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(4) RECONCILIATION AND THE SECRETS.
The secret of Rom. 16: does not refer to Eph. 3:, but to the inner teaching of
Rom. 5: 12 - 8: The relationship of Adam to the race provides a type of the
relationship of Christ to the race, and leads on as a direct result of the reconciliation
of Rom. 5: 11: "We have now received the reconciliation"; "Much more being
reconciled, we shall be saved by His life" (Rom. 5: 10, 11).
Reconciliation operates now, as a basis, not a goal in itself. Reconciliation is to be
received, to be enjoyed, as the ambassador beseeches us to be reconciled to God. The
reconciliation of the world came into operation when the national privileges and
distinctions of Israel passed away, but it must not be confused with the resulting blessings
that have come in its train. There is "much more" than reconciliation.
If we have received this reconciliation, we have entered into peace with God. No sin
is reckoned against us. We have become the righteousness of God in Christ; before us is
the hope of glory, and for our present and continuous salvation He Who died for us now
lives for us. The argument of Rom. 5: 10 is echoed in Rom. 8: 31, 32:--
"For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son,
much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by His life" (Rom. 5: 10).
"What shall we then say to these things? If God for us, who can be against us? He
that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him
also freely give us all things?" (Rom. 8: 31, 32).
#26.
Adam and Christ (5: 12-21).
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We now enter the great central section of this epistle, and deal with that revelation of
the mystery which was kept secret since age-times (Rom. 16: 25). We leave behind the
question of sins for the deeper question of sin, the disobedience to the law of Sinai for the
one transgression of the garden of Eden. Moses and Abraham fade from view, and Adam
is revealed as the channel of sin and death and its dominion. Here we are to learn the
utter ruin of the creature as something deeper than the failure of the Gentile under the law
of conscience, or of the Jew under the law of Moses. Here we shall plumb the depths of
the depravity of our nature, here we shall come face to face with the dread fact that in our
flesh dwelleth no good thing. This is a more terrible revelation than that of Rom. 3: 12.
There we read that there is none that doeth good; here we are to learn that, apart from
deeds altogether, there is none that is good or that has any hope or possibility, in himself,
of pleasing God.
The cry of Rom. 7: 24: "O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the
body of this death?" will startle us, as though we heard the echo of our own heart's cry
beat back to us. One great dominant theme runs through Rom. 5: 12 - 8: 39, and this
may expressed in the language of Rom. 8: 2: "For the law of the spirit of life in Christ
Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death." Our studies will reveal what is