Romans 6:10-23

6:10 For the death he died, he died to sin once for all, but the life he lives, he lives to God. 6:11 So you too consider yourselves ¹  dead to sin, but ²  alive to God in Christ Jesus.

6:12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its desires, 6:13 and do not present your members to sin as instruments ³  to be used for unrighteousness, ⁴  but present yourselves to God as those who are alive from the dead and your members to God as instruments ⁵  to be used for righteousness. 6:14 For sin will have no mastery over you, because you are not under law but under grace.

The Believer’s Enslavement to God’s Righteousness

6:15 What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? Absolutely not! 6:16 Do you not know that if you present yourselves ⁶  as obedient slaves, ⁷  you are slaves of the one you obey, either of sin resulting in death, or obedience resulting in righteousness? ⁸  6:17 But thanks be to God that though you were slaves to sin, you obeyed ⁹  from the heart that pattern ¹⁰  of teaching you were entrusted to, 6:18 and having been freed from sin, you became enslaved to righteousness. 6:19 (I am speaking in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh.) ¹¹  For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification. 6:20 For when you were slaves of sin, you were free with regard to righteousness.

6:21 So what benefit ¹²  did you then reap ¹³  from those things that you are now ashamed of? For the end of those things is death. 6:22 But now, freed ¹⁴  from sin and enslaved to God, you have your benefit ¹⁵  leading to sanctification, and the end is eternal life. 6:23 For the payoff ¹⁶  of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

[6:11]  ¹ tc ‡ Some Alexandrian and Byzantine mss (Ì^94vid א* B C 81 365 1506 1739 1881 pc) have the infinitive “to be” (εἶναι, einai) following “yourselves”. The infinitive is lacking from some mss of the Alexandrian and Western texttypes (Ì^46vid A D*^,c F G 33^vid pc). The infinitive is found elsewhere in the majority of Byzantine mss, suggesting a scribal tendency toward clarification. The lack of infinitive best explains the rise of the other readings. The meaning of the passage is not significantly altered by inclusion or omission, but on internal grounds omission is more likely. NA²⁷ includes the infinitive in brackets, indicating doubt as to its authenticity.

[6:11]  ² tn Greek emphasizes the contrast between these two clauses more than can be easily expressed in English.

[6:13]  ³ tn Or “weapons, tools.”

[6:13]  ⁴ tn Or “wickedness, injustice.”

[6:13]  ⁵ tn Or “weapons, tools.”

[6:16]  ⁶ tn Grk “to whom you present yourselves.”

[6:16]  ⁷ tn Grk “as slaves for obedience.” See the note on the word “slave” in 1:1.

[6:16]  ⁸ tn Grk “either of sin unto death, or obedience unto righteousness.”

[6:17]  ⁹ tn Grk “you were slaves of sin but you obeyed.”

[6:17]  ¹⁰ tn Or “type, form.”

[6:19]  ¹¹ tn Or “because of your natural limitations” (NRSV).

[6:21]  ¹² tn Grk “fruit.”

[6:21]  ¹³ tn Grk “have,” in a tense emphasizing their customary condition in the past.

[6:22]  ¹⁴ tn The two aorist participles translated “freed” and “enslaved” are causal in force; their full force is something like “But now, since you have become freed from sin and since you have become enslaved to God….”

[6:22]  ¹⁵ tn Grk “fruit.”

[6:23]  ¹⁶ tn A figurative extension of ὀψώνιον (oywnion), which refers to a soldier’s pay or wages. Here it refers to the end result of an activity, seen as something one receives back in return. In this case the activity is sin, and the translation “payoff” captures this thought. See also L&N 89.42.