If you are the Son of God...

Believers, did you notice that something was amiss where the devil quoted parts of Psalms 91 to our Saviour Jesus when he tempted Him in the wilderness (Matthew 4?)

5 Then the devil took Him up into the holy city, set Him on the pinnacle of the temple, 6 and said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down. For it is written:

‘He shall give His angels charge over you,’

and,

‘In their hands they shall bear you up,

Lest you dash your foot against a stone.’”

The devil left out the second part of verse 11 of Psalms 91 that he quoted - "To keep you in all your ways"! The complete verses read:

11 For He shall give His angels charge over you,

To keep you in all your ways.

12 In their hands they shall bear you up,

Lest you dash your foot against a stone.

You see, the devil cannot quote Scripture completely or in its correct context because it would be counter-productive to do so. People will be saved! Jumping down the pinnacle of the temple to prove that He is the Son of God definitely wasn't on our Saviour's to-do-list; it wasn't His way and God's angels only keep us in all our ways and not the way of others. (for us in Christ, "our ways" is the path of righteousness which Christ our Shepherd leads us on, not our own righteousnesses.) The devil subtly left this part of the verse out!

This is what he still does through his agents in churches today, questioning the righteousness of those that our Lord has made righteous in Christ by using the same "If you are the Son of God" refrain that he did with our Saviour and pointing believers to the Ten Commandments as a measure of their righteousness when the bible says we are not under law but under grace, effectively cutting those who follow this false teaching off from Christ, according to Galatians 5:4 - "For if you are trying to make yourselves right with God by keeping the law, you have been cut off from Christ! You have fallen away from God’s grace."

His agents love to use Romans 6:1- “What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?” to deceive believers that are "saved by grace through faith" into remaining under the curse of the Law which Christ has delivered us from. Like the devil when he left out a part of Psalms 91v11 above, his agents (some without knowing it!) who quote Romans 6:1 as evidence that our law-keeping is what makes us "really saved" will never give you the background of this verse that is Romans 5 nor Paul's answer to the question which is Romans 6. They know that you will be saved - free indeed!

Paul didn't just ask this question out of the blue. It has the whole of Romans 5 as its background. A background that those who fight to remain under the law leave out when they quote it!

In Romans 5:19, Paul says: “For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so also by one Man’s obedience many will be made righteous.”

Here, we see that Adam’s disobedience is what made everybody sinners. Our sins do not make us sinners. We sin because we are sinners through Adam’s disobedience, not the other way round. Whether you do good or do bad, without God's gift of righteousness through Christ, as long as you are Adam’s seed, you are a sinner. In this state, even if you spend your entire life in a bubble doing “righteous things,” and not thinking a single bad thought, which no one can, in God’s eyes, you would still be a sinner and in the same boat of unrighteousness as paedophiles and murderers. The good things we do here can never make us righteous in God’s eyes.

By the same token, Christ’s obedience makes everyone who believes and receives His gift of righteousness 100% righteous in the sight of God. This blood-bought righteousness is the only one that “cuts it’ with our heavenly Father. The bad things we do cannot make us lose this righteousness, just as the good things we did before we became born-again could not change our sinner status.

Because of the above truth, those who misunderstand and quote Romans 6:1 to us “grace people” seem to believe that all we want to do is sin when the exact opposite is the case (only by God's grace are we this way!) Like our heavenly Father, we “grace people” hate sin with a passion! We live right without trying, yet not us, but Christ (the Way; our Way) in us!

In Christ, we are 100% righteous because God put our sins on Jesus so that we can be righteous in Him according to Paul in 2 Corinthians 5:21- “For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”

Verse 19 in NLT version says “And the result of God’s gracious gift is very different from the result of that one man’s sin. For Adam’s sin led to condemnation, but God’s free gift leads to our being made right with God, even though we are guilty of many sins.”

How is it that we do not question the result of one man's disobedience (eternal condemnation) yet question that of one Man’s obedience (eternal Righteousness?)

Verse 20-21, the last verses before Paul’s question “What then shall we say?” go on to say: “Moreover the law entered that the offense might abound. But where sin abounded, grace abounded much more, 21 so that as sin reigned in death, even so grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

In essence, Paul tells us in verse 20 that the law was given so that people could see how sinful they were (“that the offense might abound.”) But as the people sinned more, God’s wonderful grace became more abundant (“But where sin abounded, grace abounded much more.”)

Verse 21 tells us that just as sin ruled over the people and brought them to death (“so that as sin reigned in death,”) now God’s wonderful grace rules instead, giving us right standing with God and resulting in eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord (“even so grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”)

Believers, this is the crux of the gospel that Paul preached, the gospel of the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Paul preached that Christ’s obedience is what makes us righteous in the eyes of our heavenly Father, and not our law-keeping/what we do or do not do. Paul preached righteousness by faith, not by works or keeping the law in order to be made right with God. Paul preached that Sarah (Grace) does not need Hagar (the Law) to raise Isaac (the church.) Grace is more than enough! 

And the religious leaders of his day were enraged! 

They wanted their law that they could not even live by because it made them look better than the tax collectors and sinners! They persecuted Paul, just as today, preachers of God's undeserved, unmerited favour, the same gospel that Paul preached, are falsely accused of preaching that "it is okay to sin because we have grace!"

For this grace gospel that he preached, Paul was imprisoned, scourged, stoned and left for dead and murdered on the orders of the religious leaders of his day who were dogged about keeping the Law that Christ has delivered us from, just like their counterparts today who, using Romans 6:1 as their "excuse," preach that our law-keeping and self-righteousness is what makes us right with God, even though Christ has fulfilled all of the Law's righteous demands for us! Even though trying to be justified by the law is the way to get cut off from Christ according to Galatians 5:4 - 

"For if you are trying to make yourselves right with God by keeping the law, you have been cut off from Christ! You have fallen away from God’s grace."

For this gospel of the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ that Paul preached (justification by faith and not by law-keeping,) He was falsely accused by the religious leaders of his day of preaching that it is okay to sin because of grace!

THIS IS WHY PAUL ASKED THE QUESTION IN ROMANS 6:1 “WHAT SHALL WE SAY THEN? SHALL WE CONTINUE IN SIN THAT GRACE MAY ABOUND?" IT IS A QUESTION POSED AT PEOPLE WHO BELIEVE THAT HE WAS PREACHING THAT IT IS OKAY TO SIN BECAUSE OF GOD'S GRACE!

PAUL WAS ASKING THE QUESTION:

“Do all these things I have said, including the truth that God’s grace super-abounds when sins increase; that we are made righteous by “one Man’s obedience” and not our law-keeping; that we are made right with God because of His free gift even though we are guilty of many sins; do these things that I said mean that believers can just go and be sinning anyhow?”

Believers, this is why Paul asked this question in Romans 6:1. He didn’t ask it in the context in which many people bandy the verse about today – usually as proof that believers still need to religiously keep the Ten Commandments as their standard of righteousness in order to "maintain their salvation," this after we have been saved by grace through faith. Paul asked because he wanted to clarify that the gospel that he preached - righteousness by faith and not by law-keeping - is not a license to sin but the key to right living!

No wonder he said “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ…” What he preached – justification by faith and not by works of the law or keeping the Ten Commandments - was considered shameful by the Pharisees and scribes who held on to laws that they could never keep for their own righteousness, the same Law (including the Ten Commandments) that those who misunderstand Romans 6:1 struggle and fail to keep even today, shunning the grace that is freely given in Christ and thus saying that what Christ did on the cross is not enough to save them; they have to play their part by keeping the letter that kills!

In our bid to "prove" our status as children of God after accepting Christ as our Saviour, we start using the Law as a measure of our righteousness and sonship before our Heavenly Father. This is usually because we somehow think that people will go berserk with sin if we preach or live God's grace without adding the Ten Commandments to put believers "in check."

This thought has its root in the belief that God's work cannot succeed without our making it so by some forceful effort on our part, much like how "Uzzah put out his hand to the ark of God and took hold of it, for the oxen stumbled." in 2 Samuel 6:6. Uzzah must have had only good intentions but he still died from his action.

Like Uzzah, proponents of this mixture of law and grace try to "help God" to "steady His Ark" by introducing law-keeping (attaining righteousness via human effort) which kills to the New Covenant of God's grace; even when it is written that "the letter kills." God doesn't need anyone's help to steady His Ark (Christ in us believers.) Without Christ, we can do nothing.

Jesus did not have to prove to the devil that He is the Son of God by jumping off the pinnacle of the temple or doing anything to prove who He is! He knew it! Today, His word tells us that in Him, His obedience is what makes us righteous (Romans 5:19), not our efforts at keeping the law which can never make anyone righteous according to Galatians 3:10 - “For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse; for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who does not continue in all things which are written in the book of the law, to do them.” Those who are trying to keep the Ten Commandments in order to get right with God are under the curse.

Believers, when you try to make yourself the "son of God" or prove that you are by keeping the Ten Commandments when you already are a child of God in Christ, you are dashing yourself from the pinnacle of the temple! Galatians 5:4 says

“For if you are trying to make yourselves right with God by keeping the law, you have been cut off from Christ! You have fallen away from God’s grace.”

This means that if you believe that it is your law-keeping/what you do or don’t do that makes you right with God, you can call on the name of Jesus all you want but it will be an effort in futility. You can’t mix law and grace; the Law did not come through Jesus Christ. Grace and Truth did. And this Truth is not the Ten Commandments. Christ Himself is the Truth.

Would you really give your own child a gift that has a slight chance of killing him? Would you really disown your own child because he doesn't act right sometimes? You will teach him to act right! How much more our loving Saviour in whom "we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace 8 which He made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence," Ephesians 1:7-8 here tells us His grace is showered on us with wisdom and prudence, not just anyhow that we could misuse it.

There is a double curse in Galatians 3 for anyone that preaches a different gospel than Paul did, specifically those who preach that believers still need to keep the Law in order to be right with God or do such and such before God will bless or help them. This is the Law and "we are not under Law but under Grace." This is the burden that Christ came to lift from our shoulders - the Law. Why do we try so hard to put the church under the spirit of bondage again to fear? Romans 8:15 says of those of us in Christ -

"For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading again to fear [of God’s judgment], but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons [the Spirit producing sonship] by which we [joyfully] cry, “Abba! Father!”"

Now to Paul’s response to his Romans 6:1 question “What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?

2 "Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it? 3 Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? 4 Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.”

Believers, Paul’s response here simply means that we have moved from the country of Sin to the country of Grace where we have God’s Righteousness as gift. Just as we could produce only sinful deeds before Christ delivered us from the consequences of Adam’s disobedience, as the righteousness of God in Christ, believing in His righteousness that we receive as a gift and not that which is from our law-keeping, we will produce righteousness.

Verses 15-17 say even more: 15 ”Well then, since God’s grace has set us free from the law, does that mean we can go on sinning? Of course not! 16 Don’t you realize that you become the slave of whatever you choose to obey? You can be a slave to sin, which leads to death, or you can choose to obey God, which leads to righteous living. 17 Thank God! Once you were slaves of sin, but now you wholeheartedly obey this teaching we have given you. 18 Now you are free from your slavery to sin, and you have become slaves to righteous living.”

A slave will do his master’s bidding. Slaves of God’s Righteousness (the gift, not of works) will live right. Slaves of sin will continue to sin.

But how is one a slave to sin? 1 Corinthians 15:56 says “…, and the power of sin is the law.” The Law gives sin its power over man. Anyone who is trying to keep the Law in order to get right with God is a slave to sin!

Also, notice that “choose to obey God" in v.16 is not obeying the Law but obeying Paul’s teaching: RIGHTEOUSNESS BY FAITH AND NOT BY WORKS.

Those who struggle under the weight of laws that they cannot keep reap a harvest of sinful deeds as it is written in Romans 7:5-

5 “When we were controlled by our old nature, sinful desires were at work within us, and the law aroused these evil desires that produced a harvest of sinful deeds, resulting in death."

What law-keeping does is arouse evil desires that produce a harvest of sinful deeds. 

"Old nature" here refers to the sin nature that all acquired as a result of Adam's disobedience. In Christ, we are a New Creation.

Verse 6 tells of the experience of us who are the righteousness of God in Christ: "But now we have been released from the law, for we died to it and are no longer captive to its power. Now we can serve God, not in the old way of obeying the letter of the law, but in the new way of living in the Spirit.”

A difference between us "grace people" and those who still fight to keep the Law in order to get right with God or receive from Him is that by His grace, we know we are already 100% right with Him because of what Christ did for us and that He gives us all things freely with Christ according to Romans 8:32, and not because we fasted or went to some mountain to neglect our bodies. We do not have to struggle to live right by our own effort. The Holy Spirit transforms us to the image of our Lord’s glory, from glory to glory (2 Corinthians 3:18,) ridding us of the desire to sin and causing us to do God's will. We also are not cut off from Christ as those who try to get right with God by keeping the law are (see Galatians 5:4)

Believers, don't let anyone deceive you into coming under the curse with incomplete or 'out of context' bible psssages! If you take a 'text' out of 'context,' you will be left with a 'con!' Ask our Lord Jesus Christ to lead you on the path of righteousness. He is our Shepherd! The Holy Spirit will teach you all things! Ask now.

Believe Right and you will Live Right."