and body, as instruments of righteousness unto God. This clause is sim- ply explanatory of the former.
(14) For sin shall not have dominion over you, &c. This clause is vari- ously explained. Some make the future here to express obligation, ' Sin ought not to have dominion over you.' But this is not the natural force of the words ; and, in this case, it is not only unnecessary, but inconsis- tent with the context, inasmuch as the following clause " ye are not under law," &c. would, in a great measure, lose its force. The common inter- pretation gives a much better sense, ' Live devoted to God, be faithful in your efforts to live to his glory, for you shall be successful ; sin shall not have dominion over you.' Then follows the ground of this assurance.
For ye are not under the law, but under grace. To be under the law means to be under its authority, see Gal. 4: 2, 4; and to be under its constraining influence, see Rom. 3 : 9. Both ideas are here included. We are not under the authority of the law, nor have we a legal spirit. We are not only free from its objective authority, but from its subjective influence. That the law here does not mean the Mosaic law or dispensa- tion merely, is evident, 1. From the absence of the article in the Greek. Paul would have said, ' ye are not under the law,' and not so generally, * ye are not under law,' had he referred especially to the law of Moses. 2. The sense afforded does not suit the context. Freedom from the Mosaic institutions is no security that sin shall not have dominion over us. 3. The opposition to the word grace shows that this cannot be the apostle's meaning. Grace, here, as in ch. 5 : 2, means state of favour. To be under grace, therefore, is to be under a gracious dispensation, or in a state of reconciliation with God. To be under law, on the other hand, means to be in a legal state, or under a legal dispensation. 4. This inter pretation is inconsistent with the apostle's doctrines and reasoning throughout the epistle. It is not the Mosaic law and ceremonial works which he declares to be insufflcient, but any law and any works. As the form, however, in which a legal spirit manifested itself in the days of the apostles, was by a desire to enforce the law of Moses, the expression has often a special reference to the Old Testament economy, see Gal. 4:11. The law means the whole rule of duty of which the Mosaic institutions were for a long time a prominent part; but to restrict the term in this connexion to that part, is inconsistent with the scope of the apostle's argu- ment, and with the nature of the gospel as the means of deliverance, not from ceremonial observances only, but from the obligation of the law as a rule of justification.
Believers, therefore, are not under the law as the rule which prescribes the condition of their acceptance with God ; nor are they under the influ- ence of a legal spirit. They are under grace, inasmuch as they are under a dispensation which proffers to them gratuitous acceptance, and, being reconciled to God, they are under the constraining influence of his love. The great principle of evangelical obedience is therefore taught in this passage. Holiness is not the result of the law, but of the liberty where-
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