12 Let not then the sin reign in your mortal body, to obey it in its desires;
have ye not known that to whom ye present yourselves servants for obedience, servants ye are to him to whom ye obey, whether of sin to death, or of obedience to righteousness?
Also -- from presumptuous ones keep back Thy servant, Let them not rule over me, Then am I perfect, And declared innocent of much transgression,
My steps establish by Thy saying, And any iniquity doth not rule over me.
not in the affection of desire, as also the nations that were not knowing God,
and the youthful lusts flee thou, and pursue righteousness, faith, love, peace, with those calling upon the Lord out of a pure heart;
teaching us, that denying the impiety and the worldly desires, soberly and righteously and piously we may live in the present age,
and each one is tempted, by his own desires being led away and enticed, afterward the desire having conceived, doth give birth to sin, and the sin having been perfected, doth bring forth death.
Whence `are' wars and fightings among you? not thence -- out of your passions, that are as soldiers in your members? ye desire, and ye have not; ye murder, and are zealous, and are not able to attain; ye fight and war, and ye have not, because of your not asking; ye ask, and ye receive not, because evilly ye ask, that in your pleasures ye may spend `it'.
Beloved, I call upon `you', as strangers and sojourners, to keep from the fleshly desires, that war against the soul,
no more in the desires of men, but in the will of God, to live the rest of the time in the flesh; for sufficient to us `is' the past time of life the will of the nations to have wrought, having walked in lasciviousnesses, desires, excesses of wines, revelings, drinking-bouts, and unlawful idolatries,
Love not ye the world, nor the things in the world; if any one doth love the world, the love of the Father is not in him, because all that `is' in the world -- the desire of the flesh, and the desire of the eyes, and the ostentation of the life -- is not of the Father, but of the world, and the world doth pass away, and the desire of it, and he who is doing the will of God, he doth remain -- to the age.
These are murmurers, repiners; according to their desires walking, and their mouth doth speak great swellings, giving admiration to persons for the sake of profit;
that they said to you, that in the last time there shall be scoffers, after their own desires of impieties going on,
`And if ye do not dispossess the inhabitants of the land from before you, then it hath been, those whom ye let remain of them, `are' for pricks in your eyes, and for thorns in your sides, and they have distressed you on the land in which ye are dwelling,
among whom also we all did walk once in the desires of our flesh, doing the wishes of the flesh and of the thoughts, and were by nature children of wrath -- as also the others,
and those who are Christ's, the flesh did crucify with the affections, and the desires;
for we also who are in the tabernacle do groan, being burdened, seeing we wish not to unclothe ourselves, but to clothe ourselves, that the mortal may be swallowed up of the life.
for always are we who are living delivered up to death because of Jesus, that the life also of Jesus may be manifested in our dying flesh,
for it behoveth this corruptible to put on incorruption, and this mortal to put on immortality; and when this corruptible may have put on incorruption, and this mortal may have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the word that hath been written, `The Death was swallowed up -- to victory;
but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and for the flesh take no forethought -- for desires.
for if according to the flesh ye do live, ye are about to die; and if, by the Spirit, the deeds of the body ye put to death, ye shall live;
and I behold another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of the sin that `is' in my members. A wretched man I `am'! who shall deliver me out of the body of this death?
for sin over you shall not have lordship, for ye are not under law, but under grace.
And I also have said, I do not cast them out from your presence, and they have been to you for adversaries, and their gods are to you for a snare.'
`But -- if ye at all turn back and have cleaved to the remnant of these nations, these who are left with you, and intermarried with them, and gone in to them, and they to you, know certainly that Jehovah your God is not continuing to dispossess these nations from before you, and they have been to you for a gin, and for a snare, and for a scourge, in your sides, and for thorns in your eyes, till ye perish from off this good ground which Jehovah your God hath given to 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.