II.HOW SHOULD IT BE RECEIVED?

III.WHAT IS ITS EFFECT?

IV.WHAT FEELINGS OUGHT THIS RESULT TO INSPIRE?

(J. Lyth, D. D.)

2. But what is it that they are said here to obey from the heart? The term "doctrine" in the original may signify the thing taught, or the process of teaching — a process which may embrace many items, and consist of several distinct parts, to obey which from the heart is just to take them all in with the simplicity and good faith in which a child believingly reads its task book. This last view is very much confirmed by the import of the Greek equivalent for "form," viz., a mould that impresses its own shape to the yielding substance whereunto it is applied. And it would be still more accordant with the original if we render the whole sentence. The mould or model of doctrine "into which ye have been delivered." Christian truth, in its various parts and various prominences, is likened unto a mould, into which the heart or soul of man is cast that it may come out a precise transcript.

3. It should be obedient to every touch, and yield itself to every character that is graven thereupon. It should feel the impression, not from one of its truths only, but from all of them, else, like the cast which is in contact with the mould bat at a single point, it will shake and fluctuate, and be altogether wanting in settled conformity to that with the likeness of which it ought to be everywhere encompassed. You know how difficult it is to poise one body upon another when it has only got one narrow place to stand upon, and that, to secure a position of stability, there must at least be three points of support provided. There is something akin to this ere the mind of an inquirer is rightly grounded and settled on the basis of God's revealed testimony. How it veers and fluctuates, when holding only by one article and fails of a sufficiently extended grasp on the truths of Christianity! How those who talk, e.g., of the bare fact of faith vacillate and give way in the hour of temptation. How those who admit both the righteousness of Christ and the regeneration of their own characters to be alike indispensable, have nevertheless been brought to shipwreck; and that just because, though adhering in words to these two generalities, they have never spread them abroad over their whole history in the living applications of prayer and watchfulness. They need the filling up of their lives and hearts with the whole transcript of revelation. One doctrine does not suffice for this, for God in His wisdom has thought fit that there shall be a form or scheme of doctrine. The obedience of the heart unto the faith is obedience unto all that God proposes for the belief and acceptance of those who have entered on the scholarship of eternity; and for this purpose there must be not a mere assent of the understanding to any given number of articles, but a broad coalescence of the mind with the whole expanse and magnitude of the book of God's testimony.

4. A scheme of doctrine, then, implies more truths than one; and St. Paul has now gone beyond the announcement of his one individual item. He was very full on Christ as the propitiation for sin, and on the righteousness of Christ as the plea of acceptance for sinners; and then, when he came to the question, Shall they who are partakers of this benefit continue in sin that they may get still more of the benefit? he pronounces a negative. Here there was not one truth, but a compound of truths; a mould graven on both sides of it with certain various characters, and the softened metal that is poured therein yields to it all round and takes the varied impression from it. And so of him who obeys from the heart the form of doctrine into which he is delivered. He does not yield to one article and present a side of hardness and of resistance to another article. He is thoroughly softened and humbled under a sense of sinfulness, and most willingly takes the salvation of the gospel on the terms of the gospel. He does not, like the sturdy controversialist, cull out from the Word his own favourite position; but, like the little child, he follows on to know the Lord, just as the revealed things offer themselves to his docility and notice on that inscribed tablet which the Lord hath placed before him.

5. The way for you to make good the transition from sin to righteousness is to have the same obedience of faith. It is to spread out the tablet of your heart for the pressure thereupon of all the characters that are graven on the tablet of revelation; it is to incorporate in your creed the necessity of a holy life, in imitation and at the will of the Lord Jesus, along with a humble reliance on His merits as your alone meritorious plea for acceptance with the Father; it is to give up the narrow, intolerant, and restrictive system of theology which, by vesting a right of monopoly in a few of its favourite positions, acts like the corresponding system of trade in impeding the full circulation of its truths and of its treasure through that world within itself, which is made up of the powers and affections. Be your faith as broad and as long as is the record of all those communications that are addressed to it — and be very sure that it is only when you yield yourselves up in submission to all its truths that you can be made free from sin by sharing in the fulfilment of all its promises.

6. You often hear of the power of the truth. It is a just and expressive phrase, and is adverted to in the text. But this power of the truth is the power of the whole truth. Mutilate the truth and you cripple it. Pare it down and you paralyse its energies. And thus, as you hope to be rescued from the tyranny of sin by the power of Christian truth, you must foster the whole of it. Divide, and you darken. The whole of that light which one truth reflects upon another is extinguished when the inquirer, instead of looking fearlessly abroad over the rich and varied landscape of revelation, fastens his intent regards on one narrow portion of the territory and shuts out the rest from the eye of his contemplation. Yet let us not think that we, of our proper energy, can supply as it were the first condition on which our deliverance from sin is made to turn. The glory of this is due to grace, which has softened your hearts under the impression of the truth, which has moved you to an aspiring obedience thereto, which will lead you, I trust, to carry out the principle into practice, which will vent itself upward to the sanctuary in prayer, and bring down that returning force which can unchain you from the bondage of corruption and give you impulse and strength for all the services of righteousness.

(T. Chalmers, D. D.)

I. PAUL'S GOSPEL WAS A DEFINITE BODY OF TEACHING. The gospel in its first form as it comes to men fresh from God is not a set of propositions, but a history of deeds that were done upon earth. And, therefore, is it fitted to be the mould of every character. Jesus Christ did not come and talk to men about God, and say to them what His apostles afterwards said, "God is love," but He lived and died, and that mainly was His teaching about God. He did not come to men and lay down a theory of atonement or a doctrine of propitiation, or theology about sin and its relations to God, but He went to the Cross and gave Himself for us, and that was His teaching about sacrifice. He did not say to men, "There is a future life, and it is of such and such a sort," but He came out of the grave and He said, "Touch Me, and handle Me. A spirit hath not flesh and bones," and therefore He brought life and immortality to light, by no empty words but by the solid realities of facts. He did not lecture upon ethics, but He lived a perfect human life out of which all moral principles that will guide human conduct may be gathered. And so, instead of presenting us with a botanic collection of scientifically arranged and dead propositions, He led us into the meadow where the flowers grow, living and fair. His life and death, with all that they imply, are the teaching. Let us not forget, on the other hand, that the history of a fact is not the mere statement of the outward thing that has happened. Christian teaching is the facts plus their explanation; and it is that which differentiates it from the mere record which is of no avail to anybody. So Paul Himself in one of His other letters puts it. This is his gospel: Jesus of Nazareth "died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and He was buried, and rose again the third day, according to the Scriptures." That is what turns the bald story of the facts into teaching, which is the mould for life.

II. THIS TEACHING IS IN PAUL'S JUDGMENT A MOULD OR PATTERN ACCORDING TO WHICH MEN'S LIVES ARE TO BE CONFORMED. There can be no question but that, in that teaching as set forth in Scripture, there does lie the mightiest formative power for shaping our lives, and emancipating us from our evil. Christ is the type, the mould into which men are to be cast. The gospel, as presented in Scripture, gives us three things. It gives us the perfect mould; it gives us the perfect motive; it gives us the perfect power. And in all three things appears its distinctive glory, apart from and above all other systems that have ever tried to affect the conduct or to mould the character of man. We have in the Christ the one type, the one mould and pattern for all striving, the "glass of form," the perfect Man. And that likeness is not reproduced in us by pressure or by a blow, but by the slow and blessed process of gazing until we become like, beholding the glory until we are changed into the glory. It is no use having a mould and metal unless you have a fire. It is no use having a perfect Pattern unless you have motive to copy it. If we can say, "He loved me, and gave Himself for me," then the sum of all morality, the old commandment that "ye love one another," receives a new stringency, and a fresh motive as well as a deepened interpretation, when His love is our pattern. The one thing that will make men willing to be as Christ is their faith that Christ is their Sacrifice and their Saviour. Still further, the teaching is a power to fashion life, inasmuch as it brings with it a gift which secures the transformation of the believer into the likeness of his Lord. Part of "the teaching" is the fact of Pentecost; part of the teaching is the fact of the ascension; and the consequence of the ascension and the sure promise of the Pentecost is that all who love Him, and wait upon Him, shall receive into their hearts the "spirit of life in Christ Jesus," which shall make them free from the law of sin and death.

III. THIS MOULD DEMANDS OBEDIENCE. By the very nature of the teaching, assent drags after it submission. You can please yourself whether you let Jesus Christ into your minds or not, but if you do let Him in, He will be Master. There is no such thing as taking Him in and not obeying. And so the requirement of the gospel which we call faith has in it quite as much of the element of obedience as of the element of trust. And the presence of that element is just what makes the difference between a sham and a real faith.

(A. Maclaren, D. D.)

(M. Rainsford, B. A.)

(R. Wardlaw, D. D.)

(C. H. Spurgeon.)

1. To a law which we have violated. A perfect nature was capable of performing the requirements of a perfect law; but an imperfect nature never can meet these requirements. Those, therefore, who are seeking acceptance with God by the works of the law, are under the curse — bound and sentenced by it.

2. To a God whom we have displeased. Perfectly sensible that "God is love," we also believe that He is a God of justice. God's character, regarded as a whole, demands that He should maintain the honour of His law; and therefore He is bound by every principle of His nature, and by every qualification of His office as the Ruler of the universe, to punish the sinner.

3. To corruptions which he has indulged.(1) Man has fallen under the government of the passions, of which there are three classes — the animal, which lead to all manner of impurity; the malevolent, which lead to all manner of cruelty; and the secular, which go to make men altogether base and sordid.(2) There are also intellectual sins under which men are bound, and even sold — pride, a presumptuous obtrusion into things sacred and prohibited, and infidelity in rejecting the testimony which God has given of His Son. But whether men are bound by the intellectual or sensual sins, they are alike slaves.

4. To the world which we have idolised. There are some who would not for worlds rebel against the laws of fashion. They would rather commit an enormous sin against God than they would violate the etiquette of this world. The man who is devoted to the love of money is just as much bound as ever one who was fastened to the galleys for life. The man who loves the pleasures of this world, though he turns from them with disgust again and again, yet tomorrow it is just the same thing over and over again. And as to the ambitious, see what slaves they are — how servile when they have an object to accomplish; how insolent when that object is once attained; and how dissatisfied with the highest pinnacle to which human ambition can soar.

5. To a death which we cannot shun. Some "are all their lifetime subject to bondage through fear of death," either the act itself or the consequences.

II. THE FREEDOM THAT IS BESTOWED.

1. From the guilt of sin by virtue of the expiatory death and all-atoning sacrifice of the Divine Redeemer.

2. From the punishment of sin. The chain is broken — the debt is cancelled — the indictment is rebutted, and the justified believer can say, "Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect?"

3. From the dominion of sin. How can I love that which crucified the Saviour?

4. Ultimately from the presence of sin. There shall in no wise enter into the heavenly Jerusalem anything that defileth or that worketh abomination.

III. THE SUBSEQUENT SUBJECTION OR SUBORDINATION. "Ye became the servants of righteousness!"

1. By faith in the doctrine of righteousness (ver. 17). All the doctrines of the gospel are according to godliness. They fix salvation on the great principles of eternal rectitude; for God does not forgive merely by an act of clemency; but by an act of equity.

2. Love to the principle of righteousness.

3. Submission to the rule of righteousness — God's will — not our opinion — not the laws of our fellow creatures.

4. Studious determination and constant aim towards the practice of universal righteousness.

(C. Bradley, M. A.)

2. When God of His infinite mercy visits man by His Spirit, that Spirit does not come as a neutral power, but enters with full intent to reign. Man cannot serve two masters, but he must serve one. Alexander conquered the world, and yet he became the captive of drunkenness and his passionate temper. Rome had many slaves, but he who wore her purple was the most in bonds. High rank does not save a man from being under a mastery: neither does learning nor philosophy. Solomon, the most sagacious ruler of his age, became completely subject to his fleshly desires.

3. Who, then, shall be man's master? Our text speaks of "being made free from sin," and in the same breath it adds, "Ye became the servants of righteousness." There is no interregnum. Man passes from one master to another, but he is always in subjection. Consider —

I. OUR CHANGE OF MASTERS.

1. In describing this revolution we will begin with a word or two upon our old master "sin." We were not all alike enslaved, but we were all under bondage.(1) Sin has its liveried servants. If you want to see these dressed out in their best or their worst, go to the prison, or to the places of vicious amusement. Many of them wear the badge of the devil's drudgery upon their backs in rags, upon their faces in the blotches born of drunkenness, and in their very bones in the consequences of their vice.(2) But great folks have many servants who are out of livery, and so has sin. We were not all open transgressors. Selfish caution restrains from overt acts of transgression. Hypocrites are worse slaves than others, because they are laid under the restraints of religion without their consolations, and practise sins without their pleasures.(3) The servants of sin are not all outdoor servants. Many keep their sin to themselves. They are excellent in their outward deportment; but they are the indoor servants of Satan for all that.(4) There are, however, many who were once outdoor servants, sinning openly and in defiance of all law.

2. Believers are made free from sin.(1) From the condemnation of sin (Romans 8:1).(2) From the guilt of sin. As you cannot be condemned so does the truth go further, you cannot even be accused. "Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect?"(3) From the punishment of sin.(4) From its reigning power.

3. How came we to be free?(1) By purchase, for our Saviour has paid the full redemption money.(2) By power. Just as the Israelites were the Lord's own people, but He had to bring them out of Egypt, so has the Lord by power broken the neck of sin and brought us up from the dominion of the old Pharaoh of evil and set us free.(3) By privilege. "Unto as many as believed Him, to them gave He the privilege to become the sons of God." His own royal, majestic, and Divine decree has bidden the prisoners go forth.(4) By death. If a slave dies his master's possession in him is ended. "He that is dead is free from sin."(5) By resurrection. A new life has been given to us; we are new creatures in Christ Jesus.

4. Ye became the servants of righteousness. A righteous God has made us die to sin; a new and righteous life has been infused into us, and now righteousness rules and reigns in us. The text says we are enslaved to righteousness, and so we wish to be.

II. THE REASONS FOR OUR CHANGE.

1. We changed our old master because we were illegally detained by him. Sin did not make us, does not feed us, has no right to us whatever. Besides, our old master was as bad as bad could be. We ran away from him Because we had never any profit at his hands. "What fruit had ye then?" Ask the drunkard, the spendthrift, any man that lives in sin, what he has gained by it, and we will find it is all loss. Beside that, our old master brought shame. "Those things whereof ye are now ashamed." Moreover, its wages are death.

2. But why did we take up with our new Master? In the first place, we owe ourselves wholly to Him; and in the next place, if we did not, He is so altogether lovely, that if we had a free choice of masters we would choose Him a thousand times over. His service is perfect freedom and supreme delight. He gives us even now a payment in His service.

III. THE CONSEQUENCES OF THIS CHANGE.

1. That you belong wholly to your Lord. Numbers of professing Christians seem mostly to belong to themselves, for they never gave God anything that cost them a self-denial. But if you are really saved, not a hair of your heads belongs to yourselves; Christ's blood has either bought you or it has not, and if it has, then you are altogether Christ's. You are the slave of Christ; you bear in your body the brand of the Lord Jesus, and your glory and your freedom lie therein.

2. Because you are Christ's His very name is dear to you. You are not so His slave that you would escape from His service if you could; you want to be more and more the Lord's. Where there is anything of Christ there your love goes forth. Haydn one day turned into a music seller's, and asked for some select and beautiful music, and was offered some of his own. "Oh," said Haydn, "I'll have nothing to do with that." "Why, sir, what fault can you find with it?" "I can find a great deal of fault with it, but I will not argue with you, I do not want any of his music." "Then," said the shopkeeper, "I have other music, but it is not for such as you." A thorough enthusiast grows impatient of those who do not appreciate what he so much admires. You can be no friend of mine if you are not a friend of Christ's.

3. All your members are henceforth reserved for Christ. When Satan was your master you did not care about Christ, you went wholly in for evil. You did not require to be egged on to it. Now you ought not to want your ministers or Christian friends to stir you up to good works; you ought to be just as eager after holiness as you were after sin. As you have given the devil first-rate service, let Christ have the same. Some of you never stood at any expense — I wish we could serve Christ thus unstintedly. The poor slaves of sin not only do not stop at expense, but they are not frightened by any kind of loss. See how many lose their characters for the sake of one short hour of sin. They ruin their peace and think nothing of it. They will lose their health, too; nay, they will destroy their souls for the sake of sin's brief delights. In the same way should we serve our Lord. Be willing to lose character, health, life, all, if by any means you may glorify Him whose servant you have become. Oh, who will be my Master's servant? Do you not see Him? He wears upon His head no diadem but the crown of thorns; His feet are still rubied with their wounds, and His hands are still bejewelled with the marks of the nails. This is your Master, and these are the insignia of His love for you. What service will you render Him? That of a mere professor, who names His name but loves Him not? That of a cold religionist, who renders unwilling service out of fear? Do not so dishonour Him.

(C. H. Spurgeon.)

2. This needs insisting on; for a number of persons think that they are not bound to any real service at all, now that Christ has set them free. Men often speak as if the perfection of human happiness lay in our being free to choose and to reject. Now we are indeed free, if we do not choose to be Christ's servants, to go back to the old bondage. We may choose our master, but God or mammon we must serve. We cannot possibly be in a neutral state. Yet a number of persons think their Christian liberty lies in being free from all law, even from the law of God. In opposition to this great mistake, St. Paul reminds his brethren in the text that when they were "made free from sin," they "became the servants of righteousness." He says the same in other Epistles (1 Corinthians 7:22, 23; Colossians 3:22, 24; 1 Corinthians 9:21).

3. Religion, then, is a necessary service; of course it is a privilege too, but it becomes more and more of a privilege, the more we exercise ourselves in it. The perfect Christian state is that in which our duty and our pleasure are the same, it is the state in which the angels stand; but it is not so with us, except in part. Upon our regeneration indeed, we have a seed of truth and holiness planted within us, a new law introduced into our nature; but still we have that old nature to subdue, a work, a conflict all through life.

4. Now most Christians will allow in general terms that they are under a law, but they admit it with a reserve; they claim for themselves some dispensing power.

I. WHAT IS THE SORT OF MAN WHOM THE WORLD ACCOUNTS RESPECTABLE AND RELIGIOUS? At best he is such as this. He has a number of good points to his character, but some of these he has by nature, others he has acquired because outward circumstances compelled him to acquire them. He has acquired a certain self-command, because no one is respected without it. He has been forced into habits of diligence, punctuality, and honesty. He is courteous and obliging; and has learned not to say all he thinks and feels, or to do all he wishes to do on all occasions. The great mass of men, of course, are far from this; but I am supposing the best — viz., those who only now and then will feel inclinations or interest to run counter to duty. Such times constitute a man's trial; they are just the times on which he is apt to consider that he has a leave to dispense with the law, when it is simply the law of God, without being also the law of self, and of the world. He does what is right, while the road of religion runs along the road of the world; when they part company awhile he chooses the world, and calls his choice an exception. For instance —

1. He generally comes to church, it is his practice; but some urgent business or scheme of pleasure tempts him — he omits his attendance; he knows this is wrong, and says so, but it is only once in a way.

2. He is strictly honest in his dealings; it is his rule to speak the truth, but if hard pressed, he allows himself now and then to say a slight falsehood. He knows he should not lie, he confesses it; but he thinks it cannot be helped.

3. He has learned to curb his temper and his tongue; but on some unusual provocation they get the better of him. But are not all men subject to be overtaken with ill temper? That is not the point; the point is this — that he does not feel compunction afterward, he does not feel he has done any thing which needs forgiveness.

4. He is in general temperate; but he joins a party of friends and is tempted to exceed. Next day he says that it is a long time since such a thing happened to him. He does not understand he has any sin to repent of, because it is but once in a way. Such men, being thus indulgent to themselves, are indulgent to each other. Conscious of what might be said against themselves they are cautious what they say against others. These are a few out of a multitude of traits which mark an easy religion — the religion of the world; which would cast in its lot with Christian truth, were not that truth so very strict, and quarrels with it — because it will not suit itself to emergencies, and to the tastes of individuals.

II. THIS IS THE KIND OF RELIGION WHICH ST. PAUL VIRTUALLY WARNS US AGAINST, AS OFTEN AS HE SPEAKS OF THE GOSPEL AS BEING A LAW AND A SERVITUDE.

1. He indeed glories in its being such; for, as the happiness of all creatures lies in their performing their parts well, where God has placed them, so man's greatest good lies in obedience to God's law and in imitation of God's perfections. Therefore Paul insists on the necessity of Christians "fulfilling the righteousness of the law." Hence James says, "Whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all." And our Saviour assures us that, "Whosoever shall break one of these least commandments," etc., and that "Except our righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees," which was thus partial and circumscribed, "we shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven." And when the young man came to Him, He pointed out the "one thing" wanting in him. Let us not then deceive ourselves; what God demands of us is to he content with nothing short of perfect obedience — to avail ourselves of the aids given us, and throw ourselves on God's mercy for our shortcomings.

2. But the state of multitudes of men is this — their hearts are going the wrong way, and their real quarrel with religion is not that it is strict, but that it is religion. If I want to travel north, and all the roads are cut to the east, of course I shall complain of the roads. So men who try to reach Babylon by roads which run to Mount Sion necessarily meet with thwartings, crossings, disappointments, and failure. They go mile after mile, watching in vain for the turrets of the city of Vanity, because they are on the wrong road; and, unwilling to own what they are really seeking, they find fault with the road as circuitous and wearisome.

3. But religion is a bondage only to those who have not the heart to like it. Accordingly, in ver. 17, St. Paul thanks God that his brethren had "obeyed from the heart that form of teaching, into which they had been delivered." We Christians are cast into a certain mould. So far as we keep within it, we are not sensible that it is a mould. It is when our hearts would overflow in some evil direction, then we consider ourselves in prison. It is the law in our members warring against the law of the Spirit which brings us into a distressing bondage. Let us then see where we stand, and what we must do. Heaven cannot change; God is "without variableness or shadow of turning." His law is from everlasting to everlasting. We must change. We must go over to the side of heaven. Never had a soul true happiness but in conformity to God. We must have the law of the Spirit of life in our hearts, "that the righteousness of the law may be fulfilled in us."

4. Some men, instead of making excuses, such as I have been considering, and of professing to like religion, all but its service, boldly object that religion is unnatural, and therefore cannot be incumbent. Men are men, and the world is the world, and that life was not meant to be a burden, and that God sent us here for enjoyment, and that He will never punish us for following the law of our nature. I answer, doubtless this life was meant to be enjoyment; but why not a rejoicing in the Lord? We were meant to follow the law of our nature; but why of our old nature and not of our new? Now that God has opened the doors of our prison house, if men are still carnal, and the world sinful, and the life of angels a burden, and the law of our nature not the law of God, whose fault is it? We Christians are indeed under the law, but it is the new law, the law of the Spirit of Christ. We are under grace. That law, which to nature is a grievous bondage, is to those who live under the power of God's presence, what it was meant to be, a rejoicing.

(J. H. Newman, D. D.)

(Xenophon.)

(C. Kingsley, M. A.)

(G. H. Salter.)

     5015   heart, and Holy Spirit
     7797   teaching
     8208   commitment, to God
     8676   thanksgiving

Romans 6:1-18

     6028   sin, deliverance from

Romans 6:12-23

     7449   slavery, spiritual

Romans 6:14-18

     6662   freedom, abuse
     6679   justification, results

Romans 6:16-17

     5020   human nature

Romans 6:16-18

     6745   sanctification, nature and basis
     8454   obedience, to God

Romans 6:16-19

     8272   holiness, growth in

Romans 6:16-20

     5004   human race, and sin
     8157   righteousness, as faith

Romans 6:16-21

     6106   addiction

Romans 6:17-19

     4030   world, behaviour in

November 11. "Reckon Yourselves Dead, Indeed" (Rom. vi. 11).
"Reckon yourselves dead, indeed" (Rom. vi. 11). Our life from the dead is to be followed up by the habit and attitude henceforth which is the logical outcome of all this. "Reckon yourselves dead indeed, unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ, and yield yourselves unto God," not to die over again every day, "but, as those who are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God." Further His resurrection life is given to fit us for "the fellowship of …
Rev. A. B. Simpson—Days of Heaven Upon Earth

February 24. "Sin Shall not have Dominion Over You, for Ye are not under the Law, but under Grace" (Rom. vi. 14).
"Sin shall not have dominion over you, for ye are not under the law, but under grace" (Rom. vi. 14). The secret of Moses' failures was this: "The law made nothing perfect, but the bringing in of a better hope did." And this was why his life work also came short of full realization. He saw but entered not the Promised Land. The founder of the law had to be its victim, and his life and death might demonstrate the inability of the law to lead any man into the Promised Land. The very fact, that it was …
Rev. A. B. Simpson—Days of Heaven Upon Earth

August 7. "Knowing this that Our Old Man is Crucified" (Rom. vi. 6).
"Knowing this that our old man is crucified" (Rom. vi. 6). It is purely a matter of faith, and faith and sight always differ, so that to your senses it does not seem to be so, but your faith must still reckon it so. This is a very difficult attitude to hold, and only as we thoroughly believe God can we thus reckon upon His Word and His working, but as we do so, faith will convert it into fact, and it will be even so. These two words, "yield" and "reckon," are passwords into the resurrection life. …
Rev. A. B. Simpson—Days of Heaven Upon Earth

Sixth Sunday after Trinity Exhortation to Christian Living.
Text: Romans 6, 3-11. 3 Or are ye ignorant that all we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were buried therefore with him through baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life. 5 For if we have become united with him in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection; 6 knowing this, that our old man was crucified with him, that the body of …
Martin Luther—Epistle Sermons, Vol. III

Seventh Sunday after Trinity Exhortation to Resist Sin.
Text: Romans 6, 19-23. 19 I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh: for as ye presented your members as servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity, even so now present your members as servants to righteousness unto sanctification. 20 For when ye were servants of sin, ye were free in regard of righteousness. 21 What fruit then had ye at that time in the things whereof ye are now ashamed? for the end of those things is death. 22 But now being made free from …
Martin Luther—Epistle Sermons, Vol. III

Address on Easter Eve
"We were buried, therefore, with Him through baptism into death; that like as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we also should walk in newness of life."--ROM. VI. 4. "I delivered unto you, among the first things, that . . . He was buried."--I COR. XV. 3, 4. St. Paul lays extraordinary and, at first sight, inexplicable stress, on the fact of our Lord's Burial. It is certainly strange that, in the second of these two texts, he mentions it as constituting, along with the …
J. H. Beibitz—Gloria Crucis

Twentieth Day. Holiness and Liberty.
Being made free from sin, ye became servants of righteousness: now present your members as servants of righteousness unto sanctification. Now being made free from sin, and become servants unto God, ye have your fruit unto sanctification, and the end eternal life.'--Rom. vi. 18, 19, 22. 'Our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus.'--Gal. ii. 4. 'With freedom did Christ set us free: stand fast therefore, and be not entangled again in a yoke of bondage.'--Gal. v. 1. There is no possession more …
Andrew Murray—Holy in Christ

Love of Religion, a New Nature.
"If we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him."--Romans vi. 8. To be dead with Christ, is to hate and turn from sin; and to live with Him, is to have our hearts and minds turned towards God and Heaven. To be dead to sin, is to feel a disgust at it. We know what is meant by disgust. Take, for instance, the case of a sick man, when food of a certain kind is presented to him,--and there is no doubt what is meant by disgust. Consider how certain scents, which are too …
John Henry Newman—Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VII

'The Form of Teaching'
... Ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you.'--ROMANS vi. 17. There is room for difference of opinion as to what Paul precisely means by 'form' here. The word so rendered appears in English as type, and has a similar variety of meaning. It signifies originally a mark made by pressure or impact; and then, by natural transitions, a mould, or more generally a pattern or example, and then the copy of such an example or pattern, or the cast from such a mould. …
Alexander Maclaren—Romans, Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V)

Christ's Resurrection an Image of Our New Life.
(Easter Sunday.) Praise and glory be to God, and peace with all who with joyful hearts greet one another with the cry, The Lord is risen! Amen. TEXT: ROM. vi. 4-8. IT is natural, my friends, that the glorious festival of our Saviour's resurrection should attract the thoughts of believers to a far remote time, and that it should make them rejoice to think of the time when they shall be with Him who, after He had risen from the dead, returned to His and our Father,--a joyful prospect, expressed in …
Friedrich Schleiermacher—Selected Sermons of Schleiermacher

Death to Sin through Christ
"Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord."-Romans 6:11. THE connection of this passage will help us to understand its meaning. Near the close of the previous chapter Paul had said, "The law entered that the offence might abound; but where sin abounded, grace did much more abound, that as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness, unto eternal life, by Jesus Christ our Lord." He speaks here of …
Charles G. Finney—Sermons on Gospel Themes

Baptism --A Burial
I do not understand Paul to say that if improper persons, such as unbelievers, and hypocrites, and deceivers, are baptized they are baptized into our Lord's death. He says "so many of us," putting himself with the rest of the children of God. He intends such as are entitled to baptism, and come to it with their hearts in a right state. Of them he says, "Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death?" He does not even intend to say that those who were …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 27: 1881

The Doctrines of Grace do not Lead to Sin
No sooner is this doctrine set forth in a clear light than men begin to cavil at it. It is the target for all carnal logic to shoot at. Unrenewed minds never did like it, and they never will; it is so humbling to human pride, making so light of the nobility of human nature. That men are to be saved by divine charity, that they must as condemned criminals receive pardon by the exercise of the royal prerogative, or else perish in their sins, is a teaching which they cannot endure. God alone is exalted …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 29: 1883

Christ's Resurrection and Our Newness of Life
The idea that the grace of God should lead us to licentiousness is utterly loathsome to every Christian man. We cannot endure it. The notion that the doctrines of grace give license to sin, comes from the devil, and we scout it with a detestation more deep than words can express. "How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?" On our first entrance upon a Christian profession, we are met by the ordinance of baptism, which teaches the necessity of purification. Baptism is, in its very …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 37: 1891

Death and Life in Christ
I. THE FACTS REFERRED TO IN THESE FOUR VERSES CONSTITUE THE GLORIOUS GOSPEL WHICH WE PREACH. 1. The first fact here very clearly indicated is that Jesus died. He who was divine, and therefore immortal, bowed his head to death. He whose human nature was alhed to the omnipotence of his divine nature, was pleased voluntarily to submit himself to the sword of death. He who was pure and perfect, and therefore deserved not death, which is the wages of sin, nevertheless condescended for our sake to yield …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 9: 1863

Alive unto God.
(Sixth Sunday after Trinity.) ROMANS vi. 11. "Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord." Every baptised person belongs to God. He is His absolute property, marked with the sign of the great King. As the broad arrow is the mark that certain property belongs to the British Government, so the Cross of Holy Baptism is the sign and pledge that we are God's. Think of that, my brothers, you are not free to choose your own way, your …
H. J. Wilmot-Buxton—The Life of Duty, a Year's Plain Sermons, v. 2

Servants of Sin.
(Seventh Sunday after Trinity.) ROMANS vi. 20. "The servants of sin." There is no existence in the world so sad as that of a slave; and there is no slavery so hard as that of sin, no taskmaster so bitter as the devil. There was a tyrant in the old times who ordered one of his subjects to make an iron chain of a certain length, in a given time. The man brought the work, and the tyrant bade him make it longer still. And he continued to add link to link, till at length the cruel taskmaster ordered …
H. J. Wilmot-Buxton—The Life of Duty, a Year's Plain Sermons, v. 2

The Parable of the Householder. A Sermon, by Bishop Latimer.
MATTHEW XX.--The kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that was an householder, which went out early in the morning to hire labourers into his vineyard. This parable is written by the evangelist Matthew in the twentieth chapter, and is very dark and hard to be understood; yea, there is no harder piece of scripture written by any evangelist. Therefore it may well be called hard meat; not meat for mowers nor ignorant people, who are not exercised in the word of God. And yet there is no other diversity …
John Knox—The Pulpit Of The Reformation, Nos. 1, 2 and 3.

"But if Ye have Bitter Envying and Strife in Your Hearts, Glory Not," &C.
James iii. 14.--"But if ye have bitter envying and strife in your hearts, glory not," &c. It is a common evil of those who hear the gospel, that they are not delivered up to the mould and frame of religion that is holden out in it, but rather bring religion into a mould of their own invention. It was the special commendation of the Romans, that they obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine into which they were delivered, (Rom. vi. 17) that they who were once servants, or slaves of sin, had now …
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning

Schleiermacher -- Christ's Resurrection an Image of Our New Life
Friedrich Ernst Daniel Schleiermacher, German theologian and philosopher, was born at Breslau in 1768. He was brought up in a religious home and in 1787 went to the University of Halle, and in 1789 became a Privat-Docent. In 1794 he was ordained and preached successively at Landsberg and Berlin. The literary and philosophical side of his intellect developed itself in sympathy with the Romanticists, but he never lost his passion for religion, a subject on which he published five discurses in 1799. …
Grenville Kleiser—The world's great sermons, Volume 3

How Christ is to be Made Use Of, in Reference to the Killing and Crucifying of the Old Man.
Having thus shortly pointed out some things in general, serving to the clearing and opening up the way of our use-making of Christ for sanctification, we come now more particularly to the clearing up of this business. In sanctification we must consider, first, The renewing and changing of our nature and frame; and, next, The washing and purging away of our daily contracted spots. The first of these is commonly divided into two parts, viz. 1st, The mortification, killing, and crucifying of the …
John Brown (of Wamphray)—Christ The Way, The Truth, and The Life

Evening Prayer for a Family.
O eternal God and most gracious Father, we thine unworthy servants here assembled, do cast down ourselves at the footstool of thy grace, acknowledging that we have inherited our fathers' corruption, and actually in thought, word, and deed, transgressed all thy holy commandments, so that in us naturally there dwelleth nothing that is good; for our hearts are full of secret pride, anger, impatience, dissembling, lying, lust, vanity, profaneness, distrust, too much love of ourselves and the world, too …
Lewis Bayly—The Practice of Piety

Sanctification and Justification.
"Yield your members servants to righteousness unto sanctification." --Rom. vi. 19. Sanctification must remain sanctification. It may not arbitrarily be robbed of its significance, nor be exchanged for something else. It must always signify the making holy of what is unholy or less holy. Care must be taken not to confound sanctification with justification; a common mistake, frequently made by thoughtless Scripture readers. Hence the importance of a thorough understanding of this difference. Being …
Abraham Kuyper—The Work of the Holy Spirit