Yesterday I did some weed whacking in the greenbelt behind my house. The weeds out there were about three feet high, and although I can't see them on the other side of my privacy fence, the neighbors across the way on the other side of the green belt have to look at them all the time. After whacking away for a while I tried to shut down my gas powered line trimmer by hitting the kill switch. Unfortunately, nothing happened. It just kept on whirling. After repeated attempts with no success I finally had to reach underneath the engine and pull the spark plug wire in order to stop the trimmer.
I thought about that episode when I read Romans 6 today. Paul asks: "What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?" (Romans 6:1-2) What a wonderful thing it is to be forgiven. By God's grace, through Jesus' death on the cross for our sins, we have been forgiven. That's incredibly Good News. How shall we react to such Good News? Some people seem to think that the best thing might be to just go on sinning. After all, I like to sin and God likes to forgive sin. It's a nice arrangement, right? Besides, the more I sin, the more God's grace in on display in the forgiveness of my sins. So shouldn't I just continue on in my sinful ways so that grace may abound?
Paul's answer is strongly worded: "By no means!" In Greek it's actually a double negative. "NO! I'll say it again: NO!" God didn't forgive us so that we could go on sinning. He forgives us in order to set us free from sin, not just sin's guilt but also sin's power to control us and dominate our lives. Because of our sin nature, however, sometimes we're like that trimmer that just wouldn't quit. We love to just keep on keeping on in sin.
Fortunately, God has given us a "kill switch" for sin that does work, unlike the one on my trimmer. It's our baptism. Paul writes: "We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? Or don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life." (Romans 6:2-3) By our baptism, we were baptized into Christ's death. Therefore, we died to sin. In fact, Paul says: "For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin." (Romans 6:6)
Because our old self was crucified with Christ, sin can control us no more. All we have to do when faced with temptation to sin is to hit the "kill switch." And how do we do that? Paul says, "In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness." (Romans 6:11-14)
In other words, Paul says, remember that in baptism your sin nature was nailed to the cross and died with Christ. Therefore, consider yourself dead to sin. Hit the "kill switch" by counting on what God has told you about your baptism as being true. Then, take the positive step of offering the parts of your body to Christ, who set you free, as tools of righteousness. In this way, you will have His power to overcome sin and live a new life in Christ.
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