I hesitated before answering the doorbell. Through the peephole I could see the two well-dressed, clean-cut young men standing on the porch, and I knew what they were "selling." I soon overcame my hesitation, however, and invited them in for a chat.

Quickly the conversation turned to the issue that divided us. I forthrightly declared that the clear teaching of Scripture was that God saves us by grace alone through Christ; we simply open the hand of faith and receive this divine, saving grace. The two young "evangelists," in contrast, claimed that faith was insufficient but must be augmented by our good deeds. Finally, in an attempt to break the stalemate that our discussion had reached, one of my visitors blurted out, "So what you are saying is that if I am saved, then it really doesn't matter how I live. Even if I commit some horrendous crime, like murder, I would still go to heaven."

I was impressed by my visitor's perceptive comment. And I realized that he had gained this caricature of biblical Christian teaching from the variety of church people he had known personally or had encountered in his travels. Many Christians assert quite forthrightly that because they are saved they can live as they please, and they then set out to prove the point.

This problem is not new to our day, however. It was present already in the first century and in the churches to which Paul ministered. Some believers in the fledgling church in Rome apparently went so far down this pathway as to assert that Christians actually ought to sin, because in so doing they opened the way for an even more abundant demonstration of God's grace. Paul gives evidence to the presence of this attitude in the Roman church by way of the rhetorical question with which he begins Romans 6: "Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase?" But the Apostle then responds to this suggestion with the most forceful negative expostulation in the Greek language, Me genoito! This exclamation is the Greek equivalent of what you would blurt out if your twelve-year-old son announced one day, "I've decided to get my tongue pierced five times." Hence, "me genoito" means "May it never be!" or "What! How can you even contemplate such a thing?"

Then, having responded in this strong manner, Paul admonishes his readers to live holy lives. But note that he doesn't base his admonition on any of the standard evangelical appeals. He doesn't remind them that they had walked the aisle in an evangelistic crusade or that they had prayed "the sinners prayer" found in the back of a little booklet (as significant as these experiences may be today). Rather, Paul challenges the Roman believers to live holy lives on the basis of the fact that they had stepped into the water and had been baptized. For Paul, baptism is not some appendage to conversion, some negotiable item that Christian may choose to practice according to their own personal whim, or some unimportant rite that certain churches require for membership. According to Paul, baptism is crucial, because this event provides an underlying motivation for living. In fact, in a sense, it even sets holy living in motion.