Tag: legalism

The idea that a person can maintain their status while at the same time doing whatever they wish doesn’t gel too well with what we’ve experienced in life. For instance, if a man commits a crime against society, he cannot remain a free man; the law dictates that there is a price to be paid. Likewise, if a man commits adultery against his wife, typically their relationship either suffers greatly and they fight to fix it or the relationship is over – in either case his standing between he and his wife is changed.  But those same failures, as shameful as they are for a believer, do not end the relationship that the man has with the Lord.

This is the understanding we have of eternal security – we were saved by grace apart from works (see Ephesians 2:8-9); we were saved by the precious blood of Christ rather than tradition or personal sacrifice (see 1 Peter 1:18-19). If as unbelievers, we could do nothing to save ourselves from the wrath of God over our sins, it carries that neither can we, as the redeemed of God, do anything to remove ourselves from the relationship with God the Father gained through Christ the Son.

But there remains a menacing set of elephants in the room to be dealt with concerning the doctrine of eternal security and Paul rhetorically pulls them out in (Romans 6:1):

“What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?”

Here, the voice of the legalist and the liberal are heard in their extremes. The legalist shouts with indignation, “WHAT?!!!!! Do you mean to say that a person can continue to sin and still be saved???!!!” At the same time, the liberal gleefully sings, “I can do whatever I like!!! I am a child of the King!!!”

Paul had just finished saying in (Romans 5:20-21) “Moreover the law entered that the offense might abound. But where sin abounded, grace abounded much more, so that as sin reigned in death, even so grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”  Just as the truth about Jesus which our pastor reminded us about again this morning (and you can never be reminded enough about this important truth) that Jesus is not less than or equal to whatever we are or ever will go through but “Greater Than” – the grace He made available to us all though His blood is also greater than any offence we can commit. The hymnist writing of the Grace Greater than Our Sin called it the “marvelous grace of our loving Lord – grace that EXCEEDS our sin and our guilt…”

After preaching or teaching on God’s Great Grace, I have had people posit the argument Paul anticipates in (Romans 6:1), usually with the voice of the legalist and it is usually because that person fails to really grasp the grace of God. Such a person is speaking the words of the prodigal’s brother after the wayward son returns to his Father and then is graciously loved on (Luke 15:29-30):

“’Lo, these many years I have been serving you; I never transgressed your commandment at any time; and yet you never gave me a young goat, that I might make merry with my friends. But as soon as this son of yours came, who has devoured your livelihood with harlots, you killed the fatted calf for him.’”

The legalistic brother here was maximizing his brother’s sin, minimizing his own sinful attitudes and behavior and ignoring the fact that his father had been exceedingly gracious to BOTH sons.

Can we sin and still be children of Almighty God? Yes.

Will we desire to sin in order to test the limits of His grace? Listen to Paul’s answer (Romans 6:2-4):

“Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it? Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? Therefore, we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.”

Paul’s words are stronger in the original than we have translated them, (v.3) actually answers the absurdity of the question with – “Are you ignorant” of the realities born out of our connection with the Lord Jesus?!” (emphasis mine) Arguing that (v.6) believers should no longer be slaves of sin Paul stated in (v.7) that “he who has died has been freed from sin.” We have been cleared of wrong-doing, justified and set apart for eternal life through faith in Jesus Christ – the new man in Christ is associated with Christ’s death: Paul wrote: “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.” (Galatians 2:20, NKJV)

Since this is true, rather than testing the limits of God’s grace as a liberal or His patience as a legalist let us all do as Paul suggested in (Romans 6:11) “…reckon (consider) yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Do I, does the Lord advocate and condone open sin from those claiming to love Him? No. Sin DOES have an effect – how long is up to you – on one’s relationship with God. But grace and restoration ARE available to the one who confesses rather than attempts to conceal their failure (see 1 John 1:9). As a wise believer once taught, “when you become a believer, your ‘want to’ changes;” you won’t always DO as you should and that WILL affect your relationship but not your identity as a child of God nor your destiny of shared glorification (see Romans 8:17,30) with Him.

Remember, from the arms of the Lord will no believer be torn (see John 10:28) nor will He turn away or “cast out anyone who comes to Him” (John 6:37) by faith.