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The doctrines of salvation and justification by grace raise problems for many people, and particularly for religious people. They did so in Paul's day, they do so in our day. Tell anybody who is religiously minded that you are saved and sure of it, and you will be in heaven because salvation is by grace and not by your work. They very frequently understand you as as meaning that it doesn't matter how you behave, because salvation is by not by works.
Uh, that because it's by grace, therefore it doesn't matter if you sin. And that seems to them to be so obviously impossible that your doctrine of salvation by grace through faith must itself be seriously questionable. It is a comfort, surely, to notice that, uh, when Paul preached the doctrines of salvation by grace through faith, apart from the works of the law, he too had these objections thrown at him. Look at chapter six verse one.
What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? An interesting deduction follows, of course. If Paul had preached everywhere that salvation was partly through grace, but of course did depend in large measure on your works. Then nobody would have accused him of teaching that, uh, you can be saved and it doesn't matter whether you sin or not. The very fact that they raised these questions against him shows that he did preach salvation by grace through faith, apart from the works of the law. You see.
We mustn't be surprised then if we get thrown at us the objections, particularly from religious people, that salvation by grace, uh, according to them, means that you teach it doesn't matter how you behave thereafter, you'll be saved because it's through grace. We ought to ponder their posi- uh, we ought to, uh, just, uh, pause a minute to remind ourselves of what here the Bible means by grace. Because some people think that salvation by grace means that God gives you the grace to do the works that thereafter merit your salvation. And that if you should eventually be saved because your works were jolly good or on the whole moderately decent, or at least above pass mark, um, then you would be the first to admit that it was God's grace.
Uh, you know, I owe it to God that he gave me the grace to do the works, and then I passed the exam and did good enough to pass, you see. That's what they mean by grace. But grace doesn't mean that, does it? Not in this context. It means that gra- salvation by grace, not of works, apart from the works of the law, through faith. And therefore, at the end of chapter five, where Paul comes to this minor climax, that as sin, uh, well, at verse twenty, but where sin abounded, grace did more abound exceedingly.
That as sin reigned in death, even so might grace reign through righteousness. He follows immediately by raising the question that he doubtless had heard thousands of times from Jewish objectors and others. What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Mm-hmm. When he thereafter said that salvation was not only through grace, but not by the works of the law, you can't be saved by keeping the law. Then he made an, he met a, a, a, a, a another, uh, uh, uh, uh, objection.
Verse fourteen of chapter six: sin shall not have dominion over you, for you're not under law, but under grace. Here comes, therefore, an objection to that. What? Shall we sin because we are not under law, but under grace? Second objection. And when he talks now, uh, later about our being delivered from the law and married to another, and uh, uh, indicates that, uh, law can never sanctify us. He's met with a third objection, chapter seven, verse seven.
What shall we say then? Is the law sin? You imply that you cannot be sanctified by the law. Are you saying there's something wrong with the law, that the law is sin or sinful or something? You notice how these objections follow each on the particular part of salvation that Paul is then expounding. And finally, not an objection, but a summary. Chapter eight verse thirty one. What then shall we say to these things?
What deductions shall we make from this exposition of salvation through the Spirit of God? So let's come back to this first objection. What shall we then say? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? And Paul immediately repudiates the whole idea. God forbid, not on your life, never. We who died to sin, how shall we any longer live therein? And now we meet for the first time what we shall meet, uh, many times throughout chapter six and seven.
This idea that we have died to sin. And this is not just theory, this is absolutely practical, exceedingly practical. And we must try and take care to understand what scripture means when it says we have died to sin. Before we get that ex- expression m- uh, again, do you see, but along with other expressions, look at verse six: knowing that our old man was crucified with him.
If you are reading an old authorized version and it says our old man is crucified with him, the translation is exact. It is, it was correct, but it's Old English and doesn't any longer mean what is crucified means in modern language. Is crucified in modern English is a present tense and suggests that the person being crucified is constantly being crucified. In Old English, is crucified meant has been crucified. The master is come and calleth for you means, in modern English, the master has come.
I am come into my garden, my lover, my spouse. I am come means I have come. French, if you should talk it, je suis, I am the new, or whatever these dear Frenchmen say, I am come, you will see, is the perfect tense in Old English. It is important that we see here that the phrase is that our old man was crucified with him at some point in the past. But even that being clear, what is meant pleased by the old man? And what was that that was crucified?
And then there's the next phrase, that the body of sin might be done away. What on earth is that? When you meet it, what is the body of sin? So then we're told in verse eleven, even so reckon ye also yourselves to be dead unto sin. And what does that mean? To emphasize the importance of thinking very carefully, let me cite some of the, uh, interpretations that have been given to this, again by, uh, sincere devoted believers who wanted to be practical in their understanding of it and insist this must apply to practical life.
So we're dead to sin. And they have said, look, you'll see, uh, if a, uh, you were to kick a living person, he might punch you on the nose, they'll say. But if you came to a corpse and you kicked it, make any response. And if you swore at it and cursed it and was rude to it, no, it wouldn't be tempted to sin against you because it's dead, you see, and uh, uh, and uh, therefore can't respond. And we have to believe that we are similarly dead to sin. Because we died with Christ.
And therefore, sin can't get at us, so to speak, because we're dead to it. We don't feel the temptations anymore. Oh, but then what about experience? For most believers, if they try to think that they're dead to sin, like a corpse is dead to your speaking, find out that an experience it isn't quite so. If somebody is rude to them, they do feel like biffing them on the nose or replying in kind with a little interest added. And then there is a problem, you see.
Well, how did this happen if I was dead to sin? Well, perhaps I'm not as dead as I ought to be dead. And therefore came the idea that when verse, uh, the verse says, verse eleven, that we're to reckon ourselves dead, this is interpreted as a practical psychological device. So that when we're surrounded with temptation, I say to myself, I'm dead, I'm dead, I'm dead, I'm dead, I'm dead, I'm dead, I'm dead. And if I keep on asserting that, I'm dead, I'm dead, I'm dead, I'm dead, I'm dead, I shall find I am dead to sin. Well, then it has a way of coming round by the back door.
And they're well-intentioned, that, uh, understanding of it i- is not true to experience in the first place. And because it isn't true to experience, then people come to feel that this all is mere theory that doesn't work in practice. We do need, therefore, to spend some time taking it seriously as God's word and trying to understand what it says. So let's start at the end, so to speak. We are to reckon ourselves dead, indeed unto sin. What does that mean, to say we're dead to sin?
Well, notice verse eleven, even so reckon ye also yourselves, also yourselves to be dead to sin. Because, uh, verse nine has said, knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dies no more, death has no more dominion over him. For the death that he died, he died unto sin once. The life that he lives, he lives to God. In that same way, you are to reckon yourselves dead to sin. Yes, isn't that fair? Verse eleven: even so, reckon ye also yourselves to be dead unto sin, as Christ died to sin.
That means we must ask, gentlemen, in what sense did Christ die to sin? Was it, we know he was tempted at the beginning of his ministry, but was it that, like us in daily life, he constantly had to struggle against sin? And at last, at Calvary, he died. Oh, what a relief. Now he was literally dead, and he didn't have to struggle against sin anymore. Well, putting it that way comes very near to being blasphemy. He was never alive to sin to start with.
And when he died at Calvary, it wasn't, so to speak, that he'd been alive to sin all these years and fighting it hard, and eventually managed to escape by dying on the cross. That would be a serious slur on the character of Christ. He was never alive to sin, like we have been. What does it mean then that he died to sin? And you'll notice that it expressed once more that he died to sin once, not constantly every day of the week throughout the whole of his life. Wouldn't have been true of him during his life that he had died.
He was still alive. He died to sin once. When? Well, on Calvary, of course. And what does it mean he died to sin once on Calvary? Well, it's talking about his death satisfying the legal demands of the law. The law says that the sinner shall die. Now, Christ was sinless himself, but when he took our sins upon him, he died, paid the penalty of sin.
That cleared the whole bill. He only need to die once, and our discharge from the guilt of sin was there and then accomplished. We are still talking, gentlemen, in terms of justification, the legal side. And sometimes, if you say that, dear Christians will get impatient with you. Oh, but you are legally minded, we want something practical.
But our job here is to understand what the passage is saying. And if in this part of Romans, in which God is talking to us about our sanctification, we must let God know best what to say. And if he insists on talking about the legal side, then we submit to it, of course, and it is delightful gospel. Wow, it is. We die to sin when Christ died to sin. Christ died for sin. It was a legal matter. Our sins deserve the penalty of the law, which was death.
Christ bore our sins in his body. The law commanded that he therefore should die, and he did die. But in dying, he fully paid the penalty, and as far as sin was concerned, therefore, our sin indeed. We never need to die again. That one death was enough. And he has been raised. Yes? Marvelous. I'm glad you agree. But now coming back, uh, to see to then to an earlier verse. Verse six. knowing this, that our old man was crucified with him, that the body of sin might be done away, that we should no longer be in bondage to sin.
For he who has died is not sanctified, is justified from sin. Pray notice the term, and resist any temptation to make it mean different here from what it means in chapter three. What do you mean he that has died is justified, do you see, from sin? Well, in the old days, when murder was a capital offense, suppose you had committed murder and you were convicted, the law wouldn't be satisfied until you were hung.
If somehow you got out of prison, the law would follow you round the whole earth, you see, and up from South America with the escaped Nazis, and round who knows where else, and round the North Pole and the South Pole, east and west, the law would follow you until it caught up with you and insisted the penalty be paid. And when it was paid and you were executed, the law wouldn't chase you anymore. You had been justified. Why? Well, the penalty had been paid. Justification by the penalty having been paid.
He that has died has been justified from sin. If it is true that Christ died and, and uh, for our sins, according to the scripture, paid the penalty of the law, then the law has no more against us. We are justified. I'll tell you something, gentlemen. There's said to be a book up in heaven that records all the deeds and sins in particular of every single person that has ever lived. So my name is there with the list.
And wouldn't you like to get to heaven if you could bribe the archangel and the recording angel just to have a look inside that book? Please turn under the letter G. We'd like to see what the truth is about this chap that sits there pontificating to us, you see. Dare say there are some hidden things, ah ha ha. Reading all over the place. Well, you would see it in a sorry list it would be. But if you then asked the law what it was going to do about it, it would look and say, you see the whole lot's crossed out.
Don't you see that? He's dead. Died. You say that's funny. Saw him the other Saturday morning, talking at rather too much length. Uh, what do you mean he died? Well, the Lord says, as far as I know, he died. Because, you see, he has accepted Christ. And as far as I'm concerned, the Lord say, when Christ died, he died too. What a tremendous relief to the likes of me to know it. He that has died has been justified from sin.
Gentlemen, this is the basis of our practical sa- sanctification. We need to get it clear, therefore. Ah. Well, how does baptism help, and what has baptism got to do with this anyway? Let's go back to the beginning of the chapter. Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? God forbid. We who died to sin, and now we see what it means. We died to sin when Christ died to sin. He died to sin because he paid the penalty, died, and of course now he's risen again.
But how shall we continue in sin who died to sin because we died with Christ? Now, gentlemen, see the force of the argument, do? You are a believer, and you're going to be in heaven at last, and you say, there's no condemnation for me because Christ bore the penalty of my sin. And that means I'm free to go on sinning because the penalty's been paid. Yes. And I'm going, I'm free to go on sinning and doing the things that cost him his life at Calvary. Well, if that's what you mean by being saved by grace, then that's seriously astray, isn't it?
How is it thinkable that anyone who should claim that he died with Christ because, you see, Christ paid the penalty for his sin, and now he's free and there's no condemnation, but he's free to carry on sinning. Well, that we do sin is a fact, but the the idea that we should say that because Christ paid the penalty, we're free to go on sinning, and it doesn't really matter, is for a true believer unthinkable, isn't it? This is the force, gentlemen, of those words about the Lord's Supper in one Corinthians eleven.
It's not optional. We are required to remember the Lord because he commanded it, remember me. And he's required us to remember him by the means of bread and wine, the bread representing his body that was given for us at Calvary, and the wine representing his blood that was poured out for us at Calvary. And we meet to celebrate that fact. He died for my sins, according to the scripture, paid the penalty, gave his life's blood. Marvelous. But do you be careful, please, says Paul, that when you come to that, you come in the right state of mind.
And we better judge ourselves, hadn't we? And discern ourselves. For if I am allowing in my life sinful attitudes and deeds, and I come to remember Christ and take the emblems, while I'm allowing unjudged sin in my life, I come and dare take those emblems that tell me he died for me, bore the penalty of these sins, and I'm still doing them as though it didn't matter. Well, then Paul tells us straight that if we take that attitude, God will intervene.
God will judge us. Chastise us, in other words. We don't lose our salvation. When we're chastened, we're chastened, uh, by the Lord, that we should not be condemned with this world. There's no condemnation. But if I abuse that and take the emblems while still allowing sin and doing questionable things and taking it for our well, Christ died for my sins, so my sins don't really matter. Then, of course, Cry- God will eventually discipline us to bring us to the right frame of mind.
We all miserably sin, but to let it go unjudged, not to discern ourselves and constantly apply God's word to our hearts to correct our false attitudes and false activities, and just go along merrily because we say, well, I, there's no condemnation, you know. That is to do the unthinkable. How will we who died to sin live any longer therein? That is the argument of the passage, and you will see that this legal side to our sanctification is not mere theory.
Gentlemen, it has the far most far-reaching practical implications for the way you li- we live. If we say we're saved by grace, but that involved Christ paying the penalty for our sins at Calvary. Then that has practical implications, doesn't it? No, you- or are you ignorant? So now we come across a succession of appeals to knowledge. Don't you know, verse three. Verse six, knowing this. Verse nine, knowing that.
Verse sixteen, don't you know? Verse, chapter seven verse one, or is it that you don't know? Sanctification of the believer and its application in practical terms is dependent on knowing certain facts. Not necessarily it depends on feeling certain feelings, but knowing certain facts. Are you ignorant that all who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?
Did the symbolism of baptism not register with you? We were buried therefore with him through baptism into death, that like as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so also we might walk in newness of life. Verse six, knowing that our old man was crucified with him, that the body of sin might be, uh, disabled, put out of function, juicy, undermined, and so forth.
Now that leads us, therefore, to ask what this old man is or was. And if we're not careful, we shall fall into a little, uh, trap or misunderstanding. The old man is the bad part of me. And, uh, it's a bit troublesome. But of course, the rest of me is pro- decent, you see. Now, what I want is a help to deal with that little bit of rotten, you know, like you get apples from Tesco, and if you're not careful, they're nice red on one side, and they've got a little bit of rotten stuff on the other.
But if you get the apple peeler and you dig it out, do you see, then you can, well, the rest of the apple is sound. And that's how people think of themselves if they're not careful. As a jolly nice chap on the whole, you see. I, uh, confess I have a little pride here and a little selfishness there. Sometimes I lose my temper elsewhere, but on the whole I'm a jolly decent chap, you see. All I need is a little improvement by the grace of Christ. Well, that's a mistaken notion. For let me now ask you, when you were baptized, and I assume, gentlemen, you have been. Can you recall the occasion you were baptized?
Which bit of you did they baptize? The nice bit? No, now you say, no, we left that standing on the edge of the pool. We didn't baptize that. Or they baptized the nasty bit of you. No? No, of course not. They baptize the whole of you, but the nice bits and the nasty bits. You say precisely. Because this notion that before the law you can separate out the nice bits from the nasty bits is false, of course. You stand before the law. Don't be concerned about the nice bits and the nasty bits. Your head up for driving down the Malone Road at seventy.
And the magistrate says, now you were, uh, doing, I see you were doing seventy miles an hour along the Malone Road. You say, I know I was, sir, you, uh, you'll see, but you'll see, I was behind, uh, one of these weekend drivers, and they wandered all over the road, and I had to get out home to my darling wife because the matter was urgent, and tried to get by, and they swerved out in front of me and try... I, in the end, I, I last got free, and I so lost my temper. I put the foot down and I went, you see, but yes, it was a bit irresponsible, but I lost my temper a bit. But, uh, uh, uh, that's not my fault, sir.
I am a decent chap on the whole. I'm kind to my children, and I, um, contribute to Oxfam, and, um, generally I, I drive sensibly. So I don't think, guys, you should fo- find me that much, your, your magistrate, you see. The magistrate says, well, if I could find your bad temper, I would. I can't find your, find your temper, I have to find you. You shouldn't have let your bad temper do it. And the law must find your bad temper, must find not your bad temper, but you. And our baptism says that as far as the law was concerned, it wasn't a question of nice bits and nasty bits.
We were guilty. And the law demanded a penalty. It was that the whole person should be executed, finished. And executed as severely as Christ was executed at Calvary. That's the law's position. And our old man was crucified. Not is constantly being crucified. That's another story.
But this is was crucified. When? When Christ died. That the body of sin should be disabled. Do see. Uh, might be done away, that we should no longer be in bondage to sin. That whole sinful setup be brought to an end. So what does that mean?
Well, perhaps it is best to use the example of Paul's own experience of what conversion meant. And, uh, we could look there, uh, for a moment, because it's helpful to see what he says elsewhere on this very thing, and applies it to himself. Galatians chapter two. Verse twenty. I have been crucified with Christ.
Yet I live, and yet no longer I, but Christ lives in me. I have been crucified. Notice the past tense. This is not Paul saying daily after day I practice self-crucifixion. He's talking about a event in the past, I have been crucified with Christ. Why was he crucified with Christ? Look at verse nineteen of Galatians two. I, through the law, died to it. There came a point in Paul's life when he saw that the very law he was keeping, and felt himself to have kept it very well, and felt therefore much better than most of his contemporaries, that very law condemned him to death.
And through the very law that he studied and tried to keep, he was sentenced to death. I, through the law, died, and therefore dying passed out from under the control of the law. How did that happen, and how did it change him? Well, gentlemen, remember what Saul's attitude to Christ and the gospel was. He felt that the Christians were a bunch of blasphemers of the worst order. You'll see.
They talked about salvation by faith, being justified apart from the works of the law, absolute antinomianism to Paul, Saul of Tarsus. And what's more, they had the blasphemous effrontery to say that Jesus was the Messiah. But Jesus was crucified on a cross, hung on a tree. And the Old Testament said that cursed of God is everybody that hangs on a tree. How can these stupid Christians tell the world that somebody condemned and cursed by God was the Messiah?
Bordered on lunacy, and worse. And he determined with all his might and main to persecute this and stamp it out. And of course, the whole doctrine was morally irresponsible and went against his grain because he tried to keep the law, and as far as the righteousness it comes, which is worked by keeping the law, he was blameless, so he felt. This notion of salvation by grace without the works of the law undercut all moral responsibility. Persecuted him, therefore, and was going to obliterate the name of Jesus from the earth.
When on the Damascus road, there shone a light from heaven around him, and he knew enough to know what it was. This was the shek in the glory of God, such as from time to time was to be seen over the tabernacle. And a voice from heaven said, Saul, why do you persecute me? And he replied, with utmost respect, who art thou? Lord. He meant at that moment, presumably, Adonai, if not Yahweh.
The Greek word kurios implies both. I am Jesus, came the reply. Whom you persecute. If Jesus was God, how then can you explain it that Jesus was God incarnate, but was cursed of God on Calvary. Hung on a tree. And that dawned on him eventually.
He was there because Paul's righteousness was absolutely bankrupt. And the only way Saul could have been saved according to the law was if someone had died for him and borne the curse of the law for him. Not only brought him eventually to justification by faith, it changed the whole attitude of the man. Read Philippians three. What things were gained for me, these I counted loss for Christ and count them but dung.
All that religious effort to build up his, uh, status, all the motivation that went behind it, and the pride that followed it, blown sky high. By the death of Christ on Calvary. And when Peter came along and, uh, compromised and wouldn't eat with Gentiles, and those other chaps came along and said, yes, faith in Christ is enough, but you have to be circumcised if you're a Gentile before you can be saved. Of course, Paul was, uh, nearly furious. You're saying the death of Christ is not enough after all, and having trusted in Christ, we're still found sinners and need a bit of circumcision to save us.
The attitude of heart that could say before God that the death of Christ is not enough, and we need a bit of circumcision to save us and grant us entrance into God's heaven is preposterous. My point, that we were crucified, the old man, all that setup that he had built up before he got converted, read Philippians three again, was now put out of action. And a lot of the motivation that went with it. Because he died with Christ.
If righteousness could have come by the law, then Christ has died for nothing, says he. But Christ having had to die for us and bear the curse for us, alters, of course, our whole attitude to what you might call your former self. Yes. That Saul of Tarsus, with all his law keeping and everything else, was crucified with Christ, says Paul. That was God's sentence on me. And my sort of scheme of things, attitudes, activities, and everything else.
My old man, my former self, my former attitudes, and so forth. Came under God's judgment, and I died with Christ. In order that that whole body of sin that motivated me then, when he thought it was very holy stuff, but that whole body of independence of God, trying to work out your own salvation and all that kind of thing, put out of action. That we should not, of course, go on sinning, but live unto God. This is what baptism, therefore, symbolizes.
Some people think you have to be very good to be baptized. The opposite is true, you have to be bad to be baptized. It's true, isn't it? And you're admitting what God has long since pronounced, is you deserve to be dead-bedded and got out of the way. And it has happened through Christ, with whom we now are identified. But baptism is not merely a symbolic burial, and of course, uh, we've died with Christ and we were buried.
Baptism doesn't do, uh, kill you, you know. We didn't die by being baptized. You only bap- uh, bury people that are already dead, you know. It's against the law to bury them in order to kill them. But through faith, repentance of faith in Christ, we are now regarded by God as having died when Christ died. We symbolize that by being baptized into his death, baptized to Christ, identified with Christ, buried therefore with him. But it is also a symbolic resurrection. Mercifully.
So coming out of the water is equally significant as being submerged under it. It's a pity that the old arguments have emphasized that baptism is by immersion. That is perfectly true and worth repeating. But baptism is by immersion as well, if you don't mind, gentlemen. I see that when you were baptized, I didn't leave you under the water, fair to report. The coming out of the water was just as significant as your going in. But like as Christ, verse four, was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life.
And gentlemen, that last expression, so that we might walk in newness of life, isn't a sort of a vague wish, well, I hope we shall. And I'm now saying before this congregation, as I rise from the water of baptism, I hope I can live a better life than I did before. That's what I'd like to do anyway. No, no. Motive is good, I'm sure. You are symbolizing a wonderful fact. That whereas God's law commanded your death, and therefore you had died with Christ, and now you're buried with him. What the gospel is, that Christ being raised from the dead, you are raised too, and God who ga- raised him from the dead has given him the very, you the very life of Christ in you.
To walk in a new life. That isn't a wish, that's a fact. It's not merely you have been forgiven, now try to be good. You have been delivered from the penalty of the law by dying with Christ. In the law sense, you are already dead. But the other side of the gospel is that God, in raising Christ, has raised you and given you this new life. So that we might walk to the glory of God.
The positive side, you see. Now notice the advantage. Uh, verse of eight. Knowing that Christ, being raised from the dead, dies no more. Death had no more dominion over him. The penalty's been paid. For the death that he died, he died unto sin once. But the life that he lives, he lives to God. Notice the positive side of it. Penalty paid, but life. And a life that God can accept, of course.
The death that he died, he died a sin once, so what a merciful thing that is. And if God forbid it, but if... then it's guess and if, is it? I commit further sins, foolish. Christ doesn't have to die again. Got that? Is it true? He died to sin once. Or to use the Hebrew terminology, having offered one sacrifice for sin forever, he has sat down. Gentlemen, in this business of sanctification, there is a sense the moment we trust Christ, we are sanctified, and therefore we are called saints.
On the practical side, however, it's going to be a long thing, the long as life itself. Our ongoing sanctification. Therefore, it is important that we get these basic legal conditions into our hearts. For if we didn't, we'd start out with great fervor, we were going to be everything for God, for Christ, we were going to consider ourselves dead to sin and live to God, uh, and now we're now twenty five, thirty. You wait till you get fifty, gentlemen. And you see then, you discover attitudes that perhaps you never knew existed, and come to see what then you thought was marvelous is in fact sinful.
And you discover it. But if you thought that your acceptance with God depended on your progress, legally, you would then be in very serious trouble. This legal basis for sanctification, therefore, is exceedingly important. And you'll see that this is said more than once. Look at the end of six. so that we should no longer be in bondage to sin. Uh, again, verse, um, uh, uh, verse, uh, thir- uh, twelve.
Let not therefore sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey the lusts thereof. For sin shall not have dominion over you, but you are not, uh, for you're not under law, but under grace. Now put that in its context, if you will, verse thirteen: Neither present your members unto sin as instruments of unrighteousness, but present yourselves unto God as alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God, for sin shall not have dominion over you. Why not? Because you are not under law, but under grace.
How is the logic of that argument? In what sense shall sin not have dominion over you because you are not under law? Pray notice it's not, doesn't say not under the law, it says not under law as a principle. Uh, and that's the secret behind the fact that sin shall not have dominion over you. And you are therefore free and have a duty to present your members, uh, to God, you see, as alive from the dead, your members of instruments of righteousness unto God. You say, well, I tried it last Wednesday, and I was doing very well.
In fact, I, I remember the occasion, you say, at the meeting, I really did devote myself to the Lord. I can tell you the date in the conference when I said to myself, you know, you're only a half-hearted Christian, you must take Christ seriously, and you must, uh, surrender your life to God absolutely and entirely in your members. And I did that on that occasion, and I wanted to live for the Lord there afterwards. I managed it for nine or ten months, or six months, or three years, or four. And then I came unstuck. Gentlemen, there are many believers there. And in their fifties and sixties, they'll tell you it didn't work.
And all these preachers coming along and saying you, you should be re- uh, devoted to God and Christ, and it works. It didn't with me. I tried it, and it all came unstuck, and it's no good, and I can't be cynical. So they come and sit on the seats, but... inside, nagged by inconsistency, and they don't want to be cynical. And sin has dominion over them, still drags them down. How is it possible to be delivered from this, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, dragging down, this overpowering question of sin because you are not under law, but under grace.
I think I said it to you before, I'll say it again. It's a crude illustration, but if I woke up one Monday morning and s- had the law standing beside my bed and said, now, Gooding, ha ha, you made a lot of great statements on Sunday. You love the Lord, and you marvel you love the Lord, and oh Lord, I love you. Now put it into action, Gooding. This is Monday morning, you see. Now get up and love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength, and your neighbor as yourself, and start right now, Gooding. I say, what, with all my heart, mind, soul, and strength? Yes. And I'm the law.
Now, of course, the law isn't advice, simple advice. The word, Hebrew word for law means, uh, uh, teaching, to say. But it isn't just teaching. Law as a principle is command plus penalty. A permission, prohibition plus penalty. That's what law is, not just advice. And so the law would say to me, goodie, you'll get up and you'll love the Lord your without all your heart, mind, soul, and strength, and if you don't, I shall curse you. What would you do if you were me?
I think some of you might even say, well, right, I'll have my best, I'll have a go. Me, at my age, I would say, well, I'm sorry, if that's a condition, I better stay here. What's the good of my attempting it? So I shall stay in bed, and the law would say, the law would then say, I curse you for staying in bed anyway. Sin would hold us down. The moment we sinned, finished. And sin would get the advantage, and we would pack up presenting our bodies and our members to God.
How can it be then that I've made a mistake? I- I've come unstuck as a believer. I've made a big mistake. What's the good of my pretending and now saying again, I- I want to present my body? But my dear brother, you are free to it. You've sinned, you've fallen. Well, confess it before the Lord, and he's faithful and just to forgive because the penalty has been paid. And you're free to get up, and to put it crudely, to have another go. Sin shall not have dominion over you, because you are not under law, but under grace.
And you will object and say to me that you're emphasizing one side of the story. You ought by now to have talked about the power of the Holy Spirit. Well, I will. Let me have lunch before I do it. Well, I will say something about it. How can I do otherwise? When I stress this legal side, it is in my experience, not only in teaching, but in pastoral work with people, exceedingly important that we get hold of it. It is the legal basis of our sanctification. It is the secret of our going onwards in spite of many shortcomings and many failures.
The secret that if we are believers in Christ, then the penalty has been paid. We confess our sins. He's faithful and just to forgive us. The penalty has been paid. We are free to get up and have another go. Yes. Can I tell you a story? Oh, you've probably heard it before many times, but then old men tell stories, you see, that's how they do. You'll be old one day. I first came to Belfast, I was preaching in Victoria Hall, a series of sessions there for Sunday nights.
They used to get about four hundred. I preached one night on, uh, Peter's experience of how he would talk about Christ as a rock. And he does that because in his life he'd known many, uh, uh, various times when he felt he was sinking, was going down and and a- a- and liable to be overwhelmed, and found Christ as a rock, solid to stand on. The one occasion when he tried to walk on the water, that was a very good attempt, and the Lord bade him come, but he dithered, got his eyes off the Lord, and began to sink.
And found the Lord there when he cried, save me to bring him up, stand him on the top of the water, and then preach him a little sermon or two. There was the other fearful time in the high priest's court he did, he intended to witness for the Lord. Dear, dear, dear me. When that sliver of a girl started to talk and accuse him of being a disciple, and then the soldiers looked at him rather sternly. His whole inside churned over, and he felt himself slipping down the slippery slope and couldn't get hold and got worse and worse involved and three times denied the Lord and found the Lord a rock beneath his feet.
When you are turned again, strengthen your presence. So I preached on this, as best a a a youngster could do, in that gospel meeting that night. A day or two later, a businessman in town rang me up. I can't tell you, won't tell you all his long story. As a young man, he'd been a preacher, Christian, devoted, keen, beginning to preach, accepted by believers, was in business, went to Londonderry, looked, uh, was offered a shady deal in business, looked around and saw other believers who said they were believers, but in business were doing shady deals. He began to do this shady deal and began to go down the slope.
He prospered in business, had his own factory, was a member of parliament in the old Stormont. So antagonistic to the gospel that he would drive his father to the gospel hall, leave him there, dump him there, go away and come back and fetch him again. And he and his daughter were about to write a book on Against the Brethren. And as he, uh, he, uh, business began to go wrong. He lost his seat in Stormont. Through the struggles with his business, he had a kind of a, a nervous, uh, difficulty.
He hadn't been in a gospel hall for forty years. Came by that the Victoria Hall late on the, early on the Sunday morning. He'd been in his factory trying to, to stop it from going bankrupt. Forty years away from the Lord. Came by Victoria Hall, saw the announcement of this oddity, uh, going to preach, felt overwhelmed he must come. And came to the thing. And the first time thing he heard in forty years was how Peter felt like going down, slipping down into a hole, and then discovered Christ as a rock. He said, when you said that, that was me.
I couldn't get any handhold anywhere, slipping down into a nervous and financial wreck. He rang me up the next day to tell me he'd come back to the Lord. What, forty years? Yes, and lived to show it. That, uh, sin shall not have dominion over you. Because the penalty has been paid, and we're free on confession to get up and have another go. This is the gospel of sanctification. We leave it there, gentlemen.
