GOD'S GREAT NEWS for MAN'S GREAT PROBLEM - Romans 1-8

My Decision in Tahoe

This week my father turned 68, and I had the opportunity to reflect on my father's legacy in my life. He has been a blessing to me: he has been a faithful husband, a wonderful provider for his family, he took me hunting and fishing as a young boy, and I know he has been a daily prayer warrior interceding for me and my family for years. His legacy has been far-reaching, but the greatest influence my father has had on my life is simple. He communicated through his own life that a decision to believe in Jesus Christ is an absolute surrender of yourself to Him, a complete commitment. When you come to Christ, He owns your life, and becomes your life.

That thought was strongly in my mind on the last weekend of January, 1983. At the last minute, I had decided to attend a retreat up in Lake Tahoe sponsored by Campus Crusade for Christ. I don't remember who the speaker was, and I don't recall any of the other people who were at that retreat. The one thing I recall is doing business with Jesus Christ in a way I never had before. On Saturday afternoon, January 29, 1983, I was praying and I felt the very strong impression that Jesus Christ had been waiting on me to make a decision. I had grown up in a Christian home, I had heard some great teaching, God's kindness had been poured all over my life, but as yet His kindness had not led me to repentance. I had made no personal decision to move forward with Him. So as I prayed that Saturday afternoon, I could sense that He was waiting for me. Then two laserlike questions pierced my heart: "So, who am I going to be in your life? Am I going to be Lord and Master, or are you going to keep messing around?" To those questions, there can be only one response. I finally surrendered myself to Him. I said, "Lord, I have played around long enough. Please forgive me for all that, my sins, and my waiting. Today, I want You to become absolute Master in my life. I give you my life. I want to be committed to You completely. Here we go!" I ended that afternoon of prayer with a great sense of expectation, having signed on to be an absolutely committed Christian for the rest of my life. It would seem that such a decision would be severely limiting. But I didn't feel limited; I felt liberated. I felt a surging sense of excitement filling my heart just after I decided to follow Him completely. And His life in me has been exciting and stretching and entirely wonderful from that day to this.

Identified with Christ from Parallel Perspectives: What God Did, What I Chose

The reason I shared my own day of decision is because our passage for today, Rom. 6:15-23, calls us to remember a simple fact: at the moment of conversion, we actively chose to make Jesus Christ Lord and Master of our lives. We signed on for a life of wholesale obedience, a life ot total surrender to Him that He might live His life through us. Because we made such a decision, we no longer have the option to play around with sin, because sin has a way of grabbing hold of us and enslaving us if we play with it even a tiny bit. Since we are enslaved already to God, we cannot get distracted by sin. There are too many other things God wants to do in us and through us. That is the essence of what we will study today.

To introduce our study of this passage, I want to draw your notice to the most striking feature of Romans chapter six. It contains essentially two main passages, Rom. 6:1-14 and Rom. 6:15-23. What is striking is the degree to which these two passages parallel each other. Setting these passages side-by-side, I came up with the following seven points of direct parallel between them:

1) Both sections are prefaced by the principle of grace superceding sin,
in 5:21 and 6:14. God's grace is greater than our sin.

2) Both sections begin with the same basic question: may we sin, in
light of this grace? That question appears in both 6:1 and 6:15.

3) Both sections respond to that question with a vehement "May it
never be!" in 6:2 and 6:15.

4) Both sections seek to address that which believers typically forget, by
the probing question, "Do you not know?" in 6:3 and 6:16.

5) Both sections prove that we are "freed from sin," in 6:7 and 6:18, 22.
The verbs differ in the two passages, but the concepts are parallel.

6) Both sections lead us to make the same basic decision regarding the
members of our bodies: present them to sin no longer, but
to God. Seen in 6:13 and 6:19, using parallel terminology.

7) Both sections argue about the momentous change in our IDENTITY
based on two highly powerful images: that of the baptism of
the Spirit in 6:1-14 and the image of bond-slavery in 6:15-23.

When we see such an obviously parallel structure in two passages, the question we have to ask is "Why did Paul write this in parallel form?" He wrote this in parallel form to tell us one truth from two different perspectives. The truth is that our identity changed forever at the moment of conversion: we were completely and eternally identified with Jesus Christ. The first passage, Rom. 6:1-14, speaks of God's sovereign work in us at the moment of conversion. By the baptism of the Holy Spirit, God identified us with Jesus Christ, uniting us with Him in His death to sin and His resurrection to eternal life. That is what God did in placing us into Christ: our role was a passive one in that text. But the second passage, Rom. 6:15-23, speaks of the active role we play at the moment of conversion. We made a conscious choice to identify ourselves with Jesus Christ, choosing to be called "Christian." We actively gave Him our life that He might live His life through us, thus making us bond-slaves of God. Thus, Paul uses a parallel structure because he describes our changed identity at the moment of conversion, looking first at how God identified us with Christ through baptism, and looking second at how we chose to identify ourselves with Jesus Christ through bond-slavery.

This changed identity may be a lofty concept, but it dramatically affects our response to sin. Since we have been changed by God from the inside out, and since we actively chose to be so changed and identify ourselves with Jesus Christ, we can no longer choose to sin without creating a terrible sense of internal discord. Continuing in sin, playing around with sin, and especially deliberately sinning completely counters who we are. It is the sourest of notes in our harmonious life with Jesus Christ. For us to sin is to deny our Christ and our very selves in Christ. As our relationship with Jesus Christ has so utterly changed us, so our response to sin must utterly change. Should we sin any more? May it never be!

May We Sin Deliberately, Since We Are Under Grace and Not Under Law? - 6:15

In Rom. 6:15, Paul begins by asking a question very similar to the one he asked in 6:1, but with a slightly different twist. Verse 14 ended with the dramatic promise and proclamation that "sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law, but under grace." But one's immediate fleshly response to that is, "Hey, hey, hey ... What does that mean? May I deliberately sin, because I am not under law but under grace?" That is exactly the question Paul poses here. The difference between this question and the one in vs. 1 is that the question there is "may we continue in sin?" while the question here is "may we deliberately sin?" Now that I am a Christian living under grace, can I toy with sin?

Paul's immediate response to this is "May it never be!" The very sound of that question is awful in Paul's ears. It's as though the sound of a Christian sinning is like the sound of finger nails screeching down a blackboard. The sooner it stops, the better. The sooner a Christian realizes there is absolutely no room to toy with sin, the better. That's why Paul shuts the thought down immediately: May it never be!

What is it that the world most hates to see in Christians? HYPOCRISY. The world is repulsed by the sight of a Christian sinning, because the world knows sometimes better than we that it just ought not be so. If we join ourselves for life to Jesus Christ, if we bear His name before a watching world, then we had better not be hypocrits. May we bear no taint, no ugly mixture of professed Christianity and cavalier attitudes to sin, because the world cries foul just as Paul cried foul here in vs. 15: May it never be!

Paul very vehemently expresses his indignation at the proposition that a Christian toys with sin, because IT IS NO LONGER WHO WE ARE. But it is more than just an identity issue: it is about sin as taskmaster. Paul knows that sin is a ruthless tyrant. Sin will rule your life in an instant if you choose to play around with it.

This idea was dramatically brought home to me last week when we visited California. I learned about the secret life of a Christian principal of a public elementary school. This man is in his late 50s, has been a Christian for over 30 years, has attended PBC, and has been known throughout the community of Palo Alto as a Christian principal. He became a friend of mine over our years of living there. But when we visited the school last week, I asked about him and discovered he had taken a leave of absence. He was reportedly suffering under a severe depression. But then I found out from a fellow pastor what was actually happening. Many years ago, he began cheating on his tax returns. At first it was just a little revision here, a little understatement of income there. But as the years progressed, these little choices mushroomed into a whole scheme of tax fraud, to the tune of thousands and thousands of dollars. A few months ago, the government caught up with him. He will almost certainly be thrown into prison. He chose to toy with sin, sin quickly mastered his better judgment, and now the consequences of sin are coming home to him: the wages of sin is death. A ruined career, a depression that is consuming him, and a coming prison sentence bear grim witness to the type of master sin is. Never play with sin: you can never win, and you may lose your shirt, or worse, in the process. My friend's sad tale echoes Lord Byron's poignant observation: "The thorns which I have reaped have pricked me, and I bleed. I should have known what fruit would spring from such a seed."

So, may the Christian toy with sin? May it never be! For three reasons: 1) We have chosen to be bond-slaves unto lifelong obedience, 2) We have a new Master who sets us free from sin, and 3) The fruit of serving that Master is far greater.

NO We May Not Sin!! We Are Bond-Slaves Who Chose Lifelong Obedience - 6:16

In Rom. 6:16, Paul lays out the general principle underlying this entire passage: "Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves bond-slaves unto obedience, to whom you are bond-slaves you obey, whether of sin unto death or of obedience unto righteousness?" What on earth is Paul saying here?

The main principle Paul presents here is that "all human beings are bond-slaves of something." All humans are bond-slaves, either to sin unto death or obedience unto righteousness. This is an unavoidable fact of life. The advertising jingle that I can "Master the possibilities" by owning a Mastercard is a farce: I was not made to be a master, but to be under a master. I cannot sing with Frank Sinatra, "I Did It My Way," because the reality will be "I Did It Sin's Way" unless I choose to be a bond-slave of Jesus Christ. Shakespeare caught this concept rather eloquently, although perhaps unwittingly, in a statement from Cassius to Brutus in the play Julius Caesar: "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings."

The main verb in vs. 16 is the main verb in this passage: PRESENT. Paul reminds his readers of the principle that if you "present yourselves" to someone as bond-slaves, you sign on for total obedience. We had no choice about being obedient bond-slaves; our only choice is who our master will be. Our identity will be joined forever to the master we have chosen, either to sin or to God through obedience to His righteousness. Here in vs. 16, "YOU ARE" a bond-slave, either to sin or to God. Thus, your IDENTITY becomes entirely tied either to sin or to God: "you are," a clear statement of identity, either the bond-slave of sin or God. Paul is implying that if they presented themselves to God as bond-slaves unto total obedience, THAT IS WHO THEY ARE. THEIR NEW IDENTITY IS WRAPPED UP IN HIM. To sin would be denying their identity and acting supremely out of character.

To further understand what Paul is saying here, we have to know what it means to be a bond-slave. This term doulos, or "bond-slave," refers to one who has made a personal, lifelong choice to be the slave of one Lord. That master becomes the bond-slave's absolute owner and ruler. Typically a slave would be enslaved for a limited term such as 7 years, then would be offered his freedom. He had the choice to be a freeman, and some masters even started a former slave in a business. But, since homelessness and abject poverty were often the consequences when such businesses failed, sometimes a slave chose willingly to become a bond-slave of their master for life. If they chose this route, their ear would be pierced and a ring would be put in the ear, or their hand would have a bond-slave's ring put on for permanent wear. Either ring would identify that person as a bond-slave of that particular master for the rest of their lives. Being a bond-slave means a voluntary, lifelong decision to submit yourself to the will and purpose of your master.

Paul is arguing from the logic of conversion, reflecting on the choice he made that day on the Damascus road. On that day, he did business with Jesus Christ. On that day, Paul chose to identify himself with Jesus Christ. Paul became at that moment what he would be for the rest of his life: a bond-slave of Jesus Christ. No image lies closer to the heart of the Christian identity for Paul, since he begins the letter to the Romans by introducing himself first as a bond-slave of Jesus Christ. Paul is asking them to remember the choice they too made at conversion: they chose to be bond-slaves of Jesus Christ, commiting themselves to a lifelong obedience to Him.

By definition, a bond-slave has only one master. That is the point of the ring: the bond-slave bears the mark of that one master alone. The bond-slave carries the name of that master, just as we Christians carry the name of our Master Jesus Christ. If I am a bond-slave of Jesus Christ, I can serve no other master. It is unthinkable. Worse, it is pure treachery. It would be like tearing his ring from my ear, or ripping it from my hand and flinging it into the gutter: it is as serious a denial as anything Peter swore the night he denied Jesus three times. We can't play with sin without becoming traitors, trampling over our allegiance to Jesus Christ.

So, can we toy with sin? May it never be! We are bond-slaves to God unto righteousness, and being a bond-slave means a voluntary lifelong choice of obedience, or as Eugene Peterson put it, "a long obedience in the same direction."

NO We May Not Sin!! We Have a New Master Who Sets Us Free from Sin - 6:17-20

The root problem in Rom. 6:16 is that we so easily forget who we are now in Christ. If we knew who we are, we would never try to find ways to still play with sin while yet being identified with Christ. We would focus on Christ as our master, seeking to be absolutely available to Him, not allowing ourselves to be distracted by sin. Paul says, "Don't you know ..." at the beginning of vs. 16. Let we forget who we are, and we often do, Paul traces for us the progression we went through at conversion, being transferred from slavery to sin to a lifelong choice of obedience to Jesus Christ as the embodiment of the gospel. This choice set us free from sin, making us slaves to righteousness. Thus Paul tells us in Rom. 6:17, 18: "But thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed, and having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness."

Paul has here set out a basic outline of a Christian conversion, in four parts: I was a slave to sin, I trusted Christ and chose to become obedient to Him, I have been set free from sin, and I have chosen to seek Him and His righteousness first above all else. Here is a testimony from the singer B. J. Thomas. See if you can trace his slavery to sin, how he trusted Christ and chose to obey Him, how he was set free from sin, and how he continues to walk in the righteousness of Jesus Christ:

Although he had made millions of dollars by selling more than 32 million records, B. J. Thomas was $800,000 in debt. He had a $3,000 a week cocaine habit, and he routinely took 40-50 pills every day to bring himself up or lower himself down. Once on a plane trip to Hawaii, he took 80 pills and passed out. He was rushed to a hospital when the plane landed, and was barely pulled out of the overdose. Over the following months, B. J.'s drug addiction got even worse. He reached the point where his body was so chemically altered that he couldn't sleep at all. He finally called his wife Gloria, hoping to return home to get some sleep. They had been separated several times, but she welcomed him with a calm voice, saying, "There is help here," but she didn't give any details.

When B. J. got home, he realized Gloria had become a Christian. At a dinner several nights later, a man shared the gospel with B. J. There was great resistance in B. J.: the drugs had thoroughly enslaved him. The man then prayed against the forces enslaving B. J., and B. J. felt a terrible heaviness leave his chest and a new peace descend on him. B. J. was able to listen to the gospel message. He then lowered his head and prayed for about 20 minutes. He later said that when he raised his head, his wife and the other couple were crying. He was so happy he literally jumped around. He said, "That conversion experience to me was just a miraculous thing. I had been such a bad person." His conversion caused both a mental and a physical change in B. J. Thomas. He had some marijuana, but he went home and threw it away. He had been dependent on valium for years. He needed that more than all the other drugs. But that very night he stopped taking valium. B. J. expected terrible withdrawal pains, but he was willing to go through it. He had gone through them before, but he had always returned to drugs. But this time, there were no withdrawal symptoms! No shakes, no bad illusions, no nightmares! His deliverance was as miraculous as his salvation. From that night, January 29, 1976, to today, he has walked forward in Jesus Christ, to the best of my knowledge.

Can you imagine B. J. Thomas toying with sin, after so great a salvation? May it never be!! After having been freed from such bondage under sin, who would mess around with it? It is just not who we are any more: we have a new Master now. We are in His service, seeking to obey Him, and cannot afford to be distracted by sin.

But the practicality of all this is worked out in vs. 19. Paul begins with a quizzical statement: "I speak in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh." Here is where we see Paul wrestling with the metaphor of bond-slavery, knowing it to bear a harsh connotation as well as presenting an accurate picture of our new identity in Christ and the obedience to which we are called. The metaphor is necessary by way of providing a boundary around our behavior, that within the framework of our bond-slavery to Christ our flesh would be in check. Thus, when the law is no longer over us and we are under grace, our flesh is constrained by a new relationship of total submission to Jesus Christ in our new identity as His bond-slaves. But is this a new form of slavery, that truly enslaves? NO!! Bond-slavery to Christ actually sets us free from sin and free from the slavery to our fleshly mind and deeds. This bond-slavery leads to freedom and the empowerment with Christ's power over sin, with an eternal infusion of His righteousness. Bond-slavery is an excellent metaphor providing the right framework for obedience and guidelines to behavior by the bond-slave concept, yet Paul wrestles with the metaphor because he doesn't want any negative conclusions to be drawn from it. Nevertheless, he presses it forward to its logical conclusion in the rest of the verse.

Paul makes a comparison in this verse: "... For just as you presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness, resulting in further lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness, resulting in sanctification." Before, when sin was our master, we presented our members to impurity and lawlessness, resulting in our entrapment in further lawlessness. Similarly, if we now present our members as slaves to righteousness, spiritual fruit will come forth, and more righteousness will grow in us through the process of sanctification. Paul tells us to make not only ourselves available fully to our Master, but our tongues, our minds, our hands, our ears, and all our spiritual gifts and natural talents. This verse is a mirror of vs. 13: Make all of yourself and all that you have and own available to Jesus Christ, that His life might be seen in you.

We all know how sin begets sin: one little choice to fudge on a tax return can snowball into a lifetime of tax evasion. Ray Stedman related the following story: "A man said to me one day, 'I told what I thought was a little white lie. I thought that would handle the matter. But, you know, I found out that I had to tell 42 other lies -- I counted them -- before I finally woke up to what I was doing and admitted the whole thing and got out from under it.'" Certainly sin begets sin!

But what happens when we present our members as slaves of righteousness? How does righteousness beget righteousness? In essentially the same way: the more we choose to obey, the easier obedience becomes, and the more Christ is seen in us and through our actions. Let's take the example of the tongue. The more you make your tongue available to speak a word of encouragement, the more encouragement seems to bubble up out of you. I think of Thelma in this: nearly every time she speaks, it is a word of encouragement, thanksgiving, or praise. Her theme is this: "I want to live out my days with gratitude and praise." My guess is that Thelma has made her tongue available to the Lord for years for that special word of encouragement, so that now in the crowning years of her life, we have all benefited from the encouragement that bubbles up out of her, through her words, through her bright eyes, through her warm acceptance of each of us. And consider how Maurice's tongue has exercised thankfulness. I have noticed that the most common words Maurice uses when praying are these four words, "I thank You Lord..." These dear saints have for years offered their tongues to the Lord that He might use them, and they are fairly bursting with the peaceable fruits of righteousness. And we all enjoy the blessing of their sanctification: Christ in them, loving us.

But this is all easy to preach about on Sunday, but easy to forget come Monday. How can we live a life of presenting ourselves and our members constantly available to Jesus Christ? First of all, make the prayer on your lips and in your heart a prayer of total availability to Him. As the sun rises, let us rise to a day of availability to Him. I often like to pray this type of prayer in the shower in the morning: "Lord, as I get clean for today, may You be cleansing me for Your use. May You live out Your life through me today, in any way You please. Here I am Lord, and here are all the spiritual gifts and natural talents you have given me. Thank You that You are my life this day, and may You have full freedom to live Your life in Your way in Your timing through me this day." Then turn the shower off, get dried, get dressed, and get ready for His adventure!

Second, as you go through the day, you will need to rest in the FACT that He will indeed live out His life in and through you, because He promises to do just that in John 7:38, 39, Gal. 2:20, I Thess. 5:24, and elsewhere. The biggest way we shortcircuit His using us is by micro-managing everything out of worry that He won't use us, or by over-analyzing everything that happens to assess "how He used me in this situation." As if we could assess such a mysterious and wonderful reality! We can never know how He used us at the time, because the harvest is at the end of the age, not at the end of the meeting or the conversation. So, we have to choose to trust in His promises and rest in Him, believing that He will live out His life in and through us just as He said, in His unsearchable way, in His strategic timing.

Third, we can certainly know that our members are not available for His service whenever we are making them available to sin or for ourselves alone. How can God use us when our daytimers are so filled that we have no space for God? How can God use us when we spend all our time listening to others gossip on the phone rather than praying and listening to a quieter Friend? How can God use us if our minds are so filled with worries and "what if?" scenarios that we forget to reflect on God's goodness and His inexhaustible provision for us? How can my tongue be a blessing if I am lazy with it, letting it blurt out complaints every time something doesn't go my way? This is the steep opportunity cost of sin: when I am given over to sin and my members are engaged in it, I am not free for my good Master's use.

Looking at vs. 20, we find it is a mirror of vs. 18. Both verses taken together make one poetically forceful point: these two bond-slaveries are mutually exclusive. If you are the bond-slave of our Righteous Christ, you are set free from your old master called sin, and if you are the bond-slave of sin you are free from the righteousness of Christ because you are completely unaware of it and it seems like nonsense to you. The two bond-slaveries are galaxies apart. Paul's point here is that the two should never mix: the bond-slave of God is to be sold-out to Him in righteous obedience, not looking in any way to toy with sin.

In the final three verses of this passage, Paul will state one final argument as to why we should not choose deliberately to sin.

NO We May Not Sin!! The Fruit of Bond-Slavery to God is Far Greater - 6:21-23

In vs. 21-23, Paul describes the outcome of the two opposite bond-slaveries. If you are the bond-slave of sin, your outcome is death. If you are the bond-slave of Christ, the fruits are great: increased holiness and eternal life, the present and future experience of the life of Christ Himself.

More specifically, in vs. 21 Paul asks us to honestly assess what life was like under the bond-slavery to sin, under that old tyrannical master: "Therefore, what benefit were you then deriving from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the outcome of those things is death." What good fruit was produced during the entire period of your life when you were enslaved to sin? What good came from all the activities and choices of which you are now ashamed? If you are like me, recalling that period of your life is like surveying a graveyard at midnight. There are stones marking failed relationships, there are stones marking whole wasted years, with nothing more than an epitaph to show for them. There are stones marking my own failures, moral and otherwise. There may be whole family plots marking nothing more than a legacy of godlessness. There may be smaller stones with little lambs on top marking babies who were aborted. There is nothing pretty about that wasteland: "For the outcome of those things is death."

But in vs. 22, Paul paints a riveting contrast: "But now having been freed from sin and enslaved to God, you derive your benefit, resulting in sanctification, and the outcome, eternal life." BUT NOW -- I love those two words -- all things have changed because of your newly chosen bond-slavery to God: there is fruit unto increased holiness, and the end is eternal life. Our new identity makes us fertile ground for the Spirit of God to produce in us the character of Christ, and the eternal life of Christ has begun to grow in us. It will grow forevermore. If Paul depicts a graveyard at midnight in vs. 21, in vs. 22 he describes the empty tomb on that sparkling Easter morning.

In vs. 22, the first fruit we enjoy is the great blessing of being set free from sin. Whereas before sin was a merciless tyrant whose clamor we had to obey unto our own self-destruction, now sin is no more than a fly buzzing around our ears, trying to distract us from hearing our Master Jesus Christ. If the sin that enslaved me before came in the form of desires to take and possess things for myself, I find the freedom inherent in giving myself to God for Him to use to the benefit of others. If the sins that formerly entrapped me were the "what if?" scenarios that made me try to control my life and the lives of others through my fear of loss, I now have the freedom to let go and let God's sovereignty hold together what I could not control anyway. If the sin that enslaved me before came in the form of ego-mania, where I spent my days saying, "What about me?," I now have the freedom to die to that boring life of self-pity and receive the gift of His exciting life invested in me, to enjoy forever. Freedom from sin is one of the greatest benefits of bond-slavery to Jesus Christ, the only master who purchases our lives in order to set us free.

Then Paul describes the second fruit growing out of our new bond-slavery to God: the phrase "you derive your benefit, resulting in sanctification," is more literally rendered "you have your fruit unto increased holiness." The inevitable fruit of bond-slavery to God is the fruit of the Spirit, the holy character of the living Christ worked out in and through us by the Spirit. The fruit we are promised here is none other than the fruit Paul lists in Gal. 5:22, 23: "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law." Such things grow from the heart of the bond-slave of Christ only, by the indwelling Spirit. This fruit grows in no other soil.

And the final "end" of the bond-slave of God's life is thus: "the end [is] eternal life." This is where the greatest contrast is drawn between the two bond-slaveries. This is not just the sense of life in heaven when we die, but it is the intimate experience of the life of God right now indwelling us. It is the joy of walking in the Spirit and asking Him to live out the life of Christ in us!!

Finally, Paul ends this passage with that all-famous verse for all good evangelicals, Rom. 6:23: "For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." The term opsonia, or "wages," is a military term, referring to the wages due and payable to the soldiers in the field. This is the inevitable wage you accrue as a bond-slave of sin: death. And these wages are paid every time, without fail. There is no stopping this armored car in making its fateful payment.

BUT -- there's that hopeful contrast I love to see -- the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus. This term charisma, i.e. "free gift," also had a military meaning, as a totally free and unearned gift the soldiers in the field would sometimes receive. On special occasions, like his birthday, or his accession to the throne, or the anniversary of it, an emperor occasionally handed out a free gift of money to the army. It was unearned. It was a present; a gift of the emperor's kindness and grace. The contrast here is between the wage which is earned and certainly will be paid in full, and the free gift which is totally unearned but is given as a gift of grace.

Think about it: had we received from God the wages we were due during our tenure as bond-slaves to sin, we would have received death. But, as the free gift given out of love and grace to us now that we are bond-slaves of God, we have right now the eternal life of God Himself!! What a contrast!! Only the ultimate imagery of death and life can even begin to describe the difference between our new bond-slavery to God and our old bond-slavery to sin. Only such language can portray the ultimate contrast between our new identity in Christ unto eternal life and our old identity in Adam unto death.

The last two words perfectly punctuate this passage: "Christ Jesus OUR LORD." The term "our Lord" merely seems at first to underscore Paul's closing statement, just as it appears in the remarkably parallel end-phrase in Rom. 5:21. But, these words take on added meaning when we consider that the term the bond-slave would use in referring to his owner/master/lord was this very term kurios. Thus, at the very end of this passage, Paul shows us who our ultimate Master is: none other than Christ Jesus our Lord!! May we live out our days with thankfulness and praise for our great Master Jesus Christ who sets us free from sin, who produces His character in us by the Spirit, and who gives us the ultimate gift of eternal life!!

Conclusion: The Power of Choice

I want to reflect on one more aspect of the parallelism in Romans chapter six. We see God's great work in changing me from the inside out by the baptism of the Holy Spirit. We also see my choice to become a bond-slave of Jesus Christ. Conversion is thus the union of God's sovereign work and my human choice. Likewise, as I live the Christian life, that same trend continues: the life of my God now lives in me, but I must know who I am in Christ and present all of myself and my members available to Him. His sovereign work made Christ reside in me; my choice of availability releases His life through me to be a blessing to others. In this day and age, Christians don't think so highly about the power of our choices. We live in an age of glorified victimization, where the forces victimizing us seem so great they might nullify the simpler power of a choice of obedience. But let it not be so with us! May we not venture far from the simple song we used to sing in Sunday School:

Trust and obey -- for there's no other way to be happy in Jesus -- but to trust and obey!

In closing, let me return to reflect on that decision I made on January 29, 1983. My God had brought a thousand strands of my life together to set me on the mountaintop in Tahoe, to meet with Him and do business with Him in a striking new way. He sovereignly orchestrated all the circumstances to put me in a place to make a choice. But then He stepped back and waited. The choice on that Saturday afternoon was mine to make. By God's grace, mysteriously, this rebel made the choice to leave the "free" life and join myself forever to Jesus Christ. But only through Him have I discovered what freedom really is. I am free from sin, free from the fears that ruled over my life for so many years, freed from the tyranny of self-pity and "what about me?" He is the only Master who gave His life to purchase our life, that He might set us free. As Paul said in Gal. 5:1, "It was for freedom that Christ set us free." And in Him, we are free indeed!! Hallelujah, what a Savior!

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