1. 1. ROMA S 6 COMME TARY EDITED BY GLENN PEASE I TRODUCTIO 1. Barnes, THE argument commenced in this chapter is continued through the two following. The general design is the same--to show that the scheme of justification which God had adopted does not lead men to sin, but, on the contrary, to holiness. This is introduced by answering an objection, Romans 6:1Romans 6:1Romans 6:1 . The apostle pursues this subject by various arguments and illustrations, all tending to show that the design and bearing of the scheme of justification was to produce the hatred of sin, and the love and practice of holiness. 2. Dr. Ray Pritchard, Romans 5 speaks of justification. Romans 6 is talking about sanctification. Romans 5 explains how God declares people righteous. Romans 6 explains how God makes people righteous. Those distinctions are crucial for you to know. Justification is that act whereby God declares you righteous in his eyes. Sanctification is that act whereby God makes you righteous. But those things are not the same: Justification happens at the moment you trust Christ and is never repeated. Sanctification happens moment-by-moment as you surrender your life to the Lord. Justification delivers from the penalty of sin. Sanctification delivers from the power of sin. Justification is an event. Sanctification is a process. Justification happens once and only once. Sanctification is gradual and continuous. Justification cannot be repeated. Sanctification must be repeated. Justification is the work of a moment. Sanctification is the work of a lifetime. Justification gives you the merit of Christ.
2. 2. Sanctification gives you the character of Christ. These two doctrines are distinct yet inseparably related. Justification leads to sanctification. Those who are truly born again are led of the Spirit into a life of growing holiness. This is the true connection between Romans 5 and 6. Romans 5 describes how we are brought into a right relationship with God while Romans 6 tells of the changed life which must issue from that new relationship with God. So, then, these two chapters are distinct yet joined by a natural progression of thought. 3. Ray Stedman, Verses 1-14 of the sixth chapter of Romans are the most important fourteen verses in Scripture, insofar as being delivered from enduring the Christian life to enjoying it is concerned. There is a difference between possessing eternal life, which all Christians have, and possessing that abundant life which the Lord came to give. 4. Hodge, As the gospel reveals the only effectual method of justification, so also it alone can secure the sanctification of men. To exhibit this truth is the object of this and the following chapter. The sixth is partly argumentative, and partly exhortatory. In vs. 1 11, the apostle shows how unfounded is the objection, that gratuitous justification leads to the indulgence of sin. In vs. 12 23, he exhorts Christians to live agreeably to the nature and design of the gospel ; and presents various considerations adapted to secure their obedience to this exhortation. Dead to Sin, Alive in Christ 1. What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? Phillips: Now what is our response to be? Shall we sin to our heart's content and see how far we can exploit the grace of God? Wuest: What then shall we say? Shall we habitually sustain an attitude of dependence upon, yieldedness to, and cordiality with the sinful nature in order that grace may abound? Barclay, As he has so often done in this letter, Paul is once again carrying on an argument against a kind of imaginary opponent. The argument springs from the great saying at the end of the last chapter: "Where sin abounded, grace super abounded." It runs something like this. The Objector: You have just said that God's grace is great enough to find
3. 3. forgiveness for every sin. Paul: That is so. The Objector: You are, in fact, saying that God's grace is the most wonderful thing in all this world. Paul: That is so. The Objector: Well, if that is so, let us go on sinning. The more we sin, the more grace will abound. Sin does not matter, for God will forgive anyway. In fact we can go further than that and say that sin is an excellent thing, because it gives the grace of God a chance to operate. The conclusion of your argument is that sin produces grace; therefore sin is bound to be a good thing if it produces the greatest thing in the world. Paul's first reaction is to recoil from that argument in sheer horror. "Do you suggest," he demands, "that we should go on sinning in order to give grace more chance to operate? God forbid that we should pursue so incredible a course as that." It is all about how we use our freedom in Christ. He has set us free from the law, and its judgments. He has liberated us from the bondage to sin, and if the Son makes us free, we are free indeed. So does that mean we can take advantage of this freedom to enjoy the pre-Christian life as well as the Christian life? Can we still keep one foot in the world and live just like our non-Christian friends and neighbors? There are some sins that are still attractive to us, and so why give them up when they are so easily forgiven by God's abundant grace? Man, even redeemed man, sees a flaw in God's plan, for it seems that he has left the door open for us to still enjoy the pleasures of sin as children of God. Why not take advantage of the glitch in the program that lets us have our cake and eat it too? John Macarthur, Now to people who spent their whole life in a system that said you not only have to earn your salvation but you have to keep it by doing good that sounded like absolute license. That sounded like a horrible thing because "You're actually saying that once I've accepted this gift, no matter how much I sin His grace will forgive it? Aren't you just setting people free to live sinful lives, because it's all paid for? It's like giving a child an unlimited bank account and saying 'no matter what you want, no matter what you do, I'll cover it all,' and then turning them loose. You'd have to be insane to do such a thing. You'd have to realize that there would be a tremendous temptation to abuse with such magnanimity. Isn't that what we are to understand about this offer of gracious salvation? Isn't this setting people off on a life of sin, because they know it's all covered?" In fact, chapter 5 and verse 20 toward the end of the verse, Paul said it is true that where sin increased grace abounded. The more sin, the more grace. Well that even compounds it more. If God is glorified by being gracious, then maybe we ought to sin the more so He can be the more gracious and get the more glory for His grace. The whole thing seems like a formula for disaster. Is that what Christian theology teaches? Is that really the Gospel? Are we really inviting people to a life of free sin with a promise it'll all be forgiven and just turning people loose? I suppose even in the Gentile world of Rome there were religious systems there who had very high ethical standards and the conformity to those standards was how it had to be if you wanted to please the gods. Nobody that I
4. 4. know of in terms of ethnology or religious history had ever taught anything like this. That all your sins are always going to be forgiven by grace. That just seemed too liberating, too freeing. And so it's against that backdrop, that Paul writes chapter six. Because people are going to accuse him of preaching a message of liberty, a message of license, a message that leads to abuse, a message that leads to free wheeling sinfulness knowing it's all going to be covered. He has an answer for that. His answer for is this in verse two. "How shall we who died to sin still live in it?" His point is this; our life is not going to be the same. We're not going to go on living in sin because we've been saved by grace. Why? Because we have died, we have died to sin. Something has happened to us. Our salvation is not just a declaration from God, although it is a declaration, it's not just that. It's not just God saying "O.K. I'll forgive your sin because you believe in Me and My Son." It's not just God saying "I have granted you My Son's righteousness, I have clothed you in the righteousness of Jesus Christ, I have put His righteousness on you because of your faith." It's not just a declaration of that. It's not that God has just imputed to us righteousness. There's something else here. That imputed righteousness, the fact that He puts Christ's righteousness to our account, is certainly true and that's been His discussion in chapter five. But in chapter six He goes beyond that and he says salvation is not just forensic; it's not just a court declaration, it's not just God saying you're not guilty, it's also a transformation so what you are in position before God you are in reality. And that takes place, verse two says, through a death. When a person comes to Christ there's a death that takes place. And He says it's dying to sin. Now this is not describing a process, this is not describing a state of being; it is describing a historical event. When you were saved you died, when you committed your life to Christ you died. There was an event with finality that took place. So no longer are you living in the same sphere. Clarke, It is very likely that these were the words of a believing Gentile, who - having as yet received but little instruction, for he is but just brought out of his heathen state to believe in Christ Jesus - might imagine, from the manner in which God had magnified his mercy, in blotting out his sin on his simply believing on Christ, that, supposing he even gave way to the evil propensities of his own heart, his transgressions could do him no hurt now that he was in the favor of God. And we need not wonder that a Gentile, just emerging from the deepest darkness, might entertain such thoughts as these; when we find that eighteen centuries after this, persons have appeared in the most Christian countries of Europe, not merely asking such a question, but defending the doctrine with all their might; and asserting in the most unqualified manner, that believers were under no obligation to keep the moral law of God; that Christ had kept it for them; that his keeping it was imputed to them; and that God, who had exacted it from Him, who was their surety and representative, would not exact it from them, forasmuch as it would be injustice to require two payments for one debt. These are the Antinomians who once flourished in this land, and whose race is not yet utterly extinct. BARNES, "What shall we say then? - This is a mode of presenting an objection. The objection refers to what the apostle had said in Rom_5:20. What shall we say to such a sentiment as that where sin abounded grace did much more abound? Shall we continue in sin? ... - If sin has been the occasion of grace and favor, ought we not to continue in it, and commit as much as possible, in order that grace might
5. 5. abound? This objection the apostle proceeds to answer. He shows that the consequence does not follow; and proves that the doctrine of justification does not lead to it. GILL, "What shall we say then?.... The apostle here obviates an objection he saw would be made against the doctrine he had advanced, concerning the aboundings of the grace of God in such persons and places, where sin had abounded; which if true, might some persons say, then it will be most fit and proper to continue in a sinful course of life, to give up ourselves to all manner of iniquity, since this is the way to make the grace of God abound yet more and more: now says the apostle, what shall we say to this? how shall we answer such an objection? shall we join with the objectors, and say as they do? and shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? that is, shall we persist in a vicious way of living with this view, that the grace of God may be magnified hereby? is it right to commit sin on such an account? or is this a fair inference, a just consequence, drawn from the doctrine of grace? To be sure it was not, the objection is without any ground and foundation; sin is not "per se", the cause of the glorifying God's grace, but "per accidens": sin of itself is the cause of wrath, and not of grace; but God has been pleased to take an occasion of magnifying his grace, in the forgiveness of sin: for it is not by the commission of sin, but by the pardon of it, that the grace of God is glorified, or made to abound. Moreover, grace in conversion is glorified by putting a stop to the reign of sin, and not by increasing its power, which would be done by continuing in it; grace teaches men not to live in sin, but to abstain from it; add to this, that it is owing to the want of grace, and not to the aboundings of it, that men at any time abuse, or make an ill use of the doctrines of grace; wherefore the apostle's answer is, HENRY, "The apostle's transition, which joins this discourse with the former, is observable: What shall we say then? Rom_6:1. What use shall we make of this sweet and comfortable doctrine? Shall we do evil that good may come, as some say we do? Rom_3:8. Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Shall we hence take encouragement to sin with so much the more boldness, because the more sin we commit the more will the grace of God be magnified in our pardon? Is this a use to be made of it? No, it is an abuse, and the apostle startles at the thought of it (Rom_6:2): God forbid; far be it from us to think such a thought. He entertains the objection as Christ did the devil's blackest temptation (Mat_4:10): Get thee hence, Satan. Those opinions that give any countenance to sin, or open a door to practical immoralities, how specious and plausible soever they be rendered, by the pretension of advancing free grace, are to be rejected with the greatest abhorrence; for the truth as it is in Jesus is a truth according to godliness, Tit_1:1. The apostle is very full in pressing the necessity of holiness in this chapter, which may be reduced to two heads: - His exhortations to holiness, which show the nature of it; and his motives or arguments to enforce those exhortations, which show the necessity of it. JAMISON, "Rom_6:1-11. The bearing of justification by grace upon a holy life. What, etc. The subject of this third division of our Epistle announces itself at once in the opening question, Shall we (or, as the true reading is, May we, Are we to) continue in sin, that grace may abound? Had the apostles doctrine been that salvation depends in any degree upon our good works, no such objection to it could have been
6. 6. made. Against the doctrine of a purely gratuitous justification, the objection is plausible; nor has there ever been an age in which it has not been urged. That it was brought against the apostles, we know from Rom_3:8; and we gather from Gal_5:13; 1Pe_2:16; Jud_1:4, that some did give occasion to the charge; but that it was a total perversion of the doctrine of Grace the apostle here proceeds to show. John Macarthur, There are some through the years that have actually taught that sin still resides in your flesh and since your flesh is unredeemed, you have no control over it anyway so don't worry about it. You can't stop it from being what it is. You can't change it from being what it is. It's going to do what it does and it's not something to be worried about. This has through the years been called Antinomianism from the Greek nomos, law. It's against the law. It's the idea of living without regard for God's holy law. There have always been people who have wanted to corrupt the church with this kind of thinking. For example, Jude says certain persons have crept in unnoticed, ungodly persons who turn the grace of our God into licentiousness and deny therefore our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ. This is a Christ-denying idea that you can be justified and not sanctified. Paul wants to deal a death blow to that Antinomianism and he wants to do it, and he does it without yielding an inch of ground who would deny...to those who would deny that God's grace is sufficient for salvation. Paul wants to say that salvation is all of grace. That is true. And where sin abounds, grace much more abounds. But without denying that, he also wants to say that when you are justified, when you are saved, you will be a new creation and you will have a completely different relationship to sin. Not a relationship that tolerates sin, or allows sin, but a relationship to God that is characterized by one who has no tolerance for sin and is marked by holiness rather than sinfulness. Scripture actually makes it plain from Genesis through Revelation that a saving relationship to God is linked to holy living, that to be saved is to be transformed by the power of God working in and through your innermost being so that everything changes...your heart changes and this heart change is as much a gift from God as is your justification. The life that basically makes no move toward holiness, that life that is not marked by holiness has no claim to salvation. If you're not being sanctified, then you can make no claim to having been justified. the Apostle moves perilously close to the edge of an abyss when he says, "Where grace....where sin abounds, grace much more abounds," he runs the risk of somebody saying, "O good, then let's sin more so God can put more grace on display." And that could push Paul over the edge into the abyss of error. If more grace is manifested where there is more sin, then let sin go and let grace overwhelm it. Why should Christians bother to be pure? Why not go on sinning that the supply of grace might be increased and God therefore glorified in the display of grace, This is not something that's merely hypothetical. A notable historical instance of the abuse of Paul's teaching can be seen in the famous Russian monk named Rasputin who you may remember was the evil genius of the Romanoff family in the last years of its
7. 7. power in Russia. Rasputin taught and exemplified the doctrine of salvation through repeated experiences of sin and repentance. He held and taught that as those who sinned most require most forgiveness, a sinner who continues to sin with abandon enjoys every time he repents more of God's grace than any other ordinary sinner so sin more so God can show more grace, says Rasputin. That is, of course, Antinomianism run amok. This is an advocating of complete moral freedom. No law in the name of grace, you can do everything you want. And as I said, added to that is a familiar idea that crept in to dispensational circles in years past that basically said your flesh is your flesh, you can't do anything about it anyway, so let it go. Paul's critics have already accused him of preaching a message of grace that opened the way to tolerating sin. Back in chapter 3 of Romans and verse 8, Paul says, "Then why not say as we are slanderously reported and as some affirm that we say, let us do evil that good may come?" They were condemning Paul's gospel of grace because they saw it as a way to encourage people and motivate people to do evil so good can come from it. Obviously the Jews who were devoted to keeping the law, who were fastidious and careful about every law, every minute ordinance and tradition that they had developed believed that this was the only way to please God and earn favor with God and to earn your own salvation and your own entrance into the Kingdom was what they were after. And for someone to come along and say all of that is manure, all of that is useless, all of that you have to forsake and set aside, salvation is by grace alone through faith alone and that salvation is available to the lowliest and the worst and the most wretched and the most reprobate of all, and where that sin abounds, grace will much more abound to the one who believes. This seemed to the Jew, to the legalistic Jew like nothing other than Antinomianism. And so, they accused of him saying, "Let evil abound so good may come." They grew up trying to define their righteousness by adherence to the Law of Moses. And now comes the Apostle Paul and other Christian preachers saying, "Forget trying to get to God through the keeping of the Law, it's all by grace." God justifies, Paul said in Romans, the ungodly, not the godly, not the righteous, not the holy, not the self-made, he justifies the ungodly. Paul is saying, "However, that does not lead to lawlessness." Wayne Barber says that... In Ro 6:1 the Apostle Paul has anticipated a question being asked by those who see grace as a license to sinthe Antinomians. These were the party-goers. "Im under graceI can do what I want to do! Im free in JesusI can do what I want to do." Freedom is not the license to do what you want to do, to do what you please. Its the power to do as you should. Its a totally different thought. The Antinomians would take what Paul said and try to pervert it...You see, a lot of people still think, "I made a decision years ago. I walked the aisle. I cried big tears and asked God to forgive me. Im a Christian now, and I can live like I want to live because of Gods grace. He saved me, and He forgave me." Hold it! Hold it! What were you saved from and what were you saved to? You must understand what Paul is saying here. There is no possible way a Christian can go back and live the lifestyle he lived when he was in Adam. Because he is not in Adam any more. He is now in Christ. That is the question he anticipates, and he
8. 8. is going to answer it. (Wayne Barber ) Wuest adds... So Paul proposes the question, What shall we say then?say then to what? We go back to Ro 5:20 for our answer which we find in the apostles statement, Where sin abounded, there grace was in superabundance, and then some on top of that. (Pauls teaching is that no matter how much sin committed, there are always unlimited resources of grace in the great heart of God by which to extend mercy to the sinning individual) The objectors thought was as follows; Paul, do you mean to tell me that God is willing to forgive a persons sins as often as he commits them? In response to Pauls affirmative answer, this legalist says in effect, Well then, if that is the case, shall we Christians keep on habitually sinning in order that God may have an opportunity to forgive us and thus display His grace? That is the background of this mans reasoning." (Wuest, K. S. Wuest's Word Studies from the Greek ew Testament: Studies in the Vocabulary of the Greek ew Testament: Grand Rapids: Eerdmans ) Bob Deffinbaugh makes a comment that "There is a corollary to the principle that grace always outruns and exceeds sin, and it is this: sin always seeks to use that which is good to promote evil." Interesting thought! (Romans 6:1-14 An End to the Reign of Death ) Peter may have been referring to passages like this when he wrote that in some of Paul's letters there "are some things hard to understand, which the untaught and unstable distort (twist or dislocate the limbs on a rack = singularly graphic word applied to the perversion of scripture), as they do also the rest of the Scriptures, to their own destruction." (see note 2 Peter 2:16 ) It seems like a logical question when it is taught that salvation is by grace and not by works. If I can just have faith and not do what makes me worthy, why not continue in sin, for that just exalts grace all the more. It is all of God and not me, and so I can just as well continue in my life of sin and still enjoy salvation by grace. It is a gift, and I can't earn it, and so why bother to try. I can just go on sinning and let the grace of God cover it all. This is the risk involved in God making salvation so easy, for it can lead to people trying to take advantage of God's grace. Paul's point in this passage is that such thinking is ignoring the whole point that God has in saving us by his grace through faith and not by the works of the law. Man could never be free of the law and sin by that method, and so by grace God would liberate man so he could escape the bondage of sin. God's goal was to enable us to be dead to sin, and not alive to it, which was the case under the law. Salvation by grace is not to multiply sin, but to eliminate it in a way the law could never accomplish. Dr. Ray Pritchard, Paul begins with a question, What shall we say, then? Shall we
9. 9. go on sinning that grace may increase? That seems like an odd question, doesnt it? In order to understand it properly, we need to learn a new wordantinomianism. Thats a word that is itself made up of two shorter words"anti meaning against, and nomos meaning the law. An antinomian is a person who is against the law. Antinomianism describes a point of view that we might call Spiritual Lawlessness. An antinomian is a person who wants to live life unencumbered by any rules whatsoever. You might call such a person a Christian hedonist. He follows the credo only believe and do as you please. This is the person who says, I know Im going to heaven when I die, therefore it doesnt matter how I live in the meantime or As long as I am a Christian, I am free to do whatever I want. ot only does this person not want the Ten Commandments, he doesnt want any commandments at all. He claims to love God while at the same time living in sin. He claims to follow Jesus but doesnt want to live by his teachings. Evidently some believers in the early church were teaching that once you were justified, you were free to live as you please. This perverted view of Christian liberty led some people to claim that by sinning they were actually increasing the grace of God, because when they sin, God forgave them, thus their sin increased Gods grace! Its a clever, sneaky way of justifying wrong-doing. That way of thinking is probably the one great objection to the doctrine of eternal security. If you believe that, why not go out and live in sin? After all, you know youre going to heaven. Unfortunately, some believers have done exactly that. They have engaged in grossly sinful behavior and dismissed it because they believe their salvation is still secure. Calvin, The Apostle now takes notice of that most common objection against the preaching of divine grace, which is this, That if it be true, that the more bountifully and abundantly will the grace of God aid us, the more completely we are overwhelmed with the mass of sin; then nothing is better for us than to be sunk into the depth of sin, and often to provoke Gods wrath with new offenses; for then at length we shall find more abounding grace; than which nothing better can be desired. The refutation of this we shall here after meet with. David Bartlett ow that he's said this, Paul begins to wonder about what his audience might think. "If sin is the occasion for grace, perhaps we should just keep on sinning so that God might go on showing us God's grace." Imagine the Prodigal Son come home from the far country and discovering not only forgiveness but feast. What if six months later he decides, "That worked so well, I'll just head for the far country again. The greater the sin, the greater the grace." Paul's answer to this query is in two parts. Part one is as rhetorical as "what shall we say about this?" He says; "God forbid!" (Romans 6:2a) Or, "You've got to be kidding."
10. 10. William Loader But in Romans 6 he begins again. As in 3:8 he seems to be directly addressing one of the accusations levelled against him: Paul's gospel of free grace, they say, offers no incentive for people to change their ways; on the contrary it rewards sin by promising free grace. Paul protests that this is absurd (it is also grossly unfair to Paul - but Paul isn't reacting out of a hurt ego here). He brings the hearers back to what most of them experienced as adults when they converted. Their personal response of faith was celebrated in a communal event, baptism, in which they joined themselves not only to the community of faith but also to its central story. Paul's spirituality is focused on becoming what you can now be on the basis of this new foundation grounded in love and faith alone. He will go on to show that people who live from this source end up more than fulfilling what the biblical commandments require (8:4), but not on the basis of trying to keep commandments, but rather on the basis of letting the love which set them on their feet continue to generate its life in them. Grace is not freedom to sin, but freedom to not sin. Stedman, The book of Romans is a tremendous revelation of what happens in the believer's life when he comes to Christ. The opening two verses of Romans 6 make it very clear that the apostle is dealing with the question of whether the believer can go on living in sin after he has come to Christ. Can he go on in a lifestyle that is basically wrong and sinful? Can he live as an alcoholic, or a swindler, or an adulterer, or a homosexual, or a slanderer? Is it possible to maintain such a lifestyle and be a Christian? The apostle's answer -- as we have already seen in the first two verses -- is, "By no means!" {Rom 6:2a NIV}. It is impossible, Paul says, because, as he puts it in these four little words, "We died to sin," {Rom 6:2b NIV}. Paul's conclusion is: "How can we go on living in it any longer?" {Rom 6:2c NIV}. OLSHAUSEN For firstly, there are never wanting persons who, in fact, misunderstand this holy doctrine, and through misunderstanding misuse it. Whe- ther it be that stupidity, or which is perhaps more common, more or less unconscious impurity is the cause, certain it is that many construe the doctrine of justification as though they now had leave to live on quietly in sin, as if Christ would make a man blessed with sin, which is itself unblessedness, and not from sin. No one has ever consciously taught such doctrine, because it is in fact too absurd for the lowest grade of spiritual development not to ac- knowledge the perverseness of it ; but insincerity of heart makes Digitized by Google 208 EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS. the consciences of many dull, and in such a state they apply the doctrine falsely, and turn grace to wantonness. (Jude ver. 4.) But, secondly, this treatise is no less important, because the opponents of the doctrine of justification regard this abuse of it as one neces- sary to it, and essentially founded in it, and think themselves obliged therefore to combat the doctrine as an extremely dangerous one. In this error are found not merely all thorough rationalistic- pelagian theologists, but others also, who with no living experience of the nature of faith and of justification, are animated by a kind of legal
11. 11. jealousy, and flatter themselves that by their own effort they can soon attain, if they do not already exhibit the type of absolute perfection. For every one, however, who is willing to see, the apostolic doctrine may, under the guidance of this section, with very little pains be perfectly justified ; on the other hand, indeed, no help is to be found against impurity of heart, or against the con- ceit of self-righteousness, unless grace itself reveals to hearts their secret sins ; at least the statement of the Apostle has not itself been able to prevent the errors either of the former or of the latter. Meanwhile the Scripture fulfils even by this inability one of its purposes, that, namely, of becoming, like Christ himself, the fall oi many (Luke ii. 34), not to destroy them, but by revealing to them their most secret sins of impurity, or of conceited self-confidence, to save them. Ver. 1,2. Without noticing any particular party such as Jews or Jew Christians only the Apostle proposes the question quite generally, as one proceeding from impurity of heart in general, whether according to what had been said the meaning be, that sin could be continued in, in order to let grace have its full power ? He answers this question most decidedly in the negative, by de- signating the faithful as those who are dead with respect to sin, who cannot therefore live in it any more.* This idea of the faithful being dead, Paul carries through to ver. 11, and that in such a manner as to regard the death of Christ not merely as a symbol of the death of the faithful, but as a real event in themselves, of which they are partakers, as they are also of His resurrection So Calvin, when he justly observes : " Plusquam igitur praepostera esset operis Dei inversio, si occasione gratis, qua nobis in Chris to offertur, peccatum vires colligeret. Neque enim medicina morbi, quern extinguit, fomentum est." Yet man can hardly believe in the power of Christ without law ; hence Luther says well : The multitude will have a Moses with horns;" that is, t!.e law with its frightening power. Spurgeon, Paul finishes the last chapter by saying, That as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. What shall we say, then? What inference shall we draw from the superabounding of grace over sin? >>> The fifth chapter ends up in this way, that where sin abounded, etc... Jesus Christ our Lord. Then he goes on to say, What shall we say then? What inference shall we draw from the fact that where sin abounded, grace did much more abound? Shall we be base enough to draw a wicked inference from a gracious statement? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? It is a horrible suggestion, and yet it is one which has come into the minds of many men, for some men are bad enough for anything; they will curdle the sweet milk of love into the sourest argument for sin. Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid. With all the vehemence of his nature, he saith: >>> This seems to be a very plausible temptation, it is one which frequently came in the apostles way, and therefore he very often had to denounce it. It is one of the vilest suggestions of Satan that could possibly come to men. >>> If the sinfulness of man has really given an opportunity for the display of divine mercy, then thedevilslogic would be, Let uscommit moresin, that theremaymercy, then thedevilslogic would be, Let uscommit moresin, that theremaymercy, then thedevilslogic would be, Let uscommit moresin, that theremaymercy, then thedevilslogic would be, Let uscommit moresin, that theremay be more room for grace to work. But Christians have learned their reasoning in
12. 12. another school, and to such diabolical arguments they answer in the words of the apostle: >>> Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? That were very horrible inference. It is one great instance of the shocking depravity of man that the inference has been drawn sometimes, I hope not often, for surely Satan himself might scarcely draw an inference of licentiousness from love. Still, some have drawn it. Ray Stedman,Last week, after we studied Romans 5, I was told of an individual who claims that he has the right to go on living in a blatantly sinful way because, he says, his sins are forgiven. Last week I heard of a man in this congregation who admitted that he was a homosexual and was living as one. He claimed that he did not need to make any change in his life because, as a Christian, his sins are forgiven. I just quote these to show you that this is not an out-of-date question, but one we all wrestle with and one that we must confront First, notice that the question is logical. "Shall we go on sinning in order that grace may increase?" That is a very good question to ask. If your teaching or preaching of the gospel does not arouse this question in somebody's mind, there is likely something wrong with your teaching, for it is the kind of question that ought to be asked at this point. There is something about the grace of God and the glory of the good news that immediately raises this issue. If sin is so completely taken care of by the forgiveness of Christ, then we don't really need to worry about sins, do we? They are not going to separate us from Christ, so why not keep on doing them? It is a perfectly logical question. It was raised everywhere Paul went, and it is a question that ought to be faced. But, second, notice that even our very nature would have us raise this question. It is not only logical, but it is also natural. That is because sin, basically, is fun, isn't it? Oh, come on -- you can admit it! Sin is fun. We like to do it. Otherwise we wouldn't keep on doing it, we would not get involved in it. We know sins are bad for us. Our mind tells us, our logic tells us, our experience tells us they are bad for us. But, nevertheless, we like to do them. Otherwise we would not. Therefore, any kind of a suggestion that tells us we can escape the penalty for our sin and still enjoy the action arouses a considerable degree of interest in us. It does in me, anyway. So it is quite natural that this question would come up. We must clearly understand that the Apostle Paul is talking about a lifestyle of sin, not just a single act or two of failure. He is talking about Christians who go on absolutely unchanged in their lifestyle from what they were before they were Christians. The word for "go on sinning" is in the present continuous tense. It means the action keeps on happening. The question is, "Can we go on sinning?" Verse 15 of this chapter deals with the effects of a single act of sin in a believer's life and what happens when we fail even once. We will come to that in due course. But here Paul is talking about a habitual practice, or something that frequently occurs in a believer's experience, something that was there before he became a Christian. Can we go on living this way? Finally, notice that this question is put in such a way as to sound rightly motivated and
13. 13. even pious. "Shall we go on sinning, so that grace may increase?" This suggests that our motivation for sinning is not just our own satisfaction -- we are doing it for the glory of God, so that grace may increase. God loves to show his grace. Therefore, if we go on sinning, he will have all the more opportunity. What a chance for God to show his grace! It is clear that this question is not asked by a complete pagan or by a worldling, but by someone who seems intent on the glory of God. Having said that, we come now to the answer, the positive answer of Paul. Paul immediately reacts with a very positive statement, bluntly put: "By no means!" Or, as it is literally in the Greek, "May it never be!" Absolutely not! It is interesting to me to see how the other versions translate this phrase. The King James Version sounds horrified: "God forbid!" Phillips seems to catch this same note of horror: "What a ghastly thought!" The New English Bible puts it very simply, "No, no." So here is a 'no-no' in the Christian experience. Can we sin? No-no. I gather from all this that the Apostle Paul simply does not agree with this philosophy that you can go on sinning and be forgiven. Why? In his inescapable logic, Paul answers in just four little words: "We died to sin". Annie Johnson Flint. This is what she wrote in a poem entitled, Let Us Go On: Some of us stay at the cross, Some of us wait at the tomb, Quickened and raised together with Christ, Yet lingering still in its gloom; Some of us bide at Passover feast With Pentecost all unknown -- The triumphs of grace in the heavenly places That our Lord has made our own. If the Christ who died had stopped at the cross His work had been incomplete, If the Christ who was buried had stayed in the tomb He had only known defeat; But the way of the cross never stops at the cross, And the way of the tomb leads on The victorious grace in the heavenly place Where the risen Lord has gone. So let us go on with our Lord To the fullness of God He has brought, Unsearchable riches of glory and good Exceeding our uttermost thought; Let us grow up into Christ, Claiming His life and its powers, The triumphs of grace in the heavenly place That our conquering Lord has made ours. Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse says: . . . do not think for a moment that all that we receive at the moment of our new birth is the remission of sins that have been committed up to the moment of salvation.
14. 14. . . . the moment a person is born again, forgiveness has been provided for all the sins he ever has committed and for all the sins that he ever will commit in the course of his life. Dr. Lewis Sperry Chafer says: Through the present priestly advocacy of Christ in Heaven there is absolute safety and security for the Fathers child even while he is sinning. Michael S. Horton says: When a person trusts Christ, that very moment he or she is clothed in his perfect holiness, so that even though the believer is still sinful, he or she is judged by God as blameless. These statements are irrational, inexplicable mysticism in which the distinctions between truth and error, sin and righteousness are done away. Consequently, there can be no assurance implicit to truth; there cannot, then, be ground for saving faith; for faith can only be awakened by the voice of truth! This whole passage makes it clear that the believer still has freedom of choice so that they can ignore all of the theology of what Christ has done, and of their identification with him in death, burial and resurrection. They can choose to go on sinning and abuse the grace of God. If this is not so, why does Paul make such a strong effort to debate the issue? He is trying to get believers to be what God's grace has made possible for them to be. Some are dragging their heels, and refusing to move on to the life Jesus purchased for them. They refuse to die to sin, and live for Christ a life that is pleasing to God. The Corinthians are good examples, and so it is still today that Christians are living far short of the ideal that is possible. BIBLICAL ILLUSTRATOR, "What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? Grace and sin 1. This question was prompted by a sentence, the very cadence of which seemed to be still alive in the apostles memory (Rom_5:20). It is well to trace the continuity of Scriptureto read the letter of an inspired writer as you would read any other, as an entire composition, through which there possibly runs the drift of one prevailing conception. 2. The tenure upon which eternal life is given, and upon which it is held under the economy of the gospel, Paul makes abundantly manifest by such phrases as grace, and free grace, and justification of faith and not of works, and the gift of righteousness on the one hand, and the receiving of the atonement on the other. And yet the apostle, warm from the delivery of these intimations, and within a single breath of having uttered that where there was abundance of guilt there was a superabundance of grace in store for itwhen met by the question of What then? shall we do more of this sin, that we may draw more of this grace? on his simple authority as a messenger from God he enters his solemn caveat against the
15. 15. continuance of sin. Lavish as the gospel is of its forgiveness for the past, it has no toleration either for the purposes or for the practices of Sin in the future. Couple these two verses, and learn from the simple change of tense two of the most important lessons of Christianity. With the first of these verses we feel ourselves warranted to offer the fullest indemnity to the worst and most worthless. Your sin has abounded; but the grace of God has much more abounded. No sin is beyond the reach of the atonementno guilt of so deep a dye that the blood of a crucified Saviour cannot wash away. But the sinner should also look forward, and forget not that the same gospel which sheds an oblivion over all the sinfulness of the past, enters upon a war of extermination against future sinfulness. 3. The term dead, in the phrase dead unto sin, may be understood forensically. We are dead in law. The doom of death was upon us on account of sin. Conceive that just as under a civil government a criminal is often put to death for the vindication of its authority and for the removal of a nuisance from society, so, under the jurisprudence of Heaven, an utter extinction of being was laid upon the sinner. Imagine that the sentence is executedthat by an act of extermination the transgressor is expunged from Gods animated creation. There could be no misunderstanding of the phrase if you were to say that he was dead unto or dead for sin. But suppose God to have devised a way of reanimating the creature who had undergone this infliction, the phrase might still adhere to him, though now alive from the dead. And in these circumstances, is it for us to continue in sinwe who for sin were consigned to annihilation, and have only by the kindness of a Saviour been rescued from it? Now the argument retains its entireness, though the Mediator should interfere with His equivalent ere the penalty of death has been inflicted. We were as good as dead, for the sentence had gone forth, when Christ stepped between, and, suffering it to light upon Himself, carried it away. Does not the God who loved righteousness and hated iniquity six thousand years ago, bear the same love to righteousness and the same hatred to iniquity still? And well may not the sinner sayShall I again attempt the incompatible alliance of an approving in God and a persevering sinner; or again try the Spirit of that Being who, the whole process of my condemnation and my rescue, has given such proof of most sensitive and unspotted holiness? Through Jesus Christ, we come again unto the heavenly Jerusalem; and it is as fresh as ever in the verdure of a perpetual holiness. How shall we who were found unfit for residence in this place because of sin, continue in sin after our readmittance therein? 4. But while we have thus insisted on the forensic interpretation of the phrase, yet let us not forbear to urge the personal sense of it, as implying such a deadness of affection to sin, such an extinction of the old sensibility to its allurements and its pleasures, as that it has ceased from its wonted power of ascendency over the heart and character of him who was formerly its slave. So the apostle (Rom_6:5-6) goes on to show that we are planted together in the likeness of His death. He is now that immortal Vine, who stands forever secure and beyond the reach of any devouring blight from the now appeased enemy; and we who by faith are united with Him as so many branches, share in this blessed exemption along with Him. And as we thus share in His death, so also shall we share in His resurrection. By what He hath done in our stead, He hath not only been highly exalted in His own person; but He hath made us partakers of His exaltation, to the rewards of which we shall be promoted as if we had rendered the obedience ourselves. This tallies with another part of the Bible, where it is said that Christ gave Himself up for us, that He might redeem us from all iniquity and purify us unto Himself a peculiar people zealous of good works.
16. 16. 5. Now how comes it that because we are partakers in the crucifixion of Christ, so that the law has no further severity to discharge upon us, that this should have any effect in destroying the body of sin, or in emancipating us from the service of sin? How is it that the fact of our being acquitted leads to the fact of our being sanctified? There can be no doubt that the Spirit of God both originates and carries forward the whole of this process. He gives the faith which makes Christs death as available for our deliverance from guilt; and He causes the faith to germinate all those moral and spiritual influences which bring about the personal transformation that we are inquiring of. But these He does, in a way that is agreeable to the principles of our rational nature; and one way is through the expulsive power of a new affection to dispossess an old one from the heart. You cannot destroy your love of sin by a simple act of extermination. You cannot thus bid away from your bosom one of its dearest and oldest favourites. Our moral nature abhors the vacuum that would thus be formed. But let a man by faith look upon himself as crucified with Christ, and the world is disarmed of its power of sinful temptation. He no longer minds earthly things, just because better things are now within his reach, and our conversation is in heavenwhence we also look for the Saviour the Lord Jesus Christ. And this is in perfect analogy with familiar exhibitions of our nature in ordinary affairs. Let us just conceive a man embarked, with earnest ambition, on some retail business, whose mind is wholly taken up with the petty fluctuations that are taking place in prices and profits and customers; but who nevertheless is regaled by the annual examination of particulars at the end of it, with the view of some snug addition to his old accumulations. You must see how impossible it were to detach his affections from the objects and the interests of this his favourite course by a simple demonstration of their vanity. But suppose that either some splendid property or some sublime walk of high and hopeful adventure were placed within his attainment, and the visions of a far more glorious affluence were to pour a light into his mind, which greatly overpassed and so eclipsed all the fairness of those homelier prospects that he was wont to indulge inis it not clear that the old affection which he could never get rid of by simple annihilation, will come to be annihilated, and that simply by giving Place to the new one. (T. Chalmers, D. D.) Free grace and sin 1. The foregoing chapters are a proof and defence of the first fundamental truth of the gospelthat the only way in which we can be pardoned is through our trusting exclusively, not to what we have ourselves done, but to Christ and His atonement. Nay; we have the principle that the more sin has abounded, so much the more superabundant and triumphant is the free favour of God. 2. To many this has always appeared to be very perilous teaching. It seems to offer no security for practical virtueif, indeed, it does not actually put a premium upon sin. What else is that but to say that we may sin the more in order to make Gods forgiving mercy the more illustrious? Of course, if anything approaching to this were a fair deduction from the doctrine of justification, then such a doctrine would be grossly immoral. But the same objection was taken in St. Pauls day against St. Pauls teaching; and he met it by a vigorous repudiation. Indeed his answer to it formed the second main section of his theological system, since in that answer he developed the whole theory of Christian holiness. And the charge of immoral tendency, which glanced harmlessly off St. Paul and the Church of his time, may very well prove equally harmless against the evangelical Churches of modern date. Remember, the
17. 17. free acquittal of a penitent believer is not the end of the gospel, but only the means. Now, if free justification turn out on trial not to save a man from his sin, but to encourage him in it; then it turns out to be a cheat, like all other gospels or recipes for working deliverance which men have ever concocted or experimented with before Christ and after Him! The question, therefore, is a vital one. It just means this: Is the gospel a success or a failure? 3. St. Pauls instant reply is a blunt and staggering one. It amounts to this: such an abuse of free grace is unthinkable and out of the question. Christians are people who, in the mere fact of becoming Christians, passed through an experience which put a virtual end to their sinful life. Such a difficulty is purely intellectual, arising in the minds of men who try to comprehend the gospel from the outside without having first experienced it. But, then, when once this intellectual difficulty has been started by a non-Christian objector, the Christian craves to find an intellectual answer. That my Christian faith is inconsistent with persisting in sin, I feel. How it comes to be thus inconsistent with it, I want also to see. 4. It is under this view that St. Paul proceeds. Are you ignorant of what every Christian is supposed to knowhow as many of us as were baptised into Christ, were baptised into His death? Well, then, it fellows that we were buried along with Him by means of that baptism of ours into His death, for the express purpose, not that we should remain dead any more than He did, but that, just as He was raised from the dead, so we also should walk in a new life. In the case of converts in the primitive Church, conversion was always publicly attested, and its inward character symbolised, by the initiatory rite of baptism. For them nothing could seem more natural than to look back upon their baptismal act whenever any question arose as to what their conversion really meant. Its most general meaning was this, that it put baptised believers into the closest possible relationship with Christ, their Second Adam, of whose body they were thenceforward to be members, whose fortunes they were thenceforward to share. But if baptism seal our incorporation into the Representative Man from heaven; who does not know that the special act of Jesus with which of all others we are brought most prominently into participation, is nothing else than His death and burial? That central thing about Christ on which my faith has to fasten itself is His expiatory death upon the Cross for sin. Am I to be justified through Him at all? Then it is through faith in His blood (Rom_3:25). Have I, an enemy, been reconciled to God by His Son at all? I was reconciled by the death of His Son (Rom_5:10). To that death upon the Cross of expiation which was attested by His three days burial the gospel directs the sinners eye, and on that builds his trust for pardon and peace with God. And the great rite which certified the world and me that I am Christs, was before all else a baptism into the death of Him who died for me! 5. All this St. Paul treats as a Christian commonplace. Its bearing on our continuing in sin is obvious. Conversion through faith in Christs propitiation is seen to be essentially a moral change, a dying to sin. The nerve of the old separate, selfish, sinful life of each man was cut when the man merged himself in his new Representative, and gave up his personal sins to be judged, condemned, and expiated in his Atoners Cross. Now, how can a man who has gone through an experience like that continue in sin? For him the old bad past is a thing dead and buried. Old things are passed away, everything has become new. Such a man can no more go back to be what he was before, feel as he felt, or act as he used to act, than Jesus Christ could rise out of His grave to be once more the Victim for unexpiated
18. 18. guilt and the Sin bearer for a guilty race. 6. The Christian dies to his old sin that he may begin to live to holiness and God. This is the express design God had when He put our sins to death in His dear Sons Cross. Faith in Christ makes us morally incorporate with Him in spirit, as well as legally embraced under Him as our Representative. Christ is our Head in that He represents us before the law, so that in His death all who are His died to sin. Christ is no less our Head to quicken us as His members, and in His living again we all live anew. The will and the power to walk in new moral life are therefore guaranteed to us by our faith. Christian faith is very far from a superficial, or inoperative, or merely intellectual act, such as a man can do without his moral character being seriously affected by it. It is connected with the deep roots of our moral and religious nature. It changes the main current of our ethical life. Those who have been baptised into Christ and say they trust in His death as the ground of their peace with God, are bound to satisfy themselves that their faith is of a sort to kill sin, and to maintain the life of righteousness. (J. Oswald Dykes, D. D.) The purity of the gospel dispensation That the gospel dispensation, instead of relaxing the principles of moral obligation, strengthens and renders the sin committed under its light the most inexcusable, may be illustrated I. From the nature and perfections of God. He is a being of absolute purity. Being thus perfect in Himself, He must love every resemblance of His own perfection in any of His intelligent creatures; and the more nearly they resemble Him, the more must they be the objects of His favour. II. From the character and offices of the Redeemer. The Redeemer is the beloved Son of God, one with the Father; and, therefore, the arguments drawn from the perfections of God, to illustrate the purity of the gospel dispensation, are equally conclusive with respect to the Redeemer. In His several offices, no less than in His personal character, Christ invariably promoted the cause of righteousness. For this He sustained the office of a prophet; for this He became our great High Priest, to restore that intercourse which sin had interrupted. For this end, too, He became our King, and gave us a system of laws suited to that state of reconciliation. Now, such being His character, such the offices which He sustained as our Redeemer, and such the end for which He did sustain them, it follows, by necessary consequence, that the dispensation of the gospel, so far from relaxing the obligations of moral duty, tends powerfully to confirm them. III. From that perfect rule of moral conduct which the gospel prescribes. It is at once the most simple, the most pure and perfect that ever was delivered to the world; as superior to the much-famed systems of philosophers as its Divine author was superior to them. It lays the foundation of moral duty in the heart, the true spring of action; and by one simple principle of which every heart is susceptible, even the principle of love, it provides for the most perfect moral conduct, and for the proper discharge of the duties of life. IV. From a consideration of the bright examples which are set before us in the gospel. V. From the powerful aid which the gospel promises to enable us to observe its precepts and imitate the bright examples which it sets before us. The gracious Author of this Divine influence is the Holy Ghost, the Spirit of God, the third person in the ever blessed
19. 19. Trinity. VI. From the ultimate end and design of the whole scheme. The great end of the gospel scheme undoubtedly is to bring us to a state of perfect felicity in the glorious kingdom of our God; to the full enjoyment of that immortality which our Saviour hath revealed. With the attainment of this glorious end, holiness, or moral purity, and inseparably connected, both in the nature of things and by the positive laws of Gods moral government. 1. In the nature of things, the unholy or immoral must be excluded from heavenly happiness. They are incapable of it. There is no conformity between the dispositions which they have cultivated and the joys of the celestial regions. 2. It is not only in the nature of things, but by the positive law of Gods moral government, that the unrighteous are excluded from heaven and happiness. (G. Goldie.) Perversions of evangelical truth 1. What shall we say then? Say to what? To the great affirmation that man is justified freely by Gods grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. Shall it be this: Let us persist in sin that grace may multiply? How sharply Paul turns upon the immoral suggestion! It is a corruption not to be endured. 2. But why did the apostle submit a conclusion like that to his readers? He knew that his doctrine did not contain it, but he knew that a corrupt human heart and a perverted understanding could put it in. That the conclusion, or its equivalent, has been asserted, and that often, where if submitted as a proposition it would be rejected with loathing, it is not without a subtle influence, is matter of observation. I. There are those who think that it is possible to continue in sin and be saved. 1. How often one is forced to notice that men may combine a love of evangelical doctrine with love of money and a shrewdness that makes men who are not evangelical shrug their shoulders. We have known men, great wrestlers in prayer, whose lives, and the whisperings of whose doings, have made us ashamed. Moral confusion is at the bottom of these inconsistencies. Our evangelical doctrines are not to blame. The fault and the failure is in those who profess them while only half- perceiving them, and ignore their moral issues. 2. Paul shows us that grace comprises not only a gracious act of pardon done by God in the believers interest, but also an active principle of sanctification in the believers soul. The abounding of grace is only manifested in the breaking of sins power and the destruction of sins principle. Grace is the enemy of sin, not its covering. He who is saved by grace is not a leper clad in white raiment, but a leper healed. Grace is not beauty thrown over the deformity of some foul sickness; it is health. It is life counter- working death, and no man can continue in sin and yet be saved by grace. 3. But still, Is not grace a gift? Certainly. But God gives life. Yet life is not something external to the creature to whom it is given. It is not like a string of beads round the neck or a ring on the finger. The gift of life to a dead stick after that manner would leave it a dead stick still. Hear a parable. Early one summer morning I came upon an orchard. The trees were beautiful, and fruit was abundant. I wandered on until I came upon a tree having neither bloom nor fruit. I said, You poor, lost tree, what
20. 20. can you be doing here? I marvel you are not removed. Upon which this tree replied, tartly, You are in a great mistake. I am neither poor nor lost. Well, I said, you have neither leaves nor fruit, and, I should judge, no sap. What has that to do with it? it broke out. You seem not to know that a great saviour of trees has been down here, and I have believed his gospel, and am saved by grace. I have accepted salvation as a free gift, and, though I have neither leaves nor fruit, I am saved all the same. I looked at it with pity and said, You are a poor deluded tree; you are not saved at all. You are dead and good-for-nothing, despite all your talk about grace and redemption. Life, that is salvation. When I see you laden with fruit, I shall say, Ah! that poor tree is saved at last; it has received the gospel and is saved by grace. As I turned away, I heard it saying, You are not sound; you do not understand the gospel. And I thought, so it is, as with trees so with men. II. Another form of this antinomianism of the heart connects itself immediately with the death of Christ. Men talk and act frequently as if in Christs shed blood there was a shelter from the consequence of their sins, even though they remain in their sins. They harbour covetousness, envy, hate, and pride; they stain their hands with dishonesty, and then, with their stained hands uplifted in the face of God, aver that they believe in the death of Christ for their sins, and are saved. This is not the gospel Paul preached. He asks, How shall we who died to sin live any longer therein? He who has by faith appropriated the expiatory death of Jesus, in and by that act died to sin. In the apostles day, baptism was the open signification of the death. It was as the burial of one who had died. It would be a new thing to see a dead man going on as if nothing had happened. So the saved man does not persevere in sin; how should he? He has died to it. Sin has no further claim. Who can claim anything of the dead? He is not sinless. Sin, alas! is not dead, but lie is dead to it. He has not got beyond its trouble, but he has got beyond its bondage. Faith in Christs death as our means of pardon, includes also His life as the principle of our sanctification. As one delightfully said, The Cross condemns me to be holy. (W. Hubbard.) Distorted doctrines A mans nose is a prominent feature in his face, but it is possible to make it so large that eyes and mouth and everything are thrown into insignificance, and the drawing is a caricature and not a portrait. So certain important doctrines of the gospel can be so proclaimed in excess as to throw the rest of the truth into the shade, and the preaching is no longer the gospel, but a caricature, and a caricature of which some people seem mightily fond. (C. H. Spurgeon.) Inconsistency I. The conduct of many professed Christians indicates 1. That they have some knowledge of grace. 2. That they do not heartily receive it because of sin. 3. That they rather use it as a shelter for sin. II. Such conduct is abominable, because it 1. Tempts God.
21. 21. 2. Is irrational. 3. Courts certain destruction. 4. Is impossible where grace is really active. (J. Lyth, D. D.) The abuse of Divine mercy A certain member of that parliament wherein a statute for the relief of the poor was passed was an ardent promoter of that Act. He asked his steward when he returned to the country, what the people said of that statute. The steward answered, that he heard a labouring man say, that whereas formerly he worked six days in the week, now he would work but four; which abuse of that good provision so affected the pious statesman that he could not refrain from weeping. Lord, Thou hast made many provisions in Thy Word for my support and comfort, and hast promised in my necessities Thy supply and protection; but let not my presumption of help from Thee cause my neglect of any of those means for my spiritual and temporal preservation which Thou hast enjoined. (C. H. Spurgeon.) God forbid. How shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein? Death to sin Abounding sin is the occasion of abounding grace, but abounding grace is for the destruction of abounding sin. It is absurd to suppose that a medicine should aggravate the disease it cures. I. Believers are dead to sin. 1. In their condition before God. 2. In their character in consequence of it. 3. Forensically in the eye of the law. 4. Experimentally; in point of fact. 5. In their affection for it. 6. In its power over them. Or, to put it another way, believers have died to sin legally in justification; personally in sanctification; professedly in baptism; and will die completely to it in glorification. II. This is accomplished 1. By participation in Christs death who died for it. 2. By communication of the power of Christ in killing it. 3. By profession made in baptism of renouncing it. Death to sin is the necessary consequence of union with Christ, who delivers from its depraving, condemning, and reigning power. (T. Robinson.) Converted men dislike sin
22. 22. An Armenian arguing with a Calvinist remarked, If I believed your doctrine, and was sure that I was a converted man, I would take my fill of sin. How much sin, replied the godly Calvinist, do you think it would take to fill a true Christian to his own satisfaction? Here he hit the nail on the head. How can we that are dead to sin live any longer therein? A truly converted man hates sin with all his heart, and even if he could sin without suffering for it, it would be misery enough to him to sin at all. (C. H. Spurgeon.) Breaking with sin The Christians breaking with sin is undoubtedly gradual in its realisation, but absolute and conclusive in its principle. As, in order to break really with an old friend whose evil influence is felt, half measures are insufficient, and the only efficacious means is a frank explanation followed by a complete rupture which remains like a barrier raised beforehand before every new solicitation; so to break with sin there is needed a decisive and radical act, a Divine deed taking possession of the soul and interposing henceforth between the will of the believer and sin (Gal_6:14). This Divine deed necessarily works through the action of faith in Christs sacrifice. (Prof. Godet.) The two lives (text and Rom_6:11): I. The contrasted lives: Life in sin, and being alive unto God. The contrast is such that the unspiritual can perceive it, though unable to understand it. The ungodly may say, We neither know nor care whether a man is justified or not, but we do know whether he keeps the law of conscience, whether he acts up to his professed principles, whether he does that which, apart from his profession, we know to be right. But how is it that the world is able to form these judgments? Was the civilised world qualified to do this in the days of Cicero or of Pericles? Was there to be found then, or is there to be found now, where Christianity is not, anything approximating the same jealousy of conscience, etc., which those who now boast that they are men of the world often exhibit? Surely not. If worldly men are competent judges of Christian principle, it is because the atmosphere breathed by true Christians has stimulated its life and awakened its conscience. The world is indebted to the Christianity it is ready to revile for its power to call Christians to its bar. Note: 1. What is meant by living in sin. The term has been almost appropriated to describe certain forms of bold and unblushing transgression of moral law. If a man is a known drunkard, adulterer, or rogue, he is said to live in sin; and no one excuses or palliates his conduct. But the corruption of human nature goes down deeper, and the ravages of sin are far more extensive than this. That man is living in sin (1) Who can sin without remorse. If a man sins and his only thought is, How shall I escape the indignant scorn of the world? he is taking pleasure in ungodliness, he is only happy in the absence of God. (2) Who does what he knows to be wrong, but palliates it by pleading the force of circumstances, the nature of society, or the custom of the world.
23. 23. (3) Who habitually neglects to do that which God and his conscience have often called upon him to accomplish. To him who knoweth to do good and doeth it not, to him it is sin. It is not enough that a man should avoid the practice of evil; he must not be lacking in generosity, good temper, self-restraint, religious emotion, zeal and work for God and man. (4) Who finds pleasure in the commission of sin, hankers after forbidden sweets, and would like to go where he could escape detection. To sum up, All ungodliness is sin. To be without God, to act irrespectively of His authority, to find pleasure in what is opposed to His will, is to live in sin and bring the consequences of such a life down upon the soul. 2. What is meant by being alive unto God. By being alive to anything is meant a vivid conception of its reality, a joy in its presence, a devotion to its interests. Thus one man is alive to business, another to his reputation, another to truth. One man is alive to beauty in nature or art, he is therefore quick to discern its presence, keen to criticise its counterfeits, filled with joy when surrounded with its exponents. Another man is alive to literature or science, his ear is sensitive to every message from the great world of letters and invention, and the world exists, so far as he is concerned, to sustain and furnish material for his favourite pursuit. One man is alive to the well- being of his own country, and another to the wider interests of man. With the help of these illustrations we may assume that a man is alive unto God (1) When he fully recognises the signs of the presence of God. Habitual transgression or neglect of the laws of God is incompatible with the condition of a man who sees God everywhere. That man is alive to God to whom God is not a theory by which he can conveniently account for the universe, or a name for certain human conceptions of nature and its workings, or an invention of priestcraft to terrify the soul, or a philosophic concept the presence or absence of which has little to do with life or happiness, but the great and only reality, the prime and principal element of all his thoughts. No one fully recognises the presence of God unless he has advanced beyond the teaching of nature, and received from Holy Scripture, from the inward operations of the Spirit in his own heart, more than philosophical speculations can give him. If alive unto God, every revelation of His infinite essence suggests to our quickened spirit the presence of our Father and our Friend. (2) When the sense of the Divine Presence awakens all the energies and engages all the faculties of his nature. If duly conscious of the Divine Presence, we shall render the appropriate homage of our entire being. Then every place is a temple, every act is a sacrifice, every sin the pollution of a sacred place, the defilement of a holy day. It is morally impossible for one who is alive unto God to imagine that he is doing too much to express his sense of reverence, gratitude, or obligation. In one word, self is subdued to Him, and human will is lost in Gods. (3) When he finds his highest desires gratified. If we are alive unto God, we shall find that we are following the bent of our true nature. He that drinketh of the water given him by Christ, shall never thirst after those draughts of carnal pleasure to be found in the broken cisterns of human invention, and it shall be in him a well of water springing up to everlasting life. II. The two lives have been described and contrasted, life in sin and life unto God. It would be difficult to conceive of two modes of life more obviously opposed to one another. They cannot coexist in the same spirit.
24. 24. 1. If sin is delighted in, God is dreaded. There is no tendency in human nature by means of which sin can be remedied or undone. The punishment of sin is death, i.e., moral alienation of heart from God, sinful habit and tendency. Consequently every sin carries in itself its own perpetuation and the germ of further transgression. 2. A life unto God supposes a spirit to whom the nearness, the perfections, the work of the Lord are unutterable delights; to whom the whole universe is a transparent medium, through and behind which is seen the face of the Eternal God. III. How shall those that are living in sin even learn to be alive unto God? 1. The charge had been brought that that gospel looked leniently on sin, and the apostle boldly takes it up, admits its seeming plausibility, anticipates its possible force, and answers it by showing what was involved in that faith which justifies the soul. The life unto God can never supervene in a soul which has been living in sin, except, says he, through a death unto sin. Justification implies the removal of its penalty, its non-imputation, the exhaustion of its sting, the annihilation of its wages. Our new and holy life is not the ground of our justification, nor, strictly speaking, the consequence of our pardon and acceptance with God; but it is in one sense the pardon itself, the way in which the Holy Ghost slays that enmity within us which was the great curse of sin. How shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein? 2. As far as his illustration is concerned, the apostle states a truism when he says that one who is dead to sin cannot live any longer therein. A man who is dead to sin may be carried away from his standing ground by some terrible and novel blast of temptation; but it is a contradiction in terms to assert that he can live in sin. 3. What, then, is meant by death to sin? (1) Not a desperate fear of the consequences of sin. This fails to repress gross vice and crime. There are no cowards so great as those who often make violent assault on the life and property of others. They choose darkness that they may avoid detection; they are armed to the tooth when they go against feebleness and womankind. Multitudes tremble at the preaching of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come, but sin as if they never trembled. Fear may have kept you back from the commission of sin, and warned you to paths of honour and usefulness, and yet never have slats the desire after what is hateful to God. (2) Not respect to the opinion of the world. The good opinion of our fellow citizens is a powerful motive to virtue; but if it is our only one, there is nothing eternal in our virtue. Then if our circumstances were changed, we should change also. Let us be put back to times when a lower honour prevailed in business or in society, we should be forced back to the undeveloped morality of the past, and live in the practice of what we now see to be sin. (3) Not mere self-respect. There are those who are careless about the worlds respect as long as they can secure their own. This reverence for conscience, and independence of the judgment of others, is closely akin to the highest virtue, but yet as an ultimate principle it is not sufficient. The proud independence of mankind may speedily run up into an audacious independence of God. Self- respect may rapidly blossom into self-idolatry. (4) Death to sin is not secured by orthodox creed, ceremonial exactness, or even religious zeal. These are all occasionally confounded with it, but they may be all compatible with a life of sin. Church history is full of proofs that neither articles, nor sacraments, nor profession, nor even great sacrifices for religion,
25. 25. avail to slay the sin of the heart or render the soul alive to God. (5) By this process of exclusion we have brought the meaning of the phrase death to sin to a much more limited group of experiences. The apostle identifies it with union to Christ, that which he sometimes calls faith in His blood, baptism into Christ, or living by faith on the Son of God, because Christ liveth in us. Paul knew he was appealing to a safe and sure tribunal when he went right to the consciousness of his converts. Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. It is certain that the apostle would not have these Romans reckon thus unless it were true. Observe, it is not merely that they are to reckon that Christ died for their sins, but they are also to reckon that they too are dead unto sin through Jesus Christ. 4. The way, then, in which this change is effected is by union with Christ (1) In His Passion. By the Cross the world is crucified unto me and I unto the world; I am crucified with Christ; If we be dead with Him, we shall also live with Him. We are buried with Him by baptism into His death. The thought often recurs that our faith in Him nails our own hands to the cursed tree and films our eye on worldly glory. If we have taken up this thought into our entire spiritual nature, that Christ died for our sins, then we are dead. As we become alive to what the death of Christ really is and means, how it prepares the only way by which a new life could enter our race, and a new spirit be given to transgressors, by which God could justify the ungodly, and still be just; it is not difficult to understand that faith in Christ, that union to Christ, involves dying with Christ to sin. A true and deep faith in Christ, a recognition by mind and heart of His work, is such an intuition of law, such a sense of God, such a revelation of the evil of sin, such a burning of the heart against the world, the flesh, and the devil, that the apostle was justified in saying that Christians might reckon themselves dead unto sin. (2) In His life and resurrection. The new life of the soul is a resurrection life, charged with all the associations and aspirations which would be possessed by one who had passed, through dying, from death to life. The life unto God flows out of the life of God in the soul. (H. R. Reynolds, D. D.) Christs legislative glory to be preached The following curious incident once happened to a clergyman. One day, after preaching, a gentleman followed him into the vestry, and, putting a 10 note into his hand, thanked him most energetically for the great comfort he had derived from his sermon. The clergyman was very much surprised at this, but still more so when shortly afterwards the same thing again took place; and he determined to sift the affair to the bottom, and find out who this man was that was so comforted by his discourse. He discovered that he was a person at that very time living in the most abominable wickedness and in the very depths of sin. Certainly, said he to himself, there must be something essentially wrong in my preaching when it can afford comfort to such a profligate as this! He accordingly examined into the matter closely, and he discovered that, whilst he had been preaching Christs sovereignty, he had quite forgotten his legislative glories. He immediately altered the style of his sermons, and he soon lost his munificent friend. I am told that, by preaching Christs legislative glory, I also have driven some from my chapel. Pray for me,
26. 26. my brethren, that I may still preach doctrine, and that Longacre may become too hot for error in principle or sin in practice; pray for me that with a giants arm I may lash both. (Howels, of Longacre.) The atonement gives no encouragement to sin There is no influence more mischievous on the morals of a people than to interpret the atonement in such a way as to make it independent of good works, if to the atonement you give any other than purely legal connection. If it includes state of nature and character in its connections, then must it stand forever associated with human endeavour and conditioned upon it. Else the sacrifice of Jesus becomes a harbour for thievesa port into which sinners can at any moment steer with all their sins on board, the moment that the winds of conscience begin to blow a little too hard and threaten wreck to their peace. And this is what I call a plain accommodation of sinners, and hence a premium on sin. For sin is sweet to the natural man, sweet to his pride, his cruelty, his senses; and who would not sin and have the sweetness of it, if when he found it troublesome he could, by the saying of a prayer, or the utterance of a charmed word, be in an instant delivered from it forever? And yet I believe that in just this supposition multitudes in Christendom are living. Salvation is something to be visited upon them, independent of their conduct; nay, in spite of their conduct. Jesus is a cabalistic word which, no matter how they live, if they but whisper it with their dying gasp into the ear of death, he is bound to pass them up into heaven and not down into hell, where their deeds would consign them and which their characters fit. They cheat, they lie, they slander, they hate, they persecute, but then is not there mercy for all? Will not faith save a man; and have not they faith? And are they not told that God will do anything in answer to prayer; and did you ever see men pray as fast as these fellows can when they are sick? This is what I call making Christ a harbour for thieves and Christianity a premium on sin. This is what I call the most horrible perversion of the gospel plan of salvation conceivable! (H. W. Beecher.) Death to sin, a difficulty There is nothing so hard to die as sin. An atom may kill a giant, a word may break the peace of a nation, a spark burn up a city; but it requires earnest and protracted struggles to destroy sin in the soul. (D. Thomas, D. D.) HAWKER, "Romans 6:1-11 What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? (2) God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein? (3) Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? (4) Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. (5) For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection: (6) Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. (7) For he that is dead is freed from sin. (8) Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him: (9) Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no
27. 27. more; death hath no more dominion over him. (10) For in that he died, he died unto sin once: but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God. (11) Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. The Apostle having finished, in the five preceding Chapters, the great subject he had been upon, and having proved, with the clearest and fullest evidence, that justification before God, is wholly in, and by, Christ; begins at this Chapter to follow up the blissful doctrine, in shewing the gracious effects which flow from it. And well aware, how much the pride of the Pharisee, (which in his own person he had once so deeply felt,) would take alarm at the doctrine of free grace; and no less the profligacy of the carnal, would attempt to draw improper conclusions from the divine mercy, displayed in so rich a manner as in justifying the sinner without works: the Apostle opens the subject with putting a question into the mouth of both, yea, all classes of unbelievers, and such, as the Apostle knew, none but persons of their characters would venture to propose. If it be true, say they, that God doth all, and man doth nothing, towards his own justification; shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? Shall we not live as we list, and run on in accumulating transgressions, that Gods grace may, (as Paul saith it doth,) more abound, where sin hath abounded? Dear Paul! hadst thou lived in the present day of the Church, and have seen as we see, thy sweet truths, taught thee by the Holy Ghost, wiredrawn by many of the various professors; divinely inspired as thou wert, when writing this Epistle, thou wouldest hardly have escaped the odium which is thrown upon those who subscribe, with full consent of soul, and from the same teaching, to the doctrines of free grace! But, Reader! observe, with what abhorrence, what holy indignation, the Apostle instantly refutes the foul calumny. God forbid, saith he. It is as if he had said: Is there, can there be a man upon earth, capable of drawing so base and ungenerous a conclusion? Would any man in common life, make the experiment of breaking his bones, because some kind and skilful surgeon would immediately heal them? Is this the way to reason, in the affairs of things relating to the present life? And shall we so argue, in respect to the things of a better? Because God, in a rich, free, sovereign mercy, hath provided a remedy, for the recovery of his Church from the Adam-fall transgression, whereby the Lord himself will accomplish the whole, and man shall have nothing to perform in it but to receive the blessing: shall this bounty in God tend to increase the sin in man? Is it not as plain as words can make it, that Gods design by this reign of grace, is to destroy the reign of sin. The Son of God was manifested to destroy the works of the devil. And Gods glory, in this instance, can only be promoted, where sin is destroyed. It is the want of grace, which makes men sin; and not the aboundings of grace which can tend to increase it. Reader! I pray you to attend to the subject, as the Apostle hath stated it. And, if the Lord be your teacher, will be bold to say, that you will discover, how unanswerable the conclusions of Paul are, in proof, that so far is the free grace of God in Christ, from opening, as some say, the flood-gates of sin; it is the only preservative to keep them shut. By this grace only, all truly regenerated believers in Christ, are upheld from the breakings out of indwelling sin, which remain in that body of sin and death, the best of men carry about with them. For, if (as the Apostle elsewhere saith) Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the spirit is life because of righteousness, Rom_ 8:10. And how (as the Apostle demands,) shall we that are dead to sin, live any longer therein? Not dead in sin, for that is the state of the un-awakened, unregenerated; being so by nature, and so remaining, while in the condition of unrenewed nature. Neither dead for sin, for Christ only hath died for sin, the just for the unjust, to bring us to God, 1Pe_3:18. But dead to sin. And, which is the case of every regenerated, justified, sanctified believer, they are dead to the guilt of sin: for that is done away by the blood of
28. 28. Christ, Eph_1:7; Mic_7:17-19; Isa_35:5; Col_2:13-14; Rev_1:5-6. They are dead to the dominion of sin. Verse 14, Eze_36:25-27. And how then shall they live any longer therein; when the very principle which gave life to it in the heart, is destroyed? True, indeed, the child of God goeth humbly all his days, from feeling the remains of indwelling sin, and which he knoweth will never be wholly taken out, until death. Like the ivy in old walls, until the whole falls down, the root will remain. But grace keeps low the sproutings. And his consolation is, that though sin is in him; yet, through grace, he lives not in sin. His life is hid with Christ in God. And when Christ who is his life shall appear, he will also appear with him in glory, Col_3:4. The Apostle having answered the unwarrantable, and unjust objection made by some to the doctrine of free grace, on the ground of its being supposed capable of inducing licentiousness; advanceth yet further, to shew the sanctity of life and conversation, among justified believers, from the doctrine of baptism. And the Apostle proposeth what he had to offer on this gro