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Holy Trinity Anglican Orthodox Church
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Seventh Sunday after Trinity |
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July 22, 2007 Romans 6:12-18 Biblical Morality We believe the Bible. This is foundational to the Anglican Orthodox Church as a denomination, and to Holy Trinity as a member of the Anglican Orthodox Church around the world. Why is that important? Because either we learn about God by His self revelation, or we are forced to simply guess who He is and what He wants of us. If we must guess, we can never have any semblance of certainty. Thus we will live in perpetual fear, lest we have guessed wrong and will face His wrath on Judgment Day. But if He has revealed Himself and His will to us, then we can know when we have pleased Him and can face Judgment Day in confidence that we will be accepted rather than condemned. If we believe the Bible, we also believe and accept biblical morality. For, if the Bible is God’s self revelation, then it is true forever, and the standards of morality it teaches are also true forever. This is important because there are those who say that since we are under grace rather than law, Biblical morality no longer applies to us. There are several variations of this view. One variation says that we are forgiven of all our sins, therefore, we will never have to pay for them, therefore, we can continue to sin. Surely even the most benighted soul can see that there are more reasons for not sinning than just having to pay for them. We stop sinning because God hates sin and wants us to live righteous lives. We stop sinning because sin destroys lives and cultures. We keep God’s laws for the same reason we keep human rules and laws, because they help us live peaceful, happy lives. We keep His laws because we love Him and want to please Him. I say to you with respect and compassion, that if your heart is devoid of these reasons to stop sinning, then you have great cause to seriously consider the state of your soul before God. A second variation claims that all things are lawful to us, since we are under grace. In short, there is no more sin, therefore, do anything you like. It is easy to see the foolishness of this view. It would lead to anarchy and destruction. A third variation is much more subtle, and like the devil, much more dangerous. It is the idea that biblical morality, like the rest of the New Testament, was given in the religious forms and views that were common to people living in the time of the Roman Empire. Thus the Apostles wrote of morality and truth and a God/man being named Jesus because that was the way people thought in those days. Today, due to the continuing work of the Holy Spirit, and the continuing progress we have made in the arts and sciences, we know better. We can see that Jesus was just a man, and we can see that the morality taught by the Apostles was not God’s law, merely the primitive understanding of the ethic of love that had its germination in many prophets and moral teachers, including, but not limited to, Jesus. The “ethic of love” according to these people, means love is the standard of all human activity. Love is defined as seeking peace and justice, and peace and justice refers to the politically correct views that are currently in vogue, and are rapidly killing America. To work for peace and justice, therefore, means to endorse welfare instead of work, excuses instead of responsibility, permissiveness instead of parenting, sexual indulgence instead of modesty and self-control, and appeasement instead of national defense. All of this is viewed as justice because it releases supposed “victims” from their oppressors, thus bringing peace. The problem with this view is that it is not love. It is not love to create a cast of people trapped in welfare. It is not love to allow people to believe they have no moral responsibility. It is not love to let children run wild in the streets. It is not love to leave our own nation open to attack. Furthermore, it is not love to use people as sexual toys. In other words, you cannot love another person while committing adultery with him or her, and adultery is any kind of sexual thought or deed outside of a biblical marriage between one man and one woman. These are some of the prevalent wrong views of what it means to be under grace instead of under law. Now let us consider the correct meaning. First and foremost it means that we are not under condemnation. The law of God reveals most painfully that we are sinners. There is not one single commandment we have not broken multitudes of times in our lives. We break them habitually and, often, without even noticing. Even if we have not broken them by our actions, we have broken them in our thoughts, and that is the same thing as far as our guilt before God is concerned. But we stand before God as people who have accepted Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, therefore, God judges us not by the law, but by grace. Under grace our sins are remembered no more. They are removed from us as far as the east is from the west, and we are forgiven. Second, to be under grace instead of under law is to be given the power to overcome sin. Law reveals sin, but grace conquers sin. In grace our sins are forgiven, but also in grace we receive power from God to be different. We are re-created into new creatures in Christ. The old sinfulness that was so much a part of who we were, is now being slowly crucified, and a new righteousness is being born in us. This is the grace of God in our lives giving us power to overcome our sin. So this is part of what it means to be under grace. Thus we come to the point of our text for this morning, and the point of this sermon, namely, what is our relationship to the moral law of God now that we are under grace instead of under law? First, serve sin no more. The Bible represents sin as an evil power that holds us in subjection and slavery. It is like the Dark Side of a science fiction movie that controls us and which we must obey. But Christ has freed us from its power by His sacrificial death. Therefore, serve it no longer. Do not return to its cruel dominion. Rather, crucify sin in your life. Your break with sin must be so complete that it is written of as a death to sin by the biblical writers. This is just the opposite of the current trend. The current trend, indeed the trend of all people in all times, is to baptize our sins. We want to make sin respectable. We want to make our sins acceptable. We want to call them righteous and good. A ready example of this is the current attitude of our culture toward sexual sin. We have tried to eradicate the very idea of it. I remember being told by a minister from another denomination that “God doesn’t care about your sex life. God cares about peace and justice.” But the Bible disagrees. Sexual promiscuity can never bring peace and justice. Why is this so? Verse 21 gives the answer. It tells us the end, or the result, of sin is death. Sin kills. Sin destroys lives and nations and families and cultures. That is why God forbids it. So, serve sin no longer. We could put this another way, stop breaking the moral law. Second, love God, and keep His commandments. The Bible is filled with references to keeping His moral law. Even Christ tells us that those who love Him will keep His commandments, and that He came to fulfill the law, not to destroy it. It is clear from the pages of Holy Scripture that we are not released from the obligation to keep the moral law of God, and that we will be judged by God with the law as our standard. From this we can draw only one conclusion, let us have done with sin, and let us have biblical morality. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
The Rev. Dr. R. Dennis Campbell, Vicar, Holy Trinity Anglican Church,
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