Grace Reigns

Romans 6:15-23

Before we came to know the Lord as our Saviour, our only standing before God was in condemnation. The law of sin that reigned in our lives pointed us to death with no hope. However, the rich mercy of God and the great love with which He loved us has reversed this situation (Ephesians 2:4-10). Verse 8 says, "For by grace you have been saved through faith…" The faith of the Lord Jesus Christ and the faith we demonstrated when we believed were brought together and the result was the salvation of our souls (lives) and also a change in our standing before God. We now stand before God forgiven and justified in His sight-there is no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:1).

God has dealt with our sins through the shed blood of Christ and we are now under grace. However, in the reading above, the Apostle Paul reasons that because grace now reigns this is not to be at the expense of righteousness. The presence of the flesh, the old man, who is still with us, is no excuse for walking in it. Positionally, in the reckoning of God, it was crucified with Christ and we were made alive as a new creation. Therefore, we are no longer the slaves of sin but rather slaves of righteousness and are exhorted to make this good in our daily experience by putting off the deeds of the old man (or nature) and putting on the new man (Colossians 3:8-14).

In other words, because we are under grace, we should never spurn it by continuing to walk in sin. How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it? This is not the way to make grace abound (Romans 6:1). In the way that we would not purposefully hurt those such as our parents, our partners, our children or those who are particularly close to us, because of their unconditional love toward us, even more so, we do not want to treat with contempt the riches of grace and the great love God has bestowed on us through our Lord Jesus Christ. Acceptance by faith into God's grace gives us peace and enables us to rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Furthermore, closely associated with grace is the glory that awaits us, when God will continue to show the exceeding riches of His grace to us in the ages to come.