St. Paul is telling us here that there are two masters, either of whom we may serve, but one or other of whom we must serve. Christ is one, sin is the other. Christ is the Lord of our spirits. If we claim Him for our Lord and serve Him, then we must live as if we were spiritual beings, trusting, hoping, loving, holding our bodies in subjection; if we serve sin, then the body becomes the master, and the spirit dies; we eat and drink and sleep; faith, hope, and love perish. "But," says St. Paul, "it need not be so with any of us. Christ, the Lord of our spirits, saw that the spirits of men were dead within them, that they were living as mere fleshly creatures, and He came down and lived on this earth and died on it, that He might deliver these spirits out of death, and bind them to Him."
I. You see, St. Paul declares that there is a spirit in every one of you. Every poor savage on the earth, who has never heard of a soul or of Christ, has strange thoughts within him; he cannot tell whence they have come or whither they are going. These thoughts that stir within us, these feelings and cravings and wants, which all the things that we see and hear do not satisfy, these are worth all the world to us if only we know to whom to carry them.
II. He, into whose name we are baptized, of whose death we are made partakers, He who died that our sin might die, who rose that our spirits might rise and live, He is still with us, the Lord of our spirits, still unchanged and unchangeable. Believing in Him, claiming that right in Him which He gave us in baptism, and which He has never withdrawn from us since claiming our union with Him who has died unto sin once, but who now dieth no more, for death hath no more dominion over Him, our spirits may shake themselves free from this oppressor who is holding them down. With our spirits we can trust in Him, with our spirits we can hope in Him, with our spirits we can rise up with Him, and ascend with Him, and reign with Him. And then if they have tasted this liberty, they would wish to enjoy it continually, and that they may do so they will desire to mortify the deeds of that body which has kept them from enjoying it and would keep them from enjoying it still. They will desire to give up their spirits, to be ruled by His spirit, to be filled by Him with all holy desires and good thoughts, and prompted to all just works.
F. D. Maurice, Christmas Day and Other Sermons,p. 50.