The Christian should not put a stumbling-block in his brother’s way. It is uncharitable to lead a weaker brother to violate his conscience – that would drive him away from Christ, as if Christ made the one for whom He died lawless. We should not despise the weak brother or sister because of the scruples which they would not have, if they understood deliverance. Conversely, the weak person should not judge the strong, charging him with evil because of his freedom. God will be the Judge. ‘Every one of us shall give account of himself to God’ (v.12).
In Romans 14, we have the spirit in which Christians should behave towards one another. There are those who are weak in faith, not fully in the light and power of new creation. They love the Lord; they have been purchased by Christ’s precious blood. but like a Jew they observe days and diet. That is weakness. So we are to receiving such in grace, not doing anything which could unsettle their faith. If the heart is pure, no meats are defiled meats – ‘To the pure all things are pure’ (v.20) . But if a person defiles his conscience, even through an unfounded scruple to him, it is unclean. If somebody normally felt he should regard a certain day, or abstain from a certain food, but does not in order to feign liberty, that is sin – it is not of faith .
Each stands or falls to his own Master, and God is able to make both the weak and the strong stand. Every one is to be fully persuaded in his own mind, not acting on another’s faith. Each is responsible to the Lord and must look to Him. We are to be peaceful edifying others.
The Christian should not put a stumbling-block in his brother’s way. It is uncharitable to lead a weaker brother to violate his conscience – that would drive him away from Christ, as if Christ made the one for whom He died lawless. We should not despise the weak brother or sister because of the scruples which they would not have, if they understood deliverance. Conversely, the weak person should not judge the strong, charging him with evil because of his freedom. God will be the Judge. ‘Every one of us shall give account of himself to God’ (v.12).
Romans 15:1-7 belong to chapter 14. The strong are to bear the infirmities of the weak, and, like Christ, not to please themselves. He meekly bore the reproaches that fell on Him, walking so faithfully and perfectly that, when men were disposed to reproach God, the reproach fell on Christ. ‘The reproaches of them that reproached thee fell on me’ (v. 3, Ps 69:9). The Old Testament scriptures were written for our instruction, so that we might know that God’s mind. Our reproach is His reproach, as we serve and have part with Him in faith and confidence. It is the path of love, serving others for Christ’s sake. But God is patient, bearing with our stupid, ignorant, and often inconsistent hearts. He occupies Himself with all our little trials to comfort us in grace. So have we receive one another as Christ received us – weak in faith – that we might be here to the glory of God. This closes the exhortations of the epistle.
Having been set free in the power of the Spirit of life, we voluntarily present our bodies living sacrifices to God. It is not a blind ritual ceremony, nor a legal obligation, but the free service of a willing mind. We offer our minds and bodies intelligently to God, consecrated and set apart: this is acceptable to God. Because we are alive to God in Christ, and through grace free from the law of sin and death we can yield ourselves to God
Having been set free in the power of the Spirit of life, we voluntarily present our bodies living sacrifices to God. It is not a blind ritual ceremony, nor a legal obligation, but the free service of a willing mind. We offer our minds and bodies intelligently to God, consecrated and set apart: this is acceptable to God. Because we are alive to God in Christ, and through grace free from the law of sin and death we can yield ourselves to God.
The world around is an immense system built up by the enemy, astray from God., As Christians, we cannot be conformed to it. With our renewed minds, we seek a way through this world in the path of God’s will. It may not acceptable to us, but it is acceptable to God. What a great privilege it is, to have the will of God in a world that has departed from Him! Christ has revealed the way, a heavenly way on the earth, walking with divine perfectness as Man. It was a life of perfect obedience, and a life of grace – God manifest in the flesh. Now, in grace, God has been fully restored to His place, and man to his, so as to represent God. Now we seek God’s will, knowing that it is perfect, and we obediently delight in it.
We do so firmly, because we is serve God quietly in faith. We find our place that God has set us in the body, and confine ourselves to the service of Christ, waiting on Him. Verse 5 is the only reference to the body in the epistle. We are in Christ, members of His body, exhorted not to go beyond the gift given to us in grace, but to serve the Lord in it.
In our Christian life, we have the spirit in which we are to walk. If we give, it should be in love, freely and unfeigned. We are to abhor evil and cleave to what is good. We should put others before ourselves, seeking to live in peace with all. We should not follow the fashions of the world, but be friends with those of lower social classes. Our walk ought to be beyond reproach. In spite of the evil of others, we do not avenge ourselves but do good to those who hate us.
Apostolic Catholicism/Pentecostalism – Edward Irving
Oxford Movement – Edward Bouverie Pusey
Sceptical Modernism – Francis William Newman
Roman Catholicism – Cardinal John Henry Newman
Heresy as to the Person of Christ – Benjamin Wills Newton
Arminianism /Perfectionism – John Wesley
Free Church Calvinism – Merle d’Aubigné
Free Chruch of Scotland Rationalism – Robertson Smith
Various ideas as to the future – annihilation, non-eternity, punishment/purgatory
John Nelson Darby
John Nelson Darby made a courageous stand against sectarian Christendom. This did not earn him many friends, especially amongst the religious hierarchy.
Some of the things he contended with were:
From W G Turner, ‘John Nelson Darby’ published by Chapter Two
Apostolic Catholicism/Pentecostalism – Edward Irving
Oxford Movement – Edward Bouverie Pusey
Sceptical Modernism – Francis William Newman
Roman Catholicism – Cardinal John Henry Newman
Heresy as to the Person of Christ – Benjamin Wills Newton
Arminianism /Perfectionism – John Wesley
Free Church Calvinism – Merle d’Aubigné
Free Chruch of Scotland Rationalism – Robertson Smith
Various ideas as to the future – annihilation, non-eternity, punishment/purgatory
To this I would add:
Ecclesiastical Independency
Clericalism
Mysticism – Madame de Krudener etc.
National churches
Post millennialism etc.
…
We can be thankful to God for the stand that men like Darby, Wigram, Bellat, Mackintosh etc made.
God’s covenant to take away Israel’s sins is sure. It will be accomplished when Christ comes. The final restoration of Israel will be on the ground of the promises made to the fathers, not through the law, but with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Israel had rejected Christ: therefore they became objects of mercy, just like the Gentiles. As the Gentiles had been unbelieving, mercy had been the only ground of their entering. Now the unbelieving Jews had were also objects of God’s sovereign mercy.
Grace had dealt with sinners, and wisdom had reconciled God’s faithfulness to His promises, with the heirs of those promises, through their coming under mercy. This calls out the adoring praise of the apostle in contemplating the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God
Romans 9-11 reconciles the doctrine that there is no difference between Jew and Gentile, with the faithfulness of God and the promises made to Israel. The Jew might acknowledge that he had broken the law and had forfeited his right of being God’s favoured people. But there were promises made to Israel before the law: these could not be set aside. Paul shows that although God had not cast aside His people, the Jew would have to come into blessing as a guilty sinner, entitled to nothing, just like a Gentile.
There was still blessing for the Jew – Paul was one. Even Christ Himself, according to the flesh, came from Judah. But not Israel were of Israel. Paul felt Israel’s state and had wished (past tense – see Rom 9:3 – Darby), like Moses to be cursed for his brethren. But now the apostle brings in the sovereignty of God.
This sovereignty (v. 24) God would use in favour of the Gentiles as well as the Jews. ‘That he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory, even us, whom he hath called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles’ (v. 23-24). This was sovereign, but it was sovereign mercy. For there to be sovereignty in mercy, there most have been evil – evil that could be pardoned. God showed this after Israel had made the golden calf: God had threatened to consume Israel and make a nation of Moses. Moses’s interceded and appealed to God’s sovereignty. God was sovereign; He could use mercy, and He did. He said to Moses, ‘I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion’ (v. 13, Ex 33:19). Righteousness was not attained by man’s willing or running, but by God’s showing mercy when man was unrighteous. Both Israel and Pharaoh were wicked. Righteousness would have condemned both, but God had mercy on one, and hardened the other. This is sovereignty. How can man reply to God?
We see the holy wisdom of God: as with the potter, who can make vessels to honour and dishonour out of the same lump. ‘God … endured the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction, and that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy which he had afore prepared unto glory’ (v.22-23). Paul forces the Jew to admit to God’s sovereignty, otherwise Ishmaelites and Edomites would have had to have been amongst God’s people, especially as, in making the calf, all Israel (except Moses and Joshua) had deserved to be cut off. Hence God sovereignty calls both Gentiles, who had no title, and Jews, who had forfeited their title. Though the Gentiles were not looking for righteousness, they found the righteousness of faith; but Israel, without faith, followed after the law of righteousness. They stumbled at the stumbling-stone, which Isaiah had declared would be laid in Zion. Individually those of Israel who believed should not be ashamed; but as a body, they had stumbled at the stumbling-stone.
Paul desired the salvation of Israel. He testified to their zeal towards God, a zeal not according to knowledge. They had sought to establish their own righteousness under the law, but had not submitted themselves to the righteousness of God. That was Christ, and Christ was the end of the law (He takes its place). As we have seen in ch. 7, the Jews could not have two husbands at the same time; they could not have the law (their own doing) and Christ (God’s righteousness). Christ has met the legal claims of God – condemnation and death – and He is our righteousness, as we believe through grace.
The righteousness which is by faith speaks differently from the law. ‘If thou confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved’ (v.9): the real question is the salvation of the sinner, not the keeping of the law. ‘Whosoever [Jew or Gentile] shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved’ (v.13). Christ is the hope of the nations as well as the Jews.
This brings out the relative position of Jew and Gentile. God’s proclamation of grace to Israel was clear in the Old Testament, for which he quotes ‘How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings’ (Isa 52:7). But not all obeyed the testimony. ‘Who hath believed our report?’ (Isa 53:1). The report (God’s word) had gone out to the whole world, and was received in faith. So the Gentiles were also objects of God’s testimony and Israel was aware of this.
Their sound went into all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the world (Ps 19:4).
I will provoke you to jealousy by them that are no people, and by a foolish nation I will anger you. (Deut 32:21)
I was found of them that sought me not. (Isa 65:1)
When Israel was first established as a nation before God, Moses foretold they would foolishly and unwisely depart from Him as a people. The Gentiles would provoke them to anger. Grace had not been wanting, but there was no response. God had called in vain; the divorce had come. ‘Thus saith the LORD, Where is the bill of your mother’s divorcement, whom I have put away?’ (Isa 50:1).
Was the rejection of Israel final? Surely not! Paul gives three proofs that the rejection was not final:
A remnant would be owned now
The Jews would be provoked to jealousy, because of the reception of the Gentiles
The Redeemer would yet come to Zion and turn away ungodliness from Jacob, and so all Israel (not just the Jews) would be saved.
Some of Israel, such as Paul, were of the elect; the rest were blinded, having rejected Christ and stumbled at the stumbling-stone. Their fall for the salvation of the Gentiles. This is the second proof of their not being finally cast off. This lead the apostle to bring out the relative positions of Jew and Gentile as to promise in this world.
When, after the flood, men had cast off God to make themselves a name, God scattered men in judgment and formed them into nations. They gave themselves up to idolatry, but God called Abraham, and made him the root of a separate family with God’s promises according to the flesh, culminating by grace in Christ. Until then there had been no head of a race or a family. Adam was the father of sinners; Abraham was the father of the faithful. He was the root; the tree was Israel. Some of the branches had been broken off, and the Gentiles grafted in in their place. The root remained, and the Gentiles were grafted in among them, for they were not natural branches, but had their standing by faith.
The Gentiles were not to be high-minded, but fear. If God had not spared the natural branches, He would not spare the Gentiles, who were only grafted in. But the tree of promise remains, and the Jewish branches will be grafted in again into the olive. The Jewish system closed to let in the Gentiles. The Gentile system will close, to let the Jews back. God does not fail, of course, but accomplishes His own work of grace.
We do not have in Romans the mystery of Jew and Gentile brought into one new man – one body in Christ. This is not the church: there is no breaking off of the church. The Jews will not be grafted into the church, for it will already have been taken up into heavenly glory. Israel will be saved as a nation, which of course cannot be the case in the church, for there is neither Jew nor Greek in the church. The Gentile professing system (popery and infidelity) will be cut off – a solemn word and warning to Christendom.
God’s covenant to take away Israel’s sins is sure. It will be accomplished when Christ comes. The final restoration of Israel will be on the ground of the promises made to the fathers, not through the law, but with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Israel had rejected Christ: therefore they became objects of mercy, just like the Gentiles. As the Gentiles had been unbelieving, mercy had been the only ground of their entering. Now the unbelieving Jews had were also objects of God’s sovereign mercy.
Grace had dealt with sinners, and wisdom had reconciled God’s faithfulness to His promises, with the heirs of those promises, through their coming under mercy. This calls out the adoring praise of the apostle in contemplating the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God. Paul now turns to the practical consequences which should flow from the mercies of God.
That law as applied to the inward man.
That in me, that is, in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing (18)
That the old man has died so we can say, ‘When we were in the flesh’ (5).
That it is not I; (because I hate sin having being renewed); It is then sin in me
That it is too strong for me.
So I stop trying to be better, and look for a Deliverer instead. The Deliverer is Jesus. Thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord!
In Romans 7 we have the distinction between a soul under law, and a soul in life with a risen Christ. We have the soul’s experience being quickened and renewed in its desires and delights, but not knowing deliverance. It does not understand that it has died with Christ, and is now connected with another – Christ risen from the dead. The description of the deliverance follows, and we have the condition of the delivered soul in Romans 8.
Having been crucified with Christ, we are free from law. The law has power over a man as long as he lives. This is illustrated by the case of marriage, and the law or bond of husband and wife, which lasts evidently as long as one lives, and no longer; the survivor is free to be to another when the other is dead.
We are delivered, being dead to the law, by the body of Christ. (See v.4). Death puts an end to our legal obligations, but of course we have not died actually: Christ has died for us. Now we are united to Him in resurrection, so we can bear fruit to God in the power of life.
Because Christ has died, we do not stand before God as Adam’s children. We can therefore say, ‘when we were in the flesh’ (v.5); clearly we could not say that if we were still in it. When we were in the flesh, and hence the law, our sinful acts brought forth fruit unto death. If a child is told that something is forbidden, he or she is apt to desire it even more. A disobedient child only pushes harder against the obstacle opposed to him. This leads to actual sin unto death.
Romans 6 gave us the doctrine of our old man being crucified with Christ. Romans 7 gives are connection as children of Adam with law and our But deliverance from it. As life in which we were connected with the law has ended, the bond which attached us to that life does not exist any more. Instead, we are connected with a risen Christ, serving in the newness of spirit, not in the legal oldness of letter. We cannot have two husbands at once. Christ, not the law, is now our life and husband, and we have power to bring forth fruit to God, something that the sinful flesh could never have. We just cannot have the law and Christ together.
The law does not condemn our nature or treat us as lost, but it does make us conscious of our state – what we are. Was it the fault of the law, that sin had dominion over us? No, it was sin and lust, and these things were condemned by the law. Sin deceived us, and killed us. The law said, ‘Thou shalt not covet.’ (v. 9) We may not be criminals – we have not murdered, stolen, or committed adultery; but who of us has never lusted, or coveted? If we claimed not to have lusted, we would be saying that we were not children of Adam. It is important to stress that we are not speaking of sinful acts, but of our sinful state; not forgiveness of sins, but of deliverance from sin. It is not what we have done, but what we are. We discover the sinful source in us – that there is no good there – a humbling discovery! We cannot make a child of Adam good, he has to be born again.
Because of the law, we have the knowledge of sin: without it, sin was dead. When the commandment came, I felt my guilt, and death came upon my conscience. I was a living child of Adam, unconscious of sin, but when the law of God forbade lust, my conscience was affected, and I died under its judgment. Whereas the law said to me, ‘Do this and thou shalt live’ (Luke 10:28), I took up the law, thinking I had power to be good and righteous by it. I could not, as sin showed itself to be in opposition to, and in transgression of, God’s holy, just, and good will. So the law killed me.
We now have the expression ‘οἴδαμεν γὰρ – We know’ (v.14). This is a technical expression for the Christian’s knowledge. I have learnt:
That law as applied to the inward man.
That in me, that is, in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing (18)
That the old man has died so we can say, ‘When we were in the flesh’ (5).
That it is not I; (because I hate sin having being renewed); It is then sin in me
That it is too strong for me.
I cannot do what I want to do – indeed, I do not know how to do it. I desire to do what is right, but good never comes. That is not the Christian state.
But I have light from God. The law is spiritual but I am carnal, a slave to (or sold under) sin. I consent to the law that it is good; I have knowledge of sin, but I do what I hate.
But, thank God for His grace: I have a new man, a new life, and I can treat sin as a stranger, even though it dwells in me. Now the renewed man comes out – the positive will to do good – I delight in the law of God in the inner man – that is more than consent. But still I have no power: I cannot do good. There is another law in my members, a constantly operating power of evil bringing me into captivity, even though against my will.
Poor wretched man! But (immense advantage) I know it. I know my real state: I know there is no good in my flesh, and that I have no power. I am just like the poor man at the pool of Bethesda: he desired to be healed, but did not have the strength to get healed. (See John 5). So I stop trying to be better, and look for a Deliverer instead. The Deliverer is Jesus. Thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord!
The difference in me is immense. The power of the flesh has broken, and I have no thought of being in the flesh before God. Even though the evil flesh is still there, I am not in Romans 7 any longer. Christ has set me free. ‘So, then, I myself with the mind serve the law of God; with the flesh, the law of sin’ (v.25). This leads me to Rom 8:1, ‘The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.’ Romans 8 develops this further.
Walking in the path of obedience to Him, the soul is delivered evil – will and lust – which is not obedience. We grow in the knowledge of God and in intimacy with Him. We cannot do this in our own will. But we live more in His things, and that is holiness: that is more than obedience. But that is the gift of God. The path to it is the path of obedience and holiness, but itself is the gift of God. Death is the wages of sin; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. The gift of God is nothing less than eternal life. God gives it to us.
In Romans 6 we have the practical consequence of deliverance from sin. in the first part of the epistle (Rom. 1:18; to 5:11) we read nothing as to practical conduct. The guilty sinner is cleared, but nothing is said as to our consequential conduct. The conclusion of Romans 5 is that by one Man’s obedience we have been made righteous, and that, by having part in Christ’s death, we have part in this righteousness.
But having part in death (that is, dying) is, of course, not the way to live. How shall we who are dead to sin live in it any longer? By our profession of Christianity, we are baptised unto His death, the old man being judged and crucified. Now as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father (God’s power), so our life is to be a new resurrected one.
‘Our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin’ (v.6). This means that sin as a whole is annulled or rendered powerless: it has closed its existence. ‘He that is dead is justified from sin’ (v.7). Here it is not here sins or guilt: a dead man may have to answer for his sins, but he cannot sin: he does not have evil lusts nor a perverse will. However for us, the power of death has been destroyed by the resurrection of Christ. He came to take our place as sinners and deal with the question of sin: He died to sin, once for all. On the cross sin was the question – He was made sin. Now He is risen; He dies no more; death does not have dominion any longer. Now He lives and lives to God, sin having been done with for ever, to the glory of God
In His life down here Jesus served God perfectly. He lived by the Father, having Him always before His mind. Before He died on the cross, He had to do with sin – though He was sinless. Sin was all around Him: it grieved Him; He was a Man of sorrows because of it, and He had to be made sin for us. In love He manifested God; as Man come to do God’s will, when fully proved to be the sinless One Himself – who knew no sin, he hath made sin for us (2 Cor 5:21). But now He has done with it for ever. Now He is risen into a new state as Man: in thought, object, and life, He lives to God. Now everything serves God’s glory. Though the flesh is always the same, the life of Jesus is manifested in our bodies (see 2 Cor 4:10). This is what the true Christian state is.
So we are to reckon ourselves dead to sin, and alive to God through Him, our old man being crucified with Him. We are not physically dead, but have a new and free life, alive to God, not through Adam, but through Jesus Christ our Lord. It is not that we never sin or lust; but we do not let sin obey its lust: we walk in the power of a new life. Instead of being slaves to sin, we hold the reins, and yield our members as instruments of righteousness to God.
Sin does not have dominion over us any longer, because we are not under law, but under grace. Being under law leaves us under the dominion of sin. What we need is freedom from the bondage of sin; for the law forbids sins, but gives us neither the life nor power to obey it. But under grace we have the power, sin having no dominion over us. The power comes from on high, so we are set really free, and can give ourselves to God willingly and freely. Shall we sin because we are not under a law which forbids it, and which curses us if I do it? God forbid!
Now Paul returns to the Gentile condition. If we yield ourselves to sin, we are its slaves. Even without law, death and the consequent judgment of God, were the appointed wages of sin. But now we are alive to God, and that must involve obedience. Christ was the obedient Man: His Father’s will was the motive of everything He did. He lived by every word that proceeded out of the mouth of God. (See Deut 8:3). His path was practical righteousness, and He was the pattern of it. So the apostle thanks God that, whereas they had been slaves of sin, they had obeyed from the heart the form of doctrine that had been delivered to them (v.17).
It is the obedience of faith. As we receive the word of God into our hearts, we are linked with the life-giving God. It is the true life of Christ, the obedient Man. As free from sin, we yield ourselves to obey, becoming ‘slaves’ to righteousness. [Note that JND uses the word ‘slave’ here, whereas in the Darby Bible he uses the word ‘bondman’. A ‘slave’ is someone bought and owned by another. A ‘bondman’ on the other hand, is someone who was a slave, been given the opportunity for freedom, and has decided to remain for life in the service of their Master.]* Hence it is true liberty: we were fruitlessly wasting our members as slaves to uncleanness and lawlessness. Now we freely yield our members to be slaves to righteousness. The blessed result is holiness, our hearts separated to God, knowing Him, the soul brought into His image. ‘And have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him’ (Col 3:10).
This is the general doctrine: Christ having died, we reckon ourselves dead as if we had died. We have died – we have been crucified with Him, and, as Christians, we do not consider the flesh to be alive any more. I speak of all that has happened to Christ as if it had happened to me, because He is become my life, and I live by Him. I am a son whose father had not only paid his debts, but made him a partner in a business. He speaks of ‘our capital, our connections,’ though the son brought nothing into the business, everything having been done and acquired beforehand. We have therefore a living association with the Lord. It is neither ascension, nor union, nor resurrection with Him, but the death of the old man, and a new life in Christ with freedom from being slaves to sin. This is the full answer to the allegation that, having righteousness in Him, we have license to sin. Instead of sin reigning in our mortal bodies, having dominion over us, we enjoy subsisting power.
Walking in the path of obedience to Him, the soul is delivered evil – will and lust – which is not obedience. We grow in the knowledge of God and in intimacy with Him. We cannot do this in our own will. But we live more in His things, and that is holiness: that is more than obedience. But that is the gift of God. The path to it is the path of obedience and holiness, but itself is the gift of God. Death is the wages of sin; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. The gift of God is nothing less than eternal life. God gives it to us.
Christ, by His obedience, demonstrated God’s grace. Because God is love and rich in mercy, grace reigned through righteousness. If it had been man’s righteousness, it would not have been grace; but because of His obedience, the many are constituted righteous, and grace reigns through righteousness unto eternal life. Stated so clearly, that is the ground and way of our salvation.
From Rom, 5:12, Judaism disappears, and Paul takes a wider view. He looks at the whole state of man in the light of the sin the human race before God. By one offence, Adam brought on the whole race, sin, death and alienation and exclusion from God. Because of grace and one righteous act man could receive justification of life. Not all were justified, any more than condemned, but the act had a universal bearing on the whole race. It is the same word as ‘unto’ all, in contrast with ‘upon’ all that believe, in Rom 3:22. Adam’s work bore on all, and so did Christ’s work too.
Verse 13-17 are a parenthesis. Sin was in the world from Adam to Moses. As there was no law yet, there could be no charges – there was no law forbidding them. Yet death reigned over those who had not sinned like Adam in breaking God’s actual commandment. as Adam did). Later a formal law was given under Moses. But between the two, where there was no formal law; there was sin and death; there universal ruin. When grace came in, it dealt with a multitude man’s offences in responsibility , so that those who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness would reign in life by Jesus Christ, who was in God’s counsels before the world began.
In v. 19 we have the positive efficiency or effect on those who were actually connected with these two heads (Adam and Christ). By the disobedience of Adam, many are constituted sinners; by the obedience of Christ, many are constituted righteous. This is not responsibility and imputation, but a state into which the many were brought – righteous before God. The great point here is that the Lord and Adam, by their act and conduct, bring those connected with them into their appropriate conditions.
What is important to see is that the state of men was the consequence of the conduct of the head, not the conduct of men being met by the head. The law came in that the offence might abound, so that those who contravened the law were disobedient. Sin had reigned unto death. Had righteousness reigned, because of sin, it must have led to condemnation.
Christ, by His obedience, demonstrated God’s grace. Because God is love and rich in mercy, grace reigned through righteousness. If it had been man’s righteousness, it would not have been grace; but because of His obedience, the many are constituted righteous, and grace reigns through righteousness unto eternal life. Stated so clearly, that is the ground and way of our salvation.
Baptism with the Holy Spirit was one of the two great acts ascribed to the Lord in John 1. It is consequent on the value and efficacy of His blood, that the sins of those who believe are put away. In the Old Testament, the leper was washed with water, sprinkled with blood, then anointed with oil. We are washed with the word, sprinkled with Christ’s blood, then anointed with the Holy Spirit. That is not being ‘born again’: new birth applies to the Holy Spirit’s work in unbelievers: it is after we believe that we are sealed.
We are brought to the separation of our hearts from the world, and a clearer consciousness of what God is as we pass through the world. We hope, and we are weaned from the world which tends to shut Christ glorified out of sight. Our hope is clearer. Though we may have tribulations, we have both the key and the power to bear them. In grace, as God does not withdraw His eyes from the righteous, He watches over us in blessing, making everything work together for our good. The love of God [what He is in His nature] is shed abroad in our hearts. (v.5) It is God’s love, known by the Holy Spirit’s presence, bringing in what God is in His nature to our hearts.
Baptism with the Holy Spirit was one of the two great acts ascribed to the Lord in John 1. It is consequent on the value and efficacy of His blood, that the sins of those who believe are put away. In the Old Testament, the leper was washed with water, sprinkled with blood, then anointed with oil. We are washed with the word, sprinkled with Christ’s blood, then anointed with the Holy Spirit. That is not being ‘born again’: new birth applies to the Holy Spirit’s work in unbelievers: it is after we believe that we are sealed.
This has practical importance. We are accepted, forgiven and sealed. God’s perfect love to us when we were sinners, is not a matter of experience. Being accepted, we are sealed. Experience has its place, and some Christians would even oblige souls to have the experience of Romans 7, in order for the salvation of Romans 5 to be true.
While we enjoy God’s sovereign, causeless love by the indwelling Holy Spirit, the knowledge and proof of that love is in a work outside and independent of us. ‘For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly’ and, God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us’ (Rom 5:6,8) – such was our state.
The Holy Spirit reveals the truth; he does not reason it. be. Man is always reasoning naturally, with a vague thought of mercy. Even when repentant he carries on reasoning till he has really met God, and known His grace. (The prodigal talked of being made a hired servant before he met his father.) The Holy Spirit makes us see clearly that we are lost, but then we reason about God, and what He has done for us. Whilst this is going on, we are still in a legal state. When we reason naturally there is either carelessness and self-delusion, or a mixture of law and grace. With the Holy Spirit, there is no mixture: just clear condemnation on the ground of responsibility, or salvation and blessing on the ground of grace.
Hence we have hope. ‘And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us’ (v.5). Then we reason from the starting point of divine grace –
We glory in God Himself
We are reconciled
We rejoice in salvation and in the God who has made Himself known through it
We learn to joy in God.
This closes the first part of the epistle. Justified, having glory in hope, and joy in Him whom we have known through this great salvation.
Law requires power in man to fulfill it. A dead person has no power; resurrection is by God’s power, and Abraham believed that. If God spoke, the thing was certain. That is why his faith was imputed to him for righteousness. When man justifies God not himself, God justifies him. Abraham believed that God was able to perform what He had said; we believe that He raised Christ from the dead – delivered for our offences, and raised again for our justification.
There is more in Israel’s history than the law. Abraham believed God, and it was imputed to him for righteousness. (See Rom. 4:3). He was reckoned righteous because of his faith. Also, David said, ‘Blessed isthe man whose iniquity is forgiven, whose sin is covered; blessed the man to whom the Lord imputeth no sin.’ (Psalm 32:2). No sin was imputed to him. He was held to be wholly clear of it before God; it was forgiven and covered. The responsibility of man was fully met, and he knew it.
Faith was counted for righteousness to Abraham. Circumcision was only a seal of the righteousness he had already before he was circumcised. Therefore he became the father of all who believe (including uncircumcised, believing Gentiles), and more than that, the father of those truly separated to God – circumcised in spirit, not in letter.
The promise to Abraham that he would be the heir of the world was a matter of law, but of the righteousness of faith. Promise is not law: promise and faith go together. If promise had been on the basis of law, faith would have been void – man could not have had an inheritance because of transgression. But the inheritance is of faith, not law, that it might be by grace. Faith just believes in grace.
When Abraham received the promise, as far as having offspring was concerned, he was as good as dead. But he believed what God had said as to his seed. So we have another important principle: grace and promise on the part of God, and faith, and the redemption that is in Christ, on the part of man. God’s power comes in; God raises the dead, and makes them to be as He calls them. This applies to Abraham’s seed, to the Gentiles’ blessing, and to Christ’s physical resurrection.
Law requires power in man to fulfill it. The law being given to the sinner, wrath was the consequence of its imposition. A dead person has no power; resurrection is by God’s power, and Abraham believed that. If God spoke, the thing was certain. That is why his faith was imputed to him for righteousness. When man justifies God not himself, God justifies him. Abraham believed that God was able to perform what He had said; we believe that He raised Christ from the dead – delivered for our offences, and raised again for our justification. God glorifies Himself in grace by granting divine righteousness to man, when he had no human righteousness before God.
As to ourselves, righteousness is imputed to us, as we believe on the God who raised up Christ from the dead. We do not merely own Christ’s work, but God’s acceptance of that work, and His power to quicken the dead. As John said, ‘God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham.’ (Matt 3:9). God demonstrated His power in raising up Christ from death, the state into which our sins had brought Him through grace. Of course, God could not leave Him in death, for He was satisfied as to the matter of sins, and righteously raised Him from the dead – in public testimony.
We have the mercy-seat through faith in His blood. The value of the blood brings the witness of righteousness in the remission of past sins. It justifies us, maintaining fully the justice or righteousness of God. He is just, and the Justifier, not the condemner, of those that believe. The principle of righteousness by faith is incompatible with law: one rests on grace, the other on works; one on God’s work, the other on man’s. In grace, God’s work justifies freely; in law, man’s work in righteousness seeks to make peace, redemption and God’s work unnecessary. Law recognises the claim of righteousness, but man having failed, God has met that claim in grace. The grace that was incompatible with law, met the claim of the law, in order to justify the person who had failed under it.
God being revealed, sin is measured by the glory of God.
After demonstrating that the heathen, the moralist and the Jew had all sinned, Paul returns to the subject of the righteousness of God. Man clearly had none If he had had a righteousness it would have been by the law, so it would only be for the Jews. But all men – Jews and Gentiles – have proved to be under sin, so God has manifested His righteousness by faith, entirely separate from the law. It is towards all, and upon all who believe. It is free, by God’s grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.
In chap. 1:17, we were told that God’s righteousness is revealed in the gospel. Now in Rom. 3:21, it is wholly apart from the law, the way of man’s righteousness) As all of us are under sin, we are justified by God’s grace, through redemption which is in Christ Jesus.
We have in Christ the atonement or propitiation for our sins, giving us a place of access to God on the ground of redemption. The saints in Old Testament times had been subjects of God’s forbearance. God passed over the sins of the Abrahams, the Samuels, and millions of others on the basis of the propitiation that was to be wrought by Christ. God forgave sins as if Christ’s work had already been accomplished. In His exercise of forbearance, He justified His remission of the sins committed before Christ was here.
Now for those of us who live subsequent to His work, we have God’s full present justice. Christ has been exalted. Now in righteousness God could be just and justify believers in Jesus. This is an immense truth: God’s righteousness has been revealed, justifying those who believe in Jesus and His perfectly finished work. He has gone up on high, having glorified God perfectly on the cross, revealing and declaring God’s righteousness. Man has not accomplished it, man has not procured it. It is of God, it is His righteousness. We participate in it through believing in Jesus Christ.
We have the mercy-seat through faith in His blood. The value of the blood brings the witness of righteousness in the remission of past sins. It justifies us, maintaining fully the justice or righteousness of God. He is just, and the Justifier, not the condemner, of those that believe.
Man cannot boast, for justification is by God’s work – God’s grace received in faith. We cannot mix gaining a thing by working, and receiving it by faith – one excludes the other. God justifies sinners in His dealings for them, not man justifying himself by a law which he could not keep. Sinners are justified freely by (on the principle of’) grace, through (by means of) redemption.
Justification was by faith does not set aside the law. The law brought the conviction of sin, the curse even, from which men under it had to be delivered. Christ delivered men from the curse, thus sanctioning the law to the highest degree. He bore the curse, and established the authority of law as nothing else could. The Jew just had do be convicted of the necessity of grace, redemption and the blood of Christ; he had to recognise his debt and obligations, and that Christ’s work had put an end to those.
The principle of righteousness by faith is incompatible with law: one rests on grace, the other on works; one on God’s work, the other on man’s. In grace, God’s work justifies freely; in law, man’s work in righteousness, seeks to make peace, rendering redemption and God’s work unnecessary. Law recognises the claim of righteousness, but man having failed, God has met that claim in grace. The grace that was incompatible with law, met the claim of the law, in order to justify the person who had failed under it. Had it been a human righteousness, it would have been by the law which had been given to the Jews only. But being the righteousness of God Himself, is unto all.
Thus far the imputation of righteousness goes no farther than the forgiveness of sins. There is more farther on; but here that is all .
A simplified summary of part of the introduction to John Nelson Darby’s Exposition of the Epistle to the Romans , with additional material from the Synopsis.
In Romans 14, we have the spirit in which Christians should behave towards one another. There are those who are weak in faith, not fully in the light and power of new creation. They love the Lord; they have been purchased by Christ’s precious blood. but like a Jew they observe days and diet. That is weakness. So we are to receiving such in grace, not doing anything which could unsettle their faith. If the heart is pure, no meats are defiled meats – ‘To the pure all things are pure’ (v.20) . But if a person defiles his conscience, even through an unfounded scruple to him, it is unclean. If somebody normally felt he should regard a certain day, or abstain from a certain food, but does not in order to feign liberty, that is sin – it is not of faith .