Supposing a landlord has rented his house to a bad tenant: one who drinks, gambles, swears and is a disgrace to the neighborhood and never pays any rent. At last he forgives all the back rent and puts in a new tenant—a quiet, respectable, industrious man with authority to keep the bad tenant in custody in one of the rooms. He is never to let him about the house, and above all, never to allow him to open the door.
This is a rough picture of the Christian. His body is the house; his old nature is the bad tenant, his new nature is the good tenant, and God is the owner of the property. For our bodies are not our own, but the Lord's. We do not live in our own houses, so to speak, but are merely tenants—a solemn and often-forgotten truth.