“Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof. Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unright­eousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God. For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace.” Romans 6:12-14

What are we doing with our bodies? A great deal of attention is paid to the human body in our day. There is much emphasis on physical fitness, proper exercise, and diet. There are many warnings against drug and alcohol abuse and smoking. This is all well and good. We certainly ought to take good care of our bodies. There is also a great deal of emphasis on human sexuality, a euphemism for lust. Publishers of magazines like Playboy and Penthouse make millions display­ing nude women. Prostitution, homo­sexuality, sex outside of the bond of marriage are all common and accepted. One half of the marriages in the United States ends in divorce. The blatant, overt lust and passion of our day make Sodom and Gomorrah appear as child’s play. This is the world in which we live and are called in newness of life. There are two things that need to be said about this. We are affected. We do not live in isolation. We are tempted by the lusts of the world. God is not mocked. God is coming in fiery judgment and holy wrath to destroy this sin-cursed world and make all things new. The question is urgent: what are we doing with our bodies? Are we using them as instruments of unrighteousness, obey­ing sin and lust? Or are we yielding ourselves and our bodies to God?

This passage begins with the word, “therefore.” This means that this text follows upon what Paul wrote before. We are in Christ, dead to sin and alive to God. For this reason we must not let sin reign in our bodies. This is precisely how our walking in newness of life becomes manifest. We do not let sin rule. We do not obey sin by allowing our lusts to run wild. We do not yield our members as instru­ments of unrighteousness. Positively, we yield ourselves to God and our members as instruments of righteous­ness unto God. We are able to do this because we are not under the law but under grace. By grace alone sin shall not have dominion over us.

What does it mean to yield ourselves to God? This means that we are alive from the dead. By nature we are dead in sin. This does not mean that we are merely sinners with a natural tendency to sin or merely have developed sinful habits or even that we do a great deal of sinning. It means this too but so much more. We are dead in sin. We are dead to God. A dead person cannot speak or act. All fellowship is lost. This is the way we are spiritually by nature. We are dead in sin so that all we can do is sin. It is impossible to please God. This is what the Bible teaches in Romans 8:7: “Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.” This means we cannot please God, we cannot come to Jesus, we cannot do one thing to save ourselves. All we can do is to increase our guilt and add to our condemnation. By nature we are worthy of eternal death and hell.

But we have been made alive. This is what God did for us in Christ. God chose us in Christ before the founda­tion of the world. God sent Christ into the world to suffer and die for us and be raised again from the dead. God poured out His Spirit into our’ hearts with all the blessings of salvation. Now we are alive from the dead. Christ has given us life out of the death of our sin and depravity. We have but a begin­ning of that life. Daily we must struggle with sin. But we are alive. Now then, the Scripture is saying to us, act that way. Live as those who are alive from the dead. This does not mean that we can sin all we wish because we’re saved by grace. As those alive from the dead we must yield ourselves to God.

What does this mean? To yield means to present or give ourselves over to God. The text says: keep on yielding yourselves to God. This is an ongoing activity. We must yield ourselves to God. God does not want some of our time, some of our abilities and gifts. God doesn’t want most of these. God wants our very selves. And again: God doesn’t want part of us, not even a large part of ourselves. God wants all of ourselves. All that we are and all that we have been given are of God and must be given over to God. Jesus put the same truth a little differently when He said: “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me.” (Matthew 16:24) We must press our very selves, all that we are and have, into the service of God. All of the time. And this is either-or. Either we yield ourselves to God all of the time or we are yielding ourselves to the service, or better, the slavery of sin. Either-or. There is no place in between. Our calling is plain. Keep on yielding yourselves to God.

How must this come to expres­sion? Not by yielding our members as instruments of unrighteousness. By “members” the text means the parts of the body, organs, limbs of our body. “Instruments” is better translated “weapons”. “Unrighteousness” is very simply all of that which is not right with God, all evil and sin. That which is opposed to the will of God as revealed in His Holy Word is unrighteousness. Doing this we live and walk in sin. We are not to yield the members of our bodies as weapons of unrighteousness to sin. When we do that we are using our bodies in the service of sin and as weapons with which to fight against God. This is very serious! Very foolish! Fighting against God we cannot win. We will surely go down to destruction.

What are we doing with the members of our bodies? What do we do with our eyes? God gave us eyes to use in His service and for His glory. Are our eyes ever toward the Lord as the Psalmist of Psalm 141 confesses? Or are they blind to God, Christ, and His Word? Do we use them to satisfy our evil lusts? Do we use our eyes to look at a young woman or a young man to lust after her or him? That’s how the ungodly use their eyes. As Proverbs 16:30 teaches: they shut their eyes to God in order to devise froward things. What about our hands? Do we use them to work the thing which is good so as to be able to give to the needy? (Eph. 4:28) Or do we use our hands to steal, to work evil, as weapons to fight against God? How about our mouths? Do we use them to speak evil, to backbite, slander, to lie, to curse and swear, to spue filthy jokes. Or do we use those mouths to speak good, to edify one another, to speak God’s truth to His praise? These same questions may be asked concerning all the members of our body. Do we use them as instruments or tools to produce unrighteousness and sin, as weapons against God? That can only mean we are still dead in sin and not walking in newness of life.

This has devastating results. Then sin reigns in our mortal body. We are obeying our lusts and they run wild and we are consumed by them. Sin is our ruler. Sin rules and dominates us. We become slave to sin. To walk in sin is to be its slave. The devil likes to present the way of sin as good, as the way to be free from the restrictions of the Christian faith. The devil wants us to think that the way of lust is to be free and happy. That’s the lie! Don’t believe it! Walking in sin and lust is to be the slave of sin. Sin rules and sin is cruel. It’s a horrible slavery. Whatever the particular sin or lust, alcohol or sex or love of money, makes no difference. Sin becomes our master and it drives a person right into hell. That’s the judgment of God. The wages of sin is death.

Positively, we are called to yield our members as weapons of righteous­ness. To be righteous is to be right with God. It’s to be in harmony with God’s will and law. It’s to speak and do and think and will that which is right in God’s sight. Yield your members as weapons of righteousness. This means we yield our hands, eyes, ears, all the members of our bodies as weapons to fight sin. We hate sin. We say no to the devil, the world and our sinful flesh. In this way we give ourselves into God’s service and we are to His glory.

And in this way, only in this way we are truly free. We are free from the terrible power and lordship of sin, free from the power of death. We are free to love God with all our heart and mind and soul and strength. We are free to love the neighbor as ourselves. And that, only that is blessed. That spells happiness for us, a joy which can never be taken from us.

How is this possible? Verse 14 has the answer. We are not under the law but under grace. That we are not under the law does not mean we can just ignore God’s law. It does not mean we can disobey the law and live as we please. Never! God’s law stands forever. It reveals His will for us and it demands that we love God and the neighbor. But we are not under the law in this sense: we are not under obligation to do the law in order to be saved. If that were the case we would be damned forever.

We are under grace. God’s grace! Salvation is never by works. Salvation is always by grace. By grace, God’s free, unmerited favor and blessing in Christ, God’s almighty power to save us from sin and death. By grace we are saved, through faith, and that not of ourselves, it is the gift of God. (Eph. 2:8) By grace we yield ourselves to God. That’s why we need to go to Church and come under the preaching of the Word. Preaching is the means of grace by which God bestows His saving grace upon us.

Because we are under grace, sin shall not have lordship over us. God’s grace is infinitely more powerful than sin and the devil. By grace God instructs, guides, comforts, and pre­serves us in His service. By grace we are free. By grace we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us. Have you been touched by God’s wonderful grace in Christ? Then you are alive from the dead and your calling is to use your bodies as weapons of righteousness in God’s service. God says to you in His word: Give yourselves over to God.