After establishing that we are buried with Christ and raised to a new life, where our sins are covered by His grace, Paul addresses a crucial question. This question likely came to the minds of his readers in the early church in Rome and still resonates with modern believers: If grace covers everything, what’s stopping us from continuing in our sinful ways and coming to God later in life to receive His grace? Many people believe that Paul is giving a license to sin by emphasizing the power of grace. In his response, Paul breaks down the true nature of sin and reveals our hearts desire and the real master we have been serving all along.
Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one you obey — whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness?
Romans 6:16 (NIV)
How were we ever slaves to sin if we were choosing it freely?
Every loan agreement, every subscription service, every terms and conditions page runs for dozens of pages for a reason. The offer is always attractive, but the fine print is where we fall victim and get trapped in a payment plan that we never wanted. Sin operates exactly the same way. The offer is always appealing, a momentary pursuit of pleasure, a shortcut to make our lives simpler, a way to feel that we are in control. We do not feel coerced into pursuit of these “offers”. You feel like you are making a free choice. But embedded in that choice is a clause that you did not notice — one that says you do not get to leave. The first taste feels like freedom. The second feels like desire. By the third, it feels like need. And before long, what began as our choice has become your master.
That is the nature of bondage Paul is describing. The person enslaved to sin is not being dragged against their will into a dungeon. They are simply not able to leave. They have been so shaped by their appetite for sin that they have lost the capacity to even desire something of greater sustenance. They have not just chosen sin — sin has become the framework through which they see everything. The thought of righteousness does not even present itself as an attractive alternative. It sounds like deprivation, like going without, like an ascetic life stripped of everything enjoyable. Paul does not say they are trapped because someone locked the door. He says they are trapped because they keep choosing the same master.
Good to Have or Must Have
When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness.
Romans 6:20 (NIV)
Why does pursuing righteousness feel like a “good to have,” while the ways of the world feel like a “must have”?
Think about someone who decides to start running every morning. They want to get healthy, and they genuinely mean it. They set the alarm for 6 a.m., buy the shoes, and commit to it for a few days. Then one morning, it rains, or they slept late one night, or they have an early meeting, and they skip the run without too much guilt because the run is something they chose to pursue — it is not something they are bound to. It is a self-improvement goal, and self-improvement goals feel like good-to-haves. Now imagine the same person’s job. The office starts at 9am sharp. There is no flexibility. They may be tired, it may be raining, they may have slept badly — none of that changes the time. Because they are bound to it. It has a hold on them that their running shoes do not.
That is the asymmetry Paul is pointing to. For most people, sin functions like our essentials like our careers. It is not a choice they are making each morning with fresh deliberation. It is the default, the expected, the thing the world around them requires if they want to keep up, keep belonging, keep surviving. Righteousness, on the other hand, feels like the morning run — a noble aspiration for people who have the luxury of pursuing it. Something to get to eventually. A good habit to build when life settles down. This is the spiritual deception that Paul is unmasking. Sin has a cost that accumulates silently while righteousness is not optional — it is the only door that leads back to our Maker.
What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death!
Romans 6:21 (NIV)
Paul says that the mark of genuine transformation is that we look back at the old life with shame. Not with nostalgia, but with the kind of horror that comes from finally seeing clearly. The person who has tasted the light cannot pretend the darkness was equally fine. However, the person still in the grip of sin rarely looks at themselves honestly. They manage the discomfort, they justify, they compare themselves to someone worse. Shame as Paul describes it here is not self-condemnation — it is the fruit of repentance, the evidence that God has opened our eyes to what our choices were actually costing us and costing those around us.
The Hidden Cost
But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 6:22–23 (NIV)
If the wages of sin is death, why are we not more afraid of sinning?
Romans 6:23 is perhaps the most recited verse, having been printed on tracts, put on billboards, and delivered at the end of countless sermons; it has been stripped of the underlying point that Paul was trying to make. The death he is pointing to is not simply the physical death at the end of a long life. It is the slow spiritual death of a soul that has drifted further and further from God.
Instead, we have made people so accustomed to this warning that when people hear “the wages of sin is death” are not instantly filled with fear. When someone commits a sin and does not face immediate death, they may conclude that God has either overlooked it, is being patient, or that Jesus has already taken care of it. The very truth intended to reveal the seriousness of our situation has been twisted into proof that everything is okay.
What truly influences our behavior isn’t merely theoretical ideas about God, but rather real-life experiences. When someone we care about dies unexpectedly, it deeply affects us, prompting reflection on our own lives. Particularly when a person similar to us in age and health passes away, we often reevaluate our diet and lifestyle choices, quitting vices to pursue healthier living. If someone dies in an accident, we start driving more carefully and follow the traffic laws. The loss of a loved one forces us to reassess our lives, leading us to contemplate the choices we have made. Yet, the death of Jesus seems to have little impact on us, as we continue living in our old ways without change.
We have been taught and have come to believe that the wages of sin consist of spending more time in church, volunteering in homeless shelters, offering sacrifices, or participating in cleansing rituals to absolve ourselves from the weight of our sins. This is how people attempt to pay for the wages of sin, not understanding that sin separates us from the Father, and using worldly methods to absolve ourselves from our sins only distances us further from Him. We need to realize that the real cost of staying in our sinful ways is not just death but being completely separated from our Creator, and nothing is worth that price.
The Jordan Valley 
Reply