August 11, 2002

NOT UNDER LAW, UNDER GRACE

Romans 6:12-14

   Our first real exhortation in Romans is "Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in the lusts thereof. Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead., and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God. For sin shall not have dominion over you: for you are not under law, but under grace" (6:12-14). The features are: a negative exhortation: "Let not... Yield not...," a positive exhortation: "Yield yourselves... Yield your members..." and the assurance: "not under law, but under grace." The reign of sin and death is over so far as we are concerned. Why is this so? The true and only reason is that SIN & "DEATH have no more dominion over Him" (6:9). He died for sin and to sin. Death reigns only through sin, and "the sting of death is SIN" (1 Cor. 15:56). But in Christ, all that has passed. We are on resurrection ground, and can no longer be bondslaves to sin any more than Israel could be bondslaves to Pharaoh after crossing the Red Sea ! At that sea, Pharaoh died, his dominion ended. Israel were "baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea," and were finally free to serve the Lord.

God said, "Let My son go that he may serve Me?" (Ex. 4:23) In this command lies the essential teaching of Romans    6:12-14. Their service as bondslaves yields to service as sons, law gives place to grace, Egypt yields to the wilderness, and brick-making for an idolatrous king gives place to building a tabernacle for the King of kings!

   But we are warned against "the mortal body" and its "lusts." The body is mortal because of sin, and we possess just such a body because Adam sinned and was expelled from Eden . This body is the medium of deceitful and corrupting lusts of the "old man" (Eph. 4:23). But when we "put on the new man," we "walk in love" as "children of light" There Paul wrote about our newly yielded hands and mouth re-presenting our words and deeds which sum up most of our activities. In Ephesians as in Romans the focus is on service. We now walk in "newness of life" and serve in "newness of spirit." Our wonderful freedom and deliverance may be explained "not under law, under grace"!

Ivan L. Burgener