Knowledge of sin through Law.
The strong language in which the apostle exulted in the believer's discharge from the Law might easily be misunderstood, and give offence to Jewish readers. It seemed to throw the onus of man's bondage and death entirely upon the Sinaitic Law. To obviate misconception, he therefore enters into a detailed examination of the relationship of sin and Law. He insists on the Junction of Law as revealing sin—the secondary, not the primary cause of sin.
I. THE LAW MANIFESTS THE EXISTENCE OF SIN. "I had not known sin, except through the Law." The tenth commandment is selected as a particular instance of law. The prohibition against coveting brings to light the perversity of human nature, which rebels against the idea of a thing forbidden, and longs to do the action reprobated. We know not the existence of the current till we put some barrier in the way; then the stream rages to overcome the obstacle. A precept provokes into activity the dormant selfishness; sin "revives." Apart from a law, we had sinned without realizing that it was sin.
II. THE LAW DISPLAYS THE STRENGTH OF SIN. We must distinguish between the agent and the occasion. The commandment furnishes an opportunity of which the sinful appetites readily avail themselves to suggest disobedience. And we gauge best the power of the tide when we try to swim against it. Sin hurries us onward against the bounds which law has set up, and in our vain struggles to check the sinful impulse we learn how mighty sin is within. We had thought it easy to control our inclinations till the conflict began.
III. THE LAW EXPOSES THE DECEITFULNESS OF SIN. "Sin beguiled me through the commandment" (Revised Version). The promises of sin are ever fair to the eye and ear: "Ye shall be as gods." But experience reveals the fact that sin works evil to us. It is a treacherous monster dealing with us as Joab did with Amasa; it kisses us and stabs our souls. The fruit, so sweet and pleasant, turns to gall and wormwood. Sin pretends to fasten wings to the soul, but is really loading it with fetters. The operation that was to purge our vision has destroyed it. All sin is not ugly on the surface. Like some diseases and parasitical growths, it appears with an illusory brightness to mock our hopes.
IV. THE LAW EXHIBITS THE FATAL EFFECTS OF SIN. "Slew me." "The commandment which was intended for life, I found to be unto death." Learn the abominableness of sin which pollutes the pure stream of holy injunction into a poisoning river, and turns the inspiriting fire of the Divine Word into a destructive conflagration. In the physical death which attends so many vicious courses, we see an analogue of the moral death with which sin visits humanity. As a ray of light makes visible the motes in the atmosphere, so the commandment of God discovers to us the sinful miasmatic motions of the flesh. We confess the loss of a sense of God's favour and of righteous peace in the soul. Push sin to its final consequences to judge of the enormity of a single act. By its fruits we know sin. It enslaves the soul and forces it to do what it would not, so that men groan under the desperate oppression. Thus the Law fulfils its purpose in the manifestation of sin, and ultimately leads to the deliverance of the believer. Sin overreaches itself, and is hoist with its own petard. Feeling the working of death and dreading the issue, we cry to him who "was manifested that he might destroy the works of the devil." The Law being impotent to produce holiness, another dispensation was requisite, ushered in by Christ, who brings the "law of the Spirit of life" and peace.—S.R.A.
The inner warfare.
Even prior to their self-dedication to the service of God, men are conscious of the two opposing laws of which the text speaks. The conflict is intensified and its issue rendered certain by the saving knowledge of the truth, but it is not entirely abolished. All men can therefore echo in some degree the utterance of the apostle.
I. OBEDIENCE TO THE LAW OF GOD MEANS A VICTORY WON OVER A PART OF SELF. There is a dualism in man; the lower appetites strive to subjugate the higher and nobler desires. However powerful the "law of the members," it cannot obliterate the remembrance of a superior Law. But the carnal inclinations may be so readily followed that there is hardly any fighting at all. Howbeit, when the "inward man" asserts his sway, and the fleshy impulse is denied, this implies that a battle has been waged. It is not natural to us nor easy to do fight and to conquer evil. Sin struggles hard; the spirit may be willing to comply with the Divine dictate, but the flesh is weak unto good, and often refuses to follow the lead of the spirit. Recall the temptation and conflict of Jesus Christ in Gethsemane. The law of the members, our corporeal frame, often pleads speciously for the indulgence of a longing legitimate enough at another time or place, and this fact augments the severity of the warfare.
II. CONSIDERATIONS ADAPTED TO STRENGTHEN THE COMBATANT AGAINST SURRENDER TO THE LOWER PRINCIPLE.
1. The Law of God has authority on its side. The law of the mind is the genuine law; the other is a usurped dominion, promulgating an unlawful edict. Obedience to properly constituted authorities is the path of safety and honour for communities and individuals. Recollect, therefore, that what you are urged to do by the law of the members is flat rebellion against your King. Its force has no sovereignty behind it.
2. To succumb to the law of the members is to yield to sin and death. Reflect on the consequence of a defeat of the higher self. It implies slavery and destruction. None but the conquerors can taste life here and receive its crown hereafter.
3. Only the Law of God can excite true delight. It is called "the law of the mind," because it is that which the clarified vision discerns as beautiful, and to which the purified judgment yields complete and lasting assent. To allow the body to govern the soul is to mar the plan of our being. For the sake of ease and pleasure to gratify a present inclination is to prefer the temporal to the eternal, and shadows to the substance. Subsequent reaction testifies to the short-lived gratification of sensual appetites. This is true of every case in which ignoble pursuits and aims have overridden the suggestions of a lofty self-sacrificing career.
4. The God who has written his Law on the pages of Scripture, and graven it on the tablets of the mind, assures us of his unfailing support in the warfare. He has given us his Son as the Captain of our salvation. "By death he death's dark king defeated," and by his triumph and exaltation exhibited the superiority of goodness to every other method of obtaining solid peace and honour. We may fight with confidence, for our emancipation from evil is sure. He turns our folly into wisdom and our weakness into strength through his indwelling Spirit, the ever-present Christ.—S.R.A.
A cry and its answer.
Strange language to issue from the lips of the great apostle of the Gentiles! from a chosen vessel unto honour, a man in labours abundant and most blessed, with joy often rising to transport. Nor was it forced from him by some momentary excitement or the pressure of some temporary trouble. Nor is there any reference to outward afflictions and persecutions. Had he cried out when under the agonizing scourge or in the dismal dungeon, we had not been so surprised. But it is while he is enforcing truth drawn from his own inward experience he so realizes the bitterness of the spiritual conflict, that his language cannot be restrained within the limits of calm reasoning, and he bursts forth with the exclamation, "O wretched man," etc.! Some have been so shocked as to call this a miserable chapter, and have shifted the difficulty by passing it on one side. Others have adopted the notion that he is here describing, not his actual state, but the condition of an unregenerate man such as he was once. Yet the expression of the preceding verse, "I delight in the Law of God," and the change of tense from the past to the present after the thirteenth verse, indicate that we have here a vivid description of the struggle that continues, though with better success, even in the Christian who is justified, but not wholly sanctified, whilst he is imprisoned in this "body of death."
I. INQUIRE MORE CLOSELY INTO THE GROUND OF THIS EXCLAMATION. What is it of which such grievous complaint is made? He appeals for aid against a strong foe whose grasp is on his throat. The eyes of the warrior grow dim, his heart is faint, and, fearful of utter defeat, he cries, "Who will deliver me?" We may explain "the body of this death" as meaning this mortal body, the coffin of the soul, the seat and instrument of sin. But the apostle includes still more in the phrase. It denotes sin itself, this carnal mass, all the imperfections, the corrupt and evil passions of the soul. It is a body of death, because it tends to death; it infects us, and brings us down to death. The old man tries to strangle the new man, and, unlike the infant Hercules, the Christian is in danger of being overcome by the snakes that attack his feebleness. How afflicting to one who loves God and desires to do his will, to find himself thwarted at every turn, and that to succeed means a desperate conflict! Attainments in the Divine life are not reached without a struggle, and non-success is not simply imperfection; it is failure, defeat, sin gaining the mastery. This evil is grievous because it is so near and so constant. The man is chained to a dead body. Where we go our enemy accompanies us, ever ready to assault us, especially when we are at a disadvantage from fatigue or delusive security. Distant evils might be borne with some measure of equanimity; we might have a signal of their approach, and be prepared, and hope that, niter a sharp bout, they would retire. But like a sick man tormented with a diseased frame, so the "law of sin in the members" manifests its force and uniform hostility in every place.
II. DERIVE CONSOLATION FROM THE EXCLAMATION ITSELF—from the fact of its utterance, its vehemency, etc.
1. Such a cry indicates the stirrings of Divine life within the soul. The man must be visited with God's grace who is thus conscious of his spiritual nature, and of a longing to shake off his unworthy bondage to evil. It may be the beginning of better things if the impression be yielded to. Do not quit the fight, lest you become like men who have been temporarily aroused and warned, and have made vows of reformation, and then returned to their old apathy and sleep in sin. And this attitude of watchfulness should never be abandoned during your whole career.
2. The intensity of the cry discovers a thorough hatred of sin and a thirst after holiness. It is a passionate outburst revealing the central depths. Such a disclosure is not fit for all scenes and times; the conflict of the soul is too solemn to be profaned by casual spectators. Yet what a mark of a renewed nature is here displayed! What loathing of Corruption, as offensive to the spiritual sense! Sin may still clog the feet of the Christian and sometimes cause him to stumble, but he is never satisfied with such a condition, and calls aloud for aid. Would that this sense of the enormity of sin were more prevalent; that, like a speck of dust in the eye, there could be no ease till it be removed! Sin is a foreign body, a disturbing element, an intruder.
3. There is comfort in the very conviction of helplessness. The apostle sums up his experience as if to say, "My human purposes come to nought. Between my will and the performance there is a sad hiatus. I find no help in myself." A lesson which has to be learnt ere we really cry for a Deliverer, and value the Saviour's intervention. Peter, by his threefold denial, was taught his weakness, and then came the command, "Feed my lambs" We are not prepared for service in the kingdom until we confess our dependence on superhuman succour.
III. THE CRY ADMITS OF A SATISFACTORY ANSWER. A Liberator has been found, so that the apostle is not in despair; he adds, "I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord." Christ assumed our body of death, crucified it, and glorified it. Thus he "Condemned sin in the flesh." He bruised the serpent's head. Since our Leader has conquered, we shall share his triumph. He quickens and sustains his followers by his Spirit. Stronger is he who is for us than all against us. His grace is the antidote to moral evil; by its power we may contend victoriously. The indwelling Christ is the prophecy of ultimate, complete victory. Eventually we shall quit this tabernacle of clay, and leave behind us all the avenues to temptation, and the stings and infirmities of which the body is the synonym. Clothed with a house from heaven, there shall be no obstacle to perfect obedience—a service without weariness and without interruption.—S.R.A.
HOMILIES BY R.M. EDGAR