A Theology of Sanctification (Rom. 6:19-23)

 

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What is sanctification?  The Shorter Catechism defines it this way: “Sanctification is a work of God’s free grace, whereby we are renewed in the whole man after the image of God, and are enabled more and more to die unto sin and to live unto righteousness.”  That definition defines sanctification in terms of renewal, the scope of which is the whole man, the shape of which is the image of God, and the sequence of which is one of increasing death to sin and growth in righteousness.  This is exactly what the apostle Paul is talking about here in Romans 6.  This is a chapter about the sanctification of those who have been saved from God’s wrath by God’s grace in Jesus Christ.

The word sanctification itself does not occur in the KJV translation of Romans 6 (though it does in other versions; see the ESV, for example), but the word it translates as holiness in verses 19 and 22 is the Greek word hagiasmos which is translated in the KJV as sanctification in several other places (see 1 Cor. 1:30, 1 Thess. 4:3-4, 2 Thess. 2:13, and 1 Pet. 1:2).  In other words, sanctification is what Paul is talking about here.  And what we learn about sanctification in this text confirms that the answer the old Shorter Catechism gave is a good synopsis of apostolic teaching.

Now my purpose is not to unpack the answer of the catechism per se, but to try to follow the argument of the apostle in these verses.  But we do want to see what his argument here has to tell us about the doctrine of sanctification.  We noted last time we were in Romans together that in this second part of Romans 6 (verses 15-23), which mirrors the first part (verses 1-14), Paul is laying out (again) the case that grace does not give way to a life of sin.  First, he makes his argument why this is so (15-18), and then he makes an appeal (19-23) based upon the argument, and that he does so in terms of freedom and slavery.  We looked at the argument last time; we will look at the appeal this time.

In terms of the appeal that the apostle makes, it seems to me that there are three steps to it.  First of all, there is the mandate of sanctification, which we see in verse 19.  Here you have the imperative verb yield: “even so now yield ye your members servants to righteousness unto holiness.”  Then we have the manner in which we are to yield to righteousness in verse 20.  In some sense though, this verse is just unpacking the “just as” and “even so” of the previous verse.  Paul is saying that just as you were the slaves of sin, in the same way yield yourselves servants to God.  Then finally we have the motivation for sanctification, which we will look at in verses 21-23.  So we have the mandate, manner, and motivation of sanctification – or, if you like, the what, the how, and the why of sanctification.

Now I realize that the word sanctification can seem like an overwrought theological term from an overly technical book on doctrine that makes you sneeze when you pull it off the shelf because of all the dust it has been accumulating.  Some people might hear that word – or the word holiness which the KJV uses – and only think of dark moods and unhappy people.  But that is not how the apostle would want you to hear it.  This word is meant to summarize freedom from the unhappy prison of sin and the life we get when God raises us from a death in sin.  Sanctification does not alert us to something we should hide from, but something we should seek for and celebrate when we have found it.  As our Lord put it in the Beatitudes: “Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled” (Mt. 5:6).  The sanctified are the satisfied.  They are the people who have found the contentment that in some sense everyone is looking for.

It is true that Paul says we go from the slavery of sin to the slavery of God, and that may not sound too great.  After all, who wants to be a slave?  But he also wants us to know that the imagery here, that of slavery, is limited in its applicability.  This is what he is getting at by the more or less parenthetical statement at the beginning of verse 19: “I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh.”  I think he is talking about slavery here.  He is saying, “Look, not everything about this image of slavery works, especially when it comes to the Christian life.  I’m speaking in human terms, after the manner of men, because of your “natural limitations” (ESV).  We can only speak to what we know, and slavery was so universal in Paul’s day that it presented an obvious point of contact with what it meant to serve sin or Christ.  The point of contact was the universal obedience that slavery requires.  But it wasn’t a perfect illustration.  Certainly the bondage of slavery and the involuntary nature of it is in no sense illustrative of the Christian life.   Obedience and slavery to Jesus is life and freedom from that which destroys and ruins us, which is sin that separates us from God.  We are again reminded of the words of our Lord, that his yoke is easy and his burden is light, and that it is precisely when we take it upon ourselves that we will find rest for our souls (Mt. 11:28-30).

With that in mind, let’s look at the text together.

The Mandate (19)

The apostle writes in verse 19, “I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh: for as ye have yielded your members servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity; even so now yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness.”  The key word is “yield” which we looked at in detail when we looked at verse 13.  So I don’t think there’s a need to go into detail again on what that means and implies, but let’s remind ourselves of the central idea.  We said previously that “the verb means to present your bodies, to put them at the disposal of God for the sake of righteousness.  The idea, I think, is that of soldiers who are ready with their weapons to go to war for their king.”  In particular, we stressed that there is nothing passive about this.  We are to take ourselves in hand, and to actively give ourselves for the service of our Lord Jesus Christ in this world.  We are reminded that the first thing about sanctification is that it is our responsibility to yield to God.  We don’t wait for a lightning bolt to strike us from heaven to get going in the matter of becoming more sanctified.  Rather, we work out our own salvation with fear and trembling (Phil. 2:12).

But that doesn’t mean that we do this in the strength of the flesh.  That is where the “for” in verse 19 comes in.  It points us back to the main verb in verse 18, where the apostle says, “Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness.”  The main verb, “you became servants” is passive in the Greek, as is “being then made free.”  This is the work of God in his grace in our lives.  It is the indicative of God’s grace that makes the imperative of God’s command possible for us to carry out.  Or, to put it in terms of the apostle’s words to the Philippians, we can work out our own salvation because it is God who works in us both to will and to do of his good pleasure (Phil. 2:13).  We can be fruitful because in the grace of God we have been united to Christ.  It is by his grace that we grow and are more and more sanctified.  Sanctification is our responsibility, but it is a responsibility carried out in the strength of God’s grace.  On our own, we can do nothing (Jn. 15:5).  But in Christ, we can do all that he asks us to do.

The way this works out in practice is that we do all that we do in faith.  We trust in Christ as we work hard at holiness.  It’s what Paul means when he says, “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me” (Gal. 2:20).  We live like faithful Abraham (Rom. 4:17-24).

But there are two further details that this passage adds to the overall picture when it comes to our duty in becoming sanctified people.  The first detail is the emphasis throughout this passage on the difference between what we were before conversion to Christ and what we are afterward.  Note the repeated focus on “then” and “now”: 

I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh: for as ye have yielded your members servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity; even so now yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness. For when ye were the servants of sin, ye were free from righteousness. What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed? for the end of those things is death. But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life. (Rom. 6:19-22)

The apostle makes it clear throughout that there is a natural assumption that there is going to be a difference between what we were as the servants of sin and what the Christian is now as the servant of God.  It is a real difference.  It is not just a difference in labeling.  It is not just a surface-level difference.  

We need to say this because in the understanding of many modern Christians the idea of what it means to be a follower of Christ has been so watered down that virtually anyone can fit into that category.  Faith has been so redefined and watered down that anyone with any kind of religious sentiment is thought to have it.  But this is not Biblical faith.  Biblical faith in Christ makes a difference in the life.  There was a time when we were slaves to sin; now we are no longer slaves to sin.  We are the servants of Christ.  Is that true of us?  Is that true of you?  

I’m not of course saying that you have to identify a particular moment in your life when you were converted.  It may be that you were raised in a Christian home and that you always remember loving Jesus.  But the point of the “then” and “now” of Romans 6 is that these Romans were once pagans and now they are not.  Once they worshiped idols and now they worship Jesus. Once they followed the path of the world and now they walk the narrow way.  So the application of the “then” and “now” is not so much finding out the time when we were born again, but noting the difference between our lives and that of the world.  Are you different from the world?  Are your desires and plans and ambitions governed by the god of this world or by Christ?  Are you the friend of a world in rebellion against God or are you the friend of God and Christ?  Those are the questions we need to ask.

The second detail that this passage adds to the doctrine of sanctification is this: there is an expected progression that takes place in the life of a Christian.  Sanctification, in other words, is a progressive event in the sense that it is understood that the Christian will grow in holiness.  Our lives are never on idle: our lives are taking us somewhere, and if we are slaves to sin, it will inevitably be to more and more sin, and if we are the slaves of Jesus, it will be to more and more holiness.

So, for example, the apostle says that when we were the servants of sin, it wasn’t just a static experience, but that we “yielded [our] members servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity.”  In other words, sin produced more and more sin.  It wasn’t just iniquity; it was “iniquity unto iniquity,” sin leading to more sin.  Sin is like the proverbial camel who at first seems like it just wants to stick its nose in the tent, but if you let it do that, before too long the whole camel is in the tent.  Those who yield to sin in their hearts will find it to take over.  Sin is like an invasive weed.  And unless we are sanctified by God’s grace through his word and Spirit it will more and more take over the heart until what is in fact invasive begins to look home-grown.  It is said that the tumble-weed is not in fact indigenous to the American West, but that it came from Russia.  But when we think of tumble-weeds today, who thinks of Russia?  We tend to think of West Texas.  That’s what sin does.  It grows and grows in us to the point that we think it’s just natural for it to be there.  Oh my friends, beware of the growth of sin in your life!

But sanctification ought to take us in the opposite direction.  As Paul puts it, “even so now yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness.”  Not just to righteousness, but righteousness to holiness, or, as the ESV puts it, “as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification.”  

I’m emphasizing this because there is a view of the Christian life today that thinks it’s appropriate to spend all one’s time bemoaning a lack of holiness.  I’m not saying we shouldn’t mourn over our sins, we should.  I’m not saying there’s not a place for a deep humility before God that is rooted in an honest awareness of our very real faults and failures, there is.  But we can take that attitude too far and forget that grace is meant to take us up and up into more and more Christ-likeness.  Like most kinds of growth, it can often be imperceptible.  But if you’ve been a Christian for any length of time, you should be able to look back one, five, ten, twenty years and see some growth.

Is this sustained in other parts of the Bible?  Yes, it is.  Paul himself is an example of this.  Writing to the Philippian believers, he says, “Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus. Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 3:12-14).  Reaching forth for the things that are before – pressing toward the mark for the prize of the upward call of God!  Are we doing that?  

Or take the apostle Peter’s words: 

According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue: Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; And to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness; And to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity. For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.” (2 Pet. 1:3-8)

God makes it possible for us to grow.  We have his divine power which has given us all things that pertain to life and godliness.  We have his promises that encourage us to be partakers of the divine nature.  This is what Paul is talking about when he says we have died to sin and risen to newness of life in Christ.  So what should we do?  Add!  Add to your Christian character the traits Peter mentions.

This is not optional, as Peter goes on to make clear: “But he that lacketh these things is blind, and cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins” (9).  In fact, this is how we make our calling and election sure (10).  It is not for no reason, therefore, that the apostle Peter ends his second epistle with this exhortation, one that we should take to heart for ourselves: “But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and for ever. Amen” (3:18).

On one level, this is going to be true of all Christians.  But on the other hand, it’s not automatic, is it?  We need to put these things into practice.  We need to stop trifling with sin and to take the pursuit of holiness seriously.  Are we growing?  

At the same time, let this not only be a prod to get us going, but let it also be an encouragement to keep us from sinking in discouragement.  We should expect growth.  Why?  Not because we’re special but because the Lord Jesus is a Good Shepherd! He leads us beside the still waters.  He makes us lie down in green pastures.  He restores our soul.  He leads us in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake (Ps. 23:1-4).  So brother and sister, as you yield yourself to God, grow in the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ!  Be more sanctified today than you were yesterday.  That’s the mandate.

The Manner (20)

Then there’s the manner in which we are to grow in our sanctification.  The apostle goes on: “For when ye were the servants of sin, ye were free from righteousness” (Rom. 6:20).  Again, note these little connecting words, like “for.”  They are in some sense the most important words in Paul’s epistles.  They are meant to point us to the flow of thought, the logic of the text.  

Here, the “for” points us back to the previous verse, and in particular to the juxtaposition of the “as” and “even so” of verse 19.  There is a stark and definite difference between slavery to sin and slavery to God.  But there is also a parallel that exists between them.  That’s the point of saying “as you served sin, so now serve Christ.” But then the question is, “How is that?  What exactly is the point of comparison?”  And that’s where verse 20 comes in.  It tells us what the point of comparison is.  

The point of comparison is this: that just as a life in service to sin is exercised in complete freedom from the demands of righteousness, so a life in service to Christ is to be lived out by those who are free from the demands and dominion of sin (cf. ver. 14).  

But what does this look like?  Well, look at the way people who are devoted to this world live.  Look at the way they spend their time, their effort, and their money.  Look at how they do it.  Those who are the servants of sin are totally devoted to sinful ambitions and sinful pleasures.  So Paul is saying, “Do you remember how devoted you were to sin?  Do you see how entirely devoted the unbeliever is to his or her way of life?  Well, then, you should serve Christ with the same fervor and enthusiasm.”  Do we?

One of the great complaints made against the great revivalists during the First Great Awakening, men like George Whitefield, was that they had fallen into the trap of religious enthusiasm.  But, to paraphrase Lloyd-Jones, that’s like saying it’s okay to be enthusiastic at the football stadium, but let’s never be guilty of showing the same enthusiasm in the service of God!  Brothers and sisters, if we find ourselves more interested in a sport, or any temporary endeavor really, than we do with serving God in this world, then something is wrong with us.  We are not serving Christ as we once served sin.  Does he not deserve better?

I remember reading once the testimony of the Puritan Joseph Alleine.  He said that it grieved him to get up in the morning and to hear the blacksmith at his work before he had himself sought the Lord in prayer.  He didn’t want the blacksmith’s dedication to his work to be above his own dedication to seek the Lord first thing in the morning through prayer.  Now, I’m not saying that so that you should feel guilty for not being on your knees in prayer before others are at their desks at work.  But the desire of Josphe Alleine is commendable.  There should be a sense in which all of us should want to serve Christ with more intensity and wholeness of purpose than those of the world want what they want.

By the way, just to be balanced here, and so that I’m not misunderstood, this doesn’t mean quitting your job and running off to a cave somewhere to spend all your time in quiet meditation and prayer.  Nor does it mean you can’t enjoy God’s good gifts in this world or sports and things like that.  But even in our pleasures and pastimes, and in our work, what has the loyalty of our heart?   What are we living for?  What do you want more than anything else in the world?  Can we say with the apostle Paul, “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain” (Phil. 1:21)?  Can we say with him, “So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him” (2 Cor. 5:9, ESV)?  Can we make this the banner over each day: “Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord” (Rom. 12:11, ESV)?

The Motivation (21-23)

How do we sustain such motivation, though?  For the Christian life is not a walk in the park.  It can be hard.  We noted recently how that the military metaphor is so fitting for the Christian life, not just on the parade ground, but especially on the battlefield.  We are to endure hardness as good soldiers of Jesus Christ.  

This is why it is so important to hear what the apostle goes on to say in the next three verses.  He writes, “What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed? for the end of those things is death. But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life. For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

Paul first of all motivates us by reminding us of the alternative to holiness.  The alternative to holiness is not a life that is easier, but a life of shame.  Shame is always the fruit of sin.  This has been true from the very beginning.  When Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit, I imagine that the first thing they experienced was, “Man, this is tasty!  What has God been keeping from us?”  And then, “Man, this is freeing!  We decided what we thought was right and we did it, and it turned out okay!”  And then, “Man, we feel ashamed!  We feel so naked!  Let’s find some fig leaves and try to fix this mess and then let’s hide from God.”  The problem is that the feeling of satisfaction and freedom is fleeting and temporary.  The feeling of shame is not.  Unremitting shame is the fruit of slavery to sin.

Of course, another problem is that sometimes we don’t feel the shame when we should.  We tend to harden our hearts against the conviction that rises in our hearts.  We ignore it and cover it up.  But the problem is that the fig leaves we make for ourselves won’t last forever.

But thanks be to God that in Christ we can first of all have a proper sense of this shame (“ye are now ashamed”) through the conviction of our sins and respond to it, not with fig leaves but by receiving the covering of our sins by the sacrifice of Christ for us.  He died for us so that our sins might be forgiven, and so that we might have the righteousness of God.  His death, in contrast to the recent claims of a popular religious author, is indeed a penal substitutionary atonement (PSA).  Our Lord didn’t just die so that we could participate with him in his death in some generic and rather undefined sense; instead, the truth is that

In our place condemned he stood,

Sealed my pardon with his blood,

Hallelujah! What a Savior!

Praise God that Jesus was made sin for us who knew no sin that we might be made the righteousness of God in him (2 Cor. 5:21).  Praise God that our sins were passed to him in order for him to bear the punishment that we deserved, that he became for us a propitiation (Rom. 3:25).  Praise God that “Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all” (Isa. 53:4-6).

Because of this, atonement does not have to be merited on our part but received entirely by the empty hands of faith.  This is why Paul ends the way he does.  “The gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

But here’s the main thing: the path of the sanctified leads to eternal life, whereas the path of the unsanctified leads to eternal death.  In verse 21 the apostle reminds us that it’s not just about shame and how bad that is, but it’s about death: “the end of those things [the life devoted to sin] is death.”  Then in verse 22 this is contrasted with life: “ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life.”  Thus verse 23 points back to 21 and 22 and sums it up this way: “For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”  

In other words, we are to be reminded that for the Christian who has been raised from a death in sin by the sovereign and decisive grace of God and made to live unto God, who has been justified in Christ and is now being progressively sanctified by the work of the Spirit, there is eternal life.  There is physical resurrection that inevitably follows spiritual resurrection because both are purchased by the Lord.

There are only two ways, according to Paul and according to Jesus.  The broad way – the way of the unsanctified – leads to perdition.  The narrow way – the way of the sanctified in Christ – leads to life.  It won’t matter on the Day of Judgment how much fun you had on the broad way that led to death.  And, on the other hand, no one will be bitter at Jesus for all the hard things they had to endure on the narrow way, especially when they are about the enter into life eternal in a new heaven and new earth.   It will be worth it all when we see Jesus, as the hymn says.  That’s what Paul is reminding us of here.

So, brothers and sisters, let’s yield ourselves to God in Christ.  Let’s grow in grace.  Let’s give the Lord as much or more devotion than ever we gave to our sins.  And let us do so, knowing that in the end, because of the sovereign grace of God in Jesus Christ, we get to drink of the sweet and satisfying water of eternal life with unceasing joy in the presence of our Savior.  Amen.