Grace and Sin
A number of years in the past, I struck up a dialog with my taxi driver on the way in which residence from the airport. He was a pleasant man and a dedicated Muslim. When he discovered I used to be a pastor, he was keen to speak about our completely different faiths, and he shared one in every of his main objections to Christianity: “You consider God will forgive you it doesn’t matter what you do,” he mentioned, “and due to this fact, you’ll stay nevertheless you need.” He was satisfied that considerable grace should result in considerable sin.
We all know he was mistaken. We all know that we can’t proceed in sin in order that grace might abound (Rom. 6:1–2). We all know that God calls us to flee from evil and pursue righteousness (1 Tim. 6:11). But we additionally know this isn’t straightforward. And though we might not embrace my taxi driver’s logic, we would see learn how to show his level in the way in which we stay. For instance, we would turn into apathetic about resisting temptation, rising far too content material with sure sinful patterns, whereas declaring our dependence upon God’s grace. We’d discover ourselves performing as if freedom from condemnation means we’re free to proceed in sin.
However Martyn Lloyd-Jones says residing this fashion demonstrates that we have now “failed to grasp . . . the entire object and objective of grace.”1 In his grace, God not solely pardons us; he additionally transforms us. Having been justified, we are actually being sanctified (1 Thess. 5:23). And God’s sanctifying grace makes persevering with in sin—willfully and unrepentantly—illogical, inappropriate, and in the end unimaginable.
Why? As a result of his grace has basically modified our relationship to sin. We are actually “lifeless to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 6:11). Think about what this implies.
On this encouraging e-book, Brad Wetherell explores Scripture to point out how union with Christ provides true freedom—serving to believers combat sin, relaxation in grace, and stay with lasting hope.
Christians are lifeless to sin.
All through the Bible, we see that sin doesn’t merely consist in our private failures. Sin can also be a robust power that has reigned all through historical past, inflicting chaos and destruction (Rom. 5:21). You may consider sin as a depraved tyrant seated on a horrible throne, looking on this fallen world full of individuals dominated by his darkish authority. However sin sees some who’ve escaped. They’ve left his dominion in the one manner potential: They’ve died.
Once we die, we go away one realm and enter one other. Dying doesn’t ship us into oblivion, ending our existence. Dying is a departure that brings us to a brand new vacation spot. And Christians have left sin’s dominion. Now we have “died to sin” (Rom. 6:2).
At funerals, you usually hear individuals say, “We misplaced him,” or “She handed away.” Equally, sin may say the identical factor about each Christian. When God saved us, sin misplaced us. We handed away from the realm of sin’s energy. God “has delivered us from the area of darkness and transferred us to the dominion of his beloved Son” (Col. 1:13).
On this kingdom, “we have now redemption, the forgiveness of sins” (Col. 1:14). And as my taxi driver acknowledged, because of this there isn’t a condemnation for us. However this additionally signifies that sin has misplaced its mastery over us. Now we have been let loose from sin’s rule, and there’s no going again. We can’t stay as if nothing has modified. We can’t go on willfully, unrepentantly residing in sin.
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Christians are alive to God.
Saying Christians are lifeless to sin is simply half of the excellent news. We’re additionally alive to God. Having been born once more and blessed with the indwelling presence of God’s Holy Spirit, we are actually set aside for his good functions on this world. And there’s a biblical phrase for individuals like this: saints.
Are you comfy calling your self a saint? Many people would say, “Paul was a saint. My grandmother was a saint. However me? Not a lot.” The rationale for our destructive response is probably going a defective definition. Lots of people reserve the phrase saint for some particular class of super-spiritual Christians. However that’s not what the phrase means. A saint is somebody whose life has been set aside and devoted to God. A saint is somebody alive to God. A saint is solely a Christian.
We see this all around the New Testomony. The phrase saint seems over forty occasions in Paul’s letters, and it at all times describes believers. Common believers. Not some distinctive class of believer. For instance, Paul begins his letter to the Romans by addressing “all these in Rome who’re liked by God and known as to be saints” (Rom. 1:7; cf. 1 Cor. 1:2; 2 Cor. 1:1; Eph. 1:1; Phil. 1:1; Col. 1:2).
Sinner will not be our defining label anymore. We’re saints. Saints who sin, however saints nonetheless.
Which means that when God calls us to be holy, he’s not commanding us to pursue an id that we might or might not attain. He’s calling us to stay out the id we have already got. He isn’t calling us to turn into one thing we aren’t. He’s calling us to be who we’re in Christ.
On our personal, we might be powerless to withstand sin’s calls for and pursue God’s instructions. However we’re not on our personal.
Christians are in Christ.
Christians are lifeless to sin and alive to God as a result of we’re “in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 6:11). The phrases “in Christ” or some variation of it—equivalent to “in him” or “with him”—seem a whole bunch of occasions within the New Testomony, and so they usually confer with the doctrine of union with Christ.
Union with Christ refers back to the believer’s place in Christ established at conversion, skilled in all of life, and loved ceaselessly. This union is the supply of each non secular blessing we get pleasure from, together with the energy to combat sin and pursue holiness.
On our personal, we might be powerless to withstand sin’s calls for and pursue God’s instructions. However we’re not on our personal. When God saved us he united us with Christ. And on this union with Christ, one thing exceptional occurs: We turn into so recognized with Christ that we are able to now say we died and rose with him. His story turns into our story.
We all know Jesus’s story. He was crucified, died, and was buried. However do you know that whenever you got here to consider in him, you had been buried with him? Paul says, “We had been buried due to this fact with him by baptism into dying” (Rom. 6:4). We had been crucified with him, and our previous lives enslaved to sin ended (Rom. 6:6). However that’s not all.
“Simply as Christ was raised from the lifeless by the glory of the Father, we too . . . stroll in newness of life” (Rom. 6:4). In union with Christ, we stay with Christ. God induced us, who as soon as walked in non secular dying, to rise in non secular life (Eph. 2:5–6). And like kids studying to stroll, we don’t take off working straight away. We nonetheless stumble, journey, and fall. We nonetheless battle with sin. However in Christ, we actually do stroll in newness of life. And our job is to embrace and revel in this actuality by striving after a life that honors our Savior.
Christians can’t proceed in sin.
“Are we to proceed in sin in order that grace might abound? In no way! How can we who died to sin nonetheless stay in it?” (Rom. 6:1–2). A Christian is somebody whose elementary relationship to sin has modified. Now we have died to sin. We stay to God. We’re united with Christ.
All of it is a reward of God’s grace. And like all good reward, it’s meant to be loved. Having fun with the reward of recent life in Christ means resisting the sin that brings us ache, hurts others, and grieves God (Eph. 4:30). And having fun with the reward of recent life in Christ means pursuing the form of life Christ himself lives: delighting to do the need of the Father (John 4:34).
As Christians, we have now been crucified with Christ. We’re lifeless to sin. And we have now been raised with Christ. We’re alive to God. We’re saints. Saints who sin, however saints nonetheless.
Imagine that with all of your coronary heart, after which combat sin with all of your may.
Notes:
- D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Romans 6: The New Man (Banner of Fact, 1972), 11.
Brad Wetherell is the writer of Saved to Sin No Extra: How Union with Christ Empowers a Lifetime of Holiness.
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