Romans 6: 1-11
Now that we have the grace of God, what do we do with it? There are 2 ways. First is to live in the fear of the Lord, offering our lives to Him. The second is to misuse the grace given to us like the godless men mentioned in Jude. Why should we not go on sinning? It is simple. If we can go on sinning, then we contradict God’s purpose of salvation. We are supposed to be saved from sin and not be given reason to sin any longer. Paul’s explanation of why is quite clear.
In verse 2, Paul says that we have “died to sin”. If we died to sin, how can we be part of it any longer? Paul mentions about our death in almost every verse.
Verse 2 – We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?
Verse 3 – all of us who were baptised into Christ Jesus were baptised into his death
Verse 4 – We were therefore buried with him though baptism into death
Verse 5 – we have been united with him in his death
Verse 6 – our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with
Verse 7 – anyone who has died has been freed from sin
In order that we might live a new life, our old sinful nature has to be put to death. It has to be destroyed like bacteria in our bodies that make us sick. When you are suffering from an infection, you seek treatment until it’s totally gone. In the same way, when we died to sin, we eradicated all desire to sin and changed it to a desire to living a pleasing life to God. Going back to the sinful lifestyle is like going to the grave of your sins and digging them back up. Were they so enticing that you want to go back and dig the grave for them again?
In this passage, Paul uses the word ‘we’ as well. ‘We’ refers to those who have been crucified with Christ and have died to sin. We have the identity as transformed people and this is our uniqueness. We are Christians. So should we sin any further and be like those who are still in Adam and not in Christ?
Paul also said we “died”. We are not ‘dying’. When we believed and made the decision to join the allegiance of Jesus, we have put ourselves to death. Neither does he say we “ought to die to sin” because our death to sin is what God has done for us and not what we can do.
Just as we are united with Christ in his death, we also have unity with him in his resurrection. Because of Christ’s victory over sin, we who believed share the victory. This is the hope we have, the sure hope that has been given to us. So now that we are dead to sin and alive in Christ, Paul says in verse 12, “do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires”. This makes our first response as those who are dead to sin. In order not to let sin reign in us, we flee from it. We guard ourselves against it by equipping ourselves with the armour of God.
The next response is to offer ourselves to God “as instruments of righteousness” As we have a new life, our purposes become God-centred and not self-centred. We seek to please God and not to satisfy the sinful desires or our own ambition. For fulfilled ambitions only last for a fleeting moment but God’s purpose lasts forever. Though we are physically alive, we are spiritually dead to sin and then resurrected. In Gal 2:20, we are called now to “live by faith in the Son of God”. This involves applying Luke 9:23 again. To live for Christ, we have to deny ourselves, take up our cross and follow him.
Are you dead to sin? One indication is your purpose in life. Who are you living for?
