chapter iii. 21 to chapter v. 11 we have the work of Christ applied to

the question of _sins_; and from chapter v. 12 to the end of chapter viii. we have another aspect of that work, namely, its application to the question of _sin_--"our old man"--"the body of _sin_"--"_sin_ in the flesh." There is no such thing in Scripture as the forgiveness of sin. God has condemned sin, not forgiven it--an immensely important distinction. God has set forth His eternal abhorrence of sin in the cross of Christ. He has expressed and executed His judgment upon it, and now the believer can see himself as linked and identified with the One who died on the cross and is raised from the dead. He has passed out of the sphere of sin's dominion into that new and blessed sphere where grace reigns through righteousness. "God be thanked," says the apostle, "that ye _were_ [once, but now no longer are to be] the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that type of doctrine to which ye were delivered. (Margin.) Being then made _free from sin_ [not merely sins forgiven], ye became the servants of righteousness. I speak after the manner of men, because of the infirmity of your flesh; for as ye have yielded your members servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity, even so now yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness. For when ye _were_ the servants of sin, ye were free from righteousness. What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed? for the end of those things is death. But now being made _free from sin_, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life." (Rom. vi. 17-22.)

Here lies the precious secret of holy living. We are dead to sin; alive to God. The reign of sin is over. What has sin to do with a dead man? Nothing. Well, then, the believer has died with Christ; he was buried with Christ; he is risen with Christ, to walk in newness of life. He lives under the precious reign of grace, and he has his fruit unto holiness. The man who draws a plea from the abundance of divine grace to live in sin, denies the very foundation of Christianity. "How shall we that have died to sin, live any longer therein?" Impossible. It would be a denial of the whole Christian standing. To imagine the Christian as one who is to go on, from day to day, week to week, month to month, and year to year, sinning and repenting, sinning and repenting, is to degrade Christianity and falsify the whole Christian position. To say that a Christian _must_ go on sinning because he has the flesh in him is to ignore the death of Christ in one of its grand aspects, and to give the lie to the whole of the apostle's teaching in Romans vi.-viii. Thank God, there is no necessity whatever why the believer should commit sin. "My little children, these things write I unto you that ye sin not." We should not justify ourselves in a single sinful thought. It is our sweet privilege to walk in the light, as God is in the light; and most surely, when we are walking in the light, we are not committing sin. Alas! we get out of the light and commit sin; but the normal, the true, the divine idea of a Christian is, walking in the light, and not committing sin. A sinful thought is foreign to the true genius of Christianity. We have sin in us, and shall have it so long as we are in the body; but if we walk in the Spirit, the sin in our nature will not show itself in the life. To say that _we need not sin_ is to state a Christian privilege; to say that _we cannot sin_ is a deceit and a delusion.