ROM. vi. 3, 4.
Know ye not that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ,
were baptized into His Death? Therefore we are buried with Him by baptism
into death.
TO the Death of the Son of God in our nature, all true Christians look
as the source of life and salvation. He died that we might live. He died,
"the Just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God." This is one of
the plainest truths of our religion, one of the first elements of the Christian
faith. But plain and elementary as this truth is, no Christian ever lived
who has fathomed its depth, or fully comprehended its meaning. Those indeed
who know the least, know much; for much in truth it is to know that He
died for us. And yet those, who know the most, know but little. It is a
great and unfathomable mystery, and the more we contemplate it, standing
as it were on the brink of the deep, the more we are lost, as we gaze down
into the abysses of His love. For the measure of the Cross is the infinite
love of God. "O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge
of God! how unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out!
And yet, my brethren, we know that the things which are written, are
written for our learning, "that we through patience and comfort of the
Scriptures, might have hope." And so it is our duty to search diligently
into whatever God has revealed to us, and with the aid of His Holy Spirit
to seek thereby to build up ourselves in our most holy Faith.
In the Death of Christ, we behold the great propitiation made for the
sins of the whole world. "When we were yet without strength, in due time
Christ died for the ungodly." "God commendeth His love toward us, in that
while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." "Whom God hath set forth
to be a propitiation through faith in His Blood, to declare His righteousness
for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God,
to declare, I say, His righteousness, that He might be just and yet the
justifier of him that believeth in Jesus." Such is the provision which
God has made in the Death and obedience of our Lord Jesus Christ, for "saving
sinners," for "justifying the ungodly." This is set forth in the earlier
chapters of this Epistle to the Romans. And in the latter part of the fifth
chapter, the Apostle proceeds a step further, and shews that men have even
become gainers through the fall, by redemption; gainers over that estate
which they lost in Adam. So abundantly had the riches of the grace of God
been manifested. What was lost in the first Adam, was more than regained
in the second. Nay, even the entrance of the Law which seemed only to bring
the sentence of condemnation, was by the exceeding goodness of God overruled
to another end. It manifested the extent of His grace. "The Law entered
that the offence might abound," but the multiplication and excess of sin
forgiven did but exhibit grace, in opposition to sin, obtaining a greater
and more glorious triumph. "For where sin abounded, grace did much more
abound, that as sin had reigned unto death, even so might grace through
righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord."
But if sin has thus occasioned a more glorious triumph to grace, why
may we riot, some mistaken or perverse objector enquires, continue in sin
that grace may abound? Since the sin of man has so magnified the grace
of God, why not continue in sin that His, grace may be more magnified?
Such is the perversion which S. Paul had to meet. And now observe how he
meets it, and sets it aside. He does not take the ground that a right faith
must be productive of good works; that if persons believe in Christ, it
is a necessary and legitimate consequence that they should obey Him. Neither
does he urge the motives of gratitude, as he does in another place, as
that the love of Christ will constrain us to live no longer to ourselves
or to sin, but to Him Who loved us and died for us. He takes even higher
ground than this, from which He comes down upon the objector with a still
more overwhelming and crushing answer. Motives, however high and influential,
might fail. They seem to leave it to men's choice whether they will be
actuated by them or not. The force of reason, however powerful and unanswerable
its arguments, may often be unfelt, or evaded. For who, if he will, may
not do violence to the dictates of his reason? But what can be said when
a certain course of action is involved in the very form and nature of the
Christian's standing? and when the very supposition on which the objector
builds, destroys the foundation of his own inference; when the very grace
which be believes himself to possess, destroys the sin which he fancies
it leaves him at liberty to commit. How can one dead perform the functions
of life? This would not be a mere inconsistency, or a mere failure in the
motives which ought to influence a rational being; but it would be an absolute
contradiction, a positive and actual contradiction, a saying and unsaying
of the same thing, at the same time. Now observe, this is the ground taken
by the Apostle. He does not speak of sin in Christians, as a mere inconsistency,
or as a dishonouring of our profession; but lie says boldly at once, It
cannot be. Christians, and continue in sin! Impossible! You have forgotten
your own standing; you have forgotten that you are dead to it. You are
grafted into Christ, and into Him not as He was in mortal flesh, but now
as He is a quickening Spirit; not before He died, but after He had died
and risen. To commit sin wilfully or allowedly is in fact to deny this,
to deny your union with Him; and this is not inconsistent Christianity,
but it is the renouncement of Christianity itself. Christians, and continue
in sin! " God forbid! How shall we that are dead to sin, continue any longer
therein? Know ye not that so many of us as are baptized into Jesus Christ,
are baptized into His Death? Therefore we are buried with Him by Baptism
into death, that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory
of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life."
See how the Apostle here speaks of Christian Baptism: not as a mere
outward form, a mere sign or pledge of blessings already received or to
be yet received, but as a real ingrafting into Christ Who has died and
risen again. It is the taking in of one person into another, and constituting
them one. And He into Whom the baptized is received, has already passed
into a state of death, through it, and out of it. And so then by virtue
of real vital union with our Lord every one baptized has in Him died and
is risen. The Body is as the Head. The virtue of the acts which were done
by and in the Head extend to the members also. Hence it is that what was
done by Christ and in Christ eighteen hundred years ago, is now wrought
in every true Christian. Was He born? So if we be His, are we spiritually
born, born by His Spirit. Was He circumcised? So are we, by a circumcision
made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh. Was
He crucified? So are we, as the Apostle testifies; "I am crucified with
Christ; nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me." Is He
risen? So are we. "If ye then be risen with Christ," assuming this as the
starting point of the Christian life. Or we may put the same truth conversely
thus. Christ is ever doing in His members what He did in His own Person
as their Head and Representative. He is formed in us; He is born in us;
He suffers in us, dies in us, rises again in its, lives in us; all which
forms the very reality of the Christian life.
Thus then our Baptism is the real, not merely figurative, grafting of
us into Christ. Therein, as we are taught in the first rudiments of our
faith, "we are made members of Christ." And most significantly does Baptism
itself point to that mysterious participation which it gives us in the
acts of Christ. Still more significant indeed, when, as in early times,
the Sacrament was administered by immersion. For in the waters of Baptism
we die and are buried and come forth cleansed, born again into a pure and
holy life; the going down into the Baptismal waters being an emblem of
our death and burial, and the coming up from the Baptismal water being
an emblem of the resurrection. Baptism is an emblematic acting over again
of the Death and Resurrection of Christ in us; significantly pointing to
the interior mystery, "buried with Him in Baptism, wherein also we are
risen with Him through faith of the operation of God, Who raised Him from
the dead."
And here it is important to observe, that our conformity to the Death
of Christ includes two things. One consisting of what God does upon us
and in us. The other of what we by the aid of His Holy Spirit must be continually
doing for ourselves, not of ourselves, for it is God that worketh all in
us. That which God does upon us and in us, is the causing us virtually
to die in Christ's Death; inflicting death upon the natural man, a death
upon our natural propensities, a death unto sin. "Knowing this," says the
Apostle, "that our old man is crucified with Him, that the body of sin
might be destroyed." Thus has the Christian undergone a mystical or moral
death. A deathblow has been given to the power and energy of that nature
which he has inherited from the fallen Adam. "For he that is dead is freed
from sin." Now this is altogether not only the work of God, but so to speak
His act. Of ourselves we could neither have the will nor the power thus
to crucify ourselves, to inflict death upon ourselves. The emblems of Scripture
truly express this reality, or rather what we see in nature is but the
emblem of what is real in grace. No man can create himself, can cause himself
to be born, can bring himself through death to a resurrection. He may indeed
contribute to the placing of himself in such a position as that these acts
may be done upon him. He may yield himself as clay to the hands of the
potter; such is the little child brought to the baptismal font—such is
the adult heathen who lays down his pride, and believes the Gospel; but
neither one nor the other contributes to his own birth—no more to this
birth of the Spirit, than he can to his birth of the flesh. This therefore,
I say, is done not only by the power of God, as all good things are done,
but, so to speak, by His Divine Agency. He is altogether the Doer of it.
It is altogether effected by that real but mysterious union in which God
makes us one with Christ, causing those things which were actually and
literally done in Him, to be really and virtually done in us. So that His
Death on the Cross is done over again in every Christian. A death which
God inflicts by the power of His Spirit, through the instrument of Baptism.
Hence in the text, which is followed by the Baptismal office, Baptism is
called the being buried with Christ in His Death. This act then is altogether
God's merciful act. "Of His own Will begat He us." "Not of him that willeth
nor of him that ruineth, but of God that sheweth mercy." He takes us utterly
helpless as we are, bathes us, as it were, in the Blood of Christ, and
stamps upon us the marks of the dying of the Lord Jesus.
But when this is done upon us and in us, there follows our part, not
which we can do of ourselves, but which nevertheless we may do and must
do by the aid of God's Spirit. And this is, to keep our old nature in a
state of death; nay, we may not shrink from this full truth in a state
of crucifixion. Strength is given us to do this, and we are responsible
for doing it. Let no fastidiousness in the use of terms, no fear of attributing
too much to the work of man, conceal from us the plain Scriptural truth,
that God having crucified our old man, and this by His free unmerited grace,
"not by works of righteousness which we have done, but by His mercy;" the
keeping of our old man crucified, depends upon ourselves. I put it strongly,
because we are so prone to rid ourselves of our responsibility by seeming
to exalt God's grace. It is indeed by the grace of God; but that has been,
and continues to be, given. God has chosen us to be holy, He has slain
sin in us, and given us His Holy Spirit to keep it dead. So then, when
I say it depends upon ourselves, of course I do not mean that it can be
done of ourselves, or that we are not, at the last equally as at the first,
blessedly dependent upon the aid of the Holy Spirit, Who is the very life
by which our souls live. All is of God, yet not without us, but in us and
by us. What I mean is, that unless we use this grace which has been given
to us, unless we give ourselves to the work of keeping the old man within
us in a state of death, of keeping down the rebel nature, he will rise
upon us like a strong man armed, and will overcome us, and our last state
will be worse than the first. Observe then the true position of the Christian.
The vantage ground has been given to him, and be must keep it. He is placed
as it were within the citadel, and it must be his care to defend it. The
enemy has been put under 'his feet, be must keep him there. This, I say,
is the true position of the Christian combatant. And hence it is that our
death to sin in the Death of Christ, though inasmuch as it is the work
of God upon us, is done at once, is yet by us to be done day by day. As
St. Paul speaks, "Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord
Jesus." It is a work to go on from the day of our baptism to the day of
our death, We must be dying daily that we may be daily rising; we must
be crucifying the flesh that we may live in the Spirit; watching the enemy
within us, lest be break his bonds, and stand up against us. And hence,
even little children are to be brought up in habits of self-control and
self-government. They are to be trained in faith of the baptismal blessing
as having in them a seed of life, not indeed to be too hastily developed,
not to be unnaturally forced to bear precocious fruit, (than which nothing
can be more ruinous to the youthful mind;) but to be watched over, and
fostered, and remembered in every step of mental training, until it comes
forth in the due season the ripened fruit of self-denial and self-discipline.
This twofold feature of conformity to the Death of Christ pervades the
writings of St. Paul. Thus in the text; "Know ye not, that so many of us
as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into His Death, buried
with Him by baptism into death?" Here our conformity to Christ's Death
is set forth as the one act of God. Then in the subsequent verses he speaks
of our daily conforming ourselves to it. "Reckon yourselves dead unto sin."
Let not sin reign over your mortal bodies, that ye should obey it in the
lusts thereof." Again, "The body is dead because of sin." Here is the work
of God within us. "If ye live after the flesh ye shall die, but if ye through
the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body ye shall live."' Here is the
work of the Christian by the Spirit keeping down the enemy slain within
him." Again, "I through the law am dead to the law. I am crucified with
Christ." This was the work of God. "Nevertheless I live, yet not I, but
Christ liveth in me." Again, "Set your affections on things above, not
on things on the earth, for ye are dead." And then afterwards the Apostle
proceeds, "Mortify, put to death, your members which are upon the earth."
Here in the plainest way He brings together the twofold character of our
death. Ye are dead, and yet ye are to inflict a constant death on yourselves.
So again, "He was crucified through weakness, but He liveth by the power
of God; we also are weak in Him, but we shall live with Him by the power
of God." And hence too, such expressions as these, "I die daily," "I am
crucified to the world and the world is crucified to me." "I bear in my
body the marks of the Lord Jesus." "If we be dead with Christ, we shall
also live with Him."
And truly, my brethren, if we would but see it, this is the one great
idea presented to us in the discipline of the Christian life. It is not
life simply, but always life out of death. In all we must first die, if
we would learn to live aright. Die to the world, that we may use it without
abusing it. Die to ourselves, else our own pleasure and not the evils of
God will be our rule. Die to the dearest objects of our affection, husband,
wife, children, else we shall make them idols. And when we have died to
all, then do we live indeed. Then can they "who have wives be as though
they had none; and they that weep as though they wept not; and they that
rejoice as though they rejoiced not; and they that buy as those that possessed
not; and they that use the world as not abusing it; for the fashion of
this world passeth away." Such then, we are taught, my brethren, is the
power of our Lord's Death; such its virtue to heal.
And now then more particularly to apply this great doctrine. In one
sense, sin has been slain in all of as one part of conformity to Christ's
Death has been effected in us all. For it may be assumed that we have all
received Holy Baptism. We have all probably received it as infants, when
there was in us no actual sin to form a bar or hindrance to the efficacy
of that Holy Sacrament. And what then is this Baptism which we have received?
It is a death unto sin. It is the being buried with Christ in His Death.
And surely, brethren, this is an awful gift to have received. It is a fearful
thing to have been brought into such close contact with the mysterious
Death of our Lord; nay, to have bad that very death acted over again within
us. How little do many Christians think of this-even the most thoughtful
too little. Let us strive to recall such thoughts as may have filled our
mind, in the solemn season of Holy Week-when the Passion of our Lord has
been so vividly presented to the mind. Then we think of it as an awful
thing to have stood by the very Cross of Jesus to have been so very near
that great mystery—the Death of the Son of God of God manifest in the flesh:
and yet in truth, my brethren, we have all individually been nearer to
that mystery than they who with their bodily eyes beheld it—nearer than
were the Blessed Virgin Mother and the beloved disciple. For we have died
with Him—we have been nailed to His Cross-we have been bathed with the
Blood which flowed from His Wounds. O then, brethren, what all exceeding
fearful thing it is to be a Christian; to have had done in us and upon
us that which has been done in and upon us all. Hence we may learn of what
exceedingly terrible import are those words of Scripture, "the crucifying
of the Son of God afresh, and the treading under foot the Son of God, and
the counting the Blood wherewith we have been sanctified all unholy thing."
What is this but the very sin of those who, having been baptized into His
Death, live in sin? We call all of us appreciate the guilt of sin when
connected with a religious profession. It would shock most, for instance,
to think of one receiving the Sacrament of Christ's Body and Blood, and
then straightway committing the sin of drunkenness, or fornication, or
other gross iniquity. But consider how near their sin comes to this, who
have come forth from the purifying waters of Baptism only to wallow in
the mire of sin-, who have received the very mark of the dying of the Lord
Jesus; nay, have become partakers of His Death, and yet with the Blood
of sprinkling upon them, deny the Lord that bought them, and live a life
of worldliness or pleasure, in forgetfulness of God!
And yet awful as this aspect of the doctrine seems to be and really
is, still it has no discouraging aspect towards those who desire now to
serve God, and to give themselves heartily to Him. It is indeed one of
the sad consequences of sin that it has not only its own specific penalty,
but it weakens our power for good. It paralyses the arm that would raise
itself against it, it dims our spiritual vision, and incapacitates its
both for discerning and pursuing the path of duty. Wretched indeed is the
position of the sinner when lie first wakes up and finds himself far from
God; and when he would break his fetters, first finds their real strength,
and how powerless are his utmost efforts to free himself This truly is
so: miserable is the feeling of weakness and desolation at such a time.
Yet let it encourage him to call to mind that though a prodigal he is still
a ion. The present kindlings of repentance are a token that the sacred
bonds of this relationship are not yet utterly broken. He has a principle
within him, which although it has long lain dormant and has been weakened
and overlaid by evil, is even yet not without life. He is not even now
as a heathen man. True, his sin has been greater, but the very reasons
which make it greater may be pleaded in his behalf. He is in a nearer and
dearer relationship; he can fall back on a higher principle. In him sin
has received its deathblow, the virtue of his Baptism is not utterly destroyed.
Had it been so, no penitence would be felt. Let him arise then and even
now call forth the energies of the life within him. So far from yielding
to despair or wishing himself unpossessed, as some are tempted to do, of
those great blessings which lie has hitherto abused, let the fact of his
possessing them even now outweigh the discouragement of having abused them.
He is still a Christian; he is still one that has been baptized into the
Death of Christ. Let that be to him a source and spring of hope. Let him
fight as with enemies which have been conquered, which have received their
deathblow; which have hitherto been strong only through his supineness.
He has a power within him which as yet be knows not of. True, the power
of sin has become great by indulgence. It is as a strong man armed keeping
his goods. But still there is One stronger within, Who will master him
and take from him the armour in which he trusted. O that every one wandering
from the fold of Christ in whom there are the kindlings of repentance;
who is wearied with the bondage of sin, wearied with the world, wearied
with its emptiness and nothingness, or terrified with the prospect of God's
heavy judgment, would realize this to him still blessed truth. O Christian,
although thou hast been a profligate, or a worldling, or a covetous man
who is an idolater, or, what shall I say more? if thou hast been an adulterer
or a murderer; yet know assuredly, if thy heart be kindled into penitence,
sin has been slain within thee. Thou still belongest to Christ, if thou
wouldest still have Christ belong to thee. Sin which has been thy master,
may yet be thy slave. Still victory awaits thee, if thou wilt but nerve
thine arm for the conflict, and call mightily on the Lord God of hosts.
And be it the care of all more entirely and personally to realize this
great truth, as possessing in themselves this energizing principle of spiritual
life. Surely it has been the very master-piece of Satan, that he should
have prevailed on so many Christians to use the Death of our Lord rather
to comfort them under the consciousness of sin, than as a power to slay
sin within them; to take up with the miserable comfort arising from the
thought of pardon, while Sin still remains within them as their tyrant
and tormentor, rather than seek the blessed comfort of a pure heart and
a cleansed conscience. For is it not so when they make so much more of
mere forgiveness than of holiness as the result of Christ's Death? when
on being overtaken by sin, their thoughts turn so much more readily to
the Cross of Christ, as the source of pardon, than as crue tying them to
sin, and slaying sin within them? One reason of this is, that the Death
of Christ has been thought of too exclusively as an event past, from which
indeed great benefits have flowed to us, but not enough as having a present
reality to each of us and in each of us; so that we are to bear about in
us, as St. Paul did, "the dying of the Lord Jesus." Towards attaining this
conviction, mental prayer and meditation on the Passion will be most helpful;
repeatedly to bring up before our mind's-eye, the very image of our Lord
dying for us. To fix our thoughts upon it, till our minds and hearts become
insensibly formed after it, and moulded upon it—until in some measure we
can look on the world, its sins and follies, its vanities and pleasures,
its riches and its show, as they would seem in the eyes of one crucified.
Thus will the Death of Christ, ever gazed on with grateful remembrance
by the soul without us, ever copied and traced upon her by His Holy Spirit
within us, become a powerful principle of life, conforming us to itself,
transforming us after His Blessed Image, quenching in us the fire of evil
passions, subduing our pride, mortifying thoughts, of ambition and worldly
glory, making us to esteem lightly the praise of men, weaning us from undue
attachment to the comforts and innocent enjoyments of life, and even enabling
us to love poverty and shame and worldly contempt as the path of Him Whom
we best love to follow. So shall death work in us a better life, we shall
be dying daily that we may live for ever; "our light affliction which is
but for a moment"—light because borne with Him and for Him and by Him within
us—"shall work for us a far more abundant and eternal weight of glory."
Grant, O Lord, that as we are baptized into the Death of Thy Blessed
Son our Saviour Jesus Christ, so by continual mortifying our corrupt affections
we may be buried with Him; and that through the grave, and gate of death,
we may pass to our joyful resurrection; for His merits, Who died, and was
buried, and rose again for its, Thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
