The Gift of Grace

As Christians, we are very good people. We have a unified goal of getting to heaven and getting as many other people as possible with us. We try as hard as possible to avoid sinning. But, why? Why exactly is it that after someone becomes a Christian, they are commanded to no longer sin? Why not just go to church one day and rob a bank the next? Well, Romans chapters 5 and 6 give us an excellent explanation.

If you read Romans 5:12-14, the passage talks about sin and death. Here Paul states that sin “came into the world through man, and death through sin”. Here he is referring to Adam, who sinned first when he ate the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Once he had done this, sin had entered the world, and because of his actions, death also. Death does not necessarily always refer to the point at which a person is no longer alive and begins to decompose, death is a separation of some sort, which often is used to talk about a person who is no longer alive. In this case, it is referring to something a little bigger. The death that entered through Adam’s sin was not only the future consequence of people dying, but it was also something more immediate. After he and Eve ate the fruit, they were separated from God and were cursed and would never be able to enter the garden of Eden again.

So, if death is a separation from God, how do we get un-separated? Paul also writes about this. In Romans 5:16-17 he refers to something he calls “the free gift” and reading to the end of verse 17 he says that it is the gift of grace, and it comes from the life of Jesus Christ. This is an amazing gift that we should take advantage of.

In Romans 6 Paul addresses another issue. He predicts that “taking advantage of” this free gift will end up looking like people sinning more and more and just saying “Oh I have the free gift I’m all good”, but that is not the case. Paul specifically states in Romans 6:1, “What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may about? By no means! How can we who have died to sin still live in it?” He then goes on to explain this. When we are baptized into Christ and become a Christian, we are “buried with him” so that “we might walk in newness of life”, and as a Christian, we have now died to sin, again, that word which means separation. And here, in being dead to sin, we are now alive to God.

Going through the next several verses of chapter 6, Paul talks about sinning. When we are in Christ, we are dead to sin, alive to God, and must no longer sin. Verse 12-14 says, “Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace”.

If this is true, then we have hope. Being in Christ, we are separated from sin and death, and we must not sin. But even if we do, we still have the gift of grace, and in Christ, we have eternal life.