2974. A Wafer Of Honey

No. 2974-52:73. A Sermon Delivered In The Year 1863, By C. H. Spurgeon, At The Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington.

A Sermon Published On Thursday, February 8, 1906.

My grace is sufficient for you. {2Co 12:9}

 For other sermons on this text:
   {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 1084, “Thorn in the Flesh” 1075}
   {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 1287, “Strengthening Words from the Saviour’s Lips” 1278}
   {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 2974, “Wafer of Honey, A” 2975}

1. Let no Christian imagine that he will ever have immunity from trouble while he continues in the body. Should you be favoured with visions and revelations of the Lord, caught up to the third heaven, admitted into Paradise, and privileged to hear things which it would not be lawful for a man to utter, do not conclude that you have escaped the rod; rather expect that such a high privilege will need heavy affliction to balance it. If God has given you the great sail and the prosperous wind, he will also give you the heavy ballast to keep your keel deep in the stream. Do not expect, dear brethren, that because you have been strengthened in the faith, you will therefore be freed from the burden of the flesh; neither because you may have been the means of strengthening others, that, therefore, trouble will be light for you. Even into your ship the deep waters may come. Do not think that it is so watertight that the billows will only dash against it. You may be called to feel heaviness, your faith may be all but staggered, and your soul may have to cry out from the depths, because of the slight strength you possess.

2. The Lord has such ways of chastising his children as to make them suffer. Some of us think, after we have suffered a certain amount of trouble, that we have been so inured to it we shall no longer be moved as we used to be. The apostle Paul had been beaten with rods, tossed about in shipwrecks, yes he had suffered hunger and thirst and nakedness, until he felt that, if any man had a right to glory after the flesh, he had. Still, even he found that the Lord had a way of getting at his heart, and making it smart. He had thorns in the flesh, messengers of Satan that most effectively buffeted him. We, too, must have trials, — trials of a kind that shall come right home to us, and touch us in our bones and in our flesh.

3. Neither let us think, dear friends, that even the privilege of the mercy seat will shield us from the rod. When chastened we shall run to prayer; but we shall not, therefore, escape the chastisement. Paul, an apostle, prays; he, who certainly must have understood “the effective fervent prayer of a righteous man,” beseeches the Lord thrice, yet the thorn in the flesh was not blunted, much less removed; he still had to suffer as he had done previously. Oh, how often we think we can use the mercy seat for our own lusts! Is not prayer too sacred a thing for us to make a selfish use of it? When God gives us the key to his storehouse, and invites us to take what we want, shall we use even a single promise of his Word merely to pander to our own desires, and to enable us to escape from enduring hardness as good soldiers of Jesus Christ? If we misuse prayer like this, we may be excused for it, but we shall not be accepted in it. Even Paul is denied when he asks for relief for the flesh. He gets no release from trouble. He gets something better, however; for the Lord says to him, “My grace is sufficient for you; for my strength is made perfect in weakness.” So, beloved, we must count on the adversities that are sure to befall us. “In the world you shall have tribulation.” This is one of the divine shalls and wills. The Lord will chasten those whom he loves, and his children shall suffer it, for certain. It is as certain as any other thing in the world, “You shall have tribulation.”

4. I. To those who have proved the truth of this declaration, the text will be particularly sweet. THERE ARE CERTAIN SEVERE VEXATIONS OF SPIRIT, FOR WHICH GRACE IS THE ONLY BALM. The Lord does not say, “My providence shall protect you.” Nothing of the kind; — grace is the remedy in this case, and, I take it, this was because the apostle was suffering in the very core and centre of his being. There are many trials, the grief of which may be fully assuaged by ordinary providences; but these, that come and wound a man to the quick, require grace as their only effective balm.

5. Past experience of grace is of no avail in such a case; it is present grace that is promised in the text, and it is present grace that is required. When we have sometimes been bowed down, and walked in darkness, and seen no light, we have remembered our song in the night, and our spirit has made diligent search; but that very song has been turned into howling in the memory, and all that we thought we felt, and thought we knew, has vanished from before our eyes. I do not know how it has been with you, but there have been times with me when I could put no value on my past experience. The devil has said it was all a delusion, my faith mere presumption, my hope mere excitement, and all my joys only the effusion of animal spirits. There will be a time when he will tell you to look back, and all the way will look like the valley of the shadow of death. You cannot see one hopeful sign in it; and you look over the books of experience, and read them, and you think, “Well, my trouble is not the trouble of God’s children, and my footprints do not seem to be at all like the footprints of the flock.” I tell you, if you have ever done business in deep waters, you have found that anchors at home are of no use in a storm, and that the anchor which worked so well a year ago, if it is left at home on shore, is of no use to you now in the storm. It is present grace, nothing but present grace, that will do now. You have eaten all the cold meats, and you have brought out from the cupboard every mouldy crust you can find, and now your soul is reduced to the very last, and faints within you, and now you must cry to your God in your trouble, and get present grace in your time of need.

6. And if past experience is of no avail, much less is past success. Someone might have tapped the apostle on the shoulder, and have said, “Paul, Paul, Paul! What! must you feel the buffetings of Satan? Did you not establish the church at Corinth, and plant churches throughout all Asia Minor? Who has served his God so faithfully as you have done? Have you not been in journeyings often, in perils by waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by the sword, in watchings and fastings? Have you not had the care of all the churches? Has not your Master highly distinguished you, and made you not a bit behind the very chief of the apostles? What multitudes of spirits are now before the throne that were born, under God, through your ministry! And what thousands are still on the road who call you their spiritual father, and to whom you have been as a nursing-mother in the faith!” If you had said this to the apostle, he would have replied, “Yes, sometimes this might have comforted me; if it had been a question of my apostleship, this would have been satisfactory; if the point in hand had been a question concerning whether my ministry has been acknowledged by God, this would have been decisive; but I am touched in another place now, and the wound is so deep, my sore is so grievous, and my heart is so very heavy, that no kindly thought of others, and no pleasant musings of my own, bring me the slightest relief. Oh Lord, I am oppressed, undertake for me!” The Lord knew how to help him, and therefore he gave him that gracious assurance, “My grace is sufficient for you.”

7. I think it is good, dear friends, to remember the Lord’s past goodness; but we must not live on that, we must go and get fresh supplies from heaven. Old manna, to this day, though it comes from heaven, will always breed worms, and stink, if it is kept. There is no alteration in it from the days of Moses; it is the same at this moment. You must eat the manna as you get it, and go constantly for more; but the old manna will be of very little use to you. It is only on Sabbath days, when your soul is perfectly at rest and quiet, — it is only at these sweet resting seasons, which the soul sometimes enjoys, that the memory of the past becomes very sweet. You must have daily present supplies of manna from the throne of God.

8. In such a case as this, to which the apostle was brought, we feel sure that the fact of his high office, and his eminent attainments of grace, would not have been a sufficient consolation. Paul, who shall match you? So deep in knowledge, and so ardent in zeal, you seem to have a seraph’s spirit. So mighty in word, and yet, as well, so humble in your own esteem, you are surely a prince in Israel. Paul was not one of the young men, much less one of the babes in grace. He says, “There are not many fathers,” though certainly he himself was worthy to be called a patriarch. Yet that fact would not comfort him. And, brethren, you may come to such hard pinches that your growth in grace, and the flourishing of your virtues, will not afford so much as a drop of comfort to you; you will have to go to the eternal fountain to drink, for even these marble cisterns will have been broken, and will hold no water.

9. Observe, further, brethren, that the Lord does not say, “The consolation of your brethren shall be sufficient for you.” Oh, how sweet it is to be comforted by our fellow Christians! Let those who will, walk in isolation; give me sweet communion, for, to tell one’s trial to a true brother in Christ is often to lighten the weight, as if half of it were removed. Sometimes, it is to be entirely relieved, for the words of some wise men in our Israel are indeed as balm that brings speedy healing to the wound. But there are wounds which the stranger does not intermeddle with, no, that even the dearest friend cannot touch; there are certain vexations of spirit, and disturbances of soul, that mock human agency. I have had, sometimes, to converse with some members of the church, and I have never felt so much the littleness of my own power as when I have tried to comfort them, and failed. I thought it was because I was only like a little child in experience, and could not talk with them as a father in Israel might have done, whose years might have given him more wisdom; but I have found that even the fathers have failed, and that years have not always sufficed to give sufficient knowledge to comfort the troubled conscience, or to remove the burden from the galled shoulder. No, there are cases that mock the ordinary practitioner, and must be taken straight away to the great Physician, for the only thing that will serve the purpose is the grace, the present grace of an all-sufficient God.

10. I might prolong this catalogue; but you, who know the truth practically, will know, from your own experience, that there are trials and there are points in affliction where nothing can possibly console but the immediate outpouring and receiving of the grace of God.

11. II. And now, beloved, in the second place, let me say that SUFFICIENT GRACE IS A SURE BALM, that even for the most acute disorder, the most chronic disease, “grace” is “sufficient.”

12. Why, do you not perceive that it just meets the fear which trial creates. What is the Christian’s fear when he is buffeted, tried, and afflicted? I know him in his sober senses, he has a fear of sin. Listen to him. “I am afraid of being poor,” he says, “not because I dislike poverty, but I am afraid of my faith, lest I should murmur against God. I am not afraid of suffering,” he says; “if God sends it to me, I am willing to receive it; but I am afraid of my faith, lest the pangs should be too severe, and I should doubt my God. I am not,” he says, “afraid of slander or of persecution. I have learned to rejoice in this, for by this I am made a member of the goodly fellowship of the martyrs; but I am afraid lest I should deny my Lord, or be ashamed of him, or prove an apostate, after all. As I look ahead to the temptations of the world, and the suggestions of Satan, and the corruptions of the flesh which shall yet assail me, I am not afraid of their coming if I can only be guaranteed that they shall not cause me to sin”; for the only real wound the Christian gets happens when he has sinned. Sufferings are only scars, flesh wounds; sins are the real woundings. We are never trampled on by Satan, however low our spirits may sink; it is only when we give way, and would gladly capitulate in very terror, and begin to be afraid, that Satan is really victorious. The battle of sin is the battle in which Satan gains the victory; but suffering, and shame, and distress, and peril, and nakedness, and sword, are no triumphs for Satan, for “in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.”

13. You see then, brethren, that grace just meets the danger because it deals with sin. You are afraid that your patience will give out, so the Lord says, “My grace shall operate on your patience, and make you to endure.” You think your faith will fail, so the Lord says, “My grace gave you your faith, and my grace, like oil secretly applied to the fire by One standing behind the wall, shall keep your faith burning while the devil pours on his floods to quench it. It was my grace that first taught you to love my great name; so, when persecuted, my grace shall make you love me better. I have kept you from apostasy until now, and, let whatever will come, my grace, by which I guaranteed your final perseverance, shall be sufficient for you, and you shall come out of all your trials and troubles like silver out of the furnace, not defiled, but cleansed and purified by the flames.” You see then, brethren, that this assurance does actually touch the fear which the Christian always has before his eyes; indeed, it does not merely touch the fear, but it absolutely touches all the real danger. It is as though the Lord should say to one of his servants, who was standing alone, while thousands of his enemies were shooting at him with their arrows, “They shall shoot at you, but I have covered them with armour from head to foot.” Or it is as if you or I trembled at the thought of crossing the deep sea, and the Lord had said, “The sea is deep, and you must cross it; but I will be beside you, and you shall go through it dry-shod.” Or it is as if he said, “The fire is hot, and you must walk through the midst of it, your foot must feel those glowing coals; but I will so cover you by my power that the flames shall not harm you; you shall walk through the fire, and not so much as the smell of it shall pass on you.”

14. What does it matter how much we suffer if we have grace to endure it? Put a believer wherever you wish, if his Master gives him grace, he is in the best place he can be for security. I have heard brethren sometimes say, “Such a minister is in great danger; his position is lofty, his head will be turned.” Ah! brethren, if he had had the keeping of his own head, it would have been turned long ago. And your head will turn even if you are on the ground if you have the keeping of it; but if God set a man as high as the stars, and if he kept him there, he would be able to sing, “You make my feet like hinds’ feet, and make me to stand on high places.” It is the grace we have, not the position we occupy, that is the important matter. If a man had grace enough, you might put him in the worst haunts of sin, and he would be all the better for being there. Now, do not think I say what I do not know. Solomon saw hyssops grow on walls, and cedars on Lebanon; however, I have seen cedars grow on walls, and hyssops on Lebanon. I have seen the smallest Christians in the best places, and the best Christians in the worst positions. I have seen, in the midst of the haunts of the prostitute, grace shining in all the purity and chastity of lovely womanhood; and in the haunt of the thief and of the burglar, God has been pleased to have some choice saint, that, for honesty, integrity, and holy living, might have been worthy to have walked in a bishops palace, or to have adorned the best evangelical drawing-room in England. Brethren, it is not the position that is the main thing; the best of men may grow in the worst places, and some of the meekest of believers may be found where there ought to have been the bravest. I will leave this point, then, by repeating that, whatever may be the trial of heart which a man may have to endure, this assurance just meets the case, “My grace is sufficient for you.”

15. III. And, lastly, SHOULD NOT THE ASSURANCE THAT WE SHALL RECEIVE SUFFICIENT GRACE MAKE US VERY GLAD?

16. “My grace is sufficient for you,” — what then? “Most gladly therefore I will rather glory in my infirmities,” — not only gladly, but “most gladly.” Nothing else will make you happy. The grace of God comes to meet your case, and now how happy you should be! Think about the certainty of this fact, that sufficient grace will be ours. My dear brethren, I am not careful about preaching tonight, I merely talk right on about some things that you know, and can testify. It has been so, has it not, in your experience? If there is one saint here who has an accusation to make against his Lord, let him speak. He might well say to you, “Have I been a wilderness to Israel? Which of you have I failed to help? When have I broken my promise? You have been in the waters, — were you drowned? You have passed through the fire, — were you burned? What loss have you ever sustained by your troubles? Did I ever refuse to hear your cry when you called on me? When was it that, in the day of battle, I did not cover your head, and that I left you as a prey to the destroyer?” My answer is, — Oh Lord, you know all things, and you know that your servant’s witness is, —

    When trouble, like a gloomy cloud,
    Has gather’d thick and thunder’d loud,
    He near my soul has always stood,
    His lovingkindness, oh, how good!

And is that not your case, my brother, my sister in the Lord? I am sure it is. Well, then, this ought to make you glad. “My grace is sufficient for you,” says the Lord. Your past experience proves it. Gladly, therefore, rejoice that you have an opportunity yet again of testing and trying the good Word of the Lord.

17. Again, is not God’s grace sufficient for you in your present emergency? Have you had some trouble today? I suppose you have had quite sufficient, too, for I never did find a day yet that did not have enough trouble in it, and sufficient for the day is its own trouble; — well, but, have you not had sufficient grace today? Do you feel dull, and heavy, and gloomy in God’s house of prayer? Well, but there is grace to be had; and, therefore, looking to him before you go to your bed, you may still have another day to sing of the sufficient grace which was given in the required hour. “Oh, but,” you say, “it is not now; I can trust God for today; but there are clouds looming before me, and I fear to enter the cloud.” Well but, my dear friend, if he is faithful to you today, add that to the fact that he was faithful yesterday; is he not the same yesterday, today, and for ever; and ought you not at once to rejoice in him? Furthermore, ask your father, and he shall tell you; turn to the records of inspiration, and they shall teach you; were the righteous ever forsaken, and when did the Lord cast off his chosen? They certainly have been in quite as deep waters as you have ever known; you have not yet been brought to lose all that you have, to lose every child; not yet do you sit among the ashes, and scrape yourself with a potsherd, as Job did; not yet to the fullest extent can you say, “Those who walked in the streets condemned me”; not yet have you drunk from that cup, and been baptized with the baptism of him who said, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

    “His way was much rougher and darker than thine,” —

and yet your Lord triumphed; and all his people, in all ages, and under every circumstance, have triumphed in him. If you could find one child of God who has been abandoned, and if you could find one case in which God has been untrue to you, then it would be fair for you to be depressed in spirit; but until then, you should be most joyful.

18. Remember also, brethren, that we should never know how sufficient grace was if it were not for these troubles; therefore, we ought to be glad for all the lessons that assure us how ample and sufficient this grace is. I do not know whether all soldiers love the thought of war, but there are many who pant for a campaign. How many an officer of low rank has said, “There is no promotion, no hope of rising, no honours, as if we had to fight. If we could rush to the cannon’s mouth, there would be some hope that we might gain promotion.” Men get few medals to hang on their breasts who never know the smell of gunpowder. The brave days, as men call them, of Nelson and Trafalgar, have gone by, and we thank God for it; but still we do not expect to see such brave old veterans, the offspring of this age, as those who are still to be found lingering in our hospitals, the relics of our old campaigns. No, brethren, we must have trials if we are to advance. Young men do not become midshipmen altogether through going to the school at Greenwich, and climbing the mast on dry land; they must go out to sea, and be on deck in the storm; and if we are to be among the worthies, we must have stood side by side with King David, we must have gone down into the pit to slay the lion, or have lifted up the spear against the eight hundred, as Adino did. Conflicts bring experience, and experience brings that growth in grace which is not to be attained by any other means.

19. Besides, brethren, how is God’s grace to be seen by other men in the world except by our trials? Grace is given to keep us from sin, which is a great blessing; but what is the good of grace unless it is in the time when the trial comes? Certainly, the grace that will not stand in the hour of temptation or affliction, is a very spurious kind of grace; and we had better get rid of it, if we have it. When a godly woman’s child dies, the infidel husband sees the mother’s faith. When the ship goes down, and is lost in the sea, the ungodly merchant understands the resignation of his fellow man. When pangs shoot through our body, and ghastly death appears in view, people see the patience of the dying Christian. Our infirmities become the black velvet on which the diamond of God’s love glitters all the more brightly. Thank God I can suffer, thank God I can be made the object of shame and contempt; for, in this way, God shall be glorified. This shall be the wonder of many, and to the praise of his own grace, that so lowly and so contemptible a thing was made the instrument of accomplishing his purpose.

20. I will say no more, except to commend this assurance to you, and ask you to take it home, and lay it on your tongue; it will be like a wafer made with honey. Be sure to have it for your breakfast tomorrow morning, and let it be your constant daily meal; live on it: “My grace is sufficient for you.” Let the word “you” come home to your heart as though God spoke it to you, and as if he had never spoken it to anyone before.

21. There are some of you to whom the text does not apply, except in this light. You have many sins; but if you trust Christ, his grace is sufficient for you. You have been head over heels in the cesspool of sin; but the power of his blood is sufficient to make you white; and even if you have become a very prince and peer in the dominions of evil, the grace of Christ is sufficient to wash you whiter than the driven snow. May the Lord add his blessing on these feeble rambling remarks, for Jesus Christ’s sake! Amen.

Expositions By C. H. Spurgeon {Ro 3:9-27 5:6-11 8:1-32}

3:9. What then? Are we better than they?

The first chapter of the Epistle to the Romans contains so horrible an account of the manners of the Gentiles, the heathen of Paul’s day, that it is one of the most painful chapters in Scripture to read. Not long ago, one of our missionaries, out in China, was attacked concerning the Bible for this very reason. One of the learned men said to him, “This Bible of yours cannot be as ancient as you say that it is, for it is quite clear that the first chapter of the Epistle to the Romans must have been written by someone who had been in China, and who had seen the habits and ways of the people here,” — so accurate is the Holy Spirit, who knew very well what the ways and manners and secret vices of the heathen were, and still are. But the Jews said, “Ah, but this is a description of the Gentiles.” So Paul replies, “What then? Are we better than they?”

9, 10. No, in no wise: for we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin; as it is written, “There is no one righteous, no, not one”:

Then he selects passages out of different parts of Scripture to show what man is by nature.

11-18. There is no one who understands, there is no one who seeks after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are altogether become unprofitable; there is no one who does good, no, not one. Their throat is an open sepulchre, with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips: whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness: their feet are swift to shed blood: destruction and misery are in their ways: and they have not known the way of peace: there is no fear of God before their eyes.

These are all quotations from Old Testament Scriptures, from their own psalmists and prophets, from whom Paul quotes to the Jews so that they might see what their own character was by nature.

19. Now we know that whatever things the law says, it says to those who are under the law: so that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.

The law was given to the Jews, and the descriptions which it gives must be descriptions of the Jews. “Therefore,” Paul says, “since Gentile mouths have been already stopped by the descriptions of their vices, you also, the favoured people of God, have your mouths stopped by the descriptions of yourselves taken from your own prophets.”

20. Therefore by the deeds of the law no flesh shall —

Whether Jew or Gentile, —

20, 21. Be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin. But now —

Since man is lost, since man is guilty, —

21-27. The righteousness of God without the law is revealed, being witnessed by the law and the prophets: even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ to all and on all those who believe: for there is no difference: for all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: whom God has presented to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God, to declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: so that he might be just, and the justifier of him who believes in Jesus. Where is boasting then?

If salvation is given to the guilty, and if all are guilty, — if no one can claim exemption, and yet salvation is freely given, — what then? Why, salvation must be purely by the grace of God; so let grace have all the honour. “Where is boasting then?”

27. It is excluded. By what law? of works? No: but by the law of faith.

The law of works sometimes aids boasting, for a man rejoices and glories in what he has done; yet the law of works ought to stop our boasting because we are guilty in God’s sight. The law of faith does stop our mouth, because we are under obligation to God, and do not dare to boast, since we have nothing of good but what we have received from God.

5:6. For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.

What a wonderful sentence that is! Not, “Christ died for the saints,” not, “Christ died for righteous men”; but, “when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.”

7-9. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet perhaps for a good man some would even dare to die. But God commends his love towards us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him.

What an argument this is for the final safety of believers! If Christ died for us when we were enemies, surely he will give us now that he has died for us, and made us his friends, his reconciled subjects: “Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him.”

10. For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.

There is a threefold argument there. We were enemies, yet God blessed us even then, so will he not bless us even more now that we are reconciled to him? When we were enemies, he reconciled us to himself. Having done that, will he not certainly save us? We were reconciled to God by the death of his Son; so much more shall we be saved by the life of the risen and glorified Jesus, which has almighty, irresistible power.

11. And not only so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement.

8:1. There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, —

Observe that Paul writes “There is therefore,” for he is stating a truth which is founded on solid argument. “There is therefore now” — at this very day, at this very moment, — “no condemnation” — nothing of any kind, — nothing that will lie in the Court of Conscience or in the Court of King’s Bench above: “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” Our forefathers used to read this verse, “There is therefore now no damnation.” One of the martyrs, being brought before a Popish bishop, the bishop said to him, “Dying in your heresy, you will be damned.” “That I never shall be,” answered the good man, “for there is therefore now no damnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” He had caught the very spirit of the text, for there is nothing that can condemn the man who is in Christ Jesus.

1. Who do not walk according the flesh, but according the Spirit.

This is the distinctive mark of a man in Christ Jesus. He does not let the flesh govern him, but the Spirit. The spiritual nature has come to the forefront, and the flesh must go to the back. The Spirit of the living God has entered into him, and become the master-power of his life. He walks “not according the flesh, but according the Spirit.”

2. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death.

And nothing else can do that. Every man is, by nature, under bondage to what Paul describes as “the law of sin and death.” There is a law in our nature, which is so powerful that, even when we would do good, evil is present with us, and we cannot get away from that law, except by introducing another, which is “the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus,” Dr. Chalmers has a remarkable sermon on “The Expulsive Power of a New Affection”; and it is this new affection for Christ, which is the accompaniment of the new life in Christ, which expels the old forces that used to hold us under bondage to sin and death.

3, 4. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: so that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according the flesh, but according the Spirit.

The law never made anyone holy, and it never will do so. The law says to a man, “This is what you ought to do, and you will be condemned if you do not do it.” That is quite true, but the law supplies no power to enable us to do this. It says to the lame man, “You must walk,” and to the blind man, “You must see”; but it does not enable them either to walk or to see. On the contrary, our nature is such that, when the law issues its commands, there is a tendency in us at once to disobey them. There are some sins, which we never should have thought of committing if we had not been commanded not to do them, so that the law — not because of its own nature, but because of the wickedness of our nature, is weak and ineffective for the producing of righteousness. But the Lord Jesus Christ has come, has lived, and has died, — died for us who are his people, and has put away our sin. Now we love him; now, being delivered from all condemnation, we love him who has delivered us, and this becomes the force by which we are inclined to holiness, and led us further and further into a course, not merely of morality, but of holiness before God. What a blessed system this is, which saves the sinner from the love of sin, delivers a man from sinning, gives him a new nature, and puts a right spirit within him!

5. For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh;

Flesh cares for flesh. The man who is all body cares only for the body. The man, whose mind is under subjection to his body, sets his mind on “the things of the flesh.”

5. But those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit.

Where the Holy Spirit is supreme where the spiritual world has become predominant over the heart and life. There, men live for something nobler than the worldly man’s trinity, “What shall we eat, and what shall we drink, and what shall we wear?” The carnal life is only becoming to a beast, or a bird, or an insect. But when a man cares for his immortal spirit, and lives for divine and spiritual things, he has attained to the life that is life indeed.

6, 7. For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually-minded is life and peace. Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.

As long as a man lives only for this present evil world, lives for self, lives under the domination of the flesh, he cannot really know God, or truly serve him. Such a mind as his “is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.”

8. So then those who are in the flesh —

That is, those who are under its condemnation and power —

8-10. Cannot please God. But you are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if any man does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not one of his. And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness.

So that although Christ dwells in a man, he must not think that he will be free from suffering, and pain, and sickness, for the body has not yet risen from the dead, and does not yet feel the full effect of regeneration. The soul is risen from the dead by regeneration, and it therefore “is life because of righteousness”; and the body will, in due time, also share in the power of Christ’s Spirit. The day draws near when we “shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption, into the glorious liberty of the children of God.”

11, 12. But if the Spirit of him who raised up Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit who dwells in you. Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh.

We have gotten nothing good out of the flesh at present, for it is not yet “delivered from the bondage of corruption,” though it is to be delivered.

13. For if you live according to the flesh, you shall die:

For the flesh is to die.

13. But if you through the Spirit mortify —

Or, kill —

13. The deeds of the body, you shall live.

Shall a dying body, then, be my master? Shall the appetite for eating and drinking, or anything else that comes from the flesh, dominate my spirit? God forbid! Let death go to death, and the flesh is such; but the newly-given Spirit of God, the Spirit who has quickened us with immortal life shall rule and reign in us for evermore.

14-21. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. For you have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but you have received the Spirit of adoption, by which we cry, “Abba, Father.” The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God. And if children, then heirs, heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if indeed we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together. For I consider that the sufferings of the present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. For the earnest expectation of the creature waits for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who has subjected the same in hope. Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.

We are part and parcel of creation, and we shall draw it along with us. There shall be new heavens and a new earth. The curse shall be taken from the garden, thorns and thistles shall no longer grow there; and there shall be no killing or devouring in all God’s holy mountain. The galling yoke, which we have laid on all of creation by our sin, shall be removed from it by our Redeemer.

22, 23. For we know that the whole creation groans and travails in pain together until now. And not only they, but ourselves also, who have the first-fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit the redemption of our body.

We groan in unison with a groaning creation, and we shall not at present get rid of our aches, and pains, and sicknesses altogether.

24-32. For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man sees, why does he still hope for it? But if we hope for what we do not see, then we wait for it with patience. Likewise the Spirit also helps our infirmities: for we do not know what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. And he who searches the heart knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because he makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God. And we know that all things work together for good for those who love God, for those who are the called according to his purpose. For whom he foreknew, he also predestinated to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom he predestinated, those he also called: and whom he called, those he also justified: and whom he justified, those he also glorified. What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?

 {See Spurgeon_Hymnal “The Christian, Privileges, A Happy Portion — The Christian’s Treasure” 757}
 {See Spurgeon_Hymnal “The Christian, Privileges, Adoption — Sons Of God Blessed” 729}

The Christian, Privileges, A Happy Portion
757 — The Christian’s Treasure
1 How vast the treasure we possess!
   How rich thy bounty, King of grace!
   This world is our, and worlds to come:
   Earth is our lodge, and heaven our home.
2 All things are ours; the gift of God,
   The purchase of a Saviour’s blood;
   While the good Spirit shows us how
   To use and to improve them too.
3 If peace and plenty crown my days,
   They help me, Lord, to speak thy praise;
   If bread of sorrows be my food,
   Those sorrows work my real good.
4 I would not change my blest estate,
   For all that earth calls good or great;
   And while my faith can keep her hold,
   I envy not the sinner’s gold.
5 Father, I wait thy daily will:
   Thou shalt divide my portion still:
   Grant me on earth what seems thee best,
   Till death and heaven reveal the rest.
                        Isaac Watts, 1721.

The Christian, Privileges, Adoption
729 — Sons Of God Blessed <7s.>
1 Blessed are the sons of God;
   They are bought with Jesus’ blood,
   They are ransom’d from the grave,
   Life eternal they shall have.
         With them number’d may we be,
         Now and through eternity.
2 God did love them in his Son,
   Long before the world begun;
   They the seal of this receive,
   When on Jesus they believe:
         With them number’d may we be,
         Now and through eternity.
3 They are justified by grace,
   They enjoy a solid peace;
   All their sins are wash’d away
   They shall stand in God’s great day.
         With them number’d may we be,
         Now and through eternity.
4 They produce the fruits of grace
   In the works of righteousness!
   Born of God, they hate all sin,
   God’s pure word remains within:
      With them number’d may we be,
      Now and through eternity.
5 They have fellowship with God,
   Through the Mediator’s blood;
   One with God, through Jesus one,
   Glory is in them begun:
      With them number’d may we be,
      Now and through eternity.
6 Though they suffer much on earth,
   Strangers to the worldling’s mirth,
   Yet they have an inward joy,
   Pleasures which can never cloy:
      With them number’d may we be,
      Now and through eternity.
               Joseph Humphreys, 1743.