Not Under The Law But Under Grace

“Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.” -Romans 6:12–14

Here we have one of the most profound truths in Christianity as wells as one of the most profoundly misunderstood and abused verses in the Bible.

Paul has argued eloquently and cogently that the one who believes the promise of God regarding Christ has imputed to him the righteousness of Christ and is simultaneously ingrafted into a union with Christ in which he or she shares in both the death and resurrection of Christ. 

This union transfers the believer’s sonship from son of Adam to son of the second Adam via a new birth. And, although we still live in the flesh and are still yet to experience the physical death and resurrection of our bodies, we are, in God’s mind’s eye, already dead to sin and alive unto him.

Therefore, sin is no longer our master and we are not to allow it to reign in our mortal bodies. Instead of obeying it’s passions, we are to obey God’s passions as one whom he has rescued and redeemed, as one whom he has brought from death to life. We are not to present our bodies to sin to be used as instruments of unrighteousness, anymore; instead, we are to present ourselves to God so our bodies can be used as instruments for righteousness.

But here is the rub—the place where so many misinterpret and misuse the Scripture. These justify certain sins claiming they are not under the law but under grace, as though grace frees them from righteousness or from being accountable to the Law’s standard. They assume that because they have been freed from the penalty of the law, they are free to serve their sinful passions without consequence. But exactly the opposite is true. 

What Paul is actually saying is that we Christians are called to righteousness now that we have been made righteous, because now sin no longer has dominion over us. Certainly, we will stumble and return to our old habits and will sin. For that, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus (1 John 1:9; 2:1).

But we are not longer imprisoned under sin’s dominion. We have been rescued and are now under God’s regime. Sin is no longer our king. God is our king. The statement, Since you are no under the law but under grace, is a statement of promise and hope that what we could not do prior to our union with Christ (live righteously) is now possible because of grace. It is by no means a license to sin.

In short, Paul is saying, Don’t let sin rule over you and make you think you are obligated to obey it’s passions. You’ve been set free by Christ and sin will have no dominion over you because you are not under law that provokes the flesh to obey the passions of sin; you are under grace (in union with Christ by the power of God’s Spirit and by virtue of unmerited favor toward us) in which he grants us a new disposition toward righteousness and sin. Live how God intended you to live and flourish!