Fine then, the Law came in so that lawbreaking would increase\u00a0which would mean all the more need for grace. So what does it matter? Why not (for example a Jew who has the Law and knows this)\u00a0keep sinning? I mean, Paul, if God is so righteous and he is now saving sinners\u00a0by grace’why not sin so that there’s even more grace? What answer do you have\u00a0to that sin nature in all of us?”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
In our courtroom Paul is backed into an apparent corner\u00a0where the prosecution smugly crosses his arms waiting for Paul’s answers. Paul\u00a0wisely paces his case in responding specifically to that charge of the problem\u00a0of the sinful nature which leads to more sin. He points out how we who died to\u00a0sin can not live in it anymore. In a little bit he’ll say that our old man is\u00a0crucified with Christ. Soon after that he’ll say that we are to consider\u00a0ourselves to be dead to sin.<\/p>\n
Now we have the tendency to leap ahead and say “Yes! The\u00a0Holy Spirit enables us to not sin anymore and we know in Romans 12 that we’re\u00a0supposed to offer our bodies a living sacrifice!” Maybe we might even leap into\u00a0Galatians and say that we have been crucified with Christ or perhaps start\u00a0quoting how Christ told us to carry our cross daily. Those are all well and\u00a0good but Chapter 6 serves a purpose in the core of Paul’s argument.<\/p>\n
Paul uses a picture of the water baptism explaining it as a\u00a0picture of being unified in Christ’s death. What does that entail? Is this a\u00a0mystical union, solidarity of some non-mystical sort (I’ll have to examine that at some other point) or is Paul illustrating the first defense for sin\u00a0not having power over a believer?<\/p>\n
Now we may have a tendency to leap once more, this time\u00a0within the chapter, and say that it is a mental exercise. That we are to\u00a0constantly walk about thinking “I’m dead. I’m dead. I’m dead…” to survive the\u00a0assault of sin while others say ‘I literally am now dead” and effectively\u00a0downplay the sin that so easily besets us.<\/p>\n
Paul tells us that the old man, our old self, was crucified with\u00a0Christ: not our old nature, but our entire person. Who we are, the way we act,\u00a0the former man as defined by sin as a system was crucified with Christ and we identify with\u00a0that death in the picture of water baptism. Knowing that this is the case and\u00a0that Christ has been raised from the dead, we can now walk in newness of life.\u00a0Death is no longer a master over this person for they have died in that legal sense.<\/p>\n
Paul is offering a legal defense of God’s dealing with sin\u00a0in man. He’s already paid for the sin via propitiation, but now, that entire\u00a0old self is legally killed in the identification with Christ. This isn’t a\u00a0daily thing for Paul points out that this old self was (past, present and evermore)\u00a0crucified with Christ. This being the legal case, a believer can now consider\u00a0his own person and say “I am legally dead to sin–it has no hold over me since I\u00a0have already died.”<\/p>\n
With this legal ruling in mind, the believer no longer has\u00a0to let sin reign in his body but he can legally point out that sin\u00a0has no authority there. Now, does this leave\u00a0sin powerless?<\/p>\n
Law, consisting of Commandment (Do this or Do NOT do this)\u00a0plus Penalty (or else) would demand nothing less than perfection from a person.\u00a0But this demand is not friendly advice: if the perfection is not met you are\u00a0tossed into hell for that lack of imperfection. Grace, which is\u00a0super-abounding, allows the individual to fail and to get up and try again. The\u00a0penalty of sin is gone, this is true, but the consequences are a totally\u00a0different thing.<\/p>\n
A person can still present his members to sin and incur the\u00a0natural consequences. Sin, although no longer being the fruit of a person’s\u00a0life, can now become the habit of a New Man’s life. Sin can reign in the mortal\u00a0body and in such a way as to make those members instruments of unrighteousness\u00a0indeed even slaves.<\/p>\n
Let’s not get blue in the face thinking that Christians can\u00a0not go down this dismal path; it’s happened often enough. Christian’s addicted\u00a0to anger, or alcohol, or pornography. Sometimes reveling in biting one another\u00a0(Gal 5:15), division or even\u00a0preference? \u00a0Elsewhere we’re told that\u00a0there is even a sin which leads unto actual, physical death (1 John5:16)!<\/p>\n
So then a believer, who has been freed from sin and now\u00a0enslaved to obedience (to God, one would rightly assume), decides to put sin to reign in his members will produce in his\u00a0body the outcome of sin which is death. This is not a spiritual death here but\u00a0an all encompassing death of benefits. Paul makes a point to underscore then that the wages of sin\u00a0is death, resulting in more death but the benefit of the free gift of God is\u00a0eternal life.<\/p>\n
Paul uses a final legal picture of marriage in Romans 7:1-6\u00a0A woman is bound to her man as long as he lives, but now that he is dead she\u00a0can marry another. The picture shows how death has divided the legal connection\u00a0of marriage, therefore our death in Christ releases us from the marriage to the\u00a0Law and it’s fruit bearing for death. But now, we serve in the newness of the\u00a0Spirit, this spring of new life, and not the oldness of the letter.<\/p>\n
There’s surely some question here if this is some sort of legal fiction. By that I don’t mean something made up that sounds like it fits some sort of law requirement, but rather an acting out of legal requirements which were previously not considered. It looks at previous rulings and wonders “how does this apply in this new matter”. A good example is in United States citizens being able to sue corporations when they previously could only sue other individuals. The court decided to make Corporations a “Corporate Person” and this allowed for the expansion of powers. But this question won’t be addressed here.<\/p>\n
Here, Paul’s defense of God’s righteousness in this\u00a0aspect is a legal defense showing identification in one death and subsequent\u00a0identification in one life which is eternal. Matters of imputation, solidarity, union and so forth will have to be addressed at some other point<\/p>\n
-r- Other articles in this series?specifically the second movement: God’s Righteousness Defended in The Believer’s Mind<\/strong>.<\/p>\n
\n<\/span><\/p>\n