The Paradox of Christian Freedom

Our God and our Father, we thank you for the sacrifice of your Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Some of us understand that and have by grace come to bow before the wonder of your dealings with us and come to faith in you. Others of us are bystanders at the cross, as it were. We see the event, and we understand something of its significance, but we remain unchanged. In whatever condition we find ourselves this morning, we pray that you will speak through your Word to our hearts and that our lives may be transformed by the power of your Spirit. For it’s in the name of Jesus that we pray. Amen.

Last Sunday morning, when I was introducing the subject of spiritual infancy in 1 Corinthians chapter 3, I said that it was necessary to give something of a background in relationship to the doctrine of salvation. And I spent some time on that—longer than I had actually intended to do. But part of the reason was because I sensed a listening and because I believe that the Word of God struck a chord within the hearts of many. Because of that, I determined that I would return to that theme again this morning.

It is especially fitting in the light of Communion. It is especially fitting in light of the words that we have just read, in terms of our response to the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. And before we come and break bread together as those of us who profess faith in Jesus Christ, we’re going to look together at part of Romans chapter 6.

And as you turn to Romans chapter 6, I would like to read the chapter for you in the J. B. Phillips paraphrase. I suggest that you just open your Bible and that you leave it on your lap, and then that you simply listen as I read.

I think that Phillips here captures really helpfully the essential message that Paul is conveying, or that God is conveying through the apostle Paul. He has just established what it means to be justified by grace through faith, and in light of that, he then asks,

“Now what is our response to be? Shall we sin to our heart’s content and see how far we can exploit the grace of God? What a ghastly thought! We, who have died to sin—how could we live in sin a moment longer? Have you forgotten that all of us who were baptised into Jesus Christ were, by that very action, sharing in his death? We were dead and buried with him in baptism, so that just as he was raised from the dead by that splendid Revelation of the Father’s power so we too might rise to life on a new plane altogether. If we have, as it were, shared his death, let us rise and live our new lives with him! Let us never forget that our old selves died with him on the cross that the tyranny of sin over us might be broken—for a dead man can safely be said to be immune to the power of sin. And if we were dead men with him we can believe that we [also shall] be men newly alive with him. We can be sure that the risen Christ never dies again—death’s power to touch him is finished. He died, because of sin, once: he lives for God for ever. In the same way look upon yourselves as dead to the appeal and power of sin but alive and sensitive to the call of God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

“Do not, then, allow sin to establish any power over your mortal bodies in making you give way to your lusts. Nor hand over your organs to be, as it were, weapons of evil for the devil’s purposes. But, like men rescued from … death, put yourselves in God’s hands as weapons of good for his own purposes. For sin is not meant to be your master—you are no longer living under the Law, but under grace.

“Now, what shall we do? Shall we go on sinning because we have no Law to condemn us any more, but are living under grace? Never! Just think what it would mean. You belong to the power which you choose to obey, whether you choose sin, whose reward is death, or God, obedience to whom means the reward of righteousness. Thank God that you, who were at one time the servants of sin, honestly responded to the impact of Christ’s teaching when you came under its influence. Then, released from the service of sin, you entered the service of righteousness. (I use an everyday illustration because human nature grasps truth more readily that way.)”

And then comes the illustration:

“In the past you voluntarily gave your bodies to the service of vice and wickedness—for the purpose of becoming wicked. So, now, give yourselves to the service of righteousness—for the purpose of becoming really good. For when you were employed by sin you owed no duty to righteousness. Yet what sort of harvest did you reap from those things that today you blush to remember? In the long run those things mean one thing only—death.

“But now that you are employed by God, you owe no duty to sin, and you reap the fruit of being made righteous, while at the end of the road there is life for evermore.

“Sin pays its servants: the wage is death. But God gives to those who serve him: his free gift is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

Let us then give our attention to this before we come around the Lord’s Table this morning.

The essential question which is at the very heart of Romans chapter 6 is asked twice. First, it’s asked in the first verse, and then it is asked again in the fifteenth verse. And in asking it the first time, Phillips paraphrases it quite incredibly when he says, “Shall we sin to our heart’s content and see how far we can exploit the grace of God?” Then he says, “What a ghastly thought! We, who have died to sin—how could we live in sin a moment longer?” “We, who have died to sin—how could we live in sin a moment longer?”

What does that mean? Paul is not suggesting the literal impossibility of sin, for all of us who live in Christ and in Cleveland recognize that we do not score 100 percent on our test, as it were, every day in relationship to God. Paul is not suggesting the literal impossibility of sinfulness, but he is addressing the moral incongruity of sinfulness. It is not literally impossible to sin; it is morally incongruous[K1] to sin. And that is his emphasis.

It is morally incongruous that those who have been set free from that sin which held us captive should then try and manifest our freedom in a life which disregards God, his law, and his purposes for us.

If we have died to sin, if we have been raised to a new life in Christ, how then could ever we claim that the way that we might manifest our transformed life is by simply doing what we want, when we want, with whoever we want[K2]? That goes under the disguise of Christian freedom and is a dreadful notion. There are more people filling their heads with more filth, involved in more bad relationships, involved in the absence of biblical instruction as a result of that mistaken notion than probably any other heresy which sweeps through the conservative evangelical church. There is a great misunderstanding as to the nature of Christian freedom. And the reason for the misunderstanding is because the freedom which is ours in Christ is, in fact, a paradox. And it is to this paradox that Paul addresses himself in response to the question that he sets.

The inspiration for living the Christian life in a way that pleases God, in a way that says goodbye to sin and hello to obedience—the inspiration for it comes not from the fear of what God will do to me but rather comes from gratitude as a result of what God has done for me. And that is why we sang what we sang: “Alas! and did my Savior bleed, and did my Sovereign die?”[1] To deal with what? To deal with the fact of my sin. To deal with the fact that I am a transgressor of the law. To deal with the fact that I am selfish, that I am wicked, that I do not by nature seek God—that there was no possibility of me knowing God, and Christ died upon the cross to deal with that. Therefore, it is morally incongruous that those who have been set free from that sin which held us captive should then try and manifest our freedom in a life which disregards God, his law, and his purposes for us.

Do you remember the story of the boy who, amongst his friends, is being cajoled into activity which he knows to be wrong? And they’re saying to him, “Come on!” and “Let’s go ahead and do this thing!” And inside his heart, he knows that it’s wrong. And they begin to taunt him and to say, “It’s just because you’re a coward!” And he still says he’s not going to do it. And then one boy shouts out, “Ach, it’s just because he’s afraid of what his father will do to him.” And the boy paused and turned and said, “No, it’s not because I’m afraid of what my father might do to me; it is rather because of the fact that I am afraid of what my actions may do to my father.”

And the believer who lives in saying no to sin and yes to righteousness does not live in fear of condemnation but lives out of the fear of the Lord which is the beginning of wisdom,[2] which says, “It is incongruous for me to be involved in this activity. It is not that there isn’t an appeal in my heart.” We dealt with that last time. “It is not that I don’t feel and fancy this. It is that if I succumb to this, I put myself in a position that is diametrically opposed to God’s purposes.”

Now, in the first fourteen verses of the chapter, Paul grounds this exhortation in the basis of their union with Jesus Christ. He says, “Your baptism was a kind of funeral.” And incidentally, there is no special category here for unbaptized believers. Those who continue to believe that they may remain in that condition need to find some other basis for their conviction rather than the plain teaching of Scripture. He assumes baptism. And he says, “Your baptism was akin to being a funeral. When you went down under the water, it was as a picture of having died with Christ. And when you came back up out of the water, it was an illustration of your resurrection.” Volume one of your life, in its sin and in its rebellion, went down under the water, and volume two began as you came up, pictorially so. For in baptism we have pictured what is performed in salvation. [K4]And so our baptism is a graphic illustration of the fact that we have closed volume one and, by God’s grace, we have opened volume two. And the emphasis of Romans 6 is this: if after God’s grace having been at work within our lives we should have opened to a whole new chapter in our experience, is it not then absolutely ridiculous to go back and reread all the chapters in volume one and begin to live as if they were still important to us?

It is union with Christ, then, which provides the basis of his exhortation in the first fourteen verses, and it is the fact that we are “slaves to God,” which you will notice in verse [22], which provides the basis of his exhortation as he reasks the question in verse 15.

The Principle

Now, I’d like to move through this as quickly as I can, and hopefully I state it simply enough for you to be able to follow along. The principle is stated clearly in verse 16: “Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey …?”[3] Let me summarize it in this phrase: you belong to the power you choose to obey. You belong to the power you choose to obey[K5]. If you choose to obey the temptation to lie, you become a slave to lies. If you choose to obey the temptation to habitual behavior, you become enslaved to habitual behavior. And so it goes. You belong to the power you choose to obey.

Paul is addressing two powers. He states them in verse 16: “sin” or “obedience.” “Sin” or
“obedience.” You understand what he’s saying? He’s addressing Christians. He would have had none of the tomfoolery which pervades the late twentieth-century Christian church in trying to assign our predicaments to our heritage almost exclusively—trying to explain that the reason that we are as we are is because of our grandmother and our grandfather and so on, and so you’ve got to be very careful with me, and very tender with me, and very gentle with me. Certainly, we have to be careful and tender and gentle, but we have to be biblical too!

And Paul says, “The reason that you do what you do is because you choose to obey a power. And when you choose to obey that power, you become enslaved to the power”—either enslaved to sin, or, as he’s pointing out here, you become a slave of obedience. It becomes your way of life.

The power that you choose to obey differs, and the decisions lead to different conclusions—still in verse 16. If you choose to obey the power of sin, it leads to death. If you choose to obey obedience, it leads to righteousness. These powers are opposed to one another. They are not friendly competitors; they are violent antagonists. You can cross-reference this with Galatians 5:17. So that we ought not to think that it’s a kind of toss-up which way we’ll go on a daily basis or on an hourly basis, or when temptation comes, we say to ourselves, “Well, it doesn’t really matter if I obey sin in this instance or if I obey obedience.” It matters radically. It matters drastically. It matters not only for us but for our wives, for our employers, for our employees, for our children, for our parents. It matters!

And every day, believer, that you and I live our life, we live in the realm and arena of these choices. And spiritual infancy and spiritual ineffectiveness is directly related to the choices we make. We have been set free to make the right choice. We, by the power of the Spirit within our lives, may choose to do what is right, but we may also, because of the remainder of sin within us, decide to turn our back on the clear call of Scripture.

The next thing we need to say concerning this power is that you can’t be in the service of both at the same time. You can’t be in the service of sin and in the service of obedience at the same time. [K6]You can’t be out with your girlfriend and be in the service of sin and in the service of obedience at the same time. You just can’t do it! And when a believer sins, one of two things will inevitably happen: either they will get down on their knees, and they will repent, and the cloud of sin which mars their enjoyment of their relationship with the Father will be removed, and they will go on; or else they will begin, imperceptibly at first, to shut out the truth of God’s Word, the demands of holiness, the blessings of fellowship, the realities of biblical truth.

And if this morning you are sitting in this congregation and you are willfully sinning—you are facing issues in your life and you are choosing to obey sin—listen, loved ones: get out of it, and get out of it today! Today. Not tomorrow, not when you feel like it, not when the circumstances are conducive, but today! For what you choose to obey is that which you and I belong to. And, loved ones, we reveal where we are by what we do, not by what we say. It will be our actions that reveal the actuality of our condition.

That, then, is the principle. Every slave owner insists on a certain kind of conduct so it will become fairly easy to detect just who belongs to who. For example, if there was a slave owner who had all of his slaves wear red boots with bells on the toes, then all of us walking round the streets of the East Side of Cleveland with the red boots and the bells on the toes could be justifiably said to belong to the slave owner Mr. X. And so, we could break out the illustration from there. In the same way, the Bible makes it perfectly clear what it means to be a slave to sin and what it means to be a slave to God. And it will be in what we do that we reveal our ownership.

F. F. Bruce says, “If a man is not being sanctified”—that is, made holy—then he gives “no reason to [suppose] that he [is] justified.”[4] Now, think that out! If you and I are not being conformed to the image of Jesus Christ, if we are not progressing in holiness, if we are not making headway along the journey, then what reason in the world do we give to ourselves or to anyone else to believe that there has been a life-transforming change take place? On the basis of what do we make that claim? That is the issue here in Romans 6.

The Position

Now, in verse 17, Paul moves from the principle to the believer’s position. And look how encouraging this is: “Thanks be to God,” he says, “that, [al]though you used to be slaves to sin,” volume one, “you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted. [And] you have been set free from sin and [you’ve] become slaves to righteousness,” volume two. A lovely description here of what a Christian is. A Christian is someone who has undergone a great change. A great change! And the reason that this change has been undergone is as a result of God’s activity within their lives.

I’ve told this illustration before, but I can never get away from it when I come to this principle: the story of a lady in our church in Scotland, a lady who had never married, who was very influential in the medical world in Great Britain—very well-known, highly influential in her career, and also a bit of a tearaway in her lifestyle. She had taken a job in another location, and having taken a job in a new location, she had come to faith in Jesus Christ. One of her friends from volume one had come to town and found her and looked her up. She called her on the phone. She said, “Hello, Miriam!” “Hello.” “I thought that we might go to such-and-such a place.” Miriam was kind of awkward about it. She didn’t seem enthusiastic. “Well, don’t you remember how we used to go to such-and-such when you were down in London?” And Miriam was more awkward. And then eventually, the person who was calling said, “You know what? The more I talk to you, this doesn’t sound like the old Miriam to me.” And Miriam said, “That is exactly because it isn’t the old Miriam. It’s the new Miriam.” And the girl on the other end of the phone said, “What do you mean, ‘the new Miriam’?” And then she said, “There has been a remarkable change that has taken place in my life. And therefore, I’m not coming those places. I’m not doing those things.”

Things are different now;
Something happened to me
Since I gave my life to Jesus.
Things are different now,
There’s a change, it must be,
Since I gave my heart to him.

Things I loved before
Have passed away,
And things I love far more
Have come to stay.

Things are different now,
Something happened to me,
When I gave my life to Christ.[5]

That, loved ones, is New Testament Christianity.

And the silly stuff that’s going around, whereby you may just add a religious dimension to your experience in the same way that you might add a chromium-plated tailpipe onto the bottom of your exhaust, which is totally unnecessary but looks fancy and gives an appearance of something that isn’t reality—the notion that Christianity is like a chromium-plated tailpipe, whereby you just continue to go along your own journey and do your own thing, is a lie of the devil. And the reason why we have apparently 35 percent of the United States of America born-again and committed Christians is because so much of the 35 percent simply stuck a fancy tailpipe on the back and continued to do exactly what they did before. And Paul writes Romans 6, and he says, “You better cut that out!” The Christian life is about a radical change[K7].

How did the change come about? It came about as a result of the impact of the gospel. Notice that: “You wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching.” What was the form of teaching? It was the teaching that man is a sinner, that man cannot by his works be brought into the fellowship of God. Therefore, man is up a gum tree, as it were. And as man begins to ponder the eventuality of that, the good news of the provision of Jesus Christ comes along, and man discovers that God in Christ has done for him what he couldn’t do for himself. And as a result of that impinging upon his heart and mind, he repents, he comes in faith, and he recognizes this radical change which has taken place.

The evidence of the change is in obedience. In obedience. “You … obeyed the form of teaching.” There is no way to substantiate from the New Testament the notion which continues to run around the fringes of the church whereby I meet people all the time who say things like this to me: “I have the forgiveness part now, and I’ll be getting the obedience segment later.” Okay? Now, they may not express it in that way, but that is exactly what they’re saying: “I’m into Jesus Christ enough to make sure that I have an insurance policy to heaven, but I don’t want any of his lordship. I don’t want any of his rulership over my life. I don’t want him in charge of anything. I just want to know I’m forgiven. And later on I’ll pick up this segment.”

Loved ones, you can’t get segment one without segment two. The only way we come to know the saviorship of Jesus Christ is by bowing and acknowledging that he is Lord and King over all the earth. Obedience is the evidence of change. Jesus said, “If you love me, you’ll obey my commands.”[6] He also said in Luke chapter 6, “Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and don’t do the things I’m telling you?”[7]

Now, look at what we’re told in verse 18 concerning this position that is ours in Christ. It’s stated negatively, and then it’s stated positively: “You have been set free from sin.” That doesn’t mean sinless perfection. It doesn’t mean freedom from temptation. Rather, what he means is, as Phillips paraphrases it, “[You have been] released from the service of sin.” “You were once in another army. You were discharged from the army as a result of the intervention of another. You took off the old uniform and the old junk, and you trashed it. You got a new uniform, a new commanding officer, and you walked on your way. Therefore, it is incongruous to go back to your old army, to your old uniform, to your old commanding officer, and to try and wear half of that uniform and half of the new uniform.”

Negatively: “You have been released from the service of sin.” Positively: “You have entered the service of righteousness.” “Entered the service of righteousness.” So every day that I wake up, I know that Ephesians 2:8, 9, and 10 is true: it was by grace that I was saved—not of works, lest I would go around boasting about it, but that God in his mercy saved me and planned that I should do good works. And every day you wake up, you may know this for sure: no matter whether you’re employed or unemployed in earthly terms, you and I, in Christ, are in the employment of our commanding officer, and we are slaves to the beauty and loveliness of righteousness.

The only way we come to know the saviorship of Jesus Christ is by bowing and acknowledging that he is Lord and King over all the earth.

The Practice

That then brings us to the practice—the practice of these things. Verse 19: “I put [it] in human terms,” he says. Or, as Phillips paraphrases it so nicely, “I use an everyday illustration because human nature grasps truth more readily that way.” Look at what he says, verse 19 and following: “Before coming to Christ, you used to yield your desires in your bodies and your imagination to impurity and to iniquity. Why did you do this? For two reasons: you did it ’cause you wanted to, and you did it because you liked to.”

“Ah, but,” says somebody, “I became a Christian when I was only six years old, and, you know, I haven’t done this stuff.” Well, if you’ve lived long enough in the Christian life, you’ve lived long enough to know that the mystery and miracle of God’s grace is not only in the fact that God is able to redeem out of that stuff but that he is also able to keep from that stuff. And it is as much a miracle that we have never actualized the sins which rear their ugly heads within our lives, irrespective of when we came to faith in Jesus Christ. The old life was marked by loving and wanting to do these things. The new life is that we give ourselves as “slaves to righteousness.”

Now, you will notice that this is not a suggestion; it is a command. “When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness.” “But,” back in 19, “now your task is to offer your lives in slavery to righteousness that leads to holiness.” Now, I want you to notice again—I can’t say this more strongly—this is not doing something for extra credit. And people speak in such a way as if they’re doing God a favor, as it were, as a result of having lived a pretty good few days, you know: “Yeah. Yeah, I haven’t been doing much bad these days. I’m sure God is really pleased. I think, you know, when I get in his brigade, I’m going to get a few extra badges when I show up this week, because—you know, because I’m getting extra credit.” That’s not it! This isn’t extra credit. This is baseline stuff. This is pass-fail. “Offer your bodies, your temperament, your example, as slaves to righteousness.” In other words, “Live in accordance with what you are.”

Can I ask you this morning: Are you living in accordance with what you profess to be? Are you? Does the use of your time and my time concur with our profession of the radical change brought about by Jesus Christ? Does the use of our talents and our resources and our gifts concur with our profession of faith in Jesus Christ? Does our attitude towards money concur with our profession in Jesus Christ? Do our relationships within our home, within our single experience, concur with this? Are we living out the reality of what we are?

Someone says, “Well, you know, I’m a professing Christian, but I’m living a life that is impure at the moment.” Well, that was the last moment. Now that you’ve heard the Word of God, you presumably are going to be done with that, aren’t you? The individual who professes faith in Jesus Christ and lives a life that denies it is at best a walking contradiction and is at worst totally unregenerate. [K9]And incidentally, there is hope for both. If we are a backslider, we may be restored. If we are unforgiven and unregenerate, we may be transformed by the power of Jesus Christ.

Sin, it pays wages, and the wages are death. God gives gifts, and the gift is eternal life.

Does habitual behavior have you in its grasp this morning? Have you bought into the idea that what you need is just a little bit of cuddling, a little bit of soft music, a little bit of getting your shoulders rubbed, and that would make you the Christian you’re supposed to be? Let me quote to you Martyn Lloyd-Jones. He says, “Holiness is a question of service, not a feeling. We tend to be always feeling our own pulses and talking about ourselves and our moods. Forget yourself and your temporary troubles and ills for the moment.”[8] That doesn’t sound like late twentieth century, does it? No, ’cause it was early twentieth century! Late twentieth century is “Be preoccupied with yourself and your moods and your feelings and your troubles. Think about them all the time! Talk about them to everyone who will listen! Be completely preoccupied by all this stuff! Buy books in the Christian bookstore on it. Get tapes about it. Focus on it. Find reasons for it. Trace the labyrinths and passages all the way back to the year dot and explain yourself.” “No,” Lloyd-Jones says, “fight in the army. What most of us need is not a clinic but a gymnasium, stirring us up to action.”[9] We need exercise and diligence, not rest and soft music. (The last part’s mine; the earlier part, the good part, is Lloyd-Jones. You said, “It lost something of its grandeur there in the final two sentences.”)

Our time has gone. We want to come to Communion.

The Process

What is the process? The process is this. “Prior to Christ,” he says, “think about it: What return did you get on your investment? When you invested your body, your mind, and your spirit in the service of sin, what return did you get?” He says, “There’s three things that were true of that pre-converted experience: number one, it was profitless; number two, it was shameful.” It may not have been shameful at the time, but it’s shameful today. And we ought to beware if we find ourselves going back to fiddle around with forgiven sin—back to our old jokes, back to our old friends, back to our old ideas. It’s incongruous! “It was profitless, it was shameful, and it was deathly. But now,” he says, “in Christ, all this has been completely changed.”

And Phillips puts it as perfectly as any: “But now that you are employed by God, you owe no duty to sin, and you reap the fruit of being made righteous[ness], while at the end of the road there is life for evermore.” If you’re a believer this morning, every time that you or I choose to sin, it is because we listen to the voice of temptation, which we do not need to heed. Holiness is devotion of heart and of mind and of will.[K10] Sin, it pays wages, and the wages are death. God gives gifts, and the gift is eternal life.

“Now what is our response to be? Shall we sin to our heart’s content and see how far we can exploit the grace of God? What a ghastly thought! We, who have died to sin—how could we live in sin a moment longer?”

[1] Isaac Watts, “Alas! and Did My Savior Bleed?” (1707).

[2] See Psalm 111:10; Proverbs 1:7; 9:10.

[3] Romans 6:16 (NIV 1984).

[4] F. F. Bruce, The Epistle of Paul to the Romans, The Tyndale New Testament Commentaries (Leicester, England: Inter-Varsity, 1983), 142–43.

[5] Stanton W. Gavitt, “Things Are Different Now” (1941). Lyrics lightly altered.

[6] John 14:15 (paraphrased).

[7] Luke 6:46 (paraphrased).

[8] D. M. Lloyd-Jones, Romans: An Exposition of Chapter 6; The New Man (London: Banner of Truth, 1972), 174–75. Paraphrased.

[9] Lloyd-Jones, 174. Paraphrased.

[K1] “It is not literally impossible to sin; it is morally incongruous to sin.”

[K2] “If we have died to sin, if we have been raised to a new life in Christ, how then could ever we claim that the way that we might manifest our transformed life is by simply doing what we want, when we want, with whoever we want?”

[K4] “In baptism we have pictured what is performed in salvation.”

[K5] “You belong to the power you choose to obey.”

[K6] “You can’t be in the service of sin and in the service of obedience at the same time.”

[K7] “The Christian life is about a radical change.”

[K9] “The individual who professes faith in Jesus Christ and lives a life that denies it is at best a walking contradiction and is at worst totally unregenerate.”

[K10] “Holiness is devotion of heart and of mind and of will.”