SOME would substitute here, in place of mortal, which
signifies liable to death, the idea of our bodies being already dead in Christ;
or in Him being already put to death for sin - which would just be urging us to
strive against sin, and on the consideration too that I have in your hearing so
repeatedly insisted upon. Let not that hateful enemy again reign over us, who
already brought usto the borders of execution.
And here, I may revert
for a moment to the thought, that sin, by the death of Christ in our stead,
hath been plucked of its sting - that our Saviour received it in His own body,
and there is no more power in our cruel adversary to inflict its mortal poison
upon us - and that he is not only disarmed of his right to condemn us, but
furthermore disarmed of all right and ability to tyrannise over us. In virtue
of thedefeat that he has gotten, he will not obtain the dominion over our
hearts and wills unless we let him.If we let him not; we shall find that our
resistance, backed as it is by the plea of a Saviour already crucified, and by
the power of a Saviour now exalted,is greatly too much for him. We who have
been baptized into Christ, are somewhat in the same circumstances with regard
to our old oppressor sin - that the children of Israel, after being baptized
into Moses in the Red sea, were, in reference to the power and tyranny of
Egypt. Their enemy was engulphed in that abyss, over which they found an open
and a shielded way; and, placed conclusively beyond the reach of his dominion,
it was now their part to exchange the mastery of Pharaoh for the mastery of
God; and those who did not acquit themselves of this their part, but rebelled
against Heaven, and sighed in their hearts after the flesh pots of Egypt, were
cut off in the wilderness.
And these things are recorded for our
admonition, on whom the latter ends of the world have come. If truly baptized
into Christ, we have, with Him our Deliverer, passed athwart that mighty chasm
which had been else impassable; and it was in the act of opening up and
traversing this deep, that he who had the power of death was overthrown; and
we, now placed beyond the reach of his inflictions, are to exchange the tyranny
of sin for the rightful command and mastery of Him, who hath borne us across
from the confines of the enemy; and unless we let him, he is stript of all
power of ascendancy over us - being no more able to subjugate our hearts to the
influence of moral evil, than he is able to subjugate our persons to its
penalty.
Now, if he offer to reign, let us but resist, and he will flee
from us - whereas, if with so many aids and securities around us, and standing
on the vantage ground of a safety that has thus been obtained and thus been
guaranteed, we shall still find our inclinations towards this malignant
destroyer, we shall share in the fate of the rebellious Hebrews, we shall fall
short on our way to the heavenly Canaan, we shall be likened to those who fell
in the wilderness. And this analogy, which has been instituted by Paul himself
in another part of his writings, does not fail us - though we should take the
term mortal in the customary, which I am also inclined to think is here the
correct signification of it. While in these mortal bodies, we are only on a
road through the wilderness of earth, to the secure arid everlasting
blessedness of heaven. It is true that all who are really partakers with Christ
in His death, have got over a mighty barrier, that lay between this terrestrial
Egypt and the Jerusalem that is above. They have been carried through the
strait gate of acceptance, and have now to travel along the narrow way of duty
and of discipline. It is most true of all who are actually through the one,
that they will be borne in safety and in triumph along the other. But one may
think that he is in Christ, when he is not; and therefore let him who thus
thinketh that he standeth, take heed lest he fall. If in Christ, it is true,
that to him there will be no condemnation. But if in Christ, it is just in
every way as true, that he will walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit..
Let us therefore make sure of our condition by so walking. Let us give all our
diligence to ascertain and establish it. If we really are at a distance from
the land of sins condemnation, we are at an equal distance from the land
of sins thraldom and oppressive tyranny.
Let us count it our
business then to make head against that tyranny. Let not sin reign over us, on
the passage that we have yet to describe, ere we shall be translated to our
place of secure and eternal refuge from all its entanglements. Let us stifle
every rising inclination for the pleasures and the carnalities of Egypt, and
come not under the power of those lusts which war against the soul, till we
reach the spiritual Canaan, where every inclination to evil that we have
withstood here, shall cease to exist and so cease to annoy us.We hold it of
prime importance, in the business of practical Christianity that we understand
well the kind of work which is put into our hands, both that we may go rightly
about it, and also that we may have the comfort of judging whether it is
actually making progress under our exertions. A mistake on this point may lead
us perhaps to waste our efforts on that which is impracticable; and when these
efforts of course turn out to be fruitless, may lead us to abandon our spirits
to utter despondency; and thus, to use the language of the apostle Paul -
running as uncertainly, and fighting as one that beateth the air, we may spend
our days. alike strangers to peace, and to progressive holiness.
Now to
save us from this hurtful mistake it were well that we weighed the vast import
of certain terms in the verse before us which are altogether big with
significancy. Let not sin, says the apostle, reign in your
mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof. Here we cannot
fail to perceive how widely diverse the injunction of the apostle would have
been, if instead of saying, Let not sin reign in your mortal
bodies,he had said, Let sin be rooted out of your mortal bodies; or if,
instead of saying, Obey not its lusts, he had bid us eradicate them. It were
surely a far more enviable state to have no inclination to evil at all, than to
be oppressed with the constant forthputting of such an inclination, and barely
to keep it in check, under the power of some opposing principle. Could we
attain the higher state, on this side of time, we would become on earth, what
angels are in heaven, whose every desire runs in the pure current of love and
loyalty to a God of holiness. But if doomed to the lower state, during all the
days of our abode in the world, then are we given to understand, that the life
of a Christian is a life of vigilant and unremitting warfare - that it consists
in the struggle of two adverse elements, and the habitual prevalence of one of
them - that in us, and closely around us, there is a besetting enemy who will
not quit his hold of us, till death paralyse his grasp, and so let us go - and
that, from this sore conflict of the Spirit lusting against the flesh, and the
flesh against the Spirit, we shall not be conclusively delivered, till our
present tainted materialism shall be utterly taken down; and that the
emancipated soul shall not have free and unconfined scope for its heavenly
affections, until it has burst its way from the prison-hold of its earthly
tabernacle.
Now, this view of the matter gives us a different conception
of our appointed task from what may often be imagined. Sin, it- would appear,
is not to be exterminated from our mortal bodies; it is only to be kept at bay.
It is not to be destroyed in respect of its presence, but it is to be repressed
in its prevalency and in its power. It will ever dwell, it would appear, in our
present framework; but though it dwell, it may not have the dominion.Let us try
then to banish it; and defeated in this effort, we may give up in heartless
despair the cause of our sanctification, thus throwing away at once both our
peace and our holiness. But let us try to dethrone it, though we cannot cast it
out;and succeeding in this effort, while we mourn its hateful company, we may
both keep it under the control of strictest guardianship, and calmly look
onward to the hour of death, as the hour of release from a burden that will at
least adhere to us all our days, though it may not overwhelm us.We see then the
difference between a saint in heaven, and a saint upon earth. The former may
abandon himself to such feelings and such movements as come at pleasure; for he
has no other pleasure than to do the will of God, and to rejoice in the
contemplation of His unspotted glory.
The latter cannot with safety so
abandon himself. It is true, that there is an ingredient in his nature, now
under an advancing process of regeneration, which is altogether on the side of
godliness; and were this left unresisted by any opposing influence,he might be
spared all the agonies of dissolution,and set him down at once among the choirs
andthe companies of paradise.
But there is another ingredient of his
nature, still under an unfinished process of regeneration, and which is
altogether onthe side of ungodliness; and were this left without the control of
his new and better principle, sin would catch the defenceless moment, and
regain the ascendency from which she had been disposted. Now it is death which
comes in as the deliverer. It is death which frees away the incumbrance. It is
death which overthrows and grinds to powder that corrupt fabric on the walls of
which were inscribed the foul marks of leprosy; and the inmost materials of
which were pervaded with an infection, that nothing, it seems, but the
sepulchral processof a resolution into dust, and a resurrection into another
and glorified body, can clear completely and conclusively away. It is death
that conducts us from the state of a saint on earth, to the stateof a saint in
heaven: but not till we are so conducted, are we safe to abandon ourselves for
a single instant to the spontaneity of our own inclinations; and we utterly
mistake our real circumstances in the world - we judge not aright of what we
have to do, and of the attitude in which we ought to stand - we lay ourselves
open to the assaults of a near and lurking enemy, and are exposed to most
humiliating overthrows, and most oppressive visitations of remorse and
wretchedness, if, such being our actual condition upon earth, we go to sleep,
or to play among its besetting dangers; if we ever think of the post that we
occupy being any other than the post of armour and of watchfulness; or, falsely
imagining that there is but one spiritual ingredient in our nature, altogether
onthe side of holiness, instead of two, whereof the other is still alive, and
on the side of sin, we ever let down the guardianship, and the jealousy, and
the lowliness of mind, and the prayers for succour from on high, which such a
state of things so urgently and so imperiously demands.
We think it of
very capital importance for us to know that the body wherewith we are burdened,
and must carry about with us, is a vile body; that the nature which we received
at the first, and from which we shall not be delivered on this side of the
grave, is a corrupt nature; that all which is in us, and about us, and that is
apart from the new spirit infused through the belief of the gospel, is in a
state of aversion to the will of God; that what may be denoted by the single
word carnality, is of perpetual residence with us while upon earth; and that
our distinct concern is, while it resides withus, that it shall not reign over
us.
It is everpresent with it suggestions; and this we cannot help: but it
should not prevail with its suggestions; and this, by the aids and expedients
provided for the regeneration of a polluted world, we may help. We shall feel
with our latest breath, the motions of the flesh; and these motions, if not
sins, are at least sinful tendencies, which, if yielded to, would terminate in
sins.
Now our business is not to extirpate the tendencies, but to make
our stand against them - not to root out those elements of moral evil which the
body of a good man before death has, and after its resurrection has not - But
to stifle, and to keep them down by that force wherewith the new creature in
Jesus Christ is armed for the great battle, on the issue of which hangs his
eternity. We cannot obtain such a victory as that we shall never feel the
motions of the flesh but we may obtain such a victory, as that we shall not
walk after the flesh. The enemy is not so skilled as that we are delivered from
His presence; but by an unremitting strenuousness on our part, we may keep him
so chained as that we shall be delivered from his power.
Such is the
contest, and such is the result of the contest, if it be a successful one. But
we ought to be told, that it is a vain hope, while we live in the world, to
look for the extermination of the sinful principle.It ever stirs and actuates
within us; and there is not one hour of the day, in which it does not give
token that it is still alive, and though cast down from its ascendancy, not
destroyed in its existence. Forewarned, forearmed, and it is right to be
informed, that near us, and within us, there is at all times an insidious foe,
against whom we cannot guard too vigilantly, and against whom we cannot pray
too fervently and too unremittingly. The time is coming, when, without the felt
counteraction of any adverse and opposing tendency,we shall expatiate in
freedom over the realms of ethereal purity and love - just as the time is
coming, when the chrysalis shall burst with unfettered wing from the prison in
which it is now held; and where, we doubt not, that it is aspiring and growing
into a meetness for traversing at large the fieldof light and air that is above
it.
The Christian on earth so aspires and so grows; but Christian
though he be, there is on him the heaviness of a gross and tainted materialism,
which must be broken down ere his spiritual tendencies can expand into their
full and final development. Meanwhile, there is the compression upon him of
downward, and earth-ward, and carnal tendencies, which will never be removed
till he die; but which he must resist, so as that they shall not reign over
him. There are lusts which he cannot eradicate, but which he must not obey;
and, while he deplores, in humility and shame, the conscious symptoms within
him of a nature so degraded, it is his business, by the energies and resources
of the new nature, so to starve and weaken and mortify the old, as that it may
linger into decay while he lives, and when he dies may receive the stroke of
its full annihilation.
This representation of a believers state
upon earth is in accordancy with Scripture. We find the apostle stating, that
the flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh ; and in
such a way too, as that the man cannot do what he would. He would serve God
more perfectly. He would render him an offering untinctured by the frailty of
his fallen nature. He would rise to the seraphic love of the upper paradise,
and fain be able to consecrate to the Eternal, the homage of a heart so pure
that no earthly feculence shall be felt adhering to it. But all this he cannot
- and why? Because of a drag that keeps him, with all his soaring aspirations,
among the dust of a perishable world. There is a counterpoise of secularity
within, that at least damps and represses the sacredness; and it is well that
it do not predominate over it.This secularity belongs to the old nature, being
so very corrupt that Paul says of it - " In me, that is, in my flesh, there
dwelleth no good thing." There is a law, then, which warreth against the law of
our mind, even while that mind is delighting inwardly in the law of God. The
conflict is so exceedingly severe, that even they who have the first fruits of
the Spirit groan inwardly, while waiting for the redemption of the body, and
for a translation into the glorious liberty of the children of God. Burdened
with the mass of a rebellious nature, time apostle exclaims,' 0 wretched man
that I am who shall deliver me from the body of this death?'
Even
grace, it would appear, does not deliver from the residence of sin; for Paul
complains most emphatically of his vile body, and, we have no doubt,would so
have stigmatized it to the last half hourof his existence in the world. But
grace still does something. It delivers from the reign of sin, so as that we do
not obey its motions, though vexed and annoyed with the feeling of them. And
accordingly, from the exclamation of '0 wretched man!" does he pass in a moment
to the grateful exclamation of, '1 thank God, through Jesus Christ our Lord,"
in whom it is that we walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.
From
such a representation as is given by theapostle of Indwelling Sin, we may
deduce some distinct practical lessons, which may be of use to the believer.
First, we think it conducive to the peace of a believer, that he is made aware
of what he has to expect of the presence of corruption during his stay in this
the land of immature virtue; and where the holiness of the new-born creature
has to struggle its way through all those adverse elements,which nought but
death will utterly remove from him. It must serve to allay the disturbance of
his spirit, when pierced and humbled under the consciousness of an evil desire
and wicked principle still lurking within him, and announcing themselves to be
yet alive, by the instigations which they are ever prompting, and the thoughts
which they are ever suggesting to the inner man. It is his business to resist
the instigations, and to turn away from the thoughts; and thus the old nature
maybe kept in practical check, though as to its being, it is not exterminated.
Yet the very occurrence of a sinful desire, or an impure feeling,
harasses a delicate conscience; for no such occurrence happens to an angel, or
to the spirit of a just man made perfect, in heaven; and he may be led to
suspec this interest in the promises of Christ, when he is made to perceive
that there is in him still so much of what is uncongenial to godliness. It may
therefore quiet him to be told, that he is neither an angel nor a glorified
saint; and that there is a distinction between the saint who is struggling at
his appointed warfare below, and the saint who is resting and rejoicing in the
full triumph of his victory above; and the distinction announces itself just by
the very intimations which so perplex and so grieve him - just by the felt
nearness of that corrupt propensity which is the picture of his heart, which it
is his bounden duty to keep his guard against, and which, with his new-born
sensibilities, on the side of holiness, he will detest and mourn over - but not
to be overwhelmed in despair, on account of, as if some strange thing had
happened to him, or as if any temptation had come in his way which was not
common to all his brethren who are in the world.
But, secondly, this
view of the matter not only serves to uphold the peace of a believer, but
conduces also to his progress in holiness; for it leads to a most wholesome
distrust of himself, under the consciousness that there is still a part about
him most alive to sin; and which, if not watched and guarded and kept under
severe and painful restraint, would be wholly given over to it. And here there
is a striking accordancy between the theoretical view which the Bible gives of
our nature, and the practical habit it labours to impress upon all whopartake
of it. An angel, perhaps, does not need to be warned against the exposure of
himself to temptation; for there may he no ingredient in his constitution that
can be at all affected by it: but not so with man, compounded as he is, and
made up as his constitution is here, of two great departments, one of which is
prone to evil, and that continually; and in the other of which he all those
principles and powers whose office it is, if not utterly to extinguish this
proneness, at least to repress its out - breakings.
In these
circumstances, it is positively not for man to thrust himself into a scene of
temptation; and when the alternative is at his own will,whether he shall shun
the encounter, or shall dare it, his business is to shun, and the whole of
Scripture is on the side of cautiousness, rather than of confidence in this
matter; and we may be assured,that it is our part, in every case, to expose
nothing,and to hazard nothing, unless there be a call ofduty, which is
tantamount to a call of Providence.When the trial is of our own bringing on, we
have no warrant to hope for a successful issue. God will grant succour and
support against the onsets which temptation maketh upon us, but He does not
engage Himself to stand by us in the presumptuous onsets which we make upon
temptation. We better consult the mediocrity of our powers, and better suit our
habits to the real condition of our ruined and adulterated nature, when we keep
as far as in us lies our determined distance from every allurement - when with
all our might we restrain our tendencies to evil within, from coming into
contact with the excitements to evil that are without - when we make a covenant
with our eyes to turn them away from the sight of vanity - and whether the
provocation be to anger, or evil speaking, or intemperance, or any wayward and
vicious indulgence whatever, let us be assured, that we cannot be too prompt in
our alarms, or too early in - our measures, whether of prevention or
resistance; and that in every one instance where we have it in our power, and
no dereliction of duty is implied by it, it is our wise and salutary part, not
most resolutely to face the provocative, but most resolutely to flee from
it.
But, thirdly, this view of the matter not only leads us to withdraw
the vicious and wrong part of our constitution from every encounter with
temptation that can possibly be shunned - it also leads us to such measures as
may recruit and strengthen the gracious or good part of our constitution for
every such encounter as cannot be shunned. For we must, in spite of all our
prudence, have many such encounters in the world. Temptation will come to our
door, though we should never move as ingle unguarded footstep towards
temptation; and then, What, we would ask, is the armour or resistance ! - what
the best method of upholding the predominance of the good principle over the
evil one! We would say, a fresh commitment of ourselves in faith and in prayer
to Him who first put the good principle into our hearts - another act of
recurrence to the fulness that is in Christ Jesus - a new application for
strength from the Lord our Sanctifier, to meet this new occasion for strength
which He Himself has permitted to come in our way, and to cross the path of our
history, in the world. The humility which leads us to flee when-ever we can,
and to pray when flight is impossible - this is the very habit of the soul,
which removes it from the first set of temptations, and will most effectually
strengthen it against the second.
To the proud man, who reckons upon
his own capabilities, God refuses grace. To the humble man, whoin himself has
no other feeling than that of utter emptiness, God gives grace in abundant
measure for all his necessities : and thus it is, that by proceeding as he
ought, on the consideration that there is a part of his nature belonging
properly and originally to himself, which he must keep at an assiduous distance
from every excitement to evil and then proceeding as he ought, on the
consideration that there is a part of his nature derived by grace from heaven,
and nourished by constant supplies from the same quarter - thus it is, we
say,that his knowledge of his own constitution, suchas we have endeavoured to
unfold it, has a direct tendency both to deepen the humility of the believer,
and to exalt and perfect his holiness.
It is this state of
composition, in every one who has been boris of the Spirit, between time old
man and time new creature, which explains the mystery of a Christian being more
humble, just as he becomes more holy - of his growing at one and the same time
in dissatisfaction with himself, and in those deeds of righteousness which are
by Jesus Christ - of his being both more feelingly alive to the corruption that
is in him from one part of his nature, and more fruitfully abundant in all
thosevirtues which have their soil and their nutriment from the other part of
his nature, so as to hold out the palpable exhibition of one evidently rising
in positive excellence, and yet as evidently sinking into a profounder
self-abasement than before ; as if it required a so much deeper foundation to
uphold the ascending superstructure. The truth is, that wherever there is any
real growth of morality, there must be a growth of moral sensibility along with
it; and in proportion to this sensibility will there be the annoyance that is
felt, and the touching grief and humility wherewith the heart is visited on
every fresh evolution of that depraved nature, which is only subordinated, but
not yet extinguished and done away.
And hence the wantof sympathy, and
the want of understanding between the children of this world, and the
childrenof light ; and the misinterpretation that is sometimes given to the
pains and perplexities and mental disquietudes which the latter do experience
and the puzzling appearance of inconsistency which is held out by the emotions
and the exercises of a real Christian, who is troubled on every side, yet not
distressed - perplexed, but not in despair - persecuted, but not forsaken -
cast down, but not destroyed - Bearing about in his body the dying of the Lord
Jesus, that the life of Jesus might be made manifest in in his body - dying
unto earthly honours and earthly gratifications, while the life of Jesus is
becoming manifest in his mortal flesh.
To conclude then, let sin reside
as it may, he must not be permitted to reign. He may be put up with as a most
offensive and unpleasant inmate in the house - but let him be curbed and
guarded, and not one item of authority be conceded to him. It is enough that
one has to bear his hateful presence, but his tyranny is not to be tolerated.
Against this there is ever to be upheld a manful, and strenuous, and
persevering resistance. He may distress, but he is not to influence us. There
will be a constant prompting on his part to that which is evil; but the evil
thing is not to be done, and the desire which incites to that thing is not to
be obeyed. This is the strong and visible line of demarcation between the
wilful sinner and the aspiring saint. Both of them have vile bodies charged
with the elements of corruption, and impregnated with a moral virus, the
working of which is towards sin and ungodliness. Both have one and the same
constitutional tendency. But the one follows that tendency, the other resists
it; and as the fruit of that resistance, though not freed from its detested
presence, he is at least emancipated from its domineering power. It lives in
the house, but it is not master of the house; and is there so starved and
buffeted, and subjected to such perpetual thwarting and mortification of every
sort, that it gradually languishes and becomes weaker, and at length,with the
life of the natural body, it utterly expires.The soul which acquiesced in its
dominion has been sowing all along to the flesh, and of the flesh it shall reap
corruption. The soul that struggled against its dominion, and refused
compliance there-with, has through the Spirit, mortified the deeds of the body,
and shall live, - has all along been sowing to the Spirit, and of the Spirit
shall reap life everlasting.
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