The gravity between grace and obedience is like that between the earth and the moon. As the earth constantly throws and catches the moon, so obedience is propelled by and tethered to grace. There have been some who tried to make the earth revolve around the moon, who make obedience central and grace in second place, which is wrong and deadly. But the fix is not to sever the connection; it’s not grace or obedience, it’s understanding which pulls which.

Paul refutes two errors about grace in Romans 6. By no means (!) should we sin more in order to show off grace more (Romans 6:1). By grace we’ve been baptized into Christ, into His death and into His resurrection life, and we know, reckon, and yield our members as instruments of righteousness. Grace freed us from sin (Romans 6:7), sin has no dominion over us because we are “under grace” (Romans 6:14).

The authority of grace led to the second possible misunderstanding. By no means (!) should we think sin doesn’t matter because we’re not under law (Romans 6:15). The law has never had the power to free anyone from his sin (which would be like saying that reading the Farmers’ Almanac gets rid of weeds). But that doesn’t mean that the law is meaningless. The law shows what righteousness is like, which condemns the unrighteous, but also reveals the template that grace presses us into. Grace does not make lawless men, grace saves lawless men into true liberty. Grace doesn’t free the moon from the earth, grace gives the moon its course.

There is an antithesis all through the last half of Romans 6. We studied verses 15-18 a couple months ago, and saw that grace has changed our hearts and committed us into doctrine that sets us free to serve a new master. We were obedient slaves of sin, but now “having been set free from sin” we are obedient slaves of righteousness (verse 18).

There will be slavery and their will be liberty, two kinds of slavery and two kinds of liberty, and two results. The slaveries are antithetical, one or the other. The two kinds of liberty are antithetical, mutually exclusive; you can step on the gas and the brake pedals at the same time, you cannot be in reverse and drive at the same time. The two results are antithetical, life or death.

The ESV keeps verse 19 as the last verse of the paragraph beginning in verse 15, but while the subject of slavery continues, Paul opens with an admission before pushing the analogy further.

The focus in verses 19-23 is the end of lawlessness, but in two ways. There is a destination of lawlessness (an end), and there is a deliverance from lawlessness (an ending of).

First, the end of lawlessness will be slavery, either a slavery of tyranny or liberty.

Slavery is the analogy Paul employed in verse 16. The imagery started earlier in the chapter when he talked about no longer being enslaved to sin (verse 6). The slavery ethic is the answer to why sin matters even under grace.

Paul acknowledges in verse 19 that it’s not a perfect analogy; there are human , natural limitations . The comparison might be distasteful; if you were a slave and maybe even more if you weren’t. But the totality of service cannot be escaped. It’s not like having covid where you may or may not notice, it’s like being male or female where every cell in your body gives directions.

For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness . This is what they did, what all men do apart from union with Christ. Their bodies are tools for sin. Impurity is a kind of uncleanness (ἀκαθαρσίᾳ); their hands were dirty. Lawlessness (ἀνομίᾳ, so not “wickedness” as NIV or even “iniquity” as KJV) is a boss, a kind of tyrant, who demands more and more. The “without law” drags unto “without law.”

Verse 20 does call this a kind of freedom, you were free in regard to righteousness . But again, this is like the moon being free of the earth’s gravity. Men don’t write poems about the glorious “freedom” of a big and wandering space rock; the moon’s glory is in its connection. It doesn’t mean an unbeliever can’t do anything right, but right isn’t the rule.

For believers, there is an imperative to freedom, required without irony: so now present your members as slaves to righteousness (verse 19). This is a totality of liberty: under grace as slaves “set free from sin” (verse 18).

Slavery is inescapable, and there are antithetical freedoms.

Second, the end of lawlessness will be slavery, either a slavery of shame or sanctification.

Verse 20 goes back to get a running start again. When you were slaves of sin there was no care for the things that are right. That has consequences. But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which are now ashamed?

This question could be taken a couple ways that makes the same conclusion. Usually in the NT the idea of fruit is positive; rotten fruit is an oxymoron. Does that mean that fruit is never a general metaphor for consequences? You reap what you sow (Galatians 6:87-8), and we could call what grows out of sowing to the flesh “fruit.”

So if the fruit and the things are separate in verse 21, then there was no fruit from the things. If fruit and the things are the same, then the fruit was garbage. The result, whether no good fruit or bad fruit, is the same: being ashamed . This is a painful feeling of loss of status. When a believer looks back he sees reasons for embarrassment, he has no excuses.

Now we sow different seed. But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification. Instead of humiliation there is holiness. Under grace we are forgiven, and under grace we are free, and under grace we see fruit . How could it be otherwise? “What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means!”

Slavery is inescapable, and there are antithetical fruits.

Third, the end of lawlessness will be slavery, either a slavery of death or eternal life.

Shame isn’t the final stop for the lawless. The end of those things is death (verse 21). Death is ambiguous, it has a number of referents. This death refers to eternal punishment. We know it’s eternal because of the antithesis, eternal life. The spiritually dead are the slaves of sin. The physically dead aren’t sinning any more. The eternally dead are separated from God forever. It’s the “reward” (Tyndale) of their slavery: The wages of sin is death (verse 23).

End is τέλος (both in verses 21 and 22). The telos of lawlessness is death and the telos of sanctification is life.

By gospel contrast, those who are truly free to obey see increased fruit of freedom and its end, eternal life (verse 22). It’s the crescendo of the chapter: The wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord .

There are a couple Greek words for gift , and this one (χάρισμα) has an emphasis on how it is free, how it connects with grace. God gives eternal life. God gives grace, God gives us union with His Son, God gives liberty (note the passive voice in “having been set free from sin” in verse 22), God gives us purpose for our bodies, God gives profit, God gives us His eternal presence.

Slavery is inescapable, and there are antithetical futures.

Conclusion

Sin is like a malicious algorithm in your internal GPS, not only surfacing lawless search results, but always giving wrong directions. The sinner is a slave to the program. Grace is not just like a compass pointing north, grace is the gravity that pulls us where we ought to go.

The one thing assumed is that direction matters. Are we to sin, take even a step in the wrong direction, because we’re under grace? By no means!

---

Charge

Beloved, He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ (Philippians 1:6). In the meantime, He has called you to work good. It’s ironic that the school year used to begin when harvest was done, now, for most of us, the fall is when the early seeds are sown, and late spring is when we’ll see the next gleaning. Because you are partakers of grace, and as you seek the fruit of sanctification, present your members as slaves to righteousness.

Benediction:

[May] your love abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God. (Philippians 1:9–11, ESV)