Romans 6.21-Sin Only Produced Shame And Spiritual Death
Wenstrom Bible Ministries
Pastor-Teacher Bill Wenstrom
Tuesday August 5, 2008
Romans: Romans 6:21-Sin Only Produced Shame And Spiritual Death
Lesson # 203
Please turn in your Bibles to Romans 6:15.
This evening we will study Romans 6:21, in which Paul poses a rhetorical question to the Christians in Rome reminding them that prior to their conversion to Christianity that their actions of which they now were ashamed only served to perpetuate their status of being spiritually dead.
Romans 6:15-21, “What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? May it never be! Do you not know that when you present yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin resulting in death, or of obedience resulting in righteousness? But thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed. And having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness. I am speaking in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness, resulting in further lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness, resulting in sanctification. For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. Therefore what benefit were you then deriving from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the outcome of those things is death.”
“Therefore” is the “inferential” use of the post-positive conjunction oun (ou@n) (oon), which denotes that what is introduced at this point is the result of an inference from Paul’s teaching contained in Romans 6:20.
The inference is that the actions of the Roman Christian prior to their conversion to Christianity when they were perpetually slaves to the sin nature only served to perpetuate their status of being under real spiritual death.
This would refute those Jewish Christians who insist that the Law is necessary to restrain sin and those Gentile Christians who might erroneously conclude that grace is a license to sin since the objective of this paragraph contained in verses 15-23 was to address these two groups of Christians on this point.
Romans 6:21, “Therefore what benefit were you then deriving from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the outcome of those things is death.”
“Benefit” is the noun karpos (karpov$) (kar-pos), which is employed in a figurative sense and means, “benefit” and refers to serving the sin nature since it refers to the result of actions produced by obeying the desires of the sin nature.
“Were you deriving” is the second person plural imperfect active indicative form of the verb echo (e&xw) (ekh-o), which means, “to possess a particular object,” which is identified by the noun karpos, “benefit.”
Therefore, Paul is asking the Roman Christians, “What benefit did you possess as a result of obeying the desires of the sin nature?
The benefit that they possessed was that of serving the sin nature, which resulted in the perpetuation of their status of being under real spiritual death.
The imperfect tense of the verb is a “stative customary imperfect” meaning that prior to becoming born-again, the Roman believers existed in the “perpetual” or “ongoing” state of possessing the benefit of serving the sin nature, which resulted in the perpetuation of their status of real spiritual death.
Paul is being sarcastic since serving the sin nature is no benefit at all whereas serving God is truly a benefit.
“Then” is the correlative adverb of time tote (tovte) (tot-eh), which refers to a particular period of time in the Roman Christians’ past prior to their conversion to Christianity when they were in a perpetual state of serving the sin nature.
“From the things of which” refers to the sinful actions committed by the Roman Christians prior to their becoming born-again, which they were now ashamed of.
This prepositional phrase indicates that these sinful actions were the “basis upon which” the Roman Christians were now ashamed of as Christians.
In other words, the Roman Christians were now ashamed “because of” or “on the basis” of those things, sinful actions they committed prior to their becoming born-again.
Romans 6:21, “Therefore what benefit were you then deriving from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the outcome of those things is death.”
“You are ashamed” is the verb epaischunomai (e)paisxuvnomai) (ep-i-skhoo-nom-i), which denotes that the Christians in Rome felt disgrace and shame because of their sinful actions that they committed prior to becoming Christians.
It denotes that these sinful activities prior to their conversion were beneath their present status and dignity as children of God.
The present tense of the verb epaischunomai is a “descriptive” or “progressive” present tense used to describe that this shame and disgrace would be taking place now “at the time of writing” among the Roman Christians.
This interpretation is indicated by the adverb of time nun (nun) (noon), “now,” which is employed with the progressive or descriptive present tense of the verb epaischunomai in order to emphasize the present mental state of the Roman Christians towards their sinful actions prior to becoming born again.
Together, nun and the progressive present tense of the verb epaischunomai emphasize the “present” mental attitude state of the Roman Christians towards the sinful actions they committed prior to becoming born-again.
“For” is the “emphatic” or “intensifying” use of the post-positive conjunction gar (gavr), which introduces a statement that advances upon the previous rhetorical question and intensifies it.
“The outcome” is the noun telos (tevlo$) (tel-os), which refers to the result of the sinful actions committed by the Roman Christians prior to becoming born-again, with emphasis upon the resultant state or condition of being under real spiritual death that was perpetuated by committing these sinful actions.
“Of those things” is the demonstrative pronoun ekeinos (e)keino$) (ek-i-nos), which refers to that which is far or remote in time in relation to Paul’s Christian readers in Rome.
The demonstrative pronoun ekeinos, “of those things” functions as a “genitive of production” indicating that the sinful actions of the Roman believer prior to becoming born-again denoted by ekeinos “produced” the result of perpetuating their unregenerate status of being under real spiritual death.
“Death” is the noun thanatos (qavnato$) (than-at-os), which refers to real spiritual death.
The expression “real spiritual death” is used exclusively of the unbeliever.
It means that each and every member of the human race without exception is separated from a holy God in that they absolutely have no merit with Him and have absolutely no capacity whatsoever to establish and experience a relationship and fellowship with Him as well.
Spiritual death infected the entire human race because each person receives a sin nature that is received through imputation at the moment of physical birth and is passed down by the male in copulation (sex).
This sin nature is the result of Adam’s original sin in the Garden of Eden and manifests itself through the function of human volition.
Therefore, “real spiritual death” is result of the imputation of Adam’s sin to our genetically formed old sin nature at the moment of physical birth resulting in spiritual death or the total inability to have a relationship with God in time (Gen. 2:17; Prov. 14:12; Ezek. 18:20; Rom. 5:12; 6:23; 1 Cor. 15:22; Eph. 2:1, 5).
Spiritual death manifests itself through mental, verbal and overt acts of sin.
In fact, personal sin serves to perpetuate the unbeliever’s status of being spiritual dead.
Spiritual death also resulted in three other categories of death: (1) Physical death is the separation of the human soul (and in the case of the believer, the human spirit also) from the body (Matt. 8:22; Rom. 8:38-39; 2 Cor. 5:1-8; Phil. 1:20-21; 2:27, 30). (2) Second death is the perpetuation of spiritual death into eternity or eternal separation from God and it is the final judgment of the unbelievers in the human race and fallen angels whereby they are cast in the Lake of Fire (Matt. 25:41; Heb. 9:27; Rev. 20:12-15). (3) Unique voluntary substitutionary spiritual death of the impeccable humanity of Christ in hypostatic union on the cross (Matt. 27:45-46; Mark 15:34; Phlp. 2:8; Hb. 2:9, 14).
Spiritual death in the human race resulted in the Father sending His Son to die spiritually as a substitute for members of the human race in order to deliver them from spiritual death.
Christ’s spiritual death was needed to resolve the first three categories of death since physical death and the second death are the result of spiritual death.
The problem of “real spiritual death” is resolved when God gives life to those members of the human race who exercise faith alone in Christ alone (John 3:16-18).
The fact that the noun thanatos in Romans 6:21 is referring to “real spiritual death” rather than “physical death” is indicated in that spiritual death is the root problem of the human race in relation to a holy God and not physical death since spiritual death of Adam results in his physical death.
The fact that the noun is referring to “real spiritual death” and not the “second death” in the eternal lake of fire is indicated in that Paul’s is emphasizing the result of the Roman Christians sinful actions prior to becoming born-again.
They were not immediately sent to the lake of fire upon committing these sinful actions but rather these sinful actions served to perpetuate their status of being under real spiritual death.
These sinful actions “perpetuated” their status of being under real spiritual death because they were under real spiritual death the moment of their physical birth as a result of the imputation of Adam’s original sin in the Garden of Eden.