Trinity 7
Rom
6:19-23
7/19/26
The Gospel announces the free gift
of forgiveness and life for sinners. We learn that this is a matter of God’s
grace – it is completely a gift from God that we could never earn. It takes
place on account of Christ. It is possible because of the death and
resurrection of Jesus for our sin. It is received by faith. It is received by
believing and trusting in Jesus as our crucified and risen Lord. And it is
received by faith alone. Faith in Christ receives the gift, and there is
nothing that our actions contribute to our status as forgiven sinners – to our
status as saints in God’s eyes.
This is indeed good news! It is
Gospel. But as sinners, it is easy to see how we might be inclined warp the
Gospel into something that serves sin. It is quite tempting to conclude: “I
like to sin. God likes to forgive. This is going to be great.”
Twice in Romans chapter six Paul
addresses this perversion of the Gospel. At the beginning of the chapter he
says, “What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may
abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?” Then
just before our text he repeats the same idea when he writes, “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?”
The apostle tells us that no, life
in Christ is not a matter of “I like to sin, and God likes to forgive.”
Instead, he explains in our text today that we are always going to be slave to
something. Either we are going to be a slave to sin which results in death, or
we are going to be a slave to righteousness because of what God has done for us
in Christ through our baptism.
In the previous chapter, Paul had
been describing how Christ is the second Adam whose death and resurrection
frees us from the sin that Adam brought into the world. He writes, “Therefore,
as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of
righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. For as by
the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one
man’s obedience the many will be made righteous.”
The apostle is in the process of
describing how the law and sin interact with one another. He has said that
through the law there is the knowledge of sin. But the law itself cannot be the
answer to sin. Paul will explain in chapter seven how our sinful passions
actually work through the law. When the law forbids doing something, sin causes
us to desire it all the more. But the
good news is that God’s grace in Christ to provide forgiveness abounds beyond
our sin. He says at the end of chapter five, “Now the law came in to
increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the
more.”
The grace of God’s forgiveness in Christ
abounds beyond our sin. So does that mean we should just go on sinning? As I
mentioned earlier, Paul writes at the beginning of chapter six, “What shall we
say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means!
How can we who died to sin still live in it?”
Paul says it can’t work this way
because we have died to sin. Then he supports his point with something he knows
the Romans already understand. He says, “Do you not know that all of
us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his
death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order
that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the
Father, we too might walk in newness of life.”
The apostle says that something
happened in baptism. This no mere symbol. It’s not an action you carry out
to demonstrate your commitment to Christ. Instead, it is something God does
to you. It is the means by which you shared in Christ’s death. It is the
way in which you were buried with Christ. Through baptism you have shared in
Jesus Christ’s saving death. And therefore, you are now forgiven.
But Paul’s point here is not simply
to say that baptism delivers forgiveness. Instead, he reminds the Romans that
baptism is the source of God’s resurrection power in your life. God raised
Jesus from the dead. And now the Spirit of the risen Lord is present in you.
The Spirit who gave you regeneration in baptism now enables you to walk in
newness of life – to live in ways that are true to God’s will.
Baptized into Christ – living in
Christ through the work of the Spirit – means that you will say no to sin. Just
before our text Paul says, “Do not present your members to sin as instruments
for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been
brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for
righteousness.” You have been brought
from death to life by Christ’s Spirit. So Paul urges you not to present your
bodies to sin as the means for carrying out more sin. Instead, Paul tells you
to present your bodies as instruments that do the things that please God – as
instruments for righteousness.
The reality is that you are going to
be a slave to something. Paul writes, “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?” You are going to be controlled by something. If you
present yourself to sin then that is the path that leads to death. On the other
hand, the obedience of faith leads to salvation and the life that pleases God.
What Paul then says about the Romans
is true of you. He writes, “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.” You were once slaves of sin.
But you have been called to faith by the Spirit. You have become obedient from
the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were handed over.
The language of “the standard of
teaching” describes the apostolic faith that you confess. And notice how the
apostle doesn’t say that it was handed on to you. Instead, he says that that you were handed
over to it. Through the work of the Spirit you believe and confess what God
has revealed in the Scriptures. Paul says the result is that you have been
freed from sin. This means that you are forgiven before God. But more
importantly in this context it means that you have been freed from living in
sin. Instead, the apostle says that you have become a slave of
righteousness.
In the words of our text, Paul
exhorts you to live as what Christ’s Spirit has made you to be. The apostle
grants that he is speaking in ways that acknowledge our condition. He says, “I am speaking in human terms, because
of the weakness of your flesh.”
The exhortation to living in righteous ways here and elsewhere in
this chapter sets before us a reality of the Christian life. Through the work
of the Spirit you are a new creation in Christ. You are new man in Christ. But
until you die or Christ returns, that is not all you are. In yourself you are
also old Adam. Paul described this to the Galatians when he said, “For the
desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are
against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from
doing the things you want to do.”
The life of a Christian is made possible through the work of the
Spirit. But we are not the Spirit’s robots. We are people who are involved in
the choices that we make. And so as we live in Christ through the work of the
Spirit we need to seek to act in those ways that are righteous – those
ways that are good and pleasing to God.
That’s what Paul says in our text, “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.” The apostle urges us to live in Christ by
presenting ourselves as slaves of righteousness – as people who seek to live in
ways that please God. He says that this orientation results in sanctification –
in a life that is holy according to God’s will.
The apostle notes that a person who is a slave to sin is free in
regard to righteousness. If you give yourself over to sin, then you don’t have
to worry about what God says. You can just do your own thing. However, this
comes at a cost. Paul asks, “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.”
The fruit produced by sin in our lives is strife, anger, pain, and
loss. It harms the people in our lives. It harms us. We were created in the
image of God. We were created to live perfectly tuned to God’s will – to the
ways God ordered his creation to work. When we no longer do this, it throws
everything off. It makes everything worse. It’s like replacing one of the tires
on your car with another that is the wrong size. Sure the car still runs, but
now the ride is terrible and it doesn’t handle correctly.
And Paul tells us that the end of the life of sin is death. Now
because of sin, we will all die. But in our text Paul sets death in contrast to
eternal life. This is not just physical death. It is eternal separation from
God in the judgment of hell.
However, Paul says in our text that for the Christian the outcome
is very different. He writes, “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.” Through the
Gospel and the work of the Spirit you have been set free from sin. You have
become a slave of God – the God who gave his Son into the death of the cross to
save you. Now, the fruit of being a slave to God and his righteousness results
in sanctification. It results in the life produced by faith. And the end of
this life is eternal life.
Slaves to sin or slaves to righteousness? The apostle Paul says in
our text today that we do have a choice about the one to which we are going to
offer ourselves. That’s why he says, “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.”
Earlier I made the point that we are not the Spirit’s robots. We
are in fact people who are involved in the choices that we make and the actions
we undertake. But if we cooperate with God in the life produced by faith, we
must recognize that he alone is the source of this life and is the One who
continues to make it possible.
So if we are to present ourselves as slaves to righteousness we
must be focused on the source by which God has caused us to be a new creation
in Christ in the first place. We must put Christ’s Means of Grace at the center
of our life. This is, of course, true of what we receive in the Divine
Service. Here through Word and Sacrament
the Spirit gives us forgiveness and strengthens faith.
But in particular I want to emphasize the importance of reading
Scripture during the week in our devotional life. In the Scriptures the Spirit
is doing several things at once. The Scriptures are the word through which the
Spirit sustains faith and supports the new man in us. But it also the word
through which the Spirit sets before us how to live. This word teaches us what
righteousness looks like. It encourages us as we see what the life in Christ
means, and we know that yes, that is what we want to be. And it is also the
word that the Spirit uses to restrain and repress the old man as he helps us to
live in Christ.
There is a certain inertia in the Christian life. The more we
attend the Divine Service and read Scripture during the week, the easier it
becomes to present ourselves as slaves to righteousness. The less we do so, the easier it becomes to
present ourselves as slaves to sin.
Without a doubt, we have a choice. In the habits of our life we are
deciding whether we are going to align ourselves with the work of the Spirit by
which he empowers and leads us to live as God’s people.
Paul says this morning, “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.”
In Christ through the work of the Spirit you have been freed from sin.
The life of faith now belongs to God as we are slaves to righteousness. This
faith produces the fruits of sanctification as we live according to God’s will.
And it leads to the end of eternal life.
No comments:
Post a Comment