Date:   4/30/2004 3:12:58 PM ( 21 y ago)
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URL:   https://www.curezone.org/forums/fm.asp?i=630840

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Paul talked a lot about that very thing in his letter to the Romans, chap. 6:
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1What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? 2By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? 3Or don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.
5If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection. 6For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin-- 7because anyone who has died has been freed from sin.
8Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. 9For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. 10The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God.
11In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. 12Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. 13Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness. 14For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace.
15What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! 16Don't you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey--whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? 17But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted. 18You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.
19I put this in human terms because you are weak in your natural selves. Just as you used to offer the parts of your body in slavery to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer them in slavery to righteousness leading to holiness. 20When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness. 21What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death! 22But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. 23For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in[2] Christ Jesus our Lord.
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(Incidentally, verses 12-13 show that even after Jesus' payment for sin, sin itself still exists or we wouldn't be told here to resist it. Just a side note.)

The question then becomes, "What exactly does it mean to be under Grace?". One cannot read the NT without seeing that Grace is all about love. As it says in Romans 13:10, love does no harm to its neighbor. So by loving my neighbor I will not want to steal from him, or slander him, or lust after his stuff. These are all principles found in the old 10 commandments, but they are reinstated in the NT under the new law of love. Jesus said in John 13:34 "A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another."

This is the main point of contention in the debate I pasted into the other posts. Rather than saying that the old law applies unless each specific exception is cited, I believe that no part of the old law applies unless it is specifically reinstated in the NT. Love contains many "old" principles, so it sometimes appears as though we are obeying the old law, even though we are not actually under it.
 

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