On Sanctification. A. D. 58.
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 I 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.
I. For the first, we may hence observe the nature of sanctification,
what it is, and wherein it consists. In general it has two things in it,
mortification and vivification--dying to sin and living to righteousness,
elsewhere expressed by putting off the old man and putting on the new,
ceasing to do evil and learning to do well.
1. Mortification, putting off the old man; several ways this is expressed...
2. Vivification, or living to righteousness; and what is that? …
(4.) It is to yield our members as instruments of righteousness to God.
The members of our bodies, when withdrawn from the service of sin, are
not to lie idle, but to be made use of in the service of God. When the
strong man armed is dispossessed, let him whose right it is divide the
spoils. Though the powers and faculties of the soul be the immediate subjects
of holiness and righteousness, yet the members of the body are to be instruments;
the body must be always ready to serve the soul in the service of God.
Thus (v. 19), "Yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness.
Let them be under the conduct and at the command of the righteous law of
God, and that principle of inherent righteousness which the Spirit, as
sanctifier, plants in the soul." Righteousness unto holiness, which intimates
growth, and progress, and ground obtained. As every sinful act confirms
the sinful habit, and makes the nature more and more prone to sin (hence
the members of a natural man are here said to be servants to iniquity unto
iniquity--one sin makes the heart more disposed for another), so every
gracious act confirms the gracious habit: serving righteousness is unto
holiness; one duty fits us for another; and the more we do the more we
may do for God. Or serving righteousness, eis hagiasmon--as an evidence
of sanctification.
II. The motives or arguments here used to show the necessity of sanctification.
There is such an antipathy in our hearts by nature to holiness that it
is no easy matter to bring them to submit to it: it is the Spirit's work,
who persuades by such inducements as these set home upon the soul....
4. He argues from their former sinfulness, v. 17-21, where we may observe,
(1.) What they had been and done formerly. We have need to be often
reminded of our former state. Paul frequently remembers it concerning himself,
and those to whom he writes. [1.] You were the servants of sin. Those that
are now the servants of God would do well to remember the time when they
were the servants of sin, to keep them humble, penitent, and watchful,
and to quicken them in the service of God. It is a reproach to the service
of sin that so many thousands have quitted the service, and shaken off
the yoke; and never any that sincerely deserted it, and gave themselves
to the service of God, have returned to the former drudgery. "God be thanked
that you were so, that is, that though you were so, yet you have obeyed.
You were so; God be thanked that we can speak of it as a thing past: you
were so, but you are not now so. Nay, your having been so formerly tends
much to the magnifying of divine mercy and grace in the happy change. God
be thanked that the former sinfulness is such a foil and such a spur to
your present holiness." [2.] You have yielded your members servants to
uncleanness, and to iniquity unto iniquity, v. 19. It is the misery of
a sinful state that the body is made a drudge to sin, than which there
could not be a baser or a harder slavery, like that of the prodigal that
was sent into the fields to feed swine. You have yielded. Sinners are voluntary
in the service of sin. The devil could not force them into the service,
if they did not yield themselves to it. This will justify God in the ruin
of sinners, that they sold themselves to work wickedness: it was their
own act and deed. To iniquity unto iniquity. Every sinful act strengthens
and confirms the sinful habit: to iniquity as the work unto iniquity as
the wages. Sow the wind, and reap the whirlwind; growing worse and worse,
more and more hardened. This he speaks after the manner of men, that is,
he fetches a similitude from that which is common among men, even the change
of services and subjections. [3.] You were free from righteousness (v.
20); not free by any liberty given, but by a liberty taken, which is licentiousness:
"You were altogether void of that which is good,--void of any good principles,
motions, or inclinations,--void of all subjection to the law and will of
God, of all conformity to his image; and this you were highly pleased with,
as a freedom and a liberty; but a freedom from righteousness is the worst
kind of slavery."
(2.) How the blessed change was made, and wherein it did consist.
[1.] You have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was
delivered to you, v. 17. This describes conversion, what it is; it is our
conformity to, and compliance with, the gospel which was delivered to us
by Christ and his ministers.--Margin. Whereto you were delivered; eis hon
paredothete--into which you were delivered. And so observe, First, The
rule of grace, that form of doctrine--typon didaches. The gospel is the
great rule both of truth and holiness; it is the stamp, grace is the impression
of that stamp; it is the form of healing words, 2 Tim. i. 13. Secondly,
The nature of grace, as it is our conformity to that rule. 1. It is to
obey from the heart. The gospel is a doctrine not only to be believed,
but to be obeyed, and that from the heart, which denotes the sincerity
and reality of that obedience; not in profession only, but in power--from
the heart, the innermost part, the commanding part of us. 2. It is to be
delivered into it, as into a mould, as the wax is cast into the impression
of the seal, answering it line for line, stroke for stroke, and wholly
representing the shape and figure of it. To be a Christian indeed is to
be transformed into the likeness and similitude of the gospel, our souls
answering to it, complying with it, conformed to it--understanding, will,
affections, aims, principles, actions, all according to that form of doctrine.
[2.] Being made free from sin, you became servants of righteousness
(v. 18), servants to God, v. 22. Conversion is, First, A freedom from the
service of sin; it is the shaking off of that yoke, resolving to have no
more to do with it. Secondly, A resignation of ourselves to the service
of God and righteousness, to God as our master, to righteousness as our
work. When we are made free from sin, it is not that we may live as we
list, and be our own masters; no: when we are delivered out of Egypt, we
are, as Israel, led to the holy mountain, to receive the law, and are there
brought into the bond of the covenant. Observe, We cannot be made the servants
of God till we are freed from the power and dominion of sin; we cannot
serve two masters so directly opposite one to another as God and sin are.
We must, with the prodigal, quit the drudgery of the citizen of the country,
before we can come to our Father's house.
(3.) What apprehensions they now had of their former work and way. He
appeals to themselves (v. 21), whether they had not found the service of
sin, [1.] An unfruitful service: "What fruit had you then? Did you ever
get any thing by it? Sit down, and cast up the account, reckon your gains,
what fruit had you then?" Besides the future losses, which are infinitely
great, the very present gains of sin are not worth mentioning. What fruit?
Nothing that deserves the name of fruit. The present pleasure and profit
of sin do not deserve to be called fruit; they are but chaff, ploughing
iniquity, sowing vanity, and reaping the same. [2.] It is an unbecoming
service; it is that of which we are now ashamed--ashamed of the folly,
ashamed of the filth, of it. Shame came into the world with sin, and is
still the certain product of it--either the shame of repentance, or, if
not that, eternal shame and contempt. Who would wilfully do that which
sooner or later he is sure to be ashamed of?
5. He argues from the end of all these things. it is the prerogative
of rational creatures that they are endued with a power of prospect, are
capable of looking forward, considering the latter end of things. To persuade
us from sin to holiness here are blessing and cursing, good and evil, life
and death, set before us; and we are put to our choice. (1.) The end of
sin is death (v. 21): The end of those things is death. Though the way
may seem pleasant and inviting, yet the end is dismal: at the last it bites;
it will be bitterness in the latter end. The wages of sin is death, v.
23. Death is as due to a sinner when he hath sinned as wages are to a servant
when he hath done his work. This is true of every sin. There is no sin
in its own nature venial. Death is the wages of the least sin. Sin is here
represented either as the work for which the wages are given, or as the
master by whom the wages are given; all that are sin's servants and do
sin's work must expect to be thus paid. (2.) If the fruit be unto holiness,
if there be an active principle of true and growing grace, the end will
be everlasting life--a very happy end!--Though the way be up-hill, though
it be narrow, and thorny, and beset, yet everlasting life at the end of
it is sure. So, v. 23, The gift of God is eternal life. Heaven is life,
consisting in the vision and fruition of God; and it is eternal life, no
infirmities attending it, no death to put a period to it. This is the gift
of God. The death is the wages of sin, it comes by desert; but the life
is a gift, it comes by favour. Sinners merit hell, but saints do not merit
heaven. There is no proportion between the glory of heaven and our obedience;
we must thank God, and not ourselves, if ever we get to heaven. And this
gift is through Jesus Christ our Lord. It is Christ that purchased it,
prepared it, prepares us for it, preserves us to it; he is the Alpha and
Omega, All in all in our salvation.
