ROMANS UNWRAPPED 113

"Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom you obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?. But God be thanked that ye were the servants of sin but ye obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered to you."  Romans 6v16-17. 

We now look at three reasons why we should not dabble in sin:

• We were slaves to sin but we have changed masters for something better  v16-17
• Following sin as our master only led to a miserable lifestyle  v18-21
• Following sin to its conclusion will have disastrous consequences  v22-23

The Bible does not teach sinless perfection; there will be none such this side of the grave, but provision is made for the times when we do fall into sin; in the Old Testament in approaching to God they could bring a sin offering, in the New Testament the apostle John says that we have an advocate with the Father to deal with our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.  What is being said here is that the grace which has reconciled us to God also teaches us that God's attitude to sin never changes, and that sin's nature never changes.   Much as it is difficult for we human beings to accept that we were the slaves of sin. nevertheless it is true, and to dabble in sin we risk sin enslaving us once more.   There are only two powers in the world as far as God is concerned; the power of sin or the power of grace.   The choice is down to the individual  " to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey his servants ye are to whom ye obey.   It is a humbling thing for proud human beings to admit that they are slaves in the spiritual sense, but if we understand this, then we understand the true nature of sin.  

Paul however has cause to thank God in verse 17, that the believers to whom he is writing were the slaves of sin, but now have obeyed the liberating power of the gospel of grace.   That is what he means when he speaks of  " the form of doctrine which was delivered to you."   He says you have obeyed it from the heart, from the very centre of your being you have placed your trust in the gospel of grace and therefore you don't go back to your old master to obey him.   There is an interesting construction of words in this verse; a better rendering would be "that mould of doctrine into which you were delivered"; you have been delivered from a merciless tyrant that would only ever bring you down and brought into the grace of God which will lead to true life.   In your former life you had a code of rules before you, which because of your weakness you were unable to keep, but what you have now is a power working within you which overcomes every obstacle you will ever face.  

So the lesson is don't treat sin  lightly, don't dabble in it, don't play with it.   Turn away from it and allow the power of grace to work within you.   We now have a new operating master within us; it is the grace of God; it not only frees us from the judicial penalty of sin, it frees us from the ruling power of sin in our day to day lives.  

Nevertheless this new life also makes demands, but provides all the resources and, all we need to do  is to show the same day to day heart obedience that we exercised on the day we were saved.  

Tomorrow d.v. a new lifestyle.