Wednesday of Trinity 6

Living in Sin?

Romans 6:1-11 (ESV) What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

A great debate throughout the middle ages and on into the Reformation was over whether God would give commands that we do not have the power to fulfill. To many, it just didn’t seem fair He could lay such an expectation on us, such as, “You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48). Luther and the Lutherans rightly said, “God certainly has given us commandments that we could never dream of fulfilling.” In His demand for us to be perfect, in His requirement to pray without ceasing, in His Ten Commandments, the Lord has laid upon us a burden too great for any sinner to bear.

Anyone who thinks it unfair or unreasonable for God to place such weighty expectations on us frail humans has never fully come to grips with what we owe our Creator, nor has he properly estimated the insidious nature of sin, which is our total rebellion against God. “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God” (Romans 3:10-11).

That’s right, no one seeks after God; rather, everyone seeks his or her own pleasure. Lest we get any silly notion that we can enter God’s courtroom and even open our mouths to defend ourselves on the basis of our level of moral perfection, or our obedience to the Decalogue, our Lord stuffs our mouths full by the following words and shuts us up for good: “Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin” (Romans 3:19-20).

As we assess our lives in the light of that law, we are brought to the “knowledge of sin” in our hearts. The situation is much worse than we ever could have imagined. But this is just what God wants us to realize, and that is why He makes such unbelievably stringent demands on our lives.

This prepares us for the Gospel: “God has consigned all to disobedience, that He may have mercy on all” (Romans 11:32). Isn’t that a shocking statement? If we hope to be found under God’s mercy, we first must be found disobedient. But while we each have been disobedient from the time of our conception (Psalm 51:5), God’s mercy had already been shown when Christ “died for all” (2 Corinthians 5:14). “God our Savior…desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time” (1 Timothy 2:3-6).

For all our failures to keep God’s Law, we have a Redeemer from sin and a Mediator with God, in whom we have forgiveness of all our sins!

Still, the question is, what does St. Paul mean by “living in sin,” and do we need to fear this happening to us? St. Paul continues in Romans 6:12-14, “Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.”

Notice the future-tense, promissory sense here: “sin will have no dominion over you.” This is God’s promise to believers, and when He makes a promise, He keeps it, since He “never lies” (Titus 1:2). This should relieve our anxiety, even as Paul urges us to struggle against sin.

After Romans 6, Paul in Romans 7 will go on to describe his (and our) struggle between the flesh and the spirit, and he concludes, “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin” (Romans 7:24-25).

This struggle is the reality of our lives, so we flee to Christ for rescue, and He will not leave us or forsake us, but surely will preserve us in the one true faith unto life everlasting: “Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it” (1 Thessalonians 5:23-24). “And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ” (Philippians 1:6).

Prayer (TLH 379):

1. I do not come because my soul

Is free from sin and pure and whole

And worthy of Thy grace;

I do not speak to Thee because

I’ve ever justly kept Thy laws

And dare to meet Thy face.

2. I know that sin and guilt combine

To reign o’er ev'ry tho't of mine

And turn from good to ill;

I know that, when I try to be

Upright and just and true to Thee,

I am a sinner still.

3. I know that often when I strive

To keep a spark of love alive

For Thee, the pow'rs within

Leap up in unsubmissive might

And oft benumb my sense of right

And pull me back to sin.

4. I know that, though in doing good

I spend my life, I never could

Atone for all I’ve done;

But though my sins are black as night,

I dare to come before Thy sight

Because I trust Thy Son.

5. In Him alone my trust I place,

Come boldly to Thy throne of grace,

And there commune with Thee.

Salvation sure, O Lord, is mine,

And, all unworthy, I am Thine,

For Jesus died for me. Amen.