I will read a passage from Romans 6, starting at verse 6, and we are going to read all the way through. Romans 6 beginning at verse 6:
Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. For he that is dead is freed from sin. Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him: Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over him. For in that he died, he died unto sin once: but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God. Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. 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. What then? shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid. Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness? But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you. Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness. I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh: for as ye have yielded your members servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity; even so now yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness. For when ye were the servants of sin, ye were free from righteousness. What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed? for the end of those things is death. But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life. For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
God clearly teaches in the Bible that when someone truly becomes a child of God, He tells us, that God’s Holy Spirit indwells us. I am pretty sure all of us know that, but God’s Holy Spirit indwells the true believers. But the true believers, we have a problem. We have a body that is not saved. We have to carry our bodies around with us, and the only time that we are going to be free from these sinful bodies of ours (because our bodies are still under the curse of God; our bodies get sick just like the unsaved; we get sick; we die; some of us die of natural causes and our bodies are with us) and the only time we are going to be free from this is when God takes us in death or He comes on the last day.
But we are halfway saved, in our Spirit where God has made us alive spiritually. This body of ours is a problem for the true believers. That is why the Apostle Paul, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, says, “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” In our bodies as true believers, we should not use this excuse to sin: “Oh well, I have a body,” or whatever people say. They hide behind that. True believers do not want to sin, but the potential is there that we could fall into sin because of our bodies. It is there, but it is a huge difference between the saved and the unsaved.
The unsaved, yes, he has a conscience. God’s laws are on his heart; he knows it to a certain degree. He can attempt to do certain things which are correct. The husband may not cheat on his wife. Intuitively, he knows it is wrong to take someone’s life or to steal or whatever the case is. Unsaved man knows that, and he will try of himself, if he is a decent moral person, to live the best he can according to some things in the Bible. But keep in mind that he does not have a new heart; he is still unsaved.
He could be a morally decent person, and I am sure even then I have met quite a few of them. They are just nice people. They are kind to their fellowman, they will give you the shirt off their back, so to speak. But they are not saved. God has not given them a new heart, and they are still under the control of sin; they still love their sin. Deep within their hearts, there is a love for sin. They may not act it out as some people might do, but that desire is there to sin. Yet, God restrains them. He restrains the human race to a certain degree, and that decent moral person will not go all out. But we do not know what they are thinking. Their thoughts are just as sinful as their actions.
So deep within that person’s heart, although he is morally a decent person, he is thinking sinfully. He has the same desires there, but God restrains them. But as for the child of God, God has given us a new nature. He has given us a new heart and there is a conflict there. There is a conflict in the true believer’s heart because of the sinful body that he is in. If we look at Ezekiel 36:25-26, another beautiful verse, He says:
Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, …
Notice who is doing the work. Not “I” there; it is God. He says:
Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, …
God is doing the action:
… and ye shall be clean: from all your filthiness, …
Spiritually speaking, it is not in our bodies yet until the last day, which is approaching very quickly. And you know, we are filthy people. You have heard the expression, “We are dirty, rotten, filthy sinners;” it is true. It is a Word in the Bible. It is true. We are filthy sinners:
… and from all your idols, will I cleanse you.
God is doing the work:
A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit …
God’s Holy Spirit. Now He has given us a new Spirit. He comes and He makes His abode with us in our bodies. How is that possible that God would indwell our sinful bodies? But He does. In the true believer’s body where he has a new nature, he has this body that is not saved and he has to carry it around with him. That is why, if you are truly a child of God, we are only a few months away from the end of the world and we should rejoice that, very soon, very shortly, in a few months, our salvation is going to be completed. God is going to give us brand new resurrected bodies, whatever that is, and we will be perfect. Sin will be gone, this world is going to be destroyed, and here we are with Christ forever and ever. But in the meantime, we have to carry our bodies around with us.
Look at Psalm 37; let us look at a couple of verses. God tells us here in Psalm 37:4-5, here He says:
Delight thyself also in the LORD; …
See, with the new heart that God has given to us, we are going to delight in the things of Christ, spiritual things, because that is what a new heart desires. True believers are going to delight in the things of the Lord. We are only happiest when we are being obedient to God:
Delight thyself also in the LORD; and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart.
It is the new heart. As we read the Bible, it is our joy to do it God’s way. So when the true believer falls into sin, something is not right because he has sinned against God. He says in verse 5:
Commit thy way unto the LORD; trust also in him; and he shall bring it to pass.
The true believers desire the things of the Lord. We hate sin. As I said earlier, the potential is there. Some people might think that when we become saved we sin no longer. In our Spirit we do not, the part of us that has experienced salvation; but in our bodies, that potential is still there that we may fall into sin; it is still there. We have to drag it around with us. Look at Psalm 32:10-11; there we read:
Many sorrows shall be to the wicked: but he that trusteth in the LORD, mercy shall compass him about. Be glad in the LORD, and rejoice, ye righteous: …
We are righteous because Christ has made us righteous. So the true believers, we rejoice in the Lord to do it God’s way, and the reason we rejoice is because our sins are paid for. We are no longer in trouble with God. The sentence of death does not hang over our heads anymore. The Lord Jesus has saved us and we rejoice in that He has made us righteous:
… and shout for joy, all ye that are upright in heart.
Christ is the One who has made us “upright in heart;” we had nothing to do with that. We rejoice in Him because the Lord Jesus now has saved us from eternal death and we are no longer threatened by hell and death any longer, so we rejoice. That is what a new heart does; it rejoices in the Lord. We are at home when we are doing it God’s way.
Let us look at this body that God has given to us, this body that we, the true believers, have, and we cannot separate ourselves from it. Either Christ takes us in death or on the last day. But look at Galatians 5, Galatians 5:16-17. Here God is giving us some instructions on how we ought to live out our lives as true believers, one of the ways that we ought to do it. Here God says:
This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, …
How do we do that? He says:
… Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.
Let us go back up to verse 16:
This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, …
How can we do that? But first we have to have the Spirit of God. If we do not have the Spirit of God, we cannot “walk in the Spirit” because God clearly tells us in Romans 8—hold your hand here and go over to Romans 8:9, where He says:
But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.
So the only way we could live out our lives is as God says, “Walk in the Spirit.” We are living out our lives in obedience to God doing what God commands us to do. We have to have the Spirit of God in us. The unsaved do not have the Spirit of God in them, so they cannot “walk in the Spirit” of God. In order for us, as God commands us in Galatians, to “walk in the Spirit,” first God has to give us His Holy Spirit to live out our lives according to His commandments. You are not literally walking, but we have to live out our lives according to God’s commandments. As we are walking with the Lord, we are being obedient to His commandments. Let us look at Colossians 2:6-7; here it says:
As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him: Rooted and built up in him, and stablished in the faith, as ye have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving.
As we live out our lives before God in obedience to Him, we are walking in the Spirit of God. The unsaved cannot do that. As moral as that person might be, if he is not saved, he cannot walk in the Spirit of God because he does not have it. The true believers, God has given us that desire to want to be obedient to Him, and as we live out our lives, we are walking in the Spirit of God in obedience to Him.
Let us look at another verse in 1 Thessalonians. Turn to 1 Thessalonians 4:1-4; here God tells us:
Furthermore then we beseech you, brethren, and exhort you by the Lord Jesus, that as ye have received of us how ye ought to walk and to please God, …
“How ye ought to walk and to please God”—that is the desire of the new heart that God has given to us:
… how ye ought to walk and to please God, so ye would abound more and more. For ye know what commandments we gave you by the Lord Jesus. For this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that ye should abstain from fornication: That every one of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honour;
So you see, here God is telling us that we are to walk and please God, not to please ourselves or our fellowman, but God. As we “walk in the Spirit” and as we seek to be obedient to God, we are walking in the Spirit of God. Temptations will come, testing will come, and all these things will come, but we should not feel sorry for ourselves.
Some people think that because they do not do this or that, that they are denying themselves of something. We do not need that sin in our lives. Sin has deceived us; sin has deceived us. But in our bodies which are not saved, we are going to be tested, tempted. Yet God will strengthen us. We have to take ourselves off of “poor me” and place it on Christ and ask Him for strength to do it His way, because from the moment we start looking within ourselves for strength, we are going to fall, we are going to fall into sin.
Remember, we live in this body that is not saved. It is there, and from the moment you start saying, “Poor me, I have to have this or that sin,” no, we ask God for strength and turn away from it; we turn away from that sin. True believers, the last thing we want to do is sin against our Savior. No, we do not want to do that. We pray to God that He will give us a hatred for our sin to turn away from it, no matter what the sin might be.
Sin is why we are in trouble with God. We are living in a day where sin is multiplying. We live in this world; we see it. The family is destroyed. Look at society in general. Look at the church. Sin is everywhere. Does that give me an excuse to do it? No.
I am often telling my children that in our day, physical fornication is as common as grass; it is everywhere. I often tell my children that God gave us an example of Joseph. Remember Joseph, living in Potiphar’s house? Flee fornication. Flee, not only fornication, but all sin. Get away from it. If you have a friend in your life, or whoever it is, if you are watching the wrong TV programs or you are reading the wrong books and it is causing your mind to go on a wrong path, turn away from them; turn away from it.
We are going to look at a verse later on. God tells us to crucify the flesh. Do not feel sorry for yourselves; Sin is horrible. We have to be careful what we are spending our time doing, we have to be careful.
We live in a world today where these electronic things, children could spend hour after hour after hour on them. They do not even realize the passing of time, and before you know it, three or four hours have passed and they do not even realize it. But we have to be careful what we are doing with our time, what we are feeding our minds with that is causing us to sin against God. Feed our minds with the Word of God. We cannot go wrong spending time in God’s Word.
Back over in Galatians 5:16, where we were, God says:
This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, …
“Walk in the Spirit,” and it is the Spirit of God. Ask God for wisdom to help us to be obedient to His commands because we cannot do it of ourselves. We cannot serve God of ourselves; we cannot do it. God has to guide us. And it says:
… and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh.
We have to live out our lives in obedience to God and ask God for wisdom and guidance and strength to walk humbly before God and to be obedient to Him. Other than that, we are going to fall. From the moment you take your eyes off of Christ, you are going to fall into sin.
We see that with King David, did he not? And here we know that King David is a child of God. He took his eyes off of God momentarily and what happened? Remember, he has a body just like us, unsaved. He took his eyes off of God for a moment and look what happened. He fell into sin; he fell right into sin. And it could happen to any one of us. The moment you think you have arrived—you have been reading the Bible for fifty years and all is well, so to speak—you drop your guard. Sin is always there and you could fall into sin before you know it.
We should not, as I said earlier, use our bodies as an excuse to sin. We want to get away from it, get away from sin, because the potential still lies in the child of God’s life that we could fall into sin momentarily. We are not going to remain in it, but we are going to know that something has happened in our life, and before you know it, God is going to send chastisements in our life to straighten us out. He will chastise you. So we have to walk very humbly in this life and ask God for strength to mortify the flesh. We cannot do it of ourselves; we cannot do that.
Let us go on a little further. Look at 2 John, go over to 2 John (I believe it has only one chapter). In 2 John, we are going to read verses 4 and 6. It says:
I rejoiced greatly that I found of thy children walking in truth, …
And you know, truth is Christ Himself. We walk in Him because God has given us the Spirit of God:
… as we have received a commandment from the Father.
Verse 6 says:
And this is love, that we walk after his commandments. …
With the new heart that God has given to us, we are going to walk after God’s commandments. We are going to want to be obedient to what God has said within the Bible. One of the wonderful things is that true believers could read, read, read the Bible, which we should do. We have to ask for obedience to walk in His commandments. “O Lord, help me to do Thy will each day, each moment.” We cannot fall into self pity, and that could easily happen to any one of us. “Poor me, look at me, something always happens to me.” No, we should look at it the other way. Maybe the Spirit of God rests upon you. Remember, God said whom He loves He chastens them. We say something is always going wrong with me—no, we should look at it in another way. We should ask the Lord if maybe we are His child.
Let us go on a little further. Look at Psalm 51. In Psalm 51, remember what happened to David when he fell into sin. Do you see his reaction? And now we know that he was a child of God. He was a child of God; we know that. There is no question about King David. And you see, a true believer’s reaction if we do fall into sin, it is not, “Oh well, I sin; so what.” No, look at what was going on in the heart of King David when he fell into sin. And so it is, that for any true believer, sin is now offensive to him. He does not want to do it. But if it does happen, if he does fall into sin, you see the reaction of a child of God when you read through Psalm 51; you see his response. It says in verses 3-4:
For I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is ever before me. Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight: that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest, and be clear when thou judgest.
See the reaction of a child of God when he falls into sin? This is our reaction. We feel terrible. How could I sin against my Lord? But we know that this fellowship temporarily has been broken; it has been broken. But you know that we could go to God again: “O Lord, forgive me for this. Strengthen me as I turn from this sin. O Lord, strengthen me.” Our reaction to sin is completely different than the unsaved. The unsaved, momentarily their conscience will bother them about committing that sin, but after awhile, it is gone. But the true believer has a totally different reaction to sin in his life.
So should be our reaction to sin if we are a child of God. Our reaction should be, “No excuse.” We do not alibi it, we do not cover it up; but we go to God and we admit it, our sin before God. I would never want to use our bodies as an excuse. No, I committed that sin. And wonderfully, we could go to God to restore that relationship. It does not mean that he is not still saved—because we are eternally saved, we cannot loose our salvation—but we do not want to sin against God. We want to be obedient to His commandments.
As I said, the potential is there to fall into sin, it does exist. But see, that is why we have to walk humbly before God and pray for strength, and we spend time in God’s Word. If you are not spending time in God’s Word—that is what a new heart desires; a new heart is going to desire the Word of God. And as we read the Bible, spiritually we grow in grace. But if we are not spending time in God’s Word, we are leaving ourselves open to fall into sin. We should always want to stay in a right relationship with God. Who wants to sin? And that terrible feeling comes over you; it is terrible. But we always want to walk humbly before God and pray for strength, pray for strength to do it God’s way.
Let us look at another verse in Proverbs 28. Remember I said earlier that we never want to alibi for our sin; we should always confess it before God and turn away from it. In Proverbs 28:13-14, there we read:
He that covereth his sins shall not prosper: but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy.
Turn away from them. Sin has deceived us. You know, one of the reasons why we commit sin is because it looks good and it feels good, but the end result of it is death. If sin did not make unsaved man feel good, he would never do it. It brings some enjoyment to the flesh; that is all it is doing. That is what sin does, it makes the flesh feel good. Unsaved man goes out and he does his thing, but the child of God is different. When we sin, we feel terrible, terrible that we have sinned against God. In verse 14 of Proverbs 28:
Happy is the man that feareth alway: but he that hardeneth his heart shall fall into mischief.
When we sin, we do not try to say, “Oh, they made me do it.” Our sin is our own. I did it. Have you ever heard people say, “My parents were horrible parents, and whatever. That is why I am in jail.” No, your sin is your own. Your sin is your own! You cannot blame anyone for it, you did it.
One of the things unsaved man will not do, he will not admit his wrong. It started right in the Garden of Eden. Is that not what our parents did? He made me do it. And eventually, they tried to blame God. However, our sin is our own. We admit our wickedness before God, and it just might be that God might forgive us of our sins.
From the moment you try to cover it up and blame someone else and not take responsibility for your actions, it is pride, pride, pride, pride. But a true believer is different; we confess our sins before God. “O Lord, renew a right Spirit within me, and cause me, O Lord, to be humble and turn me away from this sin.” And as we are turning away from the sin, “O Lord, strengthen me to do it Your way.” That ought to be the reaction of the child of God.
Look at Psalm 32:5. In Psalm 32:5, look at the reaction we should have to sin. In Psalm 32:5, it says:
I acknowledged my sin unto thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid. …
We do not want to hide our wickedness from God, our sin:
… I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the LORD; and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin. Selah.
See the mercy of God. Confess our sins before God and God is merciful, God is merciful. We know that in the day in which we are living, God is still forgiving sinners of their sin. God is merciful no matter how we have lived our lives, and the grace of God is sufficient.
Let us go on a little bit further. We see also when we look at Romans 7—remember in Romans 7, there we read about Paul the Apostle and we see the conflict that he had with sin. We know that the Apostle Paul is truly saved and we see that he recognized the fact that he has a body that is not saved. We have a body that is not saved. Here he says in verse 22:
For I delight in the law of God after the inward man:
Which is the new Spirit that God has given him. He delights in it, in the Word of God. He delights to do God’s way. In verses 23-24:
But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin [and death] which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?
True believers, in our Spirit, we want to do the law of God. We want to be obedient to Him when we have become saved in our Spirit essence, but this body of ours, we have to carry it around with us. And he sees that there is war. It is a spiritual war. It is a war, Spirit against the body, body against the Spirit. We long for that day when we will be home with Christ, we will receive of our new spiritual bodies, and now we will be perfect before God and we will not have to struggle and fight with sin any longer. And this is the desire of the true believers, to be with Christ.
But you see what the Apostle Paul, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, is saying here, that he has a body of death. The bodies of the true believers, as I said earlier, get sick and die just like the unsaved, because our bodies are still under the curse of God. So sin is in this body. But we look forward to that day when we will receive our new body.
Turn over to Colossians 3:5-10. Now God is going to instruct us on how, as true believers, we are to deal with our bodies. Colossians 3:5-10; there we read:
Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; …
Mortify it. “Mortify” means “put to death.” Do not feel sorry for yourself:
Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry: For which things’ sake the wrath of God cometh on the children of disobedience: In the which ye also walked some time, …
Remember, before we were saved, we were living according to the dictates of the flesh. We were just doing whatever we wanted to:
… when ye lived in them. But now ye also put off all these; anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication out of your mouth. Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds; And have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after …
This is a key word in this verse:
… after the image of him that created him:
God’s Holy Spirit indwells us, and it is created after Him because God’s Holy Spirit indwells us and we are going to do it God’s way. But there God tells us that we have to mortify our bodies. Put it to death. Do not feel sorry for yourself. Deal with yourself harshly. If it means I have to stop doing this or stop being around that, then you do it because you want to be obedient to God’s commandments. You need another sin like you need a hole in your head; you do not need that.
God tells us how we are to deal with our bodies. Deal harshly with it. Give no quarter, just do what you have to do. You cannot read certain things or spend enough time doing the wrong thing, or whatever. We stop doing it. We want to walk and do it God’s way. God tells us to “walk in the Spirit.” We will not obey the lust of the flesh.
God tells us in the Bible that really, we are to fill our minds with the Word of God. Whatever “things are lovely” and all these things, we ought to be thinking about these things. If we are filling our minds with garbage, how are we going to walk before God and so forth? We just cannot. We have to walk with our minds focused on Christ.
Remember the Scripture verse there in Romans. Let us turn back over to Romans 8; Romans 8:10-14 says:
And if Christ be in you, …
God’s Holy Spirit. You are born again. It says:
And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, …
If you are born again, God the Holy Spirit indwells you:
… he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you. Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh. For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit …
See, we cannot mortify our flesh on our own:
…but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.
We cannot do it on our own; it is through the Spirit of God that indwells us that we mortify the flesh. It is not our own actions, but it is God’s Holy Spirit that indwells us:
For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.
It is through “the Spirit of God” that is in us that helps us to mortify the deeds of the body. We cannot do it on our own; we are helpless.
Let us look at Mark, the Gospel of Mark. God tells us there in Mark 9, another familiar passage, Mark 9:43; He says:
And if thy hand offend thee, cut it off: …
It does not mean that you cut your arm off. No. God is speaking about our bodies. If that sin in your life is a problem, turn away from it. Deal with yourself harshly. Do not feel sorry for yourself. In verse 45, He says:
And if thy foot offend thee, cut it off: …
In verse 47:
And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out: …
Do you see how God is instructing us how we are to deal with our bodies? Do not say, “Poor me,” or, “I need that sin in my life.” No, we do not. Sin has deceived us, although it is all around us. No.
Remember Daniel and his three friends living in Babylon? These were kids; did they succumb to all the things that were around them? No. By God’s Holy Spirit indwelling us and with His help and His guidance, we can be obedient to God. We cannot do it of ourselves. Our bodies are one big test. Who are we going to obey? Remember we read parts of Romans 6 earlier. Who are you serving? Either your body or Christ; you cannot have it both ways. Either you are serving God or you are serving the dictates of the flesh.
Our bodies are a test. God saves us, He leaves us in our bodies, and it is there. Who are we going to obey? The body is a test; everyday it is a test. It is a test for us. The unsaved just goes all out and does his thing, but for the true believer, it is a conflict.
Let us read 1 Corinthians 6 and start reading at verse 18. Here God tells us:
Flee fornication. …
Get away from it. As I said earlier, we are living in a world where fornication is as common as grass. God tells us of any sin to get away from it. Do not think you can walk as close to sin as possible and you are not going to fall into it. No. You get away from sin. Get away from those companies of kids that are doing the wrong thing. You do not want to be a part of that. God tells us in 1 Corinthians 6:18-20 to:
Flee fornication. Every sin that a man doeth is without the body; but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body. What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?
We are not free to do what we want. We want to be obedient to God’s commandments:
For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, …
In our bodies. God is telling us that we use our bodies to glorify God if we are a true believer and to serve Him. You do not want to use your hands to steal, and all these things. You use your hands in a glorifying way to hand out tracts. Use your bodies to glorify God:
… and in your spirit, which are God’s.
Turn back over to Romans 6, which I read earlier. In Romans 6:12-17, here God is telling us:
Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, …
This “reign” is like a king on the throne. Do not let that sin reign in your life. Do not let it control you. Sin controls unsaved man, because when we become saved, the power of sin has been broken in our own lives because of what Christ has done for us:
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, …
We “are alive from the dead” spiritually because before we are saved, we are spiritually dead:
… and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God. For sin shall not have dominion over you: …
Sin does not rule over the true believer’s life; it does before we were saved:
… for ye are not under the law, but under grace. What then? shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid. Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness? But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, …
Before we were saved, we were servants to sin:
… but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you.
See the difference? It is a complete difference from before we are saved and afterwards. Sin has control over us before we are saved, but after God’s Holy Spirit indwells us, no longer does sin reign in our lives. If sin is reigning in a person’s life, they may not be saved. By God’s mercy and God’s help, He has turned us away from it. But the potential still lies that if we take our eyes off of Christ, we could fall into sin. Let us pray.