This article is a rewrite of an earlier article in my Romans series. I’m sending it out again to clarify one or two points made earlier. But it’s also important to have in mind with regard to the present series on joy—as I think you will see. So, happy reading!
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When Paul writes his letter to Christians in Rome, he’s eager to demonstrate the power of God’s kindness, a kindness that dwarfs the whole sorry business of our trying to take over from him.
And now, in the light of this abundant grace, Paul wants to show us how to live in a way that brings glory to God.
In fact, Paul begins by responding to some who doubt, or scorn, the good news he has announced—people who can’t believe, or don’t want to rely on God’s amazing grace. And he does so by answering two questions (vv. 1 and 15).
Here’s his first question. ‘Shall we just let loose and do as we please, so that God’s grace can shine out all the more?’ It’s a question calculated to throw scorn on the freedom of God’s grace.
‘This could never be’ says Paul. God could not want that! He responds with what God does want—two purpose statements. It’s so that we can live a new life (v.4), and so that our bodily sins can be disabled (v. 6).
God has set us up to really live differently! The gospel is not an escape route from being what we are created to be. It goes on being powerful in framing and empowering a change of life. So, we need to look again at what God has achieved in his gospel.
First, everything here depends on what has happened to Jesus.
Far from merely looking at Christ as a spectacle, or perhaps appreciating him as a benefactor, we have been included in his dying and rising, and in what those events have accomplished. When we believe in Christ, usually expressed in baptism, we’re accepting that our new life doesn’t start with us. It starts with what happens to him—and happens to us who, by faith, are in him.
And Paul tells us this because Christ’s death and resurrection is not only the way we are saved from our sins, but it’s the way in which our whole life can be recalibrated. Jesus doesn’t just die for our sins. He dies to sin (v. 10). We need to know what this means.
Obviously, Jesus doesn’t die to sinning because he never sinned. But when he dies, he so fully exhausts what sin and condemnation and death can do to sinners, that he’s died to anything more it can do to him. He’s died to the dominion of sin. Sin used to reign, but now, grace does.[i]
Think about this a little more. Jesus says before his death, and concerning those who come to arrest him, ‘… this is your hour, and the power of darkness’.[ii] Jesus knows that Satan will now do all he can to destroy him and his mission. But he also says, ‘…the ruler of this world is coming. He has no claim on me.’[iii] What is going to happen to Jesus will look like the triumph of Satan and his evil intent. In fact, it is going to be Christ’s victory.
We need to know this because Jesus is taking us with him through all that happens here.
Satan gains power over us by accusing and condemning. He can get us in a corner! But now, God has reckoned his Son to be the guilty one. Jesus has endured all that sin entails—its pollution and shame as well as its penalty. He has especially endured alienation from his Father—the worst of all.[iv] And he exhausts all that it can do to him—and to us. So, when he says ‘It is finished’[v], all of this is included in what is finished. He’s ‘died to sin’. It can do no more to him. And he commends himself to the Father.
This is important for us because we’ve been united with Christ in ‘a death like his’ (v. 5). Sin can’t do anything more to him. So, it follows that it can’t do anything more to us either!
But how can this be? Sin—as we see what it offers, and feel its tug, still seems to have plenty of influence on us.
It certainly doesn’t mean we have no temptations, no inner tendencies to do wrong, no failures. But God’s purpose is to disable our propensity to sinning (v. 6). Paul calls it ‘our body of sin…being brought to nothing’. We’ve been joined to Christ’s crucifixion specifically to bring this slavery to an end[vi].
This almost seems to be too ambitious! But Paul explains how this happens. Someone who’s died is ‘set free from sin’ (v. 7) But the word translated ‘free’ is actually the word ‘justified’.[vii] God is calling us righteous because we are trusting the Son who has fulfilled all God’s righteousness.
So, the freedom we have is freedom from sin’s pollution—we are clean in God’s eyes, we have freedom from guilt—God himself finds nothing to accuse, and freedom from penalty—we look forward to eternal life. And, as we have seen, we have access to grace. We can look to God and seek his favour. We can bear to be looked on by him! We will never be forsaken!
It helps if we think about the opposite of this. Consider the effect that personal failures have on our will to please God. Satan accuses us continually. He knows the effectiveness of guilt to keep us from doing good. Think of the sapping of energy when our conscience tells us we are compromised and contaminated. What can we do to lift our game?
But then, because Christ has hung on his cross where we compromised and soiled sinners should have been, and because he’s been raised from the dead, God rightly calls us righteous.
Someone who has been cleansed like this wants to stay that way and please his or her wonderful Benefactor. We don’t work towards getting a clear conscience. We start with one. And while we look to Christ and not to ourselves, we remain with one.[viii]
And so, with King David, we may have felt God’s heavy hand on us as sinners,[ix] and longed to know the joy of his salvation. And God satisfies this longing. He forgives our sin, and upholds us with a willing spirit.[x] Or, like Isaiah when God cleansed him, we can say, ‘Here am I Lord. Send me!’[xi] Or, like the forgiven Peter, we can say, ‘You know that I love you’.[xii]
Paul also tells us that we are united with Christ in his resurrection (v. 4). Jesus now has a human life that is renewed—after bearing our sins. He is alive to God, his Father.[xiii]
Of course, he has always lived to God—eternally, but we couldn’t share in that. But he’s entered our world. He’s been where we were before God—forsaken. And he has been raised up to live with God. Death has lost its power over him.
And we’ve been raised up too. We can act and choose and think in the Father’s presence, as Jesus does now. We’ve been equipped to live as the righteous people he created us to be!
And we can be sure that if we are included in what he has done by dying for us, we will most certainly share in being physically raised from the dead as he was (v. 5).
So much for death being in charge of history! Sin, and condemnation, and the threat of death crippled our living (as Paul has shown in his previous section[xiv]). But not now! We’re ready to live.
Paul doesn’t want us to waste these privileges, and gives us three things to do. They belong together and they help us live in the blessing we’ve just considered. Here they are.
First, we must reckon our life the way God is reckoning it. We must breathe this new air deeply. We should notice what is controlling our thinking. We should give up our preoccupation with ourselves, or living by our own piety, and start with ourselves where God has placed us—in Christ.
Second, we must say no—over and over again— to temptations we used to give way to. Problems don’t go away by meditating, or just knowing things. Sometimes we just have to say ‘No!’ We should tell sin that it’s not in charge. There’s no negotiation here. No hesitation. We might be surprised how powerful our ‘No’ is! It’s backed by all that Christ has won for us.
And third, we must say ‘Yes’ to God and his will—over and over again—to exercise the new freedom we’ve received. We’re not meant to be overfed consumers. This new life is built for action. We used to be the living dead! But we’re alive to God now.
And just in case we’ve forgotten, Paul reminds us that law is no longer in charge—to either condemn us or to congratulate us! But grace is in charge. And this reign of grace enables us to live to God. And our humble beginnings are a delight to our heavenly Father. A sceptics question has yielded a rich feast. Next time, we’ll look at a second objection people have raised about the reign of God’s grace. And we’ll learn how to live as God’s joyful slaves!
[i] This has been spelled out back in Rom. 5:21
[ii] Luke 22:53
[iii] John 14:30
[iv] Mark 15:34
[v] John 19:30
[vi] Jesus has said that whoever sins becomes a slave of his sin (John 8:34). Peter also tells us that Jesus ‘bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might dies to sin and live to righteousness’ (1 Pet. 2:24).
[vii] Every other time Paul uses this word, this is what he means.
[viii] Heb. 9:14
[ix] Psa. 32:4
[x] Psa. 51:12
[xi] Isa. 6:7-8
[xii] John 21:17
[xiii] We refer here to his human nature rather his eternal relationship to the Father.
[xiv] Rom. 5:17, 21
Simply True 