GOD'S RIGHTEOUSNESS FOR MAN FROM START TO FINISH

Part IV: God's Righteousness Granted In Sanctification, Romans 6:1-8:39

A. Handling The Issue Of License, Romans 6:1-23

2. Answering The Question Of Continuing To Sin Since We Are Under Grace

(Romans 6:15-23)

I. Introduction

A. Paul had claimed that the believer is saved from the condemnation of the Law, that as "sin hath reigned unto death . . . grace might reign through righteousness unto eternal life," Romans 5:20-21.

B. He thus anticipated that his Judaizer critics might charge Paul with teaching that since one is not under the Law that critiqued sin and condemned one for judgment, he had a license to sin since he was under grace.

C. Romans 6:15-23 counters this charge, and we view it for our insight and edification (as follows):

II. Answering The Question Of Continuing To Sin Since We Are Under Grace, Romans 6:15-23.

A. Anticipating that Judaizer critics would misuse his claim that one was under grace and not the Law, Paul stated their question: "Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace?" (Romans 6:15 NIV)

B. He answered with the strong negative, me genoito, rendered, "Let it not be!" that the NIV renders, "By no means!" (Romans 6:15 NIV; Bible Know. Com., N. T., p. 464, 448)

C. Paul then explained that a person is bound either to sin or to live righteously, that there is no middle ground between them so that a license to sin is just a license to live unrighteously, Romans 6:16-20:

1. Sin and righteousness are like opposing masters: choosing to sin makes one a slave to sin resulting in death in general and choosing to live righteously makes one a slave to righteousness resulting in life in general (by way of implication), Romans 6:16.

2. Prior to salvation, Paul's readers were slaves to sin, but by heeding the Gospel of Christ from the heart, they were freed from sin to become the servants of righteousness, Romans 6:17-18.

3. Paul knew that it was technically incorrect to say one is enslaved to righteousness and to God, for "God does not hold His children in bondage," Ibid., p. 464. However, he used the analogy of slavery to sin or to righteousness because of the feeble spiritual understanding of his readers, Rom. 6:19; Ibid. They needed him to illustrate that there is no tolerance for sin in one who has been made righteous by faith in Christ, that opting to exercise license to sin countered the reason for God's saving him to live a righteous life!

4. Accordingly, Paul admonished his readers to yield the members of their physical bodies to live righteously now that they had been saved from sin, Romans 6:19b-20.

D. Paul then offered another analogy to counter the idea of a license to sin -- the analogy of the products of sin and righteousness in death and life in general, Romans 6:21-23; Ibid.:

1. Paul claimed that when his readers in their pre-salvation days were slaves to sin, the fruit of the sins they committed was death, Romans 6:21.

2. However, now that they were made free from sin through salvation in Christ, becoming the slaves of God so-to-speak, the benefit they reaped in their lives in Christ led to holiness, that is, separation from sin, that resulted in eternal life, Romans 6:22 NIV.

3. Paul summed that the wages of sin was death, ultimately eternal separation from God in hell, but the free gift of God that is granted when one believes in Christ is eternal life, Romans 6:23.

Lesson: The believer does not have a license to sin now that he is under grace and not the Law that defines and critiques sin and thereupon condemns the sinner, for license to sin makes one bound to live unrighteously, leading to death. There is no option besides righteousness or sin any more than there is an option between life or death. One is either sinful or righteous; one is either dead or alive!

Application: (1) We believers in Christ must realize that living under God's grace that liberates us from the Law's condemnation as well as from the clutches of eternal death and eventually even physical death NEVER gives us license to SIN! Sinning only counters the whole reason for God's saving us to live righteously, and sin produces the fruit of death, the opposite of what God positionally provides for us in Christ in terms of eternal life! (2) Since sin and righteousness are opposites just as life and death are opposites, then COMPROMISING righteousness with sin is exposed to be SIN: EITHER one lives RIGHTEOUSLY OR he SINS -- we EITHER HEED God's Word or we DON'T HEED it! May we then rely on the Holy Spirit to live RIGHTEOUSLY to obtain divine blessing and not God's discipline for SIN because we have COMPROMISED our righteousness!