  burial, 
and  resurrection  : — that  ive  should  ivalk-ahout  in 
neivness  of  life.  Our  Lord's  resurrection  is  rather 
assumed  than  directly  asserted.  But  He  did 
rise  from  among  the  dead  and  walk-about.  It 
was  neivness  of  life  to  Him, — a  new  state  and 
style  of  life.  He  was  no  longer  exposed  to  the 
penalty  of  human  sin.  His  agony  was  past. 
The  whole  confluence  of  sufferings  that  dragged 
their  slow  length  along  the  career  of  His  humili- 
ation, and  that  finally  discharged  themselves  into 
His  agony,  and  then  into  His  crucifixion,  and 
thence  into  the  sacrificial  surrender  of  His  life 
when    "  His  heart  was    broken,"  * — all  this  had 

*  See  Stroud's  Physical  Cause  of  Christ's  Death.    2nd  Edit. 


14      ST.  Paul's  teaching  on  sanctipication. 

passed  away  for  ever.  There  were  to  be  no  more 
hidino^s  of  His  Father's  countenance  behind  the 
accumulated  fogs  and  clouds  of  human  sins. 
Never  again  would  there  be,  to  the  sensibility  of 
His  heart,  a  feeling  as  of  dereliction.  The  joy  of 
absolute  complacency  had  arisen  in  His  soul,  like 
a  sun,  and  was  hasting  to  its  eternal  zenith.  It 
was  the  life  of  infinite  bliss,  on  which  our  Lord 
had,  in  His  humanity,  entered.  It  was  "  glorifi- 
cation." 

Somewhat  similar  is  the  new  life  of  believers ; 
only  it  is  but  in  epitome  and  miniature.  They 
walk-about  in  this  world  as  heirs  of  the  world 
that  is  to  come, — the  world  of  glory.  All  good 
things  are  theirs.  They  are  heirs  of  God  and 
joint  heirs  with  Christ : — so  great,  so  grand  is 
their  heritage.  Their  very  trials  are  turned  into 
ialessings  and  made  to  work  together  for  their 
good.     (See  Rom.  viii.  28.) 

The  believer's  newness  of  life,  as  is  evidenced 
by  our  Lord's  newness  of  Ufe,  is  not  a  peculiarity 
of  ethical  character,  but  a  peculiarity  of  personal 
privilege  and  estate. 

It  was  hy  the  glory  of  the  Father  that  the 
Saviour  was  raised  from  among  the  dead.  There 
was  the  occurrence  of  a  glorious  exertion  of  potver. 
The  power  employed  was  the  Father's ;  though  in 
no  such  exclusive  sense  as  to  debar  the  co-opera- 
tion of  the  Son  (John  ii.  19).     As   the  Supreme 


ROMANS   VI.    4,  5.  15 

Magistrate  of  the  universal  moral  empire,  tlie 
Father  was  most  emphatically  well-pleased  with 
the  self-sacrifice  of  the  Son.  And  hence  "  He 
raised  Him  up,  having  loosed  the  pains  of  death  " 
(Acts  ii.  2-i).  "  This  Jesus  did  God  raise  up, 
whereof" — says  St.  Peter — "we  all  are  wit- 
nesses" (Acts  ii.  32).  "Ye  killed  the  Prince  of 
Life" — said  the  same  Apostle  again — ''luhom 
God  raised  from  the  dead,  whereof  we  are  wit- 
nesses"  (Acts  iii.  15).  He  says  again  in  chapter 
iv.  10,  "  Whom  God  raised  from  the  dead.''  St. 
Peter  thus  agrees  with  St.  Paul  in  ascribing  the 
eventuation  of  the  Saviour's  resurrection  to  "  the 
glory  of  the  Father." 

The  believer  in  Christ,  who  has  realised  his 
union  with  the  Saviour  in  death  and  burial,  will, 
without  difficulty,  or  hesitancy,  still  farther 
realise  his  union  in  resurrection,  pregnant,  as  that 
resurrection  is,  with  "newness  of  life"  and  "joy 
that  is  unspeakable  and  full  of  glory." 

When  the  Apostle  says  "  we  were  therefore 
buried,"  the  "  therefore "  links  the  burial  to  the 
preceding  death,  and  leaves  it  to  be  inferred  that 
there  is,  in  Christian  experience,  another  link  in 
advance  that  unites  to  resurrection-life. 


Y.  5.  This  is  an  exceedingly  compressed  verse. 
The  ideas  are  crowded  and,  as  it  were,  crammed 


16      ST.  Paul's  teaching  on  sanctification. 

together,  with  the  effect  of  so  inter-twisting  the 
phraseology  that  very  careful  analysis  is  re- 
quired. 

The  original  Greek  runs  thus,  Ei"  yap  crviucpvroi 

yeyova/xev  tw  o/ULoicojULari  rod  Oavarou  avrou,  aWa  koi 
T?/?  avacTTacreci)?  ecro/uieOa. 

The  For  or  yap  indicates  that  the  Apostle  desires 
to  confirm  the  declaration,  that  it  is  divinely 
contemplated  that  we,  who  believe  in  Christ, 
should  walk-about  in  newness  of  life.  "  For  if — 
says  he — we  have  become  united  ivith  Him  i7i  death, 
■we  shall  assuredly  be  united  with  Him  in  His 
resurrection  liheiuise.^' 

The  word  a-u/ucpvToij  grown  together,  in  its  rela- 
tion to  -TrepiTrar/ja-cofxei^,  that  we  should  walJc-about, 
exhibits  a  marked  mixture  of  metaphors,  which 
a  .fastidious  rhetorician  would  not  unlikely  have 
avoided.  The  idea,  however,  is  suflficiently  trans- 
parent. Believers  have  become  grown  together 
with  Christ.  The  translation  of  the  Vulgate  is 
free,  si  conplantati  facti  sumus.  The  Eheims  trans- 
lation is,  if  ive  be  become  complanted  ;  and,  accor- 
dantly, that  of  our  public  English  version  is,  if 
we  have  been  planted  together.  The  Geneva  is, 
if  ive  be  grafted  ivith  Him,.  Tyndale's  is  simply 
if  lue  be  graft.  But  a-v/xcpvroi  is  rather  grown 
together,  than  either  planted  or  graffed  together. 
The  real  idea  is,  intimately  united,  so  intimately 
as   to   be    vitally    one.     Such   is   the  relation   of 


KOMANS    VI.  5.  17 

Christians  to  Christ.  They  have  become  inti- 
mately and  vitally  united  to  Him  in  His  death. 
And,  says  the  Apostle,  if  this  be  the  case,  as  it 
really  is,  then  it  follows  that  they  shall  be  also 
intimately  and  vitally  united  to  Him  in  His 
resurrection.  Death  without  resurrection  would 
be,  to  Christ,  but  one-half  of  the  arch  of  His 
glory,  a  fragment  riven  off  and  torn  from  the 
unity  of  His  mediatorial  enterprise.  It  would  be 
as  a  hemisphere  of  impenetrable  gloom,  with  no 
hemisphere  of  light  and  lustre  beyond,  like  day 
succeeding  night,  or  sunshine  after  storm.  To 
Christ  the  resurrection  was  indispensable,  unless 
death,  darkness,  and  defeat  were  to  be  the  ultimate 
condition  and  fate  of  the  universe.  But  if  re- 
surrection be  to  Christ  an  ethical  necessity  and  an' 
assured  reality,  then  its  bright  and  blissful  issue 
will  be  part  and  parcel  of  the  joint-heirship  of 
believers.  "  If  they  be  united  to  Christ  in  His 
death,  then  they  ivill  he  liJcewise  united  to  Him 
in  His  resurrection."  It  is  a  finely  pictorial,  or 
hieroglyphical,  and  figurative  way  of  saying,  that 
if  deliverance  from  the  woful  penal  effects  of  sin 
be  assured,  through  Christ,  to  those  who  believe  in 
Him  as  their  Saviour,  so  will  be  their  admission 
into  participation  with  Him  of  the  glorious  reward 
of  His  perfect  offering  of  righteousness. 

The    Apostle,  however,  does  not   simply  say, 
if  ive  have  become   intimately    united   ivith  Him 

0 


18      ST.  Paul's  teaching  on  sanctification. 

in  His  death,  so  shall  we  also  he  in  His  resurrec- 
tion ;  he  introduces  tlie  idea  oi  likeness  (pixolwixa), 
and  says,  if  ive  have  become  most  intimately 
united  with  Sim  in  the  '  likeness '  of  His  death, 
so  shall  we  also  he  in  that  of  His  resurrec- 
tion. It  is  two  distinct  representations  which 
he  welds  together.  The  one  we  have  been 
considering ;  the  other  is  to  the  effect  that  if 
2ve  have  hecome  '  like  '  to  Christ  in  death,  so  shall 
lue  he  in  resurrection. 

Likeness  to  Christ  in  death  is  distinguished 
from  identification.  It  is  a  difference  in  ideal 
representation.  But  both  views  are  admirably 
harmonious  with  the  concrete  reality  to  which 
they  are  applied.  Believers  of  the  gospel  can 
say  of  themselves,  we  died  in  Clirist  to  sin.  Here 
is  identification.  But  they  can  likewise  say, 
our  death  to  sin  is  '  like '  the  death  of  Christ  to 
sin.     Here  is  similitude. 

There  is  scope  for  this  representation  of 
similitude.  Christ's  death  to  sin  was  both  out- 
ward and  inward  in  its  peculiarity.  It  was  both 
physical  and  spiritual.  But  the  believer's  death 
to  sin  is  inward  only,  and  spiritual.  The  two 
representations  are  not  identical,  but  like.  Each 
of  the  deaths  represented  is  a  death  to  sin. 
The  real  idea  is,  that  for  the  sake  of  the  death 
of  Christ  there  is  deliverance  from  the  penalty 
of  sin.     There  is  what  is   equivalent  to  pardon. 


EOMANS    VI.  5,  6.  19 

And  if  there  be,  then  there  is  likewise  some- 
thing more.  There  is  life,  positive  life.  There 
is  the  fulness  of  bliss  in  expectancy.  There  is 
the  inheritance  of  glory  and  honour  coupled  with 
immortality  (Romans  ii.  7-10). 

The  aWd  or  hut,  that  leads  the  '  apodosis ' 
of  the  sentence,  is  the  survival  of  a  fuller  re- 
presentation that  had  hovered  in  the  mind  of 
the  writer :  "If  we  were  united  with  Him  in 
the  likeness  of  His  death,  that  will  not  he  the  full 
extent  of  the  unmi ;  hut  we  shall  be  also  united 
in  the  likeness  of  His  resurrection." 

The  future  ea-o/j-eBa,  lue  shall  he,  is  not  intended 
to  be  historically  predictive.  It  simply  denotes 
a  relation  of  logical  sequence.  If  union  in  the 
death  of  Christ  be  postulated,  it  follows  that 
union  in  His  resurrection  may  likewise  be  as- 
sumed. He  who  is  sure  of  the  first  phase  of 
union  has  equal  reason  to  be  sure  of  the  other. 


Y.  6.  "Knowing  this  "  (rovro  yivdoa-Kovreg).  The 
this,  the  TovTo,  is  prospective,  pointing  forward 
to  the  statements  lying  on  the  other  side  of  the 
verb  yivcoa-Kovre?.  The  participle  introduces  a 
clear  subjective  certainty,  that  is  additional  to 
the  assurance  that  is  involved  in  the  hypothetical 
proposition  of  the  preceding  verse :  "  knowing 
this  that  our  old  man  was  crucified  loith  (Rim).'^ 


20       ST.  Paul's  teaching  on  sanotifioation. 

yoTi  6  TraXato?  ^/ixcov  apOpooirog  (TwecrTaupdoOt].^  By  the 
expression  our  old  man  the  Apostle  means  our 
former  self,  our  self  such  as  ive  ivere  before  con- 
version. The  phrase  is  relative  to  the  antithetic 
phrase  the  new  man.  See  Eph.  iv.  22-24 ;  Ool.  iii. 
9,  10.  In  consequence  of  this  reciprocal  re- 
lativity of  the  two  phrases,  neither  of  them  is 
strictly  applicable  or  realisable  in  the  case  of  the 
unconverted.  It  is  the  presence  of  the  new 
man  that  turns  the  other  self  into  the  old  man. 
The  word  old  in  the  phrase  does  not  mean  aged  ; 
and  neiD  is  not  youthful  or  young.  There  are 
shreds,  indeed,  of  these  meanings  in  the  two 
terms.  But  the  old  man  is  the  former  uncon- 
verted self ;  the  neiv  man  is  the  man  that  is  the 
present  and  converted  self.  The  representation 
must  not  be  pared  to  the  quick.  In  the  Epistles 
to  the  Ephesians  and  the  Colossians  the  will- 
endowed  self-hood  of  Christian  believers  is  repre- 
sented as  acting,  or  as  having  acted,  in  reference 
to  both  the  old  and  the  new  self-hood,  as  if 
there  were  three  self-hoods  in  the  unity  of  the 
one  personality.  But  of  course  the  self-hood  is 
only  one.  And  the  old  and  new  self-hoods  are 
but  the  subjective  or  ideal  relativities  of  the 
personal  unity. 

The  believer's  former  self  was  —  says  the 
Apostle — crucified  ivith  Christ.  The  idea  is  that 
on  the  occurrence  of  faith  in  Christ,  as  Christ  is 


EOMANS   VI.  6.  21 

revealed  in  the  gospel,  a  union  supervened.  The 
man  was  taken  up  "  into  Christ "  so  as  to  be 
*'  in  Christ."  The  glorious  Being,  who  was  the 
object  of  the  man's  faith,  absorbed  him  into  His 
Crucified  Self.  Such  and.  so  intimate  was  their 
union.  As  far  as  resultant  privileges  were  con- 
cerned, the  crucifixion  belonged  to  the  sinner  as 
well  as  to  the  Sufferer.  The  man  was  "  crucified 
with  Christ."  He  was  no  sharer — so  far  as  con- 
sciousness was  concerned — of  the  pangs  of  penal 
crucifixion  as  endured  on  Calvary.  But  he 
enjoyed,  the  immunity,  consequent  on  the  ex- 
haustion of  the  penalty,  just  as  if  he  had  been 
literally  crucified  in  Christ. 

The  Apostle  says  our  old  man  was  crucified. 
The  representation  is  a  variation  from  that  which 
is  found  in  Galatians  ii.  20,  "  I  have  been  crucified 
with  Christ,  and  I  no  longer  live,  but  Christ 
liveth  in  me."  The  Christ-element  in  the  life 
of  the  Apostle  was  supreme.  But  in  the  passage 
before  us  it  is  not  at  all  the  present  life  of  the 
Apostle  or  his  peers  that  is  referred  to.  It  is 
the  old  man  who  is  represented  as  co-crucified. 
Crucifixion  with  Christ  is  not  the  antecedent, 
it  is  the  consequent,  of  '  saving  faith.'  There 
is  not,  first,  conscious  union  with  Christ,  and 
then  faith.  The  order  is  the  reverse  of  that. 
It  is  first  faith,  and  then  union  with  Christ. 
But  union  with  Christ  is  essential  to  immunity 


22      ST.  Paul's  teaching  on  sanctifioation. 

from  sin's  penalty  and  to  the  inheritance  of  glory 
and  honour  coupled  with  immortality.  It  is  not, 
first,  immunity  and  inheritance,  and  then  union 
with  Christ.  It  is,  first,  union  with  Christ  and 
then  immunity  and  inheritance.  It  is  '*  in  Christ  " 
that  we  get  pardon,  justification,  and  glorifica- 
tion. Hence  it  is  tlie  old  man  that  was  co- 
crucified  with  Christ.  There  was  no  new  man 
till  the  co-crucifixion  was  consummated. 

But  why  this  crucifixion  of  the  old  man  with 
Christ  ?  V^hj  should  there  be  any  such  union 
with  Christ  ?  What  is  the  grand  aim  ?  the 
"final  cause"?  Is  it  that  believers  of  the 
gospel,  attaining  the  specified  union  with  all 
its  immunities  and  prospective  inheritances,  may 
rest  for  ever  and  be  thankful  ?  Is  it  that  their 
self-hood  may  be  filled  and  gorged  with  unlimited 
gratification  ?  Away  for  ever  he  the  thought ! 
(M;;  yevoiTo.)  Such  selfism  would  be  selfishness 
in  infinite  degree.  It  is  an  end  that  would  be 
utterly  unworthy  of  both  God  and  man.  And 
far  other  was  the  conception  of  the  Apostle. 
He  explains  his  teleology  thus  :  "  in  order  that 
the  body  of  sin  might  he  utterly  disabled,  so  that 
it  may  no  longer  he  able  to  tyrannise  over  us 
Civa  KarapytjO^  to  crcojua  rJ??  ajuLapTiag,  tov  ixrjKeri 
SovXeveiv  ^/mag   ryj  a/mapTia).      Such   is    God's   aim  in 

our  co-crucifixion  with  Christ.  The  Apostle's 
representation  is  highly  figurative.       He  thinks 


EOMANS   VI.  6.  23 

of  sin  as  a  tyrant.  It  rules  the  sinner  with  a 
rod  of  iron.  It  is  with  no  gentle  hand  that  it 
wields  its  massive  sceptre.  The  tyrant  is  hard 
and  harsh.  The  Apostle  ascribes  to  it  a  hoclij. 
It  is  the  vehicle  of  the  tyrant's  tyranny.  All  ^ 
the  members  are  sedulously,  unfeelingly,  cruelly  vs) 
employed  in  carrying  out  his  unreasoning  and 
unreasonable  will.  But  it  is  in  vain  that  ex- 
positors debate  with  one  another  what  this  body 
realistically  is.  The  Apostle  is  drawing  on  the 
canvas  of  his  imagination  the  picture  of  a  tyrant. 
He  is  thinking,  for  the  moment,  in  the  figures 
of  a  fertile  fancy.  Every  tyrant  has  a  body  of 
one  description  or  other,  and  tyrannises  in  it  and 
through  it.  But  let  us  not  abandon  the  Apostle's 
generic  idealism  for  a  narrowly  specific  or  in- 
dividualising representation. 

Christianity  has  to  do  with  this  hoclij  of  sin. 
The  end  contemplated  in  reference  to  it  is  that 
it  might  he  mortally  disabled.  Hence  the  co- 
crucifixion.  When  the  old  man  is  crucified  with 
Christ,  tlie  body  of  sin,  as  ensphered  within  him, 
is  transfixed  upon  the  cross.  The  figures  are 
not  drawn  with  absolute  literary  nicety  and  art. 
The  Apostle  is  not  seeking  for  "  the  wisdom  of 
words."  The  old  man  and  the  body  of  sin  are 
in  reality,  as  he  draws  them,  not  perfectly  identi- 
cal in  character.  The  neiu  man  has  special  rela- 
tions to  each ;  and  thus,  in  both  cases  a  difference 


24       ST.  Paul's  teaching  on  sanctifioation. 

is  involved.  Tliere  is,  however,  on  either  side  of 
tlie  involution  the  *  promise  and  the  potency '  of 
a  grand  final  result.  That  is  the  burden  of  the 
doctrinal  import.  And  hence,  when  the  Apostle 
speaks  of  the  union  of  believers  with  the  Saviour, 
a  union  in  virtue  of  which  -His  immunities  and 
prospective  privileges  become  theirs,  the  language 
conveys  the  assurance  that  the  union  will  be 
regulated  and  dominated  by  an  aim  grandly 
ethical  and  Divine.  The  aim  is  this,  that  by 
the  might  of  matchless  generosity  and  loving- 
kindness  on  the  part  of  God,  the  delusive  and 
seductive  power  of  sin  may,  on  the  part  of  men, 
be  broken  in  their  hearts.  Men's  "  sanctifioa- 
tion "  is  God's  aim ;  and  His  principal  ethical 
leverage  within  the  heart  is  the  noble  principle 
of  gratitude  for  grace  received. 

KarapyijO^.  This  picturesque  term  is  one  of 
the  Apostle's  favourites,  and  is  here  rendered 
in  the  authorized  English  Version,  might  he 
destroyed.  In  no  other  author,  sacred  or  secular, 
is  the  term  wielded  with  so  much  zest.  It  means 
to  render  idle,  to  make  ineficient  or  inoperative, 
to  disahle.  It  reveals  that  it  is  part  and  parcel 
of  the  Divine  ethical  aim  to  break  the  power  of 
sin.  To  the  believing,  sin  is  like  a  crucified 
tyrant.  It  may  linger  on  for  a  period,  and,  by 
force  of  habit,  authority  may  be  conceded  to  it 
for  a   limited   time ;    but   its  power   is  mortally 


EOMANS   VI.  6.  25 

broken.  Soon  must  it  altogether  cease  to  annoy 
or  deceive.  It  is  doomed  ;  and  by  and  by  it  will 
be  "  brought  to  nought." 

Karapyeco  is  rendered  to  destroy  in  1  Cor.  vi.  13; 
XV.  26 ;  2  Thess.  ii.  8  ;  Heb.  ii.  14.  It  is  rendered 
to  abolish  in  2  Cor.  iii.  13 ;  Eph.  ii.  15  ;  2  Tim.  i. 
10.     Sin  will  yet  be  ahoUsJied  and  destroyed. 

What  henceforward  is  the  relation  of  believers 
to  the  tyrant  ?  The  Apostle  reveals  the  Divine 
aim,  "  that  so  %ve  should  no  longer  he  in  bondage 

to  sin^^  (tov  jUit]K€Ti  SovXeueiv  ijfxag  Trj  afiaprla^.     There 

had  been  already  too  much  bondage.  The  tyrant 
had  got  his  own  way  too  long.  And  the  poor 
serfs  had  not  had  the  manliness  to  strike  off  their 
fetters  when  they  had  the  power.  They  were 
willing  to  be  slaves,  leading  a  grovelling  life,  and 
refusing  to  be  free.  The  moral  infatuation  was 
profound. 

Such  was  the  condition  of  men  everywhere  | 
when  the  Divine  Deliverer  appeared  on  the  scene.  \ 
He  struck  a  blow  for  freedom,  that  has  been,  all 
down  through  the  ages,  reverberated  in  millions 
of  human  hearts,  and  in  millions  more.  He  died 
in  the  conflict;  but  He  triumphed  as  He  died,  and 
by  His  dying.  He  took  men  up  with  Him  into 
His  death,  so  that  they  were  co-crucified.  And 
the  grand  ethical  aim  of  the  Great  Grod  was  that 
the  body  of  sin  might  be  utterly  disabled^  so  that 
they  should  be  no  longer  in  bondage  to  sin. 


26       ST.  Paul's  teaching  on  sanctification. 

The  category  of  time  must  in  some  respects  be 
merged  in  the  Apostle's  representation.  The  old 
man  ivas  co-crucified.  The  old  man  is  co-crucified. 
The  union  between  Christ  and  Christians  %vas. 
And  it  is. 

Since  the  life  and  death  of  Jesus  liave  entered 
into  the  historical  evolution  of  the  human  race, 
there  is  Divine  provision,  available  to  all  men, 
for  emancipation  from  the  penalty,  as  also,  and 
thence,  for  emancipation  from  the  degradation 
and  folly  of  sin.  Such  was,  such  is,  the  ethical 
aim  of  the  Great  God.  And  such  is  the  substrate 
of  import  in  the  verse  we  have  been  considering. 

V.  7.  ^^For  lie  who  died  has  been  justified  from 
his  sin  J"  ('O  yap  airoOavcov  SeSiKaicorai  airo  Trjg 
afxapTia?.)  The  Apostle  reiterates  the  great  evan- 
gelical blessing  conferred  upon  the  believer — 
the  blessing  that  carries  in  its  bosom  the  grand 
motive  power  for  sanctification.  The  believer 
has  been  justified  from  his  sin.  The  Apostle's 
for^  or  yap,  should  be  noticed.  It  confirms  the 
immediately  preceding  statement  concerning  the 
believer's  privilege.  The  discourse  is  dialectically 
knit  together,  but  not  simply  with  a  bare 
sufiSciency  of  rigidly  logical  coherence.  The 
writer  recurs  with  epistolary  freedom  to  the 
details  of  his  theme,  and  adds  ex  abundanti  link 
to  link. 


EOMANS    VI.  7.  27 

'O  airoQavwv,  is  qui  mortuus  est,  he  luJio  died, 
namely  in  Christ.  See  both  the  preceding  and 
the  succeeding  context.  It  is  the  Christian  be- 
liever who  is  referred  to.  His  spiritual  hopes 
repose  upon  the  fact  of  his  union  with  Christ. 
And  the  Christ  with  whom  he  is  in  unison  and 
union  is  the  Christ  ivho  died,  He  is  "  Christ  the 
crucified."  The  believer  thinks  of  Him  as 
such;  and  still  as  such  he  thinks  of  Him,  and 
has  faith  in  Him.  Remove,  indeed,  Christ  the 
Crucified  from  the  believer's  faith,  and  there 
remains  a  mere  and  empty  husk  of  thought.  But 
when  the  act  of  faith  is  present,  and  likewise  the 
great  object,  namely,  Christ  the  Crucified,  then  the 
conditions  are  present  that  warrant  the  identifi- 
cation, in  ethical  privilege,  of  the  believer  and 
his  Lord.  Hence  the  remarkable  expression,  he 
has  been  justified  from  his  sin :  (^SeSiKalwrai  aTro 
tJ??  aixapria's).  The  idea  of  liberation  is  subsumed 
in  the  idea  of  justification.  Hence  the  a-n-o,  or 
'  from.'  A  similar  subsumption  is  found  in 
Acts  xiii.  39 :  "  and  by  Christ  every  one  who 
believeth  is  justified  from  all  things,  from  which 
he  could  not  be  justified  by  the  law  of  Moses." 
The  sinner  who  has — through  faith — died  with 
Christ,  or  who  has — through  faith — got  into  union 
with  Christ,  is  judicially  freed  from  the  power  of 
sin  to  condemn  to  the  endurance  of  sin's  penalty. 
His  title  to  the  inheritance  of  bliss  is,  notwith- 


\ 


28       ST.  Paul's  teaching  on  sanotification. 

standing  his  sins,  judicially  assured  to  him.  He 
is  judicially  vindicated,  and  thus  justified  as  one 
having  in  his  possession  the  "  righteousness " 
which  is  the  sinner's  all-sufficient  plea.  (See 
Rom.  ix.  30  ;  x.  3-8 ;  iii.  21,  22  ;  i.  16,  17.)  The 
old  Authorized  Version  of  the  memorable  affirma- 
tion of  the  Apostle  entirely  hides  out  of  sight  the 
judicial  character  of  the  act  that  is  signalised. 
It  leaves  indeterminate  the  nature  of  the  freedom 
asserted.  Is  it  the  freedom  of  justification  or  the 
freedom  of  sanctification,  to  which  the  Apostle 
refers?  His  own  Greek  leaves  no  room  for 
doubt.  He  speaks  here  of  justification,  not  of 
sanctification,  though  of  justification  as  leading 
to  sanctification.  « 


Y.  8.  The  Apostle  passes  on  to  look  at  his 
fascinating  subject  from  another  '  coign  of 
vantage.'  Hence  the  initial  Se  is,  as  Meyer 
remarks,  '  metabatic'  It  is  transitive,  and  effects 
transition.  We  have  no  better  rendering  for  it 
in  English  than  our  imperfect  hut,  and  this  is  the 
rendering  given  in  the  Revised  Version,  replacing 
the  less  perspicuous  now  of  the  Old  Version. 
Tyndale  and  the  G-eneva  have  therefore;  Wycliffe 
and  the  Rheims  have  and ;  Luther  has  hut 
(aber) ;  and  so  has  the  Vulgate  (autem) ;  and  so 
has  Myles  Coverdale. 


EOMA^JS    VI.  8.  29 

"  But  if  we  died  with  Christ^' — a  better  transla- 
tion than  that  of  King  James's  Version,  if  ive  be 
dead  ivith  Christ.  The  Apostle  views  the  death  of 
believers  as  an  event,  not  as  a  continuous  state. 
But  the  distinct  relations  of  the  category  of 
time  are  held  by  him  in  abeyance.  Believers 
died  with  Christ,  but  not  necessarily  at  the 
historic  moment  of  Christ's  own  historic  death. 
Believers  died  with  Christ  at  the  moment  when^ 
first  they  were  vitally  united  to  Him.  They 
were  vitally  united  to  Christ  at  the  moment  when 
they  believed  the  gospel  concerning  Him.  It 
ivas  then,  therefore,  that  they  died.  It  was  then 
that  they  became  co-crucified-  When  we  speak 
of  believers  who  are  at  present  on  the  scene  of 
life,  and  who  have  only  now,  as  the  spiritual 
children  of  a  day,  or  an  hour,  or  of  a  moment, 
"  come  to  the  knowledge  of  the  truth  "  ;  then 
we  may  say,  with  reference  to  the  event  that  has 
occurred  in  the  crisis-moment  of  their  spiritual 
experience,  they  have  died  with  Christ :  they  are 
crucified  with  Christ. 

The  Apostle,  when  saying  of  himself  and  his 
brethren,  hut  ive  died  in  Christ,  does  not  go  back 
in  thought,  and  date  from  the  historic  decease  of 
our  Lord,  as  an  event  now  remote  in  the  area 
of  things  past.  He  only  goes  back  to  the  epoch 
of  the  personal  experience  of  himself  and  his 
brethren;  and  finding  that  in  the  consciousness 


30       ST.  Paul's  teaching  on  sanctipioation. 

of  that  experience  tlie  clock  of  advancing  time 
had  struck,  he  does  not  say  ive  die,  except  when 
merely  narrating  the  logical  sequence  of  events, 
but  we  died.     We  died  ivith  Christ. 

"  But  if  we  died  with  Him,  we  believe  that  tve 

shall  also  live  ivith  Him."  [el  Se  aireQavoixev  (Tvv 
^oicttS),  Tria-Teuofxev  on  Koi  (TuvCi}(roixev  avTW.\ 

The  reference  is  not  to  the  "life"  that  was 
terminated  by  our  Lord's  death, — the  wonder- 
ful "life"  that  was  spent  on  earth  amid  men's 
sorrows  and  sins.  It  is  to  the  "  life  "  that,  suc- 
ceeding His  death,  replaced  it,  burst  its  bonds, 
and  utterly  "abolished"  it.  The  Apostle  speaks 
of  our  Lord's  resurrection-life;  and  he  says  that 
if  we  were  united  to  the  Saviour  in  His  death,  we 
believe  that  we  shall  also  be  united  with  Him  in 
His  resurrection-life. 

He  employs  the  future  tense,  we  shall  live, 
because  the  fact  of  Christ's  resurrection  is  one 
thinof,  and  His  "  resurrection-life "  is  another. 
The  fact  of  the  resurrection  transpired  on  earth 
and  was  the  event  of  a  moment.  The  resurrec- 
tion-life runs  on  continuously  from  age  to  age, 
and  yet  to  farther  ages  of  ages.  It  is  to  us  in 
the  future.  It  is  the  object  of  our  hope  as  long 
as  we  live  (Rom.  viii.  24).  It  is  "  reserved  in 
heaven  for  us  "  (1  Pet.  i.  4) ;  and  our  prospect 
is  to  be  "  for  ever  with  the  Lord."  The  heavens 
have  "  received   Him,"   and  will  "  retain  Him," 


EOMANS    VI.  8.  31 

"  until  the  time  of  the  restitution  of  all  things  " 
(Acts  iii.  21).  When  the  fragile  terrestrial  taber- 
nacle ceases  to  be  habitable,  the  emancipated 
spirit,  being  "absent  from  the  body,"  ascends 
to  be  "present  with  the  Lord"  (2  Cor.  v.  1—12). 
The  holy  patriarchs,  and  all  Christian  pilgrims 
who  have  gone  on  before,  "  looked  for  a  country." 
"  They  sought  a  city  which  hath  foundations, 
whose  architect  and  builder  is  God  "  (Heb.  xi. 
10,  14).  It  is  there  where  Christ  is;  and  it  is 
there  where  believers  of  God's  gladdening  evan- 
gel, and  just  because  they  give  credence  to  its 
message  of  mercy,  hope  to  be.  "  For,"  as  says  the 
Apostle,  "  if  we  died  with  Christ,  we  believe  that 
we  shall  also  live  with  Him."  Divine  consistency 
in  mercy  is  the  warrant  for  the  assured  belief. 
The  blessing  that  is  conferred,  in  virtue  of  union 
with  Christ  in  His  death,  would  be  incomplete 
and  fragmentary  without  the  blessing  that  is 
conferred  in  virtue  of  union  with  Christ  in  His 
resurrection-life.  Our  union  indeed  with  Christ, 
in  His  death,  is  security  for  our  immunity  from 
the  wages  of  our  iniquity.  We  died  to  sin.  But 
this  death  is  only  half  the  blessing  required 
for  human  bliss.  It  is  merely  the  arrest  and 
negation  of  merited  penalty.  Is  there  to  be  no 
loving-kindness  and  tender-mercy  beyond  ?  No 
heaven  ?  No  glory  and  honour  coupled  with 
immortality  ?     No  participation  with  Christ  iu  the 


32      ST.  Paul's  teaching  on  sanctifioation. 

reward  of  His  spotless  rigliteousness  and  perfect 
self-sacrifice  ?  Are  we  not  to  rise  with  Christ 
and  soar  into  "  the  heavenlies  "  ?  Are  we  not 
to  be  "  made  to  sit  with  Him "  ?  and  to  "  reign 
with  Him  "  ?  Are  there  not  "  pleasures  for  ever- 
more" at  the  right  hand  of  the  Majesty,  enougli 
for  Christ,  enough  for  us  too  "  in  Christ"  ?  Does 
not  the  full  river  of  God  carry  water  of  life  suffi- 
cient to  quencli  the  thirst  of  every  longing  soul  ? 
The  Apostle  reasons  that  if  the  negative  blessing 
be  generously  conferred,  the  positive  will  not  be 
grudgingly  withheld.  If  in  Christ  we  die  as 
regards  the  endurance  of  the  penalty  of  our 
sins,  in  the  same  Christ  we  shall  live  as  regards 
the  enjoyment  of  the  reward  of  His  righteous- 
ness. If  in  the  case  of  Christ  Himself  it  would 
be  utterly  unnatural  to  break  off  abruptly  the 
sequence  of  resurrection-life  from  the  crisis  of 
His  atoning  death,  not  more  truly  incomplete 
and  unnatural  would  it  be  to  render  us  parti- 
cipants in  our  Saviour's  death  while  withholding 
from  us  participation  in  the  glory  of  His  sub- 
sequent life.  There  should  be  consummation 
as  well  as  commencement.  Christ  should  be  to 
us,  in  the  matter  of  our  spiritual  experience, 
omega  as  well  as  alpha. 


V.  9.  ^^  For  ive  hioiv.^'     (eiSore?.)    It  is  as  if  the 


EOMANS  VI.  9,   10.  33 

writer  were  to  say — yes,  loe  shall  continuously  live 
mith  Him,  subject  to  no  fears  of  interruption  to 
the  life  that  is  lived,  ^'  for  lue  Jcnoiv  that  Christ, 
being  raised  from  the  dead,  dieth  no  more ;  death 
hath  no  more  dominion  over  HimJ'  It  was  fitting 
that  He  should  die.  He  came  into  our  dislocated 
human  world  that  He  might  suffer  in  the  friction 
and  die.  From  the  moment  that  His  Divine  con- 
sciousness dipped  down  into,  and  blended  with, 
His  human  consciousness,  He  saw  looming  in 
the  distance  the  tokens  of  absolute  self-sacrifice. 
His  heart  beat  funeral  marches  toward  a  goal 
of  endurance,  that  could  not  be  farther  post- 
poned, or  longer  sustained.  It  was  the  climax 
of  innocent  suffering,  and  will  never  be  repeated. 
Christ  being  raised  from  the  dead,  dieth  no  more  ; 
death  has  no  farther  claim  on  His  endurance ; 
it  has  dominion  over  Him  no  more.  What  then 
is  our  prospect  ?     We  shall  see. 


y.  10.  ^'^  For  in  that   He  died,  He  died   unto 
sin  once;   but  in  that  He  liveth.  He  liveth  unto 

God."        ( o      yap     aireOaueu,     rrj      a/xapTia     aTvlQamv 

ecpaira^.)  The  o  is,  of  course,  the  accusative  of 
the  relative  pronoun,  although  it  is  peculiarly 
and  emphatically  tilted  up  at  the  commence- 
ment of  the  sentence.  For  lohat  He  died,  that 
is,  for  the   thing   lohich    He    died,^  and    that   is, 

D 


34      ST.  Paul's  teaching  on  sanctification. 

for  the  death  which  He  died.  The  Greeks,  like 
the  English,  could  speak  of  living  a  life,  and 
dying  a  death.  The  relative  pronoun  in  the 
Apostle's  conception  is,  notwithstanding  the  ab- 
sence of  the  anticipative  /weV,  oppositive  to  the 
o  Se  in  the  next  clause.  For  the  death  vMch 
on  the  one  hand  He  died.  He  died  to  sin;  hut 
the  life  ivhich  on  the  other  hand  He  lives,  He 
lives  to  God.  The  Saviour's  death  indeed  was  a 
death  by  sin;  but  that,  as  we  have  already  seen 
(v.  2),  is  not  the  Apostle's  idea  here,  nor  does 
he  here  mean  that  the  Saviour's  death  was  for 
sin  or  on  account  of  si7i.  His  idea  is  this — Our 
Saviour  died  '^o'  sin;  and  He  thus  died  once 
for  all.  The  conception  of  sin  as  a  tyrant  is  still 
looming  over  the  mind  and  heart  of  the  writer, 
and  swaying  his  representation  (see  v.  6).  The 
tyranny  of  sin  is  the  oldest  of  all  the  tyrannies ; 
and  the  direst.  All  men  have  suffered  severely 
in  consequence.  They  have  been  ruthlessly  mis- 
used as  serfs  and  slaves,  and  beasts  of  burden 
(Matt.  xi.  28).  The  degradation  that  is  the  effect 
of  sin  is  immeasurable;  correspondingly  incom- 
mensurable is  the  woe.  Hence  the  compassion 
of  God,  and  the  mission  of  the  Saviour.  When 
the  Saviour  came  into  our  nature,  and  became,  as 
far  as  might  be,  our  Surety  and  our  Substitute, 
He  was  at  once  rough-handled  by  our  tyrannous 
sin.     He  was  "  wounded  for  our  transgressions; 


EOMANS   VI.   10.  35 

He  was  bruised  for  our  iniquities."  "  He  was 
oppressed  and  He  was  afflicted."  "  His  visage 
was  marred  more  than  any  man,  and  His  form 
more  than  the  sons  of  men"  (Isa.  lii.  14;  liii. 
5,  7).  It  was  as  if  blood-hounds  had  been  let 
loose  on  Him.  The  leash  of  the  blood-hound- 
spirit  was  let  slip.  Our  Saviour  was  truculently 
hunted  down  as  one  not  fit  to  live.  He  died. 
But  in  the  very  act  of  dying  He  conquered  and 
triumphed.  For  He  did  not  merely  die.  He 
died  '  to  '  sill.  He  died  '  to  '  the  sin  that  sought  to 
murder  Him.  By  His  death  He  became  free 
from  all  farther  inflictions  on  account  of  sin,  and 
all  liabilities  of  the  nature  of  woe.  He  became 
free  for  ever  from  all  farther  contact  with  sin's 
tyranny  or  penalty.  The  idea  of  freedom  is  in- 
eradically  inherent  in  the  representation.  Christ 
entered  into  a  far  higher  plane  of  freedom  than 
what  is  described  by  the  patriarch  Job,  when  he 
says  of  the  state  of  death — "  There  the  wicked 
cease  from  troubling,  and  there  the  weary  be  at 
rest ;  there  the  prisoners  rest  together ;  they 
hear  not  the  voice  of  the  oppressor ;  the  small 
and  great  are  there  :  and  the  slave  is  free  from 
his  lord"  (iii.  17-19).  The  freedom,  into  which 
Christ  was  introduced  when  He  died  to  sin,  was, 
unlike  the  freedom  described  by  Job,  realised  in 
consciousness ;  and  was  and  is  available  to  all, 
who,    groaning   under   degrading   servitude,    are 


36       ST.  Paul's  teaching  on  sanotifioation. 

willing  and  eager  to  be  free.  The  freedom  thus 
obtained  is  for  perpetuity.  Its  "  meritorious 
cause "  is  indiminishable  in  merit ;  and  hence, 
as  well  as  for  other  reasons,  "  the  death  which 
Christ  died,  He  died  once  for  all." 

It  is  on  a  different  but  affiliated  line  of  repre- 
sentation that  the  writer  of  the  Epistle  to  the 
Hebrews  says,  "  By  His  own  blood  he  entered 
'  once  for  all '  into  the  Holy  Place,  having  ob- 
tained eternal  redemption"   (chapter  ix.  12). 

The  Apostle,  turning  to  the  other  side  of  his 
subject,  says,  hut  the  life  which  He  is  living,  He  is 
living  to  God  (o  Se  ^f,  ^J  rw  9e«).  The  death 
signalised  in  the  preceding  clause  was  a  momen- 
tary event ;  the  contradistinguished  life  is  a  thing 
of  continuity.  It  has  been,  and  is,  and  will  be ; 
running  on  from  age  to  age.  It  is  Christ's 
resurrection-life  (see  verse  9).  He  is  living  it  to 
God.  Although  it  is  the  case  that  He  really  died 
and  was  dead;  yet  it  is  likewise,  and  as  really,  the 
case,  that  He  is  alive,  and  alive  to  Grod.  In  the 
life,  which  He  lived  in  our  nature  before  He  died. 
He  was  doomed  to  die.  Death  was  imminent  all 
along  His  career.  It  impended,  loweringly,  over 
His  head  and  heart.  He  was  unavoidably  ob- 
noxious to  it.  Having  clothed  Himself  in  the 
garb  of  our  humanity,  He  had  to  suffer  in  it 
on  account  of  our  human  sin*.  There  was  no 
alternative,  if  salvation  was  ever  to  be  achieved 


EOMANS    VI.  10.  37 

and  enjoyed.  Hence  He  patiently  endured  the 
appointed  suffering,  till  it  culminated  in  the 
endurance  of  a  violent  death,  to  which  He 
succumbed  on  Calvary.  In  the  article  of  that 
death.  He  drained  to  its  dregs  the  bitter  cup  of 
human  liability  on  account  of  sin ;  and  having 
drained  it,  He  died.  He  "  tasted  death  for  every 
man"  (Heb.  ii.  9).  In  dying,  He  died,  not  to 
Grod,  but  to  sin  :  He  was  freed  for  ever, — not 
from  God — but  from  sin  and  from  all  judicial 
exactions  on  account  of  sin. 

Hence  He  lives.  Not  indeed  to  the  tyrant  sin, 
to  be  exposed  to  those  tyrannous  inflictions  which 
are  in  accordance  with  the  very  nature  of  sin  and 
tyranny.  He  lives  a  far  other  style  of  life.  He 
lives  to  God.  Cognizance  is  taken  of  him  in  the 
conscious  observation  of  God,  who  knew  the  end 
from  the  beginning,  and  who  in  truth  raised  Him 
up  from  among  the  dead ;  and  was  thereupon 
ready  to  deal  with  Him,  and  act  by  Him,  in 
accordance  with  his  peerless  Messianic  and  Re- 
demptive deserts. 

Within  the  sphere  of  the  life  that  preceded  His 
death,  Christ  had  to  do  with  the  liabilities  of  sin. 
But  within  the  sphere  of  the  life  that  succeeded 
His  death,  His  resurrection-life,  He  had  and  has 
to  do  with  the  fruition  of  those  rewards  of 
righteousness  which  it  is  joy  to  the  heart  of  the 
Righteous  Ruler  of  the  universe  to  confer. 


38       ST.  Paul's  teaching  on  sanotiftcation. 

In  the  expression,  alive  to  God,  it  is  not  the 
Saviour's  ethical  character  that  is  described.  It 
is  the  fact  of  the  continuance  of  His  mediatorial 
life.  Though  He  died  and  disappeared  from  the 
observation  of  men ;  yet  death  did  not  end  Him, 
nor  did  it  hide  Him  from  God.  He  rose  into 
"newness  of  life,"  and  lived  on  with  God.  He 
lived  and  still  lives  to  God.  If  there  be  non- 
believers  and  disbelievers  to  whom  He  is  Nothing, 
and  who  consequently  care  for  none  of  His 
things,  the  loss  is  theirs.  They  are  coming,  in 
consequence  of  their  culpable  ignorance,  into 
collision  with  realities  which  are  as  stable  as  the 
foundations  of  the  Universe.  Christ,  though 
dead,  is  living.  Yea,  He  is  living  because  He 
died.  He  is  living  His  resurrection-life.  God  is 
taking  cognizance  of  Him  and  rewarding  Him 
with  the  "  fulness  of  joy,"  that  is  reached  by 
"the  path  of  life"  (Psa.  xvi.  11).  Our  Saviour 
is  thus  living  to  God,  because  He  died  to  sin. 
He  has  been  exalted  into  the  highest  glory  of 
"life  eternal,"  because,  though  "being  in  the 
form  of  God,  He  counted  it  not  a  prize  to  be 
on  an  equality  with  God,  but  emptied  Himself, 
taking  the  form  of  a  servant,  being  made  in  the 
likeness  of  men ;  and,  being  found  in  fashion  as 
a  man,  He  humbled  Himself,  becoming  obedient 
even  unto  death,  yea  the  death  of  the  rvoss." 
(Phil.  ii.  6,  8). 


ROMANS   VI.   11.  39 

Y.  11.  "^o"  (Oi/Tco?).  A  spiritual  parallelism 
is  opened  up  to  the  mind  of  the  writer.  "  Beckon 
ye  also  yourselves  to  be  dead  indeed  to  sin,  hut 
alive  to  God  through  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord  "  {km 

vfxeig    Xoyi^ecrOe    eavrom    eivai     v€Kpov?    fxev    rri  a^apria 

^wura?  Se  tw  Gew  ev  ^piiTTu>'lT](Tou).  Do  ye,  on  your 
part,  reckon  yourselves.  There  is  a  parallelism 
between  the  spiritual  state  of  Christ  and  the 
spiritual  state  of  those  who  are  vitally  united  to 
Him  (see  ver.  5).  The  Apostle  deemed  it  a  mat- 
ter of  moment  that  they  should  realise  the  fact. 
Christ  on  His  part  died  to  sin  and  lives  to  God. 
Do  ye  on  your  part — says  the  Apostle  exhortingly 
to  his  brethren — consider  yourselves  to  be  dead  to 
sin,  and  alive  to  God  in  Christ  Jesus.  Their  state 
— in  virtue  of  their  union  with  Christ  Jesus — was 
pre-eminently  one  of  privilege ;  and  the  Apostle 
desired  that  they  should  realise  it  as  such.  Their 
sanctification  to  a  large  extent,  depended  on  the 
realisation. 

Consider  yourselves  to  be  dead  on  the  one  hand 
to  sin,  and  alive  on  the  other  to  God,  in  Christ 
Jesus.  The  expression  in  Christ  Jesus  conditions 
both  of  the  preceding  clauses,  and  not  merely 
the  latter  of  the  two,  as  Riickert  and  Kollner 
suppose.  It  is  in  Christ  Jesus  that  we  are  dead 
to  sin,  just  as  really  as  it  is  in  Him  that  we  are 
alive  to  God. 

In  Christ  Jesus  dead  to  sin  !      In  what  respect  ? 


40       ST.  Paul's  teaching  on  sanctification. 

Not,  as  has  been  too  often  supposed,  in  respect 
to  character  or  ethical  demeanour.  What  then  ? 
In  respect  to  freedom  from  penal  liability.  The 
state  described  is  indeed  a  steppiDg- stone  to 
an  all-important  result  in  character.  But  it  is 
not  itself  that  result.  It  is  in  Christ  Jesus 
that  believers  are  dead  to  sin,  because  it  is  in 
virtue  of  their  connection  with  Him  by  faith, 
that  they  are  in  such  a  state  of  union  with  Him, 
as  regards  His  meritorious  death,  that  the  im- 
munity from  future  suffering  for  sin,  which  is 
His  by  desert,  becomes  theirs  by  grace.  The 
word  dead  is  in  the  Apostle's  expression,  because 
of  the  peculiar  significance  of  the  death  of  our 
Lord  in  the  great  economy  of  salvation.  The 
very  essential  principle  of  the  Grospel  is  that 
Christ  ^^ died  for  our  sins  and  rose  again" 
(1  Cor.  XV.  3,  4).  "  In  due  time  Christ  died  for 
the  ungodly  "  (Rom.  v.  6).  "  God  coramendeth 
His  love  toward  us  in  that  while  we  were  yet 
sinners,  Christ  died  for  us"  (Rom.  v.  8).  "We 
are  justified  by  His  hlood "  (Rom.  v.  9),  and, 
"  We  were  reconciled  to  God  by  the  death  of 
His  Son"  (Rom.  V.  10).  "I,"  says  our  Lord, 
"  if  I  he  lifted  up  from  the  earth  will  draw  all 
men  unto  me ;  this  He  said  signifying  what 
death  He  should  die "  (John  xii.  32,  33).  'No 
wonder  therefore  that  the  Apostle  so  manipu- 
lated and  moulded  his  phrases  that  he  inserted 


EOMANS   VI.  11.  41 

tlie  word  '  dead '  into  one  of  the  most  significant 
of  them.  Believers  are  warranted  and  encou- 
raged to  "  reckon  themselves  to  be  dead  to  sin.'" 
They  are  thus  to  reckon  themselves  "  in  Christ 
Jesus";  and  it  is  because  of  His  singular  self- 
sacrifice  in  taking  the  place  of  the  guilty,  and 
stooping  to  tJie  abasement  of  death,  even  "  the 
death  of  the  cross  "  (Phil.  ii.  8),  that  there  is 
"  in  Christ  Jesus "  deliverance  from  the  fatal 
"  wrath  that  is  to  come." 

^^And  living  to  God"  (^wj^ra?  ^e  rw  Qecp).  This 
is  not  something  in  antithesis  to  the  statement  in 
the  preceding  clause.  And  hence,  in  our  English 
idiom,  it  is  preferable  to  connect  the  two  state- 
ments with  the  conjunction  and,  rather  than  with 
the  somewhat  oppositive  hut.  They  who  are  dead 
in  relation  to  sin  are,  for  that  very  reason,  not 
absolutely  dead,  but  adive  or  living  in  relation  to 
God.  Death  in  relation  to  sin  is  entirely  consist- 
ent with  life  in  relation  to  Grod.  The  one  relation- 
ship is  complementive  of  the  other.  And  both  are 
charged  with  mighty  moral  motive-power,  con- 
straining to  holiness  of  conduct  and  character. 

When  the  Apostle  says,  reckon  yourselves  '  alive' 
he  does  not  think  of  life  apart  from  Christ.  Ifc 
is  "  life  in  Christ  Jesus  "  of  which  he  speaks, 
and  which  he  desired  his  disciples  to  realise. 
"If,"  says  he,  "we  died  with  Christ,  we  believe 
that  we  shall  also  live  tvith   Him.''      It  is  Christ 


42      ST.  Paul's  teaching  on  sanctipioation. 

who  is  our  life.  He  and  He  only  is  tlie  living 
"  Meritorious  Cause  "  of  our  bliss. 

When  speaking  of  the  relation  of  Christ  to 
life,  we  might  refer  either  to  the  life  which  He 
lived  before  His  death, — a  life  of  ineffable  good- 
ness and  ethical  glory ;  or  we  might  refer  to 
the  life  which  He  has  been  living  since  His 
death, — a  life  of  incommensurable  exaltation  in 
glory  and  honour.  It  is  to  this  latter  life,  the 
award  of  the  Father  to  the  Son,  and  thence  the 
gift  of  the  Son  to  the  multitude  of  His  'brethren,' 
that  the  Apostle  refers.  The  life  spoken  of  is 
the  life  consequent  on  the  Saviour's  crucifixion. 
Let  all  Christians  reckon  themselves  as  its 
participants.  G-od  takes  note  of  the  vital  in- 
terlinking relationship,  and  acknowledges  its 
validity.  And  hence  it  matters  little  that  some 
men  deny  the  reality  of  the  life,  "  hid  "  as  it  is 
"  with  Christ  in  God."  God  owns  it ;  and  its 
beneficiaries  enjoy  it.  No  amount  of  confident 
denial,  or  subtle  reasoning,  or  bitter  scorning,  or 
cruel  persecution,  or  obloquy,  can  deprive  them 
of  that  of  which  they  are  conscious. 

If  the  disciples  referred  to  had  been  '  dead ' 
in  relation  to  God,  instead  of  '  alive,'  the  case 
would  have  been  far  other  and  lamentable. 
They  would  have  been  destitute  of  the  power 
of  recipiency  that  is  needful  in  order  to  take 
advantage  of  Divine  blessings. 


EOMANS    VI.  11.  43 

But  not  only  is  God  Himself  in  His  essential 
nature,  the  living  God  who  has  life  in  and  for 
Himself;  He  also  has  had,  and  yet  has,  and  ever 
will  have,  "  life "  to  give.  He  had  it  to  give 
to  His  Son  in  infinite  plenitude.  "  For  as  the 
Father  hath  life  in  Himself,  even  so  gave  He 
to  the  Son  also  to  have  life  in  Himself"  (John  v. 
26).  The  Son  has  received  as  the  Father  gave, 
and  hence  the  life  that  is  in  Him  is  all-sufficient, 
in  plenitude,  for  the  life  of  men.  God  the  Father 
gives,  and  God  the  Son  too.  The  "  fulness  of 
the  Godhead  "  is  in  the  Son,  in  order  that  "  out 
of  His  fulness  we  all  may  receive  grace  for 
grace."  Hence,  "  God  so  loved  the  world  that 
He  gave  His  only  begotten  Son,  that  whosoever 
believeth  in  Him  should  not  perish  but  have 
everlasting  life  "  (John  iii.  16).  They  who  have 
the  Son  "  have  life,"  and  are  "  alive  to  God." 
Whatever  they  may  be  to  men  around  them, 
however  ignored  and  spurned  as  Nobodies  or  as 
"  Things  that  are  not,"  still  before  God  they  live, 
and  will  live  for  ever. 

The  thought  of  such  inestimable  privilege 
should  not  be  stowed  away  into  the  dim  re- 
cesses and  unconsciousnesses  of  the  mind.  Con- 
trariwise, the  blessings  involved  should  be  held 
forth  to  catch  and  reflect  the  clearest  sunlio^ht 
that  can  get  admission  into  the  human  intelli- 
gence.    The  benefits  are  fraught  with  remarkably 


44      ST.  Paul's  teaching  on  sanctification. 

transformative  moral  potency, — potency  that  can 
turn  the  whole  manhood  of  a  man  into  "  a  new 
creation,"  and  convert  his  surroundings,  far  as 
his  ethical  influence  extends,  from  a  waste  state 
of  wilderness  and  weeds  into  a  scene  of  beauty, 
budding  all  over,  and  blossoming  "  like  the  rose." 
In  other  words,  there  is  provision  for  "  the 
beauty  of  holiness  "  in  the  experience  of  all  who, 
through  faith  in  the  Gospel,  take  home  to  their 
hopes  and  their  hearts  the  blessings  of  pardon 
and  eternal  life. 


V.  12.  "  Let  not  sin  then  reign^  The  infer- 
ential conjunction  '  then '  turns  back  the  attention 
to  the  scope  of  the  preceding  discussion ;  and 
fittingly  introduces  the  cardinal  subject  of 
"  sanctification,"  in  its  logical  sequence  to  the 
subject  of  the  lofty  privileges  as  to  state,  which 
are  assured  to  those  who  are  *'  in  Christ  Jesus." 

"  Let  not  sin  reign."  Sin  is  again  personified 
(ver.  6),  and  represented  as  a  sovereign.  It 
cannot  sway  its  sceptre,  however,  without  the 
consent  of  the  manhood  of  the  man.  That  man- 
hood may,  in  self- degrading  folly,  vote  sin  into 
the  throne  of  its  being.  Or,  it  may  dethrone 
the  usurping  tyrant,  and  come  under  the  sway 
of  a  reign,  at  once  most  righteous  and  most 
benign.      A    reign,   however,    of    one    kind    or 


ROMANS    VI.  12.  45 

another  there  must  be.  Every  man,  whether  he 
think  it  or  not,  must  be  subject  to  some  regnant 
principle  and  personality.  But  having  free-will, 
man  may  choose  his  king.  Hence  the  Apostle's 
exhortation,  Let  not  sin  reign. 

There  is  no  latent  antithesis  between  reigning 
and  existing.  The  antithesis  that  is  subtended  is 
between  the  reigning  of  sin,  and  the  reigning  of 
righteousness  or  of  the  righteous  God.  It  should 
be  noticed  that  the  imperative  fj-h  ^aa-iXeverco,  let 
it  not  reign,  is  addressed  grammatically  to  sin, 
but  in  doctrinal  import  to  the  believer. 

"  In  your  mortal  body."  This  is  the  domain  of 
the  royal  ruler,  whoever  he  may  be.  There  is 
significance  in  the  word  ^'mortal."  It  indicates 
that  "  the  time  is  short,"  and  it  would  therefore 
be  folly  and  a  shame  if  it  were  to  be  wasted  and 
squandered. 

"irt  the  body."  The  Apostle  did  not  forget  that 
it  might  be  said  to  all  believers,  "  Having 
therefore  these  promises,  beloved,  let  us  cleanse 
ourselves  from  all  defilement  of  flesh  and  spirit  ; 
perfecting  holiness  in  the  fear  of  the  Lord " 
(2  Cor.  vii.  1).  Still  he  had,  in  accordance  with 
a  profound  physiology  and  philosophy,  strong 
ideas  in  reference  to  the  mighty  influence  of 
the  body  on  the  spirit.  In  some  respects  the 
spirit  nobly  dominates  the  body;  in  others  the 
body  rudely    thrusts  itself  into    the  foreground 


46       ST.  Paul's  teaching  on  sanctifioation. 

of  influence,  and  tlie  spirit,  instead  of  domin- 
ating, is  ignobly  dominated.  The  20th  verse 
of  the  6th  chapter  of  the  1st  Epistle  to  the 
Corinthians  runs  thus  in  our  public  English 
version :  "  Ye  are  bought  with  a  price  :  there- 
fore glorify  Grod  in  your  body,  and  in  your  spirit, 
which  are  God's."  But  in  the  more  correct  text, 
given  by  the  critical  Editors,  and  accepted  by 
the  Revisionists,  the  exhortation  runs  thus:  "Ye 
were  bought  with  a  price  :  glorify  God  therefore 
in  your  body."  Far-reaching  ethical  results  are 
determined  by  the  body.  Hence  the  Apostle's 
entreaty  in  a  succeeding  part  of  the  Epistle 
to  his  fellow-Christians  in  Rome,  "  I  beseech 
you  therefore,  brethren,  by  the  mercies  of  G-od, 
to  present  your  bodies  a  living  sacrifice,  holy,  and 
acceptable  to  Grod,  your  rational  service"  (xii.  1). 
If  the  body  be  laid  upon  the  altar  of  consecration, 
the  '  informing '  spirit  will  not  be  withheld.  If 
sin  be  not  allowed  to  reign  in  the  body,  there 
is  but  little  likelihood  of  its  iron  sceptre  being 
reverenced  in  the  spirit. 

eh  TO  viraKoveLV  Tah  eiridvixlai?  avrou.  It  is  im- 
possible to  render  these  words  literally  into 
English.  "  There  are,"  says  Dr.  Jelf,  "  even 
in  classical  writers,  slight  beginnings  of  the  ten- 
dency which  we  find  fully  developed  in  the  Greek 
of  the  New  Testament,  to  confound  the  notions 
of  the  aim,  the  cause,  the  result,  and  the  infini- 


ROMANS    VI.  13.  47 

tival  object  of  a  verbal  notion,  on  the  ground 
of  their  common  property  of  following  more  or 
less  closely  on  the  verb,  and  their  being  depen- 
dent thereon  "  {Gh.  Gram.,  §  803).  The  Apostle's 
idea  might  be  represented  thus  : — "  Let  not  sin 
reign  in  your  mortal  body,  unto  this  being  the 
effect,  that  ye  obey  its  lusts."  The  lusts  referred 
to  are  not  the  lusts  of  sin,  but  the  lusts  of 
the  body  (aCrov).  They  are  the  inordinate 
desires  that  are  experienced  in  consciousness,  in 
virtue  of  physical  peculiarities  interpenetrating 
in  their  effect  the  region  of  the  mind.  Such 
desires,  unfed  and  unfanned,  are  not  sinful.  It 
is  not  sinful  for  them  to  be.  Their  existence 
is  beyond  the  sphere  of  free-will.  Sin  begins 
when  they  are  no  longer  controlled,  restrained, 
denied.  When  not  inordinate  they  are  easily 
guided  and  are  potent  for  good.  When  inordinate, 
and  therefore  "  lusts,"  or,  as  the  French  say, 
convoitises,  rather  than  simple  desires,  they  are  the 
wild  animal  in  our  nature,  and  need  the  strongest 
reins  of  reason  and  conscience  laid  upon  their 
neck.  It  is  reversing  the  order  of  nature  and 
of  Grod  for  the  man  to  obey  the  lusts ;  the  lusts 
should  be  obedient  to  the  man. 


Y.    13.      "  Neither   present    your  members    to 
be  weapons  of  unrighteousness  to  sin "  (^nrj^e  irap- 


48       ST.  Paul's  teaching  on  sanotifioation. 

icTTaveTe    to.     fxeXr]    vjuicov     oifKa     aoiKia^    T>i     ajmapriaj. 

The  Apostle's  figurative  representations  are  some- 
what mixed ;  but  they  are  emphatically  graphic. 
He  does  not  work  out  complete  pictures,  but 
contents  himself  with  a  minglement  of  hints  and 
suggestions,  not  rhetorically  rounded  ofi"  by  the 
help  of  "  the  wisdom  of  words." 

In  the  preceding  verse  he  had,  in  an  earnest 
hortatory  spirit,  lifted  up  a  warning  voice  against 
the  reign  of  sin.  Let  not  sin  reign  in  your  mortal 
body.  In  this  verse  he  retains  the  conception  of 
sin  as  a  regnant  principle.  He  likewise  assumes 
that  it  is  actually  engaged  in  warlike  operations. 
It  fights  for  its  throne :  and  is  intolerant  of 
opposition.  The  spirit  of  a  tyrant  is  in  it. 
Hence  it  seeks  military  submission  on  the  one 
hand,  and  military  subsidies  on  the  other.  But, 
says  the  Apostle,  present  not  your  members  as 
weapons  of  unrighteousness  to  sin. 

In  the  preceding  verse  the  mortal  body  is 
represented  as  the  domain  over  which  the  reign 
of  sin  may  be  extended.  In  this  the  members 
of  the  body  are  regarded  as  weapons  which 
may  be  wielded  in  battle,  either  on  the  side  of 
righteousness  against  unrighteousness,  or  on  the 
side  of  unrighteousness  against  righteousness. 
Put  them  not,  says  the  Apostle,  at  the  service 
of  sin. 

The    word    members,    so    far    as    enumeration 


ROMANS    VI.   13.  40 

is  concerned,  would,  to  tlie  writer's  mind,  be 
somewhat  indefinite.  The  right  eye  would  be 
thought  of,  and.  the  right  hand ;  the  mouth  also ; 
and.  the  tongue,  and  the  throat — so  often  an 
"  open  sepulchre  "  ;  the  feet  likewise,  which  may 
be  swift  to  convey  either  to  the  right  place  or  to 
the  wrong.  The  hand  may  be  lifted,  up  either 
to  smite  down  defiant  wickedness,  or  to  shed 
innocent  blood.  Men  may  with  their  tongues 
either  use  deceit  or  plead  the  righteous  cause 
of  the  widow  and  the  fatherless.  The  eye  may 
roam  in  wantonness,  or  gaze  in  rapture  on  both 
heaven  and  earth. 

Take  into  account  all  the  members  of  the 
body,  and  every  man's  character  may  be  deter- 
mined by  the  use  that  he  makes  of  his  physical 
organism.  Use  it  not^  says  the  Apostle,  in  the 
service  of  sin.  Assist  not  the  tyrant  to  intensify 
his  tyranny. 

"  Bat  present  yourselves  to  God  as  alive  from 
the   dead^   and   your  members  to    he   weapons    of 

righteousness  to  God."  ('AAA a  irapaa-rrja-aTe  eavrovg 
TM    QeM   m  e/c  veKpwu    ^wuras  /cat   to.   ixeXrj    vjulcov    oirXa 

In  the  preceding  clause  the  Apostle  dissuades : 
in  this  he  persuades.  In  the  sphere  of  the 
former  his  representation  is  negative;  in  this  it  is 
positive.  The  two  clauses  are  mutually  com- 
plementive. 


50       ST.  Paul's  teaching  on  sanctification. 

Present  yourselves  to  God.  There  is  a  pecu- 
liarity in  the  hortatory  imperative.  It  is 
'  aoristic '  in  tense  (TraparTricrare)  ;  whereas  in 
the  antithetical  clause  the  tense  is  '  present ' 
(Trapic-Tdvere) .  The  force  of  the  two  imperatives 
might  be  thus  represented :  "  Neither  he  ye 
presenting  your  members  to  be  weapons  of  un- 
righteousness to  sin ;  but  present  yourselves  at 
once  to  God."  Make  no  delay.  Let  there  be 
no  indecision.  If  already  there  has  been  the 
least  wavering,  let  there  be  not  a  moment  longer 
of  hesitancy.  Fut  yourselves  instantly  at  the 
service  of  God.  Tender  yourselves,  enlist  in 
His  military  service,  and  go  in  bravely  to  take 
part  in  the  "holy  war"  for  the  overthrow  and 
destruction  of  sin. 

As  alive  from  among  the  dead ;  that  is,  as 
partakers  of  the  resurrectio7i-life  of  Christ.  The 
Apostle  calls  upon  his  brethren  to  appear  before 
God  for  service,  under  their  true  colours,  and  in 
their  true  character,  as  they  really  were.  They 
were  actually,  by  means  of  faith,  united  to  Christ. 
They  had  been  united  to  Him  in  His  death.  They 
were  now  united  to  Him  iu  His  subsequent  life, 
and  are  heirs  with  Him  of  all  the  blessings  and 
the  glory  that  belong  to  that  life.  Their  fellow- 
men  around  them  might  not  recognise  the  reality 
of  such  a  glorious  union.  But  God  recognised 
it.     To   Him,  as  well  as    to  themselves,  it    was 


ROMANS  vr.  13.  51 

real.  To  His  all-seeing  eye,  as  well  as  to  tlieir 
own  self-conscious  faith,  they  were  alive  from 
among  the  vast  masses  of  the  dead.  In  their 
every-day  experience  they  had  earnests  of  the 
grandeur  of  their  destiny.  It  well  became  them, 
therefore,  to  be  lifted  up  into  a  lofty  mood  of 
gratitude,  and  thus  to  consecrate  ungrudgingly 
their  most  devoted  and  loyal  service  to  their 
infinite  benefactor. 

Instead  of  the  expression  w?  e/c  veKpujv  ^wi/ra?, 
the  important  uncial  manuscripts  ^<ABC  read 
(oo-e)  e/c  vcKpwv  ^cot^ra?,  and  the  reading  has  been  ap- 
proved of  by  Lachmann,  Tregelles,  Tischendorf 
(8th  ed.),  Alford,  Westcott-and-Hort,  and  in- 
troduced into  their  respective  texts.  It  was  the 
reading  which  Theodore  of  Mopsuestia  had  be- 
fore him.  If  it  be  genuine,  then  the  idea  will  be 
as  follows  :  "  Present  yourselves  to  Grod  as  if  ye 
were  alive  from  among;  the  dead."  It  would  be 
suggested  that  they  had  not  been  literally  among 
the  "  dead,"  and  that  they  were  not  now  in  literal 
union  with  Christ  in  His  "  resurrection-life." 
They  were  indeed,  as  regards  privilege  and  pro- 
spective glory,  one  with  Christ.  But  the  union 
was  ideal.  It  was  only  as  if  they  had  been 
literally  "  alive  from  the  dead." 

We  are  not  disposed  to  accept  were/  as  genuine. 
Not  only  is  it  the  case  that  m  has  a  great 
preponderance    of  MS.   authorities    on   its  side ; 


52       ST.  Paul's  teaching  on  sanctification. 

it  has  a  still  greater  preponderance  of  patristic 
support.  It  should  also  be  borne  in  mind  that 
though  coa-el  occurs  frequently  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment writings,  it  never  occurs  in  the  Epistles 
of  St.  Paul.  And  then,  what  is  of  very  special 
consideration,  it  is  more  likely  that  a  transcriber, 
untrammelled  by  strong  views  of  verbal  inspira- 
tion, should  change  w  into  wo-e/,  than  that  he 
should  change  the  uncommon  were/  into  w.  A 
transcriber,  if  not  dipping  deep  into  doctrines, 
might  be  excused  if  he  found  it  easier  to  grasp 
the  suggestion  of  a  rhetorical  comparison,  than 
to  interpret  the  assertion  of  an  ideal  reality.  "We 
believe  that  the  Apostle  said,  "present  yourselves 
to  God  as  being  really — in  Christ — alive  from 
the  dead." 

The  Apostle  is  not  contented  with  the  generic 
exhortation, — Present  yourselves  to  God  as  alive 
from  the  dead.  He  adds  specifically,  and  your 
members  to  be  lueapons  of  righteousness  to  God. 
He  gives  prominence  once  more,  in  the  spirit  of 
plain  speaking,  to  the  constituent  organs  in  the 
organism  of  the  body.  A  man's  character  is 
determined  by  the  use  that  he  makes  of  these 
organs  or  members.  They  are  the  mediums 
through  which  he  can  operate  on  the  world  at 
large,  and  upon  his  fellow-men  in  particular.  By 
means  of  them  he  may  do  good ;  by  means  of 
them  he  may  do  evil.     God  who  "  worketh  hither- 


ROMANS   VI.   13.  53 

to  "  is  engaged  in  a  great  work.  He  is  engaged 
in  a  conflict  too.  He  is  the  "  Grod  of  Hosts," 
"mighty  in  battle."  Confronted  as  He  is  by 
legions  of  defiant  free- wills,  it  is  befitting  that 
He  muster  and  marshal  His  co-operative  forces 
to  strike  the  blows  that  are  needed  to  put  down 
sin  and  to  establish  righteousness  on  the  earth. 
Hence  it  is  likewise  befitting  that  all  who  have  it 
in  their  hearts  to  be  on  the  side  of  Grod,  should 
make  tender  to  Him  of  their  militant  service. 
Their  various  outer  members,  actuated  by  their 
various  inner  faculties,  are  the  weapons  of  war- 
fare that  are  needed.  Only  let  heed  be  taken  that 
they  be  wielded  in  the  campaigns,  and  according 
to  the  behests,  of  the  Infinite  Will ;  for  then  only 
are  the  arms  of  precision  "  weapons  of  righteous- 
ness." 

When  analytically  reading  the  words,  and  your 
members  to  he  iveapons  of  righteousness  to  God, 
we  are  mentally  to  carry  along  with  us  the  verb 
irapacrrrja-aTe.  The  idea  is  not  that  the  weapons 
are  arms  of  rigMeousness  to  God.  It  is  that,  as 
such  arms,  they  are  with  the  soldiers  who  wield 
them,  to  be  put  at  the  service  of  God.  Thus 
they  are  to  be  tendered,  or  proffered,  or  yielded, 
or  yielded  up,  or  given,  or  given  up.  In  these 
ditferent  ways  has  the  verb  been  here  rendered. 


54      ST.  Paul's  teaching  on  sanctification. 

V.  14.  The  Apostle  proceeds  to  enforce  the 
injunctions  of  verses  12  and  13.  ^^  For  sin  shall 
not  have  do7iiinion  over  yoi(/*  [a/mapTia  yap  v/ncov  ov 
Kvpievarei).  The  idea  is,  for  sin  shall  not  '  loyxi  it ' 
over  you.  Even  your  own  sin,  accomplished  reality 
though  it  is,  shall  not  be  able  to  '  lord  it '  over 
you.  In  general,  when  sin  becomes  an  accom- 
plished reality,  it  is  exceedingly  lordly  in  its 
treatment  of  the  sinner.  It  does  not  spare  the 
leaded  lash.  Under  the  dominion  of  sin,  penalty 
seizes  hold  of  the  infatuated  sinner ;  and  "  the 
way  of  the  transgressor  is  hard."  The  result  is 
that  a  spirit  of  recklessness  is  apt  to  come  over 
the  guilty  soul,  and  the  man  plunges  deeper  and 
yet  deeper  into  abysses  of  immoral  indulgence 
and  retributive  degradation. 

But,  says  the  Apostle,  facing  his  Christian 
brethren  and  realising  the  munificence  of  bliss 
that  is  available  to  them  in  Christ,  "  sin  shall  not 
'  lord  it '  over  you."  He  does  not  here  mean, 
ye  shall  cease  from  sinning.  Such  words  indeed 
are  applicable  in  a  very  real  import  to  all  true 
believers  in  Christ.  But  they  are  not  applicable 
to  them  at  this  particular  juncture  of  the  Apostle's 
reasoning.  He  does  not  mean.  Yield  not  your- 
selves to  the  militant  service  of  sin,  for  ye  shall 
he  holy.  The  Apostle  does  not  thus  stand  still 
in  thought,  and  then  simply  turn  round.  He 
holds   out  to  his  brethren  in  Christ  a  large  in- 


ROMANS    VI.   14.  55 

clucement,  by  way  of  motive,  to  constrain  them 
to  abandon  unreservedly  the  militant  service  of 
sin,  and  to  enlist  devotedly  in  the  militant  service 
of  Grod.  The  inducement  is  the  double  fact  of 
(1)  a  holy  immunity  from  the  retributive  conse- 
quences of  their  sins,  and  (2)  a  free  '  enfeoffment ' 
in  the  inheritance  of  that  everlasting  bliss,  which 
is  the  peculiar  reward  of  righteousness — an  im- 
munity and  an  'enfeoffment'  which  are  the  peculiar 
prerogatives  of  believers  in  Christ.  "  Sin  shall  not 
lord  it  over  you."  This  prerogative  when  real- 
ised appeals  powerfully  at  once  to  the  gratitude 
and  to  the  moral  admiration  of  the  soul. 

The  Apostle  proceeds,  in  the  remainder  of  the 
verse,  to  explain  how  it  is  that  sin,  even  when  an 
accomplished  fact,  is  not  able  to  'lord  it'  over 
those  who  believe  in  Christ — ''for  ye  are  not 
under  laio,  but  under  grace.'' 

In  one  obvious  sense  all  men,  inclusive  of  be- 
lievers in  Christ,  are  under  laiv  {vtto  vofxov).  The 
law  has  authority  to  say  to  them,  without  any 
exception  or  distinction.  Do  this ;  tvhosoever  thou 
art,  obey  my  precepts.  The  law  is,  in  this  respect, 
the  voice  of  duty. 

In  like  manner  it  may  be  legitimately  said  that 
all  men,  inclusive  of  the  unbelieving,  are  under 
grace.  "  The  grace  of  Grod  hath  appeared,  bring- 
ing salvation  to  all  men"  (Tit.  ii.  11).  It  brings 
salvation  within  the  reach  of  every  man,  though 


56       ST.  Paul's  teaching  on  sanctifigation. 

it  forces  it  upon  tlie  acceptance  of  no  man.  It 
thus  over-arches  with  a  possibility  of  glory  the 
whole  world,  full  as  it  is  of  wayward  free-wills. 

Still  there  is  enjoyed  by  believers  some  great 
peculiarity  of  privilege,  as  regards  both  lauj  and 
grace,  in  which  unbelievers  cannot,  while  remain- 
ing unbelieving,  be  participant.  Believers  are 
not  under  laiv  inasmuch  as  law  does  not  say  to 
them, — Do  thy  duty  *  mid  live ' ;  do  it  '  or  die.' 
And  again  believers  are  under  grace  in  this 
peculiar  respect,  that  God  is  graciously  pleased, 
in  consideration  of  the  atoning  work  of  Christ, 
to  grant  them  the  plenary  remission  of  the 
penalty  of  their  sins,  and  to  constitute  them  heirs 
of  the  glory  and  excellency  of  everlasting  life. 

In  the  presence  of  such  grand  peculiarity  of 
prerogative  and  privilege,  it  is  not  to  be  won- 
dered at,  that  sin  should  not  be  able  to  '  lord 
it '  over  believers  in  Christ  Jesus.  And  if  they 
reahse  this  disablement  of  their  great  enemy, 
great  will  be  their  responsive  gratitude  and  self- 
consecration.  Great  ^should  he'  their  sanctifi- 
cation. 

Some  might  suppose  that  the  expressions  under 
law  and  under  grace  should  be  interpreted  as 
having  reference  to  a  sequence  of  general  or 
world-wide  dispensations,  which  run  parallel  with 
the  ages.  The  dispensation  of  law  would,  on  this 
hypothesis,  be   regarded  as  having  its  centre  in 


EOMANS   VI.  14.  57 

Judaism,  while  its  circumference  would  stretch 
out  indefinitely  till  it  embraced  all  peoples  every- 
where,— all  peoples  who  were  bearing  on  their 
consciences  a  yoke,  more  or  less  like  the 
'  legality '  of  Judaism,  and  consisting  largely  of 
stringent  and  oppressive  rites  and  ordinances 
(Gal.  iv.  1-11).  It  would  then — in  harmony 
with  the  world-wide  interpretation  proposed — be 
contended  that  "  in  the  fulness  of  the  time,"  the 
ritual  dispensation  was,  as  a  matter  of  histori- 
cal fact,  superseded  by  the  sunnier  dispensation 
under  which  we  all  now  live,  the  Dispensation  of 
grace. 

This  chronological  view,  however,  of  the  dis- 
pensations of  law  and  grace  is  not  the  framework 
in  which  the  Apostle's  representation  is  set,  in 
the  passage  before  us.  He  is  not  thinking  ima- 
ginatively of  a  time,  on  the  one  hand,  when  there 
was  law  in  our  human  world,  and  no  grace.  Nor 
was  he  thinking  on  the  other  of  a  different  time 
when  there  is  grace  and  no  law.  It  is  not  on 
successive  ages  and  their  ethical  specialties  that 
he  is  meditating.  His  view  is  more  immediately 
practical.  He  is  thinking  of  what  transpires  in 
the  experience  of  individuals. 

To  each  of  his  readers  he  is  in  substance  de- 
claring, Thou  art  the  man  whom  I  mean.  When 
he  says  "  sin  shall  not  '  lord  it '  over  you,"  he 
draws  attention  to  a  peculiar  ethical  deliverance, 


58       ST.  Paul's  teaching  on  saxctification. 

which,  if  eventuating  at  all,  must  happen  within 
the  consciousness  of  the  individual  behever.  Sin, 
says  he,  shall  not  lord  it  over  you  Roman  believers. 
But  sin  did  '  lord  it '  over  all  Roman  unbelievers. 
And  sin  still  '  lords  it '  over  all  men  everywhere 
who  are  unbelievers.  In  all  ages  sin  has  been 
lording  it  over  unbelievers.  In  all  ages  sin  is 
unable  to  *  lord  it '  over  believers.  During  the 
Dispensation  of  Judaism,  it  was  believers  only, 
whether  Jews  or  Gentiles,  who  were  freed  from 
the  lordliness  and  tyranny  of  their  sins.  During 
this  present  Dispensation  of  grace,  it  is  believers 
only,  whether  G-en tiles  or  Jews,  whether  Greeks 
or  Romans,  whether  bond  or  free,  who  are  freed 
from  the  lordship  of  the  law  (Rom.  vii.  1  ;  Gal.  v. 
18),  and  who  are  overarched  with  the  grace  of 
actual  forgiveness,  and  acceptance,  and  justifica- 
tion, and  "eternal  life."  You,  says  the  Apostle 
to  his  Romans,  are  emancipated  from  the  lordship 
and  lordliness  of  sin,  because  you  are,  since  your 
faith  in  Christ,  no  longer  under  law  but  under 
grace. 

The  law  exacts  ;  it  does  not  give.  Grace  does 
not  exact ;  it  gives.  The  law,  pure  and  simple, 
demands  the  uttermost  farthing^  of  obedience  and 
the  sum  total  of  all  possible  righteousness.  It 
demands,  and  threatens  if  its  demands  be  not 
complied  with ;  but  it  gives  not,  even  to  the 
minutest  fraction,  relaxation  of  obligation  or  re- 


ROMANS  vr.  15.  59 

mission  of  penalty.  The  law  is  not  gracious,  for 
it  is  not  grace.  Grace  is  gracious.  It  is  liberal 
and  generous  in  all  its  spheres.  It  has  given 
Christ  "  unto  all,"  to  be  available  to  all,  that  He 
may  be  available  as  "  all  their  salvation."  Such 
is  its  liberality  in  its  vastest,  its  all-comprehen- 
sive, sphere.  And,  in  the  narrower  sphere  of 
that  community  who  accept  the  unspeakable  gift, 
this  same  Divine  grace  gives  all  the  blessed  ele- 
ments that  blend  into  actual  salvation.  Thus, 
if  there  be  any  might  of  moral  motive  at  all,  there 
is  no  wonder  that  sanctification  should  be  the 
result  of  the  deliverance  on  the  one  hand  from 
the  malison  of  the  broken  law,  and  of  the  accept- 
ance on  the  other  of  the  benison  of  "grace  upon 
ofrace." 


V.  15.  ''What  then?'' {t'l  odv;)  The  Apostle  has 
plunged  into  his  subject,  and  in  the  fulness  of 
might  and  mastery,  is  victoriously  cleaving  and 
clearing  his  way  now  on  the  right  hand  and  now 
on  the  left.  He  asks  What  then  ?  that  is.  What 
then  should  we  do  ?  What  should  toe  believers  do  ? 
What,  since  ive  are  not  under  the  dominion  of  law, 
hut  under  the  dominion  of  grace? 

''Shall  we  sin?''  or  rather.  Should  we  sin?  (No 
doubt  we  should  read  a/mapTi'icrw/uLev  with  ^}  ABCD 
E  K  L  P,  not  ajuapr/jo-oiueu,    sJiall  ive  siu  ?  with  the 


60       ST.  Paul's  teaching  on  sanctifioation. 

Received  or  Elzevir  Text).  Should  ive  go  on 
sinning  ?  Should  lue  go  on  rechlessly  multiplying 
our  sins,  and  thus  increasing  our  sinning  ?  Is  that 
the  way  we  should  act,  because,  in  virtue  of  the 
link  of  faith  that  unites  us  to  Christ,  "  we  are  not 
under  law  but  under  grace."  I^otice  the  prepo- 
sition under.  They  wlio  are  united  to  Christ  by 
faith  are,  like  others,  under  authority,  but,  unlike 
others,  they  are  not  under  the  reign  of  laiv,  hut 
under  the  reign  of  grace.  Such  is  their  new 
relation  to  the  law,  their  Christian  relation.  It 
is  peculiar ;  so  peculiar  that  the  law  cannot  now 
condemn  them.  It  cannot  pass  sentence  of  con- 
demnation against  them  because  of  their  short- 
comings. Believers  in  Christ  are  outside  the 
sphere  of  the  dominion  of  the  law,  so  far  as  the 
determination  of  their  everlasting  destiny  is  con- 
cerned. The  law  has  no  authority  to  say  to  them 
in  reference  to  its  precepts.  Bo  them  or  die.  Be- 
lievers are  within  the  circuit  of  the  realm  and 
reign  of  grace,  so  that  the  good  things,  which 
G-od,  in  the  fulness  of  His  grace  delights  to  give 
freely,  are  theirs.  Forgiveness  is  theirs.  Accept- 
ance at  the  bar  chat  is  before  the  great  white 
throne  is  theirs.  Eternal  life  is  theirs.  Glory, 
honour,  and  immortality  are  theirs.  All  desirable 
things  are  theirs.  "  All  things "  that  can  be 
turned  into  heritage  are  theirs,  so  that  they  can 
triumphantly  exclaim,   "All  things  are  ours,  for 


EOMA.NS  yr.  16.  61 

we  are  Christ's."  These  blessings  are  all  theirs, 
because  they  are  no  longer  in  the  sphere  and 
under  the  sway  of  the  law,  but  in  the  sphere 
and  under  the  merciful  and  jubilant  sway  of 
grace.  Should  we  then,  in  consequence  of  our 
possession  of  all  these  blessings,  go  on  sinning  ? 
Should  our  immunity  from  the  malediction  of 
sin  be  seized  by  us  as  a  high  tower  of  security 
into  which  we  may  run,  and  within  which  we 
may  spend  our  energies  in  the  indulgence  of 
unrestricted  revel  and  riot  ? 

"  God  forbid  '-'  {iJ^h  yevoiro).  Far  aivay  from 
us  be  such  ivicJcedness  and  folly !  The  Apostle 
abhors  the  idea. 


V.  16.  But  not  content  with  the  expression 
of  the  moral  nausea  which  was  stirred  within  him, 
the  Apostle  proceeds  to  reason  against  the  idea. 

"  Knoiv  ye  not,  he  says,  that  is,  surely  ye  do 
know — that  to  luhomsoever  ye  present  yourselves 
as  servants  unto  obedience,  i.e.  with  a  view  to 
obedience — his  servants  ye  are  w\om  ye  obey, 
whether  of  sin  unto  death — sin  with  the  result 
of  death — or  of  obedience  unto  righteousness — 
obedience  with  the  result  of  righteousness." 

"  There  may  appear,"  says  Dr.  Chalmers,  "  a 
sort  of  unmeaning  and  uncalled-for  tautology  in 
this  verse,  a  something  not  very  close  or  conse- 


62       ST.  Paul's  teaching  on  sanctification. 

quential,  and  wbicli  it  is  difficult  to  seize  upon  " 
(Lectures  on  Romans,  in  loco).  There  is  cer- 
tainly no  refined  "  wisdom  of  words,"  nothing 
of  the  nature  of  rhetorical  artifice  in  the  nice 
adjustment  of  clause  to  clause.  But  there  is  a 
great  grappling  with  great  ideas,  and  an  earnest 
application  of  them  to  the  conscience. 

"Know  ye  not"?  says  he.  He  addresses  his 
readers  as  if  they  were  his  hearers,  ignoring  the 
intervenience  of  pen  and  ink.  And  his  address  is 
not  so  much  in  the  spirit  of  a  philosophic  theo- 
logian, as  in  the  mood  and  manner  of  a  practical 
moralist.  He  deals  with  them,  and  speaks  very 
much  as  he  w^ould  address  and  exhort,  around  the 
hearth  of  some  home,  a  company  of  Christian 
friends.  When  he  says,  "  Know  ye  not,"  he 
assumes  that  the  idea,  which  he  is  about  to  em- 
phasise, is  really  unchallengeable  ;  and  yet,  as  he 
correctly  judges,  it  may  be  profitably  considered, 
and  considered  iteratingly  and  re-iteratingly. 

The  drift  of  what  he  emphasises  is  this, — 
When  any  ethical  course  of  conduct  is  deliberately 
chosen  and  pursued,  then  the  naturally  retributive 
consequences  necessarily  stereotype  themselves  in 
the  experience  of  the  individual.  If  the  course 
chosen  be  righteous,  then  the  consequences  within 
the  sphere  of  consciousness  are  pleasant  and 
tend  to  bliss.  Whereas  if  the  course  of  procedure 
be  at  variance  with  the  absolutely  perfect  stan- 


ROMANS    VI.   16.  G3 

dard  of  rigliteousness,  the  absolutely  perfect  will, 
then  the  consequences  in  consciousness  rasp 
sooner  or  later  on  the  most  sensitive  elements 
in  the  heart  of  the  being,  and  tend  to  terminate 
in  penal  disharmony  and  unspeakable  distress. 

The  Apostle,  however,  brings  out  his  idea  in 
figurative  form,  and,  when  thus  brought  out,  he 
handles  it,  not  in  the  way  of  abstract  proposi- 
tions, but  concretely  in  the  way  of  thrusting  the 
consideration  of  it  home  to  the  business  and 
bosom  of  every  one  of  his  readers. 

"  To  ivhomsoever  ye  present  yourselves  to  he  ser- 
vants.'" It  is  assumed  that  all  men  are  servants 
and  must  be  servants.  They  are  under  authority, 
whether  they  recognise  the  fact  or  not.  No  man 
is  supreme  in  relation  to  himself.  Every  man 
has  a  master.  While  every  man  can  choose,  his 
elective  range  is  strictly  within  limits  ;  and  ac- 
cording as  he  chooses,  some  Power  or  other 
beyond  himself  controls  the  effect  of  his  choice. 
In  choosing  he  may  elect  to  be  under  the  control 
of  the  one  or  the  other  of  two  opposing  ethical 
principles.  But  between  the  two  he  must  make 
choice.  Both  are  master-principles  so  far  as 
the  ethical  regulation  of  life  is  concerned.  But 
they  are  moral  contraries.  The  Apostle  figura- 
tively represents  them  as  Lords  or  Masters. 
They  rule  the  life  so  far  as  retribution  is  con- 
cerned. 


64       ST.  Paul's  teaching  on  sanctifioation. 

Well,  "  to  whomsoever  ye  present  yourselves 
to  be  servants," — i.e.  to  "whiclisoever  of  the  two 
Masters  ye  consecrate  the  service  of  yourselves, 
"  with  a  view  to  obedience,"  i.e.  under  the  free 
determination  to  do  what  is  in  harmony  with 
the  regulative  principle  that  has  been  chosen. 
The  Apostle  puts  it  figuratively  and  concretely 
thus, — "  to  whichsoever  Master  ye  freely  present 
yourselves  to  be  servants  with  a  view  to  habitual 
obedience."  Then  he  proceeds  to  aver  that  "his 
servants  ye  are  whom  ye  obey.'-  There  is  only 
the  appearance  of  tautology,  for  while  it  is  one 
thing  to  offer  or  present  oneself  to  be  an  obedient 
servant,  it  is  another  thing  altogether,  though 
intimately  related,  to  be  accepted  as  a  servant 
for  obedience  and  treated  accordingly.  It  is  one 
thing  to  choose  your  regulative  principle,  and 
another  thing  altogether  to  be  retributively  regu- 
lated by  it  when  once  it  is  chosen.  Choice,  and 
the  retributive  consequences  of  choice,  are  not 
to  be  confounded.  Whatever  the  latter  are,  they 
are  not  human  choices.  "  His  servants  ye  are 
whom  ye  obey."  The  master  controls  the  life. 
And  consequently  whatever  the  character  of  the 
master,  thus  will  the  servants  be  treated.  If  the 
master  be  good,  the  treatment  of  the  servants 
will  be  fair  and  benign.  If  the  master  be  tyran- 
nous and  selfish  and  evil,  his  treatment  of  the 
servants  will  be  tyrannical  and  oppressive. 


liOMANs  vr.  16.  65 

Hence  the  Apostle  adds,  distinguisliing  the  two 
opposing  master-principles,  "  whether  of  sin  unto 
death,  or  of  obedience  unto  righteousness."  Such 
is  the  great  ethical  alternative ;  and  it  is  final. 
Men  must  be  servants  either  of  sm  or  of  obedience. 
In  these  ethical  fundamentals  there  is  no  middle 
ground  of  neutrality.  By  ohedience,  which  is  in 
itself  a  neutral  term  applicable  alike  to  the  ser- 
vants of  sin  and  the  servants  of  holiness,  the 
Apostle  here  means  ohedierice  proper  on  the  part 
of  men,  that  is,  obedience  to  goodness,  and  to  the 
preceptive  -will  of  God.  All  other  obedience,  so 
called,  obedience  to  that  which  is  opposed  to  the 
will  of  Grod,  is  disobedience  proper. 

Men  then  are  servants  either  of  sin  or  of 
obedience.  If  of  sin,  the  consequence  is  that 
they  are  dealt  with  according  to  the  nature  of 
the  master.  He  gives  his  servants  "wages"  for 
their  maintenance ;  but  the  wages  are  "death" 
(ver.  23).  They  are  the  destruction  of  the  weal,, 
peace,  and  bliss  of  the  soul.  If,  on  the  other 
hand,  men  are  "  the  servants  of  obedience,  and  are 
thus  controlled  by  the  spirit  of  obedience,  then 
they  are  treated  according  to  the  essential  nature 
of  obedience  and  righteousness,  and  thus  of  the 
righteous  Grod,  the  holy,  just,  and  good. 

The  Apostle's  use  of  the  word  "obedience" 
is  somewhat  peculiar.  "We  naturally  look  upon 
"  obedience "    as   being   the    characteristic    of    a 


66      ST.  Paul's  teaching  on  sanotifioation. 

servant  rather  than  of  a  master.  But  here  it 
is  itself  the  Master  who  is  to  be  obeyed.  There 
is  perfect  logical  propriety  in  the  representation. 
Obedience  is  the  true  antithesis  of  Sin^for  sin  is 
disobedience.  Since  sin,  then,  is  one  of  the 
dominating  principles,  it  is  fitting  that  obedience 
should  be  the  other.  Men  must  either  be 
obedient  or  sin.  If  they  be  voluntarily  and 
deliberately  characterised  by  "  obedience,"  they 
will  be  treated  according  to  the  nature  of  that 
great  and  good  regulative  principle.  They  shall 
have  a  reward  of  bliss.  But  if  they  voluntarily 
and  deliberately  yield  themselves  to  the  service 
of  disobedience,  or  sin,  then  they  must  submit 
to  be  dealt  with  according  to  the  nature  of  the 
master  to  whom  they  have  presented  the  service 
of  their  members. 

There  is  not  a  direct  antithesis  between  the 
expressions  *' sin  unto  death"  and  "obedience 
unto  righteousness."  A  direct  antithesis  would 
be  secured  if  we  were  to  balance  the  clauses 
thus,  "  sin  unto  death "  and  "  obedience  unto 
life  everlasting."  But  the  Apostle  is  satisfied 
with  the  indirect  mode  of  antithesis ;  and  it 
afi*ords  him  the  opportunity  of  emphasising  the 
idea  of  sanctification.  Ethical  obedience,  when 
voluntarily  and  deliberately  yielded  to  God,  re- 
sults in  "  righteousness."  It  is,  says  the  Apostle, 
"  unto  righteousness." 


EOMANS    Vi.  17.  67 

V.  17.  ^^But  thanhs  he  to  God  that  ye  were 
servants  of  sin.^^  It  is  a  peculiar  expression,  re- 
dolent of  literary  felicity.  The  Roman  brethren 
had  been  servants  of  sin.  But  this  unhappy 
servitude  was  now  a  thing  of  the  past.  "  Troja 
fuit."  It  is  as  if  the  Apostle  had  said,  "  Ye 
luere,  but  are  not  now,  servants  of  sin.^'  They 
had  addicted  themselves  to  the  unholy  service  ; 
and  as  a  fitting  penal  consequence  sin  had 
dealt  with  them  according  to  its  immutably  evil 
nature.  It  handled  them  roughly;  and,  domi- 
neering over  them,  caused  them  to  suffer  in  their 
service,  and  caused  them  to  suffer  for  their 
service.  There  is,  whether  men  recognise  it  or 
not,  something  of  ineradicable  unrest,  uneasiness, 
and  sorrowfulness  in  sin.  All  wickedness  has 
woe  in  its  heart. 

"  God  be  thanked,"  says  the  Apostle,  that 
your  service  to  sin  is  past.  He  sees  the  hand 
of  Grod  in  their  emancipation.  It  did  not  work 
necessitatingly  indeed,  or  violently  or  caprici- 
ously ;  yet  it  actually  worked ;  graciously  and 
compassionatingly  and  effectually.  The  Apostle 
was  as  thankful  as  if  the  whole  blessing  had 
been  emptied  into  his  own  lap,  and  had  been  for 
his  own  special  enjoyment  and  indeed  for  himself 
alone.  God  be  thanked,  i.e.  let  God  be  thanked ; 
by  you,  my  Roman  brethren,  and  by  me.  It 
is  my  desire  that  thus   God  should  be  thanked. 


68       ST.  Paul's  teaching  on  sanctification. 

It  is  meet  tliat  His  working  sliould  be  appre- 
hended and  appreciated. 

"  Ye  obeyed  from  the  heart  the  form  of  teaching 
into  which  ye  were  delivered.'*  Here  is  the  true 
reason  for  the  thankfulness  of  the  Apostle ;  and 
the  reason  why  the  Romans  themselves  should 
be  actuated  by  intensity  of  gratitude,  A  revo- 
lution had  taken  place  in  their  mode  of  life  and 
in  the  ethical  aims  by  which  they  were  actuated. 
They  had  become,  in  their  character,  converted 
persons,  and  their  conversion  had  been  effected 
through  the  instrumentality  of  some  peculiar 
kind  of  Divine  evangelical  "  teaching." 

The  evangelical  teaching  referred  to  was  of 
a  certain  "  type."  That  is  the  word  which  is 
employed  by  the  Apostle  (tutto?).  There  was  in 
the  reality  represented  by  the  word  a  certain 
distinct  impress,  which  stamped  its  similitude 
upon  the  recipient  mind,  and  thus  presented  such 
bold  outlines  of  evangelical  idea  as  sufficed  for 
the  ethical  transformation  and  transfiguration  of 
the  life.  The  impress,  so  far  forth  as  incom- 
plete reality  would  permit,  expressed  the  essence 
of  the  gospel  in  its  grand  ethical  potency.  The 
Apostle  signalises  the  result.  The  Roman  brethren 
obeyed  the  type  of  teaching  into  whose  educative 
influence  they  had  been  handed  over.  Hence 
their  conversion  ;  their  holiness.  It  was  a 
monument  to  the  power  of   Divine  instruction, 


EOMANS    VI.  17.  69 

even    when   that   instruction   was    only  partially 
developed. 

It  should  not  be  assumed  that  in  the  ex- 
pression the  type  of  doctrine  into  which  ye  were 
delivered  there  is  a  reference  to  full-orbed  evan- 
gelical truth,  or  to  the  gospel  in  its  maturity. 
The  Roman  brethren  in  general  had  not  enjoyed 
the  privilege  of  detailed  apostolic  teaching.  No 
apostle  had  ever  visited  them.  But  they  had 
been  taught  the  first  great  principles  of  Christ- 
ianity; and  they  had  turned  to  good  account 
such  incomplete  teaching  as  they  had  enjoyed. 
Their  type  of  teaching  had  been  to  a  large  extent 
a  thing  at  second  hand,  or  at  some  still  farther 
remove  from  the  primal  source.  In  many  de- 
partments of  thought  there  would  probably  be 
numerous  intervening  links  between  what  they 
themselves  had  heard  on  the  one  hand,  8,nd  what 
had  been  elsewhere  spoken  by  the  lips  of  the 
apostles  on  the  other. 

But  yet  they  had  obeyed  from  the  heart  such  type 
of  doctrine  as  had  been  brought  ivithin  their  reach. 
The  construction  of  the  sentence  is  somewhat 
irregular.  The  expression  rvirov  SiSaxf]^  exhibits 
a  case  of  '  grammatical  attraction.'  Had  it  not 
been  for  the  perturbation  consequent  on  this  at- 
traction  we  might  have  expected  the  statement 

to  have  run  thus,  VT^jKOva-are  §e  €K   KupSias  rep    tvitu) 
T^?    SiSa'^rjs  eis  ov  TrapeooOtjTe. 


70      ST.  Paul's  teaching  on  sanctification. 

The  clause  "  into  whicli  ye  were  delivered  " 
seemed  so  peculiar  to  our  translators  and  Castellio 
and  many  other  expositors,  that  they  assigned  to 
it  an  impossible  construction  and  interpretation, 
rendering  it  ivliich  was  delivered  to  you,  instead 
of  into  luhich  ye  tvere  delivered.  The  Apostle's 
idea,  however,  is,  that  his  Roman  brethren  had 
been  heartily  obedient  to  the  peculiar  type  of 
doctrine  into  whose  educative  influence  they  had, 
in  the  gracious  Providence  of  Grod,  been  handed 
over.  The  result  had  been  most  satisfactory. 
By  yielding  themselves  heartily  to  such  teaching 
of  the  gospel  as  was  within  their  reach,  they 
remained  no  longer  in  the  service  of  sin.  The 
life  they  were  now  living  in  the  flesh,  in  hope 
of  the  glory  of  Grod,  was  a  new  and  holy  life  of 
determined  antagonism  to  unrighteousness,  and 
of  devoted  consecration  to  righteousness  and  to 
God. 

Some  critics,  inclusive  of  Beza,  Tholuck,  Bishop 
Wordsworth,  and  Dr.  Chalmers  have  supposed 
that,  when  the  Apostle  speaks  of  a  type  of  teach- 
ing into  luhich  believers  are  delivered,  he  draws 
his  figurative  representation  from  metallurgy,  and 
particularly  from  the  casting  or  moulding  of 
metals.  Bishop  Wordsworth  gives  the  import 
of  the  passage  thus  :  "  You  readily  obeyed  the 
mould  of  Christian  faith  and  practice,  into  which 
at  your  baptism   you  were  poured   as   it    were, 


EOMANS   VI.  18.  71 

like  soft,  ductile,  and  fluent  metal,  in  order  to 
be  cast  and  take  its  form.  You  obeyed  the 
mould ;  you  were  not  rigid  and  obstinate,  but 
were  plastic  and  pliant  and  assumed  it  readily." 
"  The  metaphor,"  he  continues,  "  suggested  itself 
to  the  Apostle  in  the  city  where  he  was  writing 
this  Epistle,  Corinth,  famous  for  casting  statues, 
etc.,  in  bronze."  This  interpretation  evokes  so 
vivid  a  representation  of  imagery  that  there  is 
no  wonder  that  it  should  have  thrown  a  spell 
of  fascination  over  numerous  minds.  But  it  is 
nevertheless  an  improbable  exegesis.  It  is  some- 
what violent  to  represent  believers  as  obeying, 
and  obeying  from  the  heart,  a  mould  of  teaching 
into  which  they  ivere  run.  The  idea  of  freedom 
is  prominently  involved  in  the  conception  of 
ethical  obedience  ;  but  it  is  lost  in  the  conception 
of  a  metallurgical  casting  into  a  mould.  The 
Apostle  thanks  God  that  his  Romans  had  obeyed. 
It  would  by  no  means  have  been  an  unparalleled 
case  had  they  disobeyed.  But  the  idea  of  such 
possible  disobedience  is  obliterated  the  moment 
that  we  think  of  them  as  cast  into  a  metallurgic 
mould. 


y.  18.  "  And,  being  emancipated  from  sin, 
ye  became  devoted  to  the  service  of  righteous- 
ness.^^    (eXevOeprOevTe?  Se  airo  T^9  ajmapriag  €Sov\a)Ot]Te 


rl         ST.    PAUL  S    TEACHING    ON    SANCTIEICATION. 

TT?  ^iKaioavvri^  Sucli  was  the  happy  result  of 
obeying  the  type  of  evangelical  teaching  into 
which  they  had  been  initiated.  The  fetters 
which  sin  had  laid  upon  them  were  snapped, 
and  they  themselves,  animated  by  the  mightily 
constraining  sympathy  and  love  of  the  Redeemer, 
had  "  struck  the  blow."  They  ceased  to  work 
for  sin.  "  Cease  to  do  evil, — learn  to  do  well," 
said  God  by  the  mouth  of  Isaiah  the  prophet. 
The  Apostle's  Romans  followed  out  the  Divine 
instruction.  There  is  not  any  explicit  reference 
to  Divine  redemption,  or  to  a  ransom,  or  to 
propitiation.  These  belong  to  different  cartoons 
of  representation,  invaluable  "  for  instruction  " 
in  their  own  places,  but  not  requiring  to  be 
monopolisingly  obtruded  into  every  place.  The 
peculiar  experiences  of  the  Apostle's  Romans  are 
here,  so  far  as  details  are  concerned,  hidden 
behind  the  one  great  fact  of  their  emancipation 
or  freedom.  They  were  free,  and  they  knew  it. 
They  had  been  sin's  servants;  and  as  sin  is  a 
tyrant,  they  had  been  its  slaves.  In  working  for 
their  cruel  taskmaster  they  had  been  constrained 
to  work  in  fetters,  and  under  the  uplifted  rod  of 
the  oppressor.  It  was  severely  irksome  work, 
as  well  as  ignominious  service.  Figure  apart, 
they  had  found  in  their  conscious  experience 
that  sinning,  even  in  its  most  defiant  moods 
aud  revels,  is  wearisome  work,  unsatisfying,  un- 


ROMANS    VI.  18.  73 

comforfcable,  full  of  heart-aches  and  of  a  sense 
of  shame.  "At  last  it  is  sure  to  bite  like  a 
serpent  and  to  sting  like  an  adder."  Such  had 
been  the  experience  of  the  Roman  believers  in 
the  days  of  their  darkness  and  unbelief.  But 
they  came  under  the  influence  of  "  the  truth 
that  makes  free,"  and,  "being  freed  from  the 
slavery  of  sin,  they  devoted  themselves  to  the 
service  of  ris^hteousness."  Service  of  one  kind 
or  another  was  with  them,  as  it  is  with  all  men, 
an  ethical  necessity.  Man  must  serve,  as  we 
have  again  and  again  seen;  but  it  is  man's  pre- 
rogative to  choose  his  Master.  The  emancipated 
Romans  freely  gave  themselves  up  to  the  service 
of  "  Riohteousness." 

The  Apostle  might  have  varied  his  pictorial 
representation.  He  might  have  represented  the 
Master  as  Holiness,  or  as  Obedience,  or  as  Love, 
or  as  Goodness,  or  as  Grod.  The  supreme  Master 
is  certainly  God.  But  if  the  attention  be  with- 
drawn from  the  Infinite  Personality,  and  turned 
instead  to  the  consideration  of  the  Master- 
principle  in  things  ethical,  then  there  may  be  the 
choice  of  any  one  of  the  other  representations. 
The  Apostle  chooses  Bighteousness,  a  perfect  im- 
personation of  the  Supreme  Imperative  within 
the  conscience.  They  only  are  ethically  "  right," 
whose  inner  and  outer  demeanour  is  regulated 
by  the  dictates  of  "  Righteousness."     The  entire 


74       ST.  Paul's  teaching  on  sanctification. 

career   of   our  Saviour,  wlio  left  us   a   spotless 
example,  was  a  service  of  Rigliteousness. 


y.  19.     "J  sjpeah  after  the  manner  of  men  be- 
cause of  the  infirmity  of  your  fieshJ'     ('AvOpwTnvov 

Xeyco  Sia  rrjv  dirOtveiav  t^?  crapKO?  vjuoov.^     The  Apostle, 

in  view  of  what  he  had  just  been  saying  in  the 
preceding  verse,  and  of  what  he  was  about  to  add 
in  the  clauses  that  immediately  follow,  seems  to 
have  felt  that  his  representations  were  far  from 
being  of  the  highest  possible  order  of  thought. 
They  were  not  conceived  and  wrought  out  on  the 
loftiest  possible  plane  of  pictorial  embodiment. 
Hence  he,  as  it  were,  apologises  for  them,  and 
says,  I  speaJc  tvhat  is  human,  I  speah  humanly 
(the  expression  is  an  instance  of  the  adverbial 
accusative).  It  is  assumed  that  there  is  a  diviner 
style  of  thinking  and  speaking  on  such  subjects. 
Man  indeed,  cannot,  in  his  standpoints  of  thought, 
transcend  his  own  atmosphere.  His  thoughts, 
subjectively  considered,  must  he  "  human."  But 
objectively  contemplated,  they  may  be  flashes 
from  above.  God  is  a  Revealer,  and  is  con- 
stantly revealing  to  the  percipient  and  recipient 
spirit.  The  more  willing  and  docile  the  spirit 
may  be,  the  more,  and  still  the  more  will  be  the 
compass  of  the  receptivity.  The  Apostle's  recep- 
tivity was  pre-eminently  large.    And  to  him  "Grod 


ROMANS    VT.  19.  75 

made  revelation  through  the  Spirit  "  (1  Cor.  ii. 
10).  "  He  had  received,"  he  tells  us,  "  not  the 
spirit  of  the  world,  but  the  spirit  which  is  of 
Grod;  that  he  might  know  the  things  that  are 
freely  given  to  us  by  Grod "  (1  Cor.  ii.  12). 
When  it  was  fitting,  he  could  "  speak  wisdom 
among  the  perfect"  (2  Cor.  ii.  6).  But  many  of 
his  brethren  were  "  babes  in  Christ,"  to  whom 
"  he  could  not  speak  as  unto  spiritual,  but  as 
unto  carnal"  (1  Cor.  iii.  1).  He  had  "to  feed 
them  with  milk,  not  with  meat"  (1  Cor.  iii.  2). 
Their  intelligence  was  comparatively  undevel- 
oped on  the  ethical  side  of  their  understanding. 
Hence  those  rather  homely  and  in  aesthetic  Pre- 
sentations or  Impersonations  of  service  yielded 
to  sin,  to  impurity,  to  laivlessness,  on  the  one 
hand,  and  to  righteousness,  holiness,  and  obedi- 
ence, on  the  other.  Strictly  speaking,  there  are 
no  such  masters.  Strictly  speaking,  sin  is  not 
a  tyrant,  nor  is  a  sinner  the  tyrant's  slave. 
The  true  nature  of  sin  cannot  be  understood 
unless  in  the  light  of  volition  and  choice  and 
freedom  and  responsibility.  But  such  is  the 
milk  which  the  Apostle  gave  to  his  Roman 
brethren.  M.  le  Cene  seized  the  spirit,  though 
he  left  the  exact  lines,  of  the  Apostle's  apolo- 
getic expression,  when  he  rendered  the  paren- 
thesis thus: — I  speak  'popularly^  because  of  the 
infirmity  of  your  body. 


76      ST.  Paul's  teaching  on  sanotifioation. 

The  word  body  is  not  quite  a  liappy  substitute 
for  tlie  word  flesh.  The  one  did  not  entirely 
replace  the  other.  And  the  Apostle  having  both 
the  words  before  him  (verse  6),  chose  flesh,  for 
this  reason  among  others — that  more  than  body, 
it  had  got  idiomatic  attachments  of  ethical  sig- 
nificance. The  fundamental  import,  however,  of 
both  the  terms  is  essentially  identical.  Men,  in 
their  higher  relations,  are  apt  to  be  repressed 
and  oppressed,  and  kept  from  soaring  aloft,  by 
reason  of  the  imperious  earthward  appetences  of 
the  incarnated  condition.  There  is  apt  to  be 
more  of  the  animal  than  of  the  angel  in  human 
self-consciousness. 

The  phrase,  infirmity  of  the  flesh,  means,  not 
the  infirmity  attaching  to,  but  the  infirmity  pro- 
ceeding from,  the  incarnated  condition.  Webster 
says  :  "  The  genitive  in  its  primary  meaning  ap- 
pears to  denote  an  object  from  luhich  something 
proceeds  "  {N.  Test.  Syntax,  p.  63). 

The  Apostle,  it  will  be  noted,  does  not  say 
because  of  the  infirmity  of  '  my '  flesh,  or  even 
because  of  the  inflrmity  of  ^  our  ^  flesh.  He  could, 
no  doubt,  in  other  circumstances,  have  readily 
stooped  to  make  such  an  abasement  of  himself. 
But  at  present  he  was  strong  in  the  conscious- 
ness of  Divine  illumination.  He  knew  that  he 
was  taught  by  Grod.  And  he  knew  moreover 
that,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  he  had   been  seeking 


EOMANS    VI.  19.  77 

out  such  representations  as  would  be  most  easily 
apprehended,  and  most  readily  turned  to  practi- 
cal account,  by  Ins  brethren  in  Rome. 

He  proceeds  to  inculcate  that  species  of  service 
that  is  right  and  pure  and  noble ;  and  he  lays 
down  for  guidance  the  minimum  measure  of 
devotedness.  He  says,  "  for  as  ye  presented  your 
members  servants  to  impurity  and  iniquity  unto 
iniquity,  so  now  present  your  members  servants 
to    righteousness    unto    holiness."      [&(nrep    yap 

irapea-Tijcrare  ra  fxeX)]  vfxcou  SovXa  tvj  aKadapcria  kol 
Tf]  auoiuLia  eis  Tt]v  avofxiav,  outco9  vvv  TrapacrTycraTe  tu 
fxeXri  vfxu)v   SouXa   rj?    oiKaiocrvvy]   et?   ay latr/ULOv.) 

The  Apostle,  vaulting  over  the  parenthesis 
which  he  had  interposed  at  the  commencement 
of  the  verse,  betakes  himself  retrospectively  to 
the  statement  made  in  verse  18,  and  conse- 
quently to  that  period  of  his  brethren's  experi- 
ence in  the  time  past  of  their  lives,  when  they 
followed  their  own  devices,  and  gave  a  preference 
to  unrighteousness  over  righteousness.  At  that 
period  they  "  presented  their  members  servants 
to  impurity,  and  to  iniquity  unto  iniquity.'^  The 
members  of  their  body,  in  their  tout  ensemble, 
were  abused  by  being  devoted  to  the  practice 
of  moral  evil.  But  there  would  be  variety  of 
degrees  both  in  the  quality  and  in  the  quantity 
of  the  evil.  All  moral  evil  is  impurity.  And 
all  moral  impurity  is  iniquity.     Tt  is  lawlessness 


78       ST.  Paul's  teaching  on  sanctifigation. 

(avojuLLa)  in  relation  to  the  moral  empire  of  God. 
There  is  such  an  ethical  phenomenon  as  intensi- 
fied and  double-djed  iniquity ;  intensified  and 
double-dyed  impurity.  There  are  degrees  in  im- 
pure thoughts,  impure  desires,  impure  intentions, 
impure  words  and  works.  All  such  impurities 
are  in  their  entirety  "  impurity."  And  all  moral 
impurity  is  factiousness,  lawlessness,  and  rebel- 
lion in  relation  to  God. 

In  times  past  the  Apostle's  Romans  had  un- 
blushingly  yielded  up  voluntarily  the  various 
members  of  their  bodies  as  servants  to  sin. 
They  knew  that  they  had.  The  Apostle  knew 
that  they  knew.  And  both  he  and  they  knew 
what  had  been  the  result  of  such  bad  and  base 
devotement  of  themselves.  It  was  certainly  no 
very  great  enjoyment  and  "  gaiety."  It  was 
simply  "  iniquity."  They  "  yielded  up  their 
members  to  uncleanness,  and  to  iniquity  unto 
iniquity."  That  was  the  honest  result.  Almost 
all  that  was  really  pleasant  in  the  "  pleasures  of 
sin  "  might  have  been  enjoyed  apart  from  sin's 
uncleanness  and  iniquity.  Pleasure  is  one  thing, 
sin  itself  is  a  totally  different  thing.  It  is  not 
needful  that  they  be  commingled  in  order  that 
the  pleasure  may  be  enjoyed.  The  pleasure  may 
be  had  "neat."  The  happiness  that  is  in  riot 
and  revelry  might  almost  always  be  obtained  with- 
out the  riot  and  the  revelry,  without  being  asso- 


ROMANS    VI.   19.  7\^ 

ciated  with  and  contaminated  by  the  presence 
of  uncleanness.  "  Stolen  waters  are  sometimes 
sweet;"  but  waters  got  without  theft  are 
sweeter  still.  The  sweetness  in  the  poisoned 
cup  would  be  none  the  less,  but  all  the  more,  if 
the  poison  were  left  out.  The  romp  would  be  all 
the  more  delightful  \i  the  revel  were  eliminated. 
It  was  well,  therefore,  that  the  Apostle  did  not 
say,  "  Ye  presented  your  members  servants  to 
impurity  and  iniquity  resulting  in  a  life  of  gaiety 
and  pleasured  It  is  well  that  he  said,  "  Ye 
presented  your  members  servants  to  impurity 
and  iniquity,  resulting  in  iniquity ^  That,  that, 
when  the  robe  of  illusion  is  stripped  off,  is  the 
naked  result.  When  impurity  was  chosen,  sweet 
enjoyment  was  anticipated.  But  no.  The  vati- 
cination of  the  fond  heart  was  a  false  prophecy. 
The  only  result  was  iniquity.  The  sinner  was 
left  alone  with  his  sin. 

But  the  Apostle  is  referring  to  past  impurity 
and  iniquity  unto  iniquity,  in  order  to  set  over 
against  so  dark  a  picture  the  brightness  of  the 
holy  kind  of  life  which  he  desired  for  his  brethren 
in  Rome  and  throughout  the  world.  "  80  present 
your  memhers  to  the  service  of  righteousness  unto 
holiness.''^  We  might  have  expected  that  he 
would  have  formulated  the  antithesis  thus — 
"  For  as  ye  formerly  presented  your  members  to 
the  service  of  impurity  unto  iniquity,  so  have  ye 


80       ST.  Paul's  teaching  on  sanctifioation. 

noiv  presented  your  members  to  tlie  service  of 
riofliteousness  unto  holiness."  This  affirmation 
of  an  actual  historical  fact  is  the  kind  of  state- 
ment that  we  should  have  expected  in  confir- 
mation of  the  assertion  embodied  in  the  18th 
verse  :  "  Being  freed  from  sin,  ye  became  servants 
of  rio^hteousness." 

But  the  Apostle,  in  the  second  clause  of  the 
statement,  which  is  his  *  burden '  in  this  19th 
verse,  lets  stand  aside  all  mere  confirmatory 
affirmation,  and  strides  forward  in  the  spirit  and 
mood  of  one  who  is  the  bearer  of  a  grand  ethical 
imperative  {irapaa-Tware) ;  he  strides  forward  till 
he  stands  face  to  face  with  his  Romans,  and 
unburdens  his  spirit  in  an  emphatic  injunction 
of  sanctifioation.  "  Present  now  your  members 
to  the  service  of  righteousness  unto  holiness.'^  The 
desire  of  the  Apostle's  heart  glowed  into  a  white- 
heat  of  intensity  to  the  effect  that  his  fellow- 
believers  should  be  walking,  though  at  an  un- 
measured distance  behind,  in  the  footsteps  of 
Him  who  was  "  holy,  harmless,  undefiled,  and 
separate  from  sinners  " — sinners  in  the  emphatic 
signification  of  the  term. 


V.  20.     "  For  when  ye  were  servants  of  sin  ye 
were  free  in  relation  to  righteousness."     (ore  yap 

SovXoi  fjTe  rJJf  afxaoTia?,  eXeiOepoi  ijre  tij  SiKaiocrvvrj,^ 


EOMANS   VI.  20.  81 

Let  the  conjunctive  for  at  the  commencement 
of  the  statement  be  noted.  It  is  the  link  that 
connects  the  contents  of  the  verse  with  the 
contents  of  the  second  part  of  the  preceding 
verse.  The  Apostle  had  just  inculcated  on  his 
Romans  the  duty  of  presenting  their  members 
as  "  servants  to  righteousness  unto  holiness." 
And  now,  he  adds,  as  confirmatory  of  his  in- 
junction, ^^ for  when  ye  were  in  the  service  of 
sin,  ye  were  free  in  relation  to  righteousness." 
It  is  as  if  he  had  said,  "/  do  loell  to  urge  upon 
you  the  service  of  righteousness  unto  holiness^ 
for  assuredly  the  very  fact  that  formerly  ye  did 
nothing  of  the  hind  is  a  reason  ivhy  you  should 
improve  your  present  opportunity.''* 

The  expression /ree  in  relation  to  righteousness 
is  somewhat  peculiar  as  meaning  something  evil, 
and  consequently  something  that  should  not  be. 
But  we  may  learn  from  it,  that  it  is  not  all 
freedom  that  is  good.  Freedom  is  a  charming 
word.  There  is  a  sort  of  mao^ic  and  bewitching: 
glamour  in  it.  The  whole  world  loves  it,  and 
pants  after  the  great  reality  of  which  it  is  the 
symbol.  Nevertheless  it  is  not  all  freedom  that 
is  good.  In  the  expression  "  free  in  relation  to 
righteousness,"  there  is  reference  made  to  an 
evil  freedom.  When  the  Apostle's  Romans  were 
the  servants  of  sin,  they  were  "  free  from  right- 
eousness."      They   then   possessed   a   rude,  and 

G 


82      ST.  Paul's  teaching  on  sanctification. 

wretclied,  and  most  undesirable  freedom.  Indeed, 
unlimited  or  absolute  freedom  is  an  impossibility 
to  creatures ;  and  to  desire  it  is  to  desire  tbe 
annihilation  of  a  creature's  condition.  When, 
moreover,  men  enter  into  society,  they  are  obliged, 
from  the  very  essential  nature  of  society,  to  part 
with  portions  of  their  freedom.  In  society  every 
man  is  put,  to  a  greater  or  less  degree,  under 
check  by  every  other  man,  i.e.  his  freedom  is 
curtailed.  Now  the  freedom  that  could  be  en- 
joyed only  at  the  expense  of  the  blessings  of 
society  would  be,  not  a  blessed  freedom,  but 
undesirable  and  evil.  The  principle  that  is  ex- 
emplified in  society  in  general,  is  verified  in  all 
the  minor  societies  that  are  included  in  general 
society.  No  man  can  enter  any  association  what- 
soever, political,  ecclesiastical,  economical,  or 
literary,  without  paying  away  a  part  of  his 
freedom,  as  the  price  of  the  benefits  which  the 
association  has  to  off'er.  His  connection  with 
the  association  puts  him  more  than  he  was  before 
under  check — it  limits  his  freedom. 

It  is  good  for  man  to  be  thus  put  within  limits 
as  to  freedom.  Whether  indeed  it  were  good  or 
not,  it  is  indispensable ;  it  is  necessary.  But 
nothing  is  necessary  and  indispensable  to  us  that 
is  not,  all  things  considered,  good.  Man  would 
be  a  creature  absolutely  wild,  unsociable,  reckless, 
dangerous,  and,  in  one  word,  a  pestilence  and  a 


ROMANS   VI.  20.  83 

nuisance,  were  he  not  to  part  witli  mucli  of  his 
freedom. 

It  is  not  all  freedom,  then,  that  is  good.  It 
is  only  such  freedom  as  is  consistent  with  our 
highest  social,  moral,  and  spiritual  weal.  Even 
the  freedom  wherewith  Christ  makes  His  people 
free  is  not  unlimited  in  things  spiritual  and 
ecclesiastical.  It  is  chiefly  freedom  from  the 
penalty,  freedom  from  the  condemnation,  and 
freedom  from  the  defilement  of  sin.  It  is  free- 
dom the  reverse  of  that  license  which  unbelieving 
men  cherish  and  assert,  and  which  is  signalised 
by  the  Apostle,  when  he  says,  in  the  words  be- 
fore us,  "  when  ye  were  the  servants  of  sin,  ye 
were  free  from  righteousness,"  i.e.  ye  were  free 
in  relation  to  righteousness,  ye  kept  yourselves 
unengaged  in  reference  to  righteousness, — ye  did 
not  use  your  members  in  subordination  to  the 
behests  of  the  master-principle  of  Righteousness. 
It  is  likewise  worthy  of  being  noticed,  that  as 
unbelievers  experience  freedom  from  righteous- 
ness only  when  they  lay  down  their  freedom  in 
relation  to  sin,  and  yield  themselves  servants  to 
sin ;  so  whensoever  any  undesirable  and  evil 
freedom  is  experienced,  it  is  invariably  realised 
at  the  expense  of  freedom  that  is  desirable  and 
good.  They  who  are  free  from  righteousness 
are  not  free  from  sin.  It  is  because  they  re- 
nounce  their   freedom  in   reference  to  sin,  and 


84      ST.  Paul's  teaching  on  sancttfication. 

yield  themselves  servants  in  reference  to  sin,  that 
they  are  "free  from  righteousness."  They  again, 
who  are  "  servants  to  righteousness,"  are  free 
from  sin.  They  have  a  blessed  freedom.  Human 
nature  is  so  constructed  that  if  a  man  will 
sacrifice  some  of  the  highest  blessings  of  which 
he  is  susceptible,  in  order  that  he  may  not 
part  with  his  freedom,  he  will,  in  the  very 
sacrifice  that  he  makes,  bring  himself  under 
bondage  to  evils,  and  thus  rob  himself  of  a  far 
nobler  freedom  than  he  retains.  In  our  Public 
version — King  James's — ^the  phrase  is  rendered 
free  from  righteousness.  Not  quite  felicitously, 
inasmuch  as  such  a  translation  seems  to  suggest 
that  righteousness  has  claims  from  which  a  man 
may  be  free.     There  is  no  such  freedom. 

The  word  free  when  employed  in  reference  to 
servants  and  service,  naturally  enough  denotes 
disengagement.  While  the  Apostle's  Romans 
were  servants  of  sin,  they  were  not  engaged  to 
righteousness.  They  were  unengaged  in  relation  to 
righteousness.  They  could  not  at  the  same  time 
be  servants  both  to  Righteousness  and  to  Un- 
righteousness. It  is  one  of  the  old,  old  stories. 
"  No  man  can  serve  two  masters,"  when  these 
masters  are  mutually  antagonistic.  The  Apostle's 
Romans  came  under  the  sweep  of  the  great 
Teacher's  apophthegm,  and  so,  at  the  bypast  time 
referred  to,  they  criminally  held  back  their  hand 


ROMANS    VI.  21.  85 

and  their  heart  from  engaging  in  the  service  of 
righteousness.  The  freedom  they  used  was 
freedom  abused. 


Y.  21.   "  What  fruit  then  had  ye  at  that  time?  " 

{rlva  ovv  Kapirov  e'i-)(€Te  rore  i"^  Note  the  connect- 
ing then.  It  intimates  that  the  Apostle  puts 
his  query  in  view  of  the  statement  that  goes 
immediately  before,  viz.  that  his  Romans,  in 
their  former  and  unconverted  state,  had  rendered 
no  service  of  consecration  to  Righteousness. 
"  What  fruit  then  had  ye  at  that  time  ?  "  Note 
the  word  fruit.  Its  normal  meaning  is  natural 
vegetable  product.  It  is,  of  course,  primarily  a 
botanical  term,  and  may,  when  peculiarly  quali- 
fied, denote  products  that  are  deleterious,  as  well 
as  products  that  are  wholesome.  Such  out- 
growths, however,  are  exceptional.  The  immense 
preponderance  of  fruits  is  good  and  salubrious, 
so  that  the  word  fruity  unless  otherwise  defined, 
limited,  or  qualified,  naturally  denotes  that  which 
is  good  and  desirable  for  eating,  or,  it  may  be, 
what  is  positively  delicious.  "  Unfruitful  works 
of  darkness"  (Bph.  v.  11),  are  not  works  utterly 
destitute  of  results,  but  works  that  are  barren 
of  beneficent  or  beneficial  results.  And  in 
the  case  before  us,  the  Apostle,  in  his  survey, 
finds  no  outcome  that  is  good.     Hence  his  query 


86      ST.  Paul's  teaching  on  sanctification. 

"  What  fruit  had  ye  at  that  time  ?  "  Some 
critics  conceive  that  the  query  is  complete  as  it 
thus  stands.  What  immediately  follows  (ecf  ots 
wv  €Traia")(yv€(r6e)  they  regard  as  the  answer  to  the 
query,  *'  What  fruitage  then  had  ye  ?  {^Thingsl 
of  ivhich  ye  are  now  ashamed.'^  This,  as  is 
evidenced  by  the  punctuation  of  their  texts,  is 
the  view  taken  by  both  Lachmann  and  Tischen- 
dorf.  But  it  is  more  natural  to  postpone  the 
interrogation  point,  so  that  the  two  clauses  com- 
bined may  form  a  single  query,  as  in  our  public 
English  Version  and  the  Revision  ; — "  What  fruit 
then  had  you  at  that  time  [from  those  things] 
of  which  you  are  now  ashamed  ? "  Had  you, 
in  any  of  them,  a  single  drop  of  pure  enjoy- 
ment? Was  the  conscience  ever  satisfied?  Was 
the  heart  ?  Such  questions  are  pertinent.  It  is 
as  if  the  Apostle  had  said.  You  never  had  any 
sweet  fruit  of  happiness  at  all.  How  could  you, 
when  the  blight  of  God's  anathema  was  blowing 
into  hurricane  upon  your  vices  ?  "  For,"  says 
the  Apostle,  "  the  end  of  those  things  is  death." 
(to  jap  TeXo9  eKeivoDv,  Odvaroi).  By  the  word  death 
he  means  something  altogether  different  from,  or 
at  all  events,  something  far  more  generic  than 
natural  decease,  or  the  mere  termination  of 
terrestrial  existence.  There  is  ultimately  indeed 
that  termination  in  the  case  of  all,  whether  good 
or  evil,  whether  obedient  or  disobedient.    But  the 


ROMANS   VI.  22.  87 

existence,  whithersoever  transferred,  and  where- 
soever spent,  is  ever  more  than  mere  existence. 
It  is  existence  in  the  midst  of  peculiar  environ- 
ment ;  existence  with  all  the  flowers  of  happiness 
culled  out,  or  crushed  down.  It  is  existence 
over-run  with  unwholesomeness  and  weeds,  or 
thick-strewn  with  thorns  and  thistles  and  other 
abominations.  The  death  referred  to  is  the  penal 
destruction  of  well-being.  That  destruction  is  the 
natural  termination  and  end  of  all  shameful,  and 
in  particular  of  all  shameless  doings. 


Y.  22.  "  But  now  being  emancipated  from  sin, 
and  devoted  to  the  service  of  God,  ye  have  your 
fruit  unto  holiness,  and  the  end  everlasting  lifeJ' 

(wv)  Se,  eXevOepcoOepre?  airo  Tt]9  ajmapTiag,  SovXcoOevre? 
Se  Tco  Oe^,  rj^ere  tov  KaoTrov   vfjLwv  et?    a.yia(7fJiov,    to    oe 

re\o9  l^oohv  alooviov.)  The  great  change,  ever  since 
you  believed  in  the  Lord  Jesus,  has  established 
itself  in  your  experience.  "  You  are  new  crea- 
tures." "  Old  things  have  passed  away;  behold 
all  things  have  become  new."  You  are  no  longer 
the  willing  slaves  of  sin.  You  have  become  the 
willing  servants  of  God,  without  a  single  in- 
gredient either  of  slavery  or  reluctance  in  your 
service.  In  His  service  you  enjoy  your  highest 
freedom,  for  the  service  of  God  has  in  it  no 
element  of  constraint  or  compulsion,  over-riding 


08        ST.    PAUL  S   TEACHING    ON    SANCTIFICATION. 

the  williDghood  of  the  soul.  As  the  result  of 
such  service,  you  have  an  outcome  of  fruit ;  you 
have  your  fruit,  your  fitting  and  normal  fruit, 
ripening  into  richest  result.  It  is  fruit  issuing 
in  holiness.  That  is  the  ripest  and  richest  result; 
and  then  the  end  of  the  whole  life  of  probation 
and  discipline  on  earth,  is  eternal  life  in  glory, 
the  endless  life  of  bliss,  that  life  which  is  at 
present  "  hid  with  Christ  in  God." 


V.  23.  '^ For  the  ivages  of  sin  is  death;  hut  the 
gift  of  God  is  Ufe  eternal  in  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord,"" 
(to.  yap  oyp^wvia  Ttj?  a/maprlas  Oavaro?,  to  Se  -papier /xa 
Tov  Oeov  r^wr]  aiu)no9  ev  XjOtcrroS  'IrjaroO  tc5  J^vpco)  ^fxcov.^ 

The  Apostle  confirms  the  affirmation  which 
he  made  in  the  preceding  verse.  Hence  the 
reason-rendering  "  for."  Man's  future  is  retribu- 
tive. It  will  be  what  it  will  be,  in  virtue  of  the 
man's  peculiarity  in  things  present.  The  future 
is  begotten  by  the  present. 

The  Apostle  carries  out  his  favourite  imperson- 
ation. He  paints  into  a  picture  his  vivid  ideas. 
Sin  once  more  stands  out  objectively  on  his 
canvas  as  an  evil  master,  a  domineering  lord,  an 
absolute  tyrant.  The  picture  is  an  appropriate 
hieroglyph.  There  is  something  ineradicably 
savage  in  sin.  Were  it  alive  and  self-conscious, 
it  would  feel  itself  taking  pleasure  in  torturing 


EOMANS  YI.  22.  89 

and  tormenting.  Its  ways  are  the  blood-stained 
paths  of  relentless  exaction  and  oppression. 
Wheresoever  service  is  rendered,  there  will  retri- 
bution be  meted  out  according  to  the  essential 
nature  of  the  master  who  is  served.  The  retri- 
bution earned  by  persisted-in  sin,  is  the  wages 
which  the  tyrant  gives  to  his  serfs.  The  Apostle 
has  carried  his  pictorial  idea  as  far  as  his  pictorial 
imagery  will  stretch.  Other  masters  give  "  wages  " 
for  the  maintenance  of  their  servants.  Even  the 
utterly  selfish  and  unfeeling,  who  wield  a  merci- 
lessly leaded  lash,  and  who  grudge  the  very  rags 
that  can  be  hung  in  tatters  on  the  persons  of 
their  slaves ;  even  these  give  supplies  (S-^ooi/ia) 
to  prolong  the  term  of  life,  and  thus  the  term  of 
servitude.  But  sin  has  the  bad  pre-eminence  of 
paying  its  serfs  by  punishing  them.  Its  Sypwvia — 
its  wages — are  death,  and  the  death  for  which 
its  counters  are  available,  is  the  destruction  of 
the  weal  of  the  soul. 

Such  is  the  retribution  of  those  who  persist  in 
sinning.  Such  is  the  lurid  gloom  of  the  picture 
which  is  held  up  for  inspection  and  reprobation. 
A  voice  says  ^Hooh  on  this  side  and  on  tliat.'^  But 
contrariwise  when  we  turn,  and  look,  not  on  that, 
but  on  this,  the  contrast  picture,  we  see  with  a 
feeling  of  ethical  elevation,  and  of  "  joy  un- 
speakable," that  the  retribution  of  the  believing, 
their  *  award '  and  *  reward,'  is  overarched  with 


90      ST.  Paul's  teaching  on  sanctification. 

a  Divine  glory.  God,  the  Divine  Master,  does 
not  give  wages  {o^dovia)  at  all;  or,  if  He  does, 
then  His  liberal  wages,  ere  they  pass  from  His 
full  hand  into  the  empty  hands  of  His  faithful 
servants,  become  transfigured  into  something 
better  far.  He  gives,  out  of  His  own  unpurchas- 
able  munificence,  a  free  gift  of  bliss.  It  is  "  life 
everlasting."  It  is  happiness  perennial  and  eter- 
nal. It  was  the  reward  of  Jesus,  after  He  finished 
His  work  in  agony  and  woe,  and  was  buried,  and 
then  rose  again  and  ascended.  It  is  still  the  un- 
exhausted and  inexhaustible  reward  which  Jesus 
is  enjoying,  and  will  enjoy  for  ever  and  ever. 
The  same  reward  is  ours,  the  moment  that  union 
with  Christ  is  ours.  Let  any  man  be  so  closely 
united  to  Christ,  that  *'  to  him  to  live  is  Christ  " 
day  after  day  of  his  probationary  existence,  and 
then  there  is  no  evil  influence  in  all  the  Universe 
that  can  separate  him  from  the  love  of  God. 
"  Eternal  life  is  his  in  his  Lord  Jesus  Christ." 


APPENDIX. 


ADDITIONAL   NOTES   ON  EOMANS   VI.  14. 

In  Romans  vi.  14,  the  Apostle  brings  to  view  a  peculiar 
relationship  of  those  who  have  received  the  gospel.  He 
says,  "  Sin  shall  not  have  dominion  over  you,  for  ye  are 
not  under  Law  hut  under  Grace." 

"  Over  you  " — you,  that  is  to  say,  who  have  welcomed 
into  your  hearts  the  gospel. 

How  could  the  Apostle  so  express  himself,  when  he 
was  prepared  to  say  in  the  1st  verse  of  the  next  chapter, 
"  Know  ye  not,  brethren,  that  the  law  has  dominion  over 
the  man  as  long  as  he  lives  ?  " 

To  what  law  does  he  refer  ? 

It  is  well  to  bear  in  mind  that  in  the  Apostle's 
writings  the  term  has  a  somewhat  varied  range  of 
reference.  It  sometimes  denotes  the  whole  of  the  Old 
Testament  Revelation.  Most  appropriately  so,  for  that 
Revelation  was  really,  in  its  sum-total,  an  Authoritative 
Revelation  of  the  will  of  God. 

Sometimes  the  word  denotes  that  portion  of  the  Old 
Testament  Revelation  which  is  comprised  in  the  Penta- 
teuch. 

Sometimes  the  Psalms  and  the  Prophets  are  added, 
in  thought,  to  the  Pentateuch,  and  then  all  together 
constitute  one  complex  Law. 

Sometimes  there  is  a  condensation  of  the  reference, 
representing  at  one  time  the  essential  duty  of  man  as 


92  APPENDIX. 

man^  or  more  expansively,  at  anotlier,  the  duties,  pre- 
rogatives, and  privileges  of  Jewish  men  as  Jews. 

The  Apostle,  in  using  the  term,  employs  it  as  a  great 
and  comprehensive  thinker  might  be  expected  to  employ 
it,  realising  the  complexity  involved  in  its  unity.  He 
hence  contemplates  the  complex  object  at  very  various 
angles  of  vision.  And,  as  was  not  unnatural,  he  fre- 
quently shifts  his  standpoint,  moving  rapidly  round  the 
object  of  his  contemplation,  and  looking  at  it  in  a  suc- 
cession of  its  manifold  aspects.  Unless  we  bear  in  mind 
that,  in  speaking  of  the  Law,  the  Apostle  was  thus  deal- 
ing with  a  many-sided  unity,  we  shall  be  often  perplexed 
when  we  try  to  follow  in  the  train  of  his  discussions. 

It  is  demonstrable  that  in  Romans  vi.  14,  and  in 
Romans  vii.  1  and  6,  the  Apostle  refers  to  the  Law, 
viewed  as  an  Authoritative  Revelation  of  the  will  of  God 
in  reference  to  man,  as  -man.  He  is,  in  other  words, 
referring  to  the  Law  in  that  one  central  aspect  of  its 
entirety,  which  is  frequently,  and  excellently,  designated 
the  Moral  Law.  It  is  the  Decalogue,  i.e.  the  ten  words 
or  ten  commandments.  Or  it  is  the  duologue,  i.e.  the 
two  words,  the  two  commandments : — Supreme-love-to- 
God,  and  Love-to-our-neighbour-such-as-we-bear-to-our- 
selves. 

That  it  is  the  decalogue  or  duologue  that  is  referred 
to  in  the  passages  before  us,  is  evidenced  by  Romans 
vii.  7 — "  What  shall  ive  say  then  ?  Ls  the  Law  sin  ? 
Away  with  that  thought  {Mr}  yivoiro)  !  I  had  not  known 
sin  but  through  the  Law ;  for  I  had  not  knoivn  coveting 
except  the  Law  had  said,  Thou  shalt  not  covet."  The 
Apostle^s  quotation  points  to  the  law  he  had  been  signal- 
ising, and  identifies  it  as  distinctly  and  demonstratively 
as  his  reference  in  Chapter  xiii.  8,  9,  where  he  says,  "  Owe 
no  man  anything  but  to  love  one  another;  for  he  that 
loveth  another  hath   fulfilled  the  Law."      What   Law  ? 


APPENDIX.  93 

The  Decalogue;  for  the  Apostle  goes  on  to  say — "For 
this.  Thou  shalt  not  commit  adultery,  Thou  shalt  not  kill. 
Thou  shalt  not  steal,  Thou  shalt  not  bear  false  witness, 
Thou  shalt  not  covet,  and  if  there  be  any  other  com 
mandment,  it  is  briefly  comprehended  in  this  word, 
namely.  Thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbour  as  thyself/^ 

Assuming  that  the  reference  of  the  word  Law  is  as 
indicated,  what  does  the  Apostle  mean  when  he  speaks 
of  this  Law  as  "  having  dominion  over  a  man "  ?  He 
means  that  it  has  executive  power  to  deal  with  the  man 
as  he  deserves.  It  is  not  the  case  that  the  Apostle 
looked  upon  the  Law  as  utterly  powerless  ;  defunct ;  a 
dead  letter;  dead  or  dying.  It  has  dominion.  It  is 
alive  and  has  power.  It  can  lord  it  over  the  man  who 
is  subject  to  it;  and  it  does  so  lord  it.  So  that  it  still 
has  strength.  It  is  the  very  Law  that  is  signalised  by 
the  Apostle  in  1  Corinthians  xv.  56,  "  The  sting  of  death 
is  sin ;  and  the  strength  of  sin  is  the  Law."  It  is  the 
Law  that  gives  strength  to  whatsoever  there  is  in  death 
that  has  a  sting.  Were  it  not  for  the  Law,  sin  would 
be  no  sin ;  and  consequently  there  would  be  no  sting 
in  death.  "  Sin  is  the  transgression  of  the  law.''  The 
Law  then  still  is  ;  and  has  strength,  and  exercises  it,  and 
dominion,  and  lordship. 

But  if  this  be  the  case,  what  is  meant  when  it  is  said 
in  verse  6,  "  But  now  we  are  delivered  from  the  law, 
that  being  dead  wherein  we  tvere  held."  Is  there  not,  it 
may  be  asked,  a  reference  in  this  latter  expression  to 
the  Ijaiu  ?  And  if  so,  is  it  not  expressly  represented 
as  dead? 

In  our  English  Version,  King  James's,  the  Law  does 
seem  unfortunately  to  be  represented  as  dead.  But  in 
the  Original  Greek,  as  is  acknowledged  by  all  enlightened 
critics,  without  exception,  it  is  not  the  Law  that  is  repre- 
sented as  dead.    It  is  believers  in  Jesus.    The  true  trans- 


94  APPENDIX. 

lation  of  the  Apostle's  expression  is  given  in  tlie  margin 
of  our  English  Bibles,  "  But  now  we  are  delivered  from 
the  Law,  being  dead  to  that  wherein  we  were  held/'  that 
is,  having  died  and  being  dead  to  the  Law. 

It  is  believers  in  Jesus  who  have  died ;  not  the  Law. 
And  believers  are  "dead,"  not  in  any  dreadful  sense  of 
the  term.  They  have  died  in  Christ,  and  are  dead  in 
Christ.  They  "  have  been  crucified  with  Christ."  They 
died  with  the  crucified  Christ.  Believers  occupy,  with 
respect  to  sins,  the  same  relation  which  Jesus  Himself 
now  occupies.  He,  having  died  under  our  sins,  and  for 
them,  bearing  their  penalty  and  exhausting  it,  "  dieth  no 
more."  He  is  now,  and  for  ever,  free,  as  our  Substitute, 
from  all  farther  claims  from  the  dishonoured  Law — He 
is  free  from  all  farther  liability  to  suffer.  "  Christ  being 
raised  from  the  dead,  dieth  no  more."  Death  has  no 
more  dominion  over  Him.  In  His  resurrection-life  He 
"  liveth  unto  God  " — He  liveth  in  the  full  enjoyment  of 
the  glorious  smile  of  the  countenance  of  God- — a  counten- 
ance that,  to  Him,  shall  never  more  be  over-shadowed  or 
beclouded.  The  darkness  is  past  for  ever.  The  Apostle 
adds — "Likewise,  reckon  ye  also  yourselves  to  be  dead  in- 
deed to  sin,  and  alive  to  God."  It  is  thus  decisively  evi- 
denced that  it  is  not  the  Law  that  is  dead,  but  believers, 
who  by  faith  enter  into  Christ.  Becoming  parts  of  His 
person,  they  die  in  His  death,  and  live  in  His  life. 

As  regards  the  translation  that  is  given  in  King 
James's  English  Version,  "  that  being  dead  wherein  we 
were  held,"  its  history  is  a  little  romance. 

The  translation  rests  on  no  manuscriptural  authority 
whatsoever. 

How  then  did  it  get  itself  admitted  into  the  Elzevir 
Greek  Testament,  and  into  our  Public  English  Version  ? 
By  Beza's  unconscious  influence. 

Beza  misunderstood  some  statements  of  Erasmus  in 


APPENDIX.  95 

reference  to  some  statements  of  Chrysostom.  He  says, 
"  Erasmus  being  witness,  Chrysostom  read  aTroOavovro^ 
(Legit  igitur  Chrysostomus  a'7rodav6vTO<;,  Erasmo  teste). 
It  was  a  mistake.  But  Beza,  having  the  courage  of  his 
opinions,  added,  "  I  so  approve  of  the  reading  that  I 
do  not  hesitate  to  replace  it  in  the  text.''  So  it  got  a 
place,  not  in  his  Annotations  only,  but  likewise  in  the 
text,  which,  in  all  his  five  editions,  he  places  at  the  head 
of  the  pages.  Our  English  Mill  relieved  a  little  his 
literary  animus  by  saying,  "This  Annotator  'dared'  to 
put  the  word  into  the  body  of  the  Apostolic  text "  (invitis 
nostris  libris  omnibus  in  corpus  textus  Apostolici  referre 
ausus  est  hie  Annotator).  Prolegomena  cxxxi.  Before 
the  Geneva  critic  ventured,  indeed,  on  the  final  step  of 
elevating  the  mere  creature  of  his  imagination  into  the 
text,  he  contrived  to  convince  himself — though  in  utter 
default  of  evidence — that  what  he  fancied  to  be  Chryso- 
stom's  reading  must  have  been  the  universally  accepted 
reading  of  the  age  (omnino  apparet  earn  ledionem  fiusse 
turn  sine  controversia  receptam).  Thus  he  piled  blunder 
upon  blunder,  and  showed  himself — peculiarly  strong  as 
he  doubtless  was — to  be  weak  as  other  men. 

Several  editors  followed  in  the  wake  of  the  Elzevirs, 
such  as  Courcelles,  Leusden,  Schottgen,  etc.  They 
followed  blindly,  however,  though  reverentially — not 
dreaming  that  they  were  presenting,  as  a  portion  of  the 
inspired  text,  a  reading  which  rests  on  no  foundation 
whatever  but  a  misunderstanding  of  a  remark  of  Chryso- 
stom. Of  course  Mill  lifted  up  his  protest.  So  did 
Bengal.  Wetstein  also,  although,  in  accordance  with  his 
plan,  he  allowed  the  false  word  to  remain  in  the  text. 
He  prefixed  to  it  his  reprobating  brand.  Griesbach  dis- 
missed it ;  and  so  do  Lachmann,  Tischendorf,  Tregelles, 
Westcott-and-Hort,  not  to  speak  of  the  minor  editors. 
Muralto  fancied  that  d'iro6av6vTO<i  was  the  reading  of  the 


96  APPENDIX. 

Vatican.  But  the  Vatican  reads  aTroBavovrci,  as  does 
the  Sinaitic.  And  so  do  all  the  Greek  Fathers,  who 
comment  on  the  passage,  or  who  quote  it.  There  is  not 
a  speck  of  manuscriptural  authority  for  aTroOavovrof;. 
And  yet  so  great  a  man  as  Grotius  got  completely  be- 
meshed  in  considering  the  Apostle's  expression.  He 
assumed  in  the  first  place  that  there  was  manuscriptural 
authority  for  airoOavovTO'i,  and,  on  the  basis  of  this 
assumption,  he  asserts  the  existence  of  the  authority  [alii 
codices  Jtahent  airoOavovro'^).  He  appeals,  in  the  second 
place,  to  Chrysostom  as  having  had  that  particular  read- 
ing before  him.  And,  in  the  third  place,  he  says  that 
Origen  too  makes  mention  of  the  reading  [cvjus  lectionis 
et  Origenes  memimt),  whereas  Origen  does  nothing  of  the 
kind.  So  far  as  his  mind  can  be  gathered  from  Rufinus's 
Version — the  only  existing  means  for  ascertaining  his 
opinion — he  mentions  the  reading  that  is  repi'oduced  in 
the  Vulgate,  the  Itala  or  Older  Latin,  the  Latin  Fathers 
in  general,  and,  in  particular,  in  the  manuscripts  D  E  F  G, 
[Scio  et  in  aliis  exemplaribus  scriptum  a  lege  mortis  in 
qua  detinabimur ;  sed  hoc,  id  est,  mortui,  et  verius  est  et 
rectius) ;  but  he  does  not  make  the  shadow  of  a  reference 
to  Beza's  reading.     (See  Opera,  vol.  iv.  p.  179.) 

Gi'otius  is  one  of  those  who  suppose  that  the  Law  is 
dead.  "  Christ,'^  says  he,  "  in  dying  slew  the  law  of 
Moses.''  Hence  he  construes  the  last  clause  of  the  1st 
verse  thus:  "  The  law  has  dominion  over  a  man  as  long  as 
it  lives."  Wycliffe  was  of  the  same  opinion.  So  too  Eras- 
mus, Tyndale,  Vatable.  Este  too,  and  Bengel  were  of 
the  same  mind.  Mace  likewise,  and  Doddridge,  Taylor 
of  Norwich,  Wakefield,  Newcome,  Belsham,  Koppe,  Flatt, 
etc.  But  the  great  body  of  expositors,  including  Chryso- 
stom, Theodoretj  Theophylact,  OEcumenius;  Luther  too, 
and  Melanchthon,  and  Calvin,  as  well  as  all  the  chiefs  of 
modern  exegesis,  construe  the  passage  as  the  authors  of 


APPENDIX.  97 

our  Public  Version  have  doue,  as  well  as  their  successors, 
the  late  Revisionists.  "Dieser  Ansicht/'  as  says  Riickert, 
"  sind  die  neusten  Ausleger  sammt  und  senders  bei- 
getreten." 

Even  Beza  saw  that  it  would  be  utterly  at  variance 
with  the  scope  of  the  paragraph  to  suppose  that  the  life 
of  the  law  is  referred  to.  And,  while  contending  that 
the  Apostle  says  in  verse  6th,  "  That  being  dead,  wherein 
we  were  held,^^  he  yet  does  not  suppose  with  Doddridge, 
Wakefield,  Belsham,  etc.,  that  the  Apostle  meant  the  law 
being  dead.  He  supposed  that  the  meaning  is,  that  thing 
— sin — bei^ig  dead.  He  was  persuaded  that  Paul  never 
could  say  that  the  law  of  God  is  dead.  [Atqui  Paulus 
nunquam,  opinor,  dicturus  fuit  legem  Dei  mortnum.)  He 
was  right.  The  death  of  the  law  is  an  idea  altogether 
foreign  to  the  theology  of  Paul,  and  to  the  theology  of 
all  the  inspired  writers. 


II. 


LITERATURE   ON  ROMANS   VI. 

Though  there  is  little  Literature  of  a  special  description, 
bearing  on  the  elucidation  of  Romans  vi,  still  there  is 
'  a  little.'  The  Chapter  has  had,  all  along,  a  somewhat 
peculiar,  but  yet  somewhat  perplexing  charm  for  such 
theological  scholars  as  combined,  in  prominent  degree, 
a  spirit  of  moral  earnestness  with  a  taste  for  literary 
culture.  Hence  in  the  age  of  Academic  Dissertations, 
Exercitations,  Prolusions,  and  ^  Commentations,'  not 
infrequently  was  there  recourse  to  Romans  vi,  as  afford- 
ing congenial  material  for  able  or  elegant,  as  also  for 
able  and  elegant,  monographs  on  groups  of  verses,  or 
even  on  single  clauses  and  expressions.     Among  these 

H 


98  APPENDIX. 

Academic  Monographs,  I  have  met  with,  and  possess, 
the  following  : — 

Jo.  Conrad  Auenmuller :  Quoestio  Theologica  utrum  Mors 
Christo  dominata  fuerit  ?     Occasione  Rom.  vi.  9.     (1688). 

Jo.  Conrad.  Bauck  :  DIsserfcatio  Theologica  de  Morte  quce 
justificat  a  peccato.  Rom.  vi.  7.  (1767).  An  able  and 
exhaustive  Treatise. 

G.  Besenbeck  :  De  stilo  gentium  doctoris  Paulli  ad  omnium 
Jwminum  captum  adcomm,odato.  Occasione  Rom.  vi.  19. 
(1759). 

G.  Besenbeck  :  Commentatio  theologica  exegetica  de  fervid o 
Christianorum  Deo  et  Justitice  sub  libertatis  lege  serviendi  studio. 
Occasione  Rom.  vi.  19.     (1760). 

Fr.  Kornmann  :  Dissertatio  exegetica  de  Typo  apostolicce 
doctrincB  digne  recepto  ac  porro  recipiendo.  Ex  epistola  ad 
Romanes  vi.  17.      (1730). 

And.  Michaelis  :  De  Morte  ac  Vita  fidelium  cum,  Christo,  ex 
Rom.  vi.  8.     (1703). 

Aug.  H.  Niemeyer  :  Gominentatio  in  locum  Paullinum  ad 
Rom.  vi.  1-11.     (1788). 

Michael  C.  Siisserott :  Exercitatio  theologica  de  quotidiana 
Christianorum  morte  et  resurrectione.  Ex  epistola  ad  Romanes, 
vi.  4,  8,  et  reliq.     (1711). 

J.  Fr.  Winzer  :  Explanatur  locus  Paulli  ad  Bomanos  epistolce 
cap.  vi.  1-6.     (1831).     Eminently  scholarly. 

A  special  niche  among  the  Monographs  should  be  assigned 
to  the  first  half  of  James  Eraser's  Treatise  entitled  The 
Scripture  Doctrine  of  Sanctification.  His  explication  of  the 
sixth  Chapter  may,  for  our  present  purpose,  be  detached 
from  that  of  the  seventh.  The  exegesis,  though  somewhat 
cumbrous  in  style,  is  massive,  and  judicious.  The  devoted 
author,  minister  at  Alness  in  Ross-shire,  died  in  1769.  His 
life's  lot,  at  the  commencement  of  his  career,  was  cast  in 
troublous  times. 

FINIS. 


Butler  &  Tanner,  The  fcielwood  Printing  Works,  Frome,  and  London. 


Fifth  Edilion,  Revised,  in  Zvo,  price  i^s. 

A    PRACTICAL   COMMENTARY 

ON    THE 

GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  ST.  MATTHEW. 

£y  JAMES    MORISON,    D.D. 


Fourth  Edition,  Revised,  in  ?>vo,  price  \zs. 

A    PRACTICAL    COMMENTARY 

ON   THE 

GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  ST.  MARK. 

By  JAMES   MORISON,    D.D. 


PRESS   NOTICES. 

"  Contemporary  Review." 
We  have  found  Dr.  MORISON  a  very  able  expositor.     He  has  a  sound  judg- 
ment, great  capacity  for  criticism,  and  immense  industry. 

The  "  Rock." 

Its  criticisms  are  keen,  well  sustained,  and  never  feeble  or  puerile ;  while  no 
difficulty  of  text  or  interpretation  is  ever  shrunk  from.  Dr.  Morison's  Com- 
mentary gives  evidence  of  the  best  qualities  of  a  scholar  and  a  divine  ;  and  it 
is  a  work  which  we  recommend  to  all  theological  students  as  giving  very  valu- 
able aid,  to  be  sought  in  vain  elsewhere. 

The  "Sword  and  Trowel." 

No  student  can  well  do  without  it.  It  is  a  marvellous  display  of  learning 
and  labour. 

The  "  London  Quarterly  Review^." 

This  is,  on  the  whole,  the  most  wise,  exhaustive,  and  serviceable  Commen- 
tary on  Matthew  which  we  have  yet  seen. 


\ 


London:  HODDER  AND  STOUGHTON,  27,  Paternoster  Row. 


The  "Expositor." 

Our  opinion  of  this  masterly  work,  the  value  we  put  on  it  is  well  known. 
It  was,  in  our  judgment,  the  best  Commentary  on  St.  Matthew's  Gospel  a 
dozen  years  ago ;  and,  despite  the  almost  incredible  advance  in  the  art  and 
practice  of  exposition  which  has  been  witnessed  since  then,  it  remains  the  best 
to  this  day. 

"  Scotsman." 

To  come  dovm  to  recent  times,  the  venerable  Dr.  James  Morison  has,  in 
his  Commentaries  on  Matthew  and  Mark,  exhibited  a  deeper  insight  into 
gospel  history  than  any  living  expositor,  native  or  foreign. 

"  United  Presbyterian  Magazine." 

We  have  seldom  dipped  into  any  exegetical  performance  with  more  pleasure. 
Our  admiration  has  been  excited  by  the  displays  of  learning,  acuteness,  and 
lively  imagination,  combined  with  devoutness,  which  mark  every  page.  We 
feel  that  we  are  in  the  hands  of  an  independent  and  original  thinker,  and  that 
under  his  guidance  we  are  really  adding  to  the  stock  of  our  knowledge  in  the 
things  of  the  Spirit. 

The  "Methodist  Recorder." 

On  the  whole.  Dr.  Morison's  Commentaries  on  the  Gospels  of  Matthew 
and  Mark  are  the  best  we  know. 

The  "Record." 

"Dr.  Morison's  Commentary  on  the  first  of  the  Gospels  v^z-s,  highly  recom- 
mended in  the  Record  as  scholarly,  exhaustive,  and  thoroughly  devout.  We 
are  able  with  much  satisfaction  to  recommend  the  work  before  us — Commentary 
on  Mark — as  marked  with  much  ability.  Dr.  Morison  is  evidently  a  divine 
of  no  ordinary  erudition.  His  expositions,  characterized  by  common  sense 
and  sound  judgment,  are  evangelical  and  edifying  ;  and  the  theological  student 
will  especially  value  the  combination  of  patience,  critical  sagacity,  and 
fairness. 

The  "  Nonconformist." 

Not  only  has  he  studied  the  great  commentaries,  ancient  and  modern,  on 
the  Scripture  he  takes  in  hand  ;  he  has  also  studied  the  voluminous  disserta. 
tions  that  have  been  written  on  single  and  often  minute  points  of  interpretation. 
He  has  digested  what  he  has  read  j  and  is  not  content  to  give  other  men's 
views,  but  also  gives  both  his  own,  and  his  reasons  for  forming  them.  He 
has  the  rare  gift  of  common  sense  in  singular  perfection. 


London:   HODDER  AND  STOUGHTON,   27,  Paternoster   Row. 


BY  THE  SAME  AUTHOR. 
A    CRITICAL    EXPOSITION    OF    THE     THIRD 
CHAPTER   OF    PAUL'S    EPISTLE    TO    THE 
ROMANS:   A  Monograph. 

8vo,  cloth,  price  12s.  6d. 

"  The  work  is  marked  by  much  ability.  The  author's  erudition  is  un- 
commonly extensive.  He  has  abundance  of  Greek  and  Hebrew  learning,  and 
is  familiar  with  technical  theology  in  its  minutest  details.  Nor  have  his 
accumulated  stores  of  knowledge  weighed  down  his  brains  so  that  they  are 
incapable  of  thinking.  On  the  contrary,  the  author  is  metaphysical  and 
acute.  He  can  criticize  the  great  masters  of  exegesis  that  have  preceded  him, 
bringing  a  clear  intellect  to  bear  upon  their  expositions,  and  subjecting  their 
opinions  to  a  minute  analysis.  As  an  example  of  exhaustive  exposition  the 
volume  is  unique  in  these  days. "  "  Every  verse  and  every  word  are  canvassed  ; 
while  the  opinions  of  many  writers  upon  these  words  and  verses  are  fairly  given." 
"  The  multifarious  reading  and  intellectual  vigour  of  the  author  show  that  he  is 
peculiarly  gifted.  In  the  great  majority  of  instances  in  which  he  enters  into 
elaborate  investigations  of  special  words  or  phrases,  we  agree  with  his  conclu- 
sions ;  admiring,  all  the  while,  his  patient  consideration  and  calm  judgment. 
A  scholar  must  produce  cogent  reasons  for  dissenting  from  the  views  at  which 
the  author  has  arrived  through  inductive  processes,  indicative  of  much  labour, 
reading,  and  thought." — Athenceum. 

"We  regard  the  work,  on  the  whole,  as  a  rare  specimen  of  most  varied 
research,  combined  with  independent  judgment  and  critical  sagacity ;  of 
minute  acquaintance  with  the  opinions  of  others,  accompanied  with  a  severe 
analysis  of  their  merits ;  of  linguistic  aptitudes  united  with  logical  power,  and 
intellectual  vigour.  Dr.  Morison  possesses  a  far  greater  number  of  the  quali- 
fications requisite  for  a  satisfactory  explanation  of  Scripture  than  most  of 
his  fellow-labourers  in  the  same  field." — British  Quarterly  Review. 

' '  See  generally  the  thorough  defence  of  the  forensic  meaning  of  SiKaiovffOa 
in  the  New  Testament,  supported  from  classic  authors,  and  from  the  Old 
Testament, — in  Morison,  p.  163  ff." — The  late  H.  A.  W.  Aleyer,  of  Hajtitover 
{ill  his  Commentary  on  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans,  vol.  i.  p.  161). 

"  Morison'' s  monograph  on  Romans  iii.  is,  as  it  seems  to  me,  a  unique 
specimen  of  learning  and  sound  exegetical  judgment." — Dr.  F.  Godet,  Neu- 
chatel  {in  his  Introduction  to  his  Commentary  on  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans, 
vol.  i.  p.  117). 


London  :   HODDER  AND  STOUGHTON,  27,  Paternoster  Row. 

3 


Vols.  I.  and  11.     In  %vo.  Cloth,  price  'js.  6d.  each. 

THE   EXPOSITOR. 

Edited  by  the  Rev.  W.  Robertson  Nicoll,  M.A. 
VOL.  I.     CONTENTS. 


Frontispiece — Etched  Portrait 

A  Defence  of  '^Natural  Law  in 
the  Spiritual  IVorld.^' 

Prof.  J.  A.  'BeeX..— Systematic  The- 
ology. 

E.  A.  W.  BviAge.— The  Seraphim. 

Rev.  T.  K.  Cheyne,  H.'D.—Lord 
Sabaoth,  etc. 

Prof.  S.  J.  Curtiss,  'Q.V^.— Recent 
American  Literature  on  the  O.  T. 

Prof.  W. P.  Dickson, D.D. — Meyer. 

Rev.M.Dods,  D.D. — Dives  a^id La- 
zarus.— Recetit  English  Literature 
on  the  Al.  T,  etc. 

Prof.  H.  Drummond. —  The  Contri- 
Inition  of  Science  to  Christianity,  etc. 

Rev.  Canon  Evans,  M.A. — Exe- 
getical  Notes  from  Sermons. 

Prof.  J.  M.  Fuller,  M.A..— The 
Book  of  Daniel. 

Frof.  F.  Godet,  D.D.— 77;^  First 
Love  and  Hope  in  Thessalonica,  etc. 

E.  Gosse. — Bishop  Martensen. 

Rev.  J.  Ker,  'D.Yi.—  The  Better  Re- 
surrection. 


OF    THE   LATE    BiSHOP   MaRTENSEK. 

Prof.  A.  F.  Kirkpatrick,  M.A.— 
Recent  English  Literature  on  the  O.  T 
Rt.  Rev.  J.  B.  Lightfoot,  D.D.— 

Recent  Researches  on  the  N.  T. 
Rev.  Alex.  Maclaren,  D.D.— 77/^ 

Epistle  to  the  Colossians. 
Rev.  J.  Parker,  D.D. — Second  Book 

of  Moses. 
Prof.     Salmond,     D.D.  —  Recent 

Fo7-eign  Literature  on  the  O.  T. 
G.    A.     Simcox,     M.A.  —  Canon 

Mozley. 
Rev.   W.   H.    Simcox,   M.A.— ^ 

Campaigner'' s  Bevei-age. 
Prof.    G.    T.    Stokes,    M.P^.—  The 

Fayilm  Manuscripts,  etc. 
Prof.  H.  L.  Strack,  D.D.— Recent 

Foreign  Literature  on  the  O.  T. 
Prof.  B.  B.  Warfield,  D.D.— 77/^ 

Prolegotnena  to  Tischendorfs  N.  T. 
Rev.  A.  Whyte,  D .T> .—Joseph  and 

Maty. 
Rev.  H.  C.  Wilson.— 77^^  Theology 

of  General  Gordon. 


VOL.  IL     CONTENTS. 


Fi-ontispiece — Etched  Portrait  of  F.  Godet,  D.D 

t      T\..:«.a..      T\   T4  I> — i^^J  'Da->*      "D^rtf     n.       T*      C«-^Ua 


Rev.   Prof.  Driver,  D.D. — Revised 

Version  of  the  O.  T. 
Prof.    John    Massie,    M.A. — "7 

have  received  of  the  Lord.''' 
Rev.    A.     Maclaren,     D.D.— 7/^^ 

Epistle  to  the  Colossians. 
G.  A.  Simcox,  M.A. — Dean  Church. 
Rev.    M.    Dods,    M.A..— Tlie  Lost 

Sheep,  etc. 
Rev.  A.  C.  Jennings,  M.A.,  and 

Rev.    W.    H.    Lowe,    lA.A.—A 

Critical  Estimate    of  the    Revised 

Version  of  the  0.   T. 
Prof.  Godet,  l^.'D.—  The  Epistles  to 

the  Corinthians. 
Prof.    A.    Socin. —  The    Survey   of 

IVestern  Palestine. 
Josiah  Gilbert. — Isaac  Taylor. 
Prof.    H.    L.    Strack,    T>.Ti.—  The 

Work  of  Bible  Revision  in  Germa7iy. 
Rev.Prof.Salmond.— T:  Godet,D.D. 


Rev.  Prof  G.   T.  Stokes,  M.A.— 

The  Fayicm  Gospel  Fragjuent. 
Rev.    T.    K.    Cheyne,  D.D.— Z>r. 

M.  M.  Kalisch,  etc. 
Rev.    Prof.    Kirkpatrick,   M.A. — 

Recent  English  Litet-atureontheO.  T. 
Lord  Moncreiff. — Blaise  Pascal. 
Rev.  A.  Whyte,  'D.X^.— Christ  the 

Interp7-eter  of  Nature. 
Prof.    B.    B.    Warfield,    D.D.— 

A?ne}-ican  Literature  on  the  N.  T. 
Rev.  Prof.  W.  P.  Dickson,  D.D.— 

Dr.    Mommsen   on    the    Neronian 

Reference  of  the  Apocalypse,  etc. 
Prof.   J.    A.    Beet. — Oltramare  on 

Romans. 
Rev.    J.     E.    Yonge,    M.A.—On 

Romans  xi.  20. 
Prof,     Harnack,    Ph.D.  —  Bishop 

Lightfoot's    "  Ignatitis    and    Foly- 

carp." 


London  :  HODDER  &  STOUGHTON,  27,  Paternoster  Row. 

4 


STUDIES  ON   THE    NEW  TESTAMENT.     By  F. 

GoDET,  D.D.,  Professor  of  Theology,  Neuchatel.  Edited  by  the  Hon. 
and  Rev.  W.  H.  Lyttelton,  M.A.,  Canon  of  Gloucester,  Seventh 
Edition,     "js.  6d. 

Contents: — The  Origin  of  the  Four  Gospels. — Jesus  Christ.  —  The  Work  oj 
Christ.  —  The  Four  Chief  Apostles. — The  Apocalypse. 

"  We  have  not  had  in  our  hands  for  some  considerable  time  a  book  so  fresh, 
full,  and  suggestive.  The  author  holds  a  high  place  in  the  higher  biblical 
criticism  ;  he  has  rich  gifts,  deep  spiritual  insight,  and  a  remarkable  method 
of  saying  a  great  deal  in  a  sentence  or  tvs^o." — Primitive  Methodist. 

STUDIES    ON    THE    OLD    TESTAMENT.     By  F. 

GoDET,  D.D.  Edited  by  the  Hon.  and  Rev.  Canon  Lyttelton,  M.A, 
Fourth  Edition.     Crown  8vo,  7^-.  6d. 

Contents  : — Angels. —  The  Plan  of  the  Development  of  Life  on  our  Earth, — 
The  Six  Days  of  Creation.  — The  Four  Greater  Prophets.  —  The  Book  of 
fob.  —  The  Song  of  Songs. 

"  Unquestionably  M.  Godet  is  one  of  the  first,  if  not  the  very  first,  of  con- 
temporary commentators.  We  have  no  hesitation  in  advising  all  students  of 
the  Scripture  to  procure  and  to  read  with  careful  attention  these  lummous 
essays. " — Literary  Churchman. 

A    COMMENTARY    ON    THE    FIRST    EPISTLE 

TO  THE  CORINTHIANS.  By  Thomas  Charles  Edwards, 
M.A.,  of  Lincoln  College,  Oxford,  Principal  of  the  University  College  of 
Wales,  Aberystwith.     Second  Edition.     8vo,  14^-. 

"It  is  not  often  that  a  commentator  puts  himself,  on  his  first  appearance, 
into  the  front  rank  of  a  distinguished  class  ;  but  it  is  no  exaggeration  to  say 
this  of  the  writer  of  the  present  work.  In  grammatical  criticism  and  inter- 
pretation of  the  line  of  thought  alike,  the  work  is  solid  and  strong.  The 
acuteness  of  philological  criticism  is  worthy  of  a  scholar  of  the  Master  of 
Balliol,  and  reminds  us,  more  than  any  other  recent  work,  of  Meyer.  The 
exposition  of  the  substantive  teaching  of  the  epistle  is  equally  thorough.  No 
difficulties  are  shirked.  The  crucial  phrases  and  passages  are  ably  discussed." 
— London  Quarterly  Review. 

THE    PARABOLIC   TEACHING  OF  CHRIST.     A 

Systematic  and  Critical  Study  of  the  Parables  of  Our  Lord.  By  Rev. 
Prof.  A.  B.  Bruce,  D.D.     Second  Thousand.     8vo,  \zs. 

"  The  volume  should  have  a  place  next  Trench  on  the  Parables  on  the 
shelves  of  every  student  of  the  New  Testament.  It  is  one  of  the  most  valuable 
contributions  to  the  study  of  the  words  of  Christ  that  has  appeared  of  late 
years.  The  treatment  of  what  Professor  Bruce  calls  '  Parable-germs,'  or  the 
undeveloped  parables  of  such  gnomic  expressions,  '  They  that  be  whole  have 
no  need  of  a  physician,'  etc.,  or  of  such  similes  as  that  of  the  builders  on  the 
rock  and  on  the  sand,  is  rightly  undertaken  in  connection  with  the  more 
elaborated  pictures  of  the  parables  properly  so  called." — Academy. 


London  :   HODDER   AND   STOUGHTON,  27,  P.^ternoster  Row. 

5 


FROM    JERUSALEM   TO  ANTIOCH:  Sketches  of 

Primitive  Church  Life.  By  Rev.  J.  Oswald  Dykes,  D.D.,  Author  of 
"The  Beatitudes  of  the  Kingdom,"  etc.  Fourth  Edition.  Crown  8vo, 
"js.  6d. 

THE     EPISTLE     TO      THE      EPHESIANS.      Its 

Doctrine  and  Ethics.     By  R.  W.  Dale,  LL.D.,  M.A.,  of  Birmingham. 

Third  Thousand.     Crown  8vo,  Js.  6d. 

"  These  admirable  lectures.    The  terse  and  vigorous  style,  rising  on  occasion 

into  a  manly  and  impressive  eloquence,  of  which  Mr.  Dale  is  well  known  to 

be  a  master,  gives  lucid  expression  to  thought  that  is  precise,  courageous,  and 

original . ' " — Spectator. 

THE  JEWISH  TEMPLE  AND  THE  CHRISTIAN 

CHURCH.     A  Series  of  Discourses  on  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews.     By 

the  same  Author.     Seventh  and  Revised  Edition.     Crown  8vo,  6j-. 

"The  treatment  is  quite  worthy  of  the  preacher's  great  reputation.     His 

skill  is  equally  remarkable  in  dealing  with  critical  questions,  in  setting  forth 

the  meaning   of  the  text,  in   enforcing  Christian  doctrine,  and  in   educing 

practical  lessons." — Contempm-ary  Review. 


PROF.    BEET    ON    THE    PAULINE    EPISTLES. 

I. 

A  COMMENTARY  ON  ST.  PAUL'S  EPISTLE  TO 

THE  ROMANS.      By  Joseph  Agar  Beet.      Fifth  Edition.     Crown 
8vo,  'js.  bd. 

IL 

A    COMMENTARY    ON    ST.  PAUL'S   EPISTLES 

TO  THE  CORINTHIANS.    By  Joseph  Agar  Beet.     Third  Edition. 
Crown  8vo,  los.  6d. 

III. 

A  COMMENTARY  ON   THE   EPISTLE  TO  THE 

GALATIANS.     By  the  same  Author.     Crown  8vo,  5^.     Second  Edition. 


NATURAL  LAW  IN  THE  SPIRITUAL  WORLD. 

By  Henry  Drummond,  F.R.S.E.,  F.G.S.     Fiftieth  Thousand.  Crown 

8vo,  75.  6d. 
"This  is  one  of  the  most  impressive  and  suggestive  books  on  religion  that 
we  have  read  for  a  long  time.  No  one  who  reads  the  papers  entitled  '  Bio- 
genesis,' 'Degeneration,'  'Eternal  Life,' and  'Classification,'  to  say  nothing 
of  the  others  in  this  volume,  will  fail  to  recognise  in  Mr.  Drummond  a  new 
and  powerful  teacher ;  impressive,  both  from  the  scientific  calmness  and 
accuracy  of  his  view  of  law,  and  from  the  deep  religious  earnestness  with 
which  ne  traces  the  working  of  law  in  the  moral  and  spiritual  sphere.  We 
would  most  strongly  commend  his  present  volume  to  the  attention  of  all  who 
wish  to  see  religious  questions  treated  with  wide  knowledge  and  profound 
earnestness." — Spectator. 

"We  have  no  hesitation  in  saying  that  this  is  one  of  the  most  able  and  in- 
teresting books  on  the  relations  which  exist  between  natural  science  and 
spiritual  life  that  has  appeared.  Mr.  Drummond  writes  perfect  English  ;  his 
ideas  are  fresh,  and  expressed  with  admirable  felicity." — Literary  Churchman. 


London  :  HODDER  &  STOUGHTON,  27,  Paternoster  Row. 

6 


Princeton  Theological  Seminary  Libraries 


1    1012  01196  9666