You will perceive that in the 15th verse, the apostle
reiterates the objection that was made at the outset of the chapter, where it
is said "What! shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?" the same
objection, but grounded on a distinct consideration, or on a consideration
differently expressed at least in the 15th verse, where it is said, what then?
Shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace? It strikes me
that the apostle, when treating this question as put at the first, has in his
eye the grace that pardons; and, in his reply, he urges the inconsistency of
creatures, who for sin had been adjudged to die, but through the death of
another had been recalled to life again, ever recurring in the habit of their
practice to that which brought upon them so sore a condemnation.
By the
time he arrives at that point in the progress of his argument where we now are,
he had asked them to resist the power of sin, and to give themselves up unto
the service of God; and was encouraging them with the prospect of success in
this new plan of life, on the assurance that this power of sin was not
unconquerable, but that, instead of its prevailing over them, they should be
enabled to prevail over it - because, instead of being now under the law, they
were now under grace. And we have no doubt that there was here a reference, not
to grace as it pardons, but to grace as it purifies. There is another passage
in his writings, where he tells us what that circumstance is, which denotes a
man to be not under the law. "But if ye be led by the Spirit ye are not under
the law." To be taken under the leading of the Spirit is to be taken under
grace - even that grace which paid the debt of our souls and is now upholding
them in spiritual subsistence.
What is the consequence of the
Spirit’s leading, or what is the fruit of it - why that we are led to the
preference and the practice of all those virtues which enter into the
composition of true moral excellence, of which the apostle gives us the
enumeration by such specific terms as love and peace and joy and gentleness and
goodness and long-suffering and faith and meekness and temperance, against
which, says he, there is no law. The grace which delivered us from the
reckoning of the law because of our past delinquencies, delivers us also from
the future reckonings of the law, by introducing us to such a character and
such a conduct as even the law has nothing to allege against; and so the
circumstanceof being under grace, so far from leading us to sin, leads us just
in the opposite direction - leads us to that domain of righteousness which is
not under the law, and that because there the law finds no occasion on which it
might put forth its authority to condemn; and there its authority to issue
orders is not called for, because it is in fact anticipated by the heaven-born
affection which does not wait for its commands, by the heaven-born taste which
delights in the doing of them.
Ver. 16. There may appear a sort
of unmeaning and uncalled-for tautology in this verse - a something not very
close or consequential, and which it is difficult to settle upon. The apostle
had already asked them not to yield themselves unto the obedience of sin, but
to yield themselves unto the obedience of God. If it were a real and effectual
yielding of themselves to the obedience of God, an actual course of obedience
to God would emerge from it. If it were but the semblance of thus yielding, or
the putting forth of a warm but unsteadfast purpose which was not adhered to
and not followed up - then would they still continue in the obedience of sin.
Now, says the apostle, you are the servants of him whom you indeed obey - not
the servants of him whom you only profess to obey. You may have engaged
yourselves to one master - you may have gone through the form of yielding
yourselves up unto him - you may perhaps have deluded yourselves into the
imagination, that you have made good your surrender unto his will and unto his
authority; but still, if, in the fact and in the real history, you obey another
- you prove by this that you are indeed the servants of that other. He who sins
is the servant of sin; and the effect of that service is death. He who obeys is
the servant of obedience ; and the effect of that service is personal
righteousness, or personal meetness for the realms of life everlasting. You may
have made a dedication of yourselves unto one of these masters ; but you are
the servants of the other master, if him you actually serve.
And
perhaps the best way of seizing on the sense of the apostle in this verse, is
just to substitute "whomsoever" for "whom" in the first clause of it, when the
whole would run thus ‘ Know ye not that to whomsoever ye yield yourselves
servants to obey, his servants ye are whom ye do actually obey, whether of sin
unto death or of obedience unto righteousness?’ I have already told you of
your release from condemnation by the death of Christ; and I have told you how
monstrously out of all proper character it were, that, after readmittance into
the bosom of that accepted family from which sin and sin alone had exiled you,
you should again recur to the service of sin, and, under the impression of this
sentiment, I have bidden you yield yourselves up unto the service of God. And,
to encourage you the more, I have proclaimed in your hearing the helps and the
facilities which grace hath provided, for speeding you onward in the
accomplishment of this service; and when, after all this, you ask me shall I
sin then because of this grace - I answer, No. If you do so, it will prove that
the yielding not unto sin but unto God, to which I have just enjoined you, has
in fact been no yielding at all - that you have made perhaps a form of
dedication; but it is by your after doings,and by these alone, that we are to
estimate the truth and the power of it. The grace which you allege, as the plea
of exemption from God’s service, is the very argument on which I found my
expectation, that the path of His service is the very place on which I shall
now be sure to meet you - for it is this grace which gives the
power.
There would be no wanting of it to substantiate your dedication,
if the dedication itself were a heartily sound and sincere one. For a man to
say, shall I sin because I am under grace? - is in every way as preposterous,
as it were for a sick servant that had long been disabled from work but was now
recovered, to say, shall I spend my time in idleness or mischief now that I
have gotten health for the labours of my employment? Such a use of his
newly-gotten health, would prove that he had not honestly engaged for the
interests of that master, whose servant he professes himself to be; and just so
of the application to which it is proposed that grace, that mighty restorer of
health to the soul, shall be turned - if you are not actually in the service of
God but of sin, it proves that you have not honestly yielded yourselves unto
God.
Ver. 17, 18. Thus the question, Whose servants are ye,
resolves itself into a matter of fact; and is decided, not by the circumstance
of your having made a dedication of yourselves unto God, but by the way in
which this is followed up by the doings of obedience Whosoever he may be to
whom you profess that you are servants, you are the real servants of him whom
you obey; and the apostle on looking to his disciples, pronounces them by this
test to have become the servants of righteousness. He knows what they were in
the past, and he compares it with what they are now. They were the servants of
sin - they are now the servants of righteousness. They not only made a show of
yielding themselves up in obedience unto this new master; but they make him to
be indeed their master, by their in deed and in truth obeying him. And he not
only affirms this change of service on the part of his disciples; but he
assigns the cause of it. They obeyed from the heart. There might have been an
apparent surrender, but which the inner man did not go along with. There might
have been the form of a yielding; but some secret reservations, some tacit
compromise of which perhaps the man was scarcely if at all conscious, some
latent duplicity, that marred the deed, and brought a flaw unto it by which it
was invalidated.
There may have been something like a prostration of
the soul, to the new principle that now claims an ascendancy over it; but there
must have been a failing or drawback somewhere. All had not been sound at the
core - some want of perfect cordiality about it, that explains why there should
have been the semblance of a yielding unto one master, but the actual service
of another. Now God be thanked, says the apostle, this is not the way with you.
I look at your fruit, and I find it the fruit of holiness. I look at your life,
and I find it to be the life of the servants of God. I compare you now with
what I know you to have been formerly; and I find such a practical change as
convinces me, that, whereas sin was formerly your master, righteousness is now
your master in deed and in truth. And the account he gives of this is, that the
yielding which they made of themselves was a sincere and honest yielding. The
great master act ofobedience, which they rendered at that time, was obedience
from the heart; and thus it turned out,that what was truly and singly
transacted there, sent forth an impulse of power upon their habits and their
history.But what is it that they are said here to obey from the heart? It is
called in our translation the form of doctrine.
Now we know that the
term doctrine in the original may signify the thing taught, or it may signify
the process of teaching. In the last sense it is synonymous with instruction;
and instruction, or a process of it, may embrace many items, and may consist of
several distinct parts, and be variegated with lessons of diverse sort - to
obey which from the heart, is just to take them all in with the simplicity and
good faith, in which a child reads, and believingly reads, the exercises of its
task-book. And this view of the matter is very much confirmed, by the import of
the Greek word corresponding to form in our English translation. It is the same
with a mould, that impresses its own precise shape however formed, and conveys
its own precise devices however multiplied, to the soft and yielding substance
whereunto it is applied. And it is further remarkable, that it would be still
more accordant with the original - if, instead of its being said that they
obeyed from the heart the form of doctrine which had been delivered to them, it
had been rendered, that they obeyed from the heart the mould or model of
doctrine, into which they had been delivered. The image seems taken from the
practice of casting liquified metal into a mould; and whereby the cast and the
mould are made the accurate counterparts of each other. Christian truth, in its
various parts and various prominences, is likened unto a mould - into which the
heart or soul of man is cast, that it may come out a precise transcript of that
which has been applied to it. Did the melted lead only touch the mould at one
point, it would not receive the shape that was designed to be impressed upon it
- or if the surface of the one adhered to the surface of the other only
throughout a certain extent, and not at all the parts, neither yet would there
been accurate similitude between the copy and the model. it is by the closeness
and the contact of the two all over, and by the yielding of the one softened
throughout for the whole impression of the other, that the one takes on the
very shape and the very lineaments which it is the purpose of the other to
convey.
And such ought to he the impression, which the heart of man
receives from the word of God. It should be obedient to every touch, and yield
itself to every character that is graven thereupon. It should feel the
impression, not from one of its truths only, but from all of them - else, like
the cast which is in contact with the mould but at a single point, it will
shake and fluctuate, and be altogether wanting in settled conformity to that
with the likeness of which it ought to be everywhere encompassed. You know how
difficult it is to poise one body upon another when it has only got one narrow
place to stand upon; and that even another will not afford a sufficient basis
on which to rest; and that, to secure a position of stability, there must at
least be three points of support provided - else the danger is that it may
topple to an overthrow. We think that we have seen something akin to this, ere
the mind of an enquirer was rightly grounded and settled on the basis of
God’s revealed testimony - how it veers and fluctuates, when holding only
by one article and regardless of all the others - how tossed about it is apt to
be by every wind, when it fails of a sufficiently extended grasp on the truths
of Christianity - how those who talk for example of the bare act of faith,
vacillate and give way in the hour of temptation, and that just because they
have not stuck to the testimony of the Bible about the whole duty and
discipline of holiness - how those who admit both the righteousness of Christ
as their plea, and the regeneration of their own characters as their
preparation for heaven, to be alike indispensable, have nevertheless been
brought to shipwreck; and that just because, though adhering in words to these
two generalities, they have never spread them abroad over their whole history
in the living applications of prayer and watchfulness. They need the filling up
of their lives and hearts with the whole transcript of revelation.
One
doctrine does not suffice for this - for God in His wisdom, has thought fit
that there shall be a form or scheme of doctrine. The obedience of the heart
unto the faith, is obedience unto all that God proposes, for the belief and
acceptance of those who have entered on the scholarship of eternity; and for
this purpose, there must be, not a mere subscription or assent of the
understanding to any given number of points and articles - there must be a
broad coalescence of the mind, with the whole expanse and magnitude of the book
of God’s testimony.A scheme of doctrine, you will observe, implies more
truths than one; and St. Paul had actually gone beyond the announcement of his
one individual item by the time that he reached the verse which is now
submitted to you. He was very full on Christ as the propitiation for sin, and
on the righteousness of Christ as the plea of acceptance and reward for sinners
- and then when he came to the question, shall they who are partakers of this
benefit continue in sin that they may get still more of the benefit, he is very
strenuous in pronouncing a negative thereupon. Here there was not one doctrine,
but a form of doctrine, not one truth but a compound of truths - a mould graven
on both sides of it with certain various characters; and the softened metal
that is poured therein, yields to it all round,and takes the varied impression
from it. And so of him, who obeys from the heart the form of doctrine into
which he is delivered. He does not yield to one article, and present a side of
hardness and of resistance to another article. He is thoroughly softened and
humbled under a sense of sinfulness, and most willingly takes the salvation of
the gospel on the terms of the gospel. He does not like the sturdy
controversialist, or the eager champion of system and of argument, call out
from the word his own favourite position, with the light of which He would
overbear and eclipse the whole remaining expanse of the law and of the
testimony; but, like the little child, he follows on to know the Lord - just as
the revealed things offer themselves to his docility and notice, on that
inscribed tablet which the Lord hath placed before him.
This was the
way in which the disciples of Paul seemed to have learned their lessons at his
hand; and this way of it, it would appear, brings forth the testimony from
their apostle, that they had obeyed from the heart the form of his doctrine.
Their obeying of it from the heart marks their obeying of it truly and in the
inward parts; and their obeying a form of doctrine marks not their exclusive
adherence to one doctrine, but their broad and entire coalescence in his
summary of doctrine. A most important step this, for it forms the very nodus of
concatenation, between what the apostle says they once were and what he says
they now are. They were the servants of sin : They are the servants of
righteousness, and why; what was it that took place at the interesting moment
of transition, or rather what was it that gave rise to it? They obeyed from the
heart the form of doctrine into which they were moulded or cast; and then was
it that they were made free from sin - then was it that, loosed from its power
as well as from its condemnation, they gave their emancipated faculties to the
service of righteousness. I therefore know not a more pertinent and more
efficacious advice, that I can give for those who are desirous of being made
free from sin, and so of being translated into the service of another master
beside him who heretofore has domineered over them, than that they should
spread open their whole mind to the whole testimony - than that they should
render that obedience of their hearts unto the faith, which consists, not in
the confinement either of their attention or belief to one of its articles, but
in the freeness of their walking survey over the whole platform of revelation,
and in their ready appropriation of all the truths which lie extended
thereupon.
"Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and ye shall be saved," is
a quotation from Scripture; and indeed one of the most precious and memorable
of its sayings - but "repent and believe the Gospel," is the complex
announcement of Jesus Christ Himself; and you must treasure up the saying that
" unless ye repent ye shall all likewise perish." There is no condemnation to
those who are in Christ Jesus, is a weighty and well-laid doctrine - but
another is subjoined; and out of the two we have this scheme or form of
doctrine, that "there is no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus who
walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit." The belief of the truth as it
is in Jesus, will be the salvation of one and all who embrace it; but mark how
this one announcement has another added to it, which is hinged to it as it
were, and may be made to close into a mould for impressing the heart of
God’s children - " God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation,
through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth." To have the
blood of Christ sprinkled upon you, is indeed to be furnished with a sure
defence against the angel of wrath - when he cometh forth in his avenging
mission against the children of iniquity; but within the compass of a single
clause, does the apostle Peter tack obedience to the sprinkling of the blood of
Christ. And then, to use his expressions, do you obey the truth," and are
indeed "obedient children not fashioning yourselves" according to the errors
and the ignorance of former days, when you submit to both the articles of this
clause, and proceed upon them both. Paul went about preaching everywhere faith
in the Lord Jesus Christ; but this forms only one part of his summary,
according to his own description of it - and so he tells us of his "testifying,
both to the Jews and also to the Greeks, repentance towards God and faith
toward our Lord Jesus Christ".
In one place he could say of himself and
of his disciples, that, "being justified by faith we have peace with God
through our Lord Jesus Christ;" and in another place he says to his disciples
"that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God." And he told them
that such they once were, but they had made it seems the very transition spoken
of in our text; and he could now say, "but ye are washed, but ye are
sanctified, but ye are justified, in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the
Spirit of our God."And the way for you, my brethren, to make good the same
transition - is to have the same obedience of faith - it is to spread out the
tablet of your heart, for the pressure thereupon of all the characters that are
graven on the tablet of revelation - it is to incorporate in your creed the
necessity of a holy life, in imitation and at the will of the Lord Jesus, along
with a humble reliance on His merits as your alone meritorious plea for
acceptance with the Father - it is to give up the narrow, intolerant, and
restrictive system of theology, which, by vesting a right of monopoly in a few
of its favourite positions, acts like the corresponding system of trade, in
impeding the full circulation of its truths and of its treasure, through that
world within itself, which is made up of the powers and affections and
faculties that reside in a human bosom. But do you, my brethren, obey the whole
form of Christian doctrine, as well as each and sundry of its articles - be
your faith as broad and as long, as is the record of all those communications,
that are addressed to it and be very sure that it is only when you yield
yourselves up in submission to all its truths, that you can be made free from
sin by sharing in the fulfilment of all its promises
You often read in
Christian authors of the power of the truth; and by which they mean its power,
not merely to pacify the sinner’s fears, but its power - to sanctify his
character. It is a just and expressive phrase, and is adverted to in the
passage before us, where it is said that the being made free from sin, and
becoming servants unto righteousness, turns on the obedience of the heart to
doctrine. But it is not one doctrine only, be it the entire form of doctrine,
to which the heart is obedient; and so this power of the truth, is the power of
the whole truth. Mutilate the truth and you cripple it. Pare it down and you
paralyse its energies. The Spirit is grieved with the duplicity and the
disingenuousness of men, when they offer to divide that testimony, which, if
they would but treat it fairly, He would turn into the mighty engine of their
conversion, and so pass them over with the strength of His own right hand, from
the service of sin to the service of righteousness. The obedience must be
sincere, or it is not obedience from the heart; and it must not be partial, or
it is not obedience to the whole form of doctrine that is delivered.
And at the sight of this flaw, the Spirit takes His flight from the
heart that is deformed by it; and leaves the owner thereof in the thraldom of
nature’s corruption and nature’s carnality. And thus, my brethren, as
you hope to be rescued from the tyranny of sin by the power of Christian truth,
you must fan and foster the whole of it. There must be the submission of a
whole faith to a whole testimony. Divide and you darken. The whole of that
light, which one truth or one portion of the record reflects upon another, is
extinguished - when the inquirer, instead of looking fearlessly abroad over the
rich and varied landscape of revelation, fastens his intent regards on one
narrow portion of the territory, and shuts out the rest from the eye of his
contemplation. The Spirit will not lend Himself to such a man - one who does
not choose to see afar off; and is sure to forget some capital truth or other,
in that finished scheme of doctrine which the gospel has made known to us. And
of all the things which he is apt to forget - perhaps the most frequent is,
that every true Christian is purged from his old sins and thus, in the language
of Peter, the person who is thus blind, lacketh righteousness, and is both
barren and unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord.Jesus Christ. The reason why
you remain in the fetters of sin is, that you refuse your consent to some part
or other in the scheme of truth. You would fain have orthodoxy, and perhaps
think that you are in the actual possession of it, when, without power and
without spiritual discernment, you only strain at a few of the literalities of
Christian doctrine, and sit down in the unmoved lethargy of nature, with the
word upon your lips that there is salvation by faith, and forgiveness through
the blood of a satisfying atonement.
Could we only get you to admit the
necessity of a personal surrender, in all holy obedience unto God - could we
prevail upon you to believe that Christ came, not merely to redeem you from
guilt, but to redeem you from the vain conversation of the world - could we,
under the power of this incipient conviction, only persuade you to make a
beginning, and to move a single footstep in the way of transition from sin unto
righteousness - could you understand, that, even the remission of sins must be
had, so repentance must be accomplished, ere you be admitted into heaven, and
the honesty of this your understanding approved itself by your forthwith acting
upon it - could we only get you thus to set forth on this measure of incipient
light, the light would grow with the incipient obedience; and, ever brightening
as you advanced, would the principle of forsaking all for Christ become more
decided; and your decision for Christ would grow with the growth, and
strengthen with the strength of your dependence upon Him. The justification and
the sanctification, these two mighty terms in Christianity, would be alike
clearly apprehended as essential to the completion of the scheme of that
doctrine, by the obedience of the heart unto which it is that you are saved.
And I again repeat it, my brethren, take in the whole of gospel truth - lay
hold of its offered pardon, and enter even now upon its prescribed course of
purification. The Spirit will not look indifferently on your day of small
things; but if you, casting yourself into the mould of the whole truth, shall
labour to realise it and seek to be renewed as well as to be forgiven - He will
come down with the might of His creative energies upon you, and, breaking
asunder the chains of your captivity to sin, will cause you henceforward to be
the servants of righteousness.
This practical change, stands connected
with the obedience of your heart to the form or scheme of Christian doctrine -
for it is upon this being rendered, that you are made free from sin and become
the servants of righteousness. Yet let us not think therefore, that we, of our
own proper energy, supply as it were, the first condition on which our
deliverance from sin is made to turn; and that then the Spirit comes down and
gives full and finished accomplishment to it. The truth is, that He presides
over the initial, as well as over all the successive movements of this great
transformation; and accordingly, in the 17th verse, the primary circumstance of
your obeying from the heart the form of doctrine, is made matter of
thanksgiving to God. It is through grace, in fact, that you are made to embrace
the whole form of doctrine. If any of you feel so disposed in consequence of
our imperfect explanations - the glory of this is due to grace, which has
revealed to you the necessity of holiness as well as pardon - which has touched
and softened your hearts under the impression of this truth - which has moved
you to an aspiring obedience thereto - which will lead you, I trust, to carry
out the principle into practice and daily conversation - which will vent itself
upward to the sanctuary in prayer, and bring down that returning force, which
can unchain you from the bondage of corruption, and give you impulse and
strength for all the services of righteousness. It is grace that begins the
good work, and it is grace that perfects it - and to sin because we are under
this grace, carries in it just the same contradiction, as to be in darkness
because the sun has arisen; or to be in despair because an able friend has come
forward to support us; or to be in disease because an infallible physician has
taken us in his charge, and is now plying us with a regimen which never
misgives, and with medicines the operation of which never disappointed
him.
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