Graces That Liberates From Sin’s Power

You have no memory of life before the dungeon. All you’ve known is an existence shackled to a filthy cell wall in a chilly, squalid dungeon… painful, miserable, trapped. You’ve heard fantastic tales of the outside world — of clean, fresh air; skin warmed by the radiant glow of the spring sun; vivid colors unlike anything you’ve ever seen; the unbelievable idea that your legs had the capacity to walk and even run! These legends seem too good to be genuine. They must be lies. And then one day, this man appears in your prison cell, and your chains and the cell door dissolve into thin air! He points to where the cell door once stood, speaks one word, “Freedom”, then vanishes.

Days go by, months, years, and you haven’t left your cell. Why? You just don’t feel like you’re really free. You still feel like a prisoner.

Sounds ludicrous that anyone would choose to stay in a dungeon when freedom was a step away, right? But this is often what we do as Christians. We rely on our feelings instead of the truth of God’s immovable Word.

In Romans 6, we see some significant repetition — our past history with Christ, our current reality, and the purpose behind His actions. We were buried with Him, so that we could WALK in newness of life (v. 4). We were crucified with Him, so that we would no longer BE slaves to sin (v. 6).  Because of His victory over sin, we are to consider (count/reckon) ourselves dead to sin and alive to God. Audacious? No! It’s our reality. It’s a command, from our Creator, who tells us we are not only to classify ourselves dead to sin, but ALIVE to God! He tells us exactly what we are to believe about our relationship with sin.

Then we are explicitly told how to act. “Do not let [allow] sin reign in your mortal body… and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin… but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead,… as instruments of righteousness to God” (v.12-13).

Why would God tell us to do things that we aren’t equipped to do? He wouldn’t. He didn’t. He tells us what to do with sin because of what He declares true — we are not under law but under grace. Through grace we have freedom — to NOT sin. Freedom to walk out of the prison cell. Sin has no mastery over us, no actual power other than what we give it.

Life. Grace. Freedom. Ours because God says they belong to us now.