Romans 6:20 to 8:4

We should be slaves of righteousness in the same way as we were slaves to sin is because we need to allow our choices and desires to come under the Lordship of Christ. We take advantage of the Means of Grace and allow God to change our desires.

Romans 6:20-23
When you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? The end of those things is death. But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Paul is still talking about sanctification but has the fruit of our salvation in view. We only had death as a fruit before salvation. However, the fruit of salvation, even if it comes via trials and struggles, is fruit that leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. The cost of sin is death but God gives eternal life as a free gift. A life pleasing to God is a fruit of being slaves of God. As we submit to the Lordship of Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit we have eternal life in Christ but it is a gift and not a wage. This is because it is initiated and sustained by the power of God and not by us. God doesn’t owe us anything but we owe Him everything.

We need to be fully aware of our freedom from the law and our submission to God. So Paul uses the analogy of marriage and death to stress the finality of our break from living under the bondage of sin manifested by the law.

Romans 7:1-6
Or do you not know, brothers—for I am speaking to those who know the law—that the law is binding on a person only as long as he lives? Thus a married woman is bound by law to her husband while he lives, but if her husband dies she is released from the law of marriage. Accordingly, she will be called an adulteress if she lives with another man while her husband is alive. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law, and if she marries another man she is not an adulteress. Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God. For while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death. But now we are released from he law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve not under the old written code but in the new life of the Spirit.

When we first enter the Kingdom of God by saving faith we die to the law through the body of Christ. This is because we are then wet to Christ and our allegiance is to Him. So we are no longer captive to the law we now serve via the Holy Spirit and not via the written code of the law. But then how are we to view the law? Is this where we enter into antinomianism? No it is not and we must guard our hearts against that tendency.

Romans 7:7-12
What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.” But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. Apart from the law, sin lies dead. I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died. The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me. For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me. So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.

It is important for us to realize that the law is not bad. The law is good and it accomplished the purpose for which God revealed it. It manifested sin. You know the problem with the law ultimately was that it turned a light on my heart. The law said you shall not covet.

Modern society considers covetousness so lightly that we can name a product “Covet”. The show called “Sex in the City” was all about the coveting of a group of women. One of the actresses now has a line of perfumes and etcetera called “Covet”.

Covetousness is a heart problem first and only an action problem later. The heart departs before the lifestyle. To covet means that you may never act on it but you have a heart desire to take and have. Cupidity is another similar word that indicates a desire to take what another has. So most cultures (without the law of God) would never ask their members to regulate their hearts and teach that covetousness is a sin. But of course it is. I could never argue now that to covet wasn’t sin. God sees my heart and so sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. God isn’t indicating that to admire my neighbor’s stuff is bad but you can see another response in your heart to test it. When my neighbor (I’m using that in the broad sense) is blessed with something then the question is, “am I thankful and blessed to see them receive it or am I annoyed and want one too or judge them for how I think they acquired it?” I’ve sometimes thought that you could think of covetousness as wanting something bad enough to take it if you could get away with it but it goes deeper than that because our heart response can reveal a covetousness in us that judges and begrudges the blessings another person receives. This problem is magnified when we don’t think the person deserves what they have. So the commandments of God had a broad impact on mankind convicting each of us of our sin.

Romans 7:13-20
Did that which is good, then, bring death to me? By no means! It was sin, producing death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure. For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin. I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the
law, that it is good. So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.

Note that Paul has switched from using “we” to using “I” and is relating a personal experience. In the process of sanctification, if you are running with patience the race that is set before you, you encounter this frustration. We realize that the moral law given by God (along with all the requirements for heart obedience) is spiritual and pure but we see ourselves fail to live up to it over and over. We really do find ourselves looking at our actions and wondering why we do what we don’t want. Now we always choose according to our strongest inclination at the moment but we wonder why, at that moment, we decided to be stupid. We want to live a life that is holy and pure before God and to be pleasing in everything we do but we fail. After salvation, we find that we are in a struggle with our sin nature during our struggle to be sanctified.

Romans 7:21-25
So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.

Note that Paul’s struggle is a post salvation struggle (as we’ve said earlier) because he says that he delights in the law of God. This struggle that all Christians find themselves in would be intolerable if not for God through Jesus Christ our Lord. We each get frustrated with the failure we find in our lives if we have entered the struggle. In Chapter 8 we have an exposition of what it means to serve the law of God with our minds while we serve the law of sin with our flesh.

Romans 8:1-4
There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

The justification that we’ve been discussing removes our sin and grants us Christ’s righteousness in the atonement. We are free from the cycle of sin and death that we would otherwise still be living under. The corruption of original sin made obedience to the law impossible for us. Now, as a result of the work of Christ, we have imputed righteousness and as we walk according to the Spirit our works are acceptable to God. You have forgiveness for your sins and the leading of the Holy Spirit for works day by day. It begins and ends in Grace.

Romans 6:15 to 6:19

In addition to the material that follows, we had an extensive discussion of the means God uses in salvation and the privilege of evangelism in obedience to God.

Since we have a perfect justification in Christ what is our view of sin? God needs to give us a right view so that we can live before Him as pleasing children.

Romans 6:15-16
What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?

Here Paul keeps drawing the line that our freedom from the chains of sin is not to be viewed as an excuse to stubble back into sin. Our relationship to sin changes but we are to be actively engaged in the struggle against sin in our life. The 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith makes the following statement about Christians who continue in persistent and serious sin:

Nevertheless, they may, through the temptations of Satan and of the world, the prevalency of corruption remaining in them, and the neglect of the means of their preservation, fall into grievous sins (a) and, for a time, continue therein (b) whereby they incur God’s displeasure (c) and grieve His Holy Spirit (d) come to be deprived of some measure of their graces and comforts (e) have their hearts hardened (f) and their consciences wounded (g) hurt and scandalize others (h) and bring temporal judgments upon themselves (i). (a) Matt. 26:70, 72, 74; (b) Ps. 51:14; (c) Isa. 64:5, 7,9; 2 Sam. 11:27; (d) Eph. 4:30; (e) Ps. 51:8, 10, 12. Rev. 2:4; Song 5:2–4, 6; (f) Isa. 63:17; Mark 6:52; 16:14; (g) Ps. 32:3–4; 51:8; (h) 2 Sam. 12:14; (i) Ps. 89:31–32; 1 Cor. 11:32.

One of the key points is that we can fail to consider ourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ. This failure can go beyond the common sins that so easily latch on to us like leaches and includes grievous sins that bring down ministries and scandalize the Body of Christ. We must not present ourselves as servants to sin. We are called to fight against our old sin nature after salvation.

Romans 6:17-19
But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness. I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification.

In is now possible as a result of the Holy Spirit in our lives for our obedience to come from the heart. Once we had hearts that were spiritually dead so keep in mind that God has enabled your obedience by His initial and continuing work of Grace. If we focus on becoming slaves of righteousness in the same way we were slaves to sin then we will progress toward sanctification. The reason I said that we should be slaves of righteousness in the same way as we were slaves to sin is because we need to allow our choices and desires to come under the Lordship of Christ. We take advantage of the Means of Grace and allow God to change our desires.

Romans 5:12 to 6:14

God’s solution for sin brought an end to the sin chain begun in Adam.

Romans 5:12-14
Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned— for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come.

Adam’s sin started the entire cascade of sin in the Human race. We have a sin nature and are natural born sinners. The sins of disobedience to God’s revealed law were not counted prior to the giving of the law by revelation. However, the law written on hearts was violated and death reigned even though they impact of Adam’s sin was unique in the way it propagated. Adam could sin or not sin and it was not hard for Adam not to sin. Since Adam fell we sin. Apart from God’s move on their heart, an unbeliever will always sin because they choose to do that. We always choose according to our strongest inclination at the moment and we are sons and daughters of Adam.

Romans 5:15-17
But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man’s trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many. And the free gift is not like the result of that one man’s sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brought justification. If, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ.

So sin entered through one man’s sin (like the shattering of a plate of glass because of a flaw) and spread spiritual death throughout mankind. In contrast, Grace came after many trespasses and produced justification. We will reign in life through Christ as we receive Grace and the free gift of righteousness.

Romans 5:18-21
Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous. 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.

So God shows us the problem (Adam) and the solution (Jesus). The only solution for a Holy God was provided for us by the Holy God. Sin increased from Adam to Moses. Then the Law was given and sin blossomed until Christ. No Grace reigns through righteousness leading to eternal life.

Grace reigns? How does undeserved blessing reign over anything? Well the accuser comes against you with a viable charge. For example, “God your so called servant Dwight sinned yesterday. Actually he sinned more than once. In fact, I got bored and stopped counting. Anyhow, he deserves eternal punishment for his sins” and he has a legal and valid point apart from the Grace of God. By the Grace of God my sins, not in part but the whole, have been nailed to the Cross and I bear them no more. It is well with my soul. Grace reigns!

Romans 6:1-4
What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.

Martyn Lloyd-Jones said:
There is no better test as to whether a man is really preaching the New Testament gospel of salvation than this: that some people might misunderstand and misinterpret to mean that because you are saved by grace alone it does not matter at all what you do; you can go on sinning as much as you like because it will redound all the more to the glory of grace. If my preaching and presentation of the gospel of salvation does not expose it to that misunderstanding then it is not the gospel.

Think of how this doctrine has been opposed down through the centuries. Paul had to write an epistle to the Galatians telling them to stop trying to depart from this truth. Paul had to correct Peter because he was sliding back toward the ritual law. Not all of the early church fathers understood this doctrine. For example, around 200 AD a leader called Tertullian could be considered to be more Jewish than Christian in his understanding of justification. He seemed to think that God only gave the Gospel because we were so weak and that once we were following Jesus then all the law applied. Pelagious was a 5th Century monk whose name is now used by calling Pelagian all those who reject the necessary saving and enabling Grace of God and substitute their doctrine of salvation by works. We’ve spoken recently of Finney who was called Pelagian (I think that was a little unfair to Pelagious) and said that the doctrine of justification by double imputation was “impossible and absurd” (Lecture 36, Justification; Systematic Theology, Charles G. Finney). In our age many denominations now wonder if preaching a substitutionary atonement of Christ on the Cross shedding His blood for a lost and dieing world is just not “seeker sensitive”. Over and over again the Gospel has come to be viewed as a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence and so there is an attempt to remove the Chief Cornerstone.

1 Peter 2:6-10
For it stands in Scripture:
“ Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious,and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.”
So the honor is for you who believe, but for those who do not believe,
“The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone,” and “A stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense.”

They stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do. But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

Some folks have observed that a particular sequence is often repeated in a local church or denomination that is departing from the Gospel. The sequence is that at first we proclaim the Gospel, then we assume the Gospel, and then we deny the Gospel. In fact this observation could be made of the Children of Israel as they cycled from following God to not following God. The process can take generations but what we want to do is draw ourselves back constantly to a clear presentation of the Gospel. We want to be like Paul who urged that we would be “praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints, and also for me, that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains, that I may declare it boldly, as I ought to speak.” (Ephesians 6:18-20).

Paul wanted prayer so that he could open his mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the Gospel. He didn’t want to assume that the Romans would get it right. He wanted to spell it out in detail for them and subsequently for our benefit. We should start to panic when all we deal with at church is how to have a better life, how to deal with children, how to find fulfillment at work. It isn’t that these are not topics that the Body of Christ shouldn’t address. We should address these topics and we do have much to say about those topics. The problem is that they can’t displace the Gospel and the importance of the Gospel in our teaching. They are not the Gospel. Romans is a presentation of the Gospel and for a Christian it is your life and breath.

Romans 6:5
For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.

Just in passing, remember that you will not be a disembodied spirit or angel strumming a harp on a cloud in the resurrection. You’ll have a resurrection body like His. Your body will be different but you will not be disembodied. This being united with Him in His death and being united with Him in a resurrection like His is also part of having our sins paid for on the Cross and being clothed in the righteousness of Christ.

Romans 6:6-11
We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ being raised from the dead will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

Notice the level of identification that exists for us in Christ’s death. Our old self was crucified with Him, we are no longer servants of sin, we now live with Christ, and we will never die spiritually. You have a command here. You are commanded by God to consider yourself dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Not only has a substitutionary atonement been made but your living is now different. You are alive to God in Christ Jesus as opposed to your previous condition of being dead in your trespasses and sins.

Romans 6:12-14
Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal bodies, to make you obey their passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.

Paul is now transitioning into a discussion of sanctification. The “therefore” here is to link back to the command to consider ourselves dead to sin and alive to Christ. We are therefore in a struggle to keep ourselves away from sin and to present ourselves to God for His use. Sin doesn’t rule over us because we are under grace and our works are acceptable to God because we are alive to God in Christ Jesus. The works are not acceptable because they are perfect the works are acceptable because we are alive to God in Christ Jesus.

Romans 4:13 to 5:11

The justification we receive freely will drive our obedience as we live before the face of God empowered by the Holy Spirit. You’ve got to know that you are justified by faith alone so that you’ll run with patience the race you have before you.

Romans 4:13-15
For the promise to Abraham and his offspring that he would be heir of the world did not come through the law but through the righteousness of faith. For if it is the adherents of the law who are to be the heirs, faith is null and the promise is void. For the law brings wrath, but where there is no law there is no transgression.

From the very beginning, when mankind has been judged to be righteous it has been because of faith. You can’t invalidate Abrahams promises with the law that came later. The law magnifies our lack of ability to serve God and the way our nature is set to serve ourselves.

Romans 4:16-17
That is why it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his offspring—not only to the adherent of the law but also to the one who shares the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all, as it is written, “I have made you the father of many nations”—in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist.

The promise doesn’t rest on the works of Abraham but upon the faith exhibited by Abraham. Likewise the heirs of Abraham are not heirs according to the law but according to Grace because they share in the faith of Abraham and are the result of the promise made to Abraham by God. In that sense, Abraham is the father of us all. God gave life to us when we were spiritually dead. God called us into existence as the children of Abraham when we were lost and without hope in the world. That day when you were saved, as you heard the Gospel … God resurrected your dead heart and called you into existence as a child of Abraham. Salvations are as miraculous as Lazarus’ resurrection when serves as a physical picture of our salvation. Jesus gave life to a dead Lazarus and called him into existence when he was not in existence except as a rotting corpse.

Romans 4:18-22
In hope he believed against hope, that he should become the father of many nations, as he had been told, “So shall your offspring be.” He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead (since he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah’s womb. No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, fully convinced
that God was able to do what he had promised. That is why his faith was counted to him as righteousness.”

I wonder if Abraham objected to being referred to as “as good as dead” but I guess not. Abraham knew that it was not his ability that would fulfill the promise. Abraham’s confidence was in God and was the result of years of fellowship and interacting with God. Abraham was familiar with God and so he knew that God was the one who was able to do what He had promised and that was what mattered.

Romans 4:23-25
But the words “it was counted to him” were not written for his sake alone, but for ours also. It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.

Our righteousness comes from faith in Him who raised Jesus from the dead after being delivered up for our sins and raised for our justification before God. Here we have in view our blessed double imputation in the atonement; we trade our sin for His purity.

Chapter 4 ends with a compact statement regarding the imputation of our sin to Christ and the imputation of His righteousness to us. It has been called “The Great Exchange” in a recent book by Bridges and Bevington. It is the heart of the Gospel. Paul continues to explain the Gospel in Chapter 5.

Romans 5:1
Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Remember when we see a “Therefore” we look to see what it is there for. In this case it is a link back to “Double Imputation” as the heart of the Gospel and faith as the operative “cause” that results in the peace we have with God. Please keep in mind that faith has content and an object in Christianity. Our faith is not “believe-ism” or a blind leap. Like Abraham (and in fact partly because of the testimony of Abraham) we believe God because He has proven Himself faithful. God says that I’m justified by faith in the work of Christ and that I have peace with God through Christ.

Listen to these verses by Spafford in the hymn “It is Well with my Soul”;

Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come,
Let this blest assurance control,
That Christ has regarded my helpless estate,
And hath shed His own blood for my soul.

My sin, oh, the bliss of this glorious thought!
My sin, not in part but the whole,
Is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more,
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!
Spafford – It is Well with My Soul (1871)

Spafford knew the comfort of justification (and hath shed His own blood for my soul) and he knew that his sins were paid in full not in part.

Romans 5:2
Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God.

Again listen to Spafford point to the hope of the glory of God …

But, Lord, ‘tis for Thee, for Thy coming we wait,
The sky, not the grave, is our goal;
Oh trump of the angel! Oh voice of the Lord!
Blessed hope, blessed rest of my soul!
And Lord, haste the day when my faith shall be sight,
The clouds be rolled back as a scroll;
The trump shall resound, and the Lord shall descend,
Even so, it is well with my soul.
Spafford – It is Well with My Soul (1871)

We like Spafford should long for the appearing of Jesus and our entry to heaven. We now can rejoice that the sky and not the grave is our goal. Rather than fear the Glory of God, the Grace of God will prepare us for the Glory of God. Apart from the Grace of God that Glory terrifies and our God is a consuming fire.

Romans 5:3-5
More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

One more time listen to verses from Spafford’s great hymn;

When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll;
Whatever my lot, Thou has taught me to say,
It is well, it is well, with my soul.
For me, be it Christ, be it Christ hence to live:
If Jordan above me shall roll,
No pang shall be mine, for in death as in life
Thou wilt whisper Thy peace to my soul.
Spafford – It is Well with My Soul (1871)

It is well with my soul when I am justified before God. We don’t easily remember that we should rejoice in our sufferings. We undervalue endurance and character. We want a shortcut to hope. Spafford had sorrows like sea billows. He was a wealthy man mourning the loss of his son who then lost almost all of his wealth in the Chicago fire of 1871. That fire burned about 4 square miles over about 3 days. Thinking they needed a vacation he sent his wife and 4 daughters ahead of him for a vacation in England. There was a collision at sea and his 4 daughters were all killed. He wrote the lyrics for this hymn as his ship passed the point where his daughters died at sea. He was writing his heart and even in the deep sense of loss he was looking for a way to rejoice in suffering, allow endurance to produce character, and allow hope founded on Christ to be his only life.

A daughter named Bertha born later to Spafford and his wife said, “That he could write such words at such a time was made possible by the fierceness of his struggle and the completeness of the victory.”

Romans 5:6-11
For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

Salvation, is three fold in that we are saved (Justified), we are being saved (Sanctified), and we will be saved (Glorified). That is why Scripture here says, “much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.”

If God gave us Grace (underserved favor in His sight) when we were sinners then it is irrational to think that He will not also give us Grace to live before His face. How could we ever question God’s work in our life? He didn’t destroy us when we were in rebellion against Him. We were His enemies and He reconciled us by the death of His Son. He didn’t reconcile us to lose us or to destroy us. Being lost and destroyed is all we deserved but He was for us. How can we worry about the enemy of our souls taking us from His hand? We are purchased at too great a price for God to let us go. We were reconciled while enemies and now, much more, shall we be saved by His life.