Romans 6:15-23

Paul’s words, you are not under law but under grace (6:14) have been often misunderstood.  Some people take it to mean Paul encouraged permissiveness and removed the believer from the boundaries of God’s law.  Paul anticipates this misunderstanding in v15 and answers those who think being under grace promotes sin.

The idea of under grace is based in slavery (v16).  We are slaves, but not because of the existence of any law or master.  We are slaves because we present ourselves to a master.  There are only two masters: righteousness or sin.  We may say our master is Allah or Buddha or the good of mankind or myself.  But however we say it, if we do not present ourselves to God for righteousness we present ourselves to sin.  Everyone is a slave; but which master do you serve?

In vs. 17-19 Paul reminds his readers that they already made their choice when they put their faith in Christ.  They have been justified by faith in Christ, the very doctrine Paul preached (Rom. 3-5).  The Greek tenses in these verses (aorist, a once-for-all action in the past) make it clear he is speaking of their faith in Christ by which they were saved, a once-for-all choice.  He says they obeyed the call of the gospel to believe in Christ.

The effect of this faith was that, as that moment, they were set free from sin and became slaves of righteousness (v18).  Remember that the call of the gospel is to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ (Acts 16:31).  It is to confess the Lord Jesus (Rom. 19:9-10).  When one hears the good news that Christ dies for his sins and was raised from the dead, he believes in Christ.  At the same time he is made free from sin, the master to which he has been enslaved.

In v19 what Paul now calls on them to do is to daily and repeatedly make the same choice of faith.  He’s not calling them to become saved every day; that was a once-for-all choice in the past.  Instead he calls them to live today by the choice they were moved to make earlier.  They become slaves of righteousness; so they should continue to yield their bodies to righteousness.

To emphasize his point Paul then reminds them of the very reason they believed on Christ in the first place.  In v20-21 he reminds them of the shame and misery of their living before they believed.  Those who have turned to Christ have done so out of a conviction that their lives are sinful, dishonoring to the Creator, deserving of death.  They have personally experienced the fruit of sin.  Relationships have been ruined, personal expectations unfulfilled.  We might call this the culture of death.

They turned from this in coming to Christ.  They became slaves of God, resulting in holiness and everlasting life.  They become slaves of a wonderful Master, no longer earning the wages of sin but receiving His gift of eternal life.  This gift means eternal life is the result of grace, not something earned.  And thus the culture of life must be lived under grace.  

To sum up the passage, Paul is saying that grace does not promote sin.  Those he writes to will yield themselves to righteousness because that is the choice they made when they believed in Christ.  True faith in Christ whereby we are freed from sin will be the same faith we live by each day.  Those who use grace as an excuse to sin don’t understand grace and cast doubt on their own once-for-all obedience to the gospel.