What he seems to have regarded as incongruous, is the comparison of the believer's devotion to God and holiness, to a slavery, while it is a voluntary and delightful service. The point of the comparison, how- ever, is merely the devotion and constancy of the obedience.
For as ye have yielded your members as servants to uncleanness and to iniquity, unto iniquity; even so now yield your members servants to righteousness, unto holiness. The word for, at the beginning of this clause, connects it with v. 18 ; the first part of this verse being paren- thetical. ' Being free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness, for as ye yielded your members to sin, so now have ye yielded them to righteousness.' The last clause of the verse Paul expresses exhorta- tively instead of declaratively, as the regular structure of the sentence would seem to require. Although the general sense of these clauses is perfectly obvious, there is some doubt as to the precise meaning of the apostle. The words unto iniquity and unto holiness, in the two members of the sentence, evidently correspond to each other. The preposition unto probably points out the result. ' Ye served uncleanness unto ini- quity, i. e. so as to become iniquitous ; even so ye serve righteousness unto holiness, i. e. so as to become holy.' This is the most natural in- terpretation. It is, however, possible to understand the phrases " ini- quity unto iniquity," and "righteousness unto holiness," as expressing the ideas of intensity and progress. Compare the expressions "death unto death," i. e. very deadly, and "life unto life," &c.
(20) For when ye were the servants of sin, ye were free from right- eousness. This verse may be understood either as a mere statement of the fact, that when the servants of the one master they were not the ser- vants of the other ; or as referring to the state of feeling of those in- tended. ' When the servants of sin, ye felt indeed free from all the restraints of righteousness ; ye enjoyed a kind of liberty, but what is the fruit o such liberty ?' v. 21. According to this latter view, freedom from r ghteousness is regarded as a kind of advantage in the sinner's estimation, which Paul shows in the next verse to be of no value. The former view, however, seems the most simple and natural, as well as most consistent with the context, and with the use of for at the begin- ning of the verse. As a motive for obedience to the exhortation contained in V. 19, Paul reminds them that they were formerly the servants of a far different master, of the nature and results of whose service he speaks in the next verse.
(21, 22) In these verses the apostle refers to the different character and results of the service of sin and holiness, as a reason for continued devotion to God. What fruit had ye then in those things of which yc are now ashamed? &,c. As thus translated and pointed, this clause can hardly have any other meaning than, ' What was the result of your for- mer service or mode of life V The answer to this question is found in the latter part of the verse, the end of those things is death. This sup, poses the words for those things or ivorks to be supplied, as they are not