EPC Australia

So ends this chapter, concerning which there has been much dispute. For some have contended that the Apostle does not here speak of himself; but personates another. They suppose that he refers to a Jew: under the Law, but not under Grace; awakened, but not renewed; convinced, but not converted.

Yet can any unregenerate person, with truth, say, not only, "I consent to the law that it is good," but, "With my mind I serve the law of God?" and, "I delight in the law of God after the inward man?" an expression of godliness that characterized the very temper of the Messiah himself. He could say nothing more than this, "I delight to do thy will,O my God; yea, thy law is within my heart."

At first view, the language of complaint may seem much too strong to apply to the experience of a real Christian. But what real Christian would find it too much to utter when placed in the same state, and occupied in the same way, with the Apostle? That is, viewing himself before a God, in whose light the very heavens are not clean, and who charges his angels with folly; and who sees more pollution in our duties, than we ever see in our sins: that is, comparing himself with the rule of all rectitude, the Divine Law, whose spirituality is such as to extend to the thoughts and the desires of the mind, as well as the actions of the life, and which considers anger as murder, and the lust of the eye as adultery. What must the highest attainments of mortals be, compared with this absolutely perfect standard of holiness? yea, or even with the elevated and vast desires of a renewed soul?

We need not wonder that many are astonished and perplexed here. "The spiritual judgeth all things; but he himself is judged of no man." They who are strangers to the warfare in which he is engaged can never clearly comprehend his language, or enter into those feelings which produce such a depth of confession and abasement. Those who have never been in the field, may be surprised at many things related by a veteran, in describing the campaigns he has passed through; but his old scar-worn comrade can attest the truth of them. In religious matters, more than in any other, the heart knoweth its own bitterness, and a stranger intermeddleth not with his joy. But "the secret of the Lord is with them that fear him."

We allow that this chapter has been much perverted. There is no part of the Bible that Antinomians so much delight in, or which ungodly men who turn the grace of our God into lasciviousness so often quote. Such persons wrest also the other Scriptures to their own destruction. And are we to argue against the use of a thing from the abuse of it? What good thing is not abused? Yet we do not refuse raiment to the naked, because there are some who glory in what ought to remind us of our shame; or food to the hungry, because some make a god of their belly. And shall we refuse to sincere and humble souls, mourning over the evils of their own heart, the instruction and consolation here provided for them, for fear the interpretation should be applied to an improper purpose? No one, really taught of God, will abuse it; nor can he be more reconciled to his corruptions, or more satisfied with his deficiencies, in consequence of being able to adopt the language as his own.

For shall they "continue in sin that grace may abound? God forbid. How can they who are dead to sin, live any longer therein?" We are not to make sad the hearts of God's people, but to comfort them, for the joy of the Lord is their strength. And only the last day will show how much this section of Scripture has strengthened the weak hands and confirmed the feeble knees of those who were deeming their experience peculiar, and concluding that they had no part with the Israel of God till they heard Paul bewailing and encouraging himself thus: "For to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not. I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me. O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the Law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin."

Morning Exercises For Everyday In The Year
By Rev. William Jay