From the MLJ Archive

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: In the spirit of that hymn and especially that last verse, I would read to you verses 11 to 14 in the 13th chapter of Paul's Epistle to the Romans. 13th chapter of Romans, reading from verse 11 to the end of the chapter:

And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed. The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light. Let us walk honestly, as in the day; not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying. But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof.

Well, that's one of the great and most eloquent passages in the whole of the Bible. But we are looking at it tonight because it constitutes a new subsection in this 13th chapter of this Epistle to the Romans, which we are studying together. It's introduced, as you notice, by the words "and that." It is important that we should realize the significance of those words. They can be translated as "moreover." The words introduce an additional thought. That is their import. That is their meaning. He's been saying certain things, and "and that," he says, in addition to, on top of this. In other words, he brings in an additional circumstance in order to heighten the force of what he has just been saying.

Now, a similar use of this expression and translated "and that" will help us perhaps to gather its exact meaning. You have got it in the eighth verse of the second chapter of Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians. You are familiar with this: "For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God." He is adding to the statement. He is taking it further. He is lifting it higher. Now, it's exactly the same sort of significance that it has here in this 11th verse that we are now looking at. In other words, what we have got here in this passage at the end of this chapter is a further reason for doing all the things he has been calling us to do from the beginning of the 12th chapter.

There was the great division, the great turning point in the whole Epistle, where he moves from doctrine to application. He has been telling us a number of things, issuing a number of exhortations. Now, having done that, we have been seeing as we have been studying verses 8, 9, and 10, that he is summing it all up. We have considered the first argument which he has used in order to encourage us to fulfill all these commandments and injunctions. That is this whole question of love as the fulfillment of the law. He has made that perfectly clear. If you do these things, he says, you are really fulfilling the law.

All that he has been saying can be summed up in the phrase "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." Love does not work any ill to its neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law. There was his first reason. But now, having said that, he introduces us to this second reason. Here is the second big argument that he employs in order to enforce what he has been instructing us in and appealing to us to do. It is one of these great moving statements, forever to be associated with the final conversion of that great man, Saint Augustine of Hippo.

You remember the story of how he was in his trouble, in his agony, undergoing conviction by the Holy Spirit, seeing things fairly clearly with his mind, but the flesh was holding him to a life of sin. He had been going through this process for some time. There he was, torn backwards and forwards and in utter misery. There is no more miserable state than being under conviction of sin without seeing the way of release. He tells us he was in the garden one afternoon and he suddenly heard the voice of a child saying, "Tolle lege," "Rise and read." Going into the house, he picked up the book and this is what he read: "The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light."

In a flash, the whole glory of the gospel and the way of salvation became clear to him. It was the great turning point in the life of Saint Augustine. That, in a sense, does not add to the scriptures, but we are all in the flesh, and these associations sometimes are of very great value to us. A passage that has been used like that in the conversion of such a giant is obviously worthy of our unusual attention. You think of the same kind of thing in the case of Martin Luther: "The just shall live by faith." I remember emphasizing that when we were doing the first chapter of this great Epistle.

Well, here it is, and for all these reasons, it is a passage that should move every Christian to the very depth of his being. It's magnificent literature. It is one of the most moving and eloquent passages that you will find anywhere in the whole range of the Scripture. But, as I have often had to point out, there is a special danger always about these great eloquent, moving passages. We become so carried away by the eloquence that we miss the meaning. I have said this several times in this study of the Epistle to the Romans. I remember having to say it at the end of chapter 11, and I remember saying it several times in the eighth chapter.

These great moving passages have this danger: we get such pleasure in an aesthetic sense that we fail to stop and examine exactly what they are saying to us. We must be very careful to examine this and make sure that we know exactly what the great apostle is saying. What he is doing here is to give us this great final reason in this section for paying heed to his instructions and his injunctions. Now, as much as I dislike in many ways having to do this, we have got to analyze it. If you really want to appreciate a great bit of music, it is a good thing to analyze it.

Start with its general effect; let it do that general something to you. But do not imagine you have got all out of that. That is sometimes more or less an emotional response. Take it then and analyze it. Get to understand it. Then play the whole again and you will get much more out of it. It's exactly the same with a passage of Scripture such as this. We are not going to destroy it. We are not laying sacrilegious hands upon something that is so beautiful and venturing to dissect it. That's never true with Scripture. The more you dissect it, but on condition that you remember the whole after you have done your dissection, the more you will always get out of it.

So we have got to analyze this great statement, and it falls very naturally into two sections. Or if you like, there are two elements in this great statement: doctrine and practice, argument and application, reasons and exhortation. That is what you have got here, and we must work this out. He starts, "knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep." You have got the two elements there immediately. You have got the statement "knowing the time" and the exhortation "time to awake out of sleep." "Our salvation is nearer than when we believed"—that statement, that doctrine. "The night is far spent"—that's the same. "The day is at hand"—that's doctrine.

"Let us therefore"—here is your application. You can divide up the whole statement into these two aspects. I want to consider this with you, and I say again, it is tremendously important that we should do so. I suggest furthermore that a test of our true Christianity, a test of the life of Christ in us, is whether we enjoy doing this. I always feel that a portion of Scripture like this can be compared to food in many ways. There are some people who bolt their food and they never enjoy it. They get something out of it, of course, but oh, what they miss. They just swallow it all. Of course, they are getting their calories, but they are missing the enjoyment.

They do not masticate it. They do not flavor it fully. Many people are like that with the Scriptures—rush through the passage, done it, they think. Oh, what they have missed. Now, I am proposing to chew this with you and keep it in our mouths a good time before we swallow it. Do not miss the pleasure of flavoring the Scripture. Masticate it thoroughly. Break it up and you will find that there are things there that you never imagined. Immediately, looking at the passage in general, we find the apostle is putting certain fundamental principles to our consideration.

We are reminded once more of the New Testament way and manner of dealing with the whole question of conduct. That is what he is dealing with. But he does it in this typical, characteristic New Testament manner. In the first place, the New Testament never deals with conduct per se or in and of itself. Never. You see, this is important for this reason. That's where it is in a class on its own as distinct from moral systems. The New Testament never, I defy you to give me a single example, deals with conduct and behavior as such alone. The second division of this New Testament way of dealing with conduct I would put in this form.

We are reminded here again that we do not live in the way that the apostle has been indicating to us in order to become Christians. We are to live like this because we are Christians. What a world of thought there is there. This is the modern heresy. We are back again fighting the old fight of the Reformation: justification by faith as over against justification by works. The popular doctrine today is the doctrine of justification by works, in various forms. They do not use the terms, but that's what they are teaching. You make yourself a Christian by doing certain things. It's the exact opposite of the New Testament teaching.

You do not live this life in order to become a Christian. You live like this because you are a Christian. Or to put it in a third form, our conduct as Christians is always based upon our position. It's always based upon what is true of us. In other words, you cannot understand this teaching concerning conduct unless you are perfectly clear about our position. For the behavior, the conduct is an expression of what we are and is therefore based upon it. My fourth and last principle under this heading is this: that our conduct and behavior is based always upon our understanding of that position.

You notice how he puts it: "and that, knowing the time." Now, if he cannot assume this knowledge, his argument falls to the ground. So he is assuming "knowing." You do know. We have seen this so many times. You remember Romans 8:18: "We know that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared." You have got the same thing at the end of that chapter: "I am persuaded." It's the same knowledge. Here it comes back once more. Conduct, and the way of dealing with conduct in the New Testament, is always one that is based upon our understanding of our position as Christians. Very well, that's our first deduction.

I come to the second. We are reminded here once more of the vital importance of doctrine, of this truth that he is presupposing. The apostle invariably deals with faith and works together. He shows how doctrine and practical daily living are always intimately associated and inextricably intermixed. Here is a perfect example of it. We are in this section of the Epistle when he is supposed to have finished with doctrine and he's dealing now with practical application. But doctrine keeps on coming in. It's like King Charles's head—you cannot keep it out. It keeps on coming in all along.

In this great statement, you have got these two things mixed up together. You pass from one to the other and back to the first. There they are always together: faith and practice, faith and works, doctrine and the practical carrying out of it. What this passage reminds us of once more is this: that these two things cannot be separated if we have really got hold of the truth. It reminds us also that they must never be separated. To realize the interrelationship between faith and works, doctrine and practice, is the best way of avoiding the two greatest dangers always confronting the Christian.

What are they? Well, they are the dangers, on the one hand, of antinomianism, and on the other hand, of legalism. What is meant by antinomianism—and it's dealt with so frequently in the Scripture—is this: that a man feels that he has got nothing to do with the law, that he is therefore unconcerned about his conduct and his behavior. It does not recognize law. In a sense, he is against law: anti the law, antinomianism. That is the very meaning of the term. It's a condition that has worked havoc so many times in the history of the church.

I have a feeling that it is doing so at this present time. Now, we are going to take this subject up, not only because of the passage that is before us, but also that we may wind off our consideration of the previous subsection, verses 8, 9, and 10, and show their relationship to this final subsection of the whole passage. He's already been dealing with love and law, and he's still doing that. Let's look first of all at the danger of antinomianism. How does this terrible danger of turning our backs upon the law arise? Well, it arises in many ways, and it's amazing how subtle it all is.

The first is that we become intellectuals and develop a kind of intellectualism and are concerned only about intellectual formulation and understanding of the doctrines of the Scripture. In other words, one of the great dangers confronting every true Christian is a danger of living on and relying upon orthodoxy alone. You see how the danger arises. Orthodoxy is absolutely essential. Doctrine is absolutely vital. But if you say as long as I am clear about the doctrine and I have got my head packed with doctrine, all is well and I am not worried about anything else, you are guilty of antinomianism.

This has wrought havoc so often in the history of the church, that men have been so keen on contending for orthodoxy that they have forgotten the way in which they were doing it. They forgot their lives and their living, so that all they were claiming to believe was being blatantly, flagrantly contradicted by their conduct. They could state the doctrine to you perfectly, and they talked about justification and sanctification, but there was no evidence of sanctification. They did grievous harm to the doctrine. I have known men display their knowledge of doctrine and defend orthodoxy even when they were not sober.

Antinomianism has always been a peculiar danger to those who are known as Calvinists. It's the charge that has always been brought against them, and of course, there has always been a certain amount of substance to the charge. It is an especial danger to a man who holds the great doctrines of predestination and election, and especially the doctrine of the final perseverance of the saints. You remember we worked that out in doing chapter 8. This is the peculiar temptation to the man who holds the doctrine of the final perseverance of the saints.

The devil can come as an angel of light to such a man and say to him, "Well, you are saved. Nothing can ever shake that. Nothing can ever make any difference. Nothing, neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come shall be able to separate you from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Therefore, it does not matter very much what you do. Though you fall into grievous sin, it's all right." Now, that is a true statement, but if you trade on that, you are guilty of antinomianism. If you turn that into an excuse for laxity and for license, you are guilty of this terrible thing.

Of course, it is something that has manifested itself many, many times amongst such people who hold to the doctrines of grace. You see, my friends, there is nothing safe in this Christian life. There is always the devil. So you are never safe. You have always got to watch and pray. This is one of the great dangers, of allowing him even to turn a great doctrine into an excuse for license and for sin. But antinomianism is not confined to those who are Calvinists. Those who are at the extreme opposite pole are equally liable to it. If I were asked for the greatest cause of antinomianism at the present time, I would say that it is believism.

It has taken many forms. It was once known as Sandemanianism. It's a teaching which says: do not worry even about your feelings, do not worry about anything except that you say, you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus. That's the one thing they say that matters. "If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved." They use in exactly the same way—misuse in the same way—1 Corinthians 12:3: "No man can say that Jesus is Lord but by the Spirit." "I say that; that puts me right."

You are familiar with the technique: believism, this teaching which says do not worry whether you feel anything or not, do not worry whether you are conscious of a change in your life or not. If you say that you believe that Jesus is the Son of God, that he died for your sins, you are saved. Your confession, your Asserting this—that's believism. It's something we are told a man can do whenever he likes. He can decide to do this whenever he likes. There are hundreds who do this. They think this decision has made them Christians, but they go on living the same old life.

I have to see such people quite frequently—not members of this church, but others who have got into trouble because of this. I had a most interesting interview with a young man not long since who came for this very reason. He had suddenly realized that there was no correspondence between what he claimed to be and what he was. He said, "There is no change in me." He realized he was guilty of antinomianism. Another form which it can take is this "take it by faith" teaching. Take it by faith. Do not worry about your feelings, they say; take it by faith. Now, this is the matter of sanctification.

This has been a very prevalent teaching. People say, "Well, I took it." They are given the teaching and then they are told, "Well now, do you believe that?" They say, "Yes." "Well now," they say, "thank God for it because you've got it. You've taken it by faith." But they say, "I do not feel any different." They say, "Do not worry about that. You've taken it by faith. You've got it." But the life does not show that they've got it. There is no difference. This leads to great misery. It is actually a form of antinomianism.

They are persuading themselves that they have got this sanctification, whereas in actual fact they've not got it. They are not paying any attention to their works. They are told not to examine themselves. They are told that to examine themselves is sinful, it is a denial of the taking it by faith. You must not look to yourself. You look entirely to the Lord. It's all in him and you've taken it all; therefore, you've got it all and you thank him you've got it all. So they are not allowed to look at their lives. They are not allowed to do what the apostle has been telling us to do.

That is antinomianism. There is a great deal of this antinomianism at the present time. There are people who claim to have received it by faith who are guilty of snobbery, of pettiness, and jealousy, and envy. Indeed, increasingly, unfortunately, even of sins belonging to the flesh: drink and various others. Antinomianism is a most subtle thing and it can come at us from any direction or any theological quarter whatsoever. Another very prolific cause of this is mysticism. I am using the term in a very general sense to cover all concentration upon inward moods and feelings and states.

There are people who say nothing matters except what one feels, experiences, sensation. That is everything to them. They never think of anything else. They are always seeking this, some mystic experience. They are negligent about their lives. They can be bad-tempered, spiteful and many other things. They are cultivating this inward feeling and state, and their lives bear no evidence of their relationship to God or their union with him, which is the thing that they are most concerned about. It is always a very dangerous thing to put the whole of your attention upon your feelings and your moods and states.

Another very common manifestation of this danger of antinomianism is an overconcern with and preoccupation with phenomena. That was the trouble in the church at Corinth. They were interested and indeed consumed by an interest in the gifts of the Spirit. The apostle has to rebuke them because while they were all obsessed with this question of gifts, they were neglecting ordinary common decency. Listen to 1 Corinthians chapter 5 at the beginning: "It is reported commonly that there is fornication among you, and such fornication as is not so much as named among the Gentiles, that one should have his father's wife. And ye are puffed up, and have not rather mourned, that he that hath done this deed might be taken away from among you."

They were so concerned about the gifts and so concentrating on the gifts that they were tolerating this vile form of immorality. It was taking many other forms: getting drunk before they came to the Communion service—you can read about all that in chapters 10 and 11 of this First Epistle to the Corinthians. All the attention was put upon the gifts, and they were utterly negligent about their life and conduct and behavior, boasting of these things and denying the very truth, having the form of godliness but denying the power thereof. All that, you see, is corrected by this great passage that we are looking at together.

It was to save these people in Rome from that very kind of thing that the apostle has been speaking. Drive it home with this great appeal of his. There's one danger: antinomianism. But then there's the other danger on the other extreme, and that is the danger of legalism. I need not stay with this. People become legalists very often because they realize the danger of antinomianism and swing so far to the other extreme that unconsciously they have become legalists. They have put themselves back under the law again. They say doctrine does not matter at all, experience does not matter at all, nothing matters but practical daily life and living.

Now, that is legalism, and we have considered it together many times. You have got these twin dangers: antinomianism and legalism. They are both wrong. They are both very dangerous. If we listen to the teaching of this great apostle, we shall always be saved from both these dangers. He does it in this way: he never deals with these things separately. He always puts them together. He never deals with conduct and behavior without providing us with reasons and with motives. There then is another general lesson that we learn from this subsection.

How are we to live this Christian life? Well, once more he gives us the typical New Testament teaching. Let me give you the negative first. The apostle never teaches what is called "the victorious life" teaching or "the victorious living" teaching. Never. The apostle never teaches what is known as "the overcoming" teaching. You are familiar with these teachings. These are teachings which come to us and tell us that we are miserable and unhappy because we are failing, we are falling to certain particular sins. They go on to say to us, "If you want to be happy, if you want to be delivered, if you want to live this victorious life, this is what you have got to do."

They tell us that this is something which I can obtain as an experience. I can have it there and then. "Do I want to have this victorious life?"—that's the question. "Do I will this?" They bring me to this crisis because they say if you do, you can have it here and now. You can get this complete deliverance in one experience, and you will then be more than conqueror. You will live the victorious life. Now, you are familiar with that kind of teaching. I am just asserting that you never find it here. Indeed, you find the exact opposite here.

That teaching always starts with man, always starts with me. They say, "Are you unhappy? Are you in trouble? Are you failing? Now, listen, we've got the very thing you want." That's the way in which the teaching is couched and put to us. But that is wrong. That is not biblical. The New Testament never starts with man's happiness. It always starts with God and his holiness. If we do not do that, we are inevitably going astray. We must never start with ourselves. We must always start with God and with the holiness of God.

Christianity is not a system to make us happy. What is salvation? What's the object of salvation? Now, a week today I say is Good Friday and Easter Sunday. What's the meaning of the cross? What's the meaning of the resurrection? Why did the Son of God ever come into this world? Why did he die on the cross? Why did he endure all he did? Why did he conquer death and the grave and rise? What's the object of salvation? Why has God sent him to do all this? There is only one answer to that: God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself.

It was not done primarily to make us happy. Of course, you get great joy out of it, but you must not say it was done to make us happy. The moment you do that, your emphasis has gone wrong. You are reducing it to the level of the cults. It's not meant to make us happy primarily. It is meant to reconcile us with God. Indeed, it goes out of its way to say things like this to us: that because we are Christians, we may very well have a worse time in this world than people who are not Christians. "Unto you it is given on the behalf of Christ not only to believe in him but also to suffer for his namesake."

So you see, it isn't something that is designed just to make us all feel happy and give us release and ease. The primary object is to reconcile us to God, is to vindicate God and his holiness, it is to bring us to God. We must always put that in the first position. So you see, this other teaching presents us with the wrong motive. My motive should be not so much to be happy as to know that I am one of God's people and enjoy the privilege of being such a person. This is the New Testament teaching.

We've got it here; we've got it everywhere else. Its method of teaching sanctification is precisely what we've got in this great passage that is before us. It doesn't say to me, "Now, come along, do you want this? All you've got to do is to surrender and believe, take it by faith." It's the exact opposite of that. What I've got here is an argument. I've got a series of statements. He says, "You know certain things." It is an argument that has got to be worked out. It is a truth which has got to be put into action and into practice.

The New Testament way of teaching and presenting sanctification is one that always starts with the objective truth and not my subjective condition. Start with the great truth and then apply it to yourself. Now, the apostle assumes that we've got this knowledge. "Knowing that," he says, "and that, knowing that." He's got nothing to say unless we have this knowledge. He means all that he's been saying in the first 11 chapters. Unless you've got a general idea and comprehension of the way of salvation and the plan and the purpose of salvation, you will never really be able to live this life because all the motives presented are based upon these great doctrines.

So if we haven't got a grasp of these aspects of truth, we cannot be sanctified. You don't receive it in a package, in an experience. No, no. What he says is, "Now I know that you've got the grasp of the truth I've been laying down before you; therefore, work this out. This is it, knowing that." You see this of necessity is a very urgent and a very vital matter. That's the way in which the New Testament deals with this whole matter of sanctification. We have already seen this illustrated in a fascinating manner in the first 10 verses of this very chapter.

Did you notice the gradation through which the apostle took us in dealing with that whole question of the higher powers and our relationship to other people? His first argument with us was the argument of fear. "Let every soul be subject to the higher powers." Why? Well, there is no power but of God; the powers that be are ordained of God. "Whosoever therefore resisteth the power resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation." This is preaching sanctification. That's how Paul preaches sanctification.

He says if you resist these powers, you'll put yourself under judgment; you'll get punished. He's bringing in the motive of fear and he goes on repeating it. "Rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power?" Well, if you don't want to be afraid, do that which is good and thou shalt have praise of the same. "He is the minister of God to thee for good, but if thou do that which is evil, be afraid." This is not "taking it by faith." He's reasoning with you. He says realize what you're doing; you've got to face God in the judgment.

"If thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil." The fear motive. But he doesn't stop there. In the next verse, he goes on: "Wherefore ye must needs be subject, not only for wrath—that's the first one—but also for conscience sake." We interpreted that as meaning this: you don't live this good life merely because you're afraid of the judgment. You must use that argument, but then there is this further one: you've got an enlightened conscience.

You know what is right and what God wills and what God expects of you. For conscience sake, live this good life. He's moved from the level of fear to the level of conscience and reason and understanding. Then you remember he took us to the top of the mountain. He sums up: "For this cause pay ye tribute also: for they are God's ministers, attending continually upon this very thing. Render therefore to all their dues: tribute to whom tribute is due; custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear; honor to whom honor."

Fear and conscience. Finally, "Owe no man anything, but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law." He is reasoning and arguing, presenting his case and putting it at different levels in order that we see it and then proceed to put it into practice. He comes to this great final argument that he uses in this section. You can call it the apocalyptic argument, the argument of the last times, the coming of the Son of God. You see, the apostle is incapable of dealing with a question of conduct and practice and behavior without bringing in all the great essential doctrines of this glorious way of salvation.

That's the only way in which we can ever grow in grace and in the knowledge of the Lord and become truly sanctified. Following this way, you will avoid the twin dangers of antinomianism and legalism. You will be walking the way which he characterizes in his Epistle to the Galatians in these words: "faith which worketh by love." God willing, when we resume on Friday, April the 7th, we'll go on considering this mighty, eloquent statement of the great apostle. Oh Lord our God, we do again thank thee for the glory of thy word and the yet greater glory of thy way of salvation.

Open our eyes to this. Deliver us from our morbid preoccupation. Deliver us from the pettinesses that consume us so much. Give us a vision of thyself, of thy glory and of thy great and glorious purpose for us, thy people. Lord, open our eyes. Now may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship and the communion of the Holy Spirit abide and continue with us now this night, throughout the remainder of this our short and certain earthly life and pilgrimage and until we shall see him as he is and be made like him in the glory. Amen.