Does Grace Create Moral Hazard?
Does grace create moral hazard? That is, if people know they can be forgiven for their sins, does that knowledge encourage them to sin even more, knowing that they can just ask for forgiveness later? This is the question Paul addresses in today’s reading.
Paul’s answer will surprise you.
Today’s Reading: Romans 6:15-23
15 What then? Shall we sin because we are not under the law but under grace? By no means!
Paul has previously made the point that Christians are no longer under (Old Testament) law, but are now under grace. Does that mean that they can sin as much as they want?
NO. And he goes on to explain why.
6 Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? 17 But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you have come to obey from your heart the pattern of teaching that has now claimed your allegiance. 18 You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.
Paul’s point is NOT that Christians are now free from control, but that they are now controlled by Christ. Christians are still slaves, but now they are “slaves to righteousness.” Because they are slaves to righteousness, it makes no sense that they would continue to serve sin.
You gotta serve somebody.
As Douglas Moo puts it:
Those who are joined to Christ by faith live in the new age where grace, not the law of Moses, reigns. This being the case, believers’ conduct is not directly regulated by the law. Under Jewish premises, such a “law-less” situation would be assumed to foster sin….But Paul sees in God’s grace not only a liberating power but a constraining one as well: the constraint of a willing obedience that comes from a renewed heart and mind and, ultimately… the impulse and leading of God’s Spirit.
19 I am using an example from everyday life because of your human limitations. Just as you used to offer yourselves as slaves to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer yourselves as slaves to righteousness leading to holiness. 20 When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness. 21 What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death!22 But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. 23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Paul admits that the slavery metaphor isn’t perfect, but he’s trying to make his point in language they understand. He goes on to ask what good came from their slavery to sin, compared with their current slavery to Christ. Sin leads to death, but Christ gives life.
For Paul—and for us!—the point is clear: you gotta serve somebody, and it’s better to serve the one who gives life than the power that leads to death.