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Romans

About this book
Chapter 6

1 What shall we say then? Are we to remain in sin so that grace may increase?⁠ 2 Absolutely not! How can we who died to sin still live in it? 3 Or do you not know that as many as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 Therefore we have been buried with him through baptism into death, in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too may live a new life.⁠ 5 For if we have become united with him in the likeness of his death, we will certainly also be united in the likeness of his resurrection. 6 We know that our old man was crucified with him so that the body of sin would no longer dominate us, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin.⁠ 7 (For someone who has died has been freed from sin.) 8 Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. 9 We know that since Christ has been raised from the dead, he is never going to die again; death no longer has mastery over him. 10 For the death he died, he died to sin once for all, but the life he lives, he lives to God. 11 So you too consider yourselves dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus. 12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its desires, 13 and do not present your members to sin as instruments to be used for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who are alive from the dead and your members to God as instruments to be used for righteousness. 14 For sin will have no mastery over you, because you are not under law but under grace. 15 What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? Absolutely not! 16 Do you not know that if you present yourselves as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one you obey, either of sin resulting in death, or obedience resulting in righteousness? 17 But thanks be to God that though you were slaves to sin, you obeyed from the heart that pattern of teaching you were entrusted to, 18 and having been freed from sin, you became enslaved to righteousness.⁠ 19 (I am speaking in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh.) For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification. 20 For when you were slaves of sin, you were free with regard to righteousness. 21 So what benefit did you then reap from those things that you are now ashamed of? For the end of those things is death. 22 But now, freed from sin and enslaved to God, you have your benefit leading to sanctification, and the end is eternal life. 23 For the payoff of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Texts in conversation

Compare Romans 6:22 and Sifre Numbers 115

New Testament · Rabbinic

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Summary

In Romans 6, Paul describes believers freed from sin but enslaved to God, a metaphor that is similar to a parable in the Rabbinic text Sifre Numbers, where a son is rescued only to become a slave to God.

Passages

Romans 6:22

New Testament
17 But thanks be to God that though you were slaves to sin, you obeyed from the heart that pattern of teaching you were entrusted to, 18 and having been freed from sin, you became enslaved to righteousness. 19 (I am speaking in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh.) For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification. 20 For when you were slaves of sin, you were free with regard to righteousness. 21 So what benefit did you then reap from those things that you are now ashamed of? For the end of those things is death. 22 But now, freed from sin and enslaved to God, you have your benefit leading to sanctification, and the end is eternal life. 23 For the payoff of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
55–58 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in Romans

Sifre Numbers 115

Rabbinic · Halakhic Midrash
Variantly: Why is the exodus from Egypt mentioned in connection with every mitzvah? An analogy: The son of a king's loved one was taken captive. When he (the king) redeems him, he redeems him not as a son, but as a servant, so that if he (the son) does not accept his decree, he can say to him "You are my servant!" When they enter the province, he (the king) says to him: Put on my sandals and carry my things before me to the bath-house. The son begins to object, whereupon the king presents him with his writ (of servitude) and says to him: "You are my servant!" Thus, when the Holy One Blessed be He redeemed the seed of His loved one, He did not redeem them as "sons," but as servants, so that if they reject His decree He says to them: "You are My servants!" When they went to the desert, He began to decree upon them some "light" mitzvoth and some formidable ones, such as Shabbath, illicit relations, tzitzith, and tefillin, and Israel began to object — whereupon He said to them: "You are My servants! On that condition I redeemed you; on condition that I decree and you fulfill!"
200 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in Sifre Numbers

References

"... As I have indicated earlier, I think that the parable from Sifre can be very helpful in understanding slavery metaphors and language in the New Testament writings. In the previous section we have briefly discussed a passage from Galatians 4 in which Paul explained that because of the redemption by Christ we are no longer slaves, but sons and heirs. Paul’s creative use of the slavery metaphor becomes visible in a passage from the Letter to the Romans that has a rather different message. In Romans 6:20-22 we read ... I would like to argue that this passage from Romans 6 closely resembles the situation we have found in the parable from Sifre Numbers 115. At first the Roman Christians were already slaves (verse 20), namely slaves of sin. They were captured, so to say, by evil forces. This we may compare to the friend’s son in Sifre Numbers 115 who was enslaved by his kidnappers. Now, however – after the ransoming by Jesus – ‘they’ (the Romans) have been freed from sins and enslaved again (verse 22), but now by God, just like the son in Sifre was freed from his kidnappers, but enslaved by his ‘liberator’. So, the Roman Christians are not really free, since they still have a master ..."
Martijn Stoutjesdijk, “God as Father and Master: Sons and Slaves in Sifre Numbers 115 and in the New Testament,” NTT Journal for Theology and the Study of Religion (2018): 121–136.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

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Romans 6:22 and Sifre Numbers 115

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