Click on the image to see it full-screen.
Jonquils of winter’s solstice!
Epistle of Paul to the Romans 6: 12–23 (NIV)
12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. 13 Do not offer any part of yourself to sin as an instrument of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves 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. 14 For sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace.
15 What then? Shall we sin because we are not under the law but under grace? By no means! 16 Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one you obey – whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? 17 But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you have come to obey from your heart the pattern of teaching that has now claimed your allegiance. 18 You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.
19 I am using an example from everyday life because of your human limitations. Just as you used to offer yourselves as slaves to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer yourselves as slaves to righteousness leading to holiness. 20 When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness. 21 What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death! 22 But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. 23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Verse 15 is an extension of the question the Apostle Paul asked in verse 1: “What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning, so that grace may increase?” If we are convinced that Jesus Christ died so that our sins may be forgiven, swept away and forever eliminated in the view of God our Father, does this offer us the licence deliberately to continue to sin? Can we do so and present as our defence that the grace of God, manifested in the free gift of forgiveness won for us by the costly execution of Jesus on a cross, will continue to pour upon us regardless?
Paul has shown that the rejection of sin is the embracing of obedience (verse 16b). This does not mean obedience to the law in order to obtain forgiveness as was the situation under the law of Moses. Under the New Covenant, obedience is a consequence of forgiveness. The one who has been set free from sin and from the judgement which must follow has been brought from death to life (verse 13) and may enjoy a new life – in Christ. The newly-won righteousness sets the forgiven person on a path of sanctification leading step by step to holiness. The process of sanctification draws the forgiven one into a deepening desire towards obedience to the will of the Father.
Is it possible that this would lead to wilful disobedience? Paul’s argument is, “By no means!” (verse 15). F. F. Bruce has warned,* “To make being ‘under grace’ an excuse for sinning is a sign that one is not really ‘under grace’ at all.”
* F. F. Bruce, Romans, Tyndale New Testament Commentaries, IVP, Leicester England, 1983, p. 141.