Romans 6:22
But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the fruit you reap leads to holiness, and the outcome is eternal life.
But now
This phrase marks a significant transition from the past to the present. In the context of Romans, Paul often contrasts the believer's former life of sin with their new life in Christ. The Greek word "νυνί" (nyni) emphasizes the present reality of the believer's transformation. Historically, this reflects the early Christian understanding of conversion as a definitive break from the past, a theme that resonates throughout Paul's letters.

that you have been set free from sin
The Greek word for "set free" is "ἐλευθερόω" (eleutheroō), which means to liberate or release. This liberation is not just a legal declaration but a transformative act of God. In the historical context of Roman slavery, freedom was a profound change in status, symbolizing a complete shift in identity and allegiance. Spiritually, this freedom from sin signifies the believer's release from the power and penalty of sin, a core tenet of Christian doctrine.

and have become slaves to God
The term "slaves" here is "δοῦλοι" (douloi) in Greek, which can also be translated as "servants." This paradoxical language highlights the Christian concept of freedom through submission to God. In the Roman world, slavery was a common institution, and Paul uses this metaphor to illustrate total devotion and obedience to God. This servitude is not oppressive but liberating, as it aligns the believer with God's will and purpose.

the fruit you reap
"Fruit" in Greek is "καρπός" (karpos), often used metaphorically in the New Testament to describe the visible outcomes of one's life. In agricultural terms, fruit is the result of growth and cultivation. Spiritually, it represents the evidence of a transformed life, characterized by virtues and actions that reflect God's character. This imagery would resonate with Paul's audience, familiar with the agrarian society of the time.

leads to holiness
The Greek word for "holiness" is "ἁγιασμός" (hagiasmos), which denotes sanctification or being set apart for God. Holiness is both a positional status and a progressive journey for the believer. Historically, holiness was a central theme in Jewish religious life, and Paul extends this concept to the Christian experience, emphasizing moral and spiritual purity as the natural outcome of a life dedicated to God.

and the outcome is eternal life
"Eternal life" in Greek is "ζωὴ αἰώνιος" (zōē aiōnios), signifying not just unending existence but a quality of life that begins now and continues forever. This life is characterized by a relationship with God, marked by peace, joy, and fulfillment. In the scriptural context, eternal life is the ultimate promise and hope for believers, contrasting with the death that results from sin. It is the culmination of God's redemptive work through Christ, offering assurance and motivation for holy living.

Persons / Places / Events
1. Paul the Apostle
The author of the Book of Romans, Paul was a key figure in the early Christian church, known for his missionary journeys and theological teachings.

2. The Roman Church
The recipients of the letter, the early Christian community in Rome, composed of both Jewish and Gentile believers.

3. Sin
A central theme in Romans, representing the moral failing and separation from God that humanity experiences.

4. God
The ultimate authority and the one to whom believers are now enslaved, in contrast to their former enslavement to sin.

5. Eternal Life
The ultimate outcome and promise for believers who live in holiness and obedience to God.
Teaching Points
Freedom from Sin
Believers are no longer under the dominion of sin. This freedom is not just a release from guilt but an empowerment to live righteously.

Slavery to God
The concept of being a "slave to God" implies total devotion and obedience. This is a willing servitude that brings true freedom and purpose.

Fruit Leading to Holiness
The transformation in a believer's life should produce visible fruit, characterized by holiness. This is an ongoing process of sanctification.

Eternal Life as the Ultimate Goal
Eternal life is not just a future promise but a present reality that begins with a relationship with God. It is the culmination of a life lived in holiness.

The Role of Grace
Grace is the foundation of this transformation. It is by God's grace that we are set free from sin and empowered to live holy lives.
Bible Study Questions
1. How does understanding our freedom from sin change the way we live daily?

2. In what ways can we actively choose to be "slaves to God" in our current circumstances?

3. What are some practical steps we can take to cultivate the "fruit leading to holiness" in our lives?

4. How does the promise of eternal life influence our decisions and priorities today?

5. How can we rely on God's grace to overcome challenges in our pursuit of holiness?
Connections to Other Scriptures
John 8:34-36
Jesus speaks about the truth setting people free, emphasizing the freedom from sin that comes through Him.

Galatians 5:1
Paul discusses the freedom believers have in Christ and the call to stand firm in that freedom.

1 Peter 1:15-16
Peter calls believers to be holy in all their conduct, reflecting the holiness that Romans 6:22 speaks of.

Philippians 1:11
Paul talks about the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, similar to the fruit leading to holiness in Romans 6:22.

John 17:3
Jesus defines eternal life as knowing God and Jesus Christ, which aligns with the outcome mentioned in Romans 6:22.
Everlasting Life, an EducationH. W. Beecher.Romans 6:22
Everlasting Life: its ProgressivenessH. Melvill, B. D.Romans 6:22
Fruit unto HolinessM. Rainsford.Romans 6:22
Fruit unto HolinessJ. Viney.Romans 6:22
Fruit unto HolinessT. Chalmers, D. D.Romans 6:22
Fruitfulness a Christian's GloryT. L. Cuyler.Romans 6:22
God's ServantsM. Rainsford.Romans 6:22
Right! Left! RightJohn Robertson.Romans 6:22
The Believer's EndM. Raisford.Romans 6:22
The Blessed State of BelieversBiblical MuseumRomans 6:22
The Blessedness of BelieversW. Jay.Romans 6:22
The Freedom and Dignity of the ChristianJ. Stratten.Romans 6:22
The Life EverlastingBp. Perowne.Romans 6:22
The Redeemed SoulD. Thomas, D. D.Romans 6:22
The Reign of GraceR.M. Edgar Romans 6:12-23
Servants to ObeyT.F. Lockyer Romans 6:15-23
The Two Services and Their RewardsC.H. Irwin Romans 6:15-23
People
Paul, Romans
Places
Rome
Topics
Age-during, Ages, Benefit, Bondmen, Bondservants, Derive, Enslaved, Eternal, Everlasting, Final, Free, Freed, Freedom, Fruit, Got, Holiness, Holy, Leads, Outcome, Reap, Result, Resulting, Return, Reward, Sanctification, Servants, Sin, Slaves, Tyranny
Dictionary of Bible Themes
Romans 6:22

     2321   Christ, as redeemer
     6647   eternal life, experience
     6663   freedom, of will
     8271   holiness, purpose

Romans 6:12-23

     7449   slavery, spiritual

Romans 6:19-22

     6746   sanctification, means and results

Romans 6:21-23

     5603   wages
     6024   sin, effects of

Romans 6:22-23

     6660   freedom, through Christ

Library
May 6. "Reckon Ye Also Yourselves to be Alive unto God" (Rom. vi. 11).
"Reckon ye also yourselves to be alive unto God" (Rom. vi. 11). Death is but for a moment. Life is forevermore. Live, then, ye children of the resurrection, on His glorious life, more and more abundantly, and the fulness of your life will repel the intrusion of self and sin, and overcome evil with good, and your existence will be, not the dreary repression of your own struggling, but the springing tide of Christ's spontaneous overcoming life. Once in a religious meeting a dear brother gave us a most
Rev. A. B. Simpson—Days of Heaven Upon Earth

November 11. "Reckon Yourselves Dead, Indeed" (Rom. vi. 11).
"Reckon yourselves dead, indeed" (Rom. vi. 11). Our life from the dead is to be followed up by the habit and attitude henceforth which is the logical outcome of all this. "Reckon yourselves dead indeed, unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ, and yield yourselves unto God," not to die over again every day, "but, as those who are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God." Further His resurrection life is given to fit us for "the fellowship of
Rev. A. B. Simpson—Days of Heaven Upon Earth

February 24. "Sin Shall not have Dominion Over You, for Ye are not under the Law, but under Grace" (Rom. vi. 14).
"Sin shall not have dominion over you, for ye are not under the law, but under grace" (Rom. vi. 14). The secret of Moses' failures was this: "The law made nothing perfect, but the bringing in of a better hope did." And this was why his life work also came short of full realization. He saw but entered not the Promised Land. The founder of the law had to be its victim, and his life and death might demonstrate the inability of the law to lead any man into the Promised Land. The very fact, that it was
Rev. A. B. Simpson—Days of Heaven Upon Earth

August 7. "Knowing this that Our Old Man is Crucified" (Rom. vi. 6).
"Knowing this that our old man is crucified" (Rom. vi. 6). It is purely a matter of faith, and faith and sight always differ, so that to your senses it does not seem to be so, but your faith must still reckon it so. This is a very difficult attitude to hold, and only as we thoroughly believe God can we thus reckon upon His Word and His working, but as we do so, faith will convert it into fact, and it will be even so. These two words, "yield" and "reckon," are passwords into the resurrection life.
Rev. A. B. Simpson—Days of Heaven Upon Earth

Sixth Sunday after Trinity Exhortation to Christian Living.
Text: Romans 6, 3-11. 3 Or are ye ignorant that all we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were buried therefore with him through baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life. 5 For if we have become united with him in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection; 6 knowing this, that our old man was crucified with him, that the body of
Martin Luther—Epistle Sermons, Vol. III

Seventh Sunday after Trinity Exhortation to Resist Sin.
Text: Romans 6, 19-23. 19 I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh: for as ye presented your members as servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity, even so now present your members as servants to righteousness unto sanctification. 20 For when ye were servants of sin, ye were free in regard of righteousness. 21 What fruit then had ye at that time in the things whereof ye are now ashamed? for the end of those things is death. 22 But now being made free from
Martin Luther—Epistle Sermons, Vol. III

Address on Easter Eve
"We were buried, therefore, with Him through baptism into death; that like as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we also should walk in newness of life."--ROM. VI. 4. "I delivered unto you, among the first things, that . . . He was buried."--I COR. XV. 3, 4. St. Paul lays extraordinary and, at first sight, inexplicable stress, on the fact of our Lord's Burial. It is certainly strange that, in the second of these two texts, he mentions it as constituting, along with the
J. H. Beibitz—Gloria Crucis

Twentieth Day. Holiness and Liberty.
Being made free from sin, ye became servants of righteousness: now present your members as servants of righteousness unto sanctification. Now being made free from sin, and become servants unto God, ye have your fruit unto sanctification, and the end eternal life.'--Rom. vi. 18, 19, 22. 'Our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus.'--Gal. ii. 4. 'With freedom did Christ set us free: stand fast therefore, and be not entangled again in a yoke of bondage.'--Gal. v. 1. There is no possession more
Andrew Murray—Holy in Christ

Love of Religion, a New Nature.
"If we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him."--Romans vi. 8. To be dead with Christ, is to hate and turn from sin; and to live with Him, is to have our hearts and minds turned towards God and Heaven. To be dead to sin, is to feel a disgust at it. We know what is meant by disgust. Take, for instance, the case of a sick man, when food of a certain kind is presented to him,--and there is no doubt what is meant by disgust. Consider how certain scents, which are too
John Henry Newman—Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VII

'The Form of Teaching'
... Ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you.'--ROMANS vi. 17. There is room for difference of opinion as to what Paul precisely means by 'form' here. The word so rendered appears in English as type, and has a similar variety of meaning. It signifies originally a mark made by pressure or impact; and then, by natural transitions, a mould, or more generally a pattern or example, and then the copy of such an example or pattern, or the cast from such a mould.
Alexander Maclaren—Romans, Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V)

Christ's Resurrection an Image of Our New Life.
(Easter Sunday.) Praise and glory be to God, and peace with all who with joyful hearts greet one another with the cry, The Lord is risen! Amen. TEXT: ROM. vi. 4-8. IT is natural, my friends, that the glorious festival of our Saviour's resurrection should attract the thoughts of believers to a far remote time, and that it should make them rejoice to think of the time when they shall be with Him who, after He had risen from the dead, returned to His and our Father,--a joyful prospect, expressed in
Friedrich Schleiermacher—Selected Sermons of Schleiermacher

Death to Sin through Christ
"Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord."-Romans 6:11. THE connection of this passage will help us to understand its meaning. Near the close of the previous chapter Paul had said, "The law entered that the offence might abound; but where sin abounded, grace did much more abound, that as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness, unto eternal life, by Jesus Christ our Lord." He speaks here of
Charles G. Finney—Sermons on Gospel Themes

Baptism --A Burial
I do not understand Paul to say that if improper persons, such as unbelievers, and hypocrites, and deceivers, are baptized they are baptized into our Lord's death. He says "so many of us," putting himself with the rest of the children of God. He intends such as are entitled to baptism, and come to it with their hearts in a right state. Of them he says, "Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death?" He does not even intend to say that those who were
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 27: 1881

The Doctrines of Grace do not Lead to Sin
No sooner is this doctrine set forth in a clear light than men begin to cavil at it. It is the target for all carnal logic to shoot at. Unrenewed minds never did like it, and they never will; it is so humbling to human pride, making so light of the nobility of human nature. That men are to be saved by divine charity, that they must as condemned criminals receive pardon by the exercise of the royal prerogative, or else perish in their sins, is a teaching which they cannot endure. God alone is exalted
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 29: 1883

Christ's Resurrection and Our Newness of Life
The idea that the grace of God should lead us to licentiousness is utterly loathsome to every Christian man. We cannot endure it. The notion that the doctrines of grace give license to sin, comes from the devil, and we scout it with a detestation more deep than words can express. "How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?" On our first entrance upon a Christian profession, we are met by the ordinance of baptism, which teaches the necessity of purification. Baptism is, in its very
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 37: 1891

Death and Life in Christ
I. THE FACTS REFERRED TO IN THESE FOUR VERSES CONSTITUE THE GLORIOUS GOSPEL WHICH WE PREACH. 1. The first fact here very clearly indicated is that Jesus died. He who was divine, and therefore immortal, bowed his head to death. He whose human nature was alhed to the omnipotence of his divine nature, was pleased voluntarily to submit himself to the sword of death. He who was pure and perfect, and therefore deserved not death, which is the wages of sin, nevertheless condescended for our sake to yield
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 9: 1863

Alive unto God.
(Sixth Sunday after Trinity.) ROMANS vi. 11. "Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord." Every baptised person belongs to God. He is His absolute property, marked with the sign of the great King. As the broad arrow is the mark that certain property belongs to the British Government, so the Cross of Holy Baptism is the sign and pledge that we are God's. Think of that, my brothers, you are not free to choose your own way, your
H. J. Wilmot-Buxton—The Life of Duty, a Year's Plain Sermons, v. 2

Servants of Sin.
(Seventh Sunday after Trinity.) ROMANS vi. 20. "The servants of sin." There is no existence in the world so sad as that of a slave; and there is no slavery so hard as that of sin, no taskmaster so bitter as the devil. There was a tyrant in the old times who ordered one of his subjects to make an iron chain of a certain length, in a given time. The man brought the work, and the tyrant bade him make it longer still. And he continued to add link to link, till at length the cruel taskmaster ordered
H. J. Wilmot-Buxton—The Life of Duty, a Year's Plain Sermons, v. 2

The Parable of the Householder. A Sermon, by Bishop Latimer.
MATTHEW XX.--The kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that was an householder, which went out early in the morning to hire labourers into his vineyard. This parable is written by the evangelist Matthew in the twentieth chapter, and is very dark and hard to be understood; yea, there is no harder piece of scripture written by any evangelist. Therefore it may well be called hard meat; not meat for mowers nor ignorant people, who are not exercised in the word of God. And yet there is no other diversity
John Knox—The Pulpit Of The Reformation, Nos. 1, 2 and 3.

"But if Ye have Bitter Envying and Strife in Your Hearts, Glory Not," &C.
James iii. 14.--"But if ye have bitter envying and strife in your hearts, glory not," &c. It is a common evil of those who hear the gospel, that they are not delivered up to the mould and frame of religion that is holden out in it, but rather bring religion into a mould of their own invention. It was the special commendation of the Romans, that they obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine into which they were delivered, (Rom. vi. 17) that they who were once servants, or slaves of sin, had now
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning

Schleiermacher -- Christ's Resurrection an Image of Our New Life
Friedrich Ernst Daniel Schleiermacher, German theologian and philosopher, was born at Breslau in 1768. He was brought up in a religious home and in 1787 went to the University of Halle, and in 1789 became a Privat-Docent. In 1794 he was ordained and preached successively at Landsberg and Berlin. The literary and philosophical side of his intellect developed itself in sympathy with the Romanticists, but he never lost his passion for religion, a subject on which he published five discurses in 1799.
Grenville Kleiser—The world's great sermons, Volume 3

How Christ is to be Made Use Of, in Reference to the Killing and Crucifying of the Old Man.
Having thus shortly pointed out some things in general, serving to the clearing and opening up the way of our use-making of Christ for sanctification, we come now more particularly to the clearing up of this business. In sanctification we must consider, first, The renewing and changing of our nature and frame; and, next, The washing and purging away of our daily contracted spots. The first of these is commonly divided into two parts, viz. 1st, The mortification, killing, and crucifying of the
John Brown (of Wamphray)—Christ The Way, The Truth, and The Life

Evening Prayer for a Family.
O eternal God and most gracious Father, we thine unworthy servants here assembled, do cast down ourselves at the footstool of thy grace, acknowledging that we have inherited our fathers' corruption, and actually in thought, word, and deed, transgressed all thy holy commandments, so that in us naturally there dwelleth nothing that is good; for our hearts are full of secret pride, anger, impatience, dissembling, lying, lust, vanity, profaneness, distrust, too much love of ourselves and the world, too
Lewis Bayly—The Practice of Piety

Sanctification and Justification.
"Yield your members servants to righteousness unto sanctification." --Rom. vi. 19. Sanctification must remain sanctification. It may not arbitrarily be robbed of its significance, nor be exchanged for something else. It must always signify the making holy of what is unholy or less holy. Care must be taken not to confound sanctification with justification; a common mistake, frequently made by thoughtless Scripture readers. Hence the importance of a thorough understanding of this difference. Being
Abraham Kuyper—The Work of the Holy Spirit

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