Email from Abiding Place Daily Bread – December 18, 2024 (The Fourth Day – Genesis 1:14-19) Romans 5:13 – For sin was in the world before the law, but there was no accounting of it without the Law. Understanding Paul’s Point Regarding Sin & The Law A terrible false doctrine is preached today proclaiming that because the law of Moses has been removed, sin is no longer counted against us. The idea that Paul was ministering such a concept is completely foreign to everything we know about Paul’s message and the message of the Bible as a whole. The truth of what Paul is communicating can be easily understood simply by viewing God’s response to man’s sin before the Law. When Adam sinned, he was cast out of the Garden of Eden. When Cain sinned, he was driven away from his family and became a wanderer. When all of mankind gave themselves completely over to sin, God sent a flood and destroyed them all. When Sodom and Gomorrah sinned, God rained down fire and brimstone upon their cities. All of these things took place when there was no law. Therefore, to somehow conclude God does not hold men responsible for their sins when there is no law is false. Paul, then, has to be referring to man’s inability to account for sin in his own conscience and judgments – for God certainly accounted for it and held mankind responsible. Although men may have been unaware of their transgression, God was very aware of it and brought judgment upon those who did it both in this life and the life hereafter. Paul was making the point of how men ruled and governed by death would not have known what sin was without the Law. Mankind had become so corrupt because of their spiritual blindness of heart that they could not understand lust as sin without the Law saying, “You shall not covet.” (Romans 7:7,13, 5:20). Paul was referring to man’s knowledge of sin and was in no way negating an accountability towards God for it (Romans 3:20). He also made it painfully clear how those who were trusting in the Law to make themselves acceptable to God would only discover the condemnation and failure of their own evil nature (Romans 7). Today, the law has been destroyed. Yet, there are many people who neither accept the life that is in Christ Jesus nor the validity of the law, but are they still accountable for their sin? Most definitely! Jesus said, “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but he who does not obey the Son will not see life – instead, God’s wrath remains on him.” (John 3:36). Paul preached regarding how there was still a wage for sin and the wage was death (Romans 6:23). He listed the deeds of sin several times, and made it very clear those who did such things have no part in the Kingdom of God nor inheritance with Christ (Galatians 5:21; Ephesians 5:5; Colossians 3:6; 1 Corinthians 6:10). The only way to be rid of the sin and the Law that condemns it is to receive the life of God granted to us through the salvation in Christ Jesus (2 Corinthians 3:6-9; Acts 4:12). As a result, we now live in the law of the Spirit of life and have been set free from the law of sin and death (Romans 8:2). Blessings, Pastor Mark Spitsbergen
Daily Bread 12/18/2024
