These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates. (Deuteronomy 6:6–9, NIV 1984).
My Musings – But what about today, in the age of grace? Commandments? Certainly not as a means of obtaining or sustaining our salvation. That is clear. They never were. It’s always been about grace. But if it’s always been about grace, what about the commandments? Of what purpose? Of what good? “The [commandments were] added so that the trespass might increase. But where sin increased, grace increased all the more, so that, just as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”(Romans 5:20–21, NIV 1984).
For every commandment given, comes more “opportunities” for trespass. Simple math. But the commandments had to be given to show the righteous requirements of a Holy and just God. Requirements that we have never been able to keep. Nor were we capable of keeping them on our own. For that reason, the increase in grace is greater than the increase in trespasses. Again, simple math. The economics of God.
Enter the economics of man. “Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace?” (Romans 6:1, 15, NIV 1984). We want both. Grace and license. But just as surely as obedience to commandments cannot obtain or sustain our justification, a life with chronic, unrepentant disregard for the moral commandments of the giver of grace is an indication of a life that has not truly received grace.
My Advice – We must examine ourselves. A life that conforms to the patterns of this world is likely one that has not been transformed by the grace of God. So then, “shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?” (Romans 6:1–2, NIV 1984). We cannot.
The Brew Is A Musing 