Steps to Holiness, Part Three AM and PM

A few years ago a man in Los Angeles wore a sandwich board sign that read on the front: “I am a slave of Jesus Christ.” On the back it asked: “Whose slave are you?” Theologian Anders Nygren stated, “The idea that man could be free, in the sense that he can be lord of his own life, is nothing but a chimera,”¹ a monstrosity.

According to Romans 6, everyone is a slave. No one is a self-determining, independent being. At the end of one’s life, no one can say, “I did it my way.” It is an illusion to think we can live our way. We are either slaves of sin and Satan or slaves of Jesus Christ. Either way, we all offer strict obedience to the lord we serve.

We Are under Grace

In Romans 6:14 Paul declared that sin was no longer the master of the believer because he is now under grace, not law. Now in verse 15 he asks, “Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace?” Paul is dealing with a question of an opponent, as he did in Romans 6:1. This time it may be a legalist who is asking, “What will happen to our ethical lives if we are not under law? Can’t we transgress the law with impunity?” This was a big question for the Jewish people of the first-century church.

The truth is, believers are no longer under law, trying to establish their own righteousness and justification. The law can only demand, curse, and pronounce death. It can never justify a sinner, and no fallen man can keep it. But Jesus Christ the sinless Son of God was born under law to redeem those under law from being under law. He took us out from being under the condemnation and curse of the law and brought us into his kingdom of righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit.

The Pharisees attempted to justify themselves through keeping the law. Even today, orthodox Jews depend on their own righteousness to save them. They do not see their need for a redeemer. This was also true in the New Testament times. The Pharisee in Luke 18, unlike the publican, went home unjustified because he gloried in being under law. Paul describes how he gloried in his legalistic righteousness before coming to know Christ: “If anyone else thinks he has reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin. . . as for legalistic righteousness, faultless” (Phil. 34-6). Elsewhere Paul says, “I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing” (Gal. 2:21).

Those who are justified by the righteousness of Christ are members of the new covenant. The wonderful thing about the new covenant is that the law of God is now written in our hearts and we take delight in it. It is not merely external; it has become internal. Even the Old Testament (e.g., Psalm 1, 19, and 119) speaks about God’s people delighting in the law of God.

The law, therefore, which is the very nature of God, has become the very nature of God’s people. If a person despises God’s law, his claim to be a Christian is false. The Lord declares, “I will put my laws in their minds and write them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people” (Jer. 31:33; see also Heb. 8:10). The people of God delight in God’s law and do it by new capacities given to them-divine nature and the Holy Spirit. Believers eagerly obey the law of God, not to accomplish their justification, but as evidence of it. Therefore, it is abominable to say, “Shall we deliberately sin because we are not under law but under grace?” As in Romans 6:2, Paul answers emphatically, “God forbid!”

True Christians do not despise God’s law but honor it because the law expresses the character of God. Therefore, we will not lie because God cannot lie; rather, we will tell truth because God is truth. To despise God’s law is to despise God himself. Paul says in Romans 7 that the law is holy, righteous, spiritual, and good.

A Christian is not under sin and law; rather, he is under grace. Being “under grace” means to be under the authority, power, and rule of grace the king. Grace is the most powerful of kings. Grace reigns through righteousness (Rom. 5:21). To be under grace means to be under our Lord Jesus Christ, who has received all authority in heaven and on earth. He is King of kings and Lord of lords. We love Jesus Christ our Redeemer, who exhorts, “If ye love me, keep my commandments” (John 14:15, KJV). We have love-power that enables us to keep his commandments. Paul says that the love of God compels, motivates, impels, pushes him forward (2 Cor. 5:14). The most powerful force in the whole world is the love of God. And we have Holy Spirit power, who sheds abroad in our hearts the love of God without measure, so that we overflow with love.

Therefore, under-grace people are not lawless or careless; they are holy and obedient. The grace of God will never lead anyone to sin by transgressing God’s law. On the contrary, the grace of God always leads us to honor God’s law by obeying it. Those touched by this superpower of God’s grace will love God’s law. Paul declares, “And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work” (2 Cor. 9:8). Simply put, we will obey God.

It is sheer foolishness to ask: “Why not sin since we are not under law but under grace?” Justification by Christ’s perfect righteousness guarantees our sanctification and glorification. In other words, our justification guarantees our holy living. “Jesus Christ is “our righteousness, holiness and redemption” (1 Cor. 1:30). He is not just our righteousness; he makes us righteous. That is why one who remains in sin is not justified, despite his claims, for “without holiness no one will see the Lord” (Heb. 12:14). Jesus himself said, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God” (Matt. 5:8).

Romans 6:1-14 argued that we should not continue in sin because we have died to sin through our union with Christ in his death and resurrection. In Romans 6:15-23, Paul argues that we will not deliberately sin because we are slaves of God. Everyone is a slave, either to master Sin, or the great Master, God. Paul reasons elsewhere, “But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under law” (Gal. 5:18). That is why we must not say, “Since I am under grace and not under law, I can sin.” “Under grace” means we are under the control of the Holy Spirit of God.

So not being under law for the purpose of justification does not mean we are free to do what we want. How many people refuse to obey the Scripture, especially as God has blessed them with money. May your money perish with you, if that is your attitude! What do you have that you have not received? You are under God the Holy Spirit, who commands and enables you to honor God’s law. Emil Brunner remarks, “Freedom from the Law does not mean freedom from God but freedom for God.”²Similarly, Robert Haldane comments, “The freedom from the moral law which the believer enjoys, is the freedom from an obligation to fulfil it in his own person for his justification.”³ Freedom from the law means freedom from trying to justify ourselves by keeping the law. Thank God, we are set free from that! Haldane also says, “If a man voluntarily sins, on the pretext that he is not under the law, but under grace, it is a proof that the grace of God is not in him.”⁴

Romans 6:16 is an axiom, a self-evident truth. A slave will obey his master implicitly and always. His will is the master’s will. Owned by the master, he has no independence. In this world there are only two masters and two opposing results of their slavery: death or eternal life. Slavery to master Sin reaps death, while slavery to master God results in experimental righteousness, holiness, and eternal life.

We must ask ourselves whom we are obeying. Jesus said, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full” (John 10:10).

The cruel master Sin deceives and gives death through temporal pleasure. He is like a dope pusher whose only purpose is to fry your brain. Sin says, “Feel good and die.” Sin pushes his slavery on people by telling them to eat forbidden fruit and be free from God and all his delegated authorities. Sin says, “Don’t study; have fun. Have an abortion and be free. Divorce and be happy. Don’t work but eat well. Eat too much and lose weight. Borrow much and feel great. Don’t read the Bible; view pornography instead.” But sin leads only to eternal death. Adam and Eve believed Satan’s lie and disobeyed God’s word. Jesus believed the word of God, obeyed it, and saved us from sin’s lie.

Under the Word of God

Not only are we under grace, but we are also under the word of God. Paul declares, “But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted” (v. 17). This is a doxology: “Thanks be to God!” Paul is praising God for saving the Roman Christians. We also praise God that he has saved us from death and from the grip of sin, Satan, the world, and the flesh. “Thanks be to God that though you used to be slaves to sin.” That is our past history, not our present reality. We were slaves. And notice that Paul says, “You wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching.” We expected “believed” or “received.” But that is not what Paul says. “You wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted.” The point is that we obey God because we are under the word. The word is over us. God handed us over to this doctrine. Yes, we are under grace, but we are also under the Bible, under the gospel.

We were sons of disobedience. We were dead in trespasses and sins, incapable of saving ourselves from the grip of sin. But something supernatural and miraculous happened to us; a great change took place in our lives and God delivered us from our slavery to sin.

David speaks of having “escaped like a bird out of the fowler’s snare” (Psalm 124:7). God broke the snare and we came out, flying like a bird. Paul writes, “Those who oppose him he must gently instruct, in the hope that God will grant repentance leading them to a knowledge of the truth, and that they will come to their senses and escape from the trap of the devil, who has taken them captive to do his will” (2 Tim. 2:25-26). Those who are not Christians must understand their trapped condition. They are enslaved to do the will of their captor Satan.

But thank God, we have been freed from our slavery to sin and Satan. Jesus said, “When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own house, his possessions are safe. But when someone stronger attacks and overpowers him, he takes away the armor in which a man trusted and divides up the spoils” (Luke 21-22). At the midpoint of time, someone stronger came from heaven, born of a woman, born under the law, and redeemed us from our slavery to sin and Satan by his perfect obedience to God’s law. He opened our prison doors, broke our chains, and set us free. Now we are walking and leaping and praising God.

Our help is in the name of the Lord, who kept the law. He paid the highest price of his own precious blood. We have been born again, justified, and adopted into God’s family. What a change! Before we hated God’s law; now we love the law that God himself has written into our hearts.

Ezekiel describes this glorious transformation: ” I will give them an undivided heart and put a new spirit in them; I will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh. Then they will follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. They will be my people, and I will be their God” (Ezek. 11:19-20). Elsewhere he says, “I will sprinkle clean water on you [i.e., preaching the word of God], and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. You will live in the land I gave your forefathers; you will be my people, and I will be your God” (Ezek. 36:25-28).

Obedience to God is our new lifestyle: “You obeyed from your heart the form of teaching to which you were handed over” (Rom. 6:17, author’s translation). Christians obey the gospel, which is the standard of doctrine. “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching” (Acts 2:42). Paul told Timothy, “What you heard from me, keep as the pattern of sound teaching” (2 Tim. 1:13). He also exhorted him, “Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to preaching and to teaching” (1 Tim. 4:13). God has put us under sound doctrine, under the gospel, under the Bible, which is the very word of God.

The Roman Christians heard the gospel preached, exercised their intellect, and understood it. A Christian must exercise his intellect, his will, and his holy affections toward God. Christianity is not for intellectually lazy people. It is for intelligent people who have received a new heart, a new mind, a new will, and new affections through regeneration. “Obeyed from the heart” means they exercised their wills in obeying God’s law and took delight in doing so.

The one thing we must understand and love is the word of God. This text does not say they believed or received the gospel; it says they obeyed. Earlier in this epistle Paul stated, “Through him and for his name’s sake, we received grace and apostleship to call people from among all the Gentiles to the obedience that comes from faith” (Rom 1:5). Later, he tells these Roman Christians, “I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me in leading the Gentiles to obey God by what I have said and done” (Rom. 15:18). Some people attempt to separate faith and obedience, but we cannot separate what God has joined together. Jesus said, “Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you” (Matt. 28:19-20). As the hymnwriter declares,

Trust and obey, there is no other way to be happy in Jesus.

The essence of sin is disobedience, but salvation leads to obedience to God. It is time that we elevated obedience. Even many Christians think obedience is a shame. It is deemed shameful to obey one’s parents or one’s employer or any other authority immediately: let there be delay, debate, and denial. No, immediate obedience is the nature of God’s people. Christian doctrine always leads to Christian ethics. Dr. James Boice said, “Obedience is the very essence of believing. It is what belief is all about.”⁵

Why do people take medicine? Because they believe it will help them. Yet they do not say, “I will just believe in the medicine but I won’t take it.” Such non-active faith will not do them any good. Belief without obedience is the doctrine of demons which prevails in many churches.

We were born slaves of sin and Satan, but we have been born again as slaves to righteousness and to Jesus Christ our Savior. We became Christians by divine action alone. God has set us free and handed us over to the gospel, and now the gospel is our boss. So the Bible teaches us, rebukes us, corrects us, and trains us to do the will of God. We are being trained to godliness. We want to hear and do, not hear and argue and not do.

Through obedience to the gospel, we are transformed and conformed to the character of Christ. The gospel puts its own imprint on us. We are under the custody of the gospel. We stand under it, not over it. It leads us, and we follow. Therefore, we diligently and prayerfully study the word, meditate upon it, and do what it tells us. We honor the word because it is the very word of God. We do so with trembling.

Jesus Christ is speaking to us through the word of God. God’s word renews our minds that we may worship and serve him acceptably. We should not try to change the gospel with our brilliance; the gospel should change us. Calvin said, “Obedience is the mother of true knowledge of God.”⁶

Slaves to Righteousness

Now Paul declares, “You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness” (Rom. 6:18). The New International Version takes liberty here. It should read, “Having been set free from sin, you have been enslaved to righteousness.” We have been enslaved to our new master, which is righteousness. We obey God because we are under the authority of righteousness and under obligation to it.

Who enslaved us to righteousness? God. After setting us free from sin, he then enslaved us to righteousness. (PGM) It is not possible for anyone to be independent; we either serve sin or righteousness. Paul is saying that we have been set free from our former master sin. In this verse he personifies sin and righteousness, just as he personified obedience in verse 16.

The great miracle is that God has enabled us to crawl out of the pit of slavery to sin. Elsewhere Paul reminds us how bad our condition was when we were slaves to sin and Satan: “As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts” (Eph. 2:1-3).⁷ Sin is totalitarian; it controls every aspect of an unbeliever’s life. There is not even one small part wherein he exercises autonomy. An unbeliever has no freedom or ability to disobey the thoughts and the desires of his flesh [sinful nature].

But, thank God, we have been set free from sin through the gospel by the Holy Spirit! Being set free from sin does not mean that we have achieved sinless perfection or that we are free from sin’s continuing influence and its temptation. It does not mean Christians may not sin through carelessness. But it means that sin no longer is our master. We have been permanently removed from the sphere of sin, and the Lord Jesus will keep us from ever going back into this slavery.

Positively, we have been enslaved to a power called righteousness. This is speaking about our new obligation. We no longer have an obligation to serve the flesh (Rom. 8:12); now we are obligated to serve God and do his will. We have been set free from sin so that we can now devote ourselves to righteousness, to knowing and doing the will of God. We have been made good trees; therefore, we bear good fruit. The purpose of our lives is to glorify God.

We are to obey God always, not occasionally. We are enslaved to righteousness-oh, what glorious slavery this is! This slavery is the maximum freedom that God intends his creatures to enjoy. It was never God’s intention that man should be independent of God. Man enjoys his life to the utmost when he is utterly dependent on God. Obedience to God is sheer happiness.

Paul declares, “Through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death” (Rom. 8:2). In Exodus 3 we read that the Lord appeared to Moses and told him, “I will be with you. And this will be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you. When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you will serve God on this mountain” (Exod. 3:12, author’s translation). In other words, they were being set free from Pharaoh’s slavery to serve the covenant Lord. This was confirmed in Exodus 14:5: “When the king of Egypt was told that the people had fled, Pharaoh and his officials changed their minds about them and said, ‘What have we done? We have let the Israelites go and have lost their services!'” He lost their services because they were now servants of the Lord.

God’s purpose for our lives is that we serve him. In Romans 6 we have read about being slaves of God, slaves of the gospel, and slaves of obedience. But here Paul says we are “slaves to righteousness.” Righteousness is “doing what is right.” We are made slaves to the will of God, which we find in “the form of teaching to which [we] were entrusted.” We study the Bible to find out the will of God, and oppose cultural standards that go against the Bible. Therefore, we oppose evolutionary hypothesis, divorce, radical feminism, and abortion because the Bible opposes them. We say children should obey their parents and that one should provide for his own family because that is what the Bible teaches.

We must note that Paul is speaking here about experimental righteousness, not the gift of righteousness imputed to us. This imparted righteousness is practical obedience to the will of God.

The gospels speak of a man possessed of a legion of demons who was naked, running around, restless, miserable, and wandering alone from cemetery to cemetery (Mark 5:1-20; Luke 8:26-39). That is the picture of an unbeliever. His mind was gone, taken over by demons. Then he was set free by Jesus, and for the first time in a long time, he was clothed and sitting down. Jesus says, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest” (Matt. 11:28). Then we are told he was in his right mind. Jesus Christ gives us a sound mind that can be put to the right use of thinking God’s thoughts after him. And, finally, this man wanted to follow Jesus.

As slaves of righteousness, we have no right to do whatever we want with our bodies. Paul inquires, “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body” (1 Cor. 6:19-20). Moreover, if we are married, our body also belongs to our spouse. It first belongs to God and then to our spouse (1 Cor. 7:4). Paul declares, “You were bought at a price” (1 Cor. 7:23). We have been redeemed from the slave market by Jesus Christ by paying the high price of his own precious blood.

How then shall we live? Paul instructs, “So whether you eat or drink or whatever you so, do it all for the glory of God” (1 Cor. 10:31). We are enslaved to righteousness, to the will of God. Again, Paul states, “We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God. And we take captive every thought to the obedience of Christ” (2 Cor. 10:5).

If we are Christians, we will love the totalitarian lordship of Jesus Christ. As John Frame said, his demand is absolute and cannot be questioned. See Abraham’s sacrifice of his Son. His demand transcends all other loyalties. To the man who wanted to bury his father, Jesus said, “Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead” (Matt. 8:22). If a husband does not want his Christian wife to go to church, she still must go to church. A husband’s authority is delegated by God, but the authority of the Lord Jesus transcends all other authorities.⁸

As children of God, we have no right to think evil thoughts. We must bring every thought to obey Christ. If God has justified us by the righteousness of Christ, then we are enslaved to Christ to obey him and his delegated authorities. This obedience is our practical, experimental righteousness, proving we are justified by grace alone. “And if we are careful to obey all this law before the LORD our God, as he has commanded us, that will be our righteousness” (Deut. 6:25).

We must have experimental righteousness. John writes, “Let us rejoice and be glad and give him glory! For the wedding of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready. Fine linen, bright and clean, was given her to wear. (Fine linen stands for the righteous acts of the saints.)” (Rev. 19:7-8).

Remember, we do not obey to be justified; we obey because we are justified. We are working out what God has worked in us. We obey by grace alone. Douglas Moo remarks, “The freedom of the Christian is not freedom to do what one wants, but freedom to obey God-willingly, joyfully, and naturally.”⁹ We can obey God because, as children of God, we have been given divine nature.

Thank God for our great redeemer, Jesus Christ! He came to the slave market of this world seeking us when we were slaves of the cruel masters sin and Satan. He redeemed us, brought us out of their control by his precious blood, and now we are his glad, joyful bondslaves. He loves us forever, and we love him by obeying him. We deny ourselves, take up the cross daily, and are following him to the Celestial City. Christ is the way, the truth, and the life. We were dead before; now we live forever. We are not sinlessly perfect but we have freedom to serve God and not sin. We are able to put to death the misdeeds of the body by the power of the Holy Spirit. We are given grace every moment to glorify God.

What happens if we are caught in a sin and wander from the narrow path of God’s will? The holy church will come to us and say, “Not that way.” Paul exhorts, “Brothers, if someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently” (Gal. 6:1). Thank God for leaders, other Christians, your spouse, and even your children. All of them can be used to come and bring us back to a holy walk. James writes, “My brothers, if one of you should wander from the truth and someone should bring him back, remember this: Whoever turns a sinner from the error of his ways will save him from death and cover over a multitude of sins” (James 5:19). When someone comes to you in this way, do not deny, debate, or fight that person. God is sending that brother or sister to you to bring to your attention your sin. Instead, thank God, repent, and receive forgiveness.

We all have a choice. We can serve sin, Satan, uncleanness, lawlessness, and reap eternal death; or we can by grace serve God, the gospel, righteousness, and enjoy the gift of eternal life. Today I set before you life and death. May God help you to choose life!

¹ Anders Nygren, Commentary on Romans, translated by Carl Rasmussen (London: SCM Press, 1958), 254.

² Quoted by Leon Morris, The Epistle to the Romans (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1988), 261.

³ Robert Haldane, Exposition of the Epistle to the Romans (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, Reprinted 1996), 259.

⁴ Haldane, 258.

⁵ James M. Boice, Romans, Vol. 2: The Reign of Grace (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1992), 695.

⁶ Quoted by Douglas Moo, The Epistle to the Romans (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996), 399.

⁷ In the Greek it is “sons of disobedience.” Our father’s name was disobedience.

⁸ John Frame, “Scripture Speaks for Itself” in God’s Inerrant Word, edited by John Warwick Montgomery (Minneapolis, MN: Bethany Fellowship, 1973), 183.

⁹ Moo, Epistle to the Romans, 399.