Profoundly Changed

I trust that you will remember that we are working through Paul’s reasoning out of Romans 6:19 in verses 20–23, to remind us all of that great command let’s read it:

Romans 6:19 LSB

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.

It is vital, Paul was saying, that we think of this relationship we have either to sin or to righteousness within the terminology of slavery, that although that characterization is not absolutely correct, on account of the frailty and weakness in our ability to comprehend, that thinking of this relationship in anything less is completely insufficient to the task.

Now I know that most commentators and preachers like to say that he is using an analogy here, that we should not take this literally. But my friends, I just cannot see anything of the sort here. There is no such indication by the apostle, no notion of “I’m using the word slave as an analogy”, or “it is like you are a slave”, or “as if you were a slave”. No, no! He is clear and adamant on this fact, that we are to think of ourselves in this human term. If the question was one of mere words, then God in His sovereignty could most assuredly ensure we have the necessary language. So, we use the terms of slavery because of our inability to comprehend the concept itself is limited, similar to Jesus’ admonition to Nicodemus in John 3:12, “If I told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things?”

Of course we understand that is only a start, but even we who are in Christ Jesus, and perhaps especially we who are in Christ Jesus, simply must think of life in Christ in these terms, because in the weakness of our flesh; any thinking which fails to begin in these terms cannot bring us to understand why it is that we, who are not under law but under grace, should never even consider sinning.

And so, he puts the command in this manner, “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.”

But, rather than simply leaving it at the simple command, Paul is anxious for us to more fully understand why it is is we ought to listen and obey this command, first in the negative sense in verses 20 & 21:

Romans 6:20–21 LSB

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.

Recall, the apostle has reminded us of our personal past, that we each were individually slaves of sin, even going so far as to redefine righteousness in our own terms rather than to submit to God’s righteousness. Instead of doing righteousness, we instead had absolutely no relationship with it, we were free in regard to it, we have no acquaintance with true righteousness at all!

And what did that sorry state produce within us? Did it yield anything good, anything wholesome, anything worthwhile? Of course not! Its produce was rotten and detestable through and through, it carried with it the stench of death! In fact, far from producing something we’re proud of, it instead produced only shame. Shame we felt then, while we were still under the realm and rule of sin, and even more so now that we are in Christ Jesus, for now we recognize that our former way of life was not only one of emptiness, but that it was totally and utterly abhorrent to God! Everything that we did and thought, everything we once had pride in, we now are only ashamed of; and in salvation we have repented of that manner of life to God for this reason! It was rubbish fit only for the dung-heap, and we are ashamed of it entirely, we want nothing to do with that life any longer!

But this is not the only reason Paul has exhorted us to present our members as slaves to righteousness, no! As glorious and as freeing as this is, as joyful as it is to realize our condemnation has been removed, he has yet more to exclaim!

Romans 6:22 LSB

But now having been freed from sin and enslaved to God, you have your benefit, leading to sanctification, and the end, eternal life.

“But now...” Perhaps some of the greatest words to be found in the whole of Scripture! For what we once were, we no longer are! This is not some process Paul describes, or some second and later experience, no!

One moment there you were in your sin, a slave to it and a complete stranger to righteousness, living in your sin and shame, and the next this great and profound change occurred; what you were you no longer are. Before was then; before you were free in regard to righteousness, “but now” no longer. “You were, but now you are!” This is not simply adding a “little dash of Jesus” to your life, but it is a complete and radical change which affects the whole man. It is so very profound, that it is the most profound thing which can ever happen to a person! Even our physical death is not so great a change as this, there is no other change which can be so sudden, or so monumental, as coming to be in Christ.

And this is the present state of all who are in Him – if you are a Christian this is true of you, and if this is not true of you, you are not a Christian!

And just what is it that is true of us? What is the nature of this profound change?

To begin with, we have been freed from sin! Be certain you understand this rightly, Paul is not giving us something to strive for! This is not something we need to reach for and do in order to attain a sinless life, no! This is no command, that was verse 19, and only verse 19 for this entire section from verse 15 all the way through to verse 23! No, this is something that is true of us!

Understand this rightly! We were united with Christ in His death, we were crucified and died and buried with Him, that just as He died to sin, we died to sin through our union with Him! So now, we are no longer slaves to sin! We’ve been justified from its guilt, we’ve been removed from its condemnation!

We ought to enjoy this, to revel in this great truth! We should rejoice with both David and Paul in Romans 4, that “blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will not take into account”!

But not stopping there, we have more importantly been freed from the rule and dominion of sin over us; its rule over us is over, it’s done with.

We who are truly Christian, have, at a definite time in the past, been freed from the tyrannical rule of sin over our lives! It no longer defines us, as it once did! Rather than living in harmony and being beholden to the lusts of the flesh, the lustful desires of the eyes, and the boastful pride of life, we ourselves have been removed from that kingdom of darkness, we’re no longer in it!

We have been emancipated from being set down into the realm and rule of sin, we are no longer appointed and constituted as sinners! Sin truly no longer controls us, it is no longer authorized and empowered to mandate how I think, and what I do!

I say it this way specifically, because we truly ought to be recalling in our minds the terms of those last verses of Romans 5:12-21, that as we were in Adam, so now we are in Christ, culminating in Rom 5:20-21, saying “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.”

So when we now think of this statement Romans 6:22, “having been freed from sin” in Romans 5 terms, I trust that you would realize that what we are talking about in this “having been freed from sin” statement, is to bring us back up to the state of Adam before his Fall, this would indeed bring us back and restore something of a balance.

You will recall, Adam in his original condition had the ability to either do righteousness or the ability to sin. He had the choice, he could do as he wished. Adam had not been placed into the dominion and rule of either state. And yet after Eve broke the command of God to not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, being deceived by the serpent, Adam knowingly and willfully ate after her. He chose to sin, following Eve rather than following God, he chose to sin, Rom 5:12 “...through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned—” Rom 5:18 “...through one transgression there resulted condemnation to all men”.

And what Paul is telling us here in saying we “have been freed from sin”, is that we who were once appointed, set down into the realm and rule of sin, have in our salvation been removed from that realm! We’ve been freed from that rule and dominion of sin, as an essential element of salvation, it is salvation, you cannot be in Christ Jesus without this having happened to you! This horrid result of Adam’s sin has been reversed for all those who are in Christ Jesus! This is incredible news for us! It ought to bring us great relief, great joy!

But this good news doesn’t stop there! There is even better news for us, signified with this word, “and”. Being freed from sin is not the end of the apostle’s thought! As wondrous as that is, there’s more to this change than just being restored to the state similar to that of Adam before the Fall!

But the sad truth is, many people – many Christians, even! – simply stop here! They stop with the idea that the Christian is restored to the state of Adam, living in fear that they will fall out of this state of grace, that they will sin once again and be subjected to the wrath of God.

The problem with that is that they don’t go on, in their hearts they don’t fully realize that Paul is not done yet! And so having prematurely stopped reading, or perhaps stopped taking him at his word, they have a flawed and incomplete understanding of the full depth of this enormous change which we have undergone! They don’t truly understand just what it means to be a Christian!

Why? Because not only have we been freed from sin, but we have also been enslaved to God! Being freed from sin is only a part of what has already been done to us! Is it great? Yes! Is it amazing? Yes! Is it wondrous? Yes, to all these things!

But “…where sin increased, grace abounded all the more”, Paul said in Romans 5:20! Grace super-abounded over sin, it didn’t simply restore us to where Adam was, but “grace abounded” – super-abounded – “all the more”!

In many ways, this entire sixth chapter is an exposition on the mechanics of grace super-abounding over sin, that God does not simply restore us to a state of Adam’s ability to not sin, but we are also, at the same time as we are freed from the slavery of Sin, immediately and concurrently also enslaved to God.

This is not some one-off, obscure or isolated thought! No! In 1 Corinthians 6:20, this same apostle puts it this way, that “you were bought with a price.” Colossians 1:13, says that we were "… rescued ... from the authority of darkness, and transferred ... to the kingdom of the Son of His love,”

In other words, I hope you are beginning to realize that there is no pause between being “freed from sin” and being “enslaved to God”, both occur at the very moment of salvation. If you are a Christian, if you confess Jesus as Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, these things have happened to you already! It’s over, it’s done with, these changes are complete and irrevocable. You can’t free yourself from the dominion of sin – you don’t have to, it has already been done to you! You can’t even enslave yourself to God – again, you don’t have to, it’s already done; the doing of these things is complete, it is finished!

It’s vital that we realize that we are not the one who does these things – this freeing and this enslaving. Both of these are things that are true of me, and they are true of every Christian. We can’t do it! Everything we do results in further condemnation, Romans 3:20 saying that “...by the works of the Law NO FLESH WILL BE JUSTIFIED IN HIS SIGHT, for through the Law comes the knowledge of sin.” Paul wrote in Galatians 2:21, “...if righteousness comes through the Law, then Christ died needlessly.”

And yet, Christ’s death, far from being needless, was required. He was the stone which the builders rejected, He became the chief corner stone (Acts 4:11), Acts 4:12 continuing, “And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved.”

God publicly displayed Him as a propitiation in his blood through faith, for a demonstration of righteousness at the present time, so that He would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus, Romans 3 declares.

A person cannot free themselves from sin, they cannot enslave themselves to God. These things God alone does, and He will have mercy on whom He has mercy, and compassion on whom He has compassion, chapter 9 declares, Rom 9:16 “So then it does not depend on the one who wills or the one who runs, but on God who has mercy.”

Oh, that God had mercy and compassion upon all who hear my voice!

But we cannot stop here, we’re not done! We’ve had a change, a profound change, and look what has already come of that change! “You have your benefit”! Before, we had a benefit which was no benefit at all, it only produced shame and misery within us! Yet now? Now we who in Christ currently, presently have, “your benefit leading to sanctification”.

Each one of us who are in Christ Jesus presently possesses this spectacular and specific benefit, and that benefit is that indescribable thing which produces sanctification, it produces holiness. We go elsewhere to learn more about this magnificent fruit, this things which wells up inside us to the point of overflowing us, Paul aptly describes this benefit in Galatians 5:22-23, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such things there is no law.”

We’re talking about the fruit of the spirit, here! We have this benefit, this fruit, upon salvation, it’s not something that we can go out and buy, it’s not some later addition or experience which some may have, and others not. No! This is something which again is true of all true Christians, and if there is no real fruit, you again have every reason to worry whether you are a Christian at all!

It is there, inside us, welling up within us and overflowing, oozing out of us; and what it produces, what it is certain to cause in our lives, is ever more sanctification!

Now, it’s important that we realize that holiness, or sanctification, comes not from what we do, but from what God has done! It is not an experience which we must seek, or an emotion which we must feel.

No, instead to be holy is to be dedicated and purposed for God, similar to the utensils and vessels of the temple which were set apart and . And just as Galatians helped us understand this benefit of ours, this fruit, Paul also wrote of the deeds which stood at emnity with holiness in Galatians 5:19-21, “Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions, envying, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these, of which I forewarn you, just as I have forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.”

Just as our slavery to sin had a benefit, a fruit, which was the result of the character of our former master Sin, so, too do we now have a benefit and fruit on account of our being enslaved to God!

Now let’s remind ourselves why it is the apostle has taken us down this road, namely to answer the question posed in verse 15, “Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace?”

And his answer is “That’s preposterous, how can we do such a monstrous thing!” God saved us out from the dominion of sin, it is no longer our master!

Does sin still try to command us? Are we still tempted? Of course we are! Paul wrote in Rom 6:12 “Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts,” it is still present and it still desires to reign over us! But rather than being our master, it’s domination over us has ended, and there can be no truce between the kingdom of darkness and the kingdom of God, and we are no longer under the reign and rule of sin!

In other words, Sin is, at best, an annoyance and a nuisance which we ourselves no longer must obey. I have a new master, Paul has been working this out for us continually in this last half of chapter 6, we are slaves of obedience in verse 16, of righteousness in verse 18 and 19, and to God now in verse 22.

How could we even consider turning back to listen to a deposed monarch?

We can’t. And by the grace of our Lord, we don’t have to! Praise God!

Let us pray!