Chapter 6 Notes

Verses 1-4

In Romans 5:20, Paul writes, “Where sin increased, grace abounded all the more.” In Romans 6, he asks, “What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase?” Opponents to Paul’s assertion that justification is by grace, through faith, apart from works of the law would suggest that this ideology seems to open the door to rampant sinning. In fact, it seems to encourage sin because if grace is God’s act to forgive and accept sinners, then would not that grace shine all the brighter if we kept on sinning? The more sin there is, the more forgiveness there is, the more chances for God to show how gracious and merciful He is.

Doesn’t this teaching on justification open the door to careless living and indifference to holiness? Paul immediately answers this question with a resounding NO!!! We ARE DEAD to sin, how can we live in it? That’s his answer, simply stated. The rest of Chapter 6 will provide further explanation.

So.

Question: In what way are we (believers) dead to sin?

Answer: Verse 5 -“For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection.”

God establishes a union between believers and Christ, in a way that makes it fitting for Him to count Christ’s death to be our death. Verse 5 says we were united with Him with in a death like His. So from God’s perspective, our death has already happened. Christ died to sin, so we should consider ourselves dead to sin. This means that the justice our sin demanded (which is death) has already been supplied, once and for all, by the death of Jesus. His death has been credited, (or applied) to us through our faith.

Verse 6 tell us that our old self was crucified with Christ. My ‘old self’ is the me that was rebellious against God and His law, blind to God’s glory, and unbelieving toward His promises. When Christ died, God counted the old sinful me as dying with him.

Therefore, believers are commanded to become in practice what we are in Christ: dead to sin and alive to God.

At this point in Chapter 6, some might conclude that Paul is preaching perfectionism: that once you are saved, you will never sin again. While I do believe it is POSSIBLE that by the grace of God and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, we can live a sinless life, I know that it is not guaranteed to be the case in our life. Not because God and the Holy Spirit aren’t powerful enough, but because our flesh is still present and weak.

The rest of Romans 6, and the next few chapters, will provide more explanation but here’s the best summary I know of: we have been freed from the penalty of sin (Jesus’ death has been applied to us, that debt is paid), we have been set free from the power of sin (our union with Jesus in His resurrection has given us new life and freedom from the strongholds of sin) and we will one day be free from the presence of sin (when we are fully glorified in Christ).

What happened to Jesus (historically)– and to us by our union with Him – is applied to us not all at once in its fullness, but some now completely (salvation), and some now progressively (sanctification), and all fully in the age to come (glorification).

We are not yet perfected in our daily, earthly experience. So, what are we to do with the flesh and sin that still lingers from our ‘old-self’? We war against it!

We have to see sin for what it really is: sin is a power, not just an act. When we realize that, we know what we are up against.

For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Ephesians 6:12

Verses 12-14

1. Verse 12: There is a throne or a position of authority in your life that must be occupied. Sin desires to rule your mortal body.
2. Verse 12: Sin is a challenger to the throne: It desires to make you obey its passions.
3. Verse 12: Our disloyal desires that linger from our ‘old self’ work against us (and the Holy Spirit within us). Our own desires can act against us, conspiring with the enemy and enticing us to be mastered by sin.
4. Verse 13: There is a good and true king who desires and deserves to sit on the throne and to reign in our life: God. “Do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments (weapons) of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments (weapons) of righteousness to God.”
5. Verse 13: There are weapons that can be used to advance the cause of the true king, God, or the cause of the pretender to the throne, sin: members (parts) of the human body. “Do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments (weapons) of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments (weapons) of righteousness to God.” The desires of the body are not sin in and of themselves, but are servants of the body and can be captured by sin, and made into weapons of the enemy that seduce us into handing over members of our body to become weapons of unrighteousness.
6. Verse 14: There is a constitutional authority in the kingdom: grace, not law. “For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law but under grace.”

So how do you fight and win this battle?

We will answer this in the weeks, chapters and posts to come but for now, I’ll leave you with this:

The battle is not merely a surface battle.  It’s not about just saying no to a list of unrighteous acts. The battle is far deeper than that. It goes beneath acts to desires. And it goes beneath desires to the power of sin. And it goes beneath the power of sin to union with Christ. And it goes beneath union with Christ to what Christ did in history on the cross for us, and what happened to us in Him (Romans 6: 3-11).

The big issue is not just what acts you do or don’t do or what desires you give in to and which you don’t. The big issue is Who is king? Who reigns in your life?

May it be God through Jesus Christ! Christ has made it possible for sinners to surrender to God with complete amnesty and all rebellion forgiven. Christ has risen with power over sin and death and that power has been, and will be applied to us. We overcome the power of sin by submitting ourselves to the rule of the ONE whose power is greater!