Living by Faith - Romans

The Reign of Sin

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Living by Faith

Lesson: 21-64

Genre: Talk

Track: 021

Dictation Name: RR311K21

Location/Venue:

Year: ?

Let us worship God. This is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He heareth us. Having these promises, let us draw near to the throne of grace with true hearts in full assurance of faith. My voice shalt Thou hear in the morning oh Lord, in the morning will I direct my prayer unto Thee, and will look up. Let us pray.

Almighty God our Heavenly Father, we give thanks unto Thee for all Thy blessings which are without number. We thank Thee that the very hairs of our head are all numbered, that there is no chance in our lives; that all things come from Thee oh Lord, and shall serve Thy holy, omnipotent, and all all-righteous purpose. Give us grace therefore our Father to take all things from Thy hands, to look unto Thee and to Thy word for guidance in all things, and to serve Thee with all our heart, mind and being. In Jesus name, amen.

Our scripture this morning is from Romans 6:12-14, and our subject: The Reign of Sin. Romans 6:12-14.

“12 Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof.

13 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.

14 For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace.”

There are certain important words in this text, some that we have already encountered. Two of these are reign and dominion. As we have seen, the word ‘reign’ means literally, to rule as a king. In its root it is related to the word king. Now this was not a word that could be taken casually. We spiritualize its meaning, wrongly. But in Paul’s day to reign meant that you ruled as a king, as an emperor; and to claim to be reigning was treason. When our Lord was called king when He entered into Jerusalem: “blessed art Thou who comest in the name of David” the royal seed, it was the ground of His trial, and the charge against Him was to be king of the Jews.

When Paul used such language, and the New Testament as a whole uses it, it was one of the reasons why Rome persecuted the church; it was a treasonable group. We cannot spiritualize this word.

Paul speaks of two kinds of reigning: Christians reigning over all things in the name of Christ, bringing every area of life and thought into captivity to Jesus Christ; or sin reigning over us and all things. And both are equally true, equally strong, they are rules. The word dominion is related to the word ‘kurios’ Lord, so that dominion can be translated: ‘Lordship’. Sin is not to have Lordship over us, Christ is; and in Christ we are to reign and we are to work to the end that all things be put under His feet.

But now we come to another word, a new one; and this word is the focus of much misunderstanding, because its meaning has changed in English. Unfortunately it has been misunderstood in terms of the changed meaning. That word in the twelfth verse is ‘lusts.’ Lusts. Today the word has the meaning of a sinful, sexual urge. But in the original, in the Greek, it means a strong desire whether good or bad. The word itself does not say whether the desire is good or bad, only the context can tell us. It is used in a good sense in scripture more than once, for example in Luke 22:15 our Lord says: “With desire” (or lust) I have desired or lusted “to eat this Passover with you, before I suffer.” Again, Paul says in Philippians 1:23 “For I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ;” Or in 1st Thessalonians 2:17 “But we brethren being taken from you for a short time in presence, not in heart, endeavored the more abundantly to see your face with great desire” or lust.

Now, the word in brief simply means desire. It can be good, it can be bad, that depends on the person and what he desires. How are we to understand it in verse 12? “Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof.”

Well, very definitely, sin rules in our bodies in this verse, and we are not to obey it in the desires thereof. The evil is in the sin, not in the desires. Now consider for a moment what this means. People have taken it to means what we think of as lust: “Don’t get evil lusts or evil desires, that is what Paul is telling us.” No. He is using the word in the neutral sense, so it certainly includes evil desires, it equally includes a desire which in itself can be for something good, but sin is in back of it.

Let me illustrate. God says through Paul in this letter: “Owe no man anything save to love one another.” We are not to be in debt except in case of necessity, or necessities, and then for no more than six years; the seventh is to be a Sabbath unto the Lord. But there are churches across country that have said: “What we need is a new sanctuary” and will go into a 25 year debt for it. “It is for a good cause, our desire, our lust for a sanctuary is a good one, it is for the Lord.” But it is a sin. Sin is governing them, they are saying: “Because we want it, therefore it is good because it is for the Lord.” Not: “When God wants us to have it He will make is possible for us to have it in faithfulness to His word.”

Desiring a new church building is not in itself evil, but when sin reigns over us, when we feel that we know better than God what we should have, then however good the desire is, sin is governing it; and that is what Paul is talking about. He doesn’t have to tell us here, it is said so often in scripture, and he has said it elsewhere, to flee fornication, that adultery is condemned by God. But now he is telling us that our desires however a good a face they may have, however in and of themselves there may be nothing wrong with wanting certain things for ourselves, or for our children, or for our church, or for our vocation, they are wrong when sin rules over us, and says in effect: “My will be done.”

So, sin has dominion over us when however good a thing we want, however much we can say: “Well it is for the Lords work” or: “It is for my betterment in the Lord” rather than waiting on God, sin, having dominion over us there because it is our will we want, creates a desire which sets God aside.

Now, when you recognize what Paul is saying here, it puts things in a totally different context. It tells us that our lives have to be God centered, not self centered. That we can be self centered and still sinful. You know, this past year a great deal of ridicule was heaped on the pope because he made a remark about married people sinning in their sexual relationship if they had wrong motives, but I think he was right. We are told in scripture that the marriage bed is pure and undefiled, but it can be a false relationship if the man or the woman have one desire, to exploit each other, and feel: “Well, this is a relationship ordained by God, therefore I can do as I please, and it is my will that is going to be done.” And it cannot be so.

Thus, we may want good things, but when it is a case of ‘my will be done’ those desires express the reign of sin. We may desire peace and quiet and better circumstances, things good in and of themselves, but never as the goals of life. We are told by our Lord: ‘Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these other things, good in and of themselves perhaps, which the gentiles seek, shall be added unto you.’

Again, Solomon tells us in Proverbs 16:4 “The Lord hath made all things for Himself, yea even the wicked for the day of evil.” God hath made all things for Himself, including us. Therefore our lives have to be God centered, otherwise it is the reign of sin over us when we want anything, when we desire anything without a God centered motive. We are not our own, we are here because of Gods purpose, not our own, and to make our wills more important than Gods purpose is sin.

No doubt Jeremiah would’ve desired better results for his ministry than the very, very sad ones that he had. But God did the choosing. Our innocent desires, in other words, can be evil if they rule over us. We must serve God on His terms, not our own. Thus to read ‘lusts’ as referring to goals which are bad in and of themselves is to warp the Bible, and to deny the God centered emphasis that Paul is here making. The traditional interpretations of this verse seriously alter the meaning of the passage, and warp what Paul is going to say in the subsequent chapter as well, because they give a wrong interpretation to what Paul is going to say about our lives.

Again, the reference to ‘your mortal body’ is wrongly taken in the Hellenic sense, that is, just our physical life seen as evil against the spirit. As (Cranfield?) has observed, the reference cannot be limited to the physical body, but means the whole man in his fallen-ness. It is not only the physical body that is mortal, the whole man as the fallen human being that he is, is subject to death. The rule of sin is over the total life of man, over every area.

Then in verse 13 Paul says: “Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin:” Well, as we have seen, the word unrighteousness is an old fashioned word for injustice, and righteousness is justice. So that, Paul is saying: ‘Do not yield your members as instruments of injustice unto sin.’ Instruments, another key word. It means weapons; weapons, tools. So Paul is saying: ‘do not yield or present’ as a military man: “Alright, present instruments, shoulder arms.” That is the kind of language he is using. ‘Neither yield or present your weapons as tools, as weapons, of injustice. Man’s life is egocentric, self centered, he sees his life as his own because he is fallen, to be lived in terms of self generated objectives. If our objectives are good in our lives, we demand God back us up, and to further our goals. But Gods purpose for us is first that we live in terms of His priorities, not our own. Again citing Matthew 6:33 “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness” or justice. And second, God requires us to see the world as a battle field between good and evil, between Gods covenant and law versus Covenant breakers and mans law, between the old humanity of Adam and the new humanity of Jesus Christ.

In that battle, our lives, our being, constitute weapons of either injustice or justice, righteousness or unrighteousness. So we have to see ourselves as weapons, as tools; and they are either used by Christ or by sin. We are always being used, someone is reigning over us, either sin or Christ, and we are weapons in the hands of either sin or the Lord.

If we live for ourselves, our lives become a rat race, no meaning. We are thus weapons, either Gods or against Gods order. We are weapons of sin if we live for ourselves, no matter how moral and good we feel we are, because then we are saying: “This is my lifestyle, I have a good lifestyle, I am a moral man, I don’t violate Gods law, now I am free to do my thing and seek my priorities, because I paid off God by keeping the ten commandments after a fashion.”

But Paul says we must present ourselves unto God, answer unto His call to arms, and obey His law word all our lives, as those that are risen from or alive from the dead. Yield yourselves unto God, present yourselves unto God, soldiers of the cross, “as those that are alive from the dead.” You were dead in sins and trespasses, you have been resurrected; stand at arms, present yourself, be ready for action as Gods weapon for justice.

A miracle of salvation is the miracle of our resurrection from the death of sin. We are now to be God centered, not self centered, and to be Gods weapons for justice. Now, to be a weapon for justice means something very different from concentrating on one’s inner spiritual state, and the false holiness of pietism.

Let me illustrate. In the most important evangelical magazine in this country, there was an article recently about a police officer whose wife prayed for his conversion, and finally he was converted through the instrumentality of another policeman who witnessed to him. So then, after his conversion, he left the force because it was unspiritual; and he wrote: “And recently on my tenth anniversary with the police force we made a decision. I turned in my badge. It meant giving up the security of a good salary and benefits, and a job I enjoyed, but we are now fully agreed to do Gods work, something I enjoy far more.”

What is wrong with that statement? First of all there is identification of full time Christian service with church work, and that is Biblically unsound. Every area of life is an area of Christian vocation. This man deserted his duty to God. God requires men to serve him in politics, in the police force, in the profession of law, of medicine, in every area of life and thought, great and small. Second, this man denied a basic doctrine of scripture which the Reformation strongly stressed: the priesthood of all believers. The priesthood of all believers means that God calls us where we are, and wants us to make our particular calling, our particular work, an area where we glorify God and serve Him. Are we to tell Christians to come out of all their jobs and vocations and spend all their time in what is wrongly called full time Christian service? No. Full time Christian service is to do your job, where you are, faithfully unto the Lord.

That such decisions as this policeman made are being praised and written about, tells us how far Bible believers have strayed from believing the Bible. The reign of sin leads us first to see our lives as our own, and second to a false doctrine of holiness.

Then in verse 14 Paul concludes this passage saying: “For sin shall not have dominion” (or lordship) “over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace.”

In the Greek by the way, Paul does not say we are not under the law, the word ‘the’ is not in the Greek, but we are not under law, which means we are not under indictment. It does not mean that we are no longer under the law of Moses, that we no longer have to obey the ten commandments or anything else in the law, that we can murder, steal, commit adultery, bear false witness, blaspheme, dishonor our parents and so on. No. Paul is not saying anything like that, he is saying we are not under law- we are not under indictment. We are under grace, we have a new relationship to God through Christ, when we are under law, as the whole of the old humanity is, all the sons of Adam, it means we are under indictment facing the death penalty. Now we are under grace, we have been forgiven. That is the meaning of being not under law.

To be under law means to be born of the humanity of Adam, to be members of the old human race, to be in bondage to sin and facing the death penalty. This is very clear for example in Galatians 4:3 and well, 4, 5, and 6, and 4:3 speaks of it meaning to be in bondage; and then he goes on to say: “But when the fullness of time was come, God sent forth His son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law that we might receive the adoption of sons. And because ye are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying Abba, Father.”

To be under the law thus means to be under sentence of death as a member of the old human race, the sons of Adam. But we are now under grace, we are under Christ in His new humanity. We are also told in this passage in Galatians that Jesus Christ was under the law because He was made of a woman, and legally connected with the old humanity, and he came to redeem us who were under the law, to make us sons of God by adoption. We are now dead to the law as an indictment against us, as a death penalty; but we are alive to as the way of holiness, as the way of life, is no longer a threat hanging over our heads, for we are under grace, we are in Christ. We must therefore not allow sin to reign over us. This reign becomes reality if we see ourselves in any way free from God and from the covenant and law of God. The law of God requires us to live for God, and according to His purpose, to be God centered, Christ centered. We can be moral people in the sense that we do not violate the second table of the Ten Commandments, but if our lives are not God centered, sin reigns over us, and has dominion over us. We are then using our morality as a means of buying immunity, or living our lives for our own purposes. Such living however moral, places us in the suburbs of hell.

Sin is not to have dominion over us. Not my will, not my desires, but Thine be done oh Lord. And we must say with Christ who declared: “Lo I come, in the volume of the book it is written of me to do Thy will oh Lord.” That is what Paul is talking about, and unless we see the word lusts in the old fashioned sense of the word, we miss the meaning, and we warp what follows in Romans.

Let us bow our heads now in prayer. Oh Lord our God we give thanks unto Thee for this Thy word. Thy word is truth, and Thy word speaks to our every need and condition. Give us grace oh Lord to conform our every desire to Thy will, to Thy word; so that however much we may feel our desires are good for us and good for Thy kingdom, we may always say: “Thy will be done, Thy kingdom come, on earth as it is in heaven.” Grant us this we beseech Thee, in Jesus name, amen.

Are there any questions now about our lesson?

Well, if not, let us bow our heads now for the benediction. Lord it has been good for us to be here. We thank Thee that by Thy word and by Thy Spirit, Thou dost strengthen, comfort, and bless us. Send us forth in Thy service, make us strong by Thy Spirit, and joyful in our calling.

And now go in peace, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost, bless you and keep you, guide and protect you, this day and always, amen.