Romans 6:1

What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase?

Paul had a lot of experience defending the Gospel message from the attacks of Jews. From city to city, the Jews opposed his teaching, and even some within the church would try to argue for the idea of Jewish supremacy and salvation through the Law. So when writing to the Roman Christians, Paul is able to easily anticipate their arguments, and this is one of the ones  that he brings up and then argues with. Some Jews may ask if they should continue in sin that God may have an opportunity to impart even more grace.

In the Greek language Paul wrote in, there were many ways to say no. Some were more forceful than others. In response to the argument given above, Paul uses the strongest no possible. He wants to emphasize that there is no room for sin in a Christians life. He then talks about how when we were baptized, the person who was dead because of sins was buried and then brought to a new life. Why would he do the things which brought him death in the first place. He follows that with a discussion of how before salvation we were slaves to sin, but now we are slaves to righteousness. That means that we cannot serve sin, but instead must serve righteousness.

It is important for us to see Paul’s strong reaction here. He makes it very clear that there is no place in a Christian’s life for sin. Not only that, the question asked above was not just about us continuing in sin for any reason. It was specifically so that God’s grace may abound. Sometimes we try to fool ourselves by thinking that our sin might be justified if it was for a noble purpose. What nobler purpose could there be but glorifying God? And yet sinning even to bring glory to God is forcefully dismissed by Paul. The can be no room whatsoever in our lives for sin.

What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase?