Romans 6:1-4
“What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? 2 Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it? 3 Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? 4 Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.”
Paul had just said that where sin abounded, grace abounded all the more, and further, as sin reigned, resulting in death, so also grace now reigns, resulting in righteousness. Paul then asks a very pertinent question – one that perhaps is playing on the minds of his readers, as well as ours. “Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?” I guess if Paul was speaking, he would have waited for a response, but since he was writing, he immediately answered his own question with a resounding, ‘No!’ He says, in no uncertain terms, that we are to not continue in a life of sin expecting God to be more gracious to us. Now, this can result in us asking the question, “Why not?” He goes on to explain his answer with a question. “How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it?” That’s a great question, isn’t it? If we claim that we have died to sin – we are done with our old life of sin – Jesus paid the penalty on our behalf when He took our place on the cross; He justified us (made us righteous) by His resurrection from the dead, and set us free. How can we continue to live in sin now? It would mean that we are nullifying all that Christ did on our behalf when He died for us.
He goes on to ask a rhetorical question – “Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death?” When he said this, he was asking his readers if they didn’t realise that when they were getting baptised, they were actually turning away from their sinful living, and immersing themselves into Christ – into a new way of life. There are several instances where Jesus taught about Baptism and where the followers of Jesus got baptised no sooner they heard the Gospel – the Apostle Paul himself, the Ethiopian Eunuch, the Jailer with Paul and Silas. Baptism was never an optional thing – it was a given, that once a person believed in Jesus, they got baptised to identify with the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus. It is an outward sign of an inner change that had already happened. It was also a way a person was witnessing to others that they had now come to trust in Jesus for their salvation.
He goes on to explain that our old way of life was dead and buried when we got baptised. We (our old sinful nature) died with Christ, and just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we are now alive in Christ, and so should therefore live this new life in Christ free from sin.
Romans 6:5-10
“For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, 6 knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be one away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. 7 For he who has died has been freed from sin. 8 Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, 9 knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over Him. 10 For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God.”
Paul then goes on to further explain, that not only does our baptism signify the death to our old way of life (old man), but it also signifies that just as Christ was raised from the dead, to live again, we too are now raised from our old selves, to which we died, to live a new life in Jesus. He reminds us that we crucified the old way of life, when we put our faith in Jesus, so that the sinful body might be a thing of the past, and we should no longer live in sin. He further explains, that the one who has died to sin is released from its clutches. He should not be controlled by it again.
Paul’s not done explaining yet. He goes on to say that if our old sinful life was crucified with Christ, then we will now live this new life, with Him. He goes on to explain that since Jesus has been raised from the dead, He will not die again, because death has no control over Him anymore. Jesus was sinless, so when Paul says that Jesus died to sin once for all, He’s saying that He died for the sins of all men for all time – there’s no need for sacrifice for sins ever again. He then adds that the life He lives, He lives for God, meaning that Jesus has no other agenda now – His death on our behalf is over – He now lives in Heaven to glorify God, the Father.
Romans 6:11-14
“Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord. 12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts. 13 And do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. 14 For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace.”
Since this is true of Jesus, we too should consider ourselves dead to the old sinful way of living (not controlled in any way by it). We should live this new life in total surrender to God (in obedience to Him), and glorify God through Jesus, who is our Lord. So, we are not to give ourselves once again to be ruled or controlled by sin, as we live in this temporal, mortal body. The desires to sin will remain, but we are to overcome these desires with the same power of the Holy Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead.
Paul then goes on tell us to not use the parts of our body as instruments to assist us in the process of committing sin, but to rather present our entire selves to God, as being raised from the dead. He then goes on to tell us that we need to present the members (parts) of our body as instruments of the righteousness that we have received from God. In other words, he’s saying that since we’ve now been made righteous, we need to live out that righteousness in every way, every day of our lives.
He then adds that sin should not have dominion or power over our lives anymore because we are not under the law now, but under grace. He’s already dealt with the fact that the law could not free us from sin, and in fact it only made us more aware of how sinful we were, and it also created in us a greater desire to sin. But the grace of God is able to teach us to live out this new life in Christ in a way that the law was unable to do.
