Certainly Not! Romans 6:1-4

Welcome back to Delving into the Scriptures! Today we are starting out on Romans 6, which changes focus a little from the start of Romans to now look specifically at sin. Remember the context of Romans 5 (the Bible didn’t have chapters and verses when it was written – they were added later for our benefit) that all have sinned since Adam, and where sin abounded, Grace abounded more!

So if the book were to stop there, we could come up with an argument that maybe if we were to sin a little more, we would get even more grace. So if we were to sin a whole lot more – then we would abound in grace, so lets sin as hard as we can, that grace might abound! It is known that this was a way of thinking after Jesus death, and believed this section is now written to counter that specific doctrine. It is amazing – we have a doctrine of grace, and yet people want to twist it so they can continue to live the way they always have – or even sin more than they did before knowing Christ intentionally! Think about it – doesn’t it already sound wrong?

I think Paul covers the question with clear authority for a start - Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Certainly not! (emphasis mine). No! Of course not! A more casual translation might say ‘no way, that’s crazy talk!’. But why not?

Much of chapter 6 is devoted to refuting this false doctrine, but we are given a first answer immediately – we have died to sin. Not only that, our sin was figuratively buried with Jesus because of His death on the cross (He died as the ultimate sacrifice for sin for all of us), and now just as He was resurrected on the third day, we have been ‘made alive’ again with Him.

This is the start of the concept of ‘new life’. Yes, we will continue to sin, and have sin in our lives – that is just the way of it (wait till we get to Chapter 7, or read ahead if you want to hear it now!) – but we no longer live in sin – we no longer try to sin, or go out of our way to sin. The desire lives on in our flesh – our bodies – but we are no longer chained to that desire. In fact, our desire is moving the other way – to avoid sin. We now start to want to get away from sin, and to get it out of our lives!

There are many people in the world who ‘live in sin’. They aim to sin. Many of them don’t even categorise it as sin – it is just what they choose to do. Be it sex, drugs, alcohol, violence, crime, whatever – it is the thing they are ‘living in’. They go out of their way to do those things because it makes them feel good, or powerful, or takes them away from the cares of life for a time (and brings them back to reality with a hard whack usually). This is living in sin – and this is what we are free of now!

So what does it mean to ‘walk in newness of life’? Think about it – to walk is an action – to move along from one place to another. Usually in the Bible to walk in something means to do it, or continually do it. We don’t get our new life and them just sit back and relax! No! We need to ‘walk in it’ – constantly live and remind ourselves of this new life, and slowly move from the life of sin we once lived, to a life of holiness before our God. It’s not an instant transformation – forgiveness of sins is, but getting to the point where we are walking daily with God and avoiding sin all together is going to take some time.

So let’s get walking!

Lord God, give us the strength to walk in new life with You. Teach us to respond to our desire to sin with certainly not! Continue to give us revelation into what it means to be a child of Yours. In Jesus Name. Amen.