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The Wages of Sin
This passage answers a sharp question about grace. It says grace is not permission to keep sinning, and it uses the picture of slavery or service to show that different kinds of obedience lead to very different outcomes.
Understanding the passage
The setting of these words
This letter section begins by asking whether people should sin because they are not under law but under grace. The writer firmly rejects that idea, then contrasts serving sin with serving righteousness and serving God. The passage traces the results of each: shame and death, or sanctification and eternal life.
Romans 6:15–23Main takeaway
This passage contrasts serving sin with serving God, and it says the outcomes are death on the one hand and sanctification and eternal life on the other.
Follow the letter’s teaching
01Grace does not excuse sinThe passage opens with a question: since people are not under law but under grace, should they sin?
Explanation
The passage opens with a question: since people are not under law but under grace, should they sin? The answer is immediate and emphatic: “May it never be!” In these verses, grace is not presented as permission to continue in sin.
02Obedience shows whose servant you areThe writer explains this by using the language of servants or bondservants. Presenting yourself to obey someone means becoming the servant of the one you obey.
Explanation
The writer explains this by using the language of servants or bondservants. Presenting yourself to obey someone means becoming the servant of the one you obey. Two directions are set side by side here: sin leads to death, while obedience leads to righteousness.
03From sin to heartfelt obedienceThe passage thanks God for a change that has taken place. The readers were bondservants of sin, but became obedient from the heart to the teaching delivered to them.
Explanation
The passage thanks God for a change that has taken place. The readers were bondservants of sin, but became obedient from the heart to the teaching delivered to them. It then says they were made free from sin and became bondservants of righteousness.
04Present yourselves to righteousnessThe writer says he is speaking “in human terms” and then applies the picture directly. As they once presented their members as servants to uncleanness and increasing wickedness, they are now to present their members as servants to righteousness for sanctification.
Explanation
The writer says he is speaking “in human terms” and then applies the picture directly. As they once presented their members as servants to uncleanness and increasing wickedness, they are now to present their members as servants to righteousness for sanctification.
05Wages and giftWhen they were servants of sin, they were free from righteousness, but that former way brought shame and ended in death.
Explanation
When they were servants of sin, they were free from righteousness, but that former way brought shame and ended in death. By contrast, being made free from sin and becoming servants of God brings fruit of sanctification, with eternal life as the result. Sin pays wages, but God gives a free gift.
Questions to explore
01How does the passage answer the idea that grace allows people to keep sinning?
Start with the direct reply in Romans 6:15, then see how Romans 6:16 explains that obedience places a person in the service of sin or of righteousness.
02What change does the passage say happened in the readers?
Trace the movement from “bondservants of sin” to being “obedient from the heart” and then becoming “bondservants of righteousness”.
03What outcomes are attached to serving sin and serving God?
Compare the words “death”, “sanctification”, “eternal life”, “wages” and “free gift” across the closing verses.
Read the Bible passage
World English Bible ClassicScripture quotation · Public domain
Romans 6:15–23
15What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? May it never be!
16Don’t you know that when you present yourselves as servants and obey someone, you are the servants of whomever you obey, whether of sin to death, or of obedience to righteousness?
17But thanks be to God that, whereas you were bondservants of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were delivered.
18Being made free from sin, you became bondservants of righteousness.
19I speak in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh; for as you presented your members as servants to uncleanness and to wickedness upon wickedness, even so now present your members as servants to righteousness for sanctification.
20For when you were servants of sin, you were free from righteousness.
21What fruit then did you have at that time in the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death.
22But now, being made free from sin and having become servants of God, you have your fruit of sanctification and the result of eternal life.
23For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.