Romans 6:1-14

 Romans 6:1-14

Paul has stated grace has completely overcome sin. By grace, those of us in Christ have been made righteous. We are sort of God’s trophies of His victory. In God‘s trophy case, there are multitudes of sinners who came out of deep sin and into life in Christ and thus prove the greatness of grace. Because of this remarkable grace some people were saying “go on sinning so that there will be more grace, which is a good thing”. Paul reacts with the most powerful negative the Greek language has. Let’s consider why.

Some years ago a friend of mine suffered the horrors of his wife having an affair. The depth of pain he experienced is beyond words. But with counseling and love and care, the marriage was restored and actually made better. His mercy and kindness was a beautiful thing. Only the filthiest person would say, “The restoration of their relationship was so beautiful she should have more affairs so it can be repeated.” To think I’ll sin because God will forgive is the most unloving thing a person can imagine.

But Paul makes an even stronger point. While we were in sin, we were dead but grotesquely alive. One of the phases that the entertainment industry has gone through is the zombie phase. Zombies are monsters with superhuman cruelty and malevolence and subhuman intelligence and beauty. Zombies are an excellent picture or metaphor for the non-Christian life. The person who is a sinner is sort of an anti-man or an un-man, a monster opposite of what God meant man to be. At baptism the unman is buried alive and killed, and the wholesome or fully man is born. When we come up out of the waters of baptism, it is a kind of new beginning. We are born again. Can you imagine the horrors of taking a beautiful, healthy, new baby and trying to turn it into a monstrous zombie? That is what we do when, as Christians, we sin. We are perverting the pure and innocent into a monster.

Finally, Paul argues for an idea that has been made into the cliché, “If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem.”. In verses 12 through 14, Paul describes us as instruments. That word literally means weapons. That means that every act is an act of war. If our behavior and actions are holy, righteous, and pure, then we are agents fighting for God’s cause. But when we sin, we are using our bodies as weapons fighting against God. When we do that it is if a man betrayed his country, or his wife, is forgiven and then in the next moment turns to attack them. We can see how and why Paul recoiled at the idea of using Grace as an excuse to sin.

“Lord, help me to never return, or even want to return, to being a spiritual zombie. AMEN”