12 Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof. (Romans 6:12 KJV)
William Burkitt’s Commentary
Observe here, The duty which the apostle exhorts the Christians to; and that is, to prevent the regency and dominion of sin: Let not reign in your mortal bodies.
But when is sin said to reign?
Answer, When the bent and tendency of the heart are toward sin, and all the faculties of the soul are on sin’s side, and wholly take its part; when sin is not opposed, or but slightly opposed, when sin is committed industriously, and temptations to sin prevail easily; when people sin without any sense of sin, with small remorse and check for sin, then sin is in its throne, and reigns imperiously.
But why doth the apostle say, Let not sin reign in your body, rather than in your soul?
Answer, Because sin and lusts do gratify the body exceedingly; that is, the sensual appetite, the brutish part of man: and further because they are acted and executed by the body or outward man, it is therefore called the deeds of the body.
But why does the apostle here call it a mortal body?
Let not sin reign in your mortal bodies.
Answer, 1. To put us in mind that the mortality of our bodies is the fruit and punishment of our sins; that sins having brought death upon us, our bodies must die for sin.
2. To show the vanity and transitoriness of the delights and pleasures of sin, which do gratify a mortal body, which after all its pamperings, must perish.
3. The apostle may probably call it a mortal body to show that our conflict with sin shall endure but a little while: ere long this mortal shall put on immortality. It may encourage us to be violent in the conflict; ere long we shall be victorious in the conquest.
From the whole, note, 1. That sin is a great and mighty king, which has a regal power over the enslaved sinner. Sin has the love of a husband, the power of a king, and the worship of God, in the sinner’s heart.
Sin, as a raging and commanding king, has the sinner’s heart for its throne, the members of the body for its service, the world, the flesh, and the devil for its grand council, lusts and temptation for its weapons and armour; and its chief fortifications are ignorance and sensuality, and fleshly reasonings.
O deplorable degradation that man, who was created God’s subject, has by his shameful apostasy become the vassal and slave of sin and Satan.
Learn, 2. That all baptized persons, who are dead with Christ to sin, are strongly obliged to take care that sin reigns not in them, nor gets any dominion over them by the desires and interests of this mortal body.
And the obligations which Christianity lays upon us not to suffer sin to reign over us are many and great; namely, the precepts, promises, and threatenings of the gospel, the assistance of the Holy Spirit, the sense of baptismal and sacramental engagements.
Happy we! if by the help of these, sin is dethroned, its empire dissolved, and it no longer reigns in our mortal bodies, that we should obey it in the lusts thereof.