What then shall we say?

Could we have a word on the wonderful answer which God gave to all this and how, as flowing out of this exhortation, we work out our own salvation?

Hence he does not pause to answer his own question, but at once passes, in verse 3, to further questions based upon it. Having received the Spirit by the hearing of faith were they going to be made perfect by the flesh? Does God begin with us on one principle and then carry things to completion on another and opposing principle? Men are erratic enough. They change about in this fashion when their earlier plans miscarry. But is God erratic? Do His plans ever miscarry so that He needs to change? The Galatians were senseless, but were they SO senseless as to imagine that? And were they themselves prepared to change, and to throw away as worthless all they had previously held and done; so that their earlier sufferings for Christ had all to be treated as in vain, as null and void? What questions these were! As we read them are we not conscious of their crushing force?

The Philippians were bidden by Paul, "Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling." How do you reconcile this injunction with what we have had before us?

Let us notice the way the doctrine is unfolded. The objection is started, "If then grace abounds over sin, then the more our sin the more His grace. Shall we then continue in sin, that grace may abound?" To which he answers, "We are dead to sin, how can we live in it?" This is conclusive against the abuse of the doctrine, although it is only for faith that we are dead: for then faith in it must tend to holiness, and not unholiness. The truth is ever according to godliness.

He starts at once with the argument of an objector, of course, founded on his previous declaration that "where sin abounded grace did overabound." "What then?" he asks; "shall we continue in sin, then, that grace may abound?" Spite of the answer given to it here, that question is substantially raised today, as if there had been none; as if in fact, it were really unanswerable. But it is true that the apostle's answer is very little understood; and even by those who are quite satisfied with it. Rejecting utterly the thought, he puts it away with another question. "We who have died to sin," he asks, "how shall we still live in it?" The putting that as a question shows how unanswerable he deems it; and unanswerable it clearly is, if only the premise is rightly taken. If we are dead to sin, then it is an undeniable consequence that we cannot live in it.

1919 359 It is part of the evidence of the inspiration of the word of God that all possible objections are anticipated, and met; and no objections are so hard to combat as the allegation that the gospel of grace, pure, unmerited grace on the part of God, will tend to license and liberty to sin. And it is a very effectual weapon of the enemy to keep us under law — from recognising that we stand purely under grace. However small the mixture of law with grace it alters its character.

Divine grace is the unmerited favour of God, the love of God over-riding and overflowing the sinfulness of man, and coming to man when he is evidently ruined. Man is not on his trial, but under condemnation; he is ruined. So then God comes out in unlimited grace; and the objection is raised that if He is so gracious, we may go on sinning with impunity. But this is the reasoning of an unregenerate mind. So the apostle deals with it, and meets it by saying, "How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein" (ver. 2)? He cuts the ground right away underneath it.

The apostle Paul argues the point out in Romans 6. In verse 15 we read this question—“What then? shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace?” With solemn and emphatic energy he replies, “God forbid.” Here, then, is the magnificent answer to all who cavil at grace. Then he brings out in the few following verses how we are set free from sin and death, and are now the servants of righteousness.

(Vv. 1, 2).The subject of death to sin is raised by the statement of the Apostle, in the end of Romans 5, that, "where sin abounded grace did much more abound". This statement at once leads the carnal mind to ask the foolish, if not wicked, question, "Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?" The Apostle entirely repudiates this unholy suggestion. He will not allow that the believer — who is true to the position in which God has set the Christian, can continue living in sin.

“What then? Shall we sin, because we are not under law, but under grace? God forbid.” This question, and that in the first verse of our chapter, are the natural skeptical queries of unbelief. But they are both candidly and fully faced. It is made plain that there is no mere fact of our being blessed by the benefits of grace, nor is there any thought of grace being toleration of, or license for sin; but that we are delivered from a position of bondage into a position of grace and liberty where righteousness has its perfect abiding place. Shall we dare then to suggest that sin be allowed free reign? This would be thorough despising of grace rather than understanding and appreciation of it.

The fact, however, is made clear that this eventual triumph of grace must not be abused to condone present licence. The apostle asks the question: "Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Let it not be. How shall we that are dead to sin continue any longer therein?" (vers. 1, 2). The habitual practice of sin by a believer is an utter denial of the delivering power of God. The concurrent reign of sin and grace is incompatible with the divine nature. And the fact that a man cannot deliver himself from the power of indwelling sin is no evidence that God will not deliver him.