1 Corinthians 6:20
Glorifying God is not mere avoidance of the sin which gave occasion to this apostolic rebuke and exhortation; it is the obligation of everyone who names the name of the Lord. If these “members” were only like the thistles that grow on uncultured ground, there would be room for the opinion of some, that by appropriate training and culture the thistles would be removed and good plants take their place. But this approach forgets or denies that the soil is evil. It is so evil that a good plant will not take root. The fond expectation of the religious world thinks to educate men to be Christians and, in time, to inaugurate the millennial kingdom which is of their own making. Their idea of Christianity is the development of what is good in man! But what is developed? Nature is dominated by sin, and the culture of nature is the culture of sin. Stringent laws may repress crime, but they will never cause a thistle to produce figs. How can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit? The scripture does not say, Pluck off the evil fruit, but “put to death” the members, the constituents. How is this to be done? He who has never realized (by submission to the righteousness of God) his victory in Christ over sin in his members feels his own weakness before the strength of sin; when he would do good, evil is present, and he cries out, “O wretched man that I am: who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” (Rom. 7). Blessed be God, faith in Him who shed His precious blood, by which we have forgiveness of sins, gives us dominion over sin, so that it shall not reign over our mortal bodies, for as, on the one hand, the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus liberated me from the law of sin and death, so, on the other hand, God, sending His own Son in likeness of sinful flesh and as a sacrifice for sin, that the righteous import of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit, condemned sin in the flesh, and by faith in Him we are free. “This is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.” In Him we have redemption from the guilt and power of sin. In Him we have put off the old man and have put on the new. For us, the sinful nature is already judged.
R. Beacon, from
the Bible Treasury