Chapter II: THE PROGRESS. As I have just said, when we see the Lord as He is we

shall be like Him; and when that comes to pass we shall see the perfection of the promise, He ‘shall save His people from their sins.’ He will so completely save them that whereas He finds them corrupt, ruined, and enemies to God by wicked works, He will finally present them holy and unblameable, without spot and without blemish before the throne. It is impossible to imagine anything more blessed, more wonderful, more divine, than such a change. Now it becomes a question of the deepest interest whether this mighty change is accomplished by one instantaneous act, or gradually. Is it, like justification, a completed thing? or is it a progressive work, commenced at the new birth, but not complete till we see Him as He is? There cannot be a more important practical inquiry. And now you may see the importance of the distinction drawn between the different senses of the word ‘sanctification;’ or, as it might be better expressed, the different parts of that blessed work. If you speak of sanctification as the original act of God in separating us unto Himself, then it is a completed thing, for we are described as ‘having been sanctified in Christ Jesus.’ If, again, you speak of it as a legal cleansing from all past guilt, it is complete, for being washed in the precious blood we are already clean. But if you regard it as the personal holiness of daily life, the purifying the heart through faith by the indwelling power of the Holy Ghost, then I am prepared to maintain from the whole testimony of the whole Word of God from one end to the other, that so long as we are in this world of conflict the sacred work is not complete, but progressive. How people can speak of sanctification in this sense as an immediate work, I am at a loss to understand. Hundreds of passages might be quoted to prove its progressive character, and to show the reason of its present incompleteness: viz., the abiding power of indwelling sin. I have only time to refer to two. In the first place, this verse describes us as changed, or being changed, from glory to glory. We are described as in the process of transformation, or metamorphosis; by His grace passing from glory to glory, or from one degree of grace to another. The work is in progress, thanks be to God! and we have the bright hope of the completed likeness of the Lord. But that bright hope is not yet realized, nor will it be till we see Him as He is. I will take only one other passage, and select it because it corresponds very closely to the text. It is a passage addressed to the believers in Rome,—to persons who are described as being ‘beloved of God called to be saints.’ (Rom. i. 7.) There can be no doubt then that the work of personal holiness was begun in them: yet what does St. Paul say to them? (Rom. xii. 2.) ‘Be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed (or metamorphosized) by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God.’ Is it not clear then that those persons who were beloved of God, and called to be saints, were still to be reaching forth after higher attainments? There was so much evil in them that they still required to be warned against conformity to the world, and so far were they from their high standard, that they required nothing less than a transformation or metamorphosis (it is the same word as in the text), in order to bring them into a personal experience ‘of the good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God.’ Be sure then there is no resting-place in Christian holiness for the saints of God. The Lord may have done great things for us, whereof we are glad. He may have given us such an insight into His grace that we now love that which we once cared nothing for, and hate that which we once loved: He may have led us to say from the bottom of our hearts, ‘I delight to do Thy will, O my God.’ But our motto must still be, ‘Forgetting those things that are behind, and reaching forth unto those things that are before, I press towards the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.’ The more we love Christ, the more must we be deeply humbled that we love Him so little; and the more we look at the blessed prospect of a real and perfect sinlessness, the more must we be ready to say, as St. Paul did, ‘Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus.’

III. But some of you will be ready to say that that is just where your difficulty lies. You do really desire to be going forward, and to be making progress, but it seems as if you could not. You are like a person in a nightmare, who wishes to run, but cannot. Let us then consider what is God’s great instrument, whereby He imparts progress to the soul. On this subject this text is quite decisive, for it shows that God’s great instrument is the view of the Lord Jesus Christ through faith. In the passage to which I have already referred in 1 John, iii. 2, we find that the perfect view of the Lord Jesus will lead to perfect likeness, so in these words the partial view leads to progressive likeness. When the view is perfect the likeness will be perfect too; now that the view is imperfect, only as through a glass, the likeness is imperfect likewise. But still it is growing more and more; for ‘we all,’—not merely special Christians, who have attained what they call ‘the higher life,’—‘beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory.’ Now I believe it is impossible to press this too strongly on all those who desire holiness, for there is a perpetual tendency in every one of us to turn the eye inward on ourselves, instead of keeping it fixed on Him. Some are occupied with what they feel, or do not feel, or wish to feel, or wish they did not feel; and some by what they do, or mean to do, or think they ought to do,—till the whole mind becomes bewildered, and the whole soul entangled. Remember that you may be entangled by your religious efforts, as well as by your sins: nothing indeed entangles people more than confused and mistaken religion. So that if you really want to be like Him, you must sweep away all your entanglements like so many cobwebs, and, just as you are, look straight at Him. For example, you say you do not feel sin, and you do not feel anything like the sorrow for it that you know you ought to do. I have no doubt you are perfectly right, and it is very sorrowful, very sinful, and very sad. But how is it to be overcome? I know of only one way, and that is a very simple one, too simple for many of you,—and that is a look: you must behold Christ. Remember the case of the Jews. Nothing yet has melted their hearts: their great national afflictions have utterly failed: but in God’s time there will be a change. We shall see those people mourning,—so mourning that they will be led with broken hearts to the Fountain open for sin and for uncleanness. And what will be God’s instrument for producing such a change? By what means will He effect it? By a look: a simple look! You find it described in Zech. xii. 10: ‘They shall look on Me whom they have pierced, and shall mourn for him.’ That one look will accomplish more than 1800 years of bitter, and most afflictive, discipline. And it is just the same with ourselves. One look at our loving and living Saviour will do more towards softening the heart than hours spent in the scrutiny of feeling, or whole books of self-examination. If you want to grow in grace, in tenderness of conscience, in holy abhorrence of sin, in purity of heart, in lowliness of spirit, and in thankful love for your blessed Saviour,—then look on Him, keep your eyes on Him. Think on His Cross, how He died for you; on His life, how He lived for you; on His advocacy, how He pleads for you; on His perfect character, His love, His holiness, His purity, His power, His grace, His truth: for by such a look, and such a look alone, can you ever hope to be changed into His image.

But remember one expression in the text: viz. those three words, ‘With open face.’ The look that transforms is a look with an open face: there must be nothing between. There must not be a veil over it, as there is over the Jews, as you read in verse 15. Every barrier must be removed. The great barrier of the curse is gone, through the blood of atonement; and we must not now set up fresh barriers of our own creation. We must remember the hymn:—

‘Just as I am: Thy love alone
Has broken every barrier down;’

and just as we are,—humbled, unworthy, cold, and unfeeling, but yet admitted into the very presence of the Lord,—we must look with open face at the Son of God Himself; and I hope we may be able to say, as David did, ‘They looked to Him, and were lightened, and their faces were not ashamed.’

IV. But the look is not enough; for besides all means there must be a power. We cannot will ourselves into the likeness of our Saviour, any more than an animal can will itself into a man: the great transformation must be by the power of a life-creating agent. So, when I turn again to this text, I find that it is not the look alone which effects the change, but that it is God the Holy Ghost making use of the look, and by divine omnipotence transforming the soul into the image of the Lord Jesus. In the last words of the text it is all ascribed to Him, as in the words, ‘Even as by the Spirit of the Lord,’ or, as the margin has it, ‘Even as by the Lord the Spirit.’ I have no time to dwell on this subject as I should like to do; but I cannot conclude without begging the careful attention of all those who are almost tempted to think that there is something in their constitution which blocks the way against their progress. They see others going forward while they stand still; they hear of others filled with peace in believing, while they are still hampered by doubt, so that they begin to think they shall never rise, and are never intended to rise, above their present condition. I quite admit that it may be perfectly true, that there is something peculiar in your case; something peculiar, it may be, in your habits, in your disposition, in your temper, in your temptation. Let us admit it, for most people have their peculiar difficulties. But, admitting it, I pray you to consider whether there is not a Divine power in the Lord the Spirit, which is quite sufficient to overcome that peculiarity. Is any thing too hard for the Lord? Think then on God the Holy Ghost: think of Him as working out the great salvation purchased for us through the precious blood of the Son of God, and then reflect whether it is possible that your difficulties are beyond His power. They are beyond your own: you have learned that. But are they beyond His? If you have failed, is that any reason why He should? Trust Him then, and behold Christ Jesus. Remember you are dealing with One mighty to save, and that, while you are looking to Jesus, He, working within, may heal your soul. Trust Him then to do it. You know He can; trust Him that He will: and never again admit the thought, that, notwithstanding all you have discovered in your soul, there is any thing there too hard for the Son of God,—anything which may not be overcome by the indwelling power of God the Holy Ghost.

INFECTION OF NATURE.

‘I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I
myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.’—ROM.
vii. 25. {64}

THERE are few passages in the whole word of God that have excited a deeper interest amongst truly Christian people than the latter part of the seventh of Romans. It is so closely connected with the practical experience of Christian life, and at the same time it is so much opposed to the beautiful theories of some Christian people, that it has always excited an earnest spirit of inquiry, and engaged the deepest interests of the students of Scripture. I propose to make it the subject of our study this morning: to endeavour to find out what the Scripture really teaches. And in the outset of our study I should wish to give one caution, which I believe to be of the utmost importance for us all: viz., we must not bring the sacred Scriptures to the test of our theories, but must be prepared, if need be, to give up those theories to the authority of Scripture. If we want to live in God’s truth, we must be subject to God’s Word, and must be content to receive what He teaches as He teaches it. In other words, we must not twist Scripture so as to make it fit our own opinions, but must receive it as from God, and make all our opinions bend before its high authority.

With this caution before us, there are three subjects to be considered. First, of whom is the Apostle speaking: of himself, or some other man? Secondly, of what period in his Christian life is he speaking: does he refer to the past or to the present? And thirdly, what does the passage teach respecting his spiritual condition at the time he wrote the words?

And now, may God the Holy Ghost, who inspired the Word, lead us all reverently to study, and rightly to understand, His teaching!

I. To whom does it refer? I feel persuaded that we shall all admit that, if any person were to read the chapter without having some previous opinion to support, he would believe that the Apostle was speaking of himself. The word ‘I’ occurs no less than twenty-eight times in the passage. Such expressions as ‘I do,’ ‘I consent,’ ‘I allow,’ ‘I delight,’ are found continually; and certainly the natural conclusion would be that when he said, ‘I,’ he meant himself. I know that it is sometimes said that he personated some other person; a legalist, or one in a lower Christian life. But there is not the least evidence of any such personation in the passage, and he says not one word to lead us to suppose that such was his intention. In iii. 5, he does thus personate an objector; and says, ‘But if our unrighteousness commend,’ &c. But then he distinctly states that he is doing so in the words, ‘I speak as a man.’ But there is nothing of the kind here. There is a plain, simple statement in his own name; passing from the ‘I,’ which pervades the chapter, to ‘I, myself,’ in the last verse; and I am utterly at a loss to understand on what principle these plain words, ‘I myself,’ can be supposed to express the personation of some other man.

II. In answer then to our first question, I am brought to the conclusion that when he spoke of ‘I myself,’ he meant himself, and not another: and we may pass to our second question. To what period of his spiritual history did he refer: did he speak of the past, or of the present? Was he describing some period of past anxiety out of which he had been delivered, so as to enter on the joys of the eighth chapter? Or was he speaking of his state of mind at the very time, that he was writing the eighth chapter, and declaring, ‘Ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father?’ In answer to this I have not the smallest hesitation in saying that, according to every principle of sound exposition, the seventh chapter refers to exactly the same period as the eighth; that it is a description of his own experience at the time he wrote the words; and that we should have just as much authority for saying that the eighth chapter referred only to the future, as that the seventh referred only to the past. For this I give three reasons:—

(1.) If we wish to understand the Word of God we must receive plain words as we find them in sacred Scripture. We have no right to assume that the present tense stands for the past; that ‘I am,’ means ‘I was;’ that ‘I do,’ means ‘I used to do;’ that ‘I hate,’ means ‘I used to hate;’ and ‘I delight,’ means ‘I used to delight.’ If we once begin thus to handle Scripture there is an end to exposition; and if people who thus twist Scripture would be consistent, they ought to go on, and say that the beginning of this verse, ‘I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord,’ means, ‘I used to thank Him, but I do not now.’

(2.) Again, the transition from the past to the present is clearly marked in the passage. In the parenthesis which extends from the seventh verse to the end of the chapter, we find the three tenses,—past, present, and future. From verse seven to verse thirteen it is all in the past, and is a description of a certain portion of his past life. ‘I was alive;’ ‘the commandment came;’ ‘sin revived;’ ‘I died;’ ‘I found it to be unto death;’ and ‘sin deceived me, and by it slew me.’ It is a description of the great work of God in breaking down his pharisaism, and bringing him to Christ. I believe it all took place during those solemn three days at Damascus. But from the fourteenth verse to the end, all is changed, and the present tense is employed. ‘I am;’ ‘I do;’ ‘I allow;’ ‘I delight;’ ‘I hate;’ ‘I thank God;’ ‘I serve.’ The only exception is in the twenty-fourth verse, where we find the future: ‘who shall deliver me from the body of this death?’ This distinction of the tenses is alone enough to prove the point, for it would be just as reasonable to maintain that the past means the present, as that the present means the past.

(3.) Once more. The noble thanksgiving of verse twenty-five is supposed to be the point of transition from the sadness of the seventh chapter to the joys of the eighth; the conclusion of his conflict in the discovery of the Lord Jesus. There can be no doubt that this passage does describe the act of faith rejoicing in the Divine Deliverer. It describes the believer grasping the victory, and rising through grace above the conflict within his soul. We quite admit it, and fully accept that explanation of the words. But now, here is the remarkable point: this account of a struggle within the soul is found—where? Not only before the thanksgiving of victory, but also after it; proving thereby that it is deeply felt, even by those who can give thanks for an overcoming Saviour. And more than that. People draw a distinction between what they call the unhappy seventh and the happy eighth; but this verse comes between the thanksgiving of the seventh chapter and the assurance of no condemnation in the eighth. It follows the thanksgiving, and leads on immediately to the grand, and most blessed declaration, with which the eighth chapter opens: ‘There is, therefore, now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus.’

On the whole, therefore, I conclude that the Apostle was speaking of himself, and not of another: and that he spoke of himself at the very time that he was assured of no condemnation in the present, and no separation for all eternity: of a perfect safety in his union with the Lord Jesus Christ. We may pass then to our last subject.

III. What does the passage teach us respecting the experience of the Apostle at the time when he wrote the Epistle? Perhaps I ought to limit the question by rather saying, What was his experience with reference to the law? For the whole object of the passage is to bring out the holiness of the law, and to prove from his own case that the ‘commandment was holy, and just, and good.’

(1.) The first thing that is conspicuously clear is that he had discovered its true character. When he was a legalist he had no idea of its exalted standard; but, when God called him, his eyes were opened to behold its perfection. It is a curious fact that those who hope to save themselves by their doings are almost certain to entertain but low and limited notions of the law: they think of it as some low standard within their own reach; so they are always endeavouring to fulfil it, and though always failing, are never really troubled at their failure; but, when God opens their heart, they discover its exalted holiness, and find themselves to be nothing better than dead men before it. This is just what had happened to St. Paul. He lived in early life as an earnest, religious, and well-conducted young man, and he was satisfied with himself. ‘Touching the righteousness which is in the law,’ as he says himself (Phil. iii. 6), he was ‘blameless.’ He went through all the Jewish worship as correctly as possible, and omitted nothing: but he knew nothing of the claims of the law on his whole heart and all his powers; he simply regarded it as a collection of rules,—and he thought he did well. So he says, in verse nine, ‘I was alive without the law once.’ His ignorance of the law made him think himself alive; but God had after a time opened his eyes, and he discovered its exalted holiness. He saw it expounded in the teaching of our Lord, and exhibited in His life; he found it was nothing less than the perfect will of a perfect God; and all his own poor, feeble, miserable doings shrank away as dead things before the holiness of God; and thus he adds, ‘The commandment came, and I died.’

Now this change had taken place when he wrote the Epistle, so that the law was no longer to him a mere skeleton of form, but had appeared before him as the great expression of the mind of God. And now how did he regard it? This leads to a second point.

(2.) He approved it, and delighted in it. He approved it, for he said, ‘I consent unto the law, that it is good.’ Nor did he regard it as a yoke of bondage about his soul. It was not a rigid code by which he was forced against his will. How any person can suppose that this passage is the language of an unregenerate, or unconverted man, I cannot imagine. Did you ever know an unconverted man to delight in the perfect holiness of God? Such holiness condemns, restrains, and frightens him. But St. Paul said, ‘I delight in the law of God after the inner man.’ The fact was he had experienced the great promise of the New Covenant: ‘I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it on their hearts.’ God, the Holy Ghost, had written the law on his heart, and now he loved it. To please God was his greatest joy, and to do His will was the chief desire of his soul. He could say, as David did, ‘Oh, how I love Thy love: it is my meditation all the day!’ He was not content with the measure of his own consciousness, or the standard of his fellow-men, or a vain idea of doing his best, or doing no harm to any one. He did not split hairs about the distinction between being blameless and being faultless. He had seen the Lord in His beauty, and adored Him in His holiness, so now it was the whole mind and will of God that filled his soul, and the great desire of his heart was expressed in such words as those of the Psalmist, ‘Teach me to do Thy will; for Thou art my God: Thy Spirit is good; lead me into the land of uprightness.’ And does not this teach us a lesson of inexpressible importance respecting ourselves? In Christ Jesus we are not driven by a slave master, and compelled by the lash into obedience. We ‘love the law,’ because we ‘love the Lord.’ We find His will, and His word, to be dearer unto us than thousands of gold and silver; and we experience the blessedness described by our blessed Saviour when He said, ‘Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled.’

(3.) But all this while he was painfully conscious that he was infinitely below its standard. The very fact of hungering and thirsting after righteousness implies in itself that your hunger is not yet supplied: so in this passage St. Paul teaches us that he was still very far from what he most earnestly desired to be. He felt what I may term the bitter provocation of shortcoming: ‘The good that I would I do not, but the evil that I would not that I do.’ There was the unceasing consciousness of falling utterly short of the high standard set before him in the law. He does not say this to justify sin, for he tells us how he hated it; but he teaches us, as plainly as words can teach anything, that at the very time when God had by His great grace so changed his heart that he had discovered the law and was delighting in it, there was still in him what the ninth Article describes, when it says, ‘The infection of nature doth remain yet in them that are regenerate.’ The old, fallen, sinful human nature was not extinct in him, and this ruin of his fallen nature was acting as a clog and drawback on his holy longings after the perfect holiness of God. Thus in his one self there was a contest between grace and nature, between the new man and the old. Of the one he says, ‘I delight in the law of God after the inward man;’ and of the other, ‘I know that in me (_i.e._, in my flesh) dwelleth no good thing.’ By the power of the Holy Ghost he could say, ‘To will is present with me;’ but through the power of the old nature he was obliged to add, ‘How to perform that which is good I find not.’ It was this bitter pain of thus failing to reach the standard of his heart’s desire, that drew from him the cry, ‘Oh, wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?’ Some people think that such language could not have come from an enlightened believer, led by the Spirit, and walking in the sunlight of the eighth chapter. They seem to forget the twenty-third verse of that very chapter, in which he says, ‘Ourselves also, which have the first-fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.’ (viii. 23.) For my own part, I believe it was the leading of the Spirit that called it forth, inasmuch as that leading led him to aim at the true standard of the holiness of God. I agree with the wise commentary of old Scott:—

‘This energetic language, which many imagine to describe an unestablished believer’s experience, or even that of an unconverted person, seems to have resulted from the extraordinary degree of St. Paul’s sanctification, and the depth of his self-abasement, and hatred of sin; and the reason of our not readily understanding him seems to be that we are so far beneath him in holiness, humility, acquaintance with the spirituality of God’s law, and the evil of our own hearts, and in our degree of abhorrence of moral evil.’

I have not then the smallest hesitation in taking the passage as I find it, and regarding it as descriptive of the Apostle’s own sense of shortcoming before the standard of the law, at the very time of his most peaceful, Christian experience. I wish I had time to follow out the subject, and show how in the midst of his conflict a hallowed peace was flowing into his soul: but that I must leave to another day. But you must not wait till next Sunday, seeking peace, and finding none; you must remember at once that, though you fail, the Lord Jesus Christ never does. You must remember at once that it is with especial reference to this very struggle that we are taught that ‘the blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth us from all sin.’ You must remember at once that in the midst of all your difficulties you have a living Advocate at the right hand of God; and therefore at once, with God’s holiness as your standard, God’s atonement as your righteousness, and God’s Spirit as your guide, notwithstanding all shortcomings, you may say as St. Paul did in the midst of his struggle, ‘I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.’

GRACE.

‘I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I
myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.’—ROM.
vii. 25.

‘There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Jesus
Christ, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.’—ROM.
viii. 1.