Chapter I: HOPE that your study of this passage during the week has confirmed the

conclusions at which we arrived last Sunday,—that St. Paul was speaking of himself, not of another; and that he was describing his experience at the very time he wrote the Epistle. I trust also you have seen from his words that the Lord had opened his eyes to discover the holiness of the law, and changed his heart, so that with his whole soul he loved it. I hope also that it has been clear to you that this exclamation, ‘Oh, wretched man that I am!’ was the expression of his profound humiliation, under the painful sense of his own shortcoming when measured by the high standard of the holiness of God.

Now, I believe that if, instead of adopting some artificial standard of our own, we aim at the perfection of God’s holiness, as taught in the Word of God and exhibited in the life of the Son of God, we are sure thus painfully to feel the contrast between what we are and what we ought to be. Of course if we measure ourselves by ourselves we may be easily satisfied; but then we know we are not wise, and our satisfaction may be nothing more than delusion. But if we bring ourselves to the test of perfect, spotless, eternal holiness, and honestly look into the workings of our own fallen heart, I cannot imagine why we should shrink from such words as those in our confession, ‘We have left undone those things which we ought to have done, and we have done those things which we ought not to have done.’

Are we to understand then that there is nothing but conflict and disappointment before the Christian man, and that the only effect of the opening of the heart by the Holy Ghost, is to lead us to discover, and feel the pain of, sin? If so, I could almost say, ‘Let the eye remain closed,’ for I verily believe there is no state of mind so painful as when there is the sight of sin without the sight of Christ Jesus. When you know neither sin nor a Saviour, you can be content in the world; when you know sin alone without a Saviour, you have all the anxiety of religion without the joy: but it is when you know both, that you may be sorrowful yet always rejoicing; deeply conscious of your own defects, and yet resting peacefully in the right hand of the blessed Lord who has redeemed you by His blood.

This morning, therefore, if God permit, we will endeavour to study what it is in the Saviour that can give us a peaceful, thankful joy, at the very time that we feel most profoundly humbled before the holiness of God. I have not nearly time to discuss the whole subject as I should like to do, and, therefore, must confine your attention to these two verses; standing as they do in immediate connexion with the description of the struggle, they will supply us with exactly the information we require, and teach us how in the midst of the sharpest conflict with sin the believer may enjoy the most perfect peace in Christ Jesus.

There appear to be three lessons plainly taught us.

I. We have the triumphant hope of final victory. Along with the deepest sense of unsatisfied longings after holiness there is the peaceful spirit of thanksgiving in the assurance of a coming triumph. The passage does not refer to a deliverance that had already taken place, but to one still future; and the thanksgiving was not for any thing past, but for a great work still remaining to be accomplished. So the deliverance from the text is not a deliverance from the curse, for that had taken place already; nor a deliverance from the sentence of the law, for from that the Apostle was already free; but a deliverance from the power of indwelling sin, which kept him back from the holiness at which he aimed. He said, therefore, ‘Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?’ He had found by experience that he could not deliver himself; but in the midst of his own failure he could look up to the great Deliverer, and with profound thanksgiving bless God for the undoubting assurance that in God’s own time he would be completely transformed into the very likeness of his Lord. His language is explained by his own words, in Phil. iii. 20, 21: ‘From whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ; who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious body, according to the working whereby He is able to subdue all things to Himself.’ ‘The body of this death,’ in the text, is the same as the ‘vile body,’ or ‘body of humiliation,’ in the Philippians; and the deliverance of the text is the transformation of that body into the likeness of the Lord Christ Jesus, at the appearing of our Blessed Saviour. This is exactly the same as what the Apostle John expected when he said (1 John, iii. 2), ‘Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is.’ So that, on the whole, we are taught that the time is most undoubtedly coming when those who are thirsting after the holiness of God will be perfectly satisfied; when the vile body shall be changed; and when not a spot, or blemish, will remain in any one of the saints of God.

Ye then who are humbled and cast down because of your infinite shortcomings, ye must not be disheartened, but must trust your Saviour. He came to save His people from their sins, and in His own time He will do it. If you be in Him, He has already set you free from the curse; He has already given you the earnest desire to do His will; He has already so far secured the victory that, ‘Sin shall not have the dominion over you.’ And the time is soon coming when He will Himself appear in His glory, and then all conflicts will be over, and you will be like Him, for you shall see Him as He is. Like St. Paul, therefore, you may begin at once to give Him thanks. You remember the case of Jehoshaphat, and how he put the singers in front of his little army, to praise God for the promised victory, even when the enemy stood there in the fulness of his strength. So you too may rise at once in the spirit of thanksgiving: for in Christ Jesus your victory is far more certain than that of Jehoshaphat. You may press on, therefore, with the utmost vigour, with a victory full in view; and, though as yet you fall infinitely short of His most perfect character, you need not wait till you have overcome your difficulties, but may even now say, as St. Paul did, ‘I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.’

II. But you could not do this if all the while the power of sin were shutting you out from God. And this leads us to a second point of the utmost possible importance: viz., that now, in the midst of the struggle, and during the time of imperfection, in Christ Jesus we are free from all condemnation. If, as we pursue our course, we were to be condemned for all the sin of which we are guilty in either omission or commission, in either thought, word, or act, there could be no peace or hope in our struggle. I am not surprised that poor people who do not know the Gospel go to priests for absolution, or resort to any other man-made expedient in order to endeavour to escape from the misery of the perpetual exclusion from God of which they must be conscious. But in Christ Jesus you need nothing of the kind, for ‘there is now no condemnation for them that are in Christ Jesus.’ Observe the force of the ‘now’ in contrast with the ‘shall’ of the twenty-fourth verse of the seventh chapter. The complete deliverance is future: so he said, ‘Who _shall_ deliver me?’ But the perfect freedom from all condemnation is present: and therefore he says, ‘There is _now_ no condemnation.’ The ‘therefore now’ of that verse depends on the sixth verse of the seventh chapter, the intermediate passage being a parenthesis, so that the connexion is as follows: ‘Now we are delivered from the law, . . . there is therefore now no condemnation.’ The battle is not over, and you have still to fight a hard fight with sin; but now that sin cannot cut you off from God, for you are no longer under the law: you are in Christ Jesus, and He has satisfied the law in your behalf. Your sin undoubtedly deserves condemnation, and you have not a word to say in its defence: but He has already borne that condemnation, so that in Him you are free; and nothing can separate you from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus the Lord. Now, think for one moment of the unspeakable blessedness of this most precious truth. You may review all that has occurred through the day,—your prayers, your praises, your wandering thoughts, your conversation, your motives, and your heart’s desires,—and oh, how far they will all fall short of the holiness of God! If you are not in Christ Jesus, the thought of them must fill you with anxiety, doubt, and a sense of distance from God; but if you are enabled by His grace to take home to your heart the blessed truth, that _now_, even _now_, before you have gained the victory, there is no condemnation,—then that sin does not separate you from Him. It humbles you, it is true, and deeply grieves you; but it cannot cut you off from God: you are sheltered in the covenant of Grace. ‘The blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth you from all sin,’ and you may kneel before Him in the peaceful enjoyment of a true and uninterrupted fellowship with God. In the spirit of adoption you may cry Abba, Father; and with the happy trust of a child in its father’s arms, you may say, ‘I will lay me down in peace, and sleep; for thou, Lord, only makest me dwell in safety.’

III. But that is not all; for besides this we have the unspeakable privilege of the unceasing leading of God the Holy Ghost. If we were left to ourselves to fight out our battle with sin, to rely on our own judgment, and to overcome by our own powers, we should be overcome before we had struck a single blow. But not only is there a final victory promised to us in the future, and a complete freedom from all condemnation in the present, but there is also another most sacred gift at once enjoyed by all who are in Christ Jesus: viz., the present indwelling of God the Holy Ghost within the soul. This belongs not to the future, but to the present: it is not connected with the ‘shall’ of verse twenty-four, but with the ‘now’ of verse one. ‘There is now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus, who walk,’ or who are walking, ‘not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.’ So, in verse fourteen, we read of a present leading as the privilege of a present sonship: ‘As many as are led,’ or being led, ‘by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.’ It is impossible to attempt to unfold all the blessings which follow from this most sacred privilege: it conveys to us all that is connected both with companionship and power. Companionship, because He is not one afar off to be reached only occasionally, and that after special efforts: but dwelling within the soul as a Leader, a Comforter, a Witness, an Advocate, a Friend. And a power: for He is not like a mighty arm afar off, omnipotent if we could but reach it; but a very present help: one that knows our weakness better than we do, and perceives our danger before we know it ourselves. One that, dwelling within, can so act on the conscience, and so move the secret springs of the will, that He does not merely make use of us as machines, but constrains us to hate sin and to love holiness; while He Himself imparts a power to shake off our fetters, and as free men to walk with God.

Surely, then, we may understand the apparent contradiction in the Apostle’s words, and see why it was that he was thanking God, although he called himself a wretched man. He called himself a wretched man, because there was that in his ruined nature which kept him back from the exalted holiness at which he aimed: but he could still thank God, for he was sure that before long he would be transformed into the likeness of Christ Himself; and, more than that, he knew that even now, in the days of his conflict, there was a freedom from all condemnation for his failures, and the sacred assurance of the Holy Ghost abiding in his soul to lead him on to victory. Therefore it was that he could give thanks. And, dear brethren, if you are in Christ Jesus, may not you do the same? Is there not the same hope for you? Are not you equally free from condemnation? Is not the indwelling Spirit equally effectual for you? How is it then that your whole souls are not filled with bright hope, and profound thanksgiving? How is it that we do not all unite more heartily and unreservedly in the spirit of the text, ‘I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord?’

HOLINESS THROUGH FAITH.

‘And put no difference between us and them, purifying their hearts by
faith.’—ACTS, xv. 9.