NOTES for Rom 6:15-23

Apparently, in the Church in general, and in the Roman church in particular, there were people then who were sure that sin posed no threat to a Christian: after all, it only emphasizes and sets off the action of God's grace in a person's life, so there is nothing to fear in sin.

At the same time, they thought that since a Christian by definition already belongs to the Kingdom, no sin can harm him or separate him from the Kingdom: God is stronger than the evil in which the world lies, and Christ has finally defeated the evil of this world and the devil himself, so that evil now does not truly exist at all. And if that is so, then a Christian has no reason to fear this illusion or to think of sin as something real and effective.

Paul understands perfectly well that until the world and the human person are fully transformed, sin will have power over a person to the extent that the person himself is still the same as before. The struggle is not yet over: Christ has defeated the evil of the world, but each person will still have to defeat that same evil in himself, even though with His help. And until this is done, there can be no talk of a person being invulnerable to sin.

That means the path of righteousness remains the path of righteousness even in the Kingdom; it remains the path of opposition to sin, which seeks to rob the Christian of the life of the Kingdom in which he has come to share. This threat is not illusory; it is completely real. And it is real every second, every instant of human existence. The whole life of a Christian becomes a choice between sin and the Kingdom. And this is an ongoing choice, not simply one made once and for all. It is a choice that will have to be confirmed. Or not confirmed - but then one will have to forget both the Kingdom and salvation.

The way of righteousness was at all time perceived as the way of opposition to the sin and the liberation from it. And nevertheless at all time, to every person, who took this way seriously, it was clear: the complete freedom from sin is an inaccessible ideal. And the problem here is not only in the lack of resolution or the human weakness, but also in the fact that after the fall the human nature itself opposes the one who wishes to go on such way. When Paul speaks about the slavery to sin, it is not about allegory or hyperbola: after the fall man is not really in power of delivering himself totally from this evil, which penetrated into his own nature, corroding it from the inside.

Of course, with God’s help we would have been able to resist this decomposition; otherwise it would have had no sense to speak about the way of righteousness. But the biggest thing, that could achieve the one who went on the way of righteousness before the coming into the world of the Savior, - hold on on the slope, not slide in the abyss, not let the sin triumph in his life, completely. About the big, about the turn of the situation for the benefit of righteousness, such a turn, after which righteousness would have become inherent to man, as its integral quality, - it does not even happen to dream about such a turn. And only the coming of the Messiah changed the situation radically.

The Kingdom entered the world, opening new possibilities and new perspectives to those who walk on the way of righteousness new possibilities and perspectives. Now appeared finally to the one who walks on this way, the possibility of delivering himself from the power of sin once for all. Indeed: before, when not only an individual, but also the world in general was left to the power of evil and sin, could escape from the slavery of sin only by going out of the world, stopping being a part of it. The alternative could have been able to become only the re-creation of the world again by God. And in a certain sense this is what happens, when the Kingdom enters the world: because the laws of the Kingdom distinguish themselves mainly from the laws of the not transformed world, such as everyone, becoming part of it, can begin life again, from a white sheet.

And the way of righteousness for those who joined the Kingdom, becomes in particular the way of the complete liberation from the power of sin. But the complete liberation will become possible only when the Kingdom will also reveal itself in a big measure, transforming definitively the world. That is why the apostle says that the purpose of the life of the Christian is the Kingdom: because having joined the life of the Kingdom at the time of the conversion to Christ, the Christian only begins his spiritual way, and it will end with the return of the Savior in glory, when the Kingdom will reveal itself till the end. So becomes the way of righteousness after the coming of the Chorister: the way beginning at the threshold of the Kingdom and ending in God's throne, where its fullness dwells.

The obvious contrast "death - life" is matched by the second pair of opposites, "wages - the gift of God." In this way, the apostle Paul points out that death is not something sent (or created) by God, but simply the inevitable consequence of sin. Indeed, sin separates us from God, and only God is the source of eternal life; therefore sin cuts us off from eternal life, and the absence of eternal life is, properly speaking, death. Sin carries its wages within itself.

With life everything is different. A human being is not eternal in himself; God is eternal, and the human being was created by God, so for that reason alone his existence is not absolute. But God, who possesses eternal life, is ready to give it to us. More than that, He gives it to us; He has already held it out to us. This gift, this eternal life, already exists in the Man, in Jesus Christ, and all that remains for us is to accept this gift. To do this, first, we must believe that this really is so, otherwise the gift simply does not exist for us; second, we must be united with Christ, otherwise this life cannot pass into us; and third, very simply, we must not sin, otherwise sin will tear us away from life again.

What, the third part is not working? Then we have not been well united with Christ; let us return to the second step. This is called "bringing repentance." The second is not working? Then we need to think carefully about what exactly we believe...