What does it mean that sin shall not have dominion over you (Romans 6:14)?

Thus, having life in Christ, we can now look at sin, at our old sinful self, as an enemy, but an enemy that shall not have dominion. What a deliverance this is! To one that knows the utter vileness of the old nature, no words can sufficiently express the greatness of deliverance from the reign of sin. There may be sudden temptation — yea, failure — but sin shall not have dominion — it shall not reign. But why shall not sin reign? “For ye are not under the law, but under grace.” The whole history of Christendom, and the history of every individual believer, proves the truth of this statement, and also its opposite. Just in proportion as the free favour of God, through Christ Jesus, is known and enjoyed, is the deliverance from the slavery of sin, and we can live a holy life. The law can give no power to those under it, but can only curse them.

The moment you make the favour of God to be conditional, whether it be concerning the law of Moses, or the precepts of the gospel, you begin at the wrong end, and will soon find nothing but misery and doubt. You will say, I do not keep the commands of God as I ought; or, I do not love Christ as I ought; am I a Christian at all? Now, is all that law, or grace? Clearly it is law. And the word says, sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under that principle, but under grace. There surely can be no holiness of life, unless the heart be perfectly free, in the unbounded, free, unconditional favour of God. Has He taken me up, an ungodly sinner, who deserved hell? Has He, in pure, unmerited love, given His Son to die for our sins? Has He raised Him from the dead for our justification? Has He given us eternal redemption through His blood? Have we thus peace with God, according to all that God is? Are we identified with Christ in all the merit of His death; and more, alive in Him to God? And all this absolute, free grace, the grace of Him who changes not? And now I am alive to God, I can reckon myself, my old man, dead. And thus I am delivered from myself, to live to God. And all unchanging grace to me, then I am not on the ground of law, or conditions for life, or salvation, or deliverance, but absolutely under grace, free and eternal. Oh, now I am free to serve the Lord, in real separation from, and abhorrence of, evil. Oh, glorious truth! sin shall not have dominion.

We speak of the power of sin, not of its presence. Let the reader carefully note this. Regarding the question of sin, there is this material difference between a Christian here and hereafter. Here, he is delivered only from the power of sin; hereafter he will be freed from its presence. In his present condition sin dwells in him, but it is not to reign. By-and-by, it will not even dwell. The reign of sin is over and gone. The reign of grace has begun. “Sin shall not have dominion over you, for ye are not under law, but under grace.”

153 For sin has not dominion over us, because we are not under law, but under grace: a grave and important sentence. Being under law leaves me under the dominion of sin. What we want is a free life, free from bondage to sin; for he that commits sin, says the Lord, is the slave of sin. Law gives neither life nor freedom nor strength, nor even an object which may turn our hearts elsewhere. It forbids, rightly and necessarily, the sins, but gives no life nor power. But under grace we have power. Life is given, strength is given, and an object is given; none of which, as we have seen, law gives. Thus, under grace, sin has no dominion over me; under law it has. It is beautiful to see, while it is all grace, still how we are given to yield ourselves to God - true freedom, in which sin has no dominion over us; and, while the power comes from on high, we are really set free, and allowed to give ourselves willingly and freely to God.

Sin, then, is not to have dominion over us, for the very reason that we are not under the law but under grace. Here is the divine answer to those who tell us that if we tell people that they are no longer under the regime of law, they are sure to plunge into sin. The fact is that nothing so subdues the heart and promotes holiness as the grace of God.

“For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace.” Most admirable, simple conclusion! If we are delivered from the bondage of law (which though it condemned sin, could never deliver from sin), and brought under the blessed reign of grace, where indeed is there any place left for sin? Grace has saved us from our sins, and from the dominion which sin once wielded. Unspeakably blessed emancipation! Let us value grace at its proper price, and hold fast the sacredness and purity of its character. “Under law” means simply in a position where law holds authority, such as was Israel from Mount Sinai until the cross of Christ. “Under grace” has reference to a position in which grace holds sway — a contrast absolutely and distinctly drawn. The two things cannot be mixed. “Under grace” is our position resulting from the blessed cross of Christ: “under law” was a position that supposed no cross, no salvation from bondage.

The exhortation which follows in verse 12, addressed not to the world but to justified believers, proves that sin is still in the mortal body of the believer. It is not destroyed. But while sin is in our mortal body, it has no more right to reign there. However it will reign, if we yield to the desires of the old nature. If a believer obeys the old nature in its lusts, he walks not in the Spirit but in the flesh. Whenever temptation comes, the believer must take refuge in prayer, in self-judgment and self-surrender and yield (or present) his members afresh as instruments of righteousness unto God. As long as the believer is in the mortal body there is the conflict between the flesh and the Spirit (Galatians 5:17). And if we walk in the Spirit we shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh; this necessitates that we make no provision for the flesh to fulfil the lusts thereof (Romans 13:14). Furthermore, the promise is given to the believer in Christ that sin shall not have dominion over him because he is not under the law, but under grace. The grace which has saved the believing sinner and made Him nigh unto God, teaches also to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts and to live soberly, righteously and godly in this present age (Titus 2:12). And more than that; grace supplies the power to live godly. Therefore sin shall not have dominion over a believer because he is under grace. But this promise must be appropriated in faith.

(c) My responsibility is measured by God's estimate. If He regards me as dead to sin, I have to do the same; and therefore I must not allow sin to reign in my mortal body, that I should obey it in the lusts thereof. For if I were to allow sin to reign, I should practically contradict God's estimate of me as dead to it. I have thus to keep myself in the place of death, to mortify my members which are upon the earth (Col. 3:5), because I am dead with Christ. Here then is the whole secret. I cannot rid myself of the foe. But God has judged it, and I have simply to act according to that judgment; to keep it in that place of death where He has already put it. Hence we are not told to expel sin, to root it out, to cast it away from us, as moralists, and even divines [clergy], ignorant of the Scriptures, sometimes exhort us to do; but we are told not to let it reign; i.e., it must be kept under, in the place and under the sentence of death which has been passed upon it.

We are distinctly taught in the Word that the believer carries about with him that which answers to Amalek, that is, "the flesh" — "the old man" — "the carnal mind." (Rom. 6:6; Rom. 8:7; Gal. 5:17) Now, if the Christian, upon perceiving the stirrings of his evil nature, begins to doubt his being a Christian, he will not only render himself exceedingly unhappy, but also deprive himself of his vantage ground against the enemy. The flesh exists in the believer and will be there to the end of the chapter. The Holy Ghost fully recognises it as existing, as we may easily see, from various parts of the New Testament. In Romans 6 we read, "Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal bodies." Such a precept would be entirely uncalled for if the flesh were not existing in the believer. It would be out of character to tell us not to let sin reign, if it were not actually dwelling in us. There is a great difference between dwelling and reigning. It dwells in a believer, but it reigns in an unbeliever.

However, though it dwells in us, we have, thank God, a principle of power over it. "Sin shall not have dominion over you, for ye are not under the law, but under grace." The grace which, by the blood of the cross, has put away sin, insures us the victory, and gives us present power over its indwelling principle.

This man that lives a life of self-will, caring nothing for God, will not do for God. To convince us of the hopeless character of this man God has fully tested the "old man" under every possible test. He has been tried without law, under law, under priesthood, under royalty, and finally by the presence of Christ in grace. Under every test man has broken down proving that the old man is utterly evil, and that all hope of improving or reforming the "old man" is useless. God has only one way of dealing with a man that is proved to be irremediably bad, that is by ending the life of the man in the judgment of death. Sins can be forgiven; but there can be no forgiveness for an evil nature, it can only be condemned and ended. Thus from the moment sin entered into the world God passed the sentence of death upon the man that was under sin. For the believer, this judgment has been carried out at the Cross; so we can say, "Our old man has been crucified with Him". At the Cross God dealt with the Old man according to his deserts, and according to God's own righteous demands. At the Cross Christ vicariously represented before God "our old man", so that when He was crucified we were crucified with Him. Not only did Christ bear our sins, but He was made sin — made what we are. Thus our old man came up before God, and in His sight was judicially ended in the judgment of death. It becomes clear then that in this portion of the Epistle it is no longer a question of Christ's death for us, but of our death with Christ.

Moreover our death with Christ not only meets the holy requirements of God, but has in view our practical walk. It was that "the body of sin might be annulled that henceforth we should not serve sin". Here the expression "body of sin" refers to sin as a whole, in contrast to any particular manifestation of sin. We are apt to think of sin in connection with some particular failing to which we may be specially liable, and in which, in our case, the dominion of sin is most felt. Possibly we would be very well content to be set free from the dominion of sin in this special form. God, however, would have us free from the dominion of sin as a whole, not simply in part. This freedom can only be obtained on the ground that our old man that is under sin has been crucified with Christ. Sin, indeed, still exists, but can have no power over a corpse. Death annuls its power. The practical end is that being dead to sin we should no longer serve it.

"Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body that ye should obey its lusts."* (Ver. 12.) The truth is then, not that sin is dead, but that we are entitled by Christ's death and resurrection to regard ourselves in the account of faith as dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Let not sin therefore reign. It is personified here as elsewhere sometimes, seeking the upper hand in our mortal body so as to subject us to its lusts. But through Christ it has no claim over us. As He lives to God who died to sin once for all, so also we are to reckon ourselves done with the dominion of sin and not to obey its lusts. As dead to sin we owe it no allegiance whatever.