Passed from Death unto Life

Notes

Divisions of the lesson: (1) The Death from Which We Are Released. (2) Justification unto Life.

Questions.

The Death from Which We Are Released.

1. What is the wages of sin? Rom. 6:23.

2. Who is entitled to these wages? Eze. 18:4.

3. How many have sinned? Rom. 3:23.

4. Can this sentence of death have any application to the death we die for Adam's transgression? Note 1.

Notes

Justification unto Life.

Notes

1. The sentence of death spoken of in Rom. 6:23 and Eze. 18:4 can have no reference to the original sin, for Christ has freed all from that death, whether righteous or wicked. 1 Cor. 15:22. In promising a resurrection to all, and in making it sure by His own death and resurrection, He has abolished that death for all alike.

2. "Is condemned already." He is under the death sentence. This is the second death, from which there is no release outside of Christ. It is not for the sins of another, but for the sins of him who transgresses. As all have transgressed, so all are, or have been, under the death sentence.

3. The Lord is righteous, therefore when the sinner becomes righteous, he becomes like God, or godly. In this sinful condition he is at enmity with God and His law (Rom. 8:7); but by imputed righteousness he becomes changed so that he is in harmony with God.

4. The life of man can not gain the victory over death, since the very source of man's life is poisoned with death. His life is but a living death. He can no more work himself up to be a partaker of the divine nature than a beast can work itself up into humanity. Therefore salvation, in the sense of being saved alive from eternal death, must be alone the gift of God.

5. As the wages of sin is death, so the gift of righteousness is life. Therefore man can have no hope for life in himself, for he can get no righteousness from himself. Through the death of Christ we are not only saved from wrath, but we are reckoned righteous on believing, because Christ's righteousness is imputed to us. This means that we are now regarded by God as being one with Christ in righteousness, and therefore as standing before Him as uncondemned. This is a great mystery, which the learned Nicodemus could not fully comprehend (John 3:3-5), yet it is as true to-day as then. Paul clearly teaches that we are constituted sinners by the disobedience of Adam. Rom. 5:12. Here is the first imputation, that of Adam's sin to the whole race, who sinned in him and died in him. Now follow the parallel in Christ. He bore "our sins in His own body on the tree." "He hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin." This is the second act of imputation. Then follows the third act of imputation, in that Christ was made "our righteousness," so that "we might be made the righteousness of God in Him." See 2 Cor. 5:21; 1 Peter 2:24.

6. When an individual is born again, he is a "new creature" (2 Cor. 5:17), because he is reckoned as one with Christ. Old things (sin) have passed away, and he has a new life. This life is Christ's life lived in him. He is no more under the condemnation of God's law, for he has accepted Christ's death, which frees him from death. He has passed from death unto life.