Today, I am reading and commenting on  Romans 4-7.

Today’s passage is perhaps one of the more convoluted passages in Scripture.  This happens because Paul starts out to make what should be a few fairly basic statements about salvation, but then goes on to address the ways in which he knows that people will attempt to distort and misuse these basic principles.  So, the first basic principle which Paul speaks about is that we receive righteousness, not through what we do, but through our faith in Christ.  Paul points out that we all deserve death because of our sin, that none of us have lived lives where we have acted with righteousness.

However, if we cannot be saved, if we cannot obtain righteousness, by observing the law which God gave us, what purpose does that law serve?  Paul points out that the law makes us aware of our sin, and thus brings glory to God by showing the wonder of His grace to us.  Paul then addresses those who say that if our sin brings glory to God, then we should sin more so as to bring even more glory to God.  Paul disagrees with that conclusion, pointing out that we have died to sin through Christ.  Further, he echoes what Jesus said about serving two masters by saying that we must choose if we will be slaves to sin, or slaves to righteousness.  He tells us that Christ died and has been raised to life and now that He has been raised to life, He cannot die again.  In the same way, we have died with Christ, and been raised with Him.  We have died to sin and must not once more make ourselves subject to its mastery.

That last paragraph scares me, because I still sin from time to time.  Fortunately, Paul addresses this as well.  He says that he desires to do what is good, but fails to do so.  Instead of doing the good which he desires to do, he does evil.  Since he does not desire to do the wrong which he does, nor does he do the good which he does desire to do, this demonstrates that it is not he, but the sin living within him which does these things.  Paul tells us that if we desire to do good and to not do evil, doing as we desire is beyond our power.  However, it is not beyond God’s power.  We must seek in our minds to be slaves to righteousness, slaves to God while knowing that in our bodies, in our natural ,sinful selves, we are slaves to sin.  In our desire to do good we must trust, we must have faith, that God is willing and able to transform us, to release us from our slavery to sin.  When we do good, it is not because we are good and righteous people.  Rather, it is because God has exercised His power within us.  Credit for any good we doo does not belong to us.  Rather let us give credit to where it is due, to God’s wonderful power and grace.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.