Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, vols. 13–63

Romans 3:9. What then? Are we better than they?The first chapter of the Epistle to the Romans contains so horrible an account of the manners of the Gentiles, the heathen of Paul's day, that it is one of the most painful chapters in Scripture to read. Not long ago, one of our missionaries out in China was attacked concerning the Bible on this very ground. One of the learned men said to him, "This Bible of yours cannot be as ancient as you say that it is, for it is quite clear that the next chapter of the Epistle to the Nomads must have been written by somebody who had been in China and who had seen the habits and ways of the people here." So accurate is the Holy Spirit, who knew right well what the ways and manners and secret vices of the heathen were, and still are! But the Jews said, "Ah, but this is a description of the Gentiles." So Paul replies, "What then? Are we better than they?"

9. 10. No, in no wise: for we have before proved both Jews and Gentile, that they are all under sin; as it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one. Then he selects passages out of different parts of Scripture to show what man is by nature.

11-18. There is none that understands, there is none that seeks after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that does good, no, not one. Their throat is an open sepulcher; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips: whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness: their feet are swift to shed blood: destruction and misery are in their ways: and the way of peace have they not known: there is no fear of God before their eyes.These are all quotations from Old Testament Scriptures, from their own Psalmists and Prophets from whom Paul quotes to the Jews so that they might see what their own character was by nature.

19. Now we know that what things soever the law says, it says to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. The Law of God was given to the Jews and the descriptions which it gives must be descriptions of the Jews. "Therefore," says Paul, "as Gentile mouths have been already stopped by the descriptions of their vices, you also, the favored people of God, have your mouths stopped by the descriptions of yourselves taken from your own Prophets."

20. Therefore by the deeds ofthe law there shallno flesh. Whether Jew or Gentile—

20, 21. Be justified in His sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin. But now. Since man is lost, since man is guilty—

21-27. The righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the Prophets: even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference: for all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; being justified freely by His Grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: whom God has 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, at this time His righteousness: that He might be just, and the justifer of him which believes in Jesus. Where is boasting then?If salvation is given to the guilty and if all are guilty—if no one can claim exemption, and yet salvation is freely given—what then? Why, salvation must be purely by the Grace of God! So let Grace have all the honor. "Where is boasting then?"

27. It is excluded. By what law? Of works? No: but by the law of faith. The law of works sometimes aids boasting, for a man rejoices and glories in what he has done. Yet the law of works ought to stop our boasting because we are guilty in God's sight. The law of faith stops our mouth because we are under obligation to God and do not dare to boast, seeing that we have nothing of good but what we have received from Him!

Romans 5:6. For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. What a wonderful sentence that is! Not, "Christ died for the saints, "not, "Christ died for righteous men," but, "when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly."

7-9. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yetperhaps for a goodman some would even dare to die. But God commends His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, being now justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. What an argument this is for the final safety of Believers! If Christ died for us when we were enemies, surely He will give us, now that He has died for us and made us His friends, His reconciled subject—"Much more then, being now justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him."

10. For if when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. There is a threefold argument here. We were enemies, yet God blessed us even then, so will He not bless us even more, now that we are reconciled to Him? When we were enemies, He reconciled us unto Himself. Having done that, will He not certainly save us? We were reconciled to God by the death of His Son—so much more shall we be saved by the life of the risen and glorified Jesus, which has almighty, irresistible power!

11. And not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement.

Romans 8:1. There is therefore now no condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus. Observe that Paul writes "There is therefore," for he is stating a Truth of God which is founded upon solid argument. "There is therefore now"— at this very day, at this very moment—"no condemnation"—none of any sort—none that will lie in the Court of Conscience or in the Court of King's Bench above! "There is therefore now no condemnation to them who are in Christ

Jesus." Our forefathers used to read this verse, "There is therefore now no damnation." One of the martyrs, being brought before a Popish bishop, heard the bishop say to him, "Dying in your heresy, you will be damned." "That I never shall be," answered the good man, "for there is therefore now no damnation to them who are in Christ Jesus.'" He had sought the very spirit of the text, for there is nothing that can condemn the man who is in Christ Jesus!

1. Who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. This is the distinctive mark of a man in Christ Jesus. He does not let the flesh govern him, but the Spirit. The spiritual nature has come to the front and the flesh must go to the back. The Spirit of the living God has entered into him and become the master-power of his life. He walks "not after the flesh, but after the Spirit."

2. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death. And nothing else can do that. Every man is, by nature, under bondage to that which Paul describes as "the law of sin and death." There is a law in our nature which is so powerful that even when we would do good, evil is present with us, and we cannot get away from that law except by introducing another, which is "the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus." Dr. Chalmers has a remarkable sermon upon it—The Expulsive Power of a New Afection—and it is this new affection for Christ which is the accompaniment of the new life in Christ, which expels the old forces that used to hold us under bondage to sin and death.

3. 4. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. The Law of God never made anybody holy and it never will do so. The Law says to a man, "This is what you ought to do and you will be condemned if you do not do it." That is quite true, but the Law supplies no power to enable us to do this! It says to the lame man, "You must walk," and to the blind man, "You must see," but it does not enable them either to walk or to see! On the contrary, our nature is such that when the Law issues its commands, there is a tendency in us at once to disobeythem. There are some sins which we never would have thought of committing if we had not been commanded not to do them, so that the Law of God—not because of its own nature, but because of the wickedness of our nature, is weak and ineffectual for the producing of righteousness. But the Lord Jesus Christ has come, has lived and has died—died for us who are His people, and has put away our sins. Now we love Him! Now, being delivered from all condemnation, we love Him who has delivered us and this becomes the force by which we are inclined to holiness and led on further and further in a course, not merely of morality, but of holiness before God! What a blessed system this is, which saves the sinner from the love of sin, delivers a man from sinning, gives him a new nature and puts a right spirit within him!

5. For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh. Flesh cares for flesh. The man who is all body cares only for the body. The man whose mind is under subjection to his body, minds "the things of the flesh."

5. But they that are after the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. Where the Holy Spirit is supreme. Where the spiritual world has become predominant over the heart and life. There, men live for something nobler than the worldly man's trinity, "What shall we eat, and what shall we drink, and how shall we be clothed?" The carnal life is only becoming to a beast, or a bird, or an insect. But when a man cares for his immortal spirit and lives for Divine and spiritual things, he has attained to the life that is life, indeed!

6, 7. For to be carnally minded is death but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the Law of God, neither indeed can be. As long as a man lives only for this present evil world, lives for self, lives under the domination of the flesh, he cannot really know God, or truly serve Him. Such a mind as his "is not subject to the Law of God, neither indeed can be."

8. So then they that are in the flesh. That is, those who are under its condemnation and power— 8-10. Cannotplease God. But you are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if any men have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His. And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. So that although Christ dwells in a man, he must not reckon that he will be free from suffering, pain and sickness, for the body has not yet risen from the dead and does not yet feel the full effect of regeneration. The soul is risen from the dead by regeneration and it, therefore, "is life because of righteousness." The body will, in due time, also share in the power of Christ's Spirit. The day draws near when we "shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption, into the glorious liberty of the children of God."

11, 12. But if the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by His Spirit that dwells in you. Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh. We have got nothing good out of the flesh at present, for it is not yet "delivered from the bondage of corruption," though it is to be delivered.

13. For if you live after the flesh, you shall die. For the flesh is to die.

13. But if you, through the Spirit do mortify. Or, kill—

13. The deeds of the body, you shall live. Shall a dying body, then, be my master? Shall the appetite for eating and drinking, or anything else that comes of the flesh, dominate my spirit? God forbid! Let death go to death—and the flesh is such. But the newly-given Spirit of God, the Spirit who has quickened us with immortal life shall rule and reign in us forevermore!

14-21. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. For you have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit itself bears witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God. And if children, then heirs, heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ if so be that we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together. For I reckon that the sufferings of the present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed anew. For the earnest expectation of the creature waits for the manifestation of the Son of God. For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of Him who has subjected the same in hope. Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. We are part and parcel of creation and we shall draw it along with us. There shall be new heavens and a new earth. The curse shall be taken from the garden, thorns and thistles shall no longer grow there, and there shall be no killing or devouring in all God's holy mountain. The galling yoke, which we have laid on the whole of creation by our sin, shall be taken off it by our Redeemer!

22, 23. For we know that the whole creation groans and travails in pain together until now. And not only they, but ourselves, also, which have the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit the redemption of our body. We groan in unison with a groaning creation and we shall not, at present, get altogether rid of our aches, pains and sicknesses.

24-32. For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man sees, why does he yet hope for? But if we hope for what we see not, then do we with patience wait for it. Likewise the Spirit also helps our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groans which cannot be uttered. And He that searches the heart knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because He makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God. And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose. For whom He did foreknow, He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom He did predestinate, them He also called: and whom He called, them He also justified: and whom He justified, them He also glorified. What shall we say, then, to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?