22. If you would be able honestly to boast of this revelation as unto
you, if you would have the comfort of knowing that Christ, through his
death and resurrection, has blessed you, you must not continue in your
old sinful life, but put on a new character. For Christ died and rose
for the very purpose of effecting your eventual death with him and
your participation in his resurrection: in other words, he died that
you might be made a new man, beginning even now, a man like unto
himself in heaven, a man having no covetous desire or ambition for
advantage over a neighbor, a man satisfied with what God grants him as
the result of his labor, and kind and beneficent to the needy.
23. In his desire to arouse Christians to the necessity of guarding
against such vices as he mentions, Paul strengthens his admonition, in
conclusion, by grave threats and visions of divine wrath, saying, "for
which things' sake cometh the wrath of God upon the sons of
disobedience"; that is, upon the unbelieving world, which regards not
the Word of God, does not fear or believe in it nor strive to obey it,
and yet is unwilling to be charged with idolatry and other unchristian
principles, desiring rather to be considered righteous and God's own
people.
In the last quoted clause Paul also implies that worldly conduct, the
life of worldly lusts such as covetousness and other vices, is
inconsistent and impossible with faith, and that the power of Christ's
resurrection cannot reach it. For this reason he terms them "sons of
disobedience," who have not faith and who, by their unchristian
conduct, bring God's wrath upon themselves and are cast out from the
kingdom of God. God seriously passes sentence against such conduct,
declaring he will reveal his wrath against it in bodily punishment in
this world and eternal punishment in the world hereafter. Elsewhere
Paul says practically the same thing (Eph 5, 6): "For because of these
things cometh the wrath of God upon the sons of disobedience." See
also Rom 1, 18.
24. Such is the admonition of Paul unto all who would be called
Christians. He reminds them whereunto the Gospel of Christ calls them
and what his resurrection should work in them--death to all life and
doctrine not in harmony with God's Word and God's will--and that if
they believe in the risen and living Christ, they, as risen with him,
should seek after the same heavenly life where he sits at the right
hand of God, a life where is no sin nor worldly error, but eternal
life and imperishable treasures to be possessed and enjoyed with
Christ forever.
25. But the revelation of Christ's resurrection can be apprehended by
nothing but faith. The things Paul here tells us of life and glory for
Christians in the risen Christ are not apparent to the world; in fact,
Christians themselves do not perceive them by external sense. Notice,
he says, "Ye died, and your life is hid with Christ in God." The world
does not understand the Christian life and has no word of praise for
it; it is hostile to the faith and cannot tolerate the fact that you
believe in Christ and refuse to join hands with it in love for worldly
lusts. A hidden life indeed is the Christian's; not only hidden to the
world, but, so far as external perception goes, to the Christian
himself. Nevertheless, it is a life sure and in safe keeping, and in
the hereafter its glory shall be manifest to all the world. For Paul
says:
"When Christ, who is our life, shall be manifested, then shall ye also
with him be manifested in glory."
26. Here is comfort for Christians in this earthly life where, though
they receive the doctrine of Christ and apprehend him by faith, their
resurrection seems to the world and to their own perceptions untrue;
where they must contend with sin and infirmities and moreover are
subject to much affliction and adversity; and where consequently they
are extremely sensible of death and terror when they would experience
joy and life. In this verse Paul comforts them, showing them where to
seek and surely apprehend their life.
27. Be of good cheer, he would say, for ye are dead to the worldly
life. This life ye must renounce, but in so doing ye make a precious
exchange. Dying unto the world is a blessed experience, for which ye
will obtain a life far more glorious. Ye are now, through Christ's
death, redeemed from sin and from death eternal and are made
imperishable. Upon you is conferred everlasting glory. But this risen
life ye cannot yet perceive in yourselves; ye have it in Christ,
through faith.
Christ is spoken of as "our life." Though the life is still unrevealed
to you, it is certain, insured to you beyond the power of any to
deprive you of it. By faith in Christ's life, then, are ye to be
preserved and to obtain victory over the terrors and torments of sin,
death and the devil, until that life shall be revealed in you and made
manifest to men.
In Christ ye surely possess eternal life. Nothing is lacking to a
perfect realization except that the veil whereby it is hidden so long
as we are in mortal flesh and blood, is yet to be removed. Then will
eternal life be revealed. Then all worldly, terrestrial things, all
sin and death, will be abolished. In every Christian shall be manifest
only glory. Christians, then, believing in Christ, and knowing him
risen, should comfort themselves with the expectation of living with
him in eternal glory; the inevitable condition is that they have
first, in the world, died with him.
28. Paul does not forget to recognize the earthly environment of
Christians and saints, for he says: "Put to death therefore your
members which are upon the earth." Though acknowledging Christians
dead with Christ unto worldly things and possessing life in Christ, he
yet tells them to mortify their members on earth, and enumerates the
sins of fornication, covetousness, etc.
This is truly a strange idea, that it should be necessary for men who
have died and risen with Christ and hence have been made really holy,
to mortify worldly inclinations in their bodily members. The apostle
refers to this subject in Romans 7: 5, 8, 23, and elsewhere,
frequently explaining how, in the saints, there continue to remain
various lusts of original sin, which constantly rise in the effort to
break out, even gross external vices. These have to be resisted. They
are strong enough utterly to enslave a man, to subject him to the
deepest guilt, as Paul complains (Rom 7, 23); and they will surely do
it unless the individual, by faith and the aid of the Holy Spirit,
oppose and conquer them.
29. Therefore, saints must, by a vigorous and unceasing warfare,
subdue their sinful lusts if they would not lose God's grace and their
faith. Paul says in Romans 8, 13: "If ye live after the flesh, ye must
die; but if by the Spirit ye put to death the deeds of the body, ye
shall live." In order, then, to retain the Spirit and the incipient
divine life, the Christian must contend against himself.
This cannot be accomplished by the monastic hypocrisies wherewith some
expect to resist sin. For the pollution of sin is not merely something
adhering to the clothing, or to the skin externally, and easily washed
off. It is not something to be discharged from the body by fasting and
castigation. No, it penetrates the flesh and blood and is diffused
through the whole man. Positive mortification is necessary or it will
destroy one. And this is how to mortify sin: It must be perceived with
serious displeasure and repented of; and through faith Christ's
forgiveness must be sought and found. Thus shall sinful inclinations
be resisted, defeated and restrained from triumphing over you. More
has been said on this topic elsewhere.
_Sunday After Easter_
Text: First John 5, 4-12.
4 For whatsoever is begotten of God overcometh the world: and this is
the victory that hath overcome the world, even our faith. 5 And who is
he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the
Son of God? 6 This is he that came by water and blood, even Jesus
Christ; not with the water only, but with the water and with the
blood. 7 And it is the Spirit that beareth witness, because the Spirit
is the truth. 8 For there are three who bear witness, the Spirit, and
the water, and the blood: and the three agree in one. 9 If we receive
the witness of men, the witness of God is greater: for the witness of
God is this, that he hath borne witness concerning his Son. 10 He that
believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in him: he that believeth
not God hath made him a liar; because he hath not believed in the
witness that God hath borne concerning his Son. 11 And the witness is
this, that God gave unto us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.
12 He that hath the Son hath the life; he that hath not the Son of God
hath not the life.