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The clock and, uh, also the calendar tell us that it is time we moved on, and from considering the answer of the gospel to the solemn fact that mankind stands under the wrath of God, we now ought to move on to consider what the gospel can do about the question of the wreckage resulting from Adam's sin. But as you will remember, before we can do that, we have, in all honesty, some unfinished business to consider, and that is the final paragraph in what I have called this first movement.
Now, I have suggested that the verses of chapter five, one to eleven, indeed form the final climax to the topic that has been developed from chapter one about the wrath of God and how we can be saved therefrom. And as part of my evidence, I have cited the verse in chapter five that assures us with triumphant joy that if we have been justified by faith and justified by Christ's blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through him. Others there are who will tell us that this particular paragraph belongs not here logically, but should begin the next major section of Paul's epistle.
We needn't try to decide that question now, because if we read the epistle in a straight line, we shall of course come to this particular paragraph before we can reach the next section of the book that deals with the wreckage of Adam's sin. Anyway, when we have spent a minute or two considering those first eleven verses of chapter five, we shall see not only do they sum up what has gone before, but they do prepare us for what we next have to consider, that is the matter of our sanctification.
And it will appear to us, I trust, quite clearly, why it is important that we should grasp very firmly and clearly in our hearts what these first eleven verses are saying, and make sure we have understood them, if we are going to make progress in the great spiritual adventure of sanctification. So let us proceed without further ado to consider some of the detail of chapter five. Being justified by faith, says Paul, we have peace with God.
And as the old theologians have pointed out, the terminology is deliberately exact, not peace with ourselves. As far as ourselves are concerned, as we embark on the process of sanctification, we shall find peace with ourselves a very rare commodity. There will be times when we shall feel the anguish that Paul describes in chapter seven. oh wretched man that I am. Times when it will seem to us that we are making little or no progress at all in the journey towards holiness, and indeed times when it will seem to us that instead of progressing, we are going further back.
And when those times arise, it will be of fundamental importance that we have clearly understood from the beginning on what our acceptance with God depends. For if ever we should have it in our head that our acceptance with God depends on our spiritual progress, not only shall we become very troubled in our hearts when the progress is not what we wish it to be.
But if that lack of progress, the many frustrations, the anguish of heart, question within us whether we are accepted with God, then the whole foundation of our sanctification will start to rock. And we shall lose that basic spiritual strength that comes from the confidence that we are accepted with God. It is only in that acceptance with God that we shall find the strength to face our ugly selves. Only in that sense of acceptance with God shall we find the courage to be honest with ourselves.
And instead of desperately trying to believe that we are better than we are, to find the courage to face ourselves. For facing ourselves and the unexpected depths of our sinfulness, even as believers. Facing ourselves thus is the first step towards repentance, and repentance is the big first step towards holiness. So let us look with that double interest in these first eleven verses, climax to what has gone before, preparation for what shall follow. We have peace with God upon what ground?
Simply being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Not only have we peace with God, but access by faith into this grace wherein we stand. And surely the term grace must be allowed here its full theological meaning. We stand upon what ground? We stand before God now as ever it shall be, solely on the ground of his grace. My dear brother, let me remind you that having striven all your life to make progress with Christ, and great progress by his grace you will make when you come to nine at ninety and a half, just before you are ready to go home to God, and you ask yourself, upon what ground do I stand before God?
You most certainly will not answer upon the ground of my progress. You will say, I stand on the grace of God. There do we stand firm, and only there can we stand firm. Moreover, and here comes the exultant news, let us rejoice. The word for rejoice doesn't necessarily mean saying ha ha ha all day long, that kind of rejoicing, though you are allowed to do it if you wish, you see. Why shouldn't you if you need? Uh, it is that kind of fierce, almost exultant joy that comes through confidence.
You see. Confidence in God that we have peace with God, confidence in the work of Christ, and therefore we are permitted, indeed we are encouraged, says the verse, we are to rejoice in hope of the glory of God. And biblically speaking, hope is to be understood not in our modern sense. You know, when you say, I hope it's going to be fine weather when I'm on holiday, if you are an Englander, a Britisher, you see, your expression, I hope it will be fine weather on holiday, means I rather fear it won't, you'll see. We haven't that, uh, certainty in the sunshine that some specially privileged nations have, for which they will be deducted a little sunshine of heaven to compensate for the rest of us.
When here it says we rejoice in hope, it is the strong and sure hope, like an anchor of the soul, that we shall attain the glory of God. Or get it, my brother, my sister, as you start the road of holiness. Here God is telling you the ground of a confidence you may have that one day you shall attain the glory of the Lord. Oh, what marvelous courage and energy it puts into us in our pursuit of holiness, when we know that at the end, yes, we shall be conformed to the image of Christ.
And not only so, but let us also rejoice in our tribulations. And here you will see quite obviously it doesn't mean the ha ha ha kind of rejoicing, at least if you are at all sensible. Who, faced with tribulation, will say it is a lovely merry go round, and I'm enjoying this immensely. And the kind of tribulation, you'll see, that, uh, Paul refers to is not just the tribulation of an occasional toothache, is it? It is that much more serious kind of tribulation and testing of which our blessed Lord spoke when he gave us the parable of the sower.
And according to Luke's version thereof in chapter eight, he said, these are they who sown upon a rock, who receive the word and for a time believe. And if our blessed Lord says they do believe for a time, it's not for me to contradict him and say they didn't believe. But the belief is no good. For when persecution, tribulation, testing arises, in time of that testing, they fall away. Because they have no root in themselves, never did have. There was never any hope of any fruit.
They had no root. And here I, we are facing tribulation. This is such an important part of our Christian experience, that not only Paul speaks of it, but James speaks of it, and Peter himself likewise in his way, because the early gospel preachers saw it quite clearly, that in a sense, if you preach salvation by faith, the weak link in that chain is the faith business. If my eternal salvation depends on my faith, what happens?
If tribulation arises so severe that it breaks my faith? No good talking then, glibly, is it, of the eternal security of the believer. For if my faith is destroyed, I'm no longer a believer, am I? Certainly the believer shall be eternally safe, our Lord's word upon it. He that believeth has everlasting life. There is no verse in scripture known to me that says the person that has once believed has eternal life, and if they thereafter cease to be believing, cease to be believers and throw away their faith completely, doesn't matter because they once believed they're saved nonetheless.
I don't know of such a verse. What about this weak link in the chain then? If I'm saved by faith. How dare I face life's trials? I vividly remember from my youth, that is the privilege of old age to remember such things. Ah, Dorothy, and to speak the same sermon as you've observed over the years. Dulce, I remember an ex-atheist recently brought to faith, confiding in me that he felt sure of his salvation, except this, he said, David. If one day my two young girls ran out in the road and were knocked down and killed by a lorry, I don't think I could still trust in God.
What would that mean, he said. How could you be confident in the face of tribulation like that? Yes. That's been my, uh, I wouldn't call it a pleasure, no. It was a kind of a cruel sport all down the years to have to invigilate at, uh, examinations, you'll see. One would go down to the examination hall early one morning, generally a very gray morning. There would be three or four hundred people outside the door, you'll see. It was their finals. Well, some were managing to laugh nervously, but others, uh, were very tense, as you could see.
Understandably, isn't it? The finals, you see. If they failed it, thing was ruined. I saw remarkably few down the years that came rejoicing. Yes. And the more so when they were allowed in and, uh, sat down at the desk and turned the paper over and saw the questions. Then the study of the faces was, uh, I shouldn't have been amused, but it was interesting, to say the least. How can you, in all reality and sanity, rejoice in the f- face of tribulation that's going to test whether you are a true believer or not?
Oh, for the wonder of the divine secret that Paul gives us here. He says we are to do it knowing. Knowing. There are some things that are not built simply on experience, you know, importance of experiences. There are times in life when it will be our veritable lifeline to know certain of God's declared and absolutely reliable facts. We are to know that, come the worst, tribulation works endurance.
Now, some of you have, may have old translations, venerable and much beloved, and rightly so. And they at this point tell us that tribulation works impatience, uh, patience, you see. Which in our modern tongue stands opposite impatience, and gave rise to that quip at one stage when two brothers met, and Brother A said to Brother B, pray for me, please, Brother B, that God would give me patience. And Brother A got down on his knees and prayed that the Lord would give him tribulation. And Brother A protested, you see, and said, no, he wasn't asking for tribulation, he was asking for patience. And Brother B wisely responded, but that's the way to get patience, you'll see.
So there's some modicum of truth in it, you'll see. But it isn't patience that's distinct from impatience. It's the old language patience, old Latin meaning of endurance, persistence. This is what the tribulation is going to test, whether our faith can persevere and survive. We are to know, facing tribulation, know it because God says it, that where there is faith to start with, tribulation produces endurance. The same word that is used in the Gospels and that same parable of our Lord, the parable of a sower.
Those on the good soil are those that receive the word in an honest and true heart and bring forth fruit with endurance. There is, of course, no other way in the botanical world of a plant bringing forth fruit. It has to endure. If it doesn't, there's no fruit. There is no other way of producing godliness, but by endurance. Endurance in its turn, you'll see, will work probation, meaning it will demonstrate that we are genuine.
And being demonstrated genuine will give us, what you now notice, is a second ground for hope. Probation works hope, and that is true to experience, isn't it? We begin life justified by faith, our spiritual life by faith, justified by faith. That gives rise to the certain hope at once that we shall attain the glory of God. As the years bring their waves of tribulation and our faith is demonstrated to be genuine, of course, that gives rise for a second ground of hope, necessarily. When we have grasped that, let us pose ourselves once more the question, on which of those two grounds rests my peace with God?
You say, why do you ask that? For this very practical reason. Because the mark of a true believer is that he endures and brings forth fruit. Some have said to themselves, yes, well, there must be about my life evidences that I'm a true believer. Yeah, that's very good. Proper, isn't it? But then, imperceptibly perhaps, they have drifted into thinking that unless the evidence is there, the practical evidence is there that I'm a true believer, then perhaps I'm not a true believer.
So I ought to begin doubting whether I'm saved and whether I shall be ultimately accepted with God. And so they come to make acceptance and peace with God depend upon the evidences that they are a believer, and land themselves in all kinds of quagmires. They who are of a tender conscience will never feel that the evidence is good enough, will they? They will feel perhaps sometimes it's a happy thing to doubt, as they put it. At least the doubting might be evidence that they are true believers.
They who are proud and worldly might too easily be content with the evidence when it isn't good enough, and so they might be living in a fool's paradise. But if peace with God depends on that second stage of the evidences, how shall we ever retain basic peace with God? We get peace with God, let this paragraph tell us, right from the very start, on the basis of being justified by faith.
How else do you suppose the dying thief went home to paradise with the Lord that day and the assurance in his heart that he would end in paradise? For there wasn't many hours to show evidence that he was genuine, was there? No, the peace with God, as you see in the course of the argument, depends on that initial phase. And hope makes not to shame, puts not to shame, it doesn't let us down. For the reason that the Holy Spirit argues within us the nature and character of the love of God. Now, on times we are inclined to read the love of God in the delicious feelings that steal across us in this circumstances in debt.
When such is our sense of the love and grace of God that our hearts are filled with bursting joyous emotion, and it seems to us our heads nearly touch heaven. We would be wise to balance that with the logic of the love of God. For when the Holy Spirit pours out the love of God in our hearts, he urges us to take hold of it by exercising a divine logic about the love of God. The logic is simple enough, but exceedingly powerful. The argument goes like this, uh, when did God first start to love you?
Not surely when you were that rotten, disgraceful, nasty, mean little, unoriginal sinner. Surely God's love said to you, now look here, if you were to consider improving substantially, if you got to a certain degree of attainment, then I would consider beginning to love you. As for giving my son for you, you would have to make enormous improvement before I ever consider giving my son for you. Oh, goodness me, I should. Was it so? No, you'll say. God loved me. While I was still sinner, ungodly, enemy of God indeed, and kicking God in the shins.
Then he loved me. Pray, what is the biggest thing that God will ever do for you, my good sir, my good madam? You say, I hope when I get home to heaven, I'm going to have one of those mansions, you know, and possibly a galaxy or two to play with when I get home to heaven. Oh, how marvelous it will be if God were to give me one of those. I would then be convinced of his love. You would? It wouldn't cost God a lot to give you a galaxy, would it? He has rather a lot of them. More than enough to go around for one each, so to speak. The biggest gift God ever gave you was when he gave his son to die for you.
Don't you expect anything bigger than that in heaven, would you? And when did he give him to die for you? When we were yet sinners, ungodly, and enemies, then he loved us, then he gave his son. Tell me, if you think about it, is God's love consistent? I may be a poor specimen of a saint. I'm not the enemy of God I once was. And shall it be that God would love me when I was an enemy, and now that I have become a child of God, get tired of me and throw me over the battlements of heaven onto the scrap heap of eternity?
No, God's love is not like that. God's love is utterly consistent. If he loved me then when I was an enemy, how much more, argues the Holy Spirit, will he love love me now that I'm reconciled, justified, at peace with God, and a child of God? This being so, I may, notice the climax of the whole thing, rejoice in God, meaning once more that same basic confidence. You see, at the very center of any human personality and being must be this core confidence.
If psychologically people lose their confidence, they disintegrate, you know. When it comes to our existence in this universe, the plain fact are we are not self-made, we are dependent creatures. The secret of our integrity as personalities depend on that core confidence being in God. That's what the devil tampered with in the Garden of Eden, did he not? To undermine and to destroy it. That's why the gospel has to be not by works, but by faith, restoring that basic confidence in God that is the basis of all.
And if men and women are not brought in that fundamental sense to justification by faith and their confidence in God, they will, says the Bible, disintegrate. They will perish. I trust we now begin to see how this is a pivotal passage. It is the summary of what's gone before, but it prepares us for what follows. Here is God's answer, the gospel's answer to the wreckage of human sin. What we commonly call sanctification.
Let us say again, for most of us, it's going to be a long, drawn out process. We should not wake up one of these Monday mornings after a, a, an unusually good Sunday and say to ourselves as we wake up and greet Monday morning, do I feel extraordinarily different this morning? What could have happened? Oh, I think I know, I've become holy. No, it doesn't normally happen like that. It's going to be a long process. Some of it will be enjoyable, some of it will be distinctly unpleasant. Because what God has got to do is to face us with our sins. You know, we're not the nice people we imagine we are.
And when we first get converted, we think we're marvelously good and, and, and, you know, almost triumphant. We're yet to discover what God has known all the way along the line, that we're not the nice, beautiful bundles of perfumed personality that we think we are. As the old Puritan had it, there's dirt at the very bottom of our tears even. And God will face us with it, like he faced the Israelites with their own perversity in the wilderness. So God will face us with our sinfulness, and that will be distinctly unpleasant.
Oh, how wonderful to know before it happens, that our acceptance with God and our peace with God remains the same. For he who loved us and gave his son foresaw and knew what we were like, loved us in spite of it, and will love us all the way through. So now we come to the second major section, and once more we are to notice simply the major component parts. Wiggle it.
Ha ha. Here I've laid out for you the sum of the contents of both section one and section two. You will notice that there is a certain similarity in the subject matter, what I have called to start with the diagnosis of our trouble, things about the death of Christ, things about the law of God, and finally the implications on this side of justification by faith, on that side the implications of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus. They are similar, aren't they?
And yet they are different. It is, of course, progress, real progress, when we wake up to the fact that in scripture there are, in joining passages, similarities. But when we've noticed the similarities, then even more important are the differences. And it allows us to do a little bit of what the medics call, in their rather sophisticated language, differential diagnosis, you know. That's a simple term, uh, uh, a very big term for a very simple matter. You'll see here come three men to the doctor, uh, of a Monday morning, and they each have a sore throat, you see. The doctor bids the first man open his mouth, looks inside, and said, your trouble is you shouted too much at the football match on Saturday.
Go home and shut up, and, uh, you'll be better, you'll see. He looks down the second cavern and says, ha ha ha, yes, sore throat, but the cause is different this time, you see. This time you've got laryngitis, my man. You better have some penicillin. He looks down the next one. Sore throat, yes. Shakes his head and said, I shall need to take a little specimen from you, and uh, we shall send that away to the hospital, and we will see what they say when it comes back. He fears cancer of the throat.
All three the same in the fact that they're sore throats, but now it's the differences that are more important than the similarities, isn't it? So it is with these two adjoining passages of Holy Scripture, when it comes to the diagnosis of our trouble. We'll say, if we're going to be sanctified truly, we shall first have to begin with a proper and adequate diagnosis of what is wrong with us. I know you could very well get impatient with me and come along and say, look here, gooding, do pull up your spiritual socks, my boy.
Uh, well, I know that the old spiritual socks get, uh, falling down sometimes, you'll see. But you shouldn't suppose that all that's wrong with me is that my spiritual socks, sometimes I let them down, you know. The trouble goes deeper, doesn't it? Unless we have a realistic diagnosis of what is wrong with us, then all hopes of putting it right are going to be disappointed. Why don't I behave? What is wrong with me? And the answer to that, according to the New Testament, is much more radical than many people allow.
What is wrong with me is that I was, so to speak, ruined before ever I was born. By the disobedience of one, says the verse, uh, Romans five and verse nineteen, as through the one man's disobedience, the many were constituted sinners. I was ruined before I was born. Unless you are prepared to acknowledge that, putting me right will become impossible and impractical.
You must have a remedy big enough to deal with that. So let us notice the difference. The diagnosis in chapter one is that people are without excuse. It's their faults. The judge will hold them responsible for their individual sins. They are without excuse. Ah, but when we come down this side, the diagnosis says it isn't altogether your fault. You were are constituted a sinner by what someone else did.
I realize as I speak now, I speak under the shadow of great theologians, and I'm not a theologian, you see. So perhaps I'm wrong, because many theologians say I'm wrong. They say, look what the text says, so death passed upon all men, for that all sinned. Notice, they say that in the Greek that is an eris tense, not a perfect tense. Should be translated, they say, all sinned, not all have sinned. From which they deduce that the verses say that when Adam sinned, each one of us sinned because we were in Adam, and therefore, to that extent, are guilty of Adam's sin.
That, I must say honestly, I find difficult to accept to the point of impossibility. Certainly you can't found it upon the Greek. It is an aorist of the Greek verb. Let me quote you some other aorists of that same Greek verb. Chapter three and verse, uh, three. For all... sin, the Greek is aorist. But what does Paul mean? All sinned where Adam sinned? No, surely not. All sinned, have sinned, individually sinned, and come short of the glory of God.
Verse, uh, uh, twelve of chapter two: For as many as have sinned without the law shall also perish without the law, and as many have sinned under the law shall be judged by the law, erist tenses. It is talking of our individual behavior. The actual fact of Greek grammar is that you cannot always tra- uh, translate a Greek erist by an English erist. Sometimes the appropriate translation has to be an English perfect. The people had described here in chapter five, over whom death reigns are people who have not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression.
They were not disobeying a revealed. But if we all sinned when Adam sinned, we must have sinned in the same way, mustn't we? The verses are saying there have been many people, sinners, yes, but they didn't sin after Adam's similitude. I say that in all due humility, aware, as I say, of the shadow of greater theologians than I am. Perhaps they are right. But for the moment, it seems to me not so. I leave the discussion. You may like to raise it in question time. I come back to this great thing that, uh, by the disobedience of one, we were constituted sinners.
By what somebody else did. How can I be put right? Oh, listen to the lovely news. It is not by my obedience, but by the obedience of Christ, the many shall be constituted righteous. Oh, glorious thing. And you'll see, let me recur to our problem. If you're going to tell me that when Adam sinned, I sinned, and must be credited with the guilt of that sin because I was in Adam. Will you tell me that when Christ obeyed, I am now to be credited of having obeyed as well?
That couldn't be true, could it? Not by his obedience plus mine am I saved, but by his one great act of obedience at Calvary, for me the disobedient, am I constituted righteous? If that be so, then we, uh, move on to some of the remaining detail. And time dictates, of course, we shall merely have to, uh, follow now the, just the logical progression of thought. What a useful brother that is who keeps me straight.
Here I have listed then the first paragraph, suggesting it, uh, tells to us that the diagnosis of our trouble, the root of our ruin, and tells us then of a recovery that is matched to the trouble. The trouble brought on by Adam, the recovery brought to us by Christ. Then we have the famous paragraph, chapter six, verses one to fourteen. I want to sum that up by saying that these verses tell us of the legal basis of our sanctification. He who has been justified from sin.
He who has died, rather, he who has died has been justified by sin. Many translators are moved to query that translation. They say, really, justification is now out of place here, do you see? We had justification in the first five chapters, do you see, but not here. We're talking about sanctification now. So the word justify here must be given a different connotation. I'm going to suggest to you that that is not so. Paul is still using it in its legal conte- co- co- uh uh uh connotation. Look, in addition, if you will, to verse fourteen, where Paul comes to the secret.
How is it that sin shall not have dominion over you? What is the secret of that glorious fact, the breaking of the dominion of sin? Don't look at your Bible now, please. Just shut it up for a moment. Oh, how I wish I could re- conduct the research in the experiment. You tell me. What is the secret that sin shall not have dominion over you? You say, Mr. Preacher, don't you know what that is? It's because God has given us the Holy Spirit within. He shall give us dominion over sin. Well, you're telling me the truth, of course, but that isn't what Romans six is saying.
That's what Romans eight is saying. You'll notice six fourteen doesn't say sin shall not have dominion over you because the Holy Spirit living within will give you power over sin. Doesn't say anything of the sort, does he? The secret of breaking the dominion of sin, says Paul, is this: sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law, but under grace. Uh, what does that got to do with any? How does the fact I'm not under law but under grace free me from sin's domination?
Well, I am tempted to give a very practical answer to that, you'll see. God's law is not just advice, you know. It is true that the Hebrew word, so the experts tell me, Torah means instruction, and God's law is instruction. But God's law is more than instruction. God's law says, thou shalt love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength, and your neighbor as yourself. And if you don't, I shall curse you. They held a great ceremony in Israel when they first entered the land to bring that home to bear upon everybody.
The breaking of God's law put them under a curse. Now imagine me as a believer, I am a believer, you know, waking up of a Monday morning, and there is God's law standing by my side, personified, if I may for a moment imagine such a thing without being unduly irreverent. And the law says to me, Gooding, you shall now get up. And from now on, this Monday morning, right through noon to the closing hours of the day, you will love the Lord your God, Gooding, with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength, your neighbor as yourself. And if you fail, I shall have to curse you. What do you suppose Gooding would do?
Oh, I know what you would do. You'd get up and have a go, wouldn't you, with full of hope? I know what I would do, with the advantage of years of experience. I would say, well, if that is the condition I'm under, I shall stay in bed. I might as well face it now. And then the law would curse me for staying in bed, wouldn't it? And suppose I got up and managed to, uh, do more or less what I was told to do until ten thirty AM, you'll see. And then I came short. In one particular. James would support the law in the way the habit he kind of has, James, and would say, well, you've broken one point, we'll give you the lot, my boy.
No good saying, well, I'm sorry about that. The basis of my sanctification. When I fall and sin, let my heart be contrite and sorry and confess it to the Lord. But the wonderful thing is, sin no longer has the power to keep me down. I can get up again. Not by saying sin doesn't matter, but in the full realization that the cost of that mistake, the cost of that sin has already been born.
And marvelous, you know. When I went to school, it was a very old-fashioned place, and they had a what was thought to be a chemistry laboratory. And any pupil of the school that wanted to read chemistry, his parents had to pay out a great wallop of money. Cautionary money it was, in case the aforesaid student blew the place up. It was he. So the school wanted to be guaranteed the cost of the education of this unfortunate wretch before he started the lesson. And God, who knows the cost of bringing us home to glory, and the cost of all the mistakes we shall make, and the errors and failures in the course of our training.
My brother has paid the cost in advance. How else could he take us seriously? Our mistakes as believers are as serious as they were before we were believers. They had to be paid for. And were? By the death of Christ. Your old man, you see, says Paul, was crucified with Christ. That raises a question, doesn't it? Who is this old man, so to speak? And here we should beware of that popular fallacy.
So many of us like to think of ourselves as composed of two bits. You know, there's the nice bit, which is really me, and there's the other bit that isn't really me, really. Who else it is, I don't know, but that ain't me. That's the bit that misbehaves. And we like to think that the old man bit, uh, was the bad bit, and that was crucified with Christ, you see. That left the nice bit. Well, that's an illusion, isn't it? The old man is not the nasty bit. The old man, I'm afraid, is the whole thing, from birth to death. You can see why that that that is so, if you will think for the moment of the, uh, picture language of your baptism.
When you were baptized, I hope you were, which part of you did they bury symbolically under the water? The nasty bit? And left the nice bit standing? No, no, you say when they baptized me, they, they baptized the whole lot. What, really? Good job, it wasn't a real ba- uh, uh, uh, burial, isn't it? Because you would have ceased to be. But the symbolic burial was saying the same thing, not getting rid of the nasty bit, getting rid of the whole lot. That was God's verdict on you, sir, and you, madam. From start to finish. In your own self. When you're ninety nine and a half, it will still be true, and you'll have to say it. I have sinned.
I still come short of God's glory. Will it matter? Yes, it matters. That's why Christ died. When you were baptized, you were confessing that sad state of affairs that you were so rotten that all God could do was to have you executed, dead and buried, and got out of the way. And that satisfied God's law. Of course, your baptism was not only a burial, was it? It was a symbolic resurrection. And when you rose, it wasn't simply to give vent to a pious hope that you might perhaps walk in newness of life if you tried very hard.
It was symbolizing the other great part of our salvation. We died with Christ, and when he rose, we rose with him. You'll see the conditions of salvation are that we receive him. Thus, in God's great mercy, it makes it possible for God to regard his death as our death, thus satisfying the law, and his resurrection now free with the authority from God himself, authority to give to us his eternal life, authority over all flesh to impart the very life of God to us, that new life which Christ gives.
It's like putting an acorn into the coffin of a corpse, isn't it? It doesn't necessarily clean up the corpse, but it, uh, begins to grow a new life. And life is given unconditionally to those that have faith in Jesus. For failure to see this, there are many men and women in their middle life that have turned cynical. They believed when they were young and scarce knew the complications of the world's sin.
They grew through the tangle of business and life experience, compromised here and compromised there. So they come to a point of saying, it's no good my going on pretending. I can't live as a true Christian should. They tend to give up the whole thing in cynicism. Oh, my brother, if I speak to any like it, you needn't. Sin has got you down on the very ground, maybe. It hasn't surprised God. He knew it from the start, and he's paid the cost of it.
And sin doesn't need to keep you down. You can get up again, thank God. Not saying the past didn't matter, but saying it mattered so much that God himself paid the bill. You're free to move on and restart the journey. Does that mean, therefore, that in the end, whatever you say, sin doesn't matter? No, here come these next para- this next paragraph, six fifteen to seven six. And what is the point of that? Well, briefly put, to make what is now a very necessary consideration, that while there is no penalty because we're not under law, there are consequences.
Now, that is a thing that sometimes, as evangelicals, we forget. We are so given to emphasizing that for those that are in Christ, there's no penalty. We forget that there are consequences. You say, what are the differences between, uh, penalty and consequences? Well, if as a, you're, you're a Christian, you're a farmer, yes? And God tells you to sow wheat in your field, and in a moment of stupidity, because the market's the other way around, you sow barley. When it comes up, the stuff is barley, not to be wondered at, of course.
It isn't wheat. You repent thereof and go to the Lord and say you're sorry that you disobeyed the Lord and sowed barley when you should have sown wheat. The Lord forgives you, assures you there is no penalty to them that are in Christ. Penalty's been paid. Oh, wait a minute. Does that change the stuff that comes up now and is because you've, uh, repented and confessed it to the Lord, now the stuff turns miraculously overnight from barley into wheat? Well, of course not. Remains barley. There's no penalty. There are consequences. Whatsoever a man sows, he reaps.
You sow to the flesh, you will of the flesh reap corruption, believer or not believer. You see, if you yield yourself to somebody continually, you become his servant. You were the servants of sin, you yielded your members to sin, and they formed in you inveterate habits like chains around you. Thank God now you have believed from the heart the doctrine to which you were committed. But come now, don't take advantage of the fact there's no penalty to be irresponsible and constantly yield your members to what you know to be sin. Why shouldn't I, you say there's no penalty?
Why shouldn't you? Because if you constantly yield your members to practice sinful things, they will enslave you. And they will yield their ugly harvest. The clammy, decaying results of death, the corruption of the flesh. Whereas if you yield yourself to God, you will reap the harvest of eternal life. You say, I've got that already. Oh yes, I- I hadn't forgotten. You have eternal life, of course you do, my dear brother, my sister. You have eternal life. Can I ask where you keep it? This eternal life you have, where do you keep it?
Have you lodged it in the safe of the bank? Nice little box. And you say, well, now when the Lord comes, I say, half a minute, Lord, I'm just going down to the bank to collect my eternal life, and then I'll be with you. I hope not. You've got eternal life, but life is a life, isn't it? Like physical life, you could have life, but instead of developing your talent, waste it on I don't know what. You've got the life, but you're not developing it and not reaping the benefits of it, are you? And if we're believers, we have eternal life, but we waste our time on this tomfoolery and the next, and the passing innocent trivialities of this world, and its sinful things.
We shall not be develop- developing the potential of eternal life, and instead of the fruits of eternal life, we shall be reaping the bitter apples, the crab apples of sin. So then, uh, the legal basis, no penalty. It sets us free from the dominion of sin, but consequences. Don't you sin because you are under grace and not under law. Now to the great and famous passage, Luke Cha- uh, uh, Romans chapter seven, well known to all believers, and particularly those that strive for holiness.
And doubtless you wait with expectation, if only now at this moment you're waking up. It's a good time in the lecture to wake up because soon come the questions. You're saying, ah, this is what we came to hear. Does this man think that this experience, oh wretched man that I am, is the experience that Paul had before he was converted, or after he was converted, or he didn't have it at all, but whilst using himself as a whipping horse to illustrate what other people go through. Well, I'm not going to tell you. Perhaps it isn't there for either. Perhaps he's doing it to show us what we now need to learn as a very important thing.
We'll say, as Paul has just indicated, the secret of true sanctification is to yield ourselves to the Lord. The metaphor he uses is of a woman yielding herself to her husband. It's an affair of the heart. Not now under law, but under our blessed Lord Jesus, and yielding ourselves to him, that by his power and grace and life working through us, we might bring forth fruit to God. It's as simple as that. Then you tell me, why don't I do it? You've got a right to ask me, haven't you? Gooding, you've outlined it well enough that the s- the scheme is simple.
All you have to do, Gooding, is to yield yourself to Christ, and Christ lives his life through you. Well, you have a right to ask me, why on earth, knowing that, Gooding, don't you do it? All the time. And I'll turn the question back on you. Pray, why don't you do it either? I'll tell you why I don't do it. Because when you begin to live a life or try to live a life with Christ and yield yourself to Christ, you'll find that sin has damaged you more than you might have suspected. You'll say, says Paul, with my, uh, with my emotions, I delight in the law of God after the inward man.
I'm sure you do, don't you? When you read the ethical passage of Holy Scripture and you read about the life of the Lord Jesus, you say, isn't that how magnificent? Isn't that glorious, beautiful? You delight in it with your emotions and aesthetic judgment. And then with your intelligence, with your mind, you say, yes, well, it's daft, it's losing your temper like that and making such an ass of yourself and injuring other people and whatnot. Your intelligence agrees, yeah? And then comes your will to, uh, back home the both of them. You say, now good English is going to stop all this nonsense stuff. Jolly well, going to behave properly, my man. And you bring your will to bear upon it.
Will, emotion, intellect. The actual experience of life will prove to you that all combined are not enough. You have been ruined. It's not that God's law was bad. Oh no, it's not bad. It's jolly good. It's like medicine, for instance. You go to the doctor for your complaint, and the doctor says, now take this, uh, medicine, uh, and you take the medicine, and it kills you. Why? Because having taken the medicine, you went and drank a lot of alcohol, and the two are incompatible, you see.
Uh, it wasn't the medicine was bad, but you were stupid to mix it with alcohol. That will kill you. Nothing wrong with God's law. God's law was good, but you administer God's law to me, says Paul, instead of making me more holy, it provoked the old rebel within me, made me worse than ever. It's not the law's fault. You say, well, wait a minute. Was it sort of unwise of God to set the law anyway, if the law is, uh, you know, liable to have wrong effects upon us because of our stupidity? Was it stupid of God to set the law? Beef steaks are good things, aren't they?
But if you meet a man that has been starved nearly to death for the last two years, well, don't give him a beef steak the first time you set eyes on him. The beef steak is good in itself, but if you give it to him in that state, that it's liable to kill him as well. It would be unwise to give it to him then. You could give it to him later on. Is that how it is with God's law? It's a jolly good thing, but it was was was unwise of God to set it to me. No, that's not so either. The law exposes the damage I have suffered, and until I come to own it and see it, I shall make little progress. I'm ruined, such that my very best and strongest will, my intellect and emotion combined are not enough to get me as I should to yield to Christ and so bring forth the fruit I should.
What can do it? And the answer now is to be found, and at this point in the argument, in a delightful last chapter in, in our present series, chapter eight, the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus, working within me to empower me, to guide me, to intercede for me, to lead me home to God, and to see that God's great eternal will for me is finally fulfilled, and I'm conformed to the image of God's Son.
And then, by his gracious power, that Holy Spirit living within me shall change my very mortal body and fashion it like to the body of our Lord Jesus. That is God's program for our sanctification, realistically having diagnosed our need and provided a salvation adequate to do its task. And I have treated it disgracefully by running through it at such a reckless speed. But then I'm convinced that many of you know it off by heart already.
It is good for us, perhaps, to have taken some trouble to sketch in the flow of thought throughout, and to see why you will need all those component parts of that particular section of the epistle adequately to cover all the practical needs of the process of our sanctification. So I finish, and with great trembling submit myself to your questions.
