Bible Study 6/2

Proverbs 7

Another whole chapter devoted to warning against adultery. Most of the chapters have been starting with something like "my son, pay attention to my words...keep my commandments.." It's like the lure of adultery is so powerful that he is almost verbally shaking someone to "wake up" from out of their powerful temptation.

Romans 6:1-14

The best way for me to understand this passage is by the word picture of us being a slave to sin, our master. Living under the slavemaster of sin, we were forced to obey it. We were completely in its power. The ownership of sin over us was "for life" - there was no escape.

But God provided a way for us to be set free by uniting us to Christ through faith. By faith we share in Christ's death and burial. He died to sin, once for all (v.10). We died to our master, sin. The term was served. But Christ was raised from the dead. We also share in his resurrection and live a new life to a new master, God (v.10-11).

All of this has been in answer to the question, "How should we live now that we are under God's grace and not the sentence of the law? Should we just continue sinning?" And Paul's answer is no, because how could one who has truly died to sin continue in it? Why would you want to? There is clearly the option of continuing to give sin a foothold in your life (v.12-13) but why would you? And if you continue to do so without reservation, have you truly died to sin?

V14- "sin will no longer have dominion over you". This doesn't mean that we won't still be tempted or that we won't sin. But because we died to sin, we are no longer under its condemnation or power to an extent that we cannot resist it.