Do you not know that if you present yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?
I am speaking in human terms because of the weakness of your nature. For just as you presented the parts of your bodies as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness for lawless ness, so now present them as slaves to righteousness for sanctification.
For when you were slaves of sin, you were free from righteousness. (You were unrighteous)
And do not present the parts of your bodies to sin as weapons for wickedness, but present
yourselves to God as raised from the dead to life and the parts of your bodies to God as weapons for righteousness.
Therefore, sin must not reign over your mortal bodies so that you obey their desires.
For sin is not to have any power over you, since you are not under the law but under grace.
What then? Shall we sin because we are not under the law but under grace? Of course not!
But thanks be to God that, although you were once slaves of sin, you have become obedient from the heart to the pattern of teaching to which you were entrusted.
Freed from sin, you have become slaves of righteousness.
But what profit did you get then from the things of which you are now ashamed?
For the end of those things is death.
For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
But now that you have been freed from sin and have become slaves of God,
the benefit that you have leads to sanctification, and its end is eternal life.
--Bible: Book of Romans Chapter 6----
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Notes
To defend the gospel against the charge that it promotes moral laxity, Paul (the apostle Paul) expresses himself in the typical style of spirited diatribe. God's display of generosity or grace is not evoked by sin but, as stated in is the expression of God's love, and this love pledges eternal life to all believers.
Paul views the present conduct of the believers from the perspective of God's completed salvation when the body is resurrected and directed totally by the holy Spirit. Through baptism believers share the death of Christ and thereby escape from the grip of sin. Through the resurrection of Christ the power to live anew becomes reality for them, but the fullness of participation in Christ's resurrection still lies in the future. But life that is lived in dedication to God now is part and parcel of that future.
Hence anyone who sincerely claims to be interested in that future will scarcely be able to say, "Let us sin so that grace may prosper" .
Christians have been released from the grip of sin, but sin endeavors to reclaim its victims. The antidote is constant remembrance that divine grace has claimed them and identifies them as people who are alive only for God's interests.
In contrast to humanity, which was handed over to self-indulgence believers are entrusted ("handed over") to God's pattern of teaching, that is, the new life God aims to develop in Christians through the productivity of the holy Spirit. Throughout this passage Paul uses the slave-master model in order to emphasize the fact that one cannot give allegiance to both God and sin.
You sin (breaking of God's laws) makes a person unrighteous, therefore "you were free from righteousness." But accepting Jesus Christ death as payment for our sins, we, those who repent, become righteous in God's eyes and partake in his kingdom.
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