In our last blog, Paul taught us that grace is greater than sin.  What that means is that it does not matter what sin we commit, how bad it is, or how long we have been committing it, the grace of God is powerful enough to defeat it.  We must, of course, repent of our sins if we want them to be forgiven, but once we do that, the grace of God, through the blood of Christ, will take care of the rest.

Does this give us the license to sin?  Paul believed that some would conclude such from his teaching so he made sure that his readers understood that grace never makes sinning okay.

Romans 6:1-2 (ESV)
¹  What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? ²  By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?

It is hard to believe that anyone would take the teaching of Paul on grace and turn it into a license to sin, but many who claim to follow Christ have done that very thing.

Jude 1:4 (KJV)
⁴  For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ.

I wish I could say that this only took place in the first century but, the truth is, it has continued through the years.  False teachers who say it is impossible to fall from grace are teaching that due to the grace of God, we can live any way we want and not lose our salvation.  Listen to a couple of such false teachers:

“If I killed my wife and mother and debauched a thousand women, I couldn’t go to hell—in fact, I couldn’t go to hell if I wanted to” (Bill  Foster, a Baptist preacher).

“We take the position that a Christian’s sins do not damn the soul.  The way a Christian lives has nothing whatever to do with the salvation of his soul.  All the sins he may commit from idolatry to murder will not make his soul in any more danger”  (Sam Morris, another Baptist preacher).

This is the inescapable conclusion of Calvinism, and it turns the grace of God into lasciviousness.  If Calvinists were to honestly answer Paul’s question in Romans 6:1, they may not say “yes we should continue in sin,” but they would have to at least say, “we could.”  The problem is, Paul points out in the next verse that we cannot.

“How can we who died to sin still live in it?”  Paul is pointing out the impossibility of both being dead to sin and living in sin at the same time.  Why is it impossible?  Because death always involves a separation.  To die physically involves a separation of body and spirit (James 2:26).  To die spiritually is for our souls to be separated from God (Isaiah 59:1-2).   To die to sin is to be separated from sin, meaning that we no longer make a practice of sinning (1 John 3:7-9).  So, how can a person practice sin and be dead to it at the same time?  It is impossible.

Our aim in life should be nothing less than complete abstinence from sin and total compliance with the Word of God.  Are we going to do these things perfectly?  Of course not, but if that is how we are striving to live, we will walk worthy of our call, and the grace of God will handle the rest.  What the grace of God will not do is help us when we decide to sin deliberately so that the grace of God will abound.  Let us all be thankful for the grace of God every day, but never abuse it by thinking it gives us a license to sin.

As you wind down for the night, think about these things