The Architecture Of Sin & Grace

Sin intrinsically should not be able to drive a person out of God's promise and presence but rather on the contrary sin can draw a person out of God's presence and promise. As confusing as that may sound, the prevailing factor in these two scenarios is simply the fact that, in the former, the allocations and substance of Gods aggressive grace made available to the believer is well enough and capable to secure our destinies and salvation in God as long as we remain and believe in His finished work through Christ Jesus. The latter, on the other hand, becomes a possibility when we consciously choose not to accept and remain in the finished work of God's Grace that insulates us from the soul jeopardizing work of sin.

The kryptonite of sin is the righteousness that reigns in the believer through the grace of Jesus Christ. Eternal life then becomes the present and end goal of any man or woman who is seated in Christ . The allocations and full substance of God's Grace at the sight of sin is triggered beyond the capacity that sin is able to hold. This is what Paul explains in Romans 5:20 when he says that where sin abounded grace did much more abound. He was attempting to explain to his readers that grace did not in any way lack the prerequisite authority to stump out the power and hold of sin in any man under any circumstance. The conclusion would then lay clearly for all to see which is that, sin is powerful but God's Grace is most powerful.

In Paul's letter to the Romans on this subject in particular, it would appear a valid logical conclusion to him that some may for rather mischievous reasons or just mere ignorance begin to assume and extrapolate diverse meanings to his position on the matter of grace and sin. He proceeds in the preceding comments in Romans 6:1 to lay the cards down and address their misconceptions. Is it the case that since grace is set to abound especially in response to sin can we then say we are permitted to sin to whatever extent that one’s heart desires? His answer was an emphatic no!

I could imagine how disappointed some of his readers and listeners were, especially those who had nose dived into such an erroneous conclusion. The point was, the obvious availability of God's Grace should not be an excuse for anyone to play trial and error with sin just because they assume that God would be backed into a corner and would have no option than to keep making grace available. That for Paul would be the chief of all absurdities because in the first place our baptism with Jesus was our baptism into His death (Romans 6:3). And if we died with Him then we are dead to sin to begin with. Paul examines sin as a reality that exists in the world which only has the power to affect those who are alive to it. For the believer, the reality of sin is non-effective as long as we are dead to it because he that is dead is freed from sin (Romans 6:7). The story doesn’t just end at our freedom from sin through death but as the cherry on the cake, it births us anew into a life of righteousness (Romans 6:11).

This means that though the reality of sin exists we only can be affected by the life of righteousness that we subscribe to. It is this life of righteousness in Christ that has the right to jolt us back into form when we are deviating. One would ask what then is the implication of all of this information that Paul exposes to the believer today? Many times in the face of sin, we seem to appear vulnerable and weak making it appear as though we have no power or authority to determine what sin does with us.

Paul in Romans 6:13-14 puts this notion to its perpetual demise. He seems to point out that, for the believer who is dead to sin and alive to righteousness you have the right and the power of choice to choose to yield your members as instruments of sin or as arsenals of righteousness.Paul cautions us not to yield our members to sin. The Greek word (Paristemi) used in the verses as yield means to provide, give or to present which denotes a sense of personal responsibility. In other words we choose what we partake in whether sinfully or righteously. When we decide to obey the demands of sin we are no longer being forced against our will, it becomes a willing choice to reject God's righteousness. Sin no longer has a domain to operate from in our lives because the circumference of our existence is now totally captured by the evidence of God's Grace at work in us.