Original Meaning

PAUL CARRIES FORTH the theme of 6:1–14 in this section. He continues to proclaim that believers are set free from sin (vv. 18, 22). But the emphasis shifts slightly. Whereas freedom was the dominant motif in verses 1–14, slavery now takes center stage. Paul uses this imagery both to remind us of what our state used to be (“slaves to sin,” vv. 17, 20) and to encourage us to recognize what we have now become in Christ (“slaves to righteousness,” v. 18; “slaves to God,” v. 22). This paragraph focuses, therefore, on the transfer from one state of slavery to another and the implications that ensue from that transfer.

As he did in 6:1, Paul asks and responds to a rhetorical question about the continuing state of sinfulness to set up the argument of the paragraph (vv. 15–16). Dominating the paragraph structurally are two of his beloved “once”/“but now” contrasts: verses 17–18 and 20–23. In verse 19 the apostle turns to the imperative mode to set out the response that believers should make to the transfer of power he describes in these two contrasts. God has given us a new master, and we must now obey that master.

The questions that open the two main sections in Romans 6 reveal the common theme Paul pursues: “Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase?” (v. 1); “Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace?” (v. 15). As the former question is sparked by what Paul said in 5:20 about the power of grace, so the question in 6:15 is stimulated by what he has just said at the end of verse 14. Proclaiming that believers have been transferred from the regime of the Mosaic law to the regime of grace may lead some Christians to think that sin does not matter. Indeed, the danger that believers will “presume on grace” and not pursue a life of obedience to the Lord is an ever-present danger in the Christian church.

Paul usually uses the introductory phrase “don’t you know” (v. 16) to cite a fact that his readers already know. In this case, they will recognize what Paul says as a proverbial truth: When we habitually “offer” ourselves to someone, we become a slave of that to which we offer ourselves. Sin, then, is a serious matter. Though set free from it, we can in effect become its slaves again if we give ourselves to it.

Paul heightens the seriousness of the issue at the end of verse 16 by making it clear that we are ultimately confronted with a choice of only two masters to serve: sin and obedience. We would expect the contrast with sin to be righteousness or God (see vv. 18, 20–21). But Paul obviously wants to hammer home the importance of obedience, so he uses this word in a positive sense to denote the Christian moral demand. Serving sin leads to death, but serving obedience “leads to righteousness.” Some interpreters think that “righteousness” here has forensic flavor and refers to vindication at the judgment (see “life” in vv. 22, 23).1 But Paul is obviously using dikaio-language in a different nuance here from what he did in chapters 1–4. In keeping with Old Testament and Jewish usage, righteousness has a moral sense: conduct pleasing to God.2

From what Paul has said so far, we may assume that we stand in a state of neutrality with respect to the choice of serving “sin” or “obedience.” So, elaborating the theme of 6:1–10, Paul now reminds us that this is certainly not the case. “Thanks … to God,” believers have left slavery to sin and have “wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which [they] were entrusted.”

Two elements in this assertion require comment. (1) Why does Paul say “form of teaching”? It is unlikely that he is thinking of a certain form of Christian teaching as opposed to another form since he speaks so generally here. More likely he is contrasting the Christian pattern of teaching with the Jewish pattern (see 2:20).3 Believers are not “under” the law of Moses (6:14–15), but they do have a pattern of teaching for which they are responsible.

(2) The other noteworthy feature of this sentence is the passive form of the verb: Believers have “been entrusted” or “been handed over” (paradidomi, the verb used in the Gospels of Jesus’ being “handed over” to the Roman authorities [e.g., Matt. 26:15–16; 27:2]). Believers do not choose whether they will serve Christ as Lord or obey the teaching he has given us. God has already given us over to it.

Verse 18 goes on to summarize the “indicative” of the believer’s transfer from one realm to another: from “sin” to “righteousness.” The necessary moral implications of conversion to Christ are again made clear: We have been made “slaves” of that moral conduct God expects of his people (see comments on “righteousness” in v. 16).

Verse 19a is something of an aside, as Paul explains why he is using the imagery of slavery: “because you are weak in your natural selves.” “Natural selves” translates sarx (lit., flesh), the word Paul customarily uses to describe the human condition apart from God. What he suggests, therefore, is that the limitations of our human understanding make it necessary for him to use imprecise, but still appropriate analogies.

Verse 19b is the center of this paragraph. A reminder of the new situation God has put us in comes just before it (vv. 17–18), and a further reminder of that same status comes immediately after it (vv. 20–23). But, as in 6:1–14, Paul does not want us to think that the “indicative” of God’s act undermines or cancels the need for the “imperative” or our response. Using the same verb as he did in 6:13, Paul again appeals to us to “offer” (paristemi) all our capacities and abilities “in slavery to righteousness leading to holiness.”

“Holiness” (hagiasmos) denotes either the state of holiness or the process of sanctification.4 In either case, Paul sees our commitment to righteousness as resulting in God-likeness. In an interesting comparison, Paul suggests that our commitment to serve righteousness should be just as strong as our previous commitment to “impurity” and “wickedness.” One thinks of the single-minded pursuit with which some people seek fame, money, or power. Our pursuit of righteousness and holiness should be just as dedicated.

The transfer from the realm of sin and death to the realm of righteousness and life (vv. 20–23) is the ground for the command in verse 19. (Verse 20 begins with a gar [“for”], not translated in the NIV.) Paul again contrasts the “when” of our pre-Christian past (vv. 20–21) with the “now” of our Christian present (vv. 22–23). Non-Christians often pride themselves on being free, in contrast to Christians, who in their estimation have lost their human autonomy by bowing the knee to Christ. Paul notes that non-Christians do, indeed, have a freedom—the freedom not to be able to lead righteous lives. Genuine autonomy is not an option. If one is not serving God, then, whether knowingly or not, one is serving sin.

To bring to our minds even more forcibly the negative side of our pre-Christian past, Paul reminds us of the shame we feel for what we used to do. Just how he makes this point in verse 21 is debated. The NIV suggests that Paul asks a rhetorical question implying the answer “none.”5 But it is preferable to follow here the punctuation adopted in, for instance, the NJB: “What did you gain from living like that? Experiences of which you are now ashamed, for that sort of behaviour ends in death.”6 The verse then matches the structure of verse 22 almost exactly:

	Status	Result	Outcome
Before we were Christians (v. 21):	slaves of sin, free from righteousness	fruit bringing shame	death
Now that we are Christians (v. 22):	free from sin, slaves of God	fruit bringing sanctification	life

Verse 23 not only explains the contrasting “outcomes” of death and life, but also brings the chapter to a fitting conclusion. That sin leads to death has been a background motif since 5:12. Only by remembering the dark side of life outside of Christ can we truly appreciate God’s “gift” to us, the gift of his grace that brings “eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” As Lloyd-Jones points out, this verse makes three contrasts basic to Paul’s teaching in this part of the letter:

the master that is served—sin versus God

the outcome of that service—death versus eternal life

how that outcome is reached—a “wage” earned versus a “gift” received.

Bridging Contexts

A TWO-REGIME FRAMEWORK. As we have been demonstrating, in Romans 5–8 Paul tries to make sense of Christian existence by using an overarching framework: the contrast between two regimes. Since this framework is basic to most of what Paul says in these chapters, we will easily misunderstand the specifics of what he says if we do not keep this framework in view.

Paul adapted his two-regime contrast from Jewish apocalyptic thinking. In this stream of Judaism, history was divided into two ages: “the present age,” dominated by sin, Gentiles, and Satan; and “the age to come,” when God will vindicate himself and his people, banish evil, and establish his eternal kingdom. We find remnants of this widespread Jewish conception throughout Paul’s writings, as when he contrasts “the present age” and “the one to come” (Eph. 1:21) and speaks of “the rulers of this age” (1 Cor. 2:6, 8), “the god of this age” (2 Cor. 4:4), or “the present evil age” (Gal. 1:4).

But the apostle is forced by the circumstances of God’s work in Christ to modify this scheme. For through Christ’s death and resurrection, the “new age” has been inaugurated. Yet the present evil age does not come to an end, nor is the new age yet present in its full and final form. Evil and sin still exist, and believers are themselves not yet perfected. So Paul applies the scheme not only to salvation history but also to the individual experience of believers. In one sense, the change of ages took place when the redemptive work of Christ was finished. In another sense, the change of ages takes place only as individuals come to faith and appropriate the benefits of Christ’s redemptive work. In other words, Paul applies his “two-age” contrast to both salvation history and individual history, and occasionally confusion can result from their overlap.

We find the evidence of this scheme throughout Romans 5–8, as Paul repeatedly contrasts the powers of the old age with those of the new age. But since Paul uses the motif of “rule” or “authority” more than the temporal category, we may speak more accurately of two “regimes”:

The Old Regime	The New Regime
Adam	Christ
Sin	Righteousness; obedience
Death	Life
Law	Grace
Flesh	Spirit

Paul pictures the believer as one who has been transferred from the one regime to the other. We have been placed in a new situation, dominated by a new set of powers. But in keeping with New Testament eschatology, our domination by the new powers does not yet mean that we are rescued from any possible contamination from the old regime. That regime still exists, and through our continuing participation in this world, it can still affect us.

Contemporary Significance

WHAT GOD GIVES versus what we do. Running as a constant motif through Romans 6 is the interplay between what we have several times called the “indicative” and the “imperative.” In the former mode, Paul insists that God has himself accomplished our decisive break with sin: “We died to sin” (v. 2); “our old self was crucified with him” (v. 6); we are “dead to sin but alive to God” (v. 11); we “have been brought from death to life” (v. 13); “sin shall not be your master” (v. 14); “you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of righteousness” (v. 18); “you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God” (v. 22).

But Paul regularly intersperses his indicatives with imperatives that make us responsible for winning the battle against sin: “Do not let sin reign” (v. 12); “do not offer the parts of your body to sin … but … offer yourselves to God” (v. 13); “offer [the parts of your body] in slavery to righteousness leading to holiness” (v. 19). The combination of these emphases presents both a theological and a practical problem.

The theological problem is to combine these two so that we can achieve a coherent picture and at the same time do justice to Paul’s teachings on related topics. No theologian completely ignores one of these emphases or the other, but many focus on one side or the other. One popular option has been to isolate the two into separate compartments. This is the approach of the “liberal” theologians in the late 1800s and early 1900s, who emphasized the ethical teaching of the Bible at the expense of its “religious” teaching. What people did was severed from what they believed. At the other extreme are those who virtually subsume the imperative under the indicative. What God has done is so overwhelmingly powerful that Christian obedience becomes a kind of automatic response. It is almost as if God acts through us.

Most scholars recognize these two views as extreme and seek some way to integrate the indicative and imperative without dismissing either one. One thing is clear in Paul: The imperative grows out of the indicative. In Romans 6, for instance, Paul does not call on people to wage a war against sin with the hope that God will take their side and win the war for them. Throughout his teaching—and, indeed, throughout the Bible—God takes the initiative. In grace, he acts to help his people, and he asks them to respond. As the title of one of the most influential essays on this subject says, “Being Precedes Act.”7 Or, to use the phrase found throughout the literature: Christians are called to “become what they are.”

At the same time, God’s acts on our behalf are not finished. He has more things to give us and to accomplish in us. This means that we can also speak of “becoming what we will be.” What God will one day make us should be a spur to getting as close to that ideal as possible.

While, then, it is clear that the imperative is based on this indicative, we must be careful not to separate the two, as if our obedience is the product of our own unaided effort. “Justification by faith and sanctification by struggle” is the slogan that has been coined to describe this kind of view of the Christian life. We must recognize that the grace and power of God that justified us continue to be at work to sanctify us. God expects us to obey him, but our very obedience is the product of his grace. The Puritan Jeremiah Bourroughs put it like this: “From him [Christ] as from a fountain, sanctification flows into the souls of the Saints: their sanctification comes not so much from their struggling, and endeavors, and vows, and resolutions, as it comes flowing to them from their union with him.”8 Or, to use the imagery of theologian Helmut Thielicke, believers are responsible to open their mouths so that they may drink from the river of sanctifying grace.

In the practical experience of living the Christian life, we find both extremes as well. The one extreme we call moralism or legalism. In its strict sense, legalism is the effort to gain salvation by our own efforts. While some religions tend toward legalism, it is seldom found, at least in its pure form, among Christians. But common is a softer “legalism”: the belief, perhaps not even clearly articulated, that we can obey God by our own efforts or through our own program. Many well-intentioned believers fall into this trap, implicitly separating the indicative of God’s grace from the moral effort of Christians so that the two are virtually unrelated. Self-help programs are a fad these days, and believers easily bring this human-centered perspective into their life of faith.

To guard against moralism we must root all of our obedience in those disciplines of the Christian life that put us in touch with God’s own power: reading Scripture, worship, prayer. It is through these means that God has promised to communicate his grace to us. We must always evaluate our own personal as well as the church’s programs of Christian living against this test: Are they effective channels of God’s grace? No program that does not pass this test will make any real or long-lasting change in the lives of believers.

At the opposite extreme from moralism is what we might call the magical view of the Christian life. Again, we find sincere and dedicated believers who fall into this trap. They write books and present seminars, all with the basic thrust that the key to the victorious Christian life is simply letting our new redeemed natures take their course. “Let go and let God” is the slogan. The indicative is given pride of place in this approach, and it is often attractively presented as an alternative to legalism or moralism.

But the magical view gives insufficient emphasis to the reality of the imperative. God commands us to act, and the very fact that Paul’s letters are peppered with commands shows that obedience is not automatic. True, Jesus compared the believer to the tree that automatically produces good fruit. But, as one theologian has astutely noted, “people are not trees.” Trees do not refuse the water that trickles down to their roots; they do not remove themselves from fertile soil to plant themselves in bad soil. People, yes even Christians, do these kinds of things.

Thus, we need to listen to and respond to the commands of Scripture. Particularly troublesome is the tendency of Christians to think that the indicative is all they need. If God has already given me “all things” in Christ (see Rom. 8:32), why do I need to bother to obey him? As we noted, Paul has already suggested (6:2) that no genuine Christian should ever think this way, for we no longer live in the realm of sin. But Paul goes on to make clear that our enjoyment of eternal life is contingent on our obedience (see 8:12–13). Paul agrees with James: Faith without works is dead; it cannot save (James 2:14–26).