Paul writes in Romans 5:20, 21 "The law was added so that the trespass might increase. But where sin increased, grace increased all the more, so that, just as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord."
The law does not restrain sin (the commands in the Old Testament). The law increases our desire to sin.
When someone sees a sign, "wet paint - do not touch", our first inclination is to walk up to the thing that is painted and touch it to see if it is truly "wet paint."
That's what the law does.
"The law was added," Paul writes, and the word "added" has a negative connotation. In other words when God gave the law, it was "added to be secondary and not primary in our walk with Hi."
The law as given not to make us sinners, but to show us how sinful we are before a holy God.
The law is like a mirror that you hold up to see what you look like.
Paul writes in Romans 7:7, "Indeed, I would not have known what sin was except through the Law."
Yet, here is the supreme thought that I would like to share with you today.
Paul writes in verse 20, "But where sin increased, grace increased all the more."
When Paul says, "but where sin increased," the word increase uses a prefix that means addition.
When Paul writes, "grace increased all the more," the word increase uses a prefix that means multiplication.
The thought of the day: Where sins are added one by one, grace is multiplied a thousand times over.
Sin abounds and adds up but grace super-abounds and expands exponentially.
Let me share with you this story as I close this blog:
"As a 17-year-old Anne Graham Lotz, the daughter of Billy and Ruth Graham, was involved in a car accident. Speeding carelessly down a windy mountain road, Anne smashed into her neighbor, Mrs. Pickering. Anne was too afraid to tell her father about the accident, so for the rest of the day she kept avoiding him. When she finally came home, she tried to tiptoe around her dad, but there he was, standing in the kitchen.
Anne tells what happened next:
I paused for what seemed a very long moment frozen in time. Then I ran to him and threw my arms around his neck …. I told him about my wreck—how I'd driven too fast and smashed into the neighbor's car. I told him it wasn't her fault; it was all mine. As I wept on his shoulder, he said four things to me:
- "Anne, I knew all along about your wreck. Mrs. Pickering came straight up the mountain and told me—and I was just waiting for you to come and tell me yourself."
- "I love you."
- "We can fix the car."
- "You are going to be a better driver because of this."
Anne says, "Sooner or later, all of us are involved in some kind of wreck—it may be your own fault or someone else's. When the damage is your fault, there's a good chance you'll be confronted by the flashing blue lights of the morality police. But my father gave me a deeper understanding of what it means to experience the loving, forgiving embrace of my heavenly Father."
I like what Corrie Ten Boom once said, "There is no pit so deep that the love of God is not deeper still."
Just a thought for a Wednesday.
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