We are thus led, as by the Apostle’s own hand, to enter more immediately on the text. “Whether we live, we live unto the Lord.” It is the Lord, the Lord Jesus Christ, who hath done these marvellous things for us; He has removed from us the burden of the wrath of God; He has rescued us from the bondage of corruption, and changed the curse into a blessing; He has given unto us the Spirit of holiness, and thus re-created in our new-born soul the image of the righteous God. He moreover has dispelled the clouds that rested on the tomb, and has “brought life and immortality to light by the gospel.” And O remember the mighty cost, the precious sacrifice, by which He purchased us unto Himself. The eternal Son of God stooped down from heaven to earth; the Word, which was in the beginning with God and was God, was made flesh; “humbled Himself and became obedient unto death;” “bore our sins in His own body on the tree:” died and rose again, rose as the first fruits of a sleeping world. Thus have we “passed from death to life,” from nature to grace, from ruin to a state of salvation. And no believer can deny, that he is bound, “whatsoever he does in word or deed, to do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by Him.” Yet, brethren, it is not merely what we are bound to do or to be, as baptized into Christ and believing in His name; it is what we _are_, actually _are_, as partakers of His gospel, and cleansed by His blood. St. Paul says, “we live unto the Lord;” we _do_ so live as a matter of course and necessity: our life is altogether devoted to Him: such is the very meaning and essence of our Christian fellowship. Being His real property, “not our own, but bought with a price,” we place ourselves at His disposal: “our meat is to do the will of Him that sent us.” This is our decided character, by which we desire to be known; known of God and known of all men. “The life which we now live in the flesh we live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved us, and gave Himself for us.” It must unquestionably and inevitably be so, for “our life is hid with Christ in God;” this, if we are Christians, is the well-spring of our thoughts and desires and feelings and principles and habits; and though they contract a taste and taint of evil in their passage through the corrupt channel of nature, still do they always retain the proof and prevalence and ascendancy of their heaven-born character; and do clearly mark us, in the eyes of every spiritual and right-judging person, as members of Christ and children of God.