We must return now to our study
of Romans. We broke off at the end of chapter 6 in order to
consider two related subjects, namely, God's eternal purpose,
which is the motive and goal of our walk with Him, and the Holy
Spirit, who supplies the power and resource to bring us to that
goal. We come now to Romans 7, a chapter which many have felt to
be almost superfluous. Perhaps indeed it would be so if
Christians really saw that the old creation has been ruled out by
the Cross of Christ, and an entirely new creation brought in by
His resurrection. If we have come to the point where we really
'know' that, and 'reckon' on that, and 'present ourselves' on the
basis of that, then perhaps we have no need of Romans 7.
Others have felt that the chapter
is in the wrong place. They would have put it between the fifth
and sixth chapters. After chapter 6 all is so perfect, so
straightforward; and then comes breakdown and the cry, "O
wretched man that I am!" Could anything be more of an
anticlimax? And so some have argued that Paul is speaking here of
his unregenerate experience. Well, we must admit that some of
what he describes here is not a Christian experience, but
none the less many Christians do experience it. What then is the
teaching of this chapter?
Romans 6 deals with freedom from
sin. Romans 7 deals with freedom from the Law. In chapter 6 Paul
has told us how we could be delivered from sin, and we concluded
that this was all that was required. Chapter 7 now teaches that
deliverance from sin is not enough, but that we also need to know
deliverance from the Law. If we are not fully emancipated from
the Law we can never know full emancipation from sin. But what is
the difference between deliverance from sin and deliverance from
the Law? We all see the value of the former, but where is the
need for the latter? Well, to appreciate this we must first
understand what the Law is and what it does.
Romans 7 has a new lesson to
teach us. It is found in the discovery that I am "in the
flesh" (Rom. 7:5), that "I am carnal" (7:18). This
goes beyond the question of sin, for it relates also the matter
of pleasing God. We are dealing here not with sin in its forms
but with man in his carnal state. The latter includes the former
but it takes us a stage further, for it leads to the discovery
that in this realm too we are totally impotent, and that
"they that are in the flesh cannot please God" (Rom.
8:8). How then is this discovery made? It is made with the help
of the Law.
Now let us retrace our steps for a
minute and attempt to describe what is probably the experience of
many. Many a Christian is truly saved and yet bound by sin. It is
not that he is necessarily living under the power of sin all the
time, but that there are certain particular sins hampering him
continually so that he hears the full Gospel message, that the
Lord Jesus not only died to cleanse away our sins, but that when
He died He included us sinners in His death; so that not only
were our sins dealt with, but we ourselves were dealt with too.
The man's eyes are opened and he knows he has been
crucified with Christ. Two things follow that revelation. In the
first place he reckons that he has died and risen with the
Lord, and in the second place, recognizing the Lord's claim upon
him, he present himself to God as alive from the dead. He
sees that he has no more right over himself. This is the
commencement of a beautiful Christian life, full of praise to the
Lord.
But then he begins to reason as
follows: 'I have died with Christ and am raised with Him, and I
have given myself over to Him for ever; now I must do something
for Him, since He has done so much for me. I want to please Him
and do His will.' So, after the step of consecration, he seeks to
discover the will of God, and sets out to obey Him. Then he makes
a strange discovery. He thought he could do the will of God and
he thought he loved it, but gradually he finds he does not always
like it. At times he even finds a distinct reluctance to do it,
and often when he tries to do it he finds he cannot. Then he
begins to question his experience. He asks himself: 'Did I really
know? Yes! Did I really reckon? Yes! Did I really give myself to
Him? Yes! Have I taken back my consecration? No! Then whatever is
the matter now?' The more this man tries to do the will of God
the more he fails. Ultimately he comes to the conclusion that he
never really loved God's will at all, so he prays for the desire
and the power to do it. He confesses his disobedience and
promises never to disobey again. But he has barely got up from
his knees before he has fallen once more; before he reaches the
point of victory he is conscious of defeat. Then he says to
himself: 'Perhaps my last decision was not definite enough. This
time I will be absolutely definite.' So he brings all his
will-power to bear on the situation, only to find greater defeat
than ever awaiting him the next time a choice has to be made.
Then at last he echoes the words of Paul: "For I know that
in me, that is, in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing: for to will
is present with me, but to do that which is good is not. For the
good which I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that
I practice" (Rom. 7:18,19).
Many Christians are suddenly
launched into the experience of Romans 7 and they do not know
why. They fancy Romans 6 is quite enough. Having grasped that,
they think there can be no more question of failure, and then to
their utmost surprise they suddenly find themselves in Romans 7.
What is the explanation?
First let us be quite clear that
the death with Christ described in Romans 6 is fully adequate to
cover all our need. It is the explanation of that death, with all
that follows from it, that is incomplete in chapter 6. We are as
yet still in ignorance of the truth set forth in chapter 7.
Romans 7 is given to us to explain and make real the statement in
Romans 6:14, that: "Sin shall not have dominion over you:
for ye are not under law, but under grace." The trouble is
that we do not yet know deliverance from law. What, then, is the
meaning of law?
Grace means that God does something
for me; law means that I do something for God. God has certain
holy and righteous demands which He places upon me: that is law.
Now if law means that God requires something of me for their
fulfillment, then deliverance from law means that He no longer
requires that from me, but Himself provides it. Law implies that
God requires me to do something for Him; deliverance from law
implies that He exempts me from doing it, and that in grace He
does it Himself. I (where 'I' is the 'carnal' man of ch.
7:14) need do nothing for God: that is deliverance from
law. The trouble in Romans 7 is that man in the flesh tried to do
something for God. As soon as you try to please God in that way,
then you place yourself under law, and the experience of Romans 7
begins to be yours.
As we seek to understand this, let
it be settled at the outset that the fault does not lie with the
Law. Paul says, "the law is holy, and the commandment holy,
and righteous, and good" (Rom. 7:12). No, there is nothing
wrong with the Law, but there is something decidedly wrong with
me. The demands of the Law are righteous, but the person upon
whom the demands are made is unrighteous. The trouble is not that
the Law's demands are unjust, but that I am unable to meet them.
It may be all right for the Government to require payment of 100
shillings but it will be all wrong if I have only ten shillings
with which to meet the demand!
I am a man "sold under
sin" (Rom. 7:14). Sin has dominion over me. As long as you
leave me alone I seem to be rather a fine type of man. It is when
you ask me to do something that my sinfulness comes to
light.
If you have a very clumsy servant
and he just sits still and does nothing, then his clumsiness does
not appear. If he does nothing all day he will be of little use
to you, it is true, but at least he will do no damage that way.
But if you say to him: 'Now come along, don't idle away your
time; get up and do something', then immediately the trouble
begins. He knocks the chair over as he gets up, stumbles over a
footstool a few paces further on, then smashes some precious dish
as soon as he handles it. If you make no demands upon him his
clumsiness is never noticed, but as soon as you ask him to do
anything his awkwardness is seen at once. The demands were all
right, but the man was all wrong. He was as clumsy a man when he
was sitting still as when he was working, but it was your demands
that made manifest the clumsiness that was all the time in his
make-up, whether he was active or inactive.
We are all sinners by nature. If
God asks nothing of us, all seems to go well, but as soon as He
demands something of us the occasion is provided for a grand
display of our sinfulness. The Law makes our weakness manifest.
While you let me sit still I appear to be all right, but when you
ask me to do anything I am sure to spoil that thing, and if you
trust me with a second thing I will as surely spoil it too. When
a holy law is applied to a sinful man, then his sinfulness comes
out in full display.
God knows who I am; He knows that
from head to foot I am full of sin; He knows that I am weakness
incarnate; that I can do nothing. The trouble is that I do
not know it. I admit that all men are sinners and that therefore
I am a sinner; but I imagine that I am not such a hopeless sinner
as some. God must bring us all to the place where we see that we
are utterly weak and helpless. While we say so, we do not wholly
believe it, and God has to do something to convince us of the
fact. Had it not been for the Law we should never have known how
weak we are. Paul had reached that point. He makes this clear
when he says in Romans 7:7: "I had not known sin, except
through the law: for I had not known coveting, except the law had
said, Thou shalt not covet". Whatever might be his
experience with the rest of the Law, it was the tenth
commandment, which literally translated is: "Thou shalt not
desire ..." that found him out. There his total failure and
incapacity stared him in the face!
The more we try to keep the Law the
more our weakness is manifest and the deeper we get into Romans
7, until it is clearly demonstrated to us that we are hopelessly
weak. God knew it all along but we did not, and so God had to
bring us through painful experiences to a recognition of the
fact. We need to have our weakness proved to ourselves beyond
dispute. That is why God gave us the Law.
So we can say, reverently, that God
never gave us the Law to keep; He gave us the Law to break! He
well knew that we could not keep it. We are so bad that He asks
no favour and makes no demands. Never has any man succeeded in
making himself acceptable to God by means of the Law. Nowhere in
the New Testament are men of faith told that they are to keep the
Law; but it does say that the Law was given so that there should
be transgression. "The law came in ... that the trespass
might abound" (Rom. 5:20). The Law was given to make us
law-breakers! No doubt I am a sinner in Adam;
"Howbeit, I had not know sin, except through the law: ...for
apart from the law sin is dead ... but when the commandment came,
sin revived, and I died" (Rom. 7:7-9). The Law is that which
exposes our true nature. Alas, we are so conceited, and think
ourselves so strong, that God has to give us something to test us
and prove how weak we are. At last we see it and confess: 'I am a
sinner through and through, and I can of myself do nothing
whatever to please God.'
No, the Law was not given in the
expectation that we would keep it. It was given in the full
knowledge that we would break it; and when we have broken it so
completely that we are convinced of our utter need, then the Law
has served its purpose. It has been our schoolmaster to bring us
to Christ, that He Himself may fulfill it in us (Gal. 3:24).
In Romans 6 we saw how God
delivered us from sin; in Romans 7 we see how He delivers us from
the Law. In chapter 6 we were shown the way of deliverance from
sin in the picture of a master and his slave; in chapter 7 we are
shown the way of deliverance from the Law in the picture of two
husbands and a wife. The relation between sin and the sinner is
that of master to slave; the relation between the Law and the
sinner is that of husband to wife.
Notice first that in the picture in
Romans 7:1-4 by which Paul illustrates our deliverance from the
Law there is only one woman, while there are two husbands. The
woman is in a very difficult position, for she can only be wife
of one of the two, and unfortunately she is married to the less
desirable one. Let us make no mistake, the man to whom she is
married is a good man; but the trouble lies here, that the
husband and wife are totally unsuited to one another. He is a
most particular man, accurate to a degree; she on the other hand
is decidedly easy-going. With him all is definite and precise;
with her all is vague and haphazard. He wants everything just so,
while she accepts things as they come. How could there be
happiness in such a home?
And then that husband is so
exacting! He is always making demands on his wife. And yet one
cannot find fault with him, for as a husband he has a right to
expect something of her; and besides, all his demands are
perfectly legitimate. There is nothing wrong with the man and
nothing wrong with his demands; the trouble is that he has the
wrong kind of wife to carry them out. The two cannot get on at
all; theirs are utterly incompatible natures. Thus the poor woman
is in great distress. She is fully aware that she often makes
mistakes, but living with such a husband it seems as though everything
she says and does is wrong! What hope is there for her? If only
she were married to that other Man all would be well. He is no
less exacting than her husband, but He also helps much. She would
fain marry Him, but her husband is still alive. What can she do?
She is "bound by law to the husband" and unless he dies
she cannot legitimately marry that other Man.
This picture is not drawn by me but
by the apostle Paul. The first husband is the Law; the second
husband is Christ; and you are the woman. The Law requires much,
but offers no help in the carrying out of its requirements. The
Lord Jesus requires just as much, yea more (Matt. 5:21-48) but
what He requires from us He Himself carries out in us. The Law
makes demands and leaves us helpless to fulfill them; Christ
makes demands, but He Himself fulfills in us the very demands He
makes. Little wonder that the woman desires to be freed from the
first husband that she may marry that other Man! But her only
hope of release is through the death of her first husband, and he
holds on to life most tenaciously. Indeed there is not the least
prospect of his passing away. "Till heaven and earth pass
away, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass away from the
law, till all things be accomplished (Matt. 5:18).
The Law is going to continue for
all eternity. If the Law will never pass away, then how can I
ever be united to Christ? How can I marry a second husband if my
first husband simply refuses to die? There is one way out. If he
will not die, I can die, and if I die the marriage
relationship is dissolved. And that is exactly God's way of
deliverance from the Law. The most important point to note in
this section of Romans 7 is the transition from verse 3 to verse
4. Verses 1 to 3 show that the husband should die, but in verse 4
we see that in fact it is the woman who dies. The Law does not
pass away. God's righteous demands remain for ever, and if
I live I must meet those demands; but if I die the Law has lost
its claim upon me. It cannot follow me beyond the grave.
Exactly the same principle operates
in our deliverance from the Law as in our deliverance from sin.
When I have died my old master, Sin, still continues to live, but
his power over his slave extends as far as the grave and no
further. He could ask me to do a hundred and one things when I
was alive, but when I am dead he calls on me in vain. I am for
ever freed from his tyranny. So it is with regard to the Law.
While the woman lives she is bound to her husband, but with her
death the marriage bond is dissolved and she is "discharged
from the law of her husband". The Law may still make
demands, but for me its power to enforce them is ended.
Now the vital question arises: 'How
do I die?' And the preciousness of our Lord's work comes in just
here: "Ye also were made dead to the law through the body of
Christ" (Rom. 7:4). When Christ died His body was broken,
and since God placed me in Him (1 Cor. 1:30), I have been broken
too. When He was crucified, I was crucified with Him.
An Old Testament illustration may
help to make this clear. It was the veil of testimony that
separated the Holy Place from the Most Holy Place, and upon it
were embroidered cherubim (Exod. 26:31; 2 Chron. :14) whose
faces, by analogy from Ezekiel 1:10 and 10:14, included that of a
man as representing the human head of the whole natural creation
(Psalm 8:4-8). In Old Testament days God dwelt within the veil
and man without. Man could look upon the veil, but not within it.
That veil symbolized our Lord's flesh, His body (Heb. 10:20). So
in the Gospels men could only look upon the outward form of our
Lord; they could not, save by Divine revelation (Matt. 16:16,17),
see the God who dwelt within. But when the Lord Jesus died, the
veil of the temple was rent from top to bottom (Matt. 27:51) as
by the hand of God, so that man could gaze right into the Most
Holy Place. Since the death of the Lord Jesus, God is no longer
veiled but seeks to reveal Himself (1 Cor. 2:7-10).
But when the veil was rent asunder,
what happened to the cherubim? God rent only the veil, it is
true, but the cherubim were there in the veil and were one with
it, for they were embroidered upon it. It was impossible to rend
the veil and preserve them whole. When the veil was rent the
cherubim were rent with it. And, in the sight of God, when the
Lord Jesus died the whole living creation died too.
"Wherefore, my brethren, ye
also were made dead to the law through the body of Christ."
That woman's husband may be very well and strong, but if she dies
he may make as many demands upon her as he likes; it will not
affect her in the slightest. Death has set her free from all her
husband's claims. We were in the Lord Jesus when He died, and
that inclusive death of His has for ever freed us from the Law.
But our Lord did not remain in the grave. On the third day He
rose again; and since we are still in Him we are risen too. The
body of the Lord Jesus speaks not only of His death but of His
resurrection, for His resurrection was a bodily resurrection.
Thus "through the body of Christ" we are not only
"dead to the law' but alive unto God.
God's purpose in uniting us to
Christ was not merely negative; it was gloriously positive --
"that ye should be joined to another" (Rom. 7:4). Death
has dissolved the old marriage relationship, so that the woman,
driven to despair by the constant demands of her former husband,
who never lifted a little finger to help her carry them out, is
now set free to marry the other Man, who with every demand He
makes becomes in her the power for its fulfillment.
And what is the issue of this new
union? "That we might bring forth fruit unto God" (Rom.
7:4). By the body of Christ that foolish, sinful woman has died,
but being united to Him in death she is united to Him in
resurrection also, and in the power of resurrection life she
bring forth fruit unto God. The risen life of the Lord in her
empowers her for all the demands God's holiness makes upon her.
The Law of God is not annulled; it is perfectly fulfilled, for
the risen Lord now lives out His life in her, and His life is
always well-pleasing to the Father.
What happens when a woman marries?
She no longer bears her own name but that of her husband; and she
shares not his name only but his possessions too. "So it is
when we are joined to Christ. When we belong to Him, all that is
His becomes ours, and with His infinite resources at our disposal
we are well able to meet all His demands.
Now that we have settled the
doctrinal side of the question we must come down to practical
issues, staying a little longer with the negative aspect and
keeping the positive for our next chapter. What does it mean in
everyday life to be delivered from the Law? It means that from
henceforth I am going to try to please Him. 'What a doctrine!'
you exclaim. 'What awful heresy! You cannot possibly mean that!'
But remember, if I try to please
God 'in the flesh', then immediately I place myself under the
Law. I broke the Law; the Law pronounced the death sentence; the
sentence was executed, and now by death I -- the carnal 'I' (Rom.
7:14) -- have been set free from all its claims. There is still a
Law of God, and now there is in fact a "new
commandment" that is infinitely more exacting than the old,
but, Praise God! its demands are being met, for it is Christ who
now fulfills them; it is Christ who works in me what is
well-pleasing to God. "I came ... to fulfill {the law}"
were His words (Matt. 5:17). Thus Paul, from the ground of
resurrection, can say: "Work out your own salvation with
fear and trembling; for it is God which worketh in you both to
will and to work, for his good pleasure" (Phil 2:12,13).
It is God that worketh in you. Deliverance
from law does not mean that we are free from doing the will of
God. It certainly does not mean that we are going to be lawless.
Very much the reverse! What it does mean however is that we are
free from doing that will as of ourselves. Being fully
persuaded that we cannot do it, we cease trying to please God from
the ground of the old man. Having at last reached the point
of utter despair in ourselves so that we cease even to try, we
put our trust in the Lord to manifest His resurrection life in
us.
Let me illustrate by what I have
seen in my own country. In China some bearers can carry a load of
salt weighing 120 kilos, some even 250 kilos. Now along comes a
man who can carry only 120 kilos, and here is a load of 250
kilos. He knows perfectly well he cannot carry it, and if he is
wise he will say: 'I won't touch it!' But the temptation to try
is ingrained in human nature, so although he cannot possibly
carry it he still tries. As a youngster I used to amuse myself
watching ten or twenty of these fellows come along and try,
though every one of them knew he could not possibly manage it. In
the end he must give up and make way for the man who could.
The sooner we too give up trying
the better, for I we monopolize the task, then there is no room
for the Holy Spirit. But if we say: 'I'll not do it; I'll trust
Thee to do it for me', then we shall find that a Power stronger
than ourselves is carrying us through.
In 1923 I met a famous Canadian
evangelist. I had said in an address something along the above
lines, and as we walked back to his home afterwards he remarked:
'The note of Romans 7 is seldom sounded nowadays; it is good to
hear it again. The day I was delivered from the Law was a day of
Heaven on earth. After being a Christian for years I was still
trying my best to please God, but the more I tried the more I
failed. I regarded God as the greatest Demander in the universe,
but I found myself impotent to fulfill the least of His demands.
Suddenly one day, as I read Romans 7, light dawned and I saw that
I had not only been delivered from sin but from the Law as well.
In my amazement I jumped up and said: "Lord, are you really
making no demands on me? Then I need do nothing more for
You!"
God's requirements have not
altered, but we are not the ones to meet them. Praise God, He is
the Lawgiver on the Throne, and He is the Lawkeeper in my heart.
He who gave the Law, Himself keeps it. He makes the demands, but
He also meets them. My friend could well jump up and shout when
he found he had nothing to do, and all who make a like discovery
can do the same. As long as we are trying to do anything, He can
do nothing. It is because of our trying that we fail and fail and
fail. God wants to demonstrate to us that we can do nothing at
all, and until that is fully recognized our disappointments and
disillusionments will never cease.
A brother who was trying to
struggle into victory remarked to me, 'I do not know why I am so
weak.' 'The trouble with you', I said, 'is that you are weak
enough not to do the will of God, but you are not weak enough to
keep out of things altogether. You are still not weak enough.
When you are reduced to utter weakness and are persuaded that you
can do nothing whatever, then God will do everything.' We all
need to come to the point where we say: 'Lord, I am unable to do
anything for Thee, but I trust Thee to do everything in me.'
I was once staying in a place in
China with some twenty other brothers. There was inadequate
provision for bathing in the home where we stayed, so we went for
a daily plunge in the river. On one occasion a brother had cramp
in one leg, and I suddenly saw he was sinking fast, so I motioned
to another brother, who was an expert swimmer, to hasten to his
rescue. But to my astonishment he made no move. So I grew
desperate and called out: 'Don't you see the man is drowning?'
and the other brothers, about as agitated as I was, shouted
vigorously too. But our good swimmer still did not move. Calm and
collected, he remained just where he was, apparently postponing
the unwelcome task. Meantime the voice of the poor drowning
brother grew fainter and his efforts feebler. In my heart I said:
'I hate that man! Think of his letting a brother drown before his
very eyes and not going to the rescue!'
But when the man was actually
sinking, with a few swift strokes the swimmer was at his side,
and both were safely ashore. When I got an opportunity I aired my
views. 'I have never seen any Christian who loved his life quite
as much as you do', I said. 'Think of the distress you would have
saved that brother if you had considered yourself a little less
and him a little more.' But the swimmer knew his business better
than I did. 'Had I gone earlier', he said, 'he would have
clutched me so fast that both of us would have gone under. A
drowning man cannot be saved until he is utterly exhausted and
ceases to make the slightest effort to save himself.'
Do you see it? When we give
up the case, then God will take it up. He is waiting until
we are at an end of our resources and can do nothing more for
ourselves. God has condemned all that is of the old creation and
consigned it to the Cross. The flesh profiteth nothing! If
we try to do anything in the flesh we are virtually repudiating
the Cross of Christ. God has declared us to be fit only for
death. When we truly believe that, then we confirm God's verdict
by giving up all our fleshly efforts to please Him. Our every
effort to do His will is a denial of His declaration in the Cross
of our utter worthlessness. Our continued efforts are a
misunderstanding on the one hand of God's demands and on the
other hand of the source of supply.
We see the Law and we think that we
must meet its demands, but we need to remember that, though the
Law in itself is all right, it will be all wrong if it is applied
to the wrong person. The "wretched man" of Romans 7
tried to meet the demands of God's law himself, and that
was the cause of his trouble. The repeated use of the little word
'I' in this chapter gives the clue to the failure. "The good
which I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I
practice" (Rom. 7:19). There was a fundamental misconception
in this man's mind. He thought God was asking him to keep
the Law, so of course he was trying to keep it. But God was
requiring no such thing of him. What was the result? Far from
doing what pleased God, he found himself doing what displeased
Him. In his very efforts to do the will of God he did exactly the
opposite of what he knew to be His will.
Romans 6 deals with "the
body of sin", Romans 7 with "the body of this
death" (6:6; 7:24). In chapter 6 the whole question before
us is sin; in chapter 7 the whole question before us is death.
What is the difference between the body of sin and the body of
death? In regard to sin (that is, to whatever displeases God) I
have a body of sin -- a body, that is to say, which is actively
engaged in sin. But in regard to the Law of God (that is, to that
which expresses the will of God) I have a body of death. My
activity in regard to sin makes my body a body of sin; my failure
in regard to all that is wicked, worldly and Satanic I am, in my
nature, wholly positive; but in regard to all that pertains to
holiness and Heaven and God I am wholly negative.
Have you discovered the truth of
that in your life? It is no good merely to discover it in Romans
6 and 7. Have you discovered that you carry the encumbrance of a
lifeless body in regard to God's will? You have no difficulty in
speaking about wordly matters, but when you try to speak for the
Lord you are tongue-tied; when you try to pray you feel sleepy;
when you try to do something for the Lord you feel unwell. You
can do anything but that which is related to God's will. There is
something in this body that does not harmonize with the will of
God.
What does death mean? We may
illustrate from a well-known verse in the first letter to the
Corinthians: "For this cause many among you are weak and
sickly, and not a few sleep" (1 Corinthians 11:30). Death is
weakness produced to its extremity - weakness, sickness, death.
Death means utter weakness; it means you are weak to such a point
that you can become no weaker. That I have a body of death in
relation to God's will means that I am so weak in regard to
serving God, so utterly weak, that I am reduced to a point of
dire helplessness. "O wretched man that I am! who shall
deliver me out of the body of this death?" cried Paul, and
it is good when anyone cries out as he did. There is nothing more
musical in the ears of the Lord. This cry is the most spiritual
and the most scriptural cry a man can utter. He only utters it
when he knows he can do nothing, and gives up making any further
resolutions. Up to this point, every time he failed he made a new
resolution and doubled and redoubled his will-power. At last he
discovers there is no use in his making up his mind any more, and
he cries out in desperation: "O wretched man that I am
!" Like a man who suddenly awakes to find himself in a
burning building, his cry is now for help, for he has come to the
point where he despairs of himself.
Have you despaired of yourself, or
do you hope that if you read and pray more you will be a better
Christian? Bible-reading and prayer are not wrong, and God forbid
that we should suggest that they are, but it is wrong to trust
even in them for victory. Our help is in Him who is the
object of that reading and prayer. Our trust must be in Christ
alone. Happily the "wretched man" does not merely
deplore his wretchedness; he asks a fine question, namely:
"Who shall deliver me?" "Who?"
Hitherto he has looked for some thing; now his hope is in a
Person. Hitherto he has looked within for a solution to his
problem; now he looks beyond himself for a Savior. He no longer
puts forth self-effort; all his expectation is now in Another.
How did we obtain forgiveness of
sins? Was it by reading, praying, almsgiving, and so on? No, we
looked to the Cross, believing in what the Lord Jesus had done;
and deliverance from sin becomes ours on exactly the same
principle, nor is it otherwise with the question of pleasing God.
In the matter of forgiveness we look to Him on the Cross; in the
matter of deliverance from sin and of doing the will of God we
look to Him in our hearts. For the one we depend on what He has
done; for the other we depend on what He will do in us; but in
regard to both, our dependence is on Him along. He is the One who
does it all.
At the time when the Epistle to the
Romans was written a murderer was punished in a peculiar and
terrible manner. The dead body of the one murdered was tied to
the living body of the murderer, head to head, hand to hand, foot
to foot, and the living one was bound to the dead one till death.
The murderer could go where he pleased, but wherever he went he
had to carry the corpse of that murdered man with him. Could
punishment be more appalling? Yet this is the illustration Paul
now uses. It is as though he were bound to a dead body and unable
to get free. Wherever he goes he is hampered by this terrible
burden. At last he can bear it no longer and cries: "O
wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me ...?" And then,
in a flash of illumination, his cry of despair changes to a song
of praise. He has found the answer to his question. "I thank
God through Jesus Christ our Lord" (Rom. 7:25).
We know that justification is ours
through the Lord Jesus and requires no work on our part, but we
think sanctification is dependent on our own efforts. We know we
can receive forgiveness only by entire reliance on the Lord; yet
we believe we can obtain deliverance by doing something
ourselves. We fear that if we do nothing, nothing will happen.
After salvation the old habit of 'doing' reasserts itself and we
begin our old self-efforts again. Then God's word comes afresh to
us: "It is finished" (John 19:30). He has done
everything on the Cross for our forgiveness and He will do
everything in us for our deliverance. In both cases He is
the doer. "It is God that worketh in you."
The first words of the delivered
man are very precious -- "I thank God". If someone
gives you a cup of water you thank the person who gave it, not
someone else. Why did Paul say "Thank God"? Because God
was the One who did everything. Had it been Paul who did it, he
would have said, "Thank Paul". But he saw that Paul was
a "wretched man" and that God alone could meet his
need; so he said, "Thank God". God wants to do all, for
He must have all the glory. If we do some of the work, then we
will get some of the glory; but God must have it all Himself, so
He does all the work from beginning to end.
What we have said in this chapter
might seem negative and unpractical if we were to stop at this
point, as though the Christian life were a matter of sitting
still and waiting for something to happen. Of course it is very
far from being so. All who truly live it know it to be a matter
of very positive and active faith in Christ and in an altogether
new principle of life -- the law of the Spirit of life. We are
now going to look at the effects in us of this new life
principle.
The Normal Christian Life - Chapter 10: The Path of Progress: Walking In The Spirit
