Thoughts from Culhwch

“Shall we sin … May it never be” Paul keeps asking and I am only more convicted the more he asks this question. Perhaps he does it because we so often feel like we can indulge sin because we have grace now. When once the burden has been lifted temptation sets in in ways we had never imagined. We are free from sin, so we wonder if we can do it whenever we want. To such rambling questions Paul unequivocally responds. NO! Not only no, but never. We should hope never to go back to our former ways, we should exhort each other in temptation, and even in times when we are not tempted, never to go back. That’s something I must depend on. We all need this passage I think. We need to be reminded how silly our thoughts are, how silly we can be when we know we are free but think that is a license to return to sin. Sin is always death, whether we are under grace or the law.

“Do you not know” The rhetorical question is not to be ignored. Of course we know what follows. But so often our actions do not follow. We turn again and again to sin and need more than the exhortation. We need to be reminded of what we already know. We must always be turning back to what we know, turning back to the scriptures, to the gospel. Often we reason more than we let our knowledge guide us to obedience. We must be called back to what we know to be true so that our fallible logic may be shown to be fallacy. Why should we not sin? Paul continues.

“you are slaves of the one you obey” If you go back to sin you will be a slave of that sin, you obey it to the destruction of yourself and others. “You cannot serve two masters, either you will love the one and hate the other…” We often believe that we can play with sin and not be a slave to it, but all obedience to sin is slavery to it. Obedience and slavery are linked together. If you do what sin asks you are a slave to it. There is no in between point. There is no place for sin, we are slaves to God now.

“either of sin, resulting in death” It is an either or situation one choice is sin, the other obedience.  I have often ignored this. I let myself believe that I was not enslaving myself to sin that it was easy to turn back, that I was still in control. Sin lets us believe that we can turn away whenever we want. But we cannot turn away from sin for it controls us. The result of this sin is death. It is death before we met Christ and it is death after we met Christ. When we sin we enter again into death. We submit to death’s power, though we have freedom from it in Christ.

“or of obedience, resulting in righteousness” We are to become obedient to obedience, to do what we have been commanded by God. The result is absolute freedom, freedom from sin by being a slave to obedience. It is enigmatic, but it is how we are. When we obey we become a slave to obedience. When we obey sin, we obey disobedience. We submit to the negation of being, to the negation of God and his will. We submit to destroying ourselves. But when we submit to God, to obeying his commands, the result is righteousness. For me, this means submitting to my calling, submitting to the burden God has placed on me to be an encouragement to others, to use the gifts he has given me to build the kingdom, whether those gifts are writing, or studying, cooking, or music, or a new heart which would constantly seek God. All our gifts are employed in obedience to God, all of our gifts are His since we are slaves. But this is the freedom to serve God, the freedom to turn from our former life of sin and death.

“But thanks be to God” I am called to stop my works, to stop all my agonistic attempts to make myself a better person. I must thank God. I must see God before as the giver of all the good gifts of righteousness that he has imparted to me. Thank you God for your gift of freedom, of life. The believer, when once he has been raised from his life of sin is to give thanks. When the morning is come we give thanks. When we have been delivered from our temptation and may now seek God we give thanks. When our questions are silenced when we are in awe of God, we give thanks.

“though you were slaves of sin, you become obedient from the heart” God’s gift of obedience is his working on our hearts. He moves the very core of our being to obedience. It is not an obedience of the mind, but of the heart. It leads us to be instruments of righteousness, and it operates from the changed heart.

“to that form of teaching to which you were committed.” We were committed to the gospel. So now we obey it’s call in our lives. We were committed to the teaching of one who called us from our life of sin, who called us out of the slavery of sin, and then called us into obedience, genuine obedience from the heart. We do not spend all our time trying to figure out what it means, we obey.

“having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness.” We are now slaves of righteousness. We are no longer slaves to our own desires, to sin. We are now slaves to righteousness. All of ourselves we submit to righteousness. The entirety of our being becomes an instrument for/of righteousness. Hallelujah!