What fruit had you then in those things of which you are now ashamed? for the end of those things is death.
Read Chapter 6
Ambrosiaster
AD 400
What are the fruits of sin? Learning from them what a good life is we are ashamed by the way we lived so wickedly before. And it is not only that the opinion of the pagans is wicked but also the heresy which is found most of all in Phrygia, to which only a morally corrupt person would belong, in which there is no sacrament and Christian piety has died out. Behold a freedom full of sins and bound by wickedness, whose deeds have only shame as their reward and whose end is death! Our departure is the end of this life and its deeds, and either death or life will succeed it. But here the word death has a double meaning, for it shifts from one kind of death to another. Commentary on Paul’s Epistles.
If even the recollection of your former slavery makes you ashamed, think how much more the reality of it would do so. You have gained in two ways—by being set free from your former shame and by having come to recognize your past life for what it was.
