12 For this cause do not let sin be ruling in your body which is under the power of death, so that you give way to its desires;
Are you not conscious that you are the servants of him to whom you give yourselves to do his desire? if to sin, the end being death, or if to do the desire of God, the end being righteousness.
Keep your servant back from sins of pride; let them not have rule over me: then will I be upright and free from great sin.
Let my steps be guided by your word; and let not sin have control over me.
Not in the passion of evil desires, like the Gentiles, who have no knowledge of God;
But keep yourself from those desires of the flesh which are strong when the body is young, and go after righteousness, faith, love, peace, with those whose prayers go up to the Lord from a clean heart.
Training us so that, turning away from evil and the desires of this world, we may be living wisely and uprightly in the knowledge of God in this present life;
But every man is tested when he is turned out of the right way by the attraction of his desire. Then when its time comes, desire gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is of full growth, gives birth to death.
What is the cause of wars and fighting among you? is it not in your desires which are at war in your bodies? You are burning with desire, and have not your desire, so you put men to death; you are full of envy, and you are not able to get your desire, so you are fighting and making war; you have not your desire, because you do not make request for it. You make your request but you do not get it, because your request has been wrongly made, desiring the thing only so that you may make use of it for your pleasure.
My loved ones, I make this request with all my heart, that, as those for whom this world is a strange country, you will keep yourselves from the desires of the flesh which make war against the soul;
So that you may give the rest of your lives in the flesh, not to the desires of men, but to the purpose of God. Because for long enough, in times past, we have been living after the way of the Gentiles, given up to the desires of the flesh, to drinking and feasting and loose behaviour and unclean worship of images;
Have no love for the world or for the things which are in the world. If any man has love for the world, the love of the Father is not in him. Because everything in the world, the desire of the flesh, the desire of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father but of the world. And the world and its desires is coming to an end: but he who does God's pleasure is living for ever.
These are the men who make trouble, ever desiring change, going after evil pleasures, using high-sounding words, respecting men's position in the hope of reward.
How they said to you, In the last days there will be men who, guided by their evil desires, will make sport of holy things.
Among whom we all at one time were living in the pleasures of our flesh, giving way to the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and the punishment of God was waiting for us even as for the rest.
And those who are Christ's have put to death on the cross the flesh with its passions and its evil desires.
For truly, we who are in this tent do give out cries of weariness, for the weight of care which is on us; not because we are desiring to be free from the body, but so that we may have our new body, and death may be overcome by life.
For, while living, we are still being given up to death because of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may be seen in our flesh, though it is under the power of death.
For this body which comes to destruction will be made free from the power of death, and the man who is under the power of death will put on eternal life. But when this has taken place, then that which was said in the Writings will come true, Death is overcome by life.
But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not give thought to the flesh to do its desires.
For if you go in the way of the flesh, death will come on you; but if by the Spirit you put to death the works of the body, you will have life.
But I see another law in my body, working against the law of my mind, and making me the servant of the law of sin which is in my flesh. How unhappy am I! who will make me free from the body of this death?
For sin may not have rule over you: because you are not under law, but under grace.
And so I have said, I will not send them out from before you; but they will be a danger to you, and their gods will be a cause of falling to you.
For if you go back, joining yourselves to the rest of these nations who are still among you, getting married to them and living with them and they with you: Then you may be certain that the Lord your God will not go on driving these nations out from before you; but they will become a danger and a cause of sin to you, a whip for your sides and thorns in your eyes, till you are cut off from this good land which the Lord your God has given you.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Romans 6
Commentary on Romans 6 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 6
The apostle having at large asserted, opened, and proved, the great doctrine of justification by faith, for fear lest any should suck poison out of that sweet flower, and turn that grace of God into wantonness and licentiousness, he, with a like zeal, copiousness of expression, and cogency of argument, presses the absolute necessity of sanctification and a holy life, as the inseparable fruit and companion of justification; for, wherever Jesus Christ is made of God unto any soul righteousness, he is made of God unto that soul sanctification, 1 Co. 1:30. The water and the blood came streaming together out of the pierced side of the dying Jesus. And what God hath thus joined together let not us dare to put asunder.
Rom 6:1-23
The apostle's transition, which joins this discourse with the former, is observable: "What shall we say then? v. 1. What use shall we make of this sweet and comfortable doctrine? Shall we do evil that good may come, as some say we do? ch. 3:8. Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Shall we hence take encouragement to sin with so much the more boldness, because the more sin we commit the more will the grace of God be magnified in our pardon? Is this a use to be made of it?' No, it is an abuse, and the apostle startles at the thought of it (v. 2): "God forbid; far be it from us to think such a thought.' He entertains the objection as Christ did the devil's blackest temptation (Mt. 4:10): Get thee hence, Satan. Those opinions that give any countenance to sin, or open a door to practical immoralities, how specious and plausible soever they be rendered, by the pretension of advancing free grace, are to be rejected with the greatest abhorrence; for the truth as it is in Jesus is a truth according to godliness, Tit. 1:1. The apostle is very full in pressing the necessity of holiness in this chapter, which may be reduced to two heads:-His exhortations to holiness, which show the nature of it; and his motives or arguments to enforce those exhortations, which show the necessity of it.