Lecture XXI

THE SECRET OF SINLESSNESS—ABIDING IN THE SINLESS ONE AS MANIFESTED TO TAKE AWAY OUR SINS

FOUR arguments against committing sin, or transgressing the law, are here suggested; all of them connected with him whose essential purity is to be our model in purifying ourselves: I. The end or design of his manifestation,—“to take away our sins;” II. His own sinlessness,—“in him is no sin;” III. Our oneness with him, —“whosoever abideth in him sinneth not;” IV. The incompatibility of sin with any real acquaintance with him,—“whosoever sinneth hath not seen him, neither known him.” The four may be reduced to two: the first and second being, as it were, doctrinal; the third and fourth experimental: the former turning on what he is to us, as our Saviour; the latter, on what we are in him as his saved ones.

I. “Ye know that he was manifested to take away our sins; and in him is no sin” (ver. 5).

Let us consider, in the first place, for what end he was manifested; it was to “take away our sins.” Some would understand this phrase as denoting here exclusively the cleansing of our nature from its sinful lusts and habits; and as having no distinct reference at all to the removal of contracted guilt. It is admitted that when the phrase occurs elsewhere it is the taking away of guilt by means of atoning blood that is meant; as in the Baptist’s testimony, “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). But it is contended that here that thought is somewhat irrelevant, since it is moral purification, and not legal satisfaction or legal purging, sanctification in a moral, and not in a legal or sacrificial sense, that John is speaking of; and since, moreover, he seems to make that depend rather on what the Son is manifested to be, than on what he is manifested to do; on his person rather than on his work. There is no doubt truth in these remarks. But I cannot help thinking that they have led to an unnecessary and undue limitation of the force and fulness of this pregnant phrase. I would not, in that other passage, restrict it to the mere legal removal of the guilt of the world’s sin, without including in it also the removal of the sin itself, in its moral pollution and power. Nor am I inclined here to shut out the idea of the expiation of the guilt of our sins, though the other idea of moral purification from them is confessedly the uppermost or leading one. In fact, the two are inseparable: they are really one. I can scarcely conceive of John pointing to the manifestation of him in whom is no sin, as a source of moral purity, as taking away our sins out of our nature, without having in his mind, and wishing us to have in our mind, as a material part of the process by which that object is attained, his taking away our sins out of the record of their guilt, “the book of God’s remembrance.”

It confirms this view to remember that John has just described sin as “the transgression of the law” (ver. 4). He has fastened upon this as constituting the essence of sin, that it is against law. He is of the same mind with Paul, in that saying of his,—“The carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be” (Rom. 8:7). He, like Paul, knows that as our sins are against the law, so the law is against our sins. It is against our sins, in such a sense and to such an effect as to keep us, on account of them, helplessly under condemnation. We are under the law’s just sentence of death. Nay, more, the law, of which our sins are the transgression, is so against our sins as by a natural reaction to stir up in us more and more, the more closely it is brought to bear upon us, that very opposition to itself, and rebellion against itself, in which the sinfulness of our sins consists. In the grasp and under the power of the law, as condemned criminals, we are fettered; and can no more get rid of our sins than a doomed felon can shake off his irons.

If we are spiritual men at all, we know this well. We know and have felt, that the more the law approves itself to us, as “holy, and just, and good;” the more it comes home to us, by the power of the Holy Ghost, in its high excellency and deep spirituality; the more our conscience and our heart are on its side; the more we see and apprehend of its just authority and holy beauty; the more we strive after complete conformity to it; the more we “would do good:” so much the more, while we are thus under the law, is “evil present with us” (Rom. 7) An impotent sense of failure deadens and depresses us, while the feeling of our prostrate bondage in our sins irritates our natural enmity against God. And if we do not relapse into indifference, or take refuge in formality, or sink into sullen gloom, we are shut up to the one only effectual way of ending this miserable struggle between the law and our sinful nature; the way of free grace and sovereign mercy; the way of embracing him whom “God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood;” “in whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins.” Then indeed “sin shall no more have dominion over us, when we are not under the law but under grace;” when “there is now to us no condemnation because we are in Christ Jesus;” when we know him as “his own self bearing our sins in his own body on the cross, that we being dead to sin might live unto righteousness.”

All this, I think, must be held to be comprehended in the fact stated; —“he was manifested to take away our sins.” And it is all consistent with the object for which John reminds us of it; our purifying ourselves, as he is pure. He was manifested to take away our sins, root and branch. The very completeness of that work of atonement by which he takes them away, in respect of the condemnation and punishment which as transgressions of the law they bind upon us, secures also his completely taking them away, in respect of the carnal mind in us, of whose enmity against God and insubordination to his law they are the fruits. His purging our conscience from the guilt of them, is the very means of his purging our hearts from the pollution of them. Their power to condemn us he takes away; and so he takes away also their power to rule over us. They can never again subject us to the law’s curse; and therefore they can never again provoke in us resistance or resentment of the law’s authority.

Nor is this all. In virtue of his being manifested to take away our sins, we receive the Holy Ghost. The obstacle which our sin, as a breach of the law, interposed to his being graciously present with us and in us is taken away. The Divine Spirit dwells and works in us; causing us to love the law which is now magnified, not in our destruction but in our salvation, not in our death but in our life; and to hate the thought of transgressing it any more. A new nature, a new heart, a new spirit, as respects the law of God and God the lawgiver, a new character as well as a new state, is the result of Christ being manifested to take away our sins. We know that, personally, practically, experimentally; and our knowledge of it is what enables as well as moves us to purify ourselves as Christ is pure.

It is so all the rather because, secondly, we are to consider that he is manifested as himself the sinless one: “In him is no sin.” Here again let us remember that sin is viewed in the light of the law: it is the transgression of the law: it is against law. The precise point of this declaration concerning the sinless one lies in that declaration concerning sin. In him is no sin, because in him is no lawlessness; nothing that is against the law. It is his being manifested as in that sense without sin, that makes his manifestation to us,—or our looking to what he is, as well as our looking to what he does,—effectual towards the taking away of our sins out of our heart and nature. In him, as “manifested to take away our sins,” “there is no sin;” nothing of what needs to be taken away from us; nothing of that sin which is the transgression of the law.

I do not ask you now to dwell on the thought that this sinlessness of his, his being himself free from all liability to the law as a transgressor, was an essential condition of his taking upon himself our liabilities, so as to take them away from us. I ask you rather to consider the mighty moral power which his being manifested as the sinless one has, in itself and of itself, to take away our sins; not merely to take away their guilt lying upon us, but to take them bodily, as it were, as to their very substance and spirit, from within us. In that view, it is all-important that we look at his sinlessness in strict and definite connection with the law.

How do we conceive of him as without sin? He is before us as one in whom there is no sympathy with what is vile and polluting; or with what is mean and base; or with what is unfair and untrue; or with what is dishonourable and unhandsome; or with what is unkind, ungenerous, unloving. Not a thought, not a feeling, not an affection is in him that could offend the purest taste, the most fastidious delicacy. Benevolence without the slightest alloy of selfishness; integrity such as the breath of suspicion cannot touch; seraphic mildness, sweetness, calmness, that no storm of passion has ever ruffled; a soul attuned to all the melodies of heaven, on which no jarring note of earth’s discord can ever strike; a divine dignity; a divine gracefulness in look and mein, in air and carriage, infinitely removed from man’s uncertain temper and the rude strife of tongues;—some such ideal, some such picture, rises before our eye. And the contemplation of it may be profitable as well as pleasant; for all these representations of the one only perfectly sinless man are true; and contemplating them, we may to some extent be moved to imitate as well as admire. But we do not thus, “with open face, behold as in a glass the glory of the Lord,” so as to be really “changed into the same image, from glory to glory.” For the glory of the Lord, manifested in and by him as the sinless one, is his never “transgressing the law.” In him is no sin; nothing of what is against the law; against the law under which he was made when he was made of a woman. It is into the image of that glory that we, beholding it, are to be changed “by the Spirit of the Lord.”

Does this seem to be a lowering of our high ideal of perfect sinlessness, as exemplified in him? Does it sound strange to hear it spoken of as his glory? Do we feel it to be almost a sort of outrage and offence to speak of this as his moral glory, that he never broke the law, and never wished to break it? What glory, what moral grandeur, is there in that? Much, I answer; much every way. It is man’s highest glory. It is the highest glory of angels. It is the highest glory of the Son himself, manifested to take away our sins, that in him, in this sense, is no sin. “He learned obedience,” I repeat, “by the things which he suffered.” And he learned it perfectly; for in him is no sin; no possibility of any thought adverse to the learning of obedience, entering into, or rising up in, his mind. That is his essential impeccability; his being incapable of even the faintest surmise of impatience under the law of his God and Father, or the most remote approach to a desire that it were anything else than obedience, anything less or anything more, that he had to learn. Is not that “a glory which excels”? Is it not worth while to behold it,—and to aim at being changed into the same image with it, from one degree of it to another, from glory to glory, by the Spirit of the Lord? Behold it! See! It is no mere negation; no mere abstinence from evil, or absence of evil. Nor is it any mere spontaneous development of native, innate good. It is positive, practical, perfect obedience to God’s holy law. It is the doing of his will with the whole heart. It is to live for no other end but that his will be done. So in his life did he manifest his sinlessness who said, “I must be about my Father’s business:” “The cup which my Father giveth me, shall I not drink it?” Thus it is seen that “in him is no sin.”¹

II. With this sinless person we are one; “abiding in him as the sinless one manifested to take away our sins.” And that is our security against sinning;—“Whosoever abideth in him sinneth not.”

This is the statement of a fact. It is not the enforcing of a duty, as if it were said,—whosoever abideth in him should not sin, and must not sin; let him not sin. It is not even the drawing of an inference or the announcement of what will probably be, and may be expected to be, the issue of oneness with the Lord, as if it ran thus,—whosoever abideth in him will not sin, or is not likely to sin. It is the broad statement of a present fact,—“Whosoever abideth in him sinneth not;” as is also the converse—“Whosoever sinneth hath not seen him, neither known him.” Between abiding in Christ and sinning there is such an absolute incompatibility, that whosoever sinneth is for the time not merely in the position of not abiding in Christ, but in the position of not having seen or known him. In so far as he is sinning, his is virtually the very same case with that of the man who has never either seen or known Christ. The statement is very emphatic and very categorical. It is more than a mere assertion of a sort of moral inconsistency or incongruity, a certain manifest unsuitableness, in the view of common-sense and right feeling. It is an assertion of absolute incompatibility, in the nature of things; and it is a very strong assertion of that, put in two forms, positively and negatively, to make it all the stronger. Let us see how it must be so.

1. We abide in Christ by faith; by that faith, wrought in us by the Spirit, which unites us to Christ. Our abiding in him by this faith implies oneness; real and actual oneness; not oneness only in the eye of the law, so that we are regarded and treated as one, in the Judge’s dealings with him for us, and with us in him; not oneness merely in the sense of an ordinary alliance or partnership, with a community of goods and interests, of lives and fortunes; but real and actual oneness of nature. As the husband and the wife are made of twain one flesh; so Christ and we are one spirit. “He that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit.” Our abiding in him is our realising this oneness. It is our apprehending ourselves to be consciously one with him, of the same nature, of the same mind, with him, of the same way of thinking and feeling with him. It implies our taking the same view that he does of all things, of God and his law, of righteousness and sin, of guilt and judgment, of holiness and grace and love; our entertaining the same sentiments with reference to them all. It is this which secures our closing with him at first as our Saviour, and carries our consent to his saving us in his own way and on his own terms, so glorifying to the Father, so costly to him, so gracious to us. It is this also which ever after secures our not sinning. We cannot be thus abiding in Christ, realising our oneness of mind and nature with him, and at the same time sinning. The thought or feeling of opposition to the law, or of impatience under it; the wish that we were more free to act as we choose; is no thought or feeling or wish of his: for “in him is no sin.” When we sin, when we suffer any such thought or feeling or wish to find harbour in our breasts; we cease for the time to be abiding in him. Between him and us, not then and there abiding in him, there is really as entire a separation as if we had never seen or known him: as wide and deep a gulph as that which lay between the rich man in hell and Lazarus in Abraham’s bosom. It is not fixed like that gulph; not yet. But let us beware lest it become fixed. Let us be thankful that it may still be made to disappear. And let us remember that this can only be through our repenting again, as at the beginning,—believing again, as if we had never believed before,—embracing the Lord Jesus, as if now for the first time we saw and knew him,—“doing the first works,”—becoming anew and afresh, by the grace of the Spirit, “members of Christ’s body, of his flesh and of his bones,”—getting shut up into him anew and afresh, so as to be again of one mind and heart with him, abiding once more in him in whom is no sin. For we may be very sure that when we sin, we are none the better for all that we have seen or known of Christ; none the safer. It is the same thing to us as if we had never seen him, neither known him at all.²

2. We abide in Christ by his Spirit abiding in us. That is a filial spirit; —the Spirit of God’s Son in us crying Abba Father;—the Spirit of adoption whereby we cry Abba Father. A servile frame of mind grieves and vexes the Holy Spirit, and hinders his continuing to dwell in us. He dwells in us only when we cry Abba Father, and therefore sin not. Sin is ever the fruit of that servile frame of mind which is characteristic of one that has not seen or known the Son. Abiding in him, through his Spirit abiding in us, we have a filial heart towards God. And a filial heart “sinneth not.” For a filial heart has no temptation and no desire to go against the will, or the law, of the righteous Father.

From all this we may see how the stress of practical exhortations against sin is to be brought to bear upon a child of God; upon us, who are children in the Son. For it is very important that there should be exhortation, direct and pointed. It is not enough to put the matter in the form of doctrinal statement or anticipated consequence; as if we said: Being God’s children in Christ you do not sin; or you will not sin. It is good for you to hear a voice of authority and command: Sin not. And yet that is not the way in which the matter is put here. It is not an order issued, but a fact announced; “whosoever abideth in him sinneth not.” What then? Is the hortatory method to be given up? Nay; it is only necessary to shift a little, as it were, the point of its application. I state it as a fact that whosoever abideth in him sinneth not. And therefore I issue the command: Abide in him. It is his own command: “Abide in me.” And that is the right position for the hortatory or commanding mode of appeal. If you would not sin; that you may not sin; that it may be impossible for you sin;—“abide in him who was manifested to take away your sins, and in whom is no sin.” Cleave to him; grow up into him; get into his mind; drink into his spirit. Enter into the design of his being manifested, and into the way in which, being manifested, he accomplishes that design. Enter into the secret of his sinlessness. Keep close to him, abide in him, and sin not.

And forget not the positive, any more than the negative, result of your abiding in him; your “bringing forth much fruit” (John 15:5). For it is only in the line of the positive, in the line of bearing fruit, that you can be sure even of the negative,—not sinning. Nay, if your negatively not sinning is the effect of your abiding in Christ, it really resolves itself into your actually and positively bearing fruit, and becomes identical with it. “In him is no sin;” no rebellion against that will of God which he comes to do; no insubordination to that law of God which is within his heart; nothing that hinders, or possibly can hinder, his doing that will and keeping that law always and thoroughly. You “abide in him and sin not.” You have in you now nothing more than he had, in so far as you abide in him, of that sullen, slavish, selfish frame of mind; bent on getting its own way, and doing its own pleasure; grudging God and men their due; which hinders all cheerful, loyal obedience. You therefore, abiding in him in whom is no sin, that there may be no sin in you, go about with him doing good. Yours is that “pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father,” which is this, “to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction,” as well as to keep “yourselves unspotted from the world.”