Him,” etc., Rom 12.6); in Him by realized, conscious, and efficacious union, through the calling of the Holy Ghost. (“Andronicus and Junia…who also were in Christ before me,” Rom 16.7; “I knew a man in Christ,” 2Cor 12.2.)
A third state may be distinguished as that of sacramental union (see Part iv. Sect. 45. note l), which is distinct and separable from the other two: bring an analogy to that entrance which the Lord had into his kingdom, by baptism. — The blessedness here described belongs to his called, but it is the ordained, earned, and waiting portion of all his elect; who, as they are one by one brought by the Holy Ghost into the knowledge of this grace, toward themselves as those who have virtually died in and with Christ, and who therefore are dead, and have their life hid with Christ in God. Hence they live and walk after that part of their frame which lives — into which it has already been introduced — and not according to that which is virtually dead.
It is of the Lord’s called that he here bears this testimony, as it appears from the context. It is a testimony which, in the Lord’s time, is realized for all his elect, and for the same reason — God has condemned their sin which is in their flesh — “Who is he that condemns? It is Christ that died.” Rom 8.34. He has made me free (Rom 8.2): a habitual deliverance is not incompatible with an occasional ravished subjection — such as he described in chap. 7. The law of sin and death is clearly the law of evil, which is in the members, or flesh, or body. The impossibility of the law — the law gave no power, and therefore it could not possibly get itself to be obeyed by a creature whose substance is such as fallen man’s. Likeness of flesh of sin does not deny reality any more than in Phi 2.7. Condemned, etc. not only passed the sentence but inflicted the judgment.
Compare 1Pet 4.1-6, also 3.18-22. ‘Christ’s flesh condemned and made to suffer or die,’ is not only the burden of Scripture, but the essence of the reality of the foundation of God’s new creation-transactions in Him: even as the knowledge of this body of ours — what it was in its formation; what it was in and became by the Fall; what it is to the unregenerate; and especially what it is to the regenerated sons and daughters of Adam — is one of the great keys to the mystery of man, and to Christian experience.
Righteousness of the law is not what is commonly meant by it: ‘the act, or ground, of justification;’ but ‘the enactment’ — ‘the matter of the statute’ — dikaiwma, dikaiooma, not dikaiosunh, dikaiosune. Who walk — denoting habitual conduct, aim, and principle. Their conformity with the law is circuitous, not direct; incidental, not deliberate and designed. They ‘walk in the Spirit” (Gal 5.16); that is, ‘in or after their renewed mind,’ just as it is said here, Who do not walk after the flesh, but after the Spirit. I cannot forbear remarking what a close parallel that whole chapter (Gal 5) is to the seventh and eighth chapters of Romans, and how truly the whole rule or law of the Lord’s called ones (“you have been called to liberty”) is set out in the four words which I recited above. For what is not only the whole law, but even the whole volume of Scripture to us (to the extent it is apprehended and received by our renewed mind), through the inspiration of the Holy Ghost?
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I cannot agree with Luther here. Origen is more nearly right than he, if by soul may be imderstood ‘the will with its affections;’ and the distinction is surely recognised in Scripture, when Paul prays for the Thessalonians “that their whole spirit and soul and body may be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” (1Th 5.23) According to Luther, ‘those who are after the flesh,’ and ‘the flesh,’ are the same substance; whereas, in truth, the distinction of character is made by these constituent parts of their frame according to which they walk (that is, habitually
act) severally. The natural man Yucikov, psuchikos) lives after his flesh, and is carnal. The spiritual man (pneumatikov, pneumatikos) — he who has a pneuma, pneuma — that is, a Holy-Ghost-renewed spirit, lives after his renewed spirit, and is spiritual. Thus the spirit and the man, and the flesh and the man, are distinct substances severally; though the one includes the other. — Still, Luther’s conclusion is not affected. He who does not live after the spirit, but after the flesh, does only evil; because that flesh, after which he lives, is only evil; ‘defecated’ evil: and unless and until a man is renewed in the spirit of his mind, and thus is made spiritual, he neither does, nor can do anything good. Indeed, further, if he is thus renewed, and when he has been thus renewed, it is only so far as his renewed spirit is impelled and sustained by the Holy Ghost, that he either resists evil, or works good. There are seasons when, for the fuller manifestation of God to his real good, the Holy Ghost, who never leaves his temple, but is like the friend who sits by, neither speaking, nor putting out a finger to help. So far as he is left to the endeavour and power of Freewill, therefore, all that is said here by Paul, about not pleasing God, etc. belongs to him.
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Luther adduces these expressions in Romans 8 as the crown of Paul’s testimony against Freewill. The flesh — meaning, as I maintain, the natural, unrenewed substance of man, with all that is in it (and the unrenewed man has nothing else) — is enmity against God. He confirms this saying, by two of Christ’s, which say that we can do nothing else; not merely that we do evil, but that we can do nothing else, from our very composition; being like corrupt trees; “being evil.” And in another place: you “being evil,” do evil, even while you are giving good gifts (Luk 11.13). Then, by insinuation and implication, Luther proves the same from Paul’s twin sayings. If the just man lives by faith, he that does not have faith is not just; and, if he is not just, then he is a sinner. — If whatever is not of faith is sin, then whatever is done by mere Freewill is sin, because Freewill has nothing to do with faith, but is by the supposition perfectly distinct from it. Neither does faith have anything to do with Freewill, but it has another origin. Whatever it does, therefore, not being of faith, is sin. So that Freewill is only sin.
I object to the application of these two texts in this connection. It is the eternal state of the already justified person, which is proclaimed by “shall live.” (See Hab 2.4; Gal 3.11; Heb 10.38.) Faith, then, is the acceptable principle, without which (it is implied) there will be no acceptance for any man. Freewill has no faith; therefore it does nothing acceptable. — But still, the fair application is, shall not live; not does only sin. “Whatever is not of faith,” etc., if Luther interprets it rightly, proves his point; because Freewill, not acting in and by faith, can do nothing, therefore, except what is sin. But that text means ‘if a man is not satisfied as to the rectitude of his own act, but doubts it,’ it is sin. This text, therefore, does not fairly apply because Freewill may have no doubts, and yet still be damned, whether she doubts or not. On the other hand, a person may sin in some particular act, by acting without faith, and yet not be a condemned person: it is of such that Paul speaks. Thus, although the principles which Luther would establish from these two texts are true, these texts, rightly understood, do not prove them.
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Sublapsum referri. ‘Omnia nirsus
‘In pejus ruere, ac retro sublapsa referri.’ — Virg. G. I, v. 200. 201.
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For some considerations which seem desirable, to mitigate the harshness of this statement, see above, Part iv. Sect. 34. note d; also Part iv. Sect. 10; Part iii. Sect. 38. note l .
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Peculiaris. Luther means peculiar to this Apostle, as contrasted with the other sacred writers: but it is not confined to John. Paul has it also, Eph 2.12; Col 1.6. It may be doubted, too, whether he ever speaks of the world universally; that is, of a strict ‘all men,’ ‘all mankind;’ though his contrast is varied. Sometimes it is the world at large, as opposed to the Jews; sometimes the multitude of the unregenerate, as opposed to the called people of God, as Luther afterwards distinguishes (“Nam et ipse Johannes,” etc.). This is a more correct distinction than Christ’s people, and the seed of the wicked one. For, until called by the effectual working of the Holy Ghost, the children of the kingdom are often found to be as fierce opponents of the truth, and of its children, as the devil’s seed. What was Paul? — Luther does not notice the former of these oppositions, but it is a necessary one to mark. Clearly, it obtains in the words under consideration. “He was in the world (that is, in the material world — on the earth) and the world knew him not: he came to his own,” etc. The contrast here