Romans 6:13 Neither yield you your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin: but yield yourselves to God… The word "yield" in Luke 2:22 means "present," and so it does in Acts 23:23, 24, and in Ephesians 5:27. "Yielding," then, is to present ourselves to God as His servants, His property, wholly consecrated to Him. Consider — I. THE REASONS WHY IT IS OUR DUTY TO YIELD OURSELVES UNTO GOD. Because — 1. He is absolute sovereign, and we must do His will. It is obviously, therefore, the greatest folly and danger to have a will opposed to Him in any respect. 2. He is of infinite excellence. He not only must and will rule, but He ought to rule. Who should possess supreme power but that Being who is wise, generous, patient, faithful, true, and infinitely so beyond all His creatures? 3. He has absolute right to rule. For whom ought all our faculties and powers to be employed but for Him who is their Maker? To what can we trace our blessings but to His bounty? He made these faculties and the objects around us so exactly suited to our wants. 4. He has redeemed us. Far less benefit than this bestowed by a fellow creature would make us yield ourselves as debtors to him all our lives. 5. Our best interests in time and in eternity are involved in this step. To refuse to obey this command is to refuse to be enriched by His bounty, to be preserved by His care, to taste of His love, and to enjoy His glory. II. THE EXTENT OF THIS COMMAND. It does not mean that you are to submit your power, though you must do that. God will not suffer any of His creatures eventually to persevere in opposition to Him; and therefore we are now, before that moment of compulsion comes, called to submit. 1. It is His revealed will that each sinner who hears the gospel should believe on His Son, look for sanctification of his nature through the work of the Holy Spirit, depend on Him to bring him to everlasting happiness, and come to an unreserved obedience to the whole of His law who is our rightful Lord. 2. But this is not all. The passage obviously means, "Present yourselves a living sacrifice to God." While it requires us to resign ourselves absolutely to the whole will of God, it calls upon us to give Him all our faculties, and to devote our affections to Him. He has planted in us the powers of fear, of hope, of desire, of delight, of love: it is His will that all these affections, especially the master affection, love, should be occupied chiefly with Him; we are to love Him supremely, and all the rest will follow. He who yields himself to God, yields all his property, his influence, his time, whatever he possesses, for it is God's. (Baptist Noel, M. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God. |
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