‘For when you were servants of sin, you were free in regard of righteousness. What fruit had you then at that time in the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death.'
They had once been servants of sin. And in those days they had had little regard to the claims of righteousness. True righteousness had not been their concern. But what fruit had they had then in the way that they had behaved, doing and partaking in things of which they were now ashamed? The answer expected is ‘none'. And what was more they were things that resulted in death.