Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadJohn Bengel Commentary - Romans 6:21 - 6:21
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Rom 6:21. Τίνα οὖν καρπὸν εἴχετε τότε, ἐφʼ οἷς νῦν ἐπαισχύνεσθε) This whole period has the force of a negative interrogation. He says, that the righteous have their fruit unto holiness; but he does not consider those things which are ‘unfruitful’ [ἄκαρπα] worthy of the name of fruit.-Eph 5:11. He says, therefore, those things which now cause you to feel ashamed, were, indeed, formerly not fruits. Others put the mark of interrogation after τότε, then, so that ἐφʼ οἷς may be the answer to the interrogation; but then the apostle should have said ἐφʼ ᾧ, sc. καρπῷ [Sanctification is the reverse of this shame, Rom 6:22, evidently just as in 1Co 1:28; 1Co 1:30, that which is base (“base things”) and sanctification, are in antithesis; but the multitude of Christians are now ashamed of sanctification, which is esteemed as something base. What a fearful death hangs over such persons! O the degeneracy of the times and the manners (principles of men)!-V. g.]-νῦν, now) when you have been brought to repentance.-γὰρ, for) instead of moreover [autem]; but it has a greater power of separation, comp. Rom 6:22 at the end, δὲ, and moreover [autem]; so γὰρ, for, ch. Rom 5:7.-ἐκείνων, of those things) He does not say, of these things; he looks on those things as the remote past.-θάνατος, death) The epithet eternal (αἰώνιος) Rom 6:23, is never added to this noun, not only in relation to those, in the case of whom, death yields to life, but not even in relation to those who shall go away into everlasting fire, torment, and destruction. If any one can think, that it is by mere chance, and not design, that Scripture, when eternal life is expressly mentioned, never names its opposite, eternal death, but everywhere speaks of it in a different manner, and that, too, in so many places, I, for my part, leave to him the equivalence of the phrases, eternal destruction, etc.[66] The reason of the difference, however, is this: Scripture often describes death, by personification, as an enemy, and an enemy, too, to be destroyed; but it does not so describe torment.
[66] I leave him to his own foolish notion, that the phrases eternal destruction, etc., are equivalent to eternal death.-ED.