Grace living certainly has its own challenges. Some of the Pharisees were still attacking Christianity. One of their charges was that since they were not bound by the Law they could do whatever they wanted. They said that liberty became licence to sin. It is certainly a charge which would seem to have merit. After all, if we are saved apart from works and not bound by the law, and if forgiveness of sin portrays God’s grace, wouldn’t it make sense to sin so that God can show His grace. More sin – more grace!
Paul’s response was short, sweet, and to the point – me ginomai. It’s too bad that we don’t have an English translation for that phrase. If you were to ask 50 Greek scholars to translate that phrase you would probably get 51 translations. I am going to pick one out that I have read a lot – “no be.” To try to put that in English we can use it might be, “May this never be the case.” Modern translations use phrases like “Certainly not!” The KJV translators used almost an invective – “God forbid!” Today we might use a phrase like “No Way!!!!!” but even with capital letters, bold type, and multiple exclamation marks we wont get the essence of that me ginomoai means.
I think we get the point though. Grace is NEVER an excuse or a licence to sin. The rest of Romans 6 will tell us why, but for the moment we have the answer – is grace living a licence to sin?
No comments:
Post a Comment