¹⁹ I am speaking in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness, resulting in further lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness, resulting in sanctification.

Human terms” signals Paul’s use of simple reasoning, not divine fiat. What he writes should make perfectly good sense to people who are not spiritually strong enough to simply take the revelation of truth straight up—they need human reasoning to convince them. This does not mean Paul is resorting to inferior, less than spiritual means to convey the truth. No, he writes as one who is “called as an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God,” who has “received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith …” (Rom 1:1, 5). What he is teaching was not dictated by the Spirit to him, but rather arises out of his God-given ability and gifting.

We see this clearly in his letter to the Corinthians, where he says, “But to the married, I give instructions, not I, but the Lord, that the wife should not leave her husband …” (1 Cor 7:10) and then, “But to the rest I say, not the Lord, that if any brother has a wife who is an unbeliever …” (1 Cor 7:12). In the first case, Paul is indicating that his teaching about married couples comes directly from the Lord Jesus’ teachings when He lived on earth among His people. The second teaching did not come directly from the Lord Jesus’ teaching, but came from Paul as the inspired, apostolic writer (1 Cor 1:1). Indeed, he wrote, “[W]e speak God’s wisdom in a mystery … for to us God revealed them through the Spirit …” (1 Cor 1:7, 10).

So Paul appeals to human reasoning by using the analogy of slavery. In today’s world slavery evokes a visceral reaction, but in Roman times it was ubiquitous. Slaves people from all levels of society came from the population of the nations Rome had conquered. To be sure, many were treated harshly and inhumanely, but many lived quite influential lives, being treated well by their “masters.” In often, a slave acted more like a household servant and could own a business, save money and live what might seem like an ordinary life. The one thing that defined slaves was the limitation on their freedom—they had very few if any legal rights. Paul uses this illustration to depict that none of us is a truly independent, free individual. We simply choose our slavery. Either we are slaves in a spiraling vortex of lawlessness or we voluntarily give up our slavery to sin and choose rather to be obedient (slaves) to righteousness.

Lord, I freely choose the freedom from sin that comes by living for You.