Romans 6; God Requires Obedience

[XtraPercept]

Romans 6:14-23

For sin must no longer control you, for you live not under law but under mercy.

What follows, then? Are we to sin, because we live not under law but under mercy?

Certainly not!

Do you not know that when you submit to being someone's slaves, and obeying him, you are the slaves of the one you obey, whether your slavery is to sin, and leads to death, or is to obedience, and leads to uprightness?

But, thank God!

though you were once slaves of sin, you have become obedient from your hearts to the standard of teaching that you received, and so you have been freed from sin, and made slaves of uprightness.

I use these familiar human terms because of the limitations of your nature.

For just as you before gave up the parts of your bodies in slavery to vice and greater and greater license, you must now give them up in slavery to uprightness, which leads to consecration.

For when you were slaves of sin, you were free as far as uprightness was concerned.

What good did you get from doing the things you are now ashamed of?

Why, they result in death!

But now that you have been freed from sin and have become slaves of God, the benefit you get is consecration, and the final result is eternal life.

For the wages sin pays is death, but the gift God gives is eternal life through union with Christ Jesus our Lord.

 

[mailmandan]

In regard to Romans 6:16-18, there is a contrast here between servants/slaves. There are only two kinds of servants/slaves in this world, in the spiritual sense: servants/slaves of sin unto death, or servants/slaves of obedience unto righteousness. When we place our faith exclusively in Jesus Christ for salvation/believe the gospel by trusting in His finished work of redemption as the ALL-sufficient means of our salvation (Acts 15:7-9; Romans 1:16; 3:24; 1 Corinthians 15:1-4 etc..) we then become "servants of obedience unto righteousness."

Being slaves of sin is put in the past tense. Paul goes on in Romans 6:18 - "You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness."

Notice in Romans 10:10 - For with the heart one believes unto righteousness..

Notice in Romans 4:5 - But to him who does not work but believes on Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith (not his works) is accounted for righteousness.

 

[Soyeong]

Romans 6:14-23

For sin must no longer control you, for you live not under law but under mercy.

What follows, then? Are we to sin, because we live not under law but under mercy?

Certainly not!

Do you not know that when you submit to being someone's slaves, and obeying him, you are the slaves of the one you obey, whether your slavery is to sin, and leads to death, or is to obedience, and leads to uprightness?

But, thank God!

though you were once slaves of sin, you have become obedient from your hearts to the standard of teaching that you received, and so you have been freed from sin, and made slaves of uprightness.

I use these familiar human terms because of the limitations of your nature.

For just as you before gave up the parts of your bodies in slavery to vice and greater and greater license, you must now give them up in slavery to uprightness, which leads to consecration.

For when you were slaves of sin, you were free as far as uprightness was concerned.

What good did you get from doing the things you are now ashamed of?

Why, they result in death!

But now that you have been freed from sin and have become slaves of God, the benefit you get is consecration, and the final result is eternal life.

For the wages sin pays is death, but the gift God gives is eternal life through union with Christ Jesus our Lord.

Indeed, everything in Romans 6 is speaking in favor of obedient to the Law of God and against the law of sin, is it bizarre how common it is for people to remove Romans 6:14 from that context as if we are no longer under the Law of God and have been set free to obey the law of sin instead of the other way around.