For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law, but under grace.” – Romans 6:14
Grammatically, this Scripture could easily be translated like this,
“For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are continually not under the dominion of the law, no matter what; and you are continually under the dominion of grace, no matter what.”
The very next verse goes like this, “What then? Shall we sin because we are not under the law but under grace? May it never be!” – Romans 6:15
In verse 15 Paul addresses the question as to whether it is possible to not sin without having the law to coerce us to live righteously. He already gave the answer in verse 14 when he says that our freedom from sin’s reign in our life is a result of being under the domain of grace and no longer under the domain of law. In other words, victory is a free gift of the righteous life of Christ lived through us by Christ Himself, not as a result of our best effort to do all the things that we think are pleasing to God. Grace is God’s best effort in and through us as a free gift, and law is our best effort by us as a sacrifice offered to God. When Paul uses the language that we are continually not under the law but are continually under grace, he is saying to us that the way we correct our’s someone else’s behavior is not by putting them ourselves back under the law, but by casting them and ourselves onto grace. Having failed or fallen, have you ever beaten yourself up mentally and emotionally and then promise God you would try harder to get it right next time? Have you ever done that to another person, admonishing them to try harder, to do better? If you have ever done that to yourself or to someone else, then you still believe in living under the law instead of grace. Remember that grace isn’t simply God’s free gift of forgiveness when we fail; much more it is the free gift of Christ’s ability in us to not fail. When we blow it, we don’t turn to the law because the law can’t transform anybody. We turn to grace and throw ourselves completely on to his righteous life in us to get it right the next time, step by step.