You will observe in the term "yield" of the present
verse, a counterpart to the term "reign" of the last verse. We have not been
enjoined to root out sin as to its presence; but we have been enjoined so to
resist, as that it shall not reign over us in power. And in like manner we are
not called upon to exscind from our members their evil tendency to
unrighteousness; but we are called upon not to yield them up as instruments of
unrighteousness. Could Paul have exscinded from his members their inclination
to sin, he would have done it; and then, he would not have had to complain
afterwards in the bitterness of his soul, that he found a law in these members,
warring against the law of his mind - neither would he have said that in him,
that is in his flesh, there dwelleth no good thing.
But the truth is, that,
after conversion,the organs ofthe body stand in the same relation as before to
the objects that are suited to them - the natural influence of the one upon the
other is just what it was - there is a power of temptation in the one, and a
disposition to coalesce therewith in the other, neither of which is extricated
by grace, either from the constitution of the man, or from the constitution of
outward nature.
But what grace does, is, to stir up a resolve in the
mind against submitting to this influence, against yielding to this temptation.
And so there comes to be a law in the mind, warring against the law that is in
the members - a new will that aspires, if not to such a sovereignty as can
carry into effect a sentence of expulsion against the evil desires that are in
the members, at least to such a sovereignty as shall lay upon these desires an
effectual negative - So that if they cannot be got quit of while we are in the
body, as so many troublesome companions, they may at least be deposed from the
practical ascendancy they want to wield over us, as so many tyrannical lords
and oppressors. Like the whole of a wilful and stubborn team that have a
perverse tendency to deviation, would they run into disorder on the reins
beingyielded to them; but, in virtue of the strength antidetermination of the
governor, the reins are notgiven up; and so, though with much tension and
fatigue and watchfulness, are they kept on the proper course.
The
difference between such a management, and another where all the animals under
command go smoothly and vigorously along in the very path of service that you
desire, is another mode of exemplifying the difference that there is between
the work of a saint on earth, and the work of a saint in heaven, On earth you
have to maintain the guiding and governing power of the mind, over not willing
but reluctant subjects, who, if perm!tted to take their own way, would run off
to the by-paths of unrighteousness and whom you are required by my text, not to
yield up as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin.There is a love of gossip
in our nature, partly due to its malignity, and partly due to its taste for the
ridiculous; and in virtue of which, there may be an urgent tendency, in the
midst of an easy circle of companionship, to come forth with some of those more
exquisite traits of a neighbour's fo1ly - the recital of which would impart a
zest to the conversation. To make use of a very familiar phrase indeed, you
have sometimes a minor calumny of this sort on your tongue's end; and certain
it is of such an inclination, that it will not only survive the passage of the
soul from a state of nature to a state of grace - hut it is an inclination, we
know, often given way to, in many a brotherhood and many a sisterhood of
commonplace professorship.
Well then, suppose that on the eve of its
escape, a sudden remembrance of the verse which interdicts, not certain of the
more flagrant and aggravated, but which interdicts all evil speakings together,
should come into the mind; and the will, that power which sits in the chair of
authority, should of consequence interpose, and lay its arrest on the offending
member, and bind it over to a peace which it feels strongly nevertheless
tempted to violate - it is quite compatible with the man's Christianity,that he
should have about him still, a part of a constitution to which the utterance of
a thoughtless story were a pleasurable indulgence - it is quite compatible with
his Christianity, that this is a temptation, and he should feel it to be so;
but it is not worthy of his vocation, while sensible of its force, that he
should actually and indeed submit to the force: And his part is resolutely to
put forth his hand on the reins of management, and not yield his member as an
instrument of unrighteousness unto sin."But yield yourselves unto God."
Amid the clamour and besetting importunity of the various affections of
our nature, there is the will, whose consent must be obtained and whose
authority must be given, ere any one of the affections shall be gratified. It
is true that the will may be the slaveof unworthy passions - just as a monarch
may be the slave of unworthy favourites. But still it is from the monarch, that
the order is issued. And he must set his seal to it ere it can be carried into
effect. It may be a base compliance in him, to grant what he does to the
urgency of his profligate and parasitical minions. But still his grant is
indispensable; and the same of the will among all the other feelings and
faculties of the human constitution. It may be in actual abject subordination
tothe appetites; and through it the whole man may be lorded over, by a set of
most ignoble though most oppressive taskmasters. Yet the moment that the will
shall determine to cast off this ascendancy, like as when a monarch dismisses
his favourites, their power is at an end; and should the will resolve for God,
this were tantamount to our yielding up of the whole man to the will and
authority of God.It may do so by one act; and yet that act be the transition of
the whole man into another habit, and the passing of the soul under another
regimen, than before. Though one step only, it is indeed a big and a decisive
one. It is the great introductory movement to a new life - nor can we figure a
mightier crisis, or a more pregnant turning point in your personal history,
than is that resolve of the mind,by which it resolves effectually for God, by
which it yields itself up unto Him with full purpose of heart and endeavour
after new obedience.
And this one act, brooding as it does with
consequences of such moment, both in time and in eternity - we are called upon
in the clause now under consideration to perform. The man who enlists himself
into soldiery, may do it in a single instant; and that fixes him down for life
to the obedience ofa new master. If what I want to gain is your resolution of
entrance into the perpetual service of God - that you purpose now to give no
more of your time to the lusts of the flesh, but to His will - that the posture
now of readiness for His commands.and determination to obey them, be at this
moment assumed by you - that you now give the consent of your will, that great
master faculty of the innerman, to your being henceforth the subjects of God's
authority whatever may be its requirements - that listening, as it long has, to
sin and to sense and to selfishness, you make it now your deliberate and
steadfast aim to resist all the suggestions of these troublesome and
treacherous advisers; and in their place you throne the great principle of, "
Lord, what willest thou me to do ?" - All these are just so many other ways of
expressing that greatest of all practical movements, by which a man yields
himself up unto God - a movement, which, if not taken, leaves you still in the
broad way among the children of disobedience, and either marks you to be still
an utter stranger to the doctrine of Christ; or, if you be acquainted with that
doctrine, marks and most decisively, that it is a doctrine which hascome to you
in word only and not in power.
Be assured, my brethren, that, in
proportion to the strength and the simplicity of your determination for God,
will be the clearness of your Christianity, and the comfort attendant on all
its hopes and all its promises. It is the man whose eye is single, whose whole
body shall be full of light. You complain of darkness, do you? See that there
be not a want of perfect oneness and willingness and sincerity, as to the total
yielding of yourself unto God. The entanglement of one wrong and worldly -
affection, may mar your purposes. The influence of one forbidden conformity,
may do it. To the right following of Christ, there must be the forsaking of
all. He must be chosen as the alone master; nor will He accept of a partial
yielding up of yourselves. It must be an entire and unexcepted yielding. Nor is
there any thing so likely as the doublings of a wavering and undecided purpose,
to wrap the gospel in obscurity, and throw a darkening shroud over all that
truth which ministers peace and joy to the believer"s soul.
And I trust
that you are now prepared to meet a difficulty, which is sometimes suggested,
when the Christian disciple is urged on to perfection.You are now aware of the
utter hopelessness that there is in the attempt to extirpate the presence of
Sin; but this, so far from discouraging, ought therafter to excite you to the
uttermost strenuousness in the work of making head against its power. In such a
state of matters, there may at least be a pure and perfect and honest-hearted
aim - though there will not be so perfect an accomplishment, as if all the
sinful appetites were eradicated, instead of all these appetites being only
kept in order. The purpose of the mind may be sound - the full set of the inner
man which delights in the law of God, maybe towards obedience to that law- -
And thus there may be a perfect surrendering yourselves up unto the service of
God, though not so perfect an execution of the service itself as if you had no
vile body of sin and of death to contend against. The charioteer whose horses
have a strong sideway direction, may be as thoroughly intent on the object of
keeping his vehicle on the road - as he whose horses would of themselves and
without even the guidance of the reins, keep an unfaltering direction in the
right path. And he may also succeed in keeping them on, though they neither
move so easily, or smoothly, or quickly. The perfection of aim is the same in
both - though the one must put forth a more painful and not so successful an
endeavour as the other.
And it is just in this way, that I call on you,
with the full set of all your purposes and energies, steadfastly to keep and
carefully to describe the career of a new obedience. God, who knoweth your
constitution, knoweth how to distinguish between a failing in the purpose and a
failing in the performance. He calls for singleness and perfectness and godly
sincerity in the one. He is aware of your frame, and is touched with the
feeling of your infirmities, and knows when He consistently with the rules of
His unerring government may pass by the shortcomings of the other.
And
thus while encouraged to confess and pray over the remembrance of certain sins
in the hope that they may be forgiven - we are also taught, that there is a sin
which will not be forgiven, there is a sin unto death. See that in yielding
yourselves unto God, it be a perfect surrender that you make. See that you give
yourself wholly over to His service. I am not asking at present how much you
can do; but go to the service with the feeling that your all is due,and with
the honest intention and desire that all shall be done. Let there be no
vitiating compromise between sin and duty in the principle of youractions -
whatever the degree of soil or of shortnessin the actions themselves. Enter
upon your new allegiance to God, with a full desire to acquit yourselves of all
its obligations; and thus it is, that, without reservation, you may take Him to
be your liege Sovereign - and that, without reservation,you may yield
yourselves up unto God.
Then follows a very important clause - " as
those who are alive from the dead." It cuts up legalism by the roots. To work
legally is to work for life - to work evangelically is to work from life. When
you set forth on the work of obedience in the one way, you do it to attain a
life that you have not.When you set forth on the work of obedience in the other
way, you do it in the exercise and from the energies of a life that you already
have. Which is the way of the text is perfectly obvious. You are not here
called upon to enter the service of God, as those who have life to win; but to
enter the service of God, as those who are already alive - as those who can
count upon heaven as their own, and with a sense of God's loving favour in
their hearts "and a prospect of glory eternal" in their eye, put themselves
under the authority of that gracious Parent, who guides and cheers and smiles
upon them along the path of preparation.
In this single expression,
there are three distinct things suggested to our attention; and all of their
standing connected with that new gospel service upon which we enter, at the
moment of our release from the sentence and the state of death.There is first
the hopefulness of such a service.The same work, that, out of Christ, would
havebeen vain for all the purposes of acceptance - is no longer vain in the
Lord. the same labour that would have been fruitless, when, toiling in our yet
unredeemed state of condemnation, we would have toiled as if in the very fire
and found nothing - may now be fruitful of such spiritual sacrifices, as are
acceptable to God through Jesus Christ our Lord.the same offerings, which would
have been rejected as an equivalent for the wages of a servant,may now be
rejoiced over and minister complacencyto the spirit of our heavenly Father -
rendered as the attentions of one, whom He has admitted into the number of His
recalled and recon-ciled children. Yield yourselves up unto God then,not as one
who has to earn life, but as Orie who has already gotten life from IIis hands;
and your obedience, divested of all legal jealousies and fears, will be free
and spontaneous on the part of the creature - and, on the part of the Creator,
will be sustained as worthy of Himself to receive, for the sake of that great
High Priest, whose merits and whose intercession and whose death have poured a
consecration over the services of all who believe on Him.There is secondly in
this expression the principle of such a service - even gratitude to Him whohas
received us. It puts us in mind of these precious scriptures - " We are not our
own, we are bought with a price; let us therefore glorify the Lord with our
body and our spirit, which are the Lord's." And "if Christ died for all, then
wereall dead; and he died, that they who live might live no longer to
themselves, but to him who diedfor them, and who rose again." It is just
yielding up to Him in service, that which He has conferred upon us by donation.
It is turning to its bidden use the instrument He has put into our hands. It is
giving Him His own; and you, in yielding yourselves up unto God as those who
are alive from the dead, are just yielding the appropriate return of gratitude
for the life that has thus been bestowed upon you.
And lastly, in this
expression there is implied the power for the service. The faith which receives
Chlrist, receives power along with Him to become one of God"s children. It of
itself argues a spiritual perception, of which nought but spiritual life can
make us capable. The instant of our believing is tile instant of our new birth.
The same faith which reconciles, is also the faith which regenerates; and you,
in yielding yourselves up unto the service of God, will be nobly upheld among
all its fatigues and all its difficulties, by the influences which descend on
the prayer of faith from the upper sanctuary. "And your members as the
instruments of righteousness unto God." You see how readily and how naturally,
the apostle descends from the high principle to the plain work of obedience. To
yield yourselves unto God, is a brief expression of that act, by which you
submit your person and bind over all your performances to His will. To yield
your members as the instruments of righteousness unto God, is, in the language
of lawyers, like an extension of the brief. It is implementing the great and
initiatory deed of your dedication to His service. It is going forth on the
business to which you have come engaged; and actually doing in the detail, what
you before solemnly and honestly purposed to do in the general. Did you at one
time put forth your hand to depredation or violence - now let it be the
instrument of service to your neighbour, and honest labour for your families.Or
did your feet carry you to the haunts of profligacy - now let them carry you to
the house of prayer, and of holy companionship. Or did your tongue utter forth
the evil speakings, whether of calumny or carelessness or profanation - let it
now be the organ of charity and peace, and let the salt of grace season its
various communications. Or did your eyes go abroad in quest of foolishness -
let the steadfast covenant now be made with them; that, with shrinking and
sensitive purity, they may be turned away from every obtruding evil. Or did you
give your ears to the corrupting jest, and what perhaps is most corrupting of
all, to the refined converse that is impregnated with taste and intellect and
literature and every charm but that of Christianity - let them now be given up
in obedience to the lessons of eternal wisdom, and to the accents which fall
from those who fear the Lord and talk often together of His name.
In
this way you turn your members into so many instruments of righteousness. You
give up your bodies as well as your spirits a living sacrifice unto God. The
holiness that has been germinated in the heart, is sent forth to the visible
walk, and inscribed in characters upon the history that may be read and seen of
all men. By yielding yourselves unto God you enlist in His service. By yielding
your members as instruments of righteousness unto God, you go about the
service. You carry out into deed and into development, what before existed only
in design. By yielding yourselves you subscribe the indentures. By yielding
your members you act upon this indenture. By time one you undertake in all
things for the glory of God. By the other you do all things to His glory. The
one shows me that the will, that sovereign among the faculties, is for
obedience. The other demonstrates that the will has made good her sovereignty,
by showing me the person on the way of obedience. Be assured that you have not
yielded up yourselves, if you have not yielded up your members;or that the
heart is not right, if the history is not right. And, on the other hand, be
assured that the honesty, and the frugality, and the temperance, and the
scrupulous abstinence from all evil communications, and all the other every day
duties of every day life, have a high place in religion; that when done unto
God, they reflect an influence on the source from which they emanate - adding
to the light and spirituality of the believer; and, though only the doings of
his outer, yet serving to build up his inner man in faith and in
holiness.
Ver. 14. Compare the promise that sin shall not reign
over you, with the precept of two verses ago - "let not sin reign over you ;"
and it will throw light on a very interesting connection, even on the way in
which the precepts of the gospel and the promises of the gospel stand related
the one with the other. The promise does not supersede the precept. " I will
give you a new heart and a new spirit," He says in one place - "Make you a new
heart and a new spirit," He says in another. "God worketh in you both to will
and to do," in one place - " work out your own salvation," in another. It is
precisely in the same way, that He bids the man of withered hand stretch it
forth. The man could not unless power had been given; but he made the attempt,
and he found the power. The attempt, or an act of obedience on the part of the
man, was indispensable. The power, or an act of bestowment on the part of God,
was also indispensable. They both met ; and the performance of the bidden
movement was the result of it. Had the man made the attempt without the power,
there would have been no stretching forth; or had the man not the power and not
made the attempt, there would have been as little of stretching forth. It was
the concurrence of the one with the other at the instant, that gave rise to the
doing of the thing which was required of him. And so of all gospel obedience.
"Let not sin reign," "for sin shall not reign" - is in perfect accordancy with
"work out your own salvation," for it is "God that worketh in you." It is God"s
part to lodge the gift, but it is your part to stir it up. Stir up the gift
that is in you, says Paul. If no gift be there, nothing will follow. If the
gift be there - your exertion turns it to its right use, and works out the
right and proper effect of it.
It is thus that divine grace and human
activity are in perfect co-operation - the one as sovereign as if man had
nothing to do - the other as indispensable as if it had been left to man to do
all. The grace so far from superseding the activity, gives it all its
encouragement - for without the grace the activity were powerless, and you
would soon cease from it ill all the heartlessness of despair; and thus it is
that the precept of 'Let not sin reign over you," finds a stimulus instead of a
soporific in the promise that "sin shall not reign over you," And the reason
alleged for sin not reigning over you, is, that you are not under the law but
under grace. The law is the creditor of all who are under it, and sin is the
debt which presses you down with a force which you cannot cast off; and one may
conceive the debt to be of magnitude so overwhelming. that you not only are
unable for the slightest liquidation of its principal, but that, unable for its
constantly accumulating interest, you cannot live without every day adding to
the burden of it. And thus it is with sin - a most fearful reckoning of past
guilt against you, - and an hourly augmenting guilt, by which time law is
arming every day with a greater strength of rightful severity, that it may
wreak on the culprits who have offended it. It has you in its power, even as
the creditor has his victims, who can only be rescued from his grasp by the
interposition of all able and an adequate surety.
And for us sinners,
there has been precisely such an interposition.The law has been treated with,
by one who has rendered it ample satisfaction - in that He both magnified it
and made it honourable. He has rescued us from the challenge, that, because of
sin the law would have preferred against us; and sin ceases to have the
dominion, in regard to the power of laying on the penalty being now done away.
But this is not all. The grace of the gospel, under which you now are,
has done more tilan sweep away the condemnation of sin. It has struck an
effectual blow at its practical ascendancyover you. It has provided a spirit
that puts into you another taste, and other inclinations than those you had
formerly. The law had power over your person, but not over your will - so that
it combined the tormentor with the tyrant, in that it was ever thwarting your
desires, whose rebelliousness the other hand was ever aggravating your guilt.
But grace has delivered your person from the law;and, most delightful of all
masteries, it has softened and subbued your wills - and so, causing you to love
the way of holiness, has turned your duty into an enjoyment. It has done more
than the surety who only liquidates the debt, but perhaps leaves you as
thriftless and idle and improvident as before, for new debts and new
difficulties. But it has acted like the surety, who not only pays all for you,
but supplies you with the means of future independence; and teaches you the
management for turning them to the best account; and watches over your
proceedings with the assiduity and advices of a friend, whose presence ever
delights instead of offending you; and charms you by his own example into the
sobriety and industry and good conduct, which form the best guarantees for your
prosperity in this world. Thus we say, does the grace of the gospel not only
disenthrall the soul of man from the bondage of guilt; but, enriching it with
other desires and other faculties than before, causes it to prosper and to be
in health - and to abound in those fruits of the Spirit against which there is
no law. Let me just urge then in conclusion, that you proceed on the
inseparable alliance which the gospel has established, between your deliverance
from the penalty of sin and your deliverance from its power - that you evidence
the interest you have in the first of these privileges, by a life graced and
exalted by the second of them - that you now break forth as emancipated
creatures whose bonds have been loosed, and from whom the fetters of corruption
have been struck off along with the fetters of condemnation. You may say, that
it is preaching to the dead, to bid you move and bestir yourselves towards the
path of holiness - but not if faith accompany the utterance, for in that case
power and life will go along with it. Like the withered hand you will perform
the gesture that is required of you at the hearing of our voice - if the Spirit
of all grace lend His efficacy to the word that is spoken; and actuate you with
that belief in the gospel record, which strengthens as well as saves, and which
sanctifies as well as justifies.
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