Romans 6:12-23

¹² Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof. ¹³ Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God. ¹⁴ For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace. ¹⁵ What then? shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid. ¹⁶ Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness? ¹⁷ But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you. ¹⁸ Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness. ¹⁹ I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh: for as ye have yielded your members servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity; even so now yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness. ²⁰ For when ye were the servants of sin, ye were free from righteousness. ²¹ What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed? for the end of those things is death. ²² But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life. ²³ For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Thus far, in this series, “More Than Conquerors,” we have learned about our new identity in Christ. We are dead and alive. We are dead to sin, having crucified our old man (who we were without Jesus) and we have been raised with Christ to “walk in newness of life.” We have been made new creatures. The call of Romans 6:1-11 is to “reckon” or “count” ourselves as such. We are those who have died to our old ways and we are new creatures. Let’s now live according to our new identity.

The remainder of Romans 6 concerns the ongoing application of the truth of the believer’s new identity in Jesus. Now that we are dead and alive, what are we to do? How do we “reckon” ourselves as dead to sin and alive to God? Paul gives to us three more things we need to know and are called to do.

First, we now submit to a new master. When we were lost, we “walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience” and we were “in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others” (Ephesians 2:2-3). We served sin and, ultimately, the purposes of Satan. Since we are in Christ by faith, we now serve a new master. Jesus has become Lord of our lives. We, therefore, should no longer “yield” ourselves to sin’s pull and attempted rule over our lives.

The reason is that we “are not under law, but under grace.” This phrase may seem troubling because we may be left wondering, “If I’m not under law, then I don’t have to follow any rules and can live anyway that I please.” This could not be further from the truth. What we are free from is not, godliness, nor God’s commands, but we are free from being left to our human effort to keep the law, which was a list of commands that our flesh could never live up to.

Second, Paul’s answers the question posed in verse 15 in response to not being under law, but under grace. We now have a new responsibility. Our responsibility with Christ as our Lord is to righteousness. Before we were saved, we continually gave ourselves to sin. We were slaves of sin, but in Christ, and under grace, we are slaves of righteousness. The principle is given in verse 16 that whoever we “yield” to, that is our master. The word “yield” means to “present,” as in “presenting an offering or sacrifice.” Romans 12:1 tells us, “Present your bodies a living sacrifice.” The idea is to give ourselves (body, soul, and spirit) totally to God and His purposes.

Third, he tells us that we bear new fruit. He reminds the Romans (and us) of what kind of fruit was produced in our lives when we were lost and serving sin. Sin continually brought us nothing but death and destruction. Paul tells us that very thing that “the wages of sin is death.” However, now Christ is bearing fruit in our lives “unto holiness” and righteousness. This is possible because of God’s free gift of salvation given in Jesus.

Whoever we are yielding to, that is our master. Is sin what drives you? Is sin what you serve? Or do you desire instead to serve Christ? Is Jesus the Lord of your life? What kind of fruit is being produced in your life? These are questions we must consider when we examine our lives in light of the identity that believers have in Christ. It is important to remember that Christians can and will sin. We do so because we are still fallen human beings in flesh, but we have been made new creatures in Christ and sin is no longer our master. Jesus is. If today you are struggling with sin, defeat, etc., the answer is not to pull yourself up by your bootstraps and fix yourself. The answer is to look to Jesus and submit to Him as Lord and Master. Who’s your master?