folly of carrying any metaphorical language beyond the bounds of sobriety-beyond the simple point or points intended to be thereby illustrated. 14. All true piety begins with right views of the person, work and death of Christ, v. 5. 15. As the death of believers to sin is not a sinking down into abiding inertness and sloth, but is early followed by a resurrection from death in sin to a life of holiness; so the temporal death of believers is not an eternal sleep but shall, at the right time, be followed by a blessed resurrection of the body, it being made like unto the glorious body of our Lord Jesus Christ, v. 5. Seeing that these things are so, 'let us set ourselves as in the presence of the God of our renewed lives, and account that time lost in which we are not acting for him,' living unto him, drawing our motives from him, and hasting to his coming. Brown: "This life, which believers in Christ have gotten through quickening influence from him, is not an idle, fruitless life, without fruits of holiness, but an active stirring principle, setting folk on work constantly, and in this life believers can never win to perfection, but are still advancing and growing in grace." 16. If the gospel fails to destroy the body of sin it fails wholly of accomplishing its great work, vs. 5, 6. Luther: "The old man is not to be gradually sanctified, but must die as a sinner. . . We must scourge the old man, and strike him on the face, pain him with thorns, and pierce him through with nails, until he bow his head and give up the ghost." Tholuck: "Crucifixion first painfully robs a man of all power of action. He still lives, but lives under constraint and torture. By slow degrees does he sink away, until the breaking of his limbs puts an end to him at last. In like manner might it be said, is the love of sin pierced through by the impressions which the Holy Spirit makes upon the heart. It can no more do what it would, but still it does not expire. As the opposite thirst for holiness, however, which flows from and keeps pace with the believer's growing passion for his soul's invisible friend, augments in fervor, the love of sin feels itself miserable and tormented, and declines apace until death inflicts upon it the finishing stroke, and conducts the Christian, purified by the contest, into the peaceful bosom of his Saviour." Glory be to God. 17. We must not so construe, as some have done, the phrases old man and body of sin, as to teach that our animal nature is the cause of our sinfulness, or that sin is a substance, so that if we were disembodied, we should be sinless, or that our corruption controls us in some way rather than as moral agents, justly accountable to God for all our sinful emotions, thoughts, words and deeds, vs. 6, 7. It is a spiritual disease that infects our nature. It is a spiritual death to sin that we must undergo, in order to salvation. It is not our bodies, nor our mental constitutions, but our fall in Adam, the want of rectitude in our moral nature and the consequent corruption, which have made us what we are. Here is the source of all those evils, which sink and debase us, and make it necessary that we should die, yea, that we should be crucified with Christ. 18. If death unto sin proves men to be justified, the perfection of holiness finally secured by that death will be a great element in their glorification, vs. 8, 9. As Christ dieth no more, his people cannot perish. Himself thus reasons and teaches us to reason, John 14: 19. Glorious truth! Let us hold it fast for ever. What will not be the joy of the redeemed when they awake in the likeness of God, without spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing. 19. Even in this world sin has lost its dominion over the justified, vs. 6-8. It has not power to condemn them. It has not power to control them. They are not the servants of sin. They are tempted, they are sometimes ensnared, they sometimes lose a battle, but in the war they always come off conquerors. 20. Let not the godly complain that they are not made at once partakers of all the benefits of Christ's redemption. If now they are justified and regenerated, in due time they shall be perfected and glorified. If they are dead with Christ, they shall live with him, v. 8. Christ is never to any one a Prophet that he is not to him also a Priest and a King. He never begins a good work that he does not carry on to the day of Jesus Christ. In no sense is Christ divided. To each believer he is as complete and glorious a Saviour as if he had but one soul to save. 21. The prospects of the Christian are very bright, vs. 8-11. A noble life has he here in and by Christ. That noble life shall itself be ennobled in the perfection and glory of heaven. 22. Saints on earth should learn to put a more just estimate upon their state and prospects. They greatly need more faith, and hope, and courage, not fewer trials, crosses and difficulties. 23. All that the righteous possess, or enjoy, or have in reversion, or hope for is in, by and through Jesus Christ. Oh that all Christ's friends made more of him in their plans, their prayers, their conflicts with the adversary. Clarke: "Die as truly unto sin, as Jesus Christ died for sin. Live as truly unto God as he lives with God." Let us fervently pray that such may be our aim and endeavor. Hawker: "Do thou, dearest Lord, cause me to have my redemption by thee always in remembrance. May my soul be more and more humbled to the dust before thee that my GOD and SAVIOUR may be more and more exalted. Through life, in death, and for ever more, be it my joy to acknowledge that there can be no wages mine, but the wages of sin, which is death; and all the Lord bestows, even eternal life, with all its preliminaries, can only be the free, the sovereign, the unmerited gift of God through JESUS CHRIST OUR LORD." 19 CHAPTER VI. VERSES 12-23. AN EXHORTATION TO HOLINESS. THE TRUE DOCTRINE OF GRACE LEADS TO SANCTIFICATION. ALL ENDS WELL. 12 Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof. 13 Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God. 14 For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace. 15 What then? shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid. 16 Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness? 17 But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you. 18 Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness. 19 speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh for as ye have yielded your members servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity; even so now yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness. 20 For when ye were the servants of sin, ye were free from righteousness. 21 What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed? for the end of those things is death. 22 But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life. 23 For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. 12. LET not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof. There is not an agreement respecting the latter part of the text. Griesbach has nothing after obey; the Hexapla, nothing after obey it; Flatt and Goschen omit it, and read obey the lusts thereof. Knapp and many others admit the whole as we have it in the common Greek text and in the authorized version, in the old English versions, Peshito, Arabic and Vulgate. Several of these, however, drop it out of the verse. The apostle is still using bold figures of speech. In this verse sin is presented as a tyrant, lording it over men, reigning, wielding a sceptre of dominion, subjecting them to his vile wishes. Mortal body, variously understood. Locke: "Permit not, therefore, sin to reign over you by your mortal bodies, which you will do if you obey your carnal lusts." In a note he defends this paraphrase, contending that the apostle 'places the root of sin in the body.' But we have seen this is not so. By your mortal body Rosenmuller and others understand yourselves. Diodati paraphrases it, "Whilst you live this corporeal life, which being also subject to death, it appears thereby that there are still some relics of sin against which we must fight, to mortify and suppress them." Olshausen thinks the words here used signify that sin "commonly makes itself known in the body by the excited sensuality." Chalmers thinks it "denotes all that may be designated by the single word carnality." Others think it means the physical body which is mortal. So Chrysostom, Doddridge, Macknight, Tholuck, Stuart, Conybeare and Howson. Bengel: "The lusts of the body are the fuel; sin is the fire." Some have referred the mortal body to the body of sin in v. 6. Several of these views give a good sense. By the body in Rom. 1: 24; 12: 1 we may understand the whole person; and why not here? It is said to be mortal, for we are dying creatures, and the sentence of death is upon us. The apostle designed to exhort us not to let sin reign in our persons, mind, will, affections, or corporeal nature. Calvin : "The word body is not to be taken for flesh, and skin, and bones, but, so to speak, for the whole of what man is." Speaking of our mortality was not intended to give us gloomy thoughts, but to remind us that the conflict would be short. It refers to sin, and thereof to the body. Obey, it occurs again in vs. 16, 17. It is always rendered as here except once, where it is hearken, Acts 12: 13. The sense is obvious. To obey sin in the lusts of the body is to suffer sin to sway us in our whole nature. 13. Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God. Members, the same word twice in this verse and twice in v. 19. As the body is composed of members, so the whole person consists of various powers or faculties, some mental and some corporeal, any and all of which may become aids to vice or virtue, to sin or holiness according as they are directed. To yield our |