¹³ … present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. ¹⁴ For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law but under grace.

Presenting ourselves is a major theme of the book of Romans. That is our actionable faith, our robust commitment to bring our entire selves, including the urges of the body, into the life of faith. Paul comes back to this in a more forceful, poignant way later when he writes, “Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship” (12:1). We must live according to what is true. Not just the parts of our bodies, but our entire bodies, our entire selves, must be committed to the service of God.

One would think that having been justified, and now being dead to sin and alive to God, this kind of committed living would be automatic, a natural (or should we say, supernatural) outflow of the inner realities. However, we still live in a fallen world, and there exists a conflict between what seems to be two natures in us (see Rom 7:14-24), and we continue to live in a fallen world with fallen bodies (see Rom 8:18-22). So Paul continues to unfold how this all works out for those of us who are dead to sin and alive to God.

We must believe that “sin shall not be master over [us], for [we] are not under law but under grace.” This is an absolutely astounding truth that completely undercuts the power of sin, as the apostle begins to unfold. We note here that the statement is made in the future tense. It is not a command that we shouldn’t let sin master us, although that will come as Paul continues on. It is a foundation that needs to be grasped—a prophecy, a statement of certainty. Sin simply will not have mastery over us in the end.

Imagine for a moment standing before the judgment seat of God. The prosecuting attorney calls his star witness, the one who will prove you are guilty. This witness is called “Sin.” The defense attorney immediately arises, and calls out, “Objection, Your Honor. This witness has no standing with this court; therefore its testimony is not admissible.” The judge rules, “Sustained.” Sin has absolutely no power over you to bring judgment! It will have no mastery over you. Our role is to believe that to be true, living our lives as offerings to God for His purposes rather than living our lives by a set of laws that can only show that we are sinners.

Lord thank You for rescuing me from the mastery of sin, so I no longer need to fear judgmet. Help me not to become complacent in thinking that sinning doesn’t matter, because it keeps me from enjoying resurrected life in Christ.