What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! – Romans 6:1
The Russian Empire collapsed on March 15, 1917, when Czar Nicholas II abdicated the throne ending the Romanov dynasty that had ruled Russia for over 300 years. A close friend and sometimes “spiritual adviser” to the czar was a Russian Orthodox monk named Grigori Rasputin. He had great influence over the czar, predicting the treachery that would come upon the Romanov family. He himself lived in drunkenness and immorality, because he believed and preached a distorted view of God’s grace, seeing it as a license to sin all the more in order to experience the fullness of that grace.
Oregon pastor Mark Dunagan, in his commentary on Romans 1, wrote, “’Well’, someone might say, ‘if God’s grace so abounded over sin, why should we not go on sinning so as to give His grace the opportunity of abounding all the more?’ This is not a completely hypothetical objection… the Russian monk Rasputin… taught… that, as those who sin most require most forgiveness, a sinner who continues to sin with abandon enjoys, each time he repents, more of God’s forgiving grace than any ordinary sinner. That question would naturally arise in the minds of the uninformed. Besides, some people would like to have an excuse to indulge in sin. From the Scriptures, it is clear that people have tried to justify sin on “religious grounds” in the past (2 Peter 2:19; Jude 1:4), ‘who turn the grace of our God into licentiousness.‘’”
The grace of God is not a license to do as you please. Rather it is the power of God to do according to His will. When a Christian sins, it breaks fellowship with God, changing the relationship between the sinner and the Savior as well as with other believers. Left unconfessed, the internal guilt leads to other problems. God will forgive the Christian who sins (1 John 1:9-10). He desires that you live a life set apart to Him, a sanctified life. Theologian Charles Spurgeon warns, “It is not the nature of sin to remain in a fixed state. Like decaying fruit, it grows more rotten. The man who is bad today will be worse tomorrow.” Avoid the Rasputin trap that challenges the grace of God. Confess your sins and repent regularly. Live the life of a new creation in Christ Jesus (2 Corinthians 5:17), and always remember Whose you are!
Today’s Verse: Romans 6:1
What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound?
All Scripture quotations and audio are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Recommended for further reading: Romans 6:1-11
6 What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? 2 By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? 3 Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.
5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. 6 We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. 7 For one who has died has been set free from sin. 8 Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. 9 We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. 10 For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. 11 So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.
All Scripture quotations and audio are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
