10
Freedom from the Power of Sin
Romans 6:1–23
Outline
- Released from Sin’s Power through Union with Christ (6:1–14)
- Freed from Sin, Enslaved to God (6:15–23)
Objectives
After reading this chapter, you should be able to
- Explain what the metaphor “death to sin” means for the Christian.
- Explain the nature of the believer’s union with Christ in death and resurrection.
- State and explain at least three different ways that we can understand the relation between water baptism and our union with Christ.
- Appreciate the balance between God’s gift (the “indicative”) and God’s command (the “imperative”) in the Christian life.
The Christian, who has been justified by faith in Christ, has assurance for the future. We do not need to fear the day of judgment, for we have the “hope of the glory of God” (5:2), confident that we will be delivered from God’s wrath when we stand before him on the last day. And we can have this confidence because our faith in Christ means that we belong to him. Adam, whose sin brought death to all human beings, no longer represents us. Christ does. And his act of righteousness, his death on the cross, wins eternal life for all who belong to him. Such is the basic argument of Romans 5. The chapter should lead believers to rejoice in the security they enjoy because of their relationship to Christ, but Paul knows that we are likely to have some remaining questions about this secure future. Especially we will want to know about the rest of our time on earth. Are we merely treading water here until we can be delivered from this life and enjoy the blessings of heaven? Do we have to wait for our death or Christ’s return to enjoy the benefits of new life in Christ? And if that eternal life has already been given to us in Christ, what about sin? Does it really matter anymore what we do in this life? This last question clearly is the one uppermost in Paul’s mind at this point. Remember: he has preached the gospel for many years. He knows how people will react to the good news of eternal life in Christ. He knows that some people will think that they have now had their admittance ticket to heaven punched and that they can do anything they want until then. Hence, Romans 6.
Church of the Holy Sepulchre, traditional site of Christ’s burial (Jim Yancey)
Released from Sin’s Power through Union with Christ (6:1–14)
Paul reverts to the question-and-answer style that he has used so effectively in Romans. The immediate stimulus for his question in verse 1 is what he has said in 5:20b: “But where sin increased, grace increased all the more.” Paul is talking about salvation history, about how God reacted to the rebellion of Israel with renewed promises of grace and blessing. But one can understand how people might take this promise of grace as a general principle that says, basically, “The more sin, the more grace—and since we all want as much grace as possible . . .” Paul reacts to any such suggestion with a strong negative: “By no means!” (mē genoito; literally, “may it never be”). And then he offers this explanation: “We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?” (v. 2).
| 1 Corinthians 15:3–4 | Romans 6 |
| For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: |
|
| that Christ died for our sins | we died with Christ (v. 8; cf. vv. 3, 5) |
| according to the Scriptures, |
|
| that he was buried, | we were . . . buried with him (v. 4) |
| that he was raised on the third day | we will also live with him (v. 8; cf. vv. 4, 5) |
| according to the Scriptures |
|
What does Paul mean when he claims that we Christians have “died to sin”? Three contextual indicators help us to unpack the meaning. First is an obvious point, but we might miss its significance. Paul speaks of dying to sin (singular), not sins (plural). And, in fact, this language mirrors the pattern of Romans 5–8, where Paul uses the word “sin” twenty-two times, all of them in the singular. Paul’s focus is not on the various sins that people actually commit but on the underlying fact, or principle, or power, of sin. Second, Paul reverts quickly and repeatedly in chapter 6 to the metaphor of freedom from slavery. Christians have been “set free from sin” (vv. 7, 18, 22) and are therefore no longer “slaves to sin” (vv. 6, 17, 20). So death to sin must have something to do with being set free from the mastery or lordship (see v. 14) of sin. Third, Christ also is said to have “died to sin” (v. 10), so the phrase must indicate an experience that could apply to him. Christ, of course, was never under sin’s power in the sense that it dictated his behavior and led him to commit actual sins. Nevertheless, by becoming genuinely and fully human, Christ did enter into the sphere in which sin dominates. Putting these three indicators together, we arrive at the conclusion that “death to sin” refers to release from the dominance of the power of sin. Paul uses the imagery of death for two reasons: (1) he will show that it is our union with Christ in his death that brings freedom from sin; (2) passing from life to death is a natural metaphor for a radical change in state.
Thus, Paul’s point is this: we Christians have been set free from the domination of sin, so how can we continue to live as if sin were still calling the shots? Paul, of course, is not claiming that Christians cannot sin anymore. Such a radical claim would make nonsense of his frequent appeals to Christians to avoid sin and live for the Lord. In this very passage, he tells believers that they must not let sin “reign” in their bodies. No, Christians will continue to sin as long as this present evil age endures. What Paul is saying, however, is that sin can no longer be the characteristic pattern of the believer’s life. Sin is not in control anymore. And that new relationship to sin must reveal itself in the way we live. No one who has been set free from sin’s dominating power can continue to live as if sin were still in control.
In the rest of Romans 6, Paul explains how this new relationship to sin came about and draws out its consequences. Verses 3–10 focus (though not exclusively) on the first of these two purposes. Paul’s argument unfolds in three stages: (1) baptism puts us in contact with the death of Christ (vv. 3–4); (2) because we share in Christ’s death, we also will share in his resurrection (vv. 5, 8–10); (3) sharing in Christ’s death means freedom from sin (vv. 6–7). The last of these clearly is the main point, with verses 3–5 leading up to it and verses 8–10 elaborating it further.
The main point of verses 3–4 is clear enough. Our release from the power of sin takes place through our union with Christ. We have participated in his death (v. 3) and his burial (v. 4), and this means that through Christ’s resurrection power, we have the power to “live a new life.” But why does Paul make baptism the means by which we experience this union with Christ? We should first note that he is almost certainly speaking about water baptism.1 The language that he uses (esp. the noun baptisma in v. 4), along with the importance of the rite in the early church, makes a reference to some kind of baptism in the Spirit unlikely. Interpreters give three basic answers to the question of why Paul refers in this context to water baptism. First, some think that baptism is a sacrament that in itself has the power to transfer a person into relationship with Christ. So baptism itself (as an act of God’s grace) joins us to Christ, enabling us to experience Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection. Proponents of this view give insufficient attention to the overwhelming focus on faith as the critical factor in joining us to Christ. Paul highlights faith throughout Romans; he mentions baptism only in 6:3–4. Second, then, other interpreters, reacting against a sacramental viewpoint, insist that Paul uses water baptism simply as a symbol of what happens to the believer at conversion. Going under the water of baptism symbolizes our death to sin; being under the water, the burial of our old life; rising out of the water, the new life of resurrection power.2 Paul, however, does not say that we experienced a death, or burial, or resurrection “like” Christ’s; rather, he claims that we died “with” Christ (vv. 5, 6, 8), that we were “buried with him” (v. 4), and that we will be raised with him (vv. 5, 8). Baptism does not symbolize what happened at our conversion; it is the means by which these “with Christ” experiences take place. Note verse 4: “we were therefore buried with him through baptism” (my emphasis). So the evidence of the text requires that we give baptism significance in its own right as a point at which we become joined with Christ. But how can we do so without erring in the direction of the sacramental interpretation, with its undervaluing of faith? The third view seeks to avoid this difficulty by seeing in water baptism a kind of shorthand for the conversion experience. The New Testament consistently views the believer’s baptism as part of a complex of events, including especially faith, repentance, and the gift of the Holy Spirit. I suggest, therefore, that when Paul refers to water baptism here, he intends it to be seen not in isolation but as part of this larger complex of conversion events.3 When we come to Christ in faith, God gives us his Spirit, and we submit to water baptism. And this complex of events—not water baptism by itself—brings us into union with Christ and the salvific events of his death, burial, and resurrection. In other words, in a situation roughly parallel to the sinning of all human beings in and with Adam, Paul views believers as having died, been buried, and been raised in and with Christ. Our new relationship to sin is the product of our having died with Christ to the power of sin (see v. 10).4
The Jordan River, in which John the Baptist practiced water baptism
In verses 5 and 8–10 Paul explicitly states the relationship between identification with Christ in his death and identification with Christ in his resurrection that the end of verse 4 implies. Our new life finds its parallel and basis (note the “just as”) in Christ’s resurrection. So Paul now goes on to show that being with Christ in death also means being with him in life. Scholars debate the significance of the future tenses in verses 5 and 8: “we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his”; “we believe that we will also live with him.” We might understand these as logical futures, where the future tense is used to indicate an event that inevitably follows another event. In this case, our union with Christ in resurrection might be a present experience of believers.5 What Paul says here would be parallel, then, to his claim in Ephesians that believers have been “raised . . . up with Christ” (Eph. 2:6; cf. Col. 2:12). But we probably should regard the future tenses as temporal futures. Paul normally presents our resurrection as an event that will happen when Christ returns in glory (for a close parallel, see Phil. 3:21). Still, the power of Christ’s resurrection is already operating in us, so that Paul can say that we are people who have “been brought from death to life” (v. 13).
At the heart of Paul’s presentation of the believer’s union with Christ are verses 6–7. Here he asserts the transformed relation to sin that believers enjoy because of their identification with Christ. “Our old self” (which can be translated “our old man” [anthrōpos]) is Paul’s way of connoting our connection with Adam and the sin and death it brought (see Rom. 5). Who we were in Adam has been done away with when we were crucified with Christ. Paul’s shift to the language of crucifixion reveals again that he conceives of us as having been with Christ in his own death. And through this union with him in death “the body ruled by sin” has been “done away with.” Paul, of course, does not think of our bodies as being innately sinful (that would be a most unbiblical conception); rather, his point is that our bodies, inasmuch as they are dominated by sin, have been dethroned. And that means—Paul’s bottom line—“we should no longer be slaves to sin.”
| The Old Realm (The Non-Christian) | The New Realm (The Christian) |
| In Adam | In Christ |
| Old man (5:12–21) | New man (5:12–21) |
| Slaves to sin (6:17, 20; 7:14) | Slaves to righteousness (6:18, 20) |
| Doomed to eternal death (5:12–21; 7:5; 8:13) | Destined for eternal life (5:12–21; 8:1–13) |
| Ruled over by law (6:14; 7:7–25) | Ruled over by grace (6:14; 8:1–39) |
| Dominated by the flesh (7:5, 7–25) | Dominated by the Spirit (7:6; 8:1–39) |
In verses 1–10, Paul teaches that the justified believer has been placed in an entirely new relationship to sin. As Adamic people, we are all helpless slaves of sin; but, as Christian people, we have been set free from sin’s tyranny. The change is so radical that Paul uses the analogy of death to speak about this transfer. But, as verses 11–14 now make clear, this transfer, as radical and fundamental as it is, is not the end of the story. Our new relationship to sin is one that we must appropriate and live out. Although we are “dead to sin,” as Paul has said (cf. v. 2), we still need to view ourselves in that light (v. 11); and once we see ourselves this way, we then can break the reign of sin in practice (v. 12). The “indicative,” or “statement of fact,” of what God has done for us does not render unnecessary the “imperative,” or “directive,” of what we are to do; rather, it stimulates it and makes it possible. Paul continues to employ metaphors drawn from the world of rulership as he calls on us in verse 13 not to “offer” ourselves to sin but rather to “offer” ourselves to God. The verb translated as “offer” in the NIV (paristēmi) can have the connotation “dedicate in service to a king” (e.g., 1 Kings 10:8, in the Greek Old Testament).6 God is our new ruler, and we are to present ourselves to him daily for whatever service he demands.
Paul concludes the passage with a last reminder of the new position we enjoy in Christ. He promises, “Sin shall no longer be your master” (v. 14). The text uses the verbal form of kyrios, “lord”: sin will not lord itself over you anymore. And the reason it will no longer dominate us is that we “are not under the law, but under grace.” Some Christians have taken this well-known claim to mean that believers are no longer obliged to any set of commandments. But again, Paul is talking about the law—the law of Moses—and not any law in general. Many interpreters think that this claim relates to the forgiveness of sins: the law no longer has power to condemn us, because we are protected under the grace of God in Christ.7 But “under the law” elsewhere in Paul’s writings has a broader sense (see esp. Gal. 4:4, where Paul claims that Christ was born “under the law”). In keeping with his rulership language, being “under the law” means to be dominated by the law, to be part of the old era of salvation history over which the torah held sway. To be “under grace,” on the other hand, means to be living in the new era, in which God’s grace in Christ now reigns supreme (see Rom. 5:2, 21). John says much the same thing in the prologue to his Gospel: “For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ” (John 1:17).
Freed from Sin, Enslaved to God (6:15–23)
The second part of Romans 6 seems almost to be a repeat of the first part. Paul again begins by asking whether the overwhelming experience of God’s grace means that sin does not matter anymore (v. 15). He responds by asserting again that we have been set free from sin and thus are to live new lives of righteousness. Repetition there certainly is. Paul clearly wants us to get the point he is making. There is also, however, a new focus. As we have seen, Paul uses the imagery of a transfer of realm to make his point about our new status. In verses 1–14, he focuses on the negative side of that transfer: release from the tyranny of sin; in verses 15–23, on the other hand, he develops in more detail the positive side of the transfer: the rule of God and the demand for obedience and righteousness.
As in 6:1, where he picked up the language of 5:20, Paul formulates his initial question with the language he has just used in verse 14. Someone might misunderstand the claim that believers are not under the law but under grace as an invitation to sin. Again echoing the beginning of chapter 6, Paul emphatically rejects any such inference: “By no means!” His explanation of that rejection in verse 16 focuses on a key reality: people are always enslaved to something. Absolute freedom, Paul implies, is a chimera. No one is ever free in that sense. And so the question becomes, to whom or to what do you want to be enslaved? To sin, reaping eternal death as the consequence? Or to obedience, which brings righteousness? To continue to live a life of sin would be to reveal that we are still slaves to sin. The only alternative is to obey God and thereby reveal that he is now truly our master. In verses 17–18, Paul reminds us that the life of obedience that he calls for is both mandated and made possible by our transfer from the old realm of sin and death into the new realm of righteousness and life. At one time we were slaves of sin, but in placing our faith in Christ, we have committed ourselves to a new “pattern of teaching”—the gospel. And the gospel demands that we acknowledge Jesus as our Lord and live out the implications of that lordship.
Verse 19 is the center of verses 15–23. Paul leads up to it with reminders of the new situation we are in as a result of God’s grace (vv. 17–18), and he follows on after it with similar emphases (vv. 20–23). But here, in verse 19, he repeats the basic command of verse 13: recognizing the new realm in which we live, we are to offer ourselves as slaves to righteousness and holiness. Paul acknowledges the limitations of his metaphor at the beginning of the verse (“I am using an example from everyday life”), for to call believers “slaves” could imply that we have been forced into an onerous service, whereas to serve Christ is a high and joyful privilege. But the point of that analogy is that believers really have no choice in whether they will serve God or how they will serve him. God demands that his people obey him, and he has laid down in his word just how we are to obey him. Interestingly, Paul suggests that our new obedience is to mirror the old obedience. If at one time we were dedicated to serving money, or striving for status, now we are to employ those same energies in serving God and righteousness. As unbelievers and slaves to sin, Paul reminds us in verse 20, we were quite free from the control of righteousness. Here at least is one freedom that unbelievers enjoy: freedom from any ultimate ability to live lives of righteousness. Therefore, people who live in the realm of sin have a certain freedom, but it is an unenviable freedom. Also, they produce “fruit” (karpos; “benefit” in the NIV), but it is an undesirable fruit, because it leads to death. Paul uses the imagery of fruit to describe the characteristic behavior of unbelievers. As slaves of sin, unbelievers produce attitudes and patterns of life that lead to condemnation and are the source of shame for Christians. In contrast (v. 22), believers, the slaves of God, are able to produce fruit that leads to holiness and to eternal life. The good works that believers do as a result of their new relationship to Christ form an overall pattern of life that Paul calls “holiness.” This word (hagiasmos) comes from an important biblical word group that denotes the character of God and, derivatively, the character that his people are to exhibit. “Be holy, because I am holy” is a well-known summary of this matter, echoed throughout the Old and New Testaments (e.g., Lev. 11:45; 1 Pet. 1:16). In the new realm, set free from sin and enslaved to God, believers can obey this summons to a holy life.
Many of us know by heart the words of verse 23. We often hear it quoted in isolation as the essence of the Christian gospel. But now we are in a position to see how well it fits its context. Paul has been warning us throughout Romans 6, especially in verses 15–22, that the lifestyle of sin leads to eternal death and condemnation. Believers who have “died to sin” will no longer lead that kind of life. But still we can treat sin too cavalierly, as if it did not really matter now that we are saved and destined for heaven. Paul’s warning, therefore, is just as much for us who believe as for the non-Christian. And the positive side is an encouragement also to us who believe: God’s gift is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. As D. M. Lloyd-Jones notes, this verse uses three contrasts that are basic to Paul’s teaching in this part of Romans:
- The master served (sin vs. God)
- The outcome of that service (death vs. eternal life)
- How that outcome is reached (a wage earned vs. a gift received)8