As we study chapters 6, 7, and 8 of Romans, we shall discover that the conditions of living the normal Christian life are fourfold. They are (a) Knowing, (b) Reckoning, (c) Presenting ourselves to God, and (d) Walking in the Spirit, and they are set forth in that order. If we would live that life, we shall have to take all four of these steps; not one, nor two, nor three, but all four.
The First Step: Knowing this…
The normal Christian life must begin with a very definite knowing, which is not just knowing something about the truth nor understanding some important doctrine. It is not an intellectual knowledge at all, but an opening of the eyes of the heart to see what we have in Christ. The fact of forgiveness of sins is in the Bible, but for the written Word of God to become a living Word from God to us, He has to give us a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him (Ephesians 1:17). What we need is to know Christ this way and it is always so. So there comes a time, in regard to any new apprehension of Christ, when we know it in our own heart, we see it in our spirit. Any true experience of value in the sight of God must have been reached by way of a new discovery of the meaning of the Person and work of the Lord Jesus. That is a crucial test and a safe one. In Romans 6:6, Paul tells us that everything depends upon such a discovery. ‘Knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away, so that we should no longer be in bondage to sin.’
Divine Revelation essential to knowledge
So our first step is to seek from God a knowledge that comes by revelation – a revelation, that is to say, not of ourselves but of the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ on the Cross. Oh, it is a great thing to see that we are in Christ. Think of the absurdity of asking to be put in. If we recognize that fact that we are in, we make no effort to enter. If we had more revelation, we should have fewer prayers and more praises. We spend so much time praying for ourselves just because we are blind to what God has done. ‘Knowing this’ (Romans 6:6). Yes, but do we know it? Or are we ignorant? (Romans 6:3). May the Lord graciously open our eyes!
The Second Step: Even so, Reckon.
When we know this, what follows? The next command is in verse 11 of Romans chapter 6. ‘Even so reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin.’ This clearly is the natural sequel to verse 6. When we know that our old man has been crucified with Christ, then the next step is to reckon it so. (Reckon = Believe God according to His Word). People are always trying to reckon without knowing. They have not first had a Spirit-given revelation of the fact; yet they try to reckon, and soon they get into all sorts of difficulties. Reckoning is not a form of make-believe. God tells us to reckon ourselves dead because it is a fact and not by the process of reckoning we may become dead, but we are dead.
The normal Christian life is lived progressively, as it is entered initially, by faith in divine fact – in Christ and His Cross. For us, then, the two greatest facts in history are these: that all our sins are dealt with by the Blood, and that we ourselves are dealt with by the Cross. But, what now of the matter of temptation? What is to be our attitude when, after we have seen and believed these facts, we discover the old desires rising up again? Worse still, what if we fall once more into known sin? What if we lose our temper, or worse? Is the whole position set forth above proved thereby to be false?
Now remember, one of the Devil’s main objects is always to make us doubt the divine facts. The crucial test is just here. Are we going to believe the tangible facts of the natural realm which are clearly before our eyes, or the intangible acts of the spiritual realm which are neither seen nor scientifically proved? How does God state the deliverance is effected? In the first place, we are not told that sin as a principle in us is rooted out or removed. No, sin is not eradicated. It is very much there, and, given the opportunity, will overpower us and cause us to commit sins again, whether consciously or unconsciously. That is why we shall always need to know the operation of the precious Blood.
We know that, in dealing with sins committed, God’s method is direct, to blot them out of remembrance by means of the Blood. When we come to the principle of sin and the matter of deliverance from its power, we find instead that God deals with this indirectly. He does not remove the sin but the sinner. Our old man was crucified with Him, and because of this the body, which before had been a vehicle of sin is unemployed. Sin, the old master, is still about, but the slave who served him has been put to death and so is out of reach and his members are unemployed. The gambler’s hand is unemployed, the swearer’s tongue is unemployed, and these members are now available to be used instead as instruments of righteousness unto God. (Romans 6:13). Thus we can say that deliverance from sin is a more scriptural idea than victory over sin. The expressions ‘freed from sin’ and ‘dead unto sin’ in Romans 6:7-11 imply deliverance from a power that is still very present and very real – not from something that no longer exists. Sin is still there, but we are knowing deliverance from its power in increasing measure day by day. While we stand upon the fact, Satan cannot prevail against; remember his attack is always upon our assurance. If he can get us to doubt God’s Word, then his object is secured and he has us in his power; but if we rest unshaken in the assurance of God’s stated fact, assured that He cannot do injustice to His work or His Word, then it does not matter what tactics Satan adopts, we can well afford to laugh at him.
Abiding in Him
The Scriptures declare that we are dead indeed, but nowhere do they say that we are dead in ourselves. We shall look in vain to find death within; that is just the place where it is not to be found. We are dead not in ourselves but in Christ. We were crucified with Him because we were in Him. We are familiar with the words of the Lord Jesus, ‘Abide in Me, and I in you.’ (John 15:4). First, they remind us once again that we have never to struggle to get into Christ. We are not told to get there, for we are there; but we are told to stay where we have been placed. It was God’s own act that put us in Christ, and we are to abide in Him.
But further, this verse lays down for us a divine principle, which is that God has done the work in Christ and not in us as individuals. The all-inclusive death and the all-inclusive resurrection of God’s Son were accomplished fully and finally apart from us in the first place. It is the history of Christ which is to become the experience of the Christian, and we have no spiritual experience apart from Him.
In dealing with Christ, God has dealt with the Christian; in dealing with the Head, He has dealt with all the members. It is altogether wrong for us to think that we can experience anything of the spiritual life in ourselves merely, and apart from Him.
All the spiritual experience of the Christian is already true in Christ. It has already been experienced by Christ. What we call our experience is only our entering into His history and His experience.
Only as the Lord opens our eyes to see the Person do we have any true experience. Every true spiritual experience means that we have discovered a certain fact in Christ, and have entered into that; anything that is not from Him in this way is an experience that is going to evaporate very soon. ‘I have discovered that in Christ; then Praise the Lord, it is mine. I possess it, Lord, because it is in Thee.’ Oh, it is a great thing to know the facts of Christ as the foundation for our experience!
There is a very real practical value in the stand of faith that says, ‘God has put me in Christ and therefore all that is true of Him is true of me. I will abide in Him.’ Satan is always trying to get us out, to keep us out, to convince us that we are out, and by temptations, failures, suffering, trials, to make us feel acutely that we are outside of Christ, we should not be in this state, and there, judging by the feelings we now have, we must be out of Him; and so we begin to pray. ‘Lord put me into Christ.’ No, God’s injunction is to abide in Christ, and that is the way of deliverance. It opens the way for God to take a hand in our lives and to work the thing out in us. It makes room for the operation of His superior power – the power of resurrection (Romans 6:4, 9:10) – so that the facts of Christ do progressively become the facts of our daily experience, and where before sin reigned (Romans 5:21) we make now the joyful discovery that we are truly no longer…in bondage to sin (Romans 6:6).
So in our walk with the Lord, our attention must be fixed on Christ. ‘Abide in me, and I in you’ is a divine order. Faith in the objective facts makes those facts true subjectively. The same principle in the matter of fruitfulness of life ‘He that abides in Me, and I in him, the same bears much fruit’ (John 15:5). We do not try to produce fruit or concentrate upon the fruit produced. Our business is to look away to Him. As we do so, He undertakes to fulfill His Word in us.
‘Of God are you in Christ Jesus.’ It was the work of God to put us there and He has done it. Now we need to stay there. We must not move back on to our own ground and never look at ourselves as though we were not in Christ. Look at Christ, and see ourselves in Him. Abide in Him. Rest in the fact that God has put us in His Son, and live in the expectation that He will complete His work in us. It is for Him to make good the glorious promise that ‘sin shall not have dominion over you’ (Romans 6:14).