What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?
Parallel translations
- WEB What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?
- BSB What then shall we say? Shall we continue in sin so that grace may increase?
- NKJV What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?
- NASB What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase?
- NLT Well then, should we keep on sinning so that God can show us more and more of his wonderful grace?
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Paul raises the question whether we should keep sinning so grace may increase. He poses the objection in order to refute it.
Overview
Having said that grace abounded where sin increased (5:20), Paul anticipates a distortion: should believers continue in sin to gain more grace? He raises this objection to confront the false notion that grace licenses sin. The question opens his teaching that justification by grace leads to a transformed life, not to careless sinning.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 9
- 1 Pet 2:16As free, and not using your liberty for a cloke of maliciousness, but as the servants of God.
- Gal 5:13For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another.
- Rom 6:15What then? shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid.
- Rom 2:4Or despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance?
- Rom 3:5–8But if our unrighteousness commend the righteousness of God, what shall we say? Is God unrighteous who taketh vengeance? (I speak as a man)
- Rom 5:20–21Moreover the law entered, that the offence might abound. But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound:
- Jude 1:4For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ.
- Rom 3:31Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish the law.
- 2 Pet 2:18–19For when they speak great swelling words of vanity, they allure through the lusts of the flesh, through much wantonness, those that were clean escaped from them who live in error.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Christ at the center
Paul unfolds the gospel in full: Christ our righteousness received by faith, the second Adam in whom many are made righteous, in whose death and resurrection we are buried and raised.
How Romans 6:1 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Greek word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.