Session 5
Romans 6:1-14
Memory Verse: Romans 6:11
I learned the value of freedom during a trip to a foreign land. I was part of a group that went overseas to visit sites related to our Christian faith. We had a tour guide, but the guide never mentioned anything about tension between Christians and members of another faith. Unfortunately, our group T-shirt carried a symbol that was considered offensive to some citizens in that place. It never crossed our minds that such a symbol would create chaos, hurt, and confusion. We didn’t know, and we certainly meant no harm.
Shortly into our tour, though, armed guards separated our group from the other tours. They took our tour guide away for questioning and later returned to interrogate me, just to be sure he was telling the truth. They wanted to know why he allowed our group to wear this symbol. For thirty long minutes, we were detained in a foreign country with no way of gaining our freedom. We felt helpless. Finally, the guards sent us on our way.
It’s easy to take our freedom for granted-both physically and spiritually. As you dig into Romans 6 this week, make a list of the freedoms you enjoy, including your freedom from sin. Consider ways you can spur adults to live in freedom as Jesus intended.
The words “debt free” make a happy sound in our hearts. So do the words “cancer free.” Each of these terms brings up different realities. However, they share one word in common: free. For a person drowning in debt, being liberated from it would be a game changer. Anyone who’s dealing with cancer would be ecstatic to be told it was gone. Of course, being freed from sin’s power brings the greatest joy. (PSG, p. 46)
Slavery was prevalent in the New Testament world. Of the sixty million people in the Roman Empire, it’s possible that one quarter of them were slaves: fifteen million people.
Many sold themselves into slavery to pay debts. Others were forced into slavery as the empire asserted its authority over conquered territories. Unlike antebellum slavery in the United States, some first-century slaves had an avenue to purchase their freedom. Because of the institution of slavery in the Roman Empire, many people knew the taste of freedom, but they were either forced or voluntarily submitted themselves to a life where that freedom no longer existed.
Paul viewed the unregenerate state of a person as a life of slavery to sin. Unlike slaves working for human masters-who entered slavery sometimes as a child, teen, or adult-every sinner enters slavery at birth. As long as they remain captive to sin, they never experience the life of true spiritual freedom.
But there is a path to freedom. Through the mercy of God, Jesus provided a way for believers who were dead in sin to be made alive and free. Like a slave who was redeemed from physical slavery, Christians have been set free from sin’s enslavement in their own lives. That is not to say they no longer battle sin or they will live sinless lives from that point forward. However, sin as a power no longer holds them in its enslaving clutches.
Slaves in the Roman Empire could not enjoy the benefits of freedom. They were told where to live and how to work. They owed a debt that they had to repay to their master. However, when they were redeemed from slavery, they could own land, choose where to live, and find their own means of employment. Their freedom created new possibilities for the way they would live.
As unbelievers under the slavery of sin, people can never purchase their own freedom, but Jesus took care of that problem. He paid the price for their freedom through His death on the cross. The devastating debt that humanity cannot pay on its own was paid by a perfect, sinless Savior who owed nothing Himself. As believers trust in Him, He forgives them and rescues them from the penalty of their sin. He opens a new way of life.
In Christ, believers can offer themselves as instruments of righteousness. The old rules under the old masters no longer apply. Those who were once enemies of God (Rom. 5:10) serve under a new banner and honor a new Master who makes all the difference.
Read Romans 6:1-14 in your Bible. How does baptism help you visualize the transformation Paul describes in these verses? (PSG, p. 47)
EXPLORE THE TEXT
1 What should we say then? Should we continue in sin so that grace may multiply? 2 Absolutely not! How can we who died to sin still live in it? 3 Or are you unaware that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 Therefore we were buried with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too may walk in newness of life.
5 For if we have been united with him in the likeness of his death, we will certainly also be in the likeness of his resurrection. 6 For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be rendered powerless so that we may no longer be enslaved to sin, 7 since a person who has died is freed from sin.
In Romans 5:20, Paul had noted that grace abounds where sin once abounded. But that raised a thorny question: Should Christians continue in sin so that grace may multiply? Paul wanted to make sure his readers did not misunderstand: Grace covers sin, but grace never provides a license to sin.
Paul responded in the strongest terms: Absolutely not! Since Eden, sin has dominated those caught in its clutches. But Paul emphasized that believers have died to sin. The Greek wording affirms that this death takes place at a point in time-the moment an individual accepts Christ’s atoning death. From that point on, believers are freed from sin’s dominion (see Col. 1:13).
Death to sin means believers no longer live in it. Still, while a believer dies to sin, the temptation to sin will not be eradicated in this lifetime. The struggle is still real.
To describe the relationship of the believer to sin, Paul referred to the physical act of baptism. Baptism by immersion pictures an individual’s death to sin and resurrection to a new way of life. Though sin does not die to the believer, the believer dies to sin.
Paul assumed believer’s baptism. All of us who were baptized indicates believers, since baptism represented a person’s public commitment to Christ. We are baptized into Christ and into his death. It was incomprehensible for Paul to think of a Christian who would not choose baptism (see Gal. 3:27).
In an amazing paradox, God’s people die to live. Paul described it in terms of burial with Christ by baptism into death. Along with illustrating our death to sin, baptism pictures a walk in newness of life. While death to sin occurred at a defined point in time, the newness of life lasts a lifetime (see Rom. 8:4; 13:13; 14:15). Death to sin meant that sin’s reign had ended and believers live under a new authority.
Believers united with Christ’s death also are united in his resurrection. The word likeness refers to His death and resurrection. Believers have died and risen with Christ, but their death is only representative of His death. They are not identical in every respect. We will certainly also be indicates that Paul intended the end-time resurrection. Though we share in the blessings of Christ’s resurrection now (Col. 3:1), we also cherish the hope of our own resurrection one day (Phil. 3:20-21).
Our old self has been crucified with Christ (Gal. 2:20). In that moment, our sin-dominated flesh died, and Christ came to rule in our hearts. The body ruled by sin was that old nature. Of course, this is not physical death. It was co-crucifixion with Christ.
When a person accepts Jesus, the sin nature is rendered powerless. The Greek word used here suggests a loss of dominance. With sin’s power broken, believers are no longer enslaved to sin. Though sin still tempts us, we are freed.
EXPLORE THE TEXT
8 Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him, 9 because we know that Christ, having been raised from the dead, will not die again. Death no longer rules over him. 10 For the death he died, he died to sin once for all time; but the life he lives, he lives to God. 11 So, you too consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.
Paul used a condition (if) to emphasize that believers have died with Christ. In Greek, this type of sentence construction affirms the statement made, more in the vein of the definitive “since” than how we tend to leave a question open with if in English. Paul was not doubting the statement or even setting it up as an “if-then” relationship. He was making a declarative statement that all who are in Christ have died
with Him.
The previous verses established that baptism represents the reality that believers were incorporated into the death of Christ by faith. These verses may seem repetitive, but Paul is using a form of argument that reinforces the most basic doctrine of Christ’s death for sinners. However, the emphasis of this verse also moves from dying with Christ to living with Him. It signals a shift from justification to sanctification.
How does that shift happen? The first step is to believe. To this point in Romans, Paul demonstrated how God has done everything necessary for salvation. However, when it comes to sanctification, Paul emphasized that Christians must express faith. The object of that faith is the resurrection of Christ. Believing in the resurrection also implies belief in the crucifixion since Christ had to die in order to live again.
The hope for new life in Christ is rooted in the certainty of the resurrection. Paul reminded his readers that they could know that Christ was raised from the dead. While this might seem like common knowledge among Christians, Jesus’s resurrection was unique because Christ will never die again. Jesus raised Lazarus (John 11:38-44), a widow’s son (Luke 7:11-15), and a young girl (8:49-55) from the dead, but each of them died again. Others who experienced a resurrection in the Scriptures would die again after being raised (1 Kings 17:17-22; 2 Kings 4:32-35; 13:20-21; Acts 9:36-41; 20:7-12). In contrast, Jesus would never die again. What’s more, those incorporated into His resurrection would not die spiritually again.
Christ died to sin once for all time. The writer of Hebrews used this term to describe Jesus’s death as the one-time sacrifice for sin, never to be repeated (Heb. 7:27; 9:12; 10:10). Paul also used it in a non-worship setting to highlight how more than five hundred people saw Jesus resurrected at one time
(1 Cor. 15:6).
In the first part of verse 10, Paul emphasized the finality of Christ’s sacrifice, but the second half of the verse focuses on the ongoing result of Christ living to God. Jesus voluntarily experienced death to break sin’s dominion. But this one-time event also opened a way of life to all who would trust in Him.
As noted, Paul had used his letter to highlight what God had done to provide salvation through Jesus. Now, he presented the first command for believers in the book of Romans. While He willingly shouldered all the work in justification, God demands that Christians consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God as they moved toward sanctification. The word consider came from the world of accounting. It could be translated as credit or count. Christians had to recalibrate their minds to embrace the truth of what Christ had done for them. Peter explained this truth in this way: “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree; so that, having died to sins, we might live for righteousness” (1 Pet. 2:24a).
Christians have died to sin, but they must choose to live in the righteousness found only in a relationship with Jesus. Going through the motions, pretending to be dead to sin, isn’t enough. We should consider that it is a reality granted by the cross. With sin no longer our master, we should devote our loyalty to our new Master: Christ Jesus.
EXPLORE THE TEXT
12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, so that you obey its desires. 13 And do not offer any parts of it to sin as weapons for unrighteousness. But as those who are alive from the dead, offer yourselves to God, and all the parts of yourselves to God as weapons for righteousness. 14 For sin will not rule over you, because you are not under the law but under grace.
Considering ourselves dead to sin and alive to God doesn’t come naturally, but Paul highlighted a second command that makes it possible. The key to this life-and-death scenario is refusing to let sin reign in your mortal body. The use of therefore provides the connection between the command in verse 11 and this follow-up direction in verse 12.
As Paul did throughout this entire passage, he compared sin to a monarch, ruling over and controlling those who do not believe in God or accept Christ’s death as the penalty for their sins. However, the apostle made it clear that individuals can shake off the bondage of this “king” and become loyal to a new leader. They can move from the camp of sin into the camp of God, thanks to Jesus’s work on the cross.
This refusal to serve sin is not divorced from God’s grace (see v. 14), but it does involve an exercise of the will. Believers have a responsibility to declare war on sin in their lives. To reckon ourselves dead to sin, we actively need to struggle against its temptations and avoid falling into its traps. We reject its dominance in our lives, most typically demonstrated through the sins we commit in our bodies-both internally and externally.
As we stop yielding our bodies to the power of the enemy, our spiritual death to sin should tamp down our yearning to obey its desires. Since we cannot eradicate sin completely in this lifetime, desires for sin can rise up and tempt us. Sins of the flesh can control resurrected people if they fail to rein in those sins. They will not lose their salvation (a matter of justification), but they can experience the painful and frustrating consequences of unrighteous choices (a matter of sanctification).
Paul kept the discussion about sanctification extremely practical. Christians should not offer any parts of their bodies to sin. This Greek wording operated in two contexts. First, it was the language of sacrifice and worship (Rom. 12:1). We should not offer ourselves as instruments of worship to sinful desires. Second, it included military imagery. This military context encouraged the translations weapons for unrighteousness and weapons for righteousness. While Christians are still tempted by sinful desires, they should not yield to those temptations in the face of spiritual warfare. If they yield to sin, they become tools used by the enemy in his battle against God. But if they yield to God, they will become His agents of righteousness. The difference is the object of our worship and devotion.
This is not merely a work of human discipline. With the words as those who are alive from the dead, Paul reminded believers that the answer to spiritual warfare is becoming the people God made us to be. Forgetting or disregarding that truth leads us to offer ourselves to the wrong god.
Paul concluded his teaching about this command with a promise. He declared that sin will not rule over Christians. How could he make such a bold claim? He believed that grace supplied the will and power necessary for believers to obey God rather than the desires of sin. Even though Paul gave a serious command that involved people’s will to resist sin’s power, he also knew that ultimate victory was available because they were under grace, rather than the authority of old rules and regulations.
Under the law, sinners deserve death, but under grace, that death penalty has been satisfied in the death of Christ. Even obedience was ultimately a gift of God, but it did not occur without the cooperation of believers who refused to let sin reign in their bodies, choosing instead to serve God by nurturing righteousness in their lives.
Review these points from Apply the Text on page 54 of the Personal Study Guide:
Lead adults to talk about the imagery of baptism in this session’s verses and its significance
for believers.
If adults have not been baptized, challenge them to take that step of faith.
Direct adults to read the second set of questions on page 54 of the PSG silently. Suggest they spend time this week talking with God about what His new life should look like in them. Urge them to make changes that He reveals.
Remind adults that salvation comes to us as a free gift from God because of His grace. Call on a volunteer to close in prayer, thanking God for His gift of salvation and asking that each adult will have the strength to abstain from sin and to follow Christ in obedience during the week ahead.
Reinforce the session by sending the group a text or an email that encourages them to consider how effective they are at denying sin and offering themselves as instruments of God’s righteousness. Remind them that spiritual warfare is a part of the Christian life, but God has given us everything we need to be victorious. Challenge them to reflect on the gift of God’s justification with a commitment to sanctification in
their lives.
Baptism is an act of obedience symbolizing the believer’s faith in a crucified, buried, and risen Saviour, the believer’s death to sin, the burial of the old life, and the resurrection to walk in newness of life in Christ Jesus. (See Matthew 28:19-20; Acts 2:41-42.)
Create a compare/contrast chart.
On one side of a vertical line, identity words and phrases that describe life that is lived with sin as the monarch or ruling authority. On the other side, note words and phrases that describe life that is lived with God as the monarch or ruling authority. Use the first six chapters of Romans that we’ve covered so far to inform the list that you make:
Sin as the Monarch