Romans 6:12-23

Conciliation-Individual

12 A realization of our death to sin and life in Christ will give us power to cope with sin, always remembering that sin cannot bring us into disfavor because of the superexceeding grace.

14 Law, as we shall see in the next chapter, not only cannot deliver from Sin, but actually forges the fetters of Sin, and makes Sin's bondage more cruel and galling.

15 The law said, "Accursed is everyone who is not remaining in all things written in the Scroll of the Law, to do them." Grace says, Blessed are you, whatever you may do, for Christ has justified you and not one dare bring anything against you. The fallacious logic of the old humanity in immediately imagines that this gives license and encouragement to sin. But its actual effect is quite the opposite. Grace, not law, has power to deter us from sinning. No one who has an actual experience of grace, reasons that because there is immunity, therefore he will sin. The offender against law flies in the face of law. Its austere threats do not hinder him.

But the offender against grace feels the heinousness of his offense and flies from it.

16 All of us are slaves, however much we may vaunt our liberty. We are controlled either by Sin or by Obedience. It is a cause of thankfulness that we all have had service under Sin, for only so could we realize the nature of such slavery. But we have not been taken from Sin's service to become idle. We have been transferred to the service of Righteousness.

20 Slaves of Sin can produce only the fruits of sin and know that the only possible outcome is death. But slaves of Righteousness have a brighter outlook. Even though ashamed of their lawless deeds, they look for life eonian.

23 Sin, like slave holders, does not pay wages, but only supplies rations. This consists, at present, in an attitude toward God which is the equivalent of death, for all Sin's slaves avoid God's presence. Hence their deeds will result in destruction. Neither do we, as slaves, look for wages. God not only gives, but gives graciously, or gratuitously, the very reward which is only for those whose endurance in good acts merits it-eonian life, or life for the eons (Rom_2:7).

1 The apostle now addresses particularly those who have been under law, that is, who were of the Circumcision. His appeal, however, is not to the law itself, but to the nature of all law, that it has jurisdiction only over those who are alive.

2 The law of wedlock is given as a well-known example. A woman's subjection to her husband lasts only for his life. During his life she may have no relations with other men. After his death the ties which bind her to anew husband are just as sacred as those which united her to the former one.

4 A wife and her husband are one flesh (Gen_2:24), hence the wife dies with the husband, but the woman remains. Those united to Christ under law died with Him to the law. Union with Christ in resurrection is a new relationship beyond the sphere of the law.

6 Exemption from the law applies only to those who were under the law. As the law is not unjust, like Sin, but just and holy, they continue to serve, no longer in letter, but in spirit.

7 The mistaken deduction from the foregoing is that the law itself is sin. Else why cease to serve its letter? Or else how does it make sin more sinful and transform it into an offense? Sin is not known in its true character except through law. Instead of sin being ignorant inability, it becomes the opposite. It is active hostility. The law which seemed to be given to regulate, only roused it. Sin is dormant or dead until law comes and gives it life. The law which should have given the sinner life, gave life to sin. It should have been the death blow of sin, but it became the death of the sinner. All this shows how futile it is to try to reform or regulate or conquer sin. It not only acts in darkness and ignorance but transforms the very light into an agent of death. The law offered life to those under it, on terms which, apart from sin, were all that could be desired. But sin not only disabled them so that they could not take advantage of its provisions, but involved them in its condemnation by stirring their passions against its just decrees.