The Bible says that everyone’s a slave—either a slave to sin or a slave to righteousness. The question is: Whose slave are you? In this podcast Scott Brown explains that, without Christ, we are slaves to sin, and the wages of this sin is death. Yet, with Christ, we get a gift we don’t deserve—a grace that delivers us from the condemnation of sin and enables us to present our members as slaves to righteousness instead. Having been set free from a bad taskmaster, we are willing slaves to Christ whom we freely obey.
The Bible says everybody's a slave, everybody's in bondage to something or somebody. And Romans 6, 15 through 23, causes us to ask the question, whose slave are you? Because you're gonna serve a slave master. That's what the chapter teaches. But here's the deal.
Every verse in this chapter tells what a wonderful savior we have. What a wonderful slave master he is, and what he does is so good. Now, the theological category of this section of scripture is soteriology, the doctrine of salvation. But the word slave appears in these verses eight times in just this short section. So the big thing to ask is, who slaved you and what does that mean for your life now and for all eternity.
And the whole idea here is what it means to be under law or under grace. The Christian is under a cascade of grace and that means that his slavery is a delight. And the Christian loves his new slave master, is loyal to his slave master, loves the doctrine of his new slave master, because his new master has set him free from the bondage of sin, set free from a bad task master, Pharaoh, figuratively, and then brought into a new household in which he is a slave. And grace delivers from the condemnation of sin and introduces the believer into a flow of grace. Jesus said, I'm the vine and you're the branches.
I'm feeding you. And that's the whole thing. And sin does not have dominion over the believer. Now this is not cheap grace. What is cheap grace?
Dietrich Bonhoeffer talked about cheap grace in his book, the cost of discipleship. Cheap grace is grace that doesn't change the sinner's life. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship. But that's this kind of discipleship, this kind of slavery that the Apostle Paul is speaking of here, makes it very clear that when you become a Christian, you begin to present yourselves to Him as a slave to obey. Instead of presenting the members of your body, your eyes, your ears, your mouth, your feet, everything, Instead of presenting your members to a bad slave master, you're presenting yourselves to Jesus Christ, who is such a good slave master.
And the startling reality of this kind of slavery is found in verse 19. For just as you presented your members as slaves of uncleanness and of lewdness, leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves of righteousness for holiness." That's what he's saying. Something changed. Now you present the members of your body as slaves to righteousness. But The chapter ends with such a remarkable summary, For the wages of sin is death, But the gift of God is eternal life, In Jesus Christ our Lord.
This is the summary of the whole chapter. But here's what's so remarkable about this last verse. There are two things that he's talking about. Wages and a gift. The wages of sin is death.
In other words, we get the wages we deserve, but in Jesus Christ we get a gift. We get what we don't deserve. And what we have with this new master is a better master, a more forgiving master, a kinder master, and we are slaves. We have been changed, and there's nothing that we can do about it. There's nothing, no one that can snatch you out of your master's hand.
He bought you and he's not selling you. This is the gift of grace and this is why it's so important for everybody to know whose slave they are. A slave unto death or a slave unto life. What a blessing it is to have a new master. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever.
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