Tuesday
Tuesday
Dead to Sin, Alive in Christ
What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase?
Romans 6:1
Twice in Romans 6 (vv. 1, 15) we hear Paul’s imaginary critic asking the same question: Does Paul mean by his teaching that we may go on sinning so that God’s grace may go on forgiving? Both times the apostle responds with an outraged “By no means!” Christians who ask such a question show that they have never understood the meaning of either their baptism (vv. 1–14) or their conversion (vv. 15–23).
Did they not know that their baptism signified union with Christ in his death, that his death was a death unto sin (meeting its demand and paying its penalty), and that they had shared in his resurrection too? By union with Christ they were themselves dead to sin but alive to God. How, then, could they go on living in what they had died to? It was similar with their conversion. Had they not decisively offered themselves to God as his slaves? How, then, could they contemplate lapsing into their old slavery to sin? Our baptism and conversion have both closed the door on the old life and opened a door to a new life. It is not impossible for us to go back, but it is inconceivable that we should. Far from encouraging sin, grace prohibits it.
It is not enough for us to utter our outraged negative “By no means!” We have to go further and confirm this negative with a reason, namely the necessity of remembering who we are on account of our conversion (inwardly) and our baptism (outwardly). We are one with Christ (vv. 1–14), and we are slaves of God (vv. 15–23). How, then, could we willfully persist in sin and presume on grace? The very thought is intolerable and a complete contradiction in terms. So we should constantly be reminding ourselves who we are. We need to learn to talk to ourselves and ask ourselves questions: “Don’t you know who you are? Don’t you know that you are united to Christ and enslaved to God?” We need to go on pressing ourselves with such questions until we reply to ourselves, “Yes, I do know who I am, a new person in Christ; and by the grace of God I mean to live accordingly.”
For further reading: Romans 6:1–23