‘This energetic language, which many imagine to describe an unestablished believer’s experience, or even that of an unconverted person, seems to have resulted from the extraordinary degree of St. Paul’s sanctification, and the depth of his self-abasement, and hatred of sin; and the reason of our not readily understanding him seems to be that we are so far beneath him in holiness, humility, acquaintance with the spirituality of God’s law, and the evil of our own hearts, and in our degree of abhorrence of moral evil.’
I have not then the smallest hesitation in taking the passage as I find it, and regarding it as descriptive of the Apostle’s own sense of shortcoming before the standard of the law, at the very time of his most peaceful, Christian experience. I wish I had time to follow out the subject, and show how in the midst of his conflict a hallowed peace was flowing into his soul: but that I must leave to another day. But you must not wait till next Sunday, seeking peace, and finding none; you must remember at once that, though you fail, the Lord Jesus Christ never does. You must remember at once that it is with especial reference to this very struggle that we are taught that ‘the blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth us from all sin.’ You must remember at once that in the midst of all your difficulties you have a living Advocate at the right hand of God; and therefore at once, with God’s holiness as your standard, God’s atonement as your righteousness, and God’s Spirit as your guide, notwithstanding all shortcomings, you may say as St. Paul did in the midst of his struggle, ‘I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.’
GRACE.
‘I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.’—Rom. vii. 25.
‘There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Jesus Christ, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.’—Rom. viii. 1.
I hope that your study of this passage during the week has confirmed the conclusions at which we arrived last Sunday,—that St. Paul was speaking of himself, not of another; and that he was describing his experience at the very time he wrote the Epistle. I trust also you have seen from his words that the Lord had opened his eyes to discover the holiness of the law, and changed his heart, so that with his whole soul he loved it. I hope also that it has been clear to you that this exclamation, ‘Oh, wretched man that I am!’ was the expression of his profound humiliation, under the painful sense of his own shortcoming when measured by the high standard of the holiness of God.
Now, I believe that if, instead of adopting some artificial standard of our own, we aim at the perfection of God’s holiness, as taught in the Word of God and exhibited in the life of the Son of God, we are sure thus painfully to feel the contrast between what we are and what we ought to be. Of course if we measure ourselves by ourselves we may be easily satisfied; but then we know we are not wise, and our satisfaction may be nothing more than delusion. But if we bring ourselves to the test of perfect, spotless, eternal holiness, and honestly look into the workings of our own fallen heart, I cannot imagine why we should shrink from such words as those in our confession, ‘We have left undone those things which we ought to have done, and we have done those things which we ought not to have done.’
Are we to understand then that there is nothing but conflict and disappointment before the Christian man, and that the only effect of the opening of the heart by the Holy Ghost, is to lead us to discover, and feel the pain of, sin? If so, I could almost say, ‘Let the eye remain closed,’ for I verily believe there is no state of mind so painful as when there is the sight of sin without the sight of Christ Jesus. When you know neither sin nor a Saviour, you can be content in the world; when you know sin alone without a Saviour, you have all the anxiety of religion without the joy: but it is when you know both, that you may be sorrowful yet always rejoicing; deeply conscious of your own defects, and yet resting peacefully in the right hand of the blessed Lord who has redeemed you by His blood.
This morning, therefore, if God permit, we will endeavour to study what it is in the Saviour that can give us a peaceful, thankful joy, at the very time that we feel most profoundly humbled before the holiness of God. I have not nearly time to discuss the whole subject as I should like to do, and, therefore, must confine your attention to these two verses; standing as they do in immediate connexion with the description of the struggle, they will supply us with exactly the information we require, and teach us how in the midst of the sharpest conflict with sin the believer may enjoy the most perfect peace in Christ Jesus.
There appear to be three lessons plainly taught us.
I. We have the triumphant hope of final victory. Along with the deepest sense of unsatisfied longings after holiness there is the peaceful spirit of thanksgiving in the assurance of a coming triumph. The passage does not refer to a deliverance that had already taken place, but to one still future; and the thanksgiving was not for any thing past, but for a great work still remaining to be accomplished. So the deliverance from the text is not a deliverance from the curse, for that had taken place already; nor a deliverance from the sentence of the law, for from that the Apostle was already free; but a deliverance from the power of indwelling sin, which kept him back from the holiness at which he aimed. He said, therefore, ‘Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?’ He had found by experience that he could not deliver himself; but in the midst of his own failure he could look up to the great Deliverer, and with profound thanksgiving bless God for the undoubting assurance that in God’s own time he would be completely transformed into the very likeness of his Lord. His language is explained by his own words, in Phil. iii. 20, 21: ‘From whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ; who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious body, according to the working whereby He is able to subdue all things to Himself.’ ‘The body of this death,’ in the text, is the same as the ‘vile body,’ or ‘body of humiliation,’ in the Philippians; and the deliverance of the text is the transformation of that body into the likeness of the Lord Christ Jesus, at the appearing of our Blessed Saviour. This is exactly the same as what the Apostle John expected when he said (1 John, iii. 2), ‘Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is.’ So that, on the whole, we are taught that the time is most undoubtedly coming when those who are thirsting after the holiness of God will be perfectly satisfied; when the vile body shall be changed; and when not a spot, or blemish, will remain in any one of the saints of God.