Shall we just indulge in sin because of God’s grace? – Friday, 20 April
| The message of what Jesus has done for us and is freely offering us (the gospel) is so amazing that when preached correctly you’ll often get responses like, so are you saying I can just go live in sin? The apostle Paul had to deal with this question and he answers it in the book of Romans. “What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? 2 God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?” Romans 6:1-2 King James Version Since God has forgiven us of all our sin and now we stand right before Him by faith and not by works (Romans 5:1) shall we indulge in sin? Paul answers this question with the strongest “no” that he could: God forbid! His reason? As believers we are now dead to sin, and since we’re dead to sin how could we live in sin any longer. Throughout Romans chapter 6 we see that as believers, we are dead to sin. In this chapter, the Greek word mostly used for sin is a noun. This shows us that Sin (the noun) is what we are dead to. The sin nature (the noun) is the driving force of sinful actions. As Christians, we do miss it sometimes and sin (verb) but we do not have a sinful nature (noun). We are now dead to the sinful nature and free to live in righteousness because of our new nature. “Could it be any clearer that our former identity is now and forever deprived of its power? For we were co-crucified with him to dismantle the stronghold of sin within us, so that we would not continue to live one moment longer submitted to sin’s power.” Romans 6:6 The Passion Translation We were sinners by birth – we had a sinful nature which propelled us to sin – but we got saved by grace and we are now righteous through the new birth (Romans 5:19)! We now have a righteous nature which propels us to live righteously. When we as Christians sin, it is not in accordance with our new nature and it causes conflict within us because in our spirits we know that we are no longer sinners and shouldn’t be living in sin. Yes, you get some Christians who sin and don’t seem to care and that is because they have hardened their hearts by repeatedly rejecting the inner voice of their new nature. God has forgiven them and loves them and will never abandon them (that’s grace- being treated better than we deserve) but as sin hardens their heart towards God, they pull away from intimacy with God. When you sin it doesn’t change God’s heart towards you, it changes your hearts towards God. “For by his sacrifice he died to sin’s power once and for all, but he now lives continuously for the Father’s pleasure. 11 So let it be the same way with you! Since you are now joined with him, you must continually view yourselves as dead and unresponsive to sin’s appeal while living daily for God’s pleasure in union with Jesus, the Anointed One.” Romans 6:10-11 The Passion Translation We are in Christ and thus dead to sin, with Him. We need to see ourselves as God sees us – no longer sinners but saints! Righteous ones! The more we renew our minds to who we now are in Christ, the more we will start to live free from sin for God’s pleasure! |
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