One of the Greatest Issues in Life

Excerpt from Are We to Continue in Sin That Grace Might Increase by John Piper

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As we enter Romans 6, we are taking up one of the greatest issues in the Christian life. And that means one of the greatest issues in life, period. Because the only life that will lead to eternal life is the Christian life. So what we are about to see is relevant and crucial for everybody, whether they call themselves Christian or not. Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Jews, spiritualists, atheists – every person who is descended from Adam needs to know what Romans 6 teaches. What Paul describes here is not provincial or parochial or sectarian or regional or ethnic. It relates to everybody because it describes the only kind of life that leads to eternal life. All of us are sinners and guilty because we are united to the first Adam. We will be saved, or not, because we are united by faith to Jesus Christ, the second Adam. And there is a kind of life that comes from being united to Christ. That life leads to heaven. And that life only. That is what is at stake in Romans 6.

One way to see this is to jump to the end of the chapter and look at verse 22: "But now having been freed from sin and enslaved to God, you derive your benefit, resulting in sanctification [or holiness], and the outcome, eternal life." Notice carefully: What is eternal life the outcome of? It is the outcome of "sanctification" or "holiness" or "freedom from sin and slavery to God." In other words, Romans 6 deals with the kind of life that leads to eternal life: What it is and how to live it.

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