Tuesday 12 February 2019

Continue in sin?

What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? God forbid! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it? – Romans 6.1-2

All of this stuff about how we are saved by grace through faith and that we our works can’t save us can sound great to our flesh. So doesn’t it make sense that we chould go ahead and keep sinning so that God can show us more grace? Party time?

Paul’s answer was pretty strong. The King James translators here used a powerful phrase to translate the Greek ‘no way.’ They chose the phrase ‘God forbid!’ Either way the word is a very emphatic –‘there absolutely is no way that you can possibly in any situation in any sense or in any measure ever’ in response to the question that we can ‘continue in sin that grace may abound.

The rest of the chapter goes in to talk about how that it is an impossible attitude to take. Twice more he addresses almost exaclty the same attitude.

Deliverance from the Law can never be seen as a licence to sin. Our liberty is never to be used to serve our flesh but to love each other and if we love each other we will not insist on our liberty and do anything to offend others. It would be as silly as it sounds to think that we can just continue on in sin to give God a chance to forgive us more.

Now, how are we that are dead to sin live any longer in sin?

No comments: