20 For when ye were the servants of sin, ye were free from righteousness.
20 When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness.
20 For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness.
20 As long as you did what you felt like doing, ignoring God, you didn't have to bother with right thinking or right living, or right anything for that matter.
20 For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness.
20 When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the obligation to do right.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on Romans 6:20
Commentary on Romans 6:16-20
(Read Romans 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 delivered as into a mould. As the same metal becomes a new vessel, when melted and recast in another mould, so the believer has become a new creature. And there is great difference in the liberty of mind and spirit, so opposite to the state of slavery, which the true Christian has in the service of his rightful Lord, whom he is enabled to consider as his Father, and himself as his son and heir, by the adoption of grace. The dominion of sin consists in being willingly slaves thereto, not in being harassed by it as a hated power, struggling for victory. Those who now are the servants of God, once were the slaves of sin.