The Preacher's Lectionary Notebook - From One World to Another
The Fifth Sunday after Pentecost (Year A)
Romans 6:12-23 continues Paul’s argument that believers have died with Christ and have been raised to walk in a new way of life. The apostle is concerned with how the gospel creates a new community in which members are under a different lordship. Those who have been moved from one world to another are now to embody in their lives the very nature of their allegiance to Jesus.
Paul insists that the Romans not let sin reign in their bodies. Sin is portrayed as a power and the dominion of humanity in the world. It was sin that put humanity under the control of sin and it was sin that had built human behavior and relations. But now believers are not to give the parts of their bodies as instruments of evil. Instead, they are to present themselves to God as people who have passed from death to life. The problem is whom we serve and what we do with our lives.
Paul’s emphasis on being ourselves to God is reminiscent of the covenant relationship God had with his people. God has acted decisively through Jesus and believers respond by giving themselves in faithful obedience. We might say that the Christian life is about being part of God’s new people. What we do with our bodies, our actions and choices are instruments by which God’s purpose is being displayed in the world.
Paul anticipates misunderstanding in verse 15. If believers are no longer under the law but under grace, does that mean that obedience no longer matters? His answer is an unequivocal no. Grace is not permission to live as we want. But grace creates a new kind of obedience. Paul uses the image of slavery, which was a social reality of the ancient world, to illustrate this point. Everyone serves a master. The question is whether that master is sin or Jesus?
If people give themselves up to sin, the result is a pattern of life that leads to destruction. Sin offers freedom but bondage comes with it. But obedience to God leads to righteousness. Paul tells the Roman Christians that once they were slaves of sin but now they are obedient from the heart. It is a result of spiritual renewal that transforms the person.
Paul realizes that he is speaking in human terms because language is limited. But his point is clear. Because believers once turned their attention to impurity and lawlessness they are now to devote themselves to righteousness. The Christian life is a life of living out in full knowledge of God’s character and purpose, and not just in an act of indifference.
The passage ends in a stark contrast between the two outcomes. The wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Wages are earned. Gifts are received. Sin pays exactly what it owes, producing death and alienation. God, however, gives what cannot be earned. Eternal life is not just life after death; It is the life of God’s new age coming into the present through Christ. As people of Christ, we are called to live now in light of that reality, and to demonstrate that we are living with faith in a new Lord who reigns over our lives.
FOR FURTHER EXPLORATION
What does Paul mean when he says that believers should not let sin “reign” in their bodies?
How does Paul’s contrast between slavery to sin and slavery to righteousness help us understand Christian discipleship?
In what ways can Christians today present themselves as “instruments of righteousness” in their everyday lives?