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Coffee w/a Calvinist - Episode 30
This is our daily bible reading and study given by Pastor Keith Foskey. You can follow along with our readings at: http://www.sgfcjax.org/uncategorized/2020-reading-plan/
Welcome back to Coffee with a Calvinist my name is Keith Foskey and I am a Calvinist. Today we are going to be looking at Romans chapter 6. Now if you remember when we first started this study of Romans I gave you an outline of Romans and I said the first three chapters deal primarily with the doctrine of sin, the second two chapters which are chapters 4 and 5 deal primarily with the doctrine of justification, and then when we get to chapter 6 we begin to talk about the doctrine of sanctification.
Now what is the difference between justification and sanctification? Well justification is how we are made right with God, how we are declared to be righteous. Justification is a legal declaration that God makes because of the work of Christ on our behalf.
Sanctification however is different because sanctification it means to be set apart, it means to be sanctified or purified or made holy, and so there is a sense in which we are sanctified the moment we come to faith in Jesus Christ by having been removed from the world and seated with Christ.
The Bible says that we are seated in heavenly places with him and so there is an immediate sanctification process that happens when we are made holy. The Bible calls us saints, it calls us holy ones. Sainthood is a characteristic that the Roman Catholic Church bestows upon people that reach a certain level of good works, but that's not what the Bible says.
The Bible says that everyone who is a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ has because of the work of Jesus Christ been made a saint. So in that reality we're all saints and we have all been sanctified, but there's also something of a reality that sanctification is an ongoing process because while we are sanctified in the sense of having been set apart, we are also being sanctified day by day as we go through the process of being conformed to the image of the Lord Jesus Christ.
The Bible says that's what we have been predestined to, predestined to be conformed to Jesus Christ, and that's not something that happens immediately. Even though the Bible says that when we come to Christ we're new creation, all things old things pass away and all things become new, that is not something that is immediate.
There is a process that we go through whereby we are sometimes struggling, sometimes having difficulties, but we're moving forward in the process of sanctification, and while it is a steady climb it sometimes can be a difficult climb as we move forward in our walk with Christ.
Well that's the subject that begins to be the focus in chapter 6, and in chapter 6 of Romans Paul is dealing with this question. If you say that we are justified by faith alone, and that has been his argument so far, then does that mean we can just continue to sin?
Does that mean we can just sin willy-nilly? And so he answers this question in chapter 6 verse 1. What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means. How can we who died to sin still live in it?
So this is Paul responding to a objection that he is anticipating, and this is something Paul is great at. Paul is great at anticipating what his objector is going to say, and the objection is, Paul, if you say we're justified by faith that means we can live in sin, that we can live however we want because we're not saved by our works, so if we're not saved by our works then we can just live any old way.
Paul says no. If we are justified by faith that doesn't give us the right to live in sin. In fact we're free. We are free, not free to sin, but we're free from the power of sin because we have the Holy Spirit within us.
We should now walk in the newness of life, and he uses a strong adversative here. Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means. In the Greek it's meganoita. It means may it not even exist.
May that thought never come into your minds. The King James translates it as God forbid. God forbid that we would ever think that because of grace we can continue in sin and it not have any type of adverse effect, that it would not be a problem.
If we have been made righteous, if we have been or rather if we have been declared righteous by Christ, we should live in light of that declaration. We should live for Christ. He is now the captain of our ship.
My life is not my own, the Bible says, but I have been bought with a price. I have a new master. When I come to Jesus Christ, my master is Jesus Christ, and so my life changes, and for those who would say, well I'm in Christ, I'm covered by grace, and therefore I can sin and it's not a problem, that would make me question as to whether or not they really understand justification, if they really understand the weightiness and the danger of sin, and if they really understand just how bad sin is in the life of a person.
I remember a few years ago, well maybe maybe not years, but it's been quite a while back, that there was a video that was making the rounds on the internet. It was one of these reality shows, and in the reality show there was a man who, several men were wooing one woman, and the woman had chosen to engage in sexual intimacy with several of the men, and one of the men took great offense to that, and he said, you know, he was a Christian and he didn't believe in that, and she said, well I'm a Christian too, but I'm under grace and I can do what I want, and ultimately, it would sound like I'm exaggerating, but that's basically what she said, because I'm under grace, I can sin willfully and willingly and not care.
The Bible doesn't say that that's true. The Bible says that if we have come to faith in Jesus Christ, then sin will be a repugnant thing to us, it will be something that we don't want, and even though we battle the flesh, and even though there is a reality in which we still live in the flesh, and the flesh does desire the things of the flesh, and we have to battle that, and the spirit is willing, the flesh is weak, we know this, but at the same time, we can't simply say that because we've been justified by faith, that that gives us the right to sin, and so I would encourage you today, if you're using grace as an excuse for sin, to stop, to repent of that, and to say, God, I thank you for your grace, I thank you for your mercy, I thank you for giving me new life in Christ, and I pray that you would give me the strength, that you would give me the ability to overcome the abiding sin in my life.
As it's been rightfully said, either we're going to be killing sin, or sin is going to be killing us. I hope today has been an encouragement to you, and I hope this is an encouragement in any area of your life where you may need to repent.
I hope that these videos are a daily encouragement to you, and if you are liking these videos, please take a moment to subscribe, and hit the thumbs up on the YouTube player, and if you are watching on Facebook, please take a moment to like, comment, and share this video so that we can reach a wider audience.
This has been Coffee with a Calvinist, my name is Keith Foskey, and I have been your Calvinist.
