ROMANS VII,

T

HE first verse gives the key to the chapter: "Know ye not, brethren, (for I speak to them

that know the law,) how that the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth?" Only "as long as he liveth." Death having transpired, the dominion of the law ceases.

The murderer, as long

dread the law, or be

as he still lives, may well brought to death by the law; but the moment death transpires, the law can do no more. The scaffold on which its victim expired, is the end of all the law could demand.

Beloved, it is well for us that it is only "as long as he lireth." For we, our natural sinful selves, are not now alive. Morally we are; but not judicially. As God sees us, and as the law sees us, we are dead. We have died in the Person of Christ. Blessed, pre

verse:

cious testimony of the Spirit of God is this fourth "Wherefore, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ." But where have we become dead? On the cross. Why? Because of the law-the law had said, "The soul that sinneth it shall die." But did Christ sin? Nay! but we have sinned, and the gospel is, that God exacted the penalty from Him, and He became answerable!

Paul, in this chapter, is not, I believe, describing his own experience; excepting so far as he knew that he had died in Christ, and that therefore he was no longer under the dominion of the law. Ah! no; is he not stating a great principle respecting what law exercises are in one who, as yet, does not know grace? Did anyone know grace more than he, the apostle to whom "the mystery" was revealed? Was it his experience to say, "I am carnal, sold under sin?" or, "I am a wretched man; who shall deliver me?" or, "I am unable to do good, for when I would do it, evil is present with me." Did he not say of fellow-believers, "I speak not unto you as unto carnal"? and did he not say, "I can do all

things through Christ"? and instead of the "Who shall deliver me?" did he not affirm:

whom I have believed"?

"I know

No, the chapter is a remarkable description of life without liberty; of the knowledge of the law, and of sin, by which the law brings to death, without the knowledge of how the law has brought to death in the Person of Christ, and how, therefore, there is now no more death. It is the full description of an awakened conscience, sitting down, not in the sunshine of divine love, but before the law, and in fear of the doom to which the law brings. It is Sinai, and not Calvary. It is the flesh, with the law flashing its terrors on it; and not the Spirit telling of Christ, who is the end of the law to every one that believeth.

Beloved it is a blessed thing, the knowledge of the grace of God. The contrast here is between one who, in this chapter, is miserable in his helplessness under law, and of one who, in the end of the same chapter and the beginning of the next, is no longer under law, but under grace. In the one, it is all

"I," looking in on self-a poor, miserable thing to do. In the other, it is all Christ-beholding the Lamb of God, who taketh away the sin of the world, a blessed, liberating, soul-supporting, joy-inspiring spectacle !

Alive, but not happy, is I believe the great truth brought out in the words which I have read-those extending from verses 14 to 25. They never could, as some imagine, express the natural condition of a Christian. Is it natural to the Christian to have no power for good? to declare he is carnal, sold under sin? to say he does not know who can deliver him? to declare he is only wretched, and that without remedy?

I know some, and they well-taught Christians even, who strangely teach that the 7th of Romans is the very perfection of Christian experience. That it may be the experience of a Christian is true; but it is one thing for a Christian to have an experience, and quite another, for that experience to be Christan experience. What! Is it natural to a believer to have a life of unbelieving? And yet many Chris

tians, all their life long, live in doubt. No; the normal state of a child of God is, that he believes; and that believing, he has joy-joy unspeakable and full of glory.

That this experience of the 7th of Romans cannot be the normal experience of a child of God, is seen from the following reasons: First,—it is not natural to a Christian to be wretched or ignorant, as here: "O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me?" Forty times in this chapter, the person speaking refers to " I," "me," or "my." And, Secondly, there is not one word of the Lord Jesus Christ, or of the Holy Ghost; not a word about the love or grace of God. Thirdly-the whole statement is destitute of a single modicum of peace, or joy, or assurance, or power for sanctification, or liberty; and consequently, not a particle of happiness, excepting in that one expression: "I delight in the law of God after the inward man." But quite possible is it to delight in the law, and not be happy.

There is an inward man-a new nature, that could