Walking in Newness of Life

I tt is of the first importance that we should clearly see, not only the destination of this walk, but

Its Starting Point.

One great characteristic of all Holy Ghost teaching is that He always leads us to Christ — to some fact in which Christ is the centre. And in the passage where the words occur, that we should “walk in newness of life,” our thoughts are directed to the historical fact of Christ’s crucifixion. But is it not to the same fact we are directed in the previous chapters? True;

Rom. VI. 4.

but then it was with another object — namely to show the source and cause of our justification. But in the sixth chapter the Apostle passes on to the believer’s conduct in relation to sin. He points us to the same central truth, but with another purpose — namely to show the source and secret of our practical deliverance from the service of sin.

In the former case the Apostle sets forth Christ’s death in relation to God’s righteous claims. In the present it is Christ’s death in relation to sin’s appeals. In the first His death was a death for sin — propitiation; in the second it was a death unto sin — separation. Christ not only endured the penalty as a sinless suflerer — He identified Himself with us in our sinfulness. He who was altogether sinless, absolutely pure, spotless, and knew no sin — was willing to be regarded in the eye of God as if He were the sinner. Our Lord could not repent — He had no sins to confess — and yet so truly did He identify Himself with u in our fallen condition that He submitted to John’s baptism, which was a baptism of repentance — for those who came confessing their sins. Though He was never for a single instant under the power of sin, yet it is declared He not only died for but unto sin.

The believer is identified with Christ in His death. It was not simply that Christ took your death, and you take His life. That is the first lesson. The second lesson is that you recognise your complete identification with Him in His death. When He died you died. In the eye of God every believer — nay, the whole Church — was crucified with Christ. We died with Christ; that is true, in what is called a judicial sense. But this is not enough. There must be experimental oneness with Christ in His death. The historical fact must become an experimental reality. That which is true for us, must become true iji us. For real practical holiness there must be personal identification — heart-sympathy with Christ in His death. This means a oneness of spirit, having the same mind as Christ in Pet. iv. I. reference to sin — “Arm yourselves with the same mind.” To have sympathy with Christ in His death unto sin, is to cease to have sympathy with sin. And when that takes place sin’s power is broken. You now look out upon sin, and the world, and Satan, from the standpoint of Christ’s death, and you are delivered from the power of all of them.

The Apostle would remind them that Baptism supposes this oneness with Christ in His death. He appeals to them — you have been baptized into Jesus Christ! What did that baptism mean? It represented your profession. It was an outward confession of your faith in Christ. It was your open avowal of your discipleship — that henceforth you are a follower of Christ. True; but what did it mean in reference to the Cross? It was your personal ideniification with Christ in His death. You were baptized “unto His death” with a view to your complete oneness of heart and mind with Him in that death. Do you know what that death meant? Do you understand its import? It was to place Him in an altogether new relation to His former life. It terminated that life — but it introduced Him into a new life. “Thou wilt show me the path of life.” Those words belong primarily to Christ. They refer to the path of resurrection life.

Now, if you enter into the meaning of your baptism, it will be “even so” with you. If you are brought into experimental oneness with Him in His death, you too shall find it the portal of the new life. And your own spiritual instinct will at once give the true answer to the question which opens this chapter — “Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?” You will answer, not simply from a sense of rightness, from a sense of the moral

Ps. xvi. II.

Rom. vi. I.

Phil. iii. 13.

obligation, the duty, of having nothing more to do with sin; but from a feeling of hatred to sin, from a heart-desire at once and for ever to renounce it. “How shall we who died to sin live any longer therein?” Impossible!

Ihe Lord’s Supper sets forth the same truth. The conditions essential to holy walking at the start are essential also all along the way to the end of the journey. To maintain this sympathy with Christ in His death unto sin — nay, to deepen it — is one of the chief benefits to be derived from a right partaking of this sacred ordinance.

What is it we show forth in the Lord’s Supper? Ye do show forth His death, till He come. It is only out of His death that the new life springs. How are we to know, experimentally and practically, how are we to know the power of Christ’s resurrection? The Apostle gives us the essential condition in the words that follow: *’ being made conformable unto His ikath.’’^ It is by a daily conformity, an experimental and ever-deepening oneness of heart and soul with the dying Christ, that we are brought to know and manifest the power of His risen life.

Its Characteristics.

“Even so we also should walk in newness of life.”

This newness of life does not consist in the self life improved, reformed, or refined, but in the old life replaced, superseded. Another life is substituted.

“Newness of life.” Not new in the sense of a fresh beginning of the same life, just as a tree may get new vigour and stability through being transplanted into a better soil, or into a better situation; but new in the sense of getting another life, just as a branch grafted on another tree partakes of its sap, and consequently becomes possessed of new properties and powers — a new life. It is new as to its

Rom. vi. 4.

Col, i. 29.

nature — a fresh source of life. It is life from another root.

To walk in newness of life is not making a fresh effort on the old resources, putting forth fresh energy from the same source of vitality, but going forth in the energy of a new supply of life in union with a new source. But this involves the termination of the old life.

Such a life has marvellous possibilities. Because it is Divine life, the life that God lives. The holy life, the only holy life; the only life that can glorify God and bring forth fruit acceptable unto Him.

It is a life of intense activity. “Whereunto I also labour,” says the Apostle, “striving according to His working, which worketh in me mightily.”

Not a life that makes us passive or slothful, but which calls into activity every faculty of our renewed being. “Walk in newness of life.” The figure suggests the thought of activity, progress, manifestation. It is a life unto God. It isi /from Him, and it is also unto Him.

Its Lessons.

If it is in this new life all our service is to be wrought, then let us cease to build our hopes on the old. Let us cease to expect anything from it but failure and disappointment. Let us cease to cultivate it Let us for ever have done with it.

And yet how many have all their thoughts centred upon improving the old self-life. How many earnest and religious people belong to “the Old Adam Improvement Society.” It is the recognition of the Christ-life; it is union with the risen Christ, that men need instead of the culture of the religious self-life.

Then again, let us learn that the source of our pardon is also the spring of our holiness.

We need, not only forgiveness for the guilt, but also separation from the love of 2 Cor. iv. lo.

sin. The death of Christ is the fountain of both these blessings.

The first need experienced in the matter of the walk, after justification is known and reahzed, is deHverance from the power, activity, and tyranny of the self-life principle. Nothing but the power of Christ’s death can set us free from this hindrance. We need that power in continual exercise. It is not by its being put forth once for all that we enjoy a continuous freedom. It is by a constant and ever-deepening conformity to His death that we get the momentary deliverance from the self-life. And as we are freed from the old life, so we are filled with the new. “Always bearing about in the body the dying” — the putting to death — “of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body.”