Romans 6:12-23 (NRSV)
Read Romans 6:12-23 on biblegateway.com
Verse 12Therefore, do not let sin exercise dominion in your mortal bodies, to make you obey their passions. Verse 13No longer present your members to sin as instruments of wickedness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and present your members to God as instruments of righteousness. Verse 14For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace. Verse 15What then? Should we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! Verse 16Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? Verse 17But thanks be to God that you, having once been slaves of sin, have become obedient from the heart to the form of teaching to which you were entrusted, Verse 18and that you, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness. Verse 19I am speaking in human terms because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to greater and greater iniquity, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness for sanctification. Verse 20When you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. Verse 21So what advantage did you then get from the things of which you now are ashamed? The end of those things is death. Verse 22But now that you have been freed from sin and enslaved to God, the advantage you get is sanctification. The end is eternal life. Verse 23For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Devotion
Bob Dylan sings:
But you’re gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed,
You’re gonna have to serve somebody.
Dylan seems to echo the Apostle Paul when he notes how we are slaves to unrighteousness—chained to doing what is all about me, myself and I. The imagery importantly assumes that slaves generally can’t free themselves. They need someone to redeem them, to set them free from their slavery. And so it is, Paul asserts. We are free because of Christ’s cross and resurrection. But now comes Paul’s almost shocking assertion when he uses the same image to note that we have become slaves of righteousness! Shocking? Yes, but that’s the point! We aren’t to be redeemed from these shackles for as Jesus notes, “My yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Set free from unrighteousness, we are not released to go off on our own. We are instead chained to doing good, doing right, caring for others. Because like Dylan sings, “You’re gonna serve somebody.”
Prayer
God of grace, you free us from ourselves. In that freedom guide and lead us to serve you by loving and caring for others. In Jesus name. Amen.