^6:12Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its desires, ^6:13and do not present your members to sin as instruments¹⁰ to be used for unrighteousness,¹¹ but present yourselves to God as those who are alive from the dead and your members to God as instruments¹² to be used for righteousness. ^6:14For sin will have no mastery over you, because you are not under law but under grace.

The Believer’s Enslavement to God’s Righteousness

^6:15What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? Absolutely not! ^6:16Do you not know that if you present yourselves¹³ as obedient slaves,¹⁴ you are slaves of the one you obey, either of sin resulting in death, or obedience resulting in righteousness?¹⁵^6:17But thanks be to God that though you were slaves to sin, you obeyed¹⁶ from the heart that pattern¹⁷ of teaching you were entrusted to, ^6:18and 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.)¹⁸ 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. ^6:20For when you were slaves of sin, you were free with regard to righteousness.

^6:21So what benefit¹⁹ did you then reap²⁰ from those things that you are now ashamed of? For the end of those things is death. ^6:22But now, freed²¹ from sin and enslaved to God, you have your benefit²² leading to sanctification, and the end is eternal life. ^6:23For the payoff²³ of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Read in Logos

Romans 6:22: But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life.

Footnotes

10 Or “weapons, tools.”
11 Or “wickedness, injustice.”
12 Or “weapons, tools.”
13 Grk “to whom you present yourselves.”
14 Grk “as slaves for obedience.” See the note on the word “slave” in .
15 Grk “either of sin unto death, or obedience unto righteousness.”
16 Grk “you were slaves of sin but you obeyed.”
17 Or “type, form.”
18 Or “because of your natural limitations” (). Verse 19 forms something of a parenthetical comment in Paul’s argument.
19 Grk “fruit.”
20 Grk “have,” in a tense emphasizing their customary condition in the past.
21 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.…”
22 Grk “fruit.”
23 A figurative extension of ὀψώνιον (opsōnion), 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.