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p434 [H Turner] DEAREST BROTHER, - The subject you write on has occupied me lately. The Romans is simply forgiveness and grace taken by themselves, as noted, down to chapter 5:11. The full state of the Christian also is clear. These, though distinct, you cannot separate John 20:22 and Pentecost - as Romans 8 shews. Thus far all is simple. "Justification of life," I have lately seen, refers to chapter 5:16, 17: still it is a real thing, meeting death coming in, and all sinning, and many offences. Still it seems to me liberty or deliverance has a double aspect - before God, and from the law of sin. It is all in redemption, it is true; but, though brought to God - delivered as well as forgiven - there was no circumcision in the wilderness. The Red Sea brought out, the Jordan brought in; yet they coalesce. The wilderness formed no part of the object or purpose of God, but only of His ways. He does not say a word of it when visiting Israel in Egypt, nor is there in the song in Exodus 15. Deliverance is complete as to redemption at the Red Sea: they are brought to God. Through the death and resurrection of Christ we are forgiven and delivered: forgiveness sets us free before God. But Romans always looks at the Christian as a man on the earth, alive in Christ and justified, but here. There is no life but the life of Christ, in one sense never was; only now that He is risen He gives it according to the power and in the relationship into which He is entered. But life is not what is preached but Christ - repentance and remission of sins: the state of our relationship with God in ourselves or in Christ. "Ye must be born again" - however true is not gospel. The display of life in us will be according to what faith holds as to these relationships. The ordinary scriptural order was, when convicted, remission of sins, and thereon receiving the Holy Ghost. This gives not a new life, but a life in the relationships into which such an one was entered; and this gave not only liberty before God in the knowledge of forgiveness, but freedom from the law of sin and death. I then know not merely that Christ died and delivered me, put me in a new place relating to what was past (then does not go any further), but as in this new place that it is identified with power of life and death to sin, as Romans 8:2, 3.

We have no rudiments of the world spoken of in Romans. It is guilt, sin in the flesh, law, justification, life in Christ, being in Him, but so as to have no condemnation and freedom from the law of sin, as the flesh condemned on the cross. I learn then that I am risen with Christ, and talk of rudiments of the world, having put off the old man, and so on. It is all true that I am in Christ and Christ is in me (Rom. 8:1, 10); but a person is not in the christian state till he has the Spirit of Christ. (Ver. 9) To chapter 5:11 it is simply God for us in respect of guilt and all its consequences in relationship with Him - from chapter 5:12, experimentally learned, our state. You have the Spirit in chapter 5; the love of God shed abroad in the heart. A person may go through chapter 7 before being in the beginning of chapter 5; it may be after, though it will be modified.

But however full the gospel you preach, if effectual it brings the soul to the consciousness of its then actual state with God. But it will never get into peace till it ceases from the search whether it has life, and looks to Christ as a Saviour. It is a matter of teaching that Christ is our life, nor is there any other; and now it is life as risen, but its movements must be according to our conscious relationship with God. The disciples had life in John 20:22. In Romans 8 the Spirit is first named as source and power of life, and then as a personal Spirit in us: that is, both as John 20:22, and Pentecost. But this only is the proper Christian condition as chapter 8:9 shews. I would not say with the fullest gospel a man might not get into Romans 7, possibly by mixing it with ideas he had already. But the knowledge of salvation by the remission of sins, and thereon sealing, is the gospel order - whatever we learn afterwards - and life in that relationship; and that is life in resurrection in itself. But faith in the Person of Christ gives life, and thereon a person is not sealed nor has peace, but there is confidence - not law - forgiveness known, but imperfectly: so the poor woman in Luke 7.

The truth of risen life in Christ and the coming of the Holy Ghost are distinct; but now that both are fulfilled the divine order is the knowledge of the remission of sins and receiving the Holy Ghost, and thus the two are inseparable. Then I know, or may know, that I am in Christ; whereas the forgiveness known before by the gospel is of past sins - what my conscience needed. The life we receive is in Christ risen, but I am not consciously - much more than knowledge - in John 20:22, now that the Holy Ghost is come, till I receive the Holy Ghost. Romans 8 puts them inseparably together. I have to see that a man in faith's relationship is in Romans 7, or whether it is merely lack of knowledge; for in Romans 7 he has not in fact received the Holy Ghost, is not married to Christ. A man may have to learn himself afterwards, but if he has the Spirit he is married to Christ, though he may have to learn things experimentally.

As regards Titus 3 the renewing here is an absolutely new thing ἀνακαίνωσις. Renewing when connected with justification always comes first. Justification is true only of a renewed person: we are sanctified to the blood of sprinkling. Brought into this new place administratively by baptism, and effectually by being created anew, we have this justification in hope of eternal life. The Holy Ghost does renew continually ἀνανεοῦσθαι (Eph. 4:23) Colossians 1:12 is always the state of the Christian, and the apostle looks at the Christian as in the Christian state (should even his mind be warped as in Galatians). Receiving the Spirit is an actual change of status not of title; but not merely knowing something.

I write with my head or nerves only just above water, but better and fully taken care of. It may be well to remember that, in a certain sense, the Red Sea closes the history. It is the salvation of Jehovah: the wicked come under death and judgment: the people of God are saved and brought to His holy habitation, as the thief went straight to Paradise.

Philadelphia, April, 1875.

[53321E]

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