what equivocal and even enigmatical. "He that has suffered in the flesh has been made to rest from sin." 1 What is the precise meaning folded up in these words, to which so powerful an energy is ascribed? "The words have been considered by some interpreters as a statement of the salutary influence of bodily affliction, or external calamity generally, in promoting moral improvement. In their most general sense, that he who sustains bodily or external calamities is made to cease or rest from sin, it is plainly not true without very great limitations. In many cases affliction, instead of producing cessation from sin, exasperates the depraved principles. The case of Ahaz is no singular one, who, "in the time of his distress, trespassed yet more against the Lord." When the wrath of God came upon the Israelites, "for all this they sinned still the more." The cessation from sin produced merely by affliction, is but partial and temporary. On another occasion, besides that just referred to, "when God slew the Israelites," it is said, "then they sought him, and they returned and inquired early after God;" but it is added, "yet their heart was not right with him;" and it is of these very persons that it is said, "How often did they provoke him in the wilderness, and tempt him in the desert!" Unaccompanied by Divine teaching, both by the word and the Spirit, mere affliction will make no man cease from sin. Blessed is the man whom thou chasteneth, and teachest him out of thy law;" this is, the afflicted man, the only afflicted man to whom God gives "rest from the days of adversity.' 2 Even limited to the sufferings of the regenerate, the statement is at once exaggerated and inapposite. Afflictions are indeed most useful to true Christians. They "try, and purify" them, and "make them white." Their design is, and to a certain extent it is gained, to "make them partakers of the Divine holiness;" but surely it cannot be said of every, it cannot be said of any, afflicted Christian in the present state, that he has "ceased from sin:" and though the thought that affliction is designed, and under Divine influence is calculated to mortify sin, is well fitted to reconcile a Christian to suffering, it is difficult to see how it is pre-eminently fitted to enable him to "live the rest of his time not to the lusts of men, but to the will of God." The suffering here referred to is not suffering in the flesh generally, it is the kind of suffering that the apostle is speaking of in the text and context: "suffering in the flesh for sin," even unto death. It was thus that Christ suffered in the flesh; he "suffered for sins," and he so suffered as to be put to death, or "become dead in the flesh.' I have no doubt the expression, "He that hath suffered in the flesh," refers to our Lord; but I have as little, that it does not refer to our Lord alone. It is said that He suffered in the flesh for us," that is, for believers, not only for our benefit, but in our room. He suffered the just in the room of the unjust. When he suffered "for sin," we suffered in him; his flesh was as it were our flesh; and his sufferings 1 66 Bengel explains TiTavra as equivalent to "immunitatem nactus est ;" and Winer says, that though usually translated "peccare desiit," it may also be taken passively, "he has rest from sin."-Gram. P. iii. § 40, p. 207. 3 Psal. lxxviii. 32, 34, 37, 40; xciv. 12, 13. ⚫ Heb. xii. 10. in that flesh were as it were our sufferings. If he died in our room, then, according to the apostle's reasoning, we died too, we died in in him.1 "He that has suffered in the flesh," is descriptive of every man who by the faith of the gospel is united to Christ as having died, every man who is "in him." I apprehend that the apostle intentionally used a considerably indefinite expression, for the purpose of including both Christ, and those who are Christ's, very much in the same way as his beloved brother Paul, when, in the sixth chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, verse seventh, illustrating the same subject, the necessary connection between the atonement and the sanctification of those who are personally interested in the atonement, he says, "He that is dead," that is, has died, died for sin, "is free from sin." "This thing," to allude to the words of the Apostle John, "is true, in Him and in us." The declaration, He that has suffered in the flesh has, in consequence of his sufferings, been made to rest from sin, is one, applicable, and, if we do not much mistake, intended to be applied by the apostle, both to Christ and to Christians. It is true of them both, though with some points of diversity of meaning; and the thought, whether in reference to him or to themselves, is one which is well fitted to promote personal holiness, in leading Christians to avoid all sins, and attend to all duties; not living to the lusts of men, but to the will of God. This is "the same thought" which the apostle had unfolded largely in the close of the third chapter, and briefly referred to in the first verse of this chapter. Christ suffered to death in human nature, as the expiatory victim of our sins, in our room, and we suffered and died in him; we Christians, we believers, being, in consequence of our faith, viewed as identified with him; as having done what he did, as having suffered what he suffered. Now let us look at the thought, first in reference to Christ, and then in reference to Christians, and let us see how, in both views of it, it is well fitted to "arm" the Christian so that he may no longer live the rest of his time in the flesh to the lusts of men, but to the will of God. (2.) The thought viewed as referring to Christ. Let us look at the thought in reference to Christ. "He that hath suffered in the flesh," that is, for sins, "has been made to rest from sin." Christ suffered in the flesh for sin; he has been made to rest from sin; and his being made to rest from sin, is the consequence of his having suffered in the flesh for sin. We have had an opportunity, in a foregoing discourse, of directing your attention to our Lord's sufferings in human nature. They began with his birth, and ended only at his death. All these sufferings were sufferings for sin. "God made to meet on him the iniquities of us all;" exaction was made for these iniquities, and He the appointed victim answered the exaction. He had no rest after being made of a woman, made under the law," till, in his obediential 12 Cor. v. 14. sufferings to the death, he had made full expiation of the sins laid on him. But having done so, he has obtained rest from sin. On the cross he exclaimed, "It is finished;" and so it was. Sin, armed by the sanction of the law, gave him no rest till it laid him in a bloody, dishonored grave; but in doing this it utterly and forever lost all power to disquiet him. It could not even retain him in the grave where it had laid him. The debt being fully paid, the surety was set at liberty. He is henceforward a stranger to suffering in all its forms. He can no longer suffer, he can no longer die. He has entered into his rest; and that "rest is glorious.' He is "sitting," the posture of repose, "at the right hand of the Majesty on high; angels, and principalities, and powers, being subject to him." Instead of the incessant toils of his humbled life on earth as the victim of sin, there is the uninterrupted repose of eternity; to the powerlessness of death to which sin reduced him, has succeeded all power over all flesh, all power in heaven and earth;" in the room of the days of a mortal man, few and full of trouble, has come "length of days forever and ever;" he who was the man of sorrows and acquainted with griefs, has become "most blessed forever;" and the soul which was exceeding sorrowful even to death, is "made exceeding glad with Jehovah's countenance.' 2 This rest from sin not only followed the sufferings for sin, but was, properly speaking, their effect. It was by his suffering for sin that he obtained rest from sin. "Having died for sin he was freed from sin." The reason why death can have no more dominion over him is, that he died for sin once, and by that one death completely answered all the demands of law and justice on him as the surety of sinners. The law has nothing further to exact from him; and the immortal state of life, and rest, and power, and dominion, and glory, and blessedness, is to be considered not only as the natural expression of the infinite complacency of Jehovah, well pleased for his righteousness' sake, delighted with that love of righteousness and hatred of iniquity manifested in the voluntary, vicarious, penal sufferings of his incarnate Son, for the vindication of his holy, just, and good law, and the restoration to immortal holy happiness of an innumerable multitude of otherwise hopelessly depraved and miserable human beings; it is to be viewed also as the execution of the stipulations of the eternal covenant, that when he had made his soul an offering for sin, he should see his seed, prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord should prosper in his hand; he should see of the travail of his soul, so as to be satisfied; he should, through the knowledge of himself, justify many; he should have the great as his portion, the strong for his spoil; because he had poured out his soul unto death, having been numbered with the transgressors, and having borne the sin of many. He who suffered to death in the flesh for sin has been raised from the dead, and exalted to an immortal state of absolute security from suffering, and of the highest enjoyment, and a station of the highest honor and authority; and this resurrection and this exaltation are the 1 Isa. liii. 6, 7. Gal. iii. 4. Isa liii. 10-12. * 1 Pet, iii. 2. John xvii. 2. Matt. xxviii. 18. results, the effects, of his penal, expiatory sufferings. Such seems to me the import of the thought, "He that hath suffered hath been made to rest from sin," viewed in reference to our Lord.1 (3.) The thought viewed as referring to Christians, When Let us now look at the thought in reference to Christians. Christ suffered in the flesh for sins, it was for them, in their room. They of course suffered in him, and it is true, in a very important sense, that they, having thus suffered for sin in him, are made to rest from sin. Christians are very frequently, especially by the Apostle Paul, represented as identified with Christ. In consequence of the faith of the truth respecting his person and work, they are brought into so intimate a relation to him that they are said to be "in him," one with him. This does not refer to that union of mind and heart, of sentiment, affection, will, and operation, which subsists between Christians and Christ, and which is produced by the Spirit through the instrumentality of the word; that is rather Christ's being in them, than their being in Christ; it is the being so connected with Christ as that they are treated by God as if what he did and suffered had been done and suffered by them personally. All who are united to Christ, by that faith of which profession is made in baptism, are, by the apostle, represented as united to him in his death, that is, as having died in him; in his burial, that is, as having been buried in him; in his resurrection, that is, a shaving risen again in him; in his life and glory, that is, as living and reigning in him with God in heaven. "Ye are,' says he to the Colossians, "dead," or have died, that is, in Christ; and as, if you live, though you have died, "your life is hid with Christ in God." And of himself he says, what is not peculiar to him as an apostle, but common to him with all Christians, "I am crucified with Christ." When he died, he died for them. It was their sins, not his own, that he bore to the tree." When we say then of Christians, that they have suffered in the flesh for sin, we mean that by a Divine constitution they have as deep an interest in Christ's sufferings in the flesh for sin, as if they themselves had undergone them. They are so interested in them as to be made to rest from sin in consequence of them. They are delivered from the condemning power of sin, and they are delivered from the reigning power of sin; and they are delivered from both, not in consequence of their having suffered for sin in the flesh, in their own persons, but in consequence of their having become by faith individually interested in those sufferings for sin in the flesh which were inflicted on the person of their divinely-appointed substitute. Every human being is a sinner, and every sinner is condemned on account of his sin. The curse of God lies on him, and must forever rest on him, till he become personally connected with Him who suffered the just in the room of the unjust. Till then, the sinner can obtain no rest, no security from sin and its penal consequences. Armed with the power of the law, sin keeps fast hold of him, ready at 1 Sec note B. Rom. vi. 8-5. Col. iii. 3. Gal. ii. 20. any moment to produce death, casting the body into the grave, plunging the soul into the abyss of perdition. From this tremendous state all who are in Christ have obtained deliverance. "There is no condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus;" and the reason is very obvious. They are in him who was condemned in their stead, and suffered that to which they were condemned; they are redeemed from the curse, for the righteous One, their divinely-appointed substitute, has become a curse for them. Who can lay anything to their charge? Christ died, died for them. "In him they have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of God's grace." "In him, the beloved One, they are accepted, being reconciled in the body of his flesh by death." "His blood cleanseth them from all sin." So that they are "dead to the law," to its condemning sentence, "through the body of Christ;" they are "in him made the righteousness of God," in consequence of "Him who knew no sin, being by God made sin in their room;" "sinners, ungodly" in themselves, they are "justified freely by God's grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus," who is "set forth a propitiation through faith in his blood;" having been "given for their offences, and raised again for their justification." The unbeliever, unconnected with Christ, and therefore unpardoned, is never safe. Guilt, like the avenger of blood, is constantly pursuing him, and at any moment may overtake him and take his life. There is no rest, no peace, no security, to the sinner who is not "in him" who has suffered and been made to rest. But he who by faith is "in Christ," has entered the city of refuge and is safe within its walls; and, as our high priest never dies, to secure his safety he must remain within its walls forever. But he who by faith is interested in Christ's suffering in the flesh for sin, as if it had been his own suffering, being indeed suffering in his room, is made to rest from sin, not only in its condemning, but in its reigning power. "Sin shall not have dominion over him" who is in Christ Jesus; for, in consequence of Christ's suffering in the flesh for sin, and his personal interest in his suffering, he is "not under the law but under grace." He is united to Christ not only as one who was the victim of sin, as one who bore his sins, but to him as one who has borne away his sins; to Christ not only as one who was under the curse, but to Christ as now, for the manner in which he sustained that load, the object of the highest complacency of his Father. He is regarded by God with a complacency like that with which the Saviour is regarded; and that is manifested in the communication of "the spirit of life which is in Christ Jesus," and "delivers him from the law of sin and of death." And this spirit comes not, as a wayfaring man, to tarry for a night, but to take up his permanent residence in a temple appropriated to him, and which he will in due time make every way suitable for his everlasting dwelling-place.2 There is thus absolute security obtained by every person who is by faith united to Christ, and thus personally interested in his suffering in the flesh, of being made completely to rest from sin, of being brought 1 Rom. viii. 1-34. 1 John i. 7. 2 Cor. v. 21. Rom. iii. 24; iv. 25. |