Romans 6:21-23

What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death! But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in [or through] Christ Jesus our Lord.

V21-22 – Set free from sin = slave to God. What are the benefits? Paul first asks what benefits were reaped at the time when you were a slave to sin, when you were doing the things that you are now ashamed of. Are there any? Instant, fading pleasures? Then Paul says that those things result in death! Paul moves on and says that being a slave of God has a great benefit. That benefit is holiness of character, resulting in eternal life. Holiness is blessedness and freedom. Holiness is life. Sin leads to misery and eventually death; grace leads to holiness and eternal life.

Becoming a Christian is not like standing neutral between two possible slave masters and having the power of ultimate self-determination, and then deciding, from outside any slavery, which we will serve. There are no neutral people. There are only slaves of sin and slaves of God. Becoming a Christian is to have the sovereign captain of the battleship of righteousness commandeer the slave ship of unrighteousness; put the ship-captain, sin, in irons; break the chains of the slaves; and give them such a spiritual sight of grace and glory that they freely serve the new sovereign forever as the irresistible joy and treasure of their lives. That’s how salvation works. God freed us from one master and enslaved us to Himself by the compelling power of the Holy Spirit in a superior promise. So embrace this work of God.

As the chapter comes toward a close, three things should become increasingly clear. (1) Our condition as humans is not just that we are guilty for sinning and need forgiveness and the righteousness of Christ to commend us to God, but also that we are in slavery to sin and need to be freed from its power as well as its punishment. (2) This deliverance (sanctification) is decisively the work of God, and then, dependently, our work. We must do it. But we cannot and will not do it unless God enables us to do it. Once He enables us and makes us willing, we will do it. (3) Our eternal life depends not only justification, but also on sanctification. We cannot be saved and still be slaves to sin.

V23 – The Gospel message: short and sweet. Paul shares the good and bad right here. The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ. Notice the contrast in how you receive these options. The wages of sin is death. You want what you deserve, what you’ve earned? Here it is: Death. The free gift of God is eternal life. This is not an earned-by-you benefit. It’s a granted benefit given by God in His grace, earned by Jesus Christ for all those who trust in Him. The free gift of God is eternal life. Grace not only leads to forgiveness, but grace leads to holiness and eternal life. And so when the world looks at the Christian and says, “Look what you could be doing with your money instead of giving all that stuff to tithes and missions and charity! You could be having fun for yourself.” Remember, it is the man who gives who is blessed. Do you give to be blessed? Or are you blessed to give?

It is the man who is a slave to righteousness that knows true blessedness, and the false freedom of the world is not freedom at all. Remember what Jesus says in Mark 10:44-45? “Whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many.” It is the man who dies who lives. It is the man who is a slave who is free. “If you want to become free,” Paul says, “become a slave to holiness and righteousness and Christ.” If you want to live, die to your sinful desires. Why would you want that?

V23 does not stand alone. It comes right from v22. Eternal life is the outcome of being freed from sin and enslaved to God and bearing fruit in sanctification, “for” or because “eternal life is a free gift.” Your choosing is the gift of God. Your preferring God over sin is the gift of God. What if someone says, “Since sanctification is the gift of God, I don’t need to do anything”? Well, that would be like saying, “Since my doing something is the gift of God, I don’t need to do that something.” God’s gift of sanctification is not instead of your doing and choosing and preferring Him. God’s gift is your doing and choosing and preferring Him. 2 Thessalonians 1:11-12 “With this in mind, we constantly pray for you, that our God may count you worthy of His calling, and that by His power He may fulfill every good purpose of yours and every act prompted by your faith. We pray this so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in Him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.”