Romans 6:19, commentary and pictures

Paul puts the truth in human terms because of the weakness of the flesh, setting past yielding of the bodily powers to uncleanness and ever-increasing wrongdoing against the present call to yield them to righteousness that leads to holiness. Every person is set before a choice of whom to serve with body and life, for to serve uncleanness and iniquity is to choose darkness rather than light and to place oneself on Satan's side, while to serve righteousness unto holiness is to repent of disloyalty and render obedience to God's law. Obedience to His commands wins eternal life.

Freedom in Christ is not freedom to continue in sin but freedom to practice virtue and holiness as a servant of God under the rule of Christ, not using liberty to oppress or to speak bitterness. To yield the members to uncleanness is to become a servant of sin under Satan's control, shown in serving lust, especially licentiousness and moral impurity, and in selfishness, dishonesty, hypocrisy, impurity and vice. Years of indulgence such as drinking illustrate this yielding, for liquor permeates the whole system, creates and strengthens appetite for spirituous liquors, deadens will power and all sense of moral obligation to God and to helpless family, transforms the whole man until he possesses the attributes of Satan, and makes him a slave of sin with no hope in any human power and doomed to a drunkard's grave. Yielding to indulgence puts the soul in slavery that presses deeper and deeper with bewitching power difficult to overcome, for habit grows by practice.

Card playing grows in intensity until it leads to gambling and arouses appetite for wine and liquor, and the first indulgence in the wine cup or handling of cards starts a step-by-step downward road to immorality. Serving uncleanness and iniquity disfigures the image of God in man and nearly wipes out the traces of God's love in the soul. Long service to lust makes impure thoughts natural and the imagination corrupt, benumbs moral sensibility, leaves the person uncleansed from all pollution, and makes it impossible for the mind to dwell upon pure and holy things. Yielding to the tempter destroys moral power, especially where an appetite for wine and stimulating drink is inherited, and associating with those who practice these indulgences corrupts morals. Using a calling such as that of physicians as a cover for sin spreads impurity, vice and soul-destroying guilt and ruins souls for time and eternity.

Turning to righteousness requires laying hold of a power out of and above self by being brought in touch with God and with the power that works righteousness, becoming a Christian and receiving new life to vitalize the whole nature, for the force of habit is too strong to change without it and this awakening cannot take place while the system is kept under the influence of liquor. Through Christ's ransom and given grace man by choice and obedience can accomplish God's original design in making him, bear again the image of God lost through the fall, and become a son of God. Those freed from sin's bondage must yield themselves as servants to righteousness unto holiness and belong wholly to God, so the prejudices that belong to the old bondage must die as soon as Christ redeems the soul, and the redeemed must not perpetuate sin by practice but treat others as fellow servants of righteousness. He works upon white and black hearts in His own way to adjust perplexing questions about the color line, without man taking the place of God, prescribing a definite plan of working, or strengthening prejudices that have no place in the freed life.

Instead physicians and all professing godliness are under obligation to follow Christ and yield their members servants to righteousness, with hearts garrisoned by the grace of Christ and maintaining strict honesty, fidelity and purity so that their influence recommends the faith. Children must therefore be guarded from doubtful associations and garrisoned against the first yielding to indulgence. Licentiousness and moral impurity are the special prevailing sin of the last days, and even professed followers of Christ, including some professing to look for His appearing, are guilty of this service, so that by partaking in the abounding iniquity their love to God waxes cold and they backslide. This choice is urgent because the Lord is at the door, so the same warning given to Noah now calls all to repent and obey.