Life’s Fetters Freed

But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life (Romans 6:22).

The chapter of our text is one of the most vital in, perhaps, the most vital of the New Testament Epistles. Finished with the theme of Justification, the Apostle strikes out to consider the indispensable corollary of Justification, namely, Sanctification; a theme which occupies him in this and the two chapters which follow.

The chapter’s teaching on this important theme is special to it. It deals with that aspect of Sanctification which relates to sin. The verse taken as text is a specially rich one, for it seems to gather within itself the chief elements of the whole of the chapter’s teaching. There is something all-inclusive in the four phrases of the verse: 1. “Free from Sin”; 2. “Servants to God”; 3. “Your fruit unto holiness”; 4. “The end everlasting life.” A search into the meaning of such phrases cannot fail to be profitable.