GRACE
Romans 5:12-6:23
But where sin increased, grace increased all the more, so that, just as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Someone taught me to distinguish between forgiveness, mercy and grace. Forgiveness is to set aside the offence the offended party feels that was caused by the wrong that you did. It is dealt with on the side of the one offended. Mercy is to set aside the justified punishment or response that you are due for the wrong that you did. Grace is to give you the good (or the good response) that you do not deserve, and often in a context where you deserve the opposite.
Clearly then, grace is the fullest and most positive response God can give us with respect to our sin. In grace is God saying to us, “Not only do I forgive you, not only do I set aside the penalty for your sin, I also help you; I give you the resources you need to overcome; I am patient with you; I love you as if you are already perfect; and ultimately, I bless you.”
Grace is God’s response not for anything that we are or have done, but for Christ’s obedience and sacrifice.
In most people’s minds there is scepticism as to the effectiveness of grace as the means to righteousness. We tend to think that fear is stronger than grace to bring about change. We think that hunger will compel a person to overcome the obstacles to change. Paul however tells us that sin reigns in death but grace reigns in life. The soul that is saved responds to grace; the unrepentant soul responds to sin. Grace is the fuel to produce true righteousness, not compulsion or threats.
What does grace do?
When we are under grace, we turn to God for his resources when we are struggling with sin. Paul tells us that the repentant soul is set free from the power of sin because we are no longer under law but grace. Even more, under grace the repentant soul is alive to God, responsive to him and all that he stands for.
Paul then tells us, “Do not offer any part of yourself to sin as an instrument of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer every part of yourself to him as an instrument of righteousness.”
We yield ourselves to God because we trust him to respond to us in grace, and we ask him to mould us as his instrument of righteousness. And because we are under grace and not law, we can do so every time we struggle. “But where sin increased, grace increased all the more.”
There are those who think that grace can be abused but Paul warns that sin enslaves and when a soul that is freed from sin willingly submits to sin, that soul will once again be enslaved. Sin brings about death (corrupts us to the point we no longer respond to God). There is no reason to abuse grace to go back to sin. Sin is its own punishment.
“But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”