Rom 6.15-23

Slaves

Romans 6.15-23

Jason Procopio

I grew up in the United States, where we are taught from a very young age that the great advantage to being an American is that “at least we know we’re free” (as a famous song says). It often goes unsaid that plenty of other countries are “free” too—when I have to remind people of this on visits back to the U.S., I mention the French national motto, liberté, égalité, fraternité.

It’s the theme of a million stories and a million songs, and it doesn’t matter where you’re from: we want to be free. The question is, what do we mean by that?

What most of us mean by that is that we want to be able to do what we want to do. Most people today would consider themselves free if they were able to do what they want to do, as long as what they want to do isn’t going to hurt someone else.

It’s true that within the confines of a society, that’s what freedom is, and that’s what we want—as long as people don’t act to the detriment of order and to the harm of others, we all agree that people should be able to make their own decisions.

I want to be clear that the subject of today’s text is not that kind of freedom; it’s not freedom to do what we want. In this text, Paul is going to pursue a different line of thought, about a deeper kind of freedom. He’s going to establish a very simple fact about human desire and action: no matter how much we want to think of ourselves as free, we’re not. Not entirely. We are all slaves to something; the question is, what—or who—is our master?

Slaves of Sin (v. 15-16)

Verse 15 begins with the words, “What then?” Paul is reacting here to what he just finished saying, which we saw last week. Paul spent chapter 5 explaining the incredible depths of God’s grace to us, saying that where sin increased, grace abounded all the more (5.20), and then he begins chapter 6 with a rhetorical question:

What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? 2 By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?

What kind of sense does it make to die to sin, then live in sin? He spends the next twelve verses explaining this idea: if we have faith in Jesus Christ, we are now dead to sin, and alive to God in Christ. He says in v. 14,

For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.

So on the heels of that, Paul asks his second rhetorical question in v. 15:

15 What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace?

In other words: is grace our Get-Out-of-Jail-Free card?

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?

Verse 16 is a key verse in this passage, because it lays out the fundamental truth that we cannot ignore: everyone serves a master. Whoever or whatever we obey is our master.

And there are only two options—only two possible masters he proposes, at least in a spiritual sense: we either serve sin, which leads to death, or we serve God in obedience, which leads to righteousness.

Now I know a lot of people would take issue with this, because we would think, Come on, I’m not THAT bad. I mean, I sometimes think things I shouldn’t, I don’t always have the best attitude; but calling me a “slave of sin” is a bit extreme.

Or, I know I’ve made mistakes, I sometimes do things I shouldn’t, but calling me a “slave of sin” is an exaggeration.

So we need to take a second to clearly define what we’re talking about. We can divide sin into different categories, and there are several ways to do this (there are, as we say, sins of commission and sins of omission; the Catholics have categories like venial sins and mortal sins, etc.).

For the purposes of this passage, let’s be really simple. We’ll talk about what we could call sins of the hand, and sins of the heart.

“Sins of the hand” would be actions God commands us not to do, decisions he calls us not to make (things like lying, sexual immorality, slander, murder, etc.). “Sins of the heart” are attitudes and thoughts God commands us not to have (like pride, arrogance, hatred, envy, etc.). The Ten Commandments (Exodus 20.1-17) are entirely made up of sins that fall into one of these two categories.

For sins of the hands, it’s not easy, but at least it’s clear: God says, Don’t do those things. When you have the opportunity to sleep with your girlfriend, you reject that desire and do what God commands—you wait. When you have the opportunity to exercise power over someone for your own personal gain, you don’t do it. When you’re tempted to lie in order to get out of a bind, you don’t do it; you tell the truth.

Sins of the heart are more difficult, because they’re harder to identify and detect. But once we see them, once we identify them, God calls us to fight them—we recognize them for what they are, confess them, and live according to what is true, and not according to what we feel.

Now of course we need to be very nuanced about these things—particularly sins of the heart—because many factors can contribute to these situations, and not all of them are our responsibility. If you’ve suffered trauma, you’re going to have automatic reactions (like fear and doubt) that often look like sin, but which you aren’t equipped to fight, at least not on your own. I’m not talking about those things. Those things can become sinful if we do nothing about them, but we—the church—should always respond to these things with understanding and grace.

I’m talking about times when we are just living our ordinary lives, and we notice areas of our hearts in which sinful desires are hiding. For example: When we feel envy, what does God call us to do? We confess our lack of contentment in God’s provision, and we live in the light of God’s promises—we act according to the promise that God always gives us what we need, and we obey him as trusting children. When we feel anger and a desire for vengeance, we confess that desire, we submit to God’s authority as Judge, and we trust him to judge sin effectively.

Here’s why I said all this; here’s the point Paul is making: in both cases, whether it’s a sin of the hand or a sin of the heart, sin is never passive. Sin, either in action or in attitude, is always active. It is either an active decision to “present our members to sin as instruments of unrighteousness” (cf. v. 13), or an active refusal to fight our sinful attitudes and desires and trust in God. In both cases, when we let ourselves sin, we are presenting ourselves to sin. We are obeying sin rather than obeying God.

Slaves of Righteousness (v. 17-18)

And Paul says (as bluntly as he possibly could) that we are, all of us and always, slaves to the one we obey. We are either slaves of sin, which leads to death, or slaves of obedience (to God), which leads to righteousness.

He keeps going in v. 17:

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.

I don’t think I need to tell you why these verses are so difficult to swallow, but I will anyway: these verses are difficult to swallow because they present a certain kind of slavery—slavery to righteousness—as a good thing.

That’s tough, because in our understanding—and even elsewhere in the Bible—slavery is almost universally described as negative. Paul knows he’s wading into tricky water here—he adds a very helpful sentence at the beginning of v. 19:

I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations.

He’s saying, “I know this sounds crazy. But I’m using an image you can easily understand in order to help you understand my point.”

So what is his point? We’ve already seen the first part of it: we are never ultimately our own masters. We are always subservient to something. Our master is that which we obey, and we all obey something; we always follow our desires.

This tricks us every time, because we tend to think like the world thinks: that if we obey our own desires, then we’re the master, because they’re our desires—they’re what we want.

But that’s just not true. We’re not the masters of our desires; it’s the other way around.

If you doubt it, here’s a test: think of something you really want. I don’t just mean, I’d like to get a crêpe after service today (though I guess it would still apply); I mean something you really want. You’re single and you really want to get married. You’re married and childless, and you really want to have kids. You’re stuck in your job, and you really want a promotion (or just a better job). You can’t stand your roommate, and you really want to live alone.

All of us have something like that. So here’s the test: think about what that is for you…and decide, right now, to not want it anymore. Come on—you’re all adults. Make the decision, here and now, to not have that desire anymore.

Can you do it? Of course not. Your desires are stronger than you are, and whatever you desire most at any given moment is what will win.

But here’s the good news (and this is the second part of Paul’s point): if we have faith in Christ, God has done something in us to change the game. What we desire the most will always win…but when God gives us faith in Christ, God gives us something else too: he gives us new desires. It doesn’t happen all at once, and it’s always still in progress; this side of heaven, it won’t be perfect. But it’s there. If God has given us faith in Christ, then necessarily, by definition, there are things we used to want that we don’t want anymore.

It’s sort of like growing up. You see this when you have kids. You get toys for your kids, and you know that you loved things like this when you were a kid, but now when you try to play with them, you’re just thinking, This is stupid. This is boring. Why did I ever enjoy this?

Same thing here: when God gives us faith, he makes us grow. God has taken things that the rest of the world pursues, and made them less attractive to us now. There are things we used to desire—things our neighbors and colleagues still desire—that we just don’t want anymore. There are certain topics of discussion we no longer find interesting, certain kinds of jokes we no longer find funny, certain kinds of actions and attitudes that no longer sit right with us. Before, we could have done them and thought nothing of it; now, they make us uncomfortable.

If God has given us faith in Christ, then he has begun to change us from the inside. He has started giving us new desires that align with his desires.

Why have I spent all this time talking about desire?

Because of v. 17. Paul says in v. 17 that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the Word of God you have received. We’re not perfect yet, and this change in us will continue all our lives; but we’ve begun to obey—not because we have to, but because we want to. As we used to sin from our heart, now we’ve begun to obey from our heart.

We have been set free from sin, as we saw last week, and as a result, Paul says in v. 18, we have become “slaves of righteousness.”

It will never not be strange to hear Paul present that in a positive light. But when we understand what he’s talking about, it’s really not surprising. Imagine how differently we would view slavery if the master had proven time and time again that his goal was always to serve those under his authority; if the master was good, and wanted only good for those working for him; if the master moved heaven and earth (sometimes literally) to take those under his authority and give them life—life in all its fullness (cf. John 10.10). It wouldn’t be hard to serve such a master; it would in fact be a joy.

Everyone serves a master. So the big question of the rest of this chapter is, which master will we choose to serve?

Choose Your Master (v. 19-23)

Let’s read the second half of v. 19:

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.

So remember what we saw earlier, and also last week: sin never happens to us; we don’t “fall into sin”. Sin is always and without exception active: we present our members as slaves to sin, which leads to more sin. So Paul’s call here is simple: do the opposite. Present your members as slaves to righteousness, leading to sanctification.

We use this word “sanctification” a lot in church, and what we mean is simple: sanctification is growing to be like Christ, in our thoughts, in our attitudes, and in our actions. Sanctification is more than just imitation (anyone can do that); it is thinking and feeling and doing the right thing, the thing Christ would have us do, because we want to be like him.

Every one of us, without exception, is a slave to something. The question is, whom do we want to serve? Do we want to serve sin, or do we want to serve righteousness?

Think about that for a minute: whom do you really want to serve?

Serving sin is often more fun. It is often more intense. It’s often more immediately gratifying. (And for us, who have become accustomed to getting what we want at the click of a button, instant gratification is hard to resist.)

Paul says in v. 20:

For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness.

Sin doesn’t ever demand that we be righteous. When we’re slaves of sin, we don’t have to make the tough choice to do the righteous thing, because we’re not serving righteousness. And sin never tells us no. It requires absolutely no work, no perseverance, no effort; it’s as natural as breathing.

Serving righteousness is difficult. It requires sacrifice. It requires perseverance. It means that sometimes we’ll really want to do something, and we’ll have to force ourselves to not go after what we want—even though there might be no external consequence if we did. Very often, serving righteousness will mean doing the hard thing when the easy thing is at our disposal. It will mean closing our eyes or closing our computer. It will mean forgiving the one who hurt us instead of seeking to hurt them back. It will mean being telling the truth when it might get us in trouble.

Put that way, sin sounds like the better master. Sin doesn’t expect us to be anything other than what we want to be. That definitely sounds like freedom.

But Paul says that when we think this way, we have missed the essential question. And this essential question is so simple and so wise that it takes us by surprise. V. 21:

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.

You are all obeying something—you’re either slaves to sin, or slaves to righteousness. So take a step back and look at it objectively. Do the math: What are you getting in exchange for your obedience?

The end of sin is death.

I used to be a smoker, and I’ve got to be honest with you: I loved smoking. I quit smoking shortly after Loanne and I got married, but I didn’t want to quit; I quit because she wanted me to. So to this day, there are times when I still miss it.

But time has a way of giving us perspective. In the last fifteen years, I’ve lost all of my grandparents; two of them died from lung cancer, brought on by decades of smoking. I’m not talking about whether smoking is sinful or not, that’s a debate for another day. I’m just talking about the logic of it: if I keep smoking, there’s a good chance it’s going to kill me. So do I really want to let myself get hooked again? Of course not. Given what happened to my grandparents, I’m happy I quit.

That’s the same logic Paul is using here. What were you getting at the that time from the sin you were serving? The end of these things—the end of sin—is death. That’s what we get out of the exchange. A few years of pleasure (which has severely diminishing returns as time passes), followed by eternal death, eternal suffering, eternal separation from God.

That’s what we get from being slaves of sin.

But what do we get from being slaves of God? V. 22:

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.

You don’t have to be a genius to see that that’s a better deal. The fruit of being slaves of sin is death; the fruit of being slaves of God is sanctification, and eternal life. Eternal joy, eternal peace, eternal pleasure at his right hand (cf. Ps. 16.11).

It’s easy to forget that v. 23 isn’t primarily directed towards unbelievers. We use it all the time when we share the gospel with people—the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord. We can say it from memory. And that’s perfectly fine; it’s a great verse for sharing the gospel.

But when Paul says it, he’s speaking to Christians.

We might say, “Hang on—is he saying that to convince them to turn to Christ? Does he think they’re not saved?”

The answer is no, he’s literally just said they have been set free from sin. He’s not doubting their salvation. Rather, he’s saying, This is the choice that is before you, every moment of every day, for the rest of your life. This is who you were, and this is who you are now. This is what you were getting before, and this is what you’re getting now.

So in the light of who you are, in the light of what you’ve been given, every moment of every day, submit to God, and receive the fruit of your submission: sanctification, and its end, eternal life.

Conclusion

One of the most common questions people ask me is, How does sanctification work? On a very practical level, how does it happen? How do we grow to be like Christ?

This is how sanctification works. You remember these things, and you obey. And as you keep obeying, you grow.

Of course there’s more that we could say; God definitely plays the most substantial role in that process. (Paul himself says in Philippians 2.12-13: work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.)

But often we lean too heavily on this—or at least we lean on it in an unhelpful way. Since we know that God works in us to produce the desire and the ability to obey him, we want that change to be clear and immediate. We want God to step in with a magic wand and wave away our sinful desires.

But that’s almost never how God works. Most often, his work isn’t something we would categorize as “miraculous” (even if it really is). He gives us his Word, and he connects the dots between his Word and our lives, and he calls us to live what he tells us.

And here we see, in a very short passage, how God does this. In this text, God gives us two simple promises.

He promises that submission to God leads to sanctification and eternal life.

And he promises that slavery to sin leads to shame and death.

The goal of these statements is not to frighten us or cause us to doubt; it is to light a fire under us, to help us keep our guard up.

So I want to leave you with these two simple questions the apostle Paul asks in this text, whether you’re a believer or an unbeliever, no matter what situation you find yourself in today. As we go through our week, every moment of every day, these questions should be in the back of our minds:

Which master will I choose? And what will happen when I do?

Every moment of every day, God calls us to submit to him, to obey him, to follow him—to present our members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification. And the promise for us if we do is staggering, beyond anything we could expect or deserve.

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.