Romans Inquiry

Daily Read

Romans 5-6:23

" For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace." (6:14)

Why would sin not have dominion over a person under the law, as opposed to someone under grace?

If a person is not under the law, what then does it mean? That person perhaps is no longer Judged by the law as the standard for behavior before God? Does it then mean a person under grace is "forgiven" by the "misdeeds of the body" (sin) that was brought under the law? Then what goes of the law, does one simply disregard it since it is no longer the standard of Judgement? Is the law the standard of Judgement, over sinful human beings, who cannot in themselves complete the law but must have grace to justify them? Must it be that mankind must still obey the law with full knowledge that this is an insumountable task and cannot be attained, but is pursued interin in response to grace given, grace received, and grace applied?

Then what of Grace? "What then? Are we to sin because we are not under the law but under grace? By no means!" (vs. 6:1) But isn't then the law that shows us our sin? "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 know sin. I would not have know what it is to covet if the law had not said, "You shall not covet." But sin seizing the oppurtunity throught 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 commandmetn, deceived me and through it killed me. So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good." (Romans 7: 7-12) So then if the law is holy and the command is rigteous and good, should we not then obey it?

Then perhaps the motivation to obey the law is not then to be justified but in response to grace given. However if one obeys the law to be justified (and his external actions show) and one obeys the law in response to an act of grace (and his external actions show) then how different are they? How different is the one who tries to justify himself rather one who rests in justification of another- if only the difference be motivation? Should not there be a difference in the external acts, since there indeed is a different motivation?