 |  |
"Let not sin reign" must be followed by "He shall quicken", for just as the reign of sin
ends in death, so grace reigns through righteousness unto life.
The third pair of passages (C, C) are linked together by the recurrence of the verb
that means "to put to death".
"Wherefore my brethren, ye also have been put to death to the law by the body of
Christ, that ye should be married to another, even Him Who is raised from the dead, that
we should bring forth fruit unto God" (7: 4).
"For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die; but if ye through the Spirit do put to death
the deeds of the body, ye shall live" (8: 13).
Here we have set before us two aspects of a tremendous subject, and too much
importance cannot be placed upon the verbs used. In 7: 4 the verb is passive; in
8: 13 it is active. We ourselves were put to death to law and to sin in the body of
Christ our Representative. In this we had no part; all was accomplished for us, and all by
grace. The active verb is used when the subject is the "deeds" of the body, not the
believer himself. The one is the outworking of the other.
There are many of the Lord's people who are distressed almost to the verge of
insanity, because they have been taught that they must crucify themselves--a doctrine
quite contrary to Scripture, and, if true, rendering the crucifixion of Christ for us vain.
What we are to do, as a result of His death and resurrection and the emancipation they
have brought to us, is to put to death the "deeds" of the body; and this, not by
crucifixion, but "through the Spirit", the Spirit of resurrection. The cross deals with the
old man; but the new man has to do with the risen Christ.
The fourth pair of passages (D, D) completes the series. The first passage plumbs
the depths of despair; the second is radiant with the hope of glory:--
"O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from this body of death?" (7: 24).
In answer comes the passage in the next chapter:--
"We groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, namely, the redemption of our
body" (8: 23).
This is the great lesson of the section. The body of sin may be rendered inoperative,
but there is no teaching that suggests it can be improved or altered. Sin need no longer
reign in this mortal body, but nothing less than actual resurrection will ever enable the
Christian to "put on immortality". The quickening of the mortal body here, by reason of
union with the risen Christ, does not in any sense remove the absolute necessity for
resurrection. Though we may have been put to death to law in the body of our great
Representative, there will ever be the need to put to death the deeds of the body while in
this life. There is no deliverance, no escape except by the one way--"the redemption of
the body". Just as, rightly understood, redemption in its prior evangelical sense is quite
incompatible with mere reform, improvement or development, so this second redemption