 |  |
"While they promise them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption; for
of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage" (II Pet. 2: 19).
If we follow the marginal rendering of Rom. 6: 17, we find obedience stressed as the
evidence of the new life and service:--
"But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the
heart that mould of doctrine whereunto ye were delivered."
Service is shewn by obedience; and so the apostle thanks God for this evidence that
these believers had been redeemed and had known a change of master: "They obeyed
from the heart." Strictly speaking there can be no obedience that is not willing and from
the heart:--
"The pretence of love without obedience is hypocrisy, and obedience without love is
real slavery."
The obedience that marks the believer is, moreover, an obedience from the heart to
"that mould of doctrine whereunto they were delivered". The word tupos, which
becomes in English the word type, is translated "ensample", "example", "fashion",
"figure", "form", "manner", "pattern" and "print". Josephus, speaking of the
Essenes, says that, taking children of tender age, "they would model or mould them
(entupousi) according to their own manners" (Wars. 2: 8, 2). The believer has, as it were,
been run into a mould, and the original of that mould is not far to seek, for in
Rom. 8: 29 it is revealed that every predestinated, called and justified believer is to be
"conformed to the image of His Son".
Science uses the expression "conformity to type", and the expression represents
scriptural truth. "Sanctification" and "sin" are nothing more than "conformity to type".
There are two "types" in the epistle to the Romans, Adam and Christ (Rom. 5: 14). Adam
stand for sin, and Christ stands for righteousness. Obedience to either as master, and
conformity to either as type are parallel terms. In Rom. 12: practical sanctification is
expressed by "presenting the body" (the word "present" is the same as that translated
"yield" in Rom. 6:), and by not being "conformed to this world". The word in the last
expression is not summorphos as in Rom. 8: 29, but suschematizo which suggests the
"fashion" rather than the "type".
Obedience, then, lies at the root of practical sanctification. First of all, the apostle
impresses us with the fact that it must be "the obedience of faith" (Rom. 1: 5). For this
the apostle received "grace and apostleship", so that this term rightly understood must
represent all that the glorious message of Romans stands for. The association of this
obedience with faith and the gospel is seen in Rom. 10: 16:--
"But they have not all obeyed the gospel: for Esaias saith, Lord, who hath believed
our report?"
The two great moulds or types are Adam and Christ, and so in Rom. 5: 19 we read:--