Passage

Romans 6.16-17

Book: Romans · ASV

Immediate context (±2 verses)

ASV (ASV)

"14. For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under law, but under grace. 15. What then? shall we sin, because we are not under law, but under grace? God forbid."

"16. Know ye not, that to whom ye present yourselves as servants unto obedience, his servants ye are whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness? 17. But thanks be to God, that, whereas ye were servants of sin, ye became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching whereunto ye were delivered;"

"18. and being made free from sin, ye became servants of righteousness. 19. I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh: for as ye presented your members as servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity, even so now present your members as servants to righteousness unto sanctification." (Romans 6:14-19, ASV)

WEB (WEB)

"14. For sin will not have dominion over you. For you are not under law, but under grace. 15. What then? Shall we sin, because we are not under law, but under grace? May it never be!"

"16. Don’t you know that when you present yourselves as servants and obey someone, you are the servants of whomever you obey; whether of sin to death, or of obedience to righteousness? 17. But thanks be to God, that, whereas you were bondservants of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were delivered."

"18. Being made free from sin, you became bondservants of righteousness. 19. I speak in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh, for as you presented your members as servants to uncleanness and to wickedness upon wickedness, even so now present your members as servants to righteousness for sanctification." (Romans 6:14-19, WEB)

KJV (KJV)

"14. For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace. 15. What then? shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid."

"16. Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness? 17. But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you. ^{which: Gr. whereto ye were delivered}"

"18. Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness. 19. I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh: for as ye have yielded your members servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity; even so now yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness." (Romans 6:14-19, KJV)

YLT (YLT)

"14. for sin over you shall not have lordship, for ye are not under law, but under grace. 15. What then? shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? let it not be!"

"16. have ye not known that to whom ye present yourselves servants for obedience, servants ye are to him to whom ye obey, whether of sin to death, or of obedience to righteousness? 17. and thanks to God, that ye were servants of the sin, and, were obedient from the heart to the form of teaching to which ye were delivered up;"

"18. and having been freed from the sin, ye became servants to the righteousness. 19. In the manner of men I speak, because of the weakness of your flesh, for even as ye did present your members servants to the uncleanness and to the lawlessness, to the lawlessness, so now present your members servants to the righteousness, to sanctification," (Romans 6:14-19, YLT)

Setting

Speaker: Paul
Audience: the Roman believers
Location: composed in Corinth, c. AD 56-57
Time period: mid-first-century; the post-baptismal-section of Romans (chapters 6-8) developing the implications of union-with-Christ for the believer's life

Theological reading

Romans 6:16-17 develops the slave-of-obedience metaphor at the heart of Paul's sanctification-architecture. The structural logic: every human is necessarily a doulos (slave / bondservant) of something. The choice is not whether to be enslaved but to which master, sin-leading-to-death or obedience-leading-to-righteousness. The framing rules out the modern-autonomy fiction; there is no neutral standpoint.

The verbal density is striking: v. 16 deploys hypakouete (you obey) twice and the noun hypakoē twice; v. 17 deploys hypēkousate (you obeyed). The cluster names the act-state of obedient-yielding-from-the-heart (ek kardias) as the structural-foundation of the believer's transferred allegiance. Verse 17's "obeyed from the heart" is critical: Pauline-obedience is not external-conformity but internal-orientation-of-the-whole-person toward the typos didachēs ("form of teaching") to which the believer was delivered.

The verse provides one of the most important Pauline anti-antinomian arguments: "are we not under law but under grace, therefore we can sin?" No, grace produces a different kind of obedience, hypakoē-from-the-heart, that the law-as-coercive-external-standard could not produce. The Reformed-mainstream reads this as the third use of the law (Calvin, Institutes II.7.12), the law as guide for the believer's responsive obedience, not as basis-of-acceptance. The verse is also load-bearing for the Wesleyan-Holiness emphasis on heart-transformation and the Pauline-Petrine framework of sanctification-as-outworking-of-justification.

Key words

G5219 - hypakouo, the verbal cognate hypakouō (G5219), and the noun G5218 - hypakoe (G5218). Romans 6:16-17 contains the densest cluster of hypakouō / hypakoē in the Pauline corpus, three verbal forms + two nominal forms in two verses.

Quoted in

Why these four translations

ris3n chose ASV, WEB, KJV, and YLT for two reasons together. They are the most literal English translations available (formal-equivalence: word-for-word renderings that preserve the Hebrew and Greek grammar rather than smoothing it into modern dynamic-equivalence idiom). And they are in the public domain in the United States, which means fair-use quotation at any length requires no publisher license. Modern licensed translations (NASB95, ESV, NIV) restrict volume of quotation under their copyright terms, so they are not used at stub-level coverage here. NASB95 appears only on hand-curated rich passage hubs under Lockman Foundation's fair-use allowance.

The four:

ASV (American Standard Version, 1901). The basis of the modern critical-text English tradition.
WEB (World English Bible, contemporary). Public-domain revision in the ASV line, in current English.
KJV (King James Version, 1611). Reformation-era, Textus Receptus base.
YLT (Young's Literal Translation, Robert Young, 1862). Hyper-literal preservation of Hebrew and Greek grammar; useful for word-study work even where English reads stiff.

See Bibles for the full per-translation history, translators, textual basis, strengths, and weaknesses.