The Gift of Life
Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me and I shall be whiter
than snow...Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit
within me. Psalm 51:7,10.
Christ
shed His blood for us; He gave His life for us. Inasmuch as the blood is
applied to us, to cleanse us from all sin, He gives His life to us. In the
death of Christ therefore, if we are crucified with Him, we receive His life
as a substitute for our sinful life, which He takes upon Himself. Our sins
are remitted through faith in His blood, not as an arbitrary act, but
because by faith we exchange lives with Him, and the life which we get in
exchange has no sin. Our sinful life is swallowed up in His boundless life,
because He has life so abundantly that He can die because of our
transgressions, and still live again to give life to us. Christ did not go
through the pangs of death for nothing, nor did He give His life to us for
the purpose of taking it away again. When He gives us His life, He designs
that we shall keep it forever. How do we get it? By faith. How do we keep
it? By the same faith. "As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the
Lord, so walk ye in Him." Colossians 2:6. His life can never end, but
we may lose it by unbelief.
Let
it be remembered that we have not this life in ourselves, but "this
life is in his Son." We keep the everlasting life by keeping Christ.
People sometimes say that they can believe that God forgives their sins, but
they find it difficult to believe that He can keep them from sin.
Well, if there is any difference, the latter is the easier of the two; for
the forgiveness of sins requires the death of Christ, while the saving from
sins requires only His continued life.
Think
what was in the life of Christ, as we have the record in the New Testament,
and we shall know what ought to be in our lives now. If we allow Him to
dwell in us, He will live just as He did then. If there is something in our
lives that was not then in His, we may be sure that He is not living it in
us now.
Waggoner on Romans, pgs. 96, 97 |