Romans Verse fourteen
For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace. (Romans 6:14)
How does the Law of Moses enable sin to be our master?
The knowledge of sin comes by the Law, just as in the case of Adam and Eve. They were living in nakedness, a shameful state. But because they were unaware of their nakedness they had fellowship with the Lord with an untroubled conscience.
When they partook of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, which is the law of God, they became conscious of sin. The Law of Moses makes us conscious of sin but it does not provide deliverance from sin.
We have a strong desire to please God but there is much sin in our personality. The Law forbids us to act in a sinful manner, continually making us conscious that our appetites and behaviors are displeasing to God. Because of the condemnation the Law brings, sin keeps us from having fellowship with God. We are aware that much of our personality is opposed to God just as Adam and Eve realized they were naked. It appears there is little we can do about it. The moment we have peace, some aspect of the Law reminds us that we are sinning against God by our very nature.
New-covenant grace holds out to us total forgiveness as we enter the death of Christ on the cross. The perfect atonement has been made. God sees us as righteous in Christ. The veil is lifted and we enter before the Mercy Seat, there to obtain grace to help us as we begin to overcome sin by the Spirit of God. Sin no longer is able to govern us, to keep us from the Presence of God.
Now the process of re-creation begins. As we walk in the Spirit of God, being in a state of righteousness because of the righteousness of Christ imputed (ascribed) to us, the wisdom and power of the Spirit combined with the Virtue of Jesus given to our new born-again nature enable us to put to death the actions of our body. We no longer are forced to obey the dictates of the powers of sin that dwell in our adamic personality.
The total forgiveness combined with the work of the Holy Spirit as He guides and empowers us releases us from the rule of sin.
The ultimate deliverance, which is to come at the appearing of the Lord, will accomplish our total deliverance from the rule of sin. The ultimate deliverance has two phases:
The making alive of our mortal body (Romans 8:11).
The clothing of our redeemed mortal body with our "house from heaven" (II Corinthians 5:2).
If we have been faithful to sow to the Spirit of God, that is, to follow the Spirit as He leads us in the walk of holiness, there is an increase of resurrection life in our new reborn personality. Our thinking, speaking, and acting increasingly are guided by the Spirit into the righteous ways of the Lord. The body and blood of Jesus are continually fed to our inner man as we learn to live by Christ as He lives by the Father.
When the Lord appears He will look for His own Substance and Nature in us. If He finds them He will adopt us as sons of God by gathering our mortal remains wherever they have been interred, ridding them of all vestiges of sin and rebellion and filling them with the Holy Spirit of God. This is the redemption of the mortal body.
And not only they (the material creation), but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body. (Romans 8:23)
We have been completely forgiven, we have overcome the sinful tendencies of the body, and finally the body itself has been filled with the Spirit of God in place of flesh-and-blood mortal life. Sin no longer is able to govern us because of the grace of God given in the new covenant.
If we have been totally faithful in our discipleship, during our preliminary steps toward righteousness, then when the Lord appears we will be furnished with an even more aggressive righteousness, a crown of righteousness. As we have been brought down to death by painful and weakening circumstances and have been raised again by the Lord, a "house from heaven," an eternal weight of glory, has been formed before the Throne of God in Heaven.
When the Lord returns He will reward those who have overcome sin through the Spirit of God by clothing their redeemed mortal body with their house from Heaven, their white robe, their body of glory, their crown of righteousness and life. This is the "gold upon the wood" of the Ark of the Covenant.
For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. (II Corinthians 5:1)
And they shall make an ark of shittim wood: two cubits and a half shall be the length thereof, and a cubit and a half the breadth thereof, and a cubit and a half the height thereof. And thou shalt overlay it with pure gold, within and without shalt thou overlay it, and shalt make upon it a crown of gold round about. (Exodus 25:10,11)
The wood (humanity) is overlaid first on the inside and then on the outside with pure gold (Divinity purified in the fire of tribulation). Today our inner nature is being overlaid with the Divine Nature. When the Lord comes our outward nature, our body, will be overlaid with the Divine Nature.
The Law of Moses enabled sin to be our master by condemning the sinful tendencies of our personality while providing no means of deliverance (other than the required animal sacrifices-a temporary, partial solution).
The grace of God under the new covenant removes the rule of sin by forgiving us, empowering us to overcome sin in this life, redeeming our mortal body at the appearing of the Lord, and crowning us with a body that has been fashioned in Heaven as we have been changed each day into the death of the Lord and raised in newness of life in union with His resurrection.
Sin shall not have dominion over God's sons!