Paul's Song Of Songs (Romans 8)

[nChrist]

Brothers and Sisters,

Many of you might wonder why I placed this article in the Bible Prescription Shop. I think that you'll understand pretty quickly when you see the subject matter. The Apostle Paul many times made contrasts between GOD'S Ideals and the reality of what man could reach. Paul spoke of his own failures, shortcomings, and warfare going on inside himself between the old man of flesh and the NEW CREATION IN CHRIST. Paul's warfare continued to the end of his ministry, and our warfare will be likewise in this short life. Much of this sounds negative, but it isn't.

Paul also describes VICTORY IN CHRIST. Many Christians consider Romans 8 to be one of the most precious, beautiful, and encouraging portions of Scripture in the Bible. John MacDuff is one of those Christians, and this article is John MacDuff's attempt to compare Romans 8 with Solomon's Song. John MacDuff is one of my favorite authors even though he lived long ago. His exposition of Romans 8 is quite beautiful, and he gives a more exhaustive look at REAL HOPE AND THE PROMISES OF GOD.

We life in a day and age where we are bombarded with evil from every side. It's fairly easy for even Christians to become negative and feel defeated in these evil days. HOWEVER, the REAL HOPE AND PROMISES OF GOD haven't changed. GOD'S Grace and LOVE are still just as GREAT, and we need to concentrate on these things for strength and encouragement. I sincerely hope and pray that you enjoy this as much as I did.

Love In Christ,
Tom

Christian Quotes 213 - 
"God is not silent. It is the nature of God to speak. The second
person of the Holy Trinity is called "The Word."
  --  A.W. Tozer

[nChrist]

PAUL'S SONG OF SONGS
A Practical Exposition of the Eighth Chapter of Romans
by John MacDuff, 1891

The following pages were specially composed during hours of leisure in the quiet of the study. Their design is to unfold and illustrate, however inadequately, one of the most precious portions of Holy Scripture. The writer fulfills a long cherished desire to awake a few slumbering chords of this New Testament "SONG OF SONGS."

In entering on the exposition of the eighth chapter of Romans, we listen to the music of the greatest of the Church's prose-minstrels. It is a Gospel enshrined in the most precious of the Epistles--an epitome of divine truth. Though blended with other chords, let it be noted at the outset, that the Love of God, and the Security of the Believer, constitute the special dual strain intoned by our Apostle in his sublime Canticle.

"The Eighth Chapter of Romans is the Masterpiece of the New Testament."--Luther.

1. Keynote of the Song

2. Song of Victory

3. Dual Strains

4. I shall rise again

5. the Child-song and its Lullaby

6. A Song in the Night

7. The Dirge of Creation

8. An Elegy; or the Harp on the Willows

9. A Song of Hope

10. Broken Harmonies and the Divine Agent in Their Restoration

11. A Lullaby

12. Anthem of the First-born

13. Songs of Degrees

14. Crescendo

15. Paean of Assured Victory

16. Hallelujah Chorus



1. THE KEY-NOTE OF THE SONG

Let us listen to it--"There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus" (v. 1).

The remarkable opening and ending of our chapter have often been observed; what, in accordance with the name of this Book, I may call the Antiphon. The Voice or Harp-note begins with "NO CONDEMNATION." It is answered in the close of the chapter with "NO SEPARATION." The key is struck by the inspired musician. This is followed by an ever-augmenting volume of melody, until it culminates in an anthem "like the voice of a great multitude and the sound of many waters." It reminds us of another Master of sacred Song (Haydn)--with his "Let there be Light!"--and the Light broadens and deepens into the perfect day of heaven.

"No condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus." This first proposition is ushered in with "Therefore." It is the summing up--the great inference from the preliminary thesis of the earliest and best of Christian Apologists. And this initial thought of consolation and peace, like a golden thread, is interweaved throughout the chapter.

"In Christ Jesus." We cannot now pause to expound and illustrate all which these pregnant words imply. They set forth, in a flash of thought, the personal, vital union or incorporation of the Believer with his living, loving Lord; transforming the old into "the new man which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness." The expression is explained and unfolded in the sixth chapter (4-11). It is a favorite and often recurring formula which permeates the writings of him who specifically calls himself "A man in Christ" (2 Corinthians 12;2). "In Christ"--safely immured in Him who is "the refuge from the storm and the covert from the tempest." I have read, in the terrible story of the Crimean War, when rampart after rampart, bastion after bastion of the doomed city were being stormed and battered into shapeless ruin--deep down in the foundations of one of the grim fortresses was a hold, where the wounded were conducted safe from the iron hail--away too from the din and roar of artillery which in that battle of giants made night as hideous as day. There they were, for the time, safe and sheltered--"The weary to sleep and the wounded to die."
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[nChrist]

PAUL'S SONG OF SONGS
A Practical Exposition of the Eighth Chapter of Romans
by John MacDuff, 1891

Christ is that sheltering Covert. He is "the Stronghold in the day of trouble" (Nahum 1;7). "In Him"--in the clefts of this Rock of Ages--within this Citadel of faith I am safe. The law and its avenging thunders crash against me in vain. Crippled and wounded in the stern struggle hours of life--sin-stricken and sorrow-stricken--assailed with temptation and legion foes--principalities and powers--spiritual wickedness in high places; I can listen to the voice of the Great Rest-giver as amid the shot and shell of battle He thus speaks--"Come unto Me!" "Come, My people, enter into your chambers, and shut your doors about you, and hide yourself for a little moment until the indignation be overpast." "The peace of God which passes all understanding shall keep (as the word means in a citadel or garrison) your hearts and your thoughts in Christ Jesus." (Philippians 4;7).

"In Christ." It was the vital truth so beautifully enforced by the Divine Master Himself in His valedictory Parable of the vine and its branches--"Without Me"; out of Me; severed from Me, you are nothing, and can do nothing. Out of Christ, apart from Him, each soul is like a stranded vessel--mastless, sailless, rudderless, the sport of ocean forces--lying high and dry on the sands, away from its buoyant element. But the tidal wave flows--the rocky inlets and creeks are one by one filled--the "abandoned" is set once more a living thing on the waters--anew "compassed by the inviolate sea."

That is the man "in Christ." Environed with this new element--life in his living Lord with its ocean fullness and unsounded depths--he is safe, joyous, happy. No cyclone above, no submerged rocks beneath; a halcyon calm around. "In Me you shall have peace." Not in vain did the early Christians--even in the midst of their great fight of afflictions--"the sea and the waves roaring and their hearts failing them for fear"--write on the slabs of their catacombs--IN CHRISTO--IN PEACE.

Enough now farther to say, that grasping thoroughly the phrase in its full evangelical meaning, all the varied succeeding affirmations of our chapter become at once comprehensible and luminous. It is the "Basket of Silver" in which "Apples of Gold" are inserted. Let us keep this in mind all through our exposition, as affording the guarantee of every covenant blessing--specially the two already distinctively indicated. It forms Paul's security and the security of all believers as he utters the closing challenge and "persuasion" --"Shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is IN CHRIST JESUS our Lord."

"No condemnation in Christ Jesus!" How blessed the thought, if we are participants in what Dean Alford calls "the bringing in of life by Him, and the absolute union in time, and after time, of every believer with Him!" "Condemn" or "Not condemn;" "Condemnation" or "No condemnation" are no longer open questions--indeterminate and unsettled. He the Great Redeemer and Lord--the Brother in my nature has taken me into living membership and fellowship with Himself. In Him the debt is cancelled--liquidated. In Him I am pardoned and accepted. These are the words of the divine Pardoner (none more precious in all Holy Scripture)--"I will be merciful to your unrighteousness; your sins and your iniquities will I remember no more." Paul, we must bear in mind, was now writing to Romans; who were familiarized with the forensic terms he uses. They knew well what was the significance of the proclamation "Condemno," or "Non condemno," as it rang through their pillared basilicas. Happy for those who have listened, as here, to the Great Absolution from the lips of the Just, yet the Justifier. Happy for me if, feeling my new covenant position in Christ, I can go forth to the world--to my daily work and business--amid "the loud stunning tide of human care and crime," and hear this chime of heavenly music ringing through it all--"No condemnation."

And to have the full comfort of this opening strain of the song, let me think of it, too, as denoting a present discharge--a present immunity. Not the limited and partial thought of being one day called to the tribunal of a Judge to receive the sentence and assurance of remission; but "There is therefore, NOW, no condemnation." The absolution is already pronounced from which there is no appeal. "I AM pacified towards you" (Ezekiel 16;63). "We who have believed do enter into rest" (Hebrews 4;3). "He that believes shall not come into condemnation, but is passed from death unto life" (John 5;24). "Beloved, now are we the sons of God" (1 John 3;2).

The Prodigal in the parable is not ordered to undergo probation--to tarry outside as a dependent among the menials of his father's house and halls, before restoration is accorded. The robe, the ring, the sandals, the welcome, are his at once. Let me accept the same lofty consolation, that the blessedness is even now mine of those whose iniquities are thus forgiven and their sin covered--that I am now a chartered citizen of that heaven of which the subsequent portions of this "Song of Songs" tell me I am to be a glorified inhabitant.

Yes, in beginning these successive cadences of Paul's sacred Cantata, I can appropriately take up the words of other and older singers--"O Lord, I will praise You; for though You were angry with me, Your anger is turned away and You comfortest me" (Isaiah 12;1).

"He has put a new Song in my mouth, even praise unto our God'' (Psalms 40;3).
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[nChrist]

PAUL'S SONG OF SONGS
A Practical Exposition of the Eighth Chapter of Romans
by John MacDuff, 1891

2. SONG OF VICTORY

I do not break up the clauses which follow. I group them as one prolonged strain, and call it "The Song of Victory, or Song of Redemption." For it is a Song unique in itself, complete, all-comprehensive--an anthem as of a multitude of the Heavenly host over the night-plains, not of Bethlehem, but of the world, praising God and saying--

(V. 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; that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit."

[Let no Reader (may I here premise in a word), be repelled by the somewhat doctrinal tone of this and the earlier chapters. We must enter by the outer courts before reaching the innermost shrine. The foundations must be laid before the crowning super-structure be reared.]

The theme of this portion of the SONG, epitomized, is this. The demands of the law, in themselves impossible of fulfillment, have been satisfied through the atoning work of Christ; and those alone can take up the triumphal notes continued to the end of the chapter, who have thus absolutely renounced all legal ground of justification in the sight of God, and have accepted the gratuitous offers of pardon provided by the Divine Surety--"Christ the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believes."

The first clause of these verses--the first strain of this opening Redemption-Hymn is "The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus."

What are we to understand by this? It may have other latent side-meanings, but we may take it, in its simplest acceptation, as an equivalent term for the Gospel method of salvation; forgiveness, peace, eternal life, as the gift of God through Jesus Christ. It is the glorious provision of the Life-giver--"In Him was life;"--Him--alike the Author of Redemption and the Bestower of the new principle of life in the heart of the believer.

The remaining assertion of the verse is in contrast, or contradistinction--"Has made me free from the law of sin and death." It speaks of the old decalogue of Sinai with its rigid, inflexible demand, "Do this and live." The two statements are brought together elsewhere in the concise epigrammatic sentence--"The letter kills, but the Spirit gives life."

Then follows (verse 3) a remarkable epitome of the Redemption-work; "What the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh." "Weak." There was no weakness, no inherent defect or feebleness in the law itself. As the expression of the mind and will of the Great Lawgiver, it resembled one of the pillars of the ancient Temple ("Jachin")--STRENGTH. It had the Divine Holiness and Justice, Omnipotence and Immutability to rest upon. But its high, uncompromising demands were beyond the perfect obedience of the fallen creature. This alone constituted its "weakness." In its own majestic requirements it was potent. As a ground of human merit and a procuring cause of salvation, it was impotent. Amid the thunders and lightnings of the Mount comes the dread deliverance from which there is no escape or appeal--"by the deeds of the law, shall no flesh be justified." Moreover, let it be noted, in connection with the present argument of the Apostle, that this impossibility extended beyond what (to use a forensic term) I may call the major count of the indictment. There was the great outstanding fact of original sin--the human nature fallen and under condemnation; the depravity and corruption of the heart. That heart and its experience we have found faithfully portrayed--photographed--in the immediately preceding chapter. The holiness and sanctification of the believer even at the best are an unrealized and unrealizable ideal--no more. The most saintly image comes out blurred--the fight--the life-long encounter between the lower and the higher nature, as we have also seen, leaves behind the inevitable scars of battle. "For in me," says this noblest of spiritual combatants, "that is, in my flesh, [my weak flesh] dwells no good thing." He feels, that while one moment he may be the soaring eagle, the next he may be the groveling worm. Paul may in this be thought to take a pessimistic view of human nature generally. Yet who that knows his own heart and life experience can demur to the stern reality?

Here then, in this opening proposition, he reasserts what had been logically expanded in the previous lengthened context, the powerlessness and inefficacy, alike on the ground of nature and practice, of the law to give "LIFE."

He proceeds to unfold the great remedial measure of God's own sovereign devising--"God sent His Own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh."

We have spoken of the "Weakness;" now comes the contrasted "Strength;" "Christ the power of God unto salvation to every one that believes." A law, powerless either to justify or to sanctify, becomes both in Him. As the Apostle elsewhere with singular force and brevity, yet fullness, expresses it--"For if there had been a law given which could have given life, verily righteousness would have been by the law. But the scripture has concluded all under sin, that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe" (Galatians 3;21, 22). "GOD sending." The purpose of Love was His own--one undreamt of by human reason; beyond the conception and device either of man or of Angel.

And there is a farther notable emphasis in the appended word. "The stress," says Dean Alford, "is on 'His own,' and the word is pregnant with meaning." His own Son, spotless in His holiness; in Nature and Person immaculate as the law whose debts He came to discharge and its precepts to fulfill. This sinless Son is in marked antithesis to "the sinful flesh" in whose likeness He came. "Likeness;" for though in all respects tempted and tried as the Brother in our nature, it was "yet without sin." One single spot or stain in the Incarnate humanity would have vitiated the efficacy of His atonement. But He was "holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners." He could make the unanswerable challenge to His adversaries--"Which of you convinces me of sin?"
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[nChrist]

PAUL'S SONG OF SONGS
A Practical Exposition of the Eighth Chapter of Romans
by John MacDuff, 1891

"And for sin" (marg., "by a sacrifice for sin;" R.V., "as an offering for sin") "condemned sin in the flesh."

Much of the true meaning of this important clause must be determined by what is implied in the word "condemned." It seems to us capable of but one interpretation--the vicarious sufferings and death of the Son of God for us men and for our salvation. In case of any verbal misapprehension, we reject the harsh and unwarrantable rendering given by an otherwise admirable commentator (Haldane), when he ventures to translate it by the term "punished." We cannot for a moment accept the word, if in the remotest form it suggests or embodies the thought of the loving Father of heaven punishing "the Son in whom He declares Himself well pleased." Such be it said at once would be altogether unworthy, abhorrent, blasphemous; distinctly at variance, it may, moreover, well be added, with the creed of so distinguished and reliable a student of Scripture.

And yet we dare not eliminate the implied truth of an Expiatory Offering.

Another commentator to whom the Church of Christ owes much (Barnes), suggests an alternative rendering, probably the nearest to the truth, while evading the objectionable punitive term--"God passed a judicial sentence on sin in the person of Christ." He condemned sin in the flesh, that is, in His own assumed, human, fleshly nature, Incarnate God.

Should we retain the accepted rendering in both Authorised and Revised Versions ("condemned"), there may possibly be implied another antithesis between this and the word of the first verse, for they are in the Greek the same, "condemnation." There is condemnation by the law. There is no condemnation by the substitution of the immaculate Redeemer.

Then comes the grand result (v. 4). "That the righteousness" (or, marginal, requirements) "of the law" (that which the law demands) "might be fulfilled in us;" fulfilled by the meritorious life and death of the Son of God, and through our mystical union with Him.

Reader, are you and I able to accept, and accepting to repose on this great truth, what the old Divines call "THE SATISFACTION." We know how in modern days it is a doctrine slighted and discredited. In the language of Reuss, who may be taken as a leader in the so-called "advanced school," "there is not a word of all this weighing and calculating scheme to be found in the writings of Paul." While refusing to accept the German's depreciatory definition of our Apostle's "systematic theology," I conclude far otherwise. I feel I must reject the teachings of this Epistle and of all his other Epistles--as well as the teachings of his inspired contemporaries; I must reject my Bible itself, before I can repudiate so cardinal an article of the faith. That there is mystery, profound mystery, in this dogma of Divine Substitution and Suretyship none can deny. But I would ask those who discard it, calmly to read without cavil or prejudice the following among many assertions (not by any means exclusively Pauline)--and say if their plain, unambiguous meaning can be evaded?

To begin with Christ's own testimony, "The Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many" (Matthew 20;28 ). Omitting for the present the prophetical writings, His Apostles and other inspired penmen repeat and rehearse the assertions of their Lord. "He has made Him to be sin for us who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him" (2 Corinthians 5;21). "Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us" (Galatians 3;13). "Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many" (Hebrews 9;28 ). "He Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree" (1 Peter 2;24). "Who loved me and gave Himself for me" (Galatians 2;20). "Christ also once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God" (1 Peter 3;18 ). "It became Him" (that word "became" is solemnly emphatic; there was a necessity laid on God, arising out of His own nature--than which we can conceive no stronger necessity) "of whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the Captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings" (Hebrews 2;10). "To Him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in His own blood" (Revelation 1;5).

You may strive, by a forced exegesis, to get rid of the meaning wrapped up in these and kindred passages on the Suretyship of Christ; but a literal acceptance can alone give explanation and consistency to the reasoning of the Apostle in this verse on which we are now meditating. God, in the Person, and work, and atoning death of His dear Son, has thrown the luster of a glorious vindication around every requirement of His law and every attribute of His nature. Christ, by a holy life, obeyed the law's precepts, and by a holy death of self-surrender and sacrifice endured its penalty. The law says, "Do this and live." I cannot do it. But I listen to the words of Him who can do it--who has done it. "Lo, I come, I delight to do Your will, O my God" (Psalms 40;7, 8 ). "When the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem those who were under the law" (Galatians 5;4).

O blessed Savior, I desire with simple unwavering faith to look to You thus--to You only--wholly, and forever. I desire to behold You as the great Antitype of the Jewish Scapegoat, bearing away the load of transgression into a land of oblivion and forgetfulness, so that "as far as the East is distant from the West," so far have You "removed our transgressions from us." I look to You, indeed, also in the beauty of Your Character and Work, as the perfect Example, the great Ideal of Humanity. In this acceptation of the word, I know that You did oppose and overcome the forces of evil. I know in a similar manner, too, You may be said to have "condemned sin in the flesh;" overcome it, and conquered it in Your own pure, stainless human nature. You could say in a real, what our Apostle could only utter in a qualified sense, "I have fought the good fight; I have vanquished, and thereby have I given a pledge of sin's final subjugation." But this is not all I need. I must look to You as the Atoning Sacrifice--the Sin-offering. "O Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world, have mercy upon us!" "O Lamb of God, that takes away the sin of the world, grant us Your peace!" I shall not go to the Temple without the Altar, or to the Altar without the Sacrifice. Thanks be to the dying, ever living love of the divine Surety, if I am enabled with the heavenly harpers spoken of in Revelation (5;8, 9) to "sing the new song"--the Song whose strains gave them their golden harps and golden vials and crowns of victory--"You were slain, and have redeemed us to God by Your blood out of every kindred and tongue and people and nation!"
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[nChrist]

PAUL'S SONG OF SONGS
A Practical Exposition of the Eighth Chapter of Romans
by John MacDuff, 1891

I close with one verse from an earlier chapter of this same Epistle. It has been purposely kept by itself and to the last. It is culled from the midst of Paul's cogent argument. But it seems to express, in a brief sentence, the peerless truth on which we have now been dwelling. Olshausen, by a metaphor not less truthful than happy, calls it "The Acropolis of the Christian faith," "Whom God has set forth 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" (Romans 3;25).

Propitiation (margin, RV., "Propitiatory"). The reference, as is well known, is to the lid of the Ark of the Covenant, in the Tabernacle or Temple--the Mercy-Seat. The tables of the law, the two tables of stone were deposited within that Sacred Ark--the eternal decalogue with its unrepealed, unabrogated demands, and solemn requirements. It spoke condemnation--"The soul that sins, it shall die." But the blood besprinkled "Shield" resplendent with gold and fragrant with acacia wood (significant type and emblem of the divine Surety), interposed between it and the officiating High Priest--the Representative of Covenant Israel in all ages. Christ--the true "Propitiatory" stands between the living and the dead, that the great plague of sin might be stayed. Or, to give a different illustration, we recall the host of Assyrian warriors in ancient Jewish story, "their cohorts gleaming with purple and gold"--their banners "floating proudly at sunset"--

"Like the leaves of the forest when Autumn has blown,
That host of the morrow lay withered and strewn;
For the Angel of death spread his wings on the blast,
And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed."

Each hand grasped a sword, but was impotent to wield it. Even so; the law retains, in all their force, the deadly weapons of condemnation. But a mightier than created Angel has come down and paralyzed its arm--"stilled the enemy and the avenger." The sharp, keen-edged swords slumber powerless in their scabbards. "Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ."

These remarks ought appropriately to close this section. But one practical thought dare not be omitted--one note is needed for the full cadence and harmony of this Redemption-Song. If the law is impotent to save--if its claims have to be fulfilled and its penalties borne by Another, are we to disregard it as a rule of life?

This is answered in the closing saying of the passage. It is a brief but necessary restatement of the Apostle's preceding and fully discussed question; "Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?" "Who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit" (v. 4). We cannot enter on the wide subject here. It will come in course, and be amplified in next chapter. Enough to say, that the love of God, in the gift of His Son, has, as its result, in the case of the believer, the imparting of a new life of love. To quote the words of a Brother Apostle (1 John 4;9)--"In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because God sent His only Begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him." Or Paul's own equally cogent saying (Romans 6;18 )--"Being then made free from sin, you become the servants of righteousness." (Ver. 22)--"But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, you have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life." The Gospel message of free pardon through the merits and righteousness of Christ, acts as a dominating influence--a new pervading principle of action, permeating and energizing the whole being. The hospices which crowd the pilgrim way lead up to the pure and serene atmosphere of the everlasting hills. The Temple-stairs, not of the Law but of Grace, conduct to the Holy of Holies. A stray note from the Savior's greatest "Song of Songs"--His own Beatitude-chapter, is on the lips of every worshiper, "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God."



3. DUAL STRAINS.

It is common in Paul's writings--in none more so than in this Epistle to the Romans, for one subject to suggest what follows. As with the musical Composer one note suggests another--as with the skilled and practiced Orator one topic or idea suggests another--so it is here. The last strain of our inspired Harmonist was--"Who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." The theme is now amplified--the note is prolonged. Retaining our song-metaphor, the identical terms of the couplet "flesh and Spirit" are over and over antithetically intoned.

"Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace; the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God's law, nor can it do so. Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God. You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ. Therefore, brothers, we have an obligation--but it is not to the sinful nature, to live according to it. For if you live according to the sinful nature, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live" Romans 8;5-9, 12-13
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[nChrist]

PAUL'S SONG OF SONGS
A Practical Exposition of the Eighth Chapter of Romans
by John MacDuff, 1891

I shall not attempt expounding, clause by clause, in consecutive order, but rather group these together, combining and interchanging; the better thus to grasp what is the scope and meaning of the writer.

Taking it generally, the entire passage is a plea for the higher spiritual life, as contrasted with the lower. It is a step in advance of our Apostle's thesis already adverted to in ch. 7. To use a familiar figure, the latter may be likened to the swing of the pendulum; while the present may rather be compared to the magnetic needle, which despite of tremulous vibrations is pointing true to its pole. The animal nature--"the flesh with its affections and lusts" (the disturbing cause)--is deflecting from God and holiness. But its normal condition is, notwithstanding, strictly under the influence of diviner principles, renewed motives and affections.

The two first, and we may regard them as leading clauses in these couplet verses, are rendered in the margin--"Minding of the flesh" and "Minding of the Spirit" (v. 5). The former opens up not an inviting subject. But for the sake of the contrasted theme we must for a few moments dwell upon it. It is the picture of mankind in their natural unregenerate state--the 'Harp with its thousand strings' out of tune, the song with its marred and discordant melodies; the soul "alienated from the life of God;"--under vassalage to sin. The desires, inclinations, tastes--have not only a downward tendency; but, as we know too well, there is a dynamic force in the carnal nature corresponding to the momentum of the material law. That moral momentum is ever on the increase. Indulged and permitted evil--the despot rule of the flesh–leads to an ever sadder bondage, and deadens the sense of right and wrong. In the simile of our Lord's Gospel Parable, the house "swept and garnished," yet unsurrendered to the Spirit, becomes more and more devil-haunted; so that "the last state of that man is worse than the first." Hear another Apostle's description of the terrible progression or decadence in this "minding of the flesh;"--"Earthly, sensual, DEVILISH" (James 3;15). The sirens in league with the fallen and corrupt nature, lure with the charm of their voluptuous song, only to surer destruction.

And the saddest feature in the delineation--the saddest taint in this fleshly nature is here specially noted. The head and front of its offending is--"The carnal mind is enmity against God" (v. 7). God--the God of unspotted holiness, purity, and righteousness is distasteful and abhorrent to the "mind of the flesh." "It is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be." This, in the truest sense, is "Atheism." "The fool" (that is, the impersonation of the carnal mind) "has said in his heart, 'No God for me'" (Psalms 14;1); for such is the energy and emphasis of the original. There are undoubtedly times when the most callous and indifferent--those of the earth earthy, cannot--dare not, thus utter the scoffer's creed, "No God!" All nature in its majestic sequences, its exquisite mechanisms, its intricate yet simple laws, repudiates the disavowal. It has its own "Song of Songs" chanted day and night in endless chorus, sublime refrain--"The Lord reigns." Yes, and this is still more emphatically and solemnly countersigned by conscience within, the authoritative viceregent--conscience asserting its own cadences, despite of all inner discord that would attempt to mar divine, godlike harmonies.

Yet alas! the recognition of God--the God of the Gospel and of Revelation is incompatible with the "desires of the flesh and of the mind." Hence the altar is erected, not with the old Athenian inscription "To the Unknown God," but "No God FOR ME." The votary of the flesh can without scruple give his adhesion to the creed of Pantheist or Materialist. But a great moral Lawgiver and Governor to whom he is responsible, and to whose Will his whole principles and actions are antagonistic, he cannot tolerate. His state may be summed up in the one expressive word--"Ungodliness."

And what a picture is this, of those who are unrenewed in the spirit of their minds! "The natural man (the flesh) receives not the things of the Spirit of God." "For when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions, which were through the law, wrought in our members to bring forth fruit unto death" (Romans 7;5).

"Unto death." In the verses we are now considering the same sad climax is reached. "To be carnally minded is death" (v. 6). "If you live after the flesh you shall die" (v. 13). The original meaning is here, too, emphatic. It is not that this fleshly tendency leads to death; but it is death. Death, gloomy-visaged, spiritual death sways its iron scepter over the moribund soul. It is dead to the only true life--the life of God--"Without God and without hope in the world!"

Turn now for a little to the opposite pole--from muffled peals to spiritual life-chords. Listen to Paul's series of counterpart statements.

(V. 10) "If Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness." (V. 12) "Therefore, brethren, we are debtors." "If you through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, you shall live." (V. 6) "To be spiritually minded is life and peace."
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[nChrist]

PAUL'S SONG OF SONGS
A Practical Exposition of the Eighth Chapter of Romans
by John MacDuff, 1891

"We are debtors." The key-note of the song considered at the beginning of these meditations (v. 1) interprets this assertion for us. Once in "condemnation;" bankrupt, nothing to pay--sin-condemned and law-condemned. But Christ the Law fulfiller has paid all and remitted all, granting to the insolvent a full discharge; "Therefore, brethren, we are debtors;" debtors to Him who has Himself furnished the ransom--opened the prison doors and set us free. Hence the infinite obligation under which we are laid to Redeeming love. Hence the supreme incentive to sanctification of heart and life. As He died for sin, so must we die to sin.

At this point of the Apostle's argument, a new divine Influence or Factor is revealed; a new slumbering chord of the Song is made to vibrate. God has made gracious provision to secure, on the part of His ransomed people, a holy walk and obedience; and that, not through their own strength, but through the strength and power of His indwelling Spirit. By that Spirit we are not only renewed, but "led" (v. 14)--sweetly constrained to walk in harmony with the divine will, and the impulses of our regenerated natures. We have here what Chalmers happily calls "the expulsive power of a new affection." It is a plant which our Heavenly Father plants. Not indigenous to the natural soil of the human heart; it is of supernatural growth.

Christ Himself in His interview with Nicodemus expressly speaks of a "new birth"--a being "born of the Spirit"--"born from above. ABOVE; "translated into the Kingdom of His dear Son." ABOVE--we breathe a purer atmosphere. Away from the mists and clouds of the nether valley, faith takes us to its own rocky heights; and bathed in its own bright paradise, puts one of its new songs into our lips--"He shall dwell on high; his place of defense shall be the munitions of rocks." The life originally forfeited in the first Adam is more than restored. "I came," says the great federal Head of the New Covenant, "that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly" (John 10;10).

In all this, however, let us specially note, at the risk of repetition, the divine Agent and Agency. For while the expression "the Spirit," may be more than once descriptive of the new moral condition of the soul, in contradistinction to "the flesh;" it undoubtedly has a preponderating reference to the Holy Spirit--the Third Person in the adorable Trinity--the Author, Inspirer, Energizer of divine life; in accordance with Christ's own valedictory promise to His Church--"For He dwells with you and shall be in you" (John 14;17). "But you are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you" (v. 9).

If we have seen that the state of those "minding the things of the flesh" may be expressed by one word--ungodliness; this new, heaven-born life may similarly be described by the one word "spiritual mindedness." This spiritual mindedness--the Holy Spirit's work in the heart--like all the processes in God's material and moral government, is step by step and progressive. The power of sin becomes slowly weaker and weaker. The power of grace, slowly--it may be imperceptibly, becomes stronger and stronger. Paul's own word (v. 13) implies not a sudden and instantaneous, but a gradual transformation; "If you through the Spirit, do MORTIFY the deeds of the body, you shall live." It is in accordance with a similar and equally expressive simile of our Apostle elsewhere--"Those who are Christ's have crucified the flesh with its affections and lusts." Crucified--it is a slow, lingering death--a "striving against sin" (Hebrews 12;4); though the strife and conflict are not dubious, but lead ultimately to assured victory.

Reader, have you and I, in any feeble measure, been able to realize the presence and power of this "Indwelling Spirit"? conscious of the surrender of heart and life to Christ? implying the gradual conquest of sin; the expulsion of whatever is base and impure, corrupt and selfish, grasping and covetous, unloving and unholy--our wills blending in greater harmony with the divine? Is this our happy history; can we endorse this testimony as our own experience--"The grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men; teaching us, that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously and godly in this present world?" (Titus 2;11, 12). Not, moreover, as a hard rule of compulsion--a reluctant concession to stern duty and obligation, but saying with a cheerful feeling of self-surrender--"I delight in the law of God after the inward man"?

There is no description truer than that asserted in one of the antithetical clauses already quoted--"to be spiritually minded is life and peace." PEACE! that holy tranquility--that "fruit of the Spirit," specially noted in Galatians 5;22. Like God's own metaphor of it, the river may not be always untroubled. The stream may at times flow amid rough boulders and environing rocks, fretted and broken into foam by the cataract. But gradually it resumes its customary calm, reflecting the serene heavens, and at last sleeping with waveless tranquility in the bosom of the lake where it has sped its way.

Nor let this phrase, "the Indwelling Spirit," be taken by us as a mere theological expression. No; it is a deeply solemn reality. "Don't you know that you are the Temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?" (1 Corinthians 3;16). O, what a constant preservative against sin--what an ever-present incentive to holiness were this conviction more habitually present with us--"My soul is a shrine tenanted and consecrated by the Holy Spirit!" How the thought evokes the blush of conscious shortcoming and unworthiness, in recalling the past! How it demands self scrutiny for the present and watchfulness for the future! How crowded becomes the memory with the remembrance of impure imaginations, unamiable tempers, vain aspirations, "winged ambitions,"--selfish ways, passionate words, unloving deeds! Humbled, softened, saddened at the retrospect, be this our prayer--the prayer of one who, far more than Paul, realized the terrible combat between flesh and spirit--one who fell sorely wounded in the battle--but yet as God's accredited and honored soldier rose from his fall--though carrying the scar of ignoble defeat and failure to the last--"Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Take not Your Holy Spirit from me. Restore unto me the joys of Your salvation, and uphold me with Your free Spirit " (Psalms 51;10, 11, 12).
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[nChrist]

PAUL'S SONG OF SONGS
A Practical Exposition of the Eighth Chapter of Romans
by John MacDuff, 1891

Let me listen, daily, hourly, to the divine admonition--"Walk in the Spirit and you shall not fulfill the lusts of the flesh." How many venture to walk--but it is to walk dangerously near the precipice straying on doubtful or forbidden ground; with a faltering will; holding parley with sin; tampering with the sensitiveness of conscience and with the treacherous allurements and base compliances of the world; thus "grieving the Holy Spirit of God, whereby we are sealed unto the day of redemption."

Lord, bring me to live more and more constantly under the sovereignty of that lofty motive to walk and act so as to please You; to exercise a jealous scrutiny over my truant, treacherous, deceitful heart. Specially in my daily business and daily duties and daily temptations and daily perplexities, may I seek to be led by Your Spirit. Let me keep free of whatever influences would deflect the needle from its pole, and prevent the love of God from being shed abroad in my heart by the Holy Spirit given unto me. Beholding, as in a glass, the glory of the Lord, may I be changed into the same image from glory to glory, by the Lord the Spirit (2 Corinthians 3;18 ). Free from the bondage of the law--the law of sin and death, let me become a willing slave to the new bondage of Christ's service. Recognizing the ultimate end of Redemption to be Sanctification, may I yield myself and my members servants to righteousness unto holiness (Romans 6;19).

Here is our Apostle's main incentive to the leading of this higher spiritual life and this diviner spiritual walk--"For Christ's love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again (2 Corinthians 5;14, 15). "Since you have been raised to new life with Christ, set your sights on the realities of heaven, where Christ sits at God's right hand in the place of honor and power. Let heaven fill your thoughts. Do not think only about things down here on earth. For you died when Christ died, and your real life is hidden with Christ in God" (Colossians 3;1-3). "To be spiritually minded is life and peace" may be taken as the summary of this passage and chapter. As a responsive and appropriate chord to Paul's Song of the renewed mind, let us close with an old prophetic strain, celebrating the City of Salvation with the Gates of righteousness and peace we have just been surveying–"In that day, everyone in the land of Judah will sing this song: Our city is now strong! We are surrounded by the walls of God's salvation. Open the gates to all who are righteous; allow the faithful to enter. You will keep in perfect peace all who trust in you, whose thoughts are fixed on you!" Isaiah 26:1-3



4. I SHALL RISE AGAIN.

In the verses now to claim our thoughts, we have again two antithetical clauses; or, repeating our figure, antiphonal strains.

"And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you. Therefore, brothers, we have an obligation--but it is not to the sinful nature, to live according to it." Romans 8:11-12

"The body is dead because of sin;"--"Shall also quicken your mortal bodies." Other topics already touched upon, are embraced in the passage. We shall therefore confine ourselves to these contrasted words--answering chords--"dead" and "quicken." It is Death in conjunction with Life--or rather with Life as its sequel and triumph. It recalls the burial sentences so familiar to many, when standing by the grave--"Man that is born of a woman has but a short time to live, and is full of misery. He comes up and is cut down like a flower; he flees as it were a shadow, and never continues in one stay. In the midst of life we are in death." Followed by the inspiriting words--"In sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life…Our perfect consummation and bliss, both in body and soul, in Your eternal everlasting glory."

Or there may be brought before the mental vision of some of us, the impressive and never to be forgotten spectacle of a soldier's--a Christian soldier's funeral. The procession slowly pacing the streets, amid the wailing of the "Dead-march"--with the accompaniment of muffled drum--"the body is dead." But when the concluding volley is fired--the ordinary tribute borne by the brave to the brave; the dirge-notes are merged into some jubilant strains, possibly dear to the departed as he was passing through the last mortal strife.
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[nChrist]

PAUL'S SONG OF SONGS
A Practical Exposition of the Eighth Chapter of Romans
by John MacDuff, 1891

The same antithesis as that of our present verses, often occurs throughout Sacred Scripture--"The voice said, Cry; and he said, What shall I cry? all flesh is grass, and all the goodness thereof is as the flower of the field" (Isaiah 40;6). The voice said Cry--"Verily, verily, I say unto you, The hour comes, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God; and those who hear shall live" (John 5;25 ).

Let us briefly meditate on the two themes.

"The body is dead." Some have considered this expression figurative or symbolic. It is in every respect more in harmony with the Apostle's meaning and argument, to take it in its simple and natural acceptation. His reference is to the dissolution of the mortal framework (2 Corinthians 5;1). Indeed any other interpretation we think is inadmissible. The "body"--were we by that to understand "the flesh"--the animal nature, is not thus "dead because of sin." Such would unsay and contradict the repeated assertions of the seventh chapter--negative the writer's humbling lamentations over his own dual experiences. Even when most subdued, the fires of corruption and evil smoulder to the last; and death alone puts the extinguisher upon them.

It is then, as may be strongly asserted, this human body of flesh and blood, which sooner or later undergoes the doom of dissolution, of which he speaks. And this, too, even though "Christ be in you" (v. 10). There is no exemption from the universal law. Christianity and Paganism are on the same footing here. It is the testimony of wide humanity, "We must needs die." Believer and unbeliever--the children of light and the children of darkness are served heirs alike to the "covenant with death."

And, "the body is dead because of sin." "Death has passed over all men for that all have sinned!" It is sin which wrote that primal sentence from which there is no appeal--involved in that warfare from which there is no discharge--"Dust you are, and unto dust you shall return." DEATH!--we dare not mock our deepest, holiest feelings by attempting to soften your terrors. Death!--which so often, like an avalanche, comes crashing down in the midst of summer skies and smiling fields. You are indeed the great Destroyer--the disrupter of closest bonds, the unsparing implacable foe of human happiness; leaving behind you weeping eyes and broken hearts. If there were not other inspiring music, of which we shall presently speak, there could be no "Song of Songs" to wake into life and hope these hushed and gloomy corridors--nothing but unstrung harps. We could only be mute in such bewildering moments, as we wail out the dirge-notes of the insoluble mystery--"How is the strong staff broken, and the beautiful rod!"--the severance, the void, the blank, the silence! In the words of the Laureate--

"Our lives are put so far apart,
We cannot hear each other speak."

O Death, here IS your sting; O Grave, here IS your victory!

But I willingly leave the shadows of this picture, and pass to its glorious lights--from the sob in the darkness to the "Song in the night."

(V. 11) "Shall also QUICKEN your mortal bodies." It is the first introduction--the first faint warbling, in the inspired Canticle, of the believer's future triumph--the first pencilled ray, which, as the chapter closes, "breaks and broadens into glorious day."

"Our vile body" (lit., the body of our humiliation, Philippians 3;21), is to assume an incorruptible form--quickened from the dust of mortality into everlasting life. "Life in Paul's writings," says Dean Howson, "is scarcely represented adequately by 'Life.' It generally means more than this, that is, Life triumphant over death." And let us note very specially with what, in the mind of the Apostle, that quickening is associated. It is with the Resurrection of the believer's Lord--"He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies." Paul had discoursed to the Athenians at Mars Hill, on "Jesus and the Resurrection." He does so now with his Roman converts. He brings before their minds that great Resurrection day, on which the buried Conqueror had met His first followers with the "all hail" (Matthew 28;9); and when the glad tidings were afterwards borne from lip to lip--"The Lord is risen!" This, indeed, is the chief note of our Apostle's present Golden Song, and of all the after Songs of Christendom, including the greatest uninspired Song of the ages--"When you had overcome the sharpness of death, You did open the Kingdom of Heaven to all believers." "If Christ be not risen," he elsewhere affirms, "your faith is vain, and you are yet in your sins." "But now has Christ risen from the dead, and become the first-fruits of those who slept" (1 Corinthians 15;17, 20). "It is a faithful saying. For if we be dead with Him, we shall also live with Him" (2 Timothy 2;11).
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[nChrist]

PAUL'S SONG OF SONGS
A Practical Exposition of the Eighth Chapter of Romans
by John MacDuff, 1891

Am I able to appropriate this transcendent truth, that in a partial sense now, and in a full sense hereafter, I am sharer in the Resurrection-life of my divine Redeemer? The great problem of all time has been--"If a man die shall he live again?" Paganism with its elysium, mingling with a dim land of shadows (Tartarus and Acheron)--gave a feeble, trembling response, like,

"An infant crying in the night,
An infant crying for the light,
And with no language but a cry."

The noblest intellect of the olden world says, hypothetically--"If there be a life beyond?" Even Athens, with all her boasted enlightenment, had one of her favorite altars in the Temple of Minerva Polias dedicated to 'Oblivion'. Nature presents, in her great parable-book, some significant guesses and types, but nothing more--of "the secret hidden from ages and generations." In the upspringing of the seed buried under the clods and snows of winter; or the bursting of the insect from its cocoon prison-house, soaring to heaven on wings of purple and gold. But all these oracles were unsatisfactory and ambiguous, until Christ came. Rolling back the stone from the sepulcher of Golgotha, He proclaimed Himself--"I am the Resurrection and the life;"--coupling with this a guarantee for the life and resurrection of His people--"Because I live, you shall live also." He, the first fruits, was presented before the Heavenly Altar, the pledge of the vast harvest that was to follow--"Afterward those who are Christ's at His coming." We need not wonder at the Apostle's emphatic words in a subsequent strain which we shall come to consider--"It is Christ that died, yes rather, that is risen again."

Blessed Savior! may I be enabled to "know You, and the power of Your resurrection" (Philippians 3;10). I would enter by faith Your vacant tomb, and hear the angel-announcement--"He is not here, He is risen as He said; come, see the place where the Lord lay." No, more; I would see in all this, what disarms the sting in the first clause of the passage now before us--"the body is dead because of SIN;"--for I see, in You, death and sin alike doomed. In You the grave has become the robing-room for immortality. So completely has Your dying vanquished the last enemy and his dominion, that You are said to have "abolished death," and to have "brought life and immortality to light." I can understand now the meaning of Paul elsewhere, when, in enumerating the contents of the Christian's charter--the roll and record of the believer's privileges, he includes the startling entry--"All things are yours…DEATH" (1 Corinthians 3;22). He was writing to the world's Metropolis--to those familiar with their Appian Way--the long street of tombs, ending in the Via Sacra with the Forum and Capitol. Earth in a wider sense is one long Appian Way--a vista and avenue of sepulchers, with the universal inscription--"Sin has reigned unto death." But, through Him who has raised up Christ from the dead, it resolves itself into a "Sacred Approach," leading to the City whose walls are salvation and its gates praise--on whose entrance--its triumphal arch--the words are emblazoned--"And there shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain, for the former things are passed away" (Revelation 21;4).

Meanwhile, in the prospect of that glorious quickening, when His people will be changed into "the body of His glory,"--may it be my longing and aspiration, that "the spirit"--the renewed, quickened, and regenerated spirit--may be "life because of righteousness." May I be imbued with a spirit instinct with holiness. Above all, desiring to be "like" my risen Lord. The exhortation of the Apostle of love seems the appropriate one in this longing after purity and consecration of heart and life--"And every man that has this hope in Him purifies himself, even as He is pure" ( 1 John 3;3). It is a solemn test and touchstone which ushers in our present verses--"IF Christ be in you!" Is my life now "hidden with Christ in God"? Is His love enthroned in my heart, and is it expelling all less worthy aspirations? Partaker of this Resurrection-life of Jesus, let me so rise above the fear of natural death, that seen in the morning light of the great coming Easter it may appear like a "going home."

And may not all this be deepened and intensified, when I think of it in connection with the beloved dead? Those rayless eyes will be lighted again. The music of that hushed voice will be awakened again. In the certainty of that quickening, we are lifted far above the poor Xaipe (the farewell) on Pagan tombs. As we pace these dark and doleful realms of death, the sound as of the silver trumpet is heard. It is a Song of Songs in long antecedent years, sung by no Apostle but by the Lord of life Himself; as looking down the vista of ages, He exclaims--"I will ransom them from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death; O death, I will be your plague; O grave, I will be your destruction" (Hosea 13;14). "Your dead shall live;…awake and sing, you that dwell in dust" (Isaiah 26;19).
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[nChrist]

PAUL'S SONG OF SONGS
A Practical Exposition of the Eighth Chapter of Romans
by John MacDuff, 1891

Hear how, in other beautiful words of comfort, our Apostle connects the Resurrection of Christ with the glorious awaking of His sleeping saints. It is not the poet's "Sleep, the sleep that knows no waking." "Brothers, we do not want you to be ignorant about those who fall asleep, or to grieve like the rest of men, who have no hope. We believe that Jesus died and rose again and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. According to the Lord's own word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left till the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever." (1 Thessalonians 4;13-17). "Together with them;" and "forever with the Lord!" Death is the transmuting and transforming of human relations into a life which is impossible in the earthly sphere. It is, with reverence we call it--a Transfiguration on the Mount of Heaven.

This meditation cannot be more appropriately closed, than by quoting two passages which seem written as if an express comment on the verses which have claimed our attention--two sweet melodies in full harmony with our Song of Songs;

"All honor to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, for it is by his boundless mercy that God has given us the privilege of being born again. Now we live with a wonderful expectation because Jesus Christ rose again from the dead." 1 Peter 1:3

For our perishable earthly bodies must be transformed into heavenly bodies that will never die. When this happens - when our perishable earthly bodies have been transformed into heavenly bodies that will never die - then at last the Scriptures will come true:

"Death is swallowed up in victory.
O death, where is your victory?
O death, where is your sting?"

For sin is the sting that results in death, and the law gives sin its power. How we thank God, who gives us victory over sin and death through Jesus Christ our Lord! 1 Corinthians 15:53-57



5. THE CHILD-SONG AND ITS LULLABY.

"For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. So you should not be like cowering, fearful slaves. You should behave instead like God's very own children, adopted into his family - calling him "Father, dear Father." For his Holy Spirit speaks to us deep in our hearts and tells us that we are God's children. And since we are his children, we will share his treasures - for everything God gives to his Son, Christ, is ours, too. But if we are to share his glory, we must also share his suffering." Romans 8:14-17

Another prolonged note of the divine music; and again suggested by one preceding.

The Apostle had just been dwelling on the Holy Spirit and His operations as the active Force in the regenerated nature; awaking, inspiring, invigorating, perpetuating "life" (vers. 9, 10, 11, 13). This leads, by a natural transition, to a yet higher strain in the symphony. The subject, in itself entirely new, forms a distinct advance in the argument of the chapter. To use a different figure, we may regard it as a golden gate, like that on the eastern wall of Zion, leading to the privileges of the true Spiritual Temple. All the benefits of the New Covenant with which the chapter closes, which have their crown and culmination in the triumph of divine love, spring out of the relationship here disclosed--Sons of God.

Among the Bible truths which owe their fuller development and acceptance to these later decades, prominently is the divine Fatherhood and sonship. They form the essential doctrine--the dual "Song" of New Testament times and Gospel story. God, under the Old Covenant, was revealed as Jehovah--the Almighty, the Shepherd, the Stone (or Rock) of Israel (Genesis 17;1, 49;24). It was reserved to the Author and Finisher of the faith--Himself the divine Son, to be the revealer of the more endearing name of Father. How He loves to dwell upon it, and to enshrine it in discourse, and parable, and miracle! It is breathed by Him in His own mountain Oratories, whether by the shores of Gennesaret or on the green slopes of Olivet. It forms the opening word and key-note of His own appointed prayer, "Our Father in heaven!" It is repeated in His great Valedictory and in His great Intercessory prayer; in the hour of superhuman conflict in Gethsemane--the hour of superhuman darkness on the Cross. It is consecrated in the first Easter words--a possession for His Church in all time--"I ascend unto My Father and your Father; and to My God and your God!" (John 20;17).
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[nChrist]

PAUL'S SONG OF SONGS
A Practical Exposition of the Eighth Chapter of Romans
by John MacDuff, 1891

Who can wonder that Paul here catches up a strain that had so divine a warrant? We may well call the verses now to be considered, "the Song of the adopted children." No loftier cadence can rise from the lips of the holy Church throughout all the world– "For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. So you should not be like cowering, fearful slaves. You should behave instead like God's very own children, adopted into his family - calling him "Father, dear Father." For his Holy Spirit speaks to us deep in our hearts and tells us that we are God's children. And since we are his children, we will share his treasures - for everything God gives to his Son, Christ, is ours, too. But if we are to share his glory, we must also share his suffering." Romans 8:14-17

In this singularly beautiful passage, the Apostle's object seems, to show the highest ground on which believers may rest their spiritual privileges and eternal safety. Not merely, as he had already pointed out, by being invested with a new spiritual life infused and quickened by the Holy Spirit, but as the sons and daughters of the Lord Almighty--God's own children by adoption. As such, their rights are inalienable. "Why you are no more a servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ" (Galatians 4;7).

He begins with the customary antithesis; contrasting the spirit of bondage and the spirit of sonship. "The spirit of bondage again to fear." The law and its inexorable demands generates this apprehension--"it genders to bondage." It is Sinai with its "blackness and darkness and tempest; the sound of a trumpet and the voice of words;" and whose natural expression is--"I exceedingly fear and quake." Is not this servile dread, even in the case of God's own children, at times unhappily nurtured and strengthened by a repellent theology--unwise and unscriptural teaching; inspiring, of necessity, a joyless faith; while with morbid or sensitive natures, self-introspection deepens the gloom,

"And conscience does make cowards of us all."

Paul's belief was very different. It was the echo of his great Master's utterances; the unfolding of a tender, sympathetic FATHER--the human tie which binds child to parent, having its archetype in this higher relationship. As the earthly child in the hour of fear and danger rushes to its parent's arms and (in the expressive Greek word of our present passage) "cries" "Father;"--feeling its need of guardianship and protection, and knowing that that loving protection is assured; so is it with the believer and his Father-God. Away with all harsh theories; all the misconceptions which had their gloomy origin in the mythology of those Romans to whom this Epistle was written--whose dominant thought was deity to be propitiated--not deity to be reverenced and trusted and loved.

"God," says Bernard; and he is the interpreter of the earlier, in contrast with the mediaeval centuries--"God is not called the Father of Vengeance, but the Father of Mercies." We do not thus set aside or minimize the Law and its demands. It must ever occupy its own important place in the divine economy. It demonstrates the deficiency and defilement of our best obedience, the hopelessness of any effort of ours to meet its requirements, satisfy its exactions and pay its penalties. But in the Gospel system, as unfolded in all its length and breadth in this eighth of Romans, we are taught to regard it as "a schoolmaster to bring us to Christ" (Galatians 3;24). It is not the great motive principle in the renewed nature. That new dominating motive is the sweet constraint of filial love, by which we are drawn to the Father. The "You shall" of Sinai, with its stern impossibilities, is changed for the words echoed from Calvary--"We love Him because He first loved us."

O wondrous privilege! O marvelous sonship! Prodigals by nature--bondaged slaves--now, to use the expression of an old writer, "within the house." In accordance with the New Covenant, the deed of release is signed and sealed by the divine Ransomer--"Now therefore you are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of God" (Ephesians 2;19). This is what the Apostle here calls in the corresponding antithetical clause, "the spirit of adoption." Even the freed slave in ancient times dared not address his master as a son. But Christ's ransomed freeman can. "If the Son makes you free, then you shall be free indeed." Yes, "free," as Paul here adds--free to address the mightiest and holiest of all Beings by the endearing name, "ABBA!" "Abba" is the Syro-Chaldaic form of the Hebrew word for Father. It was more familiar to Paul, as a Hebrew of the Hebrews, than the foreign Greek [word], and would be the more genuine expression of his newborn filial devotion and consecration. Perhaps, too, in harmony with Luther's rendering of it--as "dear Father," it might be the avowal of familiarity and loving trust. Or, add to this, may it not have been like the superscription on the Cross, in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin--to bring the sacred name by an emphatic conjunction, home to Jew and Greek; the Father-Head of one vast united family? No strain in this Song of Songs is sweeter or more divinely musical. It is like a serenade of Angels--no rather, a lullaby from Him who is spoken of "as one whom his mother comforts" (Isaiah 66;13)
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[nChrist]

PAUL'S SONG OF SONGS
A Practical Exposition of the Eighth Chapter of Romans
by John MacDuff, 1891

But then comes, with solemn urgency, the all-important, all-momentous question--"How do I know that this sonship is mine? How can I establish my claim to these lofty privileges and immunities."

The Apostle proceeds to reply. There is, first, the "leading" of the Spirit. In the solemn emphasis of the original Greek in v. 14--"As many as are led by the Spirit of God, they" (these and these only,) "are the sons of God." Then, secondly, there is the witness of the Spirit--the inward evidencing power of this divine Agent in the soul. "The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God" (v. 16).

How does the Spirit thus bear witness? Here we tread on difficult and delicate ground, the borderland of mysticism and faith. One thing we know, "The Spirit of God is not straitened." He can act how, and where, and when, and as He pleases. Moreover, the means He employs vary with the individual feelings and idiosyncrasies of those who are the subject of His divine operations. We must take special care, however, not to mistake the character of these. Especially should we be jealous of the demand which not a few make, of pronounced outward manifestations--the display of vehement emotion--"sensationalism." Such tests are often unsafe and unreliable; the hallucination of excited feeling and overwrought temperament. Far less are we to look for the witness of the Spirit in mere mechanical rites; the alleged efficacy of sacramental symbol. His normal operations are rather thus beautifully described by lips of sacred authority--"The wind blows where it wills, and you hear the sound thereof, but can not tell whence it comes, and where it goes; so is every one that is born of the Spirit" (John 3;8 ). Or again, He is likened to the dew--silently distilling on the earth; hanging its pearl-drops on leaf of tree or spire of grass--without noise or premonition. "The kingdom of God comes not with observation." Yes; "not with observation;" and yet, in a very real sense, with observation--subjective, yet at the same time objective. His witness may be most safely described as evidenced in daily life--"known by its fruits." These fruits are not left for our conjecture. They are specially enumerated; they are specially called "the fruits of the Spirit,"--"love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance" (Galatians 5;22, 23). The indwelling of the Spirit is authenticated and countersigned by a holy, pure, consistent, heavenly character. These are evidences patent to every honest "seeker after God;" that, too, despite of many mournful alienations and deflections--the ever-present painful consciousness of coming so far short of the divine ideal.

O God--my Father-God!--have I been enabled in any feeble measure to realize this my sonship, and to have the inward, divine, responsive witness of the Spirit? Have I been able to dismiss the old slavish fear of You? Am I among the number of those of whom the Savior speaks, who "will" (desire) "to do Your will?"--saying, "Your Spirit, O God, is good, lead me to the land of uprightness?" Can I stand such simple tests as these--do I love the Word? do I prize the privilege of prayer? When affliction comes, and the divine hand is heavy upon me, am I "led" by this Spirit of Yours to own the rectitude of Your dispensations; and just because of conscious sonship am I able to say, it may be through tears, "Even so, FATHER! for so it seemed good in Your sight; and, as Your son, I shall not permit it to be evil or unrighteous in mine!" There are few tokens of the Spirit's "leadings" more frequently or more beautifully evidenced than this latter; when He is visibly seen to come down, as predicted, "like rain upon the mown grass, and as showers that water the earth." The human soul, mowed by the scythe of affliction, humble, stricken, lies withered and faded. But the heavenly Agent descends--faith and love and devout resignation go up like a cloud of fragrant incense to the Father's throne and the Father's heart.

"As many as are led." It was the Savior's own promise--"He will guide you into all truth…He will show you things to come" (John 16;13). Just as some of us may recall, in early days, the guide over Alpine glaciers and crevasses, terrains and boulders; then up the jagged precipices that conducted above mist and cloud to "the blue skies," with boundless prospect of "everlasting hills." That experienced conductor, of strong muscle, and eagle eye, and unerring footstep, is a feeble type of the Infallible GUIDE of His Church, alike individually and collectively.

Blessed Spirit! whose office and mission was thus announced by the departing Christ, do lead me! Let me strive to do nothing that would grieve the gracious Agent, by whom I am "sealed unto the day of redemption." Enable me to curb passion, restrain temper, subdue and mortify pride and vainglory. Attune my life and heart to an Old Testament Song, which has its sweetest cadence in the New--"He LEADS me beside the still waters. He restores my soul; he leads me in the paths of righteousness for His name's sake." Nor let me be satisfied with negative results; but rising to the dignity and glory and responsibility of sonship, give me increase of holiness--gradual conformity to the divine mind. Waking up from spiritual sloth and ease, help me to rebuild the collapsed purpose, and consecrate fresh energy in the heavenly service, aiming to live and walk so as to please You. Specially enable me to follow the footsteps of the Great Example. When, from His divine lips comes still, as of old, the solemn heart-searching question--"Do you love Me?" may it be mine to reply, even though under a trembling apprehension of my own vacillation and instability--"Lord, You know all things, You know it is my desire to love You!"
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[nChrist]

PAUL'S SONG OF SONGS
A Practical Exposition of the Eighth Chapter of Romans
by John MacDuff, 1891

And it may be a help to those who are most feelingly alive to this fitfulness of their love and the inefficacy of their obedience, that that sonship is not dependent on their capricious frames and feelings. Like all else in the everlasting covenant, it is divinely secured, ratified, sealed. For thus runs their charter deed--"Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, wherein He has made us accepted in the beloved" (Ephesians 1;5, 6). The glory of that sonship, with all its concomitant blessings, is rendered sure by a God that cannot lie--"I have called you by your name; you are Mine!" (Isaiah 43;1). "But I said, How shall I put you among the children, and give you a pleasant land, a goodly heritage of the hosts of nations? And I said, You shall call me, My Father; and shall not turn away from me" (Jeremiah 3;19). "I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people" (Hebrews 8;10).

It is to this the Apostle now leads us in the present verses; "And, if children, then heirs." It is a heritage from which nothing can cut us out or cut us off.

What is the heritage thus spoken of and promised? His words are remarkable. They can be best left to their own mystic, divine interpretation. The ideas they embody are untransferable by the poor vehicle of human language. They are among those he elsewhere describes as being "impossible for a man to utter" (2 Corinthians 12;4)--"Heirs of God!"--"partakers of the divine nature." We have recalled the like symbol in the Book of Revelation describing the indescribable glories of the Redeemed; "And I saw no Temple therein, for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the Temple of it" (Revelation 21;22). "And there shall be no night there, and they need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God gives them light, and they shall reign forever and ever" (Revelation 22;5 ). "Him that overcomes will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out; and I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, which is new Jerusalem, which comes down out of heaven from my God; and I will write upon him my new name" (Revelation 3;12).

"Heirs of God!" In these three words are comprehended all the blessings Omnipotence can bestow. Every attribute of the divine nature is embarked on my side and pledged for my salvation--Power, Wisdom, Faithfulness. ABBA!--a Father's house--a Father's halls--a Father's love--a Father's welcome--a Father's presence forever and ever! "This," says Luther, "far passes all man's capacity, that God should call us heirs, not of some rich and mighty Prince, not of the Emperor, not of the whole world merely, but of Himself, the Almighty Creator of all things. If a man could comprehend the great excellency of this, that he is indeed a son and heir of God, and with a constant faith believe the same, he would abhor all the pomp and glory of the world in comparison of the eternal inheritance." (Watchwords from Luther," p. 334.)

Nor is this all. These peerless blessings are confirmed and ratified by the farther guarantee--"joint-heirs with Christ." Christ, as the Brother in my nature, has made the heritage doubly sure "for us miserable sinners, who lay in darkness and the shadow of death, that He might make us the children of God, and exalt us to everlasting life." He, indeed, in His divine essence, occupies a place and realm all His own. He is "Heir," by virtue of His essential dignity; what the old writers call His "Crown rights." He is "the First-born among many brethren"--a name is given Him which is above every name. "He has on His vesture and on His thigh a name written, King of Kings and Lord of Lords" (Revelation 19;16). We, on the other hand, are heirs by adoption and grace, by virtue of our living union with our living Head. This heritage is ours, first and partially in possession--"Beloved, now are we the sons of God." Its full blessings are ours in future possession, when Christ's own words, uttered, not in the days of His humiliation, but in His exaltation at the right hand of power, will be fulfilled"--To him that overcomes will I grant to sit with Me (a fellow heir) on My throne" (Revelation 3;21).

Oh wondrous endowment!--and as free and gracious as it is wondrous! Under the Hebrew code, the law of first-born was rigidly observed. The, eldest-born received the inheritance. Isaac was Abraham's heir; and while the other children of the patriarch had their limited portions meted out to them, he, as the recognized son of the promise, entered on his father's goods and possessions. It is different with the spiritual Israel. There is no law of first-born in the Church of God's first-born. All are on divine equality here. All are warranted and welcome to enter on the purchased heritage--to claim the adoption of sons and the co-heirship with Christ. There is but one condition--"And IF CHRIST'S--then are you Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise" (Galatians 3;29).
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