Romans 6:14

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For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace.

Romans 6:14 (NKJV)

For sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace.

Romans 6:14 (NIV)

For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace.

Romans 6:14 (KJV)

Sin is no longer your master, for you no longer live under the requirements of the law. Instead, you live under the freedom of God's grace.

Romans 6:14 (NLT)

For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.

Romans 6:14 (ESV)

For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law but under grace.

Romans 6:14 (NASB)

Scripture taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. www.lockman.org

For sin will not [any longer] exert dominion over you, since now you are not under Law [as slaves], but under grace [as subjects of God's favor and mercy].

Romans 6:14 (AMP)

Scripture quotations taken from the Amplified® Bible (AMP), Copyright © 2015 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. www.lockman.org

For sin shall not [any longer] exert dominion over you, since now you are not under Law [as slaves], but under grace [as subjects of God's favor and mercy].

Romans 6:14 (AMPC)

Scripture quotations taken from the Amplified® Bible (AMPC), Copyright © 1954, 1962, 1964, 1965, 1987 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. www.lockman.org

Sin can't tell you how to live. After all, you're not living under that old tyranny any longer. You're living in the freedom of God.

Romans 6:14 (MSG)

Scripture quotations from The Message. Copyright © 1993, 2002, 2018 by Eugene H. Peterson. Used by permission of NavPress. All rights reserved. Represented by Tyndale House Publishers.

New Covenant Meaning

Grace Is the Reason Sin Has No Dominion, Not the Reward for It

The "for" at the beginning of the second clause is explanatory: sin shall not have dominion, because you are not under law but under grace. Paul is not saying "try hard enough and sin will lose its grip." He is identifying the reason sin's dominion has been broken: the change of governing system. Under law, sin was energized: the law made sin's power visible and the inability to keep the law increased the sense of bondage (Romans 7:5, 8). Under grace, the power source of sin's dominion is removed. Grace does not just forgive sin. It changes what governs you.

Kyrieusei: Sin Has No Right to Lord It Over You

The Greek kyrieusei comes from kyrios, lord or master. Paul is saying sin has no right to be your lord, to exercise authority over your life and choices. This is a statement about jurisdiction. Under the old system, the law defined the standard and condemned those who failed, which paradoxically gave sin a kind of strength (1 Corinthians 15:56: "the strength of sin is the law"). Under grace, you are no longer in a jurisdiction where sin can exercise that lordship. You have a new Lord. And where Christ is Lord, sin cannot simultaneously hold the position.

Romans 6:1 anticipates the objection: "What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?" Paul's answer, developed through the chapter, is that the person who has died with Christ to sin and been raised with Him to new life is no longer the kind of person for whom sin is the natural operating mode. The freedom from sin's dominion in verse 14 is not a license to sin freely. It is the declaration that the believer is genuinely free, which means sin is no longer the inevitable master it once was. Grace does not enable sin. It breaks sin's authority and enables a different kind of life altogether.

Application for Your Life

More Law-Effort Does Not Break Sin's Power. Grace Does.

The instinctive response to a pattern of sin in a believer's life is often to try harder, commit more, add accountability, create rules. Paul's counterintuitive point is that returning to a law-based approach actually increases sin's energy rather than breaking it. The solution to sin is a deeper experience of grace, not a stricter application of law. Grace, when truly received and lived in, has an intrinsic power that law-keeping does not. "You are not under law but under grace" is not a permission to sin. It is the key to actually not sinning.

Sin Has to Ask Your Permission Now

Romans 6:14 establishes that sin shall not have dominion over you. This is a statement about authority. Sin has no inherent right of lordship over the person who is in Christ. It can tempt. It can suggest. It can pressure. But it cannot lord it over you the way it once did without your cooperation. You have a new standing: under grace, with a new Lord. When temptation comes, it is not a foregone conclusion. It is an overture that can be refused by someone who knows their authority has changed.

Prayer Based on This Verse

Father, I declare what You have declared: sin shall not have dominion over me. I am not under law. I am under grace. I do not fight sin from a position of condemnation, trying to earn a clean standing through better performance. I fight it from a position of grace, already clean, already justified, already free from sin's legal lordship. Where sin has been exercising an authority it no longer has in my life, I call it out. You are not my master. Christ is my Lord. I am under grace and I choose to live from that standing. Let the fullness of Your grace not only forgive what I have done but break the pattern of what has been recurring. I receive that freedom. In Jesus' name. Amen.