3400. The Day of Atonement

A Sermon Published On Thursday, April 2, 1914.

And this shall be an everlasting statute for you, to make an atonement for the children of Israel, for all their sins, once a year. {Le 16:34}

For other sermons on this text:

   {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 95, “Day of Atonement, The” 90}

   {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 3400, “Day of Atonement, The” 3402}

1. We have taken these words for our text; the whole chapter, however, will have our attention.

2. I must be allowed to say at this time, though I seldom say anything in the way of an apology, that this is not the place, nor would time serve us, to go into a full exposition of the very wonderful teaching of this chapter. If we may ever set any portion of Scripture before another, this is one of the most precious chapters in the whole compass of revelation, and in some respects the most remarkable of all. It is so full of wonderfully deep teaching that, instead of a sermon, it might require a volume, and then, perhaps, we should scarcely have done more than skimmed the surface. And there are difficulties, I may also add, connected with the interpretation, very great difficulties, which have puzzled the most learned of the Reformed, and of the Puritan divines, and I do not at all attempt to solve those difficulties, nor profess that all I say I might be able to support and carry out. I desire to give, instead of any attempt at criticism or deep explanation, a simple exposition of this chapter; bringing out of it, I hope, some truths which, if they do not belong to the chapter, are, nevertheless, extremely precious ones, and will, I hope, be useful to us all.

3. In a remarkable way God dealt with Israel in the wilderness. There were special signs of his special presence, as in the cloudy and fiery pillars which were the emblems of his presence, and in the bright light called the Shekinah, which shone between the wings of the cherubim which overshadowed the ark. But God cannot dwell where there is sin. He is a holy being. “Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of hosts,” is the song which continually rises into his ears. In order, then, that he might dwell in the midst of Israel without compromising his character, he was pleased to appoint one day in the year which was called “the day of atonement,” which should be considered to purify the camp, and make it fit to be the dwelling-place of Jehovah.

4. Now, God has promised that he will dwell among men, and he does dwell among his own people at this very time. He dwells with them in a remarkable way. “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul. God is the inheritance, the friend, the companion of all his people, but he cannot dwell with these believing men, because of their sin, unless an atonement is made. The annual atonement among the Jews was the picture of the great atonement, the real atonement, the effective expiation, which, not once a year, but once and for all, the Lord Jesus Christ has offered, and which now renders it possible for God to walk with men, and dwell among them.

5. I. In the ceremony of the atonement, in the chapter before us, there are four things that struck me. The first is: — THE WAY IN WHICH THAT REMARKABLE CEREMONY PRESENTS THE SACRIFICE MADE TO GOD’S HONOUR.

6. My brethren, the offence of man against God was, so to speak, a stain on God’s honour. Man set himself up in rebellion against the Most High. He stood out, therefore, against the divine sovereignty: he impugned the divine love: his offence blasphemed the divine wisdom. Every human sin is an attack on the whole character and life of God, and sin itself is a dishonour done to the glorious attributes of Jehovah. Before God can be reconciled to man, and deal with him at all, except by way of retribution, there must be something done to restore the divine honour. Now, we have it declared, in this revelation, which comes to us from heaven, that Christ has fully restored the divine glory, and that since he suffered on the tree, the just for the unjust, God can be gracious without a violation of his justice, and he can dwell with us, with us poor fallen creatures, without the marring of the lustre of any single one of his attributes. The model man has honoured God more fully than sinful man ever dishonoured him, and if God was angry with the race for our sins, he is now full of tenderness and pity towards the race, because of the transcendent goodness of the new Head of the race, Christ Jesus our Lord, who has magnified God’s law and made it honourable.

7. Now, this is the truth that was taught in the first part of the ceremony on the day of expiation. It was taught like this. Two goats were brought to the door of the tabernacle; lots were cast, and the first goat was selected to teach this lesson. The goat was brought by the people. It was their common property. It would not have sufficed; it would not have been of any use at all if it had not been so. Read the chapter, and you will see. Learn from this that the compensation to God’s honour for man’s sin must come from men. It was a man in the garden who dared to rebel: it must be a man, another man, who shall honour God’s law, so as to set the race in a new relationship towards God.

8. The goat is given by all Israel: the atonement to God’s honour must come out of our race, and hence it is that our Lord is the son of Mary, bone of our bone, flesh of our flesh: qualified being a man, to perform the obedience required from man, and to right as a man for men, the wrongs which man had done to God. Note that first.

9. The goat which was brought was given up to the appointed priest. God will have everything done according to order. The sacrifice must not be left to the whims and fancies of men. So the man who shall offer up the sacrifice to the divine honour must be appointed by God, as Aaron was. And so our Lord Jesus Christ was God’s chosen one, appointed by God to stand in the gap, and for us to vindicate the divine glory which we had tarnished by our iniquities.

10. This goat, being offered like this, must be presented to God, but there must be something with it. Sweet perfume must be cast on the live coals, and the sweet aroma must go up before the mercy seat. So before God can ever be satisfied for the wrong done to him by the fall, and by our common sin, there must be an offering of sweet merits to him, which, let me say, Jesus Christ has most abundantly offered. He took his hands full of the most blessed compound of all the graces and all the virtues beaten small, for there was an exact obedience to every jot and tittle of the divine law. Christ’s obedience was perfect in its kind, in the most minute respects; and this merit has been brought before our God, who is a consuming fire, and burns up every evil work; but as he lays hold on this work of Christ, he makes a sweet aroma of it — which is poured out throughout heaven and earth — “the savour of a sweet odour” in the nostrils of the Most High.

11. Do not let me cover up, however, what I mean, under the cloke of allegory. I mean this, that if God is to accept our race of men, and deal with it on the footing of mercy, and all that we have done against him, someone must be found who can be so obedient, so delighting in God’s will, that there shall be a sweet offering made, as morally and spiritually acceptable to God’s Spirit as sweet perfume is to the nostrils of man, and that has been done. When they talk in heaven about man’s sin — if they ever speak of it there, and wonder how God can bear with man, some bright seraph speaks of man’s perfect obedience, even to death, and they say to each other, “What man, what man is this?” and they clap their hands with joy as they say, “It is he who sat at the right hand of the Father, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Son of David.”

12. One man threw down the race, but another man has lifted it up. One man brought ruin by the fall: another man restored it, and made the race acceptable to God. If man dishonoured God, yet man has more honoured him than he dishonoured him, now that Christ has become the great representative man.

13. All the glory of redemption is greater than there ever could have been of dishonour to God by sin. I believe that God is more honoured by the world having sinned, and having been restored by Christ, than he could have been if there never had been sin on this planet, and if a perfectly sinless race had inhabited its bounds.

14. After this burning of perfume, the goat must die. Nothing could permit the justice of God to look at man at all until there had been something more than merit. There must be penalty. “Die he, or justice, must.” Man must die, or God’s justice must die. There must be blood — life poured out for sin. Now, when that goat was put to death, and the blood flowed out into the golden bowl, then, brethren, you saw before your eye of faith Jesus Christ put to death on Calvary. He who did not need to have died, the Perfect One, voluntarily offered himself up as the victim to justice, suffering in his own person, so as to compensate the justice of God. Do not imagine that Christ died to placate divine vengeance — not at all, but that it is sternly necessary, if God is to govern this universe at all, that sin must be punished. The very pillars and the foundations of moral government would, not to say, be shaken, but actually be torn up if sin should be permitted to go unpunished. Now, to vindicate the justice of God, the sword is drawn, and who suffers?

15. Not the race. Behold, myriads of the race go streaming up to everlasting felicity. Who suffers then? Why, a man, so marvellously perfect, and so majestically glorious as well, that his sufferings are a payment to God for all that sin had done, and so made an effective expiation for all the transgressions that had dishonoured God. You will observe that I am speaking in very popular, and comprehensive, and general terms; and intentionally so, because I believe I am speaking the infallible truth of the mind of God; for as far as God is concerned, the atonement that Christ made was universal in its worth and efficacy.

16. As far as the vindication of the justice of God and all his other attributes are to be considered, that vindication was absolutely complete, and whether one man had been saved, or fifty men saved, or all saved, or no one is saved, it would have made no difference. The work was done; God’s honour was clear; God’s attributes were glorified, and this was perfectly done by the putting away of Christ.

17. Once more, the blood was sprinkled on the mercy seat seven times. That was typical of Christ, who goes up into heaven, in his own proper person, and there displays before God, and the holy angels, and elect spirits, the tokens of his passion, the ensigns of his suffering, taking the blood up to God that from now on when the Eternal mind thinks of sin, and the dishonour done to God by sin, it might think of the sufferings of the blessed man, Christ Jesus, and see how all dishonour is put away for ever. You know when you are reading Scripture, dear friends, you find a great many passages which speak about Christ’s dying for all men, and about God’s having reconciled the world to himself, and I know you are apt to say to me, “You teach us particular redemption; that Christ only died as a Substitute for some men.” That I always say, and stand by it, and believe to be a biblical doctrine. But do I, therefore, clip away other texts? No, not in any degree. I believe them as they stand. I consider it treason to try and clip a text, or to make it say the contrary of what it does say. So far as God’s honour was concerned, the death of Christ for men so obliterated human sin, as such, that God could, without dishonour to himself, deal with mankind. Hence it is that the wicked live. Hence it is that they enjoy innumerable mercies: hence it is that there is a good, strong, substantial basis for offering the gospel to every man, and a righteous reason for commanding every man to believe in Jesus Christ that he may be saved.

18. This was the first teaching of the day of atonement and every Jew, when he saw, ought to have understood the presentation of that blood within the veil, that now no longer God looked at the race as being a race that he must curse and must destroy, but looked at it with mercy, and was prepared to treat it on the footing of tenderness, and that now there was a gospel presented to the sons of men. Oh! I do so love this thought, that my sin, which did dishonour to God, which did as much as say that he was not a good God, that it was better for me to hate him than to love him, better for me to be his enemy than to be his friend, made out as though his commandments were grievous, and that it gave me pleasure to break them — all the mischief towards God that my sin could ever do is all put away by the holy life and the blessed death of Christ Jesus my Lord, and put away for ever, for ever, for ever, so that God can now deal with me on the terms of grace.

19. II. But my time flies, and, therefore, I come to the next point: — SIN IS NOW UTTERLY DRIVEN AWAY.

20. There was another goat, and this goat was to live, and not to die; which illustrated quite another truth. I do not think the common explanation of this is at all correct, and all the expositors I have read are clear that it is not correct. Some have said that the scapegoat typifies our Lord Jesus bearing our sins away in his resurrection and ascending into heaven. The incongruity of the metaphor has always struck me, but there are reasons the Hebrew text which prevent our believing that that could have been its meaning. The living goat was taken by a fit man right away into the wilderness and there it was left. What became of it afterwards we do not know. Painters have depicted it as expiring in the midst of desolation, in the agonies of famine — a mere imaginary picture. The scapegoat did not, very probably, die sooner than any other goat, and it is not at all necessary that it should. We never need enlarge a topic beyond what Scripture says. Indeed, there is often as much teaching in a type’s stopping short as there is in its going on.

21. These two goats each had a name. One was said to be for Jehovah — that represents Christ, I say, as making satisfaction to God’s honour. The other is said to be for Azazel, which, if I understand it at all, means “for evil.” What, then was that other goat offered to the devil? By no means. He is not evil, but one of the ministering spirits in the service of evil. Evil made Satan what he is. He is its slave, its chief plotter and schemer, but still is not evil itself. Did you ever notice — you must have noticed — that the wrong of evil, the sinfulness of sin, even if it were forgiven, works nothing but evil, so that if God were to forgive us all, but leave the evil in us, we should be in hell for all that, because evil in itself holds hell, and works towards its being experienced by us. Evil is in itself essentially misery, and it only has to work itself out, and it will be so.

22. Now, how am I to get rid of this sin that is in me as for the evil consequences inherent in the evil? Suppose God to be perfectly reconciled to me so far, yet still there is an evil that mischief brings on me in itself, apart from God, and how do I get rid of that? Why, through the scapegoat. The sin of the people was, first of all, transferred to this scapegoat — all confessed and all laid on the scapegoat. Then, by divine appointment, the scapegoat being chosen by lot, and the lot being guided by God, it was accepted as being the substitute for the people. The scapegoat was then taken away, and what was done with it? Why, nothing was done with it, but this — it was relinquished — it was given up. Now, can I explain what I mean? I am very much afraid I cannot. Our Lord Jesus Christ took upon himself the sin of his people, and he was given up to evil, that is to say, to all the power that evil could exert against him — first in the wilderness, tempted from all quarters, tempted by the temptations of Satan; and then, in the garden, tempted in such a way as you and I never were — the powers of evil were let loose on him as they never were on us. Did he not say, “This is your hour, and the power of darkness”? And so dreadful was the assault of evil on him, the devil going out as the type and incarnation of evil, that he sweat, as it were, great drops of blood falling to the ground while especially on the tree, where the conflict reached its climax, was he given up.

23. That cry, “My God! my God! why have you forsaken me?” is like the cry of the goat when it is given up, quite given up, and led away. Evil was permitted to work out in him all its own dread hatefulness and havoc, to which it must bring our spirits, unless God intervenes to stop evil from making the soul become unutterably wretched, even to death.

24. I do not know how to get out the thought which seems to be in my soul, but I rejoice to think that all the evil I have ever done shall not go on to plague and vex me, because it has vexed and plagued him: that all the essential misery that lies in my past sin, which, even if God forgave it, must still come back to sting and torment me throughout all my existence, was so laid on him, and so spent all its force and venom on him, who was given up to it, so that it will never touch me again.

25. You know, brethren, there was no other man who could have borne all that power of evil but our Lord, but it all fell on him, and yet it never stained his matchless purity and perfection of character. The misery of it came to him, but the guilt of it could never defile him. The misery of sin spent itself on the lonely One who was given up to its awful force, but it could do no more. The type says nothing about the scapegoat, whether it died or not, and Christ did not die because of the misery of his spirit; he died for quite another reason, and in another sense, laying down his life for his people.

26. There is something, I think, interesting in this if we can carry it out, but there is this to be said — by that scapegoat being given up the sin of the congregation was taken away, all taken away, and all gone. And so, through Jesus Christ having borne our sicknesses and carried our sorrows, the whole force and power of evil to do damning mischief against a saint has been taken away for ever from every one of us, who have laid our hands by faith on his dear and blessed head. It is gone; the sin is gone, gone into the wilderness, where it shall never be found against us any more for ever.

27. III. I must hasten on, however, for time flies. There was still a third part of this expiation. Did you notice it? It is a grand thing when we can see God’s honour cleared; it is a grand thing, next, when we can see ourselves cleared concerning the effects of evil by Christ’s taking evil quite away. The third grand thing is to see: — SIN ITSELF MADE THE SUBJECT OF CONTEMPT.

28. God cannot dwell with us if sin is petted and loved; sin must be detested and loathed. Now, read on in the chapter, and you will find that the young bull and the goat which were there, and whose blood was taken into the holy place, were afterwards burned outside the camp — see the twenty-seventh verse. They were burned, and burned with ignominy, burned outside the camp in the common sewer, the gutter of the camp, and burned, too, under circumstances that imply disgust. “They shall burn in the fire their skins, and their flesh, and their dung” — put in purposely to show what a contempt was to be put on the beasts that had been for a while made to take and to typify sin.

29. That burning outside the camp looked to a stranger like the burning of a heap of rubbish. There was a foul smell of the burning flesh and refuse. People as they passed by turned their heads away to avoid the foul odour. They would say, “What is all this?” “Why, this was a sin offering, and when the blood, which God accepted, had gone, this was what was left — the filth of sin, and the people were just being taught how they should hate, loathe, and destroy it.” Every man who touched it washed himself, and no man could touch any of these things that day without bathing again and again, the thing was so detestable.

30. Now, in the person of our blessed Lord, sin is made most detestable. Did you ever hate sin really, until you learned to love Christ? I will ask you, when do you hate sin most? Why, when you love Christ best. I believe you shall always find that in proportion as you understand and see the work of Christ you will see in that work, as in a mirror, that Christ has made sin to be the most loathsome and disgusting thing that was ever heard of, for what do the angels say — “Man sinned, did he? Oh! foolish man, to sin against his God and his Maker!” “Ah!” says one of the angels, “but he did worse than that; he sinned against the God who loved him so much, that he would sooner let his only-begotten Son die, than poor man should perish.” “Oh!” they say, “what a shameful thing to sin against so dear and kind a God!” If God were a tyrant, it might not seem atrocious to rebel against him, but when he becomes so dear and tender a Father as to give his only-begotten Son, away with you, sin! Speak of the devil! He is not black compared with you. Oh sin, you are the devil’s tempter, the devil’s ruin! You make him black. It is sin, sin that is so foul a thing that I cannot compare it to anything. There is nothing on earth, there is nothing anywhere in hell, that can be compared to it. Sin is made to appear extremely sinful and loathsome to the uttermost degree through the expiatory sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

31. Now, these are three grand things for God to have done in this world — after man sinned, to have made his name as glorious as ever; after man’s sin, to have set pardoned man straight, as straight as ever from his sin; and after that, to have made sin, which came with the forbidden fruit in its hand, and which comes every day now with painted face, and with the cup in its hand, filled to the brim with sweet wine, seem hateful, and to be really so! Oh! it is a grand work, what Christ has done, and blessed be his name!

32. IV. Now, the last point — and I shall want your earnest consideration for a minute or two — is this. I must call your attention to: — THE BEHAVIOUR OF THE PEOPLE DURING THAT ENTIRE DAY in which this wonderful panorama was made to pass before them.

33. During that day they were to afflict their souls. Do you want to have your sin forgiven? Put away your jollity and your mirth. A repenting sinner needs to be a mourner, and, brethren, when sin is put away, how the forgiven sinner afflicts his soul! He is happy: he never was more happy: never so happy, but how grieved he is to think he ever sinned!

   My sins, my sins, my Saviour!

      How sad on thee they fall;

   Seen through thy gentle patience,

      I tenfold feel them all.

   I know they are forgiven,

      But still their pain to me,

   Is all the grief and anguish

      They laid, my Lord, on thee.

   My sins, my sins, my Saviour!

      Their guilt I never knew

   Till, with thee, in the desert,

      I near thy passion drew.

   Till with thee, in the garden

      I heard thy pleading prayer,

   And saw the sweat-drops bloody,

      That told thy sorrow there.

34. Oh! there is never, never such affliction of soul for sin as when you see the great atonement. Let me invite you to hate sin tonight, you pardoned ones. Take care to do it. And you unpardoned ones, tear your hearts, but not your garments, and turn to God with afflicted spirits, and say, “Lord, through the precious atonement of which I have heard so much tonight, blot out my sins!”

35. The next thing concerning the people that day was that they were to do no regular work that day. There was to be no hewing of wood, no drawing of water; nothing was to be done throughout all the camp by way of labour. So, when a soul comes to the atonement of Christ, it is finished with all its works of righteousness, and all its deeds of human merit. You can never have the atonement of Christ while you are working out your own works, and trying to be saved by them. And the believer who has once come to take Christ to be his Saviour will never try to get any merits of his own. Oh! he has thrown away for ever the fooleries of self-righteousness. He sees the absurdity of hoping that foul, black hands can ever present a fair, white sacrifice to God. He takes his Lord, and he is finished with his own doings.

36. Once more, it was to be to the people a Sabbath to the Lord. That day was not the seventh day of the week, but still it was to be a kind of Sabbath. And what a glorious Sabbath the atonement always makes! Why, I feel a Sabbath tonight, apart from the Sabbath day. I have a Sabbath in my soul, to think that the sin of man has not, after all, done lasting damage to the throne of God. I feel so happy to think, next, that there is a special sacrifice made for the elect, by the scapegoat’s having taken away their sin, so that the evil of their sin will never come upon them. I feel so thankful tonight to think that God has made sin to appear to be very sinful. These three grand things ring a peal of bells in my soul, for now I feel content, for God is satisfied, to come to God, because I can see why he should let me come to him.

37. I can understand now how it is that he should let a fallen creature have fellowship with his thrice-holy self, after his great work is done, and it is better for me, and better for you, that we should come to God by so good, and reasonable, and proper, and glorious a way, rather than that we should have been permitted, had it been possible, to come by any breach of the law, or by any setting aside of the divine command.

38. I do not think I should have been happy had it been possible for me to go to heaven, and God’s honour had been sullied by it, for God’s honour is the very happiness of a reconciled creature, and if that had suffered any loss through me, I should have been miserable. But it shall suffer no loss or stain. Christ has completely undone the mischief of the fall, glory be to his blessed name for this!

39. And now, beloved in the Lord, I wish that I could speak in the name of you all, and accept the man, Christ Jesus tonight as our representative. Remember, though he has done this much for us all, that God can dwell with us, yet he has not taken the sin of us all upon himself, but only of so many as stand and confess their sin, and entrust it to him. Come, will you do it? Poor sinner, will you do it for the first time tonight? Backslider, will you do it again? You believers who have lost some of your evidences, will you do it anew tonight? Oh! I wish I could now say these words, and you could all say “Amen” from your hearts: — 

   My faith doth lay her hand

      On that dear head of thine;

   While, like a penitent, I stand

      And here confess my sin.

40. Well, if you will not have Christ for your Saviour, I will have him for mine, and there are thousands of you here who will say, “Yes, and he shall be mine, too.” The longer I live the more I love to rest on him. I tried to rest somewhere else once, but the dream is over, and now the more I think of my Lord, the more firm I feel to be the conviction that he is a rock that will bear the weight of my salvation. The more I think of what that glorious Man, that blessed Son of God, who is as much God as he is man, has done for me, the more I feel that if I had fifty thousand times the sin I have, I would rest on him, and if I were as wicked as all men put together, I would still rest on him, believing that no amount of sin could outweigh his merit, and that no extent of iniquity could ever surpass the infinite bounds of his eternal grace. He is able to save to the uttermost those who come to God by him. Come to God by him, poor sinner, and may God the Holy Spirit lead you, and he shall have the glory. Amen, and Amen.

Exposition By C. H. Spurgeon {Ro 6:1-19}

Paul finishes the last chapter by saying, “That just as sin has reigned to death, even so might grace reign through righteousness to eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord.” “What shall we say, then?” What inference shall we draw from the superabounding of grace over sin?

1. What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, so that grace may abound?

“Shall we continue in sin, so that grace may abound?” That would be a very horrible inference. It is one great example of the shocking depravity of man that the inference has been drawn sometimes, I hope not often, for surely Satan himself would scarcely draw an inference of licentiousness from love. Still, some have drawn it.

2. God forbid. How shall we, who are dead to sin, live any longer in it?

Now, he goes on by an argument to prove that those in whom the grace of God has accomplished the wonderful change cannot possibly choose sin, nor live in it.

3. Do you not know, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death?

That is the very hinge of our religion. His death; not into his example merely, nor primarily into his life, but “into his death.” In this we have believed — with a dying Saviour we are linked, and our baptism illustrates this. We “were baptized into his death.”

4. Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that just as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.

The operations, therefore, of the Spirit of God forbid that a saved man should live in sin. He is dead; he is raised into newness of life: at the very entrance into the church, in the very act of baptism, he declares that he cannot live as he once did, for he is dead: he declares that he must live in another way, for has he not been raised again in the type and raised again in very deed from the dead?

5, 6. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection: Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that from now on we should not serve sin.

A death has taken place in us, and though there are still relics of corruption alive, yet they are crucified; they will have to die; they must die; they are nailed firmly to the cross to die in union with the death of Christ.

7. For he who is dead is freed from sin.

The man is dead. The law cannot ask more of a criminal than to yield his life. If, therefore, he should live again after death, he would not be one who could suffer for his past offences. They were committed in another life, and “he who is dead is freed from sin.”

8, 9. Now if we are dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him: Knowing that over him Christ being raised from the dead dies no more; death has dominion no more.

Or, death will have dominion over him no more: he will never come a second time under death, and neither shall his people. “For in that he died, he died to sin once.” There was an end of it in the sense of once and for all, no second death for Christ.

10-12. For in that he died, he died to sin once: but in that he lives, he lives to God. Likewise consider yourselves also to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Do not let sin therefore reign in your mortal body, so that you should obey it in its lusts.

Perhaps, there were some who would say that in their spirits truth and righteousness were supreme, but that in their bodies sin had the mastery. Indeed, but that will not do. There must be left no lurking place for sin within the complete system of our manhood: it must be hunted out and hunted down thoroughly, out of the body as well as out of the mind.

13. Neither yield your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin: but yield yourselves to God, as those who are alive from the dead and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.

We do not, I think, make enough of the passive part of our religion. We are often for doing, and quite right, too, and the more active we can be the better; still, before the doing there must come a yielding, because we remember who it is who works in us, “both to will and to do his own good pleasure,” and our activities after all are not so much our own as we deem, if they are right. They are the activities of the divine life within us, of the Spirit of God himself working in us to the glory of the Father. One great point, therefore, is to yield ourselves up, our members, to be weapons in God’s hands for the fighting of the spiritual war.

14. For sin shall not have dominion over you: for you are not under the law, but under grace.

The reigning, ruling principle now, is not “You must, you shall,” for reward, or under fear of punishment, but God has loved you, and now you love him in return and what you do springs from no mercenary or self-serving motive. You are not under law, but under grace; yet in another sense you never were so much under law as you are now, for grace puts around you a blessedly sweet, delightful law, which has power over us as the word of command never had. “I will write my law in their hearts; I will write them in their inward parts.” Indeed, that is the glory of the new life, the delight of him who has passed from death to life.

15. What then? Shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace?

Oh! this old question keeps coming up. Someone wants to sin. Well, if he wants to sin, why does he not leave this business alone, and go and sin? What has he to do with these theological questions at all? But still, he wants, if he can, to make a covering for his wickedness; he wants to enjoy the sweets of the child of God, and yet live like an enemy of God, and so he pops up his head over and over again: “May we not sin because of this or that?” To which the apostle answers again, “God forbid.” Oh! may God always forbid it to you, and to me: may the question never be tolerated among us.

15, 16. God forbid. Do you not know, that to whom you yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants you are to whom you obey; whether of sin to death, or of obedience to righteousness?

If you are doing the deeds of sin, you are the servants of sin, and only as you are doing the will of God can you claim to be the servants of God. “By this we know that we know him, if we keep his commandments.” That becomes the index of our condition. The man, then, who lives in sin and loves it, need not talk about the grace of God he is a stranger to it, for the sign of those who come under grace is this, that they serve God, and no longer serve sin.

17, 18. But God be thanked, that you were the servants of sin, but you have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered to you. Being then made free from sin, you became the servants of righteousness.

“Bondservants,” you have in our new translation, for so it was, and the apostle seems to excuse himself for using such a word by saying: — 

19. I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh: for just as you have yielded your members servants to uncleanness and to iniquity to iniquity; even so now yield your members servants to righteousness to holiness.

Just as you submitted yourselves to sin most cheerfully and voluntarily, and yet were slaves under it, so now come and be slaves under Christ with most blessed cheerfulness and delight: endeavour now to lose your very wills in his will, for no man’s slavery is so complete as his who even yields his will. Now, yield everything to Christ. You shall never be so free as when you do that, never so blessedly delivered from all bondage as when you absolutely and completely yield yourselves up to the power and supremacy of your Lord.