Bible Passage: Romans 6:15-23

I. Rom 6:15a “because we are not under the law but under grace?”

1. “we are not under the law”

a. The expression “the law,” refers to “the Law of Moses”

b. “The law” includes the Ten Commandments, the laws of tithe, the laws of Sabbath, the law of circumcision, the law of festivals, etc.

c. By the statement “we are not under the law,” Paul says that Christians relate with God not by means of the observance of any of these law requirements

d. If they did, they will be called “legalists”

e. What is Christians’ relationship to the law of Moses like the Ten Commandments?

i. The law informs God’s standard and what pleases God

ii. The law informs how man is unable to achieve God’s standard and how he is always short of God’s standard

iii. The law prepares us to better appreciate the Gospel

2. “but we are under grace of God”

a. Instead of man trying to relate to God with human means, God relates with man

b. It’s God’s gracious reach to man who can never reach God on his own

c. It’s an undeserving gift of God to man

3. Paul is saying in verse 15 that

a. there is nothing that condemns a Christian as a sinner

b. nothing prohibits him from relating with God because it is God who relates with him graciously

4. So, Paul asks if this gives Christians permission to “sin”

a. The answer is an emphatic “no”

b. “sin” here is not a list of dos and don’ts from the law of Moses

c. but “sin” is anything that a believer does that displeases God

d. The law (the OT) informs what pleases and displeases God

e. If one knows fully well that something displeases God but yet he does it, it is sinful (e.g., Romans ch. 14)

f. Instead of doing it out of obligation or legalistically, if one does something voluntarily because it pleases God, it is righteousness that leads to sanctification (6:18, 20)

5. To further explain what he said in verse 15, he uses a well-known social practice in the Roman world (verse 16a)

a. To survive financial and economic crisis, a man would sell himself voluntarily to a wealthy master as a slave with his complete obedience

b. The institution of slavery existed different forms: (1) slaves out of financial obligation/liability, (2) slaves by birth, or (3) slaves through slave market

c. The slavery in verse 16 is “voluntary slavery”—“when you offer yourself as slaves unto obedience, you are slaves of the one you obey”

d. The slavery and obedience in verse 16 are completely volitional and not imposed upon!

6. In the same way (the believers can present themselves either to “Sin which leads to death” or “to obedience, which leads to righteousness” (verse 16b)

a. Verse 17b you have come to obey from your heart the truths found in the teaching to which God made you slaves

b. At conversion, the believers surrender themselves to God

c. The believers are now committed for obedience to their New Master through His teachings in the Scripture—a total, radical, exclusive obedience (verse 17)

d. With their voluntary obedience to the teachings, they became slaves of God in order to do what is right

i. “right” is not about what is right and wrong (which leads to legalism)

ii. doing things to please God

e. This obedience leads them to holiness which we call “sanctification”

i. 7:4 Now you are united with the one who was raised from the dead. As a result, we can produce a harvest of good deeds for God

ii. 7:6 we can serve God, not in the old way of obeying the letter of the law, but in the new way of living in the Spirit

iii. Verse 22 But now, freed from sin and enslaved to God, you have your benefit leading to sanctification

7. Ch. 7:12-25 is about a Jewish man’s pre-conversion struggles with the law and his desire to live a holy life

8. God does not condemn to punishment those who are in Christ Jesus (8:1-4)

a. the law of the life-giving Spirit in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death

b. God achieved what the law could not do because it was weakened through the flesh by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and concerning sin, he condemned sin in the flesh

c. so that the righteous requirement of the law may be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit

d. This reflects Romans 3:21-26

II. Principles

1.Christians living under the New Master need to be practiced

2. Christians can continue to live with the muscle memory of the old master

3. Christians do not live under the guidance of the law,

4. Christians need to intentionally learn to live under grace by the leading of the Holy Spirit

5. Christians need to learn their relationship with the law—they do not follow in order to relate with God but they read in order to understand the plan and purposes of God so that they can better serve God

Takeaway:

Present yourselves to be slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification (verse 19)