The Apostle says: when this happens, and sin again draws the eye toward passionate looking, the hands toward plunder, and the feet toward doing evil, do not give your members to it for such shameful use. He says, "Do not present," showing that this is a matter of freedom.
There is no way to appeal to the force of sinful impulses. However strong they may be, the decision of the will can always overpower them. Those who do not eat for two or three days, or more, do they not feel hunger? They feel it, but they overcome it.
Those who spend nights in vigil, do they not experience attacks of drowsiness? They experience them, but they drive sleep away. So also all other impulses can be cut off and overcome.
"Do not present your members as weapons of unrighteousness." When we sin, we do unrighteousness either to ourselves or to others, and more to ourselves. See Saint Chrysostom.
When sin draws us, it covers itself with a very attractive garment and presents itself as the right side. It suggests that not satisfying it is violence against nature. But this is falsehood and unrighteousness. Violence is done to oneself when sin is committed, not when it is refused.
Failing to discern this, we fall into deception and sin. We do unrighteousness to ourselves, while thinking we are rendering to nature what is right. Those who have understood this keep the body strictly, and by this they do good to it, not violence and unrighteousness.
Saint Chrysostom says: "The body serves as a means both for vice and for virtue, just like an instrument. The latter is suitable for evil and for good, depending on who uses it. With the same weapon both the soldier fighting for his fatherland and the robber arming himself against citizens act.
Therefore no weapon is guilty. The one who uses it for evil is guilty. The same must be said of the flesh. Not by its own nature, but by the disposition of the soul, it becomes either one or the other.
When you look greedily upon another's beauty, the eye becomes a weapon of unrighteousness. This is not by its own activity, but by the wickedness of the thought governing it. The eye's work is to see, not to see wickedly.
Bridle the thought, and the eye will become an instrument of righteousness. The same must be said of the tongue, the hands, and the other members. The Apostle very well named sin unrighteousness. Whoever sins acts unjustly, either with regard to himself or with regard to his neighbor, but far more with regard to himself than to his neighbor."
"But present yourselves to God, as alive from the dead." "Having led them away from vice, he leads them to virtue" (Saint Chrysostom). There he showed what the baptized should not be and what they should not do. Now he teaches what they should be and what they should do.
They should be radiant and pure, as it is natural for those risen from the dead to be. In this indication there is both a model and an incentive. The model: imagine what those risen from the dead are like, and strive to keep yourself such.
If this is hard to imagine, look at the risen Lord. See how radiant He is, how pure, how detached from everything. You too must be such.
The incentive: having come forth from the font, you have spiritually risen from the dead and appeared in renewed life. God's grace has made you such. Therefore render to God what He has wrought in you. Present yourselves to Him always as alive from the dead, walking in renewed life.
"Bring to mind," says Saint Chrysostom, "what you were before and what you have now become. What were you? Dead men, and lost with such a perdition that there was no possibility of escape, for no one was able to help you. And what did you become from these dead men? Immortally alive.
Through whom? Through almighty God. Therefore duty requires that you submit to Him with the zeal proper to those who have been made alive from the dead."
Present yourselves as such to God. The purity and radiance of renewed life is itself attractive. Yet present yourselves as such not only because of this attraction of the holy life, but chiefly because this is your duty before God. Live purely and blamelessly, offering thereby a sacrifice of thanksgiving to God and zealously seeking to please Him, forgetting everything else.
Therefore the Apostle said here, "to God," so that by setting Him opposite sin he might make the obligation imposed beyond dispute. For it is enough merely to imagine what God is and what sin is, in order to give oneself with all zeal to the service of the former and to turn away from the latter.
Saint Chrysostom says: "See what force the Apostle gives his exhortation by this word. There he named sin; here he names God. He points to such a difference between the rulers in order to deprive of every excuse the soldier who left God and wished to submit to the kingdom of sin."
"And your members as weapons of righteousness to God." Above he said that they should not give their members as weapons of unrighteousness. Now he urges them to give them as weapons of righteousness. The members can be both, depending on where free choice inclines.
"The body is not something evil, but the creation of the good God. If it is guided well for the good by the soul, it can serve God. Therefore the inclination of free choice toward the worse supplies, as it were, weapons to sin in the members.
Conversely, the disposition of the will toward the good prepares the members for service to the divine laws. The tongue of a chaste singer pronounces a hymn fitting for the God of all. But the tongue of a drunken and reckless man madly emits disordered sounds of blasphemy.
So also the eye beholds both what is chaste and what is indecent, both what is cruel and what is humane. So also the hand both kills and shows mercy. In a word, all members of the body become instruments of righteousness if the mind wills it.
They become instruments of sin when the mind loves the dominion of sin" (blessed Theodoret).
When the spirit comes alive by God's grace, it takes into its power both soul and body. It compels all powers and functions to work for God, to Whom it has given itself. Serving God is the root law of righteousness, written in nature and renewed by the Gospel.
This is walking in the will of God, declared in the Lord's commandments. There are commandments for every member of the body and for every action of the soul. Bind these commandments upon every part of yourself, and accustom them to act only according to these commandments.
Then the commandment imposed from outside, through habit, will enter within. It will become the governing power of the part corresponding to it. Then you will become a vessel filled with righteousness, walking righteousness itself. Everything in you will come into harmony. One thing will be tuned to another, as strings are tuned on an instrument.
Only play and take delight, and delight God with His holy Angels. This is what the Apostle desires when he urges us to make our members weapons of righteousness.
But this blessed state is not reached at once. Until now the members served as weapons of sin. They must be taken away from sin and given to righteousness. This cannot be done without warfare. It begins immediately after the decision is made to serve God with one's whole being, and by God's grace it succeeds.
At this word Saint Chrysostom directly summons us to battle. "By speaking of weapons, the Apostle makes known that a heavy battle has begun. Therefore we need strong armor, a courageous spirit, and one that knows well what is needed for battles of this kind. Most of all, we need a commander.
But this Commander is already with us. He is always ready to fight with us, and He is never conquered. He has prepared strong weapons for us. From us only free choice is required, to use them as we ought. That means obeying the Commander and acting with the weapon for the fatherland."
THEOSIS