Many believers wage war on sin, trying to behave properly, sometimes without really knowing why. Probably so that God won’t be angry, or so as not to bring a curse on themselves, God forbid. Whenever you preach the Good News of grace — that we are righteous regardless of our works, and where there is more sin, there is even more grace — the reaction is always the same: “So now I can sin as much as I like?” You get the impression that until then they had done everything right every day and kept all the commandments one hundred percent. Interestingly, the apostle Paul was accused of the same thing: people said that Paul taught people to sin so that there would be more grace. [Rom.6:1]

I want to say straight away that “if you are not accused of what Paul was accused of, you are not preaching the message he preached”. These are the words of the well-known theologian Martyn Lloyd-Jones. Paul said that where sin abounded, grace abounded much more. [Rom.5:20] In other words, the more you sin, the more grace [gifts from God] you receive. After a sentence like that, the phrase I wrote about above inevitably comes to mind.

Some will say: “But the next words are ‘Certainly not!’ — that is, let’s not sin.” It doesn’t say “let’s not sin”. It says: “How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it?” Yes, how can we live where we no longer are? How can we live in darkness if God has placed us in the light and there is no way back? That is why those who try to behave properly, like the foolish Galatians, deprive themselves of God’s grace, and Christ is of no effect in them. [Gal.5:1-4]