Why We Can't Sin

     Okay, for a long time, I have felt that some of my revelations should be shared with more than just myself and a few close friends.  So, here goes:

     A lot of times, I have said to myself, "If I am a Christian, that means that my sins are covered, right?  So, why can't I just do whatever the heck I want, and still go to heaven?  Why do I have to live by these rules if I don't have to worry about getting punished for that later?"  And I think a lot of Christians ask themselves the same questions. 

    Well, I found the answer in Romans 6:1-16

     ^"1What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? ²By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? ³Or don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? ⁴We were therefore buried with Him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.

 ⁵If we have been united with Him like this in His death, we will certainly also be united with Him in His resurrection. ⁶For we know that our old self was crucified with Him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin— ⁷because anyone who has died has been freed from sin.

 ⁸Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. ⁹For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, He cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over Him. ¹⁰The death He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life He lives, He lives to God.

 ¹¹In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. ¹²Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. ¹³Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness. ¹⁴For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace

 ¹⁵What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! ¹⁶Don't you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness?

  

     Okay, that's a lot of words.  I had to read them several times before I understood them.  But I will take them apart for you.  (I'm not going to do all of the verses - just the ones that stuck out to me.  If there are any verses that stick out to you, PLEASE talk about them in a comment!!!)

Romans 6:1-2

 ¹What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? ²By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?

How can we live sinfully is we are dead to sin?  We can't!

Romans 6:3-4

  ³Or don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? ⁴We were therefore buried with Him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. 

Everyone that has been baptized in Christ has risen from the dead already.  Sin =death.  When we are baptized, we have been saved from sin.  We are born again!

Romans 6:6

 ⁶For we know that our old self was crucified with Him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin—

We died along with our sin with Christ.  

Romans 6:9

 ⁹For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, He cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over Him

Since Christ already died, He can't die again.  Since our sin died with Christ, the sin cannot rise again in us, because we are dead to it, and it is dead to us.

Romans 6:14

 ¹⁴For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace

You are dead to sin, so sin can't be your master; you are saved by the grace of God.

Romans 6:16

¹⁶Don't you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness?

When you say you are obedient, you are obedient to the master; if you are obedient to sin, it results in death.  If you are obedient to righteousness, it results in life.  So because you are saved by grace, you are obedient to God,  You are DEAD to sin.  If you say, "Oh, I can just go and sin, because God will forgive me later," you are not dead to sin, which means that sin still holds sway over you.  If sin still holds sway over you, you aren't alive in Christ. 

     So, the point of all that was to answer the questions mentioned above.  We as Christians - if we have been saved, then we are dead to sin and sin no longer holds power over us.  That means that the desire to sin is gone.  I mean, we can't serve both God and sin.  "No man can serve two masters.  Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other."  You can't be obedient to God and to sin, because God cannot be where sin is, and sin cannot be in the presence of God.

I know that this is kind of confusing... that's okay.  The book of Romans is a naturally confusing - and extremely deep - book.