Is It Really Free? (Romans 6)

romans6-isitreallyfree.m4a

I had been telling people for about a week beforehand that I wanted to find out all of the free things I could get for my 36^th birthday on Friday the 13^th. Everyone seems to know about the Grand Slam you can get for free at Dennys on your birthday just by showing your driver’s license. So as long as you eat alone, it is totally free. But I was wondering if there might not be something else. So I searched and found a couple articles online with lists of the free things you can get on your birthday. Of course we don’t have all of the restaurants and attractions mentioned on those lists but of those we do have in this area there were a lot of catches. You almost always have to sign up for some loyalty program online, which means you are now on their email list. That didn’t bother me so much. I can always unsubscribe after getting my freebie. But the thing that kept coming up again and again is that they were not really free – they were buy one get one free on your birthday, buy one meal and get another meal for free on your birthday, buy a drink or a drink and fries and you will get this other thing free on your birthday, and so on. The point being that I wanted to get something for nothing on my birthday, but almost all of these birthday “gifts” had fine print. In Romans 5, Paul had said that Jesus Christ and His righteousness is a free gift. It is unconditional. We don’t have to do anything to be worthy of Jesus Christ and His righteousness. Jesus is a gift for ungodly sinners. Now this sounds too good to be true – it sounds too free. And you might think, “If it came to us while we were still sinners, then why not continue in sin?” This is the question Paul anticipates in Romans 6:1. To be clear: the question is not “Will we continue in sin that grace may abound?” The question is “Should we continue in sin that grace may abound?” It is a question that we cannot imagine the right answer being, “Yes.” The answer has to be “not in your wildest dreams,” which means that we might expect Paul to start telling us the fine print. We might expect Paul to tell us that it isn’t really a free gift.

Romans 6

1. The common objections should not lead us to back down and say ‘it isn’t really free,’ but instead we ought to double down on Jesus Christ and His righteousness as a free gift like Paul.

   1. Paul says, ‘Yes, it is really free!’ The passage ends, “The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Paul does not soften the message of Jesus Christ and His righteousness as a free gift. Paul puts it even more strongly and deeply. He says, “You are not under law but under grace.” The law is associated with works that earn wages – the wages of sin is death. But grace is the free gift of God that is really free – the gift of eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. The law leads to death, but the gospel of grace resurrects the dead. Unlike the Greek and Roman philosophers and the Judaism of Paul’s day and the Santa Claus and Christmas “gift” exchanges of our day, Paul recognized that God’s gift was totally free. For they all think that you ought to give gifts only to good people – to people who are worthy of the gifts. But Paul saw that the free gift of God is given to unworthy ungodly sinners who deserve death. It is not a gift God limits to Jews, Greeks, and Romans but also those that the Romans made fun of by calling them barbarians. Otherwise, if there were limitations to this gift that would be fine print. But Paul completely refuses to respond to the objections by making exceptions – it is a free gift.

   2. Likewise, we ought to double down on the good news of the free gift with our words and actions. People will always object and ask if it really is a free gift then why not keep sinning. Sure we start out saying that grace is unconditional, but when people bring up this objection we have to either choose to double down on the good news or to say that we didn’t really mean it. If we say that grace is unconditional and we really mean it, then we can show it by taking the gospel to those who are Christ’s enemies and ours – to ungodly sinners at enmity with God who live in another part of the world where voo doo, ancestor worship, Islam, Hinduism, or some other idolatry is common. It isn’t that they are really any different than unbelieving Americans, but it is much easier for Christians in America to see that those living in another culture are ungodly sinners. So if we really mean it, we will not be biased in favor of “worthy” fellow-Americans with good morals. Instead we will be eager to find a way to share the good news with those that an American Santa Claus might say are on the naughty list. (Is it really free? Yes. Let’s say it and show it. Then…)

2. When you double down on the good news of the free gift you will see just how absurd the objections really are.

   1. Paul puts the message of the free gift of Jesus even more strongly and deeply in order to show just how ridiculous the questioning is. Yes the person asking if we should keep on sinning thinks that a yes answer would be absurd. They find the message that Christ’s righteousness is a free gift to be dangerous because people might think they should keep sinning. But instead of backing down from the message that Christ’s righteousness is a free gift, Paul says that anyone who has that gift should not continue in sin because it does not make sense. It does not make sense to live like you belong in the old age. So Paul says to consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. He has to say “consider yourselves” this way because it isn’t obvious – you cannot see it yet for the old age is who you are in yourself and the new creation is who you are in Christ. It will no longer be a question when you are no longer in the old age at all. But for now, every time you sin you are having an identity crisis. When you sin it is inconsistent with what God says about you. When Paul says don’t let sin reign in your motal bodies and don’t obey your passions, he is simply telling you to be who you are in Christ Jesus. It would be foolish then to think that the message that Christ’s righteousness is a free gift is dangerous because people might think they should keep sinning.

   2. Likewise if you double down on the message of the free gift of Jesus, then you will show just how absurd the objections are. Yes you still have a mortal body. Thus you are no different than any non-Christian in that way. But Christianity is not about improving the old you or cleaning up the old you. Instead the old you needs to die. Indeed, the Christian life – the life that you now live still in the flesh you live by faith in the Son of God who loves you and gave Himself for you. And so when you share this good news of the free gift of righteousness with ungodly sinners and they become Christians they don’t need to think they should keep sinning. They aren’t any different than you – they are ungodly sinners who deserve to die. The good news is that they can live by faith in Jesus. So yes, it really is free unlike so many birthday and Christmas “gifts.” It is a gift for ungodly sinners, not for those who are somehow worthy. And when someone objects and says, ‘Well then why not keep sinning?’ We need not back down and say it isn’t really free. The question is absurd. Thus instead we can double down and say, “Yes, it really is free.” Thanks be to God. Amen.