What does Romans 6:14 mean?
The context of this passage is the spiritual condition of those who are saved. Paul's remarks here are about those who have expressed saving faith in Christ, not to the entire human race (Romans 5:1). Paul concludes his commands to not allow sin to tell us what to do. He again reminds the reader that sin has no authority in our lives any longer. Those without Christ, standing on their own merits apart from God, are compelled to sin. As we once were, they are slaves to sin. Because Christ rescued us, that's not who we are any more. Sin is not the boss of us.Now Paul adds a surprising thought. We are not under sin's authority because we are not under the law. In some sense, being under the law revealed how powerless we were against our own desires to sin. Instead, Paul writes, we are under grace. Because of God's grace, we are no longer compelled to sin.
Romans 6:1–14 explores how Christians should think about and respond to sin now that we are in Christ and our sins are forgiven. In explaining this, Paul reveals new information about what happened when we put our faith in Christ. In a spiritual sense, we died with Him, and to our sin. We were then resurrected to a new spiritual life. Now Paul instructs us to continue remembering that we are no longer slaves to sin. We must not offer our bodies to be used for sin, but we must offer ourselves as instruments of righteousness, instead.
In Romans 6, Paul answers the question of whether Christians should continue to sin. His answer is emphatic: we absolutely should not. First, when we came to God by faith in Jesus, we died to sin. We are not slaves to it any more. Second, what did living for sin ever get us? It led to shame and death. The righteousness given to us for free by God in Christ Jesus leads to becoming like Jesus and to eternal life. We should serve righteousness instead of sin.
