https://youtu.be/bMkyhWQvqz4
In our verse by verse study of Romans in our previous class we finished our Expanded Translation of Rom 6:19; "I use a human illustration because of the weakness of your flesh [the old sin nature]; for just as you have put your members under orders as slaves to impurity [the old sin nature's trend toward sin] and to the lawlessness [the old sin nature's trend toward good] resulting in the lawlessness (the old sin nature's trend toward evil) so now put your members under orders as slaves to the righteousness of God, resulting in experiential sanctification."
We see here hat experiential sanctification is described as the production of the believer who chooses to put himself under orders as a slave to God's righteousness under the ministry of the Holy Spirit through the PMA of Bible doctrine. This statement is referring to the principle of experiential sanctification.
The mechanics of placing one's self under orders to God involves the filling of the Spirit that requires rebound adjustment to God's justice when necessary, plus the daily function of GASP that eventually results in maturity adjustment to God's justice.
The predicate and principle for this is the imputation of Gods righteousness at salvation that creates a grace pipeline with God's justice on the giving end and God's righteousness on the receiving end. This fulfils the principle that God's justice can only bless God's righteousness.
This grace pipeline is encapsulated with God's perfect integrity that is comprised of His righteousness and His justice. Again, righteousness is the principle of God's integrity and justice is the function of God's integrity.
Righteousness demands righteousness; justice demands justice and what righteousness demands, justice executes.
When the believer attains spiritual maturity God's righteousness demands blessing and God's justice conveys it by pouring super grace blessings through the encapsulated grace pipeline. That is when God is glorified by the believer's experiential life in a sin infused physical body living the devil's world in time.
Any form of human good, human righteousness, human production or any adverse historical trends cannot penetrate God's encapsulation. The grace blessings from God's justice are insulated against any type of or function of human activity. Therefore all grace blessing that is conveyed from God glorifies God.
The first part of this verse emphasizes that from physical birth every naturally born human is enslaved to the sin nature so we are under orders to impurity and lawlessness at physical birth the two real imputations result in real physical life with real spiritual death.
The real imputation of human life to its divinely prepared human home, the soul, plus the real imputation of Adam's original sin to its genetically prepared home, the old sin nature, results in spiritual death that is described in our context using the analogy of slavery.
This means that at physical birth every member of the human race has been placed under orders to the old sin nature as the sovereign of human life that rules through spiritual death. Therefore mankind follows the trends of slavery to impurity or personal sin and slavery to good and evil or lawlessness.
But salvation adjustment to God's justice through faith alone in Christ alone changes everything. The change occurs through two blessings from God's justice at salvation.
The first blessing is the imputation of God's perfect righteousness that establishes the primary potential from God's justice through the grace pipeline. The second blessing is the baptism of the Holy Spirit that sets up the secondary potential for the encapsulated environment in which those mature blessings can be enjoyed in any situation in human history.
The two key words we need to note in the last half of this verse are righteousness and sanctification. Righteousness is positional. It occurs at salvation adjustment to God's justice. Sanctification is experiential. It is fulfilled at the point of maturity adjustment to God's justice.
At salvation the believer becomes a slave to imputed righteousness, while at maturity the believer becomes the slave to sanctification.
The comparison to the former condition of enslavement is a challenge to exercise the new option. The believer advances to spiritual maturity by placing himself under slavery to God who provides both temporal and eternal blessings. Verses 20-21 describe the old sin nature's sovereignty over human life in spiritual death at physical birth.
Rom 6:20; "For when you were slaves of sin." The explanatory use of the postpositive conjunctive particle "gar" (for) with it is the temporal adverb "hote" (when) a temporal conjunction "For when." A better translation is "For as long as."
Then the imperfect active indicative of the verb "eimi" (you were). The imperfect tense is the imperfect of description representing what has been going on in the past from physical birth to salvation adjustment to God's justice.
The active voice tells us that every naturally born person in the human race produces the action of the verb from physical birth until salvation. The indicative mood is declarative describing what has been happening from the viewpoint of reality. Plus the predicate nominative "douloi" (slaves).
Plus the genitive singular of relationship from the definite article "ho" (the) and the genitive singular of relationship from the noun "hamartia" (sin) so again we have "the sin" so again it is referring to the old sin nature. "For as long as you were slaves of the sin nature."
Slavery to the sin nature functions in two categories. It functions from birth to salvation, and then potentially it can also function when the believer reverts back into slavery to the sin nature after being freed by God when the believer believed in Jesus Christ for salvation.
"you were free from righteousness" the imperfect active indicative of "eimi" (you were). This is the imperfect tense that says as long as you were slaves to the old sin nature you were constantly in a status quo of lawlessness so they were excluded from God's righteousness
The word "eleutheroi" (free) is translated "free" in the NASB but it refers to exclusion or to being excluded. The active voice tells us that the believer produces the action of the verb, looking back at their being slaves to the old sin nature before they were saved.
The indicative mood is the reality of the fact that spiritual death is excluded from the principle of God's righteousness. No one in spiritual death can ever be blessed directly from God because they do not have God's righteousness that is required for the grace pipeline that connects to God's justice to be established.
It's in the plural because all spiritual blessings flow through the grace pipeline including temporal blessings, blessing by association, historical impact blessings, and eventually dying grace.
The plural is used to indicate exclusion from all five categories of grace blessing from God. No unbeliever ever receives direct blessing from God.
Then the dative of reference singular from the definite article "ho" (the) and "dikaiosune" (righteousness) so we have "the righteousness" referring to God's righteousness that is imputed at salvation.
Expanded Translation Rom 6:20; "For as long as you were the slaves of the sin nature you were excluded from the righteousness (of God)."
This means no grace pipeline, no potential or reality of grace blessing from God's justice. The righteousness of God is used here as the principle or predicate that is required for receiving direct blessing from God's justice that glorifies God. As unbelievers under the rule of the old sin nature we were slaves to the old sin nature and its trends toward sin, good, and evil.
In this status there is no possibility of direct blessing from God's justice through the encapsulated grace pipeline that is established by God's integrity. This is because God's righteousness must be on the receiving end of the pipeline and God's righteousness is not imputed to us until we adjust to God's justice by believing in Jesus Christ.
This means that the unbeliever is excluded from the benefits related to the imputation of God's righteousness. The benefits of imputation or justification include not only immediate salvation but also the potential for greater blessings in time and in eternity.
Slavery to the sovereignty of the old sin nature that rules human life through spiritual death excludes any possibility of fulfilling the equation that states that potential from imputed righteousness plus capacity from metabolized doctrine equals the reality of blessing in time
This means that the unbeliever is excluded from the potential that is established by God's imputed righteousness so the equation only applies to the believers in Jesus Christ.
Salvation adjustment to God's justice of God through faith in Christ changes everything. The imputation of God's righteousness at salvation provides the potential for great blessing from God's justice and even greater blessing from God's justice in eternity.
All believers have equal opportunity in time to place the members of their physical body under orders to God as slaves to God's righteousness from the PMA of God's Word of truth under the teaching ministry of God the Holy Spirit that results in experiential sanctification.
This means that there are two fundamental approaches to life in time. The first is that man is inherently good, and the second is that man is inherently bad. The concept that man is good leads to a greater intensity of evil, and leads to more historical problems and disasters. We see this occurring in the world today.
Then there is the attitude that man is not to be trusted because he is inherently evil and devious so there must be some safeguards.
All the laws of divine establishment take cognizance of the principle of the fact that we are born with an old sin nature and that sin is pervasive, and that the old sin nature has inherent trends toward sin, toward human good, and evil.
All law is designed with that in mind. Legitimate authority is the system whereby the doctrine of total depravity is a reality but lawful authority converts most totally depraved people into fairly nice people who are mostly good and honest people, in certain circumstances.
That is why we must have the enforcement of the laws of divine establishment in order to have a functional client nation. This is the issue that we face in our country at this time and who we elect will determine whither or not we will continue as a client nation.
Rom 6:21; "What benefit did you have then from what you are now ashamed?" The nominative neuter plural from the interrogative pronoun "tis" (what) is used for a direct inquiry, especially when it is followed with the inferential conjunction "oun" (then).
This is an inferential conjunction that explains that what is being introduced is predicated on what occurred previously. Plus the accusative singular direct object from "karpos" (fruit or production) that refers to benefit or profit from something.
In this verse "karpos" means benefit. The previous verse tells us we were excluded from the benefits of having God's imputed righteousness. Plus the imperfect active indicative of the verb "echo" (did you have). So we have "what benefit were you having."
The progressive imperfect tense describes what was going on in past time when we were slaves of the old sin nature from physical birth to salvation. The active voice: the spiritually dead unbeliever under the authority of the old sin nature produces the action of the verb.
This is an interrogative indicative where the viewpoint of reality is implied as a fact and inquired about when the indicative is used as a basis for asking the simple question. Then the correlative adverb "tote" (then or at that time), referring to the previous situation, "at that time," the time between physical birth and salvation.