The Ends of Enslavement

I know that many of us have heard this verse from childhood, on account of what has been called the “Romans Road”.

But I want you to set aside much of your pre-conceived ideas about this verse as a stand-alone thought, and consider it in light of this great passage we have been studying, for this verse has a particular context within Paul’s present discourse regarding the place of sin in the life of the believer, rooted within the reality expressed in verse 16, that when you continually present yourself to someone as a slave for obedience, you really are slaves of the one whom you obey.

And Paul has been working out this theme for us in many ways, reminding us that once we all were slaves of sin, we all were free in regard to righteousness, having no relationship with righteousness, and indeed we were strangers to it.

But, for those in Christ Jesus, this is no longer the case, he says. We who are in Christ now, were previously given over to a pattern of teaching, a doctrine, the great truth of the gospel, we’ve been freed by God from this slavery to sin, and have instead been enslaved to righteousness.

Now we know that this term slavery is not quite right, but because of the weakness of our flesh, this body of sin which we ourselves must continue to endure until it, too, is redeemed at the coming of our Lord, it is still necessary for us to think of it in these terms. It’s not an analogy, per se, but on account of our not yet being fully conformed to the image of Christ this is the best possible way for us to understand this great concept.

And so, it only makes sense that we who are in Christ Jesus ought to stop and consider our former manner of life – how we lived when we were slaves of sin and free in regard to righteousness. Certainly, we consciously and actively presented our members as slaves to impurity and lawlessness – we were appointed to that, set down in the realm and rule of sin, and so we did habitually and continually sin.

And just as we knowingly and continually presented our members – not just our physical bodies, but also our faculties, our thinking, our emotions, even our likes and dislikes – to the exercise of sin, so now, now that we are in Christ Jesus, now that we have been transferred into the realm and rule of righteousness, even so now we ought to present our members as slaves to righteousness. And to be clear, this is not the flawed and deficient righteousness defined by prideful, fickle man, but now we speak of the righteousness as defined by God, to the most right thing according to God’s holy righteousness.

Paul has even reminded us of the intense shame we now feel at those things we once did, not content to view our life as being neutral, or without value one way or the other, but we view our life prior to our union with Christ as a negative, something to be disposed of along with all of the other trash. We don’t hold on to it, because not only do we not cherish it, but we are ashamed of it, before God and men alike.

No, instead we have our benefit, our fruit which wells up inside us, which leads us ever more into a life characterized by holiness, progressively sanctifying us as we walk further and further in the path of righteousness.

But now, it is time to focus on the ends of these things. The end of slavery to sin on the one hand, and the end of slavery to God on the other. For both of these paths have their own distinct and drastic end which they are sure to arrive at.

And all along, Paul has been building up to these ultimate results of our slavery either to Sin or to God, and so finally in this last verse of the chapter we come face to face with the end results of such slavery, saying

Romans 6:23 LSB

For the wages of sin is death, but the gracious gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Now to be certain, this is not just a simple ending to this present question of slavery, but this statement also serves as a parallel to Romans 5:21, “so that, as sin reigned in death, even so grace would reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” They both say very much the same thing, they are meant to parallel each other in that here within this one verse, Paul is essentially tying up the entire argument of chapter 6 in which he has soundly refuted this charge that his teaching of salvation by faith alone in the finished work of Christ alone in chapters 3 through 5, culminating in that great comparison that just as we were in Adam, so now we are in Jesus Christ. It is an end, as it were, of this first great parenthesis in which Paul fully addresses this very serious accusation against him, that he teaches “let us do evil that good may come”, as he mentioned in chapter 3.

And you will recall the forms this argument took, first in Romans 6:1, asking “What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase?” And then subsequently in Romans 6:15, “What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace?” And both are met with a resounding refrain, “May it never be!” “God forbid!” It is unthinkable to consider such a thing!

And so now, in verse 23, Paul intertwines both halves of his entire argument by reminding us of the end results of our certain slavery either to sin on the one hand, or to God on the other.

Who is your Master?

The fact is, that there are two and only two possibilities in the end, and we must be certain to realize that which of these two ends we shall meet depends entirely upon who is master over us, either the slave-master Sin, or the slave-master God. There is no third option, and there are no gradations or degrees possible between them, for there is a stark difference between each master; they are diametrically opposed to one another such that there can be no quarter given between them; to obey one is by definition to disobey the other, to be an obedient slave to one is to be free from any relationship with the other.

What Paul is saying here, that many today so very easily miss, is that our human idea of “he’s a good man” means absolutely nothing to God. We look at the outside of a person, we are easily fooled by someone who looks good, someone who dresses and speaks well, someone who seems to have it “all together”. Helping the poor, championing the downtrodden, giving to great causes while speaking of morals and ethics and “doing right” may all be things that impress people in our modern era, but all of these things, God declares, by themselves mean nothing at all. If a thing is not done for the true glory of God alone, it is done still as a slave to sin, it is still only a filthy rag!

What God cares about, is who is your Master? For our master determines our end, our master determines our benefit or fruit, our master determines our eternity.

Wages of Sin

And so, we come to the first master, Sin. We were made and constituted, appointed to the realm and rule of Sin through the one transgression by our federal head, Adam. Romans 5:12 declared, “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 sin pays certain and definite wages. Paul has been weaving this theme into the very fabric of this second argument, starting right with the principle laid out in verse 16, “…you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness.” In verse 19, “you presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness, leading to further lawlessness,” and finally in verse 21, “the end of those things is death.”

In a sense, Paul is merely echoing the principle God gave to Adam in Genesis 2:17, “but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat from it; for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.” Disobedience to God carries with it an inevitable, inescapable conclusion – death.

There is a certain self-evident truth about this, it ought to be obvious to we who are in Christ Jesus and no longer under this master, for we did “present our members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness.” We saw something desirable to ourselves, and although we knew it to be wrong that impure and unclean thought gave birth to lawlessness, as we ignore rule and law altogether as we reach further and further to partake of that forbidden fruit, the thing we knew we were not to be doing. And so our impurity and lawlessness led further and further into lawlessness.

Paul is not saying “the wages of the sin you do is death”. No, that would be completely foreign to the context he’s been working from, repeatedly talked of sin in a personified sense, sin as a harsh and shameful master. To the Christian he has repeatedly reminded us, “you were slaves of sin”.

So rather than quibbling about degrees of sin, Paul is instead concerned as to whether or not Sin remains as your Slave-Master. That is why it was so very important for Paul to have first established for us the principle in verse 16, that when you present yourself as a slave for obedience, you are indeed the slave of the master you obey!

And Slave-Master Sin pays out exactly what is owed. I shudder every time I hear someone talk about what they deserve, because this here is what we truly deserve. Sin doesn’t pay anything except was is deserved, and serving Sin, rendering service to sin, means you merit a just wage, Sin would not be fair to withhold that wage from you. Just as if I do work for my employer and my employer refuses to pay me, I have a legal recourse to force them to pay that debt. Just so, is this wage which sin distributes.

This is a hopeless state, and Slave-Master Sin pays out a terrifying wage, namely death. And let’s be clear here, although this death includes a physical death, that can’t be what Paul is referring to here! By the time he wrote Romans, Paul knew that both believers and non-believers had all died physically, Paul was even clear about this when he appeared before Agrippa in Acts 26, saying “when they were being put to death I cast my vote against them.” So what, then, does this future death paid by enslavement to sin refer to?

I think that we get our cue from the context, Paul is not talking about the immediate things right in front of us here and now, rather he is instead speaking of the end, the second death.

Revelation 20:12-13 sets the stage for us, “Then I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne, and books were opened; and another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged from the things which were written in the books, according to their deeds. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead which were in them, and they were judged, every one of them according to their deeds.” In other words, they are being given their wages, what they deserve. And then the key for us:

Revelation 20:14–15 LSB

Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.

To be there, at the final judgement, and to be found outside of being in Christ Jesus, and to be thrown into the lake of fire and brimstone for all eternity, to be tormented there day and night forever and ever, as Rev 20:10 declares, is the absolute and certain wage paid by Sin to all who are enslaved to him.

And, to be sure, John’s words in Revelation no different than Paul’s own writing in Romans 2:5-8, “But because of your stubbornness and unrepentant heart you are storing up wrath for yourself in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, who WILL REPAY TO EACH ACCORDING TO HIS WORKS: to those who by perseverance in doing good seek for glory and honor and immortality, eternal life; but to those who are selfishly ambitious and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, wrath and anger.”

For, recall, it is by our works that we reveal who our master truly is!

The Gracious Gift

So, as we turn to the gracious gift of God, eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord, we ought to be struck by the immense contrasts between this end, and the first end; contrasts between the masters, contrasts between what the masters give their slaves, and contrasts in the end results.

The first contrast we see, is the absolute contrast of the masters – sin on the one hand, God on the other. Each demanding absolute obedience, each entirely opposed to the other. This ought to be nothing new to us, but it’s important that we recall to our minds that these 2 masters, Sin which is by definition a mark-misser and is at emnity with God and all He stands for, and God Himself on the other hand, of whom 1 John 1:5 declares, “And this is the message we have heard from Him and declare to you, that God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all.” God is entirely holy and entirely just.

The second contrast is what the master gives to his slaves. Slave-Master Sin gives wages, whereas Slave-Master God gives gifts. Again, there is an absolute and foundational difference between these things.

So let’s consider the nature of God’s giving a “gracious gift” together for a moment.

Now I trust you will to some degree recall that we have seen this term, “gracious gift” before in our study of Romans 5, especially in verses 15–17. This is a gift given freely, yes, but more than that it is a gift which is absolutely and entirely the result of the unmerited favor bestowed upon a person by God, it is a tangible benefit which may never be earned or deserved.

You cannot earn a gift, you cannot deserve a gift, or it is not a gift but a wage. You can’t take your friend to court because they failed to give you a gift, but you can take your friend to court if they fail to pay you your wages.

In other words, this is a gracious gift. You can’t earn it, you can’t buy it, you can’t deserve it; and on account of God’s great holiness and man’s great sinfulness, you can’t demand or shame God into giving it to you.

It is entirely something that we don’t deserve, all we can do is be thankful when He does chose to give it to someone!

And, of course, the last contrast here is in the end the slavery comes to. Slave-master Sin’s wage is death, Slave-Master God’s gift is eternal life. And once again, these two results could not be more different!

In fact, I want to be very specific here: “but the gracious gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” The words are very specific here, and I call this out because many of us learned and memorized this in the King James as “but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” The proper translation of the Greek is “in Christ Jesus”, not “through Jesus Christ”. Why? Why am I making such a deal about this?

Because how we receive this great and gracious gift, is through our union with Christ Jesus, being baptized and immersed into Him in His death, and burial, and resurrection. Paul is purposefully, through the very language he uses, bringing both parts of his great argument regarding how we live our life, all together in this one statement.

We saw this unique phrasing back in Romans 6:3, “Or do you not know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death?” and again in Romans 6:11, “Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.” This word ordering “Christ Jesus” is very distinct from the normal “Jesus Christ”, and serves to set apart this teaching through emphasizing the Son’s authority as Christ, over and above His humanity as Jesus.

When we consider the gift itself, “eternal life”, this is not talking about the duration of life, but instead it is talking about the quality of that life. Just as Sin’s wage of death spoke of the eternal separation from God in the lake of fire and brimstone for all eternity, “tormented day and night forever and ever”, even so now this eternal life speaks about what we will be doing and experiencing for all eternity. To think of it merely as “existence without end” is to miss the point entirely!

For when we are in Christ Jesus, we are united with Him in His nature not just as man, but as God. God who is, by His very nature not only self-existent and eternal, but is by nature holy. I think that perhaps Jesus’ high priestly prayer in John 17 will help us better understand:

John 17:1–3 LSB

Jesus spoke these things; and lifting up His eyes to heaven, He said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify Your Son, that the Son may glorify You, even as You gave Him authority over all flesh, that to all whom You have given Him, He may give eternal life. “And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.

It’s not only that we will exist forever, but we will exist forever knowing God, not as we do now as if through a veil, but in all of His glory, John later says in the third chapter of his first epistle, “We know that when He is manifested, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is.”

So when we are faced with these questions found in verses 1 and 15, “Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase?”, “Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace?”, I trust we now see and understand the apostle’s immediate response – may it never be!

How can we continue to present our bodies to sin, with such a great master as God?

For our master not only determines our service, but our end!

Let us pray!