The Triumph of Grace over the Power of Sin

Today, I was reading Romans 6. Usually when we think of Romans, we think of verses like Romans 1:16 ("I am not ashamed of the Gospel, for it is the Power of God for salvation to everyone; first the Jew, then the Gentile") or Romans 12:1-2 ("I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual act of worship. Do not be conformed to the ways of this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect."), and the one verse that Paul uses to summarize his thoughts in Romans 6 is 6:23 ("For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord.").

I love how through the first half of the chapter, he explains how when we're baptized,that "We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life" (Romans 6:4) and how because we were buried by baptism we find newness in life, where his grace abounds.

Paul goes on to write about how we are obedient slaves of the one whom we obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness. We have been set free from sin by his grace, in which Christ Jesus came down to Earth, as fully God (being the second part of the trinity) and fully man, born of a virgin, living a sinless life so that he would be the perfect sacrifice to God, and with his death, burial, and resurrection he conquered sin and death, and through that we can live because of his sacrifice for us.

Like Paul writes in Romans 6:23 that the wages of sin is death. All we know as flawed and sinful humans is sin. Death is our wage. It's what we earn. We get nothing else by ourselves other than Death. Anyone who says there's more than one way to heaven, or that they'll get to heaven because they are a good person, is a liar. Jesus proclaimed that there was only one way. John 14:6 Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." Anyone who says you can get to heaven apart from Jesus LIES!

"...But the gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord." Christ is a gift. His grace is a gift. Ephesians 2:8-9 says, "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith. This is not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not by works, so that no one can boast." Christ is nothing that we deserved. His grace is nothing that we can earn, but something that he freely gives.