Is master (2961) (kurieuo from noun kurios = master - power of control rather than physical strength) means to rule or have dominion over and speaks of individuals who exercise authority or have control over others (Lk 22:25, Ro 14:9, 2Co 1:24). To be lord of, to rule over, to have dominion over or to exercise lordship over. Scripture personifies various things which control human life including law (Ro 7:1), Sin (Ro 6:14) and death (Ro 6:9). Note the present tense speaks of continually lordship of death over non-believers. There are 7 uses of kurieuo in the NT Luke 22:25 And He said to them, "The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them; and those who have authority over them are called 'Benefactors.' Romans 6:9-note knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, is never to die again; death no longer is master over Him. Romans 6:14-note For Sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law, but under grace. Romans 7:1-note Or do you not know, brethren (for I am speaking to those who know the law), that the law has jurisdiction over a person as long as he lives? Romans 14:9-note For to this end Christ died and lived again, that He might be Lord both of the dead and of the living. 2Corinthians 1:24 Not that we lord it over your faith, but are workers with you for your joy; for in your faith you are standing firm. 1Timothy 6:15 which He will bring about at the proper time-- He who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords (functions here as "verbal noun"); Kurieuo is used 35 times in the non-apocryphal Septuagint (LXX) - Gen. 3:16; 37:8 (of Joseph prophesying he would reign over his brothers); Ex 15:9; Num. 21:18; 24:7; 12.2" class="scriptRef">Jos. 12:2; 15:16; 24:33; Jdg. 9:2; 14:4; 15:11; 2 Chr. 14:7; 20:6; Ps. 106:41; Isa. 3:4, 12; 7:18; 14:2; 19:4; 42:19; Jer. 2:31; 30:3; Lam. 5:8; Dan. 2:38f; 3:2, 27; 4:25, 32; 5:21; 6:24; 11:3ff, 43 Genesis 3:16 To the woman He said, "I will greatly multiply Your pain in childbirth, In pain you shall bring forth children; Yet your desire shall be for your husband, And he shall rule over (Heb = mashal = have dominion, reign, and generally conveys sense of leadership and authority; Lxx = kurieuo) you." Comment: Let's face it, this use of kurieuo is not very popular with you ladies. And I can understand why, for in many marriages the husband has a tendency to rule over his wife as a selfish, cruel despot, rather that a self-less, loving leader. The latter was God's original intent, but because of our residual, dormant fallen flesh, all too often it is the former who rules the roost so to speak. In fact only the Spirit filled husband (Ep 5:18-note) can fulfill Paul's command to love his wife like Christ did the church (Ep 5:25-note; where this calls for continual, daily death to self for Spirit filled/controlled husbands!) Psalm 106:41 (note) Then He gave them into the hand of the nations; and those who hated them ruled over (Heb = mashal = have dominion, reign, and generally conveys sense of leadership and authority; Lxx = kurieuo) them. Comment: This passage speaks literally of God's punishment to faithless ("adulterous") Israel, but is a warning to all believers today (1Co 10:6, 11), to not seek/serve any god but Jehovah, lest He be forced to discipline us in a similar way, even using those who hate us! Lord, give us ears to hear, to receive, to tremble, to fear and to obey in the power of Thy Spirit and for the glory of Thy Name. Amen. Jeremiah 2:31 "O generation, heed the word of the LORD. Have I been a wilderness to Israel, Or a land of thick darkness? Why do My people say, 'We are free to roam ("we are lords" in Je 2:31KJV; Lxx translates this with kurieuo = "we will not be ruled over" = what blatant stubbornness and rebellion and yet how often do we imitate Judah's faithless/"adulterous" behavior and "Do our own thing!"); We will come no more to Thee'? Paul is sometimes difficult to understand, but not this time! Everyone has a master, either Sin (along with death and the law) or Jesus Christ. Resurrection freed Jesus from the possibility of death, both physical and spiritual. The saving results of His death and resurrection are sure forever. Christ's victory has been accomplished once for all. And since we died with Him, death is no longer master over us. Praise His Name forever! Are you afraid to die? Then lay hold of this great truth. Eat it. Assimilate it. Then live it out as an act of worship. You are freed from the fear of death. Hallelujah! Death is for the believer the doorway through which we are instantly transported into the presence of Jesus Christ. He conquered physical death and His life is in us so death can no longer reign over us. Hebrews agrees writing that Since then the children share (koinonia [word study] - fellowship, communion, partnership, have a share in common) in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise (more literally = alongside and nearby ~ in like manner) also partook (metecho = literally to hold with) of the same (of human nature but without its sin), that through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil (word study) and might deliver those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives." (He 2:14,15-notes) Wuest comments that "The Son of God united with Himself, something that was not natural to Him. God, as to His nature, is spirit, that is, incorporeal Being (Jn 4:24). ...koinonia (partakers) marks the characteristic sharing of the common fleshly nature as it pertains to the human race at large, whereas metecho (took part of) speaks of the unique fact of the incarnation as a voluntary acceptance of humanity. What light this throws upon the Bible’s attitude towards the dual nature of our Lord, Very God and true Man." (Wuest, K. S. Wuest's Word Studies from the Greek New Testament: Studies in the Vocabulary of the Greek New Testament: Grand Rapids: Eerdmans) Romans 6:10 For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. (NASB: Lockman) Greek: o gar apethanen, (3SAAI) te hamartia apethanen (3SAAI) ephapax o de ze, (3SPAI) ze (3SPAI) to theo Amplified: For by the death He died, He died to sin [ending His relation to it] once for all; and the life that He lives, He is living to God [in unbroken fellowship with Him]. (Amplified Bible - Lockman) GWT: When he died, he died once and for all to sin's power. But now he lives, and he lives for God. (GWT) NLT: He died once to defeat sin, and now he lives for the glory of God. (NLT - Tyndale House) Phillips: He died, because of sin, once: he lives for God for ever. (Phillips: Touchstone) Wuest: For the death He died, He died with respect to our sinful nature once for all. But the life He lives, He lives with respect to God. (Eerdmans) Young's Literal: for in that he died, to the sin he died once, and in that he liveth, he liveth to God; FOR THE DEATH THAT HE DIED, HE DIED TO SIN: o gar apethanen (3SAAI) te hamartia apethanen (3SAAI): (Ro 8:3; 2Cor 5:21; Heb 9:26-28; 1Pet 3:18) Don't misunderstand this passage. Jesus did not sin. He lived a perfect sinless life. In whatever way He died to sin we died to sin. He died to the penalty of sin, meeting sin's legal demands. He did not die as a sinner but took sin upon Himself to die for mankind, "For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit." (see note Romans 8:3; 8:4) God "made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him." (2Co 5:21) So now believers are free from the penalty of sin the moment they place their faith in Christ and His substitutionary death, burial and resurrection. It is interesting that the Jewish teachers believed that the “evil impulse” would trouble even the most pious until the time of the Messiah, when the evil impulse would be slain! Paul says the Messiah has come and sin’s power has been rendered inoperative! This is a fact not an experience...the experience comes later. In the famous old hymn "Rock of Ages" there is a somewhat enigmatic phrase "be for sin the double cure saved from wrath and made me sure" The writer may have had in mind the truth Paul unveils in Romans - the first "cure" referring to Christ saving us from the penalty of sin and the second "cure" referring to His saving us from the power of sin. Barnes draws a practical application writing that "The design of his death was to destroy sin; to make an atonement for it, and thus to put it away. As his death was designed to effect this, so it follows that Christians being baptized into his death, and having it as their object to destroy sin, should not indulge in it. The whole force of the motive; therefore, drawn from the death of Christ, is to induce Christians to forsake sin." (Barnes, A. Barnes' Notes on the NT) Thus Paul writes that Christ "died for all, that they who live should no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died and rose again on their behalf." (2Co 5:15) As he defended his integrity to the Corinthians, Paul wanted them to know that his old, self-centered life was finished and that he had an all-out desire to live righteously. For all genuine believers, their death in Christ is not only a death to sin, but a resurrection to a new life of righteousness. Denny writes that "In dying our death, Christ has done for us something so immense in love, that we ought to be His, and only His for ever. To make us His is the very object of His death." (Denny. Second Corinthians, Page 199) MacDonald adds that "Christ did not die for us so that we might go on living our own petty, selfish lives the way we want to live them. Rather He died for us so that we might henceforth turn over our lives to Him in willing, glad devotion." (MacDonald, W. Believer's Bible Commentary. Nashville: Thomas Nelson) Wayne Barber adds that there are two aspects of Christ's death to sin: "One, He died to the penalty of sin and it is no longer affecting us because the penalty for the sin of Adam and his race was death. So He came under the race of Adam, under the Law, went to the cross, bore our sin upon Himself, and now that He is dead, that death is gone, and when we put our faith into Him, that death never bothers us anymore. That ‘s the penalty of sin. But then secondly, He died to the power of sin. When He rose, He rose victorious over anything that sin could ever do over you and me. When His life is in us, that’s how we live daily—with victory!" ONCE FOR ALL: ephapax: Ephapax (2178) strengthens the meaning of the word hapax which also conveys the basic meaning “once for all”. We might say that ephapax means in a sense "once for all and then some!" Once and once only. This adverb denies a repetition and implies that it will not be done again. Christ's offering of Himself for sin was not like the Old Testament offerings that had to be offered day after day. Christ is the Lamb, a animal utilized in the OT sacrifices as a shadow of He Who was to come. Jesus is the substance, and He only had to die once, and He will never die again! His life now is our life. That’s how we live this holy life! Three of five uses of ephapax are found in Hebrews and each is also used in the context of Christ's death to sin... Heb 7:27 - (Christ) Who does not need daily, like those high priests, to offer up sacrifices, first for His own sins and then for the sins of the people, because this He did once for all (ephapax) when He offered up Himself. Heb 9:12 - and not through the blood of goats and calves, but through His own blood, He entered the holy place once for all (ephapax) having obtained eternal redemption Heb 10:10 - By this will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all (ephapax) In sum "ephapax" marks the absolute sufficiency and finality of the death of Christ for all the purposes for which He died. The SIN here does not refer to acts of sin. That aspect of the death of our Lord, namely, that of paying the penalty for our sins, Paul took care of in [Ro 3:21-5:11]. Here he speaks of the relation of Christ’s death to the sinful nature of the individual. Our Lord’s death not only paid the penalty of human sin, but it was used of God to break the power of indwelling sin in the believer’s life. This is what the song writer meant when he wrote concerning the blood of Christ, “be of sin the double cure, save from wrath and make me pure.” BUT THE LIFE THAT HE LIVES HE LIVES TO GOD: o de ze (3SPAI) ze (3SPAI) to theo: (Ro 6:11; 14:7-9; Lu 20:38; 2Cor 5:15; 1Pet 4:6) "He lives" In the Revelation Jesus declares "Do not be afraid; I am the first and the last, and the living One; and I was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of death and of Hades (Death and Hades are essentially synonyms, but death is the condition and Hades, equivalent to OT Sheol, the place of the dead). and the living One; and I was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of death and of Hades." (Rev 1:17-18) The point is that Christ decides who lives, who dies, and when. This phrase suggests believers share in all that is involved in His life, its fullness and power. The contrast between this and the death that He died is in the matter of relation to sin. He has nothing more to do with that. His life as being “to God” makes good the effects of His sacrifice in the case of those who believe on him. APPLICATION OF "HE LIVES TO GOD" "To (the) God" is literally "the God" (God with a definite article "the") and in context clearly refers to God the Father. This is an amazing thought. Jesus, Who Himself is God, daily lives His life to God the Father. His whole life is given over to His Father. Therefore, if He lives unto God, and He is God, then we, having His life, are spiritually and supernaturally likewise motivated to live to God the Father. You may be saying to yourself "How can I live this way continually?" (and by the way "lives" is present tense so this is the Son's lifestyle!) Paul gives us the answer in Philippians writing that is is possible because "it is God Who is at work in (us), both to will and to work for His good pleasure" (see note Philippians 2:12, 2:13) God Himself is the One Who gives us the desire, the "want to"! He’s the One who moves us towards God. If that is true think about the implication. Now because our Lord Jesus Christ's supernatural life lives in believers in the Spirit of Christ and He lives to God the Father, whenever we walk away from God the Father, it is because we have made a conscious chose to do so! I pray you are as convicted by this truth as I am beloved. The Spirit is what’s pulling me and moving me like a mighty current towards God. That’s how holy living is taking place. We don’t live holy outwardly; we live holy inwardly. It’s the Holy Spirit of God Who is doing it from within, changing us from glory to glory.