“I am speaking in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness, resulting in further lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness, resulting in sanctification. For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. Therefore what benefit were you then deriving from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the outcome of those things is death. But now having been freed from sin and enslaved to God, you derive your benefit, resulting in sanctification, and the outcome, eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 6:19-23 NASB1995)

When I was much younger than I am now, I was taught the gospel of our salvation from a series of Bible verses taught out of context and connected together to preach one specific message. So, that is what I followed for many years, because that is what I was taught. But then when I got very serious about studying the Scriptures for myself, and reading them in their appropriate biblical context, under the direction of the Holy Spirit, I began to see how many things that I was taught early on were not biblical at all.

And one of the primary Bible verses in this series of disjointed Bible verses is Romans 6:23, but absolutely used out of context to teach what it does not teach in the true biblical context. So, what is the primary message in Romans 6? It is that our salvation from sin, if it is biblical, will result in us dying with Christ to sin and walking in obedience to our Lord and to his commands. For God’s grace to us is not permission for us to continue living in sin and not in walks of obedience to our Lord in surrender to his will.

So, as those who profess faith in Jesus Christ, we are to consider ourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Jesus Christ. We are no longer to let sin reign in our mortal bodies so that we obey its lusts, but we are to present our members (our physical body parts) as instruments of righteousness to God. For sin shall not be master over us. For God’s grace to us is not liberty to keep on in our sin while we ignore God’s commandments. So if we remain as slaves (addicts) to sin, it results in death, not in life eternal with God.

For when we were slaves of sin, we were free in regard to righteousness, i.e. we can either be slaves of sin or servants of righteousness, but we cannot be both. And this doesn’t mean that we will never sin again (1 John 2:1-2), or that we will live in absolute sinless perfection from this point forward, for we are still clay in the hands of the Potter (God) being molded by God into the likeness of character of Jesus Christ, which is a lifelong process. But this is never an excuse for willful deliberate sin which lands us in hell, not heaven.

For what does this say? If we are still living as slaves to sin, and not as slaves to God and to his righteousness, and not in walks of obedience to our Lord’s commands, the outcome of these things is death, not life eternal with God (see vs. 16 & 21). But, if by God-gifted and God-persuaded faith in Jesus Christ, we died to sin, and we are walking in obedience to his commands, in the power of God, the outcome is eternal life with God. For the payment of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life with God.

So, what is that gift of God? It is not forgiveness of all sins and the hope of eternal life with God based on lip service only. For Jesus gave his life up for us on that cross to put our sins to death with him so that, by faith in him, we will deny self, die to sin daily, and walk in obedience to his commands. But if we choose our sins over God, and we continue in deliberate and habitual sin against God, forgiveness of all sins and eternal life with God are not what we are promised. We are promised the judgment of God in eternal death.

For we learn in 1 John 1-3 that if we claim that we have fellowship with God, but yet we walk in darkness (sin), we are liars. If we claim that we know God, but we do not obey his commandments, in practice, we are liars. For it is not the one who claims he is “in Christ” who is “in Christ,” but it is the one who has denied self, died with Christ to sin, and who is now walking in obedience to our Lord and to his commands, in practice, and no longer in sin. We have the hope and the promise of eternal life with God in heaven.

[Matthew 7:13-14,21-23; Luke 9:23-26; John 10:27-30; Acts 26:18; Romans 1:18-32; Romans 2:5-10; Romans 3:23; Romans 6:1-23; Romans 8:1-14; 1 Corinthians 10:1-22; Galatians 5:16-24; Ephesians 2:8-10; Ephesians 4:17-32; Ephesians 5:3-6; Titus 2:11-14; Hebrews 3:1-19; Hebrews 4:1-13; Hebrews 10:19-39; Hebrews 12:1-2; 1 Peter 2:24; 1 John 1:1-10; 1 John 2:3-6; 1 John 3:4-10; Revelation 2:1-29; Revelation 3:1-22]

My Sheep

Based off John 10:1-30 NIV
An Original Work / June 24, 2012
Christ’s Free Servant, Sue J Love

My sheep hear me. They know me.
They listen to my voice and obey.
I call them and lead them.
They know my voice, so they follow me.
They will never follow strangers.
They will run away from them.
The voice of a stranger they know not;
They do not follow him.

So, I tell you the truth that
I am the gate, so you enter in.
Whoever does enter
Will find forgiveness and will be saved.
Nonetheless whoever enters
Not by the gate; other way,
He is the thief and a robber.
Listen not, the sheep to him.

Oh, I am the Good Shepherd,
Who laid his own life down for the sheep.
I know them. They know me.
They will live with me eternally.
The thief only comes to steal and
Kill and to destroy the church.
I have come to give you life that
You may have it to the full…

They know my voice, so they follow me.

Slaves to Righteousness
An Original Work / December 19, 2025
Christ’s Free Servant, Sue J Love