"_Cancelled_" is a strong word. Let us lay hold upon its strength, and remember that it gives us not a dream, but a fact, to be found true in Christ. Let us not turn its fact into fallacy, by forgetting that, whatever "_cancel_" means, it does not mean that grace lifts us out of the body; that we are no longer to "_keep under the body, and bring it into subjection_," in the name of Jesus. Alas for us, if any promise, any truth, is allowed to "cancel" the call to watch and pray, and to think that in no sense is there still a foe within. But all the rather let us grasp, and use, the glorious positive in its place and time, which is everywhere and every day. Let us recollect, let us confess our faith, that thus it is with us, through Him who loved us. He died for us for this very end, that our "_body of sin_" might be wonderfully "_in abeyance_," as to the power of temptation upon the soul. Yes, as St Paul proceeds, =that henceforth we should not do bondservice to sin;= that from now onwards, from our acceptance in Him, from our realization of our union with Him, we should say to temptation a "_no_" that carries with it the power of the inward presence of the Risen Lord. Yes, for He has won that power for us in our Justification through His Death. He died for us, and we in Him, as to sin's claim, as to our guilt; and He thus died, as we have seen, on purpose that we might be not only legally accepted, but vitally united to Him. Such is the connexion of the following clause, strangely rendered in the English Version, and often therefore misapplied, but whose literal wording is, [Sidenote: Ver. 7.] =For he who died,= he who has died, =has been justified from his (τῆς) sin;= stands justified from it, stands free from its guilt. The thought is of the atoning Death, in which the believer is interested as if it were his own. And the implied thought is that, as that death is "fact accomplished," as "our old man" _was_ so effectually "crucified with Christ," therefore we may, we must, claim the spiritual freedom and power in the Risen One which the Slain One secured for us when He bore our guilt.