"Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand." Romans 5:1-2
When we are in Christ, when we repent and believe and take on our identity as His adopted sons and daughters, we have peace with God. This is not speaking of just a peaceful feeling, but of a new status of peace with God. We are no longer under wrath, we are no longer enemies of God. The separation is gone. We are now His children, redeemed and made righteous and we have now gained access to stand in grace before Him.
Paul reminds us again, lest we be tempted to ever believe that we have achieved this status of peace and righteousness on our own accord, that Christ stepped into our sin and our mess to rescue us and bring us into life.
"You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." Romans 5:6-8
This is the gospel! We were helpless. Ungodly. Not righteous. Not good. Not clean. Not deserving. We could not earn our way to God. We could not make ourselves clean enough. We could not be good enough. Ever. So God, in His perfect, unending, incomprehensible love for us, made the way. By sending His own Son to die our death. To bring us life, to make us new and clean and righteous before God. May the reality of this truth never become dull!
So because we have received this grace, are we now free to live as we want without regard to the consequences? Paul addresses this in chapter 6.
"What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?" Romans 6:1-2
When we surrender to Christ, our old self is crucified with Him and we are no longer slaves to sin. We are dead to sin but alive to God through Jesus. Yes, we will fail and fall short and struggle with sin but sin does not have reign and rule over us any longer. It is no longer our master. We are no longer slaves to sin but to righteousness.
"When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness. What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death! But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness and the result is eternal life." Romans 6:20-22
Slavery to sin leads to death. Becoming slaves to God, as in being obedient and surrendered to the reign and rule of God, leads to holiness and life. The more we grow in our relationship with Christ, the more evidence of holiness there should be in our lives. Even when we find ourselves choosing sin, God's grace enables us to continually repent and once again choose to submit to the Spirit and in doing so, experience life and peace.
And finally, a blog post on Romans 6 could not be complete without meditating on the truth of Romans 6:23, which is a perfect summary of all that we have read today.
"For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." Romans 6:23
We deserve death. It is what we earn, what we are paid for our sin. But God's free gift is eternal life. Not earned. Not deserved. But freely given at the cross. Sin paid for. Sin and death defeated. Life and grace poured out for all who would choose to receive this gift. Thank you, Jesus.
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Hallelujah!
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