https://youtu.be/k0HWacKsTVk
In our verse-by-verse study or Romans last time we finished our Expanded Translation of Rom 6:15; "What then are we to conclude? Shall we sin because we are not under law, but under grace? Definitely not."
This verse tells us that being under the authority of grace rather than the law does not imply that God's justice no longer administers punitive action for the believer who chooses to sin, perform human good, or to become involved with evil.
God's justice punishes sinfulness and God's justice blesses growth in grace. Freedom from the Mosaic Law does not imply immunity from punishment or discipline from God.
Rom 6:16; "Do you not know that when you present yourselves to someone as slaves to obey..." The present active indicative from the perfect stem "oida" (know), plus the negative "ou" (not) "do you not know."
This is a challenge to believers. It is telling us that after we are saved that there is something we need to learn and understand. This is the basic concept of life. You must understand legitimate authority in life, and the extent to which you reject legitimate authority in life is the extent to which you are destroyed by life.
The present tense is a tendential present that is used for an action that is attempted but has not been not achieved so it is not happening but it is something that has to happen. It is imperative that it happens because when Paul wrote to the Romans a crisis was in the making.
The Roman Empire was a republic for five hundred years. But when a republic degenerates into a democracy, democracy always degenerates into anarchy as is happening in the USA and the entire world right now, a strong ruler must always come along to establish order from the chaos.
In Rome the strong man was Julius Caesar who transformed the republic into an empire, although that was not really his intention but in order to stop the violence and anarchy that was occurring it was inevitable.
After that the empire had a series of successes. All of the emperors were unbelievers but that is not important because the ruler of a country does not have to be a believer. These men were all unbelievers but they were the governmental authority.
Remember that Jesus said: "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's." There is no conflict there. There is a clear division between dealing with temporal establishment and dealing with the spiritual.
The empire became a system of authority set up by Caesar that created a system of establishment and freedom. Believers lived and thrived under this system. Christianity advanced under this system. Every believer must recognize that Christianity requires freedom not equity.
Christianity cannot evangelize without freedom from establishment. Christianity cannot teach doctrine without the protection of law and order. Freedom and establishment must go together.
At this time of history the leftists are trying to use freedom to create a system of equity instead maintaining order to establish freedom. It will not work because without order freedom is always abused so you actually get violence, chaos, and anarchy.
"Do you not know?" They had to recognize that they had a problem. That is why Paul wrote in this way to these people because they were about to destroy every freedom that had been gained.
They were about to lose everything because they had actually come to the attitude of anti-government authority. They refused to obey with establishment principles, unless it was something they agreed with. Sound familiar?
The tendential present means something that is not occurring so it is not happening. They do not understand the issue. The negative represents the idea of what is intended. As believers they should be respecting governmental authority but they are rejecting governmental authority.
The active voice: believers are not producing the action of the verb even though they should be. The indicative mood is an interrogative indicative that poses a question. Plus the conjunction "hoti" (that) that comes after words of perception explaining what they should understand but don't understand.
Next is a dative masculine singular indirect object from the relative pronoun "ho" (to whom), followed by a present active indicative from "paristhemi" (standby for orders or present). "Do you not know that to whom you place yourself under orders." As we have noted "paristhmi" (present or standby) is a military term for recognition of authority.
The present tense is a pictorial present that describes events that are in the process of happening. The active voice: the believer places himself under the command of either the sin nature that resides in the cell structure of the human body or under orders to God the Holy Spirit as a member of God's royal family who possess the double portion of blessing at salvation.
The first portion of the double portion comes from God the Father, the second from God the Son through the agency of God the Holy Spirit. All believers in history receive the first portion at salvation adjustment to God's justice.
In other words, the moment a person believes in Jesus Christ there are two imputations that comprise the first portion. The first of these imputations is God's judicial imputation of God's righteousness to every believer. That sets up the logistical grace pipeline for grace blessing.
At the same time there is a real imputation of eternal life that is imputed to regenerated human spirit that is the target or home that God prepared for it.
Eternal life is imputed to the human spirit at new birth. Human soul life was imputed to biological life at physical birth. At the new birth eternal life is imputed to regenerated human spirit that is prepared by God the Holy Spirit. This is the first portion that comes from God the Father.
The second portion at salvation comes from God the Son through the agency of the Holy Spirit. All believers of the Church Age are royal family of God, and at the moment of salvation God the Holy Spirit enters us into union with Christ who is in session at the right hand of the Father.
This is current positional truth in contrast to retroactive positional truth that deals with the old sin nature. Current positional truth deals with the Lord Jesus Christ who is in session at the right hand of the Father.
He also has perfect righteousness and eternal life and Church Age believers share everything that Jesus Christ has. His righteousness and His eternal life are involved in the second portion of the double portion for God's royal family.
At the point of entering into union with Jesus Christ we also receive His eternal life and His perfect righteousness.
2Cor 5:21; is not the same imputation of God's righteousness, as what is described in Romans chapters 3,4,5, it is righteousness we have by being in Jesus.
This tells us that we have a double portion of God's righteousness. We have the Father's righteousness that is imputed from God the Father's justice and we have the imp0utation of the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ.
This means that Church Age believers have a double portion of God's righteousness that is something no one ever had before the Church Age began.
This is very significant because it means that our blessings are concentrated. Royalty always has privileges so we have greater privileges that are based upon the fact that we have a double portion of God's righteousness.
More than that, we also have the eternal life of the Lord Jesus Christ, and then we have the eternal life of the Father that was also imputed.
This double portion becomes a challenge for the believer to find the authority that is God's Word by finding our own right pastor who is communicating God's Word and to stay with it until we have advanced to spiritual maturity. By that time we will have no problem regarding authority because mature believers never have an authority problem.
So the potential indicative is the potential indicative of obligation that presents the concept of contingency in the indicative to explain that we have an option.
No only do we have an option but every day in that day God gives us an opportunity to expose ourselves to the teaching of God's Word by our right pastor under the principle of authority.
The word 'heatous" (yourselves) is the accusative plural from the reflexive pronoun that is used as the direct object of the verb. When the action expressed by the verb is reflected back to the subject it is called reflexive construction.
You must submit to authority as an individual and not because you are bullied into it by peer pressure. Next is the double accusative plural from "doulos" (slaves).
Everyone is a slave to someone. There is always someone with the authority over all of us who can demote us or promote us. We are all under authority and we are promoted or demoted by higher authority.
If God doesn't promote you, you are not promoted. If God doesn't provide the success, you are not successful. If God doesn't provide happiness, you are not happy. But you will never develop the capacity for blessing until you develop the capacity for authority.
Recognizing that authority is the actual source of prosperity eliminates the hang-ups of arrogance and guilt from being prosperous.
Then the prepositional phrase "eis" (for) plus the accusative singular of "hupakoe" (obey or obedience). "Eis" (for) plus the accusative means "for the purpose of" so the corrected translation: "Do you not know, that to whom you put yourselves under orders as slaves for the purpose of obedience."
The purpose for slavery is obedience. You are at someone else's disposal. But the greatest happiness in life comes from being at someone else's disposal because it is the source of blessing and refreshment in human life.
In the spiritual life there is no such thing as emancipation because everything is always manumission in the sense that we have options every day to conduct our life in a manner that is for or against our Lord Jesus Christ.
"you are slaves of the one you obey" - the present active indicative of the verb "eimi" (you are) the present tense is a retroactive present that denotes what started in the past and continues into the present.
The active voice: the believer produces the action of the verb, either by putting himself under orders to the old sin nature or by exercising the option of grace and placing himself under orders to God through the daily function of GASP.
The indicative mood is declarative so it looks at the issue from the viewpoint of reality. Plus the predicate nominative plural from "doulos" (slaves) with the masculine singular from the relative pronoun "hos" (to whom) that is the indirect object.
This is not only a relative pronoun but it has a direction indicated by the verb, the present active indicative of the verb "hupakouo" (to obey, to be under the authority of, to be subject to, or to render obedience to).
It always has the connotation of obedience to legitimate authority "you are slaves to the one to whom you habitually render obedience."
The option is the choice between being a slave that is under orders from the old sin nature or being a slave who is under orders to God through the PMA of Bible doctrine. This is a present tense of duration that describes what started in the past and continues into the present.
Since the day that you were saved you have exercised the option of being a slave to the old sin nature or you were the slave to the Lord Jesus Christ through Bible doctrine.
The active voice: the believer produces the action of exercising the option on a daily basis. The indicative mood is declarative representing the verbal action from the viewpoint of reality of using your option.
Our understanding of the options of authority become important at this point so they are presented in the closing part of the verse. The first option is the old one that is expressed with the phrase "whether of sin unto death."
"Whether" is translated from one of several disjunctive particles, "etoi" (weather) but it should be (either). The other disjunctive particle comes up at the beginning of the next phrase "e" (either or) plus the objective genitive singular from the singular noun "hamartia" (the sin nature). Then the prepositional phrase, "eis" (into) plus the accusative singular of "thanatos" (death) referring to the sin unto death
So we have "either to the sin nature resulting in death." The sin unto death is maximum discipline for believers only. The sin unto death is how God exercises His option to remove evil believers from the earth by transferring them from time into eternity through physical death.