On Sunday, Jonathon taught our Sunday School class and dealt with the difference between obedience and excellence. He was encouraging us to strive for obedience and holiness rather than simply striving for excellence in our Christian walk. This is definitely something about which God has continued to deal with me since beginning my walk with Him. One part of Jonathon’s study was defining what it means to live holy on a daily basis. He mentioned living disciplined in our daily choices and he quoted Romans 6:18, which includes Paul’s exhortation to be ‘ slaves to righteousness.’ God really caught me with that phrase and drew me to take another look at Romans 6. Tonight I just want to share some thoughts concerning that passage and echo some of what Jonathan said on Sunday.
To begin, it is always helpful to understand where we are in the book. It is no mystery that Paul is offering his doctrine of salvation during the first half of Romans. He spends the first couple of chapters simply identifying the terrible state that men are in without Christ. By chapter 3, he is ready to spell out the work of Christ and all that He accomplished on the cross. He continues to talk about justification in chapters 4 and 5. When he gets to chapter 6, he begins to flesh out his teaching on sin and the believer. The chapter begins with the famous question: ‘ Are we to continue in sin that grace might increase?’ Of course his answer is an emphatic NO! He spends the rest of the chapter explaining this answer. In the passage we are looking at tonight, we see somewhat of a summation of his thought throughout the chapter. With all that in mind, let’s take a look at his argument offered in these verses.
1. Paul begins by acknowledging that we were once slaves to sin. Verse 17 reads, ‘ But thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin.’ This is a very basic teaching for believers, but what does it mean to be a slave to sin? Paul answers that question throughout the chapter. Look at verses 12-13, ‘ Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body that you should obey its lusts, and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness.’ As we talked about a couple weeks ago, before we were believers, sin reigned in our lives. It had dominion over us. We pursued it all the time, for it was our master.
Yet, we did have a freedom as non-believers. This may seem strange but verse 20 says, ‘ For when you were slaves to sin, you were free in regard to righteousness.’ We were slaves to sin, but we were free from righteousness. We were born into wickedness and were not righteous. In that state there was no way for us to be righteous; thus, Paul can say that we were free from it
But what a horrible freedom. Where does that freedom lead a person? Paul tells us in verse 23, ‘ For the wages of sin is death.’ How horrible. If we were left to ourselves, we would have enjoyed our freedom from righteousness all the way to the grave. We usually associate freedom with positive things, yet this freedom is not rewarding. It is not positive. It is not to be desired. Thanks be to God that He did not leave us in that state of freedom, but rather made us slaves. This leads us to the next point in Paul’s argument.
2. We have become slaves to righteousness. Let’s look at 17 again: ‘ But thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed, and having been freed from sin, you became slaves to righteousness.’ What a striking term. We are now slaves to the righteousness of God. To me, this is one of those phrases that I can remind myself of when I am faced with temptation. I can remind the devil that I am no longer a slave to sin and free from righteousness, but rather, I am a slave to righteousness.
Someone may ask, ‘But is that really freedom?’ Yes!! It is freedom from the dominion of sin. We are no longer chained to that which can only drag us down to death. Yes, we are slaves, but in our slavery we find the greatest joy there is, namely, the presence of Almighty God.
One way to look at this is to recall the teaching of Jesus in Matthew 11. In verse 28 He says, ‘ Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you, and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart; and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.’ I was studying that passage here recently and I wrote out beside these verses, ‘Find rest for your souls in the yoke of Christ.’ That is not usually how it works. But we must remember with whom we are dealing. Yes, it is a yoke, and yes, it is slavery, for being a Christian is not easy and it is a constant battle. Yet, in comparison to the yoke of sin, how could we ever not desire it? For only the yoke of Christ and being a slave to righteousness leads to life as Paul proclaims in verse 23.
Michael Card wrote in one of his songs, ‘Only a slave can be truly free.’ I used to wonder exactly what that meant, but in light of these verses it makes perfect sense. If we are to truly understand the great joy of being in Christ then we must remember and act upon the fact that we are now slaves to righteousness. This leads us to Paul’s conclusion.
3. Therefore, to continue in the act of sin is crazy. Look at verse 21, ‘ Therefore what benefit were you then deriving from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the outcome of those things leads to death. But now having been freed from sin and enslaved to God, you derive your benefit, resulting in sanctification, and the outcome, eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.’ Why in the world would we want to sin? Why would we want to return to that which only brings us shame? Why do we want to act like slaves to sin when Christ has set us free? It reminds me of the Israelites in the desert. God had set them free from Egypt where they were abused slaves. He had rescued them from the wrath of Pharaoh. And yet, when things became a little difficult they complained and wanted to return to their slavery. They failed to remember the shame of Egypt. Lon and I were talking this afternoon about how often we see the past through forgetful eyes. We look back to a time in our life and think of how great it was then, all the time forgetting the hardships and struggles we had. Likewise, we look back to our sin and see the passing pleasure only to forget the overwhelming grief it brings.
Think about it this way, imagine it is Christmas and someone gives you a gift. Yet, this is no ordinary gift. It is huge, with great ribbons and a great bow. You are so excited and can’t even imagine what great gift is hidden inside. So you tear into it. You cannot wait to get inside and see this great gift. But when you open it up all you find is an empty box. You look deep into it but it is only empty. The person who gave it to you laughs and laughs at your disappointment. The next year, the same person brings the same sort of gift. Yet, this time it is more beautifully packaged and even bigger than the year before. You once again tear into it only to find it empty once again. Time after time you repeat the process.
Sound familiar? How many times do we search for pleasure in our sin only to find shame and disgrace awaits us? It is crazy to keep opening the packages for they are always empty.
Rather, let us pursue righteousness even as we pursued our sin! Look again at verse 19, ‘ For just as you presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness, resulting in further lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness, resulting in sanctification.’ We ran hard after sin, thinking it would lead to life. But we now know that it does not and we are free from that lie. Therefore, let us run hard after righteousness. We know it leads to life and we know it holds our joy. Make every effort to chain yourself to Christ. Again, realize that you are no longer a slave to the sin that is so often placed in front of you. Rather, remind yourself over and over that you are now a slave to righteousness. Let that be your hope and your passion.