ACC ~ Romans 6 v15 - 23

OVERVIEW:

Freedom from the law is not a license to sin but the opposite. We have been set free from the law only because under grace we have the spiritual power to live the life that the law models for us but cannot give us. Sin is slavery, and nobody in his right mind would willingly sell himself into that. Righteousness, although it involves obedience, is not slavery but liberation. The essential difference is that the obedience of a righteous person comes from the heart and not from some form of external constraint. In this sense paradoxically we can call ourselves slaves of righteousness. Paul speaks to us in human terms, in order to show that he is not making impossible demands on us. Before we were Christians, we quite happily gave ourselves over to sin, and the only thing we got from that was death. Why then, now that we are Christians and heirs of eternal life, should we find it hard to dedicate ourselves to righteousness, when the reward is eternal life? Those who sin get what they deserve—death. But those who turn to Christ get what they do not deserve—eternal life.

6:15 | Grace Disallows Sin

ALREADY UNDER GRACE. ORIGEN: Paul repeats here what he said [in verse 1] above. The only difference is that [in verse 1] he posed the question as if he were speaking to people who had not yet abandoned their sinning, and so he appears to be telling them not to persist in what they had been doing up till then. Here, on the other hand, he seems to be talking to those who have already given up sinning. [In verse 1] he spoke as if abundant grace did not yet exist, but here he speaks as if grace is already present, because “we are not under law but under grace.” COMMENTARY ON THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS.

NO LONGER UNDER LAW. AMBROSIASTER: Although it was right for the law to be given—for it was given in order to show that those who sinned against it were guilty before God and in order to dissuade people from continuing to sin—yet because of the weakness of its infirmity the human race was unable to restrain itself from sin and had become subject to the death of hell. God was moved by the righteousness of his mercy, by which he always comes to the aid of the human race, and through Christ he provided a way by which he could reward those who were without hope. By forgiving their sins he released them from the law which had held them subject. Restored and made whole again by the help of God, they could reject the sins by which they had previously been held down. Therefore we did not sin in rejecting the law but rather we followed the providence of God himself through Christ. COMMENTARY ON PAUL’S EPISTLES.

NO LICENSE TO SIN. THEODORE OF MOPSUESTIA: I think that Paul is saying this to the Jews because it is the nature of the law to tell us what we should and should not do. If we find ourselves outside the law, there is nothing to stop us from doing what we like, but if there is some way of determining what should and should not be done, then we are back under the law again, and what is said here will easily apply to us. Paul has expres-sed himself in this seemingly contradictory way because he is saying that since we are free of sin we are no longer under the law. He does not mean that the outpouring of grace has given us license to sin. PAULINE COMMENTARY FROM THE GREEK CHURCH.

PELAGIUS: If you sin, you will not be under grace. PELAGIUS’S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS.

6:16 | Slaves of Sin or of Obedience

YOU ARE SLAVES OF THE ONE YOU OBEY. ORIGEN: This is what the apostle is teaching in this passage: that each person has it in his control and in the power of his will to be either a servant of sin or a servant of righteousness. He proves himself to be a slave of whatever side he chooses to obey and of whatever side he inclines toward.

Note that Paul assumes that anyone who yields himself to sin is a slave of sin, but he does not go on to add that anyone who yields himself to righteousness is a slave of righteousness. … It would not have been right to phrase it like that, because although God himself does what is righteous he cannot for that reason be said to be a slave of righteousness! On the contrary, he is the Lord of righteousness. Therefore it is not true to say that everyone who does what is righteous is a slave to righteousness in the same way that everyone who sins is a slave to sin. For even the devil himself is a slave to sin, because he departed from the obedience of righteousness and rebelled in the face of Almighty God, for which reason he is called an apostate. COMMENTARY ON THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS.

CONFESSING GOD THROUGH OUR ACTIONS. AMBROSIASTER: Paul warns us not to say one thing and do another, so that when we are said to be servants of God we should be found by our actions to be servants of the devil. He proclaims that we are servants of the one whose will we do and that it is not fair to confess God as Lord but do the works of the devil. For God himself notices this and attacks it: “This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me,” and the Lord says in the Gospel: “No man can serve two masters,” and in the law it is written: “God is not mocked.” COMMENTARY ON PAUL’S EPISTLES.

THE PERVERTED WILLINGNESS TO REMAIN SLAVES TO SIN. CHRYSOSTOM: Without saying a word about hell or eternal punishment as yet, Paul talks about the shame which comes in this life when people become slaves, and especially when they do so of their own free will, and to sin, of all things, whose wages are the second (i.e., spiritual) death. HOMILIES ON ROMANS 11.

TWO MASTERS UNTHINKABLE. THEODORET OF CYR: Righteousness and sin are mutually incompatible. As the Lord himself said in the holy Gospel: “No man can serve two masters.” INTERPRETATION OF THE LETTER TO THE ROMANS.

6:17 | Obedient to the Standard of Teaching

SET FREE FROM SLAVERY. ORIGEN: It appears that Paul is saying this to those whose eternal life and spiritual progress are assured. These are the same people of whom he spoke [in 1:8] above. Then he goes on to point out that, to begin with, all men were slaves of sin. … But what follows is said to a few, to those who have been converted.

We all were slaves to sin, but when the standard of teaching was handed down to us and we chose to follow it, not in any which way nor in words only but from the heart, from the mind, with complete devotion, we were set free from the slavery of sin and made servants of righteousness. COMMENTARY ON THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS.

OBEDIENT FROM THE HEART. AMBROSIASTER: As it is right to obey Christ, for he is himself righteousness and what he commands is righteous, Paul therefore says that we have become servants of righteousness “from the heart,” not from the law. We do this voluntarily and not out of fear, so that our confession of faith might find expression in the judgment of our mind. For by nature we have been led to faith, not by the law, in which standard of teaching we have been made for the rule of God, who created nature. For by nature we know by whom and through whom and in whom we were created. Therefore the standard of teaching is that into which our Creator has led us naturally. This is what he said above: “They are a law unto themselves,” when their own natures see what they believe, that what the law and the Prophets predicted to the Jews concerning Christ is what the Gentiles have confessed from the heart. For this reason Paul gives thanks to the Lord, because when we were still servants of sin we obeyed from the heart, believing in Christ, so that we might serve God not according to the law of Moses but according to the law of nature. COMMENTARY ON PAUL’S EPISTLES.

THE BENEFITS OF FREEDOM FROM SIN. CHRYSOSTOM: After shaming them by mentioning their slavery and alarming them by talking about its rewards, Paul puts the balance right by recalling the benefits which they have received. For by mentioning them he shows that they were set free from very great evils indeed and that this had happened without any labor on their part. … For no human power could have set us free from such great evils, but “thanks be to God,” who was willing and able to do such great things. And well he says that they were “obedient from the heart,” because they were neither forced nor pressed but came of their own accord, with a willing mind. … This shows that they exercised their free will. HOMILIES ON ROMANS 11.

THEN AND NOW. PELAGIUS: We “were” slaves to sin, but we “are” no longer. PELAGIUS’S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS.

THEODORET OF CYR: You who once were slaves to sin have broken away from it by the free will of your mind and have embraced spiritual teaching instead. INTERPRETATION OF THE LETTER TO THE ROMANS.

6:18 | Slaves of Righteousness

TRUTH SETS YOU FREE. ORIGEN: What is it which sets us free from sin? Knowledge of the truth, of course! This is what Jesus said to the Jews: “If you believe my word, you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” COMMENTARY ON THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS.

REPARENTING THE ORPHAN. CHRYSOSTOM: There are two gifts of God which Paul points out here. First there is the freeing from sin, and then there is the making of slaves of righteousness, which is better than any freedom. For God has done the same as if a person was to take an orphan who had been carried away by savages into their own country, and was not only to free him from captivity but to set a kind father over him and raise him to a very great dignity. This is what has happened in our case. For it was not just that God freed us from our old evils; he also led us into the life of angels. He opened the way for us to enjoy the best life, handing us over to the safekeeping of righteousness and killing our former evils, putting the old man in us to death and bringing us to eternal life. HOMILIES ON ROMANS 11.

WE HAVE THROWN OFF THE YOKE. [PSEUDO-]CONSTANTIUS: Paul teaches that we who have been delivered from the burden and chain of the law of Moses ought not to sin, because being redeemed by the grace of Christ we have thrown off the yoke of the law. THE HOLY LETTER OF ST. PAUL TO THE ROMANS.

NOW ELIMINATE OPPORTUNITIES TO SIN. PELAGIUS: This is according to the teaching and example of Christ, who has taught us to get rid not only of sins but also of opportunities to sin. PELAGIUS’S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS.

6:19 | Mortal Members, Spiritual Deeds

THE SAME ZEAL FOR RIGHTEOUSNESS AS BEFORE FOR IMPURITY. ORIGEN: What is there so human, so trivial, so light that no weakness of the flesh can excuse it? … It is hardly cause for boasting that someone should serve virtue in the same way as he once served vice. Righteousness ought to be honored much more fully and much more seriously than that! But here Paul says: “I am speaking in human terms,” meaning that he requires the same zeal from the convert as was present in him as a sinner. Once your feet ran to the temples of demons; now they run to the church of God. Once they ran to spill blood; now they run to set it free. Once your hands were stretched out to steal what belonged to others; now they are stretched out for you to be generous with what is your own. Once your eyes looked at women or at something which was not yours with lust in them; but now they look at the poor, the weak and the helpless with pity in them. Your ears used to delight in hearing empty talk or in attacking good people; now they have turned to hearing the Word of God, to the exposition of the law and to the learning of the knowledge of wisdom. Your tongue, which was accustomed to bad language, cursing and swearing has now turned to praising the Lord at all times; it produces healthy and honest speech, in order to give grace to the hearers and speak the truth to its neighbor. COMMENTARY ON THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS.

NOW YIELD YOUR MEMBERS TO RIGHTEOUSNESS FOR SANCTIFICATION. ORIGEN: But our members must be said to be circumcised if they are devoted to the service of God. But if they go beyond the laws divinely ordained for them, they must be considered uncircumcised. … For when our members served iniquity they were not circumcised, nor was the covenant of God in them. But when they began to serve righteousness unto sanctification, the promise which was made to Abraham is fulfilled in them. HOMILIES ON GENESIS 3.6.

THIS YOKE IS EASY. AMBROSIASTER: In recalling the weakness of the flesh, Paul wants to say that he is demanding less from us than the worship of God would normally require. … In order to remove from us any reason to be afraid of coming to faith, because that might seem to us to be unbearable and rough, Paul commands us to serve God with the same amount of zeal that we previously served the devil. For as we ought to be more willing to serve God than the devil, given that God brings salvation and the devil damnation, yet the spiritual physician does not demand more from us, lest in avoiding the more difficult precepts on account of our weakness we should remain in death. Thus the Lord says: “Take my yoke upon you, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” COMMENTARY ON PAUL’S EPISTLES.

IN HUMAN TERMS. CHRYSOSTOM: Paul says that he is speaking in human terms in order to show that he is not making any exorbitant demand, nor even as much as might be expected from someone who enjoyed so great a gift, but rather a moderate and light request. … The two masters are very different from each other, but even so, Paul is asking for no more than the same amount of servitude. People really ought to give much more to the service of righteousness, since righteousness is obviously so much bigger and better. But because of their weakness, which he does not ascribe to their free will or to their spirit but to their flesh, Paul is not making any greater demands on them. HOMILIES ON ROMANS 12.

LET THE FLESH PERFORM SPIRITUAL DEEDS. PELAGIUS: Paul is saying, in effect: “Although you ought to serve righteousness much more than you previously served sin, I nevertheless make allowance for your weakness so that you might serve righteousness just as much as you once served sin.” Or perhaps it is this: Whatever the soul does in a carnal fashion is held against the flesh, but if the flesh performs a spiritual deed the whole person becomes spiritual. … We offered our members to serve sin; it is not the case, as the Manichaeans say, that it was the nature of the body to have sin ingrained in it. PELAGIUS’S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS.

6:20 | Slaves of Sin, Free from God

THE “FREEDOM” THAT EXISTS UNDER SLAVERY. ORIGEN: Here free means “alien,” and rightly so. For no one can serve sin and righteousness at the same time, as the Savior said: “No one can serve two masters.” COMMENTARY ON THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS.

FREEDOM FROM GOD IS SLAVERY TO SIN. AMBROSIASTER: It is clear that whoever is free of God is a slave of sin. For as long as he sins he goes away from God and comes under sin. COMMENTARY ON PAUL’S EPISTLES.

NO SPLIT ALLEGIANCES. CHRYSOSTOM: In the past you did not split your service between righteousness and sin but were wholly given over to sin. So now that you have come over to the side of righteousness, you should do the same thing and give yourselves over entirely to righteousness, doing nothing at all that is wicked. HOMILIES ON ROMANS 12.

PELAGIUS: As you are in no way slaves to sin inwardly, you should become free of every sin. PELAGIUS’S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS.

PROSPER OF AQUITAINE: He who serves the devil is free from God, but he who being freed serves God is free from the devil. As a result it is apparent that a false liberty could have been had from a defect of the human will but that a true liberty could not have been received without the help of the liberator. GRACE AND FREE WILL 9.5.

6:21 | The Fruits of Sin

THE MEANING OF DEATH. CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA: Death is the fellowship of the soul in a state of sin with the body, and life is separation from that sin. STROMATA 4.3.

THE END OF THOSE THINGS IS DEATH. ORI-GEN: Someone who turns his heart and mind to righteousness will undoubtedly blush and condemn himself when he thinks back on what he did before, when he was acting under the power of sin, for “the end of those things is death.” But what death, I ask? Certainly not the death that is common to us all. … Is it perhaps that which is called the death of sin, as when Scripture says: “The soul which sins will surely die.” Or should it rather be understood as referring to that death by which we die with Christ to sin and put an end to wickedness and crimes, so that it can be said, as it is here, that death is the end of them? Paul compares fruits with fruits and declares that the fruits of sin for which we are now ashamed because we have been set free from sin and become servants of God end in death, whereas the fruits of righteousness, which lead to sanctification, end in eternal life. COMMENTARY ON THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS.

THE DOUBLE MEANING OF DEATH. AMBROSIASTER: What are the fruits of sin? Learning from them what a good life is we are ashamed by the way we lived so wickedly before. And it is not only that the opinion of the pagans is wicked but also the heresy which is found most of all in Phrygia, to which only a morally corrupt person would belong, in which there is no sacrament and Christian piety has died out. Behold a freedom full of sins and bound by wickedness, whose deeds have only shame as their reward and whose end is death! Our departure is the end of this life and its deeds, and either death or life will succeed it. But here the word death has a double meaning, for it shifts from one kind of death to another. COMMENTARY ON PAUL’S EPISTLES.

RECOGNIZING YOUR PAST LIFE FOR WHAT IT WAS. CHRYSOSTOM: If even the recollection of your former slavery makes you ashamed, think how much more the reality of it would do so. You have gained in two ways—by being set free from your former shame and by having come to recognize your past life for what it was. HOMILIES ON ROMANS 12.

6:22 | Holiness Now, Eternal Life in the Future

THE INJUNCTION AND REWARD WITHIN REACH. TERTULLIAN: Throughout this chapter, while withdrawing our members from unrighteousness and sin and applying them to righteousness and holiness, and transferring the same from the wages of death to the gift of eternal life, Paul undoubtedly promises to the flesh the reward of salvation. Now it would not have been consistent for a rule of holiness and righteousness to be especially enjoined for the flesh if the reward of such a discipline were not also within its reach; nor could even baptism be ordered for the flesh if by its regeneration a course were not inaugurated tending to its restitution. ON RESURRECTION OF THE FLESH 47.

NOW IN FULL SERVICE TO GOD. ORIGEN: Paul repeats what he has already said [in verse 18] but with an important difference. There he said that we have become slaves to obedience, which leads to righteousness, but here he says that we have become slaves to God. By saying this, Paul shows that after someone has been set free from sin he ought to serve righteousness and perform all the virtues in the first instance and then ascend by the way of spiritual progress to the point where he becomes a slave of God, even though to be a slave of righteousness is also to be a slave of God. For Christ is righteousness, and to serve Christ is to serve God. Nevertheless, there is a scale of spiritual perfection, and there are different levels of virtue. For this reason Christ is said to reign, because he is righteousness, until such time as the fullness of all virtue is complete in everyone. Then, when the measure of perfection is reached, it is said that he will give up the kingdom to God the Father, so that God may be all in all. COMMENTARY ON THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS.

PASSING FROM DEATH TO LIFE. AMBROSIASTER: If when we receive the forgiveness of sins we become imitators of good deeds, we shall acquire holiness and we shall obtain eternal life at the end, for we shall pass from death, which Paul said was the end, to life, which is without end. COMMENTARY ON PAUL’S EPISTLES.

HOLINESS NOW ASSURES ETERNAL LIFE. CHRYSOSTOM: Instead of the shame and death which you deserved before, you now have the hope of attaining holiness and eternal life. Note how Paul says that some things have already been given, while others are still hoped for, but that the former point to the latter. Thus if we can come to holiness now, we can be assured of obtaining eternal life in the future. HOMILIES ON ROMANS 12.

THE RETURN YOU GET IS SANCTIFICATION AND ITS END, ETERNAL LIFE. PELAGIUS: Doubtless there is no blessing in something for which one feels shame when repenting of it. Everyone who comes to know goodness is ashamed of his former actions, but anyone who is ashamed of righteousness is not aware of its fruit. Therefore, those who sin get nothing out of it in the present, and in the future they will reap eternal death. But those who serve God have the gift of the Holy Spirit in the present and eternal life in the future. Or perhaps it should be read like this: what have you got out of doing things which make you feel ashamed whenever you think of them? The return you have already received is that, having been sanctified by baptism, you are alive. PELAGIUS’S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS.

6:23 | The Wages of Sin Is Death

KING SIN’S WAGES. ORIGEN: Paul employs a military metaphor to good effect by saying that death is the wage due to those who fight under King Sin. But God does not give his soldiers a wage, as if they have something owing to them. Rather, he gives them the gift of grace, which is eternal life in Christ.

The death being referred to here is not the death which separates the body from the soul but the death by which because of sin the soul is separated from God. COMMENTARY ON THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS.

DEATH COMES THROUGH SIN. AMBROSIASTER: Paul says that the wages of sin is death because death comes through sin, and thus whoever refrains from sin will receive eternal life as his reward. Those who do not sin will not undergo the second death.

Just as those who follow sin obtain death, so those who follow the grace of God, that is, the faith of Christ which pardons sins, will have eternal life. They will therefore rejoice at being dissolved for a time, knowing that they will obtain this life which is free of all care and has no end. It was when he saw this from afar that St. Simeon asked to be released from this world that he might go into peace, that is, into life which allows no disturbance. And he bears witness that this gift is given to us by God through Christ our Lord, so that we should offer thanks to God through no one other than his Son. COMMENTARY ON PAUL’S EPISTLES.

THE LIMITS OF THE WAGE METAPHOR. CHRYSOSTOM: Paul does not parallel “the wages of sin” with “the wages of good deeds” because he wants to show that they were not set free by their own efforts, nor had they done anything to earn their salvation. It was by grace alone that all these things came about. HOMILIES ON ROMANS 12.

DEATH THE REWARD FOR BETRAYING GOD. [PSEUDO-]CONSTANTIUS: Death is the reward which God offers us for our betrayal of him. THE HOLY LETTER OF ST. PAUL TO THE ROMANS.

THE GIFT OF GOD. PELAGIUS: One who does military service for sin receives death as his wages. Paul does not use the term “wages of righteousness” because there was no righteousness in us before our baptism which God could repay. Righteousness is not obtained by our effort but is a gift of God. PELAGIUS’S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS.

UNMERITED. BEDE: Eternal life is unjustly given for good merits. Rather, merit is first given freely by a benevolent Savior. HOMILIES ON THE GOSPELS 1.2.