One issue surfaces in virtually every one of Paul’s letters: What good is the law? To most of Paul’s audience, the word “law” stands for the huge collection of rules and rituals detailed in the Old Testament. Whenever he starts talking about “the new covenant” or “freedom in Christ,” his Jewish listeners want to know what he thinks about Moses’ Law. Does God still require obedience?

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Once upon a time we were “married” to God’s law—and it wasn’t such a great marriage, was it? Never any peace, not for a single moment—because our own sinful desires and actions were constantly fighting with God’s law. It wasn’t the law’s fault--- we can all see for ourselves that the commandments are good. But we are not good—not healthy, whole, and happy, the way God made us to be. We are broken people, unable to live by the law. And God knows this.  

So He solved it with a death—Jesus’ death. Jesus took our sin, our brokenness, upon Himself, even though He Himself never did anything wrong. And then He took us, the people He loved, along with Him, all the way through His own death and resurrection—so that we could become God’s own beloved children, living in freedom and joy.  

And not living alone! Because as Paul says, now that we have died and risen with Jesus, we are remarried—this time, not to the law which made us miserable, but to Jesus, our Savior. He is the One who gave Himself up for us, so that we could live in freedom, serving “in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code.” Today we do good, not because we “have to,” but because the Holy Spirit is living inside us, making our hearts more and more like our Savior’s. And we delight to make Him happy, because we love Him.

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Romans 6:15-23 continues Paul’s discussion of sanctification by reminding his readers of their past slavery to sin and their new slavery to righteousness. He wants them to live in submission to their new master, Jesus Christ, and not to be entangled again with the sins that characterized their old life, sins which no longer have any claim over them. People are either obedient slaves of sin, which leads to death, or they are obedient to God, which leads to righteousness.

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Sin put you in prison. Sin locked you behind the bars of guilt and shame and deception and fear. Sin did nothing but shackle you to the wall of misery. Then Jesus came and paid your bail. He served your time; He satisfied the penalty and set you free. Christ died, and when you cast your lot with Him, your old self died too.  

The only way to be set free from the prison of sin is to serve its penalty. In this case the penalty is death. Someone has to die, either you or a heaven-sent substitute. You cannot leave prison unless there is a death. But that death has occurred at Calvary. And when Jesus died, you died to sin’s claim on your life. You are free.  

Christ has taken your place. There is no need for you to remain in the cell. Ever heard of a discharged prisoner who wanted to stay?  When the doors open, prisoners leave. The thought of a person preferring jail over freedom doesn’t compute. Once the penalty is paid, why live under bondage? You are discharged from the penitentiary of sin. Why, in heaven’s name, would you ever want to set foot in that prison again?

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When Albert Einstein published his theory of relativity, it is said there were only twelve men who were intelligent enough to understand its implications. Forty years later the number had risen to millions as the horror of Hiroshima unfolded. Relatively few could see great significance in E = mc2, but even fewer failed to understand that through one man the race had been ushered into the atomic age. There was no going back and there were no exceptions, because in Einstein atomic reality had come upon all men. When a man introduces something new into human experience, the race will always be left to live with the consequences.  

In Romans 5:12-21, Paul sets out to show how one man’s death can provide salvation for many. To prove his point, he uses Adam to establish the principle that it is possible for one man’s actions to inexorably affect many other people. So when sin entered the life of a man, it also entered the experience of a race as yet unborn. If it be objected that those locked up in Adam’s loins could hardly be said to have been introduced to sin in Adam, it should be remembered that in Adam they were introduced to everything, for without him as source they had nothing, and if he had died they would not even have had life.

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The center. As human beings, we often try to find the center of things. It is just the way we are. We want to find the center. What is the center of Christianity? The bull’s eye?  The nucleus? We all know the answer. Jesus Christ. There is no argument about that. What does God want from us? We all know- faith in Jesus Christ, believe in Jesus Christ, trust in Jesus Christ. Christ and faith in Jesus Christ is the center of Christianity. The bull’s eye. We know that.

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What does it mean to believe in Christ? To trust God like Father Abraham did, not wavering or doubting but firmly believing that God could do what he promised. That is what faith is: to believe that God can do what he has promised. It is to trust the promises of God so implicitly that you act on them.

Paul uses the model of Abraham to prove justification by faith alone because the Jews held him up as the supreme example of a righteous man, and because it clearly showed that Judaism with its works-righteousness had deviated from the faith of the Jews’ patriarchal ancestors. In a spiritual sense, Abraham was the forerunner of the primarily Gentile church in Rome as well.

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It was Paul’s conviction that in our lives, we make such mistakes that there is no way that we can buy our way out. We can’t wiggle our way out of it, as we so often try to do. We hurt others by our sins of commission, of what we have done wrong to hurt others. The way that we have hurt people and our family. We cannot pay God back for all the sins of our lives. For all that we have done wrong. For all that we have not done right. And so when you and I come to stand before the judgment day before God, we are going to say, “O Lord God, please have mercy.”  And God, in that situation, pays the penalty for your sins. He takes the punishment. His son, Jesus, dies on the cross to pay the penalty for our sins with his blood. That is what the death of Christ is all about. That is what the atonement of Christ is all about

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Scripture is brutally honest about the sinful condition of humanity. Nobody is righteous, and no one fully reflects the image and glory of God. Paul elaborates in Romans 3:12-16 that humanity has become absolutely worthless, deceitful, poisonous, cursing, bitter, barbaric and brutal. Only through God’s law do we become aware of the reality of sin’s presence in our lives, and our inability to fulfill all the righteous requirements of the law. Paul writes, in Romans 3:19-20, “Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God. Therefore no one will be declared righteous in God’s sight by the works of the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of our sin”.

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Knowing God’s will is not the same as discerning a specific decision or path. To know His will refers to a revelation in Scripture that is agreeable to Him, what He requires us to do, what he commands, what He prohibits, what He approved and what He rewards. The Jews inherited this treasure trove of truth through their covenant relationship with God, yet they were blind to the promises being fulfilled before their very eyes. Because they possessed the law, the Jews were confident that they were spiritually superior teachers; guides to blind pagans, light, wise in God’s ways, and able to teach the immature (probably a reference to Gentile converts to Judaism). The Jews were to be spiritual guides to the nations, but Jesus  told them that they themselves were blind. He called them blind guides in Matthew 23:24 and blind leaders of the blind in Matthew 15:14.

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