The Great "Works" Conundrum (Continued...)

Rom 6:1 "To what conclusion, then, shall we come? Are we to persist in sinning in order that the grace extended to us may be the greater?" (WNT)

Mat 5:14 "*You* are the light of the world; a town cannot be hid if built on a hill-top". (WNT)

Isa 60:2-3 "For, behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people: but the LORD shall arise upon thee, and his glory shall be seen upon thee. And the Gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising." KJV

 I will start this blog by re-iterating my first sentiments in it's precursor. You are not more righteous because of what you do after salvation for Christ is our righteousness and there is no adding to His perfect righteousness.(Philippians 3:9) You are not, in the same vein, less righteous because of what you do. That is the great mystery of salvation. So the question is, if what I do doesn't add or deduct from the state of my righteousness, what then is the reason to worry about how I live? Good question. 

The scriptures in Romans 6 prologue with an epilogue of galactic significance.  You see I love the way the Apostle Paul stated his cases, for that they were. He was a homiletics genius and so it should be if one is being inspired of the Spirit of God. He knew the implications of the fantastic revelations made in Romans 5(it begs personal reading) After having expounded on the victorious ways in which Christ's cause had indeed been triumphant, and having laid bare the boundless extents of God's grace in the process...he knew that there needed to be a cautionary word to the Church. For indeed, once death reigned but now grace reigned, once men were hopelessly at the mercy of the penalty due to them, but now they were set free and "justified" (declared not guilty) in heaven's Constitutional Court.

With such blissful realities it is possible to see yourself at the extreme end forgetting that indeed, your freedom came at a price to someone else. It is possible to be like the 9 lepers who didn't show up with appreciation after being delivered of a debilitating disorder. So with this in mind, the Apostle Paul concludes this good news with a very important question to the saved. "Shall we continue in sin? The answer seems immediately obvious but however the living out of it has been proven generation after generation to not be so easy. For indeed men revel in their freedom to the extent of going back to the ways of their old sinful nature. Hinging their boldness on nothing but the fact that they have been justified.

 Rom 6:6-7  "Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. For he that is dead is freed from sin."

 The nature of our salvation is such that what Christ went through is reckoned to our account so that the glory of his victory becomes our reality. His residence in us by the Holy Spirit is the seal of that reality for indeed, divinity could not reside in iniquity. So we have been made free from sin indeed. The only catch however is that you can only exercise authority and faith to the measure of what you know (Hosea 4:6, Rom 10:17). So in verse 12 of Romans 6 he admonishes the believers as those who have the victory over sin and he says "let not sin therefore reign in your mortal bodies", to say..you are no longer hapless victims of sin, servants of that cruel master, but you have been born into an overcoming life (1 John 5:4) that allows you to live above sin.

This is where all the excuses, and the "leave me be-s" and the "I can't do it-s", and the "o wretched me-s" fall away. For how can you be born of God and be overcome? How can you be free from sin, and yet slave to sin? So then in Matt 5:14 we see the kind of life God ordained for us. It is a shining life, bright with God's glory, spreading His life to all! It is a life like salt, seasoning the world, preserving the lives of men, the truths of the gospel, the heritage of others and impacting them for good. To walk around as if nothing changed is to dim the lights, it's to refuse others the right to see Christ in you. It is to abscond from your ambassadorial duties to represent the kingdom in reconciling lost men (2 Cor 5:20)

In closing I will refer to Isaiah 60, talking about the glory of God on the new creation, and the call to shine. If all that was done was to set the human heart (the candle of the Lord) alight, and not allow it room to glow and penetrate the darkness then you have not done justice to the potential in you. When deep darkness covers the world, bad news on every side, immorality, lasciviousness, debauchery and all forms of corruption are on the increase, it is needful for us to arise. Arise in truth, arise with the standard of the kingdom against the coming of the enemy. Arise with the boldness of light in pushing back worldly manifestations. When the Christian burns bright in his walk, the world comes to watch and give glory to God (Matt 5).

Our works don't get us access, they bear witness to what we have accessed. And as the Word of God says in 2 Cor 4:7, we have treasure in earthen vessels, so that the excellence of the power (the outworkings of God through us) may be of God and not of us. We were not made by the good we did, but we were made to do good. We were made to do so much good that the world comes running to the light of our lives. Do good for the kingdom's sake.


Yours in His Royal Service,


George Mwamlowe