For sin shall not have dominion over you; for ye are not under law, but under grace. As to the force of the future here, οὐ κυριεύσει, see what was said under Romans 6:5. Here also no more seems, at first sight, to be meant than that God, if we respond to his grace, will not let sin have dominion over us; we shall, in fact, if we are willing, be enabled to resist it. "Invitos nos non coget [peccatum] ad serviendum tibi" (Bengel). And the reason given is suitable to this meaning: "For ye are not under law" (which, while it makes sin sinful and exacts its full penalty, imparts no power to overcome it), "but under grace" (which does communicate such power). Thus understanding the verse, we see the distinction between βασιλευέτω in Romans 6:12 and κυριεύσει here. In Romans 6:12 we are exhorted not to let sin reign; we are to own no allegiance to it as a king whose rule we must obey. But it still will try to usurp lordship over us—in vain, however, if we resist the usurpation: οὑ κυριεύσει ἡμῶν. The sense thus given to the verse is what its own language and the previous context suggest. But Romans 6:15, which follows, suggests a different meaning. "What then? shall we sin, because we are not under law, but under grace?" Such a question could not arise on the statement of the preceding verse, if its meaning were understood to be that grace will enable us to avoid sin; it rather supposes the meaning that grace condones sin. Hence, in Romans 6:15 at least, a different aspect of the difference between being under law and being under grace seems evidently to come in; namely, this—that the principle of law is to exact complete obedience to its behests; but the principle of grace is to accept faith in lieu of complete obedience. If, then, ἁμαρτία ὑμῶν ου) κυριεύσει in Romans 6:14 is to be understood in agreement with this idea, it must mean, "Sin, though it still infects you, shall not lord it over you so as to bring you into condemnation.'' Calvin has a good note on the verse. He allows the first of the expositions of it given above to be "una quae caeteris prohabilius sustineri queat." But he thinks that Romans 6:15, following, requires the other, and he concludes thus: "Vult enim nos consolari apostolus, ne animis fatiscamus in studio bene agendi, propterea quod multas imperfectiones adhuc in nobis sentiamus. Uteunque enim peccati aculeis vexemut, non petest tamen nos subigere, quia Spiritu Dei superiores reddimur: deinde in gratia constituti, sumus liberati a rigida Legis exactione." It may be that the apostle, when he wrote Romans 6:14, meant what the previous context suggests, but passed on in Romans 6:15 to the other idea in view of the way in which his words might be understood. In what follows next (Romans 6:15-23) is introduced the second illustration (see former note), drawn from the human relations between masters and slaves. It comes in by way of meeting the supposed abuse of the statement of Romans 6:14; but it serves as a further proof of the general position that is being upheld. The word κυριεύσει in Romans 6:14 suggests this particular illustration. We being under grace, it had been said, sin will not be our master, whence the inference was supposed to be drawn that we may sin with impunity, and without thereby subjecting ourselves to the mastery of sin. Nay, it is replied, but it will be our master, if in practice we consent to be its servants.
What then? shall we sin, because we are not under law, but under grace! God forbid. Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey (literally, unto obedience), his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness? This is not a truism, as it would seem to be if it only meant, "whoso servants ye become, his servants ye are." "Ye yield yourselves" ( παριστάνετε, cf. Romans 6:13) denotes acts of yielding. "Ye are" ( ἕστε) denotes condition. The meaning is that by our conduct we show which master we are under; and we cannot serve two (Matthew 6:24; Luke 16:13; of. John 8:34, "Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin;" and 1 John 3:7, "He that doeth righteousness is righteous"). The two incompatible services are here said to be of sin and of obedience, with their respective tendencies or results, death and righteousness. A more exact antithesis to the first clause would have been "of righteousness unto life;" life being the proper antithesis of death, and righteousness being afterwards said, in Romans 6:18 and Romans 6:19, to be what we ought to be in bondage to. But though the sentence seems thus defective in form, its meaning is plain. ὑπακοῆς means here specifically obedience to God, not obedience to any master as in Romans 6:16; and though in English "servants of obedience,'' as though obedience were a master, is an awkward phrase, yet we might properly say, "servants of duty," in opposition to "servants of sin;" and this is what is meant. It may be that the apostle purposely avoided here speaking of believers being slaves of righteousness in the sense in which they had been slaves of sin, because subjection to righteousness is not properly slavery, but willing obedience. He uses the expression, indeed, afterwards (Romans 6:18), but adds at once, ἀνθρώπινον λέγω, etc. (see note on this last expression). Death, "unto" which the service of sin is here said to be, cannot be mere natural death, to which all are subject. Meyer (with Chrysostom, Theophylact, and other ancients) takes it to mean eternal death, as the final result of bondage to sin; δικαιοσύνη, antithetically correlative, being regarded as applying to the time of final perfection of the faithful in the world to come—"the righteousness which is awarded to them in the judgment." Seeing, however, that the word δικαιοσύνη is used throughout the Epistle to denote what is attainable in this present life, and that θάνατος is often used to express a state of spiritual death, which men may be in at any time (see additional note on Romans 6:12; and cf. Romans 7:9, Romans 7:10, Romans 7:13, Romans 7:24; Romans 8:6, Romans 8:13; also John 5:24; 1 John 3:14), it is at least a question whether the final doom of the last judgment is here at all exclusively in the apostle's view.
But thanks be to God, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine whereunto ye were delivered. (Not, as in the Authorized Version, which was delivered you). Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness. There is no contradiction between what is here said and the fear previously implied lest the persons addressed might still serve sin. He refers them back to the time of their baptism, when he conceives them both to have understood their obligation (cf. Romans 6:3), and also to have been heartily sincere. The fear was lest they might have relaxed since, perhaps through infection with antinomian teaching. By the "form of doctrine" or "of instruction" ( τύπον διδαχῆς) is not at all likely to be meant (as some have supposed) any distinctive type of Christian teaching, such as the Pauline (so Meyer). Usually elsewhere, where St. Paul uses the word τύπος, it is of persons being examples or patterns to others (1 Corinthians 10:6; Philippians 3:17; 1 Thessalonians 1:7; 2 Thessalonians 3:9; 1 Timothy 4:12; Titus 2:7). Somewhat similarly, in Romans 5:14, Adam is τύπος τοῦ μέλλοντος; and in 1 Corinthians 10:6 the things which happened to the Israelites in the wilderness were τύποι to us. These are all the instances of the use of the word in St. Paul's Epistles. Here, therefore, it may be best to understand it (so as to retain the idea of pattern) as the general Christian code into which converts had been indoctrinated, regarded as a norma agendi "Norma ilia et regula, ad quam se conformat servus, tautum ei per doctrinam ostenditur; urgeri eum non opus est" (Bengel on διδαχῆς).