LECTURE
XXVII.
ROMANS, v,
15-19.
"But not as the offence, so
also is the free gift. For if through the offence of one many be dead, much
more the grace of God, and the gift by grace, which is by one man, Jesus
Christ, hath abounded unto many. And not as it was by one that sinned, so is
the gift: for the judgment was by one to condemnation, but the free gift is of
many offenccs unto justification. For if by one man's offence death reigned by
one; much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of
righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ. Therefore as by the
offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the
righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of
life. For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners; so by the
obedience of one shall many be made righteous."
We do feel
that there is a considerable difficulty in this short passage; and the
following is the only explanation that we are able to give of it. You will
observe that in the 14th verse, the effect of Adam's sin in bringing death upon
his posterity, is demonstrated by this circumstance that the sentence had full
execution, even upon those who had not in their own persons sinned as he did.
Death reigned even over them; and it made Adam to be the figure of Christ,
that, what the one brought upon mankind by his disobedience, the other by his
obedience did away.
But Christ did more than do away the sentence which
lay upon mankind, because of the sin of Adam being imputed to them. This and no
other sentence was all that could be inflicted on infants, or those who had not
sinned actually. But, in addition to the guilt that we have by inheritance,
there is also a guilt which all who live a few years in the world incur by
practice. The one offence of Adam landed us in guilt; but the many offences of
the heart and life of us all, have wofully accumulated that guilt: And we stand
in need, not merely of as much grace as might redeem us from the forfeiture
that was passed on time whole human family in consequence of the transgression
of their first parent, but also of as much new grace as might redeem us front
the curse and the condemnation of our own iniquities - as might redeem us not
merely from time debt that has been entailed upon us, but from the additional
debt that has been incurred by us.
And thus it is, that not as the
offence so also is the gift. For the gift by Christ compensates for more evil,
than the offence by Adam has entailed. Through that one offence the penalty of
death passed upon many - even upon all whom Adam represented. But the grace of
God, and the gift which emanated therefrom and was won for us by the one man
Jesus Christ, greatly exceeds in its amount the recalment of this penalty front
the many whom Christ represented. The condemnation we derive from Adam was
passed upon us because of his one offence. The free gift of justification we
receive from Christ, not merely reverses that condition of guilt in which Adam
has placed us, but that still more aggravated condition of guilt in which we
have been placed by the niultitude of our own offences. We obtain not only
justification from the guilt of Adam's one offence, but justification from the
guilt of our own many offences.
Such was the virulent mischief even of
the one offence, that, through it and it alone, even when separated from all
actual guilt as in the case of infants, death reigned in the world. There was
more grace needed however, than would suffice merely to counteract this
virulence - for greatly had it been aggravated by the abundance of actual
iniquity among men; and for this there was an abundance, or as it might have
been translated, a surplus of grace provided, so that while the effect of Adam'
s single offence was to make death reign, greatly must the power of the
restorative administered by the second Adam, exceed the malignity of the sin
that has been transmitted to us by the first Adam - inasmuch as it heals not
merely the hereditary, but all the superinduced diseases of our spiritual
constitution; and causes those over whom death reigned, solely on account of
Adam's guilt, to reign in life though for their own guilt well as Adam's they
had rightfully to die.
This is all the length at which we can penetrate
into this passage. We see affirmed in it the superiority of that good which
Christ has done for us, oyer that evil which Adam has entailed upon us. We see
in it enough to stop the mouth of any gainsayer, who complains that he has been
made chargeable for a guilt which he never contracted - for we there see
announced to us, not merely release from this one charge, but from all the
additional charges which by our own wilful disobedience we have brought upon
ourselves. The heir of a burdened property who curses the memory of his father
and complains of the weight and hardship of the mortgages he has left behind
him, ought in all justice to be appeased - when his father's friend, moved by
regard to his family, not only offers to liquidate the debts that were
transmitted to him by inheritance, but also the perhaps heavier debts of his
own extravagance and folly. From the mouth of a wilful and obstinate sinner,
may we often hear the reproach of God for the imputation of Adam's sin to his
blameless and unoffending posterity; and were he indeed a blameless individual
who was so dealt with, there might be reason for the outcry of felt and fancied
injustice. But, seeing that in hardened impiety or at least in careless
indifference he spends his days, living without God in the world and
accumulating voluntarily upon his own head the very guilt against which he
protests so loudly when laid upon him by the misconduct of another - this ought
at least to mitigate a little the severity of his invective; and it ought
wholly to disarm and to turn it, when a covering so ample is stretched forth,
if he will only have it, both for the guilt at which he murmurs and for the
guilt of his own misdoings.
Nor has he any right to protest against the
share that has been assigned to hirn in the doom of Adam's disobedience, when,
wilfully as he has aggravated that doom upon himself, there is a grace held out
to him, and a gift by grace, which so nobly overpasses all the misery of man's
unregenerate nature, and all its condemnation.
Perhaps there is a great
deal more in this passage than we have been able to bring out of it. It is
likely enough that the apostle may have had in his mind, the state of the
redeemed when they are made to reign in life by Jesus Christ - as contrasted
with what the state of man would have been had Adam persisted in innocency, and
bequeathed all the privileges of innocence to a pure and untainted posterity.
In this latter case, our species would have kept their place in God's unfallen
creation, and maintained that position in the scale of order and dignity which
was at first assigned to them; and, though lower than the angels, would at
least have shone with an unpolluted though a humbler glory, and have either
remained upon earth, or perhaps have been transplanted to heaven, with the
insignia of all those virtues which they had kept untainted and entire upon
their own characters. Now certain it is, that the redeemed in heaven will be
made to recover all that personal worth and accomplishment which was lost by
the fall, and, in point of moral lustre, will shine forth at least with all
that original brightness in which humanity was formed; and in the songs of
their joyful eternity, will there be ingredients of transport and of grateful
emotion, which, but for a Redeemer to wash them from their sins in His blood,
could never have been felt; and, what perhaps is more than all, they are
invested with an order of merit which no prowess of archangel could ever win -
they are clothed with a righteousness, purer than those heavens which are not
clean in the sight of infinite and unspotted holiness - they are seen in the
face of him who takes precedency over all that is created; and, besides being
admitted into the honour of that more special and intimate relationship which
subsists between the divine Messiah, and those who are the fruit and travail of
his soul, it is indeed a wondrous distinction, that the Son of God, by
descending to the fellowship of our nature, has ennobled and brought up the
nature of man to a pre-eminence so singularly glorious.
Verses 18,
19. " Therefore, as by the offence of one judgment
came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free
gift came upon all men unto justification of life. For as by one man's
disobedience many were made sinners; so by the obedience of one shall many be
made righteous."
The three last verses state the disparity between
the two Adams, in respect of the amount of good and evil conveyed by them. The
two before us state the similarity between them, in respect of the mode of
conveyance of this good and this evil. They contain in fact the strength of the
argument for the imputation of Adam's sin. As the condemnation of Adam comes to
us, even so does the justification by Christ come to us. Now we know that the
merit of the Saviour is ascribed to us - else no atonement for the past, and no
renovatkm of heart or of life that is ever exemplified in this world for the
future, will suffice for our acceptance with God. Even so then must the demerit
of Adam have been ascribed to us. The analogy affirmed in these verses leads
irresistibly to this conclusion. The judgment that we are guilty, is
transferred to us from the actual guilt of the one representative - even as the
judgment that we are righteous, is transferred to us from the actual
righteousness of the other representative. We are sinners in virtue of one
man's disobedience, independently of our own personal sins; and we are
righteous in virtue of another's obedience, independently of our own personal
qualifications. We do not say but that through Adam we become personally sinful
- inheriting as we do his corrupt nature. Neither do we say but that through
Christ we become personally holy - deriving out of His fulness, the very graces
which adorned His own character. But, as it is at best a tainted holiness that
we have on this side of death, we must have something more than it in which to
appear before God ; and the righteousness of Christ reckoned unto us and
rewarded in us, is that something. The something which corresponds to this in
Adam, is his guilt reckoned unto us and punished in us - so that, to complete
the analogy, as from him we get the infusion of his depravity, so from him also
do we get the imputation of his demerit.
One may suppose from the 18th
verse, that the number who are justified in Christ is equal to the number who
are condemned in Adam; and that this comprehends the whole human race. But by
the term all,' we are merely to understand, all on the one hand who are
in that relation to Adam, which infers the descent of his guilt upon them - and
that is certainly the whole family of mankind; and thus all' on the other
hand, who are in that relation to Christ which infers the descent of His
righteousness upon them - and that is only the family of believers. As in Adam,
it is said, all die - even so in Christ shall all be made alive. But the
all' does not refer to the same body of people. The first who die in
Adam, evidently refer to the whole human race. But the second who live in
Christ are restricted by the apostle to those who are Christ s, and will be
made alive by Him at His coming. All men have not faith, and all men therefore
will not reign in life by Christ Jesus.
For any thing we know, the
mediation of Christ may have affected, in a most essential way, the general
state of humanity; and, by some mode unexplained and inexplicable, may it have
bettered the condition of those who die in infancy, or who die in unreached
heathenism; and aggravated the condition of none, but those who bring upon
themselves the curse and the severity of a rejected gospel. But the matter
which concerns you is, that, unless you receive Christ in time, you will never
reign with him in eternity. You will not be admitted into the number of those
all, who, though they comprehend the entire family of believers, do not
comprehend any that obey not the gospel; and it is at your peril, if when the
offer of an interest in the righteousness of Christ is placed within your
reach, you turn in indifference away from it. And it is of vital importance for
you to know, that the free gift, though it comes not upon you all in the way of
absolute conveyance, it at least comes upon you all in the way of offer. It is
yours if you will.theoffer is unto all and upon all who now hear us - though
the thing offered is only unto all and upon all who believe. We ask each
individual among you to isolate himself from the rest of the species - to
conceive for a moment that he is the only sinner upon the face of the earth,
that none but he stands in need of an atoning sacrifice, and none but he of an
everlasting righteousness brought in by another and that might avail for his
justification before God. Let him imagine, that for him the one and solitary
offender, Christ came on the express errand to seek and to save - that for him
He poured out his soul unto the death - that for him the costly apparatus of
redemption was raised - that for him and for him alone, the Bible was written;
and a messenger from heaven sent to entreat that he will enter into
reconciliation with God, through that way of mediatorship which God in his love
devised for the express accommodation of the missing wanderer, who had strayed,
an outcast and an alien from the habitations of the unfallen And that it now
turns upon his own choice, whether he will abide among the paths of
destruction, or be readmitted to all the honours and felicities of the place
from which he had departed.
There is nothing surely wanting to complete
the warrant of such an individual, for entering into hope and happiness; and
yet, ye hearers, it is positively not more complete than the warrant which each
and which all of you have at this moment, you, individually to you, God is
holding out this gift for your acceptance! You is He beseeching to come again
into friendship with Him. With you is He expostulating the cause of your life
and your death; and bidding you choose between the welcome offer of the one,
and the sure alternative of the other if the offer is rejected. He is now
parleying the matter with every hearer; and just as effectually, as if that
hearer were the only creature in the world, to whom the errand of redemption
was at all applicable. There is nothing in the multitude of hearers by whom you
are surrounded, that should at all deaden the point of its sure and specific
application to yourself. The message of the gospel does not suffer, in respect
of its appropriateness to you, by the ranging abroad of its calls and its
entreaties over the face of the whole congregation. The commission is to preach
the gospel to every; and surely that is the
same with preaching the gospel to each. It does not become less pointedly
personal in its invitation, by its being made more widely diffusive. The
dispersion of the gospel embassy over the face of the whole world, does not
abate, by one single iota, either the loudness or the urgency of the knock
which it is making at your door.
This is a property which no extension
of the message can ever dissipate. It cannot be shipped off, either in whole or
in part, by the missionary vessel which carries the news and the offers of
salvation to other lands. Your minister speaks with no less authority, though
thousands and thousands more are preaching at the same moment along with him.
Your bible carries no less emphatic intimation to you, though bibles are
circulating by millions over the mighty amplitudes of population that are on
every side of you. God, through the medium of these conveyances, is holding out
as distinct an overture to you, and pledging Himself to as distinct a
fulfilment, as if you were the only sinner He had to deal with; and whether He
beseeches you to be reconciled, or bids you come unto Christ on the faith that
you will not be cast out, or invites you weary and heavy laden to cast your
burden upon him and He will sustain it, or sets forth to you a propitiation and
tells you that your reliance upon its efficacy is all that is needed to make it
effectual to you - Be very sure that all this is addrest as especially to
yourself, as if you heard it face to face by the lips of a special messenger
from heaven - that God is bringing Himself as near, as if He named you by a
voice from the skies - So that if you, arrested by all this power and closeness
of application, shall venture your case on the calls and the promises of the
gos pel, there is not one call that will not be followed up, nor one promise
that will not be fully and perfectly accomplished.
The thing offered in
this passage is, that you shall be instated in the righteousness of Christ. Let
me crave your attention to the substantial meaning and effect of such an
overture. The technicals of theology are so familiar to the ear, that they fail
to arouse the understanding; and the thinking principle often lies in complete
dormancy, while there is a kind of indolent satisfaction felt by the mind, at
the utterance and the cadency of sounds to which it has been long accustomed.
The proposal that Christ's righteousness shall become your righteousness in
such a way, as that you will be honoured and rewarded and loved . and dealt
with by God, just, as you would have been, had this righteousness been yielded
in your own person and by your own performances - this, ye hearers, is the very
jet and essence of the gospel; and could we only prevail on you to entertain
the wondrous proposal and to close with it, like a man translated from beggary
to some exalted order of merit that had been won for him by another, might you
instantly be clothed in the glories of a high and splendid investiture -
recognised by God Himself, and by all the subject ranks of His administration,
as the occupiers of a dignity and a constitutional standing, to which all the
homage due to worth and excellence and lofty prospects may rightfully be paid.
You would become kings and priests unto God; and, like many of those
sublimities of nature where the noblest effects often spring from the simplest
of causes, is this princely elevation of guilty and degraded man brought about
by the simple credence which he renders to the testimony of God respecting His
Son - on which it is that he passes from death unto life, and according to his
faith so is it done unto him.
This is the way of being translated into
a condition of righteousness with God, and there is no other. We arc aware of
the tendency of nature to try an other; and that, in the obstinate spirit of
legality, it is her constant forth-putting to establish a righteousness of her
own - an object, in the prosecution of which, she is ever sure, either to
dissipate her strength in a fatigue that is unavailing, or at length to sink
down into the repose of a formality that is altogether lifeless and unfruitful.
This positively is not the way. The way is to lay your confident hold on the
merit of Christ as your plea of acceptance with God. It is to take your
determined stand on the basis of His obedience, all the rewards and all the
reckonings of which are held out to you in the gospel. It is to go at once to
the justification that Christ hath wrought out for all who believe in Him; and,
entering upon that region which is lighted up by the Sun of righteousness,
there to offer yourself to the notice of the Divinity, not in that tiny lustre
which is created by the feeble sparks of your own kindling, but in that full
irradiation which is caught from the beams of a luminary so glorious. God, to
see to you with complacency, must see you not as shining in any native
splendour of your own; but as shone upon by the splendour of Him who is full of
grace and truth. It is only when surrounded with this element, that a holy God
can regard you with cornplacency; and, to complete the triumphs of the gospel
administration, it is only when breathing in this atmosphere, that you inhale
the delights of an affectionate and confiding piety - that the soul breaks
forth in the full triumph of her own emancipated powers, on the career of
devoted and aspiring obedience - that life and happiness shed the very air of
heaven around a believer's heart - and make the service of God, before a
drudgery, its most congenial employment - Evincing, that, as to be in Christ is
to have no condemnation, so to be in Christ is to become a new creature with
whoni all old things are done away, and all things have become new.
Go to Lecture 28
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