Romans 6:15-23 continues Paul’s discussion of sanctification by reminding his readers of their past slavery to sin and their new slavery to righteousness. He wants them to live in submission to their new master, Jesus Christ, and not to be entangled again with the sins that characterized their old life, sins which no longer have any claim over them. People are either obedient slaves of sin, which leads to death, or they are obedient to God, which leads to righteousness. 

But the outcome of obedience depends on whom or what is heard and obeyed.  In verses 17-18 Paul rejoices that his listeners have been released from their former slavery to sin and have now “become obedient from the heart” to the message about Jesus. That shift results not in total freedom–in fact, the result is the opposite.  Believers have now “become slaves of righteousness.”

The situation is similar to the way professional sports used to be run.  Before free agency developed, professional athletes were bound to the team that had first signed them.  They were “slaves” of that team.  Owners could offer contracts, not offer contracts, or trade players.  Players, for their part, had few options.  They could sign a contract and play, or they could retire.  They were not free to move to another team nor to offer their services to the highest bidder.  If people wanted to play they had to be owned by one team or another.

Paul recognizes that the power of sin is still active in the world of the believers, so that Christians are confronted with the real peril of falling back into the submission to sin that will result in the Christians’ following the baser instincts of human existence rather than God’s will and leadership. Paul tells his readers that they are truly freed from the power of sin and that they are secure in their freedom because God’s grace is the source of their liberty and security. The contrast in this verse between “law” and “grace” brings up a point long debated in Christian circles. What Paul is saying is that in one way of living there is freedom–grace is God’s power at work liberating the believers from their involvements with sin; whereas in another way of forming life, the attempt to live life rightly through the observance of the law, one is left essentially on one’s own without God’s liberating power. For as Paul sees it, the law (holy, just, and good as it is) is impotent to resolve the dilemma humanity faces in relation to sin, while grace is God’s power at work doing for the Christians what they cannot do for themselves.

Three teachings are clear in this passage. First, Paul is not concerned with issues of sin and guilt, but he is advocating for freedom from the power of sin, that is, believers can make a conscious effort on whether they should sin or not. Secondly, Paul is not concerned with growth to perfection but with an awareness of the once and for all saving act of justification done by God through Jesus Christ. Christ launched humanity into the ocean of grace and no one will ever take that away from believers. Third, the gift of grace and salvation calls believers to live in obedience as a verification of the work done by Jesus Christ.

In Romans 6:1 the antagonist says, “Let us go on sinning that grace may abound.” The antagonist in Romans 6:15 says, “Let us commit sin because grace does abound.” Paul answers them the same way: certainly not!  Paul understands a new walk with Christ as the work of grace in which resurrection power propels believers to live worthy lives. Grace does not free anyone to sin but it frees believers from sin. There is a tendency for people to feel that they have an unshakable, unbreakable obligation to sin and an optional, tentative obligation to righteousness. Exactly the reverse is true! The believer does not have to go on sinning and treating righteous living as something that is good if you can get around to it, but rather he does have to live righteously and take care to live triumphantly over sin in the power of the Lord.

Sin is a power at work in the world–and Sin’s twin power is Death. Sin is at work in governmental systems, in economic systems, in political systems, in ecclesiastical systems. Sin’s work is to deliver Death. Death to justice. Death to freedom. Death to peace. Death to human dignity. Death to the life that God wills for all of creation. Death! Death! Death! Such is the work of Sin.

The puny little sins we commit–as painful as the consequences may be for us in terms of lost relationships, lost opportunities and the accrual of the burden of guilt–are merely the side effects of the power of Sin in the world. Humankind is enslaved by Sin. We are all under Sin’s domination. But for those baptized into Christ’s death and resurrection, the yoke of Sin has been destroyed. We are freed from Sin’s power. We are out from under Sin’s reach. And the power that has loosed Sin’s shackles from our lives is God’s grace.

Whenever we make the essence of spirituality and holiness a matter of following religious rules, we have missed the mark. Rigid religious rules always become obstacles to loving other people; that means they are obstacles to truly loving God. Jesus called them “burdens too heavy to lift” and points the finger at religious perfectionists of all stripes for ignoring their own sins and focusing on the minor lapses of others. It all becomes just an elaborate way of justifying ourselves by condemning someone else. At the end of the day, even we religious perfectionists can’t bear the burden we’ve created for others.

Paul traces the history of believers in four stages: they were enslaved, enlightened, emancipated, and enslaved again. People from a Jewish background who held the law in high esteem were particularly nervous about Paul’s insistence that “by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified”. They believed that Paul’s teaching that people cannot fulfill the law for justification would encourage them to disregard the law, to claim to be justified by faith, and then because they accepted no law to embark on a life of lawlessness and sinfulness. To this Paul gives another vehement response and proceeds to show that, far from being lawless, justified believers who were formerly nothing more than “servants of sin” become the “servants of righteousness.” He makes the obvious, but no less powerful point, that “to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one’s slaves”. Those who revered the law and failed, as did everyone, to keep it, were in their breaking of the law exhibiting their “slavery” to sin. But those who through the grace of God had become united with Christ had been made “free from sin” and had traded their slavery to sin for a slavery to Christ and the righteousness for which He stands.

To the sensitive believer, the desire of God is an even more powerful motivational factor than the dictates of sin. He knows from his past history that sin produced those things of which he is “now ashamed” and he also knows that “the end of those things is death.” Pressing home the contrast, the apostle adds: “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord”. On the one hand, there is the law of God which people either treat with benign neglect or with assiduous care. The former sin glibly and freely; the latter seriously and often unknowingly. This sin produces death as just reward for unsatisfactory living. On the other hand, there is the grace of God which brings people in Christ to forgiveness and the position of having taken the stand against sin which Christ took and adopting the attitude that sin, as a lifestyle, is no longer the normative approach.

Going beyond mental assent to a system of facts about the Lord, these believers obeyed truths from the heart. This was genuine, life-changing obedience. The word “form” is used in classical Greek for the impression of a seal, branding iron, foot, or teeth. Believers had a new “shape” formed by doctrine. Pursuing a right knowledge of God and His work sanctifies.

Believers should present themselves as slaves to righteousness with the same abandon as they willingly gave themselves to sin in the past. Yielding themselves to righteousness will have the same exponential effect, only they will become more holy rather than more sinful. believers to live out their faith in concrete ways, and this can be done when people aspire to live in love because love is the vitality of faith and love accomplishes Christ’s saving work. Love is indeed the description of the Christian life, and while we cannot fully grasp the meaning of being in mystical union with Christ, Paul exhorts us to live out this mystery in love. Becoming what we have become in baptism means to live beyond religiosity.

Unbelievers are “free” from righteousness. In other words, it makes no demand on them. It should never be a surprise when unbelievers behave wickedly; they know nothing else. Unfortunately, without the desire or ability to live in righteousness, they also forfeit the power to comply with its wishes. On the other hand, slavery to God results in freedom from sin, the fruit of holiness, and a future of everlasting life.

The passage reminds us that we are still vulnerable to sin and death, post-baptism.  And so the issue becomes:  which slavery do we want–slavery to sin that leads to death or slavery to Christ that leads to life.

But if we have to make the decision, and if we have to follow the directives in verses 12-14 to “not let sin exercise dominion” in our bodies and to “no longer present” our bodies as tools of injustice, where is the good news?  The good news is that God has freed us from the realm of sin as the determinative reality of our lives, and God has given us the free gift of eternal life in Christ. And that remains an ancient message that is new every day.  And it remains a message that people still find hard to hear.  But it remains what we are called to proclaim.

(An audio version of this post can be found by clicking this link: Romans 6 verses 15-23 Are We Slaves to Sin or Slaves to Righteousness)

Bibliography

1. Jeremiah, David: The Jeremiah Study Bible: New King James Version (Brentwood, TN: Worthy Publishing; 2013; p. 1553)
2. Briscoe, D.S., & Ogilvie, L.J.: The Preacher’s Commentary Series, Vol. 29: Romans (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Inc.; 1982; pp. 135-137)
3. MacArthur, J.F. Jr., The MacArthur Study Bible: New American Standard Bible (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers; 2006)
4. Israel Kamundzandu, “Commentary on Romans 6:12-23.” Retrieved from www.workingpreacher.org
5. The Rev. Dr. Alan Brems, “A Cup of Cold Water.” Retrieved from The Waking Dreamer
6. Walter F. Taylor, Jr., “Commentary on Romans 6:112-23.” Retrieved from www.workingpreacher.org
7. Marion L. Soards, “Commentary on Romans 6:21-23.” Retrieved from www.workingpreacher.org
8. The Rev. Gary Manning, “Shackles That Won’t Shrink!” Retrieved from www.day1.org