Romans 6:5-7 For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection:… 1. The resurrection of our Lord Jesus is apt to be considered mainly as a proof of the truth of the Christian faith, or in the light of the guidance, the support, the comfort it affords in our thoughts about the dead. But the apostle would have us consider it as the mould, the type, the model of our life and character. "The likeness of His resurrection." How can we be anything like so preternatural an event? 2. Now, one answer may be, that at the general resurrection the bodies of Christians will rise just as Christ rose. This is undoubtedly true, but Paul is not here thinking of that. He is thinking of the soul and character, and he says that this resurrection is to be modelled on that of our Lord. The true Christian here is crucified with Christ; is buried with Christ; and rises with Christ. Call this mysticism if you will; it bears two certificates on its front — the certificate of apostolic authority and of Christian experience. St. Paul will have it that a Christian must die, be crucified with Christ, That mass of undisciplined desires and passions which is the governing body in the life of man in a state of nature, and which the apostle calls "the body of sin," must not do what it would — its hands must be nailed to a cross; it must not go whither it would — its feet must be nailed to a cross; it must linger on that cross to which the Divine Will would fain attach it until it dies; and then it must be buried out of sight so as to have no further contact with the world in which it lived and worked its evil will in the days gone by. 3. Now, this death to sin must not be a fainting fit or a swoon. Jesus really died upon the Cross, and St. Paul insisted on a real death to sin in the convert to Christianity. The points of likeness between a true Christian's life and the life of our risen Lord relate — I. TO THE PAST. 1. Each has experienced a resurrection, and if the likeness be a true one, in each case the resurrection is real. When our Lord rose He took leave of death for good and all. "Christ, being raised from the dead, dieth no more," etc. And a Christian life which is planted in the likeness of Christ's resurrection, will resemble it in its freedom from relapses into the realm of death. Sin is the tomb of the soul, and if we have risen, let us be sure that we do not return into it. "Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God." 2. Not that St. Paul would have us believe that a baptized or a converted man cannot sin if he would. He knows nothing of any theory of indefectible grace. There is no absolute impossibility in the relapse of a regenerate Christian into spiritual death, but there should be the highest moral probability against anything of the kind. The strength which has been given the Christian warrants him in reckoning himself "dead indeed unto sin," although he still may be "overtaken in a fault." 3. Now, what is the case with a largo number of Christians nowadays? So far are some of us from dying no more, that we might almost seem to sink down into the tomb at regular intervals. 4. One predisposing cause of this is the empire of habit. Habit is a chain which attaches us with subtle power to the past, whether that past be good or evil. It is linked on to the action of the understanding, the affections, and the will. It was meant by our Creator to be a support of the life of grace; but when the soul has been enchained by sin habit is enlisted in the service of sin, and promotes a return to the grave of sin, even after the soul's resurrection to the life of grace. 5. And do we not too often invite the reappearance of old habits by haunting the tombs from which we have risen, by playing with the apparatus of death, by visits to old haunts, by reading old books, by encouraging old imaginations that are fatally linked to the debasement of the past? "How shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein?" Surely we cannot dally with the ancient enemy, we cannot risk the reassertion of that power of habit of which we had broken the chains, we cannot forget that at our moral resurrection the whole power of habit was to be transferred to the account of the life of grace. II. TO THE PRESENT. 1. The greater part of our Lord's resurrection life was hidden from the eyes of men. (1) During the forty days retirement was the rule, and His appearances to His disciples were so many suspensions of that rule. Now, a Christian life which is planted in the likeness of Christ's resurrection will be to a great extent withdrawn from the eyes of men. A Christian must, indeed, "let his light so shine before men," etc.; but the life of private prayer, of self-discipline, of motive faith, hope, and love, must in a true Christian's career altogether preponderate over his external activities, and if it does it will thereby promote those activities. The forest tree ere it rears its branches to the skies strikes its roots far and deep into the soil beneath; and an active Christian life which is not rooted in devotion to an unseen Master will speedily degenerate into the existence of a philanthropic machine, looking for its reward to imposing statistics, to florid newspaper reports, to the applause of public meetings, and generally to the praise of men. (2) Publicity is the order of our day, and the press, the railway, the telegraph all conspire to oblige men to live before the eyes of their fellows; everybody is observed, discussed, interviewed. No doubt this publicity has its good side. It may supply motives against wrong-doing, where none of a higher order are recognised; but who can doubt that it tends to impair that disinterestedness which is the very bloom of the higher Christian life; that it tends to make the world's standard of excellence the standard also of the servants of Christ; that it impairs that note of likeness to Christ in His resurrection, a life hidden with Christ in God? (3) It was the sense of this truth which was the strength of monasticism. Like other human efforts to give practical expression to a religious truth, monasticism made its full share of mistakes; but the truth remains forever, that the life lived wholly before the eyes of men, and probably with a view to the approval of men, cannot be in the likeness of Christ's resurrection. 2. Another note of our Lord's risen life was that when He did appear to His apostles He had a lesson to teach, a warning or a blessing to convey, as the reason for each separate act of contact with those around Him. Consider the account of His interviews; each does a separate work which had to be done, and does it with a point and a thoroughness which we cannot mistake. And here must we not admit that we modern Christians are unlike Him? Our life too often resembles those story books whose aim is to excite continuous amusement in the reader, and yet not to have any discoverable moral whatever attached to them. We shrink from speaking the word in season; we shrink from giving a reason for the hope that is within us. Can we wholly escape responsibility for the consequences of our silence, for the moral downward career, for the darkened or dying faith of those with whom we may have been brought into contact? "You may have forgotten an interview which we had," so said a stranger to an older friend, "twenty years ago. At the time I did not thank you for what you said; I was angry with you; but I must tell you now that under God I owe you my soul." III. TO THE FUTURE. Our Lord's risen life was passed in anticipation of the event which was close to it — forgetting the sepulchre which was behind, and reaching forward to the ascension which was before. And so it should be with us. Here we have no continuing city; we seek one to come; we look not for the things that are seen and temporal, but for the things that are not seen and eternal, Earthly greatness, as a rule, ends with the grave; the greatness of Jesus on earth begins with it. Why should it not be so in the life of the spirit? We should have done with the tomb of sin for good and all. When this new life is planted in the soul old things indeed have passed away; behold all things have become new! (Canon Liddon.) Parallel Verses KJV: For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection: |
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