Romans #32

In the Bible, in the Christian life, God's commands (our duty) are always based on His provisions (our reality). If you will keep this in mind when you read the Bible you will see it everywhere and it will keep you from thinking that the Christian life is merely a list of do's and don'ts. It will help you embrace your calling to be a follower of Jesus Christ.

Paul's teaching in Romans 6 shows us how this works. In this chapter he labors to show us that the fact that God justifies sinners by grace alone does not—indeed cannot—lead justified people to live in sin. In other words, salvation by grace alone doesn't mean that the person who is saved by grace can then give himself to a life of rebellion to God's commandments.

He sets up the whole chapter by asking and answering a question in vv. 1&2: "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?" A Christian is a person who has been "baptized into Christ" as v. 3 says. He has been united to Christ. He is "in Christ." That truth, that reality of being in union with Christ, changes everything because it changes the one who by faith is in Christ.