Our last
lesson finished up with verse 11 - So you
also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.
This serves as an indicative – we Christians are dead to sin and alive to God. We pick up in verse 12, where
Paul explains what he meant, giving us two negative commands and one positive
one, imperatives; followed by the promise and rationale.
Romans
6:12-14 12 Let not sin therefore reign in
your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. 13 Do not present your members
to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as
those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments
for righteousness. 14 For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not
under law but under grace.
First
command: do not let sin reign in your mortal body. Second: Do not present your
members to sin. Third: Present yourselves to God. None of these imperatives are
possible for anyone that is not dead to sin and alive to God, the indicative in
verse 11.
Take note
of the difference between the first two commands and the third: the negative
commands relate to our physical being – our mortal
body, our members. The third
command relates to our whole being, including our souls – present yourselves. If one is in Christ, he can
give his mortal body and its members – all that is fleshly – to sin for a
season. But he is ever of the Lord and cannot give himself over to sin. The
Christian can and will want to give himself – all that he is – to the Lord Who
redeemed him, though sin lurks and temptations abound.
Paul does
not here speak of our mortal body as if it were the body of sin that has been
put to death. He recognizes that as long as the Lord tarries, we are bound to
space and time in a body that is weak and vulnerable. This is why he spoke
elsewhere that flesh and blood (meaning that which has not been glorified)
cannot inherit the kingdom of God (1 Cor 15:50).
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