Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans John Calvin
Commentary on Romans
Romans 6:19
Romans 6:19
19. I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh: for as ye have yielded your members servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity; even so now yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness.
19. Humanum dico propter infirmitatem carnis vestræ, quemadmodum exhibuistis membra vestra serva immunditiæ et iniquitati in iniquitatem, sic et nunc exhibite membra vestra serva justitiæ in sanctificationem.
19. I speak what is human, etc. He says that he speaks after the manner of men, not as to the substance but as to the manner. So Christ says, in John 3:12, that he announced earthly things, while yet he spoke of heavenly mysteries, though not so magnificently as the dignity of the things required, because he accommodated himself to the capacities of a people ignorant and simple. And thus the Apostle says, by way of preface, that he might more fully show how gross and wicked is the calumny, when it is imagined, that the freedom obtained by Christ gives liberty to sin. He reminds the faithful at the same time, that nothing is more unreasonable, nay, base and disgraceful, than that the spiritual grace of Christ should have less influence over them than earthly freedom; as though he had said, "I might, by comparing sin and righteousness, show how much more ardently ye ought to be led to render obedience to the latter, than to serve the former; but from regard to your infirmity I omit this comparison: nevertheless, though I treat you with great indulgence, I may yet surely make this just demand — that you should not at least obey righteousness more coldly or negligently than you served sin." It is a sort of reticence or silence, a withholding of something when we wish more to be understood than what we express. He does yet exhort them to render obedience to righteousness with so much more diligence, as that which they served is more worthy than sin, though he seems not to require this in so many words. 198
As ye have presented, etc.; that is, "As ye were formerly ready with all your faculties to serve sin, it is hence sufficiently evident how wretchedly enslaved and bound did your depravity hold you to itself: now then ye ought to be equally prompt and ready to execute the commands of God; let not your activity in doing good be now less than it was formerly in doing evil." He does not indeed observe the same order in the antithesis, by adapting different parts to each other, as he does in 1 Thessalonians 4:7, where he sets uncleanness in opposition to holiness; but the meaning is still evident.
198The phrase is taken differently: {Ανθρώπινον} {λέγω} "I speak what is human," that is, what is proportionable to man's strength, says Chrysostom — what is done and known in common life, as in Galatians 3:15, or, what is moderate, says Hammond — what is level to man's understanding, says Vatablus The first proposed by Hammond is the meaning most suitable here; for the Apostle had previously used reasons and arguments, and sacred similitudes; but he comes now to what is known in common life among men, the connection between masters and servants, and he did this in condescension to their weakness, which he calls the weakness of the flesh, that is, the weakness of which flesh, the depravity of nature, was the cause; it was weakness arising from the flesh. — Ed.