The sin problem

Well obviously if you give people more freedom to sin they are gonna sin more. This is what happened when Luther challenged the doctrinal position of the church at that time. And I guess you could use this situation as an argument that if grace is really freedom then you need to balance it out with teaching responsibility. But the apostle doesnt address the sin problem this way. When the apostle taught that God as a sovereign Lord choose to allow sin by choosing in a passive way that men are gonna sin ...he was accused of teaching that God encouraged sin. But what was the apostles response? Was it a plea to balance that message out? No...He said let God be true and every man a liar. Romans 3 7 Someone might argue, “If my falsehood enhances God’s truthfulness and so increases his glory, why am I still condemned as a sinner?” 8 Why not say—as some slanderously claim that we say—“Let us do evil that good may result”? Their condemnation is just!

How do we address the group that uses freedom to sin? We know that when we received grace our relationship to the law changed also. We went from being slaves to sin and the law to being freed from the law. The freedom we experience is that we are no longer condemned by the law. Why are we no longer condemned? Because Christ took our condemnation upon Himself. So now that we are in Christ the law is no longer our school master. We no longer follow God by rules. This is the basis of the Psalmist teaching that God no longer marks or counts our sin. As far as the east is from the west...so far has He removed our sins fromus. In other words we enjoy a freedom from guilt because we are loved eternally.

But those who do not have this freedom are slaves to the law and to sin. They are under the condemnation of the law. They live in a legal relationship to the law. Every time they violate the law its a mark against them. And so their lives are marked by their sins piling up to condemn them when they face the judgement. My question is ...where is this middle group...forgiven but counting their sins, free but responsible to obey?

Anyone who has common sense knows that if God acts as an accuser to get them to obey they would never be motivated to love God. If God was threatening them they would be motivated to hide from God. And this is the temptation for us because we face a holy God who wants us to do good. But how can we be good if we are not loved by God? The point is that God changes us by being attractive enough for us to want to come to Him. The only way we are gonna be motivated to be completely open before God is to be consistently loved by God. This is why we say that to cheapen grace is the same thing as being motivated by the law to obey. To be motivated by guilt ,shame and fear.

The Psalmist never attempted to get favor with God through guilt , shame or fear. And in fact the Psalmist treated the presence of these cursed attitudes as neutral arguments to move God to greater blessing. In other words the Psalmist turned these feelings for his own good, to argue for his weakness and a need for God to be strong. I know the Psalmist took a hard stance on grace. I know the positive message of grace that he preached to himself. And i have been converted by this very detailed gospel application. ie God grants us everything , makes us completely holy, forgives all of our sins, does not mark our sins, turns everything that is bad in our lives to good, etc... But at the same time we are also taught that we are not to think lower of ourselves than we ought. We have a single purpose in this life.

So God gave us everything that Christ has obtained so that we could be successful. So our struggle with sin is not the focus. I mean God treats us as sons. God has become our Father...the ruler and soverign is motivated by familial desires for us. He actually draws near to us ...a special care...watching over us in a defensive way. I think it is very burdensome to use sin as a stick to correct this interaction we have with our Father. Rather our weaknesses are our advantage to move God to act on our behalf." Come let us reason together says the Lord."