Bible Heaven/Bible Heaven.iso/online/mhcc03/v04900

Text File | 1994-03-02 | 16KB | 271 lines

04901
 #23-25 The history of Abraham, and of his justification, was
 recorded to teach men of after-ages; those especially to whom
 the gospel was then made known. It is plain, that we are not
 justified by the merit of our own works, but by faith in Jesus
 Christ and his righteousness; which is the truth urged in this
 and the foregoing chapter, as the great spring and foundation of
 all comfort. Christ did meritoriously work our justification and
 salvation by his death and passion, but the power and perfection
 thereof, with respect to us, depend on his resurrection. By his
 death he paid our debt, in his resurrection he received our
 acquittance, #Isa 53:8|. When he was discharged, we, in Him and
 together with Him, received the discharge from the guilt and
 punishment of all our sins. This last verse is an abridgement or
 summary of the whole gospel.
04904
 * The happy effects of justification through faith in the
 righteousness of Christ. (1-5) That we are reconciled by his
 blood. (6-11) The fall of Adam brought all mankind into sin and
 death. (12-14) The grace of God, through the righteousness of
 Christ, has more power to bring salvation, than Adam's sin had
 to bring misery, (15-19) as grace did superabound. (20,21)

 #1-5 A blessed change takes place in the sinner's state, when he
 becomes a true believer, whatever he has been. Being justified
 by faith he has peace with God. The holy, righteous God, cannot
 be at peace with a sinner, while under the guilt of sin.
 Justification takes away the guilt, and so makes way for peace.
 This is through our Lord Jesus Christ; through him as the great
 Peace-maker, the Mediator between God and man. The saints' happy
 state is a state of grace. Into this grace we are brought, which
 teaches that we were not born in this state. We could not have
 got into it of ourselves, but we are led into it, as pardoned
 offenders. Therein we stand, a posture that denotes
 perseverance; we stand firm and safe, upheld by the power of the
 enemy. And those who have hope for the glory of God hereafter,
 have enough to rejoice in now. Tribulation worketh patience, not
 in and of itself, but the powerful grace of God working in and
 with the tribulation. Patient sufferers have most of the Divine
 consolations, which abound as afflictions abound. It works
 needful experience of ourselves. This hope will not disappoint,
 because it is sealed with the Holy Spirit as a Spirit of love.
 It is the gracious work of the blessed Spirit to shed abroad the
 love of God in the hearts of all the saints. A right sense of
 God's love to us, will make us not ashamed, either of our hope,
 or of our sufferings for him.

04909
 #6-11 Christ died for sinners; not only such as were useless,
 but such as were guilty and hateful; such that their everlasting
 destruction would be to the glory of God's justice. Christ died
 to save us, not in our sins, but from our sins; and we were yet
 sinners when he died for us. Nay, the carnal mind is not only an
 enemy to God, but enmity itself, chap. #8:7; Col 1:21|. But God
 designed to deliver from sin, and to work a great change. While
 the sinful state continues, God loathes the sinner, and the
 sinner loathes God, #Zec 11:8|. And that for such as these
 Christ should die, is a mystery; no other such an instance of
 love is known, so that it may well be the employment of eternity
 to adore and wonder at it. Again; what idea had the apostle when
 he supposed the case of some one dying for a righteous man? And
 yet he only put it as a thing that might be. Was it not the
 undergoing this suffering, that the person intended to be
 benefitted might be released therefrom? But from what are
 believers in Christ released by his death? Not from bodily
 death; for that they all do and must endure. The evil, from
 which the deliverance could be effected only in this astonishing
 manner, must be more dreadful than natural death. There is no
 evil, to which the argument can be applied, except that which
 the apostle actually affirms, sin, and wrath, the punishment of
 sin, determined by the unerring justice of God. And if, by
 Divine grace, they were thus brought to repent, and to believe
 in Christ, and thus were justified by the price of his
 bloodshedding, and by faith in that atonement, much more through
 Him who died for them and rose again, would they be kept from
 falling under the power of sin and Satan, or departing finally
 from him. The living Lord of all, will complete the purpose of
 his dying love, by saving all true believers to the uttermost.
 Having such a pledge of salvation in the love of God through
 Christ, the apostle declared that believers not only rejoiced in
 the hope of heaven, and even in their tribulations for Christ's
 sake, but they gloried in God also, as their unchangeable Friend
 and all-sufficient Portion, through Christ only.

04915
 #12-14 The design of what follows is plain. It is to exalt our
 views respecting the blessings Christ has procured for us, by
 comparing them with the evil which followed upon the fall of our
 first father; and by showing that these blessings not only
 extend to the removal of these evils, but far beyond. Adam
 sinning, his nature became guilty and corrupted, and so came to
 his children. Thus in him all have sinned. And death is by sin;
 for death is the wages of sin. Then entered all that misery
 which is the due desert of sin; temporal, spiritual, eternal
 death. If Adam had not sinned, he had not died; but a sentence
 of death was passed, as upon a criminal; it passed through all
 men, as an infectious disease that none escape. In proof of our
 union with Adam, and our part in his first transgression,
 observe, that sin prevailed in the world, for many ages before
 the giving of the law by Moses. And death reigned in that long
 time, not only over adults who wilfully sinned, but also over
 multitudes of infants, which shows that they had fallen in Adam
 under condemnation, and that the sin of Adam extended to all his
 posterity. He was a figure or type of Him that was to come as
 Surety of a new covenant, for all who are related to Him.

04918
 #15-19 Through one man's offence, all mankind are exposed to
 eternal condemnation. But the grace and mercy of God, and the
 free gift of righteousness and salvation, are through Jesus
 Christ, as man: yet the Lord from heaven has brought the
 multitude of believers into a more safe and exalted state than
 that from which they fell in Adam. This free gift did not place
 them anew in a state of trial, but fixed them in a state of
 justification, as Adam would have been placed, had he stood.
 Notwithstanding the differences, there is a striking similarity.
 As by the offence of one, sin and death prevailed to the
 condemnation of all men, so by the righteousness of one, grace
 prevailed to the justification of all related to Christ by
 faith. Through the grace of God, the gift by grace has abounded
 to many through Christ; yet multitudes choose to remain under
 the dominion of sin and death, rather than to apply for the
 blessings of the reign of grace. But Christ will in no wise cast
 out any who are willing to come to him.

04923
 #20,21 By Christ and his righteousness, we have more and greater
 privileges than we lost by the offence of Adam. The moral law
 showed that many thoughts, tempers, words, and actions, were
 sinful, thus transgressions were multiplied. Not making sin to
 abound the more, but discovering the sinfulness of it, even as
 the letting in a clearer light into a room, discovers the dust
 and filth which were there before, but were not seen. The sin of
 Adam, and the effect of corruption in us, are the abounding of
 that offence which appeared on the entrance of the law. And the
 terrors of the law make gospel comforts the more sweet. Thus God
 the Holy Spirit has, by the blessed apostle, delivered to us a
 most important truth, full of consolation, suited to our need as
 sinners. Whatever one may have above another, every man is a
 sinner against God, stands condemned by the law, and needs
 pardon. A righteousness that is to justify cannot be made up of
 a mixture of sin and holiness. There can be no title to an
 eternal reward without a pure and spotless righteousness: let us
 look for it, even to the righteousness of Christ.
04925
 * Believers must die to sin, and live to God. (1,2) This is
 urged by their Christian baptism and union with Christ. (3-10)
 They are made alive to God. (11-15) And are freed from the
 dominion of sin. (16-20) The end of sin is death, and of
 holiness everlasting life. (21-23)

 #1,2 The apostle is very full in pressing the necessity of
 holiness. He does not explain away the free grace of the gospel,
 but he shows that connection between justification and holiness
 are inseparable. Let the thought be abhorred, of continuing in
 sin that grace may abound. True believers are dead to sin,
 therefore they ought not to follow it. No man can at the same
 time be both dead and alive. He is a fool who, desiring to be
 dead unto sin, thinks he may live in it.

04927
 #3-10 Baptism teaches the necessity of dying to sin, and being
 as it were buried from all ungodly and unholy pursuits, and of
 rising to walk with God in newness of life. Unholy professors
 may have had the outward sign of a death unto sin, and a new
 birth unto righteousness, but they never passed from the family
 of Satan to that of God. The corrupt nature, called the old man,
 because derived from our first father Adam, is crucified with
 Christ, in every true believer, by the grace derived from the
 cross. It is weakened and in a dying state, though it yet
 struggles for life, and even for victory. But the whole body of
 sin, whatever is not according to the holy law of God, must be
 done away, so that the believer may no more be the slave of sin,
 but live to God, and find happiness in his service.

04935
 #11-15 The strongest motives against sin, and to enforce
 holiness, are here stated. Being made free from the reign of
 sin, alive unto God, and having the prospect of eternal life, it
 becomes believers to be greatly concerned to advance thereto.
 But, as unholy lusts are not quite rooted out in this life, it
 must be the care of the Christian to resist their motions,
 earnestly striving, that, through Divine grace, they may not
 prevail in this mortal state. Let the thought that this state
 will soon be at an end, encourage the true Christian, as to the
 motions of lusts, which so often perplex and distress him. Let
 us present all our powers to God, as weapons or tools ready for
 the warfare, and work of righteousness, in his service. There is
 strength in the covenant of grace for us. Sin shall not have
 dominion. God's promises to us are more powerful and effectual
 for mortifying sin, than our promises to God. Sin may struggle
 in a real believer, and create him a great deal of trouble, but
 it shall not have dominion; it may vex him, but it shall not
 rule over him. Shall any take occasion from this encouraging
 doctrine to allow themselves in the practice of any sin? Far be
 such abominable thoughts, so contrary to the perfections of God,
 and the design of his gospel, so opposed to being under grace.
 What can be a stronger motive against sin than the love of
 Christ? Shall we sin against so much goodness, and such love?

04940
 #16-20 Every man is the servant of the master to whose commands
 he yields himself; whether it be the sinful dispositions of his
 heart, in actions which lead to death, or the new and spiritual
 obedience implanted by regeneration. The apostle rejoiced now
 they obeyed from the heart the gospel, into which they were
 delivered as into a mould. As the same metal becomes a new
 vessel, when melted and recast in another mould, so the believer
 has become a new creature. And there is great difference in the
 liberty of mind and spirit, so opposite to the state of slavery,
 which the true Christian has in the service of his rightful
 Lord, whom he is enabled to consider as his Father, and himself
 as his son and heir, by the adoption of grace. The dominion of
 sin consists in being willingly slaves thereto, not in being
 harassed by it as a hated power, struggling for victory. Those
 who now are the servants of God, once were the slaves of sin.

04945
 #21-23 The pleasure and profit of sin do not deserve to be
 called fruit. Sinners are but ploughing iniquity, sowing vanity,
 and reaping the same. Shame came into the world with sin, and is
 still the certain effect of it. The end of sin is death. Though
 the way may seem pleasant and inviting, yet it will be
 bitterness in the latter end. From this condemnation the
 believer is set at liberty, when made free from sin. If the
 fruit is unto holiness, if there is an active principle of true
 and growing grace, the end will be everlasting life; a very
 happy end! Though the way is up-hill, though it is narrow,
 thorny, and beset, yet everlasting life at the end of it is
 sure. The gift of God is eternal life. And this gift is through
 Jesus Christ our Lord. Christ purchased it, prepared it,
 prepares us for it, preserves us to it; he is the All in all in
 our salvation.
04948
 * Believers are united to Christ, that they may bring forth
 fruit unto God. (1-6) The use and excellence of the law. (7-13)
 The spiritual conflicts between corruption and grace in a
 believer. (14-25)

 #1-6 So long as a man continues under the law as a covenant, and
 seeks justification by his own obedience, he continues the slave
 of sin in some form. Nothing but the Spirit of life in Christ
 Jesus, can make any sinner free from the law of sin and death.
 Believers are delivered from that power of the law, which
 condemns for the sins committed by them. And they are delivered
 from that power of the law which stirs up and provokes the sin
 that dwells in them. Understand this not of the law as a rule,
 but as a covenant of works. In profession and privilege, we are
 under a covenant of grace, and not under a covenant of works;
 under the gospel of Christ, not under the law of Moses. The
 difference is spoken of under the similitude or figure of being
 married to a new husband. The second marriage is to Christ. By
 death we are freed from obligation to the law as a covenant, as
 the wife is from her vows to her husband. In our believing
 powerfully and effectually, we are dead to the law, and have no
 more to do with it than the dead servant, who is freed from his
 master, has to do with his master's yoke. The day of our
 believing, is the day of being united to the Lord Jesus. We
 enter upon a life of dependence on him, and duty to him. Good
 works are from union with Christ; as the fruitfulness of the
 vine is the product of its being united to its roots; there is
 no fruit to God, till we are united to Christ. The law, and the
 greatest efforts of one under the law, still in the flesh, under
 the power of corrupt principles, cannot set the heart right with
 regard to the love of God, overcome worldly lusts, or give truth
 and sincerity in the inward parts, or any thing that comes by
 the special sanctifying influences of the Holy Spirit. Nothing
 more than a formal obedience to the outward letter of any
 precept, can be performed by us, without the renewing,
 new-creating grace of the new covenant.