The Practical Outcome of the Gospel
W Bramwell Dick
Romans 6:13
‘Yield yourselves unto God’! As we read these words, they cannot but arrest our attention.
Whether we consider them in relation to that which has gone before or that which follows after in the epistle, we must be greatly impressed by their significance. Romans 12:1 might be said to be a twin to this verse, for there, after the complete unfolding of the precious teaching addressed to this assembly, we have the appealing word: ‘I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.’ As this, however, is outside the scope of what is before us, we shall confine ourselves to our text, taking it as the centre of the whole. But before turning our attention to it, we shall rapidly go over the ground already covered in the epistle. In chapter 1, we have a summary of the gospel: its source, its subject and its supremacy. In the latter part of that chapter and down to the close of chapter 3, we have the sort of material upon which the gospel works and the mighty transformation that it effects. We also make the astonishing discovery that the just God has found a righteous means by which He can justify ungodly sinners. Chapter 4 shows us that we are justified by faith, whilst chapter 5 sets forth the marvellous blessing that follows, commencing with peace with God in verse 1 and mounting up to the great height of joy in God in verse 11.
From this point down to the close of chapter 8, we survey a wide range — deliverance from the headship of Adam, the mastery of sin, the dominion of the law, from chapter 5:12 to the close of chapter 7, and reaching the deliverer at the beginning of chapter 8 — then we are introduced to the new power, a divine person, the Holy Spirit of God, who gives us to know not only that from which we have been delivered, but that to which this deliverance has been effected. We have got sonship. We are children of God, heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ Jesus. We were in the purpose, plan and mind of God, aye! and in His heart, in the past ages of eternity, that in the coming ages we should be conformed to the image of His Son. From the lowest point of degradation in chapter 1 to this pinnacle in chapter 8, there is a distance that could only be covered by divine love as manifested in the death of our Lord Jesus Christ, and then our hearts rejoice to know that from that love no power can ever separate us. We contemplate all this with utter amazement, and we can only relieve our overflowing hearts in worship to Him who is the spring and source of it all:
Worship, honour, praise and glory,
Would we render unto Thee;
Heights unsearched and depths unfathomed
In Thy wondrous love we see.
In the light of all this we proceed now to inquire as to the significance of the words in chapter 6. In the first place we wish to look at the setting of our text. In this chapter we are viewed as having died with Christ (v. 8), and our baptism is the witness to that fact. Now the words for us are: ‘Walk’, ‘Reckon’, ‘Yield’. Obviously, we do not, we could not, ‘walk’ and ‘yield’ in the energy of that which is dead and buried, but as we ‘reckon’ ourselves to be ‘dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord’, we are called in the power of a new life (‘newness of life’: v. 4) to ‘walk’ and to ‘yield’. We call special attention to this because we feel there is such danger on the part of some, as the result of a misconception of this important truth, to miss the mark and to reap a harvest of disappointment and sorrow. To speak of seeking power over sin, surrendering all that we have, etc., may sound very attractive but we fear it frequently leads to spiritual disaster. A dead man cannot have any power over sin nor can sin have any power over a dead man, hence the scriptural exhortation is: ‘reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin’. Similarly, a dead man has nothing to surrender, but as those who have died with Christ, who have been ‘buried with him by baptism into death’, and who are left here that we should ‘walk in newness of life’, we now ‘yield’ ourselves ‘unto God’. Our bodies are not changed — they will be later (see Phil. 3:20–21) — but in those bodies in which we once disgraced ourselves and dishonoured God, it is ours to live now as ‘being made free from sin, and become servants to God, … [having] fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life’ (v. 22).
Let us urge it once more: ‘yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alivefrom the dead’. This admits of no smug complacency on the one hand nor grievous disappointment on the other. This will be the practical outcome and the only possible result of a right apprehension of the truth.
Now let us see the importance of this. To exaggerate it would be impossible. We yield ourselves unto God: every member of our body is at His disposal. Think of it! We are here in this world ‘as those that are alive from the dead’ (v. 13), ‘alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord’ (v. 11) that we ‘shouldwalk in newness of life’ (v. 4). This does not mean that we will move about in some peculiar fashion, imagine that a halo surrounds our heads, talk in unnatural tones or anything of that sort. We will discharge our duty, whether in kitchen, drawing-room, school, college, office or workshop, in a proper way, and we will do these things as those who are ‘alive unto God’, no matter how humble or exalted our position, how menial or how distinguished our work, how obscure or how prominent our service; we will have only one thing before us: to please God.
To study Romans will almost be in vain if it does not produce this result. A knowledge of the precious doctrine of Holy Scripture is indispensable for every true believer, but flowing from that there must be the ‘manner of life’ (2 Tim. 3:10), and our apprehension of doctrine is no greater than that which is expressed in our walk and ways. We trust we have derived profit from the divine presentation of the truth as we have perused this sacred portion. Now there comes the call: ‘yield yourselves unto God’. What a difference it would make if this were the case with every true believer in the world today. What a difference it might make, dear fellow Christian, if in our home, our business and the local circle where we enjoy fellowship and carry on our activities in His service this were true of us.
Shall we once more read and ponder over Romans 1–8, turn back to chapter 6:13, drop on our knees, ask God by His Holy Spirit to burn these four words into our souls, then go forth ‘as those that are alive from the dead’ to ‘walk in newness of life’ and as alive unto Him, until that day when this privilege and honour will, in the same way, be no longer ours but we shall be ‘conformed to the image of his Son’ (8:29).
From: Truth and Testimony, 2024