After presenting the truth that the Christian is under grace, Paul asked, “What then? shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid” (Rom. 6:15). Rather than a flawless performance of the works of the law, the Christian stands before God in the grace provided by the Lord Jesus; He provides the means to stand justified before God, as Paul wrote in Romans 5:2, “By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.” In Romans 6:15, the apostle Paul again pursues the question he anticipates from those who misunderstand the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. He begins with “What then?” similar to his question in 6:1—both questions introducing Paul’s clarification of the implications of being under grace. Some had slanderously accused Paul of teaching that we should do evil in order that good may come (Rom. 3:8). Since sin seemed to prime the pump of God’s grace, Paul’s adversaries suggested that his teaching indicated that we should sin more in order to produce more grace. To correct this caricature, Paul affirms the ethical living of those under grace and their complete submission to God. Yes, it is true that God’s grace abounded the more sin abounded (Rom. 5:20), but those who are saved by grace have died to sin (Rom. 6:7); thus, they have undergone a radical paradigm shift in their relationship to sin and would not have the mindset to sin more. The repulsiveness of the consideration to sin more is communicated forcefully by the response “God forbid,” in the KJV and ASV; however, this translation is considered by some to be “semi-profane” because it invokes the name of God while it is not found in the underlying Greek (McGarvey 593). “By no means!”—as the ESV renders it—or “Far from it!” are alternative translations of me genoito in Romans 6:15 (Bauer 197).
Law vs. Grace
To be “not under the law, but under grace” does not mean there are no laws in the Christian age. The question being entertained in verses one and fifteen of Romans chapter six is whether or not we should sin. On this basis Lard makes the point, “For, although we may not be under law, we can sin nevertheless, which implies that we are still under law in some sense” (211). It stands to reason that if there were no laws whatsoever, then no sin would be possible, for no law could be transgressed (1 John 3:4; cf. Rom. 5:13). Paul makes reference to fulfilling the law of Christ in Galatians 6:2; thus, there are courses of action that the Lord expects Christians to pursue. Christ does have laws that can be fulfilled or broken by us today. The point in the book of Romans is law-keeping is not the ultimate basis of one’s justified status before God. At its root salvation results from God’s grace. Far from being a license to sin, grace, properly understood, motivates one to live so as to please God, the provider of grace.
-Mark Day
(BDAG) Bauer, Walter, F. W. Danker, William F. Arndt, and F. Wilbur Gingrich. A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and other Early Christian Literature. 3rd ed. Chicago: U Chicago Press, 2000.
Lard, Moses E.. Commentary on Paul’s Letter to Romans. Delight, AR: Gospel Light.
McGarvey, J.W. and Philip Y. Pendleton. The Fourfold Gospel. Cincinnati: Standard Publishing Foundation.
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