Scripture: Romans 6:1-14
6 :1What therefore will we say? Should we remain in sin so that grace can increase? 2No way! How can we who have died to continue living in it? 3Do you not know that any of us who has been baptized in Jesus the Anointed, has been baptized into his death? In baptism we are buried together with him in death. 4Therefore, through baptism we have been buried with him in death, so that just as the Anointed was raised from death through the Father’s glory so we also have a superior way of life.
5For if we have shared in his death, we also will be resurrected. 6We know that our old self has been crucified in order that the body could die to sin and we would no longer be slaves to sin. 7For those who have died have been freed from sin. 8Therefore we who have died in the Anointed we trust that we will live with him. 9We know that the Anointed was raised from the dead and will not die and death has no reign over him. 10For when he died, he died to sin and only once, and now he lives and lives with God. 11Now you must credit yourself dead to sin and living to God in Jesus the Anointed.
12Therefore sin shall never reign in your mortal bodies, having you obey its desires. 13No longer place your members at sin’s disposal as tools of unrighteousness. Instead, you must place yourself at God’s disposal as those who have died and now live and your members as tools of God for righteousness. 14Because sin is not your lord, because you are not under the law rather, under grace.
Questions
- What does it mean to remain in Sin?
- How would God’s grace be impacted by remaining in sin?
- What does it mean to die with Jesus in baptism and what role does baptism play in the believer’s life?
Background
Related Scriptures: Exodus 14–15; Galatians 2:20; 2 Corinthians 5:17
Ambrosiaster: The believer who returns to his former way of life rejects the kingdom of God’s grace and returns to sin, i.e., to the pattern of his previous life. For we have received mercy for two reasons: first, that the kingdom of the devil might be removed, and second, that the rule of God might be proclaimed to the ignorant, for it was by this means that we came to desire this dignity. Commentary[1]
Augustine: Nothing shorter or better could be said. For what more useful gift does the grace of God confer on us than to make us die to sin?[2]
Reflection
It can be difficult to get behind the questions that Paul is addressing in his letters. Like why would people think that we should continue to sin so that God’s gifts can abound. But Paul has mentioned this idea twice in this letter so there have to be people who have mentioned it, even if they are not part of the Roman church. I can think of two reasons why people might make this comment. First, there are those individuals are excessively legalistic and are accusing Paul of giving Christians freedom to do whatever they want because God’s grace covers everything. In other words they are trying to bolster their own legalistic ideals by reducing Paul’s ideas to a strawman. The other reason I can think for people making this comment to Paul is that they have found the Christian ideal difficult and said, “Oh well God’s grace covers me.” This mentality is meant to excuse their bad behavior by appealing to God’s love. But the beauty of this section is that by explaining himself Paul undermines both of these extreme positions and sets us looking toward God.
The key to understanding this passage is understanding that when Paul talks about sin he is not talking about our individual actions or attitudes. Instead, Paul is talking about Sin as an entity or the force of evil that pervades the world. Sin is not simply what we do when we violate God’s laws, as it is often portrayed. Sin is rebellion against God which our actions and attitudes serve. When we sin, we are not simply doing something wrong but serving another master. When Paul talks about Sin increasing, he is talking about the entity increasing control over the world. God’s grace that increases is God’s gift of still providing us the opportunity of relationship though we move ever further from God. Like a long-suffering parent who is dealing with a rebellious child God’s grace is the willingness to reconcile at any time. For Paul, the more the relationship has been strained and the more there is to forgive the more grace is present. Now if we accept that gift of relationship with God, we can no longer serve the Sin, or as Paul puts it “continue in sin”. This does not mean that Paul expects us to always be completely perfect never doing anything that upsets God. Rather he expects us to be working on our relationship with God and giving up the connections to sin.
Paul goes on to us the rich metaphors of baptism and grafting. While there are many dimensions to both baptism and Jesus’ death, here Paul uses them to point to a reality that we in being baptized have joined in a real way in Jesus’ death and he likewise joins in our suffering. Baptism cuts us off from our old root system (Sin) and unites us with the new source of nourishment (Jesus). Just like a limb grafted to a new host cannot gain nourishment from the old plant, so when we are baptized, we cannot continue to sin. And just like the limb takes time to attach itself to the new roots and needs support while it does so, so we need help and support as we attach ourselves to Jesus. We need to remember that when we join with Jesus—symbolized in baptism—we are uniting with God’ power and glory that raised Jesus—the Holy Spirit. Keeping that in mind means recognizing that we can no longer give our bodies and minds over to the purposes of Sin. This does not mean that we must be perfect or that we cannot fail, it means that we are active in evaluating our actions and continuously trying to bring them under God’s reign. It means that we are always looking to Jesus to nourish us and that we are expecting him to provide us with the source of life.
Paul understands that it can be difficult to reject your old lifestyle (he says this in chapter 2). But what he expects from Christians is that we are not simply taking the easy way out by saying, “It’s ok God will forgive me.” Rather, he wants us to understand what it means to leave Sin behind and be joined with Jesus. When we do begin to understand what this means for us we can then begin to graft ourselves more fully to Jesus and to lessen Sin’s power in the world.
[1] Gerald Bray, ed., Romans (Revised), Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture 147.
[2] Gerald Bray, ed., Romans (Revised), Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture 148.
Squinting in the Light 
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