Thoughts from Culhwch

“Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body” We already consider ourselves “dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus” (v11). And because of this, this simultaneous hope and and freedom, and hope for freedom, this coming together with Christ and the total body of believers, we are to keep sin from ourselves. But there is another theme here that we have not yet really touched upon. Paul exhorts us not to let sin “reign.” Sin has a tendency to dominate us, to appear royal and somehow full of awe and terror, like a tyrant and yet like a king. Sin seems often to control us, to rule us, to be our master. But Paul tells us not to let sin do that. Sin’s power has been radically revoked. We have been granted mastery over it. It can do nothing. What it can do, it can only do if we let it. We have the power to reject sin’s power. (We acknowledge that that power comes from Christ and in his gift of death.) Sadly, though, it happens in my life that I let sin rule in me. Those are dark nights. But this passage then brings new thoughts. Not only is this exhortation hopeful, for those coming out of sin, but convicting for those Christians who have “succumbed” who have given themselves to one sin or another. To let sin rule in us is to deny Christ’s power, to give back the gift which he gave us. We are further exhorted not to let sin reign in our “mortal body.” Wherever we live in this world sin may come before us. Letting sin reign in us here, is revoking the death to sin that we have already died. But is is a temptation with which we are all familiar. Do not let it into our bodies, or hearts. “that you should obey it’s lusts” The primary area of temptation and sin would seem to be our desire to obey the lusts of our mortal bodies. How often does one hunger or another seem always to be on our minds, always to offer us one path or another. We must resist the temptation to feed ourselves, to feed our lusts. Christ has died, and we have died to sin. We are not to turn that master over sin on its head, making it master once more over us.

“instruments of unrighteousness” We are not to give ourselves over as “instruments” of unrighteousness. I cannot give myself over to lusts anymore. But not just because it is harmful to me, and to my relationship with God, but because doing so makes me not the end of sin, but sin’s instrument to another end. Sin’s lie to us is that we are the telos that sin is tending towards. We think our own satisfaction is what sin is after. But it is not. It uses us when we think we are using it. When we think we control it for our own purposes it controls us for it’s purposes. When we let sin reign in us, we become instruments that produce unrighteousness, the filth of sin bleeds on and bleeds through our lives. We must make no mistake sin will destroy not only us, and our desire, but others around us will be torn, hurt, bound up, and unreconciled.

“as those alive from the dead” We are told to be before God what we can only think of as an enigma, alive from the dead. It is easy to think of a mummy or a zombie, but that is not quite what we are dealing with. Though it may help us to understand. These things are rare, unseen, never seen really. In Christ, we who were dead are now alive. This does not nullify the fact that we were once dead. That is what, I think, Paul is reminding us of. My own sins and lusts are death. They are my death. That I am alive now is precious, is all the more to be valued and treasured. No more can I die, lest I not be granted further life. At the same time, we are called to humility. We are before God not as one alive, but as one made alive. We owe our life to God, we owe our being to Him. We owe everything.

“Instruments of righteousness” Whereas serving sin we were instruments of unrighteousness, now as those made alive in Christ we are exhorted to to present ourselves as instruments of righteousness. In Christ we not only stop acting for sin, or the spread of evil, but we now go on as those through whom righteousness can act upon the world. I go out now not to serve God for my own ends, but that God might through me effect righteousness in the world.

“Sin shall not be master over you” The declaratory phrase forces us to know that we are free. There is no more mastery over us. Sin has been defeated. I must constantly be reminded for often I am tempted to turn back, to consider again the sin I once did. But this word tells us that sin can now be mastered. Christ has mastered it, has destroyed it, and drained death of it’s power.

“not under law, but under grace” We are no longer under law, no longer under condemnation for the sin that we have continued to partake in, for the sin that once bound us, for the sin that we returned to, but we are now under grace. God’s grace has given us a way out of sin, has given us mastery over it, has set us free to serve God, has changed everything.