Romans Chapter 6 cont'd
Now if your still tempted to think I am recommending that we still live in sin because of the compensating nature of God's grace and that we are no longer pressured to live up to a complicated external code, you have really missed the point! If you're looking for an excuse for sin, then your wrong understanding of God’s grace is already betrayed. This issue I'm talking about a matter of the heart and its motivating passions. All of us are love-slaves. Either we love sin and serve it, or we love God and serve him. Now, you used to love sin but, thank God, he opened your heart to believe and obey the good news of Jesus, which was preached to you. Now you have been freed from the mastery of sin and have become love-slaves of righteousness.
Comments:
Here Paul makes a life of devotion to God so simple and...in one way it is. "His yoke is easy and his burden is light." Still, there are some complicating factors that we have to deal with on the journey into becoming fully like Jesus. It is no small matter for our whole being to become truly integrated into the kingdom of God and there is no substitute for time and cooperative experience with God when it comes to achieving a life of mature love. I haven't met one person who has "arrived" yet. (I have met some who seem to emote the attitude that they have...but this always comes across as spiritual bravado in contrast to reality to me.) The apostles didn't teach that believers, new or old, reach a place of actual "sinless perfection" in this world, though some texts might seem to indicate this if viewed in isolation from other texts. (The right "hermeneutic" principle is: a correct doctrine is arrived at by examining/collating/integrating all the texts of scripture on any given subject.)
The simple side of "overcoming sin" is to recognize that something at the core of a believer's being has been miraculously transformed because of what the Trinity (working in concert) has done for her/him. Hatred of sin and love for God has been infused into the heart/essential human nature of a believer and a new heart "of flesh" has displaced the old heart "of stone". Whatever ongoing struggle believers may have with inner sinful passions, desires or attitudes (and associated behaviors), they must uncover the fact...as a starting point for the winning the battle(s)...that yet deeper within them is, "all-ready", a desire and power to love and serve God that He has freely given to them as a gift in Christ. The risen Christ is living within us by the Holy Spirit and he is now intent on progressively living and demonstrating his life through our lives.
And this...I believe...is the essential and clear point that Paul is making in the passage above.
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