Thanks Be To God!

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 (Rom 6:17-18).

Sometimes we become complacent about the grace given us. Sometimes we think that Christianity is an "add on", something we can tack onto our lives and it will be ... better. This kind of thinking, I suspect, is one of the reasons that so many people can claim, "Yeah, I'm a Christian, but it doesn't really have an impact on how I live." Paul, here, disagrees.

Paul describes a transaction that has taken place in those who belong to Christ. It takes place, at the beginning of the chapter, when "We were buried therefore with Him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life" (Rom 6:4). This "newness of life" is not trivial. He already described us as "None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one" (Rom 3:10-12). He already claimed "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Rom 3:23). He will go on to say in Romans 8 that the mind set on the flesh is hostile to God. And in this 6th chapter he describes the condition of Natural Man as "slaves to sin". There is a lot that has to be overcome.

Yet, here he describes the Regenerate Man in starkly different terms. He uses phrases like "obedient from the heart" and "slaves of righteousness". This is not the same person described elsewhere as Natural Man. And this, indeed, is something for which to thank God.

We are more blessed than we normally realize. We aren't becoming merely obedient. He changed our hearts and we become obedient from the heart, a radical change from attempts at mere mechanical obedience. We aren't merely declared righteous. We become slaves of righteousness. Doing what pleases God is a driving factor. We really want that. It is a fundamental change in the human heart and it is wrought by God and we are the beneficiaries.

Thanks be to God!