New Patterns for a New Kingdom (Part 2) – Romans 6:15–18

PRAY & INTRO: God is a good and benevolent Master. [repeat]

Psalm 24:1 NIV

¹ The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it;

Everything on the earth, and everyone in it, belongs to God. Autonomy from God is a disastrous lie, leading to our destruction. When we try to cut ourselves free from his authority, we find that we in fact enslave ourselves to a tyrannical master, our own sin. And that odious master dominates us to our doom, apart from the gracious intervention of God to make us his own through faith in Jesus. In this new standing of right relationship to God by his own achievement, God then also empowers us by his grace to grow in him and live for him.

Truly, God is a good and benevolent master. Again, if we think we can live autonomously with nothing mastering us, we are wrong.

Paul shows us today in the latter half of Romans 6 that we are either mastered by sin, or by God. But it is one or the other. And the way we live reveals our master.

Romans 6:15–23 ESV

¹⁵ What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! ¹⁶ Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? ¹⁷ But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, ¹⁸ and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness. ¹⁹ I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification. ²⁰ For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. ²¹ But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. ²² But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. ²³ For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Last week we summarized Paul’s emphasis in the previous verses, 11-14, this way:

The believer must learn to live consistently with new life in Christ.

Paul returns to this emphasis in v. 19 also when he says, “so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification.”

This week (especially in vv. 15-18) we see that Paul reinforces that teaching with the following emphasis:

The way you live reveals your master.

[and next week we’ll see that…] The way you live reveals your eternal destiny. Which master you obey with your life reveals your eternal destiny.

But today, the first part of that is… the way you live reveals your master. When you think you are living autonomously, you are actually a slave to sin. If you aren’t growing in obedience to God, then you haven’t submitted to Him through faith. [repeat those two statements]

Let’s work together in attention to what Paul says to see how he gets us there. Paul’s rhetorical question in v. 15 is similar to v. 1, showing that he is primarily focusing still on the same subject: does this reign of grace mean a free-for-all to keep sinning? And the answer is the same: May it never be!

Paul will prove that…

The reign of grace does not lead to lawlessness but to true righteousness.

Even though Paul has introduced a new category that we are no longer “under” if we are in Christ in vv. 14&15—namely, the law—Paul will continue dealing with the sin question before interacting more extensively with the law question. He discusses our relationship to the law more exclusively in a couple of paragraphs, at what is marked as chapter 7 in our Bibles. But here first “Paul emphatically rejects the idea that freedom from the old covenant era of being under law implies freedom to sin.” (ESV Study Bible)

Instead, he demonstrates that the reign of grace does not lead to lawlessness but to true righteousness.

Again, it’s not as though Paul doesn’t deal with the question of “not being under the law” at all in these verses, because he will make at least two important connections: 1. There remains a standard of teaching (17b), but we are now enabled to live like Christ in obedience to God from the heart (17a).  And 2. Paul will draw attention to the fact that sin is lawlessness at v.19 (casting off the character and command of God), in contrast to the righteousness at work in us by God’s grace to sanctify us.

This leads me then to another couple of helpful clarifications before we leave the rhetorical question of v. 15:  1. To say believers are not under the law doesn’t mean we are free from doing the will of God (which becomes abundantly clear as Paul returns to the metaphor of slavery to illustrate that we now willingly serving a new Master, one who is good and seeks our good for his glory).  2. Saying we are under grace means that we have God’s power at work in us to obey him, to keep the law of Christ. (cf. Ro 8:4; 13:8–10; Gal. 5:14; 6:2; 1 Cor. 9:21)

The overall answer Paul provides is that the reign of grace does not lead to lawlessness but to true righteousness—obedience from the heart.

As he continues, Paul explains that the way you live is revealing. It reveals who your master is.

So Paul is reinforcing what he taught in vv. 1-14, with a particular emphasis that our present activity reveals the positional reality. Our present activity reveals our positional reality.

That’s what we see in v. 16. One either submits oneself in obedient service to the new master (God) and for his purposes (righteousness), or he serves sin as his master. There is no in between. “Those who think that freedom is attained by jettisoning obedience to God opt for sin as their lord.” (Schreiner, BECNT Romans)

“You are slaves of the one whom you obey.”

That’s a direct quote from the central clause of v. 16, which Paul begins as a rhetorical question, just as he did in v. 3. “Do you not know?” presumes an answer that you should know this truth about God and the nature of reality. You are slaves of the one whom you obey.

Recall that Paul has already commanded, that those who are “in Christ Jesus” from v. 11, must present ourselves and our members to God as those who have been brought from death to life.

Romans 6:11–13 ESV

¹¹ So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. ¹² Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. ¹³ Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness.

Let me explain again, as I did last week, something about slavery in Paul’s day. Slaves (or bondservants) in the Roman empire often earned some meager wages and could eventually save up to purchase their freedom. But these freedmen needed work to provide for themselves and their families, so they would sometimes continue in service to their previous master. For the purpose of Paul’s image, he says, don’t do that! This is not a good master! He does not intend your best interest. He seeks to destroy you. He is not a master worthy of your devotion and service! Instead, we have by grace been brought into the household of a new Master, one who is good and seeks our good for his glory! Present all that you are and have in service to God for righteousness.

But now in v. 16 Paul warns that if you claim to belong to God while obeying sin as the pattern of your life, you prove that you are a slave to the one you obey. We are slaves to the one we serve, to the one we obey. If you are not growing in new patterns of submission to God in which you “present your members as slaves to righteousness” (19c), then you reveal that you are still in subjection to sin. If the pattern of our life is to present yourself as an obedient bondservant to sin, then you are a slave to sin, leading to death.

It’s one or the other: “…either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness”

You are either a slave of sin, leading to death, or you are a slave of obedience [to God], leading to righteousness. 

Again, the way you live reveals who your master is. And the way you live is telling about your destiny as well. The parallel between death and righteousness as results would be confusing if we don’t follow Paul’s logical conclusion. What he only introduces here he will come back to emphasize in vv. 21-23.

Adam’s sin resulted in a physical death which remains a consequence for all humanity. But even more significantly, Adam’s sin and our sin results in a spiritual death, a separation from the life of God. And if that spiritual separation remains, it will result in an eternal death, an eternal separation from the goodness and blessing of God. “But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death.” (Rom 6:21) And “The wages of sin is death…” (Rom 6:23)

By contrast, to be slaves of God means to be slaves of righteousness leading to sanctification (progress in holiness), which in the end leads to eternal life. “But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life.” (Rom 6:22) “but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Without God’s intervention by his grace, and without our response of faith to God’s promise, we remain dead with relationship to God because of our sin. But God’s grace has intervened in Jesus, and intervened to draw us in faith, and grace continues empowering us to live for him. No grace at work in you? No learning to live righteously? No growth in holiness? Then God is still not your master. You have not submitted to him in faith.

It’s like being on a ship that you think is heading to the UK but is actually heading to Panama. To the other passengers and to the attendants you say, “But I have a ticket here that says its for the UK.” However, their response is, “That’s great and all that you say you have a ticket to the UK. But you’re on a ship to Panama. Did you think you could just get on any ship you wanted with a ticket to the UK?”

By contrast to this lip service without the reality of sincere and complete commitment, Paul has just said that those who are in Christ have been brought from death to life. We have been raised to new spiritual life. Spiritual death (separation from God) has been conquered even in the present for those united to Christ. We have been restored to God. But if this is true of you, Paul is saying, then you will see in your life that you are learning obedience to God’s standard and learning to live righteously. There will be evidence that you’re on the right ship with the right Captain. The way you are living reveals who masters you.

Now when Paul contrasts slaves of sin with slaves of obedience, in the context of v. 13 that we just read, and of v. 17 which follows, he must mean slaves of obedience to God—to God’s standard. Obedience is the state and activity of submissive conformity to the authority of God. [repeat] Sin, the opposite, is disobedience to the character and command of God. So sin here is being contrasted with becoming obedient to God.

Remember we said last week that unrighteousness is a failure to actively align with God’s moral principles based on his own perfect character. Righteousness (righteous living) is the opposite, which is to closely walk in God’s moral standard. Righteousness and unrighteousness by definition take their very meaning and purpose by relationship to the character and commands of God.

And this concept of righteousness as behavior that conforms in obedience to God’s standard leads us nicely into what Paul says in vv. 17-18.

But thanks be to God! By faith His grace empowers obedience from the heart to His perfect standard, proving us slaves of God’s righteousness.

Paul returns to the foundational truth of God’s grace at work in us through Christ as that which enables us to now live in true obedience to God’s standard (pattern/type), to which we have been handed over.

If we have given ourselves in full allegiance to God through faith in God’s promise of Jesus Christ as Lord, God has delivered us over to a new standard to live by. - “to which you were committed” is passive voice. It is God who has handed us over in obedience. Obedience to what?

By “the standard of teaching” surely Paul means the character and command of God revealed in all of his word and especially as it is embodied and fulfilled in Jesus Christ. The standard is to obey not only God’s command but even his character, as he is manifest in the way Jesus lived. The Lord Jesus lived a perfect life, and that standard may seem too high, but the amazing news is that we’ve not only been brought into Christ by grace, God also empowers us to grow in living like Christ by his grace!

Just because we will not hit the mark perfectly every time with our new bow and arrow does not mean that we stop aiming for the bullseye—which is to submissively copy the life of our Lord, to follow after his submission, his motivation, his thoughts, words and actions. Remember, before you were previously ignoring God’s standard (like the pagans), or you were thinking you could hit the mark with your little home-made toy bow and arrow (religion of your own making).

But thanks be to God, you have been brought from death to life and been made a soldier of God’s kingdom and a willing slave of a perfectly benevolent Master. Not only that, but God’s grace intervenes in such a way that your obedience is from the heart. God’s grace to us in Christ Jesus is such that he gifts us with the ability to worship him in spirit and in truth. (see John 4:23-26)

So within this context of grace in this passage, why does Paul erupt in thanksgiving to God about all of this?

- The emphasis on grace means we gratefully understand that God has rescued us from the tyranny of our own sin by bringing us into submission from the heart to the standard of God’s character and command revealed in Jesus Christ. 

Again, as we have been saying in Romans 6, God in his grace through Christ Jesus rescues us from not just the penalty of sin but also the power of sin’s dominion over us. Not only is it through grace that God initially saves us from our sin and his wrath, but it is also through grace that God empowers the saved for obedience from the heart.

If we truly belong to God through faith in Jesus, we have “been set free from sin” and “have become slaves of righteousness.” (v. 18) 

By faith in Jesus God exchanges our disobedience that leads to eternal death for a sincere, submissive obedience to God that leads to eternal life. By faith in Jesus God exchanges our wayward autonomy for his perfect authority.

CONCLUSION: So what have we seen today? In these verses 16-18 as Paul answers another question set up at verse 15, Paul emphasizes that…

The way you live reveals your master.

By faith in Jesus God transfers us into his kingdom of grace and empowers us by his grace to have the capacity to live for him. We must therefore be growing in patterns of faithful obedience to God and his standard, in patterns of righteousness. Otherwise, we are lying to ourselves about our standing before God if we are still submitting to sin as the pattern of our lives.

To be “under grace” doesn’t mean there’s no standard, freeing you to do whatever you want. Doing whatever you want sounds great until you find out that you aren’t free at all but living in submission to sin. But in Christ Jesus, Paul says, you have been set free from slavery to sin in order that you may now be slaves to God (v. 22), slaves to the righteousness that Christ purchased for you by his righteous life. As you live in growing submission to that pattern, you will experience sanctification, and its end is eternal life.

Thanks be to God! This is all His grace.

Just as our salvation is all of grace, our sanctification is all of grace. The Christian life is grace-empowered growth in Christ, and grace-empowered usefulness to God’s kingdom purposes.

On Friday morning, Reformation Day, I arrived at my office to find “95 Thankses” taped to the door. [BTW, thanks for not nailing them to the door.] Church, thank you for your kindness to me, and to my bride, and to our daughters. Even more, I know that your expression of gratitude is truly an expression of thanksgiving to God for his grace to us through one another. I thank God that you see God’s grace at work in me. All I have ever wanted is to be a useful weapon in the hands of my Redeemer, to be a simple tool that God is remaking in his holiness and polishing for his purposes. Thank you for reminding me of this calling God has placed on my life.

I daily thank God for you and what he is doing in your individual hearts and lives by his grace, and pray fervently for his glory to shine radiantly in us more and more. Anything that God has done and is doing in our lives is all by his grace in Christ Jesus, and by the Holy Spirit whom he has given.

Since God has already proven that he is the power to save and that he is the power to sanctify, let us present ourselves to God as slaves of righteousness, that he may make us more holy for his purposes.

PRAY

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