August 15, 1898

“The Servants of Righteousness” The Bible Echo 13, 33, p. 257.

ATJ

“BEING then made free from sin, ye become the servants of righteousness.”BEST August 15, 1898, page 257.1

We can be made free from sin, then: the word of God says so. “Our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.” “He that is dead is dead from sin.”BEST August 15, 1898, page 257.2

But our blessedness does not stop with being made free from sin: “Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness.”BEST August 15, 1898, page 257.3

We can not be the servants of sin and the servants of righteousness, both at the same time; for “when ye were the servants of sin, ye were free from righteousness.”BEST August 15, 1898, page 257.4

We must be freed from sin before we can become the servants of righteousness.BEST August 15, 1898, page 257.5

And “he that is dead is freed from sin.”BEST August 15, 1898, page 257.6

We must be “dead with Christ” before we can “live with him.” “For in that he died, he died unto sin once: but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God.”BEST August 15, 1898, page 257.7

“Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” And just as Christ lives unto God since his death to sin, so we live unto God when we are dead with him. When we are “dead with him” “unto sin,” we “live with him” “unto God.”BEST August 15, 1898, page 257.8

Have you been made free from sin? If not, why not?BEST August 15, 1898, page 257.9

Have you become the servant of righteousness? If not, it is because you have not been made free from sin.BEST August 15, 1898, page 257.10

Have you been trying, and failing, to be the servant of righteousness? Have you grieved over failures until you were almost, if not entirely, ready to think that there is no such thing in this world as being indeed a servant of righteousness?BEST August 15, 1898, page 257.11

O toiling, discouraged soul, “be of good cheer; I have overcome the world”! There is, in truth, in this world, in Him, the service of righteousness. But it comes only through “being made free from sin;” and only “he that is dead is freed from sin.”BEST August 15, 1898, page 257.12

Have you “endured the cross” of Christ with Christ? Are you crucified with him? Have you given up to destruction the body of sin, in order that henceforth you should not serve sin? Are you dead with him, and, so, freed from sin?BEST August 15, 1898, page 257.13

Be sure that all this is accomplished with you: then, and so, being “made free from sin,” you will become the servant of righteousness as surely as the Lord has spoken that glorious promise.BEST August 15, 1898, page 257.14

A. T. JONES.