Present Your Members as Slaves of Righteousness

As fallen humans redeemed by the blood of Christ, we have a particular skill of hearing and perceiving the truth and then learning the wrong lesson. In our text today, the Apostle Paul powerfully and persuasively anticipates that there will be some who will indeed learn the wrong lesson after he painstakingly declares the gospel of grace and deliverance from the condemnation of the Law. As in the first verse of the chapter, the anticipated error is expressed the opening words of our text, "…shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace?" Of course, the obvious answer is, "no," but the apostle is led by the Spirit to reinforce what we know with a powerful illustration: slavery! We are compelled by the illustration to answer the question, "Whom will you serve?" The careful reader will notice that there only two possible answers to the question. You who are in Christ have been made free, but will you serve sin or will you serve the Lord in righteousness? It is a question every Christian must answer, not once, but every day of our lives. – Pastor Schlegel