Life Nourished.

“KNOWING this, that our old man is [Greek, was] crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. For he that is dead is freed [margin, justified] from sin. Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him; knowing that Christ, being raised from the dead, dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over Him. For in that He died, He died unto sin once: but in that He liveth, He liveth unto God. Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Let not sin there fore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it the lusts thereof. Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin; but yield your selves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God. For sin shall not have dominion over you; for ye are not under the law, but under grace.”¹

It is most important that the young believer should see what the word of God says concerning the sinful nature which he has inherited from fallen Adam, and which has distressed him by the discovery of its vileness. It no longer exists in God's view. It was crucified when Christ died upon the cross. The sentence of condemnation was executed against it, when our sinless Substitute was made to be sin for us, and His own self bare our sins in His own body on the tree. The Apostle says, “I am crucified [ Greek, I have been crucified, or more literally,

I have been co-crucified ) with Christ; nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me.”²

So then, the old man, or the flesh, is dead judicially, and “he that is dead is justified from sin,” or, as Alford, Young, and Noyes translate it, “set free from sin,” or, as Rotherham renders it, “He who died has been righteously acquitted from sin.” No accusation nor condemnation can be brought against a dead man. He may have been the most brutal murderer; but if the law has executed its penalty in swinging him from the gallows, it comes to an end so far as he is concerned, or as men sometimes say, “the end of the rope is the end of the law.” This is true of the believer, for, as already quoted, “Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth.” The law may pursue a sinner until he reaches the cross of Calvary, but there stops and says, I am satisfied, I ask no more. Its penalty has been inflicted, and all the claims of the highest and strictest righteousness answered in the person of the believer's representative.

The very instant the sinner is united to Christ by the Spirit of Life through faith, his relation to the first Adam terminates in God's sight. The old nature, or the old man, or the flesh, is completely set aside, " for ye are dead [ literally, ye died ], and your life is hid with Christ in God.”³ “Dead with Christ”⁴ is the verdict brought
into court concerning the believing sinner, and not only dead but “buried with Him.”⁵ Hence, the claims of justice, not having been ignored but thoroughly met, the demands of righteousness, not having been compromised but fulfilled in every jot and tittle, the holiness and truth and grace of Jehovah, in His hatred of sin and love of the sinner, not having been tarnished but vindicated, magnified, glorified at the Cross, “it is God that justifieth,” and well may it be asked, “Who is he that condemneth?”⁶ There is no appeal from that court of last resort, and when God rises up from His throne, and

announces that the law has no charge to bring against the believer, who will dare condemn? Satan, the adversary, who stood before the angel of the Lord to resist Joshua, the high priest,⁷ now that Jesus has died, shrinks back from Calvary, while all heaven sings to the justified sinner, “No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper; and every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord; and their righteousness is of me, saith the Lord.”⁸

The former standing of the believer, then, described as being in the flesh because he had only the nature received by birth from fallen Adam, is gone for ever, for it is written, “Ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you.”⁹ The flesh, or sinful nature, with its inborn enmity to God and unchanging insubordination to the law of God, has been judged and the sentence of judgment carried out, so that those who are linked by faith to the crucified but risen Christ pass over out of death into life. In the eye of the law their connection with “the first man of the earth, earthy,” is instantly severed, and from the moment they believe they are looked upon as in “the second man, the Lord from heaven.”¹⁰. Whatever He did they are regarded as having done, whatever He endured they suffered, whatever He is they are, in the presence of God. Hence it is said that they were not only crucified and buried with Him, but they have been already quickened together with Him, raised up together with Him, seated together with Him in the heavenly places; as they are heirs together with Him, and sufferers together with Him; and shall surely be glorified together with Him.¹¹

“The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam a quickening [or life-giving] spirit.”¹² The entire human race stands at this day in the one or the other of these, justifying the profound remark of Professor Smeaton of Edinburgh, in his masterly book on the Atonement, “So fully are all the individuals represented by that one man, that we may say there have been but two persons in the world, and but two great facts in human history.” The facts arc, utter ruin for both soul and body by the first Adam; complete redemption for soul and body by the second Adam. In the first Adam man gets sin,¹³ condemnation,¹⁴ banishment from God's presence,¹⁵ the curse,¹⁶ the loss of kingly power,¹⁷ bodily death,¹⁸ eternal death.¹⁹ In the second Adam the believer gets righteousness,²⁰ justification,²¹ restoration to God's presence,²² the removal of the curse,²³ royal dignity,²⁴ resurrection,²⁵ eternal life.²⁶

But it must not be forgotten that when we are made “partakers of the divine nature,”²⁷ we do not cease to have human nature. When we become the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus, we do not cease to be the children of our sinful earthly parents. When it can be said “Ye are not in the flesh,” it must be remembered that the flesh is still in us, and that it is no better in a believer than in an unbeliever, no better in a Christian than in an infidel. Ignorance of this truth has caused the greatest distress and perplexity to souls that are thoroughly in earnest with regard to their salvation. In the joy and freshness of their first love, they imagined perhaps that not only the power of sin to destroy, but the presence of sin to annoy, was gone. With their thoughts stayed on Jesus, they had perfect peace, and entered into the meaning of the old hymn—

     “Oh, the rapturous height
      Of that holy delight,
Which I had in the life-giving blood!
      Of my Saviour possessed,
      I was perfectly blessed,
As if filled with the fulness of God. "

But after awhile a sudden temptation presented itself, and they found to their amazement and horror the up rising of the same natural dispositions which had ruled them before their conversion. The discovery was followed by the most painful and humbling sense of their vileness and helplessness, sometimes leading to despair, and to an abandonment of their Christian profession, and to a terrible relapse from which it requires years of sore discipline to restore them. They might have been spared much sorrow, if they had been taught the truth, distinctly revealed in the Scriptures, that in every regenerated per son there are two things, not only totally unlike, but directly opposed to each other all along the pathway of our earthly journey, even to the end.

These two things are sometimes called the flesh and the Spirit, sometimes the old man and the new man, or the law in the members and the law of the mind. They are never changed, nor modified by each other, “for the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary the one to the other; so that ye cannot [or rather, may not] do the things that ye would.”²⁸ This is true of believers, who are not told to cultivate, civilize, or christianize the old man, but to “put off the old man,” and to “put on the new man.”²⁹ The direction has reference to their practical walk; but viewed in Christ, they “HAVE put off the old man with his deeds, and HAVE put on the new man. In either case the old man, or Adam nature, or the flesh, is not sanctified, nor transformed into the new man,”³⁰ the divine nature, the Spirit, but remains in its inherent corruption until the body is dropped at the grave, or changed in a moment at the coming of the Lord.

It is only in the light of this great truth the sad failures and falls of so many Old and New Testament saints, and so many aged believers now, can be at all understood. According to the unscriptural theory that the Adam nature or the flesh is improved and gradually made holy, all capacity for sin ought to die out in the course of years. But that it is still there is too plainly proved by the humiliating exhibitions of irritability, peevishness, censoriousness, self-conceit, envy, unbelief, and other forms of evil, in those who no doubt have long been the children of God. Nay, every intelligent and conscientious Christian can give but one answer to the question, “Do you find the same appetites, impulses, tendencies in your heart, that were there before your regeneration, and that need a mightier power than your own to keep them down?” To say that we have no sin, is to contradict the plain testimony of the word of God, for “if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.”³¹ To say that we must sin, is to destroy the whole work of Christ, and to utter a gross libel upon the in dwelling Spirit. To say that we need not sin, is to state a blessed Christian privilege.

But how is the victory to be obtained hour by hour and moment by moment? The answer is, by looking away from self unto Jesus, the Princely Leader and Completer of faith.”³² “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind [margin, thought, or imagination] is stayed on Thee; because he trusteth in Thee. Trust ye in the Lord for ever: for in the Lord JEHOVAH is everlasting strength [margin, the rock of ages].”³³ It is only by keeping the eye fixed upon Him, to the exclusion of other objects, we can follow Him along the straight and narrow way; and He offers to be our Saviour, not merely from the punishment of sin, but from the power of sin, and from all worry and care and darkness. He takes the place of the law wholly, and hence it is said, “ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to Him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God. . . . . Now we are delivered from the law, being dead to that wherein we were held; that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter.”³⁴ Sin is not dead, and therefore it is written, “RECKON ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord." Yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead:” “For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace.”

The life, received not by the law but by faith, is nourished, not by the law, but by faith, “for by faith ye stand;”³⁵ “for we walk by faith.”³⁶ Every step of our pilgrim way through an unfriendly world must be taken with unfaltering confidence in the Lord Jesus Christ as our sympathizing High Priest, who knows all about us, and the worst about us, and loves us still, as our ascended Lord who has sent the Holy Spirit, not as a vague and mysterious influence but a divine person, not to visit us at irregular intervals, but to be our abiding Comforter and indwelling Helper.³⁷ “If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His.”³⁸ “Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, which is in you.”³⁹ The life, then, which He communicates will be nourished and strengthened by heeding His own in junction, “Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh. . . . . But if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under law.”⁴⁰ “Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof.”⁴¹

This last passage shows why the life of so many Christians is weak and sickly. They make provision for the flesh, the old sinful nature, in the books they read, in the amusements and pleasures they seek, in the indulgence of their former tastes and appetites and habits, not remembering what is said of those who were on the cross when Jesus was there, “They that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts.”⁴² The New Testament is a book of principles, rather than rules and regulations; and a very simple principle will answer a thousand questions, which meet believers in their social and business relations. “Whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by Him.”⁴³ “Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.”⁴⁴ Standing on the heavenward side of His cross and grave, they will nourish and strengthen their new life by a prompt confession of His name;⁴⁵ by remembering Him at His table;⁴⁶ by the diligent and devout study of His word;⁴⁷ by a fixed purpose, passing into an established habit, to live for Him with a personal love and loyalty;⁴⁸ by engaging systematically in good works that will commend Him to the acceptance of others;⁴⁹ by “continuing instant in prayer;”⁵⁰ by faithful attendance upon the meetings of the church with which they are identified;⁵¹ by lifting high their banner with this device written upon it, “God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is [Greek, has been] crucified unto me, and I unto the world.”⁵² Never, never let the young Christian be con tent with any attainments in study or in service, but continually “grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To Him be glory, both now and for ever. Amen.”⁵³

1) Rom. vi. 6-14.

2) Gal. ii. 20.

3) Col. iii. 3.

4) Col. ii. 20.

5) Col. ii. 12.

6) Rom. viii. 33, 34.

7) Zech. iii. 1.

8) Isa. liv. 17.

9) Rom. viii. 9.

10) 1 Cor. xv. 47.

11) Eph. ii, 4-6; Rom. viii, 17.

12) 1 Cor. xv. 45.

13) Rom. v. 12.

14) Rom. v. 16, 18.

15) Gal. iii. 23, 24.

16) Gal. iii. 10.

17) Eph. ii. 1-3.

18) 1 Cor. xv. 22.

19) 2 Thess. i. 9.

20) 1 Cor. i. 30.

21) Acts xiii. 39.

22) Eph. ii. 13.

23) Gal. iii. 13.

24) 1 Pet. ii. 9.

25) John xi. 25.

26) 1 John v. 11.

27) 2 Pet. i. 4.

28) Gal. v. 17.

29) Eph. iv. 22, 24.

30) Col. iii. 9, 10.

31) 1 John i. 8.

32) Heb. xii. 2.

33) Isa. xxvi. 3, 4.

34) Rom. vii. 4, 6.

35) 2 Cor. i. 24.

36) Cor. v. 7.

37) John xiv. 16, 17,

38) Rom. viii. 9.

39) 1 Cor. vi. 19.

40) Gal. v. 16, 18.

41) Rom. xiii, 14.

42) Gal. v. 24.

43) Col, iii, 17.

44) 1 Cor. x. 31.

45) Luke xii. 8, 9.

46) Luke xxii. 19.

47) 1 Pet. ii. 2.

48) 2 Cor. v. 15.

49) Tit. iii. 8.

50) Rom. xii. 12.

51) Heb. x. 25.

52) Gal. vi. 14.

53) 2 Pet. iii. 18.