The “Roman Road to Salvation” is well-known in evangelical circles. The Roman Road is a group of verses which (it’s thought) lays out the gospel quickly & clearly. Many Christians rely heavily upon the Roman Road for teaching and evangelism.
However, the Roman Road has some serious potholes that can impede our comprehension of salvation – both the nature of salvation and how salvation is achieved. The verses used in the Roman Road have come to be understood in a very specific way. The problem is that some of these interpretations are inconsistent with what the Apostle Paul has actually written.
The road begins with Romans 3:23. “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” In some versions, Romans 3:10 is added: “There is no one righteous, not even one.” These verses communicate the basic Christian claim that every human being has been corrupted by sin. Humanity has “missed the mark” – like an inept archer whose arrow has gone far astray from the intended target.
So, what’s the target? Humans were created to bear God’s image – to reflect his wisdom, goodness, & love into the world around us. But we’ve rebelled against God’s purposes and thereby failed to fulfill our key role. Instead of doing the right thing in God’s eyes (or behaving “righteously”) we’ve embraced wickedness.
The next step on the Roman Road is Romans 6:23: “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Jesus the Messiah our Lord.” Most evangelicals think they know exactly what this verse means. Because of our sin, we’re worthy only of condemnation and death. Yet because of God’s love for us, Jesus went to the cross as a sacrifice for our sin. Jesus took upon himself the punishment that we deserved. Through faith in Jesus, our sins are forgiven and we receive the gift of eternal life. Within this stream of thought, “faith” refers to passive trust or belief in the work of Jesus. Such faith is strictly separated from any action or behavior on our part. For many evangelicals, “Christianity is not about what we do, it’s about what Christ has done.”
There is however a significant problem with this viewpoint. Because Romans 6:23 serves as a summary statement of what Paul has been writing about since verse 15. When we read this section of scripture, it is strikingly at odds with the interpretation offered above. In fact, the entire section is about human behavior – about obedience to God & acting righteously. Yet astonishingly, evangelicals have assigned Romans 6:23 a meaning which directly contradicts everything Paul has been saying. Like all scripture, if we want to truly understand Romans 6:23, we must grasp its context. So, let’s rewind to verse 15 and see what we discover.
“What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means!” (v15) As often, Paul begins with a rhetorical question. He proposes an erroneous train of thought which he will then go on to correct. For over a thousand years, the Jews had rightfully celebrated the Torah as God’s code of conduct. The idea of living outside the law meant embracing the idolatry & wickedness of the Gentile nations around them. What Paul is eager to avoid is the suggestion that just because Jewish Christians have left the Torah behind, that their conduct no longer matters. For Paul, the Torah wasn’t the problem. Instead, Paul saw the dark reality that Israel was “in the flesh”; that is, they were sinful & rebellious just like the rest of humankind. So even though the Torah revealed the kind of behavior which would lead to life & flourishing, “fleshly” Israel couldn’t live up to this standard.
At this point, the standard evangelical would respond, “Yes of course. People simply cannot please God through their actions. All we can do is receive the forgiveness offered to us through the death of Jesus. We’re no longer under law but under grace!”
But when Paul writes about grace, he doesn’t just mean forgiveness. Paul emphasizes that God graciously gives his people the power they need to live righteously. The goal of the Christian faith is not merely the forgiveness of wrongdoing, but the complete restoration of the human beings. This will become abundantly clear in the following discussion.
Paul immediately launches into a discussion where he contrasts two kinds of slavery. Slavery to sin leads to death. But followers of Jesus are now enslaved to obedience & righteousness, ultimately leading to eternal life.
“Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey – whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness?” (v16) Paul sees the truth that there is no middle ground. Either humans worship the one true God and live in obedience to him, or they reject God and his wisdom. Because God is the source of all goodness, his wisdom leads to flourishing and life. The path of sin brings about misery and death. He contrasts the slavery to sin with slavery to obedience, which leads to righteousness. Paul is clearly speaking about human behavior.
Some might suggest that “righteousness” here means only “right relationship.” But the context of the passage simply will not allow this meaning. Obedience, by necessity, requires our actions. And remember, the fundamental meaning of righteousness is “doing the right thing” or “right behavior.”
In verse 17, Paul gives thanks that the Roman Christians have chosen the right road: “But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you became obedient from the heart to the form of teaching to which you were entrusted. You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.” Again, Paul is manifestly dealing with behavior. He’s still contrasting slavery to sin with slavery to obedience, but here expands on what exactly this obedience involves.
First, this new obedience comes “from the heart.” Unlike “fleshly” Israel, the Roman Christians have been renewed through and through, down to the depths of their heart. Paul doesn’t here explicitly mention the Holy Spirit, but as we’ll see later, this is certainly what he has in mind. Christians have a power source which gives them the ability to walk the road of obedience.
Second, Paul indicates that Christian obedience is “to the form of teaching to which you were entrusted.” He doesn’t at this point elaborate on what exactly this teaching consists of, but the teaching clearly involves behavior because the Roman Christians have become “obedient” to it.
Finally, Paul celebrates that the Roman Christians “have been set free from sin and becomes slaves to righteousness.” Whereas in verse 16 he spoke of slavery to “obedience which leads to righteousness,” here he writes about slavery directly to righteousness. But even though Paul has varied his terms, the basic meaning has not changed: righteousness clearly refers to right behavior by being used in parallel with obedience, and in contrast to sin.
Paul’s next statement might be rather puzzling: “I put this in human terms because you are weak in your natural selves.” Paul has contrasted two kinds of slavery. He realizes that this is a strange way of describing things. After all, slavery to God is precisely what brings true freedom & flourishing to human beings. Paul adds this remark to remind his readers they shouldn’t import the negative connotations of slavery into their relationship with God.
Paul then continues to expand on the contrast between the two kinds of slavery. “Just as you used to offer the parts of your body in slavery to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer them in slavery to righteousness leading to holiness.” (v19) Again, it’s spectacularly clear that Paul is describing a radical change in conduct. He reminds the Roman Christians of the depraved behavior they engaged in prior to giving their loyalty to Jesus. And he commands them now to leave wickedness behind and pursue righteousness (right behavior).
Significantly, Paul states that righteousness leads to holiness. Holiness is a key word referring to moral purity. It may also carry the idea of someone or something being marked out or consecrated for God’s purposes. But even within this second meaning, the idea of moral purity is still present, because God’s purposes can best be achieved through those people who have committed themselves to proper morality. For example, see II Timothy 2:21.)
The idea of achieving holiness through right behavior is very foreign to most evangelicals. They’ve been taught that humans can’t possibly live up to the standards of a holy God. Yet here Paul is commanding the Romans to offer themselves to “right conduct” leading to holiness.
Paul then begins to wrap up his argument: “When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness. What fruit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death! But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the fruit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life.” (v20-22)
Paul continues to develop the contrast between the two kinds of slavery. But now his emphasis shifts to the different outcomes by using the metaphor of harvesting fruit. The fruit of sin is shameful behavior which ultimately leads to death. But the Roman Christians “have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God.” The Romans’ obedience & righteousness is ultimately in service to God himself. And this fruit leads to holiness and eternal life.
In this passage, Paul has drawn a straight line connecting our obedience & righteousness to holiness resulting in eternal life. To most evangelicals, this sounds like a straightforward presentation of “works” based righteousness. Are we sure that Paul really wrote this? Well, it’s right there in black and white.
We now arrive at the all-important Romans 6:23: “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Jesus the Messiah our Lord.” It must be emphasized that verse 23 functions as a concluding summary of Paul’s train of thought since verse 15. He is certainly not introducing a new idea which directly contradicts what he has just written. We know this (in part) because Paul begins verse 23 by using the Greek word gar which means “for” or “because.” In other words, the correct meaning of verse 23 must be rooted in the preceding discussion.
The first part of verse 23 is easy, even though Paul changes the metaphor. Before, the fruit of sinful behavior is death. Now it’s the wages of sin is death. But the basic meaning has not changed: the outcome of sinful rebellion is death.
The second part of the verse is massively misunderstood by evangelicals. We must not rip Romans 6:23 out of context and force it to mean whatever we think it should say according to our predetermined system.
Paul has not changed the subject. He is still explaining how our obedience and right behavior brings about holiness and results in eternal life. Perhaps the toughest part of this verse is that Paul now calls this “the gift of God.” Evangelicals have been repeatedly taught that a gift must mean something which we passively receive from God, completely unrelated to our behavior. “It’s a free gift! All you can do is receive it by faith!”
Clearly, we must clarify what the first Christians meant when they talked about the gift of God. Happily, it’s not that difficult. In Acts 1:4, Jesus tells his disciples, “Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about. For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.” In Acts 2:28, Peter exhorts the crowd, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus the Messiah for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” In Acts 8, Simon offers Peter & John money, so that he might purchase the ability to grant the Holy Spirit. Peter rebukes Simon by saying, “May your money perish with you, because you thought you could buy the gift of God with money!” In Acts 10, Peter preaches to the household of the Roman centurion Cornelius. Peter’s fellow Jewish Christians were astonished “that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on the Gentiles.”
It’s abundantly clear from these and other passages that Christians spoke of the Holy Spirit as God’s gift. And this fits perfectly with Paul’s overall thought. The obedience & righteousness which Paul describes comes about through the gift of the Holy Spirit. Paul is not saying that our conduct is irrelevant. In fact, he’s teaching the opposite: changed conduct is essential if we are to reach the goal of eternal life.
It should be noted that some Bible translations (like the NIV) translate the Greek word for fruit in verses 21 and 22 as benefit or some similar term. We should now understand why Paul specifically used the word fruit. Even though he doesn’t explicitly say it, the Holy Spirit is undoubtedly in Paul’s mind.
In Galatians 5, Paul famously lists the fruit of the Spirit. These fruit are all about our conduct: things like love, patience, kindness, gentleness, and self-control. This language can be traced back to Isaiah 5, where God desires the fruit of justice & righteousness from the vineyard of Israel. In the same way, John the Baptist exhorted Israel to produce the fruit that God requires. John immediately proceeded to proclaim the coming of Jesus, the one who will baptize his people with the Holy Spirit.
The main point of Romans 6:23 is that Christians are empowered by the Holy Spirit to behave obediently & righteously. This conduct will bring about their salvation: the joy of eternal life in God’s presence.
