Romans 6, No longer a slave

In the previous chapter, Paul has emphasized the wonderful benefits of God's grace offered through Jesus, the Messiah.  Now he drives home his point by asking some practical questions.

Romans 6: 1-2, Reacting to amazing grace

What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase?  By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?

Paul acts a rhetorical question -- if grace is so good, maybe we need to get lots of it by continuing to sin.  Paul shows this is a misunderstanding of the whole process.

Romans 6: 3-11, United in the resurrection

Or don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?  We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.  If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection.

For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin--  because anyone who has died has been freed from sin.

Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him.  For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him.  The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God.  In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.

Baptism acts out a metaphor of death and resurrection to a new life, a freer better life, as a member of the Kingdom of Heaven.

Do verses 3-11 answer the question raised in verse 2?

 Romans 6: 12-14, Offer yourselves to God
Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires.  Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness.  For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace.

How does our life change, as a result of this resurrection?  If we are no longer enslaved to "evil desires", what do we do?

Romans 6: 15-19, Slavery
What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! Don't you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey--whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? 

But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted.  You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.

I put this in human terms because you are weak in your natural selves. Just as you used to offer the parts of your body in slavery to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer them in slavery to righteousness leading to holiness.

Are we really free, or are we slaves??  How does slavery enter this picture? In practice, how are we "set free from sin"?

Romans 6:20-23, Summary
When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness. What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death! But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to 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.

What is the benefit of this new freedom/slavery?  Which comes first, the "benefit" or holiness? How does one "offer" their body to God?

In Plato's Republic, Gaucon tells the story of Gyges' Ring, a ring that makes one invisible, even to the gods, and thus allows one to get away with evil.  What does that say about the moral person?  Is one's morality simply bases on a fear of consequences? Why be moral if one does not have to be?

That question, posed by Plato five centuries before, resonates in this chapter.  Paul, like Plato, argues that one will be mastered by what one pursues.  

In the next chapter, Paul elaborates on the transformation caused by being "in Christ" and identified with the Messiah's resurrection.