Don’t you know that when you present yourselves as servants and obey someone, you are the servants of whomever you obey; whether of sin to death, or of obedience to righteousness? But thanks be to God, that, whereas you were bondservants of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were delivered. Being made free from sin, you became bondservants of righteousness.
I speak in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh, for as you presented your members as servants to uncleanness and to wickedness upon wickedness, even so now present your members as servants to righteousness for sanctification. For when you were servants of sin, you were free from righteousness. What fruit then did you have at that time in the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. But now, being made free from sin and having become servants of God, you have your fruit of sanctification and the result of eternal life.
John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain On vv16–22 16. By no means: know ye not? This is…
16. By no means: know ye not? This is not a bare denial as some think, as though he preferred to express his abhorrence of such a question rather than to disprove it: for a confutation immediately follows, derived from a contrary supposition, and to this purpose, “Between the yoke of Christ and that of sin there is so much contrariety, that no one can bear them both; if we sin, we give ourselves up to the service of sin; but the faithful, on the contrary have been redeemed from the tyranny of sin, that they may serve Christ: it is therefore impossible for them to remain bound to sin.” But it will be better to examine more closely the course of reasoning, as pursued by Paul.
To whom we obey, etc. This relative may be taken in a causative sense, as it often is; as when one says, — there is no kind of crime which a parricide will not do, who has not hesitated to commit the greatest crime of all, and so barbarous as to be almost abhorred even by wild beasts. And Paul adduces his reason partly from the effects, and partly from the nature of correlatives. For first, if they obey, he concludes that they are servants, for obedience proves that he, who thus brings one into subjection to himself, has the power of commanding. This reason as to service is from the effect, and from this the other arises. “If you be servants, then of course sin has the dominion.”
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Or of obedience, etc. The language is not strictly correct; for if he wished to have the clauses correspondent, he would have said, “or of righteousness unto life” But as the change in the words does not prevent the understanding of the subject, he preferred to express what righteousness is by the word obedience; in which however there is a metonymy, for it is to be taken for the very commandments of God; and by mentioning this without addition, he intimated that it is God alone, to whose authority consciences ought to be subject. Obedience then, though the name of God is suppressed, is yet to be referred to him, for it cannot be a divided obedience.
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv17, 20, 21 By nature we are slaves to sin, and free…
By nature we are slaves to sin, and free from righteousness, but by the grace of God we are made servants to righteousness, and therefore free from sin.
This kind of speech hath a force in it: for he meaneth thereby that the doctrine of the Gospel is like a certain mold which we are cast into to be framed and fashioned like unto it.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv16–22 16 Know ye not, that to whom ye yield…
16 Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?
Ver. 16. His servants ye are] Sinners, though not drunk, yet are not their own men, but at Satan’s beck and check, whom they seem to defy, but indeed deify.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv16–22 He refutes the aforementioned cavil by a common axiom,…
He refutes the aforementioned cavil by a common axiom, that every one knows and apprehends.
Of obedience unto righteousness; which will be rewarded with eternal life. But why doth he not say of obedience unto life? Then the antithesis had been more plain and full. Because though sin be the cause of death, yet obedience is not the cause of life, {as Rom 6:23} but only the way to it.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
William Burkitt 1703 · Public Domain On vv16, 17, 18, 20, 21, 22 Two things are here intimated by the apostle;
Two things are here intimated by the apostle;
1. That all men really are, and ought to be reputed servants to that master whose works they do, and whose commands they obey: Whom ye obey his servants ye are.
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Learn thence, That we may infallibly know whose servants we are, and what master we serve, Christ or Satan, by examining and inquiring whose commands they are, which we execute and obey.
2. The apostle intimates, that every person or servant shall receive a reward suitable to the master he serves, and proportionable to the work he does. If Satan be our master, sin is our work, and death our wages; if we be the servants of God, obedience is our work, and eternal life will be our reward: There is a reward for the righteous, and wages for the workers of iniquity.
The devil’s drudges shall have full pay, but no content; the wages of sin is death; there’s pay, such as it is, woeful pay, a black penny.
God’s servants, though they do not work for wages, yet they shall not work for nothing! Verily there is a reward for the righteous; a reward of mercy, not of merit; a reward of grace, not of debt:
And accordingly, the apostle says here, His servants ye are whom ye obey, whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness.
But why doth he not say of obedience unto life, as well as of sin unto death? then the antithesis had been more plain and full.
Ans. Because though sin be the cause of death, yet obedience is not the cause of life, but only the way to it: Via ad regnum, non causa regnandi.
William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv16–22 Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves,....…
Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves,.... The apostle goes on with his answer to the above objection, by making use of an argument from the nature of servants and their obedience, a thing well known to everyone, and which none could be ignorant of; which he delivers by way of distribution, that such who yield themselves
servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey, whether of sin unto death, or obedience unto righteousness: such who obey sin, are the servants of sin; they are at the beck and command of sin; they give up themselves to the service of it with delight and diligence, and are perfect drudges to it: this is a very unhappy situation; their service is very unreasonable; and they are rendered incapable of serving God, for no man can serve two masters; they are hereby brought into the drudgery of the devil; into a state of bondage, out of which nothing but grace can extricate them; into a very mean and contemptible condition, and even a deplorable one; for if grace prevent not, they will have the wages of sin paid them, which is death, for their obedience is "of sin unto death"; which will lie in an eternal separation from Father, Son, and Spirit, in a sense of divine wrath, and in the company of devils and damned spirits: now this is added, to show the malignant nature and just demerit of sin, and to deter and dissuade persons from the service of it: on the other hand, such as obey the Lord, are the servants "of obedience unto righteousness": but why is not this obedience, which is the obedience of faith to the Gospel, of Christ, and of the new man to God or Christ, said to be "unto life", as the antithesis seems to require? because though death is the fruit of sin, yet life is not the fruit of obedience, but the fruit of obedience is righteousness; by which is meant, nor a justifying one before God, but righteousness before men; or a course of living soberly and righteously, which is the effect of being under grace; and hence it appears, that true believers can make no such ill use of their privilege, as is suggested in the objection.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv17–21 The form of doctrine into which ye have been…
The form of doctrine into which ye have been delivered - Literally it is, The mould into which ye have been delivered; which, as it contains a beautiful allusion, conveys also a very instructive admonition; intimating that our minds, all pliant and ductile, should be conformed to the gospel precepts, as liquid metal, take the figure of the mould into which they are cast.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv16–22 Verse 16. To whom ye yield yourselves] Can you…
Verse 16. To whom ye yield yourselves] Can you suppose that you should continue to be the servants of Christ if ye give way to sin? Is he not the master who exacts the service, and to whom the service is performed? Sin is the service of Satan; righteousness the service of Christ. If ye sin ye are the servants of Satan, and not the servants of God.
The word δουλος, which we translate servant, properly signifies slave; and a slave among the Greeks and Romans was considered as his master's property, and he might dispose of him as he pleased. Under a bad master, the lot of the slave was most oppressive and dreadful; his ease and comfort were never consulted; he was treated worse than a beast; and, in many cases, his life hung on the mere caprice of the master. This state is the state of every poor, miserable sinner; he is the slave of Satan, and his own evil lusts and appetites are his most cruel task-masters. The same word is applied to the servants of Christ, the more forcibly to show that they are their Master's property; and that, as he is infinitely good and benevolent, therefore his service must be perfect freedom. Indeed, he exacts no obedience from them which he does not turn to their eternal advantage; for this master has no self-interest to secure. See Clarke on Ro 1:1.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On v19 Rom 6:19-22. I speak after the manner of men…
Rom 6:19-22. I speak after the manner of men — He seems to mean that his reasoning was taken from the customs of men, and was accommodated to their apprehension; and that he used metaphors and allegories which were well known; because of the infirmity of your flesh — Dulness of apprehension, and weakness of understanding, flow from the infirmity of the flesh; that is, of human nature. Or, as some understand the expression to mean, I recommend a duty to you, suited to human nature; yea, even to the infirmities thereof; that you should do as much for God as you have done for sin, and be as diligent in the service of Christ as you have been in the pursuit of your lusts. For as — In time past, while you were ignorant of the gospel, and many of you the slaves of heathen vice and idolatry; ye yielded your members servants to uncleanness — To various fleshly lusts which defiled you; and to iniquity — Or unrighteousness toward others; unto iniquity — Adding one iniquity to another; even so now — Being enlightened by the gospel to see the evil of such things, and the miserable consequences awaiting them; and being renewed by the influences of divine grace, it is but reasonable that you should be as ready to pursue a pious and virtuous line of conduct, and to do good now, as formerly you were to do evil; and become servants of righteousness unto holiness — Observe, reader, they who are true servants of righteousness, which may here mean a conformity to the divine will, go on to holiness, which implies a conformity to the divine nature. For when ye were the servants of sin — Were under its guilt and power; ye were free from righteousness — You not only had not righteousness enough, but, strictly speaking, had no true righteousness at all; never doing any single action that was truly good, and, on the whole, acceptable to God, because none was performed from such principles as could entitle it to his complete approbation. In all reason, therefore, ye ought now to be free from unrighteousness; to be as uniform and zealous in serving God as you were in serving the devil. What fruit had ye then in those things — Consider, what advantage did you derive from the practices to which you were then habituated, and whereof ye are now ashamed? — The very remembrance of which now gives you pain, and creates in you much remorse and trouble? For the end of those things is death — The word τελος, here rendered end, signifies both the end for which a thing is done, and the last issue of it. It is used in the former sense, 1Pe 1:9; receiving, το τελος, the end of your faith, the salvation of your souls; the end or purpose for which ye believed. But its meaning here is, that the punishment of death, to be inflicted on sinners, is the natural consequence, or issue, and reward of their sin.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv16–22 Know ye not ... - The objection noticed in…
Know ye not ... - The objection noticed in Rom 6:15, the apostle answers by a reference to the known laws of servitude or slavery, Rom 6:16-20, and by showing that Christians, who had been the slaves of sin, have now become the servants of righteousness, and were therefore bound by the proper laws of servitude to obey their new master: as if he had said, “I assume that you know: you are acquainted with the laws of servitude; you know what is required in such cases.” This would be known to all who had been either masters or slaves, or who had observed the usual laws and obligations of servitude.
To whom ye yield yourselves - To whom ye give up yourselves for servitude or obedience. The apostle here refers to voluntary servitude; but where this existed, the power of the master over the time and services of the servant was absolute. The argument of the apostle is, that Christians had become the voluntary servants of God, and were therefore bound to obey him entirely. Servitude among the ancients, whether voluntary or involuntary, was rigid, and gave the master an absolute right over his slave, Luk 17:9; Joh 8:34; Joh 15:15. To obey. To be obedient; or for the purpose of obeying his commands.
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To whom ye obey - To whom ye come under subjection. That is, you are bound to obey his requirements.
Whether of sin - The general law of servitude the apostle now applies to the case before him. If people became the servants of sin, if they gave themselves to its indulgence, they would obey it, let the consequences be what they might. Even with death, and ruin, and condemnation before them; they would obey sin. They give indulgence to their evil passions and desires, and follow them as obedient servants even if they lead them down to hell. Whatever be the consequences of sin. yet he who yields to it must abide by them, even if it leads him down to death and eternal woe.
Or of obedience ... - The same law exists in regard to holiness or obedience. The man who becomes the servant of holiness will feel himself bound by the law of servitude to obey, and to pursue it to its regular consequences.
Unto righteousness - Unto justification; that is, unto eternal life. The expression stands contrasted with “death,” and doubtless means that he who thus becomes the voluntary servant of holiness, will feel himself bound to obey it, unto complete and eternal justification and life; compare Rom 6:21-22. The argument is drawn from what the Christian would feel of the nature of obligation. He would obey him to Whom he had devoted himself.
(This would seem to imply that justification is the effect of obedience. Δικαιοσυνη Dikaiosunē, however, does not signify justification, but righteousness, that is, in this case, personal holiness. The sense is, that while the service of sin leads to death, that of obedience issues in holiness or righteousness. It is no objection to this view that it does not preserve the antithesis, since “justification” is not the opposite of “death,” any more than holiness. “There is no need,” says Mr. Haldane, “that there should be such an exact correspondence in the parts of the antithesis, as is supposed. And there is a most obvious reason why it could not be so. Death is the wages of sin, but life is not the wages of obedience.”)
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv17, 19, 20 Thanks be to God, &c. He thanks God, not…
Thanks be to God, &c. He thanks God, not because they had been in sin, but because after having been so long under the slavery of sin, they had now been converted from their heart, and with their whole strength gave themselves to that form of doctrine to which they had been conducted by the gospel. He returns God thanks for their obedience to the faith, because this obedience of the human will is the work and gift of God, that so no one may glory in his sight. (Ephesians ii.) (Estius)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv16–22 that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey--with…
that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey--with the view of obeying him.
his servants ye are to whom ye obey--to whom ye yield that obedience.
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whether of Sin unto death--that is, "issuing in death," in the awful sense of Rom 8:6, as the sinner's final condition.
or of Obedience unto righteousness--that is, obedience resulting in a righteous character, as the enduring condition of the servant of new Obedience (Jo1 2:17; Joh 8:34; Pe2 2:19; Mat 6:24).
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv16, 17, 19, 20, 21 16. His servants ye are—There is no compromise. Serving…
16. His servants ye are—There is no compromise. Serving sin, even under pretext of grace, makes us the genuine slaves of sin even unto death. Serving sin professedly under grace brings us under the terrible penalty of law. So that, then, we are truly not under grace.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv16–22 16. Know ye not] As a self-evident truth, that…
16. Know ye not] As a self-evident truth, that bond-service, once accepted, becomes binding. This general principle is at once applied to the special cases of Sin and Obedience regarded as personified Masters. The clauses to the end of Rom_6:18 may be thus summarized:—“All bond-service, once accepted, is binding, and forbids divided servitude;—this is as true of the obligations of Pardon as of those of Condemnation; of Justification as of Death. And you, thank God, have now passed from the latter to the former. Remember then, that in the very act of leaving the bond-service of sin you entered that of Pardon as taught in the Gospel, and are thus bound to obey as much as ever, though in the opposite direction.”
unto death—unto righteousness] The results (“death,” “righteousness”) of the respective “servitudes” are not necessary to the immediate statement, but are brought in as inseparable from the whole subject.
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obedience] This is here the personified Master, the antithesis of Sin. The context, (Rom_6:17,) and Rom_10:3, (see also 1Pe_1:2,) shew its meaning here to be the act of submission to the Divine terms of pardon. It is thus the practical equivalent of those terms, which are to be the ruling principle of the new life.
righteousness] The Gr. may here be paraphrased (not translated) by Justification. In such a paraphrase we are far from shutting a moral meaning out of the word; but a careful collation of passages in this Epistle makes it reasonably clear that its ruling reference in this argument is to the legal side of righteousness; i.e. to what the Law will view as righteous, and so to the persons whom it will view as possessing righteousness. Such a possession, in the case of “the ungodly” (Rom_4:5), is explained by St Paul as wholly due to the righteousness of their Representative. In other words they are justified for His sake.—Thus “righteousness” is used as a summary for the process of justification, though strictly applicable only to one part of the subject. Here we may paraphrase: “Ye became the bond-servants of God’s Terms of Pardon, to which you submitted with a submission that resulted in your being reckoned righteous in the eye of His Law.”
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv16, 17, 18, 19, 21, 22 (16) Know ye not.—An apparent tautology, but one which…
(16) Know ye not.—An apparent tautology, but one which really teaches a deep ethical truth. Don’t you know that what you make yourselves that you become? The habit which you form ends by becoming your “second nature.”
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv17, 19, 20 Vers. 17, 18. But thanks be to God, that…
Vers. 17, 18. But thanks be to God, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine whereunto ye were delivered. (Not, as in the Authorized Version, which was delivered you). Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness. There is no contradiction between what is here said and the fear previously implied lest the persons addressed might still serve sin. He refers them back to the time of their baptism, when he conceives them both to have understood their obligation (cf. ver. 3), and also to have been heartily sincere. The fear was lest they might have relaxed since, perhaps through infection with antinomian teaching. By the "form of doctrine" or "of instruction" (tupon didachv) is not at all likely to be meant (as some have supposed) any distinctive type of Christian teaching, such as the Pauline (so Meyer). Usually elsewhere, where St. Paul uses the word tupov , it is of persons being examples or patterns to others. (1Co_10:6 Php_3:17 1Th_1:7 2Th_3:9 1Ti_4:12Ti 1Ti_2:7) Somewhat similarly, Rom_5:14, Adam is tupov tou mellontov ; and in 1Co_10:6 the things which happened to the Israelites in the wilderness were tupoi to us. These are all the instances of the use of the word in St. Paul"s Epistles. Here, therefore, it may be best to understand it (so as to retain the idea of pattern) as the general Christian code into which converts had been indoctrinated, regarded as a norton agendi "Norma ilia et regula, ad quam se conformat servus, tautum ei per doctrinam ostenditur; urgeri eum non opus est" (Bengel on didachv).
The mould of Christian doctrine.
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The Christian, in remembering what he was, deepens his impression of Divine grace, to which he owes it that the. change has been effected in which he now rejoices. St. Paul took a peculiar satisfaction in reviewing his own experience, and acknowledging his indebtedness to that Divine grace which had fashioned his character anew. And if the Christian will consider the state in which he would have been apart from the supernatural doctrine and influences of Christianity, he will see reason for gratitude in the provision made for the transformation and renewal of his character. In this verse the change is attributed, instrumentally, to the power of Christian doctrine, which is, as it were, a pattern by which he is reconstructed, or a mould into which the metal of his nature has been cast, in order to its taking a new and divinely ordered shape and form.
I THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE IS AS A MOULD PREPARED IN ORDER TO GIVE A NEW SHAPE AND FORM TO THE HUMAN CHARACTER. When iron is "cast," it is run, in a liquid state, into a shape or mould of earth or sand of the desired form; and thus the artificer produces a bolt or a cannon. Thus, in the intellectual and spiritual realm, ideas govern men; and the character and life are largely owing to the thoughts which are familiar and congenial And Christian doctrine is not an end, but a means; the righteousness and love of God, revealed in Christ, having power to reconstruct the character and to renew the life. The doctrine is alive with the power of the Holy Spirit of God.
II THE CHRISTIAN DISCIPLE IS CAST INTO THIS SPIRITUAL MOULD, THAT HE MAY TAKE ITS NEW SHAPE AND FORM. The old elements of human nature, old errors and old sins, are dissolved and melted down when brought into contact with the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Old things pass away, in order that all things may become new. We may fancy that the doctrine is delivered unto us, to do what we like with it; but the reverse is the case. We are delivered unto it, in order that it may do its work upon us. So it is with the Christian education of the young, and with the evangelization of the heathen. The mould of Christian doctrine imparts to him who is brought into living contact with it a new motive to holiness, in the redeeming and sacrificial love of the Saviour; a new rule of holiness, in his law and life; and new help towards holiness, in the provision of the Spirit"s help and grace. A moral transfiguration is effected, as the natural result of intelligent acceptance and voluntary allegiance. For if faith is the soul of obedience, obedience is the body of faith. There is no change so wonderful and so admirable as that which is wrought in human character by the moulding power of Christian doctrine.
The gospel a mould of obedience.
Some memories are best forgotten, like a horrid dream. Not so the Christian"s recollection of his conversion. As the Corinthians were reminded of their previous wretched career " such were some of you so here the Romans. In reading the Authorized Version stress must belaid on the past tense, "were;" then it suggests the clearer translation of the Revised edition.
I THE FORMER SLAVERY. Absolute freedom is impossible to man, who is surrounded by higher powers, and has a Divine law impressed on his nature. The headstrong youth is really in bondage to sin; and the recluse in his solitude, whilst free from some of the restrictions of civilization, yet deprives himself of some advantages, and thereby imposes on himself certain limits. The description of sin as bond-service is just when we think of the manner in which men are worn out by vice. The silken cords of pleasure become adamantine bonds. The man who delays to reform his life becomes a prisoner, unable to turn the key in the rusty lock. Dislike of the epithet, "servants of sin," must not blind us to its accuracy, in spite of the euphemistic terms which would hide the flagrancy of our transgressions. Without supposing that statistics of the members of Churches accurately embrace all servants of righteousness, the condition of slavery is all too common, even in Christian England. Press home this fact, and remember that the great, question is not whether we can fix the date and enumerate the details of our conversion, but whether we are conscious of a renewed heart and life.
II THE NEW SERVICE. The text speaks of a changed state of obedience to God and adoption of righteousness a state sanctioned by conscience, ratified by the judgment, pleasing to the Almighty, and every way beneficial to ourselves and others. Its cause is the new teaching concerning Jesus Christ. The tense is definite; these Christians had received the doctrine and embraced it gladly. Perhaps the good news is today too much encumbered with technical phraseology, or, having been frequently listened to from infancy, fails to excite in us the glad wonder which it evoked when fresh to the ear. To the Romans it brought tidings of the abrogation of the Sinaitic Law as a covenant of life; it told of the one perfect Offering whereby those that believe are sanctified; it spoke of the all-providing love of the Father for his erring children. The gospel comes as a law to be obeyed, but supplies adequate motives and spiritual power for its fulfilment. The code is discipleship to Christ, hearkening to his preaching and copying his life. This doctrine is represented in the text as "a mould" into which the life of the obedient is cast, imparting to them a righteous form a likeness to their teacher Christ. And in hearty obedience true freedom is realized. The father, toiling home laden with gifts for his children, does not look upon his load as a wearisome burden. The mother, with her fresh responsibilities and cares, delights in the maternal yoke. Love alters the bias, oils the wheels of duty. Christ has won the hearts of his people, and to serve him is an honour and a joy. He strikes off the shackles of sin, and we welcome the golden chains of righteous obedience. We do not deny that sin has its pleasures; but, in comparison with the sense of purity and elevation which the service of Christ furnishes, there is the difference between the hot, stifling atmosphere of the music-hall and the sweet bracing air of the mountain-top.
III THE THANKSGIVING FOR THE DELIVERANCE. None could think that the rendering of the Authorized Version implied Paul"s delight at the former unrighteousness; but the Revised rendering is less ambiguous to the hurried reader. The phrase, "thank God," used to be a stock insertion in ordinary letters. Here it is no unmeaning ascription, filling up the interstices of speech, but a devout acknowledgment of sincere gratitude to him who instituted the gracious plan of salvation, giving up his beloved Son, and by his Spirit opens the hearts of an audience to attend to the message of everlasting life. It is the outpouring of the heart for the safety and honourable obedience of fellow-Christians. A pastor may offer it for his flock, a teacher for her scholars. Give glory to God! thank him with lip and life, by seeking to understand and obey the statutes and principles of the Word of truth, and by leading others to know the joys of redemptive obedience. S.R.A.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv16, 19, 21, 22 Know ye not that to whom ye yield yourselves…
Rom_6:16-18
Know ye not that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey.
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The service of sin and the service of righteousness
I. The criterion of both--obedience. A disobedient servant is a contradiction in terms. Disobedience vitiates service and ensures formal dismissal from it. By obedience to the behests of sin sinners are to be distinguished. Sins code is the ten commandments with the nots omitted; and the world swarms with men and women who yield the most constant and earnest obedience to each. From these the servants of righteousness are distinguished not by their profession, garb, postures, ritual, and shibboleth of righteousness, but by their obedience to the commands of righteousness. Many will present themselves before the Great Tribunal on other grounds, but the King of Righteousness will judge them exclusively by this criterion. Not everyone that said unto the Lord, Lord, etc.
II. The characteristics of the two services.
1. The service of sin is--
(1) Wrong. A usurper is served in a way which wrongs the lawful master and the rightful law; and inasmuch as men were made for righteousness they wrong themselves.
(2) Fruitless (Rom_6:21). Sins service is disappointing, and sinners are deluded in it. Apart from what it ends in, the way of transgressors, is hard.
(3) Ruinous--sin unto death (see also Rom_6:23).
2. The service of righteousness is
(1) As the name implies, right. That should settle the matter. Only when a man yields to it does he put himself right with God, the law, his own conscience, the universe.
(2) Fruitful. Its ways are ways of pleasantness, etc. Even in this life it is worth all it costs. Righteousness is a good master and pays as it goes along.
(3) Eternally profitable--life is the guerdon of righteousness.
III. The change from one service to the other.
1. All men are servants. Man was not made, and will never become independent. Servitude is the law of his nature, and of the two masters he must serve one.
2. All men have been the servants of sin. They are born in it and continue in it; some all their lives, others up to a certain point.
3. All men may become servants of righteousness.
(1) By a definite act of self-devotion.
(2) By a precious act of Divine acceptance. (J. W. Burn.)
Master or servant
One day a Mr. Charles was about to start from home to fulfil a preaching appointment, when rough weather set in, and he hesitated whether he ought to brave the storm. He consulted a Mr. John Evans on the point. Tell Mr. Charles, was the message returned, that if he is a master he may stay at home, but if a servant he ought to keep his appointment. (Christian Journal.)
Obedience to Christ
Come to Him. I do not know what it is to come, says one. Well, coming to Christ is simply the trusting Him. You are guilty, trust Him to save you. But if I do that, says one, may I then go on and live as I did before? No, that you cannot. If a ship at sea needed to be brought into harbour, and they took a pilot on board, he would say to the captain, Captain, if you trust me I will get you into the harbour all right; let that sail be taken down. But they do not reef it. Here, says he, attend to the tiller and steer as I bid you. But they did not attend. Well, says the pilot, I thought you said you trusted me. Yes, says the captain, and you said that if we trusted you you would get into port and we are not into port. No, but I understood if you trusted me you would do as I bade you. It cannot be a true trust that is disobedient to my command. If then you trust Christ you must do as He bid you, take up His cross and follow Him, and then that trust of yours shall surely have its reward. You shall be saved now, and saved forever.
The devils slaves
If a pirate, or, worse, the master of a slave ship, has made a good thing of his unlawful traffic, I do not see why he should reluctate about going into a lawful traffic on the ocean, because he does not know what the ocean will do to him. If a man is safe in sailing against Gods laws and everything that is good, how much more will God prosper him if he applies to legitimate commerce the same skill and enterprise and industry that he is now applying to that which is illegitimate. I have seen men work ten times as hard to be villains as they would have been obliged to work to be honest men. The greatest slaves I know anything about are those whom the devil has got the upper hand of, and whom he is compelling to dodge between the supreme law of God and their worldly prosperity. They may secure some sort of prosperity, but, you may depend upon it, they work hard for it. (H. W. Beecher.)
Moral slavery
James II, on his death bed, thus addressed his son, There is no slavery like sin and no liberty like Gods service. Was not the dethroned monarch right? What think you of the fetters of bad habits? What think you of the chains of indulged lust? The drunkard who cannot resist the craving for the wine--know you a more thorough captive? The covetous man who toils night and day for wealth--what is he but a slave? The sensual man, the ambitious man, the worldly man, those who, in spite of the remonstrances of conscience, cannot break away from enthralment--what are they, if not the subjects of a tyranny than which there is none sterner, and none more degrading? (H. Melvill, B. D.)
Ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine.--
The apostolical form of doctrine
I. What is it?
II. How should it be received?
III. What is its effect?
IV. What feelings ought this result to inspire? (J. Lyth, D. D.)
Obedience to the form of doctrine
1. The question, Whose servants are ye? resolves itself into a matter of fact. The apostle, on looking to his disciples, pronounces them by the test of obedience to have become the servants of righteousness. And he not only affirms this change, but he assigns the cause of it. They obeyed from the heart. There might have been the form of a yielding; but some latent duplicity brought a flaw unto it by which it was invalidated, Now God be thanked, says the apostle, this is not the way with you. I look at your fruit, and I find it the fruit of holiness. I look at your life, and I find it to be the life of the servants of God.
2. But what is it that they are said here to obey from the heart? The term doctrine in the original may signify the thing taught, or the process of teaching--a process which may embrace many items, and consist of several distinct parts, to obey which from the heart is just to take them all in with the simplicity and good faith in which a child believingly reads its task book. This last view is very much confirmed by the import of the Greek equivalent for form, viz., a mould that impresses its own shape to the yielding substance whereunto it is applied. And it would be still more accordant with the original if we render the whole sentence. The mould or model of doctrine into which ye have been delivered. Christian truth, in its various parts and various prominences, is likened unto a mould, into which the heart or soul of man is cast that it may come out a precise transcript.
3. It should be obedient to every touch, and yield itself to every character that is graven thereupon. It should feel the impression, not from one of its truths only, but from all of them, else, like the cast which is in contact with the mould bat at a single point, it will shake and fluctuate, and be altogether wanting in settled conformity to that with the likeness of which it ought to be everywhere encompassed. You know how difficult it is to poise one body upon another when it has only got one narrow place to stand upon, and that, to secure a position of stability, there must at least be three points of support provided. There is something akin to this ere the mind of an inquirer is rightly grounded and settled on the basis of Gods revealed testimony. How it veers and fluctuates, when holding only by one article and fails of a sufficiently extended grasp on the truths of Christianity! How those who talk, e.g., of the bare fact of faith vacillate and give way in the hour of temptation. How those who admit both the righteousness of Christ and the regeneration of their own characters to be alike indispensable, have nevertheless been brought to shipwreck; and that just because, though adhering in words to these two generalities, they have never spread them abroad over their whole history in the living applications of prayer and watchfulness. They need the filling up of their lives and hearts with the whole transcript of revelation. One doctrine does not suffice for this, for God in His wisdom has thought fit that there shall be a form or scheme of doctrine. The obedience of the heart unto the faith is obedience unto all that God proposes for the belief and acceptance of those who have entered on the scholarship of eternity; and for this purpose there must be not a mere assent of the understanding to any given number of articles, but a broad coalescence of the mind with the whole expanse and magnitude of the book of Gods testimony.
4. A scheme of doctrine, then, implies more truths than one; and St. Paul has now gone beyond the announcement of his one individual item. He was very full on Christ as the propitiation for sin, and on the righteousness of Christ as the plea of acceptance for sinners; and then, when he came to the question, Shall they who are partakers of this benefit continue in sin that they may get still more of the benefit? he pronounces a negative. Here there was not one truth, but a compound of truths; a mould graven on both sides of it with certain various characters, and the softened metal that is poured therein yields to it all round and takes the varied impression from it. And so of him who obeys from the heart the form of doctrine into which he is delivered. He does not yield to one article and present a side of hardness and of resistance to another article. He is thoroughly softened and humbled under a sense of sinfulness, and most willingly takes the salvation of the gospel on the terms of the gospel. He does not, like the sturdy controversialist, cull out from the Word his own favourite position; but, like the little child, he follows on to know the Lord, just as the revealed things offer themselves to his docility and notice on that inscribed tablet which the Lord hath placed before him.
5. The way for you to make good the transition from sin to righteousness is to have the same obedience of faith. It is to spread out the tablet of your heart for the pressure thereupon of all the characters that are graven on the tablet of revelation; it is to incorporate in your creed the necessity of a holy life, in imitation and at the will of the Lord Jesus, along with a humble reliance on His merits as your alone meritorious plea for acceptance with the Father; it is to give up the narrow, intolerant, and restrictive system of theology which, by vesting a right of monopoly in a few of its favourite positions, acts like the corresponding system of trade in impeding the full circulation of its truths and of its treasure through that world within itself, which is made up of the powers and affections. Be your faith as broad and as long as is the record of all those communications that are addressed to it--and be very sure that it is only when you yield yourselves up in submission to all its truths that you can be made free from sin by sharing in the fulfilment of all its promises.
6. You often hear of the power of the truth. It is a just and expressive phrase, and is adverted to in the text. But this power of the truth is the power of the whole truth. Mutilate the truth and you cripple it. Pare it down and you paralyse its energies. And thus, as you hope to be rescued from the tyranny of sin by the power of Christian truth, you must foster the whole of it. Divide, and you darken. The whole of that light which one truth reflects upon another is extinguished when the inquirer, instead of looking fearlessly abroad over the rich and varied landscape of revelation, fastens his intent regards on one narrow portion of the territory and shuts out the rest from the eye of his contemplation. Yet let us not think that we, of our proper energy, can supply as it were the first condition on which our deliverance from sin is made to turn. The glory of this is due to grace, which has softened your hearts under the impression of the truth, which has moved you to an aspiring obedience thereto, which will lead you, I trust, to carry out the principle into practice, which will vent itself upward to the sanctuary in prayer, and bring down that returning force which can unchain you from the bondage of corruption and give you impulse and strength for all the services of righteousness. (T. Chalmers, D. D.)
The form of teaching
There is room for difference of opinion as to what Paul precisely means by form here. It signifies originally a mark made by pressure or impact; then a mould, pattern or example, then the copy of such an example or pattern, or the cast from such a mould. It also means the general outline which preserves the distinguishing characteristics of a thing. Now we may choose between these two meanings in our text. If the apostle means type in the latter sense of the word, then the rendering form is adequate, and he is thinking of the Christian teaching which had been given to the Roman Christians as possessing certain well-defined characteristics which distinguished it from other kinds of teaching--such, for instance, as Jewish or heathen. But if we take the other meaning, then he is, in true Pauline fashion, bringing in a vivid and picturesque metaphor to enforce his thought, and is thinking of the teaching which the Roman Christians had received as being a kind of mould into which they were thrown, a pattern to which they were to be conformed.
I. Pauls gospel was a definite body of teaching. The gospel in its first form as it comes to men fresh from God is not a set of propositions, but a history of deeds that were done upon earth. And, therefore, is it fitted to be the mould of every character. Jesus Christ did not come and talk to men about God, and say to them what His apostles afterwards said, God is love, but He lived and died, and that mainly was His teaching about God. He did not come to men and lay down a theory of atonement or a doctrine of propitiation, or theology about sin and its relations to God, but He went to the Cross and gave Himself for us, and that was His teaching about sacrifice. He did not say to men, There is a future life, and it is of such and such a sort, but He came out of the grave and He said, Touch Me, and handle Me. A spirit hath not flesh and bones, and therefore He brought life and immortality to light, by no empty words but by the solid realities of facts. He did not lecture upon ethics, but He lived a perfect human life out of which all moral principles that will guide human conduct may be gathered. And so, instead of presenting us with a botanic collection of scientifically arranged and dead propositions, He led us into the meadow where the flowers grow, living and fair. His life and death, with all that they imply, are the teaching. Let us not forget, on the other hand, that the history of a fact is not the mere statement of the outward thing that has happened. Christian teaching is the facts plus their explanation; and it is that which differentiates it from the mere record which is of no avail to anybody. So Paul Himself in one of His other letters puts it. This is his gospel: Jesus of Nazareth died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and He was buried, and rose again the third day, according to the Scriptures. That is what turns the bald story of the facts into teaching, which is the mould for life.
II. This teaching is in Pauls judgment a mould or pattern according to which mens lives are to be conformed. There can be no question but that, in that teaching as set forth in Scripture, there does lie the mightiest formative power for shaping our lives, and emancipating us from our evil. Christ is the type, the mould into which men are to be cast. The gospel, as presented in Scripture, gives us three things. It gives us the perfect mould; it gives us the perfect motive; it gives us the perfect power. And in all three things appears its distinctive glory, apart from and above all other systems that have ever tried to affect the conduct or to mould the character of man. We have in the Christ the one type, the one mould and pattern for all striving, the glass of form, the perfect Man. And that likeness is not reproduced in us by pressure or by a blow, but by the slow and blessed process of gazing until we become like, beholding the glory until we are changed into the glory. It is no use having a mould and metal unless you have a fire. It is no use having a perfect Pattern unless you have motive to copy it. If we can say, He loved me, and gave Himself for me, then the sum of all morality, the old commandment that ye love one another, receives a new stringency, and a fresh motive as well as a deepened interpretation, when His love is our pattern. The one thing that will make men willing to be as Christ is their faith that Christ is their Sacrifice and their Saviour. Still further, the teaching is a power to fashion life, inasmuch as it brings with it a gift which secures the transformation of the believer into the likeness of his Lord. Part of the teaching is the fact of Pentecost; part of the teaching is the fact of the ascension; and the consequence of the ascension and the sure promise of the Pentecost is that all who love Him, and wait upon Him, shall receive into their hearts the spirit of life in Christ Jesus, which shall make them free from the law of sin and death.
III. This mould demands obedience. By the very nature of the teaching, assent drags after it submission. You can please yourself whether you let Jesus Christ into your minds or not, but if you do let Him in, He will be Master. There is no such thing as taking Him in and not obeying. And so the requirement of the gospel which we call faith has in it quite as much of the element of obedience as of the element of trust. And the presence of that element is just what makes the difference between a sham and a real faith. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)
Moulded by the truth
The gospel here is compared to a mould into which the soul is delivered. We take our character from the truth we receive. Our affections are moulded, formed, fashioned, directed by the gospel we obey. Sometimes it is compared to a mirror (2Co_3:8). The gospel reveals to us Jesus, and as we look into that glass the light falls upon our souls and assimilates us to Him. Here it is a mould. We are cast into the mould of the truth which from the heart we obey. The gospel is not only a directing power, but a transforming influence; you cannot believe it without being moulded by it. Any man who says he believes it, whose character is not moulded by it, is deceiving himself. How, then, can this be corrected? Not by poring over the thoughts and feelings of our own poor hearts, but by examining the testimony God has given us concerning Christ, by mixing faith with the promises given us, that by them we might be partakers of the Divine nature. The entrance of His Word will not only give light to our understandings, but it will transform us into His image; and as we receive the doctrine into our hearts, we shall be delivered into it as into a mould, and our tastes and character and desires and ways and aims, will be fashioned thereby. This is the constant teaching of Scripture (Eph_2:10; Luk_1:74; Tit_2:11). (M. Rainsford, B. A.)
Branded with the truth
It was the custom to impress a distinctive mark or brand on the slaves belonging to different masters. A slave might thus, by no uncommon metonymy, be spoken of as belonging to a certain mark, the mark being put for the master whose mark it was; and when a slave was transferred from one master to another, as being delivered over to a new mark or brand, that is, to a new proprietor or master, to whom, or, by the same figure, to whose mark he was then to consider his person attached and his service and obedience due. This is probably the true meaning, Ye have obeyed from the heart that mark [or brand] of doctrine to which ye have been delivered over; this translation giving every word its full and proper effect. They passed from one service to another, distinguished by a new mark, to which, as reminding them of their new master, and the appropriate symbol of his property in them and his power over them, they were thenceforward to render their obedient service. The doctrine of Christ is the distinguishing badge, or appropriate mark, of all His servants. They bear the profession and impress of His truth; and, under the influence of that truth, they serve Him as the Master who has stamped its impression upon them, in a spirit of reverential love. (R. Wardlaw, D. D.)
Transformation of grace
A short time ago the manufacturers of lighting gas were puzzled to know how to dispose of the coal tar left in the retorts. A more useless, nauseous substance was hardly known to exist. Chemistry came to the rescue, and today not less than thirty-six marketable articles are produced from this black, vile, sticky slime--solvents, oils, salts, colours, flavours. You eat a bit of delicious confectionery, happily unconscious that the exquisite taste which you enjoy so keenly comes from coal tar; you buy at the druggists a tiny phial of what is labelled Otto of Roses, little dreaming that the delicious perfume is wafted, not from the fields of Araby, but from the foul gas retort. Christianity is a moral chemistry. Well were it for nations if it held a higher place among their social economics. Tar saving is all well enough, but soul saving is better. Grace transforms a villain into an honest man, a harlot into a holy woman, a thief into a saint. Where foetid exhalations of vice alone ascended, prayer and praise are to be found; where moral miasmata had their lair, righteousness and temperance pitch their tent. Every sort of good thing is produced by godliness, and that too in hearts once reeking with all manner of foulness. Should not this stay every persecuting hand, hush every railing tongue, and incite every sanctified spirit to continued and increasing energy. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness.--
Freedom from sin and subjection to righteousness
I. The bondage supposed. Those only can be made free who were the subjects of bondage. Many resent this charge and exclaim, as the Jews did, We were never in bondage to any man. And so long as men remain under the infatuation that they are free, they will never welcome the tidings of a deliverance. We are in bondage--
1. To a law which we have violated. A perfect nature was capable of performing the requirements of a perfect law; but an imperfect nature never can meet these requirements. Those, therefore, who are seeking acceptance with God by the works of the law, are under the curse--bound and sentenced by it.
2. To a God whom we have displeased. Perfectly sensible that God is love, we also believe that He is a God of justice. Gods character, regarded as a whole, demands that He should maintain the honour of His law; and therefore He is bound by every principle of His nature, and by every qualification of His office as the Ruler of the universe, to punish the sinner.
3. To corruptions which he has indulged.
(1) Man has fallen under the government of the passions, of which there are three classes--the animal, which lead to all manner of impurity; the malevolent, which lead to all manner of cruelty; and the secular, which go to make men altogether base and sordid.
(2) There are also intellectual sins under which men are bound, and even sold--pride, a presumptuous obtrusion into things sacred and prohibited, and infidelity in rejecting the testimony which God has given of His Son. But whether men are bound by the intellectual or sensual sins, they are alike slaves.
4. To the world which we have idolised. There are some who would not for worlds rebel against the laws of fashion. They would rather commit an enormous sin against God than they would violate the etiquette of this world. The man who is devoted to the love of money is just as much bound as ever one who was fastened to the galleys for life. The man who loves the pleasures of this world, though he turns from them with disgust again and again, yet tomorrow it is just the same thing over and over again. And as to the ambitious, see what slaves they are--how servile when they have an object to accomplish; how insolent when that object is once attained; and how dissatisfied with the highest pinnacle to which human ambition can soar.
5. To a death which we cannot shun. Some are all their lifetime subject to bondage through fear of death, either the act itself or the consequences.
II. The freedom that is bestowed.
1. From the guilt of sin by virtue of the expiatory death and all-atoning sacrifice of the Divine Redeemer.
2. From the punishment of sin. The chain is broken--the debt is cancelled--the indictment is rebutted, and the justified believer can say, Who shall lay anything to the charge of Gods elect?
3. From the dominion of sin. How can I love that which crucified the Saviour?
4. Ultimately from the presence of sin. There shall in no wise enter into the heavenly Jerusalem anything that defileth or that worketh abomination.
III. The subsequent subjection or subordination. Ye became the servants of righteousness!
1. By faith in the doctrine of righteousness (verse 17). All the doctrines of the gospel are according to godliness. They fix salvation on the great principles of eternal rectitude; for God does not forgive merely by an act of clemency; but by an act of equity.
2. Love to the principle of righteousness.
3. Submission to the rule of righteousness--Gods will--not our opinion--not the laws of our fellow creatures.
4. Studious determination and constant aim towards the practice of universal righteousness. (C. Bradley, M. A.)
Our change of masters
1. Man was made to rule. He was intended for a king, who should have dominion over the beasts of the field, etc. Yet is it equally true that he was made to serve. He was placed in the garden to keep it, and to dress it, and to serve his Maker. Throwing off his allegiance to his rightful Master, he has become the slave of evil passions.
2. When God of His infinite mercy visits man by His Spirit, that Spirit does not come as a neutral power, but enters with full intent to reign. Man cannot serve two masters, but he must serve one. Alexander conquered the world, and yet he became the captive of drunkenness and his passionate temper. Rome had many slaves, but he who wore her purple was the most in bonds. High rank does not save a man from being under a mastery: neither does learning nor philosophy. Solomon, the most sagacious ruler of his age, became completely subject to his fleshly desires.
3. Who, then, shall be mans master? Our text speaks of being made free from sin, and in the same breath it adds, Ye became the servants of righteousness. There is no interregnum. Man passes from one master to another, but he is always in subjection. Consider--
I. Our change of masters.
1. In describing this revolution we will begin with a word or two upon our old master sin. We were not all alike enslaved, but we were all under bondage.
(1) Sin has its liveried servants. If you want to see these dressed out in their best or their worst, go to the prison, or to the places of vicious amusement. Many of them wear the badge of the devils drudgery upon their backs in rags, upon their faces in the blotches born of drunkenness, and in their very bones in the consequences of their vice.
(2) But great folks have many servants who are out of livery, and so has sin. We were not all open transgressors. Selfish caution restrains from overt acts of transgression. Hypocrites are worse slaves than others, because they are laid under the restraints of religion without their consolations, and practise sins without their pleasures.
(3) The servants of sin are not all outdoor servants. Many keep their sin to themselves. They are excellent in their outward deportment; but they are the indoor servants of Satan for all that.
(4) There are, however, many who were once outdoor servants, sinning openly and in defiance of all law.
2. Believers are made free from sin.
(1) From the condemnation of sin (Rom_8:1).
(2) From the guilt of sin. As you cannot be condemned so does the truth go further, you cannot even be accused. Who shall lay anything to the charge of Gods elect?
(3) From the punishment of sin.
(4) From its reigning power.
3. How came we to be free?
(1) By purchase, for our Saviour has paid the full redemption money.
(2) By power. Just as the Israelites were the Lords own people, but He had to bring them out of Egypt, so has the Lord by power broken the neck of sin and brought us up from the dominion of the old Pharaoh of evil and set us free.
(3) By privilege. Unto as many as believed Him, to them gave He the privilege to become the sons of God. His own royal, majestic, and Divine decree has bidden the prisoners go forth.
(4) By death. If a slave dies his masters possession in him is ended. He that is dead is free from sin.
(5) By resurrection. A new life has been given to us; we are new creatures in Christ Jesus.
4. Ye became the servants of righteousness. A righteous God has made us die to sin; a new and righteous life has been infused into us, and now righteousness rules and reigns in us. The text says we are enslaved to righteousness, and so we wish to be.
II. The reasons for our change.
1. We changed our old master because we were illegally detained by him. Sin did not make us, does not feed us, has no right to us whatever. Besides, our old master was as bad as bad could be. We ran away from him Because we had never any profit at his hands. What fruit had ye then? Ask the drunkard, the spendthrift, any man that lives in sin, what he has gained by it, and we will find it is all loss. Beside that, our old master brought shame. Those things whereof ye are now ashamed. Moreover, its wages are death.
2. But why did we take up with our new Master? In the first place, we owe ourselves wholly to Him; and in the next place, if we did not, He is so altogether lovely, that if we had a free choice of masters we would choose Him a thousand times over. His service is perfect freedom and supreme delight. He gives us even now a payment in His service.
III. The consequences of this change.
1. That you belong wholly to your Lord. Numbers of professing Christians seem mostly to belong to themselves, for they never gave God anything that cost them a self-denial. But if you are really saved, not a hair of your heads belongs to yourselves; Christs blood has either bought you or it has not, and if it has, then you are altogether Christs. Just as a negro used to belong to the maw that bought him, every inch of him, so you are the slave of Christ; you bear in your body the brand of the Lord Jesus, and your glory and your freedom lie therein.
2. Because you are Christs His very name is dear to you. You are not so His slave that you would escape from His service if you could; you want to be more and more the Lords. Where there is anything of Christ there your love goes forth. Haydn one day turned into a music sellers, and asked for some select and beautiful music, and was offered some of his own. Oh, said Haydn, Ill have nothing to do with that. Why, sir, what fault can you find with it? I can find a great deal of fault with it, but I will not argue with you, I do not want any of his music. Then, said the shopkeeper, I have other music, but it is not for such as you. A thorough enthusiast grows impatient of those who do not appreciate what he so much admires. You can be no friend of mine if you are not a friend of Christs.
3. All your members are henceforth reserved for Christ. When Satan was your master you did not care about Christ, you went wholly in for evil. You did not require to be egged on to it. Now you ought not to want your ministers or Christian friends to stir you up to good works; you ought to be just as eager after holiness as you were after sin. As you have given the devil first-rate service, let Christ have the same. Some of you never stood at any expense--I wish we could serve Christ thus unstintedly. The poor slaves of sin not only do not stop at expense, but they are not frightened by any kind of loss. See how many lose their characters for the sake of one short hour of sin. They ruin their peace and think nothing of it. They will lose their health, too; nay, they will destroy their souls for the sake of sins brief delights. In the same way should we serve our Lord. Be willing to lose character, health, life, all, if by any means you may glorify Him whose servant you have become. Oh, who will be my Masters servant? Do you not see Him? He wears upon His head no diadem but the crown of thorns; His feet are still rubied with their wounds, and His hands are still bejewelled with the marks of the nails. This is your Master, and these are the insignia of His love for you. What service will you render Him? That of a mere professor, who names His name but loves Him not? That of a cold religionist, who renders unwilling service out of fear? Do not so dishonour Him. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
The strictness of the law of Christ
1. The apostle is not content with speaking half the truth; he does not merely say that we are set free from guilt and misery, but he adds, that we have become the slaves of Christ. He has not bought us, and then set us loose upon the world. He has given us that only liberty which is really such, bond service to Himself, lest if left to ourselves we should fall back again to the cruel bondage from which He redeemed us.
2. This needs insisting on; for a number of persons think that they are not bound to any real service at all, now that Christ has set them free. Men often speak as if the perfection of human happiness lay in our being free to choose and to reject. Now we are indeed free, if we do not choose to be Christs servants, to go back to the old bondage. We may choose our master, but God or mammon we must serve. We cannot possibly be in a neutral state. Yet a number of persons think their Christian liberty lies in being free from all law, even from the law of God. In opposition to this great mistake, St. Paul reminds his brethren in the text that when they were made free from sin, they became the servants of righteousness. He says the same in other Epistles (1Co_7:22-23; Col_3:22; Col_3:24; 1Co_9:21).
3. Religion, then, is a necessary service; of course it is a privilege too, but it becomes more and more of a privilege, the more we exercise ourselves in it. The perfect Christian state is that in which our duty and our pleasure are the same, it is the state in which the angels stand; but it is not so with us, except in part. Upon our regeneration indeed, we have a seed of truth and holiness planted within us, a new law introduced into our nature; but still we have that old nature to subdue, a work, a conflict all through life.
4. Now most Christians will allow in general terms that they are under a law, but they admit it with a reserve; they claim for themselves some dispensing power.
I. What is the sort of man whom the world accounts respectable and religious? At best he is such as this. He has a number of good points to his character, but some of these he has by nature, others he has acquired because outward circumstances compelled him to acquire them. He has acquired a certain self-command, because no one is respected without it. He has been forced into habits of diligence, punctuality, and honesty. He is courteous and obliging; and has learned not to say all he thinks and feels, or to do all he wishes to do on all occasions. The great mass of men, of course, are far from this; but I am supposing the best--viz., those who only now and then will feel inclinations or interest to run counter to duty. Such times constitute a mans trial; they are just the times on which he is apt to consider that he has a leave to dispense with the law, when it is simply the law of God, without being also the law of self, and of the world. He does what is right, while the road of religion runs along the road of the world; when they part company awhile he chooses the world, and calls his choice an exception. For instance--
1. He generally comes to church, it is his practice; but some urgent business or scheme of pleasure tempts him--he omits his attendance; he knows this is wrong, and says so, but it is only once in a way.
2. He is strictly honest in his dealings; it is his rule to speak the truth, but if hard pressed, he allows himself now and then to say a slight falsehood. He knows he should not lie, he confesses it; but he thinks it cannot be helped.
3. He has learned to curb his temper and his tongue; but on some unusual provocation they get the better of him. But are not all men subject to be overtaken with ill temper? That is not the point; the point is this--that he does not feel compunction afterward, he does not feel he has done any thing which needs forgiveness.
4. He is in general temperate; but he joins a party of friends and is tempted to exceed. Next day he says that it is a long time since such a thing happened to him. He does not understand he has any sin to repent of, because it is but once in a way. Such men, being thus indulgent to themselves, are indulgent to each other. Conscious of what might be said against themselves they are cautious what they say against others. These are a few out of a multitude of traits which mark an easy religion--the religion of the world; which would cast in its lot with Christian truth, were not that truth so very strict, and quarrels with it--because it will not suit itself to emergencies, and to the tastes of individuals.
II. This is the kind of religion which St. Paul virtually warns us against, as often as he speaks of the gospel as being a law and a servitude.
1. He indeed glories in its being such; for, as the happiness of all creatures lies in their performing their parts well, where God has placed them, so mans greatest good lies in obedience to Gods law and in imitation of Gods perfections. Therefore Paul insists on the necessity of Christians fulfilling the righteousness of the law. Hence James says, Whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all. And our Saviour assures us that, Whosoever shall break one of these least commandments, etc., and that Except our righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees, which was thus partial and circumscribed, we shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven. And when the young man came to Him, He pointed out the one thing wanting in him. Let us not then deceive ourselves; what God demands of us is to he content with nothing short of perfect obedience--to avail ourselves of the aids given us, and throw ourselves on Gods mercy for our shortcomings.
2. But the state of multitudes of men is this--their hearts are going the wrong way, and their real quarrel with religion is not that it is strict, but that it is religion. If I want to travel north, and all the roads are cut to the east, of course I shall complain of the roads. So men who try to reach Babylon by roads which run to Mount Sion necessarily meet with thwartings, crossings, disappointments, and failure. They go mile after mile, watching in vain for the turrets of the city of Vanity, because they are on the wrong road; and, unwilling to own what they are really seeking, they find fault with the road as circuitous and wearisome.
3. But religion is a bondage only to those who have not the heart to like it. Accordingly, in verse 17, St. Paul thanks God that his brethren had obeyed from the heart that form of teaching, into which they had been delivered. We Christians are cast into a certain mould. So far as we keep within it, we are not sensible that it is a mould. It is when our hearts would overflow in some evil direction, then we consider ourselves in prison. It is the law in our members warring against the law of the Spirit which brings us into a distressing bondage. Let us then see where we stand, and what we must do. Heaven cannot change; God is without variableness or shadow of turning. His law is from everlasting to everlasting. We must change. We must go over to the side of heaven. Never had a soul true happiness but in conformity to God. We must have the law of the Spirit of life in our hearts, that the righteousness of the law may be fulfilled in us.
4. Some men, instead of making excuses, such as I have been considering, and of professing to like religion, all but its service, boldly object that religion is unnatural, and therefore cannot be incumbent. Men are men, and the world is the world, and that life was not meant to be a burden, and that God sent us here for enjoyment, and that He will never punish us for following the law of our nature. I answer, doubtless this life was meant to be enjoyment; but why not a rejoicing in the Lord? We were meant to follow the law of our nature; but why of our old nature and not of our new? Now that God has opened the doors of our prison house, if men are still carnal, and the world sinful, and the life of angels a burden, and the law of our nature not the law of God, whose fault is it? We Christians are indeed under the law, but it is the new law, the law of the Spirit of Christ. We are under grace. That law, which to nature is a grievous bondage, is to those who live under the power of Gods presence, what it was meant to be, a rejoicing. (J. H. Newman, D. D.)
True liberty
Is it your opinion, said Socrates, that liberty is a fair and valuable possession? So valuable, replied Euthydemus, that I know of nothing more precious. But he who is so far overcome by sensual pleasure that he is not able to practise what is best, and consequently the most eligible--do you count this more free, Euthydemus? Far from it, replied the other. You think, then, said Socrates, that freedom consists in being able to do what is right, and slavery, in not being able; whatever may be the cause that deprives us of the power? I do, most certainly. The debauchee, then, you must suppose is in this state of slavery? I do, and with good reason. (Xenophon.)
True liberty
You think the charter would make you free--would to God it would. The charter is not bad if the men who use it are not bad. But will the charter make you free? Will it free you from slavery to ten-pound bribes? Slavery to gin and beer? Slavery to every spouter who flatters your self-conceit, and stirs up bitterness and headlong rage in you? That, I guess, is real slavery; to be a slave to ones own stomach, ones own pocket, ones own temper. Will the charter cure that? Friends, you want more than Ac of Parliament can give. Englishmen! Saxons! Workers of the great cool-headed, strong-handed nation of England, the workshop of the world, the leader of freedom for seven hundred years; men, you say you have common sense! then do not humbug yourselves into meaning license when you cry for liberty. Who would dare refuse you freedom? for the Almighty God and Jesus Christ, the poor man who died for poor men, will bring it about for you, though all the mammonites of the earth were against you. A nobler day is dawning for England--a day of freedom, science, industry. But there will be no true freedom without virtue, no true science without religion, no true industry without the fear of God and love to your fellow citizens. Workers of England, be wise, and then you must be free, for you will be fit to be free. (C. Kingsley, M. A.)
The liberty of the believer
The liberty of the subject could never be preserved in a lawless state of society, but violence and tyranny would reduce to a slavish obedience the weak and the timid. The palladium of civil liberty is law; law well defined, excluding the fluctuations of caprice on one side, and of aggression on the other; law rigorously executed also, for the best code is a dead letter if it be not accompanied by a living and firm executive. So the liberty of the believer is secured by the law of God, when brought under its guidance and government. While living under the misrule of his fallen nature, he is the sport of every capricious imagination, and successively the slave of his predominant passions (verse 16.) But let Christs government be set up, and he becomes Christs freeman; sin has no more dominion over him; he is no longer its wretched captive, but is under gracious law, for where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. (G. H. Salter.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
B. W. Johnson 1891 · Public Domain On vv16–22 16. Know ye not? This is utterly impossible, as…
16. Know ye not? This is utterly impossible, as they will see if they will remember one principle. His servants ye are to whom ye obey. If we obey sin, we are sin's servants, under his reign, and will receive, not grace, but sin's wages, which is death; or, on the other hand, if we obey Christ, we are his servants, and enjoy his righteousness. None enjoy this blessedness but those who turn from sin and obey Christ.
B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On v22 Rom_6:23.—Eternal life is not like wages due for service…
CRITICAL NOTES
Rom_6:23.—Eternal life is not like wages due for service to God, as death is wages due for service to sin. Eternal life is a donative or free gift of God.
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MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Rom_6:22-23
Four stages in the Christian’s life.—The essentials of the Christian’s course are marked out for us in this short passage. We here get, as it were, a bird’s-eye view of all that is needful from the time of conversion to the period of entrance upon the blessing of everlasting life. We begin with the great deliverance, we pass on to the great change, we see the Christian growing in meetness for the inheritance of the saints in light, and then when the earthly trials and conflicts are over we see him passing a disciplined soul across the narrow stream of death into the unfading beauties of that life which is everlasting. The soul that passes through the experiences here laid down has nothing to fear, and is blessed indeed. Let us seek to understand its teaching. Four points claim our attention: the gracious deliverance, the glorious change, the blessed result, the happy termination.
I. The gracious deliverance.—It was a gracious deliverance when Noah and his sons were saved by means of the ark. Lot was rescued from the burning cities; the children of Israel were brought forth from the land of Egyptian bondage; the man-slayer found asylum in the city of refuge from the avenger of blood; David escaped the javelin thrown by the frenzied Saul; Daniel came forth from the lions’ den uninjured; and the three Hebrew children marched in triumph from the furnace without having upon them so much as the smell of fire. But still more gracious is that deliverance when the soul is made free from sin. It is a deliverance from the accusation of sin. When we sin we depart knowingly from the rule of duty, and that departure becomes a voice of reproof and of accusation. Every sin which a man commits becomes to that man an accuser, unless he has become hardened, and then hereafter those stifled voices of his sins will speak in trumpet tones to the unutterable dismay of his spirit. Terrible is it for the man with a tender conscience and a sensitive nature to hear within the accusing voice of his past sins. And great rejoicing is heard in every house and in every street of the town of Mansoul when the man is set free from sin. It is a deliverance from the penalty of sin. “The wages of sin is death.” “The soul that sinneth it shall die.” Death physical, intellectual, and moral is the penalty of sin. Sin has a killing power. It touches, withers, and destroys the nobler parts of man’s nature, so that the man by sin is dead while he lives. Gracious deliverance it is to be set free from sin’s penalty, to be raised from death to life. It is a deliverance from the tyranny of sin. Sin is a tyrant that grips and holds his victims with an iron hand, and keeps them grinding with remorseless cruelty at the wheel of oppression. Many of sin’s victims see the tyranny and long to be set free. They see the awful ruin to which they are being led, but cannot escape. They cannot escape except by the power of divine grace. It is thus alone that they can be set free from sin. It is a gracious deliverance, for it had a gracious origin. “By grace are ye saved.” For it is by a gracious Author,—the gracious method of the gospel plan of salvation. It is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth. “Neither is there salvation in any other; for there is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved.” Oh that men would believe in Jesus Christ!
II. A glorious change.—It was a glorious change when Joseph passed from the prison cell to be the second ruler in Egypt. David passed from the sheepcote to the splendour of Israel’s throne; Mordecai was taken to the king’s gate, and placed on the king’s horse, and clothed in royal apparel, and the proclamation was heard, “Thus shall it be done unto the man whom the king delighteth to honour.” But not so glorious as when the slaves of sin become the servants of God. It is a noble service. By what rules shall we measure the nobility of a service? Shall we speak of the greatness of the being who is served, the extent of his dominions, and the number and exalted character of his servants? Thus this service transcends, eclipses, any other form of service. We cannot grasp the greatness of this Being, and must content ourselves with the proceeding of the French preacher who, when called upon to preach on the occasion of the monarch’s death, exclaimed amid breathless silence, “God alone is great.” Vast are the numbers of His servants. The winds and the waves obey His will. The wild beasts of the forest, the cattle on the thousand hills, the myriad songsters of earth’s groves, the birds of beautiful plumage, are His servants. But higher still, for men and angels are His servants; and men the noblest and sublimest earth can boast. Men of giant intellect, of heroic natures, of wondrous spirituality, are God’s servants. We see them passing the great highway of time, and as the goodly procession passes along our souls are thrilled with conflicting emotions of gladness and of intense admiration, and we ask, Is it possible that we are to be permitted to follow in this glorious train? We may here claim all men and all women as the servants of God; but remember that He has three kinds of servants—some are slaves, and serve on the principle of fear; others are hirelings, and serve for the sake of the wages; but the best are sons, and serve under the influence of love. It is the loving service that is the noblest, that is the most satisfactory, and that is the most abiding. What is the service you render? The service of love is the only one which God will graciously accept. May God baptise with the spirit of love!
III. The blessed result.—“Ye have your fruit unto holiness”; or, “Ye have your fruit unto sanctification.” God places trees in His garden not for mere ornament but for use. God does not despise the ornamental; but God’s ornamental things are useful things as well. God is a painter the wondrous combination of whose colours no human painter has ever faintly shadowed forth, an architect whose mighty structures dwarf the proudest temples and palaces of earth, a musician whose lofty strains make the loftiest of human harmonies seem poor and feeble. If we desire to see beauty, let us go, not to the art galleries of men, but to the art galleries of God—not art galleries, but nature galleries, for God’s rich nature is transcendent in beauty. A Christian should be an ornamental tree and a fruit-bearing tree. Are not the most fruitful trees the most beautiful? What can equal the delicate tinting and the rich colouring of the spring blossoming of the fruitful tree? What beauty is there in the Christian who bears fruit unto sanctification! We take it that a truly sanctified man is both a beautiful man and a useful man. The children of this world may scoff at the saint; but there is, after all, a deep inward respect for those who live godly, righteous, and sober lives The sanctified ones are the salt of the earth. The sanctified ones are the truly useful and the truly ornamental ones of the world. A Church all of whose members bring forth fruit unto sanctification is a Church which will attract by its loveliness. A kingdom the greater part of whose subjects bring forth fruit unto sanctification is a kingdom whose foundations are strong and whose perpetual glory is secured. Bring forth fruit unto sanctification; begin it in the way of duty, and by-and-by duty will become a pleasure. Learning to read is unpleasant to the child; but in after-time the reading of good books becomes not only the necessity but the pleasure of intellectual existence. In the beginning of the divine life we are but as children learning to read; but in after-time we find the greatest delight in keeping the commandments of God. Bring forth fruit unto your own sanctification, for your own good as well as for the glory of God.
IV. The happy termination.—“The end everlasting life.” We are permitted and enjoined by the example of the word of God to keep the end in view. And what an end! It is an end without an end, paradoxical as the statement appears. This end is the beginning of everlasting life, the beginning of the noblest life without termination. Perfect life is the adaptation of the being to its surroundings, and the adaptation of those surroundings to the being; and such is everlasting life. We shall be fitted for celestial surroundings, and those surroundings we shall find prepared to conduce to our highest felicity. Life here is imperfect, inadequate, and incomplete; life yonder will be perfect, adequate, and complete. Let us take the term “everlasting” not merely as referring to the perpetuity of our future existence, but to the completeness of that existence in all its aspects. No life here is everlasting, because it is incomplete and imperfect. But life beyond is everlasting in the broadest sense of that word. Let us keep the end in view, in order to inspire with hope and patience in the present. Let us persevere in the noble pathway of bringing forth “fruit unto sanctification.”
Rom_6:22. Tenses of Christian life.—That twenty-second verse is the conclusion—the real conclusion—of this chapter. The twenty-third verse is merely explanatory. The twenty-second verse brings visibly before us the conclusion of that struggle that Paul has been tracing more or less throughout this sixth chapter: the two services—the old service and the new—the transition from the old to the new, the outcome of that change of masters, and the outlook that we now have. These are all embodied in this twenty-second verse—an exchange in the past, present experience, and a blessed outlook. You have here the three tenses of a Christian man’s life—the past, the present, and the future: something he looks back to is past and gone, something that he now has as present experience, and something he looks forward to as final result.
I. The exchange of masters.—We have, then, in this past tense a blessed change, an exchange of masters, a transition from one service to another. But when I speak of the old service as a service, I feel that I do not express it strongly enough; for that old service was a bondage. And yet I am almost afraid to describe the new service by that term, because we connect with the word “bondage” sentiments that are not at all agreeable. Yet the words used in this chapter of that old service and of the new one are precisely the same. We were the slaves of sin; and we are—the same word is applied—the slaves of God. There is a freedom that is slavery. My text makes it perfectly plain that every Christian man whose experience is here described has passed from a bondage, “being made free from sin.” We must have passed from bondage into freedom—passed from the bondage of sin into the freedom that grace gives. The first thing in our freedom, then, was deliverance from our sin and guilt; but that would not have been enough for you and me. When God speaks of freedom, He does it completely. He removes the guilt, but He breaks also its power; He takes away the love of sin, and He gives you the grace to enable you to struggle with the sin—not merely to struggle with it, but to overcome it.
II. The new service.—But, then, by that very freedom He has bound you. He has led you into what I should call, perhaps, a new “bondage”; only, as I said before, that word has an evil association; and yet it is true. By His grace and deliverance He has made me eternally His bondsman. He has set me free from the power of sin, restored my freedom, that I might serve Him. Having been made free from sin, I entered God’s service; I gave up my own supremacy, and yielded to the supremacy of God.
III. Fruit, a test of character.—“Ye have your fruit unto holiness.” Having had this deliverance from sin, having entered into this new service, what is the present outcome of it? It is fruit, and it is fruit that you have, and it is a fruit that looks forward to a particular result. Great many of us are tempted to look upon the Christian life as made up of negations. It is a positive life—something you can actually lay your hand upon and say, Now here is that which I have got through my connection with Christ, through what He has done for me, through my service rendered to Him. Here I can see what I have as a definite, clear, distinct result something that can be shown. A Christian man’s life must result in a real, positive character. “Ye have your fruit unto holiness.” It does not say that you are holy; it does not say you have already attained, or that you are already perfect. It does not say that the fruit is complete, that it is ripe, that it is ready to be plucked. No; but it is fruit growing and growing—to what? Unto sanctification, unto holiness. The present tense of the Christian life, then, is a consecrated life—a life of devotion to Christ, of determination to be His and His only.
IV. Eternal growth and development.—And now for the future tense: “the end everlasting life.” It is something that is far away, something that is to come by-and-by; but for the present we may contemplate it, and make it a power to guide us in our journey. I think of it as bringing deliverance from all that hinders. I sometimes think of it positively. Here we have but a limited amount of physical strength, but that other world will introduce us to a life where there are no checks or limitations or hindrances, but a perpetual growth of power to serve God, of faculty to be used for Him. Eternal life, everlasting life,—not a life of luxurious ease, not a life of mere enjoyment or pleasure or psalm-singing; but a life of active, devoted service—service which God is teaching us to render here, and which I believe He will teach us in yet fuller measure to render on the other side.—Prof. Robertson, D.D.
Rom_6:23. A high conception of manhood.—The nature of the gift which a man confers on his fellow may be taken as the estimate which the former entertains of the recipient’s character. In a gift there should be fitness. The gift should be suitable both to the circumstances of the giver and to the character and position of the recipient. Who would think of discoursing sweet music to the deaf? Should we give a choice painting to the blind? Would it be suitable to present a work on philosophy to one who can only read with difficulty? Here is a gift which transcends all others. Next in importance and in value to the unspeakable gift is the grant of eternal life. How vast the boon our contracted minds cannot fully comprehend. The value, preciousness, and vastness of the gift of eternal life will require an eternal life to unfold and completely to understand. Most feel the value of life, and are ready to subscribe to the truth of the old remark, “Skin for skin; yea, all that a man hath will he give for his life.” Some value intellectual life. What a boon if the balance of reason could be restored to the insane! What a gift if the mental power of a Plato or a Paul could be conferred on the man who yearns to tread the high pathway of genius! Above all gifts, if we could only rightly appreciate it, is the blessing of eternal life, which begins in the present state and is being developed in the illimitable future. The greatness and preciousness of this gift speak to us of the greatness and benevolence of the Giver. Surely the gift speaks to us likewise of the greatness of man. In one sense man is little and insignificant, but in another sense he is made only a little lower than the angels. Surely the creature is not to be belittled and despised on whom the Eternal bestows the blessing of eternal life. The possible inheritor of so great a blessing is noble and kingly. Yes, the Bible ennobles manhood. It is the one book, the one vital agency, for the elevation of the race. Man is made, not for the fleeting hour, but for the coming eternity. Man is great because God regards him as capable of the gift of eternal life.
I. Man is great, for this gift implies a moral nature.—As we read of the gift of eternal life we are lifted out of the marshy and sterile plain of materialism. We cannot understand the philosophers of the materialistic school. Why should a man pretend to be a lover of wisdom, to dwell in the realm of refined ideas, who is only a perishable mass of materialism? Man is little if he is only an animal, though he may be an animal that thinks—a philosopher. Man is great if he is a creature endowed with a nature that yearns after the Infinite, that soars upward to the Eternal, that loves and worships. The gift of eternal life would be both useless and impossible to a creature who is only one step raised above the beast that never thinks and never loves. The gift of eternal life can only be profitable and delightful to the creature whose nature is lightened up and glorified by a spark of divine fire. A moral nature is needful where a spiritual boon is to be received and appreciated.
II. Man is great, for this gift implies an enduring nature.—Men have felt the preciousness of the blessing of spiritual life even as a gift for the present phase of existence. If there were to be no hereafter, many men and women would still ask for the sustaining and cheering influences of the gift of eternal life. But if in this life we only have hope, then our God-given blessing is stripped of its transcendent charm. Yes, we look to the future. We have the confident expectation of infinite blessedness in the bright and beautiful beyond. We rise above our sorrows, we laugh at our calamities, we even sing in prison, and have transports of joy when bound to the stake, because we feed on the outcoming joys of a completed eternal life. Certainly the phantasm of some felicity which a man is to inherit hereafter as the reward of his services here can give no rest and comfort to a man toiling and suffering. A phantasm cannot sustain, but a certainty can support. We look forward in hope, in confident expectation. We are paid on the way. We have joys in the earth pilgrimage; but oh what joys await when the pilgrim’s journey is over and he passes inside the pearly gates!
III. Man is great, for this gift implies an abiding personality.—Individualism is the doctrine of the Bible. Can the gift of eternal life be conferred on a community? It is said that corporations have no souls. In this sense a community has no soul. A mob cannot receive the blessing of eternal life. It is a spiritual blessing, and in its reception the individual soul must be engaged. The moral personality must receive the blessing—must enjoy it, and develop it, and put it to wise and holy uses in the present sphere. In the future the blessing must be perpetuated and enjoyed by the individual recipient of the boon. So that the personality of the man is an abiding and a permanent quality. He aspires after rest, but it is a personal and an abiding repose in the presence of the infinite light and goodness. Here, then, we have not the creed of the Nirvana. While we long for the sweet composure of the being which may be realised in a brighter and calmer sphere, we shrink from the Buddhist doctrine of the absorption of the individual in the unity of being. Love will delight in the diffusion of happiness, in the wide expansion of blessings; but will the destruction of personalities, the concretion of souls into one great whole, contribute to greater happiness? Each soul glowing with the love light will contribute to the general splendour. The redeemed will be a glorious unity, but a glorious plurality. There will be many harpers. Each will rejoice in his own instrument, but he will rejoice to contribute to the general harmony. The music of heaven would not be rendered more perfect by all the harpers being absorbed in the unity of one harper, however skilful the performer.
IV. Man is great, for this gift implies incompleteness.—Man is great by reason of what he wants as well as by reason of what he possesses. What does man want? The poet sings:—
“Man wants but little here below,
Nor wants that little long.”
But the poet may only sing of material wants; for man wants that which alone can render his nature complete. How great is man who cannot rest until he finds repose in the arms of infinite love! How great is man whose lower life is not adequate, and who can only find satisfaction in the blessing of eternal life! Men crave for rest, and this divine yearning declares man’s vastness. Man longs and yearns; ofttimes he cannot interpret these dark soul movings. Deep calleth unto the deep in the dark and wondrous ocean of his moral nature, and he cannot translate the sound nor give speech to the confused utterance. He wants, he needs, eternal life. The loving Eternal sees man’s need, and graciously offers the boon in a proffered Christ.
V. Man is great, for this gift supposes a large nature.—A cargo must be proportioned to the size of the vessel. A teacher should deal with his scholar according to the scholar’s capacity. A gift must be suitable to the receiver. How wondrously constituted is that being who can receive and enjoy the blessing of eternal life! In some high moments of spirit rapture the soul experiences a great strain, which is not felt on account of the greatness of the joy. When the vision has passed, when the trance has gone, the soul is exhausted. But the soul will be ever expanding; and the more of heavenly delight it receives, the more it will be capable of receiving. Wondrous thought! that man can receive a divine Guest, can walk divine heights of blessedness, delight in the presence of the eternal Light, and finally taste the bliss of the glorified. But shall we speak of the greatness of man and have no word to exalt the greatness of the divine benevolence? “The gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Almost every word proclaims the greatness of the divine benevolence. This is seen by:
1. The fact of a gift. The hardness and depravity of human nature are evidenced by the circumstance that divine blessings are received as things taken for granted. We soon complain if anything is wanted. We are slow to raise the song of praise when blessings are bestowed. Here is a gift undeserved and unsought, a gift originating in the divine love; and yet how small is our appreciation of the divine benevolence!
2. The nature of the gift. Alas! we are so materialistic that we cannot receive with any great degree of rapture the moral; we are so earthly and so earthbound that we do not heartily welcome the heavenly; and yet, if we only knew it, the gift of eternal life is every way adapted to our natures. The gift of eternal life in its full realisation means the gift of abiding peace, of ever-flowing and uninterrupted joy—of sweet fellowship in the infinite goodness, of high converse with the noblest and purest spirits. This in a measure on our wilderness pilgrimage. This without measure and in indescribable fulness and delight when we have laid aside the pilgrim’s staff, have washed our earth-stained and weary feet, are clothed in the clean raiment of the glorified, and sit down at the banqueting table of infinite Love.
3. The originating possibility of the gift. “Through Jesus Christ our Lord.” He originated the possibility of this gift in harmony with the purposes and laws of God’s moral government. “The wages of sin is death.” The penalty had been incurred. God’s benevolence purposed a gift. But how was that purpose to be accomplished? How was the design to be rendered a possibility? Jesus Christ originated the possibility. God the Father had a mental, an emotional origination of the plan of human salvation. Jesus Christ had a practical origination. He was the self-sacrificing originator of the possibility of the great gift of eternal life to the human race. And shall we say that God’s love was less than Christ’s love? Is the emotional of less account than the practical? Do we not undervalue the emotional in the Saviour’s earthly life? Were not His sufferings greater from the emotional than from the physical side of His nature? God’s love was great; and while we speak let us remember that the emotional gave rise to the practical. The love of God gave His only begotten Son. Let us then adore the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Let us magnify the divine benevolence. Let us try to understand what God does when He makes the glorious offer of the gift of eternal life to the criminals over whom hangs the sentence of death. He shows the gift shining with many lights, and they reveal vaster glories beyond. He proffers the gift; and while He proffers there gleams upon the soul the pure light of the gems of heaven. He invites to accept; and while the loving voice woos and entreats the white-robed harpers raise a chorus of welcome. Can we refuse? Is it possible that we do not appreciate the gift? Angels look down in vast astonishment; their hearts are moved with infinite pity as they behold criminals passing away from offered pardon to the place of execution. Death and eternal life. Which is it to be? What is the resolve of the noble creature man? But how ignoble by the Fall! Great in divine intention, great in possibility; but little, low, and mean by degeneracy. Let us accept the gift and realise the greatness of which we are capable.
God’s great gift.—The tendency of the gospel is to exalt God and to humble man. It points to everlasting misery as the prison-house to which man’s depravity and sin would lead him. And it is only by the grace of our heavenly Father that we can reach the celestial world. “The wages”—the due recompense—“of sin is death,” but eternal life is the gift of God through our Lord Jesus Christ. In speaking of this gift, notice:—
I. Its nature.—
1. It will afford immunity from all the sufferings and dangers of the present life. Suffering belongs to every station here. Uninterrupted prosperity and enjoyment would be inconsistent with a state of trial. But sufferings can have no place in the life of the redeemed in heaven. All tears shall be wiped away.
2. It will afford pre-eminent intellectual enjoyment. Here we know in part; then we shall know in full. Knowledge will there be unmixed with error.
3. It will afford entire social enjoyment. Here society is often a source of annoyance, disagreements, and pain. In heaven it will possess unmixed knowledge, be full of benevolence, will be holy and wise, and there will be no separation.
4. It will afford unspotted holiness. All who possess it will be holy before they are allowed to enter heaven. But there they will attain to the glory of holiness of which man can form no conception. All will be light—the image of God will be reflected from every human spirit; the Lord Jesus Christ will reign over the minds and hearts of all His people.
5. It will afford incessant activity and endless improvement. Although heaven is represented as a place of rest, it is likewise a state of unceasing activity. The angels are active.
II. Its freeness.—“The gift of God.”
1. It was not wrung from Him by importunity. It is a life which cannot be purchased.
2. It is not the reward of merit. Though sometimes called a reward, it is the reward of grace, not of merit. Man may merit hell, but he cannot merit heaven. Everything leading to this eternal life is also the gift of God: the promises of the Bible; the great change by which he has become entitled to it and qualified for its enjoyment; the Lord Jesus, by whose merit eternal life was purchased,—all these are the gifts of God.
III. Its medium.—“Through Jesus Christ.” To Him we are indebted for the hopes that animate, for the enjoyments we experience. For this end the Redeemer was given—to put men in possession of eternal life; for this purpose He laboured; and for this He suffered.
1. By His death Christ made atonement, and procured pardon—i.e., salvation from spiritual death.
2. Through Him men are delivered from moral death, and receive the principle of spiritual life.
3. Through Him we are adopted into the family of His Father.
4. Through Him, through His resurrection, we conquer material death, and obtain material bodily life.—Homilist.
Rom_6:23. Eternal life a priceless gift.—The gift of God is eternal life “in Jesus Christ our Lord.” This is the better gift which contains that wherein all others are defective,—the gift of a well of water, not lying outside of the man, at which he may slake his thirst now and then, but springing up in him; the gift, not of a refreshing influence, but of a Person from whom the influence comes, and in whom he may find that perpetually which only visits him occasionally; the gift of One who delivers the spirit from its own proper burden, who speaks to those that are heavy laden with their own selfishness, and bids them rest in Him the meek and lowly; the gift of One who does not exact joy and sympathy and love, but kindles them and bestows them. Here is the eternal life—the only eternal life of which St. Paul knows anything. The phantasm of some felicity which a man is to inherit hereafter as the reward of his services here could give no rest or comfort to a man toiling and suffering as he was. He wanted One upon whom he could cast his sorrows, fears, sins, every hour; One from whom he could always draw a strength and nourishment to sustain him against the continual sentence and pressure of death. If there was such a One with him then, he could believe that He would be with him always—that neither height nor depth, nor life nor death, nor things present, nor things to come, would separate him from His love. His life must be eternal life: it could not be a changeable, inconstant treasure, here to-day and gone to-morrow; but it must be a gift fresh every day—not a property which he could claim as having been made over once for all to him. It must be a gift of God, which he would enjoy while he trusted in God, which he lost whenever he fancied that he had earned it. It must be a gift, therefore, for all as well as for himself—one of which he could preach to all, one of which he could say to them, You have it, however little you may know that you have it. As surely as you carry sin within you, so surely is He within you who is the enemy of sin; as surely as you have death with you, so surely have you life with you; as surely as you may possess the one for wages, so surely may you accept the other for the gift of God.—Maurice.
Rom_6:23. Death and life.—By a striking ceremonial on Gerizim and Ebal (see Deuteronomy 27 and Jos_8:30-35) Joshua set before the Israelites life and death, the blessing and the curse. Similar contrast in text. Composed of two antithetical clauses: three words in the one contrasted with three in the other—sin and God, death and life, wages and gift.
I. Sin and God.—Both are masters engaging servants. The two occupy the whole domain of moral action. Only two masters and two kinds of service.
1. Sin as a master. One of the smallest words in the English language, but what it names is not little. Sin often regarded as a theological term, an abstraction, dark as a thunder-cloud, but as far away. Here not an ideal abstraction, but an actual master. Sinners are servants of sin, though not certain of making any engagement. Every born Briton bound to serve his country as long as in it. So every one who continues in sin tacitly engages to serve sin (see Rom_6:16). Though not a person, it has the power of a master. Proof of this: they believe in it, take pleasure in it, labour for it. Though they fancy themselves their own masters, they are being drawn or driven, sometimes against their better wishes, in a course opposite to God.
2. God the other master. His service a perfect contrast to the other. On the one hand all that is noble and pure, on the other all that is base and defiling: here a little tribulation, a little self-denial, and then everlasting felicity; there present pleasure and future misery, short-lived delight and everlasting sorrow: here eternal life; there eternal death.
II. Death and life.—Cause of death separation from God—sentence on first parents. As branch broken from the tree dies, so they cut off from the God of life died.
1. Spiritually. Proof from Scripture (Rom_8:6; 1Ti_5:6).
2. Death of the body another part of the death (Rom_5:12).
3. Here death contrasted with eternal life. Hence infer that eternal death especially meant: elsewhere described as “the second death” and “everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord.” Eternal life, in contrast with eternal death, like half of sky clear while the other half filled with thunder-clouds. True life animated by high purpose, ennobled by true goodness, brimful of joy—a life that lifts clean away from the power of vexations and cares. Such life in fellowship with Christ: “Christ in you, the hope of glory” (see Rev_3:20). Such life not touched by death (Joh_11:25; Joh_14:19; Col_3:3-4).
III. Contrast: wages and gift.—
1. Death the wages of sin: due reward of deeds—not imposed by an arbitrary appointment of God: the law of the universe. Just that sinner be paid for his work, whether wages please him or not.
2. Eternal life a gift. The word means the free gift of God. Given to all in offer (Joh_4:10; 1Jn_5:11); given not for service rendered, but before one has begun to serve. No need to wait for; no need to prepare. Only condition is willingness to receive. But since it is life, it means a new beginning; since it is eternal life, it must overmaster all other lives; since it is life to be enjoyed in the service of God, we must quit the service of sin (Rom_6:13).—G. Wallace, D.D.
ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 6
Rom_6:22. Frederick the Great and Count Schmettau.—During the Seven Years’ War Frederick the Great accompanied his soldiers on a mountain march. Count Schmettau was his lieutenant, and a very religious man. The king, impatient over the tedious route of the artillery on foot up the narrow mountain pass, indulged in jesting to drive away ennui—he liked a little to tease Schmettau. He knew of a confessor in Berlin whom the count would visit, and allowed a stream of jokes and derision to flow freely. “Your majesty is more witty and much more learned than I,” answered Schmettau, at last finding utterance. “More than this, you are my king. The spiritual contest is in every respect unequal; nevertheless, you cannot take away from me my faith, and as it now goes you would certainly injure me immeasurably, at the same time not make yourself insignificant.” The king remained standing in front of Schmettau; a flash of indignation came from his majesty’s eye. “What does that mean, monsieur? I injure you by taking your faith! What does that mean?” With immovable tranquillity answered the general, “Your majesty believes that in me you have a good officer, and I hope you are not mistaken. But could you take from me my faith, you would have in me a pitiful thing—a reed in the wind, not of the least account in council or in war.” The king was silent for a time, and after reflection, called out in a friendly manner, “Schmettau, what is your belief?” “I believe,” said Schmettau, “in a divine Providence, that the hairs of my head are all numbered, in a salvation from all my sins, and everlasting life after death.” “This you truly believe?” said the king; “this you believe is right with full assurance?” “Yes, truly, your majesty.” The king, moved, seized his hand, pressed it strongly, and said, “You are a happy man.” And never from that hour did he deride Schmettau’s religious opinions.
Rom_6:23. The wages of sin.—Mr. Marshall, author of the Gospel Mystery of Sanctification, having been for several years under distress of mind, consulted Dr. Goodwin, an eminent divine, giving him an account of the state of his soul, and particularising his sins, which lay heavy on his conscience. In reply he told him he had forgot to mention the greatest sin of all, the sin of unbelief, in not believing on the Lord Jesus Christ for the remission of his sins and sanctifying his nature. On this he set himself to the studying and preaching of Christ, and attained to eminent holiness, great peace of conscience, and joy in the Holy Ghost. Mr. Marshall’s dying words were these: “The wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
William B. Godbey 1900 · Public Domain On vv16–22 16. “Do you not know that to whom ye…
16. “Do you not know that to whom ye present yourselves slaves to obedience, ye are slaves to whom ye obey, whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?” Man is a dependency by nature, All attempts to assume independence have collapsed and ultimated in ruin; i. e., the Eden independence winding up in the Fall, the Antediluvian in the Flood, the Patriarchal in Egyptian slavery, the Jewish in destruction by the Roman armies; and in the clear light of prophecy the Gentile destined to go the same way, ending in the great tribulation. Man would have stood under any or all of these dispensations if he had been true to God. Human independence is but another name for Satanic slavery. Entire sanctification makes you God’s slave. This is the identical word applied by the Holy Ghost to God’s apostles and saints throughout the Bible. God’s slavery means perfect liberty. If you were a slave on earth, and your master were perfectly good, infinitely rich, and loved you enough to die for you, in that case you would be free and happy as an angel.
William B. Godbey, Commentary on the New Testament (1896–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain On v17
Romans
‘THE FORM OF TEACHING’
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Rom 6:17.
There is room for difference of opinion as to what Paul precisely means by ‘form’ here. The word so rendered appears in English as type, and has a similar variety of meaning. It signifies originally a mark made by pressure or impact; and then, by natural transitions, a mould, or more generally a pattern or example, and then the copy of such an example or pattern, or the cast from such a mould. It has also the other meaning which its English equivalent has taken on very extensively of late years, such as, for instance, you find in expressions like ‘An English type of face,’ meaning thereby the general outline which preserves the distinguishing characteristics of a thing. Now we may choose between these two meanings in our text. If the Apostle means type in the latter sense of the word, then the rendering ‘form’ is adequate, and he is thinking of the Christian teaching which had been given to the Roman Christians as possessing certain well-defined characteristics which distinguished it from other kinds of teaching-such, for instance, as Jewish or heathen.
But if we take the other meaning, then he is, in true Pauline fashion, bringing in a vivid and picturesque metaphor to enforce his thought, and is thinking of the teaching which the Roman Christians had received as being a kind of mould into which they were thrown, a pattern to which they were to be conformed. And that that is his meaning seems to me to be made a little more probable by the fact that the last words of my text would be more accurate if inverted, and instead of reading, as the Authorised Version does, ‘that form of doctrine which was delivered you,’ we were to read, as the Revised Version does, ‘that form whereunto ye were delivered.’
If this be the general meaning of the words before us, there are three thoughts arising from them to which I turn briefly. First, Paul’s Gospel was a definite body of teaching; secondly, that teaching is a mould for conduct and character; lastly, that teaching therefore demands obedience. Take, then, these three thoughts.
I. First, Paul’s Gospel was a definite body of teaching.
Now the word ‘doctrine,’ which is employed in my text, has, in the lapse of years since the Authorised Version was made, narrowed its significance. At the date of our Authorised translation ‘doctrine’ was probably equivalent to ‘teaching,’ of whatever sort it might be. Since then it has become equivalent to a statement of abstract principles, and that is not at all what Paul means. He does not mean to say that his gospel was a form of doctrine in the sense of being a theological system, but he means to say that it was a body of teaching, the nature of the teaching not being defined at all by the word.
Therefore we have to notice that the great, blessed peculiarity of the Gospel is that it is a teaching, not of abstract dry principles, but of concrete historical facts. From these principles in plenty may be gathered, but in its first form as it comes to men fresh from God it is not a set of propositions, but a history of deeds that were done upon earth. And, therefore, is it fitted to be the food of every soul and the mould of every character.
Jesus Christ did not come and talk to men about God, and say to them what His Apostles afterwards said, ‘God is love,’ but He lived and died, and that mainly was His teaching about God. He did not come to men and lay down a theory of atonement or a doctrine of propitiation, or theology about sin and its relations to God, but He went to the Cross and gave Himself for us, and that was His teaching about sacrifice. He did not say to men ‘There is a future life, and it is of such and such a sort,’ but He came out of the grave and He said ‘Touch Me, and handle Me. A spirit hath not flesh and bones,’ and therefore He brought life and immortality to light, by no empty words but by the solid realities of facts. He did not lecture upon ethics, but He lived a perfect human life out of which all moral principles that will guide human conduct may be gathered. And so, instead of presenting us with a hortus siccus, with a botanic collection of scientifically arranged and dead propositions, He led us into the meadow where the flowers grow, living and fair. His life and death, with all that they imply, are the teaching.
Let us not forget, on the other hand, that the history of a fact is not the mere statement of the outward thing that has happened. Suppose four people, for instance, standing at the foot of Christ’s Cross; four other ‘evangelists’ than the four that we know. There is a Roman soldier; there is a Pharisee; there is one of the weeping crowd of poor women, not disciples; and there is a disciple. The first man tells the fact as he saw it: ‘A Jewish rebel was crucified this morning.’ The second man tells the fact: ‘A blaspheming apostate suffered what he deserved to-day.’ The woman tells the fact: ‘A poor, gentle, fair soul was martyred to-day.’ And the fourth one tells the fact: ‘Jesus Christ, the Son of God, died for our sins.’ The three tell the same fact; the fourth preaches the Gospel-that is to say, Christian teaching is the facts plus their explanation; and it is that which differentiates it from the mere record which is of no avail to anybody. So Paul himself in one of his other letters puts it. This is his gospel: Jesus of Nazareth ‘died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and He was buried, and rose again the third day, according to the Scriptures.’ That is what turns the bald story of the facts into teaching, which is the mould for life.
So on the one hand, dear brethren, do not let us fall into the superficial error of fancying that our religion is a religion of emotion and morality only. It is a religion with a basis of divine truth, which, being struck away, all the rest goes. There is a revolt against dogma to-day, a revolt which in large measure is justified as an essential of progress, and in large measure as an instance of progress; but human nature is ever prone to extremes, and in the revolt from man’s dogma there is danger of casting away God’s truth. Christianity is not preserved when we hold by the bare facts of the outward history, unless we take with these facts the interpretation of them, which declares the divinity and the sacrifice of the Son of God.
And on the other hand, let us keep very clear in our minds the broad and impassable gulf of separation between the Christian teaching as embodied in the Scripture and the systems which Christianity has evolved therefrom. Men’s intellects must work upon the pabulum that is provided for them, and a theology in a systematised form is a necessity for the intellectual and reasonable life of the Christian Church. But there is all the difference between man’s inferences from and systematising of the Christian truth and the truth that lies here. The one is the golden roof that is cast over us; the other is too often but the spiders’ webs that are spun across and darken its splendour. It is a sign of a wholesome change in the whole sentiment and attitude of the modern Christian mind that the word ‘doctrine,’ which has come to mean men’s inferences from God’s truth, should have been substituted as it has been in our Revised Version of my text, by the wholesome Christian word ‘teaching.’ The teaching is the facts with the inspired commentary on them.
II. Secondly, notice that this teaching is in Paul’s judgment a mould or pattern according to which men’s lives are to be conformed.
There can be no question but that, in that teaching as set forth in Scripture, there does lie the mightiest formative power for shaping our lives, and emancipating us from our evil.
Christ is the type, the mould into which men are to be cast. The Gospel, as presented in Scripture, gives us three things. It gives us the perfect mould; it gives us the perfect motive; it gives us the perfect power. And in all three things appears its distinctive glory, apart from and above all other systems that have ever tried to affect the conduct or to mould the character of man.
In Jesus Christ we have in due combination, in perfect proportion, all the possible excellences of humanity. As in other cases of perfect symmetry, the very precision of the balanced proportions detracts from the apparent magnitude of the statue or of the fair building, so to a superficial eye there is but little beauty there that we should desire Him, but as we learn to know Him, and live nearer to Him, and get more familiar with all His sweetness, and with all His power, He towers before us in ever greater and yet never repellent or exaggerated magnitude, and never loses the reality of His brotherhood in the completeness of His perfection. We have in the Christ the one type, the one mould and pattern for all striving, the ‘glass of form,’ the perfect Man.
And that likeness is not reproduced in us by pressure or by a blow, but by the slow and blessed process of gazing until we become like, beholding the glory until we are changed into the glory.
It is no use having a mould and metal unless you have a fire. It is no use having a perfect Pattern unless you have a motive to copy it. Men do not go to the devil for want of examples; and morality is not at a low ebb by reason of ignorance of what the true type of life is. But nowhere but in the full-orbed teaching of the New Testament will you find a motive strong enough to melt down all the obstinate hardness of the ‘northern iron’ of the human will, and to make it plastic to His hand. If we can say, ‘He loved me and gave Himself for me’ then the sum of all morality, the old commandment that ‘ye love one another’ receives a new stringency, and a fresh motive as well as a deepened interpretation, when His love is our pattern. The one thing that will make men willing to be like Christ is their faith that Christ is their Sacrifice and their Saviour. And sure I am of this, that no form of mutilated Christianity, which leaves out or falteringly proclaims the truth that Christ died on the Cross for the sins of the world, will ever generate heat enough to mould men’s wills, or kindle motives powerful enough to lead to a life of growing imitation of and resemblance to Him. The dial may be all right, the hours most accurately marked in their proper places, every minute registered on the circle, the hands may be all right, delicately fashioned, truly poised, but if there is no main-spring inside, dial and hands are of little use, and a Christianity which says, ‘Christ is the Teacher; do you obey Him?’ is as impotent as the dial face with the broken main-spring. What we need, and what, thank God, in ‘the teaching’ we have, is the pattern brought near to us, and the motive for imitating the pattern, set in motion by the great thought, ‘He loved me and gave Himself for me.’
Still further, the teaching is a power to fashion life, inasmuch as it brings with it a gift which secures the transformation of the believer into the likeness of his Lord. Part of ‘the teaching’ is the fact of Pentecost; part of the teaching is the fact of the Ascension; and the consequence of the Ascension and the sure promise of the Pentecost is that all who love Him, and wait upon Him, shall receive into their hearts the ‘Spirit of life in Christ Jesus’ which shall make them free from the law of sin and death.
So, dear friends, on the one hand, let us remember that our religion is meant to work, that we have nothing in our creed that should not be in our character, that all our credenda are to be our agenda; everything believed to be something done; and that if we content ourselves with the simple acceptance of the teaching, and make no effort to translate that teaching into life, we are hypocrites or self-deceivers.
And, on the other hand, do not let us forget that religion is the soul of which morality is the body, and that it is impossible in the nature of things that you shall ever get a true, lofty, moral life which is not based upon religion. I do not say that men cannot be sure of the outlines of their duty without Christianity, though I am free to confess that I think it is a very maimed and shabby version of human duty, which is supplied, minus the special revelation of that duty which Christianity makes; but my point is, that the knowledge will not work without the Gospel.
The Christian type of character is a distinct and manifestly separate thing from the pagan heroism or from the virtues and the righteousnesses of other systems. Just as the musician’s ear can tell, by half a dozen bars, whether that strain was Beethoven’s, or Handel’s, or Mendelssohn’s, just as the trained eye can see Raffaelle’s magic in every touch of his pencil, so Christ, the Teacher, has a style; and all the scholars of His school carry with them a certain mark which tells where they got their education and who is their Master, if they are scholars indeed. And that leads me to the last word.
III. This mould demands obedience.
By the very necessity of things it is so. If the ‘teaching’ was but a teaching of abstract truths it would be enough to assent to them. I believe that the three angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles, and I have done my duty by that proposition when I have said ‘Yes! it is so.’ But the ‘teaching’ which Jesus Christ gives and is, needs a good deal more than that. By the very nature of the teaching, assent drags after it submission. You can please yourself whether you let Jesus Christ into your minds or not, but if you do let Him in, He will be Master. There is no such thing as taking Him in and not obeying.
And so the requirement of the Gospel which we call faith has in it quite as much of the element of obedience as of the element of trust. And the presence of that element is just what makes the difference between a sham and a real faith. ‘Faith which has not works is dead, being alone.’ A faith which is all trust and no obedience is neither trust nor obedience.
And that is why so many of us do not care to yield ourselves to the faith that is in Jesus Christ. If it simply came to us and said, ‘If you will trust Me you will get pardon,’ I fancy there would be a good many more of us honest Christians than are so. But Christ comes and says, ‘Trust Me, follow Me, and take Me for your Master; and be like Me,’ and one’s will kicks, and one’s passions recoil, and a thousand of the devil’s servants within us prick their ears up and stiffen their backs in remonstrance and opposition. ‘Submit’ is Christ’s first word; submit by faith, submit in love.
That heart obedience, which is the requirement of Christianity, means freedom. The Apostle draws a wonderful contrast in the context between the slavery to lust and sin, and the freedom which comes from obedience to God and to righteousness. Obey the Truth, and the Truth, in your obeying, shall make you free, for freedom is the willing submission to the limitations which are best. ‘I will walk at liberty for I keep Thy precepts.’ Take Christ for your Master, and, being His servants, you are your own masters, and the world’s to boot. For ‘all things are yours if ye are Christ’s.’ Refuse to bow your necks to that yoke which is easy, and to take upon your shoulders that burden which is light, and you do not buy liberty, though you buy licentiousness, for you become the slaves and downtrodden vassals of the world and the flesh and the devil, and while you promise yourselves liberty, you become the bondsmen of corruption. Oh! then, let us obey from the heart that mould of teaching to which we are delivered, and so obeying, we shall be free indeed.
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. W. McGarvey 1914 · Public Domain On vv16–22 Know ye not, that to whom ye present yourselves…
Know ye not, that to whom ye present yourselves as servants unto obedience, his servants ye are whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness? ["I take it for granted that ye know and believe" (Stuart) the principles, that no man can serve two masters ( Mat_6:24 ), and that no matter what profession he makes to the contrary, a man is truly the servant of that master to whom he habitually and continually yields a slavish obedience ( Joh_8:34 ). These things which are true in the ordinary walks of life are equally true in spiritual matters, whether this obedience be rendered unto sin, which compensates with the wages of eternal death, or whether it be rendered unto God, so as to be rewarded with righteousness or justification (which is a prerequisite to eternal life). Thus it appears that, while we are not under law, we are under God; and hence under obligation to foster and preserve our relation to him as his servants, a relationship which is not lost by a single act of weakness, but which is lost if we continue in sin. "The apostle," says Scott, "demanded whether it might not be proved what master any one served by observing the constant tenor of any one's conduct. A person may do an occasional service for any one to whom he is not servant; but no doubt he is the servant of that man to whom he habitually yields and addicts himself, and in whose work he spends his time, and strength, and skill, and abilities, day after day, and year after year."]
J. W. McGarvey (with Philip Y. Pendleton), Commentaries on the New Testament (The Fourfold Gospel, 1914; Acts; and the epistles) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On vv16, 17, 18, 19, 22 sin Sin.
sin Sin.
(See Scofield "Rom 3:23").
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On v19 Servants of righteousness unto everlasting life:
Servants of righteousness unto everlasting life:
v. 19. I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh; for as ye have yielded your members servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity, even so now yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness.
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v. 20. For when ye were the servants of sin, ye were free from righteousness.
v. 21. What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death.
v. 22. But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life.
v. 23. For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ, our Lord.
Paul had used a very strong expression: "slavery of righteousness," to illustrate his meaning, a comparison taken from the common relations of men, to set forth the relation of the believers to God. And so he here apologizes: in a way, for using this human figure of the relation of slave to master to convey the great spiritual truth which he intends to impress upon his readers. It was necessary to speak thus plainly, in such homely phrases and figures, on account of the weakness of their flesh, not so much on account of their intellectual as on account of their moral weakness, the heathen Christians still tending somewhat toward laxity in morals, toward abuse of Christian liberty. And therefore Paul continues the application of his strong figure of speech: As they had yielded, offered, set forth, the members and organs of their bodies, bound in slavery to uncleanness, pollution of their own body, soul, and mind, and to iniquity, lawlessness, transgression of the divine Law in general. Such are the fruits of the natural state of man: evil in its various forms, a progression in lawless behavior, one sin being the cause and instigation of another. But their changed status now demands, and the apostle adds the urgency of his admonition: So now offer, set forth, your members as bound under righteousness unto holiness. The believers are not merely obligated to a life of righteousness, but they are in its bonded service. And the result is purity in heart and life, an inward conformity to the divine image, 1Th 4:7.
The apostle now gives further confirmation to his admonition: When you were slaves of sin, you were free from righteousness. So far as righteousness was concerned, they were free; they were not concerned with righteousness, they were serving another master; they had nothing in common with righteousness, were absolutely unable and unfit to perform anything that would have been acceptable in the sight of God. And what was the result? What fruits were matured under those conditions? What was the product of the slavery of sin? The answer can be only one: Such things as now cause you to be ashamed as you remember your former conversation, for they were horrible vices, shameful delights, which will invariably plunge into death and destruction for both soul and body. Now, however, the situation is reversed: Having been emancipated, set free, from sin, and bound to the Lord, you have in your possession your fruit to sanctification, but the end eternal life. The entire situation presents the contrast to carnal-mindedness. In the case of the believers the evil master, sin, has been deposed; instead, there is the controlling influence of the Spirit’s power. And the product of the service of God thus entered into is holiness, all desires, thoughts, and actions being devoted to the performing of God’s will. And the end, the result of this service of righteousness, is eternal life, the fullness of life in the presence of God forever and ever. The apostle, therefore, concludes with an axiomatic statement: For the wages of sin is death; what sin, as the tyrannical ruler, pays its subjects, is their due and well-deserved reward. Sin cannot be allowed to go unrewarded, that is, unpunished. For a confirmed sinner to hope for pardon without atonement is to hope for the impossible, namely, that God will, in the end, prove unjust. But, by a contrast as great as that between heaven and hell: The free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus, our Lord. There is not a word, not a hint of reward here: everlasting life is a free, an unmerited gift of grace and mercy. The punishment of hell is always merited, the bliss of heaven never. In Jesus Christ the possession of eternal life is assured, for He has made its attainment possible, and in and through Him we are placed in possession of this glorious gift. With this blessed goal before their eyes, the believers will also walk circumspectly on the paths of righteousness and withstand every effort of sin to regain the ascendancy, lest they lose the gift which has become theirs by faith and the hope which the heavenly calling holds before them in Christ Jesus.
Summary.The apostle admonishes the Christians no longer to serve sin, but to walk in righteousness, by reminding them of the fact that in Christ Jesus they have died unto sin and have become partakers of the new spiritual life, by which they have become servants unto righteousness and have before them the goal of everlasting life.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv17, 19, 22 But thanks be to God!
But thanks be to God!
"But I thank God!"
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For you were slaves of sin
Slavery of sin is a metaphor meaning having such a strong desire to sin that one is unable to stop himself from sinning. It is as if sin controls the person. AT: "you were like slaves of sin" or "you were controlled by sin" (See: Metaphor)
but you have obeyed from the heart
Here the word "heart" refers to having sincere or honest motives for doing something. AT: "but you truly obeyed" (See: Metonymy)
the pattern of teaching that you were given
Here "pattern" refers to the way of living that leads to righteousness. The believers change their old way of living to match this new way of living that Christian leaders teach to them. You can translate this in an active form. AT: "the teaching that Christian leaders gave you" (See: Active or Passive)
You have been made free from sin
You can translate this in an active form. AT: "Christ has freed you from sin" (See: Active or Passive)
You have been made free from sin
Here "free from sin" is a metaphor for no longer having a strong desire to sin and being able to stop oneself from sinning. AT: "Your strong desire to sin has been taken away" or "you have been made free from sin's control over you"
you have been made slaves of righteousness
Slavery of righteousness is a metaphor meaning having a strong desire to do what is right. It is as if righteousness controls the person. AT: "you have been made like slaves of righteousness" or "you are now controlled by righteousness" (See: Metaphor)
you have been made slaves of righteousness
This can be stated in active form. AT: "Christ has made you slaves of righteousness" or "Christ has changed you so that now you are controlled by righteousness"
translationWords
God
servant
sin
obey
heart
free
righteous
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv16, 19, 20, 21 6:16 righteous living (Greek dikaiosunē, “righteousness”): In the first…
6:16 righteous living (Greek dikaiosunē, “righteousness”): In the first part of Romans, Paul uses this Greek word in a judicial sense, referring (1) to the activity of God to set people in a right relationship with himself or (2) to the righteous standing that believers enjoy as a result of Christ’s work (see, e.g., 1:17; 3:21-22; 4:3, 5). Here, Paul uses the same word as it is often used in the Old Testament, meaning the right behavior that God demands from his people.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.