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Christ, realizing what He had done in becoming the Victor over the consequences of sin
and death and in the glorious fact that he is now united to Him in death and resurrection.
Then, and not till then, the chains drop off and he is free--a slave no longer, except to
Him Who has bought him with a price!
As we have stated before, all sorts of remedies are offered by the Christian world--for
deliverance from indwelling sin. All are of no avail, unless they conform to the teaching
of this section of the Roman epistle concerning identification with the Lord Jesus in His
death and resurrection and the believer reckoning this to be true in his own experience
(Rom. 6: 6-11). This is God's way and His way is always the best and cannot be
improved.
Dr. E. W. Bullinger sums it up in his Church Epistles pp.64-66:
"Thus does the Holy Spirit lay bare to our view His own explanation of the origin and
nature of the experience possessed by every soul which is the subject of the grace of God,
and which has the gift of the new nature as the result and sign of God's justifying . . . . .
Those who fail to learn this lesson as to the conflict of the law, first with the old nature
(7: 7-12), and afterwards (21-25) with the new nature, will not only be in constant
perplexity themselves, but will fall into that error of doctrine which is corrected in the
epistle to the Galatians, chapter 3: 3. Having begun with the truth as to the new nature
(called `spirit') they will, if they depart from it, seek to improve the old nature. This is
the error which Gal. 3: 3 corrects, "Are ye so senseless? having begun in the spirit (in
the new nature) are ye now being perfected in the flesh (i.e. in the old nature)? This is
what thousands are doing everywhere around us. They are seeking to perfect, or, at least
improve, the old nature. Not seeing the truth or reality of the two natures, they are
seeking to improve the only one which they are acquainted with. This is ever the work of
all who are ignorant of what the Spirit is saying to the churches. Be they Buddhists,
Romanists, Perfectionists, they are all alike endeavouring to convert the `flesh' into
`spirit', to subdue the `flesh', and by all kinds of arts and artifices, and rules and
regulations, pledges, and badges, to improve the old nature. All alike formulate `rules for
holy living', ignorant of the fact which lies before us in this Scripture that the old nature
knows no rules, and that the new nature needs no rules. Instead of reckoning the old
nature to have died with Christ, they are ever seeking to put it to death! Instead of
reckoning that it was crucified with Christ upon the cross, they are exhorting us to crucify
it for ourselves. When God crucified it with Christ, He did it once and for all. But those
who know nothing of this, tell us to crucify it. They do not tell us how we are to do it;
but knowing how futile is the effort, they tell us we must do it every day. But, no! once
would be enough if it could be done at all. And, thank God, it has been done. HE has
done it Himself on Calvary; and now, we, in spite of all our conflict, in spite of the flesh
(the old nature) lusting against the spirit (the new nature) and spirit against the flesh; in
spite of the fact that these are contrary the one to the other, so that we do the evil which
th flesh would have us do, and we cannot do the good that the spirit would have us do; in
spite of this conflict, we find `peace with God' and rest in the truth--that the child of God
has his old nature, which can produce no good thing--and he has a new nature, which
`doth not commit sin' (I John 3: 9), `sinneth not' (I John 5: 18). And, further, that God
reckons the old nature as having died with Christ, and as having therefore no dominion
over us, though the conflict in actual experience is ever present with us. Those who learn
this lesson have learned that the old nature is so bad that nothing can ever improve it, and
that the new nature is so perfect that it needs no improvement. It is `spirit', and its life
cannot be `deepened'. It is `newness of life', and cannot be made `higher'."