What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. Romans 6
Where there is one side of the coin there is always the other. There are those who, if they were to read my last post, would be aghast. They would be sure that I am one of those loose Christians who advocates lawlessness because of cheap grace. Au contraire.
Having established that the grace of the Gospel covers all of our sins in Romans 5, Paul goes on, in Romans 6, to anticipate the question of leaving the door open for Christians to sin and sin since grace covers it all. That's the point of those first two questions quoted above, followed by, 'Are you crazy!' (Ben-Ezra paraphrase) Paul then goes on to explain his answer. You'll note that he doesn't say that Christians should not sin it up ('continue in sin') because it's a bad idea, or God's Law is against it, or that the reality of one's salvation would then be in question. What he says is quite different and quite freeing. We Christians should not live that way because we don't have to. We can live in a way that is so much better. And we can do this because we've been changed - changed in a fundamental way. We have died to sin. Being baptized into Christ means that we have died to that kind of living. We are different people. We have been freed from that deadly way of life. And just to be clear, Paul does not mean this in some merely psychological or sociological sense. That's just change on the outside. The change that Paul is referring to is a change deep in our being, change that is all about the soul. We have been given new life, the new life of the Spirit. We were once dead in our trespasses, but now we walk in newness of life. That is, we live in a way that is new. It's new to us because we now have life. That is, now we know God. Now the Spirit of God lives in us. Now our eyes are no longer blinded so we can see realities that we could not see before. Now we have the power to do what is right. The process of change has begun, and it won't end until our bodies are resurrected and are rejoined to souls that will have been perfected. So, while the only choice available to a person before he became a Christian was to sin, after he comes to Jesus he can choose to obey. He has been changed.
This change of our nature lies behind Paul's exhortation later in Romans 6. 'So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.' Paul is not telling us that we need to play some mind games, to make believe some things about ourselves. No, just as he does elsewhere, he is telling the saints to be who they are. We are dead to sin and alive to God. And since that is the case, says Paul, then live like it. We have been freed from sin and the death that it brings. We have been brought near to the Father to enjoy all that that means. So, says Paul, live like the saints that you really are. Enjoy God and the eternal life that he has given you.
So, between what Paul writes at the end of Romans 5 and what he writes in the beginning of Romans 6 we can see something of the beauty of the grace of God given to us in Jesus. It's time for more of the saints to enjoy that grace.