[AI translation] I would now like to pick up where we left off last Sunday. On the basis of the same Word, we were talking then about the difference between a believer and a non-believer, between a converted and forgiven person and a person who has not been converted and forgiven. We have come to the point where the unbeliever lives under the law and the believer lives under grace. The believer, living under grace, is disciplined and set free by God's great love for a life of consecrated service, a life of gratitude. But this Word also reveals other differences, and it is good to look at them now, because they are a measure of where we are and how far we have come in the life of faith given to God.The last verse of chapter 6 points to a very crucial difference: 'For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord.' (Rom 6:23) What this means is that the life of a believer is often different not in its manifestations but in its direction from that of a non-believer. The direction of life under grace is definitely that of eternal life, the fullness and happiness of fellowship with Christ. Every step he takes is towards eternal life, it brings him nearer to it, however stumbling and clumsy the step. And the direction of the life which has not been converted under grace is death, namely, eternal death, damnation, and every step he takes in life brings him nearer to it, however impressive, great and heroic the step! Often the difference is not even in what a believer or unbeliever does, but in the direction in which he goes in doing what he does. Perhaps the fault with you is not in not doing something well, not doing your daily work well. The fault is not that you are not diligent and honest, for perhaps you are very diligent and honest; but the fault is that in all the honest, diligent, praiseworthy work and conduct you do: your life is not going in the right direction, not towards eternal life, but towards eternal death!
The change in the prodigal son's life came when he started on his way home, when the direction of his life changed. On this journey home, he must have looked very miserable: his clothes were torn, his hair dishevelled, his face dirty, his tattered rags still reeked of the stench of a pigsty, he could not have denied the environment he had come from. Other people he met might have looked at him with disgust or pity, like the wretch of life, but more importantly, whatever he looked like, he was on his way home! The converted man is not a perfect man, not spotless, not blameless, not sinless, in fact, very weak and fallible, bearing the marks and stench of the old vain life, unable to deny what a wretchedly wasted life he comes from, often very miserably stumbling indeed: but he is going home, his back is turned to the pig trough and all that led him there! Already he hates the whole life he has lived in that direction, already he has turned away and broken away from it, and now, muddy, dirty, miserable as he is, he is on his way home! And now, though sighing, shamefaced, halting: but with every step he comes nearer to his father, and to his father's house!
What is the direction of your life? Is it with large, confident, hard steps, with sympathetic ease, onward from home, or pitifully and stumblingly, perhaps, but already homeward, toward eternal life? "The wages of sin is death," says our fundamental hymn. It means that death, damnation, is the consequence, the necessary process, of sin. Sin is a consequence of death, eternal death. Sin is the inoculant of damnation, a single drop of it is deadly poison. The slightest sin, therefore, infects your life to death. Imagine a patient who is dying, who has the poison of certain death in him, perhaps it has not yet completely permeated his system, perhaps it is often hardly noticeable to him what a great danger he is in, perhaps he sometimes succeeds in concealing the fatal, deadly evil: he still carries the deadly poison within him, and is doomed to die as a result. Such is the deadly poison of sin that is in us: the wages of sin is death, the direction of death, damnation! There is only one antidote to this deadly poison, sin, which can stand in the way of its destructive effects and reverse the whole direction of life: grace, the grace of Jesus' death, which puts the patient in the direction of gradual healing to eternal life instead of gradual corruption to damnation. He is still sick but already on the road to recovery, the death-giving power of the poison in him broken by grace. Grace does the same in you, if you accept it, and the direction of your life changes as soon as you accept it. "The gift of God's grace is eternal life in our Lord Jesus Christ!" It is for you too! Just believe it, believe it now, and the death spell will be broken and something will begin to work in you that will end in eternal life. This something that is working in you: this is grace!
The apostle Paul goes on to speak of a radical break with sin which, to give it its proper meaning, he expresses in these words: 'we are dead to sin' (v.6,2b). It is a bloody reality that the prodigal son, at that moment on his way home, was really dead to a life among swine. Something that had hitherto attracted him to a frivolous, futile life, that something had died in him. Reaching people bear very happy witness to this death. A man once told me, who had also abused the patience and fidelity of his wife, that when he received grace from the Lord instead of punishment for all his adulterous conduct and thoughts, he found, to his infinite joy, that something died in him with the acceptance of grace. He, who had been living under the spell of adultery and could not get rid of it, was now freed from it without having to struggle against it. I knew another man who was addicted to drink. He was in a very tragic situation because of it. Once God's grace came into his life and turned his life around. Miraculously, he also testified that it was as if the feeling that made him crave the drink, that made him addicted to it, had died in him. Now he didn't even have to struggle against the desire, because there was no desire, it was gone from him, just as when someone dies, the person who desired the drink was gone from him. This is what the apostle writes about. (Rom 6:2) Then he continues, "He who is dead is freed from sin." (Rom 6,7) No matter how cruel the slave-owner, once the slave, who has been huddled in the yoke of his master, sin, is dead, his former master has nothing to do with him. He who is dead can no longer serve his powerful master, can no longer look him in the eye, can no longer respect him, can no longer do his will.
Have you ever seen a dead one? How indifferent, how insensitive he can be to the earthly things, desires, wishes, aspirations around him? The dead person is no longer what he was before, he does not do what he did before, he is not pained by what he was before, and he cannot rejoice in what he used to be excited and delighted by. Thus the man under grace dies to sin. Something dies in him which has bound him indissolubly to his sins. And what is it that must die in this way, so that renewed life may blossom in its place? The Word says: "...our old man was crucified with him, that the body of sin might be made strong, that we should not serve sin: For he that died is freed from sin." (Rom 6:6-7) So our old man must die, with all his good and bad, good and bad. The old man, who can do nothing but sin, who is steeped in sin, who is born with original sin, who has in him the poison of death, who, even when he wants to be beautiful and good, is infected with sin. The apostle says that this old man of ours - I might say our self - was crucified with Christ. In another place he says, we were baptized into the death of Christ, and once thus, we were buried with Christ by baptism into death, and so became one with him in the likeness of his death. (Rom 6:4-5) All this expression means that Christ not only died in my place to save me from eternal death, from damnation, but in His crucified body He also died as it were for my old man, the one who was a slave to sin, and so by dying in Christ and with Christ was freed from sin, as one dead and freed from all earthly bondage.
This is where many believers make the mistake of not daring to give themselves in this way to the death of Christ, of not daring to draw the ultimate consequences of their faith in Christ, and this is why their lives then become so half-hearted: a little believing, a little unbelieving. And yet the Scripture has made it very clear that a little leaven will leaven the whole lump, that is, any little part of the old man, any little piece of him, any little pleasure, any little desire that I want to save for the new life, for the new life under grace, will leaven, will make the whole life bitter, will make it dull. There is no choice, then, but to purge away the old leaven, to become entirely new dough! One cannot die a little, but either one dies, completely, or one does not die, or perhaps one is only dying. Well, the old man of many believers is still very much alive. He is dying, but he does not want to die, and until he does, the Christian life will always be a whining, feeble life. For it is only when the self is no longer alive, when it is dead, that Christ can live, as in Paul, who expressed this miracle: it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. Christ and the old man cannot coexist in the same life, they cannot live at the same time: either one or the other. Only when our old man has died with Christ can the happy, full, new Christian life arise in us. That is what these words mean: 'Therefore we were buried with him by baptism into death: that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also might walk in newness of life. For if by the likeness of his death we have been made one with him, we shall certainly be also by the likeness of his resurrection." (verses 4-5)
What then shall we do? The apostle says: "...consider yourselves also that ye are dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Rom 6:11) In other words, think of the death and resurrection of Christ, and consider yourselves as having died in Him, and also been raised in Him, and now living unhindered, fully, fully devoted to God! As long as you look to Jesus in faith, and look to Him alone, you can truly see yourself as having died to sin and been raised to a new life, for as long as you do! You will experience it! There has indeed been a mystical death and resurrection within you. Not self-suggestion and conceit, but a happy reality. But only as long as you see and realize this death and resurrection in Christ.
Look at this table setting where Christ's death is depicted. If thou art now ready to bring thy old man, to give him up to death, to bury him: then let the bread and wine remind thee that thou thyself also hast died with Christ to sin, and henceforth thou mayest truly live unto God. If your heart is ready for this death and resurrection with Christ: you may now with calm joy promise and vow before taking communion, that "henceforth for this grace you will devote your whole life to Him, and live already in this present world as His redeemed for His glory!"
Amen
Date: 27 February 1949.
Lesson
Róm 6,1-14