Chapters 1-5 of Romans dealt with the past, and chapters 6-8 deal with the present. Because we are “in Christ” and He died in our place we are counted dead with Him. This is the fundamental premise of chapter 6, and Paul spends the remainder of the chapter explaining and supporting it.

The law is good, holy, and righteous but it cannot be kept, so it curses. Since it cannot assist anyone to keep God’s moral standard it can only show the standard and thus rebuke and condemn those who fail to keep it. But the believer is no longer under the law as a condition of acceptance with God—an impossible condition to meet and one designed only to show man his sinfulness but under grace, which enables him to truly fulfill the law’s righteous requirements.

Think of it this way. Sin put you in prison. Sin locked you behind the bars of guilt and shame and deception and fear. Sin did nothing but shackle you to the wall of misery. Then Jesus came and paid your bail. He served your time; He satisfied the penalty and set you free. Christ died, and when you cast your lot with Him, your old self died too.

The only way to be set free from the prison of sin is to serve its penalty. In this case the penalty is death. Someone has to die, either you or a heaven-sent substitute. You cannot leave prison unless there is a death. But that death has occurred at Calvary. And when Jesus died, you died to sin’s claim on your life. You are free.

Christ has taken your place. There is no need for you to remain in the cell. Ever heard of a discharged prisoner who wanted to stay?  When the doors open, prisoners leave. The thought of a person preferring jail over freedom doesn’t compute. Once the penalty is paid, why live under bondage? You are discharged from the penitentiary of sin. Why, in heaven’s name, would you ever want to set foot in that prison again?

Having shown clearly that the grace of God “abounded much more” wherever sin abounded, Paul poses the question, which to many would be purely hypothetical but to others may be very real: “If grace is made to abound more as more sin is committed, then why not sin more so that more grace will be released?” In its most common form, this attitude is exhibited in those believers who see in their justification no necessity to go on to experience the sanctification God has in mind for them. Having been forgiven and guaranteed a place in heaven, they feel they can now get on with the business of living as they wish without any concerns or misgivings. Carried to its extreme, this kind of thinking has produced sects that encourage sinning as a prerequisite to salvation.

Paul starts his explanation of the believer’s death to sin by reminding him of the historical facts of Christ’s earthly experience, namely, His death, burial, and Resurrection. Then Paul shows that through baptism the believer is united to Christ and, therefore, is a participant in the experience of Christ. Thus the believer through baptism has died, been buried, and raised again “with Him.”

Only the most corrupt mind using the most perverted logic could argue that continuing in sin somehow honours the God who sacrificed His Son to save people in the first place. Christians have, by placing saving faith in Him, been spiritually immersed into the person of Christ, that is, united and identified with Him

How can anyone die to sin? Paul is talking about something already done by another (Christ), not something people do. The Greek form of the word “died” often signifies summarizing a past event from an eternal perspective-an event that is already past, not an ongoing process.

As Christian theology has developed, one section of the church has seen baptism as a sacrament while a second section regards it as a symbol. For the former group baptism conveys grace to the baptized person. Taken to its extreme, this approach can obviate the necessity for repentance and faith and elevate baptism to the lofty status of the means of salvation. On the other hand, those who regard baptism as a symbol of spiritual reality may decide that as rites are relatively unimportant when compared to reality, the rite can be dispensed with without losing any spiritual benefit. This position has been adopted by such groups as the Salvation Army.  

Paul’s fundamental meaning in Romans 6:3-4 is the identification of the believer with Christ as pictured through baptism into the body of Christ at the moment of conversion. Water baptism, the public mark of faith in God, is symbolic of personal, vital identification with Christ. When Christ entered the world He came from the glory of heaven sinless, spotless, undefiled, and separate from sin. Immediately upon entering human society, He was confronted on every hand by sin’s power and presence. For thirty-three years He lived among the carnage and wreckage of sin. When He went to the Cross, He assumed our sin and bore the wrath of God against our sin; in fact, the apostle says that the Father “made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us”. Having come from an environment where sinlessness was normative to a situation where sin is pervasive and having taken on His sinless self the load of a race’s sin, it comes as no surprise to us that He cried exultantly from the Cross at the end of His ministry, “Finished!” and promptly bowed His head and dismissed His spirit. It was all over for Him. The nightmare of sin, the horrors of death and hell, the pernicious tyranny of sin’s hold on people had been dealt with, and He could go to the grave anticipating His Resurrection with joy and delight. Christ died to sin in two senses: 1) in regard to sin’s penalty—He met its legal demands upon the sinner; and 2) in regard to sin’s power—forever breaking its power over those who belong to Him. His death will never need repeating. Paul’s point is that believers have died to sin in the same way.

In the same way, believers, united to Christ, can exult in the fact that all that must be done about their sin has been done in Christ. They, too, can cry “finished” and breathe a sigh of relief because for them the nightmare of unanswered sin is over and the tyranny of unconquerable sin is broken. But in the same way that Christ did not stay dead but rose to a newness of life to be lived unto the Father, we are raised too! While He was in His body, the Son had an obligation to deal with the sin problem, but when, after death, He arose, having finished with sin, His total concentration was once more upon the Father. In the same way, believers who were previously preoccupied with the remorseless grip of sin on their lives can now concentrate on what they have and who they are in Christ and, accordingly, live new lives. Christ’s death was the believer’s death; His burial, the believer’s burial; His resurrection, the believer’s resurrection. He not only died for them, He died as them. Believers are united to Him in His death and burial and in His resurrection.

The phrase “the old man” refers to the old self, the unregenerate sons of Adam. The phrase “body of sin” does not mean “a mass of sin,” or sin that lives in the body but that the body is the seat, or instrument of sin. The phrase “done away” does not mean “annihilated” but “reduced to a state of inaction or impotence.” It means defeated, disabled, deprived of power. Paul states that this body which is so susceptible to sin’s domination before union with Christ has, through Him, been placed in a position where this domination might no longer be the norm. Now that the “man of old” has been dealt with in Christ and the new man has, accordingly, been shown that the sin which previously controlled his physical body has been dealt with, he should recognize that he is no longer at the mercy of sin, or, literally, “a slave of sin.” In fact, he has been “freed from sin” or “justified from sin.”

Christ’s relationship with sin was far different compared to people’s relationship with sin. He knew no sin, nor was He able to sin, and yet He died to sin. Satisfying its demands once for all, He also died to its power, forever breaking its dominion over those who belong to God through His Son.

The word “reckon” is used 19 times in Romans and has to do with reality. It means acknowledging or acting on what is already true or has already happened. Christians need to reckon, conclude, and accept that they are no longer slaves to sin but have been set free. Paul requires believers to reason through what he has been teaching concerning the believer’s relationship to sin and to Christ and then to place to their own account or apply to their own lives that which they have intellectually grasped.

Bodies are not evil, but believers must not allow sin to have a place of power in their bodies. Sin has been rendered powerless unless they grant it power. The believer must understand that “in Christ” he is no longer totally at the mercy of the inhospitable environment of sin but is alive to all the power and life of God Himself. When this is appreciated, the believer must make some decisions to “let not sin reign in your mortal body”. There is nothing very mysterious about this instruction. It means saying “no” in no uncertain terms!

The word “members” refers to limbs, senses, and intellect. Some translate the word “instruments” as “weapons,” meaning the members can become weapons for the enemy. Inclination to yield to sin must be replaced by inclination to yield to Christ and righteousness. We sin when we “yield” or “present” our tongue to say the wrong word, our hand when we take something that does not belong to us, our sexual organs when we commit adultery, our minds when we harbor uncharitable thoughts. When we take sin seriously, we begin to see how sin cannot operate in our bodies without our giving over a particular member of the body for a specific sin. If the believer is adequately aware of this, he can begin to say “no” to a temptation, not only in a general sense but in the very specific sense of refusing to present the member necessary for the committing of sin.

Believers are like soldiers who have left the ranks of a rebellious unit to rejoin their rightful leader. The rebel captain’s orders have no more authority over them. People are no longer helpless in the face of sin’s power. They have been promised ultimate victory, and they may have daily victory over sin as well.

(An audio version of this post can be found by clicking this link: Romans 6 verses 1-14 A Believer’s Death to Sin)

Bibliography

1. Jeremiah, David: the Jeremiah Study Bible: New King James Version (Brentwood, TN: Worthy Publishing; 2013; pp. 1550-1552)
2. Briscoe, D.S., & Ogilvie, L.J.: The Preacher’s Commentary Series, Vol. 29: Romans (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Inc.; 1982; pp. 127-135)
3. Stanley, C.F.: The Charles F. Stanley Life Principles Bible: New Ming James Version (Nashville, TN: Nelson Bibles; 2005)
4. MacArthur, J.F. Jr,: The MacArthur Study Bible: New American Standard Bible (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson; 2006)
5. Lucado, M.: The Lucado Life Lessons Study Bible (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Inc.; 2010)