20 For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness.
21 Therefore what benefit were you then deriving from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the outcome of those things is death.
22 But now having been freed from sin and enslaved to God, you derive your benefit, resulting in sanctification, and the outcome, eternal life.
23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
***
V. 19 - “speaking in human terms” - Paul is using physical examples of slavery to get the point across to the readers. We all understand slavery. In the United States slavery literally tore the nation asunder. The Civil War was fought because some factions wanted to retain or increase the number of states where slave holding was legal. They demanded the right to decide that for their states. The end of the war decided that no state in the United States of America would be a ‘slave state’. That subject and the ramifications of the treatment of fellow human beings has dogged this nation and our politics ever since.
Understand: if you are owned by another man, you are in his control. Your freedom, if any, is limited to what he will allow. When you are controlled by sin, you are slaves to sin. You have no freedom to live and act righteously. If you are owned by sin, you cannot be God’s child.
Understand: When you volunteer to be Christ’s body, you have given yourself to Him, to God. You are free from sin. Living righteously does not happen automatically. Each day you must resist Satan and turn to Jesus. That is the difference between being a slave to sin, and being a slave to righteousness: you get to choose! You can choose well, or choose poorly. The Holy Spirit is given to you to empower you to choose Christ’s way and not Satan’s. When the old nature is dead and gone, you will be like Jesus, and in the presence of God the Father, God Almighty. If you choose poorly, He has provided confession and repentance to forgive your sin and cleanse you of all unrighteousness. (See: 1 John 1:9).
“you presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness” - Again, “presented” is too wimpy: you yielded yourself. You gave your allegiance to sin to be used as the old sin nature felt wont to do. The result: you lived in sin. You lived in rebellion to God. The Jews were in active rebellion, having been given the commands of God. They knew what they were to do, and chose to do the opposite. The Gentiles, in this case the Romans to whom Paul was writing (and now, Paul is writing to us as we read this letter), were operating in ignorance (at least, operating in ignorance of the Law and Prophets). Paul has posited that even without the Law and Prophets we can know of God - See Romans 1:18-32.
“now present your members as slaves to righteousness” - An exhortation: yield yourself to Jesus, surrender to righteousness. Volunteer to give up everything you have to Christ the Lord. The metaphor of ‘bond-slave’ fits here.
“Resulting in sanctification” - The Easton Bible Dictionary defines “sanctification involves more than a mere moral reformation of character, brought about by the power of the truth: it is the work of the Holy Spirit bringing the whole nature more and more under the influences of the new gracious principles implanted in the soul in regeneration. In other words, sanctification is the carrying on to perfection the work begun in regeneration, and it extends to the whole man.” Unger’s Bible Dictionary says, “The dominant idea of sanctification, therefore, is separation from the secular and sinful, and setting apart for a sacred purpose.” Peter quotes Lev. 11:44-45, “Be holy because I am holy.” The Holy Spirit works in you as you grow in Christ so you can be as holy as is our Lord.
V. 20 - “free in regard to righteousness”- This is not referring to free to be righteous. Paul is saying they are living in freedom from righteousness! There is an atheist group in the United States, named “Freedom From Religion”. This group claims the U.S. Constitution demands there can be no reference to a religion in the United States, especially any reference to Christianity (particularly in any government, quasi-, or semi-governmental activity). They have twisted “freedom of religion” to reflect their negative and corrupt attitudes. They have refused to recognize our freedoms only exist if the people are moral and religious.
V. 21 - “what benefit were you then deriving” - What do we gain if we are enslaved to sin (and we are) before we believed in Christ? We do not gain eternal life. We do not gain righteousness. We do not gain peace with God, or an abundant life. I cannot claim that sinning is a big plus. See Jam. 1:13-15 - “Let no one say when he is tempted, ‘I am being tempted by God’; for God cannot be tempted by evil, and He Himself does not tempt anyone. But each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust. Then when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and when sin is accomplished, it brings forth death.”
Lust leads to sin. Sin leads to death. Remember, the second death, which separates us from God forever, is the end result of rejecting Christ as Lord and Savior. All will die the physical death. Some will not be separated from God, because they have accepted His gift.
V. 22 - “you derive your benefit” - Eternal life. This is not relegated to the future only, sometimes referred to as “pie-in-the-sky”. Jesus came that we might have life, and have it abundantly. (See John 10:10). We are set apart for Christ’s glory.
V. 23 - “the wages of sin is death” - There is no other end for the natural man. Without Christ there is no hope. Our life actions grow out of our belief system, the way we run our lives. The natural man is enslaved to sin (this chapter of Romans is dedicated to explaining that premise). Sin separates us from Christ, God the Father, and the Holy Spirit. Because we are enslaved to sin, we have earned the penalty.
“the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” - We cannot earn salvation. Jesus taught this. Paul preaches this. If we could earn it, Christ’s sacrifice is unnecessary. We do not pay for it. We cannot pay for it. This reminds me of the story of a man looking at luxury yachts. He asked the price of the ship. An onlooker commented, “If he feels he has to ask what it costs, he can’t afford it.” Our salvation is not free, Christ paid the full cost. Our salvation is free to us, because Christ was the perfect sacrifice that met God’s perfect justice.
***end of chapter
No comments:
Post a Comment