Romans 6:22Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

First, you were freed from vice and from those evil deeds whose mere remembrance brings shame. Second, you were enslaved to righteousness. Third, you received sanctification. Fourth, you attained life, and not temporal life, but eternal life.

Even so, the Apostle says, serve God at least in the same measure in which you served sin. Though the Master has incomparable superiority, and though the difference is great both in the service itself and in the rewards for which you serve, I require nothing more for now.

Thus he sets the holiness of virtue against the shame that comes from sin, and the endless life that comes from good deeds against the death produced by lawless acts.

Sinners, he says, suffer shame in the present life, and eternal torment in the life to come. By contrast, the virtuous receive sanctification on earth, and blessed life in heaven.

When the Apostle first says, "you became slaves of righteousness," and then says, "having become slaves of God," he teaches us that to be virtuous and to obey God are one and the same.

He confirms this by the following words: v. 23, "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord."

Speaking not for the first time about the consequences of sin and righteousness, the Apostle calls death the wages to which the sinner has full right. Therefore he receives it as the deserved fruit of sinful life, grown by the man himself.

But for a holy life there is given not a deserved wage, but the gift of God: eternal life. This fully corresponds to the thought of the incomparable action of God's grace in the work of our salvation.

It is beyond measure when compared with our participation in salvation, and with the feelings by which the true Christian serves the Lord. He works for Him not for wages, but out of love for Him and spiritual devotion.

"The Lord Jesus Christ Himself was the gift of the goodness and love of the all-good God, Who so loved the world that He gave His Only-begotten Son for us. Therefore eternal life is God's gift in Him, since believers follow after Him into eternal life."

Or, what is the same, it is constantly to serve righteousness with all the members of soul and body, as before you served sin.

If you preserve yourself in this saving disposition to the end of life, you will pass into the other life holy and pure.

There you will begin to enjoy inexhaustible blessedness.

The end of a holy life in Christ Jesus is eternal, all-blessed life.

That this will be so, judge from what you have already received: you have holiness.

It is the pledge and beginning of eternal blessedness.

Keeping this in mind, can you grow weak in hatred of sin and in love of righteousness?

Chrysostom says: "The fruit of the first state is shame. The fruit of the present state is holiness.

But where holiness is, there is much hope. The end of the former state is death, and the end of the present is eternal life.

Do you see that the apostle points to one thing as already given, and to the other as expected?

By what is given we are assured of what is expected; by holiness, of life, that is, of eternally blessed life.

And so that you could not say that everything is only expected, the apostle proves that even here you have already reaped the fruits.

First, you were freed from vice and from those evil deeds whose very memory brings you to shame.

Second, you became subject to righteousness. Third, you received holiness. Fourth, you obtained life, and not temporary life, but eternal life.

Nevertheless, the apostle says, serve God at least to the same measure as you served sin.

Although the new Master is superior, and the difference is great both in the service itself and in the rewards for which you serve, I ask nothing more of you."

Above, the apostle said: "Having been freed from sin, you became servants of righteousness."

Here he says: "Having been freed from sin and having become servants of God."

By this he showed that subjection to righteousness is subjection to God.

He also suggested this above, when he said that we must present our members to God as instruments of righteousness; cf. Rom 6:13.

Thus the apostle teaches us that we must not stop at righteousness alone. Through it we must stretch toward God as the final goal.

There are thinkers who suppose they can build good morality without God and without faith in Him.

"Follow conscience," they say, "and that is all."

It is true that one must follow conscience. But why?

Because it reveals the will of God to us.

In creation itself God laid upon conscience the task of standing for His holy will.

Therefore we see that as soon as conscience recognizes this or that as the law of God's righteousness, it gives a person no rest until it compels him to act according to this law.

Such is the structure of conscience.

Yet in its activity it always depends on how a person stands in relation to God.

In one who remembers God and has the fear of God, conscience is strong.

In one who forgets God and loses the fear of God, conscience is weak.

In our nature, conscience is so joined to God that without God it is of little use for the work for which it exists in us.

How, then, can good morality be founded on conscience alone?

There are other thinkers who summarize all their moral teaching in this brief proposition: believe in God and follow conscience.

The fear of God together with conscience is a powerful producer of good morality.

This is perfect truth. Otherwise, good morality cannot come into being.

But how is the fear of God to be enlivened?

How is conscience to be raised to a clear and full knowledge of God's will?

And after this knowledge, how is the will to be clothed with power to fulfill the suggestions of conscience without deviation?

The thinkers do not define this, and by themselves they cannot define it.

All this is shown to us by Christian revelation. It not only shows it, but also brings us into the state of fear of God, knowledge of His holy will, and possession of power to follow it.

The first evangelical calling is revealed through the awakening of the fear of God and the enlivening of conscience.

These give birth to hatred of sin and love of righteousness, which lead to the resolution to turn from the first and cleave to the last.

When this resolution is then sealed in baptism and receives the grace of God upon itself, the person who comes out of the font is already a powerful zealot of good works.

He is ready to die sooner than violate the holy will of God in anything.

This is subjection to God, whose fruit is holiness, of which Saint Paul speaks here.

When he says "to God," he means the acceptance of the whole ordering of our salvation by God in Jesus Christ.

He expresses this immediately afterward, speaking of God's gift for righteousness, that it will be in Christ Jesus our Lord.