Saturday, July 30th, 2011.
“You mean I can sin all I want and God’s grace will cover it?”
Not exactly. It is at this point in the conversation where
most people are placed back under the law. Resist
this temptation. The law will not help here. Press the
cross even harder.
Though it is a wrong to think we are “allowed” to sin,
when I hear this response it tells me the person
understands something about God’s grace:
it abounds more than sin (Rom 5:20).
It means that I’ve explained the gospel correctly,
because they are asking the same question Paul
addresses in Romans 6:1,15.
When you’re teaching the gospel to someone don’t
shy from this question like you have said something
wrong. You are right on track, but your job is not done.
When grace is understood then we need to progress
to what grace teaches: our old man is dead on the
cross (Rom 6:6). We are now free to live soberly,
righteously, and godly in Christ (Titus 2:12).
Under the law sin abounded, but now grace abounds
more. The way we treat our old man is by reckoning it
dead, and reckoning our life to be in Christ (Rom 6:11).
Sin continues when people think they are in bondage
to it. Christ has liberated us from its power. We now
walk by faith in what he has done. God forbid that
we should “sin all we want”, because we are no
longer subject to the body of sin. We ought to live
like it.
For your edification,
Justin Curtis Johnson