Freedom from the clutches of sin
I put this in human terms because you are weak in your natural selves. 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. 20 When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness. 21 What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death!
Verse 19 is very close to the thought already expressed in verse 13. Paul has returned once more to his third group of imperatives, urging Christians to offer themselves in service to the Lord. It is not an easily understood concept or a particularly inviting prospect that Paul is presenting to them. Hence he strives to explain it to them in the clearest and most engaging way possible. He resorts to an illustration. He says, “I put this in human terms because you are weak in your natural selves.”
“Put[ting] this in human terms” means that he’s using an illustration from everyday life. He’s drawing on a common, well-known aspect of the ancient Greco-Roman world, namely, slavery. It’s a useful illustration, as we will see shortly. The institution of slavery, however, had features about it that made it decidedly unpalatable to people, with their natural desire for freedom. We all like to be in charge of our own affairs—to be our own boss. Slavery was just the opposite of that. Being a slave meant losing one’s own will and doing someone else’s bidding.
In the final analysis, however, that is exactly what Paul (or rather, God) asks of the Christian. The child of God is to become a slave—a slave of righteousness. “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.”
Again Paul is making a forceful argument by employing a comparison using a “just as . . . so” line of logic. As eagerly and zealously as the Romans used to surrender their bodies to impurity before their conversion to Christianity, so eagerly are they now to pursue righteousness. It’s an arresting thought Paul expresses here—also for us. As zealously as the world pursues evil and self-serving goals, such as power, wealth, fame, or pleasure, so eagerly are we now to be devoted to doing God’s will. That’s a challenging order, and one not to our old Adam’s liking. It means submerging our own will and letting God’s will guide and direct us. Giving up one’s will to follow that of another is, by definition, slavery. And that’s just what Paul calls it when he says, “Offer them [the parts of your body] in slavery to righteousness.”
Why would anyone want to enter slavery? Paul outlines the alternatives. And remember, Christ indicated there are only two alternatives. On the one hand, everyone has a master. There can be no disinterested neutrality toward God (Matthew 12:30). On the other hand, no one can serve two masters (6:24). Our master is God or someone else. Paul confronts his readers with this inescapable either-or scenario. “When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness. What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death!”
Before becoming Christians, the Romans were “free from the control of righteousness.” They did not feel the inhibiting force of God’s holy will telling them to lead decent, honest, chaste, industrious lives. They were free from the control of righteousness—but were slaves of sin.
“What good did that do you?” Paul asks. The force of the Greek verb here suggests the meaning, What were you able to gain from that lifestyle? In the setting of a wage earner, one might frame the question like this: After all the deductions from your paycheck, what was your take-home pay? Or to return to the spiritual implication of Paul’s question, What lasting benefit did you get from your freedom from righteousness?
The answer, of course, is obvious: “Those things [the sins you’re now ashamed of] result in death!” It doesn’t take a financial wizard to figure out that the rate of return on such an investment, such freedom to sin, isn’t very favorable if it results in death.