Romans

Introduction
We come now to Paul’s treatment of the great theme of true liberty and freedom. What is the nature of freedom? We need to be especially careful with this because as Americans we are trained to believe that we understand liberty in some special way, while it appears that we have really lost an understanding of the foundation of all liberty.

The Text
“What then? shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid . . .” (Rom. 6:15-23).

Summary of the Text
Paul begins by returning to the question that began this chapter (6:1). He asks if we should therefore sin because we are under grace. Is that what grace means (v. 15)? God forbid. Grace is liberation from sin, not liberation in sin. Sin is a dungeon, and a set of chains bolted into the wall. Paul then turns to instruct us so that we won’t fall for this elementary mistake. “Know ye not . . .?” he asks. The word in this passage rendered servant is doulos, meaning slave. The direction of obedience establishes the nature of the servitude. You are either a slave of slave, leading to death, or a slave of righteousness (v. 16). Those are the two options. But thanks to God, the Roman Christians, who used to be slaves of sin, had transfered their allegiance by obeying “the form of doctrine” they had heard (v. 17). The gospel is obeyed. They were as a consequence freed from one slavery by means of enslavement to another (v. 18). Paul is using a rudimentary illustration because we are slow to get it (v. 19). Just as we used to yield our bodies to iniquity, producing lots more iniquity, so now we are to do the same thing to righteousness, producing holiness (v. 19). Freedom from one is attachment to the other. When the Romans were slaves of sin, they were “free” from holiness (v. 20). But what was the fruit of that way? They were now ashamed of what they used to freel free to do. And the result is death (v. 21). But now they were free from sin, and were slaves of God—with the fruit being holy, and the result everlasting life (v. 22). For wages of sin is death, and the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus (v. 23).

Ugly Babies
The illustration of marriage is not explicit for a few more verses yet (7:1-5), but Paul appears to be anticipating something like this already. Even though he is speaking of slaves and not wives, the language of v. 19 appears to have some sort of sexual connotation. A verb form of the same word for fruit is found in 7:5, in the context of marriage. So when you yield your members as slaves to uncleanness, the result is that iniquity produces more iniquity—a perverse kind of “increase and multiply.”

You present your members to iniquity, and the result is lots of ugly babies. But when you leave that behind in repentance, the results of the gospel union are holy. In the spiritual realm, the babies always look like the father. If the unbelieving Jews had been children of Abraham, they would have looked like him (John 8:39). Also keep in mind that tolerating sin in your life, especially hidden, secret sin, is like trying to be a little bit pregnant. The reason your sin will find you out (Num. 32:23) is that sin grows and multiplies.

Freedom From, Freedom To
In our individualistic tradition, we have very unwisely truncated our definition of freedom. We tend to think of it as “freedom from” restraint, because this leaves room, as we like to imagine, for a pretended autonomy. But this definition is only partially true, and when it is taken for the whole truth, the results are routinely disastrous. “Freedom from” liberty is entirely incapable of sustaining any concept of civil or political liberty unless we ground it in the Pauline concept of the “freedom to” be virtuous, which is nothing other than the freedom to obey Christ. Notice what Paul does here. If you are at the bottom of the sea, you are free from being dry. If you are in the desert, you are free from being wet. That, by itself, is as far as “freedom from” will get you. This is because Paul takes it as axiomatic that you will be someone’s servant. As Dylan put it in one of his moments of lucidity, “ya gotta serve somebody.” You will either be wet or dry. You will either serve iniquity or you will serve righteousness. If you are a slave to the wrong one, then the result is death—you will be a dead slave. If you become a slave to the righteous one, then the result is life, everlasting life, and at the end of the story, the slave will be adopted as a true son.

How does this matter? It matters because modern secularists want to pretend that they can establish a “freedom from tyranny” kind of liberty without serving Christ. But that is impossible. If you take that route, the result will only be an ever-increasing iniquity. But if we as a people “obey from the heart the form of doctrine” that faithful gospel preachers declare, the result will be holiness, righteousness, and life. Part of that fruit will be every legitimate kind of “freedom from” liberty. Spiritual freedom is the necessary precondition to every other kind of freedom (2 Cor. 3:17), and spiritual freedom always begins with slavery to Christ. Notice how Paul reasons from spiritual freedom to what we think is the only freedom (1 Cor. 7:22-23). Never forget that political and economic liberty is gospel fruit. Do you really think that God will permit us to grow that glorious fruit in our orchards of death?

Form of Doctrine
Many Christians today, for the sake of what they call grace, react away from the word obedience. But Paul is not of their mind. Liberty is obedience. Grace and obedience are not contrary because grace demands to be obeyed. What was the form of doctrine that the Romans had delivered to them? The book of Romans would be as good as summary of that gospel as we could find anywhere. What did they do with it? They obeyed. In Paul’s mind, we may obey in this direction or that one, but we are creatures and we will obey. The only question is whether we will obey words of life or words of death.

Wages and Gifts
Life and death are opposite one another, but they are not symetrical. Paul does not contrast the wages of sin and the wages of righteousness. Neither does he contrast the gift of death and the gift of life. These two destinations are not symetrical at all. The death and the life are opposed, but so are the forms in which they come. One comes as a wage, a payment, a pay check. The other comes as a present, as a gift. Connect this with everything that has gone before and we see that the servitude that leads to death is a servitude of strict justice, and the servitude that brings liberty is a servitude of grace.
You are the people of God. Hear then thewords of the gospel. “See, I have set before thee this day life and good, and death and evil” (Dt. 30:15). Which will you have?

Introduction
As we continue to work through this great letter of the apostle, we can see in various ways how his mind works. We see it in how he answers objections—”one of you will say to me then . . .” We also see in this passage a typical Pauline move, where he says, “These things are so, and you must act as if they are so.” This is something we must learn because it is how our sanctification progresses.

The Text
“Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. For he that is dead is freed from sin . . .” (Rom. 6:6-14)

Summary of the Text
As we improve our baptism, as we build on what Paul has just said (vv. 1-5), we do so “knowing this” (v. 6). Progress in godliness is not groping in the dark; it is the result of sound teaching. What do we know? That our “old man” was crucified in Jesus in order to destroy the “body of sin.” This was so that we would cease to be slaves of sin (v. 6). The way out of sin-slavery is to die (v. 7). But there is no way to be united with Christ in His death without also being joined to His resurrection life (v. 8). When Jesus rose, He did so in a way that freed Him from death forever; death has absolutely no claim on Him (v. 9). Moreover, He died unto sin one time, at a specific point in time, but the life He lives is continuous, and is before God (v. 10). All these things are so. How should we therefore act? We should therefore act as if they are so. “Lifewise reckon ye also yourselves . . .” Jesus died at a point in history, and He lives forever before God. You should therefore reckon yourself to be dead to sin in a decisive way, and alive to God through Jesus (v. 11). What is including in such a reckoning? Refuse to let sin reign (key word) in your mortal body, which means obedience to the lusts of that mortal body (v. 12). Present or yield the members of your body as though you were raised from the dead (because you were), and make this presentation to God (v. 13). To present such resurrected members as instruments of unrighteousness is not just morally wrong, it is schizophrenic. It is a contradiction (v. 13). Sin is not to rule over you any more because you are under grace, and not under law (v. 14).

Three Kinds of Mortification
In order to understand what Paul is teaching here, we have to sort something out first. He is describing a crucifixion, a death, a mortification. But this is not a concept that has only one application for the Christian life. First is the death of the “old man,” the old way of being human. This is equated with the overthrow of the rule and reign of sin, the dominion of sin (Rom. 6:6; Gal. 5:24; 6:14). The old man is dead—you don’t have to keep killing him. This is something that is equally true of all who are genuine Christians. The second kind of mortification occurs in the lives of Christians who have stumbled or fallen, and significant sin has grown up in their life. This is what Paul addresses in his letter to the Colossians. “Mortify your members which are on the earth” (Col. 3:5). These are not trifles, because he goes on to define them as “fornication, uncleanness, etc.” But he is talking to Christians, who should have their affections set above, and the action he calls them to is a decisive action at a point in time. The third kind of mortification is daily, for each of us. As John Owen once put it, a man should not think he makes any progress in godliness “who walks not daily over the bellies of his lusts.” We will see this just a few chapters from now—”if he though the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live” (Rom. 8:13). The verb here refers to an action that is continuous and ongoing. This mortification you will never get to walk away from on this side of glory. If you do, then you will be confronted with the duty mentioned to the Colossians.

An IllustrationPicture a weed patch, not cultivated at all. When the first mortification happens, God plows the weed patch under, and makes it a garden. It is now a garden, and not a weed patch. The old status is dead. The second mortification is what happens when that garden is untended for a week, and you come back to find weeds in it that are up to your thigh. Uproot them, pull them out. That is the second kind of mortification. The third kind is what any good gardener will tell you about. Get out there every morning, and pull up the weeds that are the size of your thumbnail. They will always be there. That is the third kind of mortification.

Reckoning Righteousness
We are not called to do good in order to impress God, or to ingratiate ourselves with Him. We are not trying to earn anything. God has already reckoned the righteousness of Jesus Christ to you, and that is your justification. What is your sanctification? It is you reckoning the righteousness of Jesus Christ to yourself. Reckon (logidzomai) yourself to be dead to sin. So what is sanctification? It is acting as though you really believe what happened in your justification. It is acting as though the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ are really yours.

Your Mortal Body
The old man is dead. Don’t worry about him. But the flesh, your mortal body, is not dead, and you should keep a wary eye on it. In v. 12, Paul cautions these Christians against letting sin “reign” in your mortal body (like back in the old days). He then equates this with obeying “it” in its lusts. What is the antecedent to “it”? As it happens, the antecedent is “mortal body,” and not “sin.” Your mortal body will make all kinds of suggestions to you all day long. Stop feeling like the lonely pervert at church—there isn’t a person here who doesn’t deal with this. At the same time, there is a difference between godliness and backsliding. Pull up the thumbnail size weeds. Stay on top of it. Don’t wait till the weed requires three shovels, two hands, and a backhoe.

Grace and Law
We have drifted so far from the biblical understanding of the words grace and law that to a certain extent we have inverted them. We think that grace means “you get to sin,” and that law “means you can’t sin.” But as Paul is describing it is here, being under law means that you can’t stop sinning, and that you therefore cannot stop accumulating the condemnation for that sin. Grace liberates you from that sin trap, from that sin slavery. Notice what Paul says here. Sin shall not have dominion. And why? Because you are under grace. Grace is the liberty of the Spirit, not the slackness of lowered standards.