Paul compares two moral lifestyles with the analogy of slavery. Bob Dylan’s 1979 song “Gotta Serve Somebody” comes to mind when I read these verses. John Lennon’s response song “Serve Yourself” is comical in the light of the truth that in the heart everyone is either a slave to sin or a slave to righteousness. So serving myself is not the command I give myself, it’s how do I want to serve who?
Paul’s point here is that every Christian has one of two chooses to make. “Just as you used to offer yourselves as slaves to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer yourselves as slaves to righteousness leading to holiness.” (19b)
A slave to righteousness does right to others and self. A slave to righteousness obeys from the heart the pattern of teaching that has now claimed my allegiance (17). A slave to righteousness says no to sin.
Being a slave to righteousness does not mean that I give up my rights. Rather, I use my right to make a good choice. Being a slave to righteousness is not drudgery, it is freedom from that which destroys (21). Being a slave to righteousness means I chose eternal life (22). “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (22)