Romans 6:17-19
But thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed, and having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness. I am speaking in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness, resulting in further lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness, resulting in sanctification.
We all can understand the framework of slavery. We all can't relate to a modern day slave, other than we all tend to think it as a deplorable condition. Yet, each day, we simulate slavery in our own lives in many ways. We sign loans for cars and stuff and create credit card date. If we don't work to earn money to pay it back we will find ourselves in a bad situation. We are, in my ways, a slave to that debt. We can find ourselves "slaves" to many things in our lives. We don't have to be in-prisoned to be a slave. Paul, in the above verses tells us that we are all, slaves to sin. We were born slaves to sin. We can't buy our own freedom. Paul's characterization of this slavery is that we, like servants, stand by and "present" our bodies to sin to serve it at its will. The Greek word for present is a word that means we standby to be used, or to serve something ... as if in waiting ... think of an English butler or footmen. When the Old Testament (originally written in Hebrew) is translated to Greek, this word is actually translated "stand." Note the following:
Deuteronomy 10:8
At that time the Lord set apart the tribe of Levi to carry the ark of the covenant of the Lord, to "stand" before the Lord to serve Him and to bless in His name until this day.
The "Levi" was to "stand" before the Lord. The meaning is easy. It simply stated that the Levi was to be at the will and call of God. They "presented" themselves such. But how does that work? Notice that Paul tells us in this Roman passage that at one time we used to "present" our bodies to sin, but now we are to "present" our bodies to Christ, for righteousness that has the benefit of sanctification. The language Paul uses is clear. "Just like" we used to present our bodies to sin, we are to present our bodies to Christ, for His service. It takes NO effort or work on our part to present out bodies to sin. We can do that as natural as breathing. We "yield" to sin like a none reflex. Paul tells us that IN THE SAME MANNER (he uses the same word for present in both cases) we are to present ourselves to Christ. The effort in presentation is the same. One is by flesh (present our bodies to sin) and the other by faith (present our bodies to Christ). In order to sin we just relax and let the flesh take over. In order to serve Christ we are to relax and let Christ take over. He produces joy, peace, patients, self-control, love. Notice that Paul doesn't tell us to "sanctify" ourselves so that we can "present" our bodies to Christ. That is reversed order of what we read. He tells us to present ourselves to Christ and the "result" will be sanctification. So many believers think that after Christ saves them it is THEIR job to clean themselves up by their works, so that they can become sanctified, so that Christ can use them. What we read in Romans is the opposite. Our job is to present ourselves to Christ in our salvation through faith. We continue to live by faith and "present" our bodies to Christ now, just like we used to do when we presented our bodies to sin. When we do this PRESENTING Christ sanctifies us, just like HE justifies us. The truth here is that we are sanctified by Christ, just as we are justified by Christ. Christ does it all.
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