Romans 6:15-23
What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! 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? 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, and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness. I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations. 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.
For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. 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. 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. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
In the first part of this chapter Paul answered the anticipated objection to the idea that grace is greater than sin by pointing out that, in Christ, the law has nothing to say to us since its penalty has been paid at the cross.
Now Paul anticipates another objection to grace that might sound like, since we are free from the penalty of sin are we free to engage with sin? Well, no, of course not. When God freed the Israelites from Egypt they were no longer under the bondage of the Pharaoh but they had to leave Egypt.
The land of sin is the land of the dead. Dead people don’t see or hear or think, they are dead. It is the life giving power of God that dug me up and transferred me to the land of righteousness. Notice that the opposite of death isn’t life rather, it is righteousness or right standing with God. That righteousness which proceeds from obedience. Obedience to the law? No, obedience to grace. Let God pour out his favor on you. Believe that God wants to pour out his favor in you. John 6:29, “Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.”
Notice that sin has wages but righteousness bears fruit. A slave to sin is a drudge that receives only death but a slave of righteousness is a branch that receives life from the vine.
John 15:1-5, “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.
What is this fruit that sets upon us? Galatians 5:22-23, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.” This result of being in Christ tends towards our sanctification which leads to more fruit which leads to more sanctification and onward and upward until we see Him face to face.
There is no end to God’s life. No matter how much He gives us He has no less and gives more and more. John 3:16, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”
brotherpayne 