Romans 6

The objection shifts from v. 1 (“shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?”) to a new misuse of v. 14: if we are not under law but under grace, may we sin? Paul again answers, “By no means!” Wesley on the verse just behind this question: under grace is the merciful dispensation of the gospel, which brings complete victory over sin to every one who is under the powerful influences of the Spirit of Christ. Grace is power, not license.

Wesleyan Arminians see a free refusal, not a paper one. Being under grace frees from sin’s dominion so that we may present ourselves as slaves to righteousness. It does not make sin safe, and it does not make yielding to the old master impossible or harmless. The holy no is the start of a commanded life, not the announcement that the regenerate cannot return.

Calvin: the wisdom of the flesh thinks that when the law is removed all discipline falls to the ground, and no distinction remains between good and evil. We are much deceived if we think the righteousness God approves in his law is abolished when the law is abrogated; nothing is taken away but the curse, to which all men without grace are subject. By no means! because Christ sanctions the right way of living; he does not abrogate it.

Those under grace are not under the law’s condemning yoke, yet they are not without a master. Grace includes both remission and the Spirit who forms us anew unto good works. The objection assumes law is the only restraint; Paul will show that a new slavery—to righteousness—has already begun in the faithful.

Two slaveries, two ends: present yourselves and you belong to the one you obey—sin to death, or obedience to righteousness. The presenting is a living act. Grace has opened a new possibility; it has not made the old master unreachable. You are the servants of whomever you obey.

Classical Arminians take the warning as pastoral and true. Returning to sin’s slavery is a genuine danger (cf. Rom 11:22). Death is still the end of that service; righteousness grows from a continued yielding. The verse does not describe a transfer that can never be reversed in practice; it summons those under grace to keep presenting themselves to obedience.

Calvin: this is not a bare denial. Between the yoke of Christ and that of sin there is so much contrariety that no one can bear them both; if we sin, we give ourselves up to the service of sin, but the faithful have been redeemed from the tyranny of sin, that they may serve Christ: it is therefore impossible for them to remain bound to sin. Obedience here stands for God’s own commandments; it cannot be a divided obedience.

The two slaveries name two masters, not a revolving door. Those transferred to obedience will not finally belong to sin unto death. You are the servants of whomever you obey: the phrase describes what the new master produces. Fruit follows the master; the regenerate are no longer sin’s slaves in the old sense.

Thanks to God: you were servants of sin, but you have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine into which you were delivered. Wesley: literally the mould into which ye have been delivered; our minds, all pliant and ductile, should be conformed to the gospel precepts, as liquid metal take the figure of the mould into which they are cast.

Heart-obedience is human response under grace. God is thanked because grace enabled the turn; “you became obedient from the heart” is still their yielding. The note struck is both gift and demand: the teaching is a mould, and we are to take its figure. The mould does not pour itself without the metal’s being given.

Calvin adds thanksgiving first, that he might teach them this was not through their own merit but through the special mercy of God. Without grace the whole race of man is held captive under sin; the kingdom of sin comes to an end as soon as grace puts forth its power. Christ inwardly forms our souls; he does not allow his people unbridled freedom, like horses let loose in the fields, but brings them to a regular course of life.

“Thanks be to God” locates the cause. Heart-obedience is the Spirit’s work in those grace has claimed. The standard of teaching is the type—the impress of righteousness Christ engraves on the heart—into which they have been transferred. The once-slaves are now the heart-obedient because grace reigned, not because they found a better mould on their own.

Set free from sin, they became servants of righteousness. Wesley traces the apostle’s method to this point: bondage to sin, the law’s knowledge of sin, the gospel’s righteousness, faith embracing it, justification, the gift of the Spirit, and then the free service of righteousness. Freedom is for service, not for self.

Grace frees from sin’s dominion so we may present ourselves as slaves to righteousness. The manumission is God’s; the new slavery is to be lived. Arminian interpreters refuse both antinomian drift and a freedom that never serves. Liberty in Christ is inclination and delight (v. 19)—and the members must still be yielded.

Calvin: it is unreasonable that anyone, after having been made free, should continue in bondage; you ought to maintain the freedom received. You have been liberated from sin that you might pass into the kingdom of righteousness. No one can be a servant to righteousness except he is first liberated by the power and kindness of God from the tyranny of sin. The commencement of what is good proceeds from this manumission, which the grace of God alone effects.

The transfer has happened. Set free from sin, they you became bondservants of righteousness—perfects of a completed change of master. Fruit will follow. The regenerate are no longer sin’s slaves in the old sense; they belong to righteousness because God manumitted them.

Paul stoops to the language of slavery because of fleshly weakness. As you presented your members as servants to uncleanness and to wickedness upon wickedness, so now present them as servants to righteousness for sanctification. Wesley: they who are servants of righteousness go on to holiness; they who are servants to iniquity get no farther. Righteousness is service, because we live according to the will of another; but liberty, because of our inclination to it and delight in it.

The “now present” is a living command. Arminians find a yielding that leads on to holiness. Grace enables the presentation; it does not replace it. Sanctification is the path of those who keep presenting their members—not an automatic harvest irrespective of obedience.

Calvin: he speaks after the manner of men as to manner, not substance, lest anyone imagine that the freedom obtained by Christ gives liberty to sin. As you were formerly ready with all your faculties to serve sin, now you ought to be equally prompt to execute God’s commands. By righteousness he understands the rule of a holy life, the design of which is sanctification, when the faithful devote themselves to serve God in purity.

The command lands on a people already transferred. “Present” is the fitting action of those whose master has changed. Sanctification is the fruit the new slavery produces. The once/now comparison assumes the change of lordship has occurred; the members follow the master they now have.

Former “freedom” was freedom from righteousness—no bridle toward God. Wesley: when ye were the servants of sin, ye were free from righteousness; in all reason, therefore, ye ought now to be free from unrighteousness, as uniform and zealous in serving God as ye were in serving the devil.

The old freedom was wretched. Arminian readers use the contrast pastorally: the new service should match the old zeal. That “ought” is sincere. Those set free must actually become as devoted to righteousness as they were to sin—or the old freedom returns in practice, and with it the old end.

Calvin: sin and righteousness are so contrary that he who devotes himself to the one necessarily departs from the other. He calls those free from righteousness who are held by no bridle to obey it. This is the liberty of the flesh, which so frees us from obedience to God that it makes us slaves to the devil. Wretched then and accursed is this liberty, which with unbridled frenzy leads us exultingly to our destruction.

The former state is described as closed. Slaves of sin were not part-time servants of righteousness. The contrast prepares v. 22: the reverse transfer is equally whole. Those now under righteousness are not still free toward sin in the old sense.

Wesley: he speaks of those things as afar off. The apostle puts the old life at a distance, yet names its end without softening. Shame is a present mercy—eyes opened on a harvest that was never life.

Those in Wesley’s line hear a warning still in force. The end of those things is death, not a scarecrow. Distance from the old life is to be maintained, not presumed irreversible without remaining in his goodness (Rom 11:22). If the fruitless service can be resumed, its end is still death.

Calvin: he could not more strikingly express what he intended than by appealing to their conscience. The godly, illuminated by the Spirit and the gospel, acknowledge their past life without Christ to have been worthy of condemnation; they feel ashamed. The light of the Lord alone opens our eyes to the filthiness of the flesh. They had been standing on the precipice of death, and would have entered its gates had they not been reclaimed by God’s mercy.

“now ashamed” marks a people already reclaimed. The fruitless past is confessed because mercy opened their eyes. Death was the end they were near; God’s mercy pulled them back. The verse is retrospective evidence of a change God has made, not an open question whether they might yet collect that fruit again as slaves.

But now: set free from sin, become servants of God, you have your fruit leads to sanctification and the result of eternal life. The “now” is the new service, and the fruit leads on. The gift of eternal life is in Christ and is received and continued in the obedience of faith—not a wage, and not a fruit that grows while we return to the old master.

Classical Arminians refuse to treat the end as merited, yet they refuse to treat it as unconditioned by remaining. Fruit leading to sanctification is the path of those who stay slaves of God. Returning to sin’s slavery would not still lead to eternal life (cf. Rom 11:22). The end belongs to those who continue.

Calvin: as he had mentioned a twofold end of sin, so now as to righteousness. We now gather the fruit of righteousness, even holiness; we hope in future to gain eternal life. Telos is “end,” not tribute or reward: life cannot be said to be the tribute or reward of righteousness. These things ought to generate hatred of sin and love of righteousness.

Those transferred from sin’s slavery to God will bear this fruit. Sanctification and eternal life are the appointed end of the new service, not a wage they might fail to collect. The regenerate are no longer sin’s slaves in the old sense; fruit follows the new master. The “now” is a completed manumission whose harvest is sure.

Paul sets wages against a gift. Wesley: death—temporal, spiritual, and eternal—is the due wages of sin; but eternal life is the gift of God. The difference is remarkable. Evil works merit the reward they receive: good works do not. The former demand wages: the latter accept a free gift. Both camps refuse merit; the fork is how the gift is held.

Classical Arminians insist the gift is free—and that it is in Christ Jesus, received and continued in the obedience of faith. Holiness comes from those who remain in the gift, not the price of it. To return to sin’s slavery is to leave the place where the gift is given (cf. Rom 11:22). Eternal life is not earned, and it is not a possession that survives a return to the old master.

Calvin: our salvation is altogether through the grace and mere beneficence of God. He might have said the wages of righteousness is eternal life, so the clauses would correspond; but he knew it is through God’s gift we obtain it, and not through our own merits. It is not one single gift: being clothed with the righteousness of the Son we are reconciled, and by the Spirit renewed unto holiness. He adds “in Christ Jesus” to call us away from every conceit of our own worthiness.

The gift is God’s, not wages. Justification and sanctification together bring eternal life. Those in Christ Jesus our Lord have the gift; it is not a prize for finished service. The regenerate, no longer sin’s slaves, receive what God gives in his Son. Perseverance is the gift’s unfolding, not a human completion of a half-given life. They will not finally collect sin’s wages, because the gift, not their merit, holds them.