Basic Christian Living: Romans 6.

  • Welcome to Christian Forums, a Christian Forum that recognizes that all Christians are a work in progress.

    You will need to register to be able to join in fellowship with Christians all over the world.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon and God Bless!

Kokyu

Member
May 23, 2025
188
45
28
25
Canada
Faith
Christian
Country
Canada
Romans 6:1-11
6 What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?
2 Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it?
3 Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death?
4 Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.
5 For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection,
6 knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be [a]done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin.
7 For he who has died has been [b]freed from sin.
8 Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him,
9 knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over Him.
10 For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God.
11 Likewise you also, [c]reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.


I've been discipling men for thirty years now and in that time have been also a Youth Pastor and preaching/teaching Elder. In all this work within the Church, I've had much opportunity to observe the things that most hinder the average believer in their walk with God. Near the very top of my list of things that "put the brakes on" spiritually for Christians is ignorance of the contents of Romans 6. When I say "ignorance" I don't mean that Christians haven't ever read the chapter (though, this may be the case), or have never heard a sermon on the chapter (though, this may also be the case), but that they have no understanding of how this chapter delivers to them some of the most vital and practical doctrines of their faith. Without this understanding they can't live in the truths of Romans 6 and when this is the so, walking in the Spirit (Ga. 5:16, 25) and enjoying daily, truly life-changing fellowship is impossible.

Why do I say this? Why am I investing this chapter with such great importance to spiritual living? Because it offers, in detail, the "way of escape" of which Paul wrote in his letter to the believers at Corinth:

1 Corinthians 10:13
13 No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it.


Why do I think the "way of escape" mentioned in this verse is described in Romans 6? Because Romans 6 deals with the problem of sin and what the Christian person is to do about it. There isn't any other chapter in all of the New Testament that handles this subject with the same level of explanation and practicality. It's vital, then, that every Christian should know and understand thoroughly what Romans 6 teaches; for there is nothing in the life of any Christian that interferes more with their positive experience of God than sin.

Psalm 66:18
18 If I regard iniquity in my heart,
The Lord will not hear.

Isaiah 59:2
But your iniquities have separated you from your God;
And your sins have hidden His face from you,
So that He will not hear.

1 Peter 3:12
12 For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous,
And His ears are open to their prayers;
But the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.”


Paul begins his remarks in chapter 6 of his letter to the Romans with a rhetorical question:

6 What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?
2 Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it?


Why would Paul be saying this to the Christian brethren at Rome? Well, he's actually addressing an accusation that had been made against him that he was teaching that Christians should "do evil that good may come."

Romans 3:8
8 And why not say, “Let us do evil that good may come”?—as we are slanderously reported and as some affirm that we say. Their [a]condemnation is just.


This verse appears in the middle of things Paul is saying concerning how a person is made righteousness before God. Only a few verses prior to this one, Paul had written:

Romans 2:28-29
28 For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh;
29 but he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the Spirit, not in the letter; whose [g]praise is not from men but from God.


Here, Paul is setting out the doctrine of righteousness by faith rather than by OT law-keeping and declaring that the external, fleshly circumcision by which Jews proudly identified themselves as such was set aside for "circumcision of the heart, in the Spirit, not in the letter (of the law)" (Ro. 3:20; Ga. 2:16). Under the New Covenant established in and through Jesus (He. 7-10:22), a person was justified solely by faith in Jesus, not by "the works of the flesh," which is to say by keeping religious rules. Christians are saved by grace, they are given grace, and they walk with God in a "state of grace" so that Paul could write,

Romans 5:1-2
1 Therefore, having been justified by faith, [a]we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,
2 through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.

Romans 5:17
17 For if by the one man’s offense death reigned through the one, much more those who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ.

Romans 5:20
20 Moreover the law entered that the offense might abound. But where sin abounded, grace abounded much more,
 
Last edited:

Kokyu

Member
May 23, 2025
188
45
28
25
Canada
Faith
Christian
Country
Canada
Anticipating the objections of those who had "slanderously reported" that Paul was teaching a sort of "free grace" doctrine where sin could be indulged because "grace did much more abound," Paul begins Romans 6 with the rhetorical question that he did.

Romans 6:1-2
6 What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?
2 Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it?


Because sin halts our fellowship with God, no believer who wants fellowship with God can live in sin. But Paul introduces here another reason why the Christian ought not live in sin: They've died to it. What does Paul mean? He continued, explaining:

Romans 6:3-7
3 Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death?
4 Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.
5 For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection,
6 knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin.
7 For he who has died has been freed from sin.


The born-again person has been spiritually united with Christ in his death, burial and resurrection. Among other things, this means that the "old man" - the person we were before we were saved, rebellious, fleshly, temporally-minded - has been separated from the believer such that the "body of sin" might be "done away with" so that we need no longer be slaves of sin. Apart from God and in constant rebellion to Him, the unsaved person cannot help but direct their body into sinful living. This is described in Ephesians 2:1-3, Titus 3:3 and Colossians 1:21. None of us were made to be our own boss, to be self-directed, and when we are, we inevitably act in the carnal way Paul described in Romans 8:5-8:

Romans 8:5-8
5 For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit.
6 For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.
7 Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be.
8 So then, those who are in the flesh cannot please God.


"Living according to the flesh" is the only way we can live if we are not spiritually-minded. But those who are so, who are fleshly-minded, who are carnal, not only cannot please God but are at enmity with Him. This is an incorrigible condition that can't be rehabilitated. We are so sin-prone, so naturally at odds with God, that if our "old, fleshly-minded Self" is not separated from us by God, we have no hope of coming out from under its control. And so, God acts for us to "put to death" the "old Self (man)," linking us to Christ's death on the cross and thus crucifying our "old Self," and in so doing rendering it powerless.

Does this mean our old Self is eradicated, totally annihilated, never again to plague us? The answer will follow in an upcoming post.
 
Last edited: