Slaves of Righteousness

Verse 15 introduces a second rhetorical objection: if believers are not under law but under grace, may they therefore sin? Again Paul answers with mē genoito. His argument uses the socially familiar but morally charged imagery of slavery: presenting oneself to a master entails obedience to that master. The contrast is between slavery to sin, whose outcome is death, and obedience, whose outcome is righteousness. The expression "obedience leading to righteousness" has been read either as conduct consonant with the justified state or as righteousness in a broader transformative sense; the context emphasizes both changed allegiance and changed outcome.

Verses 17-19 describe a transfer of mastery. Paul gives thanks that those formerly enslaved to sin became obedient "from the heart" to the "pattern of teaching" delivered to them. The phrase typon didachēs may mean a form, pattern, or normative body of instruction into which believers were handed over. Paul's remark that he is "speaking in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh" acknowledges the limitations of slavery imagery even as he continues to exploit its force. Freedom from sin does not mean autonomous self-possession; it means enslavement to righteousness.

Verses 20-23 organize the metaphor around contrasting fruits and ends. Former slavery to sin produced things now associated with shame and culminated in death; enslavement to God produces sanctification and culminates in eternal life. Verse 23 compresses the entire antithesis into the contrast between wages and gift: sin pays opsōnia, "wages," namely death, whereas eternal life is God's charisma, "gift," in Christ Jesus. The distinction preserves Paul's asymmetry: death is portrayed as the earned outcome of sin, while eternal life is not a corresponding wage for righteousness but a gracious divine gift.

Romans 6 addresses an objection generated by Paul's claim that grace abounds where sin increases in 5:20. The chapter asks whether grace therefore encourages continued sin and answers by describing believers' changed relation to sin through participation in Christ's death and resurrection. Verses 1-14 develop this through baptismal and union-with-Christ language: those joined to Christ have died with him, and his resurrection establishes the pattern and basis of their new life. Paul then moves from indicative statements about what has occurred in Christ to imperatives concerning how believers are to understand and present themselves.

Verses 15-23 restate the objection in a different form and answer it through the metaphor of slavery. The issue is no longer whether believers should remain in sin so that grace increases, but whether freedom from law permits sin. Paul contrasts two forms of servitude, to sin and to obedience or righteousness, and contrasts their respective outcomes, death and sanctification culminating in eternal life. The chapter thus connects justification with a transformed dominion and prepares for the discussion of law, sin, and liberation in Romans 7-8.