Have you ever had someone – maybe a child – take something that you said, and make it completely absurd? Maybe you tell them that some dairy in their diet is healthy, so they suggest that they should eat ice cream all the time! Other people, who we probably call well-meaning legalists, might say that, if the law shows us our sins and points us to God, then we should create even more rules.
At the start of Romans 6, Paul seems to be countering a similar line of faulty logic: “If sin leads to more grace, shouldn’t we sin all the time?”
What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?
Romans 6:1-2 NIV
The answer might seem obvious, but Paul still takes the time to give the answer: No! In the NIV, this is “By no means!” Other translations read, “Of course not!” (NLT), “May it never be!” (NASB), or – in the King James Version – “God forbid.”
Just because the law helped us to see our sins and find grace (since those who don’t realize their separation from God aren’t likely to search for how to be restored back to Him), doesn’t mean that we should keep piling on more sins.
Consider someone who didn’t seek out God until they got really sick and desperate for healing: just because suffering or illness helped lead them to God doesn’t mean that they should keep doing things to cause themselves harm. Continuing to hurt ourselves – whether physical injury to our body, or the spiritual injury to our souls that results from sin – just doesn’t make any sense, especially once we have been healed from self-inflicted wounds of either kind. (By the way, if you struggle with feelings of wanting to hurt yourself, please make some time to visit with a qualified Christian counselor. There are helpful treatments out there, to help you become whole again.)
Once you’ve found the truth and turned your life over to Jesus, you are on a better path. There’s no need to just dwell on how you got there or how bad things were before you met Him, nor is there any value in going back to our previous lives of sin away from God.
If Jesus doesn’t return in the next couple of days, let’s continue with some more examples of this in the next article…
From Sunday School lesson prepared for March 6, 2022
References:
- The Lookout, March 6, 2022, © 2022 Christian Standard Media.
- Scripture taken from the Holy Bible, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
- Scripture quotations taken from the NASB. Copyright by The Lockman Foundation.
- Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright ©1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, a Division of Tyndale House Ministries, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
- The College Press Commentary, Romans, Volume 1, by Jack Cottrell. College Press Publishing Company, © 1996.
Those Who Sin Differently 