If you have come to Christ, you belong to Jesus now. He bought you with his blood, broke sin’s chains, and made you his own. That’s not theory. It’s your identity, and it changes everything about how you live.

Big Idea

Grace frees us from sin’s tyranny into slavery to God, producing life instead of death.

It’s possible to take a theological truth so far that you distort it beyond recognition. One truth particularly vulnerable to this distortion is the relationship between grace and sin.

Last week we looked at Romans 6:14: “You are not under law but under grace.” This is glorious truth, and dangerously easy to twist. Remember your first night without a bedtime? Paul anticipates that same impulse in verse 15: “What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace?”

Now that you’re a Christian and no longer under the law, can you live as you please? After all, more sin generates more grace, so isn’t more sinning actually good for showcasing God’s mercy? It’s dangerously easy to make peace with sin by thinking, “I know it’s wrong, but I’m a child of God. He’ll forgive me. I’m under grace.”

As one person wrote:

Free from the Law,
O blessed condition;
I can sin as I please
And still have remission.

Every Christian wrestles with this tension. We’ve all been tempted to treat grace as a get-out-of-jail-free card rather than the power that breaks sin’s dominion. Paul addresses this because it’s a real temptation that threatens every believer’s spiritual health.

We need to see why this logic is not just wrong but spiritually deadly, and what grace actually demands of those who’ve received it.

Four Lessons

So look at what Paul says in this passage. Paul has four lessons for us:

You’re enslaved to either sin or God. There’s no middle ground. (6:15-16)

What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! Do 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?

Paul challenges the idea that anyone can live free. Nobody can. He uses the powerful image of slavery to explain a fundamental truth: we all serve someone.

Understanding the kind of slavery Paul references is important. We automatically think of the transatlantic slave trade, but Roman slavery was different. It wasn’t race-based, slaves could earn freedom and citizenship, and Romans could even sell themselves into slavery to pay debts. While still oppressive, this system differs from the barbaric man-stealing we associate with slavery today.

Paul uses this image to say everyone is a slave, either to sin (leading to death) or to obedience (leading to righteousness). There’s no such thing as absolute human freedom. Only God is perfectly free.

Your life demonstrates whose servant you are. Whom you obey is whom you serve. This is an either/or reality with no middle ground. Bob Dylan captured it perfectly:

But you’re gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed
You’re gonna have to serve somebody
Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord
But you’re gonna have to serve somebody.

Everyone has a spiritual master. You may think you’re in control, that you’re your own person, but you’re not. You’re either a slave to God or to sin. There’s no third category, no middle ground, no alternative.

Ask yourself: who are you actually serving? Not who you claim to serve, but who gets your consistent obedience. Where does your time go? What commands your loyalty when it conflicts with God’s will? Reflecting on your life choices—what you pursue, justify, or can’t resist—reveals who really controls you. The question isn’t whether you’re enslaved, but to whom.

That’s the first lesson. We’re all slaves. Here’s the second:

If you’re in Christ, God has rescued you from sin’s tyranny and made you his slave. (6:17-18).

But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.

If you are in Jesus, this is your story, and it’s glorious news.

Before:

You were a slave to sin from conception. You could not not sin. Sin’s power drew you like iron filings to a magnet. You were dead in your sins, opposed to God, with no choice but to obey sin. You were completely free from righteousness—but that “freedom” was actually bondage.

But now:

God has liberated you from sin’s tyranny, something you could never accomplish yourself. Your emancipation is entirely his work, prompting Paul’s spontaneous outburst: “Thanks be to God!” You have been set free from sin and brought from death to life.

Your new status:

You are now a slave of righteousness under new ownership. But notice the stunning difference: you obey your new Master voluntarily and wholeheartedly. Your obedience flows from the heart, not from coercion. God has fulfilled His New Covenant promise from Jeremiah 31 by placing His law within you and writing it on your heart.

Paul acknowledges this analogy isn’t perfect: “I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations.” The slavery image is imperfect because our relationship with God is stripped of slavery’s oppressive elements. Yet the analogy captures something essential: the totality of God’s rightful ownership and our complete allegiance to him.

Think of someone who worked for years under a controlling, micromanaging boss. Every ping of her phone made her stomach drop. Every email subject line in all caps sent her scrambling. She knew that voice: demanding, belittling, never satisfied. It shaped her habits, her posture, even the way she checked her inbox at midnight.

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