Terry Rayburn from "grace for Life", did this. I thought this was so good i decided to put it on my blog too...
"Below I've quoted part of Martin Luther's famous letter he wrote to Melanchton in 1521.
One phrase in it has been sometimes translated, "Sin boldly", and some have called Luther an antinomian (against the law, or lawless) because of it.
But this is a slander that all true preachers of the Gospel of Grace may be occasionally subject to.
Luther loved the law of God, as all who are born again do.
But Luther also knew we could never keep the law with the perfection required by God, and so he "recklessly" pounded home the great truth of Grace, by which Christ on the cross paid for all of our sins.
How many of them?
All.
Past sins.
Present sins.
Future sins.
"Should we sin then that Grace would abound," Paul asked on behalf of his imaginary audience.
"Of course not, you ignoramuses;" he responds to his own question, "don't you know you've died to sin and been born again? You love Jesus now, and hate your sins. What a dumb question!" --VERY loose paraphrase :)
And yet, when we do sin, we have an advocate with the Father. And so there is NO condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. And we can crawl in His lap and rest, and this resting will help us to walk in His Spirit...free.
If you are a preacher of mercy, do not preach an imaginary but the true mercy. If the mercy is true, you must therefore bear the true, not an imaginary sin.
God does not save those who are only imaginary sinners. Be a sinner, and let your sins be strong, but let your trust in Christ be stronger, and rejoice in Christ who is the victor over sin, death, and the world.
We will commit sins while we are here, for this life is not a place where justice resides. We, however, says Peter [2 Peter 3:13] are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth where justice will reign.
It suffices that through God's glory we have recognized the Lamb who takes away the sin of the world.
No sin can separate us from Him, even if we were to kill or commit adultery thousands of times each day. Do you think such an exalted Lamb paid merely a small price with a meager sacrifice for our sins? -- Martin Luther
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
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13 comments:
i have watched this topic on SIN broached so many times by so many christians. if you care to observe, much on this topic is theological in nature. most if not all, don't talk about specifics like...exactly what SINs are you struggling with that you think this piece of theology helped you?
the gulf between reality and faith, i suspect, is great.
you are carrying a burden someone placed on you and somehow, it is a love hate relation.
you love it because a burden has been "theologically" lifted from you. however, the burden was also "theologically" placed on you.
and this burden will stay with you as long as you live and that keeps you coming back for more of your theological grace.
a happy marriage of sin and grace i suppose
huh? not getting that comment by Anonymous..................anyway.......
"the law of God" is not the same thing in the New Covenant as 'the law' the mosaic law or any OT law, we live by the law of liberty and freedom, based on His life in us, and as us!! I don't love the law, I am dead to it!! But alive to God, in Christ - it's this law, much like a law of gravity, that I cling to as a new covenant believer!
Lydia,
As long as you understand that you are dead to the law, and that you are no longer "under law, but under grace" -- and I believe you do-- I would humbly suggest that you learn to love all of God's law, Old Covenant and New Covenant, for these reasons:
1. It gives insight into the heart of the One Whom we love, and we can better know His mind and ways,
2. It shows the holiness and perfection of the Lord, thereby giving insight into Him, and insight into what we previously were and did to violate such a pure and holy One, and therefore...
3. It shows the awesome and powerful and loving and gracious thing that He did for and in us -- in a way that nothing else can do.
This is just part of the reason that He has handed down to us the whole Bible, not just the New Testament.
When we can grasp how righteous and holy is the One who killed a man on the spot for merely touching the Ark of the Covenant, then we can better appreciate that He has given us the gift of His righteousness, and made us dead to the good and perfect and awe-inspiring law.
"So then, the Law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good." - Romans 7:12
But praise the Lord that...
"...sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law but under grace." - Romans 6:14
Blessings,
Terry
you said sin is not master over you and yet you sin daily. isn't that contradictory?
it makes no sense to us and sounds like some mind game is going on here.
you are a new creation, you are not under law but the enabling power of grace. you claim you no longer fulfill the laws the old ways, by your strength, but now, through god's grace in jesus, He gives you the strength to triumph over sins - thus, sin is no longer your MASTER
however, the truth is far from reality. christians don't exactly stand out in the department of "being the master of sins" you know. more often than not, their behavior are as bad if not worse than unbelievers.
but of course, what said here is "unedifying" therefore, best to quote scriptures in a round about way or ignore reality?
Hi Terry,
Hmm, I think I hear what you are saying. But, I must say I don't love the law, I love the One who fulfilled the Law on my behalf. If I died to the Law, and am now married to Jesus, having any 'love' for the law itself seems contradictory to me. I can appreciate the law for one thing only, for leading me to Jesus. That is it's only purpose, no?
Anyway, I appreciate the Bible in it's entirety, I appreciate seeing the types and shadows and seeing Jesus unveiled throughout the Scriptures.
Just my thoughts........
Anonymous,
Here's the cool thing. We get to live in God's truth, what God says about us, but only if we believe Him! Our experience doesn't dictate. Truth does. If our experience doesn't line up with God's truth, then perhaps we are not grounded in His truth. Our minds need to be renewed and as we renew them in His truth, we then can begin to live out of what we 'know' to be true of us!!
Sin is no longer master over us, because God dealt with our sin problem once and for all. When Christ died on the cross, we died with him and all our sins, AND our sin nature died and when He raised from the dead, we were raised up with Him in newness of life. HIS LIFE!! We were exchanged! Our old adamic nature died so we could have the very nature and spirit of Christ dwelling on the inside of us. Not only that but we died to the law. The law was added that trespass may increase.
So here's the thing. If we are still sinning, which let's face it, we will mess up 'til we die, but that's not the focus of our life. Our focus is learning to live in the truth I just stated above. The law provokes sin. The Bible says, where there is no law, there is no transgression. May I suggest that if we are stuck in sin, that we are still trying to live by the law.
Anyway, we DO have a glorious hope in this life, becasue we have been given everything for life and godliness, JESUS very spirit dwells in us!! How much more could we ask for!!! This is good news!! Be encouraged!!
gee Lydia Joy...i couldn't have said it better myself...great choice of words!!
here's something on sin by John Piper
…a definition of sin...
"The most penetrating and devastating definition of sin that I am aware of in Scripture is the last part of Romans 14:23: "Whatever is not from faith is sin." The reason it is penetrating is that it goes to the root of all sinful actions and attitudes, namely, the failure to trust God. And the reason it is devastating is that it sweeps away all our lists of dos and don'ts and makes anything, from preaching to house-painting, a candidate for sin. In the original language, this is stressed even more than in our versions: it says, "Everything which is not from faith is sin." Anything, absolutely any act or attitude which is owing to a lack of trust in God is sin, no matter how moral it may appear to men. God looks on the heart."
by John Piper
i don't even want to offer you a different perspective on the book of romans. but one thing is for certain, your take on the scripture does not procure peace, the irony - that's pretty evident for the past 2000 years. if you remain on the same course, war will persist, many will continued to be alienated and even hate the gospel, which is unfortunate because, the gospel is really good news but you have given it an out of this world experience only disney creative people can appreciate.
that said, the key word here is ...Romans- if you want to understand the book of romans
god bless
you know what's interesting about your story?
it has a self protective element in it
once you buy into their story, it' very hard for you to come out of its lies because, you operate from a "different plain"
at your trance like level, reasonings and facts don't usually work with you because your interpretation has a code all on its own and it is by this code of interpretation you validate reality
btw, all cults operate the same way.
and btw, jesus is not that STUPID
That's right, Jesus wasn't( minus - that) stupid you know. Go figure.
Anon...alrighty, no problemo...and as someone once said, you may have the last word...
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