I consider that this chapter, beautiful illustrated and explained will aid as you seek to learn from and understand Romans 1-8:
Our old history ends with the Cross; our new history begins with the
resurrection. “If any man is in Christ, he is a new creature: the old things
are passed away; behold they are become new” (2 Cor 5:17). The Cross
terminates the first creation, and out of death there is brought a new
creation in Christ, the second Man. If we are `in Adam’ all that is in Adam
necessarily devolves upon us; it becomes ours involuntarily, for we have to
do nothing to get it. There is no need to make up our minds to lose our
temper or to commit some other sin; it comes to us freely and despite
ourselves. In a similar way, if we are `in Christ’ all that is in Christ
comes to us by free grace, without effort on our part but on the ground of
simple faith.
But to say that all we need comes to us in Christ by free grace, though
true enough, may seem unpractical. How does it work out in practice? How
does it become real in our experience?
As we study chapters 6, 7 and 8 of Romans we shall discover that the
conditions of living the normal Christian life are fourfold. They are: (a)
Knowing, (b) Reckoning, (c) Presenting ourselves to God, and (d) Walking in
the Spirit, and they are set forth in that order. If we would live that life
we shall have to take all four of these steps; not one nor two nor three,
but all four. As we study each of them we shall trust the Lord by His Holy
Spirit to illumine our understanding; and we shall seek His help now to take
the first big step forward.
Our Death With Christ A Historic Fact
Romans 6:1-11 is the passage before us now. In these verses it is made
clear that the death of the Lord Jesus is representative and inclusive. In
His death we all died. None of us can progress spiritually without seeing
this. Just as we cannot have justification if we have not seen Him bearing
our sins on the Cross, so we cannot have sanctification if we have not seen
Him bearing us on the Cross. Not only have our sins been laid on Him but we
ourselves have been put into Him.
How did you receive forgiveness? You realized that the Lord Jesus died
as your Substitute and bore your sins upon Himself, and that His Blood was
shed to cleanse away your defilement. When you saw your sins all taken away
on the Cross what did you do? Did you say, `Lord Jesus, please come and die
for my sins’? No, you did not pray at all; you only thanked the Lord You did
not beseech Him to come and die for you, for you realized that He had
already done it.
But what is true of your forgiveness is also true of your deliverance.
The work is done. There is no need to pray but only to praise. God has put
us all in Christ, so that when Christ was crucified we were crucified also.
Thus there is no need to pray: `I am a very wicked person; Lord, please
crucify me’. That is all wrong. You did not pray about your sins; why pray
now about yourself? Your sins were dealt with by His Blood, and you were
dealt with by His Cross. It is an accomplished fact. All that is left for
you to do is to praise the Lord that when Christ died you died also; you
died in Him. Praise Him for it and live in the light of it. “Then believed
they his words: they sang his praise” (Psalm 106:12).
Do you believe in the death of Christ? Of course you do. Well, the same
Scripture that says He died for us says also that we died with Him. Look at
it again: “Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). That is the first statement,
and that is clear enough; but is this any less clear? “Our old man was
crucified with him” (Romans 6:6). “We died with Christ” (Romans 6:8).
When are we crucified with Him? What is the date of our old man’s
crucifixion? Is it tomorrow? Yesterday? Today? In order to answer this it
may help us if for a moment I turn Paul’s statement round and say, `Christ
was crucified with (i.e. at the same time as) our old man’. Some of you came
here in twos. You traveled to this place together. You might say, My friend
came here with me’, but you might just as truly say, `I came here with my
friend’. Had one of you come three days ago and the other only today you
could not possibly say that; but having come together you can make either
statement with equal truth, because both are statements of fact. So also in
historic fact we can say, reverently but with equal accuracy, `I was
crucified when Christ was crucified’ or `Christ was crucified when I was
crucified’, for they are not two historical events, but one. My crucifixion
was “with him”.[3] Has Christ been crucified? Then can I be otherwise? And
if He was crucified nearly two thousand years ago, and I with Him, can my
crucifixion be said to take place tomorrow? Can His be past and mine be
present or future? Praise the Lord, when He died in my stead, but He bore me
with Him to the Cross, so that when He died I died. And if I believe in the
death of the Lord Jesus, then I can believe in my own death just as surely
as I believe in His.
Why do you believe that the Lord Jesus died? What is your ground for
that belief? Is it that you feel He has died? No, you have never felt it.
You believe it because the Word of God tells you so. When the Lord was
crucified, two thieves were crucified at the same time. You do not doubt
that they were crucified with Him, either, because the Scripture says so
quite plainly.
You believe in the death of the Lord Jesus and you believe in the death
of the thieves with Him. Now what about your own death? Your crucifixion is
more intimate than theirs. They were crucified at the same time as the Lord
but on different crosses, whereas you were crucified on the self same cross
as He, for you were in Him when He died. How can you know? You can know for
the one sufficient reason that God has said so. It does not depend on your
feelings. If you feel that Christ has died, He has died; and if you do not
feel that he died, He has died. If you feel that you have died, you have
died; and if you do not feel that you have died, you have nevertheless just
as surely died. These are Divine facts. That Christ has died is a fact, that
the two thieves have died is a fact, and that you have died is a fact also.
Let me tell you, You have died! You are done with! You are ruled out! The
self you loathe is on the Cross in Christ. And “he that is dead is freed
from sin” (Romans 6:7, A.V.). This is the Gospel for Christians.
Our crucifixion can never be made effective by will or by effort, but
only be accepting what the Lord Jesus did on the Cross. Our eyes must be
opened to see the finished work of Calvary. Some of you, prior to your
salvation, may have tried to save yourselves. You read the Bible, prayed,
went to Church, gave alms. Then one day your eyes were opened and you saw
that a full salvation had already been provided for you on the Cross. You
just accepted that and thanked God, and peace and joy flowed into your
heart. Now salvation and sanctification are on exactly the same basis. You
receive deliverance from sin in the same way as you receive forgiveness of
sins.
For God’s way of deliverance is altogether different from man’s way.
Man’s way is to try to suppress sin by seeking to overcome it; God’s way is
to remove the sinner. Many Christians mourn over their weakness, thinking
that if only they were stronger all would be well. The idea that, because
failure to lead a holy life is due to our impotence, something more is
therefore demanded of us, leads naturally to this false conception of the
way of deliverance. If we are preoccupied with the power of sin and with our
inability to meet it, then we naturally conclude that to gain the victory
over sin we must have more power. `If only I were stronger’, we say, `I
could overcome my violent outbursts of temper’, and so we plead with the
Lord to strengthen us that we may exercise more self-control.
But this is altogether wrong; this is not Christianity. God’s means of
delivering us from sin is not by making us stronger and stronger, but by
making us weaker and weaker. That is surely rather a peculiar way of
victory, you say; but it is the Divine way. God sets us free from the
dominion of sin, not by strengthening our old man but by crucifying him; not
by helping him to do anything but by removing him from the scene of action.
For years, maybe, you have tried fruitlessly to exercise control over
yourself, and perhaps this is still your experience; but when once you see
the truth you will recognize that you are indeed powerless to do anything,
but that in setting you aside altogether God has done it all. Such a
revelation brings human self-effort to an end.
The First Step: “Knowing This…”
The normal Christian life must begin with a very definite `knowing’,
which is not just knowing something about the truth nor understanding some
important doctrine. It is not intellectual knowledge at all, but an opening
of the eyes of the heart to see what we have in Christ.
How do you know your sins are forgiven? Is it because your pastor told
you so? No, you just know it. If I ask you how you know, you simply answer,
`I know it!’ Such knowledge comes by Divine revelation. It comes from the
Lord Himself. Of course the fact of forgiveness of sins is in the Bible, but
for the written Word of God to become a living Word from God to you He had
to give you “a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him”
(Eph. 1:17). What you needed was to know Christ in that way, and it is
always so. So there comes a time, in regard to any new apprehension of
Christ, when you know it in your own heart, you `see’ it in your spirit. A
light has shined into your inner being and you are wholly persuaded of the
fact. What is true of the forgiveness of your sins is no less true of your
deliverance from sin. When once the light of God dawns upon your heart you
see yourself in Christ. It is not now because someone has told you, and not
merely because Romans 6 says so. It is something more even than that. You
know it because God has revealed it to you by His Spirit. You may not feel
it; you may not understand it; but you know it, for you have seen it. Once
you have seen yourself in Christ, nothing can shake your assurance of that
blessed fact.
If you ask a number of believers who have entered upon the normal
Christian life how they came by their experience, some will say in this way
and some will say in that. Each stresses his own particular way of entering
in and produces Scripture to support his experience; and unhappily many
Christians are using their special experiences and their special scriptures
to fight other Christians. The fact of the matter is that, while Christians
may enter into the deeper life by different ways, we need not regard the
experiences or doctrines they stress as mutually exclusive, but rather
complementary. One thing is certain, that any true experience of value in
the sight of God must have been reached by way of a new discovery of the
meaning of the Person and work of the Lord Jesus. That is a crucial test and
a safe one.
And here in our passage Paul makes everything depend upon such a
discovery. “Knowing this, that our old man was crucified with him, that the
body of sin might be done away, that so we should no longer be in bondage to
sin” (Romans 6:6).
Divine Revelation Essential To Knowledge
So our first step is to seek from God a knowledge that comes by
revelation — a revelation, that is to say, not of ourselves but of the
finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ on the Cross. When Hudson Taylor, the
founder of the China Inland Mission, entered into the normal Christian life
it was thus that he did so. You remember how he tells of his long-standing
problem of how to live `in Christ’, how to draw the sap out of the Vine into
himself. For he knew that he must have the life of Christ flowing out
through him and yet felt that he had not got it, and he saw clearly enough
that his need was to be found in Christ. `I knew’, he said, writing to his
sister from Chinkiang in 1869, `that if only I could abide in Christ, all
would be well, but I could not.’
The more he tried to get in the more he found himself slipping out, so
to speak, until one day light dawned, revelation came and he saw.
`Here, I feel, is the secret: not asking how I am to get sap out of the Vine
into myself, but remembering that Jesus is the Vine — the root, stem,
branches, twigs, leaves, flowers, fruit, all indeed.’
Then, in words of a friend that had helped him:
`I have not got to make myself a branch. The Lord Jesus tells me I am a
branch. I am part of Him and I have just to believe it and act upon it. I
have seen it long enough in the Bible, but I believe it now as a living
reality.’
It was as though something which had indeed been true all the time had
now suddenly become true in a new way to him personally, and he writes to
his sister again:
`I do not know how far I may be able to make myself intelligible about it,
for there is nothing new or strange or wonderful — and yet, all is new! In
a word, “whereas once I was blind, now I see”….I am dead and buried with
Christ — aye, and risen too and ascended….God reckons me so, and tells me
to reckon myself so. He knows best….Oh, the joy of seeing this truth — I
do pray that the eyes of your understanding may be enlightened, that you may
know and enjoy the riches freely given us in Christ.'[4]
Oh, it is a great thing to see that we are in Christ! Think of the
bewilderment of trying to get into a room in which you already are! Think of
the absurdity of asking to be put in! If we recognize the fact that we are
in, we make no effort to enter. If we had more revelation we should have
fewer prayers and more praises. Much of our praying for ourselves is just
because we are blind to what God has done.
I remember one day in Shanghai I was talking with a brother who was
very exercised concerning his spiritual state. He said, `So many are living
beautiful, saintly lives. I am ashamed of myself. I call myself a Christian
and yet when I compare myself with others I feel I am not one at all. I want
to know this crucified life, this resurrection life, but I do not know it
and see no way of getting there.’ Another brother was with us, and the two
of us had been talking for two hours or so, trying to get the man to see
that he could not have anything apart from Christ, but without success. Said
our friend, `the best thing a man can do is to pray.’ `But if God has
already given you everything, what do you need to pray for?’ we asked. `He
hasn’t’, the man replied, `for I am still losing my temper, still failing
constantly; so I must pray more.’ `Well’, we said, `do you get what you pray
for?’ `I am sorry to say that I do not get anything’, he replied. We tried
to point out that, just as he had done nothing for his justification, so he
need do nothing for his sanctification.
Just then a third brother, much used of the Lord, came in and joined
us. There was a thermos flask on the table, and this brother picked it up
and said, `What is this?’ `A thermos flask.’ `Well, you just imagine for a
moment that this thermos flask can pray, and that it starts praying
something like this: “Lord, I want very much to be a thermos flask. Wilt
Thou make me to be a thermos flask? Lord, give me grace to become a thermos
flask. Do please make me one!” What will you say?’ `I do not think even a
thermos flask would be so silly,’ our friend replied. `It would be nonsense
to pray like that; it is a thermos flask!’ Then my brother said, `You are
doing the same thing. God in times past has already included you in Christ.
When He died, you died; when He lived, you lived. Now today you cannot say,
“I want to die; I want to be crucified; I want to have resurrection life.”
The Lord simply looks at you and says, “You are dead! You have new life!”
All your praying is just as absurd as that of the thermos flask. You do not
need to pray to the Lord for anything; you merely need your eyes opened to
see that He has done it all.’
That is the point. We need not work to die, we need not wait to die, we
are dead. We only need to recognize what the Lord has already done and to
praise Him for it. Light dawned for that man. With tears in his eyes he
said, `Lord, I praise Thee that Thou hast already included me in Christ. All
that is His is mine!’ Revelation had come and faith had something to lay
hold of; and if you could have met that brother later on, what a change you
would have found!
The Cross Goes To The Root Of Our Problem
Let me remind you again of the fundamental nature of that which the
Lord has done on the Cross. I feel I cannot press this point too much for we
must see it. Suppose, for the sake of illustration, that the government of
your country should wish to deal drastically with the question of strong
drink and should decide that the whole country was to go `dry’, how could
the decision be carried into effect? How could we help? If we were to search
every shop and house throughout the land and smash all the bottles of wine
or beer or brandy we came across, would that meet the case? Surely not. We
might thereby rid the land of every drop of alcoholic liquor it contains,
but behind those bottles of strong drink are the factories that produce
them, and if we only deal with the bottles and leave the factories
untouched, production will still continue and there is no permanent solution
of the problem. The drink-producing factories, the breweries and
distilleries throughout the land, must be closed down if the drink question
is to be permanently settled.
We are the factory; our actions are the products. The Blood of the Lord
Jesus dealt with the question of the products, namely, our sins. So the
question of what we have done is settled, but would God have stopped there?
What about the question of what we are? Our sins were produced by us. They
have been dealt with, but how are we going to be dealt with? Do you believe
the Lord would cleanse away all our sins and then leave us to get rid of the
sin-producing factory? Do you believe He would put away the goods produced
but leave us to deal with the source of production?
To ask this question is but to answer it. Of course He has not done
half the work and left the other half undone. No, He has done away with the
goods and also made a clean sweep of the factory that produces the goods.
The finished work of Christ really has gone to the root of our problem
and dealt with it. There are no half measures with God. “Knowing this,” says
Paul, “That our old man was crucified with him, that the body of sin might
be done away, that so we should no longer be in bondage to sin” (Rom. 6:6).
“Knowing this”! Yes, but do you know it? “Or are ye ignorant?” (Rom. 6:3).
May the Lord graciously open our eyes.
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