SIN, GRACE AND RIGHTEOUSNESS
Study The Word
Romans 5:21 AMP
so that, as sin reigned in death, so also grace would reign through righteousness which brings eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
A subject that had many Christians confused including ministers was the issue of the place of grace in regards to sin. And this came as a result of the rise of the grace message a couple of years ago. And that message and teaching of grace is so beautiful but, it ran into some problems eventually and I know where the issue started. Now the issues started when the teaching of grace got misapplied being misunderstood from the verse of scripture that is the opening verse of this article, which if not studied carefully could be misleading to suggest that grace is God’s solution for sin. We will look at that scripture again carefully and you will also see where a lot of Christians encountered a problem in understanding, especially when you study it contextually.
So, you need to understand that grace was never God’s solution for the supplantation of sin and the sin nature. In other words grace was never God’s antidote for sin. The bible never suggests that at all. One may be wanting to ask, “Shingi, scripturally what is grace?” Let’s get into that briefly before we continue. Now, Grace simply put means God at work for a man or on behalf of man, and God at work through a man without his merit. The Amplified Bible calls it unmerited favour. And the problem people ran into with this was when through misunderstanding it was as if some teachings started to suggest that grace – unmerited favour was an antonym for sin. Although etymologically English doesn’t have an exact antonym for sin, but scripturally by revelation the Apostle Paul reveals to us that the antonym for sin is righteousness.
When you study, and you rightly divide the word of truth regarding the relationship between sin, grace and righteousness you’ll discover that the righteousness of God has always been God’s plan and solution for sin, not grace. It is righteousness that is God’s solution for the supplantation of the sin nature in man. But now let us look at a scripture to help clarify further this issue of sin grace and righteousness:
Romans 5:19 KJV
For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous.
I love how the KJV puts it, so simple. Now, to make it even simpler, the word translated sinners is an ancient Greek word ”Harmatolos” and harmatolos literally means ”sinful”. So in order to further clarify the verse it’d read – For as by one man’s disobedience many were made SINFUL, so by the obedience of one shall many be made RIGHTEOUS.
In other words, one man’s disobedience produced sinfulness and the obedience of the Man Jesus Christ produced righteousness. So it’s clear that God’s antidote for sin is righteousness. Now in this equation, where does grace fit in? Let’s find out from the continuation of the context:
Romans 5:20 AMP
But the Law came to increase and expand [the awareness of] the trespass [by defining and unmasking sin]. But where sin increased, [God’s remarkable, gracious gift of] grace [His unmerited favor] has surpassed it and increased all the more,
Now this is where many teachers who majored on the grace message got into some problems because it is from this verse that they somewhat concluded that grace was God’s solution for the sin problem. But when you study contextually you see that grace was just the means to the end and not the end but righteousness as revealed by verse 19 was actually the end of the sin problem. So what is grace in this equation? Simple, the law came to expose and increase sin and grace came to reveal and deliver the gift of righteousness. Therefore by equation, it is the grace versus the law which leaves you with righteousness versus sin. Grace came to cancel or abolish the law, in order for righteousness to supplant sin.
Lets continue to read:
Romans 5:21 AMP
so that, as sin reigned in death, so also grace would reign through righteousness which brings eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
This is the verse that threw most scholars off and later caused problems possibly because it was studied outside of its context. Ok, so what does this verse mean when we put the context of verse 19 to 21 together? Let’s put it all together so that you can have the Shingi contextual translation:
”Because the disobedience of one man Adam produced sinfulness; the obedience of Jesus Christ produced righteousness, bearing in mind that the law of Moses came and exposed sinfulness that resulted in death, we thank God that the grace of Jesus Christ abolished the law of Moses and delivered for us righteousness that has given us eternal life.”
This is the Shingi translation lol.
As amazing as grace is, grace could not supplant the sin nature that was in man. God sent forth His righteousness to supplant the sin nature that had entered into man from the fall of Adam.
Pray The Word
Heavenly Father, I thank You for your precious gift of righteousness. Thank You for making me Your righteousness in Christ Jesus. I live in the consciousness and reality of this righteousness everyday in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, amen.
Speak The Word
I’m the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. I express and manifest God’s rightness in every area of my life, in everything that I do, and everywhere I go. The power of righteousness to enforce correctness is at work in and through me, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.