Rom 6:19 “(I am speaking in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh.) For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present*~ your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification.”
An enormous amount of material has been written on how the human mind learns and retains information. In Romans 6:19, Paul presents this principle for man’s mind (“I am speaking in human terms”), utilizing a metaphor that illustrates the external or living reality in an indelible or unforgettable bridge to the memory or cognitive domains of the mind.
“The weakness of your flesh” can mean “weak or sick” depending on the context. The weakness in this context may refer to an inability to comprehend the dangerous consequences of personal sin, which results in an overwhelming attraction to disobedience and wickedness.
In Paul’s metaphor, we are slaves to the personification of “impurity” (lit. “lewdness, or inward perversion”) and “lawlessness” (lit. “an outward disobedience”). Paul’s readers had essentially sold their bodies in the slave market of a progressively deteriorating and delusive quest for pleasure, lust, and power, and such “lawlessness [leads] to more lawlessness.”
“Just as you once presented your members as slaves” means to “place beside, or stand near” by intentionally exposing yourself to all forms of perversion, lust, or pleasures by being close enough to wickedness to observe it and providing the opportunity to participate in it at will. But what benefit did that lifestyle bring (Rom 6:21)? Momentary pleasure and illusive dreams of grandeur and prestige only lure the simpleminded into a trap from which there is no escape.
There is another taskmaster to choose: “So now present your members as slaves of righteousness leading to sanctification.” We are to submit to a personification of “righteousness” as our taskmaster. The same verb is used to indicate that this means to choose to be nearby or stay close to everything righteous.
God’s purpose in granting us a salvation by grace is not to give us the freedom to do as we please, but to give us the freedom to choose to be as He pleases, obeying His principles of living, fully assured that His way is the best way to live. Choose your friends and activities wisely. Keep the Bible close at hand.
“Lord, here is my body, my life, my dreams, and my ambitions. They are all Yours; I’ll never take them back. May my thoughts and actions be Yours in every way.”