Sunday School Notes: Romans 6:12-14

¹² Therefore, do not let sin reign in your mortal body such that you obey its passions, ¹³ and do not present your parts [as] tools of unrighteousness for sin, but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your parts [as] tools of righteousness to God. ¹⁴ For sin will not have lordship over you; for you are not under the Law, but under grace.

In the previous section, Paul affirmed the Roman Christians’ position before God: they have been buried and raised with Christ. Therefore, since Christ’s death crucified our “old man” and his resurrection broke the power of sin and death, as those that are “in Christ,” they too should recognize that sin no longer has any claim over them. And that’s how they should live: dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ.

Paul begins this next section by hinting back at the question in 6:1. Why not sin so grace may abound? Because you are in Christ, and your bondage to sin has been broken, so don’t let sin try to claim authority in your life. Your citizenship has been transferred from the old domain of sin and death, to a new land of grace and righteousness where Christ rules. Sin has no power in the new land, so why would you want to give it a controlling interest in your thoughts or actions?

The term “mortal body” (Greek: thnêtô sômati) in verse 12 is interesting. We discussed what Paul might mean by this. Why not just say “body,” or “life,” or “flesh”? Why might our “mortal body” be susceptible to the reign of sin? Is there something about our flesh-and-bone bodies that is inherently sinful? This was at the heart of the ancient Gnostic belief systems, whose manifestation in the early church was rejected as heresy (see 1 John 4:2-3). They believed that matter, including our fleshly bodies, is evil, and only spirit is pure and undefiled. Because of this, many groups taught that the God who made this world must be evil, since a good God would not create matter. Also, Jesus could not have come in the flesh, since he was good. He must have only appeared to be flesh and blood (from which came the heresy known as Docetism, from the Greek verb dokein meaning to seem or appear).

I think it’s fair to say we don’t believe that our bodies, as creations of God, which He Himself declared to be “good” at creation, are inherently evil. However, we must acknowledge that they are part of a fallen creation, and will, one day, be cast off in favor of immortal bodies (see Paul’s discussion in 1 Corinthians 15:50-57). I think we can say that these mortal bodies are weak, and filled with desires that can easily be manipulated into serving sinful purposes. Where we might have strength of spirit and the desire to do the right thing, we shouldn’t let our bodies fall under the power and influence of sin so that our good intentions are subverted by their weakness to resist.

Another interesting term in this context is at the end of verse 12: the Greek word epithumia. The NASB, and other translations, render this word “lust.” I translated it above as “passion,” which is a legitimate translation, but not quite as negative. It’s true that, more often than not, the word epithumia has the negative connotation in the New Testament. However, since there is some question here whether the “mortal body” has sinful passions that we are tempted to obey, or whether the “mortal body” has desires that, in its weakness, can be used sinfully (e.g., hunger leading to gluttony), I decided to use a more neutral English word. Given what follows, I tend toward the latter understanding (the mortal body has desires that can be used sinfully), but we can take this up further in the comments.

The next exhortation in this passage is for the Romans not to present their parts as tools of unrighteousness. The sense behind the verb “to present” here (Greek paristhêmi) is not that of a sacrificial offering, but of putting something into someone else’s service. I think “parts” here, given the preceding verse, is reference to body parts. As they shouldn’t let sin reign over the mortal body, they shouldn’t put the parts of that body into the service of sin as unrighteous tools. “Tools” here (Greek hopla) can also be translated “weapons.” In ancient Greece, the “hoplites” were the heavily-armed foot soldiers, so named for the heavy shield they used to carry. I think “tools” or “instruments” is a perfectly good translation, but the idea of “weapons” should also remind us that our bodies are as much a part of spiritual warfare as our minds.

Verse 14 reiterates the exhortation of verse 12: sin will not have lordship over you. We didn’t get to the second half of verse 14 (“for you are not under the Law, but under grace”) and I think that’s appropriate, since verse 14b leads into the question posed in verse 15. This shall be our starting point next week.