Romans 6:19Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

By the words "in human terms" he denotes the proportionality of the demand to their strength. So he also says elsewhere, "No temptation has overtaken you except what is human" (1 Cor 10:13), that is, proportioned to your strength and small.

"As you presented your members as slaves of uncleanness and lawlessness unto lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves of righteousness unto holiness."

Although the difference between the masters is great, he nevertheless requires equal service to them. It would have been fitting to propose much more, and so much more as the rule of righteousness is broader and better than the dominion of sin.

Nevertheless, the Apostle says, I require nothing more because of your "weakness." He did not say, because of the weakness of your will or zeal, but because of the weakness of "your flesh," so as to make the speech less unpleasant.

But uncleanness is one thing, and holiness another. Lawlessness is one thing, and righteousness another. Who is so miserable and poor as not to bring the same zeal to the service of Christ with which he served sin and the devil?

Yet listen to what the Apostle says next, and then you will clearly know that we do not bring even this small measure.

Since what was said in this way seemed simply incredible and implausible, and no one would agree even to hear that he does not serve Christ as much as he served the devil, the Apostle explains and proves it by the following words.

He brings the slavery itself into the midst and says how they served sin.

And why do I speak only of uncleanness? You were subjected to every lawlessness, and enslaved to lawlessness, that you might practice still greater lawlessness. For after committing some sin, you did not stop there.

Rather, in that very sin you found an impulse toward further lawlessness. Therefore, in the same measure, present your members as slaves of righteousness, that is, of every virtue. Thus you may lead a life in chastity and holiness, not in your former uncleanness.

But if these words are referred to what follows, their meaning is this. I teach nothing that exceeds human powers and judgment. Rather, I speak in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh.

What does this mean? It means this: when you served sin, you were free from righteousness. That is, you did not submit at all to the laws of justice.

Therefore you made your members slaves of sinful uncleanness, and added lawlessness to lawlessness. So now, when you have been freed from sin and enslaved to righteousness, it is fitting and righteous for you to be holy, making your members slaves of virtue.

Indeed, it lies in our will to turn our members to the service either of virtue or of sin.

When we lift our eyes to the works of God in order to contemplate more carefully in them the Creator's goodness, omnipotence, wisdom, and providence, then we make our eyes servants of virtue.

But when we turn them to God's creatures only to gaze upon their beauty and stir up in our heart a desire for vanity and the lust of the flesh, then we make our eyes slaves of sin.

If we open our ears to hear the voice of the Lord God, and hymns and doxologies sung for His glorification, then our ears become slaves in the work of our salvation.

But if we open them to hear slanders, shameful speech, dishonorable and passionate songs, then they become slaves of deeds that prepare torment for us.

If our tongue hymns God, proclaims His teaching, comforts or gives counsel to our neighbor, then it is an instrument of virtue. But when it utters blasphemies against the Creator, falsehood, deceits, false accusations, and harmful counsel against our neighbor, it becomes an instrument of sin.

We stretch out our hands by our own will, sometimes upward for the glorification of God, and sometimes downward to seize another's property. With our feet we sometimes hasten to help our neighbor, and sometimes to harm him.

Thus we dedicate our members to the service now of virtue, now of sin, and from this we receive either holiness or defilement. But hear also by what proofs the divine Apostle strives to incline Christians to enslave themselves to the lightest yoke of virtue.

Then the Apostle makes a concession: "I speak in human terms, because of the weakness of your flesh." That is, let us admit human reasoning and apply it to the weakness of the flesh.

For this weakness, even the ascetic labors of righteousness seem to be a kind of slavery. A man must compel himself even to these, straining his will. But at least compare one slavery with the other, so as to appraise them worthily.

"When you were slaves of sin, you were, of course, free from righteousness. What fruit did you have then? Such deeds as you yourselves are now ashamed of, for their end is death" (Rom 6:20-21).

And what fruit did you begin to have when you became slaves of God? "Your fruit is holiness, and the end, eternal life" (Rom 6:22).

If a man has loved sin, he becomes the servant of sin and gradually enslaves all his powers to it. But if he has loved holy deeds, all his thoughts, feelings, and powers are directed to serving them.

It is clear, however, that between service to sin and service to righteousness there is similarity only in devotion. In their feelings and consequences there is an immeasurable difference.

For service to sin is actual enslavement, while service to holiness can be called slavery only according to ordinary human conception. In reality it is true freedom.

Therefore it is accompanied not by the oppression of man's higher feelings, but by their fullness: joy and blessedness. Every member, when it performs a holy deed, is penetrated by the power that sanctifies it.

Thus, being filled one after another with holiness, the members fill the whole man with it. "One need only attend to oneself and hold firmly to the love of righteousness once received," says Theophan the Recluse.

"Then one will never be troubled by the complexity of deeds or crushed by their weight."

But the weakness of your flesh is such that you cannot fulfill everything suggested by the new law without experiencing the resistance of the flesh, without struggling with yourselves in evil, and without forcing yourselves toward the good. Therefore the new life, because of this weakness of your flesh, appears to be something like slavery, as though one walking its path were bearing some yoke.

Blessed Photius in Oecumenius understands it thus. "'I speak in human terms,' he says, 'you became slaves.' For, strictly speaking, to live righteously is not slavery, but true freedom and blessedness.

Why then do you call this slavery when it is not slavery? 'Because of the weakness of your flesh,' he says. That is, since the mind of the flesh at the beginning is accustomed to resist the commandments of righteousness, to be burdened by them, and to grow weary of them, I had this weakness of your flesh in view.

For this reason I called righteous life slavery, according to human custom. For when we are weary over something or do something by self-compulsion, we usually apply to it the name of slavery and bondage. In this sense the Apostle Paul also said: 'I speak in human terms: you became slaves to righteousness.'"

If these words are referred to what follows, they will indicate a measure of enslavement to righteousness equal to the measure of enslavement to sin. As you served sin, so serve righteousness. I say this because of the weakness of your flesh.

Can sin and righteousness be placed on one line? And is it just, therefore, to require only that you serve righteousness as much as you formerly served sin? Yet because of the weakness of your flesh, I limit the demand of the new life to such a measure. One ought to demand incomparably more, but at least do this.

Saint Chrysostom, the same Photius, and all the others understand it this way. Saint Chrysostom says: "Above, the Apostle demanded greater strictness in conduct. He commanded them to become dead to the world, to die to vice, and to remain unmoved against the impulse of sins.

But such demands seemed great and heavy, even surpassing human nature. Therefore, wishing to prove that he demands nothing excessive, that he demands less than one ought from a man enjoying the gift of grace, and that his commandment is very proportionate to human powers and light, he says: 'I speak in human terms.'

This means the same as if he had said: I speak according to human reasoning, adapting myself to ordinary human affairs. For by the word 'human' he expresses that the demand is proportionate to one's powers. So also elsewhere he says: 'No temptation has overtaken you except what is human' (cf. 1 Cor 10:13), that is, proportionate to one's powers and small.

However great the difference between the masters, sin and righteousness, the Apostle requires that they serve righteousness in the same measure as they served sin. Although they ought to be much more enslaved to righteousness, and all the more as its dominion is broader and better than the dominion of sin, nevertheless, the Apostle says, I do not demand greater enslavement because of your weakness.

And he did not say, 'because of the weakness of your will or zeal.' In order not to grieve them too much by the word, he says, 'because of the weakness of your flesh.' Who would be so pitiable and poor as not to agree to serve Christ with the same diligence with which he served sin and the devil?"

"As you presented your members as slaves." To present one's members as slaves to someone means to give them to him as instruments of his activity. In man, everything is governed by his own self-active person. From this person proceed plans and commands, carried out by the various members of soul and body, again at the command of the same person.

Consciousness and self-activity constitute the person and are the sources of our life and deeds. But these properties constitute only the form of life and deeds. Their spirit depends on the direction and disposition that the human person consciously and self-actively accepts.

There are two such directions: life according to God, in the righteousness and holiness of truth, and life in uncleanness and lawlessness. These directions are formed, in the first case, by love for God and His righteousness, and in the second, by love for sin with its impurities and lawless deeds.

For when love for something is formed in the person, then through consciousness and self-activity he passes over to the side of what he loves. He gives himself to it and orders everything in himself and outside himself according to it. This is the direction of life and deeds.

Thus what is loved becomes the source and origin of conscious self-activity. A man does everything by himself and consciously, but to please what he has loved and what, by this love, has taken possession of him entirely.

This thing that is pleased is his master. Since he himself is the master of all his members, through him the beloved thing that is pleased also becomes their master. At the moment of love he gave himself to what he loved, and together with himself all his members.

From that time both he himself and all his members become executors and instruments of what is loved. If sin is loved, they become instruments of sin. If righteousness is loved, they become instruments of righteousness.

Before this, the Apostle said that those whom he teaches through this Epistle were slaves of sin. Then, after hearing the Gospel, they wholeheartedly gave themselves to its teaching with the firm decision to follow it alone in everything. This is the same as saying: formerly you loved sin, but now you have loved righteousness and turned away from sin.

Therefore, he says, now fulfill what love requires. Give yourselves and all your members to righteousness, just as before both were given by you to sin. According to the structure of the soul, it cannot be otherwise. The Apostle sets forth the law of the soul's nature.

"Slaves to uncleanness and to lawlessness unto lawlessness." The words "uncleanness" and "lawlessness" need not be distinguished, for moral uncleanness is already lawlessness, and conversely every lawlessness is moral uncleanness. But they can also be distinguished.

One may refer to uncleanness all forms of love of pleasure, especially bodily pleasure. To lawlessness one may refer all other kinds of sins before God and men, perhaps especially injustice, injury, envy, and every kind of evildoing against neighbors.

But what does "unto lawlessness" mean? It means unto the increase of lawlessness. See Oecumenius and blessed Theophylact. Adding sin to sin, you multiplied lawlessness. Every member of yours, serving sin, brought forth sin, as a branch of a tree brings forth fruit. You were a many-branched tree rich in the fruits of sin.

But in contrast to the indication that follows, "unto holiness," one may understand by "unto lawlessness" the rendering lawless of the whole nature of man. When sin is added to sin, lawlessness penetrates ever more deeply within. First it enters the member by which it is committed. Then, penetrating member after member, it penetrates the whole nature of man, and he becomes wholly saturated with lawlessness.

If we call lawlessness, as a deviation from the law lying in nature, a deviation from nature, then the saturation of nature with lawlessness will be our complete deviation from our nature. It is its disfigurement, overturning, and darkening. If we trace lawlessness to its source, Satan, then the rendering lawless of our nature will be its satanization.

The meaning of the words "unto holiness" is determined by opposition to what was said before about "unto lawlessness." "Unto holiness" means unto the increase of holiness. By adding one holy deed to another, they multiply holiness. Each member, obeying righteousness, brings forth a holy deed as fruit.

In this case a man becomes a many-branched tree bearing abundant fruits of holiness. The consequence of this must be the sanctification of the whole nature. Every member, by doing a holy deed, is penetrated by the power that sanctifies it. Through constancy in doing holy deeds it becomes wholly filled with holiness.

When in this way the other members, one after another, become filled with holiness, the whole man will also be filled with it. His whole nature will become holy, pure, and radiant. From within, the love of righteousness, and from without, works of righteousness, completely drive out sin, and the whole man becomes holy.

If we call righteousness the action and standing according to the law of nature, then the sanctification of our nature by righteousness will be its elevation into its natural order, into the state in which it ought to be according to its original purpose. If we trace righteousness to its source, God, then sanctification by righteousness will be deification.

What a wondrous fruit, and yet how simply it is obtained. Love righteousness and hate lawlessness. Then, without sparing yourself, compel every member of soul and body to fulfill only the commands of righteousness. What an uncomplicated demand.

It is true that if we gather everything that the word of God lays upon each member of our nature, we shall obtain a great number of God's commandments obligatory for us. Yet it is also true that at each moment only one work can lie upon us, and often upon only one member of ours.

Therefore the uncomplicated demand expressed by the Apostle is indeed such at every moment of our life. Only attend to yourself and keep the love for righteousness you have received as a guiding compass. Then you will never be troubled by the complexity of deeds or crushed by their number and weight.

This will be especially so if, at the same time, you do not take the eyes of your mind away from the wondrous fruit that you will finally taste through constancy in this kind of action. This fruit, already indicated beforehand in the present words, the Apostle will next portray more fully, in order to draw those who desire it onto the path of acquiring it and to inspire them to constancy in walking upon it.