Ethics after Theology.
The doctrinal part of the Epistle is now finished and the practical part begins. This is the true and natural order.
I. IT IS IN THE SPHERE OF THE DOCTRINAL THAT WE FIND THE POWER THAT CARRIES US THROUGH ALL PRACTICAL DUTIES. In all the Epistles the duties enforced are grounded in the doctrines declared or explained. The doctrines are the reservoir which sends its stream of power down over the human life. The engineer scoops out a hollow space to be filled with water, constructs his machinery, and then lifts the sluice that sets all the machinery in motion. When the doctrines of grace have been fully expounded, the apostle lifts the sluice and lets on the stream that sends life spinning round and round in a course of holy activity. "I beseech you therefore, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice" (Romans 12:1).
II. IT IS NECESSARY TO INCULCATE CHRISTIAN DUTIES EVEN IN THE CASE OF CHRISTIANS. If the apostles did it, we must do it. It is only Antinomianism—resting on the doctrines of grace without watchfulness of the walk before God—that contests this principle. An Antinomian Bible would have no place for duties. Christianity includes duties as well as doctrines. It does not merely hold out a refuge to the guilty, but takes all who accept Christ under its supreme and exclusive direction. It evangelizes human life by impregnating its minutest transactions with the spirit of the gospel. But we must be always careful, in preaching the necessity of good works and in enforcing Christian duties, to ground them, as the Scriptures ground them, in the doctrines of grace.—T.C.