Paul would never, never, never contrast God's grace in Christ with righteous behavior. Paul was contrasting God's grace in Christ with circumcision, kosher dietary laws, and the other strict regulations of the Orthodox Jew.

You see, the first Christian church was composed of five thousand Orthodox Jews. This was the first Body of Christ. These Christians knew nothing of salvation apart from the Law of Moses. God gave to one person, the Apostle Paul, the understanding that circumcision and the other works of the Law are not part of our salvation in Christ. It was up to Paul to stand against the entire church of his day and to insist we are not to add any part of the Law of Moses to our salvation.

We are saved by faith in Christ, entirely apart from the Law of Moses.

Our error as Gentiles has been to interpret Paul to mean we are saved by faith in Christ apart from a change in our behavior. This error will go down in history as one of the greatest misunderstandings of all time.

Well, that day is past. God is showing us through His Holy Spirit that the whole point of salvation is to create a righteous royal priesthood who are able to assume the positions of authority from which God drove the angels. Angels no longer are permitted to govern. By the Word of God they now are servants whose task is to minister to the heirs of salvation.

God is beginning to teach His elect the knowledge of good and evil so that they may embrace the good and renounce the evil. This is the baptism of fire of which John the Baptist spoke. This is the purifying of the priesthood announced by Malachi. This is the doctrine of eternal judgment set forth in the sixth chapter of the Book of Hebrews. This is the process that will bring forth a bride for the Lamb who will be without blemish.

Romans, Chapter Six

It seems people were getting the idea that Paul was saying now that we are under grace we can sin. And so Chapter Six was written as an explanation of his previous teaching in Chapters Three through Five. From my point of view, there are few passages of the Bible as valuable to the student who would understand the new covenant as is true of Chapter Six of the Book of Romans.

You can see at the very beginning of this chapter that Paul is reacting against people who were saying it did not matter if the Christian continues to sin.

What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so grace may increase? (Romans 6:1 NIV)

Can you hear in this expostulation a reaction to people who were reasoning that if Divine grace expands to cover my sinning, then the best thing I can do is to sin more so grace may abound?

I don't think many Christians take this attitude today. Rather the current feeling is, "I really shouldn't sin, but if I do it is no great tragedy because I am saved by grace and not by works."

However this attitude is as far from Paul's explanation in Chapter Six as is true of the notion that we ought to sin more so grace will increase.

To be continued.