Sunday School Notes: Romans 6:1-2

¹ What shall we say, then? Shall we continue in sin so that grace may increase? ² May it not be! We who have died to sin, how shall we yet live in it?

This past Sunday, our Sunday School class picked up the Romans discussion from the beginning of chapter 6. As you can see, we didn’t make it past the first two verses–but that’s okay. We had a great discussion. I’m sure I won’t do justice to that discussion here, so if you were there, please feel free to fill in the blanks and note anything I should have mentioned in the comments.

Once again, Paul asks a question, but unlike previous times, it’s unlikely this is a question coming from his opponents. If we look back at the last few verses of chapter 5–and indeed, to some extent, the entirety of his argument through to the end of chapter 5–we see that this would be a natural question to ask. Let me explain.

Up to now, Paul’s point has been that for those who believe in Christ there is freedom from the penalty of sin. We’re all sinners, both Jew and gentile, and no amount of law keeping or professed ignorance of God’s commands can save us from the consequences of our sin. However, Christ has come to pay that penalty on behalf of those who put their trust in him. Those that are Christ’s are no longer under the penalty of the Law, but under grace. They are redeemed, and restored to a relationship with God wherein He looks on them as spotless children, blameless because of Christ’s death and resurrection.

In 5:20, Paul says, “And the Law came in so that sin may increase; and where sin increased, grace overflowed.” In our discussion of this passage before Christmas, I suggested Paul’s point is that before the Law, people had the Moral Law on their hearts, and so when they committed sin, there was guilt, but people may not have really understood why. When the Law came, God wrote His Moral Law in stone. Now God has proclaimed to all creation in big letters what sin is, and how to obey Him. When man sins now, he does so in full knowledge of what was before only written on his heart. So the sin is, in this sense, greater.

And where sin is great, the grace needed to cover that sin must also be great. In the case of Christ, the grace is more than sufficient–in fact it is super-abundant (as the Greek may be translated)! It would seem to follow then, that if we want more of God’s grace in our lives, then all we have to do is keep sinning, yes? (6:1). It was suggested that this would be like continuing to smoke so you can help find a cure for cancer. Doesn’t the means justify the end?

To this Paul says mê genoito! May it never be! Certainly not! In Christ, you are dead to sin–so how can you even think about wanting to carry on living a life of sin?

Our class discussion focused mainly around what Paul is talking about here. What does it mean to continue in sin? Can Christians–at least theoretically–lead sinless lives? We even touched on the question of what we mean when we talk about our “sin nature”–do we as Christians have two natures, a sin nature and a redeemed nature?

It’s interesting that Paul doesn’t reply by saying “sin’s a bad thing, you shouldn’t do it,” or “you know if you keep sinning, you’ll lose your friends, family, and church, and things could go badly for you in life.” He simply marvels that someone who claims to be a Christian, and therefore “dead to sin,” can even contemplate sinning. Of course, Christians sin, but to think of that sin as somehow a good thing because it causes grace to abound, is beyond Paul’s comprehension. So why do Christians still sin?

This is a big question, and I can only offer some discussion points here based on what we talked about in class. Consider these:

• It’s interesting that the Greek verb in verse one translated “continue” (epimenômen) can be understood in the sense of persistence. That is to say, the life of sin one led prior to faith in Christ has unbroken continuity into one’s Christian life. Another way to say this would be to say that there is no change in the person’s life. If you knew him pre-Christ, you would never know to look at his conduct that anything had changed.
• Perhaps what really changes at conversion is one’s attitude to sin. There are many people who come to Christ that are “good” people. Ethically, their values would have been close to those of many Christians. So you might not actually see much of a change. But there would be a change–they would have a much more acute sense of what sin is, and when they commit it. Whereas before they would have seen themselves as generally good people, they now see themselves as sinners saved by grace. And there is a desire to avoid sin both in order to please God, and because sin is now abhorrent to them.
• The Law was used by the Jews as a way of testing whether they were good. Many religious systems today have a similar ethical code by which one can evaluate one’s behavior. I think this appeals to two things in the nature of man: 1) the desire to have right and wrong spelled out, so we know exactly what we are supposed to do, and 2) the desire to have “obedience” spelled out so we can know how to get around it. We see this in our own legal system, where lawyers will often mince words over legal terms in order to find loopholes. That’s what we want–loopholes in God’s Law that will allow us to sin without getting us in trouble. Remember Jesus’s series of statements in Matthew 5, “you have heard it said… but I say…”? What he was doing there was showing that the letter of the Law is only representative of the spirit of the Law–and it’s the spirit of the Law that really matters. “Do not murder” applies as much to getting angry at your brother as it does the physical act of taking a life.
• We suggested that the difference between the person who is truly in Christ, and the person who has professed Christ but sees nothing wrong in continuing is sin is that the former has God’s Law on his heart, and rather than looking to the letter of the Law to find loopholes, he is listening to the voice of the Spirit as he applies God’s Moral Law to his life.
• I offered a scenario to consider as a framework for understanding the discussion in Romans 6. Imagine someone living in a foreign country under an oppressive regime. He is used to the government breathing over his shoulder, and can’t trust anyone. Somehow, he manages to escape to, say, the US. He is given political asylum and even made a citizen. He is able to vote, work, express his opinion, and live without fear of oppression. He loves his new-found liberty, and out of love and respect for his new country, attempts to be a model citizen. But every now and again, he feels the pull of the old regime. He looks over his shoulder, and perhaps still distrusts people. He knows he doesn’t have to live this way, but he has known life in the old regime for so long, it’s hard to resist that way of thinking. Worse, enemy agents from the old regime are operating in the US, attempting to draw him back.

Those are some thoughts drawn from our discussion. Clearly they are not exhaustive. As I said, if you were there, feel free to add to what I’ve said in the comments. Is any of this helpful to you? Does my picture of the two regimes make sense of Scripture, or not? (I think it could make a good novel, either way!) There’s clearly more to it, and we will explore this more in the coming weeks.