October 25

Reckon ye yourselves to he dead indeed unto sin. - Romans 6:11.

THIS supposes nothing less than that Christians avoid sin, but it implies much more. A man from a fear of loss or from a hope of advantage, or from a reference to his reputation, may be urged and induced to avoid what he loves, and there are many who are ready to wish it were lawful to indulge themselves with impunity in a course of open profanity and profligacy, in the violation of the Sabbath, and in the omission of public worship and the means of grace. And the Lord looketh at the heart and will give them credit for all this.

Lot’s wife left Sodom, but she was loath to leave it, she was not “dead” to it; her heart was in it still. This led her to look back, and “she became a pillar of salt.” If all those were to become pillars of salt who profess to forsake the world while yet they hanker after it, we should hardly be able to move about. What spectacles would the house of God produce! Some would be petrified as they came up the aisle; others would be left petrifaction’s in their pews. And all hearts are transparent in the view of God.

But Christians not only profess to leave the world, they do leave it. “They are dead indeed unto sin” as soon as they are dead to the nature of it, and not merely to any particular instance of it: The Christian’s aversion to sin is natural (not as to the old nature, but as to the new nature), and all natural aversions and antipathies operate universally. It is not to some particular vice to which he may have no constitutional propensity, or to which he may have little temptation in his outward calling and circumstances; no, but he prays, “Deliver me from all my transgressions,” “save me from all mine iniquities.” “What have I to do any more with idols?” This is the way, and, indeed, the only effectual way, to preserve us from all sin; other provisions will be sure to fail when the power of temptation combines with opportunity, secrecy, and inclination.

It is this that serves to secure the believer so effectually under it, and that distinguishes him from other men. He would not live in sin if he might. The Christian does not feel sin to be his pleasure, and therefore he does not deem the opportunity to indulge in it his privilege. If it were lawful to say to a mother, “Why, you may take your child and throw it out of the window,” she would not do it, she could not do it. And why could she not do it? Has she not strength to open the window? Has she not strength in her arms to throw it out? Oh, but it would violate every feeling of her nature, it would be impossible. So the Apostle says that the Christian “doth not commit sin,” that is, as others do, and as they once did, for “his seed remaineth in him, and he cannot sin, because he is born of God.” And Dr. Watts says,

“Immortal principles forbid

The sons of God to sin.”

There were some that brought forward a charge against the Apostle for preaching a doctrine which implied a tendency, or a permission at least, to live in sin. And how does he treat it? Why, with abhorrence: “How shall we who are dead to sin live any longer therein?” Dead to it by profession, by obligation, and by inclination. As no creature can live out of its own element long without compulsion, so is it impossible for the Christian, now that he is regenerated by the Holy Ghost, to live in sin, or to love it. But negative holiness is not sufficient; it is not enough that the Christian “put off the old man,” with his deeds; he must “put on the new man;” and while he must live “soberly, and righteously, and godly,” not only walk not “after the flesh,” but walk “after the Spirit.”