Sin, grace and freedom : Romans 7 and 8
Part 3: We do not earn our salvation, it is given as a gift – but what happens next?
Fundamentally, sin is a challenge to the lordship of Christ. In the first part of Paul’s letter to the Romans, he wrestles with a crucial problem: “How on earth did we Jews manage to miss the salvation that God has offered?”. This represents the essential failure of human nature, for Paul sees very clearly that the Law (that is, the Jewish religious law that God has gifted to the Jewish people and which is recorded in the Christian Old Testament) IS the word of God. It is complete, perfect righteousness; follow it and you will be saved. There is nothing inadequate about the Law. It should have brought complete salvation to those who follow it, and those who follow it would be able to present themselves before God: “We are the righteous ones”. Yet Paul came to realise, once he became a Christian, that the Law could not bring salvation because no-one is able to follow it. You can strive mightily and achieve enormous progress – and this is a perennially popular appeal for religious movements to become “the pure ones” and prove that you have what it takes to please God. Yet all fall short. If there was someone who did not fall short then he or she would deserve salvation, and God would be in the wrong to deny them it.
In Christ, Paul realised that God has provided a new solution to the problem of human sin and so unattained salvation. Instead of calling, urging us, to immense effort to earn our salvation, God will give it to us as a gift. This is the essence of what we call “the grace of God”. God grants us salvation as a freely-given, undeserved gift, given not because we have earned it but because God loves us; he knows that we need this gift, and it is his nature to love. This is the Christian message: that God in Christ has acted to give us what we could not achieve in any other way. This is why Jesus is Lord and Saviour and why Christians continually look to him, the person of Christ, rather than to any code, values, principles or teaching (even though these are also important). Paul was absolutely over-whelmed by the grace of God, that reached out to include even him. This is why Paul’s message was always, “We preach Christ crucified and risen!”. This is the method by which God redeems humankind.
But what happens next? There is a strong argument – and Christian groups have sometimes taken this wrong turning – to adopt a new righteousness. And, indeed, Christians are called to adopt a new righteousness, but it always has to be founded on the grace of God, otherwise it becomes self-righteousness. However, we understand the appeal. You are so delighted that, in Christ, at last you have discovered the spiritual power to forgive you and set you free from your sins. At last you are opened up to an intimate closeness to God that is astonishing in comparison to your previous relationship. You experience God’s presence in enormously powerful ways. What is the most natural human response but to say, “Thank you Lord! I respond to you by complete repentance; from now on, I will live only to love and serve you”. Empowered by God’s gifts, especially by the new Christian experience of the Holy Spirit, this joy, hope and commitment to living a new life is entirely genuine. However, it raises a new problem for Christians. The simple truth is that, enfolded in the grace of God, Christians should not sin. Jesus is Lord; we are set free from the dominion of sin; the Lord is with us. We should not sin. And, hopefully, we do a lot better than before, and some people do very well indeed – but we do not succeed in becoming perfect. However, we feel that we should. Before, we were relying on our own efforts – as Jewish people were in trying to keep the Law – but now we Christians are relying on the grace of God and the gifts of the Spirit. If we still fail, then it implies that not even grace and the Spirit are sufficient to redeem us.
Spiritual Devotion 