The Ethics of Grace

What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?  God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?  (Romans 6:1-2)

Paul's critics (first eight verses of the third chapter of Romans) accused him of teaching, "Let us do evil, that good may come," a charge that he categorically rejected.  If Paul had in any way believed this false charge, he would not have asked this question in the first place.  In the second place he would not have answered it as he did in our study verses.

At its heart the errant belief of Paul's critics so intertwined the doctrines of justification and sanctification as to make one's justification depend on his sanctification.  In this point I use the term "justification" to refer to our eternal justification by the grace of God through the agency of Jesus' sacrificial offering of Himself for us.  I use "sanctification" to refer to the godly life of a believer who orders his/her life according to the will of God as revealed in Scripture. (It should be noted that both terms appear in various specific contexts of Scripture with various uses other than those I list above.  For example, Paul’s discussion of faith in the fourth chapter of Romans is not dealing with our eternal justification, but with the way we live our life according to the rule of faith.  While Paul uses sanctification in First Thessalonians 4:1-7 to refer to our godly walk, we find a distinct use of the word in reference to our eternal standing in God’s will in Hebrews 10:10.  However, the clear teaching of Scripture affirms that our eternal justification by divine grace through Jesus’ sacrificial offering of Himself to the Father accomplishes our eternal sanctification before God.  Our justification by faith and our sanctification in time is contingent on our choosing to walk by faith in obedience to God’s teaching in Scripture.  When theologians confuse these two aspects of both justification and sanctification, they will eventually and inevitably end up believing much as Paul’s critics appear to have believed as set forth in the third chapter of Romans, not as Paul believed and wrote by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit for our instruction and godliness.)  Much teaching in our time confuses these aspects of justification and sanctification, errantly concluding that at least in principle many professing Christians in our time have far more in common with Paul's critics than with Paul!

A similar clash of beliefs between Paul and his critics will surface in the ninth chapter of Romans where Paul's critics again impute sinful consequences both to God and to Paul's teaching-in that chapter on divine election.

Paul's inspired teaching always balances the doctrine of saving grace with godliness.  The grace of God that saves is also the grace of God that teaches a regenerate elect the difference between sin and righteousness and convicts a regenerate person to turn from sin and to live according to righteousness (Titus 2:11-14).  Inspired Scripture does not know the idea of a person who has experienced the grace of God in the new birth not also having a quickened conscience that is sensitive to God and to God's righteous will.  Many years ago a young woman who had grown up in a Christian home and had attended church with her parents departed from her teaching and conscience in a rather significant manner.  Later when conviction became so heavy on her as to drive her to repentance, she protested, "When I was going to church, no one ever told me that x (the sin she had practiced) was wrong."  I responded, "Didn't your conscience tell you clearly that it was wrong?"  She didn't even pause to respond, "Yes, it did."  A major characteristic of sinful habits imitates Adam's response to his sin in the Garden of Eden.  When caught in the sin, try to blame someone else, even if you have to try to blame God. Do anything other than accept personal responsibility for your sin, an act that requires confession and repentance.

We may not always be able to observe a person's conviction or repentance.  Nor may we always be able to observe their beliefs.  Sadly, far too many professing Christians in our time think if they don't personally see evidences of a person's beliefs and/or repentance and faith, the person is not really born again.  God does not reveal in Scripture that we will always witness the spiritual state of another person, but He does reveal in Scripture that His grace makes a moral change in every one whom He touches with divine and saving grace.

If the same grace of God that saves us also teaches us to depart from sin and to honor God with our lives, we may readily conclude that Paul's critics were wrong, joining Paul in his view of both justification and sanctification.  God sovereignly accomplishes our eternal justification by grace alone through the agency of the sacrificial offering of our Lord Jesus Christ.  In the new birth He applies the benefits of that justification to the individual, a work that alters the moral compass and the spiritual awareness of the regenerate elect.  Now the resident grace of God in the individual begins to teach and to lead that person.  This is the manner of grace's operation as set forth in Scripture.  We may rely safely and securely on this fact, not based on a legalistic scrutiny of each individual whom we meet, but rather based on the fact of the matter as revealed in Scripture.  "…The Lord knoweth them that are his."  (2 Timothy 2:19)

Paul did not say that we always know them that are His.

In that same verse Paul added the point that he affirms in our study verses, "And let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity."

The slippery slope of self-righteous judgmental scrutiny (justifying self and finding fault with others) inevitably leads a person to a legalistic view of salvation, not to mention a prideful attitude that narrows the scope of God's saving grace to the limits of human observation.  If I must see convincing evidence of a person's saved state for that person to be really saved, then I must constrict the scope of God's saving grace to my field of vision.  This idea flies in the face of Scripture.  When Jesus taught Nicodemus regarding the new birth (first ten verses of the third chapter of John's gospel), he concluded his teaching with these words,

The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.  (John 3:8)

While one aspect of the work of the Holy Spirit is perceptible by us-thou hearest the sound thereof-Jesus clearly tells us that we cannot tell where He came from or where He will go next. (In the New Testament the word translated into our English for “wind” and “spirit” is the same word.  Jesus’ use of the analogy of “wind” is not a casual choice.  He is saying that the Holy Spirit, working in accomplishing our new birth, blows—or works—where He pleases.  He takes the new birth to whom He chooses, not to those who choose it.  It is God’s will, not man’s that is operative in regeneration, a point that Paul will make emphatically in the ninth chapter of Romans as he teaches on divine and personal election.) 

How does the "ethic of grace" manifest itself in the life of a regenerate elect?  We may not be able to discern the work, but Scripture assures us of the effect nonetheless.  Often in building a case for the positive aspects of his teaching Paul will first deal with the negative, as he does in this instance.  The whole of the sixth chapter of Romans develops the ethics of grace, but in our study verses that introduce us to this feature Paul first tells us what grace doesn't teach.

Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?  Since divine grace always conquers sin in His elect, shall we sin all the more so as to give grace more reason to shine?  This idea precisely mirrors what Paul's critics accused him of teaching.  As in the third chapter of Romans, again here Paul categorically rejects this blasphemous idea that surgically separates saving grace from its impact on the conscience.

God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?  If divine grace has killed us to the eternal damning effects of sin, we can claim no reasonable basis on which to continue living in it now.

Martin Lloyd-Jones (introduction to his commentary on Romans) makes the case that Romans chapters six and seven form a topical parenthesis to the Roman letter, a parenthesis in which Paul specifically responds to the critics' accusation in the third chapter.  While I respect his teaching and insights, I rather believe the whole Roman letter deals with these critics and their insidious impact on the Roman Church.  The whole Roman letter is written in a dialectical form of reasoning in which Paul interacts throughout the letter with the error that surfaced in the third chapter, along with other errors that likely grew out of this problem.  Thus I believe that the sixth chapter of Romans naturally and logically flows from Paul's reasoning in the fifth chapter.  Saving grace is not "cheap grace," nor is it "immoral grace."  It is ethical grace!  It not only saves, but it also teaches the individual the "ethics of grace."