Romans · chapter 6 of 16
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Romans 6 answers the objection that grace allows us to keep on sinning. Paul says no: believers are united with Christ in his death and resurrection through baptism, so they have died to sin and live a new life. They must therefore consider themselves dead to sin and alive to God, not offer their bodies to sin but serve righteousness, because the wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life.
Romans 5:20 says that where sin increased, grace abounded all the more. That statement can be misunderstood as permission to sin. Chapter 6 answers that objection and is one of the clearest explanations in the New Testament of how grace not only forgives but transforms the life of the believer.
Paul begins with a question: shall we sin so that grace may abound? He answers with a firm no. Those who have died to sin cannot go on living in it. All who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death, buried with him so that, just as Christ was raised by the glory of the Father, they too might walk in newness of life.
If they have been united with him in a death like his, they will be united with him in his resurrection. Their old self was crucified with Christ so that the body of sin might be brought to nothing and they would no longer be enslaved to sin, because the one who has died has been set free from sin. Christ, raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer rules over him; he died to sin once for all and lives to God. So believers must consider themselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.
From that come the exhortations: do not let sin reign in your mortal body, do not present your members to sin as instruments of unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those brought from death to life and your members as instruments of righteousness. Sin will have no dominion over them, because they are not under law but under grace.
Paul asks the question again and again answers no. Everyone is a slave of the one they obey, either of sin leading to death or of obedience leading to righteousness. The Romans were once slaves of sin, but they obeyed from the heart the pattern of teaching to which they were committed and, set free from sin, became slaves of righteousness. The fruit of that life leads to sanctification, and the end is eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
References follow ESV book names and verse numbers. Read each verse in your Bible before the explanation.
Through baptism believers were buried with Christ into death so as to walk in newness of life, just as Christ was raised by the glory of the Father. Baptism is the public sign of a new life that begins when we are united with Christ.
Paul asks believers to consider themselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. He does not ask them to feel that way but to reckon with a reality God has already made true in Christ, and to live accordingly.
Sin will have no dominion over believers, because they are not under law but under grace. Grace is not permission to sin but the power that frees us from sin's rule.
The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus. Paul contrasts a deserved wage with an undeserved gift, which is why salvation is always a gift and never a payment.
6 questions with answers and references, ready for Sunday school, small group or a Bible quiz night.
Answer: Whether we should continue in sin so that grace may abound; he answers that by no means should we. — Romans 6:1-2
Answer: To be baptized into his death and buried with him, so as to walk in newness of life. — Romans 6:3-4
Answer: It was crucified with Christ so that the body of sin might be brought to nothing and we would no longer serve sin. — Romans 6:6
Answer: Dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. — Romans 6:11
Answer: Because they are not under law but under grace. — Romans 6:14
Answer: The wages of sin is death, and the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus. — Romans 6:23
Romans 6 reminds us that being a Christian means changing masters. We are not free of all authority; we pass from slavery to sin to the service of God. In a small group you can ask which habits or areas we still hand over to sin as if nothing had changed, and what it would look like to offer them to God.
The chapter does not ask for desperate effort but for a new identity: consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God. Those who see themselves this way, from grace, find strength to say no to sin, not to win God's love but because they already have it.
Romans 6 teaches that grace unites us with Christ and frees us from the dominion of sin to serve God. Romans 7 follows with another question: if we are no longer under the law, is the law bad? Paul answers by explaining the role of the law and the struggle believers still experience with sin.
It refers to what we were before Christ, under the dominion of sin. Paul says that life was joined to Christ's death, so sin no longer has the right to rule the believer. It does not mean the Christian no longer feels temptation but that sin is no longer his master.
That is the most common reading: Paul uses baptism as the visible picture of the believer's union with Christ in his death and resurrection. Some stress that what matters is the spiritual reality baptism represents. In any case, the text presents baptism as the beginning of a new life, not as a rite without consequences.
Because in real life no one is neutral: you serve sin or you serve God. Paul uses the image of slavery, familiar to his readers, to say that the believer has changed masters, and that serving God does not oppress but produces holiness and life.