Romans Chapter 6 Vs. 12

 

Dead to Sin, Alive to God

Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof. Rom 6:12

Let not sin... Here sin is pictured as a king or a tyrant, who has the soul passions, spirit faculties, and physical members of man under control, dominating his life. Let him not work or reign in the mortal body; give him no place or grounds for working in your being. Sin does not rule or ruin; sin rules and ruins. Wherever sin is, it will have more or less dominion.

obey it in... Obey sin in its lusts. This further proves sin to be a real spirit person ruling the life. Sin itself has lusts other than the lusts of man. The lusts of sin are in reality the lusts of Satan (John 8:44; Eph. 2:2-3; 1Jhn. 2:17; 3:8). The lusts of man are his own creative powers depraved and corrupt (Jas. 1:14; 4:1, 4:3; 2Tim. 4:3; 1Pet. 4:2). They make up the basic Adamic nature. The same faculties that yield to sin can likewise yield to God and commit holy acts (Rom. 6:13, 6:16, 6:18-20, 6:22; 8:1-13; Col. 3:5-10).

This is plainly saying that we must get the flesh under the control of the spirit.

Our mortal body is the only remaining repository where sin finds the believer vulnerable. The brain and its thinking processes are part of the body and thus tempt our souls with its sinful lusts.

As I said before, our will, will be controlled by the spirit or the flesh. If the lusts of the flesh control you, then you do not belong to God.

Yield

The attitude of mind that a believer has died to sin must be translated into action in his experience. Paul commanded, Therefore do not let sin reign (pres. imper., “do not let sin continue to reign”) as it did before salvation. The present imperative negative can also be translated, “Stop letting sin reign.” When sin reigns in people’s lives and bodies, they obey its evil desires. Sin enslaves (Rom. 6:6), making a person subject to his own desires. Epithymia refers to “longings” or “desires,” which may be either good or evil, depending on how the word is used. Here, in the case of sin, the desires are evil. In your mortal body means that sin manifests itself through one’s physical actions in this body. The Greek here stresses that the body is mortal or dying. Perhaps this suggests the foolishness of giving in to the desires of a body that is transitory and decaying. To give in to a dying master is strange indeed.