ROM 6

Dead to Sin, Alive in Christ

1 What then shall we conclude? Should we continue habitually living in sin so that God's grace may increase and abound even more?

2 Absolutely not! May such a thought never enter our minds! How can we who have died to sin's ruling power still go on living in it as a way of life?

3 Or are you ignorant of this spiritual reality: that all of us who have been baptised into union with Christ Jesus have been baptised into identification with His death?

4 Therefore, we have been buried together with Him through baptism into His death, so that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the powerful glory of the Father, so we also are called to walk and conduct our lives in the newness of resurrection life.

5 For if we have become united and joined with Him in the likeness and experience of His death, most certainly we will also be united with Him in the experience of a resurrection like His—both now spiritually and in the future physically.

6 Knowing and understanding this crucial truth: that our old self—our former identity in Adam—was crucified together with Christ on the cross, so that the body dominated by sin might be rendered powerless, so that we might no longer be enslaved to sin as our master.

7 For the person who has died with Christ has been set free from sin's legal claims and enslaving power.

Living the Resurrection Life

8 Now if we died with Christ in His death, we believe with confidence that we will also live together with Him in His resurrection life—both now and eternally.

9 Knowing with certainty that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more and will never die again; death no longer has any power, mastery, or dominion over Him.

10 For the death He died, He died to sin once for all time, never to be repeated; but the life that He now lives, He lives exclusively to God and for God's glory.

11 In the same way, you also must reckon, consider, and count yourselves to be dead to sin's power and claims, but alive to God and responsive to Him in union with Christ Jesus our Lord.

12 Therefore, do not allow sin to reign as king in your mortal body, so that you obey and give in to its lustful, disordered desires and cravings.

13 Neither continue presenting the members of your body as instruments and weapons of unrighteousness in service to sin; but instead present yourselves once and for all to God as those who are alive from the dead—resurrected to new life—and continually present your bodily members as instruments and weapons of righteousness in service to God.

14 For sin will not gain mastery and rule as lord over you, because you are not under the Law's condemning power and curse, but instead under grace's liberating power and blessing.

Positive and Negative Spiritual Enslavement

15 What then is our conclusion? Should we sin freely because we are not under Law's condemnation but under grace's protection? May it never be! Absolutely not!

16 Do you not know and understand this principle: that to whomever you present yourselves as slaves for obedience, you are actually slaves to that very master whom you obey—either slaves of sin, which leads ultimately to death, or slaves of obedience to God, which leads to righteousness?

17 But gratitude be to God that, though you were formerly slaves of sin as your master, you have become wholeheartedly obedient from the very core of your being to the pattern and standard of gospel teaching to which you were entrusted.

18 And having been liberated from sin's mastery and dominion, you have become slaves—willing, devoted servants—to righteousness.

19 I am speaking in ordinary human terms and using the analogy of slavery because of the weakness and limitation of your human understanding. For just as you once presented the members of your body as slaves to moral impurity and to lawlessness, resulting in ever-increasing lawlessness and moral chaos, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness, resulting in progressive sanctification and holiness.

The Contrasting Results of Two Masters

20 For when you were slaves of sin as your master, you were free from any obligation to righteousness—you had no relationship with righteousness at all.

21 Therefore, what fruit, benefit, or profit were you gaining back then from the things of which you are now ashamed and embarrassed? For the final outcome of those sinful things is death—both spiritual and eternal.

22 But now, having been liberated from sin's enslaving power and having become willing slaves devoted to God, you have fruit that results in progressive sanctification and increasing holiness, and the end result of this is eternal life.

23 For the wages—what sin pays as earned compensation to its workers is death; but the gracious gift of God—not earned but freely given—is eternal life in union with Christ Jesus our Lord.

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