Paul apologizes for using the everyday image of slavery to explain spiritual truths, acknowledging our "weakness" to grasp higher concepts. He highlights that the old "lawlessness" not only led to more lawlessness but deepened that very state, while our new service to righteousness should progressively lead us into deeper sanctification.
I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification.
English Standard Version (ESV)
Paul is urging believers to actively live out their new identity in Christ, moving from enslavement to sin to willing service of God. He uses a familiar analogy of slavery to emphasize the radical shift in their allegiance, acknowledging that the "earthly" language is necessary due to their ongoing human limitations and spiritual immaturity. This call to dedicate their bodies to righteousness is the practical outworking of their freedom from sin and their adoption into God's family.
Why does Paul feel the need to explain himself when talking about spiritual truths? What does 'infirmity of your flesh' really mean here?
Paul opens this verse with an apology: "I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations." He recognizes that the concepts he's discussing – especially the profound spiritual reality of belonging to God – are difficult to grasp fully. He's using the familiar, earthly image of slavery and servitude because the Corinthians, still grappling with their former ways of thinking, might not fully comprehend more abstract spiritual concepts.
Think of it like explaining quantum physics using analogies of billiard balls. It's not the perfect representation, but it's a starting point for understanding. Paul is lowering his language to meet them where they are, acknowledging the 'infirmity of your flesh' – their weakness in understanding spiritual realities due to their past experiences and current limitations.
Paul contrasts two paths: one leading 'to more lawlessness,' the other 'leading to sanctification.' What does this 'unto' reveal about the direction of our choices?
The verse presents a stark choice and its inevitable outcome. On one side, yielding members to 'impurity and to lawlessness' leads 'to more lawlessness.' This isn't a one-time act; sin is progressive and self-perpetuating. Each act of lawlessness builds a habit, reinforces a mindset, and deepens one's enslavement to sin.
On the other side, yielding members to 'righteousness' leads 'to sanctification.' This is the process of becoming more like Christ. Righteousness isn't just about not doing wrong; it's an active surrender to God's will, which progressively cleanses and transforms us. Each act of obedience, however small, moves us further into holiness and a deeper relationship with God. It's about growth, not just a static state.
Ask a follow-up
Paul uses the powerful image of slavery. If we're truly free in Christ, why does he keep talking about being 'slaves'?
Paul isn't saying Christians are literally slaves in a degrading way. Instead, he's using a familiar concept to illustrate a profound shift in allegiance. Before Christ, believers were slaves to sin, their 'members' (body parts, actions, faculties) used for impurity and lawlessness. Now, through Christ, they have been freed from that bondage.
However, this freedom doesn't mean anarchy. It means being transferred to a new Master. Just as before, their whole being was given over to sin, now their whole being is to be given over to righteousness. This isn't about forced labor, but a willing, joyful surrender to the One who redeemed them. It's a deliberate choice to present ourselves to God, allowing His righteousness to work through us, leading to our ongoing transformation (sanctification).
Understand the original words
mele · Greek Noun
Bodily organs or faculties; the physical body and its parts. In Romans, it refers to the instruments through which human life is expressed, whether toward sin or toward God.
akatharsia · Greek Noun
Moral uncleanness, defilement, or filthiness. It denotes a departure from God's moral purity, particularly regarding sexual immorality or general corruption of character.
anomian · Greek Noun
The state of being without law or against the law. It represents a life lived in contempt of God’s revealed moral standards, resulting in an escalating cycle of rebellion.
hagiasmon · Greek Noun
The process of being made holy or set apart for God's use. It involves the progressive work of the Holy Spirit in conforming the believer to the image of Christ in daily life.
This passage directly parallels the call to 'put to death' earthly 'members' to stop sinful activity, reflecting the 'yielding your members as slaves' idea from Romans 6:19.
Galatians 5:16This verse speaks of 'walking by the Spirit' to prevent fulfilling the desires of the flesh, connecting to the concept of directing our 'members' towards righteousness and sanctification as presented in Romans 6:19.
1 Peter 2:11Peter warns believers against 'worldly passions that war against the soul,' which resonates with Paul's exhortation in Romans 6:19 to cease presenting our 'members' to impurity and lawlessness.
Jeremiah 13:23The powerful imagery of an Ethiopian being unable to change his skin color because it is so ingrained speaks to the deep-seated nature of former sinful habits that Paul addresses when asking believers to present themselves to righteousness.
Romans 8:13This verse connects the 'putting to death' of the 'deeds of the body' through the Spirit to living, echoing the directive in Romans 6:19 to present our 'members' to righteousness for sanctification.
henryRomans 6:16-20: "Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?"
6:16-20 Every man is the servant of the master to whose commands he yields himself; whether it be the sinful dispositions of his heart, in actions which lead to death, or the new and spiritual obedience implanted by regeneration. The apostle rejoiced now they obeyed from the heart the gospel, into which they were de…
cambridgeRomans 6:19: "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 . after the manner of men ] More lit., humanly . He apologizes, so to speak, for using the peculiarly earthly image of the slave-market to enforce a truth of the most exalted spiritual dignity; namely, the necessary conformity of the wills of the…
Paul apologizes for using the everyday image of slavery to explain spiritual truths, acknowledging our "weakness" to grasp higher concepts. He highlights that the old "lawlessness" not only led to more lawlessness but deepened that very state, while our new service to righteousness should progressively lead us into deeper sanctification.
Paul is urging believers to actively live out their new identity in Christ, moving from enslavement to sin to willing service of God. He uses a familiar analogy of slavery to emphasize the radical shift in their allegiance, acknowledging that the "earthly" language is necessary due to their ongoing human limitations and spiritual immaturity. This call to dedicate their bodies to righteousness is the practical outworking of their freedom from sin and their adoption into God's family.
Paul is urging believers to actively live out their new identity in Christ, moving from enslavement to sin to willing service of God. He uses a familiar analogy of slavery to emphasize the radical shift in their allegiance, acknowledging that the "earthly" language is necessary due to their ongoing human limitations and spiritual immaturity. This call to dedicate their bodies to righteousness is the practical outworking of their freedom from sin and their adoption into God's family.
"I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness lea…" — Paul apologizes for using the everyday image of slavery to explain spiritual truths, acknowledging our "weakness" to grasp higher concepts. He highlights that the old "lawlessness" not only led to *m…
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Last reviewed October 2026
