“Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me and I shall be whiter than snow…Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me” (Ps. 51: 7, 10)

When Christ shed His blood for us, He gave His life for us inasmuch as the blood is applied to us to cleanse us from all sin. In the death of Christ therefore, if we are crucified with Him, we receive His life as a substitute for our sinful life, which He takes upon Himself.

Our sins are remitted through faith in His blood, not as an arbitrary act, but because by faith we exchange lives with Him, and the life which we get in exchange has no sin. Our sinful life is swallowed up in His boundless life, because He has life so abundantly that He can die because of our transgressions, and still live again to give life to us.

Christ did not go through the pangs of death for nothing, nor did He give His life for us for the purpose of taking it away again. When He gives us His life, He designs that we should keep it forever. How do we get it? By faith. How do we keep it? By the same faith. “As you have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him” (Col. 2:6). His life can never end, but we may lose it by unbelief.

Let it be remembered that we don’t have this life in ourselves, but “this life is in His Son.” We keep the everlasting life by keeping Christ. People sometimes say that they can believe that God forgives their sins, but they find it difficult to believe that He can keep them for sin. Well, if there is any difference, the latter is the easier of the two; for the forgiveness of sin requires the death of Christ, while the saving form sins requires only His continued life.

Think what was in the life of Christ. As we have the record in the New Testament, we shall know what ought to be in our lives now. If we allow Him to dwell in us, He will live just as He did then. If there is something in our lives that was not then in His, we may be sure that He is not living it in us now.

Waggoner, Waggoner on Romans, pp.96,97