September 22, 2002
1. What is the “problem” that Paul addresses in
verses 1 and 2 of the chapter? How does it relate to chapter 5?
The
problem that Paul addresses in the first two verses of chapter 6 is the
“problem of grace.” He finished chapter
5 saying that even though the sin of Adam’s descendants was great, the blood of
the second Adam, the Lord Jesus Christ, covered the sins of His chosen. In Matthew Henry’s words, Paul ends chapter
5 with the following idea: “The grace of God, through the righteousness of
Christ, has more power to bring salvation, than Adam's sin had to bring misery,
(v. 15-19) as grace did super-abound. (v. 20, 21).” Chapter 5:20 says, “20 Moreover
the law entered that the offense might abound. But where sin abounded, grace
abounded much more”. The question
that Paul assumed would naturally arise in his readers’ minds was, “Well, if
grace is so rich and covers all my transgressions, then why not continue to
live in sin with impunity?” Like we said when we discussed the verses, it is a
natural reaction to the gospel of sovereign grace that Paul has preached so far
in Romans. However, Paul dedicates
chapter 6 to refuting this attitude according to which our having the assurance
of our forgiveness gives us a license to live sin-laden lives.
2. What doctrine do verses 3 to 8 expound upon?
The doctrine that
these verses expound upon is one that we have mentioned in chapter 5 as well.
It is the doctrine of our union with Christ. It is a wonderful and amazing doctrine
because what it actually says is that, according to God’s plan, we were in
Christ in His death and, also, in His resurrection. Now, if that does not leave you in awe, check your pulse (oops,
too late already!). This doctrine of
our union with Christ is at the basis of the doctrine of justification by faith
alone. We were united with Christ and
our sins were imputed to Him, the blameless, perfect Lamb of God, and His
perfect righteousness was imputed to us, rebellious sinners. Why God chose to do this and do it this way,
only He knows. All we know is that we
cannot let this truth be without effect in our lives. We have to realize that our lives have to show forth that our God
is an awesome God so that, like Peter says, those who see our deeds will praise
God. His is to be all the glory!
3. What does our death to sin mean? What does
it entail?
Our death to sin
signifies that we are no longer under its power. Remember the quote by St. Augustine
(_______________________________ - you can fill it in here if you remember it)
and the illustration taken from the life of St. Macarius (one of the early
hermits). We are dead to sin so sin is
not to have any power over our lives.
That is why we are not to let sin reign in our bodies. (If you have
gotten here and the previous sentences did not seem strange, go back and read
them again.) That is how things work in
the new kingdom that we are in. We are
not to let sin reign in our bodies because sin shall have no dominion over
us. In other words, we have to start
living reality. The reality is that sin is defeated and does not have dominion
over us. Now that we know that, let’s live in light of that truth. The fact that the battle was won by Christ
in our stead should not cause us to take the battle lightly. The battle is won – wonderful truth – but we
are not to stop fighting. We are
fighting knowing our victory is secure. In this context, remember what Willie
mentioned about the parallel between this and the liberation of Israel from
Egypt and their journey to Canaan.
(This should be a good test of how awake you were during that part of
the discussion.)
4. Verse 14 says that sin shall have no
dominion over us. Does that mean we will live sinless lives after being saved?
Simply put, no,
it does not mean that we will live perfect lives. While we are in these bodies we will be subject to temptation and
sometimes we will fall. We are saints and sinners at the same time, like that
popular song says. However, we are to fight sin because sin is not to reign in
our bodies. (For more on that, see previous question and the handout by John
Piper (those of you who didn’t “forget” it in the Bible study room or in
church).) The Christian life is a
sanctification process that the Holy Spirit works in our lives to make us more
like Christ. Piper’s illustration is
that of a castle that is to be rid of traitors. You cannot do it all at once but in time you will get to all of
them. The same is true about one’s
Christian life. You cannot uproot all sin in your life in a day, but through
diligent battle your life, not because of your ability but because of the help
of the Holy Spirit, will become more and more like Christ’s. We are not going to achieve perfection but
our call as Christians is to live lives that will bring glory to our
magnificent God!
5. (Paul’s question, not mine) “Shall
we sin because we are not under law but under grace?” (v. 15)
In spite of the
fact that this is meant to be a rhetorical question at this point in the
chapter, Paul does provide an answer as well. This answer is a resounding
“Certainly not!” The word in Greek is me (mhv), which is (according to The
KJV New Testament Greek Lexicon) “a primary article that […] expresses
absolute denial.” I know I mentioned that if we were to translate it into modern
English we would have to use an expletive.
Paul has just spent the first half of the chapter showing why we cannot
continue to sin. He has proven the
exact opposite of what the potential question asked. He has proven that, precisely because we are under
grace, we can not sin (the can not is not a spelling
mistake). Why? Because, in our new
state we are dead to sin and, moreover, we have been moved into a new kingdom
and under a new King who guaranteed our victory, and also promised He would
support us and strengthen us in our battles against the defeated enemy, sin.
6. What does it mean to be a “slave of
righteousness”?
This
is the second illustration meant to shed light on the transformation that takes
place when one comes to the Lord in repentance. When we were talking about
verse 12 that says we are not to let sin reign in our body that we might obey
its lusts I mentioned that Paul employs two images to help prove his point that
we were given a new status, a new life, a new identity. Both analogies were particularly appropriate
for 1st century Romans because they knew very well both about
soldiers and slaves. The second image,
that of a slave, that Paul presents is straightforward: you were slaves to sin,
now you are slaves of righteousness.
A
few interesting observations can be made, however. In v. 17 - But God be thanked that though you were
slaves of sin, yet you obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine to which you
were delivered. – Paul says that God should be thanked for our being
freed from the bondage of sin and for our being made obedient to His Word. Now,
how can that be? God should be thanked that our minds are changed? How can that
be if we decide whether we accept or reject the Gospel? Isn’t it
preposterous that Paul would assign the credit to God on that one? When the
problem is presented this way, I don’t know how many of you would still support
a view that says that we can exercise our “free will” when it comes to
salvation. Look at the image Paul’s
using! He says we were slaves of sin. Slaves don’t have a free will. They’re dependent on their master
and under his power. The only way we could have been freed from that is not
through the exercise of our will but through the work of the Holy Spirit. (It
is ultimately a choice; not a free choice but a freed
choice!)
Another aspect that we’ve seen
before in Romans is the verbs. Notice the voice that they are in. They are in the passive voice: “[you obeyed]
the doctrine to which you were delivered”, “having been set free from sin.” What
does that mean? It means that we are not the agents in these sentences. We are being acted upon by Someone else,
obviously God. Once again, the glory is
all God’s and the wondrous love that He showed towards us in preparing a plan
of liberation for us can only make us love Him more, be so very grateful, and
obey Him faithfully.
THANKS BE TO GOD!
Sorin
Voicu-Comendant
Soli
Deo Gloria!