Romans - Chapter 6
6:1-7 The saints' relationship to sin.
For many years, earlier in the 20th century, some theologians taught a strange new idea that many called “cheap grace”. Its meaning seemed to be that because one is saved, and has been forgiven of sin, and has been redeemed by the sacrifice of the Lord on His cross, we can do whatever we wish, sin as much as we wish, because all sins are covered. Paul attacks such an absurd idea in chapter six.
Without introduction or warning he tells his readers (including us) that once saved, sinners who are then saints have “died to sin”. Paul now begins a teaching that sin is to be handled through a relationship with Christ.
6:8-10 The saints' relationship to Christ.
Paul shows that through the obedient sacrament of baptism the believer (now a saint) is united to Christ, and therefore is a participant in the experience of Christ. So through baptism a believer has died, been buried, and had been raised again into new life
“with Him”. In the time of the Apostles, baptism was accomplished immediately on confession of faith in Christ (remember the eunuch ministered to by Phillip).
As they stepped into the water, they demonstrated that they were “in Christ” and as they were immersed, they showed that they were “buried with him” and as the emerged up out of the water they showed their belief that they were “raised with him”. Now Paul shows the significance of our relationship to the Lord. The key passage is “He died to sin once for all” and Paul is saying that since we have come to be in Christ through our own baptism, and since He died to sin, then we also have died to sin as well.
Jesus lived over thirty three years surrounded by the wreckage of sin among the people in the promised land. But He himself knew no sin (2 Cor 5:20) and God made Him to be sin so that His sacrifice was acceptable payment for our sins. So Paul is teaching us that we also must be done with sin as we seek to live in Christ. He allows us three reasons why this must be so.
The person we were before Christ has been judged, condemned, sentenced, executed, and buried. We are finished with him forever. A new man now lives.
The body, which is so quick to yield to sin's temptation has now been placed in a position where this domination of sin is no longer the normal daily life.
The justified believer has now the freedom to walk away from the dominating power of sin in his life.
6:11-14 The saints' relationship to temptation.
First the believer must do some reckoning. Paul starts with two stipulations. First, we are dead to sin. Second we are alive to God, but only in Christ Jesus.
Because of these factors, the believer must make some decisions which are of the highest type in serving the Lord. The believer must not let sin reign in his mortal body. There is nothing mysterious in this teaching. It is simple and direct. We, as believers, must simply say NO in no uncertain terms. In Christ we have been given the “off switch”, the ability to say no to temptation, and the ability to use it through His strength, not ours.
6:15-23 The saints' relationship to righteousness.
Galatians was the first epistle Paul wrote. He placed within it (Gal 2:16) a sentence that rocked the Jewish world off of its foundations. He wrote that “... by the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified”. Paul taught that there is no level of obedience that will bring salvation. No man (except Jesus) ever fully obeyed the law for the nature of man (infested by sin) made it impossible. Therefore justified believers were before their salvation “servants of sin”. But now, through the once and effective sacrifice of the Lord on the cross, believers become “servants of righteousness”. Those, who through the grace of God, had become united with Christ have been made freed from sin and had traded their slavery to sin for a slavery to righteousness for which Christ stood and which He allowed each believer to experience through the gift of the Holy Spirit.
What is the result? Verse 22 is very clear. This new lifestyle in Christ leads us to a life of “... fruit to holiness, and the end, everlasting life...”.
