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? (Romans 6:1-2)
Welcome to Romans chapter six. I was told once that if I memorised it it would help me to overcome sin, so I did, but I found that just memorising and reciting a chapter does not give victory, Jesus gives victory. The useful thing about memorising it was that I understood it much better than I otherwise would have, and through memorisation and meditation it was engrafted to me to an extent.
So we have just been learning about how (catch this) more laws = more sin = more remorse = more forgiveness from Jesus. So it would be easy for someone to catch this idea and run with it as Martin Luther did by saying he will commit more sin so that he can be sure he is saved by grace alone.
Paul and I have just made the argument yesterday that by having more rules (like where to live, what to eat, what to watch, and what to wear) we help people to be saved (as long as the rules are God's rules) because they have more opportunities to see that they will not measure up except by the power of Christ. The 'weakness' in our argument, the natural retort, is this: "If you want me to feel more remorse, I'll just commit some more of the 'big' sins and then I'll feel remorseful enough! I don't need your laws and rules, I can find plenty of sin on my own."
Paul's response to Martin Luther or the modern Christian is clear: "Not at all!" "No way!" ("God forbid" is simply the strongest "no" the translators had when they made the translation. The original is also simply the strongest "no". It could be literally translated: "No, no.") So why does Martin Luther's argument work "not at all"? Because salvation is a death to sin, that idea will be developed more. But basically, we cannot sin more to get more grace because the grace is given to stop us sinning.
Grace was given to free me from bondage to anger. When I was faced with bondage to vain imagination should I have deliberately lost my temper at someone so that I would get grace to overcome my diseased imagination? No way, that's absurd. But rather, it wasn't until I was convicted that my imagination was causing me to sin that I received the grace to overcome it. As the law reveals new flaws in our character we will receive new grace to overcome. If I refuse to let Jesus overcome a particular sin in my life because I want to keep being forgiven I am being a fool. There are enough sins in my life for Jesus to keep overcoming them one after another until I am ready to meet him face to face. New revelations on things to improve bring new grace and growth. Returning to old sins brings stagnation (corruption through not moving) and spiritual death.
What is the next thing Jesus wants to overcome in my life?
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