From Slavery into Slavery part 2

Introduction/Recap

Last week we dipped our feet into verses 17 through 19, which has much for us to absorb with critical implications. In Verse 17, Paul reminds his readers that formerly they were servants or slaves of sin. This reality, accoring to the greek, was an ever present continuous state of slavery. We all were, at one point of our lives enslaved to sin, walking according to the course of this world, fulfilling the lusts of the flesh and the desires of the mind. But there came a time, when we knew and understood the gospel of Jesus, and we obeyed it and believed it. We from our very core, accepted and believed in its truth, turning from idols to serve the living God and in repentance and faith we turned to Jesus for our own salvation.

Subsequently, we read in verse 18 then that afterwards, after our conversion, we are made free from sin, and we became the servants of righteousness. This freedom from sin must be understood in light of the rest of the chapter. Understood incorrectly can you lead you to false assumptions such as sinless perfection which can only lead you to disappointment.

Verse 2 tells us “We are dead to sin”

Verse 6 tells us “That our old man the body of sin was crucified, so that we should serve sin no longer”

Verse 7 tells us “That those who are dead are freed from sin”

Finally, Verse 20 ”Tells us were free from serving the other master, whoever that may be”

Our freedom from sin is a freedom from the power and penalty of sin, and ultimately the prescence of sin. Contextually, “being made free from sin” additionally means free from the forced service to sin. It continues, “being made free from sin, you became the servants of righteousness”. After our deliverance from the service of sin, we then became servants to righteousness. This reinforces to us that there is never a complete sovereign freedom for mankind. We will always either be servants of sin or servants of righteousness. When were freed from one, its to be in service to the other.

When God commanded Pharaoh to let his people go, do you suppose the intention was that they would just do whatever they wanted when they were let go haha? “God Forbid” No it was do as he pleased, it was as its written that ”they may serve me in the wilderness”. This is also true of believers. We have been made free from sin, to become servants of Our God.

We were formerly servants to sin, and now we are servants to rightousness. Moving on to our next verse, “I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh”. We discussed that this is Paul explaining to his readers that the illustration of slavery is an accomodation to them, to help them understand this spiritual truth that he is trying to convey. He is saying if I could expand on it, Brothers, I am speaking to you in human terms to help you understand what I am saying because of the weakness of your flesh and mind to understand this spiritual truth. I presented to you two reasons why I believe its important to understand the beginning of this verse.

Paul uses slave terminology to illustrate to us, our position of obedience to righteousness, and subsequently to God. In other words, just as the slave does not have any leverage to negotiate with his master, so to we do not have any leverage to negotiate with God what we will and we will not obey. God commands and we obey, and in the latter part of the verse Paul compares the slavelike obedience we once were bound in to sin, with the slavelike obedience we are now bound to in righteousness.

The second reason its important to understand this statement is because its provides balance in how we understand our position as slaves of Christ. Jesus was commonly referred to as Lord throughout the NT. Usually this word falls into one of two greek words that have similar but seperate meanings. One of them we see in Luke 6:46 “And why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?” The greek word used there is Kurios which translates God, Lord, Master. So the absurdity of a servant who does not obey his Kurious or Master is preposterous.

This is all true, Jesus is our master and according to the text we are his slaves. But because of our fleshly minds, we can find this repulsive. Why? Because for us slavery is repulsive, and from our modern lense, we only see the negative connonations that come with it. And this is true perhaps of every generation that read or heard this very chapter as well. There is, an example found in Deuteronomy 15:12-17 that shows us that a Master/Slave relationship was not always a negative one or a bad one, and sometimes a desirable one. Evidently, it was important enough to God that he gave specific teaching to the Israelites for this sort of scenario.

Whats the point? This is the point. That we must understand that, we are to be slaves of Christ and slaves of righteousness. There’s no way to get around the text. And yet we must also realize this is an illustration, and that while we are slaves of Christ, it isnt the type of slavery that our minds jump to immediately, but it is a slavery and service to a good and kind Master, one who treats us well and protects us, and has done so much to make us his own. We must also not neglect the other scriptures where we are called friends of Christ John 15:15, we are called Sons of God 1 John 3:1, Co-Heirs with Christ Rom 8:17, where we are called his brethren unashamedly by him Heb 2:11.

Having said that we move on to the latter part of the verse, lets re read it Rom 6:19.

All people who are unregenerate, only produce sin and yield to sin. They may do “moral” deeds but even these deeds because done with an incorrect understanding do not bring God glory and thus are selfish ultimately and are sin. So then, their life is filled with only Uncleaness and Iniquity. Uncleaness can be understood as inward impurity. Its a ceremonial uncleaness, a defilement. This is an inward impurity. Iniquity can be understood as the opposite, its translated in other places as Lawlessness. These are external sins, Drunkness, Murder, Adultery. The natural man is filled with both internal and external sins, which as the texts says, leads to more iniquity. His sin only leads to greater amounts of sin. Like a disease, it slowy destroys the body and as James says when its matured, leads to death.

“For as ye have yielded…Even so now yield .” Interestingly, he contrasts our former natures behavior to completly yield and give in to sin with our new natures duty and ability to completly yield and give in to righteousness. In other words Paul contrasts this nature of obedience to sin, with how we are to behave in accord with our new master. We are, to yield ourselves in the same way as was in the past. But now, unto righteousness which leads to holiness or sanctification. Now we yield ourselves unto Gods commands and desires.

According to the text, There is no middle ground in our sanctification. We are either yielding our members unto uncleaness and iniquity or we are surrendering our members to righteousness which leads to holiness.

The late Martyn Lloyd-Jones wrote, “As you go on living this righteous life, and practicing it with all your might and energy, and all your time … you will find that the process that went on before, in which you went on from bad to worse and became viler and viler, is entirely reversed. You will become cleaner and cleaner, and purer and purer, and holier and holier, and more and more conformed unto the image of the Son of God”

Macarthur put it this way “No one stands still morally and spiritually. Just as unbelievers progress from sinfulness to greater sinfulness, a believer who is not growing in righteousness, though never falling back altogether out of righteousness, will slip further and further back into sin”

This is exceptionally true. Certainly when Im walking with the Lord, there comes a time when I become tired, and decide, I think I’m going to slow down the gears a bit. The voice in my head tells me “You’ve earned it, you deserve just a bit of rest. Why not just take a break for a short while. You’re doing so much, you can afford to just take one night off. This is when you metaphorically undo a notch or two from your belt, and relax.

It is here that the potential for our greatest failures take place, its here that sin lieth at the door. It’s a critical and important truth to understand, one that I need to tell myself over and over, that there is no neutrality in this world, it is either for God or its against him. Every action I take is a moment of yielding my members unto sin, or yielding my members unto God. God tells us then that we are yield our members as slaves of righteousness which leads to holiness.

Rom 6:20. In our BC days, before Christ, we were servants of sin, and subsequently free from righteousness. Thats an interesting concept. We were free in regards to righteousness to live however we pleased. At lease from our perspective we were “free”. So Righteousness, and ultimately God was not our master whom we obey, but rather sin. We were free from the standards that righteousness imposes on us. This is true for all people who have not been converted. This is why we can not preach simply reformation to someone who is still yet a slave. He must and will obey his master which is sin, and we can not expect him to clean up his act, while remaining a slave of sin. He must first be freed from the ownership of sin, and become a servant a righteousness, then he can obey his master.

Rom 6:21. When we were free from righteousness, we lived as we chose right? We did the things we wanted to do. We were in service to sin. But now when we look back at our old life, there’s a shame of it. There’s a lyric in a song we’ll sing tonight, “The sin that promised joy and life, had led me to the grave.” What was the benefit of our sin? What was the fruit that it bore for us? Temporary fleeting joy? Perhaps. Ultimately the only fruit sin ever bares in Death, Destruction, and Despair. It not only ravages our lives in this life, but will lead us to the second death as we receive our just reward for our sin.

As we read in verse 19, the fruit of sin is just more sin, and greater plunges into human depravity. But this reinforces something that Paul said in that verse. Our actions have consequences, who we serve matters. Verse 16 says its either sin which leads to death, or obedience which leads to righteousness. Sin’s fruith which is death, or obediences fruit which is righteousness.

Rom 6:22 As a matter of reality, we are no longer servants of sin, and thus our end is not death. The fruit we bare is not shameful, but instead its holiness and Godly living. And the end of THOSE things is everlasting life. As servants of God, our benefit is sanctification. Again, I want to mention that being made free from sin is not an indication that we are no longer capable of sinning, but instead we are free from the tyranny that sin had over us.

Throughout the chapter Paul reinforces over and over again, that how we live is crucial to understanding who we belong to. That we can not be both alive and dead in sin. That we are either alive in Christ or Dead in Sin. He goes further in commanding those who are alive in Christ to behave as alive, and instead of yielding your members as slaves and instruments to sin, yield them as slaves and instruments or weapons unto God, unto Righteousness which leads to holiness. He introduces to us that who we serve has implications, sin which leads to death or obedience which leads to righteousness. Finally we see it sumarised in a verse most familar to us, lets read Rom 6:23.

Rom 6:23. The final verse of the chapter essentially summarizes the gist of the chapter. Throughout chapter 6 were presented with Differing Natures, Differing Masters, Differing Fruit, and lasty Differing Destinies. The wages of sin is death. The reward or compensation of sin is death. When we remain dead in sin, serving sin, Rom 1 says we are storing up wrath against ourselves for the day of wrath, and eventually we reap the harvest of the fruit we’ve bore, and thats death. Not only a physical death, but more significantly referring to the second death. God pays us back for our sin with death, thats the wage its owed.

On the Contrary, while we work, as slaves of sin, God offers us not a wage or reward but a gift. God offers a gift to mankind, this gift is Eternal Life, found only in and through Jesus Christ our Lord. This is the great climax of the chapter. Jesus Christ is the only way from sin unto death, to righteousness unto holiness whose end is eternal life. This is the principal that Paul has been driving away at since the beginning. How shall we go on sinning, if weve died to sin, if weve been united with Christ, how shall we go on sinning when by doing so we are only demonstrating who our master is, and how shall we go on sinning if weve been freed from sin, and now were ashamed of those things, but now were free from sin and servants to God, and no longer do earn wages for our sin, because we have accepted the gift of God, eternal life in Christ.

Closing.

Not coincidentally, The chapter begins with life and death and finishes with Life and with death. How we behave demonstrates who we serve. These two truths are completly and absolutely irreconcialable. Spiritual death is the reward for our service to sin, while eternal life is the gift God gives to us, who were formerly servants of sin, but now servants to God who believe on his son.

I hope this study into Rom 6 will help you as it has helped me to grow in my holiness. Like that freeclimbing documentary, once you know and believe these truths, you can live in the liberty of Jesus Christ, free from tyranny sin claims to have over you, free to serve God and please him.