EXPOSITORY THOUGHTS FROM ROMANS CHAPTER 6

(Scripture quotations from the NEV)

1What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? 2By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? 3Or don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.

Paul now puts the question about the type of life we are expected to live before the Lord.   He gets people thinking about the issue by asking an obvious question.   It is a "loaded" question in a sense because he already knows the answer to it.  The issue is whether the grace of God can be made to increase in quality and volume by increased sinning behaviour.  Paul says, "Absolutely not!"   He does not give a vague, non committal answer to the question.   He is definite and straight out about it.

He goes on to give the reason why the answer to the question is definitely in the negative.   He says that we died to sin.   He is pointing to the Cross of Calvary.  When Jesus died on the Cross, we died with Him.  This is what water baptism symbolises.   We go down into the water to show that we die and are buried with Him.  As we come out of the water, we show that we have risen from the dead with Him to newness of life.   Baptism is a type of prophetic demonstration to show the work that Jesus has done in every converted Christian.

Therefore, if we have died with Him, then we have died to sin;  therefore it is impossible that we can live in sin any longer.  The actual work of getting the sinful habit patterns out of us to make this a reality in our lives is that of the Holy Spirit as He works in us, developing the progressive sanctification in us.   This is part of growing in grace as we walk with the Lord through the journey of our lives.

Then Paul uses water baptism to prove his point.  He terms water baptism as being baptised "into Christ Jesus."   This means that we become full fledged members of the body of Christ through baptism.   It is the pathway through which we must go in order to be fully part of the true, invisible, Christian church.   Water baptism is a full identification with the death of Christ.

He also uses the resurrection of Christ to show that we can have a new life.   This is what being converted to Christ really means: living a whole new life.   We cannot continue living the old life and be true Christians.  The old life included sin, and we left that sin behind as we "died" in the waters of baptism.   Then we were raised with Christ to a whole new life that does not include sin.   The actually day to day reality of this new life becomes more prominent as we continue to grow in grace through the passing years of our lives.

 5If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection. 6For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin— 7because anyone who has died has been freed from sin.

Paul does not leave an argument alone until he has explored the depths of it.   He repeats that we have been totally united with Christ, through water baptism, in His death on the Cross;  and because we are united in this way, it is a certainty that we will also be united with Him in his resurrection.   It is interesting that Paul talks in the past tense when he talks about us being united in His death, but in the future tense when he talks about us being united with Christ in His resurrection.   There are two ways of looking at this:  (1) Positionally, before God, we already have newness of life through our identification with Christ's resurrection in baptism.  (2)  In actual reality, when Jesus comes again, we who are dead physically will be resurrected when Christ comes again.

Paul assumes that we already know that our old self was crucified with Christ.  He is also assuming that we have the intelligence to work out from his previous statements that this reality is ours.  We made it ours in our hearts when we accepted Jesus as Saviour and Lord, and we demonstrated it to the world through our water baptism.

The reason why our old self was crucified with Christ was that the body of sin that we had might be done away with.   Although in our actual experience, we are still struggling with sinful habit patterns, our faith tells us that the body of sin has been buried with Christ.   This is faith when the circumstances that we see and feel can be quite contrary.   This is the difference between what EW Kenyon calls "sense knowledge" and "revelation knowledge".   Our sense knowledge tells us that our sinful habit patterns still exist in us.  Our revelation knowledge tells us that our sinful body has died with Christ and is no longer a significant factor in our spiritual lives.

The reason for this is that we should be no longer slaves to sin.  Sin is not in charge of us any longer.  We have no further obligation to obey the promptings of sin in our lives.   We are no longer motivated or directed by sin in the decisions we make.   In effect, as far as God is concerned, we are dead to sin.

In verse 7, Paul is looking forward to the day when through our actual physical death, we will finally be completely free from our sinful body.   Our bodies have the sentence of death in them.  They are doomed to die.  We accept the expectation of our own death, because we have faith in God's faithfulness and promise that we will rise to newness of life.  We have such a strong assurance of it, that we can confidently say that we have eternal life already.

 8Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. 9For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. 10The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God.

Paul develops the points even further, to increase our faith and fully convince us of the truth of what Jesus did for us on the Cross of Calvary and when He rose from the dead.  Having firmly established that we have died with Christ, he states that we will also live with Him.  Revelation knowledge tells us that we have eternal life, because that is what it means to live with Christ.  He rose to newness of life.  In a sense, after dying physically and spiritually on the Cross, His physical body received new life and His dead spirit was made alive again.   When we accepted Christ, our dead spirit was also made alive, reflecting the life that He received at His resurrection.  This is why the resurrection of Christ is so important to us.   Those who do not believe in the physical resurrection of Christ cannot be Christians in any sense of the word.  Even if such people accept Christ and are water baptised, these things will mean nothing to God, because unless they have a firm belief in the resurrection of Christ and the effects that the event has on us, they can receive new life at all.   Paul deals with this issue more fully in 1Corinthians15.

Paul assumes that any Christian believer would know within himself that when Christ rose again and was made alive by the power of the Holy Spirit, there is no way that He will ever die again.  The death and resurrection of Christ was a one-time historical event.   When He confronted Satan on his own ground, in Hell, Jesus won the victory over him and took from him the keys of death and of Hell.  This is why Paul can say that death has mastery over Him no longer.   This means that if we were raised to newness of life with Him at His resurrection, then we have mastery over death as well.   Now we are not speaking of physical death.  We have to pass that way because of the state of our physical bodies.  But we have mastery over death in our spirit, and when our physical bodies die and we step out of them, we will live on in Christ and finally enter into what we have held in faith during our physical lives.

So Paul confidently that that the death Jesus died, He died to sin once for all.  If we died with Him, we have died to sin once for all as well.   Therefore, the life that Jesus gained at His resurrection is not to serve the dictates of sin, but to walk in the centre of the plans and purposes that God has for Him.

 11In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. 12Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. 13Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness. 14For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace.

Paul now leads us to identify with Jesus' death to sin, by using our faith to count ourselves dead to sin.  We can do this in this life because God sees us through "faith" in the sense that He will support our stand when we stand on His Word in faith.  Therefore, if His Word says that sin is behind us and that we are dead to it to the point that it does not influence our future any more, when we take our stand in faith on that foundation, God will fully support us and vindicate us against anyone who may try to accuse us of sin. 

In dying to sin, we don't stay dead.   We come alive again.  The life we have is by the power of God, so that our new life is totally united with the divine nature, which we call "eternal life".   As long as we acknowledge Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour (which is the definition of being "in Christ"), we can freely and effectively walk in that newness of life.   In Christ, we become new creations - a completely different species of people who have a living spirit, connected to God, inside of us.   No person in the world has that.  

But we are not passive in all this.  Faith expresses itself in action.  We believe the truth of the Word of God in our hearts, and on the basis of that heart-believe, we order our activities and conduct on the basis of our faith.   This is why Paul can instruct us not to let sin reign in our mortal bodies.   He knows that our mortal bodies are still subject to sinful desires and habit patterns;  and he says that these things should not be in charge of us.  We should not be dominated by them, but rather that we should reign as kings and priests over them.   These sinful patterns may still affect us from time to time, but they will not frustrate the grace of God in us, nor will they turn us aside from doing the will of God in our lives.  

There are parts of our bodies that before were used as instruments for sin.  Any of us can identify them without us having to make of list of them here.   When we were in the world, we used those parts of our bodies for self gratification and for sinful practices.  We couldn't help it no matter how hard we tried to be "good" people.   In the end, the sinful habit patterns ruled us.   Now that we have been made alive to God in Christ, we have the strength and power to keep those impulses under subjection.  We will never be able to eradicate them completely, but we will be able to use those parts of the body that were once dedicated to sin, for the furtherance of the Gospel, to serve others, and to build meaningful and loving relationships.  

Paul brings the Law into the discussion.  He has already identified the Law with sin.  Law and sin go together.  Those who are under the Law have sin as their master.  When we are raised to newness of life, we become the masters of sin, therefore the Law is no longer our guide and teacher.  The Law is fulfilled the moment we accept Christ as Saviour.    We are no longer guided by the Law in how we conduct ourselves.  We are in the light of Christ, our heart is renewed and stamped with the law of Christ, and we are led by the Spirit to do the will of God.

15What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! 16Don't you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? 17But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted. 18You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.

Paul now deals with another excuse for sin.  He has probably encountered people who have gone on and continued to live sinful lives saying that because they are not under the Law they can do as they please.   Well, it is not as simple as that.   We have not rejected having a master just because we have been freed from the obligation to the Law.   It is just that we have escaped having to obey the Law, or a slave to set of outward rules and regulations.  We have exchanged masters:   we are still slaves, but with a different master.  The Christian life is not one of anarchy as some might lead us to believe.

Although we are still slaves, whether master we have, we are now given the choice of the master whom we obey.  If we choose to be slaves of sin, that slavery will lead us to death.  But if we are slaves to obedience, which is obedience to the Word of God, that slavery will lead to righteousness, defined as good standing with God.

Paul acknowledges his readers:  he gives thanks to God for that that although they used to be slaves to sin, which every person outside of Christ is, they wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching which was entrusted to them by those who came among them and preached the gospel.   They received teaching in sound Christian doctrine and they accepted and obeyed it, and this set them free from the slavery of sin, and they exchanged masters.  Righteousness became their new master.

19I put this in human terms because you are weak in your natural selves. Just as you used to offer the parts of your body in slavery to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer them in slavery to righteousness leading to holiness. 20When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness. 21What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death! 22But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. 23For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Paul has put this teaching in human terms so that they could understand it more readily with their natural minds.  He compensates for their weakness, in the same way that the Holy Spirit compensates for our natural weakness in being able to understand the will of God and what the Holy Spirit wants to do among us.   Good Christian leaders have the same tolerance.  Actually, the difference between good and not-so-good church leaders is the level of tolerance they have toward weak believers.  Good church leaders make it their business to support the weak believers in their congregations and not sideline or condemn them.

Paul goes further to describe their transition from being slaves of sin and using parts of their bodies as instruments of sin, to a new life in Christ where they are using their bodies to do the deeds that lead them to righteousness, and in turn develops holiness in them.   Paul then puts his point around the opposite way to underline the truth of what he is teaching.   When they were slaves to sin, they were free from the requirements of having to have a good standing with God.  They were away from the control of the Holy Spirit.

But then he asks:  what was the benefit of being under bondage to sin?   This is the question we all have to ask ourselves.  Before we came to Christ and lived a sinful life, what lasting benefit did we gain?   What benefits can we ever have for a direction of life which leads to physical and spiritual death?  People who are slaves to sin have no hope other in this physical life they are now living.   Whatever advantages they thought they might have had in this life disappear at the onset of death.  We can't take our material property with us when we die.  Worldly hopes come to an abrupt end at the point of death.

Paul compares these people with those who have accepted Christ, and have become free from the bondage of sin, and who have freely chosen to be slaves of God, serving Him without thought of recompense.  They receive benefits which exist and last beyond physical death.   These are spiritual benefits.  The Book of Ephesians says that we are blessed with every spiritual blessing in heavenly places.  These are the benefits that we gain by living with Jesus as our Lord.   Our benefits lead to holiness and acceptability to God, and the result of all this is eternal life.  This not only speaks of the length of life, but the quality of life in eternity.    Those who are in bondage to sin may continue an existence in eternity, but they will have no quality of life as they exist through endless ages in a Christless eternity.

Paul ends this chapter with a verse that is often used in evangelism.   He talks about the wages of sin.  This means that people under bondage to sin are working in it with the sweat of their brow.   Their sinful habits and rejection of Jesus are earning them wages which will be paid to them in eternity.  Those wages amount to physical and spiritual death.  The death that is described is an eternal separation from God and all the good things that come with Him.   Death and Hell are synonymous.  Hell is a place that has everything that God created for mankind missing.  There won't be anything like this world or anything in it.   There won't be the attributes that make up men and women who are created in God's image and with the characteristics that God put in mankind.   People who end up in Hell will have infused with the devil's nature and everything that is negative and hateful that go along with it.   That is what people in bondage to sin have to look forward to.

But the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus our Lord.   Once we change masters, we receive a most precious gift:  eternal life.  But it comes with a condition - that we acknowledge Jesus as Lord, and live our lives as slaves to His Lordship.   It is not that we receive salvation and eternal life in return for allegiance to God.   He has given the gift first, and we respond to the receipt of that gift by giving our lives to Him.

[End of Chapter 6]