Why would God want sin to abound? Dr. Sproul discusses the distinction between justification and sanctification. Law reveals the reality of sin and lets us know the extent. An investigation of four systems of justification using faith and works predominantly held by various groups claiming Christianity is presented. An introduction to baptism is started.

A few moments ago, I was sitting in the back of the church with Vesta, my wife of almost forty-six years, and I leaned over to her and said, “In five minutes, I’m going to be preaching.” That’s kind of scary, isn’t it? I’m sitting back there just relaxing and all of a sudden the bells ring, the opening hymn, a prayer, and here we go. It’s an exciting thing.

I am so thrilled to see so many people here because you want to learn from the Word of God, and there is no more clear and comprehensive treatment of the gospel in all of Scripture than in this magnificent book of Romans. It is a pure delight for me to be able to be with you as we look together at God’s Word. I’ll start at the end of chapter 5 and move into chapter 6 as we continue our rapid coverage of this letter. I will read Romans 5:20–6:4 and ask the congregation to stand for the reading of the Word of God:

Moreover the law entered that the offense might abound. But where sin abounded, grace abounded much more, so that as sin reigned in death, even so grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it? Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.

The Word of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God. Please be seated.

The Entrance of the Law

We come now to the end of chapter 5, and we read something that sounds somewhat strange. Recall for a moment where we are in this epistle. In the first chapter, after announcing the epistle’s theme of the righteousness of God that is by faith, Paul then turns his attention to the universal revelation of God’s wrath against the human race. God gives everyone His self-revelation, and we who are fallen and corrupt in sin universally repress that knowledge, exchange God’s truth for a lie, and serve and worship the creature rather than the Creator. Paul goes on to say that, because of humanity’s exchanging God’s truth for a lie, He gives mankind over to a reprobate mind, and then Paul gives a list or a catalogue of the vices that are our normal practice.

In chapter 2, Paul brings Jew and gentile together through the tribunal of God and shows that even though God’s law is revealed to each one of us inwardly, nevertheless, the whole world has violated the law of God with sin. In chapter 3, Paul again spells out the depths of that depravity and corruption and comes to the conclusion that by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.

Then Paul unfolds the doctrine of justification by faith alone, goes to the Old Testament, and uses the example of Abraham to show that this doctrine of justification by faith alone is not a novelty. Justification by faith alone is not a new invention of the New Testament, but is the very means by which Abraham believed God and was counted as righteous by God.

When we moved into chapter 5, we spent some time on the benefits that follow and the consequences of our justification. As a result of being justified, we have peace with God, we have access into His presence, and we are able to rejoice in tribulation.

In the next portion of chapter 5, which we have been looking at recently, Paul gives us a glorious comparison and contrast between the original Adam and of Christ as the second Adam. Paul focuses on this grand motif of imputation in its negative ramifications—the imputation or the reckoning and transfer of sin from Adam to his descendants—but more gloriously, he shows us the imputation of the righteousness of Christ to those who believe in His name. We saw also in chapter 5 an expression of the fact that we were in Adam and sinned together in Adam.

After these comparatives and contrasts, we now reach the end of chapter 5, where Paul says, “Moreover the law entered that the offence may abound.” What we have here is a purpose clause, which gives the reason why a certain action has taken place. Paul is explaining here why it was that the law became part of the equation.

Where Sin Abounds, Grace Abounds More

As we saw earlier in chapter 5, death reigned from Adam to Moses, but then God added to the covenant He made with Adam, with Noah, and with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He added the whole of the Old Testament law. One of the reasons God added the law is that sin may abound.

Does that not sound strange? Why would God want sin to abound? You would think He would want it to abate, that He would want it to ebb and disappear from His creation. But the law comes and reveals to us our helpless condition. The law reveals to us the reality of sin.

Remember the principle the Scriptures set forth that where there is no law, there is no sin, because, by definition, sin is a transgression of the law of God. Yet we have an inherited corruption from our father Adam, and God gives the law that we may see the extent of our sin. Further, because of our fallen condition, the law not only reveals and defines our sin, but there is a true sense in which the added laws incite us to sin. So desperately wicked are we in our hearts that every time God adds a new law, we take that as an occasion to further our rebellion and our disobedience to Him. If you think this is not true for us in our humanity, just watch what happens with your children. The more rules you give them, the more determined they are to break them.

It reminds me of the story of a preacher who spent his entire sermon giving a litany of sins. He designated some sixty-five specific human acts that the Bible regards as sinful. Rather than commenting on them, he just took the time for the sermon to list them, one through sixty-five. After the service, he got a letter from one of his parishioners that said: “Thank you, pastor, for teaching us about all those sins. There were several I didn’t know about and haven’t tried yet.”

Where the law was added, sin abounded. But then Paul makes his point with this contrast: “But where sin abounded, grace abounded much more.” Notice that this is not just a comparison. It is not as though we have an equation with sin on one side of the equation and grace on the other. Paul might have said: “Where sin abounded, grace abounded—five pounds of sin, five pounds of grace. There’s a proportionate ratio between the degree of sin that we commit and the degree of grace that God gives to us.” No, Paul’s statement here is not a comparative; it is a superlative. There really is no comparison.

“Where sin abounded,” Paul says, “grace abounded much more.” The equation is not equal. The scales are not equal. Sin is far outweighed by the grace that God gives. That is true in our lives. We live in the presence of a super abundance of grace that is far greater than the depths of our own disobedience.

Sin Reigned in Death

Paul then says parenthetically, “. . . so that as sin reigned in death, even so grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” What is he saying here? Let us look at this more closely. What do you think Paul means by that statement, “Sin reigned in death”?

Paul is not saying that sin reigned unto death such that wherever sin is in power, it results in death. He has already told us that is, in fact, the case—death is one of the consequences of sin. Where there is no sin, there is no death. But now he is not talking about the mere presence of sin. Rather, he is talking about sin’s reign, where it exerts its power and authority.

Do you want to see where the reign of sin may be found? Look in the face of death, because in death, you will see the exultation of sin, the empowering of sin, and the invasion of the power of sin into the world. I was thinking about it this morning. In the life of our church this week, we have lost three people to the reign of death. Yet, we are approaching Easter, a time during which we see Christ’s conquest of the regency of evil.

On another occasion, in another context, I told the story of an existential experience I had on the day our son was born. My mother had longed for a son so the Sproul name would continue. When I told her that Vesta had a boy, she was quite excited. I picked her up at her office after work and took her to the hospital. We went to the nursery, the nurse picked up our newborn son, and my mother looked at him through the glass.

Afterwards, we went out to dinner and then went home. One of my mother’s friends called about eight o’clock at night and invited her to come across the street to play bridge, but my mother said, “No, I’m too tired.” In fact, when we got to the apartment door, there was a package there from her favorite women’s dress shop. She picked it up, and I opened it. She was thrilled because it was the dress she had ordered for my ordination, which was scheduled for about two weeks later.

She looked at me before she went to bed and said: “I’m tired. I’m going to bed. Son, this is the happiest day of my life.” She saw her grandson. She got her dress for my ordination. She went to bed, and a little later, I went to bed in another room with our little girl.

The next morning, I heard our daughter Sherrie, who was just a young girl, three years old, shouting at my mother to wake her up. She came into our room and said, “Nan won’t wake up.” I got up and walked into the room, and as soon as I walked in, I knew that she was dead. I walked over and touched her. She was cold. Rigor mortis had set it. It obviously had been several hours since she died. You know how sleep is. You go to sleep at night, then you wake up in the morning and it seems like only a minute or two has transpired, when in fact it may be eight hours. I stood there by my mother’s bed, and I said: “This is absolutely insane. This is crazy. Yesterday, I witnessed the entrance of my son into the world, a new life, and it seems that a few moments ago my mother was a living, breathing, warm human being. And now she’s dead. That is not right. That is the final enemy.”

Paul is saying that just as sin reigns in death—again, he uses the superlative contrast—“even so grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” One of Paul’s favorite contrasts in his writing is to talk about how the suffering and pain we experience in this world is not worthy to be compared to the glory that awaits us when we pass from it.

What I felt was insane by my mother’s bed was the transition to the presence of Christ. Beloved, that is our destiny. Our destiny is not to become citizens in the realm of sin under the power of death. But the power of that enemy has been vanquished by the righteous One, by God’s grace, who has much more poured upon us and given us that gift of righteousness, which gives us the ultimate benefit of justification, eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

You see now why the gospel is so important. The doctrine of justification by faith alone can never be negotiated, because in it the glory of the grace of God is made manifest. While we were still sinners, Christ took upon Himself the curse of that reigning death and defeated the grave by His righteousness, which is imputed to us by faith if, indeed, we put our trust in Him. This is not an equation of equals. Sin reigns in death, but Christ triumphs over death. Death is but a moment; the triumph lasts forever.

What Shall We Say?

Paul then begins chapter 6. He is still in the midst of his contrast of excellence as he continues in chapter 6, but the basic theme of chapter 6 now sounds a new note. Here we make a theological distinction between justification and sanctification, and we see this transition in the text. I am sure that is why those who divided Romans into chapters made a chapter division here, because now the attention is on another result of justification, which is sanctification. Let us see how the Apostle introduces it.

Paul says, “What shall we say then?” He interrupts his discourse. There is a pregnant pause here. He has just developed for us a number of fantastic benefits that flow out of our justification, all the rich fruits that accrue to us as a result of the gospel. After explaining all those things to us, he now essentially says: “So what? So how do we respond to it? What shall we say to this supremacy and triumph of grace over sin and over death?”

Paul knows how sinful people think. He has just given the argument that where sin abounds, grace abounds much more. The logic appears to be simple: If you want more grace, commit more sin because where sin abounds grace much more abounds. So, if we want a greater abundance of grace, according to this line of thinking, let us sin as much as we can.

Paul, knowing this kind of thinking, says: “What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?” He asks the question rhetorically and supplies the answer, and we need to see the impact of his answer. The translation I am using is very weak here. It says, “Certainly not!” Some translations are even weaker. They say, “No.” My favorite translation is this: “Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? God forbid.” In other words, Paul is saying, “Do not even think about it.” The force of the language is that Paul is not simply expressing a denial of the premise but signaling Apostolic abhorrence. Paul would be appalled if he heard any believing Christian say, “If I keep getting grace when I sin, I’m just going to keep on sinning that grace may abound.” God forbid. Do not even think about that.

Justification Unto Good Works

During the time of the Reformation in the sixteenth century, the charge immediately leveled against Luther was the charge of antinomianism. Anti means against or opposed to, and nomos is the Greek word for law. So, the word antinomian has to do with a spirit of being opposed to or against the law of God.

What the Roman Catholic church feared with the doctrine of sola fide, justification by faith alone, was that people would understand it as a license for sin. If justification is by faith alone without any works, the peasant is going to understand that simply to mean that if he is saved by grace, by faith alone, he can live however he wants to live. It was critical to the Reformers of the sixteenth century that they answer Rome’s charge and concern, because the Reformers had the same concern. They reminded their friends in the Roman Catholic Church that Paul addresses this question in Romans 6: “Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? God forbid.”

Luther said, “We are justified by faith alone, but not by a faith that is alone.” Justification by faith alone, as we have seen, is shorthand for justification by Christ alone and by His righteousness. But justification by faith alone was never intended by God in His grace as a license for sin.

The great anthem of antinomianism is: “Saved from the law, o blessed condition. I can sin all I want and still have remission.” That is the theme song of antinomianism. Every time the gospel is preached, the demon of antinomianism knocks at the door and says, “If you are justified by faith, works do not count, and if works do not count, then works do not matter.”

No work that you ever do will ever contribute to your justification. In that sense, they do not count. But that is not the same thing as saying they do not matter. We are justified unto good works, not justified by good works. We are not justified by our sanctification, but we are justified unto sanctification. The fruit of true faith, the fruit of true justification, will always be conformity to the image of Christ. That is what Paul is beginning now to spell out for us.

If we want to think of these things in terms of equations and formuli, let me set before you Rome’s formula for justification. Rome believes that faith is necessary and indispensable to justification. An orthodox Roman Catholic can say, “Yes, I believe that justification is by faith,” but he must choke on the word “alone” because his communion teaches that justification is by faith plus works. There is Rome’s formula: Faith plus works equals justification. You must have the works or there is no justification since the works are part of the ground for that justification.

The Reformation view, the biblical view, is faith equals justification plus works. The works are there, but they are on the other side of the equation from justification. Here is the formula for antinomianism: faith equals justification minus works. That is the heresy that Paul abhors here at the beginning of chapter 6.

Savior and Lord

Earlier in our study of Romans, I made mention of a controversy that broke out about fifteen years ago within dispensational circles in the United States. John MacArthur was at the very center of the controversy that became known as the “Lordship Salvation Controversy.” In this controversy, some classic dispensationalists claimed that if you say that true justification must result in good works, you are denying the free grace of the gospel. They were saying that a person can receive Jesus as Savior, but not as Lord, and be saved.

There was a division between Zane Hodges at Dallas Seminary and Charles Ryrie. Hodges said and taught emphatically that a person could be converted to Christ, put their trust in Him as their Savior, never produce a single work of obedience, and still be saved. Hodges insisted that if you argue that you must produce fruit of righteousness, then you are mixing work with faith and destroying the gospel.

Ryrie was less militant. He said that if you have true faith, then eventually, sooner or later, you must begin to show some change in your pattern of living. Ryrie, distinct from Hodges, said that if you have true faith, good works are inevitable at some point. His was a less militant form of antinomianism.

The gospel teaches us that if you have true faith in Jesus Christ, works of obedience are not only inevitable, but immediate, because a justified person is a changed person. I touched on this lightly earlier on when I said that justification is the fruit of faith, and faith is the fruit of regeneration. You cannot have saving faith unless the Holy Spirit has changed the disposition of your soul. Only the regenerate have faith, and all who are regenerate are changed.

You cannot have the Holy Ghost changing the disposition of your heart, bringing you to faith, and leaving you hanging there with no change in your life. As I mentioned earlier, the seriously problematic doctrine of the carnal Christian, which has gone like wildfire through the Christian community, emerged from this antinomian view.

You may have seen a certain analogy of a throne and a circle that articulates this kind of view. In the unconverted person, self is on the throne and Christ is outside the circle. The converted person has Christ inside the circle, but self is still on the throne. The Spirit-filled person has Christ on the throne, and the self has been removed. That whole metaphor teaches that you can have Christ in your life, that you can be converted, and yet not have Christ on the throne. That comes from the idea that you can have Christ as Savior but not as Lord.

I am so grateful to John MacArthur for his indefatigable labor to correct that biblical error and say, “No, you cannot receive Christ as Savior without at the same time bending your knee to Him as Lord.” That does not mean at the moment you believe, you are perfect. But the moment you believe, you are changed. Your life is turned around, and the beginning of the process of sanctification has taken place.

Justification does not produce the fullness of sanctification, but it initiates it immediately. If you have made a profession of faith and there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever of change in your heart or in your life, then you need to ask yourself whether that profession of faith was genuine, because true faith always immediately produces change.

Yes, the battle with sin goes on for our whole lifetime. We do not believe in instantaneous sanctification. Justification is instantaneous. The second you believe, you are fully justified. You will never be any more justified than you are the moment you believe. But sanctification is a process that begins at your justification and is completed in your glorification in heaven. If we are believers, we are in that process of sanctification.

Luther put it this way: In our justification, we are justified solely on the grounds of the righteousness of Jesus. But when God pronounces us just by imputation, He gives us medicine, as it were, by the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit such that we are becoming righteous not only by imputation but by sanctification. The medicine of the indwelling Holy Spirit will effect our full sanctification.

Paul says: “What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it?” This is a strong statement to the effect that when we come to Christ, when we are born anew, the old man has been put to death. Paul will go on to say, nevertheless, the old man keeps kicking and screaming. But in a very real sense, we are crucified with Christ, so the new life in Christ is just that—new. As Paul says elsewhere, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new” (2 Cor. 5:17).

Baptized Into Christ’s Death

Paul continues in a metaphorical way: “Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death?” Every time we practice the sacrament of baptism, I try to take the occasion to give a little trickle of some of the substance of the meaning of that sacrament, which is the sign of the new covenant.

We have lost touch with the riches of the sacraments that God has given to His people. Luther used to say, when the devil would tempt him: “Get away from me! I’m baptized!” That does not mean that because we are baptized, we are automatically saved. But in our baptism, God gives us a tangible, visible sign of His promise of redemption. All the processes wrought through the redeeming work of Christ are contained in that sign.

Baptism is a sign of our being regenerated by the Holy Spirit. It does not effect regeneration, but it is a sign of it. It is the sign of our justification. Baptism does not make us justified, but it is the sign of God’s promise that all who believe will, in fact, be justified. It is a sign of our sanctification. It is the sign of our being indwelt by the Holy Ghost. It is a sign of our glorification. Baptism is a sign of our identification with Christ, that all who believe are identified with Christ. We are in Christ. He is our champion. He is the One who dies for our sins. If I am a believer and I have been baptized, my baptism is the sign of my identification and participation with the death and the resurrection of Christ.

My Baptist friends and I differ on whether babies should be baptized. Of all the doctrines that we wrestle with in the church, there is none I am more certain of than that we ought to baptize our babies. But the one thing I give my Baptist friends is the existential benefit of waiting to a later point when you are aware of your own faith and being immersed. There is powerful symbolism in going under the water and being brought up out of the water.

Even Calvin, who was a great advocate of infant baptism, said that where possible, the preferred method of baptism—he did not think it was necessary for it to be authentic baptism, but the preferred method of baptism—would be through immersion. Why? Because it carries so brilliantly that symbol of burial and resurrection.

Paul says that if you are a believer, if you have received the grace of justification, you remember that in your baptism, you were marked for your union with the death of Christ. Not only were you marked in your union with the death of Christ but also with the burial of Christ that follows His death. It is not only that we are baptized into His death and burial, but we are also baptized into His resurrection. All these things are part of what is being communicated graphically, tangibly, and visibly with the sign of baptism. When we baptize little babies, is that not cute? You see them fuss sometimes, and sometimes giggle, but it is a precious thing.

One of the persons I want to meet when I get to heaven is the minister who baptized me in the Methodist church. He was a beloved pastor to my family when I was a small boy. I long to have the opportunity to sit down with him and say: “You baptized me, and for the first seventeen years of my live, you wouldn’t have known that I was anything but a child of hell. But then God quickened my soul. All the promises communicated to me in baptism were realized the moment I believed and understood my burial and resurrection in Christ.”

We Are Resurrected People

One of the motifs throughout the Pauline literature is that people are often ashamed of Jesus. You notice Paul saying regularly that people do not want to be counted as Christians. Paul says that if you are not willing to identify with His humiliation, if you are not willing to identify with His death and with His burial, do not expect to participate in His exultation, because Jesus said, “If you are ashamed of Me before men, I will be ashamed of you before My Father on that day.”

In a very real, ultimate sense, we have already died, already been buried, and we are already participating in the resurrection of Christ. Is that not fantastic? That is what Paul says: “Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.”

We are resurrected people. We already have the down payment of eternal life in our souls by having been given the earnest and the sealing of the Holy Ghost. How can a person who is in Christ Jesus, who participates in the power of His resurrection, continue in sin that grace may abound? It is not possible. Let us pray.

Father, how we thank You for the mismatch between the reign of sin and the triumph of grace, for the mismatch between the power of death and the power of Your resurrection. Father, help us to look once more at the sign of the new covenant by which Your promise of all the blessings that are hid in the victory of Christ become ours. Amen.

This transcript has been lightly edited for readability.