Slaves for Obedience

A Reminder of our Path

At the end of Romans 5:20-21, Paul had stated something vitally important for our understanding of the message of the gospel.

I trust you will recall, that what he said was not some random statement, but it was the culmination of all that he had been teaching, going back to Romans 1:18 “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness,” all the way through his exposition in Romans 5:12 that “Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned”.

And there were critical stops along this path, such as in Romans 2:12 to reveal that both Jew and Gentile alike are going to perish and be judged, saying, “For all who have sinned without the Law will also perish without the Law, and all who have sinned under the Law will be judged by the Law.” And even believers were not free from this, being told in Romans 3:9, “What then? Are we better? Not at all; for we have already charged that both Jews and Greeks are all under sin;”

Why? Romans 3:20, “because by the works of the Law NO FLESH WILL BE JUSTIFIED IN HIS SIGHT, for through the Law comes the knowledge of sin.”

Coming to a final conclusion about every person in Romans 3:21-24 that

“But now apart from the Law the righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe; for there is no distinction; for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus;”

And then making the shocking truth plain in Romans 4:5, “But to the one who does not work, but believes upon Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness,”

So then, we come to the shocking statements in the last half of chapter 5, culminating in the shock of:

Romans 5:20–21 LSB

Now the Law came in so that the transgression would increase, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that, as sin reigned in death, even so grace would reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Now, let’s be clear – a true preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ should always bring this same charge against Paul in Rom 3:8, that he was saying “Let us do evil that good may come.” That charge will come most from those who are already religiously or morally minded, but the person who has fully and completely rejected religion you find will still often enjoy and benefit from the moral standards brought about by religion, this is why, for example, we see politicians who even vehemently disagree with what the bible says try to quote and use it for their own ends.

But there are those who do not rightly comprehend the gospel, and so take and isolate this one idea, of salvation by faith alone in the finished work of Christ alone, and isolate this one idea into either of two extremes, for the Law on the one side, and against the Law on the other.

So thinking of the first group, those who fear that this presentation of the gospel will encourage people to sin all the more, is comprised of both those outside the church, and even those inside the church who in truth remain under Adam; they fear any suggestion of removing the restraint provided by the Law. They fear that the mere suggestion of removing that restraint would encourage licentiousness and lawlessness. They claim that it dangerously removes the moral and ethical guideposts that define right and wrong not only for the church, but society as well.

Others, equally wrong, go immediately into the opposite direction, rather than seeking the guide-rails of the Law, revel in the notion of their absence. They become exactly what the first group fears; just as Jude wrote, they do pervert the grace of God, they do try to turn it into licentiousness. Abusing and misusing the gospel of grace for their own evil desires.

There may be some nuances and variations, but the world, those in Adam, even if, and perhaps especially when they call themselves Christian, always come down to one of these two basic objections to the idea salvation by faith alone, through grace alone, in the finished work of Christ alone. Thus, to proclaim a gospel that does not open yourself up to this charge, such as a gospel of morality and goodness and an exhortation to live well, to preach a gospel speaking only of love and acceptance, is what Paul calls in Galatians 1 a different gospel, not the gospel of our Lord, nor is it the message of Holy Scripture, but a distortion of the true gospel!

But the gospel message, truly preached, ought to also safeguard those who believe it from such thinking, that it would never enter our minds and hearts, that the objections for and against the Law in relationship to saving faith both ought to be unwelcome and foreign to our thinking, and that is what the apostle Paul is revealing at length here in Romans 6.

The first argument Paul gives us against such thinking began in Romans 6:1-2, “What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase? May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it?” And as he worked out just what he meant by that, he made plain for us that our position has been fully and completely removed from the realm and rule of sin on account of our union with Christ Jesus. That we are a new creation, our old self died to sin through our immersion into the death and burial of our Lord Jesus Christ; the me that was, is no more! Greater still, now being united with Christ Jesus in His resurrection, the me that is, my self, no longer must obey the lusts of my mortal body; the “body of sin”, sin’s body, does not have the right to rule me myself, rather the me that is, being united with Christ, is now able to restrain my flesh which has not yet been redeemed. This is what is true of me, on account of being justified by faith like that of Abraham from Romans 4:24, that Abraham’s faith in the promise according to grace was not only for his sake, “but for our sake also, to whom it will be counted, as those who believe upon Him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead.”

So now, having reminded ourselves of our path thus far, we turn to the last half of Romans 6, wherein the apostle Paul will with finality dispense with these objections once and for all:

Romans 6:15–23 (LSB)

What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? May it never be! Do you not know that when you go on presenting yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness?

But thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you obeyed from the heart that pattern of teaching to which you were given over, and having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness.

I am speaking in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness, leading to further lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness, leading to sanctification.

For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. Therefore what benefit were you then having from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death.

But now having been freed from sin and enslaved to God, you have your benefit, leading to sanctification, and the end, eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gracious gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

The Master Determines The Service

And I think you will agree with me, that the most immediate idea we come to in reading this passage, is that “the master determines the service”. Write that down in your notes - the master determines the service.

And this statement works both front-ways and back-ways: the master sets the service, the master defines the service, the master prescribes the service; but also, by observing the service, the identity of the true master becomes quite evident.

You see, Paul did not write to the church at Rome, and also to us, merely to deal with us in theoretical terms, in doctrinal statements so high and lofty that it makes our heads spin; rather his desire is that our Christianity be real, that our belief be lived out in the totality of our lives. Salvation goes far beyond a feeling we once had accompanied by an abracadabra we once uttered. There is a fullness and finality to faith in the finished work of Jesus Christ which ought to permeate the entirety of our lives!

God doesn’t want simply a part of us, He doesn’t desire to be a tacked-on addition, but He desires the whole of us!

Romans 6:15 LSB

What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? May it never be!

So when we come now to this second objection in Romans 6, that his insistence upon salvation comes by faith rather than by what you do allows and encourages people to sin because they are no longer under the law, he builds upon what we learned in the first objection to the same doctrine; in the first argument it was that I can’t even contemplate the notion of continuing in sin, because I myself have died to sin’s power and dominion over me through my union with Christ Jesus, so I am exhorted to not let sin reign in my mortal body such that I obey the lusts of my mortal body. But moreover, I am exhorted in Rom 6:13, “and do not go on presenting your members to sin as instruments of unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.”

So as we turn to understand what he’s saying in v 15 here, the similarities are so striking that they can’t help but inform our understanding of what Paul is saying. You will notice, the language Paul uses in v16 is incredibly similar – both speaking of presenting for obedience or presenting for sin. In verse 17 he writes that we “were slaves of sin”, in verse 18 that we have “been freed from sin”, in verse 19 you “presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness”, in verse 20 “you were slaves of sin”.

All of this combines to suggest that Paul is effectively combatting the attitude that says “look, should we engage in a persistent, habitual practice of deliberate sin? After all, we’re not under the law anymore, but under grace!”

And his most basic here is the same as it was in the first case, “μὴ γένοιτο” – May it never be! God forbid!!

Remember up in verse 1, when confronting the idea that people could continue in sin in order for grace to abound? Where Paul said that to even suggest such such a thing is monstrous, it deserves a horrified response? His response to this new line of thinking is no different! He is equally horrified at this suggestion that because we are no longer under law, but are now under grace, we may go ahead and sin as much as we like. The idea is unthinkable, it is an entire contradiction unto itself!

We could paraphrase his response as “No, no, no! If that’s the way you’re thinking, you didn’t understand the point!”

Why? It’s because of the obviousness of the principle involved:

Romans 6:16 LSB

Do you not know that when you go on presenting yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness?

There is a certain degree of obviousness to the idea that the master determines the service. Why? Because the master determines the work you do, the master is in control that way – the slave does the work required of him by his master, the slave doesn’t do the work his master forbids.

The modern man, even while sitting in churches across the globe this Sunday, holds to the words penned by William Henley’s Invictus, “I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul.” This is the essence of the many who exalt man as a created being, exchanging the glory of the incorruptible God to exalt corruptible man (think Rom 1:23 here)!

But Paul has not labored for nearly six chapters to fall short here – we are, and always will be, slaves. And we either are a slave to sin, or we are a slave to righteousness – there is no neutral ground, no intermediate position.

And everyone is born a slave to sin, everyone. There are no exclusions, for all are born into Adam, just as Paul explained in Romans 5:12 “Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned.” In this case “all” truly does mean “all”. Each and every person, without exception.

And each and every person obeys their master – sin, which leads to death; do not pass go, do not collect $200, no chance to re-roll the dice.

Jesus said much the same thing in John 8:34, “Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin.”

In other words, to apply this principle in a backwards, more diagnostic manner, we can ask it this way: if you claim to be a Christian, can you look back at your life and see and increase in holiness, and a corresponding decrease in sin? Meaning, is your life as marked and characterized by sin like it once was? Do you recognize a growing victory over sin in your life? That sins you once seemingly had no power to control you are suddenly aware they are no longer present in your life? That replacing those sins is a desire to please God on account of what Jesus did on the cross of calvary?

These are indications that you have given your life over to Christ in truth!

Conversely, if your life looks much the same as it did before you prayed a prayer, or perhaps worse? Do you find yourself continuing to sin as you did before? If this is the case, if there has been no change in your life after having called yourself a Christian for some time, then you have very good reason to doubt whether you have been saved at all!

if your life and marked and characterized by sin, by continually living in a manner that God says “this is wrong, don’t do that”, you are declaring to the watching world, and more importantly God Himself who already knows because He looks at the heart, that you are declaring through your actions that your master is still Sin, that you have not been transferred out of the kingdom of darkness and into the kingdom of the Son of God’s love. You remain in Adam.

Why?

Because you are the slave of the one you obey! If you obey Sin, you are a slave to Sin. By the very nature of presenting yourself in truth to a master, you are going to do what that master commands; good or bad, right or wrong, turn left, turn right it makes no difference – you are the slave of the one you have presented yourself to as your master.

Presenting Precedes Obedience

Now, we must be perfectly clear here: the presenting of yourself precedes performing the acts of obedience. There are those who will wrongly take this to mean that if you don’t obey you can’t become saved. That’s not what Paul is saying! He didn’t go on and on for 4 chapters to so fully explain that justification comes by faith and that by works no one is justified, just to throw it all away here!

We were in Adam, we had no capability to be obedient to God because we were appointed sinners, Romans 5:19 had declared to us. We had been set down in the realm of sin, even our best works were nothing more than filthy rags to God – think the filth of a menstrual cloth, that’s what Isaiah 64 is referring to!

But when we turn in faith to Christ Jesus, we are made a new creation, to walk in newness of life; we are transferred out of the realm of sin and darkness, and into the realm of grace. We who turn to Christ Jesus by faith alone are appointed, set down in the realm of and constituted righteous, made afresh and for the first time able to do righteousness!

Far from negating salvation by faith alone, Paul here is declaring that it is only though that saving faith in Jesus Christ that we can become slaves of obedience leading to righteousness!

We see this same principle clearly in Romans 10:9-10

Romans 10:9–10 LSB

that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, leading to righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, leading to salvation.

That confessing of Jesus as Lord is none other than a declaration that He, and He alone, is your master, you are presenting yourself to Him as a slave for obedience. Matthew 6:24 ought to be coming to your mind here, in which Christ declared “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other...”

So when we read Romans 6:16,

Romans 6:16 LSB

Do you not know that when you go on presenting yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness?

This is more than a simple axiom, a simple statement that universally applies. No! Instead, Paul is reiterating what Jesus Christ Himself had said, the same thing in 1 John 2:3, “And by this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments.”

This confessing Jesus as Lord, this salvation freely offered, is not merely some mental acknowledgement. We are saved by faith, and by faith alone, the apostle has already declared. But what he is explaining here, is that such a faith is a faith that acts, a faith that out of knowing that we have been united to Christ Jesus, then refuses ever more to allow sin to reign in your mortal body.

A faith that does not do this, is not saving faith at all. Our Lord and Master, Jesus Christ, determines our service to Him, and He has declared that to truly call Him Lord, means that we are to be slaves to obedience which leads to righteousness.

No wonder Paul writes, Rom 6:15 “What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? May it never be!”

Let us Pray!