<p>6:16&nbsp;<i>Do you not know, that to whom you present yourselves as slaves to obedience, his slaves you are whom you obey? Whether of sin to death</i>- See on 6:13. The obedience would seem to be a one time obedience- in baptism- an obedience to a form of doctrine delivered to them (6:17). &ldquo;The obedience of faith&rdquo; which Paul spoke of in Rom. 1:5 he now interprets as baptism. Note the parallel between faith and obedience in Rom. 10:16.</p>
<p>Paul expected other believers to share his familiarity with the words of Christ. There's an example in Rom. 6:16: &quot; Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are... whether of sin... or of obedience?&quot;. This is alluding to Mt. 6:24 concerning not serving two masters. Paul is surely saying: 'Come on, this is Matthew 6, you can't serve two masters That principle ought to be firmly lodged in your heart'. In terms of Paul&rsquo;s argument about which status or sphere we are in, his point is simple: you can only be in one sphere or the other, either under law or grace, sin or obedience. It&rsquo;s therefore impossible to continue sinning. in God&rsquo;s view and it&rsquo;s His view of the matter which is the only thing worth anything- because we are either justified in Christ, or not justified and condemned sinners. The tree brings forth either good or bad fruit (Mt. 7:18)- in that we are &ldquo;in&rdquo; either the good tree or the bad one. Paul deploys this argument to answer the objection that we may as well continue sinning- he&rsquo;s saying not merely that we ought not to do that, but rather that ultimately we&nbsp;<em>cannot</em>&nbsp;do that, because we are either under sin or under obedience. Notice that he personifies &ldquo;obedience&rdquo; as a slave owner, to whom we now belong. The two slave masters in view here are called &ldquo;sin&rdquo; and &ldquo;obedience&rdquo;. We are clearly to identify &ldquo;obedience&rdquo; with the Lord Jesus. And Paul has just written about the singular and spectacular &ldquo;obedience&rdquo; of Jesus in dying for us on the cross (see on Rom. 5:19). This act made Jesus to be Lord and Master for us. We are obedient to His obedience, as it were. Which is the whole idea of baptism- we are buried together with Him, we die with Him, His death becomes ours, and thus His obedience unto death is ours.</p>
<p><em>Or of obedience to righteousness</em>- The end result of our serving &ldquo;obedience&rdquo;, i.e. the Lord Jesus, is righteousness. But Paul&rsquo;s argument has been that all our righteousness is as filthy rags, and righteousness has to be imputed to us. The end result of being under &ldquo;obedience&rdquo;, in Christ, is that righteousness is imputed to us, we are declared righteous, justified, as we stand before the final judgment. Lack of attention to Paul&rsquo;s argument and the meaning attached to the terms being used in Romans can lead the casual reader of this verse to think that by acts of obedience we become righteous- and that is the very opposite of what Paul has been teaching all along.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>