But *now*, having got your freedom from sin, and having become bondmen to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end eternal life.
Romans 6 answers the charge that grace makes people careless about sin. But what does it mean to be "set free from sin," and why does that freedom lead into service?
(The ESV says "sanctification" where the older translation says "fruit unto holiness." The writers quoted below use the older wording.)
Many take "set free from sin" to mean the sinful nature is gone. One writer marks out what the freedom covers and what it does not:
"Free from sin" does not mean free from the old nature, as many teach. It means free from the ruling power of the sin that still lives inside. Then comes the contrast: the old state in sin, and the place of deliverance grace has brought the believer into. In the former life, as unsaved slaves of sin, there was an awful fruit, and the end of it is death. But now they are servants of God, freed from sin's awful slavery. Their fruit is different: the fruit of holiness, and the end is eternal life.
Another writer puts it in a phrase: the believer is free "from the slavery, not from conflict" (C. Stanley).
Paul does not describe a person set loose with no master. He moves from one ownership to another, and one commentator explains why there is no third option:
Independence is not possible for a creature. He is a servant of good or of evil. But his natural condition was that of bondage to sin. Grace, then, has delivered him from that. He has gone out from the house of bondage; but it is to meet and to serve the God of his salvation. Redemption has made him His.
Another writer shows what this freedom is for:
Christ sets free the soul that was once the slave of sin. He calls it to stand fast in His liberty and never wear a yoke of bondage again. For there is no middle ground or other alternative. But grace uses this liberty to be so much the more His bondman, free from sin to serve the Lord Christ.
The verse names two things: fruit now, and an end later. One writer keeps both in view and describes the fruit that comes now:
But now we are free from sin — his great theme, as we have seen. Free here means out of bondage, no longer sin's slaves; that alone is the sense of the words here. We have become slaves to God, entirely given up to serve Him, and we have our fruit to holiness. The end is everlasting life. But along the way there is growing in the knowledge of God, and likeness to Him, and separation of heart to Him from all evil, according to what He is.
Another writer traces this fruit to its source. Under sin's control "there was the hatred of holiness, and we were utterly powerless to be holy... But the divine nature delights in holiness, and this is the fruit it produces" (An Outline of Sound Words).
If the change of master is real, then the argument "sin freely, grace covers it" collapses. One commentator draws the conclusion:
This checks the drift toward lawlessness. It silences any argument for such practices, and shows their advocates have no ground to stand on. It is irrational, and thoroughly anti-Christian. Continuing in sin is a denial of Christian standing, and destroys Christian profession. Allowing sin at all clashes with the change of masters that all saints in Christ claim as their own.
Here eternal life stands at the end of the road. Elsewhere Scripture speaks of it as something the believer already holds. One writer shows these are two angles on one gift, not two doctrines:
Everlasting life is here viewed as the end of the wonderful story. In the writings of the Apostle John we find it presented as a present possession of the believer. There is no conflict between these two views of it. What is ours now in its essence will be ours in its full extent when eternity is reached.
Another writer states the same contrast between the two apostles and then guards it carefully:
For Paul the end is everlasting life; for John, "Whoever has the Son has life." I do not mean a difference in doctrine, for there is none, but a difference of aspect and grasp in the Word — one is intrinsic life, the other is condition in result before God.
- Freed — the freedom is from sin's rule, not from its presence; the conflict remains, but the old owner is gone.
- Enslaved — nobody stands masterless; grace takes you out of the house of bondage to make you God's servant.
- Fruitful — the new service bears fruit the old life never had: knowing God better, growing like Him, a heart set apart from evil.
- Consistent — the master has changed, so living in sin denies the standing a Christian claims.
- Finished — the road ends in eternal life; what is ours now in essence will be ours in full in eternity.
For the wages of sin [is] death; but the act of favour of God, eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
This verse closes the chapter by setting a wage beside a gift. One life is what a person has earned; the other is what God hands over free — and the commentators press hard on that difference.
The verse assumes a service relationship. A wage means work has been done for someone. One writer asks whether a person can ever quit that job.
But someone may ask: is man, in his natural condition, a slave of sin? Can he never practise righteousness? Must he always obey this terrible master? This master pays death as wages for all the service his poor, degraded servants give him. Yes. Unless a power greater than his own sets him free, he must serve that merciless tyrant as long as he is in this world. That master's only payment brings him to the grave in disgrace.
Calling death a wage rules out treating it as simply how bodies work.
"The wages of sin is death," a solemn sentence which Adam and countless others have proved in their own bodies. Death is the wages of sin, not the debt of nature. God did not make man to die, but by sin man forfeited his life.
Commentators notice what the sentence does not say. It never claims death is the entire settlement, and it never claims eternal life is the whole of what God gives.
Note carefully how the phrase is built. The Holy Spirit avoids saying that the wages of sin stop at death. Judgment remains, and God appoints it to man just as He appoints death. Together they are the full wages of sin. It would not be safe to say that even eternal life is the whole of God's free gift. As we shall find in Romans 8, and in many other Scriptures, He gives the Holy Spirit to be the believer's portion. Add to that the relationship of a son, and the inheritance that goes with it.
The second half of the verse changes category, not just outcome. A gift has only one possible response.
What a contrast between "wages" and "gift" — wages earned: death, the judgment of God in all its terror. Gift — what can you do with a gift? You cannot buy a gift — then it would be a sale. You cannot earn a gift, or it would be your due. All you can do with a gift is receive it and thank the giver. Sin has forfeited our natural life. But eternal life is God's gift. It cost the atoning sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ.
If God simply waived the wage, the first half of the verse would be empty. One writer points to the cross. There God did not cancel the penalty He had announced. He paid it.
Where was His truth, which had pronounced death on the offender? Where was His majesty, which had been trampled underfoot? Sin called the whole character of God into question. The Lord offers Himself for His Father's glory, according to the counsels of God. His truth is made good. The wages of sin is death. The cross is absolute proof of it. It was the wages of sin paid by the Son of God Himself. No one escaped except through His dying for them — and He was the Son of God.
The closing phrase locates the life. Some older translations read "through Jesus Christ our Lord." One writer argues that the wording matters more than it looks.
This is not just life from another source. It is life of a completely new character and quality. It is not the old failed life restored, but a far higher life — a divine life. Only one life is eternal. The words "in Christ Jesus our Lord" show that its source is a divine Person who has now become man. The wording is "in," not "through," as the older translation has it. And it is "Christ Jesus," not "Jesus Christ." Such differences may look small, but in Scripture they always carry meaning.
The previous verse made eternal life the end of a road of holiness, which could sound like a prize for good conduct. This verse blocks that reading — and one writer turns the phrase around to show how large the gift is.
The end is everlasting life, received in its full result in glory, as it is in God's purpose. But that is the gift of God. The path to it is the path of obedience and holiness, but the thing itself is the gift of God. Death we have earned — it is the wages of sin; but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. It is not merely that eternal life is the gift of God, but that the gift of God is nothing less than eternal life.
- Master. Sin is not a mood but an employer, and no one serves it part-time. Without a rescue greater than himself, a man works for it until the grave.
- Wage. Death is what that work earns, not what nature owes. Judgment still waits beyond it, so death alone is not the full settlement.
- Substitute. God did not cancel the wage; the cross is proof He paid it, and none escape except through the Son who died for them.
- Gift. A gift cannot be bought or deserved, only received with thanks. Eternal life is never the reward for the holy path, though holiness is the path.
- Life. The gift is held in a Person: not the old forfeited life patched up, but divine life in Christ Jesus. And even that is not the whole of what God gives.