Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 1482
Delivered on Lord’s-Day Morning, July 6, 1879
“Being then made free from sin, you became the servants of righteousness.” Romans 6:18.
MAN was made to rule. In the Divine original he was intended for a king who should have dominion over the beasts of the field, the fowl of the air and the fish of the sea. He was designed to be the lord-lieutenant of this part of creation and the form of his body and the dignity of his countenance indicated it. He walks erect among the animals, while they move upon all fours. He subjugates and tames them to perform his will and the fear and dread of him is upon all creatures, for they know their sovereign.
Yet is it equally true that man was made to serve. At his beginning he was placed in the garden to keep it, to dress it and so to serve his Maker. His natural feebleness, his dependence upon rain, sun and dew—his instinctive awe of an unseen and Omnipotent Spirit indicate that he is not the chief of the universe, but a subordinate being whose lot it is to serve. We find within man various powers and propensities seeking to get dominion over him so that his mind is also capable of servitude. The appetites which are essential for the sustenance of his bodily frame, even such as eating and drinking, endeavor to master him—and if they can, they will do so—and reduce him below the level of the swine. Man is in part spirit, but he is also in part animal—and the animal strives to get dominion over the spiritual—and in many, many men it does so till they are utterly degraded.
Nothing can be worse than a soul enslaved by such a body as that of man! The brute nature of man is the worst sort of brute. There is no beast in wolf, or lion, or serpent that is so brutish as the beast in man. Did I not tell you last Sunday that whereas, according to the Levitical Law, he that touched a dead animal was unclean till the evening, he who touched a dead man was unclean seven days? For man, when his animal nature rules him, is seven times more a polluting creature than any of the beasts of the field! If evil aims at ruling man, the good Spirit also strives with him. When God, in His infinite mercy, visits man by His Spirit, that Spirit does not come as a neutral power to dwell quietly within man and to share His heart with the Prince of Darkness—He enters with full intent to reign!
Therefore there is a conflict which cannot be ended by an armistice, but must be carried on to the end. And that end will be found either in the driving out of the evil or in the thrusting out of the good—for one or the other, either the Prince of Darkness or the King of Light—will have dominion over man. Man must have a master! He cannot serve two masters, but he must serve one. Of all sorts of men this has been true and it has, perhaps, been most clearly seen in those who were evidently made to lead their fellow men. It is specially seen in such a man, for instance, as Alexander, a true king of men, so heroic and great-hearted that one does not wonder that armies were fired with enthusiasm by his presence and drove everything before them.
Alexander conquered the world and yet on occasions he became the captive of drunkenness and the slave of his passionate temper. At such times the king of men, the vanquisher of armies was little better than a raving maniac! Look for further illustration at the busts of the emperors of Rome, the masters of the world. Study their faces and mark what groveling creatures they must have been! Rome had many slaves, but he who wore her purple was the most in bonds. No slave that ground at the mill, or died in the amphitheatre, was more in bondage than such men as Tiberius and Nero who were the bond-slaves of their passions!
High rank does not save a man from being under a master—neither does learning nor philosophy deliver men from this bondage, for the teachers of liberty have not, themselves, been free, but it has happened as the Apostle says, “while they promise them liberty they themselves are the servants of corruption.” Solomon himself, with all his wisdom, played the fool and though he was the most sagacious ruler of his age, he became, for a while, completely subject to his fleshly desires. Man is born to be a servant and a servant he must be!
Who shall be his master? That is the question! Our text proves the point with which I have started, for it speaks of “being made free from sin” and in the same breath adds, “You became the servants of righteousness.” There is no in-between—there does not appear to be a moment left for an independent state, but out of one servitude we pass into another. Do not think I made a mistake in the use of the word, servitude! I might have translated the Greek word by that of slave and have been correct. “Being made free from sin, you were enslaved to righteousness.” The Apostle makes an excuse for using the figure and says, “I speak after the manner of men, because of the infirmity of your flesh.”