Romans 6:22 (ESV)
But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life.
THE FRUIT YOU GET LEADS TO SANCTIFICATION! That phrase might be one of the most powerful when it comes to our desire for holiness and the mortification (killing off) sin. The entire 5th and 6th chapter of Romans is to teach us about God’s marvelous act of “justification” (declaring us eternally righteous). The above verse comes at the end of the section, as part of a concluding statement about the benefits of being justification. Earlier, Paul told them to stop presenting their “members” (doorways to sin ... eyes, ears, mind, etc) as slaves to sin, but rather as slaves to the new righteousness they have been given (key word: Given). Note:
Romans 6:12-14 (ESV)
12 Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. 13 Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. 14 For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.
Notice that in verse 13 Paul tells us that we are to present our members to righteousness “... as those who have been brought from death to life ...”. This is a connecting statement that tells us that our “sanctification” (holiness) is coupled with our “justification.” Since, Paul states, we have been “brought from death to life” by Jesus death, burial and resurrection (chapter 5), then we are also “empowered” to present our “members” to God as instruments of righteousness rather than to sin s instruments of unrighteousness. So, our justification gives us “fruit” that empowers and enables our sanctification. That is the power of verse 22, above: THE FRUIT YOU GET LEADS TO SANCTIFICATION. We must quit thinking that justification is by faith in Christ, but sanctification is something that we do. ALL SANCTIFICATION, whether it is positional or practical, flows from what we THE FRUIT YOU GET. Live by that. The puritan preacher, John Owen, probably said it best this way:
No act of holiness will make the heart holy. It is from a holy heart that acts of holiness are produced.
The fruit we received via justification will lead to every aspect of our sanctification (holiness) as w believe, by faith, in the finished work of Christ.
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