Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to Romans · About this commentary
Not Under Law, but Under Grace
Romans 6:12-14
12 Therefore don’t let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts. · WEB
The commands begin — a throne denied, weapons reassigned — and the promise under them locates freedom in a change of regime.
Therefore don't let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts.
The royal vocabulary of chapter 5 returns as an instruction. Sin reigned in death Romans 5:21; the believer is now told not to let it reign — which means the throne in question is real and the tenant is negotiable. The command would be cruel nonsense addressed to sin's slaves; addressed to people already transferred out of sin's kingdom Romans 6:7, it is the practical daily form of the transfer: do not keep obeying a deposed ruler. And the field is specific — your mortal body, the actual limbs and appetites through which any reign becomes visible.
Verse 13 turns from throne to armory: do not present your members to sin as instruments of unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.
The word for instruments is the word for weapons. Hands, tongue, eyes — each member is a weapon that will be issued to some army, and the verse knows only two. The negative present is continuous — stop the ongoing supply — and the positive is decisive: present yourselves as alive from the dead, handing God the whole resurrected person first, then the members as armament. The body, dishonored in chapter 1's exchange Romans 1:24, is re-enlisted on the other side; nothing about the letter's ethic is disembodied.
And then the promise, with the ground that surprises: for sin will not have dominion over you, for you are not under law, but under grace Romans 6:14.
A future of fact, not a command: sin will not rule you. And the reason is the regime change. Under law — as a covenant standing, performance determining verdict — sin keeps its leverage, because the law can define and condemn sin but cannot break it Romans 8:3; a person under law fights sin with a diagnosis. Under grace, the verdict is already rendered Romans 5:1, the union already effected, the Spirit already given Romans 5:5 — and sin's chief weapon, condemnation, is out of its hand. Holiness grows in acquitted soil. The next verse's objection — then why not sin? — is exactly the misreading the chapter has been dismantling since its first sentence.
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