Romans 6:13-14 And do not keep yielding your body parts to sin as tools of wickedness; but yield yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your body parts as tools of righteousness to God. For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law but under grace.
Is this really in the Bible? I mean, did we just read that correctly? We’ve got to obey God’s law BECAUSE we are under grace? What ever happened to the excuse for sin, “There’s always grace for that!”? Paul puts it another way in his letter to the Galatians.
Galatians 5:13 Brothers and sisters, you were called to freedom – only do not let your freedom become an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.
In this verse, “opportunity for the flesh” equals “sin.” Paul is just starting his impassioned – three chapter plea, that we honor the gift of grace by exorcising sin from our lives. He already said … Romans 6:2b How can we who died to sin still live in it?
Why would Paul be harping on this (the way he is) if we really have a “once saved, always saved” principle? We may have to deal with these verses …
Hebrews 10:26 For if we keep on sinning willfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins. (Yeshua’s sacrifice will not be of benefit.)
2 Peter 2:20 For if – after escaping the world’s pollutions (sin) through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Yeshua the Messiah – they again become entangled in these things (sin) and are overcome, the end for them has become worse than the beginning.
Galatians 5:1 For freedom, Messiah set us free – so stand firm, and do not be burdened by a yoke of slavery (to sin) again.
Rabbi Trail: I woke up this morning with the words, Ma Nishma in my ears. The idiomatic meaning is “What’s happening?” The literal meaning is, “What will we hear?” I became fixated on the literal meaning and began thinking that it depends on where we put our ears. Hear this command from the Lord. Listen (active obedience) to God’s word. God’s people need to mature. Leave sin behind and walk with Him in righteousness through the power of His Spirit, on the road to Jerusalem. End RT.
Shalom shalom.