{"id":1611,"date":"2010-03-24T20:35:14","date_gmt":"2010-03-25T02:35:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ministryofgrace.org\/blog\/?p=1611"},"modified":"2010-03-24T20:35:14","modified_gmt":"2010-03-25T02:35:14","slug":"romans-619-seeking-holiness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/romans-619-seeking-holiness\/","title":{"rendered":"Romans 6:19 – Seeking Holiness"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Romans 6:19<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

I speak in human<\/span> terms<\/span><\/em> because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you presented your members<\/span> as<\/span><\/em> slaves of uncleanness, and of lawlessness<\/span> leading<\/span><\/em> to<\/span> more<\/span><\/em> lawlessness,<\/span> so now present your members<\/span> as<\/span><\/em> slaves<\/span> of<\/span><\/em> righteousness for holiness.<\/span><\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n

Truth to Learn<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

We should stop giving ourselves to the lordship of sin; instead, we should be giving ourselves to the lordship of righteousness.<\/p>\n

Behind the Words<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

The word translated \u201chuman<\/span> terms<\/span>\u201d is the adjective anthr\u014dpinos<\/span><\/em>. This word is based on anthr\u014dpos<\/span><\/em>, which literally means \u201cmanfaced<\/span><\/em>,\u201d but is most often translated \u201cman\u201d or \u201chuman being.\u201d The adjective form means \u201cbelonging to man; his manners, custom, nature or condition). Hence, it refers to \u201cthat which characterizes man, as opposed to animals, angels, or God.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWeakness<\/span>\u201d is from the Greek word astheneia<\/span><\/em>, which is made up of the privative a<\/span><\/em>, meaning \u201cwithout\u201d and a form of sthenos<\/span><\/em>, meaning \u201cstrength.\u201d Hence astheneia<\/span><\/em> means \u201cwithout strength,\u201d \u201cweakness,\u201d or \u201csickness.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meaning Explained<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Paul opens up this verse with an odd phrase, \u201cI speak in human<\/span> terms.<\/span><\/em>\u201d What he means by this is that he is using an illustration from everyday human life that everyone will understand. You will recall that several verses back we talked about the fact that slavery was so universal in the Roman Empire that everyone understood it.<\/p>\n

Paul now goes on to explain why he is using such a base illustration: \u201cbecause of the weakness of your flesh.<\/span>\u201d <\/span>There is some debate over what this expression means. Some say that \u201cflesh\u201d refers to the sin nature, which is how Paul uses this term in many other places; however, this doesn\u2019t make sense in this particular context because the sin nature is not weak. In fact, it is very strong. Others believe that he is using the term \u201cflesh\u201d to refer to the spiritual intellect and what he means is that he is using such a base illustration because of the spiritual immaturity of the Roman Christians and their inability to grasp great spiritual truths in their present condition. I tend to favor this latter interpretation.<\/p>\n

Paul\u2019s current point is that we have believed a teaching (doctrine) that is molding us to the image of Christ. Because of that, we have been made free from sin and have become the slaves of righteousness. Therefore, just like we used to yield our members (the various parts of our bodies, including our mind) to uncleanness and to lawless acts (which lead to more lawless acts), so we should now yield our members as slaves to righteousness (or righteous acts) which results in holiness.<\/p>\n

The concept that Paul is driving home over and over again is that we have no right to live in sin, under the total influence of our sin nature. After all, sin no longer owns us; God owns us if we are truly saved. And because God owns us, we should yield (or submit) ourselves to Him. As we do, we begin to acquire His holiness (we become molded into His image) as we become more and more set apart from sinfulness.<\/p>\n

Application<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

This desire for righteousness and holiness should be the desire of all Christians. We should all want to become more like Christ by submitting to Him. Is this the desire of your heart?<\/p>\n

In God\u2019s service, for His glory,<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"signature\"<\/p>\n

Copyright \u00a9 2010 Will Krause. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –<\/p>\n

<\/span>If this message or this link was forwarded to you by a friend and you wish to receive future verses directly to your inbox, you can call the church phone \"\"(618) 614-3070<\/span><\/span><\/span> and leave a message telling us your name and e-mail address or you can send an e-mail to:\"e-mail<\/div>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Romans 6:19 I speak in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you presented your members as slaves of uncleanness, and of lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves of righteousness for holiness. Truth to Learn We should stop giving ourselves to the lordship of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[769,770,104,771,772,773,751,75,331,774],"class_list":["post-1611","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-anthropinos","tag-asgheneia","tag-flesh","tag-holiness","tag-human","tag-lawlessness","tag-members","tag-righteousness","tag-slaves","tag-weakness"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pd5geA-pZ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1611","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1611"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1611\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}