Biblical Christianity 101, a study of the book of Romans

[Drich]

What Paul is doing here is answering the question that people who lived their whole lives under the law would have. (Good works= The only way to righteousness before God) And even to the legalist who think the same way. Because remember in Chapter 4 Paul just dropped a bomb shell saying our 'righteousnees before God is not determined on a life lived under the law. That the Law now (after Christ/cross) was about pushing people to identify sin in their lives. Paul was showing in Chapter 4 that no one could be found righteous before God by trying to just obey the law. That Redemption through Jesus' sacrifice was the only way to redemption separate and apart from how one acts.

So the question is: "If the Law and obeying is not the way to be found righteous before God then is it ok to sin?" Paul answers:

So do you think we should continue sinning so that God will give us more and more grace? 2 Of course not! Our old sinful life ended. It’s dead. So how can we continue living in sin? 3 Did you forget that all of us became part of Christ Jesus when we were baptized? In our baptism we shared in his death. 4 So when we were baptized, we were buried with Christ and took part in his death. And just as Christ was raised from death by the wonderful power of the Father, so we can now live a new life.

In essence What is being communicated here is if we truly die to our self and live For/In Christ in such away to be given the atonement we need for salvation, we will not want to sin any more. Not that we will/can stop completely, but we will come to hate and want to distance ourselves from it.

5 Christ died, and we have been joined with him by dying too. So we will also be joined with him by rising from death as he did. 6 We know that our old life was put to death on the cross with Christ. This happened so that our sinful selves would have no power over us. Then we would not be slaves to sin. 7 Anyone who has died is made free from sin’s control.

What is said above, Many Legalist take to mean that we can live sin free lives because 'we have been set free from the control if sin. Problem with that interpretation is that it is not consistant with the context of the whole passage. let alone with what Paul shares with us about his own struggles in coming chapters.

The context starts in verse 3 Speaking to the Resurrection of Christ and Paul telling us that we too will share in this bodily resurrection. That upon the death of Christ our sinful nature was also put to death. Sinful nature not being our sinful desire/carnal part of ourselves, but our whole being/any part of our nature that sinned. (Remember in chapter 4 He quotes OT scripture that says all are sinful all the time.) Meaning, before if apart of our selves sinned whether we wanted to or not, our whole being (Mind/Body, Spirit, Soul) would be punished in Death. Death of the Mind and body at the end of this life, and death of the Spirit Soul in Hell. Now our sinful half will die upon our physical death and like Christ be resurrected with out sin.

8 If we died with Christ, we know that we will also live with him. 9 Christ was raised from death. And we know that he cannot die again. Death has no power over him now. 10 Yes, when Christ died, he died to defeat the power of sin one time—enough for all time. He now has a new life, and his new life is with God. 11 In the same way, you should see yourselves as being dead to the power of sin and alive for God through Christ Jesus.

So a bit of a recap, If we die in Christ, then we die to our selves our sinful desire to live for self and all the trapping of what the 'self' wants. We are to live or want to live as Christ lived.

12 But don’t let sin control your life here on earth. You must not be ruled by the things your sinful self makes you want to do. 13 Don’t offer the parts of your body to serve sin. Don’t use your bodies to do evil, but offer yourselves to God, as people who have died and now live. Offer the parts of your body to God to be used for doing good. 14 Sin will not be your master, because you are not under law. You now live under God’s grace.

12-14 Paul is telling us not to live for the evil we wanted to do the evil our bodies want to do, but rather offer ourselves to God. 14 is profound because Paul again states that we are no longer under the law as a means to Righteousness, that it is through God's grace in the way of the atonement offered by Christ that we now find righteousness. Which again begs the question (for the legalist and OT worshipers alike) if we are under grace and not the law then why not sin, if we are no longer defined by the law to be worthy before God?

Paul Asks, and answers:

15 So what should we do? Should we sin because we are under grace and not under law? Certainly not! 16 Surely you know that you become the slaves of whatever you give yourselves to. Anything or anyone you follow will be your master. You can follow sin, or you can obey God. Following sin brings spiritual death, but obeying God makes you right with him. 17 In the past you were slaves to sin—sin controlled you. But thank God, you fully obeyed what you were taught. 18 You were made free from sin, and now you are slaves to what is right. 19 I use this example from everyday life because you need help in understanding spiritual truths. In the past you offered the parts of your body to be slaves to your immoral and sinful thoughts. The result was that you lived only for sin. In the same way, you must now offer yourselves to be slaves to what is right. Then you will live only for God.20 In the past you were slaves to sin, and you did not even think about doing right. 21 You did evil things, and now you are ashamed of what you did. Did those things help you? No, they only brought death. 22 But now you are free from sin. You have become slaves of God, and the result is that you live only for God. This will bring you eternal life. 23 When people sin, they earn what sin pays—death. But God gives his people a free gift—eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Paul says here that we are slaves to whatever we give ourselves over to. Meaning if we wish to stay in sin then the laws does indeed condemn us, however if we Give our selves to God as slaves bought by the blood of Christ then we live under rule of Christ, not as payment for being saved from the consenquence of sin, but because we wish to serve our Master respectfully. Now keep in mind their are no free men in Paul's analogy. One is either a slave to Death/Sin or s Slave to God/Eternal life. If we choose life we will earnestly want to live in the way the living live (under God's rules/Laws)

Does that make sense? The legalist says: We must follow the law of God to earn Heaven. Romans/Paul says We can not earn Heaven, we have sinned to much/We are ALL Sin All The Time None are or ever will be deserving.

Then Paul asks if we are not derserving anyway, and God grants us grace for the sins we have commited, why not just live a life of sin... He answers by saying if we look at ourselves as a slave to sin or a slave to God, we know our old master/sin would have killed us. while our new master gives us an eternal good life. So in earnest gratitude we inturn life our lives as best we can in accordance to His will. Again not as a means to try and pay back what we were bought and paid with, but a show or sign of respect for giving us a life that we could never afford to live or deserve to live.

[Pat Mustard]

It is way more likely they were mistaken, or just plain made it up. People get mistaken all the time. They also make things up all the time.

It was also written by non-eye witnesses 30 years after the event, so they didn't see anything. They heard rumours.

Why?  Do you have any support for your assertions here?

Google Legion sometime.

[Edwardo Piet]

Oh look! I found a legion!:

[Pat Mustard]

Oh look! I found a legion!:

WOOLOOLOO!

[Edwardo Piet]

How very bizarre, they used the aoe2 monks but the "wololo" sound is only made by aoe1 priests (or the #30 taunt in aoe2).

[Edwardo Piet]

Drich is kudosing my AoE posts... and since the AoE games are my favourite gaming series of all time... that automatically makes me like him a lot more.

Meh, when it comes to AoE fans... I'm biased.

If I haven't kudosed him already - I doubt I have - I'm gonna kudos him now with: "Because you like Age of Empires".

[GrandizerII]

Drich is kudosing my AoE posts... and since the AoE games are my favourite gaming series of all time... that automatically makes me like him a lot more.

Meh, when it comes to AoE fans... I'm biased.

If I haven't kudosed him already - I doubt I have - I'm gonna kudos him now with: "Because you like Age of Empires".

News Headline:

Evie finds Christ because of AoE

[Drich]

Age f Empires was one of my all time favs as well. I about fell over when they did the star wars crossover. My fav moves was to fast build like 50 ATAT walkers and just dump them on someone's base, it did not matter what type of defense someone put up the ATAT always produced the same soul crushing outcome.

[Drich]

anyway ready for chapter 7? This chapter is the game changer!

[Drich]

Here comes the good stuff, meaning if their were a definitive passage in scripture that says we as Christians no longer are justified by following rules as a means to our righteousness before God, this is it!

Brothers and sisters, you all understand the Law of Moses. So surely you know that the law rules over people only while they are alive. 2 It’s like what the law says about marriage: A woman must stay married to her husband as long as he is alive. But if her husband dies, she is made free from the law of marriage. 3 But if she marries another man while her husband is still alive, the law says she is guilty of adultery. But if her husband dies, she is made free from the law of marriage. So if she marries another man after her husband dies, she is not guilty of adultery.
4 In the same way, my brothers and sisters, your old selves died and you became free from the law through the body of Christ. Now you belong to someone else. You belong to the one who was raised from death. We belong to Christ so that we can be used in service to God. 5 In the past we were ruled by our sinful selves. The law made us want to do sinful things. And those sinful desires controlled our bodies, so that what we did only brought us spiritual death. 6 In the past the law held us as prisoners, but our old selves died, and we were made free from the law. So now we serve God in a new way, not in the old way, with the written rules. Now we serve God in the new way, with the Spirit.

Now keep in mind the context of the first 6 chapters, and also remember we haven't had to pull from (cherry pick) 10 different verse fragments from 10 different places in the bible to come up with this idea/precept. Everything that Paul has said in the Book of Romans so far, has been leading up to this illustration that seperates our 'righteousness'/ablity to stand before God without blame or condemnation for our sin.

It is not about doing the right thing or obeying the law/morality. Because as Paul says here when we die with Christ we also die to the Law of sin. People ask why did Jesus had to die. This is the reason. Because The Law demands Death/blood shed for sin. He (Jesus) Who knew no sin, Because our Sin sacrifice. When we accept what He has done for us We put on His death. We accept His death to pay for our sins. ALL of our sins. Therefore we die to the law, or as Paul illustrates our death in Christ has Christ die for us in our place for the Law sake. Which means as Christ says "No Part of the law shall be abolished". Remember just because it does not define our righteousness anymore does not mean it no longer exists or has been abolished. The Oppsite is infact true. We (through Christ) have Completed the law/Paid for our sins with Death. In doing so we are free from it as a woman who's husband has died to remarry. While her Husband was a live she was bound by the law to Him, but when a death occoured the other souce/this case a woman was no longer bound to the other. Paul is saying with the death of Christ we too are free from the law. Because the spiritual death we owed due to our sin was paid by Christ. He died in our stead. Now because our sins have been paid with the death of Christ we like the widow are free from what bound us to the law. (Ask a question when you read this if you still don't understand)
Again going back to chapter 6 (and what Paul says next) We are now truly free from the law because we put on Christ in salvation means now we want to live as Christ would have us live. Not the other way/for our selves. Which is why He says what he says next.

7 You might think I am saying that sin and the law are the same. That is not true. But the law was the only way I could learn what sin means. I would never have known it is wrong to want something that is not mine. But the law said, “You must not want what belongs to someone else.”[] 8 And sin found a way to use that command and make me want all kinds of things that weren’t mine. So sin came to me because of the command. But without the law, sin has no power. 9 Before I knew the law, I was alive. But when I heard the law’s command, sin began to live, 10 and I died spiritually. The command was meant to bring life, but for me it brought death. 11 Sin found a way to fool me by using the command to make me die.

This passage dispels the idea of Original sin/We are all born sinful. Here Paul says that until He knew what the Law says (The Knoweledge of Good and evil) He was innocent (Meaning that God did not hold Him responsisble for the law till he understood the difference between right and wrong)
From that he says ' you might think the law is bad/because knowledge of it makes you guilt of your sins.' To that he says no. because before we were ignorant of it, and now that we know we can repent and live with God in a more complete way Not in ignorance.

14 We know that the law is spiritual, but I am not. I am so human. Sin rules me as if I were its slave. 15 I don’t understand why I act the way I do. I don’t do the good I want to do, and I do the evil I hate. 16 And if I don’t want to do what I do, that means I agree that the law is good. 17 But I am not really the one doing the evil. It is sin living in me that does it. 18 Yes, I know that nothing good lives in me—I mean nothing good lives in the part of me that is not spiritual. I want to do what is good, but I don’t do it. 19 I don’t do the good that I want to do. I do the evil that I don’t want to do. 20 So if I do what I don’t want to do, then I am not really the one doing it. It is the sin living in me that does it.
21 So I have learned this rule: When I want to do good, evil is there with me. 22 In my mind I am happy with God’s law. 23 But I see another law working in my body. That law makes war against the law that my mind accepts. That other law working in my body is the law of sin, and that law makes me its prisoner. 24 What a miserable person I am! Who will save me from this body that brings me death? 25 I thank God for his salvation through Jesus Christ our Lord!
So in my mind I am a slave to God’s law, but in my sinful self I am a slave to the law of sin.

I would like to ask you to take the time and slowly read this passage again. This one passage (in it original context is beyond life/game changing. let's break this down and go line by line, keeping in mind all that has just been said.

14 We know that the law is spiritual, but I am not. I am so human. Sin rules me as if I were its slave. 15 I don’t understand why I act the way I do. I don’t do the good I want to do, and I do the evil I hate. 16 And if I don’t want to do what I do, that means I agree that the law is good. 17 But I am not really the one doing the evil. It is sin living in me that does it.

18 Yes, I know that nothing good lives in me—I mean nothing good lives in the part of me that is not spiritual. I want to do what is good, but I don’t do it. 19 I don’t do the good that I want to do. I do the evil that I don’t want to do. 20 So if I do what I don’t want to do, then I am not really the one doing it. It is the sin living in me that does it.

Coming from a very legalistic Church the first time I read this in context and fully grasped it full meaning I think I pooped a little. Because up until this point I was convinced one must earn/do more good deeds than bad to get to heaven/Follow Church Doctrine. That wrongly also implied that my legalistic church could indeed claim to be the 'only true' church. Which meant for us in our cult like church, we had to live sin free from the point of salvation onward.

But here, Paul Himself says he can't live sin free! That their is apart of himself that he has little to no control over. And what's More, Paul points out that "he"/The Part that wants to obey the law Is Spiritual as is the Law is Spiritual. And the Carnal side who does not, is the physical side and is still a slave to sin. This is the part of us that dies at our death, and remains dead while the spiritual side gets resurrected in Christ. The slave part of us stays in the ground, while the Spiritual side that is in Christ moves on.

That is profound because What Paul is saying is as Christians we will NEVER physically stop sinning, that at best we will only ever lie to ourselves if we think we can/ever have or will stop sinning. Why because apart of our being, is a slave to sin. Our only redemption lies in what our spiritual side does and wants. If we Spiritually hate sin/don't make excuses for it (as per Romans 2) and truly repent of it meaning turn from it/hate it we can find redemption for what our physical selves do against our Spiritual will.

To put it another way Paul the Apostle responsiable for most of the Church as it is today and the majority of the NT/bible, was a person who admitted he himself could not stop sinning, because even though He died with Christ (Spiritually Speaking,) was still a slave to sin on his carnal side.

So the question then becomes what hope do we have to living a near sin free life style?
Again our hope is to separate ourselves as Paul has done and look at ourselves as a Spiritual being who has died to self and given all that we can to Christ, and the other 1/2 being a creature still alive and a slave to sin. It is like we are a symbiote (spiritual side) who is joined to A Slave (Carnal side) and together make a human being. Per Romans 1 and 2 The Spiritual part of your being must not embrace the physical Slave part of your being and what it wants and does, or that to God is an act of evil to which he will allow evil to consume the whole human being. So when it dies (which is the wage of sin) the person will remain dead. However if we learn to put sin in it's place and seek atonement for what we hate that our physical bodies will never be able to fully give up, then we can be forgiven, and while the slave will die you/Spiritual you will be 'born again.' Again, not a title a denomination can sell, but a gift from God.

21 So I have learned this rule: When I want to do good, evil is there with me. 22 In my mind I am happy with God’s law. 23 But I see another law working in my body. That law makes war against the law that my mind accepts. That other law working in my body is the law of sin, and that law makes me its prisoner. 24 What a miserable person I am! Who will save me from this body that brings me death? 25 I thank God for his salvation through Jesus Christ our Lord!
So in my mind I am a slave to God’s law, but in my sinful self I am a slave to the law of sin.

In Paul's summary here He just reinforces this point. When I took this whole chapter to people stuck in the 'gotta live a perfect life to be a christian' members of the church the usally short out and begin to quote all sorts of verse fragments (cherry pick) they use to justify what they believe. So the question then becomes why is this interpretation Valid and not theirs?
Simple answer, context. This message by Paul was his effort to preach the Gospel to the people at Rome, Which means he had (and did) establish the truth behind our relationship with Sin, What god expected of that and how God fixed the sin problem for us. All in context. To cherry pick the gospel (Meaning to pull from 10 different places and recompile them in such away as to take passages and examples out of their original settings/context, and redefine the context is an example of incorrect exegesis of Scripture. Excegesis meaning to determine original meaning and intent.

After all how can original meaning be established from cherry picking if the original people in whom these books and letters were written did not have the advantage of having what we know to be the bible? When ever we can find a whole chapter dedicated to one principle that writing should take precedent over a doctrine based on cherry picking. Now Imagine how much stronger the case when we have an entire book dedicated to one single principle or idea.
This is what is going on here in the first 1/2 or Romans. We are identifying sin and the role of the Law in the believer's life. That means all other 'doctrine' based off of verse scraps/cherry picking SHOULD take a back seat to what Paul had to contextually say on this subject, to a bible believing Christian. All else are religion first/doctrine based christians. Meaning they worship their religion first or their Method of worship, rather than God.

Honestly, does your idea of the Christian God look anything like what has been described here so far?