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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. . . . 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. (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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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