Present Yourselves to God as Instruments of Righteousness (Romans 6:13–16)

Rom 6:13. Do not present your members to sin as instruments of unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members to God as instruments of righteousness.

The third means on our part for preserving holiness and shunning sin is not to give our members as instruments to sin. Sin, when it reigns, is seated in the heart. From there it takes hold of all the powers of the soul and all the members of the body; as a result of which everything that is in a man becomes its instrument. But when the spirit is brought to life by God’s grace and holy decisions to live in good to please God are formed in consciousness; then sin, expelled in this way from the heart, loses its determining power, but, from old memory, does not cease trying to draw it to itself again and to turn the members back into its instruments. The Apostle says: when this happens and sin again draws the eye to passionate viewing, the hands to theft, the feet to doing evil – do not give him your members for such shameful use. “Do not present”, – he says, showing that this is a matter of freedom. There is no way to blame the power of sinful urges. However strong they may be, the decision of the will can always overcome them. Do not those who eat for two, three days or more feel hunger? They feel it, but they overcome it. And do not those who spend nights in vigil experience drowsiness? They experience it, but they drive away sleep. So all other urges can be cut off and overcome.

Do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness. When we sin, we do unrighteousness to ourselves or to others, and more to ourselves (Saint Chrysostom). Sin, when it draws us, covers itself with a very attractive garment and presents itself as the right side, suggesting that not satisfying it is doing violence to nature. But this is a lie and unrighteousness. When sin is committed, we do violence to ourselves, not when we refuse it. Not understanding this, we fall into deception and sin, doing unrighteousness to ourselves, thinking, however, to do right by nature. Those who have understood this keep the body strictly and thereby do it good, not violence and unrighteousness.

Saint Chrysostom says: “The body serves as a means both to vice and to virtue, like a tool. The latter is suitable for both bad and good, depending on who is using it. With the same weapon both the warrior fighting for his country and the robber arming himself against citizens act. Consequently, no weapon is blamable in itself, but guilty is the one who uses it for evil. The same must be said of the flesh – not by its own nature, but by the disposition of the soul is it one thing or the other. When you look with greed at another’s beauty, the eye becomes an instrument of unrighteousness not by its own action, but by the wickedness of the thought directing it; for it is the eye’s job to see, not to see wickedly. Master your thought, and the eye becomes an instrument of righteousness. The same must be said of the tongue, the hands, and the other members. And the Apostle did very well in calling sin unrighteousness. Whoever sins acts unjustly, either toward himself or toward his neighbor, but far more toward himself than toward his neighbor.”

“Present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead”.

“Having turned away from vice, he leads to virtue” (Saint Chrysostom). There he showed what the baptized should not be and what they should not do; now he teaches what they should be and what they should do. They should be bright and pure, as those naturally risen from the dead should be. In this indication is both example and incentive.

Example: imagine what those risen from the dead are like, and strive to hold yourself thus. If this is hard to imagine, look at the Lord risen, how bright He is, how pure, how detached from everything. Be you also thus. Incentive: having come out of the font, you have spiritually risen from the dead, appeared in renewed life. God’s grace has made you thus. Render to God what He has made in you – present yourselves to Him always living from the dead, walking in renewed life. “Remind yourselves,” says Saint Chrysostom, “what you were before and what you have become now? What were you? Corpses, and moreover, corpses with a ruin from which there was no way to escape: for no one was able to help you. And what have you become from these corpses? Living ones immortal. Through whom? Through the Almighty God. Thus duty demands that you submit to Him with such zeal as is proper to those who have become alive from the dead.”

Present yourselves thus “to God.” The very purity and brightness of renewed life is attractive; but present yourselves thus not merely because of this attractiveness of holy life, but rather because this is your duty before God. Live clean and spotless, offering to God through this a sacrifice of thanksgiving and striving to please Him, forgetting everything else. And therefore the Apostle said here: “to God,” – so as by contrast with sin to make the obligation imposed irrefutable. For it is enough to represent to oneself what God is and what sin is, to devote oneself with all zeal to serving the former with aversion from the latter. Saint Chrysostom says: “See what force the Apostle gives his exhortation by this word: there he names sin, and here he names God. For he points to such a difference between rulers for the purpose of depriving the soldier of any excuse, who has left God and wished to submit to the reign of sin.”

“Your members to God as instruments of righteousness”.

Above he said not to give their members as instruments of unrighteousness, but now he exhorts to give them as instruments of righteousness. The members can be both, depending on which way the will inclines. “And the body is not something evil, but is a creation of the good God, because, if it is well managed by the soul for good, it can serve God. Therefore, an inclination of the will toward the worse – as it furnishes weapons to sin in the members, and conversely, a disposition of the will toward the good prepares the members to serve the divine laws. The tongue of a chaste singer utters fitting to God of all a hymn, while the tongue of one drunk and raving issues disordered sounds of blasphemy. So also the eye perceives both the chaste and the dissolute, the cruel and the merciful. So also the hand both kills and has mercy; and, in a word, all members of the body are both instruments of righteousness, if the mind wills it, and instruments of sin, when it loves the reign of sin” (Blessed Theodoret).

When the spirit is brought to life by God’s grace, then it takes under its power both the soul and the body and makes all forces and functions work for God, to whom it has devoted itself. Service to God is the fundamental law of righteousness, written in nature and renewed by the Gospel. This is walking in God’s will, declared in the commandments of the Lord. The commandments apply to every member of the body, to every action of the soul. Bind these commandments to every part of yourself and accustom them not to act otherwise than according to these commandments. Then the commandment, imposed from without, through habit will enter within and become the governing power of the corresponding part. And you will become a vessel full of righteousness – walking righteousness. And everything will come into harmony in you, one thing will fit with another, as the strings of a musical instrument are tuned. Just play and delight – and delight God with His holy Angels. This is what the Apostle wants, exhorting you to make your members instruments of righteousness!

But this blessed state is not achieved at once. Until now the members served as instruments of sin; they must be taken from sin and given to righteousness – which cannot be done without struggle. And it begins immediately upon taking the decision to serve God with all one’s being – and by God’s grace it will succeed. Saint Chrysostom at this word directly calls to struggle. “Speaking of weapons, the Apostle indicates that a heavy struggle has begun. Therefore we need strong armor, a courageous spirit and one well versed in what is needed for such warfare, but of all we most need a Leader. But this Leader is already with us; He is always ready to fight for us and is never defeated, and He has prepared strong armor for us. All that is required from us is the will to use it as we should, that is, obeying the Leader, to act with the weapon for the homeland.”

Rom 6:14. For sin shall no longer dominate you, since you are not under the Law but under grace.

“Shall not dominate”, – in Greek: οὐ κυριεύσει – will not have dominion, – understood to mean, – now, after baptism, upon receiving grace. Before, it had dominion over you, and whatever it suggested, you immediately did, following it as if bound; but now its power is cut off by the grace you have received, by the action of which you died to sin, that is, came to hate it with mortal hatred.

c) Incentives to this (Rom 6:15–23)

Rom 6:15. What then? Should we sin because we are not under the Law but under grace? By no means.

The Apostle returns to the question proposed at the beginning of the chapter: “shall we continue in sin?” There it was proposed for solution, but here for the conclusion following from its solution. He speaks as if: so what then comes out of all the reasoning I have set forth? Should we sin? Are we given freedom to sin because we are under grace, not under the Law? “By no means”, – certainly not – you yourselves see that we should not do so, but on the contrary, we should remain in all righteousness and holiness for this very reason, that we are under grace; for we have made a vow, confirmed it with firm determination, and received the helping grace. The Apostle’s intention in these words is to bring to tension the decision accepted in receiving faith and grace – to be faithful servants of the Lord, which they expressed in the words: I renounce Satan – I am united with Christ. For he said before that sin no longer has dominion over us, does not have tyrannical power over us, because grace has freed us from this. From these words someone else might conclude: so I need not worry, grace will do everything for me, I need not beware, foresee, or strain my strength in struggle. Everything will flow favorably of its own accord; I can live carelessly. – It is true that grace accomplishes all and is always ready with its help, but it always acts in connection and agreement with the inclinations of man’s will. It comes to the aid of one who is struggling, when he lacks strength to accomplish some deed. Therefore in life grace is grace, and free decisions are free decisions. Neither grace without these decisions, nor these decisions without grace accomplish anything; they act together. So do not grow slack upon hearing that, for the sake of grace, sin no longer has dominion over you, but guard the tension you accepted at the beginning – to resist sin. Sin does not dominate when you resist it and grace helps you because of your resistance. But drop your hands, give yourself to negligence, loosen your hatred of sin – sin will come, seduce, draw you, and gain dominion over you again; for grace will not do the work for you when you drop your hands. When you cease to resist sin, grace will withdraw from you, and you will be left alone; and left alone, you will not prevail over sin and will fall. That such a relaxation should not happen, the Apostle warns: what then? Shall we sin? Abandon all care to guard against sin, close our eyes, drop our hands? – No, he says, always be on guard and in full armor.

Such an exhortation Saint Chrysostom sees in these words: “Having reassured the listener with the preceding words (that sin no longer dominates), the Apostle protects him with advice, which he proposes in the form of an objection.” – Oecumenius expresses the same thought more clearly: “So that the listener, having heard that sin no longer dominates him on account of the protecting grace, should not become negligent and careless, the Apostle strengthens him, saying as if: if we do not submit ourselves to sin, we will not be captured by it.”

But since the tensions of the will depend on the strength of the surrounding motives, the holy Apostle, having said in general: “By no means” – do not grow slack – encourages resistance to sin by presenting the harmful consequences of indulging it and the great goods from faithfulness to the decision once made to live holy according to God’s will. On one side this is slavery and death, and on the other – freedom and life. The Apostle explains this in various ways to the end of the chapter.

Rom 6:16. Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, whether of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?

Whoever you devote yourselves to with whole heart with readiness to obey, to him you become slaves. If you devote yourselves to sin, you become slaves of sin; if you devote yourselves to righteousness, you become slaves of righteousness. One might think: so it is the same – slavery here, slavery there. But besides the fact that slavery to righteousness is true freedom, while slavery to sin is real slavery, most oppressive and shameful, see the consequences: whoever serves sin is in death, and whoever serves righteousness is in life. Sin kills all the powers of the soul and exhausts the life of the body; but righteousness brings into true life, in which both soul and body flourish. After the words: “of sin, which leads to death” – one would expect: or of righteousness to life; but he said: “of obedience, which leads to righteousness.” Obedience, by contrast with disobedience, stands here for faithfulness to God’s will and His holy commandments. Against sin he sets forth the good disposition of the heart, which has decided to dedicate everything to God and to be most devoted to Him in all things. Such a disposition leads into righteousness, into a righteous condition, into that condition in which man should be by nature; and this is the condition of one truly living. To righteousness – means the same as: to true life.

Saint Chrysostom says on this place: “I do not speak, reasons the Apostle, about Gehenna and grave future punishment; but imagine only your shame, when you become slaves, slaves by your own will, slaves to sin, and for such a price, that you die again. If before baptism sin produced bodily death and the wound required such healing that the Master of all took death and thereby destroyed evil; then what will sin not produce, gaining power over you, when after such a gift and freedom you again and willingly bow under its yoke? Therefore, do not rush into this abyss, do not willingly surrender to sin. In war a soldier is sometimes forced to surrender; but here no one will take you captive, unless you yourself become a traitor. After these exhortations from shame, the Apostle acts through fear of retribution and puts before us the recompense awaiting each – righteousness and death, death not bodily, but far more dreadful. For if Christ dies no more, who will destroy this death? No one. Consequently, there must be eternal suffering and torment. For there will not even be bodily death, which, like in this life, would give rest to the body and separate it from the soul. For ‘the last enemy to be destroyed is death’ (1 Cor 15:26); consequently, punishment will be immortal. But those obedient to God await something different. Their reward will be righteousness and the goods flowing from it.”