For when ye were the servants of sin, ye were free from righteousness. 21 What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed? for the end of those things is death. 22 But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life. (Romans 6:20-22)
As unconverted people, we do not really feel the pain of our sin. We are quite happy carrying on and managing as we are, and religious people don't know what they are talking about when they say absurd things about "a God shaped hole in your heart" or "you can't have purpose or fulfilment without Christ". It does not make sense to us why we need to believe some things or obey some rules so we can live in some strange place forever.
The solution to the unconverted heart that was copied from the Greeks by the Jews and passed to the Roman church from early days was this: the unconverted fear pain though they have no interest in heaven. So it would be taught that unless they were converted they would be tortured forever in the Greek-style underworld. This fear of eternal torture finally scared me into accepting Jesus as my saviour, but it was a hard road from there before I was really converted and accepted him as my lord. I needed to be ground to the dust by inner turmoil and see myself failing at life before I was ready to say to Jesus "okay, why don't you try it then?" I didn't word it exactly that way, but it was a bit like that. I just knew I could not have a "perfect" life with myself in charge, it was actually very good, but not perfect and I wanted "perfect" very badly.
It is the quest for the good life that God uses to motivate us in this passage. Paul asks the converted: did you enjoy sin? The obvious answer is "no, not really". It's true, the stupid sins I was risking my life with did not really give me pleasure at all. But the pure pleasures started coming when I gave my heart to Jesus. Of course I had incredible peace and joy at first, but it didn't stop there. There was a transition period, where things were mixed, but the real joys were coming through and it was undeniable that they were owing to God, whereas the negatives were clearly the result of the policy I had previously pursued.
Holiness. It means a bunch of different things to a bunch of different people. I know there's a proper definition related to something being set aside for a religious ritual, but my reading of the Bible suggests to me that can't be all it means. What is a holy person like? Is it a person that always dresses in a white robe and walks around chanting Psalms? I don't think that picture fits the Bible very well. From my reading of the Bible, I would say holy can be a kind of opposite to "sinner". I know that the opposite of sin is actually righteousness, so there is a bit of a difference here. Perhaps holiness is about doing everything for the purpose of the Glory of God (to make God look good), which obviously means abstaining from sin but is it limited to that? I doubt it.
After conversion, we are not able to sin without fear of punishment. We are led to live for Christ. When a man lives for himself, we don't like him. When a man lives for Christ, people my age have only one word to describe that kind of person (forgive our tiny vocabulary) he is "awesome". Being in tune with the ruler of the universe is the key to awesomeness. If you want to be an awesome person, always making the right choices, always saying the right things, knowing how to be happy and make others happy too, your first step is to ask Jesus to be your lord and saviour.
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom: a good understanding have all they that do his commandments: his praise endureth for ever. (Psalm 111:10)
Note: My first paragraph is not intended to disparage the claim that every person has a deep longing for God. I think this claim is probably true (Eccles 3:11?) in the sense that everyone needs God to be fully satisfied. I was drawing attention to the fact that most non-Christians I meet do not acknowledge a longing for God and seem to be sincere about it. They do have a longing for the real God, but that's different to the God they have heard about. I hope that those of you who relate to the first paragraph see in the other paragraphs that there are good reasons to come to Jesus even if you experience neither fear of hell nor intense spiritual longing.
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