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RomansSurvey of the New Testament:
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Previous: Justification of Humanity through Faith in Jesus Christ (Romans 3:21-5:21)
Why do those who have been made righteous in the sight of God still live unrighteous lives and how can they begin to reconcile their actions with their status before God?(Romans 6:1-8:17)
If salvation comes through faith by grace alone and not through obedience to the Law, then there would appear to be no incentive for those who have been justified by grace to stop participating in sin. In the next section of Romans, Paul explains that this is not the case. Salvation does not stop with being justified. Instead God continues to work on the justified by sanctifying them. That is to say, God will continue the process of salvation through faith, bringing salvation not just from the penalty of sin, but the power of sin in everyday life.
Paul explain the process of sanctification by raising and answering four objections which might be heard from Jews who thought the Gentile Christians needed to follow the Jewish laws and customs.
If we are justified by grace rather than our own efforts, then doesn't this gospel imply that we should give free reign to our sinful desires and sin all the more so that grace may abound?
Paul responds with his characteristic, “May it never be!” To ask such a question means you don't understand the nature of justification. Only those who repudiate their sinfulness and acknowledge that is places them under God's wrath, longing to be free from sin will receive justification for their sins [1].
Paul uses the symbolism of baptism to demonstrate that the justified are identified with Christ in his death, burial and resurrection. The justified are united to Christ, such that when Christ died, our sinful nature dies as well. The justified are united to Christ, such that when Christ rose from the dead, we receive new life as well. Therefore, we are dead to the sin which condemned us, so why would we want to go back to that life of sin?
Because we died to sin, we are no longer slaves to sin, but are free from sin. Why then, would one who repudiates their sin and are justified before God want to go back to a life of slavery to sin? The truly justified would seek to give free reign to sinful desires just to be find addition grace, for that would mean returning to a master from whom we have been seeking to obtain freedom.
Nonetheless, even though we have been freed from our old master, often those who have been liberated from slavery struggle with this new found freedom. After the Civil War many of the emancipated slaves in the south remained on their plantations serving their old masters. Likewise those who have been justified from the penalty of sin continue to struggle with the power of sin in their lives.
Paul therefore has to remind us that overcoming the power of sin requires three proactive steps on our part:
When Christ died, through our identification with Him, we died to sin. However, when Christ rose from the dead, through our identification with Him, we became alive to God.
If we can be justified by faith rather than through the law, then what is to stop people from continuing to sin? The law is no longer there to restrain people from sin. Justification by faith lacks an effective incentive against sinful behavior [2].
The act of presenting ourselves to a master gives power to that master regardless of whether or not that master has any real authority over us. If we continue to present ourselves to sin, we continue to be slaves to sin, even though we are free from that master. Therefore, to realize sanctification we need to stop presenting ourselves to our old master and begin presenting ourselves as “slaves of righteousness” (6:19).
To illustrate this, imagine an 18 th century sailing ship where the captain of the ship was as a cruel despot. This tyrant made life unbearable for the crew as he barked out unreasonable and immoral orders. One day, the crew mutinied and seized the captain. The first mate was put in charge of the ship and the crew, out of mercy for their former skipper, tied him up to the masthead rather than kill him.
The captain was no longer the master of the ship. The captain had no power over the crew. Yet as the captain sat there, tied to the masthead, strangely he would still bark out orders as if he were still running the ship. And even more strangely, sometime the crew would find themselves running to obey the captured captain. The crew had obeyed the captain for so long, and had feared his punishment for so long, that, out of habit, they found themselves submitting to the master whom no longer had any power over them.
Like the crew of that sailing ship, our former master, sin, is bound. It is no longer in control. Yet sin continues to bark orders to us, asking us to obey it. And out of habit, out of fear, we find ourselves submitting to a master who no longer has any power over us.
The captain of the ship only had power over the crew if they listened and obeyed their captain. Likewise, sin only has power over us as long as we listen an obey our former master.
This old master brings misery, destruction and death. Therefore, why would we want to return to a master who would destroy and kill us? But our new master sanctifies us and leads us to eternal life.
In light of this, how does Paul answer the objection that justification by grace doesn't restrain sin? What restrains us? Our desire to please our new master who gives us life and our desire to leave behind our old master which leads to death.
Paul illustrates the principle of being dead to sin through an illustration from the Law. Under the Law a married woman could not divorce her husband. She was bound to Him. However, once her husband dies, she is no longer bound to her husband and she can remarry.
The same principle applies to us. We were married to sin. However, once we died to sin through our unification with Christ's death, we are no longer bound to sin. We can “remarry,” being released from the Law so that we can now “serve in newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter.”
Because we have died with Christ, the Jewish Law no longer has any relevance to our lives, any more than laws of divorce have relevance to a widow.
If, then, the law has no relevance to those justified by grace, is the law itself sinful? Is Paul implying that the Jewish Law promotes evil, death and condemnation rather than a holy gift from God resulting in life?
Paul answers that, indeed the Law is good, and gives two arguments to make this point:
This is not the fault of the Law. The Law is good. It is humanity that is bad. The Law was intended to give life, but because of our own sinfulness, it resulted in our death (7:9-10).
Isn't Paul saying that the Law, which is good, caused our death? If the law results in death, how can Paul consider the law good?
It is not the fault of the Law that its effect was death. Our condemnation was a result of the evil within us, and without the Law we would have never seen the extent of our own inherent sinfulness.
Furthermore, once we are justified by grace, our desire changes. We may still struggle with sin, but our heart changes. While the desire to sin still is within us, as we become more mature in Christ we long more and more for the things of righteousness.
Before we were justified the Law just gave us new sins to try. After justification by grace our hearts are changed such that we desire to keep the law of God (7:21-22).
That desire we have to sin is certainly within us. But it does not define us. Those who are justified are no longer sinful people. But, sin is like a cancer that remains in our body. When someone fights against cancer, they do not say that they are fighting themselves, but that they are fighting an unwelcome inhabitant of the body. So it is with sin. When we deny the urge to give in to sin, we are not fighting against ourselves, but we are fighting against and unwelcome inhabitant of ourselves.
So while we agree with Paul when he says, “wretched man that I am,” we also agree with Paul when he says, “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord,” for he has justified me, a wretched sinner. For indeed “there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (8:1).
Often those who are justified by grace through faith try to achieve sanctification through works. But all salvation is a work of grace, including sanctification. We can not achieve sanctification through diligent obedience to the Law. Sanctification is a work of grace appropriated by faith. Whereas justification comes through the work of Christ, Sanctification comes through the work of the Spirit.
The Spirit has set us free from the Law (8:2). If the Law could not justify us (8:3), so why would it be able to sanctify us? We were justified by Christ taking on flesh and meeting the requirements of the Law (8:4), and therefore the Law can be fulfilled by us only by walking according to the Spirit (8:5). If we seek sanctification through the flesh, it will lead to death (8:6a) and hostility with God (8:7), for the flesh can not please God (8:8). If we seek sanctification through the Spirit, it will result in life and peace (8:6b).
Those who have been justified are not of the flesh any longer, but of the Spirit (8:9). That is to say, all who belong to God have the Spirit. If you have Christ, you have the Spirit (8:10). This is the same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead (8:11a). Therefore you can be assured that this Spirit can give life to our body (8:11) which is dead because of sin (8:10).
How does sanctification through the work of the Spirit differ from sanctification through our own effort to keep the Law? Those who live by the Spirit obey God out of desire rather than obligation (8:12). That obligation to do deeds through the flesh leads to death, while allowing the Spirit to kill off the deeds of the flesh leads to life (8:13). Those who are led by the Spirit are children of God (8:14). Therefore, sanctification through the Spirit isn't based on obligation (i.e. a Spirit of slavery), which rules us by fear (8:15a). Instead sanctification through the Spirit is based on being children of God (8:14b).
In other words, sanctification through the Spirit is a life of rules, but a life of relationship. We seek to overcome the power of sin in our lives not through keeping a list of rules powered through our own fleshly efforts. That is sort of sanctification is motivated only by fear. Instead, we are not motivated by fear, but by a Spirit of adoption. We seek to please God, not out of fear but because He is our daddy (8:15b). We are indeed children of God, and just like all little children want to be like their daddy, so we want to be like our daddy (8:16).
And if we indeed are God's children, then we are also God's heirs, sharing in God's estate with His Son, Jesus. We are fellow heirs with Jesus, sharing not only in His suffering, but also in His glory. That leads to the next section of the book of Romans as Paul addresses our third aspect of salvation: glorification.
Next: Part IV - Glorification by Faith
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