The verb is set free from is literally “is justified”; however, all modern translations understand the word in this context to have the same meaning that the Good News Translation gives it (see also Acts 13.38).

From the power of sin is literally “from sin.” Paul’s thesis is that death releases man from all responsibilities and obligations, and by the phrase “from sin” he makes one application of this general principle. In this light Paul apparently means that when a man dies, sin no longer exercises control over his life. To assume, with the Jerusalem Bible, that this means “he has finished with sin” because he has lost his “sinful body” is to assume that for Paul the body is something innately sinful, a thought that would be totally contradictory to his Jewish background. On the other hand, Paul does not seem to be arguing that “a dead man is no longer answerable for his sin” (New English Bible); this does not fit in with the overall logic of Paul’s argument within this context. Paul’s intent is to point out that when the believer dies with Christ, sin no longer exercises control over his life.

He is set free from the power of sin may be rendered as “sin no longer controls him” or “sin no longer commands him.” One may express both the freedom and the control by saying: “he is now free, and sin does not control him.” In all such passages which speak of a universal experience, it may be necessary to use a plural and to make the time general—for example, “for whenever people die they are set free and sin cannot control them.”

Quoted with permission from Newman, Barclay M. and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on Paul’s Letter to the Romans. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1973. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .