Alive and Free –
The Outline:
1) More sin, more grace?
a) NO!
b) We are in Christ.
c) Sin has no dominion over us.
d) Live as those alive.
2) Free from law, free to sin?
a) Again, NO!!
b) We are free from sin.
c) We now belong to God.
d) He is our motivation for life.
Some commentary:
Chapter six deals with two questions which Paul anticipates (or has encountered previously) as arising from the teaching about justification by faith and the new life Christians have in Jesus.
Both questions seek to pose what could be understood as purposeful exagerations by which opponents seek to discredit the Gospel as presented by Paul. Notice that Paul does not give ground on the fundamental question of the Gospel. Rather he clarifies the erroneous secondary assumptions that fuel these objections. They really flow from an impoverished understanding of the Gospel.
The first question basically pleads that the more we sin the more of God’s forgiving grace we experience. If some is good, then more is better. Every time we hear (or say) that God loves me and accepts me while continuing in, or repeating, some action we know is sinful we engage in this line of thinking. If we are truly forgiven and accepted by God only because of what Jesus has done, can’t we do whatever we want? We are accepted by grace, after all.
If you don’t accept this as plausable you may not really understand the Gospel.
Paul dismisses the argument because it seriously underestimates the Gospel. Not only is our sin forgiven but we are united to Christ. The Lord Jesus has died to sin, and in Him, so have we. Sin has no power over us, there is no reason for us to sin. We certainly do not experience more of God’s grace. Grace is grace, it may be amazing, but it either is or it is not. You don’t get more or less of it.
Sin is the sign, cause and fruit of death. Those who have been given eternal life have no reason to serve it. Really it makes as much sense as putting a kitchen in a tomb.
The second question flows from the idea that we are no longer under the law, but under grace. What is our motivation for holy living if we don’t have the law to tell us what to do? Here we must understand that we no longer need the punative motivation of fear to motivate us. What motivates the Christian is their relationship with God. When we disobeyed the law (sinned) we received death. Now we receive a free gift of eternal life. Again, what motivation for sin could there possibly be? Guilt and manipulation are not Gospel encouragements. The freedom of our relationship with God is all the motivation we could possibly require.
Last week there was an extraordinary controversy over an incident on a radio station. The hosts had arranged for a mother and daughter to come to the studio and the daughter was hooked up to a lie detector and questioned about her intimate details. Apparently there were concert tickets to be won. The daughter revealed she had been subjected to a sexual assault a couple of years prior, something that the mother was aware of. Some might ask whether there should be regulations to stop such things happening. The real truth is that regulations should not be necessary. The mother and the two announcers should have simply recognised that it was not right to subject the girl to this ordeal (even if she had not been a victim of assualt in the past, it was not that revelation that made the whole exercise wrong). Christians don’t need commands to motivate us, God’s love constrains us. This is not a question of what we do, it is a matter of who we are.
Both of these questions and their answers, flowing from chapter 5 are giving us insight into the fact that the Gospel is more than a ‘get out of jail free’ card. The following chapters will continue to expand our understanding of the breadth and depth of life in Christ.
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