What Does Romans 6:13 Mean in the King James?
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.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The Greek calls your body parts weapons: what changes is not the instrument, but the direction in which it is placed at God’s disposal.
THE MEANING
Your bodily life is alive from the dead, and its members can be presented as weapons serving what is missing or as instruments serving God’s alignment. The hinge is where the self and its parts are made available.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that your body’s past service to what is missing fixes what it can serve now.
THE ROOT
ὅπλα
hopla
GROWS FROM
ὅπλον
hoplon
A weapon or implement: something used to carry out an action.
“instruments” in this verse is hopla. The word can carry the sense of weapons as well as implements, so the members are pictured as active means of action. The same bodily capacities can be directed toward what is missing or toward alignment.
ALSO GROWS
hoplon: Weapon, arm, or implement
ὅπλον
This is the singular form behind the verse’s image of members put to use.
hoplizō: To arm or equip
ὁπλίζω
This related verb makes the martial sense vivid: the body’s capacities are equipped for a direction.
παριστάνετε
paristanete
GROWS FROM
παρίστημι (paristēmi), from παρά (para) + ἵστημι (histēmi)
To stand beside, present, or place at someone’s disposal.
“yield” in this verse is paristanete. The same verb appears in both clauses: first the members are not to be presented to missing, then the self and its members are presented to God. The change is a change of availability and direction.
ALSO GROWS
histēmi: To stand or set in place
ἵστημι
This base verb supplies the image of taking a position.
paristēmi: To stand beside, present, or make available
παρίστημι
This compound gives the verse its repeated picture of placing the self at another’s disposal.
ἀδικίας
adikias
GROWS FROM
δικ- (dik-), from δίκη (dikē)
Justice or what is right.
“unrighteousness / righteousness” in this verse is adikias. The paired Greek terms share the δικ- family: ἀδικία names injustice, while δικαιοσύνη names what is right and aligned. The verse presents these as opposing directions for the same embodied life.
ALSO GROWS
adikia: Injustice, unrighteousness
ἀδικία
It names the direction in which the members can serve what is out of alignment.
dikaiosynē: Justice, righteousness, alignment
δικαιοσύνη
It names the other direction: members serving what accords with what is right.
dikaios: Just, right
δίκαιος
This related word makes the shared root’s sense of rightness visible.
THE PATTERN
The body’s parts can carry opposing directions: what they are made available to determines whether they enact harm or serve what is right.
Set a watch, O LORD, before my mouth; keep the door of my lips.And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity: so is the tongue among our members, that it defileth the whole body, and setteth on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire of hell.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.THE THREAD
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.The Greek verb translated “present” here is the same verb translated “yield” in Romans 6:13. Romans 12:1 opens the image further: the availability of individual members belongs to the offering of the whole living body.
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