Romans 6: 15 - 23

15 What then? Shall we sin because we are not under the law but under grace? By no means! ¹⁶ 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.

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.

Choose Your Master.

In today’s reading, Paul is really continuing the point that he made in the opening verses of the chapter, which we looked at yesterday. Again, in verse 15, he asks the question of whether we now have an ‘excuse’ to sin. But whereas in verse 1 the logic of such a position was that ‘the more we sin, the more grace we receive’, this time the premise is that we are no longer under the Law of Moses, but under grace – so if we are not under the law, we can easily break the law! And once again, Paul explains why that is a completely incorrect position to reach. ‘By no means!’ he says.

In this section, Paul is expanding on the idea of being ‘slaves’ – either slaves to sin or slaves to righteousness. Verses 17 and 18: ‘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. You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.’

Although Paul shows this as a choice between two masters, they are very different. Slaves to sin are in servitude – they can’t help but obey the evil desires of sin. They get deeper and deeper into ‘impurity and ever-increasing wickedness’ (v. 19). Slaves to sin feel shame; they are sentenced to hard labour and they die in service – three times Paul says that being a slave sin leads to death (verses 16, 21 and 23).

By comparison, this is what it is like to be a slave of God, or of righteousness: We are free from the control of the old slave master (v. 18)! As we have seen recently in Gal. 5: 1, ‘It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.’ We are now free to live a holy life, and see our characters transformed (verses 18 and 19). We reap great benefits and fruit in our lives. As slaves of God we have very generous treatment – not wages, but a free gift of eternal life in Christ (v. 23). And being slaves of God means we no longer face death from being slaves of sin, but now receive life – it is life to the full, and it is eternal life. So being a ‘slave’ of God is nothing like our idea of slavery – rather, it is being children of God!

Verse 23 is often quoted in an evangelistic sense: ‘For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.’ It certainly makes clear the big difference between these two masters. If you choose sin, then you are choosing death. But if you choose God, then you are choosing life!

 

Prayer

Heavenly Father, we thank you for the amazing gift of life! I thank you that through Christ I have been freed from slavery to sin and death. Lord, I willingly change my allegiance and come into your service – no longer bound or chained in slavery, but now truly free. Amen.