As a testimony to the power of grace against the enemy of sin, Paul sees the need to defuse a grievously wrong concept concerning grace. A false concept and a deviant application of God’s all-powerful grace is to engage in a life of sin. Paul had just written the Romans that God’s grace is greater than sin.
“Where sin increased, grace increased all the more.” – Romans 5:20
But, if the greatness of God’s grace causes a person to conclude:
“We should go on sinning so that grace may increase!” (from Romans 6:1)
Paul’s response is an absolute: “By no means!”
We are the people who have died to sin when we renounced it at the point of faith in Christ. The presence of sin remains in us and around us, but as far as our relational status with sin, we
are dead. We will no longer cooperate with sin. And, when we do sin we consider it failure and
do not accept it as the modus operandi.
Because this is our attitude, we accept Paul’s advice when he tells us:
“Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires.”
So, we cooperate with righteousness. We are alive to righteousness and we seek to make righteousness our daily method of operation. So, we will offer ourselves:
“…to God as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer every part of yourself to him as an instrument of righteousness."
|
