Tuesday, October 12, 2021

General Conference 1891 Study of Romans SERIES: 11

 GENERAL CONFERENCE.

BATTLE CREEK, MICH.,  1891.

BIBLE STUDY.

LETTER TO THE ROMANS

BY ELDER E. J.  WAGGONER
"Know ye not, brethren (for I speak to them that know the law), how that the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth? For a woman which hath an husband is bound by the law to her husband so long as he liveth; but if the husband be dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband. So then if, while her husband liveth, she be married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress: but if her husband be dead, she is free from that law; so that she is no adulteress, though she be married to another man. Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God. For when we were in the flesh, the motions of sin, which were by the law, did work in our bodies to bring forth fruit unto death. But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held; that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter." Rom. 7:1-6.
 
The ground covered by this seventh chapter is really gone over
twice. The first part lays the broad facts before us; the latter part goes into the details and particulars of what is given in the beginning. In the six verses that have been read, there is given us an illustration and the application. The illustration is easily understood. The simple fact of marriage is taken. 

There is no need of any argument in this chapter for the perpetuity of the law. That is not the question under consideration. The apostle is not making a special argument to prove that the law is not abolished. His argument starts from that point as one already settled, and shows the practical working of the law in individual cases. He brings it right home to the hearts of men that they are under the law; and if they are under it, how can it be abolished?
 
---While the law will not allow the woman to be united to two husbands at the same time, it will allow her to be united to two in succession. It is the law that allows her, and it is the law that unites her. The same law that unites her to the first husband, also allows her to be united to the second, after that the first is dead. This is easy to be understood, and there is no need to
consider it further.
 
The question now arises, who was the first husband that died, in order that we might be united to the second? The sixth chapter has answered that. 
Compare Rom. 7:5 with Rom. 6. "For when we were in the flesh, the motions of sins, which were by the law, did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death." 
The law held us in the first union, and now to what were we united? Q: What were we in? 
A: We were in union with the FLESH. 
In the sixth chapter we found that the body of sin is destroyed by Christ. 
Q: By what means is it that the body of sin becomes destroyed? 
A: By the man being crucified with Christ.

In the first place we are joined to sin,—the sinful flesh. We cannot serve two masters. Here are two figures. We are servants to one master,—united to one husband. We cannot serve two masters at the same time, and we cannot be united to two husbands at the same time. But we can be united to two in succession. The first one of these, to whom we have all been united, is the body of sin; the second is Christ, who is raised from the dead.

In Jer. 3:1 we read, "They say, If a man put away his wife, and she go from him, and become another man’s, shall he return unto her again? shall not that land be greatly polluted? but thou hast played the harlot with many lovers; yet return again to me, saith the Lord." Paul in writing to the Corinthians says, "I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ."

Now we desire that loveliness of character, which can be found only in Christ. We find that this union in which we are held—with the flesh—is not a pleasant union, but the husband to whom we are wedded is a task-master, he is a tyrant who grinds us down so that we have no liberty. The flesh is tyrannical, and it holds us down, and makes us do, not as we wish to do, but as it wishes us to do.