What is the meaning of Romans 6:21?

Looking back at past harvests

Paul begins with a piercing question: “What fruit did you reap at that time…?” (Romans 6:21). He is taking believers on a trip down memory lane to their pre-conversion days.

• “Fruit” pictures results, payoff, the visible harvest of a way of life (cf. Matthew 7:16–18; Galatians 6:7–8).

• “At that time” recalls the season when we were, as Romans 6:20 puts it, “slaves to sin,” free from righteousness yet utterly bound to rebellion (Ephesians 2:1–3).

• Paul’s question is rhetorical; everyone knows the yield was rotten. Any sense of pleasure was short-lived, never satisfying (Hebrews 11:25).

---

Ashamed of former things

“…from the things of which you are now ashamed?” The Spirit-wrought contrast is striking. What once seemed normal or even enjoyable now produces shame.

• Conversion changes our appetite and our evaluation of the past (2 Corinthians 5:17).

• Shame here is not crippling guilt but healthy, Spirit-given revulsion toward sin’s defilement (James 4:8–9).

• The very acts that once advertised “freedom” are now recognized as slavery—clear evidence of a new heart (Ezekiel 36:26–27).

---

The certain outcome: death

“The outcome of those things is death.” Paul moves from subjective feeling (shame) to objective fact (death).

• Sin’s payday is always death—physical, spiritual, and, if unrepented, eternal (Romans 6:23; Revelation 20:14–15).

• Even before physical death, sin erodes everything it touches: relationships, purpose, inner peace (Proverbs 14:12; Isaiah 59:2).

• The wording stresses inevitability: every unchecked sinful path terminates at the same graveyard, no exceptions (James 1:15).

---

summary

Romans 6:21 calls believers to look honestly at sin’s past harvest: no lasting fruit, only shame, and a destination of death. Remembering that empty crop fuels gratitude for Christ’s rescue and motivates present holiness, because the only harvest worth reaping is the eternal life God freely gives in His Son (Romans 6:22–23).