Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Romans 6:14

For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace.

14. For sin, &c.] It is not quite clear whether this verse closes or opens a paragraph. Meyer takes it as opening the new section of argument. But it is quite in place as closing the previous one, while yet pointing forward also. On this view, St Paul makes the statement on purpose to animate the disciple to that exercise of will which yields his whole being to God. He is reminded of the reality of Justification, with its results of strength-giving peace and joy.

shall not have dominion ] i.e. in the way of claim and doom. Same word as Rom 6:9, where see note. The future means that this freedom from condemnation shall be mercifully continued to them in their conflict; they “shall not come into condemnation.” This truth was to be their invigoration.

for ] This clause fixes the reference of the last to justification, when read with the commentary on “law” and “grace” supplied by ch. 4.

under the law ] Lit. under law; and so best here. Law in its widest reference is meant; a code of precepts, to be fulfilled as the preliminary to acceptance. The Gr. suggests the paraphrase, “Ye are now placed not under the law but under grace;” with the idea not of the mere position, but of the transferring process.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

For sin … – The propensity or inclination to sin.

Shall not have dominion – Shall not reign, Rom 5:12; Rom 6:6. This implies that sin ought not to have this dominion; and it also expresses the conviction of the apostle that it would not have this rule over Christians.

For we are not under law – We who are Christians are not subject to that law where sin is excited, and where it rages unsubdued. But it may be asked here, What is meant by this declaration? Does it mean that Christians are absolved from all the obligations of the law? I answer,

1. The apostle does not affirm that Christians are not bound to obey the moral law. The whole scope of his reasoning shows that he maintains that they are. The whole structure of Christianity supposes the same thing; compare Mat 5:17-19.

(2)The apostle means to say that Christians are not under the law as legalists, or as attempting to be justified by it. They seek a different plan of justification altogether: and they do not attempt to be justified by their own obedience. The Jews did; they do not.

(3)It is implied here that the effect of an attempt to be justified by the Law was not to subdue sins, but to excite them and to lead to indulgence in them.

Justification by works would destroy no sin, would check no evil propensity, but would leave a man to all the ravages and riotings of unsubdued passion. If, therefore, the apostle had maintained that people were justified by works, he could not have consistently exhorted them to abandon their sins. He would have had no powerful motives by which to urge it; for the scheme would not lead to it. But he here says that the Christian was seeking justification on a plan which contemplated and which accomplished the destruction of sin; and he therefore infers that sin should not have dominion over them.

But under grace – Under a scheme of mercy, the design and tendency of which is to subdue sin, and destroy it. In what way the system of grace removes and destroys sin, the apostle states in the following verses.

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Rom 6:14

For sin shall not have dominion over you.

Domineering sin

(a Lenten sermon):–There are different states of sin. There is sin latent, and fully manifest; there is sin you are striving to subdue, and sin dominant. It is concerning this last state that we have this promise–Sin shall not lord it over you. And there is a state beyond this when the sin is so conquered that it is actually changed into grace. A besetting sin, a characterising virtue; strong passions, ardent love; fear, humility; credulity, faith; weakness, leaning on the strong. Consider–

I. How the state of domineering sin is formed.

1. We must never forget that it is in sins nature to grow. Weeds very generally grow faster than flowers. And this is the process. First, an empty space; a life unfenced; no sense of danger; no watch; no self-distrust; no trust in God. Under such conditions sin, in some form or other, must come in and get stronger and stronger and stronger, till it over-crops and over-shadows the whole moral being of the man.

2. Sin has a strange power of hiding itself, partly because Satan can turn himself into an angel of light, and trace everything in forms of beautiful colours, and partly because sin warps the judgment and dims the eye. And still more it hardens the heart and sears the conscience.

II. How it is to be overcome. I will suppose the case of one who has been conscious of the growth of some sin in his own heart, and who is very desirous of getting rid of it. What should you do?

1. Thank God that you have this consciousness and desire. It is a proof that the Holy Spirit has not left you.

2. Claim this as the ground of your argument with God: Lord, Thou hast showed me my sin, and made it hateful. Now, Lord, complete Thine own work.

3. Having said this to God, attend to the little things. Listen for the still small voices, and act out at once every conviction and any better desire which God has given you.

4. Next, have some definite work in hand which is for Gods service and Christs sake. Impart what you feel and what you know. By warming anothers heart, you best warm your own. A work for Christ is a great antagonism to a domineering sin.

5. Then take care of the first signs of declension from what you now begin to do. Remember that in your heart there is a great danger of a reaction taking place.

6. Do not be discouraged by your feeling and the returning of besetting sins. A religious life is a campaign; and in that campaign some battles will be victories, and others defeats. The great principle is how to rally after defeat.

7. Be very careful to encourage the habit of silent prayer at the critical moment, when you know that you are getting into danger, when you feel the enemy is strong.

8. Remember that spiritual life is in Christ. He is the life, and nothing lives but as it is in union with Him. Then, as He says, Because I live, ye shall live also.

9. There must be the constant inward breathing of the Holy Spirit in you. He must prompt, guide, strengthen, give both the will and the power. The only way to get rid of any sin is to put God in His right place. (J. Vaughan, M. A.)

Sin dethroned

I. The evil which we are encouraged to resist. The dominion of sin. St. Paul represents sin as a mighty usurper, exercising absolute dominion over the sinner, taking the heart for his throne, and the members for his slaves (Rom_5:20-21; Rom_6:12; Rom_6:20). By a successful stratagem sin obtained the supremacy over our first father; and his posterity, while they remain in their natural state, have never been able to break the yoke (1Jn 5:19). This dreadful dominion of sin is promoted–

1. By ignorance of Gods will. In some countries this is almost total; in ours it is partial, and in a great measure wilful (Rom 1:28; Joh 3:19).

2. By our corrupt passions and sensual propensities, which will be gratified, though health, reputation, yea, life itself, are at stake (Job 15:16; Isa 5:18).

3. By the worldly interests of men, to which they readily give the decided preference, when they happen to clash with their duty to God. Thus, for the sake of the world, the guests invited to the gospel feast, with one consent, desired to be excused; and the rich man departed from Jesus full of sorrow.

4. By the powerful temptations of Satan.

5. By the countenance and example of the multitude. Sinners readily follow the multitude to do evil. The broad road that leads to destruction is thronged with travellers.

II. The means afforded for our encouragement in resisting sin: for ye are not under the law, but under grace.

1. Grace is here opposed to the law, and signifies the gospel (Joh 1:17; 2Co 6:1; Act 14:3).

2. The law was a system of just, but awful severity, and God had wise and holy designs in the establishment of it (Rom 5:20). It was introduced among the Jews, not that they might be justified by it, but that, by discovering how far they fell short of the obedience it required, they might be more deeply impressed with a sense of their abounding sins; and thus it became a schoolmaster to lead them to Christ (Gal 3:24), and that so, where sin had abounded, grace might much more abound (Rom 5:20).

3. Now, believers in Christ are not under the law; they are dead to the law (Rom 7:4); they are delivered from the law (Rom 7:6). By these expressions we are not to suppose that they are discharged from obedience (1Co 2:1); but they are no longer under the law considered as a covenant, the terms of which are, the man that doeth them (all and everyone perfectly) shall live in them (Gal 3:12). Christ hath fulfilled all righteousness for His people (Rom 10:4). Being accounted righteous through faith in Christ, they are redeemed from the curse of the law (Rom 8:1-2).

4. Christians possess greater advantages for the destruction of sin than those under the law.

(1) While the law justly demanded obedience, it afforded no aid for the performance of it. Nor could it encourage anyone to hope for pardon in case of disobedience. The case is now altered. We are not called to Mount Sinai to hear the terrible threatenings of the law; but we are come to Mount Sion, where grace and mercy are published.

(2) The law included the substance of all the holy precepts now contained in the New Testament; but in the gospel they are expanded and full blown, and appear in all the beauty of holiness.

(3) There is a more abundant measure of the Holy Spirit poured out upon the people of God, by which they not only attain a clearer knowledge of His will, but a larger degree of His gracious assistance in overcoming sin (Heb 8:10).

(4) All grace is treasured up in Jesus for the use of His people; and of this fulness they may receive, daily, grace for grace (Joh 1:16; Php 4:13; 2Co 12:9).

(5) The love of Christ is another grand assistant in our victory over sin. Love is the most strong and generous of all the passions, and the hardest service becomes easy when this prevails (2Co 5:14).

(6) The grace of the gospel affords yet further aid in this great conflict by the cheering views it presents of everlasting glory (Rom 8:31; 1Co 15:55; 1Jn 3:3). Conclusion:

1. Who can behold the general dominion of sin over the world without the deepest concern (Jer 9:1).

2. Having learned that no means are effectual to stop the progress of sin but those afforded by the gospel of grace, let this serve to render the gospel more precious.

3. This subject effectually refutes that vile slander which is so unjustly cast on the doctrines of grace, that they are conducive to sin and unfriendly to holiness. (G. Burder.)

Believers free from the dominion of sin

We have here–

I. A peculiar position. Ye are not under the law.

1. We no longer dread the curse of the law which those who are under the law may well do. The careless try to shake off the thought, but still more or less it disturbs them; but when once awakened the dread of punishment fills them with terror. Now believers have no such fear, for our sin was laid upon Jesus, who hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us.

2. We no longer drudge in unwilling obedience, seeking to reach a certain point of merit. The man under the law who is awakened labours as men who tug at the oar to escape from a tempest. But, alas! he has no power to attain even to his own ideal. His servile works are ill done, and fail to yield him peace. Now Christ has fulfilled the law for us, and we rest in that finished work. We now obey out of love, and delight in the law after the inner man.

3. We are no longer uncertain as to the continuance of Divine love. Under the law no mans standing can be secure, since by, a single sin he may forfeit his position. But the merit of Christ is always a constant and abiding quantity; if, therefore, we rest thereon, our foundation is always secure. If, when we were enemies, etc.

4. We are no longer afraid of the last great day. Judgment is a terrible word to those who are hoping to save themselves, for their doings are sure to be found wanting. But judgment has no terror in it to a believer, Bold shall I stand in that great day, etc.

5. We have no slavish dread of God. The soul under the law stands as the Israelites did, far off from the mountain, with a bound set between themselves and the glory of God. But we have access with boldness to the throne of grace, and we delight to avail ourselves of it. Perfect love has cast out fear. Stand fast, therefore, in the liberty, etc.

II. A special assurance. Sin shall not have dominion over you.

1. This is a very needful assurance.

(1) All around us we see sins operations and deadly results; and we cry in alarm, It will surely drag me down one of these days, but the dread fear is removed by the assurance, Sin shall not have dominion over you.

(2) Alas, the evil assails ourselves, and we are apt to be cast down. Here the sweet assurance cheers us Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

(3) Sometimes sin forces its way into our souls and rouses our inward evil to an awful degree. Readers of the Holy War will remember how Diabolus besieged Mansoul after it had been occupied by Immanuel. After many battles and cunning plots the enemy entered into the city, filled all the streets with the yells of his followers, and polluted the whole place; but yet he could not take the castle, which held out for Immanuel. So sin may vex you and thrust itself upon you, but it cannot become your hearts lord.

(4) Sometimes sin prevails, and we are forced in anguish to confess that we have fallen beneath its power. Still a temporary defeat is not sufficient to effect a total subjugation. Though the believer fall he shall rise again.

(5) There are times when we feel greatly our danger; our feet have almost gone, our steps have well-nigh slipped; then how sweetly doth this assurance come, The Lord is able to keep you from falling.

2. This assurance secures us from the danger of being under the absolute sway of sin. What is meant by this?

(1) There are men who live in sin, and yet they do not appear to know it; but you shall be instructed, so that when you sin you shall be well aware of it.

(2) Many men live in gross sin and are not ashamed, they are at ease in it; but God has so changed your nature by His grace that when you sin you shall be like a fish on dry land, you shall be out of your element, and long to get into a right state again.

(3) An ungodly man loves sin, but as for you, you shall hate yourself to think you ever consented to its solicitations.

3. This assurance is confirmed by the context–Sin shall not have dominion over you, because you are dead to it by virtue of your union to Christ. Besides, you live in Christ in newness of life by reason of His living in you. You are bound for victory and you shall have it.

III. A remarkable reason. For ye are not under the law, but under grace. Those who are under the law must always be under the dominion of sin, because–

1. The law condemns immediately upon transgression, and affords no hope and no encouragement. It is not so with those who are under grace, for they are freely forgiven. The amazing love of God when shed abroad in the heart creates a desire for better things, and what the law could not do grace accomplishes.

2. The law drives to despair, and because there is no hope the sinner will often plunge into iniquity. The child of God saith, God, for Christs sake, hath cast my sins behind His back, and I am saved. Now, for the love I bear His name, I will serve Him with all my might.

3. The law rouses the opposition of the heart. There are many things which people never think of doing till they are forbidden. Lock up a closet and say to your children, Never enter that closet, nor even look into the keyhole, and they who have never wanted to look into the dingy old corner before now pine to inspect it. Law, by reason of our unruly nature, creates sin. But when we are under grace we love God for His love to us, and labour to please Him in all things.

4. The law affords no actual help. All it does is to say, Thou shalt, and Thou shalt not; but grace brings the Holy Spirit into the soul to work in us holy affections and a hatred of sin, and hence what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, grace accomplishes for us by its own almighty power.

5. The law inspires no love, and love after all is the fulfilling of the law. Law is hard and cold, like the two tables of Moses. Look at the legalist; he is a bondslave, and nothing more. But grace fires a man with love to God and enthusiasm for holiness. The most pleasing service in the world is that which is done from motives of affection and not for wages. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

The upper hand

I shall use the text as–

I. A test. Has sin dominion over you? If so; then you are not a believer. Try your own selves by this test. You may be under the dominion of sin, while successfully resisting some forms of it; but if there be but one sin that usurps authority, then sin has dominion over you. Satan does not send to all men the same temptations. The sin is adapted to the constitution.

1. Some are under the dominion of sin in the form of anger. Those who have a quick, hot temper, are like the small pot that quickly boils over and scalds terribly. There are others whose temper is rather slower in coming up, but when it has once risen it will last long, and make them sulky and unforgiving. Now if any man says, My temper is so bad that I cannot curb it, that temper has got dominion over him, and, according to my text, he is not a Christian. If the grace of God does not help us to bridle that lion that is within us, what has it done for us?

2. The propensity of others is to murmur. I know some who grumble at everything. Trade is always bad with them, and as for their meals–instead of being thankful to God they are perpetually finding fault. Their very garments are never to their minds. The weather never suits them. Now if any man murmurs, he may be a Christian needing to be purged of this defilement, but if you say, I cannot help murmuring, then it has got dominion over you. You must wage war against it, for if you are a child of God this sin shall not have dominion over you.

3. With others the reigning sin is covetousness. I do not say that they should be indifferent to business, but why so penurious? Covetousness is idolatry. Of course you may fall into fits of covetousness and yet be Christians, but if you are habitually covetous then your covetousness has got dominion over you, and according to the text you cannot be a child of God. Do then as the good man did who had resolved to give a pound to some good cause, and the devil tempted him not to do it. Said he, I will give two now. The devil said, Nay, you will be ruining yourself. Said he, I will give four. Another temptation came, and he said, I will give eight; and if the devil does not leave off tempting me I do not know to what lengths I shall go, but I will he master of him somehow. Do anything rather than let the golden call run over you.

4. Perhaps the sin of pride may be in the ascendant. Now, I do not say that you are no Christian because you occasionally forget the lowliness and modesty that become you, but I do say that if you tell me that you cannot help being proud, then pride is your master and Christ is not.

5. The dominant sin of many is sloth. Is there any reigning sin in your hearts? Never mind what it is. Then Christ cannot be in your soul, for When He comes, He comes to reign.

II. A promise. It does not say that sin shall not dwell in you. In the holiest there is enough sin to destroy if it were not for the grace of God, which restrains its deadly operation. Nor are you told that you shall never fall into sin. Need I mention such as David? The security is that sin shall not have dominion over you. The fair and lovely dove may fall into the mire, but the mire has not any dominion over it; but let the swine go there, and it rolls in it, for the mire has dominion over its nature. Notice–

1. A few of the general reasons for the promise. Sin cannot get confirmed dominion over the child of God because–

(1) God hath promised that it shall not.

(2) You belong to Christ, and He bought you at such a price that He will never lose you.

(3) The Holy Spirit has come to dwell in you.

(4) The Spirit has begun a good work in you, and it is His rule never to leave His work unfinished.

(5) There is in every Christian a new nature which cannot die and which cannot sin–a well of water springing up into everlasting life, a living, incorruptible seed, which liveth and abideth forever. Now, if this seed be incorruptible, then sin cannot corrupt it; if it abideth forever, then sin cannot expel it.

(6) Your will is not the slave of sin. You sin, but if you could you never would sin. The bent and bias of your mind are towards righteousness. Now, if such be the case, sin can never get dominion over your whole nature, for the sovereignty of all your manhood lies with Him who possesses the mastery of your will and your affections. You know how Bunyan represents Feeble-mind in the cave of Giant Slaygood. The giant had picked him up on the road, and taken him home to devour him at his leisure; but Feeble-mind said he had one comfort, for he had heard that the giant could never pick the bones of any man who was brought there against his will.

2. The reason given in the text–For ye are not under the law, but under grace. There are two principles in the world that are supposed to promote holiness–law and grace.

(1) It is a popular notion that if you tell men their duty, prove the authority of the lawgiver, and show the penalty of wrong-doing–this wilt give a just bias to their inclination, and help to keep their conduct right. All history goes to shew that this is without proof. Those who are under the law are always under sin. The moment we are commanded not to do a thing, such is our perverse disposition, we try to do it. Even the terrible penalties of hell have failed to inspire fear or promote holiness. When was there ever so much sheep stealing, and theft, and highway robbery, and forgery, as when men were hanged for these things?

(2) There is another principle, however, which is a main instigator to righteousness–the principle of grace and faith. Grace does not say to a man, You must do this or you shall be punished, but it says this, God, for Christs sake, has forgiven you; you are saved; heaven is yours; now, for the love you bear to God, who has done this for you, what will you do for Him? A constraining power, strong as death, has availed to consecrate the lives of those who have felt the sacred spell.

III. An encouragement.

1. There are not a few who are strangers to the holy jealousy which keeps a watch over the heart and a guard upon the lips, lest they should sin. Cultivate this jealousy; be very watchful, and let the text animate you.

2. There are some who are consciously very weak. Be encouraged. Sin shall no more get dominion over the weak than over the strong. The spark shall not be quenched, nor the bruised reed broken.

3. There are those who are fighting with some great sin. Put this cool water to your lips and be refreshed. You shall conquer yet; fight on!

4. There are those who have been lately converted. Your chains are broken, but there are some links that are left hanging, and sometimes they will catch hold of a nail, and you will think you are tied up again. But if you have given your heart to Christ you shall yet be helped.

5. Perhaps I address a backslider. Do you now hate your sin? Do you cry unto God for mercy, and rest in the work of Jesus? If so, be of good courage still, you shall be saved. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

For ye are not under the law, but under grace.—

Grace the deliverer from the bondage of sin

1. Man is constituted to obey! Thus constituted, his nature was provided for. Upon his first entrance on the stage of being he was placed under the dominion of holiness. But man severed himself from God. In the first act of disobedience, however, he was obedient to Satan, and at every step in his subsequent history we find him still under his dominion.

2. Man has never been able to free himself from this bondage. Philosophy has not helped him; and our text declares law has not. But we are to consider that which does. Notice–

I. The aspect of sin as a dominion.

1. The willing character of it. The consciousness of humanity ever charges itself with voluntary submission to such a dominion. Moreover, the Bible declares that man chooses it.

2. Its deceitful character. Having the understanding darkened. Satan promised our first parents to be as gods–he meant them to be the opposite.

3. Its gradual character, Like the conquest of a country, step by step new territory is won, and dominion gained in the heart of it,

4. Its cruel character. All its servants are slaves, and are led on to disaster and death. The cruelty of this dominion is seen in the increase of evil desires, and the diminution of pleasures to be derived from them; every desire ultimately ending in dissatisfaction and pain.

II. The inability of law to free from this dominion.

1. Law manifests sin. By law comes knowledge of sin. Think of the flame from the volcano revealing cities and plains in the far-off distance. So law enlightens conscience, casts its glare into the innermost recesses of the whited sepulchre, and discovers a dead soul.

2. Law causes disquietude about sin, showing its character and consequences.

3. Law revives the strength of sin (Rom 7:8).

III. The delivering power of grace.

1. The law which condemns sin is satisfied. We are delivered from sin as a curse. Christ bare our transgressions. This curse had dominion over us–made us fear death, judgment, etc.

2. The law of the Spirit of Life is imparted to us. Nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me. Sin may exist, but it cannot reign in the heart of a Christian. (See preceding context.) Christ has promised that this Spirit shall quicken life in us. Let us escape from the slavery of sin, and become the servants of righteousness, and yield ourselves unto Christ. (T. G. Horton.)

Believers not under the law but under grace

I. They are not under the law.

1. The law of which the apostle is speaking is not of mans making, but is the law of God; and is unlike any human law. Note, e.g.—

(1) Its universality. Mans laws are confined to particular governments and countries. But the law of God is meant for every creature He has made.

(2) The length to which it goes. Human laws lay down rules for the conduct of the outward man, and even then do not take notice of every instance of iniquity. But Gods commandment is exceeding broad. It passes sentence on the very thoughts, and makes no allowances whatever for sin. Sins which we are apt to look upon as small and pardonable are in Gods sight without excuse.

(3) The sentence which it passes. Human laws make great distinctions between one crime and another. Gods law makes no differences, and its sentence is, in every instance, death.

2. The state of those for whom this law was made, This law is made for man. Is man then a fulfiller of this law? It is an awful truth that, so far from being frightened out of any evil practice by knowing that it is forbidden by the law of God, his knowing it to be forbidden makes him feel a greater relish for it, and so much the more desirous to commit it (Rom 7:8).

3. Believers are not under the law. They are not under–

(1) The curse and condemnation of the law (Gal 3:13; Col 2:14; Rom 8:33-34).

(2) The law is the covenant of works–a dispensation in which he is taught to look for acceptance with God as the consequence of his own merits. The law of God says, He that doeth these things shall live by them. Now, the Saviour does not say, Earn but heaven by your works–establish a righteousness of your own, and you shall purchase heaven by it. No; but He says, I have been your Law fulfiller, and My righteousness is unto all and upon all them that believe.

II. The believer is under grace.

1. He is under the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. He is a man whom the free and undeserved love of his Redeemer has chosen unto life eternal. He is placed under a dispensation in which all he has, and all he hopes to have, are freely given him, not for works of righteousness which he has done, but as the gift of God, through Jesus Christ our Lord.

2. He is under grace, because the grace of the Divine Spirit enters in and dwells in him. His soul is made the temple of the Holy Ghost. It is illuminated, sanctified, and comforted by that glorious inhabitant.

III. The consequence of being not under the law, but under grace. Sin shall not have dominion over you, because–

1. The love of God is shed abroad in your heart by the Holy Ghost which is given unto you. A sense of the unspeakable mercy which our Lord has shown us begets such lively feelings of gratitude and love that to delight in that which God abhors becomes a thing impossible. Our heart burns, on the other hand, with holy fervour to render our redeemed life unto the Lord (2Co 5:15).

2. You are a partaker of a new nature (2Co 5:17). Sin is not indeed utterly destroyed, but it has no longer the dominion. (A. Roberts, M. A.)

Grace, not law, the motive for holiness

Wherein lies the force of the reason advanced? What is there in the covenant of grace, as set in contrast with the covenant of works, on which to rest the above declaration? At first sight we might be apt to suppose (arguing from the tendencies and susceptibilities of the human constitution) that men would be more energetic after holiness if left to earn heaven for themselves than if invited to accept it as a gift. But on second thoughts this will not be found so. Look at–

I. The covenant of works.

1. As it requires perfect obedience without containing any provision for pardon, mediation, or escape, will it not produce despair and even recklessness to fallen beings in whom there is a tendency to sin, and a decay in all the powers of resistance, and who at the best can only give an imperfect obedience, which is of no avail?

2. Such is the constitution of our nature that the prospect of success is indispensable for vigour and exertion. Place me, therefore, under a covenant of works–shut out from me all notices of a Redeemer–read me that, by keeping them, I may insure myself a blessed immortality–and I shall either fold my arms in inactivity or resign myself to my sinfulness, Why mortify imperious desires, why deny craving appetites in the face of a moral certainty that I could not come up to what the law demanded, and that, if I failed, I was irretrievably condemned? No, there must be some provision in the case of failure, else will there never be any effort to obey. There must be room for second thoughts for repentance, otherwise will the law, with all its rewards, be set at nought as unadapted to the beings on whom it is imposed.

II. The covenant of grace.

1. There is an energy of motive of the most powerful character. There is more–immeasurably more–to lead to the hatred of sin and the striving after holiness in the fact that Christ died for me than in a thousand statute books with multiplied enactments and many rewards. Only let this fact seat itself in the soul, and it must excite such love to the Being who bought us with His blood–such abhorrence of the sin which caused that blood to be shed–as will urge a man to exert every power that he may not crucify the Son of God afresh. And as he gathers all his strength to the overcoming of evil, urged by the freeness of salvation as proffered to him–every blessing reminding him of Calvary, every promise being eloquent of the great propitiation–and thus the whole Christian system exciting, in all its workings, recollections which make him shun even the appearance of evil–oh, will he not furnish the strongest practical evidence that St. Paul advanced an argument which made good his proposition when he gave, Ye are not under the law, but under grace as his reason for saying, Sin shall not have dominion over you?

2. The words are also a promise or prophecy.

(1) They point to Divine assistance. They assure us of the aids of the Holy Spirit in the mortification of evil passions, the abandonment of evil pursuits, and in the attainment of holiness and righteousness.

(2) Hence the gospel makes victory possible–nay, sure–exciting the spirit and then providing the means of resistance. It does all which the moral combatant can need; so that he who would have succumbed at once, feeling the case to be desperate, had he been brought under the law, girds himself to the task of the resisting of sin because brought under grace. (H. Melvill, B. D.)

Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell

Verse 14. Sin shall not have dominion over you] God delivers you from it; and if you again become subject to it, it will be the effect of your own choice or negligence.

Ye are not under the law] That law which exacts obedience, without giving power to obey; that condemns every transgression and every unholy thought without providing for the extirpation of evil or the pardon of sin.

But under grace.] Ye are under the merciful and beneficent dispensation of the Gospel, that, although it requires the strictest conformity to the will of God, affords sufficient power to be thus conformed; and, in the death of Christ, has provided pardon for all that is past, and grace to help in every time of need.

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

In the Rom 6:12 it was an exhortation, but in this it is a promise, that sin shall not reign in and over us. Rebel it may, but reign it shall not in the regenerate. It hath lost its absolule and uncontrolled power. It fares with sin in such as with those beasts in Dan 7:12, who, though their lives were prolonged for a season, had their dominion taken away. It is an encouragement to fight, when we are sure of victory.

For ye are not under the law, but under grace: he adds this as a reason of that he had asserted and promised: you are not under a legal, but gospel dispensation; so some expound the words; grace is often put for the gospel: or, you are not under the old but the new covenant.

The law and grace thus differ; the one condemns the sinner, the other absolves him; the one requires perfect, the other accepts sincere, obedience; the one prescribes what we must do, the other assists us in the doing of our duty. This last seems to be the genuine sense: q.d. You may be sure sin shall have no dominion over you; for you are not under the law, which forbids sin, but gives no power against it, or which requires obedience, and gives no strength to perform it (like the Egyptian taskmasters, who required bricks but gave no straw); but under the gospel or covenant of grace, where sin is not only forbidden, but the sinner is enabled to resist and overcome it.

Question. But what shall be said of the godly in the times of the law; were not they under grace?

Answer. They were, Act 15:11; Heb 4:2; but not in the same degree. The godly had help and assistance under the law, but they had it not by the law. How believers are said not to be under the law: see Rom 7:4.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

14. For Sin shall not have dominionover youas the slaves of a tyrant lord.

for ye are not under the law,but under graceThe force of this glorious assurance can onlybe felt by observing the grounds on which it rests. To be “underthe law” is, first, to be under its claim to entire obedience;and so, next under its curse for the breach of these. And as allpower to obey can reach the sinner only through Grace, ofwhich the law knows nothing, it follows that to be “under thelaw” is, finally, to be shut up under an inability to keepit, and consequently to be the helpless slave of sin. Onthe other hand, to be “under grace,” is to be under theglorious canopy and saving effects of that “grace which reignsthrough righteousness unto eternal life through Jesus Christ ourLord” (see on Ro 5:20, 21).The curse of the law has been completely lifted from off them; theyare made “the righteousness of God in Him”; and they are”alive unto God through Jesus Christ.” So that, as whenthey were “under the law,” Sin could not but havedominion over them, so now that they are “under grace,” Sincannot but be subdued under them. If before, Sin resistlesslytriumphed, Grace will now be more than conqueror.

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

For sin shall not have dominion over you,…. It has dominion over God’s people in a state of unregeneracy: and after conversion it is still in them, and has great power oftentimes to hinder that which is good, and to effect that which is evil; it entices and ensnares, and brings into captivity, and seems as though it would regain its dominion, and reign again, but it shall not. This is not a precept, exhortation, or admonition, as before, though some read it as such, “let not sin have dominion over you”; nor does it express merely what ought not to be, but what cannot, and shall not be; it is an absolute promise, that sin shall not have the dominion over believers; and respects not acts of sin, but the principle of sin; and means not its damning power, though that is took away, but its tyrannical, governing power: “it shall not lord it over you”, as the words may be rendered; for in regeneration, sin is dethroned; Christ enters as Lord, and continues to be so; saints are in another kingdom, the kingdom of Christ and grace; could sin reign again over them, they might be lost and perish, which they never can: now this is a noble argument why saints should use their members as weapons of righteousness for God and against sin; since they are sure of being conquerors, and are secure from the tyrannical government of sin over them. The Jewish doctors say x, there are three persons, , “over whom the evil imagination”, or “sin, had not the dominion”; and these are they, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; but these are not the only persons, for all Abraham’s spiritual seed, all that are of the faith of Abraham, enjoy the same favour: the reason of this is,

for ye are not under the law; by which is meant, not the law of nature; nor the civil law of the Jews; nor their ceremonial law; but either the law of sin, as a governing principle; or rather the moral law: this they were under, so as to obey it, but not in order to obtain righteousness by it; or as forced to obey it by its threats and terrors; they were not under its rigorous exaction; nor under its curse and condemnation; nor as irritating sin, and causing it to abound; or as a covenant of works:

but under grace; under the covenant of grace, and in the enjoyment of the blessings of it; under the Gospel, and the dispensation of it, which leads and teaches men to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts; under and in the possession of the grace of justification and pardon, which strongly influence to righteousness and holiness; and under regenerating and sanctifying grace as a reigning governing principle in the soul. The apostle’s view in this is, to affect the saints with their present privilege, and to engage them in a cheerful conflict with sin, and to stir up in them an abhorrence of living in it.

x T. Bab. Bava Bathra, fol. 17. 1.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

Shall not have dominion ( ). Future active indicative of , old verb from , “shall not lord it over you,” even if not yet wholly dead. Cf. 2Co 1:24.

Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament

1) “For sin shall not have dominion over you,” (hamartia gar humon ou kurieusei) “Because sin shall not lord it over you all,” or have jurisdiction, dominating ruling power over you all. “He that is in you is greater than he that is the world,” trust him, obey him, and follow him and his leading, Rom 8:14; Rom 8:16.

2) “For ye are not under the law,” (ou gar este hupo nomon) “For you all are (exist) not under law,” Neither the Mosaic law with its entanglements and obligations of ceremonies and rituals nor under the law of sin and death any more, because of eternal life received by his grace, Rom 6:23; Rom 8:2; Joh 5:24; Gal 3:19-25; Gal 5:18.

3) “But under grace,” (alla hupo Charin) “But (in contrast) you all exist under the lordship of grace,” the moral obligations and call of voluntary gratitude to serve him who redeemed to service, Joh 6:15; Eph 2:8-10; Tit 2:11-13; 2Pe 3:18.

THAT “DANGEROUS” DOCTRINE

A young Christian had been taught that while a person gets saved through faith in Christ, he must obey the law of Moses in order to keep saved. When she saw that God’s Word teaches that Christians are not under law but under grace, she said, “It’s almost too good to be true!” Then she added, “The Bible does seem to say that, but don’t you think it is a dangerous doctrine to teach? If Christians knew that, they might go out and do just anything.” I said, “You see that that is what the Bible teaches; are you going out now to do all the bad things you can think of?” I wish you could have seen the look of horror as she said, “No, of course not.” “Why not?” k asked, She answered quickly, “Because I love the Lord Jesus.” That is the secret of the Christian life.

–Vivian D. Gunderson,

in The Sunday School Times.

Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary

14. For sin shall not rule over you, etc. It is not necessary to continue long in repeating and confuting expositions, which have little or no appearance of truth. There is one which has more probability in its favor than the rest, and it is this — that by law we are to understand the letter of the law, which cannot renovate the soul, and by grace, the grace of the Spirit, by which we are freed from depraved lusts. But this I do not wholly approve of; for if we take this meaning, what is the object of the question which immediately follows, “Shall we sin because we are not under the law?” Certainly the Apostle would never have put this question, had he not understood, that we are freed from the strictness of the law, so that God no more deals with us according to the high demands of justice. There is then no doubt but that he meant here to indicate some freedom from the very law of God. But laying aside controversy, I will briefly explain my view.

It seems to me, that there is here especially a consolation offered, by which the faithful are to be strengthened, lest they should faint in their efforts after holiness, through a consciousness of their own weakness. He had exhorted them to devote all their faculties to the service of righteousness; but as they carry about them the relics of the flesh, they cannot do otherwise than walk somewhat lamely. Hence, lest being broken down by a consciousness of their infirmity they should despond, he seasonably comes to their aid, by interposing a consolation, derived from this circumstance — that their works are not now tested by the strict rule of the law, but that God, remitting their impurity, does kindly and mercifully accept them. The yoke of the law cannot do otherwise than tear and bruise those who carry it. It hence follows, that the faithful must flee to Christ, and implore him to be the defender of their freedom: and as such he exhibits himself; for he underwent the bondage of the law, to which he was himself no debtor, for this end — that he might, as the Apostle says, redeem those who were under the law.

Hence, not to be under the law means, not only that we are not under the letter which prescribes what involves us in guilt, as we are not able to perform it, but also that we are no longer subject to the law, as requiring perfect righteousness, and pronouncing death on all who deviate from it in any part. In like manner, by the word grace, we are to understand both parts of redemption — the remission of sins, by which God imputes righteousness to us, — and the sanctification of the Spirit, by whom he forms us anew unto good works. The adversative particle, [ ἀλλὰ, but, ] I take in the sense of alleging a reason, which is not unfrequently the case; as though it was said — “We who are under grace, are not therefore under the law.”

The sense now is clear; for the Apostle intended to comfort us, lest we should be wearied in our minds, while striving to do what is right, because we still find in ourselves many imperfections. For how much soever we may be harassed by the stings of sin, it cannot yet overcome us, for we are enabled to conquer it by the Spirit of God; and then, being under grace, we are freed from the rigorous requirements of the law. We must further understand, that the Apostle assumes it as granted, that all who are without the grace of God, being bound under the yoke of the law, are under condemnation. And so we may on the other hand conclude, that as long as they are under the law, they are subject to the dominion of sin. (194)

(194) The word “law” here, is taken by [ Scott ] and others, indefinitely, as meaning law as the ground of the covenant of works, written or unwritten; and the literal rendering is, “under law ” — ὑπὸ νόμου; and it is the same in the next verse, “under law.” — Ed.

Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary

14. Not under the law Under the dispensation of Christless law the dominion of sin could never be broken. It would rule and ruin. But under grace emancipation is offered and freedom may be secured. Yet the new freedom consists not in an abolishment of the law, but in the spirit by which the Christian fulfils the law, namely, not under compulsion of the law, but freely and with full purpose of heart. Thus the most perfect obedience to law is a most delightful freedom.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

‘For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law, but under grace.’

And all this because we have now come under a new regime. We have been transferred out from under the tyranny of darkness so that we may come under the Kingship of His beloved Son (Col 1:13). Sin therefore no longer has dominion over us. Its power has been defeated, and its main weapon, the accusatory Law, has had its fangs drawn. For whilst the Law could make its demands, it could not draw alongside to help us. It was thus rendered powerless by sin, and could only leave sin in control. But now Christians are ‘under grace.’ What that means has been described in Rom 5:15-21. It means that we are under a new regime. It means that God has stepped alongside to help. It means that we are reckoned as righteous through Christ’s righteousness (Rom 5:15; Rom 5:17). It means that we have experienced resurrection life through the Spirit (Rom 5:5; Rom 6:4; Rom 6:11). It is the unmerited, freely given love of God acting on our behalf which is abounding towards us (Rom 5:20) and is acting to deliver us (Rom 7:24-25). This unmerited, freely given, gracious activity of God thus frees us from sin’s dominion, and reigns in us to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord (Rom 5:21).

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

Rom 6:14. For sin, &c. That is, “Sin shall not be your master, to dispose of your members and faculties in its drudgery and service as it pleases: you shall not be under its controul, in subjection to it, unless by your own free choice you enthral yourselves to it, and by a voluntary obedience give it the command over you, and are willing to have it your master.” We must bear in mind, that St. Paul here, and in the following chapter, personifies sin, as striving with men for mastery to destroy them. The force of his reasoning here stands thus: “You are obliged, by your taking on you the profession of the Gospel, not to be any longer slaves and vassals to sin, not to be under the sway of your carnal lusts, but to yield yourselves up to God, to be his servants, in a constant and sincere purpose and endeavour to obey him in all things. This if you do, sin shall not be able to procure you death; for you are not now under a law which condemns to death for every the least transgression, though it be but a slip of infirmity; but by your receiving Jesus Christ with genuine faith you are entered into the covenant of grace: and being under grace, God accepts of you, and, if you persevere in that faith which works by love, will give you eternal life through Jesus Christ. But if you, by a willing obedience to your lusts, make yourselves vassals to sin, Sin, as the lord and master to whom you belong, will pay you with death, the only wages he has to give.” Compare Rom 6:23. Mr. Locke is of opinion, that by law and grace, the Apostle here means the Jewish and Christian dispensations. See the next chapter. But others observe, that by law is here meant strict rigid law, which was but a part of the Jewish dispensation, threatening death to every transgression; and that bygrace are meant the gracious terms, provisions, and discoveries of the Gospel; and that both are to be understood as they relate to sanctity of life, the subject upon which the Apostle is writing.

Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke

Rom 6:14 . Not the ground and warrant for the exhortation (Hofmann), in which case the thought is introduced, that obedience is dependent on the readers; but an encouragement to do what is demanded in Rom 6:12-13 , through the assurance that therein sin shall not become lord over them, since they are not in fact under the law, but under grace. Comp the similar encouragement in Phi 2:13 . In this assurance lies a “dulcissima consolatio,” Melancthon, comp Calvin. They have not to dread the danger of failure. Understood as an expression of good confidence , that they would not allow sin to become lord over them (Fritzsche), the sentence would lack an element assigning an objective reason, to which nevertheless the second half points. Heumann, Koppe, Rosenmller, Flatt, and Umbreit take the future imperatively , which is erroneous for the simple reason that it is not in the second person (Bernhardy, p. 378).

(Gal 4:21 ), : For not the law, but divine grace (revealed in Christ) is the power under which you are placed . This contrast , according to which the norm-giving position of the law is excluded from the Christian state (it is not merely the superfluousness of the law that is announced, as Th. Schott thinks), is the justification of the encouraging assurance previously given. Had they been under the law , Paul would not have been able to give it, because the merely commanding law is the (1Co 15:56 ), and accumulates sins (v. 20), in which reference he intends to discuss the matter still further in ch. 7. But they stand under a quite different power, under grace; and this relation of dependence is quite calculated to bring to the justified that consecration of moral strength, which they require against sin and for the divine life (Rom 5:21 ; Rom 6:1 ff.). “Gratia non solum peccata diluit, sed ut non peccemus facit,” Augustine.

Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary

DISCOURSE: 1847
A PROMISE OF VICTORY OVER SIN

Rom 6:14. Sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace.

IT is often made a ground of objection against the Gospel, that it is unfavourable to morality. But the very reverse of this is true; for the Gospel not only inculcates moral duties as strictly as the law itself, but suggests far stronger motives for the performance of them, and even provides strength whereby we shall be enabled to perform them. A great part of this epistle was written on purpose to establish the doctrine of justification by faith: and yet here is one whole chapter devoted entirely to the enforcing of universal holiness, and to the removing of all ground for the objection before referred to: and in the text an express declaration is given, as from God himself, that sin shall never regain its ascendency over the hearts of his people. We shall consider,

I.

The promise here given us

The promise is express, and relates to our deliverance from sin, of whatever kind it be
[Sin of almost every kind has dominion over the unregenerate man. All persons indeed are not addicted to the same lusts; nor do they gratify any one lust in the same degree: but the seeds of all evil are in the hearts of men; and if any person abstain from any particular act of sin, it is rather because he is not strongly tempted to commit it, than because he has not a propensity to commit it; and it is universally found, that the sins, which are peculiar to our age, our constitution, our situation and circumstances in life, do habitually get the dominion over us. But God promises, that it shall not be so with his people; that they shall be delivered from this ignominious bondage; and be enabled to resist the solicitations of appetite and passion.
We must not however imagine that this promise extends to absolute perfection: for, however desirable the attainment of perfection might be in some points of view, it is not the lot of any in this world. Even the most eminent of Gods saints have failed, and that too, in those very points wherein their peculiar eminence consisted: Abraham, Moses, Job, and all others, have proved sufficiently, that there is not a just man on earth that liveth and sinneth not: and that, if any say they have no sin, they deceive themselves, and the truth is not in them. Nor does the Apostle mean that sin, even of a grosser kind, shall never, in any instance, be found in a child of God; for, as in many things we all offend, so, under the influence of strong temptation, we may act very unsuitably to our holy calling: Noah, Lot, David, Solomon, afford melancholy proofs of such weakness and depravity. But this is asserted in the text, and attested by the universal voice of Scripture, that no child of God shall ever give himself up to the wilful and habitual indulgence of any one sin whatever. No: every child of God will watch against sin in the heart, as well as in the act; and will pray and fight against it to the latest hour of his life And the reason why he never can sin in the same wilful and habitual way that he did before, is, that he has the seed of God, or a living principle of grace, within him, that constantly impels him to hate and flee from all iniquity [Note: 1Jn 3:9.]; and, because he is Christs, he cannot but daily crucify the flesh with its affections and lusts ]

The limiting of this promise to believers leads us to shew,

II.

Its connexion with our new-covenant state

Believers are no longer under the law but under grace
[Once they were, like others, under a covenant, which cursed them for disobedience, but afforded them no hope of pardon for past offences, nor any means of resisting sin in future: but now they have embraced that better covenant, the covenant of grace, wherein God offers them a full remission of all their former sins, and assures them that he himself will give them grace sufficient in every time of need. On this promise they rely, knowing by bitter experience that they have not in themselves a sufficiency even to think a good thought, and that God alone can give them either to will or to do any good thing.]
It is on this very account that God guarantees to them, if we may so speak, the attainment of universal holiness
[By embracing Gods covenant, they become his children, members of his family, and heirs of his glory. Now Gods honour is concerned that his own children shall not be left in bondage to the devil Besides, after having made them heirs of his glory, he never will leave them under the power of a corrupt nature; because that would incapacitate them for the fruition of his glory, even if they were admitted to a participation of it: an unholy nature would utterly unfit them for the services and enjoyments of heaven But there is yet another reason why God fulfils this promise to them; God has made it a part of his covenant, that he will cleanse his people from all their filthiness and all their idols [Note: Eze 36:25-27.]; and pledged his word that he will not only forgive all their sins, but cleanse them from all unrighteousness [Note: 1Jn 1:9.] Now this promise they rest upon, and plead as their only hope; and will God, who cannot lie, rescind it? No: he will fulfil it to them in the time and manner that he judges most conducive to his own glory.]

To improve this subject, let us observe that,
1.

To lay bold on this covenant should be the first great object of our lives

[Where else shall we find deliverance from the judgments denounced against us for our violations of the first covenant, or obtain strength for our obedience to Gods holy will? All efforts of our own will be utterly in vain; it is Christ alone that can effect either the one or the other of these things; and it is only by looking to him, and laying hold of his covenant, that we can obtain these blessings at his hands. But let us once obtain an interest in him, and all these things are ours; pardon, peace, holiness, glory, all are ours, the very instant we believe in him. What then can be put in competition with this? Verily all the things of time and sense sink into utter insignificance, when compared with this: and therefore let us regard this as the one thing needful, and make it the one object of our whole lives to be found in Christ, and to secure the blessings which he has purchased for us.]

2.

None, however, can have any interest in the covenant of grace who do not experience deliverance from sin

[Though no man is admitted into the covenant of grace on account of any holiness that there is in him, yet none are left unholy after that they have been admitted into it. That very grace of God which bringeth us salvation, teaches us to deny every species and degree of ungodliness [Note: Tit 2:11-12.]. To fail in this would be to defeat a principal end of Christs death [Note: Tit 2:14.]. If there be any allowed sin in us, we deceive ourselves, and our religion is vain [Note: Jam 1:26.].]

3.

But none have any reason to despair on account of the inveteracy of their lusts

[Were it required of us to purify our hearts by any exertions of our own, we might well despair. But holiness is not only enjoined; it is promised; it is promised by Him, who is able also to perform. Let none then say, My wound is incurable; for with God all things are possible: and we, however weak in ourselves, shall be able to do all things through Christ who strengthened] us. If we were at this instant led captive by ten thousand lusts, no sin whatever should have dominion over us in future, provided only we took refuge in the covenant of grace ]

4.

Nevertheless, this promise does not supersede the necessity of prayer and watchfulness on our part

[Gods promises are free; yet will he be inquired of by us before he will perform them. Nor are we at liberty to run into temptation because he has promised to keep us; for that would be to tempt him: but, in the exercise of prayer and watchfulness, he will keep us. If Paul, that chosen vessel, was obliged to keep his body under, and to bring it into subjection, lest he himself should be a cast-away, surely the same care and diligence are necessary on our part. It is our comfort however, that, while we run, we do not run as uncertainly; and while we fight, it is not as one who only beats the air [Note: 1Co 9:26.]: for victory is secured for us, and God himself will bruise Satan under our feet, and preserve us blameless to his heavenly kingdom.]

Fuente: Charles Simeon’s Horae Homileticae (Old and New Testaments)

14 For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace.

Ver. 14. Sin shall not have dominion ] Rebel it may, but reign it shall not in any saint. It fareth with sin in the regenerate, as with those beasts, Dan 7:12 ; they had their dominion taken away, yet their lives were prolonged for a season and a time.

Ye are not under the law ] i.e. Under the rigour, irritation, curse of the law, Quatenus est virtue peccati. Or, “ye are not under the law,” sc. of sin, as Rom 7:23 ; Rom 7:25 .

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

14. ] An assurance, confirming (by the ) the possibility of the surrender to God commanded in the last verse, that sin shall not be able to assert and maintain its rule in those who are not under the law but under grace . The future cannot be taken as a command or exhortation, which use of the future would if not always, yet certainly here, require the second person, and would hardly suit a personification like .

The second part of the verse refers back to ch. Rom 5:20-21 , where the law is stated to be the multiplier of transgression, and accords with 1Co 15:56 , , . The stress is on : q. d. ‘Your efforts to live a life of freedom from the tyranny of sin shall not be frustrated by its after all tyrannizing over you and asserting its dominion: for ye are not under that law which is the strength of sin, but under that grace (here in the widest sense, justifying and sanctifying, grace in all its attributes and workings) in which is no condemnation,’ ch. Rom 8:1 .

It will be seen from the above, that I interpret rather of the eventual triumph of sin by obtaining domination over us, than of its reducing us under its subjection as servants in this life. This is necessary, both to fit this verse into the context, and to suit the question which arises in the next. See Calvin’s masterly note. So also Tholuck and De Wette.

The discussions (in Stuart and al.) as to whether . is the moral or ceremonial law, and as to whether we are bound by the former, are irrelevant here: the assertion being merely that of the general matter of fact , about which there can be no question, that we (Christians) are not under the law , placed in a covenant of legal obedience, but under grace, placed in a covenant of justification by faith and under the promise of the indwelling Spirit subjects of a higher law even the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus , ch. Rom 8:2 . Whether we are bound by the law, and how far, depends on how far the law itself spoke the immutable moral truth of God’s government of the world, or was adapted to temporary observances and symbolic rites now abolished, the whole of which subject is not under consideration here. I make these remarks to justify myself for not entering into those long and irrelevant discussions with which many of our commentaries are interrupted, and the sense of the Apostle’s argument confounded.

Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament

Rom 6:14 . They can obey these exhortations, for sin will not be their tyrant now, since they are not under law, but under grace. It is not restraint, but inspiration, which liberate from sin: not Mount Sinai but Mount Calvary which makes saints. But this very way of putting the truth (which will be expanded in chaps. 7 and 8) seems to raise the old difficulty of Rom 3:8 , Rom 6:1 again. The Apostle states it himself, and proceeds to a final refutation of it.

Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson

under. App-104.

the. Omit.

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

14.] An assurance, confirming (by the ) the possibility of the surrender to God commanded in the last verse, that sin shall not be able to assert and maintain its rule in those who are not under the law but under grace. The future cannot be taken as a command or exhortation, which use of the future would if not always, yet certainly here, require the second person,-and would hardly suit a personification like .

The second part of the verse refers back to ch. Rom 5:20-21, where the law is stated to be the multiplier of transgression,-and accords with 1Co 15:56, , . The stress is on : q. d. Your efforts to live a life of freedom from the tyranny of sin shall not be frustrated by its after all tyrannizing over you and asserting its dominion: for ye are not under that law which is the strength of sin, but under that grace (here in the widest sense, justifying and sanctifying,-grace in all its attributes and workings) in which is no condemnation, ch. Rom 8:1.

It will be seen from the above, that I interpret rather of the eventual triumph of sin by obtaining domination over us, than of its reducing us under its subjection as servants in this life. This is necessary, both to fit this verse into the context, and to suit the question which arises in the next. See Calvins masterly note. So also Tholuck and De Wette.

The discussions (in Stuart and al.) as to whether . is the moral or ceremonial law, and as to whether we are bound by the former, are irrelevant here: the assertion being merely that of the general matter of fact, about which there can be no question, that we (Christians) are not under the law, placed in a covenant of legal obedience, but under grace,-placed in a covenant of justification by faith and under the promise of the indwelling Spirit-subjects of a higher law-even the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus, ch. Rom 8:2. Whether we are bound by the law, and how far, depends on how far the law itself spoke the immutable moral truth of Gods government of the world, or was adapted to temporary observances and symbolic rites now abolished,-the whole of which subject is not under consideration here. I make these remarks to justify myself for not entering into those long and irrelevant discussions with which many of our commentaries are interrupted, and the sense of the Apostles argument confounded.

Fuente: The Greek Testament

Rom 6:14. , Shall not have dominion) Sin has neither the right nor the power; it will not force men to become slaves to it against their will.- , under the law) Sin has dominion over him, who is under the law.

Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament

Rom 6:14

Rom 6:14

For sin shall not have dominion over you:-For if you are servants of God, sin shall not have dominion over you to rule you or use your members in the service of sin. [Sin will tempt and harass and ensnare; it will be a powerful, dangerous, and too often victorious enemy; but it shall have no authority over you; it shall not be your lord and master, disposing of you at will, and, as it were, of right.]

for ye are not under law, but under grace.-The law did not touch the heart, but under penalties prohibited wrong and excited the rebellious spirit. You are not under this law of works, but under the grace that touches the heart, excites love, and leads to obedience to the law of faith without exciting the rebellious spirit-a faith that works through love.

Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary

sin: Rom 6:12, Rom 5:20, Rom 5:21, Rom 8:2, Psa 130:7, Psa 130:8, Mic 7:19, Mat 1:21, Joh 8:36, Tit 2:14, Heb 8:10

for ye: Rom 3:19, Rom 3:20, Rom 7:4-11, Gal 3:23, Gal 4:4, Gal 4:5, Gal 4:21, Gal 5:18

under: Rom 6:15, Rom 4:16, Rom 5:21, Rom 11:6, Joh 1:17, 2Co 3:6-9

Reciprocal: Lev 25:41 – then shall Lev 25:55 – my servants Num 23:21 – hath not Jer 3:17 – walk Eze 36:29 – save Joh 8:32 – and the Rom 6:9 – death Rom 6:18 – made Rom 6:22 – But now Rom 7:1 – the law Rom 7:6 – But Rom 7:21 – a law Rom 7:25 – thank God 1Co 9:20 – are under Gal 2:19 – dead Gal 3:25 – we Gal 4:26 – free 1Ti 1:9 – the law Heb 12:18 – General

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

A GREAT PROMISE

Sin shall not have dominion over you.

Rom 6:14

Never think that a really religious life will go on by itself. There are a very great many things necessary to carry on a religious life.

I. All life worth the name, all spiritual life, is in Christ.He is the life, and nothing lives but as it is in union with Christ. No branch can live unless joined to the tree. You must be in Christ, a real member of His mystical body. Then, as He says, Because I live, ye shall live also. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine, no more can ye, except ye abide in Me. I am the life. If you do not recognise and act out that principle, whatsoever be the position of your soul to Christ, before you can overcome, you will be bitterly taught how true and accurate it is that Christ and Christ only is life.

II. There must be the constant inward breathing of the Holy Spirit in you.He must prompt, He must guide, He must strengthen, He must give both the will and the power, He must make you to understand, He must make you to love Gods Word, He must pray in you, He must reprove, He must encourage, He must impart grace to you as the sap gathers nourishment for the branch. Without these two grand truths you will never hold from your domineering sin. The only way to get rid of any sin is to put God in His right place.

III. A life which is not under the dominion of Christ is under the dominion of some sin; and, if eternity were to dawn at this moment, the question with you would be, Sin or Christ? Sin or Christ? More of sin and less of Christ, or more of Christ and less of sin? But remember, remember that heart of yours is, and is meant to be always, the seat of the kingdom of Christ.

Illustration

There is no master so wretched, there is no tyrant so cruel; there is no chain so fast and so galling; there is no bondage so degrading, as the sin which has dominion.

Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary

:14

Rom 6:14. For sin to have dominion over us is equivalent to making a practice of sinning. Under grace means that the New Testament system is one made possible by merciful favor of God, so that one’s mistakes are atoned for constantly by the blood stream of Christ. (See 1Jn 1:7 1Jn 2:1.)

Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary

Rom 6:14. For sin, etc. The future tense is that of confident assertion, and hence of consolation. It is not a new exhortation.

For ye are not under law, etc. This is the reason sin shall not have dominion. Freedom from the law gives you so little freedom to sin, that it is only by the exercise of grace upon you that your freedom from sin has begun (Lange). Here the Apostle prepares for the fuller discussion as to the powerless-ness of the law to sanctify as well as to justify. If the reason sin will not lord it over us, is that we are not under the law, but under grace, then grace sanctifies us, not the law. (Comp. chap. 7 throughout)

Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament

Our apostle having, in the foregoing verses, exhorted them to take care that sin get not any dominion over them by obeying its motions, yielding to its inclinations, and employing the faculties of the soul, and any of the members of the body in the service of sin; in this verse he gives them an encouraging promise, that though sin may rebel, yet is shall reign no more in a regenerate person: And that if they did pray and watch against it, strive and contend with it, though it would have a being and existence in them, yet it should not have a regency and dominion over them; because they were not under the law, or covenant of works, which gave the knowledge of sin, and required exact and perfect obedience, but gave no strength to perform it; but under grace, under a gospel-covenant, which administers strength to resist sin, and to overcome it: Shall sin not have dominion over you; for ye are not under the law, but under grace.

Here observe, 1. The privilege of every regenerate and gracious person; Sin shall not have dominion over him.

Learn hence, That sin should not, and shall not reign over those who are in a state of grace, and under the powerful influence of the Holy Spirit of Christ: De jure, it should not; de facto; it shall not reign.

Sin shall not reign in us, nor have dominion over us.

1. Because of the mischievous influences of it, it plucks the sceptre out of God’s hands, and puts it into Satan’s. The throne of the heart is never empty, ’tis the design of sin to dethrone God and set up itself. And no less mischievous is sin to ourselves; for its servitude is base and burthensome, painful and shameful; the devil is a sure but a sad paymaster; he plagues them most, who have done him most service.

2. Because of the unsuitableness of sin to our renewed state we are not our own, but Christ’s; his by purchase, his by conquest, his by convenant: Now if after such engagements we suffer sin to reign and have dominion over us, we rescind our baptismal vow, ratified by our personal consent.

3. The reason of the foregoing privilege, why sin shall not have dominion over us, because we are not under the law, but under grace.

Question, 1. But are not believers now under the law, though they live under the gospel?

Ans. Yes: They are under the rule and direction of the law, but not under the curse and malediction of the law: they are not under the law as a covenant of life, but they are under it as an eternal rule of living.

The law of God now binds the believer to the observation of it, as strictly as it did Adam in paradise; but upon the unwilling violation of it, he doth not incur the curse, Christ having redeemed us from the curse of the law, by being made a curse for us.

Quest. 2. But were not those that lived under the law of old, in a sort, under grace as well as we?

Ans. Yes, they were, but not in the same degree; good men then had help and assistance in the course of holiness and obedience, when they lived under the law; but they had it not by the law, but by the gospel, which was preached by them as well unto us, Heb 4:2. This administers stength to subdue sin, and power to overcome it.

Learn hence, That the gospel is a manifestation of the Spirit, and furnishes believers with sufficient helps against the power of sin, and with well grounded hopes of obtaining victory over it.

The grace of the gospel gives hopes of victory over sin several ways:

1. Because it was the end of Christ’s death to slay sin.

2. Because of the new nature put into us, which is to help us against sin.

3. By assuring us of the Spirit’s help, which is to assist us in the mortifying and subduing of sin; it inspires the Spirit’s operation that we begin, carry on, and accomplish the work of mortification.

4. Because the gospel furnishes us with promises, and thereby gives us assurance of success: So then, if from all these encouragements we bid a confident defiance unto, and make a courageous resistance against sin, it shall never have a final and full dominion over us, because we are not under the law, but under grace.

Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament

Vv. 14. In fact, sin will not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace.

We have not here a disguised exhortation, expressed by a future taken in the sense of an imperative: Let not sin reign any more…! Why would the apostle not have continued the imperative form used in the preceding verses? It is a future fact made sure to the believer as a glorious promise: What I have just asked of you (to die unto sin and consecrate yourselves to God), ye will certainly be able to do; for it will be impossible for sin to hold its place longer in you; it will no longer be able to reign over you. This promise is the justification of the command given Rom 6:12 : Let not sin reign…! Rom 6:14 is thus the transition from the preceding exhortation to the subsequent development which treats of the believer’s emancipation.

The promise contained in the first proposition is justified in the second. The state of grace, , reconciliation to God, the enjoyment of His favor and the possession of His Spirit, communicate to the soul a victorious power all unknown to the legal state. In this latter there reign the feeling of sin, the fear of condemnation, and the servile spirit, which are the opposite of inward consecration.

And hence sin can be overcome under grace, while it reigns inevitably under law. The apostle has not put the article before the word , law; for, though he is thinking substantially of the Mosaic law, it is as law that he wishes to designate it here, and not as Mosaic law. What he affirms applies to every institution having the character of an external commandment.

But why use the preposition , under, and not the preposition , in, which seems more suitable to a notion like that of the state of grace? Is grace, then, a yoke, as well as the law? Is it not, on the contrary, an inner life, a power? In other connections Paul would certainly have made use of the preposition , in, with the word grace. But the idea of the whole passage about to follow is precisely that of the decisive control which grace exercises over the believer to subject him to righteousness with an authority not less imperious, and even more efficacious than the law (Rom 6:15-23). And it is this idea which is expressed and summed up by the preposition , under.

In the same way, indeed, as the second passage of the section (Rom 6:15-23) is the development of the words under grace, the third (Rom 7:1-6), as we shall see, will be the development of the words, no more under the law. And the logical connection of the three passages is consequently this: After demonstrating in the first that faith in Christ crucified and risen contains in it the principle of a reign of holiness (Rom 6:1-14), the apostle proves that this principle is not less powerful than a law to subdue man to itself (Rom 6:15-23), and that in consequence of this moral subjugation the believer can henceforth without danger renounce the yoke of the law (Rom 7:1-6).

Fuente: Godet Commentary (Luke, John, Romans and 1 Corinthians)

For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under law, but under grace. [Thus the apostle vindicates his teaching, and shows that it does not justify any indulgence in sin. The Christian is to live realizing that in the person of Christ he has already actually passed from death unto life, and that therefore it is incumbent upon him to lead, as far as his strength permits, a life of heavenly perfection. He is to remember that however hard his conflict with sin may be, yet sin is not to lord it over him in the end, so as to procure his final condemnation, for he is under a system of grace which shall procure his pardon in the hour of judgment, and not under a system of law which would, in that hour, most certainly condemn him.]

Fuente: McGarvey and Pendleton Commentaries (New Testament)

14. For sin shall not have dominion over you; because you are not under law, but under grace.The law has no quarrel with any one but the law- breaker, i. e., this old man of sin. Hence, when he is dead, you are as free from the law as if there was no law. When you get rid of everything in your nature that wants to violate the law, you are then just as free from the law as if there were none. In a great city like this (New York), full of policemen, jails, and penitentiaries, I am as free as a bird of paradise. Though I do not know the laws of the city, I have no fear; because I have no longer any disposition to violate any law, human or divine. The four stages, i. e., sin, law, grace, and glory, appertain to every soul in the transition from earth to heaven. Egypt is sin-vexed, Pharaoh emblematizing the devil! The wilderness is law-land, the law actually thundering forth from Sinai in the wilderness, and given to people who were in covenant relation with God and amenable to His law, yet possessed of inbred sin antagonizing the law, and destined to die verifying the penalty of the violated law. Pursuant to the violated law, old Adam is buried deep in the bottom of the Jordan, and Canaan, grace-land, is entered amid the triumphant shouts which knock down the walls of Jericho. In Egypt we had guilt; in the wilderness, depravity; and in Canaan, infirmity; justification taking us out of bondage, sanctification out of legalism, and finally glorification sweeping away all infirmities and transporting us out of grace into glory.

Fuente: William Godbey’s Commentary on the New Testament

Verse 14

Shall not have dominion over you; make you the victim of its remorse and its penalties.–Not under the law; not dependent upon having fulfilled the law for salvation, but upon grace, that is, mercy.

Fuente: Abbott’s Illustrated New Testament

6:14 {7} For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace.

(7) He grants that sin is not yet so dead in us that it is utterly extinct: but he promises victory to those that contend bravely, because we have the grace of God given to us which works so that the law is not now in us the power and instrument of sin.

Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes

"In Rom 6:1-11 the Apostle has shown what it means to be united to Christ; in Rom 6:12-13 he has shown the consequences and made his appeal to the believer; and now in Rom 6:14 he assures us of the Divine provision for the complete fulfillment of these exhortations." [Note: Griffith Thomas, St. Paul’s Epistle . . ., p. 171.]

The apostle concluded this section of his argument with a word of encouragement. Sin will no longer master the believer. The basic reason for this is that we are not under the Mosaic Law as the authority under which we live but under grace. Satan can no longer use the Law to hinder the believer’s progress (cf. Rom 3:23). God has redeemed us, not by the Law but by grace. We now live under that authority. Paul dealt with the tension this situation creates for the believer in chapter 7.

Usually "grace" refers to the principle by which God operates. Yet it also describes the sphere in which the believer lives, as here (cf. Rom 5:2), as "the Law" describes the old realm. "Under grace" is not, however, a condition in which we are free from any responsibility (cf. Mat 11:28-30; Tit 2:11-12), as Paul proceeded to clarify in Rom 6:15-23. Neither was there no grace under the Mosaic Law.

"Romans 6 is the classic biblical text on the importance of relating the ’indicative’ of what God has done for us with the ’imperative’ of what we are to do. Paul stresses that we must actualize in daily experience the freedom from sin’s lordship (cf. Rom 6:14 a) that is ours ’in Christ Jesus.’" [Note: Moo, pp. 390-91.]

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

Chapter 15

JUSTIFICATION AND HOLINESS: ILLUSTRATIONS FROM HUMAN LIFE

Rom 6:14-23 – Rom 7:1-6

AT the point we have now reached, the Apostles thought pauses for a moment, to resume. He has brought us to self-surrender. We have seen the sacred obligations of our divine and wonderful liberty. We have had the miserable question, “Shall we cling to sin?” answered by an explanation of the rightness and the bliss of giving over our accepted persons, in the fullest liberty of will, to God, in Christ. Now he pauses, to illustrate and enforce. And two human relations present themselves for the purpose; the one to show the absoluteness of the surrender, the other its living results. The first is Slavery, the second is Wedlock.

For sin shall not have dominion over you; sin shall not put in its claim upon you, the claim which the Lord has met in your Justification; for you are not brought under law, but under grace. The whole previous argument explains this sentence. He refers to our acceptance. He goes back to the justification of the guilty, “without the deeds of law,” by the act of free grace; and briefly restates it thus, that he may take up afresh the position that this glorious liberation means not license but divine order. Sin shall be no more your tyrant creditor, holding up the broken law in evidence that it has right to lead you off to a pestilential prison, and to death. Your dying Saviour has met your creditor in full for you, and in Him you have entire discharge in that eternal court where the terrible plea once stood against you. Your dealings as debtors are now not with the enemy who cried for your death, but with the Friend who has bought you out of his power.

What then? are we to sin, because we are not brought under law, but under grace? Shall our life be a life of license, because we are thus wonderfully free? The question assuredly is one which, like that of ver. 1, and like those suggested in Rom 3:8; Rom 3:31, had often been asked of St. Paul, by the bitter opponent, or by the false follower. And again it illustrates and defines, by the direction of its error, the line of truth from which it flew off. It helps to do what we remarked above, to assure us that when St. Paul taught “Justification by faith, without deeds of law,” he meant what he said, without reserve; he taught that great side of truth wholly, and without a compromise. He called the sinner, “just as he was, and waiting not to rid his soul of one dark blot,” to receive at once, and without fee, the acceptance of God for Anothers blessed sake. Bitter must have been the moral pain of seeing, from the first, this holy freedom distorted into an unhallowed leave to sin. But he will not meet it by an impatient compromise, or untimely confusion. It shall be answered by a fresh collocation; the liberty shall be seen in its relation to the Liberator; and behold, the perfect freedom is a perfect service, willing but. absolute, a slavery joyfully accepted, with open eyes and open heart, and then lived out as the most real of obligations by a being who has entirely seen that he is not his own.

Away with the thought. Do you not know that the party to whom you present, surrender, yourselves bondservants, slaves, so as to obey him, -bondservants you are, not the less for the freewill of the surrender, of the party whom you obey; no longer merely contractors with him, who may bargain, or retire, but his bondservants out and out; whether of sin, to death, or of obedience, to righteousness? (As if their assent to Christ, their Amen to His terms of peace, acceptance, righteousness, were personified; they were now the bondsmen of this their own act and deed, which had put them, as it were, into Christs hands for all things.) Now thanks be to our God, that you were bondmen of sin, in legal claim, and under moral sway; yes, every one of you was this, whatever forms the bondage took upon its surface; but you obeyed from the heart the mould of teaching to which you were handed over. They had been sins slaves. Verbally, not really, he “thanks God” for that fact of the past. Really, not verbally, he “thanks God” for the pastness of the fact, and for the bright contrast to it in the regenerated present. They had now been “handed over,” by their Lords transaction about them, to another ownership, and they had accepted the transfer, “from the heart.” It was done by Another for them, but they had said their humble, thankful that as He did it. And what was the new ownership thus accepted? We shall find soon (Rom 6:22), as we might expect, that it is the mastery of God. But the bold, vivid introductory imagery has already called it (Rom 6:16) the slavery of “Obedience.” Just below (Rom 6:19-20) it is the slavery of “Righteousness,” that is, if we read the word aright in its whole context, of “the Righteousness of God,” His acceptance of the sinner as His own in Christ. And here, in a phrase most unlikely of all, whose personification strikes life into the most abstract aspects of the message of the grace of God, the believer is one who has been transferred to the possession of “a mould of Teaching.” The Apostolic Doctrine, the mighty Message, the living Creed of life, the Teaching of the acceptance of the guilty for the sake of Him who was their Sacrifice, and is now their Peace and Life-this truth has, as it: were, grasped them as its vassals, to form them, to mould them for its issues. It is indeed their “tenet.” It “holds them”; a thought far different from what is too often meant when we say of a doctrine that “we hold it.” Justification by their Lords merit, union with their Lords life; this was a doctrine, reasoned, ordered, verified. But it was a doctrine warm and tenacious with the love of the Father and of the Son. And it had laid hold of them with a mastery which swayed thought, affection, and will; ruling their whole view of self and of God. Now, liberated from your sin, you were enslaved to the Righteousness of God. Here is the point of the argument. It is a point of steel, for all is fact; but the steel is steeped in love, and carries life and joy into the hearts it penetrates. They are not for one moment their own. Their acceptance has magnificently emancipated them from their tyrant enemy. But it has absolutely bound them to their Friend and King. Their glad consent to be accepted has carried with it a consent to belong. And if that consent was at the moment rather implied than explicit, virtual rather than articulately conscious, they have now only to understand their blessed slavery better to give the more joyful thanksgivings to Him who has thus claimed them altogether as His own.

The Apostles aim in this whole passage is to awaken them, with the strong, tender touch of his holy reasoning, to articulate their position to themselves. They have trusted Christ, and are in Him. Then, they have entrusted themselves altogether to Him. Then, they have, in effect, surrendered. They have consented to be His property. They are the bondservants, they are the slaves, of His truth, that is, of Him robed and revealed in His Truth, and shining through it on them in the glory at once of His grace and of His claim. Nothing less than such an obligation is the fact for them. Let them feel, let them weigh, and then let them embrace, the chain which after all will only prove their pledge of rest and freedom.

What St. Paul thus did for our elder brethren at Rome, let him do for us of this later time. For us, who read this page, all the facts are true in Christ today. Today let us define and affirm their issues to ourselves, and recollect our holy bondage, and realise it, and live it out with joy.

Now he follows up the thought. Conscious of the superficial repulsiveness of the metaphor-quite as repulsive in itself to the Pharisee as to the Englishman-he as it were apologises for it; not the less carefully, in his noble considerateness, because so many of his first readers were actually slaves. He does not lightly go for his picture of our Masters hold of us, to the market of Corinth, or of Rome, where men and women were sold and bought to belong as absolutely to their buyers as cattle, or as furniture. Yet he does go there, to shake slow perceptions into consciousness, and bring the will face to face with the claim of God. So he proceeds. I speak humanly, I use the terms of this utterly not-divine bond of man to man, to illustrate mans glorious bond to God, because of the weakness of your flesh, because your yet imperfect state enfeebles your spiritual perception, and demands a harsh paradox to direct and fix it., For-here is what he means by “humanly”-just as you surrendered your limbs, your functions and faculties in human life, slaves to your impurity and to your lawlessness, unto that lawlessness, so that the bad principle did indeed come out in bad practice, so now, with as little reserve of liberty, surrender your limbs slaves to righteousness, to Gods Righteousness, to your justifying God, unto sanctification-so that the surrender shall come out in your Masters sovereign separation of His purchased property from sin.

He has appealed to the moral reason of the regenerate soul. Now he speaks straight to the will. You are, with infinite rightfulness, the bondmen of your God. You see your deed of purchase; it is the other side of your warrant of emancipation. Take it, and write your own unworthy names with joy upon it, consenting and assenting to your Owners perfect rights. And then live out your life, keeping the autograph of your own surrender before your eyes. Live, suffer, conquer, labour, serve, as men who have themselves walked to their Masters door, and presented the ear to the awl which pins it to the doorway, each in his turn saying, “I will not go out free.”

To such an act of the soul the Apostle calls these saints, whether they had done the like before or no. They were to sum up the perpetual fact, then and there, into a definite and critical act (, aorist) of thankful will. And he calls us to do the same today. By the grace of God, it shall be done. With eyes open, and fixed upon the face of the Master who claims us, and with hands placed helpless and willing within His hands, we will, we do, present ourselves bondservants to Him; for discipline, for servitude, for all His will.

For when you were slaves of your sin, you were freemen as to righteousness, Gods Righteousness. It had nothing to do with you, whether to give you peace or to receive your tribute of love and loyalty in reply. Practically, Christ was not your Atonement, and so not your Master; you stood, in a dismal independence, outside His claims. To you, your lips were your own; your time was your own; your will was your own. You belonged to self; that is to say, you were the slaves of your sin. Will you go back? Will the word “freedom” (he plays with it, as it were, to prove them) make you wish yourselves back where you were before you had endorsed by faith your purchase by the blood of Christ? Nay, for what was that “freedom,” seen in its results, its results upon yourselves? What fruit, therefore, (the “therefore” of the logic of facts,) used you to have then, in those old days, from things over which you are ashamed now? Ashamed indeed; for the end, the issue, as the fruit is the trees “end,” the end of those things is-death; perdition of all true life here and hereafter too. But now, in the blessed actual state of your case, as by faith you have entered into Christ, into His work and into His life, now liberated from sin and enslaved to God, you have your fruit, you possess indeed, at last, the true issues of being for which you were made, all contributing to sanctification, to that separation to Gods will in practice which is the development of your separation to that will in critical fact, when you met your Redeemer in self-renouncing faith. Yes, this fruit you have indeed; and as its end, as that for which it is produced, to which it always and forever tends, you have life eternal. For the pay of sin, sins military stipend (), punctually given to the being which has joined its war against the will of God, is death; but the free gift of God is life eternal, in Jesus Christ our Lord.

“Is life worth living?” Yes, infinitely well worth, for the living man who has surrendered to “the Lord that bought him.” Outside that ennobling captivity, that invigorating while most genuine bond service, the life of man is at best complicated and tired with a bewildered quest, and gives results at best abortive, matched with the ideal purposes of such a being. We “present ourselves to God,” for His ends, as implements, vassals, willing bondmen; and lo, our own end is attained. Our life has settled, after its long friction, into gear. Our root, after hopeless explorations in the dust, has struck at last the stratum where the immortal water makes all things live, and grow, and put forth fruit for heaven. The heart, once dissipated between itself and the world, is now “united” to the will, to the love, of God; and understands itself, and the world, as never before; and is able to deny self and to serve others in a new and surprising freedom. The man, made willing to be nothing but the tool and bondman of God, “has his fruit” at last; bears the true product of his now recreated being, pleasant to the Masters eye, and fostered by His air and sun. And this “fruit” issues, as acts issue in habit, in the glad experience of a life really sanctified, really separated in ever deeper inward reality, to a holy will. And the “end” of the whole glad possession, is “life eternal.”

Those great words here signify, surely, the coming bliss of the sons of the resurrection, when at last in their whole perfected being they will “live” all through, with a joy and energy as inexhaustible as its Fountain, and unencumbered at last and forever by the conditions of our mortality. To that vast future, vast in its scope yet all concentrated round the fact that “we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is,” the Apostle here looks onward. He will say more of it, and more largely, later, in the eighth chapter. But as with other themes so with this, he preludes with a few glorious chords the great strain soon to come. He takes the Lords slave by the hand, amidst his present tasks and burthens, (dear tasks and burthens, because the Masters, but still full of the conditions of earth,) and he points upward-not to a coming manumission in glory; the man would be dismayed to foresee that; he wants to “serve forever”; -but to a scene of service in which the last remainders of hindrance to its action will be gone, and a perfected being will forever, perfectly, be not its own, and so will perfectly live in God. And this, so he says to his fellow servant, to you and to me, is “the gift of God”; a grant as free, as generous, as ever King gave vassal here below. And it is to be enjoyed as such, by a being which, living wholly for Him, will freely and purely exult to live wholly on Him, in the heavenly places.

Yet surely the bearing of the sentences is not wholly upon heaven. Life eternal, so to be developed hereafter that Scripture speaks of it often as it began hereafter, really begins here, and develops here, and is already “more abundant” {Joh 10:10} here. It is, as to its secret and also its experience, to know and to enjoy God, to be possessed by Him, and used for His will. In this respect it is “the end,” the issue and the goal, now and perpetually, of the surrender of the soul. The Master meets that attitude with more and yet more of Himself, known, enjoyed, possessed, possessing. And so He gives, evermore gives, out of His sovereign bounty, life eternal to the bondservant who has embraced the fact that he is nothing, and has nothing, outside his Master. Not at the outset of the regenerate life only, and not only when it issues into the heavenly ocean, but all along the course, the life eternal is still “the free gift of God.” Let us now, today, tomorrow, and always, open the lips of surrendering and obedient faith, and drink it in, abundantly, and yet more abundantly. And let us use it for the Giver.

We are already, here on earth, at its very springs; so the Apostle reminds us. For it is “in Jesus Christ our Lord”; and we, believing, are in Him, “saved in His life.” It is in Him; nay, it is He. “I am the Life”; “He that hath the Son, hath the life.” Abiding in Christ, we live “because He liveth.” It is not to be “attained”; it is given, it is our own. In Christ, it is given, in its divine fulness, as to covenant provision, here, now, from the first, to every Christian. In Christ, it is supplied, as to its fulness and fitness for each arising need, as the Christian asks, receives, and uses for his Lord.

So from, or rather in, our holy bond service the Apostle has brought us to our inexhaustible life, and its resources for willing holiness. But he has more to say in explaining the beloved theme. He turns from slave to wife, from surrender to bridal, from the purchase to the vow, from the results of a holy bondage to the offspring of a heavenly union. Hear him as he proceeds:

Or do you not know, brethren, (for I am talking to those acquainted with law, whether Mosaic or Gentile,) that the law has claim on the man, the party in any given case, for his whole lifetime? For the woman with a husband is to her living husband bound by law, stands all along bound to him. “His life,” under normal conditions, is his adequate claim. Prove him living, and you prove her his. But if the husband should have died, she stands ipso facto cancelled from the husbands law, the marriage law as he could bring it to bear against her. So, therefore, while the husband lives, she will earn adulteress for her name if she weds another (“a second”) husband. But if the husband should have died, she is free from the law in question, so as to be no adulteress, if wedded to another, a second, husband. Accordingly, my brethren, you too, as a mystic bride, collectively and individually, were done to death as to the Law, so slain that its capital claim upon you is met “and done,” by means of the Body of the Christ, by the “doing to death” of His sacred Body for you, on His atoning Cross, to satisfy for you the aggrieved Law; in order to your wedding Another, a second Party, Him who rose from the dead; that we might bear fruit for God; “we,” Paul and his converts, in one happy “fellowship,” which he delights thus to remember and indicate by the way.

The parable is stated and explained with a clearness which leaves us at first the more surprised that in the application the illustration should be reversed. In the illustration, the husband dies, the woman lives, and weds again. In the application, the Law does not die, but we, its unfaithful bride, are “done to death to it,” and then, strange sequel, are wedded to the Risen Christ. We are taken by Him to be “one spirit” with Him. {1Co 6:17} We are made one in all His interests and wealth, and fruitful of a progeny of holy deeds in this vital union. Shall we call all this a simile confused? Not if we recognise the deliberate and explicit carefulness of the whole passage. St. Paul, we may be sure, was quite as quick as we are to see the inverted imagery. But he is dealing with a subject which would be distorted by a mechanical correspondence in the treatment. The Law cannot die, for it is the preceptive will of God. Its claim is, in its own awful forum domesticum, like the injured Roman husband, to sentence its own unfaithful wife to death. And so it does; so it has done. But behold, its Maker and Master steps upon the scene. He surrounds the guilty one with Himself, takes her whole burthen on Himself, and meets and exhausts her doom. He dies. He lives again, after death, because of death; and the Law acclaims His resurrection as infinitely just. He rises, clasping in His arms her for whom He died, and who thus died in Him, and now, rises in Him. Out of His sovereign love, while the Law attests the sure contract, and rejoices as “the Bridegrooms Friend,” He claims her-herself, yet in Him another-for His blessed Bride.

All is love, as if we walked through the lily gardens of the holy Song, and heard the call of the turtle in the vernal woods, and saw the King and His Beloved rest and rejoice in one another. All is law, as if we were admitted to watch some process of Roman matrimonial contract, stern and grave, in which every right is scrupulously considered, and every claim elaborately secured, without a smile, without an embrace, before the magisterial chair. The Church, the soul, is married to her Lord, who has died for her, and in whom now she lives. The transaction is infinitely happy. And it is absolutely right. All the old terrifying claims are amply and forever met. And now the mighty, tender claims which take their place instantly and of course begin to bind the Bride. The Law has “given her away”-not to herself, but to the Risen Lord.

For this, let us remember, is the point and bearing of the passage. It puts before us, with its imagery at once so grave and so benignant, not only the mystic Bridal, but the Bridal as it is concerned with holiness. The Apostles object is altogether this. From one side and from another he reminds us that “we belong.” He has shown us our redeemed selves in their blessed bond service; “free from sin, enslaved to God.” He now shows us to ourselves in our divine wedlock; “married to Another,” “bound to the law of” the heavenly Husband; clasped to His heart, but also to His rights, without which the very joys of marriage would be only sin. From either parable the inference is direct, powerful, and, when we have once seen the face of the Master and of the Husband, unutterably magnetic on the will. You are set free, into a liberty as supreme and as happy as possible. You are appropriated, into a possession, and into a union, more close and absolute than language can set forth. You are wedded to One who “has and holds from this time forward.” And the sacred bond is to be prolific of results. A life of willing and loving obedience, in the power of the risen Bridegrooms life, is to have as it were for its progeny the fair circle of active graces, “love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, fidelity, meekness, self-control.”

Alas, in the time of the old-abolished wedlock there was result, there was progeny. But that was the fruit not of the union but of its violation. For when we were in the flesh, in our unregenerate days, when our rebel self, the antithesis of “the Spirit,” ruled and denoted us, (a state, he implies, in which we all were once, whatever our outward differences were,) the passions, the strong but reasonless impulses, of our sins, which passions were by means of the Law, occasioned by the fact of its just but unloved claim, fretting the self-life into action, worked actively in our limbs, in our bodily life in its varied faculties and senses, so as to bear fruit for death. We wandered, restive, from our bridegroom, the Law, to Sin, our paramour. And behold, a manifold result of evil deeds and habits, born as it were into bondage in the house of Death. But now, now as the wonderful case stands in the grace of God, we are (it is the aorist, but our English fairly represents it) abrogated from the Law, divorced from our first injured Partner, nay, slain (in our crucified Head) in satisfaction of its righteous claim, as having died with regard to that in which we were held captive, even the Law and its violated bond, so that we do bond service in the Spirits newness, and not in the Letters oldness.

Thus he comes back, through the imagery of wedlock, to that other parable of slavery which has become so precious to his heart. So that we do bond service, “so that we live a slave life.” It is as if he must break in on the heavenly Marriage itself with that brand and bond, not to disturb the joy of the Bridegroom and the Bride, but to clasp to the Brides heart the vital fact that she is not her own; that fact so blissful, but so powerful also and so practical that it is “worth anything” to bring it home.

It is to be no dragging and dishonouring bondage, in which the poor toiler looks wistfully out for the sinking sun and the extended shadows. It is to be “not in the Letters oldness”; no longer on the old principle of the dread and unrelieved “Thou shalt,” cut with a pen of legal iron upon the stones of Sinai; bearing no provision of enabling power, but all possible provision of doom for the disloyal. It is to be “in the Spirits newness”; on the new, wonderful principle, new in its full manifestation and application in Christ, of the Holy Ghosts empowering presence. In that light and strength the new relations are discovered, accepted, and fulfilled. Joined by the Spirit to the Lord Christ, so as to have full benefit of His justifying merit; filled by the Spirit with the Lord Christ, so as to derive freely and always the blessed virtues of His life; the willing bondservant finds in his absolute obligations an inward liberty ever “new,” fresh as the dawn, pregnant as the spring. And the worshipping Bride finds in the holy call to “keep her only unto Him” who has died for her life, nothing but a perpetual surprise of love and gladness, “new every morning,” as the Spirit shows her the heart and the riches of her Lord.

Thus closes, in effect, the Apostles reasoned exposition of the self-surrender of the justified. Happy the man who can respond to it all with the “Amen” of a life which, reposing on the Righteousness of God, answers ever to His Will with the loyal gladness found in “the newness of the Spirit.” It is “perfect freedom” to understand, in experience, the bondage and the bridal of the saints.

Fuente: Expositors Bible Commentary