Romans 6:18

Being, then, made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness.

The apostle finds it necessary once more to obviate a possible misunderstanding, a false conclusion which might be made from the statement that we are under grace. What then? What is the situation? How do matters stand? Shall we sin since we are not under the Law, but under grace, because the rule of the Law does not extend over us, but only the pleasant reign of grace? Are we to commit sin because our life is not governed by statutes in the Old Testament sense of the term, but inspired by the sense of what we owe to the free pardoning mercy of God? Shall we transgress the holy will of God because we are given the assurance that God justifies the ungodly through the merits of Christ? And again comes the apostle's horrified: By no means! And he substantiates his emphatic rejection of the idea: Do you not know that you are slaves unto obedience to him to whom you offer yourselves as slaves, whether it be as slaves of sin unto death or as servants of obedience unto righteousness? If a person voluntarily places himself under the dominion of another and of his own free will yields him his obedience, he enters into slavery; he no longer has liberty to do as he pleases, but is obliged to do what his lord demands of him; and he is bound to this lord, he cannot leave him at his own pleasure. This general rule Paul now applies in the case of sinners and in the case of believers. He that has yielded himself to the service of sin is the slave of sin; he is under its power, in its bondage. He may hate his master, his reason and conscience may argue and protest against it, but the subjection is continued and absolute. And the end of this slavery is death, spiritual and eternal death: Romans 6:23; John 8:34. On the other hand, if a person becomes the servant of obedience to God unto righteousness, if he gives to God that obedience which is due to Him and should properly be rendered by all men. if he performs in all things what the obedience of God demands of him, then the result will be a righteousness of life, a conformity to the will, to the image of God: the habit of an upright life, approved by God.

The apostle feels certain, he assumes in the case of all his readers, that they have entered into the obedience of God and are living in that state of righteousness which is well pleasing to the Lord. And therefore his heart overflows with a doxology: Thanks be to God that you were the servants of sin, that that condition of shameful slavery is past forever, but have now given full obedience from the heart to the form of doctrine which was delivered to you, or rather, unto which you were delivered, to emphasize the fact that there was no merit on their part. In conversion the believers renounce the bondage of sin. and they give full and free obedience, they yield themselves in voluntary and sincere submission to the type of doctrine to which they have been delivered, to the evangelical truth in that form as it appeared in the preaching of Paul, the form which the preaching in the Christian Church should exhibit at all times. The obedience to the Christian doctrine is nothing but faith, for faith is obedience to the Gospel and therefore to Christ. And this voluntary obedience of faith is a gift of God, for which all thanks and praise must be given to God, and to Him alone. And now the apostle draws the conclusion from the preceding: But being set free, being emancipated from sin, you have become servants to righteousness. Sin was a despotic master, a slave-driver. But by the grace of God the believers are set free from sin's galling tyranny and at the same time made subject to righteousness, servants of righteousness. They are now committed to righteousness, their whole life is devoted to righteousness, the righteousness of life becomes, as it were, their second nature. And this subjection of the Christians to God and to the obedience of faith, which results in true sanctification, is the essence of true spiritual liberty. John 8:36.