15 What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? May it never be!
16 Do you not know that when you present yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin resulting in death, or of obedience resulting in righteousness?
17 But thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed,
18 and having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness.
This is the fourth of four concepts of turning your life over to Jesus Christ and living for Him. The first: Know - mental acceptance that Jesus Christ died for your sin. Second: Reckon/Consider - based on that knowledge, orient your life and behavior following Him. Third: Yield - surrender control of your life to Jesus and the Holy Spirit. Fourth: Obey - Make your life-decisions based on His commands, and follow them daily.
V. 15 - “Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace?” - This is the same question asked in verse 6:1 - “Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase?” Isn’t it logical? If Jesus’ grace covers all our sins, let’s sin a lot so we can get a lot of grace. Doesn’t it make sense? A lot of sin means a lot of grace. Well... Paul’s response:
“May it never be!” - Paul poses this rhetorical question, and answers it. Someone who does not understand the relationship of our sin nature and our sins would ask this kind of question. The sins we commit are the proof (evidence, or manifestation) of our sin nature. We did not earn our sin nature because of the sins we do. This is different than our U.S. legal system, in which we are innocent until proven guilty. (We are criminals if we are convicted of committing crimes. We are presumed innocent until... ) In this world, we are sinners until the Lord Jesus Christ gives us a new sinless nature. See John 3:36 - “The one who believes in the Son has eternal life. The one who rejects the Son will not see life, but God's wrath remains on him.”
V. 16 - “Do you not know” - How could they not know about slavery? I think that slaves may have been far more common than paid workers in the Roman and Greek culture. God instructed the Jews to never own another Jew as a slave. Technically, a Jew was not a slave in Jewish culture, but a ‘hired hand’ working to pay off a debt. (See: Exo. 21:2-6; Lev. 25:39ff; Deut. 15:16-18.) A Jew, having served to pay the debt, could decide to stay with the ‘master’ - voluntary servitude. They went through a ceremony in which a hole was punched in the servant’s earlobe, after which the servant served for life. The term ‘bond-servant’ may refer to this voluntary service.
“when you present yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience” - A slave’s life was not entirely his own. There may be a few moments during the day when a slave was not at the master’s beck-and-call. There are fewer moments that a slave can choose to disobey his master.
Now in most cases, no one voluntarily becomes another’s slave. (See ‘bond-slave’ notes above.) Just because you volunteer does not give you the right to be disobedient to your master. When you ‘present’ yourself, you have ‘yielded’ your rights to your master.
“Slaves of the one whom you obey” - Your actions demonstrate what you believe.
“Either sin... or righteousness” - The choice is the natural man (sin) which is inherited from Adam, or the new man (righteousness) gifted to you by Christ. You will obey one or the other.
V. 17 - “You became obedient from the heart” - Even though you are a sinner, you chose to follow to Jesus! As Paul says in this letter later: “because if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and thus has righteousness and with the mouth one confesses and thus has salvation.” (Rom. 10:9-10). God knows the changes in us start with the heart of man. From Ezekiel: “I will give them one heart and I will put a new spirit within them; I will remove the hearts of stone from their bodies and I will give them tender hearts,” (Eze. 11:19 )
V. 18 - “Slaves of righteousness” - If you are no longer slaves of sin because of your faith in Christ Jesus, your citizenship has been changed from the domain of darkness to the kingdom of light. (See: Col. 1:13) Committing your life into Christ’s hands and being faithful to Him, means you are committing to obey Him. He is righteous - the very definition of righteousness - and now you are slaves to righteousness.
I think we struggle with the idea of being slaves to anything or anyone. The history of slavery in the United States a mixed bag - there is the horror of slavery in which people were ‘owned’ by another; there is the glory of a Civil War in which slavery was eliminated as a government sanctioned activity. Slavery still exists in this world, in the 21st century but not in the United States. Slavery is anathema here.
Who or what you believe controls the ways you make decisions. You are a ‘slave’ to that control system. Praise God that Jesus Christ is your savior, and your master!
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