"Reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord" -
Romans 6:11.
I find in the New Testament, in relation to the cross, that a very clear principle is stated, and even if I cannot understand it I cannot get away from it or the fact that it is there. Should anyone not understand it, recognise that it is there, and pray that the Holy Spirit may open your eyes to understand.
The principle is this, that while the natural order of life is, through life towards death, the spiritual order is life out of death.
We may well ask, What does it mean life out of death?
Let us try to think it out, simply and humbly together. For this truth is stressed again and again in the New Testament.
Do you recall that wonderful passage in Pauls letter to the Philippians, "That I may know Him , and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings." I have preached on that text, but conveniently when younger, I never expanded the last phrase, "Being made conformable unto His death" - resurrection life, yes; but out of death!
Again in Romans we read, "Reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin" - out of death into life! In the Galatian letter we find the same truth: "I have been crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me" - out of death into life!
In the teaching of Christ this 'death unto life' teaching appears again and again: "Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die , it bringeth forth much fruit" - out of death into life! So the principle of Christian experience is therein: that life comes out of death............
Romans 6:11.
I find in the New Testament, in relation to the cross, that a very clear principle is stated, and even if I cannot understand it I cannot get away from it or the fact that it is there. Should anyone not understand it, recognise that it is there, and pray that the Holy Spirit may open your eyes to understand.
The principle is this, that while the natural order of life is, through life towards death, the spiritual order is life out of death.
We may well ask, What does it mean life out of death?
Let us try to think it out, simply and humbly together. For this truth is stressed again and again in the New Testament.
Do you recall that wonderful passage in Pauls letter to the Philippians, "That I may know Him , and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings." I have preached on that text, but conveniently when younger, I never expanded the last phrase, "Being made conformable unto His death" - resurrection life, yes; but out of death!
Again in Romans we read, "Reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin" - out of death into life! In the Galatian letter we find the same truth: "I have been crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me" - out of death into life!
In the teaching of Christ this 'death unto life' teaching appears again and again: "Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die , it bringeth forth much fruit" - out of death into life! So the principle of Christian experience is therein: that life comes out of death............
