Slaves of Righteousness

I would like to remind you of the great portion of Scripture which we are presently studying in this last half of Romans 6, in which the apostle Paul is countering yet another false and wrong thinking which so often is the result of the declaration of salvation being by faith alone, through the finished work of Christ alone, which he had proclaimed in the last verses of Romans 5. And this specific wrongness in thinking is revealed in Romans 6:15-16,

Romans 6:15–16 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?

We realize in these verses the stark and penetrating truth of Paul’s argument, that we are indeed slaves always, either of Sin on the one hand as your rightful owner, or else of Obedience unto righteousness on the other hand, as your rightful owner.

And the principle which Paul gave to us, that he was anxious for us to apprehend, is that your true master is evident in the service which you perform, for the master determines the service – the master’s character and focus determines the character and focus of his slaves. This provides us a basis for diagnosing our present condition.

So, when discover that you go on presenting yourself to Sin for obedience to it, what your are doing is placarding and proclaiming yourself to remain a slave of Sin – your fundamental position has not changed, you remain a sinner in Adam and subject to Sin’s penalty.

But, on the other hand, if you present yourself as a slave of obedience unto righteousness, you reveal that mark-making, rather than mark-missing, is now your master.

And so now that the principle is clear in our heads, Paul now turns to we who are in Christ Jesus, declaring in Romans 6:17-18,

Romans 6:17–18 LSB

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.

In these verses we have, perhaps, the most clear and succinct reason why it is that we who are not under law but are instead under grace should not live in a life marked by sin! We must, however, remember to keep the principles Paul gave us in verse 16 in the front of our minds as we read these verses.

For there are only two true masters, the master of Sin, which always and forever misses the mark, and its antithesis, righteousness, which being entirely opposed to mark-missing, instead obeys correctly and leads directly to righteousness. You cannot be a mark-misser and a mark-maker simultaneously, you are either one or the other.

No Longer What We Were

There is a popular thinking that if you are raised in a Christian home, to Christian parents, who do Christian things, you will most certainly be a Christian.

We tend to think of sinners as people who are completely and utterly depraved – people who go on rampages, people who commit war crimes, people who abuse women and children and animals, people who commit horrific acts that shock us on the evening news.

But Paul says “no, wait - that’s certainly included, but there’s more to it than that!” He wrote in 1 Corinthians 6:9-10, “Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God.”

There we go, that’s getting more like it, right? Expand that list out to other things we don’t like, things that offend our sensibilities, right?

But then we read something like Philippians 3:7, “But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ.”

Paul was someone who was blameless by any reasonable standard, far more than most others, declaring in Phil 3:5-6 that he was “circumcised the eighth day, of the nation of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the Law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to the righteousness which is in the Law, found blameless.”

Wait a minute, Paul! You weren’t bad! You said yourself that you were blameless, not depraved! You were a Hebrew of Hebrews, you weren’t any of those things in that list you wrote to the Corinthians! Sure, you went after a bunch of law-breakers that believe a little different than the Pharisees, but really?

Yes - really!

Every person – every man, every woman, every child is a slave to sin from the moment of their conception, in Psalm 51:5 David declared “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, And in sin my mother conceived me.” We have all been “appointed sinners” through one man’s disobedience, Paul explained in Rom 5:18. In Adam, we have been set down in the realm of Sin, enslaved to Sin, being under its rule and dominion, even we ourselves who are now saved were no better at all – “Are we better?” Paul asked in Rom 3:9, and answers himself in the next breath - “Not at all.”

We ourselves were slaves of sin. But notice, this is a past tense state; it was true of us, but it is no longer!

The emphasis of this sentence before us today here in Romans 6:17-18 is the past-tense nature of our enslavement to sin, and a corresponding past-tense change within us:

Romans 6:17–18 LSB

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.

“…that you were slaves of sin”; the focus is that in Christ, this enslavement to sin is no longer the case, for a great change has occured in each and every Christian. This is not describing “some of you”, a small group of “super-Christians”, who had a great experience subsequent to, and following, salvation.

No! Paul is saying that this is something true of all the saints to whom he is writing! For Paul, the great importance here in answering the question on whether or not we can sin because we’re under grace, is that we have been freed from sin, we are no longer enslaved to sin! Instead, if you are in Christ, you have already been enslaved to righteousness!

This is not some second step in Christian living, this is not some second outpouring of the Holy Spirit. In a most fundamental sense, you cannot be a true Christian if this is not true of you, and if this is true of you, you are already in Christ!

That’s why this portion of Scripture is honestly of very little value to the unbeliever, to the person who is not in Christ; instead of having already become a slave of righteousness, they remain a slave of sin.

What Paul is providing us here is a description and reminder of just how this change of ownership took place for those who are in Christ – he’s building on his argument in the first half of Romans 6, that those who he is speaking to have already been baptized, or immersed, into Christ Jesus; and if you were baptized into Christ Jesus you were baptized into His death, and so were buried with Him and also raised from the dead with Him, we walk in newness of life on account of being united with Him!

What is a Christian?

In other words, what Paul is telling us is that how we ought to behave is a result of who and what we are. So a proper understanding of what it means to be a Christian in the biblical sense is essential to how we ought to live our lives.

Now if we were to hold to the current trend of emotionalism, as too many sadly do, we would miss something vital in these verses. You know what I’m speaking of - we see such things in the videos of the many so-called revivals, when one person after another is overcome by emotion; some faint, some swoon. We see this in churches and conferences, where the soft music plays and the pastor begs and pleads with those gathered, that just one more person come up, and another, and another, as they go on and on, playing and pleading, dimming the lights and working to bring you to an emotional need.

It is an easy thing to manipulate a person’s emotions; Hollywood and TV shows and the nightly news do that with regularity. But it has no place in the church which serves Jesus Christ; we are called not to manipulate the senses, but rather to proclaim the gospel, something which seems foolish to those in the world on account of their minds being blinded to the truth, for the world is prevented from comprehending it. It is our job in the church to declare the truth of the gospel! Bringing comprehension and conviction and repentance is the exclusive domain of the Holy Spirit.

The essential question that Paul answers here in v17-18 is “what is a Christian?”

The Whole Man Involved

The first thing that ought to strike us is that what we were, namely “slaves of sin”, we no longer presently are. A very specific change has occured that involves the whole man. Our will is involved, signified by our obedience; our emotions are involved, signified by our obedience being from the heart; our mind is involved, signified by what we are obedient to, namely the “pattern of teaching”.

The Whole Man Involved

The Turning of Our Mind

What is this “pattern of teaching”, this form of doctrine that Paul is referring to? He’s been telling us all along, starting all the way back in Romans 1:16-18

Romans 1:16–18 LSB

For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, “BUT THE RIGHTEOUS WILL LIVE BY FAITH.” For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness,

The pattern of teaching we are given over to starts with the exceeding sinfulness of man, we have to see our foulness before God for what it is; all of our efforts to make ourselves right before God fall far short; the Gentiles not having the law, but naturally doing things of the law, were unable to prove righteous before God; the Jew, having the oracles of God entrusted to them, still did not believe Jesus’ proclamation as Messiah, yet still passed judgement upon the Gentiles while doing the same sin in their practice; and we ourselves, we who have been saved, are indeed no better, for all, both Jew and Gentile, are under sin.

We must see our sin for what it is, abhorrent to holy God, and set aside every notion of our own righteousness, turning to God in faith just as Abraham did, acting upon that faith as the one sole foundation of our standing before God, repenting of the exceeding sinfulness of our sin, casting ourselves at the feet of the Lord Jesus Christ as our one and only way of escape from the wrath we deserve, “being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus; whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith, for a demonstration of His righteousness, because in the forbearance of God He passed over the sins previously committed.” (Rom 3:24-25)

And we should not mistake this fact – it’s not that this teaching is given to us, but we are given to this teaching. Paul refers to it as a “pattern”, it is as if this gospel were an exquisite mold that God pours us into, so that after being formed we would reveal its shape and texture, we are conformed to it, rather than it being conformed to us.

The Whole Man Involved

The Turning of our Will

It is not a matter of simple belief that matters. There is a great trend in this day and age for people to say you must “simply believe”, and to leave it at that. This is not question of mere intellectual assent. There are hordes of those who know languages and doctrines, who listen to sermons continually, who are be able to write songs, or write religious books, who attend church regularly, yet without this obedience to the message, being conformed to it and obeying it, does not make a person a Christian. Those who do not obey are still in their sin, they are still under its dominion and rule, and remain bound to the eternal wrath of hell.

The Whole Man Involved

The Turning of Our Emotions

But again, this isn’t just a mere idea of sullen, resentful obedience that it is so often made out to be. No, this obedience is from our heart, it fully engages our emotions. Once again, there is a danger of giving in to emotionalism, to focus on feelings. This isn’t that, this is instead an emotional response to the truth of the gospel, which in turn causes us to be obedient to the gospel. This is an internal desire, not some external religiosity!

The Whole Man Involved

The Turning of the Whole

Jonathan Edwards’ great Treatise Concerning Religious Affections keys in on this very thing, that saving belief involves the whole person; it equally involves our emotions and our will and our mind, focusing all of that on the gospel, the pattern of teaching to which we were given over. His most basic point is that true spiritual affections have a spiritual source, and that it is a working-out of that source, namely the Word of God, the “pattern of teaching”, which so greatly effects the whole person that the whole of a person’s life is fundamentally changed.

God doesn’t just desire a lip-service that names and claims forgiveness, instead He desires all of our selves to be devoted to Him.

In other words, Paul is saying here the same thing which James had declared in 2:17 of his epistle, “Even so faith, if it has no works, is dead by itself.”

The Source of Change

Now there is yet more which is vital that we comprehend in this verse. I would be remiss and incomplete in my thinking if I left things at this point. Of greater importance is in the source of all of this.

You see, to stop at this point, would make me myself the authority. To stop here would be to assume that I am the one who has made this fundamental change within me.

And that would be the Arminian and Pelagian idea supported by D.L. Moody and Charles Finney, so very popular in this modern era of self-aggrandizement and self-love, that I am the one who decides entirely of my own free will to save myself. And their awful doctrines, which emphasize that I decided to follow Jesus, now permeate churches and writings throughout the world. It has infiltrated our music and our hearts, we stand abhorred at any notion which fails to give us “free will” in the popular, self-centered idea that I make my choice for or against God spontaneously, in no way conditioned or determined by any outside influence.

But this message? This pattern of teaching? We were given over to it. Obedience to the gospel is not something that we do to ourselves, we don’t choose out of the blue “gee, I think I’m going to obey from the heart that pattern of teaching.”

That’s not the case, and never has been the case! I am a slave, I don’t get to decide when I’m going to free myself from my slavery to sin, that would be to make salvation a work which I do and give me reason to boast that I, unlike so many others, chose God; I had the brains when everyone else didn’t, I had the education when everyone else didn’t, I was better than everyone because I was able to choose God when everyone else didn’t.

Paul says emphatically, “No! Absolutely not!” To say such a thing would be to deny what the apostle says here under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

We were “given over” to that pattern of teaching by none other than God Himself – that’s why the apostle gives thanks to God for this; this isn’t just some idle “oh yea, we should probably mention God here” type of statement. No, Paul is declaring to us that the reason why we are given over to this pattern of teaching is on account of an act by God; Our obedience is our certain response to what God has done to us in giving us over to it!

And so finally, in account of Paul’s revelation of what is already true of us, we come to this great statement in Rom 6:18, “and having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness.” These are facts which are true of us, now.

We have been freed, aorist tense, it’s over and done with; passive voice, we didn’t do it, it was done to us; we are the recipient of release from bondage to sin, we are no longer under its rule and reign, just as we were told back in chapter 5.

Can we still hear sin yelling at us, just as cattle sold to the neighbor still hears his former master from across the fence? Yes. Can we still be tempted? Yes. Can we still pretend that sin is still our master for a time? Also, yes.

But that is not our new reality; what Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 confirms what he says here as being true, “Or do you not know that your body is a sanctuary of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you were bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body.”

We have a new master, we are now enslaved not to sin, but to righteousness. And because we are slaves of righteousness, as verse 16 declares, we will do the deeds of righteousness.

If we were to lay this out on a timeline from start to finish, we would realize that everything begins and ends with God, it is He who established the “pattern of teaching” first, and then it is according to His decree that we were “given over” to it, and finally we “obeyed” that pattern to which we’ve been given over “...from the heart” on account of what He has done.

We are freed from the dominion of sin, and enslaved to the dominion of righteousness as our new and glorious master!

Thanks be to God!

Let us Pray!