Shall We Sin That Grace May Abound?
Romans 6:1”What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it?” (Romans 6:1-2 NKJV)
Shall We Sin That Grace May Abound?
• what…then? — in view of this glorious doctrine of grace?
• shall…sin — Rom 3:8, 6:15 — as though sin were unimportant, because the sinner is so graciously pardoned
• grace…abound? — that the grace of God may be magnified by the pardon of multiplied offences?
• dead [died]…sin, etc — “we who have died by sin, how shall we still live by it?” (Macknight), Dead, “in baptism and justification” (Bengel), “When Christ died, you died. A dead man cannot sin. And you are dead; dead as to that life over which alone sin has power, the life of flesh and sense and time: how then can you sin? To sin is to forfeit just that which is your glory — just that which makes your Christianity — a present union with Christ in His life after death in heaven” (Vaughan), “Live no more in it; renounce it: be dead to its influence.” (Stuart), “Dead in its condemning power” (Haldane), “Died, not figuratively, though spiritually and peculiarly; in Christ’s death all believers died with Him” (Olshausen), “A man dies not only when the soul leaves the body, but when, though yet in the body, it puts off bodily passions.” (Philo), “To kill the passions is to die with them.” (Porphyry)
The Gospel secures the practice o f holiness — Rev. C. Simeon, M.A.
I. The supposed tendency of the Gospel to encourage sin:
1. The Gospel certainly, when stated as Paul stated it, has, to a superficial observer, this aspect;
2. Hence men, in every age, have characterized it as licentious.
II. The security it gives for the practice of universal holiness:
1. What a man professes at his first entrance into Christ’s Church;
2. What effect this profession must have on all his future life.
Address
1. Those who entertain this objection against the Gospel;
2. Those who, by their conduct, give occasion for it;
3. Those who bear in mind and exemplify their baptismal vows.
Conviction of sin — Dr. Milne, the late missionary, in speaking of his conversion, says, “The book which God made use of more especially for convincing me of my sin and misery, was Boston’s Fourfold State, which I read with the deepest attention. It conducted me into my own heart, discovered the evil which before lay hid in the chambers of imagery; the monstrous ingratitude to God which marked all my conduct; and the pollution of original and actual sin with which my soul was contaminated. I saw that I was necessarily under the strongest and most righteous obligations to God, and had never for one hour of my life discharged these, but lived in rebellion against the Author of my life; so I was justly under the curse of God’s righteous law, and exposed to everlasting misery.” Under the tormenting fears of eternal wrath, he sometimes wished himself transformed into a stone, or one of the fowls he saw flying over his head in the fields. He was frequent and fervent in prayer, and was, in the mercy of God, led to those means by which he learned how even a vile and guilty creature, such as he was, might be for ever saved.
“A Christian is one who is united to Christ; united by the possession of the Holy Spirit; so united that it is as though he had already passed through that, death, and entered upon that life after death which Christ has actually passed through and actually entered upon.” — Dr Vaughan.