This is the first installment in a three-part Bible Study in Romans 6, 7, and 8.
In Romans Chapter 6, the Apostle Paul shows us that we must not continue in sin, but live in holiness. The main theme of Chapter 6 is surrender. Just because we are under grace as born-again Christians, we cannot continue to sin so that grace may abound. Paul showed us in Romans Chapter 5 that the existence of sin called out the grace of God in the form of forgiveness. Romans 5:20 says, “Moreover the law entered that the offense might abound. But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound.” Chapter 5 teaches that Christ saved us while we were yet sinners.
In Romans chapter 6, Paul deals with a possible objection in the minds of some believers. If grace is so easy, why should we bother to change our ways? Whenever the Gospel is presented, this question comes up. If all our sins are so easily forgiven, why worry about sin? Romans 6:1-2 says, “What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid! Grace is no excuse to sin. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?” This is the essence of dying and living with Christ. The Christian life begins with death to sin. How shall we who are dead to sin live therein any longer? The exact translation is of the Greek verb past tense, and should be Who died to sin. It is referred to as having occurred in the past. It is my opinion that we were dead to sin even before we were born. In other words, we need not live in sin. It is up to us to accept Christ as our Savior, and to walk in His resurrection.
Paul says in verse 2 that we died to sin. How can we live in it any longer? If we want to escape death, then we should also want to escape the cause of death – sin. But more importantly, when we believe in Christ, we become new people. In the language of Romans 5, we are no longer people of Adam, but now we are people of Jesus Christ. We are to live in Him. Are we to remain in sin so that grace may increase? Absolutely not. Paul explains this in verse 3: “Don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death?” We are baptized not just in the name of Jesus (such as at the time of our water baptism), we are baptized into Him and united with Him. When we are identified with Adam, we get the death that Adam brought. When we identify with Christ, we get the righteousness and life He brought. When He died, we died. When He was buried, we were buried. When He rose, we rose also. We were with Him on the cross because He represented all of us.
We should walk in the newness of life, having been united together in the likeness of the life of Jesus, crucified with Him, no longer slaves of sin, but freed from sin. How can we who died to sin still live in it? Verse 4 says, “Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too may walk in new life.”
We are dead to sin, but alive unto God. Verse 5 says, “For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, we will certainly also be united in the likeness of His resurrection.” Verse 6 tells us that our old man was crucified with Him so that the body of sin would no longer dominate us; so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. Parenthetically, Verse 7 tells us that a dead man is no longer under the bondage of sin for he is dead. Having died with Christ on the cross, we may live with Him over whom death has no dominion.
Look at Verse 8: “Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with Him.” Alive to God, we should not let sin reign in our bodies. Rather, we should present our bodies as instruments of righteousness, for we are under grace. Verses 9 and 10 tell us that since Christ was raised from the dead, He is never going to die again; death no longer has mastery over Him. For the death He died, He died to once for all. The life He lives, He lives to God.
Verse 11 tells us to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Verse 12 says, “Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body that you should obey it in the lusts thereof.” Here the Apostle Paul is showing sin as a reigning king or a tyrant who has captured the soul’s passions, spirit faculties, and bodily members of man, dominating his life. Let not sin work or rule in your mortal body; give it no place or grounds for working in your being. Sin does not rule or ruin; rather, sin rules and ruins.
Verse 12 also says that we should not obey the “lusts” of sin.” This indicates sin to be a real entity ruling the life of man. Sin itself has lusts other that the lusts of man. The lusts of sin are in reality the lusts of Satan. His desire to be God-like. His jealousy. The lusts of man are his own creative powers, depraved and corrupt. James 1:13-14 in the Amplified Bible says, “Let no one say when he is tempted, I am tempted from God; for God is incapable of being tempted by [what is] evil and He Himself tempts no one. But every person is tempted when he is drawn away, enticed and baited by his own evil desire (lust, passions).” Verse 13 tells us to not present our bodies to sin as instruments to be used for unrighteousness, but to present ourselves to God as those who are alive from the dead and members to God as instruments to be used for righteousness. Verse 14 says, “For sin will have no mastery over you, because you are not under law but under grace.”
We become slaves to whom we obey. Verse 15 says, “What then? Shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid.” Verse 16 says, “Know ye not that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey, whether of sin unto death or of obedience unto righteousness?” Many Christians today have not learned these simple facts – that you cannot be a servant of sin and Satan and a servant of righteousness and Christ at the same time. If you commit sin, you are a servant of sin and Satan, and not a Christian. If you sin, Satan is your master and not Christ.
Verse 17 says, “But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you.” Verse 18 says, “Being then made free from sin, ye became servants of righteousness.” The Amplified Bible puts it this way: “But thank God, though you were once slaves of sin, you have become obedient with all your heart to the standard of teaching in which you were instructed, and to which you were committed. And having been set free from sin, you have become the servants of righteousness (of conformity to the divine will in thought, purpose and action).”
Every man is the servant of the master to whose commands he yields himself; whether it be the sinful lusts of his heart or spiritual obedience implanted by being born again. Paul writes that he rejoiced in believers obeying the Gospel from the heart. He said believers are delivered into the Gospel in the same manner in which metal is poured into a mold. As the metal becomes a new object when melted and recast in another mold, so the believer has become a new creature. And there is a great difference in the liberty of mind and spirit that is literally opposite to the state of slavery. For prior to being born again, we were serving our master Satan, living in bondage to sin. The dominion of sin consists in willingly being slaves thereto, not in being harassed by sin as a hated power, struggling for victory. Those who now are the servants of God, once were the slaves of sin. Serving righteousness produces holiness. Serving sin produces death. Verse 23 reminds us that the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
We are told in Romans 6:11 to reckon ourselves dead to sin. The word reckon means to count, consider, or think upon. Reckoning goes one step further than knowing. As Christians, we need to continually live the truth that sin no longer has dominion over us. It is no longer our master, but Christ is. We need to know the facts stated in Romans 6:1-10. Count them as true and act accordingly. When sin tempts us, we should act as though we are indeed dead to it. We should give no response to the temptation. Certainly, the more we ignore temptation, the stronger we become.
It is true that reckoning sin as being dead in our lives is the beginning of experiencing God’s power to make sin dead and Christ alive. When I count myself dead to worry, anger, losing my temper, demanding perfection, overeating, recreational drugs or misuse of prescription drugs, excessive drinking, breaking the law, smoking, gossiping, criticism of friends or family, flirting with a wrong relationship, stealing, little white lies, self-pity, and other sin, then I will choose not to let that sin be part of my life. What sin do you have that you want to reckon dead in your life? Do you have a habit or attitude you’d like to see changed? Name it. Tell God you know it’s wrong, you know that according to the Word of God sin has been made inoperative. It is powerless to control you anymore because of the cross. Consider or count it dead from today on. It has no power to rule your life. Trusting not on your feelings, but on faith that He will help you and make your new life in Him real.
Paul says to not let sin reign in our mortal bodies in Romans 6:12. In Verse 13 he says, “Neither yield your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin; but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead…” “Do not yield” means do not go on presenting or offering yourself to sin. This passage hints that we can stop sinning, and calls upon us to do that. When we sin, the responsibility is put on our doorstep. We must refuse to put ourselves in a position where we can fall to temptation. If you deal with lust, a wrong desire for the wrong person, don’t go to movies that have sex, nudity and approve of extramarital affairs. Don’t present your eyes to see that. If you deal with gossip, and find yourself talking about others, then don’t let yourself bring up other people’s names, don’t present your ears to hear, stop information before it gets to gossip. Don’t present your tongue to spread gossip to others. If you battle with dieting and are tempted to overeat, don’t bring certain foods into your house, avoid “all you can eat” buffets, don’t present your body to be tempted. If you’re trying to give up smoking, don’t buy cigarettes, don’t hide them in the bottom drawer just in case.
Present, offer, yield yourself to God. Start living in a way that shows to yourself and others your right standing with God. Be Christ-like in what you say, think and do. And as you used to yield yourself those people, places, or things that would cause you to stumble, now put yourself in places that will build you up, be around people that will encourage your faith. The best defense is a good offense. Protect yourself by NOT doing certain things.
When Paul wrote his letter to the Romans, he knew who he was in Christ. Somehow, that precious truth which he was trying to convey has escaped the church down through the ages. The fact is, the grace of God has been misunderstood. It has been watered down to nothing more than the forgiveness of sins. God’s grace is much more than that. It carries to us His ultimate love. In the first two and a half chapters of Romans, Paul proves that no matter who we are, no matter where we were born and raised, all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. There is none righteous. No, not one. The only hope we have in dealing with the sinful flesh we live in as Christians is to keep believing in the Gospel. We know the just shall live by faith. Without faith it is impossible to please God. Whatsoever is not of faith is sin. Let that last sentence sink in for a minute.
Romans 6:5 says, “For if we have been planted together in the likeness of [Christ’s] death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection.” The words planted together mean literally “to grow up together, to be formed together,” and speaks of intimate, vital union of Christ and the believer. Paul also says we are crucified with Christ. This is a past-tense verb, meaning it was already done for us at Calvary. We were crucified with Him, and we died with Him. Romans 6:7 says, “For he that is dead is freed from sin.” Romans 6:8 says, “Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe we shall also live with Him. The Greek word “freed” appears forty times in the New Testament. We are to reckon ourselves dead indeed to sin, but alive unto God through our Lord Jesus Christ. We are to no longer let sin reign in our mortal bodies.
Subtle allure, persistent urges, passionate desires. Sin entices us in many ways. A thought enters our mind that we dare not acknowledge: “If I give in, I can always be forgiven.” Sound familiar? Such thinking can become an excuse for immoral practices. It indicates a fundamental misunderstanding of God’s grace in our lives. In Romans 6:1-7, Paul explains why the idea of “sinning so that grace may increase” is unthinkable for Christians. The gift of grace does not give us the freedom to sin. One way we can interpret Romans 6:1 is that God’s grace increased because sin increased in the world. But that is not a good excuse for anyone to continue in sin.
Our lives changed completely when we became Christians. We simply have to start living the truth that our relationship with sin died with Christ. We must no longer live as sinners. Does that mean we need to be perfect? God forbid! Rather, it means we need to repent (turn away from) our former way of living. We know that our former lives ended with Christ’s death on the cross. If we died with Christ, we shall also take part in His new life. Consider your old sinful nature to be dead. Instead, live for God through faith in Jesus Christ. Do not allow sin to control your behavior. Do not obey the wrong desires of your body. Do not use your body to do evil deeds. Instead, give yourself to God. You have been bought with a price. You have been brought from death to life. Sin shall not be your master. The law of Moses does not rule you. God’s grace has made you free from the bondage of sin.
The Accidental Apologist 