If you’re willing to invest an hour of your time, you’ll find an excellent study of Romans 6, 7, and 8 on YouTube. Look for “Lectures on Romans 7,” where you’ll find a panel discussion featuring N.T. Wright who was one of the participants.
Wright interprets these three chapters as a reflection of the Exodus story. Chapter 6 illustrates freedom from slavery in Egypt. Chapter 7 addresses the giving of the law and the people’s failure to keep it. Chapter 8 focuses on the giving of the Spirit and God’s presence among the people.
Just as God’s people didn’t want to remain in slavery in Egypt, followers of Jesus should not want to live in slavery to sin.
Therefore, do not let sin exercise dominion in your mortal bodies, to make you obey their passions.
No longer present your members to sin as instruments of wickedness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and present your members to God as instruments of righteousness.
For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace (Romans 6.12-14).
If the door to freedom has been opened, we should walk through it. We no longer need to present ourselves as instruments of wickedness. Instead, we can now present ourselves to God, who has brought us from slavery to the fullness of life.
In his book “Celebration of Discipline,” Richard Foster describes spiritual practices that have been a part of Christian life for centuries. These practices are not ends in themselves but place us where God, through His Spirit, can work in our lives, making the freedom Christ brought to us more tangible.
Some of these practices include prayer, Bible reading, worship, solitude, self-denial, just to name a few.
Instead of exposing ourselves to media, conversations, and attitudes that pull us away from God, we would do much better to fully surrender to God and experience the freedom He offers.
A Different Kind of Slavery
The line from the old song is correct: “Everybody’s got to serve somebody.” The question is, are we going to be servants of sin, or are we going to be servants of God and His righteousness?
What then? Should we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means!
Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?
But thanks be to God that you, having once been slaves of sin, have become obedient from the heart to the form of teaching to which you were entrusted,
And that you, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness (Romans 6.15-18).
The key point that stands out to me from Paul’s writing is that “you are slaves to the one you obey.” The door to freedom has been opened, but we are not free to live apart from God; instead, we are free to live in connection with Him.
When we live with God, He grants us the freedom of life in a relationship with him.
If we choose to remain obedient to sin, only death awaits us.
For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 6.23).
Heaven and Earth
Paul is talking about more than just going to heaven when you die. While it’s true that heaven awaits followers of Jesus—praise God for that—Paul is also addressing the fullness of life here on earth.
When we’re enslaved to sin, we aren’t truly living. The life God designed for us can only be experienced through the freedom He gives when we live in a relationship with Him as a friend.
YouTube Discussion
Rudy Ross and I discussed this passage on YouTube today. It is on the Bob Spradling channel.
Real Voices 