Fruit for Sanctification as Slaves of Righteousness Obey Your Master
Chapter 4 - 2.4
Paul’s imperative exhortations urge slaves of righteousness to bring forth fruit for sanctification. There is no fruit for sanctification apart from Christ’s righteousness. But with and in Christ, fruit grows from righteousness given. Eternal life is always the outcome for the slave of Christ. Paul writes, “But now after being freed from the [slavery] of sin and after being enslaved to God, you are having your fruit for sanctification, and the outcome is eternal life” (Rom 6:22). Slavery to God and righteousness “looks like” bringing forth “fruit for sanctification” (Rom 6:22), flowing from righteousness given in Christ alone.
Paul exhorts Christians to resist sin (cf. Rom 6:12) and to “present your bodily members [as] slavish to righteousness leading to sanctification” (Rom 6:19). These imperatives derive from the promised outcome of eternal life because the slave to Christ is holy and righteous on account of Christ. Irenaeus remarked about the bodily members in Against Heresies: “In these same members, therefore, in which we used to serve sin, and bring forth fruit unto death, does He wish us to [be obedient] unto righteousness, that we may bring forth fruit unto life.”[1] Irenaeus accurately describes the responsiveness of Christians and how believers are exhorted to righteousness as slaves of God in Christ bringing forth fruit in sanctification.
Slaves of Righteousness
The slave to righteousness is responsive from the heart to God’s grace in Christ. Paul simply states, “But thanks [be] to God, because you were slaves of sin, but you responded from [the] heart to [the] form of teaching into which you were handed over. And, after being freed from the [slavery] of sin, you were enslaved to righteousness” (Rom 6:17-18). Nygren comments, “The situation of the Christian is described very simply by Paul: He is a slave who has changed masters. Formerly he stood under the dominion of sin; now he is set free from sin, but bound in service to righteousness.”[2] Melanchthon wrote of this moral righteousness by imputation:
For although we are righteous, that is, accepted by imputation on account of Christ, it is necessary that virtue also be begun in us––righteousness, that is obedience. Righteousness brings forth virtues, righteous actions. Nevertheless, we must know that we are righteous on account of Christ, our High Priest, that is, accepted by God not on account of the worthiness of our obedience or qualities.[3]
What Melanchthon calls obedience is a response to Christ’s righteousness imputed to the slave of God by grace, and does not originate in any way from the worthiness of the slave.
Franzmann identifies slaves of righteousness as those “liberated from sin and enslaved to righteousness through the word.”[4] The Word is Christ in Baptism, and the Word of the proclamation of the Good News in Christ’s redemption for sinners. “Consequently, faith [comes] from hearing, and hearing through [the] word of Christ/[the] Messiah” (Rom 10:17). Slaves to sin are liberated from the dominion of sin, death, and Satan in the Good News and are bound to righteousness. The Confessions teach, “Faith is bound to yield good fruits.”[5]
Those declared righteous in Christ now serve as slaves to God with thanksgiving and respond with righteous living. For examples of what this entails, one can simply look ahead to the lifestyle Paul lays out in Romans 12-16, Ephesians 4-6, Colossians 3-4 and so forth. To be more specific, consider the fruit of the Spirit laid out in Galatians 5:22-23, “The fruit of the Spirit, however, is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. The Law is not opposed to such things.” Similarly in the Pastorals, God’s virtuous slave to righteousness is explicitly instructed to be kind and patient. Paul writes to Timothy,
And the Lord’s slave must not be quarrelsome, but be kind to all, able to teach, patient when wronged, with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition, if perhaps God may give them repentance leading to the full knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him to do his will. (2 Tim 2:24-26).
Obey Your Master
Paul exhorts believers to obey their master.[6] The one who obeys is responsive to the master. Jesus Christ is the Lord or Master of slaves to righteousness. Slaves to righteousness respond to grace in Christ. As the slave to sin responds to sin, so the slave of God responds to Christ and His righteousness given through faith. Moo writes, “If one is not serving God, then, whether knowingly or not, one is serving sin.”[7] That means spiritual slavery can only be either to sin, death, and Satan, or to God in Christ and his righteousness (cf. Rom 6:15-19).[8] Moo notes, “In verse 19 the apostle turns to the imperative mode to set out the response that believers should make to the transfer of power . . . God has given us a new master, and now we must obey that master.”[9]
When Paul writes of slave-master relationships, his hearers would readily understand. Christians are slaves to God in Christ, and some were also slaves to earthly masters. So, whether a slave to earthly master or not, slaves of Christ are exhorted to respond appropriately to God for the sake of Christ, their Lord and Master.[10] In an interesting note on responding to this change of lordship, Grothe advises, “Paul’s words about sanctifying do not lay on Christians a post-Gospel dose of (guilt-producing!) Law. ‘Sanctifying’ is Gospel talk. The change of lordship transfers sinful man out of that vicious cycle in which he is trapped when trying to be right with God by doing the works of Law.”[11] Sinners handed over from the lordship of sin, and the Law are sanctified slaves of God in Jesus Christ. Christians live as responsive joyful fruit-producing slaves of Christ by grace. Jesus Christ displayed the love of God in dying and rising for sinners bringing justification for the ungodly. Repented sinners saved by grace live as slaves of righteousness in obedience to their new Lord and Master, Jesus Christ. Thus, Paul’s imperatives to slaves of God in Romans 6 are the Master Jesus’ will for His redeemed slaves so they respond appropriately in ways that bless their own lives, as well as that of their neighbors, all to the glory of God.
Conclusion
Slavery to God and righteousness in Christ looks like walking in life’s renewal as responsive slaves of Christ to imperatives, based upon the indicative declaration of righteousness through faith and Baptism into Christ. The struggle to resist the reign of sin in the mortal body remains now and will be so until the Last Day. Then when sin and impurity will be no more, as the “former things have passed away” (Rev 21:4; cf. Rev 21).
Nevertheless, Paul writes, “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come” (2 Cor 5:17). The new creature of God is already now and entails being a slave under Christ’s righteousness. Jesus Christ is the Lord and Master of the slaves of righteousness, and the slave to Christ responds appropriately to the Masters' exhortations. As Paul explains in Romans 6, this means presenting one’s body as an instrument of righteousness, producing fruit for sanctification that leads to eternal life, eternal life in Christ alone. The slave to God is dead to the reign of sin through Baptism into Christ, “For the payment of sin is death, but the gracious gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom 6:23).
As members of the Body of Christ, slaves to God are extensions of the Master Jesus Christ. Lenski comments, “The fact that we are still slaving as slaves we have seen in 6:16–22, [identifies] also that this is a voluntary slavery of emancipated slaves in expectation, not of death, but of life everlasting, thus a joyous, blessed slavery.”[12] The slave to Christ lives in Christ’s joy and then becomes a “slave to all.” Slaves of God are raised in life’s renewal in Christ, living in the fruits of sanctification, now and forever, all on account of Christ Jesus, the only begotten Son of God, Redeemer, and Savior of all mankind.
[1] Irenaeus, “Against the Heresies,” vol. 1, The Ante-Nicene Fathers, ed. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, 10 vols. (1885–1887; repr., Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1994), 542. Hereafter ANF.
[2] Anders Nygren, Commentary on Romans, (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1975), 257.
[3] Philip Melanchthon, Commentary on Romans, trans. Fred Kramer (St. Louis, MO: Concordia Publishing House, 2010), 151.
[4] Franzmann, Romans (St. Louis, MO: Concordia Publishing House, 1968), 115.
[5] Kolb, 41; cf. AC VI.1.
[6] As to addressing the words obey and obedience: Middendorf writes, “In English “obey” generally conveys the notion of something we must do . . . However, the basic biblical sense means to listen and respond appropriately. The underlying Hebrew is usually šəma‘ lə, “to hearken to,” often to the word of Yahweh. The NT uses the Greek word group of ὑπακούω similarly. When one hears God’s condemning law, the appropriate response is to acknowledge, that is, confess, that what God says about me and all people apart from Christ is true (e.g., 1 Jn 1:8‒10). At times, however, what is mistranslated “obey” is intended to be a receptive response to the gospel . . . For example . . . Paul even uses the verb ὑπακούω as a parallel for πιστεύω in Romans 10:16. Thus, when one hears the gospel, the appropriate response of ὑπακοή is to “listen responsively,” to “heed” or “hearken to” it with receptive faith (as in Rom 1:5; 6:16; 15:18; 16:26; cf. Rom 10:9).” Middendorf, “The New Obedience: An Exegetical Glance at Article VI of the Augsburg Confession,” Concordia Journal, Vol. 41, no. 3 (Summer 2015): 202; cf. 210-19; Cf. Romans 1-8, Concordia Commentary, 60, 66‒67, 500‒501; Paul uses the words such as; ὑπακούειν, υπακουετε, ὑπακοῆς, and ὑπηκούσατε in Romans 6:12, 16, 17, which seem to be from the word, ὑπακούω, which is best described as listening and responding appropriately; However, BDAG renders, “ὑπακοή, ῆς, ἡ . . . ① a state of being in compliance, obedience (one listens and follows instructions) ⓐ gener., the obedience which every slave owes his master εἰς ὑπακοήν= εἰς τὸ ὑπακούειν to obey Ro 6:16a. ⓑ predom. of obedience to God and God’s commands, abs. (opp. ἁμαρτία) Ro 6:16b. Cp. 1 Cl 9:3; 19:1. διʼ ὑπακοῆς obediently, in obedience (toward God) 10:2, 7. Of Christ’s obedience Hb 5:8.—W. subjective gen. of Christ’s obedience to God Ro 5:19 (opp. παρακοή); of human beings’ obedience to the will of God as expressed in the gospel Ro 15:18; 16:19,” 1028; “ὑπακούω hupakouō; from G5259 and G191; to listen, attend to: — answer.” NASEC, G5219.
[7] Douglas Moo, The New Application Commentary: From Biblical Text . . . To Contemporary Life (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2000), 212.
[8] “Behold, as the eyes of slaves look to the hand of their master, As the eyes of a servant-girl to the hand of her mistress, So our eyes look to Yahweh our God, Until He is gracious to us” (Psalm 123:2); For the one who trusts in Yahweh on account of Jesus Christ crucified and risen is a slave of God and looks to Yahweh as master. As previously examined in chapter 1, the slavery language in the Old Testament is much like Paul’s use of slavery in Romans 6 as the eyes of the believer looks to Yahweh as a slave to a master; See Chapter 1, subheading, Slavery in the Old Testament.
[9] Moo, The New Application Commentary From Biblical Text . . . To Contemporary Life, 210.
[10] Paul writes: “Slaves, be obedient to those who are your 1masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in the integrity of your heart, as to Christ; not by way of eyeservice, as men-pleasers, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart, serving with good will as to the Lord, and not to men, knowing that whatever good thing each one does, this he will receive back from the Lord, whether slave or free. And masters, do the same things to them, giving up threatening, knowing that both their Master and yours is in heaven, and there is no partiality with Him” (Eph 6:5-9; cf. Col 3:2; 1 Tim 6:1; Tit 2:9).
[11] Grothe, The Justification of the Ungodly: An Interpretation of Romans, 2nd ed., 298.
[12] Lenski, The Interpretation of St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans, 455–457.