Dead to Sin & Alive to God – Romans 6:1–2

PRAY & INTRO: We’ve all known someone, or possibly been the person ourselves, who professes belief in Christ but whose life is left almost totally unchanged. It seems we, or they, merely desire to escaped sin’s penalty of hell, so they attempt to add Jesus to their own plans and purposes, without re-orienting their lives with Jesus as their new Master and the Holy Spirit their new power to live for God.

Such a concept is completely foreign to the way the NT presents true saving faith in God’s promise through Christ Jesus. The gospel (God’s good news about himself for humanity) is not only that God in his grace has paid the penalty for our sin through Christ, but also that by his grace he empowers us to follow Jesus—to submit to him as our new King, and we his servants and ambassadors of his kingdom.

In Romans 6 we will see that if we have true faith in Jesus, God’s grace in Christ has triumphed over not only the penalty of sin but also the power of sin ruling over us. In this reign of grace we have a new Lord who has set us free from the power of sin so that we might live to God.

Romans 6:1–2 ESV

¹ What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? ² By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?

Romans 6:3–4 ESV

³ Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? ⁴ We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.

Romans 6:5 ESV

⁵ For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.

Romans 6:6–7 ESV

⁶ We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. ⁷ For one who has died has been set free from sin.

Romans 6:8–10 ESV

⁸ Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. ⁹ We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. ¹⁰ For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God.

Romans 6:11 ESV

¹¹ So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

Romans 6:12–14 ESV

¹² Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. ¹³ Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. ¹⁴ For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.

While contradicting naysayers, Paul aims to convince those now converted (justified) that the reign of grace leads not to freedom to sin but freedom to holy living by the Holy Spirit. He begins this endeavor at the start of chapter 6 (and continues it through chapters 7 & 8).

As Paul begins chapter 6, the part we just read, he is clearly indicating something in this text about the change that is affected in us because of union with Christ (our identification with Jesus), and it is evidently a change with which we must cooperate. We must learn to live as those who are dead to sin and alive to God.

Now before we dive into the details of the text, we would be wise to step back and take stock of where we are in our Romans study. The broader context is essential to our understanding of the point Paul makes now. 

“You Are Here.” - Orienting Ourselves on the Map of Paul’s Message

While I think it is right to find the theme of true hope in Christ as the frame that encases chapters 5-8, students of Romans have long recognized a slight shift to emphasizing sanctification at this point in Romans. 

Here’s a well-crafted summary by one Romans scholar that captures the continuity of chapters 6-8 in relationship to the important theme of justification (by grace through faith) leading up to this:

“Paul began his letter to the Romans by demonstrating the need of all people for righteousness, Jew and Gentile alike (1:18–3:20). Then he established that righteousness comes through faith in Jesus Christ (3:21–5:21). The righteousness of which he spoke is called “imputed righteousness.” It is the work of God given freely to all who respond in faith. The doctrine is called “justification,” the establishment of a right relationship between God and humans. Beginning with chap. 6 Paul moved ahead to discuss what was to happen in people’s lives after their sins have been forgiven and they are declared righteous in God’s sight. This process of growth in spiritual maturity is the subject of chaps. 6–8. The doctrine is called “sanctification,” the lifelong process of transformation into the likeness of Christ.” (Robert Mounce)

Depending on your exposure to this terminology, it may be helpful to clarify what we mean by justification and sanctification, which themselves arise from Biblical words and concepts (especially in Romans). You’ve seen the words justified and justification already, and you’ll read the term sanctification a couple of times here in chapter 6.

Justification - declared righteous for restored relationship (the act of God to forgive our sin through Christ and to give us His righteousness)

Sanctification - growth in holiness by the Holy Spirit (the progressive change in character of one who is justified)

But even with clarification of the difference, it must be said that there is obvious continuity with what Paul has been expounding up to this point. This thought flows directly out of the last, so the subtle shift thematically in ch. 6 and following should not be separated as though the two things are not tied to one another.

Douglas Moo helps us here.

“Justification—acquittal from the guilt of sin—and sanctification—deliverance from “sinning”—must not be confused, but neither can they be separated.” (Douglas Moo)

[repeat] Robert Mounce makes this same point with an emphasis on the implications.

“Any justification that does not lead to sanctification is a sham. Any sanctification not founded upon justification is an exercise in legalistic futility and does not deserve the name.” (Robert Mounce)

Let these truths sink in, because the continuity between justification and sanctification is what Paul aims to express. 

Now as we begin leaning into sanctification with Paul in Romans 6, he returns to the stylistic use of diatribe in the rhetorical form of this letter, a modified question and answer structure to aid in teaching.

The specific question in 6:1 is, “Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound?”

“Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? May it never be!”

Clearly the antecedent statement that gives rise to this question is what Paul said in Romans 5:20 “Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more….”

Although the question seems to naturally arise from this statement, “Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound?” we also already know that the context of such questions can be antagonistic toward Paul’s teaching of the gospel: Romans 3:8 “And why not do evil that good may come?—as some people slanderously charge us with saying.”

I believe the following to be the essence of the latest question Paul anticipates because of his experience in proclaiming this gospel again and again: In the reign of grace, having been justified by faith, does freedom from the penalty of sin mean that we are now free to live however we want? Paul, isn’t your so-called gospel of grace giving people license to go on living in sin without consequences?

Paul answer will of course be, “May it never be!” with clear explanation of how sanctification necessarily follows from justification. 

What we have here then is Paul both defending the gospel and proclaiming truth by which believers must live. He defends the gospel against attacks that his teaching about grace through faith gives people license to live however they want now, and he wants believers to understand that this reign of grace necessarily changes the way we live, with a growing holiness in the pattern of God’s own character.

So whether the question is sarcastic or sincere, the answer is the same. “May it never be!” This expression is typical of the diatribe style and Paul uses the phrase some 14 times in Romans, but it is noteworthy that this is the strongest idiomatic denunciation available in Greek. “By no means,” “may it never be,” “God forbid,” “let nothing of the sort even enter your mind.”

So while defending the gospel, Paul is also guarding against a misrepresentation of grace, such that some might profess to believe in Christ and claim to follow Christ but then keep living in sin. Is the reign of grace license to live in sin? “May it never be!”

To the contrary, God’s grace in Christ Jesus has provided for both the penalty and power of sin. Union with Christ not only liberates the believer from the penalty of sin (justification), but also God’s gives us the grace we need to live faithful and fruitful lives for him in the present—sanctifying grace.

How does he do this? Well, that’s what Paul will continue to prove. He sets off on this first with a rhetorical question of his own that packs a punch.

“How can we who died to sin still live in it?”

Let me ask you to think for a moment. What is the understood response (or the anticipated, expected response) to the question “How can we who died to sin still live in it?”

Isn’t the anticipated answer, “We cannot… we must not!”?

Paul says how can we who died to sin still live in it. What does it mean to have died to sin? How have we died to sin?

All that follows from the rhetorical question is Paul seeking to explain. Baptism pictures our participation with the results of Christ’s performance at the cross and resurrection. [repeat] And the results are these: Christ’s sacrificial death has killed sin’s enslaving power over us, and his resurrection has ensured our resurrection because we have a new spiritual life in Him. 

In Paul’s explanation there is a key point centering around union with Christ (highlighted in v. 5)—complete identification with Jesus in his death and resurrection. This union is a spiritual reality pictured in believer’s baptism and performed by Christ’s substitutionary death and resurrection. The spiritual participation with Christ’s death and resurrection, pictured in baptism, Paul describes in vv. 3-4, leading into the clarification of this union in v. 5. And then also arising from v. 5, Paul shows that the significance of this the spiritual union was performed in the cross and resurrection, in vv. 6-10. Again, our participate with Christ is a spiritual reality pictured in believer’s baptism and performed by Christ’s substitutionary death and resurrection. [We will look closely at these next week.] 

For today, it is helpful to grasp that what Paul has done is show that our union with Christ frees us from the enslaving power of sin over our lives, and this same union with Christ has given us new spiritual life to live for God by his victorious resurrection. Union with Christ frees us from the enslaving power of sin over our lives and rescues us from the dominion of death, giving us new spiritual life to live for God, ensuring our future resurrection to God. 

Finally, that will allow Paul to set up application of the truth in a kind of ‘How should we then live?’ in v. 11, and in vv. 12-14. At this point Paul has circled back to the presumed answer that we cannot, we must not, go on living in sin… because we must have changed minds and hearts toward sin, and a desire to live for God. [repeat] And we must know that God’s grace empowers this in us, and therefore present ourselves to God, and thereby our members as instruments for righteousness. (Think of members as all aspects of our physical and mental and emotional being.) 

All of this is encapsulated in the initial rhetorical question, “How can we who died to sin still live in it?” Paul’s point?

Justification leads to sanctification.

If you submissively put your whole trust in Jesus as the Lord who saves, then you are judicially declared righteous, because your sin was imputed to him and his righteousness has been imputed to you. And that new standing in grace, reconciled to God, necessarily leads to sanctification (a progressive growth in holiness) because you have been united with Christ.

If you are not dead to sin and alive to God, then you are still dead IN sin and subject to God’s wrath. You are still enslaved to sin (v. 6); death still has dominion over you (v.9).

On the other hand, in union with Christ, by this death for the sin which condemns us, we have become separated from the controlling power of sin, which enslaved us, and by which even death itself also had dominion over us.

Now there is still conflict because our bodies have not physically died, so we have not once and finally been separated from all influence of sin in its deceptive allure and temptation, nor in our capacity to commit sin. We are no longer enslaved to sin, but we have the capacity to sin. However, we are also no longer spiritually dead, being made alive to God, so we also now have the power and persuasion of the Holy Spirit to live for God. Therefore, Paul indicates that this is something in which we must cooperate. We must learn to live as those who are dead to sin and alive to God.

But in Christ Jesus we are separated from the deserved penalty of sin and the ruling power of sin (which is Paul’s emphasis here). So even though we are not yet completely separated from the seductive persuasion of sin, we are no longer enslaved to it and instead have been given spiritual life to live for God.

What we have seen today is that when Paul faces an accusation that might sound something like: ‘Paul preaches a gospel of grace that guts the law, diminishes sin, and leads to a license to more sin.’ His answer? Nothing could be further from the truth. In your view of righteousness by your own effort you will remain in Adam and therefore will always be enslaved to sin and be condemned by the law, subject to the deserved death penalty. But for those who are justified by grace through faith—declared righteous as a gift—our union with Christ means that his sacrificial death has killed the enslaving power of sin over our lives and his resurrection life has given us new spiritual life to live for God.

Paul has gotten us started on considering the implications of the “reign of grace” on our present lives. Accordingly, here are just a couple of concluding applications for us this morning.

Concluding Applications: Reflecting on this should lead to…

Prayerful self-examination, using God’s Word as a mirror

I believe the Scripture teaches the perseverance of the saints by the preservation of God, or what is called eternal security by some in our circles. But you cannot be eternally secure in a state in which you do not stand. … Be sure your faith is genuine. 2 Cor 13:5 (see also 2 Pet 1:10-11)

2 Corinthians 13:5 ESV

⁵ Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you fail to meet the test!

Paul wants believers to know the secure hope that they have in Christ, but he doesn’t want unbelievers to falsely think they have the same hope. Regenerate people are being sanctified. Again, true saving faith is indeed secure. But a lack of progress in the Christian life likely betrays a false faith, from which that person still needs to repent and trust in Christ.

I cannot tell you as an individual whether or not you are truly saved? I might encourage you that I think I see fruit of the Spirit in your life, or I might challenge you that your lifestyle does not match what you say you profess, but I can’t tell you if your faith is genuine.

I can tell you that Scripture says that if you have the Son, if you are united with Christ, if the Spirit of God seals you, then you are justified and are being sanctified and will be glorified. I can also tell you that the Scripture says that a genuine faith is a growing faith. There must be a corresponding desire to live for God and growth in holiness.

An ongoing contrition over sin, confession that God stands in the right, and a repentant submission that desires to please God

At the great cost of Christ’s life, God’s superabounding grace has not been manifested so that we can be free to sin. That is an impossibility, for the sin which leads to God’s wrath and our eternal destruction is the very thing for which Christ died. Rather, God’s superabounding grace has made us alive to God so that we might grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ, learning to walk in the holiness of a holy God by the Holy Spirit he has given us.

How can we who died to sin still live in it? We must not. Christ died for that sin and rose again so that we can live to God.

The one who is grateful to God for this superabounding grace, when made aware of sin, will approach God in contrition and confess that God is in the right about how he views that sin. He or she will also then seek God’s help to submissively prove repentance by learning to desire what God desires and live accordingly.

PRAY

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