The New Benefits in Messiah
6: 17-23
The new benefits in Messiah DIG: Paul has said that Yeshua came into the world so that our sins could be forgiven and we could be reconciled to YHVH. So why shouldn’t believers keep on sinning? How does offering yourself to someone or something in obedience make you a slave to that person or thing? Give some examples. How does slavery to Messiah bring freedom from your [sin nature]? What are some of the consequences of being a slave to sin? What are the benefits of being a slave to righteousness?
REFLECT: Why do you think people choose to be slaves to their [sin nature] rather than righteousness? What are the long term effects of choosing to continue a lifestyle of sin? What are some ways you can begin each day focusing on the victory Yeshua has given you rather than the defeat the enemy wants you to have? What bad habits do you need to address? What changes do you need to make to lead a godly lifestyle? How do Paul’s words here challenge your attitude toward the ongoing battle with your [sin nature]?
God’s purpose in redeeming us from sin is not to give us the freedom to do as we please, but the freedom to do as He pleases, which is to live righteously.
Paul here explains and applies the principle he has just stated in 6:16, namely, that a person is either a slave to the sin of Satan or the of God. In doing so, he contrasts the three different aspects of those two areas of righteousness slavery: their position, their practice and their promise.
Their position (6:17-18): The Ruach Ha’Kodesh reminded Paul of what the grace of God had already accomplished in the lives of his readers, and he burst forth in praise. Formerly, Paul says, they were once slaves to their [sin nature], but no more. Were translates an imperfect Greek tense, signifying an ongoing reality. In other words, the unregenerate person is under the continual, unbroken slavery to their [sin nature]. That is the universal position of the lost, with no exceptions. No matter how outwardly moral, upright, or benevolent an unsaved person’s life may be, all that he thinks, says, and does, comes from a proud, sinful, ungodly heart. Quoting from Psalm 14, Paul had already made that truth clear: There is no one righteous, not even one! No one understands, no one seeks God, all have turned away and at the same time become useless; there is no one who shows kindness, not a single one (Romans 3:10-12)!
That Paul was not speaking about merely outward righteousness is made clear from his declaration that his readers had obeyed from their heart the pattern of teaching to which they were exposed; and after you had been set free from your [sin nature], you became enslaved to righteousness (6:17-18). Genuine faith is not only in God’s Son, but in God’s truth. Yeshua said: I AM the Way – and the Truth and the Life; no one comes to the Father except through Me (John 14:6). Paul had confidence in the salvation of his readers in the church at Rome because they obeyed from their heart the pattern of teaching to which they were exposed. No believer, of course, comprehends all of God’s truth. Even the most mature and faithful believer only begins to understand the riches of God’s Word in this present life. But the desire to know and obey God’s truth is one of the surest marks of genuine salvation.167
Their practice (6:19): It is difficult to put divine principles and truths into terms that finite human minds can comprehend. In saying: I am speaking in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh (6:19a NASB), Paul meant that the analogy of masters and slaves was used as an accommodation to our humanity. Here, Paul changes the focus from position to practice, encouraging us to make our living correspond to our new divine natures. Although it is still possible for us to sin, we are no longer bound by sin. Now we are free not to sin, and should exercise our divinely-provided ability in obedience to our new Lord and Master.
Before salvation, believers were like the rest of fallen humanity, having no other desire or ability but to follow our own natural bent: You used to offer your various parts [of your body] as slaves to impurity and lawlessness, which led to more lawlessness, which is one of the purposes of the Torah, which is our blueprint for living (see the commentary on Deuteronomy, to see link click Bk – The Ten Words). But now, Paul declares, “Since you have been freed from the marketplace of sin, offer your various parts as slaves to righteousness, which leads to being made holy, set apart for God” (6:19). As believers, however, now we have a choice to sin, or not to sin. Before salvation, however, we were like brute beasts, and sinning was our natural state. Sinning, for us, was as easy as falling off a log.168
Their promise (6:20-22): Each course of action has its own set of consequences. For when you were slaves of your old [sin nature], you were free in relationship to righteousness. That is, they have no connection to righteousness; it can make no demands on them since they possess neither the desire nor the ability to meet its requirements. They are controlled and ruled by sin, the master they are bound to serve. But what benefit did you derive from the things of which you are now ashamed? One of the marks of true salvation is a sense of being ashamed of one’s life before coming to Messiah. The end result of those things was death, the second death (see the commentary on Revelation Fp – The Lake of Fire is the Second Death), which is spiritual death and eternal torment in hell (6:20-21).169
The bondage to the [sin nature] only leads to the unsaved going deeper into slavery so that it becomes more and more difficult to do what is right. The prodigal son is an example of this (see the commentary on The Life of Christ Hu – The Parable of the Lost Son and His Jealous Brother). When he was at home, he wanted his freedom, so he left home to find himself and enjoy himself. But his rebellion only led him deeper into slavery. He was the slave of wrong desires, then the slave of wrong deeds, and finally became a literal slave when he had to take care of the pigs. He wanted to find himself . . . but he lost himself! What he thought was freedom turned out to be the worst kind of slavery. It was only when he returned home and yielded to his father that he found true freedom.170
However, now, freed from your [sin nature] and enslaved to God, you do get the benefit – it consists in being made holy, or set apart for God, and its end result is eternal life (6:22). In salvation, YHVH not only frees us from sin’s ultimate penalty, but also frees us from its present tyranny. Freed from our [sin nature] does not mean that we are no longer capable of sinning, but that we are no longer enslaved to it, we are no longer its helpless subject. Obviously, some believers are more faithful and obedient than others, but we are equally freed from our [sin nature] and equally enslaved to God, equally set apart for God and equally granted eternal life.171
This is part of the Romans Road to salvation (6:23): This is a way of explaining the Good News of salvation using verses from the book of Romans. It is a simple yet powerful method of explaining why we need salvation, how God provided salvation, how we can receive salvation, and what are the results of salvation. The beginning of the Romans Road is for all have sinned and come short of earning the glory of God’s praise (3:23).
Then we read: For the wages of your [sin nature] is death (6:23a). This is the second leg of our journey on the Romans Road to salvation. It teaches us about the consequences of sin: For the wages of your [sin nature] is death (6:23a). The wages of work is money, but the wages of sin is death. In other words, what I earn – the penalty, the punishment of sin – is death. Death is separation. The Bible speaks of two kinds of death that is two kinds of separation. The first death is separation of the body and the soul. If I were to die right now my body would fall to the floor, but my soul, the real me, would go somewhere else. But the Bible speaks of another death, one it calls the second death. This is separation of the soul from God. Now, the penalty of sin is death, spiritual death, and separation from the LORD. To put it simply – hell. All this is really bad news. But there is good news.
Dear Heavenly Father, How grateful I am to You for loving each of Your children so much that You willingly paid the very painful and costly debt of my sin by Your death on the cross as the sacrificial lamb (John 1:29) dying in my place; thereby giving me your righteousness so that I may enter holy heaven. He made the One who knew no sin to become a sin offering on our behalf, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God (Second Corinthians 5:21). Yet my heart is very heavy for those of my family and friends who know all about You and the mighty things you have done. They are quite willing for You to save them and take them to heaven – but they don’t realize that lip service is not love.
Please open their eyes to see the joy of submitting to you as their Lord. Then You will be their Savior. Please let them realize the big difference between mere head knowledge and joyful heart love. Thank You for working in their lives so they too will become Your child and will call you Lord. For if you confess with your mouth that Yeshua is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart it is believed for righteousness, and with the mouth it is confessed for salvation. For the Scripture says, “Whoever trusts in Him will not be put to shame” (Romans 10:9-11). I love You dear Father -my Lord and Savior and I delight in telling others about You! In Yeshua’s holy name and power of His resurrection. Amen
The third verse on the Romans Road to salvation picks up where Romans 6:23a left off:
But eternal life (see the commentary on The Life of Christ Ms – The Eternal Security of the Believer) is what one receives as a free gift, not a wage or something that can be earned from God, in union with the Messiah Yeshua, our Lord (6:23b). Romans 5:8 declares: But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. We were spiritually dead and unable to make the first move toward God because we inherited Adam’s [sin nature] that rebelled and separated us from Him. So, God made the first move toward us by sending His one-and-only Son to die in our place for the payment for our sins. We stand before the Son of God, guilty of sin, and facing a death penalty. But Yeshua, as judge (John 5:27), comes down from behind the seat of judgment, takes off His judicial robe and stands beside us. It is there that He says to us, “I will take your place. I will die for you.” And if you were the only person in the world, He still would have died for you. The penalty for sin is death, but Messiah died and paid for sin so we do not have to go to hell. Messiah’s resurrection proves that God accepted Yeshua’s death as the payment for our sins. And since we can do no works to gain our salvation, we can do no works to lose our salvation.
Life lesson: Before we trust in Messiah’s power and presence in our lives, our [sin nature] and sinful habits exercise power over us. Our efforts to control them are largely ineffective. Whether or not we fight, we’re in a losing battle. Our [sin nature] controls us. When we accept Messiah, however, the rules change. Our [sin nature] and sinful habits no longer have power, though they relentlessly seek to maintain influence over us and gain our permission to continue their destructive work. Paul tells us that before we knew Yeshua, we were slaves to our [sin nature]. But Messiah has purchased us and given us our freedom. We now have a choice, and by the power of the Ruach Ha’Kodesh can say “No!” to our [sin nature] and experience the power of overcoming it and sinful habits.172
Dear Heavenly Father, Praise You for greatly loving Your children (John 1:12) and living in them to give them the power to conquer any sin. Your Word says: No temptation has taken hold of you except what is common to mankind. But God is faithful – He will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you can handle. But with the temptation He will also provide a way of escape, so you will be able to endure it (First Corinthians 10:13). Praise You that the reason Your children can always win against any temptation is because they have Your all powerful Holy Spirit living within them to fight the battle. I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper so He may be with you forever – the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not behold Him or know Him. You know Him, because He abides with you and will be in you (John 14:16-17). You are Awesome! I look forward to praising You for all eternity! In your Yeshua’s holy name and power of resurrection. Amen
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