I speak after the manner of men.
Apostolic exhortation
I. Its method. “After the manner of men,” i.e., (Gr.) humanly--as men ordinarily speak, borrowing any illustrations from common life. Spiritual subjects are made plainer by familiar comparisons, and so preachers should use simple language and homely illustrations. This was exemplified in Christ, and inspired writers in general. The most useful preachers have ever been those who speak most humanly. The arrow too high flies over the head; too low falls short of the mark.
II. The reason for the method. “The infirmity of your flesh”--imperfect knowledge through the flesh--an apology for the use of the expression “slaves,” etc. Some believers are still babes and carnal (1 Corinthians 3:1-4; Hebrews 5:12-14); others are spiritual and of a full age. In God’s family are fathers, young men, little children (1 John 2:12-14). The flesh is an impediment to the apprehension of truth. Carnal nature views holiness not as liberty but as bondage. Arguments and modes of speaking to be adapted to the hearer’s state. Let not the mature and enlightened, then, cavil at methods adapted to reach the immature and ignorant and vice versa.
III. Its substance.
1. A reminiscence. “As ye have yielded your members” servants--
(1) To uncleanness, a characteristic of heathen life in general (Romans 1:24). Uncleanness is sin against oneself: unchastity of life. All sin is uncleanness; some sins especially so (Romans 13:13). The greatest slave is he who serves sensual pleasures.
(2) To iniquity--unlawfulness--what is opposed to God’s law, and even the laws of human society (Luke 18:4). Uncleanness and iniquity include the whole circumference of sin (Matthew 15:19).
(3) Unto iniquity--to the practice of iniquity as a result; to an always still greater progress and depth in iniquity. The practice is the necessary effect of the bondage. Sin allows none of its servants to remain idle.
2. An enforcement of duty. “Even so now”--as heartily and thoroughly, and in consideration of the past “yield your members”--
(1) Servants to righteousness. Still servants, but to righteousness instead of sin. Christ gives His disciples a yoke, but it is an easy one. Servitude to righteousness means truest liberty.
(2) Unto holiness--so as to practise and grow in it. Holiness is that which is in accordance with God’s will, and embraces the whole man (1 Thessalonians 5:23). It is a matter of growth. The faithful performance of one duty prepares for that of another. Victory over one sin strengthens us for victory over a second. The practice of righteousness confirms the principle of holiness. Gracious acts strengthen gracious habits, as labour adds to muscle. (T. Robinson, D. D.)
Will ye be the servants of sin or the servants of God
?--To determine your choice consider--
I. The contrast.
1. Sin conducts you from iniquity to iniquity.
2. God will lead you in the path of holiness.
II. The immediate consequences.
1. The fruit of sin is shame.
2. Of faith is holiness.
III. The final result.
1. The wages of sin is death.
2. The gift of God eternal life. (J. Lyth, D. D.)
Forsake the service of sin; enter the service of righteousness
Then you escape--
1. Out of disgraceful impurity into true holiness (Romans 6:19-21).
2. Out of dishonourable servitude into true freedom (Romans 6:20-22).
3. Out of death and condemnation into eternal life (Romans 6:21-23). (W. Hauck.)
Two ways and two ends
I. The one was bitter servitude; the other sweet liberty.
II. The one has disgraceful notoriety; the other praiseworthy modesty.
III. The one has eternal death; the other eternal life. Note what Jesus says of these two ways and their ending (Matthew 7:13). (W. Ziethe.)
The slavery of sin unlawful--a ground of hope to the sinner
Luther’s domestic, Elizabeth, in a fit of displeasure, left his service without notice. She subsequently fell into sin and became dangerously ill. Luther visited her, and, taking his seat by her bedside, she said, “I have given my soul to Satan.” “Why,” rejoined Luther, “that’s of no consequence. What else?” “I have,” continued she, “done many wicked things; but this is what most oppresses me, that I have deliberately sold my poor soul to the devil, and how can such a crime ever find mercy?” “Elizabeth, listen to me,” rejoined the man of God. “Suppose, while you lived in my house, you had sold and transferred all my children to a stranger, would the sale or transfer have been lawful and binding?” “Oh no,” said the deeply humbled girl, “for I had no right to do that.” “Very well, you had still less right to give your soul to the arch enemy; it no more belongs to you than my children do. It is the exclusive property of the Lord Jesus Christ; He made it, and when lost also redeemed it; it is His, with all its powers and faculties, and you can’t giveaway and sell what is not yours; if you have attempted it, the whole transaction was unlawful, and entirely void. Now, do you go to the Lord, confess your guilt with a broken heart and a contrite spirit, and entreat Him to pardon you, and take back again what is wholly His own. And as for the sin of attempting to alienate His rightful properly, throw that back upon the devil, for that, and that alone is his.” The girl obeyed, was converted, and died full of hope.
Changed uses
Among the spoils taken when Alexander conquered and captured Darius was a richly jewelled cabinet or casket in which the Persian king kept his perfumes and sweet ointments. It was carried to Alexander, who at once turned it to another and nobler use, and added a syllable to its name. He placed in it his copy of the “Iliad,” saying, “This shall no longer be called myrrh box, but Homer box.” What the “myrrh box” became by passing under Alexander’s hands illustrates what the soul becomes by passing under the hands of its Divine Inspirer. By unseen influences (as certainly as by the miracle touch) God adds to the graces of “a chosen vessel” the gift of spiritual power and expression. He makes it empty that He may fill it with greater riches.
For when ye were the servants of sin, ye were free from righteousness.
The servants of sin
1. There is no condition so sad as that of a slave; and no slavery so hard as that of sin. There was once a tyrant who ordered one of his subjects to make an iron chain of a certain length. The man brought the work, and the tyrant bade him make it longer still. And he continued to add link to link, till at length the cruel taskmaster ordered his servants to bind the worker with his own chain, and cast him into the fire. That hardest of tyrants, the devil, treats his slaves in like manner. At first the chain of sin is light, and could easily be cast off. But day by day Satan bids his victims add another link. The servant of sin grows more hardened, daring, reckless in his evil way. He adds sin to sin, and then the end comes.
2. Very often the slaves of sin do not know that they are slaves. They talk about their freedom from restraint, they tell us they are their own masters, that the godly are slaves. Once I visited a madhouse. Some had one delusion, some another. One thought he was a king, another the heir to a fortune. But one thing they all believed, that they were in their right minds.
3. The servants of sin bear about the marks of their master. I have seen gangs of convicts working on Dartmoor. You could not mistake them for anything else if they were dressed in the best of clothing. The word convict is stamped upon every grey face, as plainly as the Government mark is stamped upon their clothing. The servants of sin have their marks also. Look at the shifty eyes, and downward glance of the knave and the false man; the flushed brow and cruel eyes of the angry man; the weak lips and trembling hand of the drunkard.
4. The servants of sin have their so-called enjoyments, these are the baits with which the tyrant gets them into his power. For a time the way of transgressors is made easy and pleasant. The broad road is shaded, and edged with fair fruits and flowers. A saint of old once saw a man leading a herd of swine, which followed him willingly. When the saint marvelled, the man showed him that they followed him for the sake of the sweet food in his hand, and knew not whither they were going. So the servants of sin follow Satan for the sake of the sweet things which he offers, and know not that they are going to their death, even the living death of a lost soul. (J. H. W. Buxton, M. A.)
Freedom from righteousness
Standing altogether outside it, having no relation to it, destitute of it, entirely unaffected by it; strangers therefore to its happy and gainful service. Possessing a freedom which is a bane and a bondage. A planet’s freedom from the law which preserves it in its orbit; a child’s freedom from the restraints of a happy home. This freedom pleases the flesh, but ruins the man; it is not mercifully given, but madly taken; it is Satan’s miserable choice, “Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven.” Note the latent irony of the text; “Ye were free”; but what kind of freedom? A freedom akin to that of hell. Freedom from righteousness a man’s greatest misery; freedom in righteousness his greatest mercy. (T. Robinson, D. D.)
Liberty and restraint
You hear every day greater numbers of foolish people speaking about liberty, as if it were such an honourable thing; so far from being that, it is, on the whole, and in the broadest sense, dishonourable, and an attribute of the lower creatures. No human being, however great or powerful, was ever so free as a fish. There is always something that he must or must not do; while the fish may do whatever he likes. All the kingdoms of the world put together are not half so large as the sea, and all the railroads and wheels that ever were or will be invented, are not so easy as fins. You will find, on fairly thinking of it, that it is his restraint which is honourable to man, not his liberty; and, what is more, it is restraint which is honourable even in the lower animals. A butterfly is more free than a bee, but you honour the bee more just because it is subject to certain laws which fit it for orderly function in bee society. And throughout the world, of the two abstract things, liberty and restraint, restraint is always the more honourable. It is true, indeed, that in these and all other matters you never can reason finally from the abstraction, for both liberty and restraint are good when they are nobly chosen, and both are bad when they are badly chosen; but of the two, I repeat, it is restraint which characterises the higher creature, and betters the lower creature; and from the ministering of the archangel to the labour of the insect, from the poising of the planets to the gravitation of a grain of dust--the power and glory of all creatures and all matter consist in their obedience, not in their freedom. The sun has no liberty, a dead leaf has much. The dust of which you are formed has no liberty. Its liberty will come--with its corruption. (J. Ruskin.)