Romans 6:16

Know ye not As a self-evident truth, that bond-service, once accepted, becomes binding. This general principle is at once applied to the special cases of Sin and Obedience regarded as personified Masters. The clauses to the end of Romans 6:18 may be thus summarized: "All bond-service, once accepted, is binding, and forbids divided servitude; this is as true of the obligations of Pardon as of those of Condemnation; of Justification as of Death. And you, thank God, have now passed from the latter to the former. Remember then, that in the very act of leaving the bond-service of sin you entered that of Pardon as taught in the Gospel, and are thus bound to obeyas much as ever, though in the opposite direction."

unto death unto righteousness The results("death," "righteousness") of the respective "servitudes" are not necessaryto the immediate statement, but are brought in as inseparable from the whole subject.

obedience This is here the personified Master, the antithesis of Sin. The context, (Romans 6:17,) and Romans 10:3, (see also 1 Peter 1:2,) shew its meaning here to be the act of submission to the Divine terms of pardon. It is thus the practical equivalent of those terms, which are to be the ruling principleof the new life.

righteousness The Gr. may here be paraphrased(not translated) by Justification. In such a paraphrase we are far from shutting a moral meaning out of the word; but a careful collation of passages in this Epistlemakes it reasonably clear that its ruling reference in this argument is to the legal sideof righteousness; i.e. to what the Law will view as righteous, and so to the persons whom it will view as possessing righteousness. Such a possession, in the case of "the ungodly" (Romans 4:5), is explained by St Paul as wholly due to the righteousness of their Representative. In other words they are justified for His sake. Thus "righteousness" is used as a summary for the process of justification, though strictly applicable only to one part of the subject. Here we may paraphrase: "Ye became the bond-servants of God's Terms of Pardon, to which you submitted with a submission that resulted in your being reckoned righteous in the eye of His Law."