16 Do you not know that if you continually surrender yourselves to anyone to do his will, you are the slaves of him whom you obey, whether that be to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience which leads to righteousness (right doing and right standing with God)?
Now if you just read this verse alone, one could easily say that we are to obey either God or sin on our own, as if we alone have the power. Whole doctrines are created by taking a verse and then making a law out of it, which only brings people under bondage. The Truth however is that through Christ we are now new creatures, 2 Corinthians 5:17. We are now members of Jesus. We are now flesh of His flesh and bone of His bone, Ephesians 5:30. We have been sacrificed with Him, the ultimate surrendering, Romans 6:3-5. We cannot help but be obedient to righteousness because we are dead, yet we live, but it is not us who live, it is Christ in us Who lives, Galatians 2:20.
17 But thank God, though you were once slaves of sin, you have become obedient with all your heart to the standard of teaching in which you were instructed and to which you were committed.
We are now obedient with all of our hearts, because our Father has given us a new heart to be obedient with.
A new heart will I give you and a new spirit will I put within you, and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. Ezekiel 36:26
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