Romans 6:1-14
My Study Bible just opened my eyes a bit. Chapters 6, 7, and 8 form a unit. Chapter 6 is about the believer’s freedom from sin; chapter 7 is freedom from the Law’s condemnation, and chapter 8 is life in the power of the Holy Spirit. So today the focus is sin and its weakened power on us.
Yesterday I posted that I liked the following verse: …where sin increased, grace abounded all the more. (v. 20b) Now today Paul takes off on that statement as a prelude to his “sin chapter”: Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! (v. 1b-2a) The translation of verse 2 that I like replaces By no means! with “May it never be!” Emphatic!!
Paul still has a lot of triads in his writing – I just don’t point them all out. But here’s one worth noting: We know that our old self (a) was crucified with him in order that (b) the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that (c) we would no longer be enslaved to sin. (v. 6, my own parenthetical letters added) Sin’s power is gone, but only if we claim it and live in Holy Spirit sanctification!
I like Paul’s concept of our “old self”. I’ve heard of people “reinventing” themselves. I did that myself, when I started graduate school at the University of Maryland. I left behind the person most people knew back in Illinois and truly changed some aspects of my personality that I did not like. And it was a good thing. Unfortunately, I fell back into some of the same old traps that I intended to leave behind – and I keep working on those same character faults wherever I go. So while I am not “enslaved to sin”, sin still lurks in the dark and I constantly need God’s grace to continue to resist those temptations. I need to always remind myself that I am dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. (v. 11b)
Slava Bohu!