¹ What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase? ² May it never be!

Master of anticipation, the inspired apostle Paul verbalizes the instinctive question that arises in the reader’s mind. Indeed, the question seems a quite logical follow-up from what he just wrote in chapter five: “Where sin increased, grace abounded all the more” (Rom 5:20). It would seem to make sense that if we want grace to abound, then we should actually sin more! That can’t be right.

Paul responds, first with his short answer, then his longer rejoinder. First, “May it never be!” or in the Greek, “Me gnoito.” We’ve already encountered this terse phrase earlier (3:6, 31). This combination of anticipated question and terse answer is simply a method of progressing the argument. Yet at the same time, in Paul’s formulation of the question, one can sense a derisive objection to his teaching, and he not only answers the question but shows its absurdity and in a sense throws the derision back on the objectors who might ask him such questions—which are in reality poorly veiled criticisms.

It is obviously absurd to think that one should sin more in order to increase grace. Certainly Paul didn’t teach such a notion, as he goes on to show. In fact, there is no situation in which sin can be justified, for “the wages of sin is death” (6:23), not abundant grace. But Paul’s interlocutors would lay the charge against Paul that his teaching leads to obvious nonsense at best, or heresy at worst. Peter, as an observer of Paul’s ministry, wrote, “[I]n all [Paul’s] letters, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which the untaught and unstable distort, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures, to their own destruction” (2 Peter 3:16). The difficulty in understanding Paul lies with those who resist faith and the doctrine of justification. For those who believe and accept, the truth makes perfectly good sense and is glorious.

The shorter answer, “Me gnoito,” conveys an emotional punch: “Absolutely not; it does not follow that we should sin more in order to give grace more opportunity to abound.” Paul does address this implied rebuke of his teaching. It is as though the objectors are on a mission to poke holes wherever they find opportunity. Paul’s masterful treatise takes all these hole-pokers one at a time and at the right juncture for each, sets them up and knocks them down. He knows his subject well, having been well-honed in a multitude of debates and confrontations in his long missionary career.

Lord, help me understand the deeper things of Your Word, so that I might be ready to give an answer to those who object to the gospel.