How We Are Delivered

Now we are taught in this chapter that by the death of the Lord Jesus Christ we are delivered from
that bondage to sin wherein we were held. This redemption from slavery is as definite as the
deliverance of the children of Israel from Egypt. They were under the power of a despot in a
strange land where it was impossible for them to serve God. But the nation was first of all
preserved by blood shedding in the hour of judgment, and then rescued from slavery. Jehovah
brought them miraculously through the Red Sea, and they were able to look back and see the dead
bodies of their oppressors upon the seashore. They thus became Jehovah’s freedmen.

Now the freedmen of grace are those to whom this chapter is addressed. Sin is represented under
the figure of a tyrannical master who carries away the heart and motives in pursuit of passionate
desires, whether purely carnal or mental. Under the rule of sin these desires or delights are
characterized by an absence of regard for the will of God in the matter. The delight may be in
poetry or philosophy or pure science, but the natural heart only finds satisfaction in these things
so far as the will of God is excluded from consideration. But the apostle declares that the believer
is delivered by death from this order of things. He argues, "How shall we that are dead to sin, live
any longer therein?" (verse 2).

Death With Christ

It is important to observe that there is here no injunction to put oneself to death. The fact is
announced that the members of the family of faith have died to sin. This is a judicial
pronouncement with regard to the whole question. And we learn that the act whereby we become
dead to sin was perfected in the death of Christ.

The apprehension of this fact is a matter of faith in the declaration of the Word of God. It could
not be otherwise. Just as we learn that God laid our sins upon Jesus our Substitute, and believing,
we rejoice in the knowledge of this mercy, so it is necessary to believe in order to know that we
were associated with Christ in His death for our deliverance from sin. The apostle says, "Know
ye not that so many of us as were baptized unto Jesus Christ were baptized unto His death (verse
3).

Burial With Christ

In these terms a judicial association with Christ is predicated of all believers. We are regarded as
having gone down with Him into death, leaving thus the place of bondage to emerge into the place
of life and liberty. For this identification applies to the burial as well as to the death of Christ:
"Therefore we are buried with Him by baptism into death:that, like as Christ was raised up from
the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life" (verse 4).

An illustration of this passage of the believer through death may be found in the Old Testament.
I refer now to the crossing of the Jordan by the children of Israel. The general analogy of this

historical incident is no doubt more with the aspect of truth revealed in Colossians and Ephesians
than with that in Romans; but I make the reference now solely to the manner in which the tribes
passed the barrier to their goal.

By divine direction the ark of God was borne to the edge of the swiftly flowing river, and when
the feet of the priests touched the waters, the current stayed. The priests went forward, bearing
the ark, until they stood in the midst of the river bed. There they remained upon dry ground, and
the Israelites were enabled to make their way across the stream upon dry ground. The ark
maintained its position until the last person had crossed over, then upon its removal the waters
resumed their normal course.

Thus, the supernatural power associated with the ark prevented the floods of Jordan from
overwhelming the people of God. So we learn in the New Testament that Christ Himself went
down into death, and while we went through it with Him, He as it were held back its waters from
us, and we passed through "dry-shod" with Him. He died and rose again in the power of an
endless life, and because of our intimate association with Christ we are now called to walk in
"newness of life."

What are we to understand by these things? The facts are here stated in order that we may see how
to gain the victory and how to live and walk in communion with the Lord after a new fashion of
holiness. This result is not to be attained by any personal determination to overcome all the inward
and outward forces which oppose holiness. The divine method is not to do, but to accept what has
been done for us_not to conquer self by pure effort, but to live in the new, the Christ-life
bestowed upon each believer.

The Old Man Crucified

We find from this scripture that the believer is taught to find that in the death of the Lord Jesus
Christ there is for him not only deliverance from the guilt of sins but also deliverance from the
power of sin. We died with Christ, but are also alive again, even as He is. We have passed
through what is here regarded as the judicial extinction of ourselves as sinful persons with
irremediably sinful natures. The apostle, speaking of the child of God in his natural condition,
declares that the "old man" was crucified with Christ:"Knowing this, that our old man was
crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve
sin" (verse 6). There are many forms of death, but crucifixion is a form associated with shame
and ignominy, and under the Mosaic law with curse. And the "old man" because of its evil
propensities was, in the language of the text, worthy not only of death but of the death of the
cross. It was man’s injustice and malignity that assigned the Son of man to the death of
crucifixion, but it was the justice and grace of God that sentenced our "old man" to be crucified
with Christ. The purpose of this judicial act is declared to have been that the body of sin might
be destroyed or annulled.

But it may be asked how this deliverance is effected. And nothing can be added to the words of
this text. The illustration employed is a most forcible one. What can be a more complete
deliverance from slavery than death? If an Israelite died in Egypt he was thereby most effectually

delivered from bondage to Pharaoh. The whip of the taskmaster at once became unavailing. In like
manner the believer is rescued from his slavish service to sin by death. Only he has, unlike the
Israelite, died unto sin in the person of Another. He is, moreover, alive to a new order of things
entirely.

It follows therefore that the attempt to eradicate the evil principle of sin by pure self-discipline is
a virtual denial of the truth before us which asserts that the believer has already died to sin in the
death of Christ. Much confusion sometimes arises in this connection from not observing that the
Scripture does not say that sin is dead, but that we are dead to it. The two statements are totally
different. Some finding evil rampant in inward activity argue from this fact against the plain
declaration of God’s Word. But the latter can never be wrong. The Word of God is truth, and no
lie is of the truth.

A believer is bound to believe that we died with Christ, and moreover that we also "live with
Him," and that we live to God. Further, by His death we are freed from bondage to sin, for
according to Scripture this is an accomplished fact.

(Note:This subject will be continued in the next issue, Lord willing, with a discussion of our
reckoning ourselves dead unto sin and alive unto God.)