Verse: Romans 6:15-18
15 What then? Shall we sin because we are not under the law but under grace? By no means! 16 Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? 17 But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you have come to obey from your heart the pattern of teaching that has now claimed your allegiance. 18 You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.
Devotion
I like that Paul tackles this objection to grace head on. Basically he knows someone will say, “well if God just forgives us every time we sin, why wouldn’t we just keep on sinning?” And one of the points he is making is that grace doesn’t lead you to sin. Grace isn’t something we start to use as an excuse or a get out of jail free card. Grace actually motivates change.
The whole picture of slavery he uses shows us that there is a vicious cycle (sin) or a virtuous cycle (obedience). Both of them tend to build on themselves. So that when we are sinning, we tend to keep on sinning, but when we are living in obedience, we tend to keep on living in obedience. Why?
I think because walking in the “pattern of teaching” that Jesus gives us is so liberating, so life giving, so full of joy and meaning, that the longer we follow Jesus wholeheartedly, the less appealing sin becomes. As grace and obedience gets bigger in our lives, the temptation to sin gets smaller.
Now sin will always be there for sure, and we will always fall. But as we grow in grace, we will leave behind much of the sin that once entangled us. And the longer we walk away from those sins, the more God can refine us, showing us more nuanced areas where we can follow Jesus more fully. It is the journey of grace, becoming more and more like Jesus, leaving the old ways of sin behind, and embracing his way of life and love. Eventually it is as if we are “slaves to obedience” (instead of slaves to sin!) leading to life and righteousness as we affirm our “allegiance” to his pattern of teaching!
Author: Christian Dunn
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