Romans 6:15-23
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OK, so last time we looked at the first chunk of chapter 6, now let’s finish the chapter and start the new year in a new chapter, shall we?
We’ll be looking at verses 15-23 of chapter 6 tonight:
15 What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! 16 Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? 17 But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, 18 and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness. 19 I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification.
20 For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. 21 But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. 22 But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. 23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
OK, so most of us know Romans 6:23 by heart, but understanding the context that leads up to it should (I hope) give it greater significance.
Now, last time we talked about how we are buried with Christ in death and raised to walk in newness of life. Paul talked about dying to sin, so that we could present ourselves as instruments for righteousness, leaving the old sin- nature behind and following after Christ and His righteousness.
So, Paul goes back to his rhetorical question:
15 What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means!
Having asked (and answered) the question in verse 1 and following, he returns to it, tackling it from another angle if you will. As we tackle these verses tonight, I want you to see two major themes here:
Slavery
Freedom
Again, not very creative or pithy, but they are themes culled from the text.
So let’s look at the first theme:
SLAVERY (6:16-19)
Paul dives in by talking about slavery. Now, we have to again understand that when Paul is talking here, he is not calling to mind chattel slavery from the 1600-1800s. But we must make no mistake. He is talking about being enslaved to something. Having something as a master over us.
Because what Paul is showing us here is that we all are slaves to something. Paul is showing us that we can and should be careful of what our master is.
Look at verse 16
16 Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?
See how Paul phrases this here? “If you present yourselves…as obedient slaves.” And of course, we, in our modern understanding want to reply, “Well, I have no master! I don’t serve anybody or anything!”
Did you go to work today? Did you buy groceries this week? Did you use any sort of financial commodity in order to gain a good or service?
Yep, you served something.
OK, that may be an exaggeration, but I want you to see the truth. Paul isn’t arguing that all of this is bad, right; he isn’t saying that money is evil in and of itself. Paul talks about having a job and being able to support himself, while also encouraging the churches to support those who minister. But the difference between providing for needs and being enslaved fully is a real thing.
And what I mean by that is this: does your job allow you to provide for your family and your needs? Or is it something that you feel you must do in order to survive? How tied are you to your bank statement or investment portfolio? If the Spirit impressed upon you the call to sell everything and move across the world to serve God, would your stuff hold you back?
If so, you are enslaved to it.
We must hold our positions and our possessions loosely. They are not ours, they are given to us by a gracious God who wants us to use them for His glory.
Paul tells us we have a choice: we are slaves to the one we obey (v16)! Either sin, which leads to death, or to obedience (and that obedience is understood to be obedience to God), which leads to righteousness.
Paul takes it further as he unpacks this:
17 But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, 18 and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.
Now we see where Paul is going: you once submitted yourselves to sin. But now, because you have followed the teaching of Paul and other believers there, now you have become slaves to righteousness.
And look at verse 18, where Paul juxtaposes slavery and freedom: “Having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.”
We are going to deal with and unpack that in just a bit, but you should start to get the understanding of where Paul is going here.
And I love how Paul talks in verse 19:
19 I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification.
Like, I don’t really think Paul is trying to throw down a back-handed complement, but it kinda feels like it:
I’m speaking in human terms because of your limitations.
But this is not Paul saying, “Look, you guys are too dense to get this, so I’m using metaphor.” This is Paul saying, “I would love to unpack the mysteries of Heaven that God has revealed to me, but you guys are not there yet. Let me try to get you there!”
Sproul puts it this way:
The Gospel of God: Romans Dedication to Christ
Paul could understand doctrine at a heavier level, but he realised others were not so able.
Again, Paul boils this down to a simple choice. Choose righteousness. Why?
Well, I’ll lean on Sproul again, not so much because his thought here is some profound thing, but rather because it is simple:
The Gospel of God: Romans Dedication to Christ
Notice that when a person surrenders himself to wickedness the result of that wickedness is more wickedness. Sin breeds sin, which breeds sin, which breeds sin. Sanctification is the goal of our Christian life, and the more we yield ourselves in obedience to righteousness, the more that righteousness brings about holiness.
Sanctification is our goal. That is becoming more and more like Christ. But we cannot become more like Him if we are constantly slaving ourselves to sin.
Now we see Paul deal with the flip-side to slavery:
FREEDOM (6:20-23)
As Americans, freedom is something we love. We don’t just think it is a good idea, we demand it. And not just the idea of freedom, but the ideological understanding of independence. I mean, look at the actual name for our July 4th celebration: Independence Day. The autonomy of mankind is king.
We even argue theologically if we think that a theological doctrine impinges on our “freedom.” It is, for many of us, a concept so ingrained in our DNA that we cannot bear the thought of a loss of any type of freedom.
But Paul deals with freedom in a way that might be very uncomfortable to our American sensibilities.
20 For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. 21 But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death.
Sproul notes this:
The Gospel of God: Romans Dedication to Christ
No one is autonomous. Augustine said that a human being is like a horse, and the horse has one of two riders: either Satan or Christ is riding the horse. Before you were justified, Satan was riding the horse. Now that you are justified, Christ is riding the horse. When you were the servants of sin, you were free from righteousness.
And see the play on words there in verse 20: When you enslaved yourselves to sin, you were free from the trappings of righteousness.
Paul is in effect helping to shape their understanding of true freedom.
I am reminded of the movie “The Avengers,” when Loki goes to Germany and demands that everyone kneel. Now, I love this scene for a lot of reasons that I won’t get into, but for our purposes tonight I want to point to what Loki says to the citizens there.
He says:
“Is not this simpler? Is this not your natural state? It's the unspoken truth of humanity, that you crave subjugation. The bright lure of freedom diminishes your life's joy in a mad scramble for power, for identity. You were made to be ruled. In the end, you will always kneel.”
Of course, Captain America comes in (of course it would be Captain America) and says this:
“You know, the last time I was in Germany and saw a man standing above everybody else, we ended up disagreeing.”
A very American thing to say, right? And don’t misunderstand me, I think freedom and representative democracy are great, and I think that the despots and tyrannical should be deposed.
But when we view freedom - specifically the ideas of freedom and independence - as higher than God, we lose sight of so many things. In this aspect, Loki (in the movie) was right. We are created to be ruled. By God.
Because even in our “freedom,” we are still subjects of another kingdom. We are servants of the Most High God, and when we idealize and idolize the idea of freedom, we become the people that Paul is warning about here.
And, what has all of that “mad scramble for power” and “identity” gained us? That is what Paul asks in verse 21?
Because all of that has lead to shame. Led to death.
That’s a sad tale, isn’t it? In the end all of our labors are toward death. This is the agnostic viewpoint. There is no meaning in life, we just float around and try to get a little happiness.
This is the life of someone who is a slave to sin. Sure, they are free from the demands of righteousness. But they are destined for death.
Paul says there is a better way.
22 But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life.
True freedom is willing submission to God. Sproul puts it this way:
The Gospel of God: Romans Dedication to Christ
Sanctification is the result of this new, and willing, slavery to God. Holiness. Being increasingly conformed to the image of God in Christ. Putting off the old, being adorned with the new. These concepts, these realities, should be the delight and goal of each believer. Nothing should suppress the longing for personal holiness that the Spirit has implanted in our hearts. The contrast between our new estate and our former shameful life (verse 21) should be a shining example to the church and the world of the free gift of eternal life.
See, we choose to be free from the trappings of sin. But how do we do that? We do it by willfully enslaving ourselves to God. Paul begins Romans exactly that way:
1 Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God,
That word that the ESV translates as “servant” is the Greek word doulos, which also means slave. The word that is translated in verses 16 (2x), 17, 19 (2x), and 20 are all the same Greek word. The word here in verse 21 is a derivative form of the same word (douloomai) which means “to enslave.”
So we see that our true freedom doesn’t come in our ability to make the decisions we want to make, to choose how we want to live. True freedom is not independence from outside authority. It isn’t personal autonomy.
True freedom is choosing willfully to submit to Christ’s Lordship and to serve Him gladly.
And it isn’t just a warm and fuzzy feeling that we get from that, either. It isn’t like the only perk is some vague association with Jesus.
Look at the end of verse 22: just as the fruit of sin led to shame and death, there is a fruit of being a slave to righteousness.
The fruit of righteousness is sanctification, and its end which is eternal life.
That seems like true freedom.
Paul sums it all up in verse 23:
23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
This is where true freedom lies. It is the free gift of God.
Sin leads to death. That is what we earn from sin. That is what we deserve. We work for that death.
We cannot do anything to gain eternal life. We can’t work for it. We can’t buy it. We can’t earn it.
It is a gift. Freely given to us by God. When we enslave ourselves to Him, we are given the free gift of eternal life in Christ Jesus. The gift is conditional, though:
Christ has to be Lord. He has to be ruler. If we don’t submit to Him, we are choosing sin over life.
We must submit ourselves to God. We must become instruments of righteousness.
Let’s pray.