Romans 6:1-14
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(ESV)
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Theme: While grace does indeed increase proportionate to our sins, we must not embrace sin. For the grace of God breaks the dominion of sin.
INTRODUCTION
In this section, Paul addresses some anticipated objections to his emphasis on God’s grace apart from the law of Moses: If you do away with the law of Moses, what’s to keep believers from sinning? If God’s forgiving grace multiplies in proportion to our sin (as Paul seems to imply in 5:20), why not sin even more? Paul responded by explaining the radical change that comes into a believer’s life at conversion (ch 6) and by challenging his opponents’ view of the law as a sufficient foundation for moral living (ch 7).
BODY
In response to the potential inference that since the more sin abounded as a result of the corporate headship of Adam and grace increased beyond the sin because of the conquering lordship of Jesus, that sin is a good thing as it would increase the presence of grace.
I. Cannot continue to sin since we died to sin
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?
II. Tyranny and Mastery of Sin has been shattered (3-10)
A. How believers died to sin (3-5)
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.
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.
B. (6-10)
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.
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.
III. (11-14)
In typical Pauline fashion, the indicative (2-10) produces the imperative (11-14).
11 So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.
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.
CONCLUSION
STUDY NOTES
(ESV)
1 What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound?
In response, essentially, Paul argues that the law could never curb sinning; and the reign of grace, far from encouraging sin, is the only means by which sin can truly be defeated.
While, therefore, the objection was one that Paul must have heard from opponents of the gospel, he himself raises it here in order to show Christians that the gospel of grace, properly interpreted, leads not to licentiousness but to righteousness (now understood as godly living)
Moo, D. J. (1996). The Epistle to the Romans (p. 356). Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.
2 By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?
It is better, then, to view the separation as a separation from the “rule” or “realm” of sin, sin being personified, as throughout this chapter, as a power that rules over the person outside Christ.
Moo, D. J. (1996). The Epistle to the Romans (p. 357). Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.
“Living in sin” is best taken as describing a “lifestyle” of sin—a habitual practice of sin, such that one’s life could be said to be characterized by that sin rather than by the righteousness God requires. Such habitual sin, “remaining in sin” (v. 1), “living in sin” (v. 2), is not possible, as a constant situation, for the one who has truly experienced the transfer out from under the domain, or tyranny, of sin. Sin’s power is broken for the believer, and this must be evident in practice (see also ; and perhaps , ).
It is only because we have been delivered from sin’s power by God’s act in Christ that we can be expected to cease obeying sin as a master.
Moo, D. J. (1996). The Epistle to the Romans (p. 358). Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.
3 Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?
By the date of Romans, “baptize” had become almost a technical expression for the rite of Christian initiation by water, and this is surely the meaning the Roman Christians would have given the word.
Paul, then, argues that Christian baptism, by joining the believer with Christ Jesus, also joins him or her with the death of Christ.
Moo, D. J. (1996). The Epistle to the Romans (p. 360). Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.
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.
Our dying, being buried, and being resurrected with Christ are experiences that transfer us from the old age to the new. But the transition from old age to new, while applied to individuals at their conversion, has been accomplished through the redemptive work of Christ on Good Friday and Easter.
How, then, can we preserve the cruciality of faith at the same time as we do justice to the mediatorial role of baptism in this text? Here the suggestion of J. Dunn is helpful. He points out that the early church conceived of faith, the gift of the Spirit, and water baptism as components of one unified experience, which he calls “conversion-initiation.”
Moo, D. J. (1996). The Epistle to the Romans (p. 366). Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.
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.
Further, by speaking of the “form” of Christ’s death, Paul may also be reminding us that our “dying with Christ” initiates a “conformity” with Jesus’ death that is to have a continuing effect on our existence. Reference to this ongoing conformity to the death of Christ explains the perfect tense of the verb Paul uses:90 we have been joined to the “form” of Christ’s death and are constantly being (and need to be) “conformed” to it. We may, then, paraphrase: “we (at ‘conversion-initiation’) were united with the death of Christ in its redemptive-historical significance, and are now, thus, in the state of ‘conformity’ to that death.”
With most interpreters, then, I take it that Paul is referring to the physical resurrection of believers “with Christ” (cf. )—to that time when God will transform our earthly bodies, “making them conformed to the body of his [Christ’s] glory.”
The futurity of our resurrection reminds us that complete victory over sin will be won only in that day; until then, we live under the imperative of making the life of Jesus manifest in the way we live (cf. ).
Moo, D. J. (1996). The Epistle to the Romans (p. 371). Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.
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.
What is meant is not the believer’s duty to put away sin, but the act of God whereby, in response to our faith, he considers us to have died the same death Christ died.
Many popular discussions of Paul’s doctrine of the Christian life argue, or assume, that Paul distinguishes with these phrases between two parts or “natures” of a person. With this interpretation as the premise, it is then debated whether the “old nature” is replaced with the “new nature” at conversion, or whether the “new nature” is added to the “old nature.” But the assumption that “old man” and “new man” refer to parts, or natures, of a person is incorrect. Rather, they designate the person as a whole, considered in relation to the corporate structure to which he or she belongs. “Old man” and “new man” are not, then, ontological, but relational or positional in orientation. They do not, at least in the first place, speak of a change in nature, but of a change in relationship. “Our old man” is not our Adamic, or sin “nature” that is judged and dethroned on the cross, and to which is added in the believer another “nature,” “the new man.” Rather, the “old man” is what we were “in Adam”—the “man” of the old age, who lives under the tyranny of sin and death.109 As J. R. W. Stott puts it, “what was crucified with Christ was not a part of me called my old nature, but the whole of me as I was before I was converted.”
What we were “in Adam” is no more; but, until heaven, the temptation to live in Adam always remains.
Moo, D. J. (1996). The Epistle to the Romans (p. 375). Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.
7 For one who has died has been set free from sin.
It is more likely, then, that Paul is citing a general maxim, to the effect that “death severs the hold of sin on a person.” Paul’s readers may have been familiar with similar sayings, known to us from the rabbinic writings.132 His purpose, then, is not to prove v. 6 but to illustrate his theological point by reference to a general truth.
Moo, D. J. (1996). The Epistle to the Romans (p. 377). Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.
8 Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him.
But this future life of resurrection casts its shadow into the believer’s present experience, and it is clear from the sequel that Paul wants us to see the present implications of this promise of future resurrection life.
Moo, D. J. (1996). The Epistle to the Romans (p. 377). Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.
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.
The finality of Christ’s separation from the power of sin shows why death can no longer rule over him—for is not death the product of sin (, etc.)?
Moo, D. J. (1996). The Epistle to the Romans (p. 379). Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.
11 So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.
In union with Christ we have been made dead to sin and alive to God; it remains for us to appropriate (v. 11) and apply (vv. 12–13) what God has done for us.
The object of the imperative is that we should take this death into account, take it seriously, and thus make the gift become a gift in which we participate.”
Moo, D. J. (1996). The Epistle to the Romans (p. 380). Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.
12 Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body (i.e., the believer’s form of existence in this world, which is still part of this age), to make you obey its passions.
Moving from thought to action, Paul now spells out just what it will mean for the believer to “consider” him- or herself to be “dead to sin and alive to God” (v. 11). He uses two prohibitions (vv. 12 and 13a) and one command (v. 13b) to make his point.
Moo, D. J. (1996). The Epistle to the Romans (p. 381). Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.
The first prohibition—“do not let sin reign”—is matched by the promise at the end of this small unit of verses that “sin will not have lordship over you” (v. 14a). Without this promise, which recapitulates a main emphasis of vv. 1–11, the imperative would be futile. One may as well tell a drowning person simply to swim to shore as tell a person who is under sin’s mastery not to let sin reign.
Having urged Christians (on the basis of vv. 1–10) “constantly to consider” themselves as dead to sin (v. 11), he now commands them to make it their practice never to let sin hold sway over them.
“the arena of the battle is in the world.” The battle is a spiritual one, but it is fought, and won or lost, in the daily decisions the believer makes about how to use his body.
Moo, D. J. (1996). The Epistle to the Romans (p. 383). Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.
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.
Now that we understand ourselves to be “dead to sin, alive to God” (v. 11), we must constantly avoid using our abilities and resources in the service of sin.
The renunciation of our service to sin is to be followed immediately by our enlisting in the service of a new master: God
Moo, D. J. (1996). The Epistle to the Romans (p. 385). Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.
14 For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.
After the imperatives of vv. 11–13, this short paragraph concludes with a return to the indicative. “For sin will no longer have lordship over you” grounds the specific commands of vv. 12–13 while summarizing the keynote of the chapter. “Sin” is again personified as power.
To put a stop to the reign of sin—to stop engaging in those sins that have too often become so habitual that we cannot imagine not doing them—is a daunting responsibility. We feel that we must fail. But Paul then reminds us of just what we have become in Jesus Christ: “dead to sin, alive to God.” There has already taken place in the life of the believer a “change of lordship” (Paul could hardly use the verb kyrieuō without thinking of the real kyrios of the Christian), and it is in the assurance of the continuance of this new state that the believer can go forth boldly and confidently to wage war against sin.
Moo, D. J. (1996). The Epistle to the Romans (p. 387). Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.
SUMMARY
Paul makes it clear, by the sequence in this paragraph, that we can live a holy life only as we appropriate the benefits of our union with Christ. But he also makes it clear, because there is a sequence, that living the holy life is distinct from (but not separate from) what we have attained by our union with Christ and that holiness of life can be stifled if we fail continually to appropriate and put to work the new life God has given us. Jeremiah Bourroughs, a seventeenth-century Puritan, put it like this: “… from him [Christ] as from a fountain, sanctification flows into the souls of the Saints: their sanctification comes not so much from their struggling, and endeavors, and vows, and resolutions, as it comes flowing to them from their union with him.” Or, as Thielicke puts it, we saints must not close our mouths to this fountain of sanctification, but continue to drink from it.
Moo, D. J. (1996). The Epistle to the Romans (p. 391). Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.