They were God's chosen people; they had had a unique place in God's purposes; and yet when God's Son had come into the world they had rejected him and crucified him. How is this tragic paradox to be explained? (William Barclay)

Our vocation or calling is free, and of grace, even as our predestination is: and therefore there is no reason why either our own unworthiness, or the unworthiness of our ancestors should cause us to think that we are not the elect and chosen of God, if we are called by him, and so embrace through faith the salvation that is offered us. (Geneva Bible Translation Notes)

All the Jews and Gentiles who have been invited by the preaching of the Gospel to receive justification by faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, and have come to the Gospel feast on this invitation. (Dr. Adam Clarke)

And that he might make known the riches of his glory,.... That is, his glorious riches, the perfections of his nature, his love, grace, and mercy, his wisdom, power, faithfulness, justice, and holiness; all which are most evidently displayed in the salvation of his people, here called vessels of mercy, which he hath afore prepared unto glory. (Dr. John Gill)

The second answer is this, that God, moreover and besides that he justly decrees whatever he decrees, uses that moderation in executing his decrees, as is declared his singular mercifulness even in the reprobate, in that he endures them a long time, and permits them to enjoy many and singular benefits, until at length he justly condemns them: and that to good end and purpose, that is, to show himself to be an enemy and avenger of wickedness, that it may appear what power he has by these severe judgments, and finally by comparison of contraries to set forth indeed, how great his mercy is towards the elect. (Geneva Bible Translation Notes)

Alluding to the creation of Adam, he compares mankind not yet made (but who are in the creators mind) to a lump of clay: who afterwards God made, and daily makes, according as he purposed from everlasting, both such as should be elect, and such as should be reprobate, as also this word "make" declares. (Geneva Bible Translation Notes)

But when men shall call a solid answer to their groundless conceits about the meaning of the Scriptures, a replying against God, it savours more of the spirit who was seen falling like lightning from heaven, than of His, who saw him in this his fall. (John Goodwin)

Now the heart of the story as we go through the whole of the Scriptures is this, that we are in the midst of a rebel province.  The prince of this world is the devil, and he is the god of this age.  We are in the midst of the rebel province, and we are God’s underground movement in this world. (Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse, Th.D.)

What a dreadful thing it is to have God against us and to know that He who controls the, very breath of our lives, and all the elements of destruction around us, is compelled by His very nature to deal contrary to us, and to consume us, even as fire must consume every combustible thing that it touches! God is compelled to be against sin, and while He pities the sinner He hates the sin; and while we are against God, His very presence must be to us a consuming fire, and even heaven would be hell to the sinful soul, and it would fly from the awful blaze of His holy glance as from a lightning flash and long to hide itself in hell. (A. B. Simpson)

The Lord will not save those whom He cannot command.  He will not divide His offices.  You cannot believe on a half-Christ.  We take Him for what He is—the anointed Savior and Lord who is King of kings and Lord of all lords! He would not be Who He is if He saved us and called us and chose us without the understanding that He can also guide and control our lives. (A. W. Tozer)

Now he answers concerning the reprobate, or those whom God hates who are not yet born, and has appointed to destruction, without any respect of unworthiness.  And first of all he proves this to be true, by alleging the testimony of God himself concerning Pharaoh, whom he stirred up to this purpose, that he might be glorified in Pharaoh's hardening and just punishing. (Geneva Bible Translation Notes)

A seminary professor once said to me, “Try to explain election, and you may lose your mind; but explain it away and you will lose your soul!” (Wiersbe, W. W. (1996, c1989). The Bible exposition commentary.)

There is nothing believers could have done to attain their salvation.  It would be a cruel trick if God made believers jump through hoops of righteousness in order to gain redemption. (Hughes, R. B., & Laney, J. C. (2001). Tyndale concise Bible commentary.)

It is significant that Paul here offers no ‘logical’ explanation for the compatibility of God’s sovereignty with the equally biblical teaching that God is scrupulously fair and that human beings are justifiably blameworthy for their actions.  We would do well to follow his approach: to affirm the truth of these great biblical doctrines without eliminating or weakening one or the other through an insistence on an exhaustive explanation.  This is a point at which, with Paul (cf. 11:33–36), we should be prepared to recognize a mystery beyond our comprehension. (Carson, D. A. (1994). New Bible commentary : 21st century edition)

Is there injustice with God - Is it unjust in God to give Jacob the blessing rather than Esau? or to accept believers, and them only. God forbid - In no wise.  This is well consistent with justice; for he has a right to fix the terms on which he will show mercy, according to his declaration to Moses, petitioning for all the people, after they had committed idolatry with the golden calf.  I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy - According to the terms I myself have fixed.  And I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion - Namely, on those only who submit to my terms, who accept of it in the way that I have appointed. (John Wesley)

What was the fundamental mistake of the Jews?  This may seem a curious question to ask in view of what we have just said. But, paradoxically, Paul holds that though the rejection of the Jews was the work of God, it need never have happened.  He cannot get rid of the eternal paradox—nor does he desire to—that at one and the same time all is of God and man has free-will.  The fundamental mistake of the Jews was that they tried to get into a right relationship with God through their own efforts.  They tried to earn salvation; whereas the Gentiles simply accepted the offer of God in perfect trust.  The Jews should have known that the only way to God was the way of faith and that human achievement led nowhere.  Did not Isaiah say: "No one who believes in him will be put to shame"?  (Isa 28:16; Rom 10:11.)  Did not Joel say: "Everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved"? (Joel 2:32; Rom 10:13.)  True, no man can have faith until he hears the offer of God; but to the Jews that offer was made.  They clung to the way of human achievement through obedience to the law; they staked everything on works, but they should have known that the way to God was the way of faith, for the prophets had told them so…. (William Barclay)

The diligent perusal of the Holy Scriptures would discover to us our past ignorance. (William Wilburforce)

He proves the casting away of Esau in that he was made servant to his brother: and proves the choosing of Jacob in that he was made lord of his brother, although his brother was the first begotten.  And in order that no man might take what God had said, and refer it to external things, the apostle shows out of Malachi, who is a good interpreter of Moses, that the servitude of Esau was joined with the hatred of God, and the lordship of Jacob with the love of God. (Geneva Bible Translation Notes)

In election, God exercises His sovereign will to accomplish His perfect plan.  Keep in mind that the election discussed in Romans 9–11 is national and not individual.  To apply all the truths of these chapters to the salvation or security of the individual believer is to miss their message completely.  In fact, Paul carefully points out that he is discussing the Jews and Gentiles as peoples, not individual sinners. (Wiersbe, W. W. (1997, c1992). Wiersbe's expository outlines on the New Testament (391). Wheaton, Ill.: Victor Books.)

Though of one father, a different destiny was divinely appointed for each of the twins. Hence only the divine disposal constitutes the true and valid succession, and not the bodily descent. (Vincent's Word Studies, Marvin R. Vincent, D.D.)

At this time I will come, saith God, and exert my Divine power, and Sarah, though fourscore and ten years old, shall have a son; which shows that it is the sovereign will and act of God alone, which singles out and constitutes the peculiar seed that was to inherit the promise made to Abraham. (Dr. Adam Clarke)

Whence it appears that not the children who descend from Abraham’s loins, nor those who were circumcised as he was, nor even those whom he might expect and desire, are therefore the Church and people of God; but those who are made children by the good pleasure and promise of God, as Isaac was, are alone to be accounted for the seed with whom the covenant was established. (Dr. Adam Clarke)

Neither because they are lineally the seed of Abraham, will it follow that they are all children of God - This did not hold even in Abraham's own family; and much less in his remote descendants.  But God then said, In Isaac shall thy seed be called - That is, Isaac, not Ishmael, shall be called thy seed; that seed to which the promise is made. (John Wesley)

The Jew might reply, "Why, then, if Israel had such privileges, covenants and promises, is the nation rejected? Has God, if Jesus is really the Christ, made his word of none effect?"  The apostle in the rest of the chapter answers this objection.  The first point is that there is a wider, greater Israel than that of the flesh. Those of Israel are not all Israel.  There is an Israel according to the promise as well as according to the flesh. (The People's New Testament (1891) by B. W. Johnson)

The word “entitlement” has become a part of the public discourse in America these days. Some people suggest that the United States is becoming a society of entitlement, where everything we need or want is owed to us.  When we don’t get what we want we feel we have been treated unfairly.  It’s a natural human trait, actually.  It even seeps into our spiritual lives as well as our material.  (Tom Fuller, Calvary Chapel)
 

Here the apostle most distinctly points out the twofold nature of our Lord - his eternal Godhead and his humanity; and all the transpositions of particles, and alterations of points in the universe, will not explain away this doctrine.  As this verse contains such an eminent proof of the deity of Christ, no wonder that the opposers of his divinity should strive with their utmost skill and cunning to destroy its force. (Dr. Adam Clarke)

Here the reason is now more plainly given, why the destruction of that people caused him so much anguish, that he was prepared to redeem them by his own death, namely because they were Israelites; for the relative pronoun is put here instead of a causative adverb.  In like manner this anxiety took hold on Moses, when he desired that he should be blotted out of the book of life, rather than that the holy and chosen race of Abraham should be reduced to nothing. (Exodus 32:32.) (John Calivin)

Human words cannot fully describe the motions of souls that are full of God.  As if he had said, I could wish to suffer in their stead; yea, to be an anathema from Christ in their place.  In how high a sense he wished this, who can tell, unless himself had been asked and had resolved the question?  Certainly he did not then consider himself at all, but only others and the glory of God.  The thing could not be; yet the wish was pious and solid; though with a tacit condition, if it were right and possible. (John Wesley)

By declaring his sorrow for the unbelieving Jews, who excluded themselves from all the blessings he had enumerated, he shows that what he was now about to speak, he did not speak from any prejudice to them. (John Wesley)

Paul tries to deal with one of the most bewildering problems that the Church has to solve--the problem of the Jews.  They were God's chosen people; they had had a unique place in God's purposes; and yet when God's Son had come into the world they had rejected him and crucified him.  How is this tragic paradox to be explained? (William Barclay)

Which is in Christ, etc. That is, of which Christ is the bond; for he is the beloved Son, in whom the Father is well pleased.  If, then, we are through him united to God, we may be assured of the immutable and unfailing kindness of God towards us.  He now speaks here more distinctly than before, as he declares that the fountain of love is in the Father, and affirms that it flows to us from Christ. (John Calvin)

He is now carried away into hyperbolic expressions, that he might confirm us more fully in those things which are to be experienced. (John Calvin)

We not only overcome so great and many miseries and calamities, but are also more than conquerors in all of them. (Geneva Bible Translation Notes)

This testimony adds no small weight to the subject; for he intimates, that the dread of death is so far from being a reason to us for falling away, that it has been almost ever the lot of God’s servants to have death as it were present before their eyes.  It is indeed probable, that in that Psalm the miserable oppression of the people under the tyranny of Antiochus is described; for it is expressly said, that the worshippers of God were cruelly treated, for no other reason but through hatred to true religion. (John Calvin)

 

Paul goes on with a poet's fervour and a lover's rapture to sing of how nothing can separate us from the love of God in our Risen Lord.  No affliction, no hardship, no peril can separate us. The disasters of the world do not separate a man from Christ; they bring him closer yet. (William Barclay)

“From the representations of the dead Christ the early believers shrank as from an impiety.  To them He was the living, not the dead Christ — the triumphant, the glorified, the infinite, — not the agonized Christ in that one brief hour and power of darkness which was but the spasm of an eternal glorification” (Farrar, “Lives of the Fathers,” i., 14). As quoted in (Vincent, M. R. (2002). Word studies in the New Testament)

With one tremendous leap of thought Paul has seen Christ, not as the Judge but as the lover of the souls of men. (William Barclay)

The subject discussed having been sufficiently proved, he now breaks out into exclamations, by which he sets forth the magnanimity with which the faithful ought to be furnished when adversities urge them to despond. (John Calvin)

He then shows, by the very order of election, that the afflictions of the faithful are nothing else than the manner by which they are conformed to the image of Christ; and that this was necessary, he had before declared.  There is therefore no reason for us to be grieved, or to think it hard and grievous, that we are afflicted, unless we disapprove of the Lord’s election, by which we have been foreordained to life, and unless we are unwilling to bear the image of the Son of God, by which we are to be prepared for celestial glory. (John Calvin)

This promise is not for everyone, only for those who love God and have answered his call.  But for these it is an all-inclusive promise, covering the good and the bad, the bright and the dark, the sweet and the bitter, the easy and the hard, the happy and the sad.  The promise can be depended on in prosperity and poverty, in health and sickness, in calm and storm, in life and in death.
Willmington, H. L. (1997). Willmington's Bible handbook (671). Wheaton, Ill.: Tyndale House Publishers.

This is a remarkable reason for strengthening our confidence, that we are heard by God when we pray through his Spirit, for he thoroughly knows our desires, even as the thoughts of his own Spirit. (John Calvin)

 There is no reason why we should faint under the burden of afflictions, seeing that prayers minister to us a most sure help: which cannot be frustrated, seeing that they proceed from the Spirit of God who dwells in us.  (Geneva Bible Translation Notes)

Whether it be the hour of death, or the second coming of Christ, or the resurrection of the dead, and eternal glory; all which are unseen by us, and to be hoped for… (Dr. John Gill)

By hope (τῇ ἐλπίδι)  Better in hope. We are saved by faith. See on 1Peter 1:3.  Hope - not hope.  Here the word is used of the object of hope. See Colossians 1:5; 1Timothy 1:1; Hebrews 6:18.

The world is one where beauty fades and loveliness decays; it is a dying world; but it is waiting for its liberation from all this and the coming of the state of glory. (William Barclay)

For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now — If for man’s sake alone the earth was cursed, it cannot surprise us that it should share in his recovery. (A Commentary on the Old and New Testaments by Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset and David Brown)

The creation itself (autē hē ktisis).  It is the hope of creation, not of the Creator.  Nature “possesses in the feeling of her unmerited suffering a sort of presentiment of her future deliverance” (Godet). (WORD PICTURES IN THE NEW TESTAMENT by Archibald Thomas Robertson)

Rom 8:20 For the creature was made subject to (x) vanity, not (y) willingly, but by reason (z) of him who hath subjected [the same] in (a) hope,

(x) Is subject to a vanishing and disappearing state.

(y) Not by their natural inclination.

(z) That they should obey the Creator's commandment, whom it pleased to show by their sickly state, how greatly he was displeased with man.

(a) God would not make the world subject to be cursed forever because of the sin of man, but gave it hope that it would be restored. (Geneva Bible Translation Notes)

In Rom 8:19 he uses a wonderful word for eager expectation.  It is apokaradokia (<G603>) and it describes the attitude of a man who scans the horizon with head thrust forward, eagerly searching the distance for the first signs of the dawn break of glory. (William Barclay's Daily Study Bible)

“True, we must suffer with Christ, if we would partake of His glory; but what of that?  For if such sufferings are set over against the coming glory, they sink into insignificance.” (A Commentary on the Old and New Testaments by Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset and David Brown)

Joint heirs - That we may know it is a great inheritance which God will give us for he hath given a great one to his Son.  If we suffer with him - Willingly and cheerfully, for righteousness' sake.  This is a new proposition, referring to what follows. (John Wesley)

But Paul means, that the Spirit of God gives us such a testimony, that when he is our guide and teacher, our spirit is made assured of the adoption of God: for our mind of its own self, without the preceding testimony of the Spirit, could not convey to us this assurance. (John Calvin)

In New Testament times adopted sons enjoyed the same privileges as natural-born sons. So, instead of cowering in slave-like fear, Christians can approach God in an intimate way calling Him Abba, Father. Walvoord, J. F., Zuck, R. B., & Dallas Theological Seminary. (1983-c1985). The Bible knowledge commentary : An exposition of the scriptures (2:471). Wheaton, IL: Victor Books.

For as many as are led by the Spirit, etc. - No man who has not Divine assistance can either find the way to heaven, or walk in it when found.  As Christ, by his sacrificial offering, has opened the kingdom of God to all believers; and, as a mediator, transacts the concerns of their kingdom before the throne; so the Spirit of God is the great agent here below, to enlighten, quicken, strengthen, and guide the true disciples of Christ; and all that are born of this Spirit are led and guided by it; and none can pretend to be the children of God who are not thus guided. (Dr. Adam Clarke)

Rom 8:12 ⁽¹⁴⁾ Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh.

(14) An exhortation to oppress the flesh daily more and more by the power of the Spirit of regeneration, because (he says) you are debtors to God, in that you have received so many benefits from him.

If the Spirit be in us, Christ is in us. He dwells in the heart by faith. Grace in the soul is its new nature; the soul is alive to God, and has begun its holy happiness which shall endure for ever. (Matthew Henry)

Sins are not a list of petty irritations drawn up for the sake of a jealous God.  They are, rather, a description of the impediments to spiritual growth.  We are the ones who suffer if we sin, by forfeiting the development of character and Christlikeness that would have resulted if we had not sinned. Muck, T. C. (1989). Vol. 19: Sins of the body : Ministry in a sexual society

This does not mean that the unsaved person never does anything good, or that the believer never does anything bad. It means that the bent of their lives is different.  One lives for the flesh, the other lives for the Spirit.  (Wiersbe, W. W. (1996, c1989). The Bible exposition commentary.  "An exposition of the New Testament")

Rom 8:8 ⁽¹⁰⁾ So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God.

(10) The conclusion. Therefore they that walk after the flesh cannot please God: by which it follows that they are not grafted into Christ. (Geneva Bible Translation Notes)

To be carnally minded: To be under the dominion of the fleshly impulses of the body. (The People's New Testament)

Whatever the flesh savors, that brings about death: and whatever the Spirit savors, that is conducive to joy and everlasting life. (Geneva Bible Translation Notes)

The man is as the mind is….Which way do our thoughts move with most pleasure?  Which way go our plans and contrivances?  Are we most wise for the world, or for our souls? (Matthew Henry)

Thus satisfaction was made to Divine justice, and the way of salvation opened for the sinner.  By the Spirit the law of love is written upon the heart, and though the righteousness of the law is not fulfilled by us, yet, blessed be God, it is fulfilled in us; there is that in all true believers, which answers the intention of the law. (Matthew Henry)

He does not use an argument here, but expounds the mystery of sanctification, which is imputed to us: because, he says, the power of the law was not such (and that by reason of the corruption of our nature) that it could make man pure and perfect, and because it rather kindled the flame of sin than put it out and extinguish it, therefore God clothed his Son with flesh just like our sinful flesh, in which he utterly abolished our corruption, that being accounted thoroughly pure and without fault in him, apprehended and laid hold of by faith, we might be found to fully have the singular perfection which the law requires, and therefore that there might be no condemnation in us. (Geneva Bible Translation Notes)

It is a glorious day in the life of the Christian when he or she realizes that God’s children are not under the Law, that God does not expect them to do “good works” in the power of the old nature.  When the Christian understands that “there is no condemnation,” then he realizes that the indwelling Spirit pleases God and helps the believer to please Him.  What a glorious salvation we have! “Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage!” warns Paul in Gal. 5:1 (NKJV). Wiersbe's expository outlines on the New Testament)

Rom 8:1  There is therefore now no condemnation - Either for things present or past.  Now he comes to deliverance and liberty.  The apostle here resumes the thread of his discourse, which was interrupted, Romans 7:7. (John Wesley)

This is the true perfection of those that are born again, to confess that they are imperfect. (Geneva Bible Translation Notes)

The body serving as the seat of the death into which the soul is sunk through the power of sin. (Dr. Marvin R. Vincent, Vincent's Word Studies)

May we be enabled to shake off that lethargy which is so apt to creep upon us!  For this end, a deep practical conviction of our natural depravity and weakness will be found of eminent advantage. (William Wilberforce)

The law of the mind in this place is not to be understood as referring to the mind as it is naturally, and as our mind is from our birth, but of the mind which is renewed by the Spirit of God. (Geneva Bible Translation Notes)

The conclusion: as the law of God exhorts to goodness, so does the law of sin (that is, the corruption in which we are born) force us to wickedness: but the spirit, that is, our mind, in that it is regenerated, coexists with the law of God: but the flesh, that is, the whole natural man, is bondslave to the law of sin.  Therefore, in short, wickedness and death are not of the law, but of sin, which reigns in those that are not regenerated: for they neither wish to do good, neither do they do good, but they wish and do evil: but in those that are regenerated, it strives against the spirit or law of the mind, so that they cannot live at all as well as they want to, or be as free of sin as they want to. (Geneva Bible Translation Notes)

But sin that dwelleth in me - the principle of sin, which has possessed itself of all my carnal appetites and passions, and thus subjects my reason and domineers over my soul.  Thus I am in perpetual contradiction to myself….This strange self-contradictory propensity led some of the ancient philosophers to imagine that man has two souls, a good and a bad one….(Dr. Adam Clarke)

It is not the Will that leads men astray; but the corrupt Passions which oppose and oppress the will. (Dr. Adam Clarke)

A man walks in quiet indifference, doing his own will, without knowledge of God, or consequently any sense of sin or rebellion. (Dr. John Darby)

There is no principle by which the soul can be brought into the light; no principle by which it can be restored to purity: fleshly appetites alone prevail; and the brute runs away with the man. (Dr. Adam Clarke)

 

That natural corruption, which adheres strongly even to those that are regenerated, and is not completely gone. (Geneva Bible Translation Notes)

Christians may here find a test of their piety.  The fact of struggling against evil, the desire to be free from it, and to overcome it, the anxiety and grief which it causes, is an evidence that we do not love it, and that there.  fore we are the friends of God.  Perhaps nothing can be a more decisive test of piety than a long-continued and painful struggle against evil passions and desires in every form, and a panting of the soul to be delivered from the power and dominion of sin. (Dr. Albert Barnes)

The deeds of my life, he says, are not in accordance to my will, rather they are contrary to it.  Therefore by the consent of my will with the law, and repugnancy with the deeds of my life, it plainly appears that the law and a properly controlled will induce us to do one thing, but corruption, which also has its seat in the regenerated, another thing. (Geneva Bible Translations Notes)

Thus it appears that man cannot have a true notion of sin but by means of the law of God….The law, therefore, is the grand instrument in the hands of a faithful minister, to alarm and awaken sinners; and he may safely show that every sinner is under the law, and consequently under the curse, who has not fled for refuge to the hope held out by the Gospel: for, in this sense also, Jesus Christ is the End of the Law for justification to them that believe. (Dr. Adam Clarke)

Deceived me - The word used here properly means to lead or seduce from the right way; and then to deceive, solicit to sin, cause to err from the way of virtue, Romans 16:18; 1 Corinthians 3:18; 2 Corinthians 11:3, “The serpent beguiled Eve through his subtlety,” 2 Thessalonians 2:3. (Dr. Albert Barnes)

"Paul’s focus in these verses was not on whether the person is regenerate or unregenerate.  The power of sin is present in any person who tries to keep the law on his own. (Tyndale concise Bible commentary)

He sets himself before us as an example, in whom all men may behold, first what they are by nature before they earnestly think upon the law of God: that is, stupid, and prone to sin and wickedness, without any true sense and feeling of sin, and second what manner of persons they become, when their conscience is reproved by the testimony of the Law, that is, stubborn and more inflamed with the desire for sin than they ever were before. (Geneva Bible Translation Notes)

Though sin is in us, yet it is not known as sin, neither does it rage in the same way that it rages after the law is known. (Geneva Bible Translation Notes)

Paul’s point here is that the law reveals what sin is and must be distinguished from the sin itself.  The law is not sin (5:20; 7:4–6), just as light is not that which it illuminates.  (Tyndale concise Bible commentary)

But now we are delivered from the law - We, who have believed in Christ Jesus, are delivered from that yoke by which we were bound, which sentenced every transgressor to perdition, but provided no pardon even for the penitent, and no sanctification for those who are weary of their inbred corruptions. (Dr. Adam Clarke)

The illustration in this verse and the following is designed to show more at length the effect of the Law, whenever and wherever applied; whether in a state of nature or of grace.  It was always the same.  It was the occasion of agitation and conflict in a man’s own mind.  This was true when a sinner was under conviction; and it was true when a man was a Christian.  In all circumstances where the Law was applied to the corrupt mind of man, it produced this agitation and conflict. (Dr. Albert Barnes)

An application of the similitude of marriage. "So", he says, "it is the same with us: for now we are joined to the Spirit, as it were to the second husband, by whom we must bring forth new children: we are dead with regard to the first husband, but with regard to the latter, we are as it were raised from the dead." (Geneva Bible Translation Notes)

Another point remained to be treated of by the apostle — the effect of this last doctrine upon the question of the law.  The Christian, or, to say better, the believer, has part in Christ as a Christ who has died, and lives to God, Christ being raised from the dead through Him.  What is the force of this truth with regard to the law (for the law has only power over a man so long as he lives)?  Being then dead, it has no longer any hold upon him.  This is our position with regard to the law.  Does that weaken its authority?  No. For we say that Christ has died, and so have we therefore; but the law no longer applies to one that is dead. (Dr. John Darby)

This is a simple illustration and one should not engage in puerile fantasy when gleaning its very upfront meaning—that death dissolves all those things that bind us to the law in life.

As the poet says, “Do this and live, the law commands, but gives me neither feet nor hands. A better word the gospel brings. It bids me fly and gives me wings.” (As quoted in, Wuest's word studies from the Greek New Testament : For the English reader)

But the gift of God. God gives to those who turn from sin, life eternal. It is his gracious gift, conditioned on refusing to be the servant of sin longer, and is through Christ. (Peoples New Testament)

Rom 6:21-23
The pleasure and profit of sin do not deserve to be called fruit.  Sinners are but ploughing iniquity, sowing vanity, and reaping the same. Shame came into the world with sin, and is still the certain effect of it.  The end of sin is death. Though the way may seem pleasant and inviting, yet it will be bitterness in the latter end. From this condemnation the believer is set at liberty, when made free from sin.  If the fruit is unto holiness, if there is an active principle of true and growing grace, the end will be everlasting life; a very happy end!  Though the way is up-hill, though it is narrow, thorny, and beset, yet everlasting life at the end of it is sure.  The gift of God is eternal life. And this gift is through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Christ purchased it, prepared it, prepares us for it, preserves us to it; he is the All in all in our salvation. (Matthew Henry)

Rom 6:21 (10) What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed? for the (u) end of those things [is] death.

(10) An exhortation to the study of righteousness and hatred of sin, the contrary results of both being set down before us.

(u) The reward or payment. (Geneva Bible Translation Notes)

 

Every man is the servant of the master to whose commands he yields himself; whether it be the sinful dispositions of his heart, in actions which lead to death, or the new and spiritual obedience implanted by regeneration. (Matthew Henry)

Whom ye obey: "...such who obey sin, are the servants of sin; they are at the beck and command of sin; they give up themselves to the service of it with delight and diligence, and are perfect drudges to it: this is a very unhappy situation; their service is very unreasonable; and they are rendered incapable of serving God, for no man can serve two masters; they are hereby brought into the drudgery of the devil; into a state of bondage, out of which nothing but grace can extricate them; into a very mean and contemptible condition..." (Dr. John Gill)

To be under the law and under sin signifies the same thing, with respect to whose who are not sanctified, and on the other hand to be under grace and righteousness is in harmony with those that are regenerated.  Now these are contraries, so that one cannot agree with the other: therefore let righteousness expel sin. (Geneva Bible Translation Notes)

 

Rom 6:14 Sin shall not have dominion over you - It has neither right nor power.  For ye are not under the law - A dispensation of terror and bondage, which only shows sin, without enabling you to conquer it.  But under grace - Under the merciful dispensation of the gospel, which brings complete victory over it to every one who is under the powerful influences of the Spirit of Christ. (John Wesley)

One of the best books you could ever read is "The Holy War" by John Bunyan.  There is even a version that has been updated into the modern English.  Inside this wonderful text you will find the best manual on warfare ever penned.

Rom 6:12
Reign (βασιλευέτω)
The antithesis implied is not between reigning and existing, but between reigning and being deposed. (Dr. Marvin Vincent

Rom 6:12 Let not sin reign even in your mortal body - It must be subject to death, but it need not be subject to sin. (John Wesley)

Rom 6:11
Reckon ye also yourselves to be dead - Die as truly unto sin, as he died for sin. Live as truly unto God, as he lives with God. This seems to be the spirit of the apostle’s meaning. (Dr. Adam Clarke)

Rom 6:10 He died to sin - To atone for and abolish it. He liveth unto God - A glorious eternal life, such as we shall live also. (John Wesley)

This is certain because, Christ being raised from the dead, dieth no more. He now lives eternally, and we who are in him, having shared his death, must share his eternal life.  (The People's New Testament)