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Abounding Grace

In Romans, 5:20-21 we read: "Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord" (ESV).

As a young person, I was intrigued by the realization that all levels of government from municipal to federal have law-making authority. Occasionally, laws are repealed, but every year new ones are made. The constant stream of new laws, makes it next to impossible to keep up with all the things that are "against the law." But the legislatures aren't the only law-makers. Society or even sub-groups of society unofficially legislate what behaviours are acceptable and what are not. These even move beyond activities to attitudes. The concept of political correctness has given us a host of unmentionables and undoables. Not long ago, a politician was pressed into making an apology for using an out-of-date word when referring to a minority group.

As Christians, we may question how much we should concern ourselves with the constant barage of new laws, both legal and social. At one level, we have to give them some attention because we have to live with others in society. We share the same geopolitical space with others, so that calls for cooperation, but we had better not lose sight of the fact that what concerns us most is not the changing emphasis of society, but the unchanging expectations of God as expressed in His word. It is possible for Christians to be distracted, even disoriented, by the constant shifting of society's priorities.

The American preacher, Donald Grey Barnhouse, illustrated the need for a constant, fixed source of spiritual illumination to help us navigate through life. He suggested that if we approach a sundial at midnight with a flashlight, we can make it say any time we want. The sundial is meaningless when we are illuminating it with a portable light source. It is only when the sun provides its fixed, objective light that the shadow on the sundial's face means something. It is the same for us, spiritually. Society is going to be shifting its values, its views, its laws constantly. Those things needn’t overwhelm us. What matters is the law that God gave us, the values that God espouses, the expectations that He has of us.

Pressure to conform to social standards continues to mount on us leaving us in ever-greater danger of "sinning." New laws, as well as our propensity to disobey existing laws makes sin abound in our lives. But, "where sin abounds, grace abounds much more." It is really hard to imagine that no matter how bad the sin is and how much the sin is whether it is legitimately called "sin" or illegitimately called "sin," - whatever the case may be, God’s grace always extends beyond the sin. Grace is never overwhelmed by sin. God's grace is such that regardless of sin's quantity and quality, at the cross, where sin and grace meet, God’s grace is always capable of dealing with with the sin. Instead of the natural consequence of sin, which is death, we received this wonderful thing called "justification of life." At the cross, it is passed on to us because where sin abounds, grace abounds much more.

Let me draw your attention to two letters in the phrase "as sin reigned in death." As Christians we need to notice that the "ed" on reigned which make it past tense. It is easy for us to let sin reign (present tense) in our lives. All of the old responses we had before we were Christians come so easily; they require no effort on our part. They just happen, but sin doesn’t reign in our lives anymore. The reign of sin is in the past because of the cross. At the cross our sin met with God’s grace. Consequently we can find ourselves in the position of grace reigning in our lives through righteousness to eternal life. That is the grace of God reaching beyond our sin. It even reaches beyond the sin of others against us. There is a novel thought. When people do things that offend us, hurt us, God’s grace applies to that sin, too. As we respond righteously, we become part of God’s expression of grace into the lives of other people.

So the cross brings these different elements together - sin and grace. Things that seemingly would not fit together, come together. At the cross, through Jesus death, He brings grace into our sinful lives and removes the power of sin, so that grace can reign in our lives rather than the sin. Have you been to the cross today? Have you received the grace for today that you will need?

Ron Hughes
© May 2008