Shall We Go On?
READ
There is a question that has followed the Gospel almost since the very beginning. Paul heard it, addressed it directly, and his answer is just as relevant today as it was then: "Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase?" It is a question that sounds theological, but underneath it is something deeply human — a misunderstanding of what forgiveness is actually for.
Forgiveness is not a loophole. It is not a reset button we press so we can go back to living the same way we always have. It is not permission to stay where we are. It is an invitation to go somewhere we have never been.
Paul makes this clear in Romans 6 with a question of his own: "We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?" The logic is simple but staggering. If forgiveness has genuinely done what it claims to do — if it has truly dealt with sin at its root — then going back to sin is not just a moral failure, it is a contradiction. It is like someone walking out of prison and voluntarily returning to the cell.
Take a moment to read Romans 6:1-4:
What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We 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.
REFLECT
The image Paul reaches for here is baptism — and it is a powerful one. Going under the water is a picture of burial, of something coming to an end, of the old life being laid down. Coming up out of the water is a picture of resurrection, of something beginning, of a new life breaking the surface. Baptism is not just a ritual we participate in — it is a declaration of what has already happened to us in Christ. We have been joined to His death. And we have been joined to His resurrection.
This means that the new life is not something we are working toward — it is something we have already been brought into.
The question is not whether the new life is available; the question is whether we are willing to actually live it. And that is where so many of us get stuck. We receive forgiveness gratefully, but then we quietly return to the same patterns, the same habits, the same ways of thinking — as if the resurrection only applied to Jesus and not to us.
But that is not the Gospel. The Gospel says that what happened to Jesus happened to us — that His death was our death, and His resurrection is our resurrection. The old self, with all of its appetites for things that diminish and destroy, has been buried. A new self has been raised in its place — one that is alive to God, free from the dominion of sin, and capable of genuinely walking in newness of life.
This does not mean the journey is easy or that old tendencies disappear overnight. It means that we are no longer who we used to be, and we no longer have to live as if we are. Every day is an opportunity to walk in the reality of what Christ has already accomplished — to live not from the grave, but from the empty tomb.
Forgiveness opened the door. Resurrection is what is on the other side.
And God is personally inviting you to walk through it.
RESPOND
Take a moment to process what God might be leading you to do in light of what you read.
Have you ever subtly treated grace as permission rather than transformation? What does it look like in everyday life to live from the resurrection rather than return to old patterns?
Romans 6:4 says we are raised to walk in newness of life. What does that word new mean for you personally right now — in your relationships, your habits, or the way you see yourself?
REST
Take a moment to rest in God’s presence and consider one thing you can take away from your time reading, then close your devotional experience by praying:
Father, thank You that forgiveness is not just the end of something — it is the beginning of everything. Where I have been returning to old patterns out of habit or comfort, remind me that those things no longer define me or own me. I have been buried with Christ and raised with Christ, and I want to actually live like it. Lead me today into the newness of life that You have already made possible. Amen.