netchaplain
Member
The only way our Father could righteously deal with the corrupt fallen Adamic race was by closing its history in death. The race—that order of man—will not do for God; and the death of the Lord Jesus is the great act of righteousness in which that race has been judicially brought to an end before God, in order that we might be brought into blessed life and liberty in connection with another Head—Jesus Christ, the risen and glorified One.
But we should have a poor and shallow idea of the meaning of this great transfer from Adam to the Lord Jesus if we only learned it as a doctrine, vital as it is. Hence it is necessary that we should learn its importance and blessedness from our own experience. Therefore we may be sure that no person has really understood what it is to be “in Christ,” or known the liberty which “the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus” confers, if he has not passed in some way through the exercises which are detailed for us in Romans Seven.
As soon as one is born again there is a desire to be holy and to live to the Father, and there are more or less earnest efforts to live up to one’s own light. It may be that the soul sets itself to keep the Ten Commandments; or tries to follow in the footsteps of Jesus and walk as He walked; or attempts to carry out the divine instructions set forth in the Christian epistles. The more intelligence of divine things that one has, the higher the standard will be to which he will seek to attain. But however sincere the desire, and however perfect and exalted the standard, the result is total failure.
He finds a law that, when he would do good, evil is present with him; and though he delights in the law of God after the inward man, he sees another law in his members, warring against the law of his mind and bringing him into captivity to the law of sin which is in his members (Rom 7:21-23). He knows the evil that is in him; he is most anxious to subdue it, but finds that he has no power. This reduces him to a state in which he can only cry, “O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from this body of death?” He ceases to attempt, or to look for self- improvement. He gives himself up—that is, as a man in the flesh—as being a “body of death,” and he looks for a complete deliverance out of that order of life in which he finds himself bound.
Romans Eight supplies us with a perfect answer to all these painful, but most necessary exercises. If we have passed through the different stages of dissatisfaction, disgust, and despair as to ourselves, we are ready to welcome the infinite grace that gives us title to take our place on the new ground that we are “in Christ Jesus.” We are thankful to see that His death is the judicial end of our history as children of Adam; and to know that we are now entitled, and have the power of the Holy Spirit, to reckon ourselves dead to sin, and alive unto God in Christ Jesus.
Romans 8:1 gives us the new position; verse 3 shows us the righteous ground on which our Father could set us in it; and verse 2 indicates the power by which alone we can take, or hold it. It is not the power of a firm resolve, or even of a fervent prayer, but the power of the Holy Spirit. Verse 9 tells us that “ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so that the Spirit of God dwell in you.” The presence of the Holy Spirit is that which gives character to our new position as Christians. The one who is “in the Spirit” can say, “The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death” (v 2).
- C A Coates
But we should have a poor and shallow idea of the meaning of this great transfer from Adam to the Lord Jesus if we only learned it as a doctrine, vital as it is. Hence it is necessary that we should learn its importance and blessedness from our own experience. Therefore we may be sure that no person has really understood what it is to be “in Christ,” or known the liberty which “the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus” confers, if he has not passed in some way through the exercises which are detailed for us in Romans Seven.
As soon as one is born again there is a desire to be holy and to live to the Father, and there are more or less earnest efforts to live up to one’s own light. It may be that the soul sets itself to keep the Ten Commandments; or tries to follow in the footsteps of Jesus and walk as He walked; or attempts to carry out the divine instructions set forth in the Christian epistles. The more intelligence of divine things that one has, the higher the standard will be to which he will seek to attain. But however sincere the desire, and however perfect and exalted the standard, the result is total failure.
He finds a law that, when he would do good, evil is present with him; and though he delights in the law of God after the inward man, he sees another law in his members, warring against the law of his mind and bringing him into captivity to the law of sin which is in his members (Rom 7:21-23). He knows the evil that is in him; he is most anxious to subdue it, but finds that he has no power. This reduces him to a state in which he can only cry, “O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from this body of death?” He ceases to attempt, or to look for self- improvement. He gives himself up—that is, as a man in the flesh—as being a “body of death,” and he looks for a complete deliverance out of that order of life in which he finds himself bound.
Romans Eight supplies us with a perfect answer to all these painful, but most necessary exercises. If we have passed through the different stages of dissatisfaction, disgust, and despair as to ourselves, we are ready to welcome the infinite grace that gives us title to take our place on the new ground that we are “in Christ Jesus.” We are thankful to see that His death is the judicial end of our history as children of Adam; and to know that we are now entitled, and have the power of the Holy Spirit, to reckon ourselves dead to sin, and alive unto God in Christ Jesus.
Romans 8:1 gives us the new position; verse 3 shows us the righteous ground on which our Father could set us in it; and verse 2 indicates the power by which alone we can take, or hold it. It is not the power of a firm resolve, or even of a fervent prayer, but the power of the Holy Spirit. Verse 9 tells us that “ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so that the Spirit of God dwell in you.” The presence of the Holy Spirit is that which gives character to our new position as Christians. The one who is “in the Spirit” can say, “The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death” (v 2).
- C A Coates
Glad to hear that!