{"id":1553,"date":"2010-03-01T19:35:37","date_gmt":"2010-03-02T01:35:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ministryofgrace.org\/blog\/?p=1553"},"modified":"2010-03-01T19:35:37","modified_gmt":"2010-03-02T01:35:37","slug":"romans-62-sin-no-way","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/romans-62-sin-no-way\/","title":{"rendered":"Romans 6:2 – Sin? No Way!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

Romans 6:2<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it?<\/span><\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n

Truth to Learn<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Our lives should no longer be characterized by sinfulness.<\/p>\n

Behind the Words<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cCertainly not!<\/span>\u201d is a familiar expression with Paul. It is translated from the Greek words m\u0113 genoito<\/span><\/em>. M\u0113<\/span><\/em> is a particle of negation, meaning \u201cnot.\u201d Genoito<\/span><\/em> is a form of ginomai<\/span><\/em>, meaning \u201cto begin to be\u201d or \u201cto cause to come into existence.\u201d In this expression it is used in the very rare optative mood (there are fewer than 70 examples of the optative mood in the entire New Testament). A literal translation of these two words is \u201cMay it not be!\u201d In today\u2019s vernacular we might say \u201cNo way!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDied<\/span>\u201d is from the verb apothn\u0113sk\u014d<\/span><\/em>, which is made up of apo<\/span><\/em>, meaning \u201cfrom\u201d or \u201caway from\u201d and thn\u0113sk\u014d<\/span><\/em>, meaning \u201cto die.\u201d Hence, apothn\u0113sk\u014d<\/span><\/em> means \u201cto die away from\u201d or \u201cto die off.\u201d<\/p>\n

We have talked before about the fact that Greek is an inflected language. That is, the form of a word indicates how it is used in a sentence. We see some of this in English. For instance \u201cI\u201d is a subject and \u201cme\u201d is an indirect object. The word translated \u201csin\u201d is in the form of an indirect object. Hence, it could be interpreted as \u201cin sin,\u201d \u201cto sin,\u201d or \u201cby sin.\u201d Paul has already taught us that we are dead \u201cin sin\u201d and \u201cby sin.\u201d Now he is teaching us that we are also dead \u201cto\u201d or \u201cwith respect to\u201d sin.<\/p>\n

Meaning Explained<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

This verse is a direct response to the previous one: \u201cShall we continue in sin so that grace may abound?<\/span>\u201d <\/span>Paul\u2019s response is, \u201cNo way!<\/span>\u201d <\/span>He is proclaiming that we should never even consider continuing our sinful ways just so that God\u2019s grace will increase. <\/span>Paul carries this even further by asking, \u201cHow shall we who died to sin live any longer in it?<\/span>\u201d <\/span>In other words, if we have, indeed, died with respect to sin, how can we possibly live with respect to sin any longer?<\/p>\n

In order to understand this better, it might be helpful to understand what the concept of death really means. <\/span>We think of death simply as \u201cabsence of life,\u201d whereas in reality it means, \u201cseparation from life.\u201d <\/span>By looking at it this way, perhaps you can understand what Paul is saying. We who have been separated from sin (because God has cast our sins as far from us as the east is from the west) cannot possibly be continually in its presence anymore.<\/p>\n

Before we were saved, we had no choice but to continually live in a sinful manner. After all, we were controlled by our sin nature. But, because our sins have been paid for and our sin nature has been crucified with Christ, we now have a choice as to how we live.<\/p>\n

Application<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Paul says we have an obligation to stay away from a life of sinfulness because God has declared us righteous. <\/span>We also should be motivated by an intense sense of gratitude to God for wiping out our sin debt, which should cause us to want to live an obedient life that will testify to God\u2019s grace!<\/p>\n

So I ask you, \u201cHow do you want to live? In sinful selfishness or in grateful obedience?<\/p>\n

In God\u2019s service, for His glory,<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"signature\"<\/p>\n

Copyright \u00a9 2010 Will Krause. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –<\/p>\n

<\/span>If this message or this link was forwarded to you by a friend and you wish to receive future verses directly to your inbox, you can call the church phone \"\"(618) 614-3070<\/span><\/span><\/span> and leave a message telling us your name and e-mail address or you can send an e-mail to:\"e-mail<\/p>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Romans 6:2 Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it? Truth to Learn Our lives should no longer be characterized by sinfulness. Behind the Words \u201cCertainly not!\u201d is a familiar expression with Paul. It is translated from the Greek words m\u0113 genoito. M\u0113 is a particle of negation, meaning […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[710,711,665,712,713,714,276],"class_list":["post-1553","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-apothnesko","tag-certainly-not","tag-died","tag-live","tag-me-ganoito","tag-no-way","tag-sin"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pd5geA-p3","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1553","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1553"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1553\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1553"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1553"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1553"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}