To Be Set Free

A woman of the imperial household in Rome.

Scripture:

Rom. 6:15   What then? Should we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! ¹⁶ 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? ¹⁷ But thanks be to God that you, having once been slaves of sin, have become obedient from the heart to the form of teaching to which you were entrusted, ¹⁸ and that you, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness. ¹⁹ 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 greater and greater iniquity, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness for sanctification.

Rom. 6:20   When you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. ²¹ So what advantage did you then get from the things of which you now are ashamed? The end of those things is death. ²² But now that you have been freed from sin and enslaved to God, the advantage you get is sanctification. The end is eternal life. ²³ For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Observation:

“As Christians we are free to choose our lord—whether sin or God. But we are never free to choose the consequences of our choice of masters” (Edlin & Modine, NBBC). That’s why Paul comes on strong about continuing in sin. He believes that there is a Christian life that is available to all believers where the life of sin is replaced with the life of virtue. This is what it means for Paul to be set free from a life of sin and now to become entirely obedient to righteousness. There is a choice to be made — for we will all be committed to one or the other. The incredible gift of God is to be set free.

Once we are set free, we are not “made holy simply to be saintly, but to serve” (Edlin & Modine, NBBC). Returning to the conversation of shooting at a particular target, or aiming at the mark, Paul identifies sin as intentionally choosing a different target, and this is rebellion against God. The new goal or target for the Christian is sanctification or holiness, and this does not come from a split allegiance, but from wholehearted devotion to Jesus Christ. The language used here by Paul is appropriated from the “through and through” terminology which he uses in reference to sanctification when writing to the Thessalonians. 

The final verse is well known, but summarizes the challenge before each individual who chooses whether to be set free and serve God entirely, or not. 

 

Application:

Sometimes it’s hard to see that there is a need to be set free because it seems there are many good people in the world. When I was a child my imagination got the best of me as I thought about those who were “slaves to sin.” Obviously those were those really bad people who murdered, swore, and were often drunk. It was a visual of the degradations of sin and the ruin of one’s life. The challenge when I grew up was meeting some really nice people who didn’t follow Christ and this created a bit of a conundrum in my mind. 

What would Paul say to that really good person whom I encounter at work — the one who would give the shirt off of their back to help someone in need? Surely, they are not shooting at the wrong target in life! In this regard I believe there are two things at work. First, Paul has been talking about the response to natural law. In other words — people do have a sense of what is right and wrong. This is how humanity ruled at the Nuremberg trials following WWII. Criminals were judged for not following the higher law, and for simply following orders. As humans we are to understand this and follow the natural or moral law. However, after Paul laid out the case for the natural law, he expounded upon the work of Christ to set us free. 

I think that the enemy is very clever in trying to convince us that we don’t need Christ in our lives. So many of our material needs are met that not many see a need for God in their lives. Their pocketbooks become their gods and they become complacent and satisfied with what life has to offer. While we may think that this is something new, it would not have been to the Roman world. Paul was writing to very sophisticated people in Rome and many there would have been wealthy. They would have had gods to worship and a lifestyle that “should” have made many happy as they fed their own desires. It was into this world that Paul spoke and said that you were still a slave to the things of this world, or the things of Christ. To be set free is to refuse to allow the trappings of this life to hold you in conformity to its values. At the end of the day, even those with wealth and resources, and yes, even really nice people, find themselves in need of Christ. 

This message from Paul is about radical transformation in which every part of life is oriented around Christ. This new orientation leads us directly into a relationship of participation in holy love. It is this holy love of God that sanctifies us through and through. The on-going through and through of the walk with Christ is to permeate every part of our being. We are no longer sinners — or even just good people — but we are reflections of Christ in the world. This is the advantage that we receive from our walk with God, and in this we find freedom. 

Prayer

Lord, I may your spirit continue to work through and through my being — every single day. Amen.