…. Because many Christians have not seized the force of this truth [being "in Christ" and "not in the flesh,"] nor of the expressions of the apostle, they use Christ's death as a remedy for the old man, instead of learning that they have by it passed out of the old man as to their place before God, and into the new in the power of that life which" is in Christ. Ask many a true-hearted saint what is the meaning of, " When we were in the flesh," and he could give no clear answer; he has no definite idea of what it can mean. Ask him what it is to be in Christ:all is equally vague. A man born of God may be in the flesh as to the condition and standing of his own soul, though he be not so in God's sight; nay, this is the very case supposed in Romans vii, because he looks at himself as standing before God on the ground of his own responsibility, on which ground he never can, in virtue of being born again, meet the requirements of God, attain to His righteousness. J.N.D.