Romans 6:14

Romans 6:14 says, For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace.  Again, we need to remember that Paul was speaking first to the Jews.  They believed that the Law was the way to a correct relationship with God, but they could never live up to and often even corrupted the real meaning of the Law.  Paul tells us that we are not under the Law, but under the grace of God, which can never be misapplied.  We are not in control of the grace of God.  We can share the truth of God's grace with the world, but we can never withhold it.  No matter how we may feel about a person or group of people, God's grace will always be available to them.  As Matthew Henry points out, there are only two families we can belong to.  One is the family of God through His grace, and the other is the family of sin by rejecting His grace.  There is no middle ground. Verse fifteen adds, What then? shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid.  Paul once more addresses the concept of sinning, of willfully disobeying the will of God since we are under His grace, and he once again emphatically states that we should never have this attitude.  God forbid, Paul said.  I believe we can be certain that God would indeed forbid such thought.  Sin does not become any less devastating just because we are saved through Christ.  We must always recognize sin for what it is, and that is disobedience to the will of God.  As followers of Christ, though we are far from perfect, that should always be our goal.  The more we are guided by the Holy Spirit, the closer we come to this standard.  Verse sixteen continues, Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?  Here, Paul once again presented the two choices every person has.  We can either be the servant of sin unto death, or the servant of obedience to righteousness thorough Christ.  Some people might fool themselves into believing that if they deny Christ they are free to make their own decisions, but they simply fool themselves.  They are still under the dominion of sin. Again, there are but two choices.  I have heard people say they had rather rule in hell than to serve in heaven, but the truth is they will ultimately serve in one place or the other. We just have to choose where we serve.  Verse seventeen concludes, But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you.  We should indeed thank God that we are no longer the servants of sin if we accept the doctrine of Christ.  This is the gift of grace.