Romans 6:1 "What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?" Verse 15 "What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? Certainly not!" Here in lies the argument of the Baptists, who believe in eternal security, or the idea that once you are saved you are always saved. Which by the way I believe based on the scriptures I read.
There are however those that would say eternal security is or leads to an abuse of grace. Their argument goes like this, "If I can't lose my salvation it won't hurt if I party just a little, right?" Well, verses 1 and 15 speak directly against that. Sinning deliberately because we are under God's grace is not a "use" to be made of grace but an "abuse". Paul says "God forbid" or "may it not be coming to that" (CLNT). If we are truly saved the gratitude we feel will pull us away from sin, not pull us closer.
Romans 6: 16 If you are looking for total freedom in this life to do as you please your not going to find it. Freedom is relative, it's an allusion. Verse 20-21 says before we were born again, we were slaves of sin (CLNT), we were free in regard to righteousness, however the things we did produced fruit we are now ashamed of. Now that we are believers we are slaves of righteousness. We are free from sin. The fruit we now produce will last forever and we will never be ashamed of it. Salvation is not just to be believed but obeyed.
So we are either a slave unto death or a slave unto everlasting life. In this present life there is no other, and therefore there is only relative freedom for us as humans made in the likeness of Adam. (Genesis 5: 3). How does knowing you will never be free from someone controlling you make it easier to chose who you will follow?
By the way, Romans 6: 23 is part of the Romans Road, a group of verses critical to understanding salvation. The others are 3: 23 and 5: 8. Please commit these to memory so that you are prepared when someone asks the reason for your faith. Grace MB
2 comments:
My thoughts were drawn towards the same verses that you discussed, Matt. The fact that we can just ask God to forgive us later is not an excuse to live as we please. In fact, I think that way of thinking is one of Satan's tricks. At least it's one that he uses with me. Romans 6:1-2 are verses that I need to remember so that I can bust them out against the Devil next time around :)
The idea that we are "either a slave unto death or a slave unto everlasting life" reminds of Revelation 3:16 - "So, because you are lukewarm — neither hot nor cold — I am about to spit you out of my mouth." Yikes. God wants us to be 100% wrapped up in Him. We can't sit on the fence. We can't think about how close we can get to the "sin line" without crossing it. Now there's a challenge.
Post a Comment