Our first thought when we read this line should be that we have been given a command directly from Almighty God...what do we know about commands from God?
1. They serve to reveal Him.
2. They serve to glorify Him.
3. They are a blessing to us when we keep them!
This is obviously very serious, and as is true with all of God's Word, this should never be taken lightly...the things of God are never minor.
So - the command here has to do with what we are doing with our body as God's children. Keep in mind the context here...Paul started this chapter by asking how any child of God could possibly think it's alright to live in a life of sinfulness. The command we read here also stems from a command giving right before it, in verse 12:
Let not sin reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions.
What is Paul doing by stacking up these commands? (and there is one more to come at the end of verse 13) - Not only is Paul driving home the importance of repentance, the turning away from sin, but Paul is also using verse 13 as instructions on how to obey the command in verse 12! We have no excuse now...look at it:
vs 12: Let not therefore sin reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions.
Paul...how do we make sure we are defeating sin in our lives, not allowing it control?
vs 13a: Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness
(and Paul goes even further in this verse, which we will cover later)
vs 13b: present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness.
Paul will expound on this idea of how we are to present our members a little later in chapter 6. We will look more in depth at how this plays out in our lives at that time. For now, we will look at the first part of verse 13 and how it relates to verse 12, as well as how it ties in to what Paul laid out for us in the first part of chapter 6 as a whole.
We know, from verse 7, that we have been set free from sin, set free meaning justified. As a result, we are no longer controlled by sin, because sinfulness is no longer aligned with the desires of our heart and mind. Sin can no longer condemn us, because we have been declared righteous through the blood of Christ our Savior!
This does not mean, however, that we are not vulnerable to sin, that we don't battle the flesh. Though we can no longer find long term satisfaction in the sinfulness that once defined us, our flesh still longs for it...and Satan is always lurking, hoping to convince us that what the flesh wants will provide satisfaction...IT WILL NOT.
Because we still battle the flesh, we have a decision to make...as God's children are we going to be nonchalant about sin in our lives, trying to turn a blind eye to it, refusing to deal with it? If this is the case, we are in direct opposition to the command in verse 12...if we refuse to take on the sin in our life with the desire to purge it completely, we are giving sin a foothold...remember the analogy of the steep slope? We are putting a foot over the edge, and we are foolish to think we have control. The evil, demonic forces we are dealing with are much more powerful than us as mere humans - they will do with us what they want, and God will allow them some room - especially as discipline...
Paul is telling us in verse 13 that we need to take a look at what we are doing in our day to day life. I posted about this idea of the micro and the macro earlier this year, not realizing how perfectly it fits here. If we look at the macro (purge sin from your life) we can become completely overwhelmed...especially if how we see our self before God has even a small bit of accuracy.
We need to look at the micro, and allow that to shape macro. The micro here is what we are doing with our bodies on a day to day basis. Remember the song O Be Careful Little Eyes?
O be careful little ears what you hear...
O be careful little hands what you do...
O be careful little feet where you go...
O be careful little mouth what you say...
There's a Father up above
And He's looking down in love
So, be careful little mouth what you say
This is how we need to approach the command in verse 12 to keep sin from gaining a foothold in our lives! Take each verse, look at the part of the body, and ask yourself if you are protecting that member from sin...through the power of Christ these things ought to be under control, we are in God's hand. Jesus had stern words if we are allowing the members of our body to hinder us:
And if your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life crippled or lame than with two hands or two feet to be thrown into the eternal fire. And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into the hell of fire. Mathew 18:8,9
This doesn't literally mean that we are to be mutilating our body, but that there is no room for a casual attitude towards sin. As God's children, we MUST exhibit control over the members of our body, and we can (Paul will explain as we study the rest of vs 13).
As we pray for God to give us a passion and power to be in control of the members of our body, to purge sin from our lives, refusing to give any control or power to the demonic forces around us, we cannot forget why we are doing this. It is NOT an attempt to earn God's love, and it is NOT an attempt to obtain salvation. Paul is very clear about this.
In the first seven verses Paul explained what has happened to us as God's children - in response to why we shouldn't live in sin. AFTER explaining this, Paul gave us the command to repent and continually be consumed with purging sin completely from our lives in verses 12 and 13 - using the very important word THEREFORE in verse 12.
Let not therefore sin reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions.
Using the word therefore reveals that we are commanded to do these things not in order to obtain a relationship with God, or eternal life, rather we are commanded to do these things because we have already been adopted into a relationship with God, which is eternal life!
It's very important that we recognize this order, because we cannot begin to obey these commands of our own power. The only way this purging of sin and control of our members will take place is if we are in a relationship with an Almighty God, who can work His power in us as we pursue Him and submit to Him! When we seek God with a humble, sincere heart, in humility, and He will bless us with power over sin that we never knew existed.
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