Romans 6:23 “You Cannot”

Here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

²³For the wages of the sin [are] death, but the free gift of God [is] eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Before I leave Romans 6, there is one more thought I want to record. This whole chapter has been about this choice before you and me, whether to serve sin and die or to follow Jesus and live. Our cliché way to say it is that it’s a choice whether to serve sin or to serve God. I hesitate to put it that way only because it is so cliché – probably no thinking person would ever stand up and say, “I’ve decided to serve sin!” On the other hand, the most vile, carping Pharisee is quite sure he’s serving God.

This whole business of “serving God” is worth just a little more pondering.

A passage I find extremely instructive is Joshua 24:14-24. For the sake of consideration, here it is in its entirety:

¹⁴“Now fear the Lord and serve Him with all faithfulness. Throw away the gods your ancestors worshiped beyond the Euphrates River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord. ¹⁵But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.” 

¹⁶Then the people answered, “Far be it from us to forsake the Lord to serve other gods! ¹⁷It was the Lord our God Himself who brought us and our parents up out of Egypt, from that land of slavery, and performed those great signs before our eyes. He protected us on our entire journey and among all the nations through which we traveled. ¹⁸And the Lord drove out before us all the nations, including the Amorites, who lived in the land. We too will serve the Lord, because He is our God.” 

¹⁹Joshua said to the people, “You are not able to serve the Lord. He is a holy God; he is a jealous God. He will not forgive your rebellion and your sins. ²⁰If you forsake the Lord and serve foreign gods, He will turn and bring disaster on you and make an end of you, after He has been good to you.”

²¹But the people said to Joshua, “No! We will serve the Lord.”

²²Then Joshua said, “You are witnesses against yourselves that you have chosen to serve the Lord.”

“Yes, we are witnesses,” they replied.

²³“Now then,” said Joshua, “throw away the foreign gods that are among you and yield your hearts to the Lord, the God of Israel.”

²⁴And the people said to Joshua, “We will serve the Lord our God and obey him.”

Joshua here puts before the Israelites the same matter we’re discussing in Romans 6: “Choose you this day whom you will serve.” For any thinking Christian, this would seem an obvious and simple matter. “Of course I’ll serve the Lord!” That is exactly what the Israelites said, but notice Joshua’s answer in v.19: “You are not able to serve the Lord.” The old KJV put it quite bluntly, “You cannot serve the Lord.” Then notice their answer in v.21: “No! We will serve the Lord.” They go on in v.24 to say, “The Lord our God we will serve, and His voice we will obey.”

As I’ve said before, I believe, in a sense, this is the entire point of the Old Testament: You can give people even God’s law and their natural response is, “All that the Lord commands us, we will do!” “Yup, we’ve got this one. You can count on us! Just give us the rules and watch us knock’em out of the park. Yup, yup, yup. No problem. We can do this!”

And how did they do? Is not the entire OT a record of their total failure? When it came down to it, they even murdered the Messiah Himself!

What is going on? Joshua warned them way back then, “You cannot serve the Lord!” I’m reminded of Deut. 5:29 where the same thing had happened. Moses gave the Israelites the Law and they responded, “All that the Lord commands us, we will do!” In response, the Lord said to Moses, “Oh that they had such a heart in them…”

What they did not understand was exactly this problem: they did not have such a heart in them. Joshua tried to warn them. “You cannot serve the Lord.” They didn’t listen. Can I say this was their problem? They should have said to Joshua, “What do you mean?” and he could have explained to them, “You do not have such a heart in you.” Unless somehow the Lord enables you, you yourselves will utterly fail. “For without Me, you can do nothing,” Jesus said.

This is precisely the point at which you and I need to cast aside our clichés and face reality. Everything Paul is saying in Romans 6, you and I cannot do. If our response is the same flippant, “All the Lord commands us, we will do,” we will fail just as miserably as the Israelites. It is imperative that we realize, when the Lord said of them, “Oh that they had such a heart in them,” He already had a solution in mind. He would do exactly that – give them “such a heart.” Throughout the OT, He promised one day to send His Spirit. In the NT, we learn clearly that His solution to our problem is to actually put His very Holy Spirit inside of us. Jesus went to Heaven and, on the Day of Pentecost, He poured out His Holy Spirit, not just to be with us, but to be in us!

It is no longer true of us believers that we “do not have such a heart in us.” In fact we do!

However, it is imperative we all realize, that Spirit is not our spirit! My spirit is still rotten, but God has placed within me His Holy Spirit and, if I will let Him, He can actually enable me to “serve the Lord.” I can’t, but I can!

The Israelites missed it. They thought they could serve the Lord. I don’t doubt for a minute, they really did intend to. Yet they failed to see, they could not. You and I, though we may be NT Christians, though we may know that we are Holy Spirit indwelt, yet we must not make their mistake of thinking somehow we can pull this off.

Now we are back to relationship. You and I need to “draw near to God.” We need to come to Him and tell Him, “Lord, I want to serve you, but I know all too well, I cannot on my own. Help me be very aware of your Holy Spirit’s presence in my life and help me to let Him be the power that enables me to in fact ‘Reckon myself dead to sin and alive to Christ, and to present the members of my body as instruments of righteousness.’ Help me to obey from the heart.”

I know chapters 7 and 8 are headed exactly in this direction and I look forward to studying them. However, I would suggest you and I will gain little from them if we emerge from chapter 6 saying, “Yup, yup, yup. I’ve got this. No problem. Serve the Lord? Sure thing! That’s me! Everybody just stand back and watch me knock it out of the park!”

We need to plod ahead keenly aware that “I cannot do it,” then humbly, prayerfully head into our lives today, depending on the Lord’s Holy Spirit to in fact enable us to do what we’ve been called to do. He would have me to love Him and to love people. If I’m humbly willing, He can actually make it happen! I can’t, but I can!

As Romans 6 ends, “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life.” On my own, I can only earn “wages” and die in the process. How much better to accept from God’s hand this gift of eternal life through Jesus!  It is a gift. It is from Him. May I be humble enough to receive it. Then may I today enjoy this “life which is eternal!”

Romans 6:15-23 “Life and Death”

Here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

¹⁵Therefore, what [shall we say]? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? May it never be!  ¹⁶Do you not know that to whom you are offering yourselves [to be] servants into obedience, you are servants to whom you are obeying, whether of sin into death or of obedience into righteousness? ¹⁷But thanks [be] to God that [although] you were being servants of the sin, yet you obeyed out of heart into a form of teaching to which you were delivered, ¹⁸and ones set free from the sin, you were enslaved to the righteousness. 

¹⁹I am speaking [as a] man because of the weakness of your flesh, for, just as you presented your members servants to the uncleanness and the lawlessness into the lawlessness, thus now present your members servants to the righteousness into holiness. ²⁰For, when you were being servants of the sin, you were being free ones to the righteousness. ²¹Therefore, what fruit were you having upon those things of which you are now being ashamed? For the end of those things [is] death. ²²But now, [being] ones set free from the sin and enslaved to God, you are having your fruit into holiness and the end [is] eternal life. ²³For the wages of the sin [are] death, but the free gift of God [is] eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Romans 6 has definitely been a different sort of study for me. There is this huge part of me that still doesn’t understand why we even need to talk about all of this. This question, “Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace?” seems like such an absurdity to me, I don’t know why it even needs to be addressed. Paul’s answer in v.1 and again here in v.15 is the same, “May it never be!” What he’s saying is, “That’s absurd!”

I agree.

So why talk about it?

Once again, I’m very aware that Paul is a little more qualified than me to decide what should or should not be included in Scripture! This worm is “darkening counsel without knowledge.” However, as I study, I can’t escape this feeling like “this is a waste of time.” Obviously, I’m missing something here. There is some wisdom which is eluding me. There is something I don’t understand about what needs to be said.

All of that said, still this is for me a wonderful passage of scripture just to ponder and enjoy its truth. Although I can’t seem to understand why it all needs to be said to somehow defend grace, yet what is said is for me personally glorious truth.

What do I mean? For me, the glory of even being a Christian, a Christ-follower, is precisely this contrast of death vs. life and slavery vs. freedom. That is Paul’s entire point here. Sin leads to slavery and death, but Jesus gives to us freedom and life. These are exactly the two issues that led me to desire Christ in my life to start with. Like most young people, I was quite sure I knew what I wanted in life and what would make me “happy.” I thought I knew what “freedom” was. However, the harder I chased what I thought was life, the more I found myself dying, the more I found myself a slave. And I didn’t like it!

To this day, my soul still throbs with the words, “I’m sick of dying!” and “I’m sick of being a slave!” I don’t want to die anymore. I want to live. And I don’t want to be a slave, I want to be free. Jesus steps in and says, “I offer you life, that you may have it more abundantly!” and “If the Son shall set you free, you shall be free indeed!” “And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free!” And the life he offers is not just a few more years on planet earth, it is eternal life. Better yet, is my own realization those words can be translated, “the life which is eternal.” My soul thrills with those words. It’s not just a matter that faith in Jesus means someday I’ll go to Heaven. What thrills me is that I am already enjoying “the life which is eternal.” This is life.

I could go on and on. I crawled to Him begging for life and freedom and He not only gave me those, but He poured them out in such a flood, my soul can’t even comprehend it all. Here I am at the other end of life about to celebrate 40 years of marriage with the most beautiful princess who ever walked the face of the earth! I have three wonderful children, each of whom I am tremendously proud. If that were not enough, I now also have four grandchildren! I have a great job working with a lot of really nice people, a beautiful house in a great city and a wonderful church to attend. Again and again and again, the Lord shows me truth from the Bible that truly does “set me free.” It is freedom itself just to know all that really matters is to love God and love people…all day every day. I learned that from Him. I could have never figured that out on my own.

And He not only shows me what is right, He also empowers me to actually do it! I love knowing it’s true that I am not brave, but He makes me brave. I love constantly being keenly aware “I can’t,” yet finding I can! Jesus said, “I offer you life,” and boy does He know how to deliver on His promises!

I guess all of this is why I struggle to understand why we even need to answer the question, “Shall we sin, because we are not under law, but under grace?” That seems so utterly absurd, why even answer it? As Paul says, “How shall we who died to sin, live any longer in it?” He asks in v.21, “What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death!” No kidding! Who wants to go back to dying??? Even as I think these thoughts, my own heart just runs back to the praise, “I cried unto the Lord, and He answered by setting me free!” I guess I don’t understand the question, but I sure do like the answer!

On a few exegetical notes, it is interesting to me that this is in several places a rather difficult passage to translate. Particularly in vv.16 and 18, the Greek just doesn’t seem to flow logically. Expositors offer their own reasons for why this is so, but I would suggest it is simply the perennial problem of people speaking 2,100 years ago and halfway round the world, and us listening in. Even from one modern language to another, it can be difficult to translate without paraphrasing what they’re saying. How much more so with ancient languages? As usual, of course, their meaning is clear enough. It’s just challenging when one is trying to be as faithful as possible directly to the text itself.

Then I want to say I find it very encouraging that this whole passage, when studied in its context, completely supports our good old fashioned Reformed doctrine of progressive sanctification. Clearly, we who have died with Christ, yet still need to be presenting the members of our bodies as servants of righteousness. I love that Paul describes true believers as those who “obeyed from the heart.” Jesus told the woman at the well, “God is a Spirit; and those who worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.” It’s more of His freedom that He enables us to actually worship Him literally from our hearts. The Pharisees may have been happy to “keep the rules” but us believers get to enjoy a real heart relationship with God!

I guess I could go on and on. There are lots of other interesting exegetical points to ponder, but I think I will content myself to just conclude with praising God for the simple truth of v.23: “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life!”