Not dead in sin, which they had been, as also all others quickened souls, till God, who commands the light to shine out of darkness, shines into their hearts, but dead unto the law by the body of Christ (Rom.7.4). Paul exhorts the called in Christ Jesus to reckon themselves “dead indeed unto sin; but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Rom. 6.11). This death to the law and to sin is by the body of Christ, or the complete obedience of Christ, both active and passive: by virtue of which all the elect are delivered from the pit wherein is no water, no spiritual refreshment, no hope, no comfort. “You hath He quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins” (Eph.2.1). What an awful state do all men stand in by nature! They were conceived in sin, shapen in iniquity, and brought forth, not in purity, as some teach, but “children of wrath; and they go forth speaking lies as soon as they are able to articulate.

Reader, has no change taken place in thy heart since thou wast born? Then, be assured, thou art dead in sin, but not dead to sin, as were the Colossians; and living and dying In thy present state, where Christ is thou wilt never go, for, for “except a man be born again, he cannot: see the kingdom of God” (John 3.3). But if the Lord hath quickened thy poor soul, and thou feelest thyself a poor tem­pest-tossed, shipwrecked sinner, having lost thy all, and brought to complete destitution and spiritual beggary, I have good news to tell thee, namely, thou art dead, and “thy life is hid with Christ in God: Thy carnal reason, thy powerful unbelief and thy slavish fears may prevail over thee at present, so that thou mayest not be able to enjoy the comforts of thy free and complete justification; but still these mountains (and terrible mountains they are) shall come down before thy great and almighty Captain of salvation, Jesus Christ. “Is any thing too hard for the Lord?

It may be profitable to inquire how we become dead unto sin, and dead to the law; the right and proper apprehension of which momentous subject, which is only by the Spirits teaching, will assuredly constrain the sinner to glorify God In heart and with the tongue, as upon an instrument of ten strings. In Isa. 53.6 the prophet says, “The Lord hath laid on Him the Iniquity of us all”; that is, God our Father hath imputed our iniquities to Christ; and they were so made His own sins by this strange act that they cannot be considered ours again in strict justice. So the Holy Ghost testifies by His servant Paul: “For He hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God In Him”(2 Cor. 5. 21). It was an act of the Father to lay our sins upon Christ, and to make Him to be sin for us; by which He shewed His boundless Love and compassion, “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”(John 3. 1:6).

Those were matters transacted between the eternal Father and His eternal and only begotten Son, independent of man. In some sense this might be figured out in Abraham and his son Isaac: “And they went both of them together” (Gen. 22. 6). The Father to offer him up, and the Son to be offered up, without a murmur, a sacrifice. So the antitype: “He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so He opened not His mouth” (Isa. 53. 7).

This most astonishing mystery confounds all our carnal wisdom. There is nothing that man’s fleshly wisdom stumbles at more than this branch of gospel truth, and the prince of darkness helps him on. To hinder the poor sinner from rightly receiving this precious gospel truth is satan’s constant aim; or if the sinner hath rightly received it, satan tries all manner of schemes to make it of no value to receiver, either by working upon his fleshly and vile lusts to make him live wantonly, and so to abuse his Christian liberty, or by drawing him into some dark and legal notion, disposing him to add something of his own to the finished work of Christ. But between these two extremes, wild libertinism and dark legality, the child of God must steer his vessel; and difficult indeed he would find it, as he may be variously exercised, to avoid the rocks on the right hand and on the left. He has need to be daily on the look out, and watch unto prayer; for nothing preserves the child of God from the dangerous extremes alluded to like a constant cry to the Lord for help, wisdom and strength. This the flesh hates, and makes a determined stand against and would sooner sink into any dangerous vortex than be thus drilled from day to day.

Ah! believer, thy salvation is sure and certain; but thy possessions must be fought for all the way to glory. However, as Israel got not the land in possession by their own sword, neither did their own arm save them; so It is, and so it will be with thee. God will make thee know that thou must fight the good fight of faith, but it is He that giveth thee the victory. To accomplish our redemption, Jesus “trod the winepress alone, and of the people there was none with Him.” In that glorious warfare of His, He spoiled principalities and powers, and made a shew of them openly” demonstrating by His resurrection that He had abolished and destroyed that monsters power, a blessing He had long promised to the church: “O death, I will be thy plagues; O grave, I will be thy destruction” (Hos. 13, 14.)

Death is no more a penal evil to the heirs of promise; therefore, death is in the inventory of the saint’s property: “For all things are yours; whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death”(lCor. 3.21.22). Paul reckoned it. gain to die, saying, “For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain”(Phil.1 ,21). If a sinner be dead in sin, and not dead to sin, he gains nothing by dying, but suffers an irreparable loss: he is “driven away in his wickedness; but the righteous hath hope in his death” (Prov. 14. 32). Sin, the only revealed cause of condemnation, being removed by the grand obedience and blood-shedding of our Immanuel, and the virtue of it being applied to our conscience by the most Holy Spirit, which is received by faith, a blessed hope, full of immortality, springs up in the believer; and he rejoices that he is dead to the law by the body of Christ, and delivered from the curse and from all liability to eternal death by the blessed Daysman, his kinsman; Redeemer, “In whom we have redemption through His blood, even the forgiveness of sins.” (Col. 1.14). This knowledge of God, and of Jesus Christ in His saving benefits, is eternal life; and though the believer must die the death common to man, yet shall he live and reign with Christ, and there shall be no more death, nor sickness, nor pain. “Blessed is he that hath part in the first resurrection; on such the second death hath no power.”

But though the believer is dead to the law, dead to sin, and dead to the world, being crucified with Christ (Gal.2:20); yet he has a hidden life which he can never lose: “Your life is hid with Christ in God” Here is abiding interest, permanent security. Christ is in heaven; and He said to His disciples before He left them to return to His and our Father, “because I live, ye shall live also” (John 14.19). While the Head lives above, the feeblest member of His body cannot perish, being in union with Him. The heel of Christ, His church, is often bruised by Satan, sin and the world; “but not a (mystical) bone of Him shall be broken”; for “He holdeth our soul life, so that our feet cannot be moved” (Psa. 34.20; John 19.36; ha. 66.9). This is a blessed founda­tion for encouragement to the poor, tried, tempted soul, who sometimes seems driven to desperation, and is ready to cry out with Job in his agonies, “Wilt thou pursue the dry stubble?” Satan is hunting after thy precious life,” but he cannot find it; for it is hid with Christ in God. Cheer up, therefore, ye weary pilgrims; you shall be made to set your foot upon the neck of these your terrible enemies, who now mock and triumph over you. “The God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly.” (Rom. 16. 20).

Art thou risen with Christ, and dead to the law by the body of Christ? Hath thou the promise of the life that now is, as well as the life to come? Then set thy affections on things above, and show to the church and to the world that thou belongest to and art looking after another kingdom. Shape thy sayings and thy doings by the rules laid down in the Word of God, and put off the old man with his deeds. “If ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye Shall live” (Rom, 8. 15).