Romans 6:22

Romans 6:22

Romans 6:22 says, "But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, you have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life." Four things are mentioned in this verse about believers in Jesus: free from sin, servants to God, fruit unto holiness, the end everlasting life. All four of these things are very important. Notice that they are not material, but they are spiritual in nature. The most important things in life are spiritual, not physical or material. It’s important to be free from your sins. God thought that it was important. He sent His Son to die for sins: that’s how important that He thought it was. For every person that you ever know or ever meet, you might wonder, "Are they free from their sins?" because it’s the most important thing that can happen to them.

It’s also important to be a servant to God. Everyone serves someone or something, even if it’s themselves; but there is no greater privilege than to be a servant to God. You don’t have to take a vow of poverty or live in a monastery to serve God. You can serve Him anywhere in the world, simply by dedicating your profession and your activities to His glory. There is no building that you must be in to serve God, and there is no geographical location where you must be in order to be close to Him, because He is everywhere.

Rom. 6:22 says that a believer has been made free from sin and become a servant to God. If you are in the spiritual condition of being free from your sins and being a servant to God, then the other things mentioned in Rom. 6:22 apply to you also. The first is holiness. The Lord said "Be you holy, for I am holy." The word "holy" comes from the same word as the word "saint" and it refers to not being tainted by sin. Holiness refers to your actions. There are certain things that you will not do if you are a servant of God because your goal is to be holy. Your goal should always be to not participate in the sins and excesses of the world around you. "In the world, but not of the world": that’s holiness.

The final and ultimate result of being free from sin and a servant to God is also mentioned in Rom. 6:22, "the end everlasting life." It’s not how a person starts in life, but how they finish. Jesus said, "What shall it profit a man, should he gain the whole world, but lose his own soul?" Life is short, and death is sure. The most important issue for any human being concerns where they will spend eternity. There is a wonderful and joyous and bright future for every believer in Jesus, because we will be with Him one day. He said, "I go to prepare a place for you, that where I am you may be also." And what a wonderful place it will be!

There will be no night there.

No more sorrow or care.

No crying or weeping, with Jesus over there.

Listen to this tremendous verse from Rev. 21:4, "And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes: and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away." A lot of times we will hear said about a young person who is particularly gifted in some way, or who seems to have a good head on their shoulders at an early age in life: “This person sure has a bright future, don’t they?” But no matter how old you are and no matter what are your gifts or abilities, if you are free from your sins, you have a very bright future indeed because you will be with Jesus one day. And when that day comes, you will say with everyone else who is there that whatever sorrows God permitted to come into your life that they were as nothing compared to the happiness and bliss that is now yours in heaven with God.

He has made us free from sin and servants to God. Again the word servant means slave. And again the French got it right in their translation of the Bible. They used the French word for slave in this verse, and not the French word for servant. If God has made you free from sin, then you are a slave to God. When you came to Jesus, you gave up your rights. You will find that He is a good Master, and that it’s much better to be free from sin and a slave to God, than it is to be a slave to sin yet free from God. But that is the choice. You cannot hang onto your own life and serve God at the same time. Whatever is your profession, you must do it because it’s what He has worked out for you, and you must do it as unto Him because you are His slave. "Whatsoever you do in word or deed, do as unto the Lord and not unto men."

Rom. 6:23 is one of those great verses in the Bible that declares the gospel so very clearly and concisely; John 3:16 is another. They are important passages to memorize and to know, because at any time you may have the chance to share the gospel with someone; and the next time that chance comes you won’t need to page through many different parts of scripture. You will be able to tell someone very clearly about salvation by using just one verse from the Bible, and this is one that you might use. This verse tells why a person needs to be saved: because of sin. It tells a very important aspect of salvation: that it’s a gift. It tells who gives salvation: Jesus Christ. And it tells how long salvation will last: for eternity. Rom. 6:23 says, "For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord."

"The wages of sin" speaks of what someone earns, that is, what they deserve because of their sins. When you work for someone, you expect to be given the wages that you have earned. Anything less would be an injustice. If you have sinned, and you have because all have sinned and come short of the glory of God, then you have earned and you deserve punishment for your sins. Notice the punishment for sin that is mentioned here is death. This is not talking about physical death; it’s talking about spiritual death, which is eternal separation from God. The worst thing that can happen to a person is to be eternally separated from God. Jesus said, "What shall it profit a man should he gain the whole world but lose his own soul?" Because of your sins, you have gained and you have earned the loss of your soul.

But God, who is rich in mercy, conceived of a method by which you can be saved. Instead of suffering what you deserve, eternal death; you can inherit eternal life. Instead of giving you what you have earned, God wants to give you what you have not and can not earn. Notice that eternal life is called a gift. A gift is something that someone gives because they care about you, because they want to enrich your life with what they give you. Eternal life is a gift. When someone gives you a gift, you do nothing to earn it, because it’s a gift. If you paid for it, it would not be a gift. The person giving the gift is the one who paid for it. God paid dearly for the gift of eternal life with His life and with His blood. "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son..."

One characteristic of a gift is that someone else pays for it. You don’t earn it or pay for it: they do, because it’s a gift. Another characteristic of a gift is the fact that after a gift is purchased and then offered to someone, the gift does not become the possession of someone until they receive or accept the gift. For example, if a man purchased the gift of a ring for a woman and offered her the gift, it is within the rights and authority of the woman to reject the gift. But if she does not accept it, the ring is not hers. That’s true of any gift. A gift can be rejected or refused.

Eternal life is a gift. God has already paid for it by sending His Son to die for our sins. There is nothing that you can do to pay for it, because He has already paid for it. God offers you the gift of eternal life, but it does not become yours until you accept it and receive it from Him. Rom. 6:23 makes it very clear who is the source of eternal life. It says, "the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." Jesus Christ gives eternal life because He paid for it. As a matter of fact, He is eternal life. You do not obtain eternal life from your own efforts, you do not obtain eternal life from some other human, and you do not obtain eternal life from a religion or a religious organization or a church of any kind. You obtain eternal life from Jesus Christ Himself. Anyone who comes to Jesus for the forgiveness of sins will find eternal life. Since Jesus is everywhere, the spiritual experience of finding freedom from sin and eternal life in Jesus can take place anywhere. You don’t have to make a trip to the Holy Land, and you don’t have to be in a church building. You can meet Christ right where you are.

If anyone ever comes to you and says, “What must I do to be saved?” Hopefully, you will answer the same way that the disciples did and say; "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved." And then maybe you will also turn to Rom. 6:23 to help explain some of the important details of salvation: 1. We need salvation because we are sinners. 2. Salvation is a gift from God and we cannot earn it. 3. Jesus is the one who gives salvation: no church or religion gives salvation, only Jesus.

There is an old hymn that says it very well. I remember singing it for the first time in a little church building in California in 1968. The chorus goes:

Jesus paid it all. All to Him I owe.

Sin had left a crimson stain. He washed it white as snow.

In Romans Chapter 7 Paul makes an emphasis on the fact that those who belong to Christ are free from the law. Jesus sets us free from sin, and part of being set free from sin is to be set free from the law. An example of the relationship between the law and sin is found in Romans chapter 7. Rom. 7:1 says, "Know you not brothers, for I speak to them that know the law, how that the law has dominion over a man as long as he lives?"

Paul has already told us in Romans Chapter 6 that God identifies believers with the death of Christ, and now in Romans Chapter 7 he tells us that the death of Christ sets us free from the law as well as from sin. This is not a flattering picture of the law that is given. It says "the law has dominion over a man...". A similar phrase was used in Rom. 6:14 where it says, "Sin shall not have dominion over you...". The word dominion in both verses comes from the same word as the word "Lord". The law ‘lords it over a man’ as long as the man lives. If you live under the law, you have a weight on your shoulders that you will not possibly be able to bear. It’s not a good thing to live under such a burden and such an obligation, because it’s a burden and an obligation that no person can keep. We are not only set free from sin when we come to Christ, we are also set free from the burden and obligation of keeping the law by our own strength. Jesus fulfilled the law for us. Be careful of who you listen to and who you accept as a teacher about things from God. There are many who claim to be Christian, but who present the Bible under the terms of the law. They are binding people with burdens that they themselves are not able to bear. Jesus said, "Learn of me, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light."

Marriage is used as an example of what it takes to become free from the law. Evidently Paul used marriage as an example because marriage itself is part of the law. Marriage is not a sacrament of the church. Marriage began long before the church was established. Marriage began in the Garden of Eden, and was emphasized in many of the requirements of the law. The basic idea of marriage has always been the same, and you can go back to the book of Genesis, the book of beginnings, and find the basic concepts for marriage. God created humans as male and female, and God created the natural attraction between the male and female, and God designed sex. He was the first to think of it because He designed it. An important part of the design was supposed to be that male and female would bond and unite, and then live as companions and lovers for the rest of their lives. That’s the ideal to strive for and to hope for. That should be your plan and your purpose when you enter into marriage.

As with other teachings of the Bible, there is practical evidence that supports the validity and applicability of the Word of God. If more people of the world valued and honored marriage as it was meant by God to be honored, just think of the problems that plague mankind that would be solved overnight. All venereal disease, including aids, would disappear from the earth. Abortion would no longer be an issue. There would be few or no unwed mothers or single parents. There would be vast numbers of people who would no longer depend upon public assistance. There would be thousands of children who would be spared the emotional distress of growing up in a home in which the marriage of the parents disintegrated. People in society overall would be better adjusted and more balanced. They would enter into adult life prepared for it, instead of having to spend half of their adult life recovering from their childhood turmoil. If people honored marriage, there would be no adultery and the associated guilt. There would be no love triangles or the violence that results from them. If people honored marriage the way that the Word of God honors it, the quality of life for society as a whole would improve dramatically.

But we know that with most things the ideal is often different than the reality. It takes two people to make a marriage work, but it only takes one to destroy a marriage. Even Jesus when He taught to those who were under the law, said that adultery was an understandable justification for divorce. I Cor. Chapter 7 implies that desertion or violence are also justifiable reasons for divorce. Someone who has been divorced is not a worse person or a less spiritual person than someone who has not been. Even this passage in Romans Chapter 7 equates marriage to the law, and then goes on to emphasize that we are no longer under the law. Of course, the passage in Romans Chapter 7 is just an example. It’s not a teaching on marriage at all, but it’s a teaching about the relationship of the believer to the law.

Rom. 7:2-4 says, "For the woman which has a husband is bound by the law to her husband as long as he lives; but if the husband be dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband. So then if while her husband lives, she be married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress: but if her husband be dead, she is free from that law; so that she is no adulteress, though she be married to another man. Wherefore, my brothers, you also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that you should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God."

Christ is our hero. He is the One that we desire to honor and to praise. The world has its heroes, but for the Christian we know that there is none greater than Jesus. For those who have received the gift of eternal life, we have much for which to be thankful to Jesus. Not only are we free from the guilt of our sins, not only do we have the promise of eternal life, but we also are set free from the obligations of the law. One of the greatest failures of the Christians of our day is to teach law instead of grace: to fail to understand the difference between the law and the spirit. Next time we will continue this wonderful theme in Romans Chapter 7 that teaches us that we are now dead to the law, but alive unto Christ.

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