What is Christian ethics?

It must be evident, therefore, that it is folly as well as wickedness, to sever the ethics of Christianity from its fundamental mysteries. To attempt it is to seek to cut off the head from its body. It is nothing but mutilation and death. It is false that the distinctive christian truths "are matters wholly apart." The morals of a Christian cannot be found, save with the faith and confession of the Lord Jesus. For though the δικαίωμα or righteous import of the law is only fulfilled in him who is not under the law and who walks after the Spirit, not after the flesh, it is not true that the fulness of christian morality is contained even in that. Love is the fulfilling of the law; but nowhere is it said or meant that love, as revealed in Christ and made good in the Christian, does not now go far beyond. "If," says the great apostle of circumcision, "when ye do well, and suffer for it, ye take it patiently, this is acceptable [not merely righteousness, but grace] with God, for even hereunto were ye called ["ye" Christians, not Jews]; because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps; who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth; who when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not, but committed himself to him that judges righteously," etc. Christ is life as well as truth, and these things are inseparable in fact, though in thought they may be distinguished. He was the manifestation of what God is toward sinners as well as His own children in an evil world. The law, and beyond this no Jew can go, is but the claim of what man should be. Christ, not the law, is the image of God, and the exemplar of the Christian who is called to imitate God and walk in love as Christ did, who loved and gave Himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savour. The law can but condemn and kill the guilty. In Christianity God commends His love toward us in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. From faith in this, and more than this, in His infinite death and resurrection, flows the morality of the gospel. What has Hillel or any other comparable? They cannot rise above self and man. The ethics of the Christian have their source in union with a Christ who died and rose, and is now on the throne of God — in God Himself thus manifesting Himself in Him. Are they then "totally apart from" the mysteries of the christian faith? Are they, in form or substance, in breadth or depth, identical with the sayings of any Rabbi that ever breathed?

1871 308 If the Gentile Christians at Rome were justified, and saved, it was through the mercy of God (see Rom. 11:30). It was so likewise with any Jews there. It was all the mercy of God. The nation would finally be received back again on the ground of mercy, after Gentile apostasy. It is on account of the tender mercies of God that our bodies are to be given up a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is our reasonable service. What different morality from that under law! Under the former, man in the flesh had to obey given commands, and so give righteousness to God: here the flesh is given up. I am laid on the altar of God, and my body is presented a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God (compare 2 Cor. 4:10). It is as we bear about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus will be manifest in our mortal bodies. The ministry of righteousness has written Christ on our hearts, and it is as the death has power over the old nature that the life will flow out. Christ has given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savour. (Eph. 5:1-2.) We are called to be imitators of God as dear children. We are identified with Christ, dead and risen: let our walk be worthy of this position and flowing from it. This is christian morality. But if I am dead and risen, what have I to do with the world? Conformity to the world is a shame for a Christian. It is linked with the flesh, on which the ministry of the Spirit writes, Death.* If I let the Spirit work, I am transformed by the renewing of my mind; I am practically now learning what good and evil is. I prove daily what is the will of God. Thus the body presented a living sacrifice to God, non-conformity to the world, and transformation by the renewing of the mind, fill up the christian morality in this passage. When we are thus devoted to the Lord, we find ourselves amongst a new set of people, unknown before, but now known to us. They are members of the body of Christ. Are we to seek high things for ourselves here, as we did when in the world? No; just the contrary. We are not to think of ourselves more highly than we ought to think, but soberly, according as God has dealt to every man the measure of faith.

This chapter is the application of Christ dead and risen to the believer's walk, and is the proof that grace disallows sin. Hence we have here Christian practice, and the ground of that practice. We are called to liberty, and not slavery, even in holiness. There is righteousness, but it is of that sort which bears fruit. There is evidently wonderful depth and value in it, as there must be in all that which comes from God. Nor is it merely the producing fruit down here (that is man's thought), but it is fruit that goes up to God; for whatever comes from Him goes up to Him. The meat-offering might be eaten, but all the frankincense went up to God. When Christ was down here, He offered Himself in His life as a sweet savour; Eph. 5. It comes down, and goes up to God again. This is Christian morality; and where this is wanting, it is all nothing. The value is in the motive.

The apostle resumes the thread of his instructions, by taking up — as he does in all his epistles — the moral consequences of his doctrine. He places the believer at the outset on the ground of God's mercy, which he had fully developed already. The principle of grace that saves had been established as the basis of salvation. The ground of all christian morality is now laid in this fundamental principle: — to present our bodies as a sacrifice, living, holy, acceptable to God — an intelligent service, not that of the hands, not consisting in ceremonies which the body could perform — a simple but deep-reaching and all-efficacious principle. This was for man personally. As to his outward relationships, he was not to be conformed to the world. Neither was this to be an outside mechanical nonconformity, but the result of being renewed in mind, so as to seek for and discern the will of God, good and acceptable and perfect; the life being thus transformed.

Christian duties (and there are such), flow from the new relationship thus formed by grace, and in Christ, and we must first be in the relationship before the duties are there. People make a grievous blunder here: putting the duties as a means of getting into relationship with God. Such a thing would never be thought of in natural things. Men's minds are clear enough about their own matters; all is simple to them: but when they come to divine things, and having to do with God, all sorts of blunders are made. How absurd it would be for all you people to get to be my children! You might be never so earnest and diligent; but no amount of earnestness would avail to form the relationship. But if you were my children, all would be simple enough, and the duty, too, to act like children. You cannot fulfil the duties of a child till you are one, or show the love of one either. How unbecoming of a servant to jump up and kiss his master! Quite proper in a child. And if we are children of God, then we are to behave ourselves as such; but our duties as children of God do not commence till we are in that place. Of course there are duties that we have as men, but on that ground we are lost. God makes us His children, and then says, Now imitate your Father. "Be ye followers [imitators] of God, as dear children." We are brought into God's presence, and we are to go out into, and through, the world, and show whose children we are: to show His character, and "walk worthy" of Him. "To walk worthy of God" (1 Thess. 2:12.) "Worthy of the Lord." (Col. 1:10.) "Worthy of the vocation." (Eph. 4:1.) God Himself is our pattern, and we are to imitate Him. He loved us when we were enemies, and He causes His rain to descend "on the evil and on the good," and we are to act in the same manner toward men. I am to be kind to the unthankful and to the evil, for instance: so here, "tender-hearted, forgiving," and why? because my Father is. I am to forgive as, in Christ, He has forgiven me. In all things I am to look to Him, as revealed in Christ, as my pattern, and imitate Him.

12 I believe I have said enough and quoted enough to shew the mind of scripture on the point that engages us. What its views of law and of its operation and effect are, and what the christian rule of life is too of one who has died and is associated with Christ risen, and who lives through Him. Law is the measure of man's responsibility as such to God. It is perfect as such and no more, and could not have been more than the measure of man's walk. Christ was perfect in this as in everything; but He went farther, and displayed God Himself in His own sovereign grace and goodness, and we ought to follow Him here as in His perfect obedience to God. He and He alone is our pattern and example, and nothing else. He is the object for the heart to rest on, and is to govern it, and to which it is to grow like, and nothing else. He is the motive and spring of conduct in us, as well as its perfect model which the law cannot be; for it is not life, nor gives it, nor feeds it.

The law does not manifest God's moral perfections, or pretend to do it. Christ does that. The law tells us perfectly what the creature ought to be and feel, not what God is and feels. Hence it is not the adequate direction of a Christian's faith. There were two parts of Christ's life: He was born under law; but He was also the manifestation of God. Now surely He kept the law, and died under its curse for them who were under it, who were thus delivered from the law, which could only condemn them, or lose its authority if it did not. But the manifestation of God is our pattern. "Be ye therefore perfect as your Father which is in heaven is perfect." He acts in grace, sends rain on just and unjust, loves His enemies. This, law cannot admit. "Be ye imitators of God as dear children," as Christ has loved us. He laid down His life for us. "We ought also to lay down our lives for the brethren." In a word Christ, as revealing the Father, is the model for our walk; and the fruits of the Spirit, who refers the heart wholly to Him, are what are looked for in him who has the Spirit. Law is inadequate as a rule; it is unchristian in principle to be under it, for I am not under law but under grace. It is always in connection with man in the flesh and cannot be with redemption, and as many as are of the works of it are accursed. It is not what I can look to as an object, for Christ is that; and I cannot serve two masters, or, to use the figure of Romans 7 on this point, have two husbands at one time — law and Christ risen. Whoever sets himself under law in any way destroys its authority, because he has not kept it, yet hopes not to be under its curse; and he uses Christ, not for redemption and power of deliverance, but to make allowance for failure in us and make void the law which would condemn us. If He has delivered me from it, bearing its curse, He has glorified its authority and delivered me by power from sin in the flesh, that I may bring forth fruit unto God. If I am put under it after redemption, it must either condemn me or its authority be set aside. As a rule of life it is inadequate, because grace and truth came by Jesus Christ, and this is my rule of life — not the law which was given by Moses, and which is not grace. To say that it is a transcript of, or manifests, God's moral perfections is nonsense. Is He, speaking with reverence, to love His neighbour as Himself? A creature ought — doubtless unfallen creatures as angels do; but as to man, he is a fallen one and does not, and when raised with Christ has the activity of grace and forbearing love as his rule, as shewn in God manifest in the flesh; and the Christian led of the Spirit is not under law.

The Christian is called to prove, in his daily life, that grace can produce results that law could never reach. It is one of the moral glories of Christianity to enable a man to surrender self and live for others. Law never could do this. It occupied a man with himself. Under its rule, every man had to do the best he could for himself. If he tried to love his neighbour, it was to work out a righteousness for himself. Under grace, all is blessedly and gloriously reversed. Self is set aside as a thing crucified, dead and buried. The old "I" is gone, and the new "I" is before God in all the acceptability and preciousness of Christ. He is our life, our righteousness, our holiness, our object, our model, our all. He is in us and we are in Him; and our daily practical life is to be simply Christ reproduced in us, by the power of the Holy Ghost. Hence, we are not only called to love our neighbour, but our enemy; and this, not to work out a righteousness, for we have become the righteousness of God in Christ; it is simply the outflow of the life which we possess, which is in us; and this life is Christ. A Christian is a man who should live Christ. He is neither a Jew, "under law;" nor a Gentile "without law;" but "a man in Christ," standing in grace, called to the same character of obedience as that which was rendered by the Lord Jesus Himself.

331 A law is obligation, enforced by an authority outside us, requires from us whatever the rule expresses, and in God's law, that there should not even be a lust, but is addressed to those who have lusts, who are alive in the flesh. Its requisition is right; but for that reason it condemns us to death, and because man is not what it requires, it is found to be to death. But in its contents it is a perfect measure, or rule, for man in the flesh; but it is not for him who is in Christ. For him who is a son of God the rule is, "Be ye therefore followers [imitators] of God as dear children, and walk in love as Christ also loved us, and gave himself for us, a sacrifice and an offering to God for a sweet-smelling savour." "Hereby know we love, because he laid down his life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren." It is not reciprocated kindness, of which love to self is the measure, but a giving up self, as Christ did, in love. It is good in the midst of evil, which is what Christ was — grace as displayed in Him, doing well, suffering for it, and taking it patiently, as He did. It is forgiving, laying down our lives in the prerogative of divine love, which is our rule, and walking being light in the Lord, as He walked, apart from the world, an epistle of Christ to it; and love and light are the two essential names of God, and Christ was the perfect expression of it as man here.

FAITH alone justifies, but justifying faith is not alone. Good works though they are not the causes of salvation, yet they are the evidences. Faith must not be built upon works, but works must be built upon faith. Faith doth justify works; works do testify faith. "I will show thee my faith by my works" (James 2:18).