Dead Ends

Series on Romans

VIII The Gospel and Identification

B Realizing our Servitude

Text: 6:12-23

Introduction

Life is full of consequences and for a Christian there are two possible sets of consequences which Paul describes in verses 21 and 22, What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death! But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. If we serve the sinful nature, the consequences are all dead ends which bring nothing but misery and unhappiness. The final dead end is in verse 23, For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. In the Reader’s Digest 35 years ago I read an article by Malcolm Muggeridge, a British journalist and convert to Christ, entitled, “Western Civilization, To Be or Not to Be.” He spoke of our systematically destroying the values and restraints of our inherited way of life and of the modern conviction that each social innovation, each new assault on marital fidelity, on the home, and on parenthood is conducive to our well being. He picturesquely called it the “Gadarene Stakes,” or, in other words, a bunch of pigs rushing downhill into the sea to drown. The Christian philosopher Pascal said men must either imagine they are gods themselves, or being aware of how absurd that is, revert to being animals. Muggeridge called this a choice between megalomania and erotomania. Men become either little Hitlers or little Hugh Hefners. Paul’s point here is that we are on the way of death and the way of life is found only in slavery to Jesus Christ. So let us consider first the enslaved.

I Enslaved

The underlying truth in this whole passage is that we are always somebody’s slave, as we read in verse 16, Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? We are free, but we are only free to choose our slavery, and the choice we make depends totally on the grace of God operating in us. Paul is writing here to those who have been enabled by the grace of God to see the right choice and make it. Often people are offered an anemic gospel that is based on John 3:16, and says God loved the world, therefore God loved everybody, therefore just believe it. A careful examination of John 3, however, leads to the conclusion that John 3:16 is not the gospel apart from verses 17-19 that remind us that we are condemned already and lost. We are not condemned if we fail to believe. We are condemned, period! In other words we are slaves to sin. We are blind, deaf, and yes dead in sin. We need to be emancipated.

II Emancipated

Emancipation is also on the Apostle’s mind as he writes in verse 14, For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace. Paul has made clear in the first part of the chapter that we have been delivered not only from the guilt and penalty of sin, but also from the power in our union with Christ. That means that we are freed from the necessity of sinning. We have a sinful nature. but we do not have to yield to it. Once we were free only to sin as Paul says in verse 20, When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness. Now we are freed to do righteousness because the grace of God has come into our lives and it has not only removed the penalty of the law, it has removed the bondage and mastery of sin as Paul says in verses 17 and 18, But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted.You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.

III Engaged

The next thing Paul emphasizes is that we must be engaged in this process. In verse 12 we are to reject the dominion of sin, Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. In verse 13 we are told to offer ourselves to God, Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness. In verse 15 we are to stop sinning, What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! And Paul puts this in the strongest terms again with an oath, by no means or God forbid! In verse 19 the Apostle again speaks of offering our members to God and holiness rather than impurity, I put this in human terms because you are weak in your natural selves. Just as you used to offer the parts of your body in slavery to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer them in slavery to righteousness leading to holiness. The cumulative effect of these pronouncements is to persuade us that this process of sanctification requires vigilance and sacrifice on our part. We must be engaged as Paul makes clear in Philippians 2:12 and 13, Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose. Yes God is working and God is enabling but we must be working as well.

IV Exercised

In the next chapter, 7, the apostle Paul will discourse extensively about the difficulty, the struggle, and the battle in which we are engaged as the flesh lusts against the Spirit as he states it in Galatians 5:17, For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want. Here he prepares us for this in verse 19 by reminding us of our weakness, I put this in human terms because you are weak in your natural selves. Just as you used to offer the parts of your body in slavery to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer them in slavery to righteousness leading to holiness. This struggle will only occur when we have the right view of the law. Though we are no longer under the law and have been cleared of its penalty through Christ’s death, yet we are under the law in a different way. Namely we are under the law as God’s moral standard, and it is by that law that we know whether we are pleasing God or not. Many professing Christians are not taking into account their responsibility to obey the moral law of God. Many do not even know the ten commandments, but by the law is the knowledge of sin. One preacher was teaching the relationship of the New testament believer to the moral law and the obligation we have to it. After the sermon a lady came up and in great distress said, “Haven’t you heard of Acts 16:31, ‘Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved?’” The preacher asked her what the man was doing to whom those words were spoken. She said that he was down on his knees crying out to be saved. The preacher said, “Well, I haven’t met many people like that, but if I do, you can be sure that I will quote Acts 16:31 to them, but until then I will preach the holiness of God in His law to sinners to bring them to repentance. We need constant spurring on to be exercised in the pursuit of holiness and in putting to death our sinful natures.

V Excited

And now we come back to where we started, namely, the ends in view. There are two ends and one is life and the other death. The Apostle concludes with verses 20-23, When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness. What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death! But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Living in holiness is living in happiness. Not the fleeting happiness of taking a vacation to Disneyland, but the settled happiness which the Bible calls blessedness, and of which Jesus spoke in the Beatitudes in Matthew 5. He said, Blessed are they who hunger and thirst after righteousness for they shall be filled. People living in holiness are happy because they are truly satisfied and because they have a future, a hope of eternal life. All the discouragement in life, the disappointment, the frustration, the misery, and the despair comes not from our circumstances but from the wages of sin. If we are convicted of that sin, then blessing is only one gift away, the gift of God, Jesus Christ.