Tag Archive for: Resurrection Life

Romans 7:1-6 – Free from the Law

We’re back in our verse by verse study of Romans now after a break to produce our Understanding the Bible series.
We’re in Romans 7:1–6 in this episode of our verse-by-verse study of the Book of Romans.

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Romans 7:1-6 – Transcript

Last episode, we finished Romans 6 with that big verse in Romans 6:23,

For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

People pull that out of context and use it for preaching salvation, and that’s fine; it’s a universal truth, meaning it’s a truth no matter what context it’s in, but in Romans 6, Paul’s not talking about how to get saved.

Salvation was already explained back in Romans 3–5. Romans 6 is about how we live now that we’re in Christ.

Paul says in Romans 6:22,

But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life.

We’re dead to sin, alive to God and servants of righteousness. Then he starts Romans 6:23 with “for“, and whenever we see that word “for”, we know that what’s about to follow is a result of what was just finished being talked about.

For the wages of sin is death. It’s showing us that sin still pays out death, even for a saved person who walks in it. But God’s gift, already given, is eternal life in Christ. It’s not a release from sin! It’s a release from the penalty of sin.

So that verse belongs in the timeline of Christian living, not necessarily in the traditional “Romans Road” tracts we’ve all seen about how to be saved.

Now to Romans 7, but first, It’s interesting to notice how Romans uses certain words more than any other book: faith’s mentioned 39 times, grace 24 times, law 78 times, flesh 26 times, and spirit 21 times. There’s a sort of progression that runs:

Romans 3–4: faith without works.

Romans 4–5: grace and the free gift.

Romans 5–7: sin and our relationship to it.

Romans 7: the law.

Romans 8: flesh vs Spirit.

Romans 7 is a key chapter for a Christian because there’s many Christian arguments about the believer’s relationship to the law. Are we under it? Are we part of it? Can it condemn us? Do we get the blessings but not the curses? Paul answers all that.

Romans 7:1 says,

Know ye not, brethren, (for I speak to them that know the law,) how that the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth?

This isn’t a new subject. We already learned in Romans 6:14–15 that we’re not under the law.

Romans 3 taught that the law cannot justify. Romans 4–5 taught that salvation is without the deeds of the law.

Yet, through Romans 6, we know we’re now servants of God, yielding our members to righteousness. And that raises the question: if we’re servants, is that the same as being under the law? The Jew would especially think so, because the law created servants with rules and commands.

So Paul has to explain that our service to God now is not law‑service. We’re under grace. We’re dead to sin, and we’re also dead to the law. The law cannot help us live the Christian life. It cannot condemn us, and it cannot empower us. We have no living relationship to it.

Paul says, “I speak to them that know the law.” That means Jews, because they were given the oracles of God as we saw in Romans 3:1–2. They knew the law better than anyone. And Paul needs to show them — and us — that in Christ, the timeline’s changed. The law belonged to the old man. Grace belongs to the new man.

In Romans 7, Paul turns to the Jewish problem with grace.

Back in Romans 2:17–20, he already said the Jew “rested in the law,” he “boasted of God,” and was “instructed out of the law.” Israel alone received God’s law. Gentiles never rested in it.

So when Paul now teaches salvation by grace without works, baptism into Christ’s death, not with water, and living under grace instead of law, the Jew naturally asks, “What about the law that God gave us?” That law was a privilege. Every command was a way to worship God. So, saying justification comes without the law could be offensive to a jew.

So, when in Romans 7:1 Paul says, “I speak to them that know the law.” That means he was speaking to Jews and the Gentiles who sat in synagogues learning the law.

Moses never had dominion over Gentiles. The law was given to Israel alone. Romans 2:14 says Gentiles “have not the law.” Romans 3:19 says the law speaks “to them who are under the law.” That’s not everyone. God gave Israel a privileged position, then gave the law to show even privileged people cannot keep it, so “every mouth may be stopped.”

Paul shows us a timeline. Romans 5:14 says that from Adam to Moses there was no law. Sin was in the world, but “sin is not imputed where there is no law.” So when Paul says “the law,” he means the specific law God gave through Moses to Israel.

A lot of the book of Romans deals with Jewish issues because Paul’s grace message created friction for Jews. God had operated through the law for centuries, and now Paul says the law cannot justify, cannot sanctify, and cannot give life. Today, many Christians think they’re “spiritual Israel,” so they try to put themselves under the law. Paul’s teaching in Romans 7 helps correct that. Circumcision avails nothing. Keeping the law avails nothing. Tithing, water baptism, feast days — none of that puts us in Christ.

So, Paul in our opening verse here says, “the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth.”

For a Jew, yes. For a Gentile, no. A Jew could tell a Gentile, “You didn’t tithe,” and the Gentile could say, “That law wasn’t given to me.” But Paul’s real question is much bigger. Are Jews still bound to the law after believing the gospel of grace?

If a Jew gets saved, should he keep living under Moses’ law? Some people even teach today that Gentiles are saved by grace, but Jews must keep the law. Paul says no.

This is the issue in Galatians 3 as well.

Gentiles there in Galatia were being pressured to keep the law to stay holy, almost like becoming Israel. Paul rebukes them in Galatians 3:1,

O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you, that ye should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth, crucified among you?

Christ crucified is the timeline marker. The cross ends the law’s dominion.

Romans 7 will show that if we’re in Christ — Jew or Gentile — we died to the law. We’re not bound to it for justification, sanctification, or service. We now serve God under grace, not under Moses.

Paul asks the Galatians a simple question in Galatians 3:2:

Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law or by the hearing of faith?

He says in Galatians 3:3,

Are ye so foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?

Those words — law, flesh, Spirit — show the same problem we see in Romans 7. The Galatians were Gentiles, so it was foolish for them to think they needed the law. But behind that is the bigger question: Are Jews still bound to the law? Is the law still required for service, even if not for salvation?

Paul answers in Galatians 3:21:

Is the law then against the promises of God? God forbid: for if there had been a law given which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the law.

But Scripture shows that all men are under sin, so the promise comes by faith in Christ.

Then Paul makes the bold statement in Galatians 3:28,

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.

From Moses to Paul, there was always Jew and Gentile.

But now, in Christ, that identity’s gone. The one identity now is Christ Jesus, not flesh, not law.

This shows God’s timeline shift: Israel under Moses to Christ revealed to the mystery given to Paul to the body of Christ with no Jew or Gentile.

So when Paul says in Romans 7:1, “I speak to them that know the law,” he’s talking to Jews or Gentiles who sat in synagogues. They knew the law had dominion over a man as long as he lives. But Paul just said in Romans 6 that the gift of God is eternal life. So if a man lives forever, does the law rule forever? Some groups teach that the law is eternal. But Gentiles were never under it, and Jews were condemned by it.

So what does “as long as he lives” mean?

It means as long as he lives under that system! Romans 6 already said we are under grace, not under law.

Paul’s point is that the law has no dominion over a dead man. If we think we still live in the flesh, then we place ourselves under the law. But if we know we’re in Christ, we’re not under it.

To illustrate the whole thing, Paul uses marriage.

Let’s be clear. Paul’s not teach marriage rules, as many Christians think he does with this passage.

He’s drawing an illustration of how death ends a legal obligation. Romans 7:2 says a woman’s bound by law to her husband as long as he lives. If he dies, she’s loosed from that law.

Romans 7:3 says that if she marries another man while her husband lives, she’s an adulteress. But if he’s dead, she’s free from that law, and marrying another man’s not sin.

Paul’s point here is simple: Death frees a person from the law’s obligation and from the law’s condemnation.

Under the law, adultery is sin. But if the husband’s dead, the same act is not sin. So the law condemns in one situation and not in another. Why? Because death changes the legal standing.

This is Paul’s setting up for Romans 7:4, which reads,

Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God.

You and I may still be walking around in our bodies, but legally, spiritually, we died when we first trusted Christ, and a dead man can’t be punished, can’t be obligated, and can’t be ruled by Moses.

This is how Paul shows that the believer — Jew or Gentile — is not under the law. You died with Christ, and death ends the law’s dominion.

It’s so important to see that Paul’s point in Romans 7 is not marriage teaching. The marriage example only shows how death frees a person from the law. In verse 2 (Romans 7:2), the woman is loosed from the law that binds her to her husband in life.

In verse 3 (Romans 7:3), she’s free from that law.

In verse 4 (Romans 7:4), we are dead to the law. In verse 6 (Romans 7:) we’re delivered from the law. That’s the whole point. Paul’s showing how the believer is now free from the obligation and condemnation of the law.

Now, if we were to think like a Jew for a moment, we could feel the tension. The Jew says, “God gave us this law. I must keep it.” Paul answers, “Your own law says death releases from obligation. And since you trusted Christ’s death and resurrection, His death counts as yours.”

Grace doesn’t say, “Forget what God said.” Grace says, “Christ died, and His death has legal consequences, and one consequence is that we’re free from the law.”

In Romans 7:4, Paul explains why he used the marriage picture: “Wherefore… ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ.”

Just as the woman was free when her husband died, we’re free because Christ died. This applies to someone who was once under the law. Gentiles were never under it, but Jews were. Now, through Christ’s death, even the Jew is legally dead to the law.

Romans 6 taught that being in Christ means being in His death and resurrection. That’s why we’re dead to sin, and that’s why Romans 6:23 has a deeper meaning than just: “The wages of sin is death.” That death already happened to us in Christ. The good news is that the gift of God — eternal life — comes after that death.

So Romans 7 only makes sense if we understand Romans 5–6 first. If we skip that, we’ll think Romans 7 puts us under Israel’s new covenant law and, of course, numerous Christians do that today, and they miss the all-important mystery fellowship of Romans 5–6 and jump straight into covenant thinking.

That’s another reason why we need to see the whole picture of the Bible and not just individual pieces of the story here and there.

Paul says we’re dead to the law, just as the woman was free when her husband died. That means the church has liberty, as Galatians 5:1 tells us,

Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.

And just as the woman could marry another, Romans 7:4 says we are “married to another,” to Him who is raised from the dead — Jesus Christ. This is not a literal marriage. It is a union. Two becoming one, just as Paul makes an enormous effort to teach us.

Ephesians 2:15 teaches the same thing.

Christ abolished “the law of commandments contained in ordinances” to make of the two (Jew and Gentile) one new man. Marriage takes two and makes one.

That’s why Paul uses marriage language — to show union with Christ, not to give marriage rules.

Ephesians 5 uses marriage again as a picture of Christ and the church. The Bible does not give long marriage‑advice chapters, contrary to the opinion of many. Instead, it gives long “Christ‑and‑the‑church” chapters. If we learn who we are in Christ and how to walk as a minister of grace, we’ll know how to handle any relationship.

So, we see that Romans 7’s not about marriage advice as so many think. If we don’t understand Ephesians 1–4 and who we are in Christ, how to walk worthy, how to forgive, and how to keep unity — we won’t understand Ephesians 5, where Paul uses marriage only to picture Christ and the church. Marriage is an illustration, not a new marriage law.

We’re dead to the law, alive to God, and united with Christ.

So, on to Romans 7:4, which further expands on this,

Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God.

Here “the body of Christ” means Christ’s physical body — His flesh that died under the law. He was “made of a woman, made under the law,” and He died under that law. When He rose, He was no longer under it. If we only know Christ quote “after the flesh,” we see Him under Moses’ law. If we know Him in glory, we see Him not under the law, and our relationship to Him is the risen one, not the earthly one.

Romans 6 already taught that we’re baptised into His death. His death becomes ours. His resurrection becomes ours. We didn’t die physically, but God counts Christ’s death as our death. That has legal consequences. A dead man cannot be charged, condemned, or obligated. So Christ’s death frees us from Adam, as we saw in Romans 5. It frees us from sin and frees us from death (Romans 6), and now, in Romans 7, frees us from the law. His death accomplished everything the law never could.

So when Paul says we’re “dead to the law by the body of Christ,” he means Christ’s literal death is counted as ours. That death frees us so that we may be joined to Christ in resurrection life. Romans 7:4 says, “that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead.” Marriage here means union — two becoming one. We’re joined to Christ, the new man.

What a great and wonderful thing this mystery is!

Ephesians 5:30 says we are “flesh of His flesh, bone of His bones.” That’s why the church is called the Body of Christ. Christ’s body came first; the church is named after Him because we’re joined to Him. Israel was a nation under a covenant. We’re a new creature joined to Christ by the Spirit.

This’s why the church is clearly not the “bride of Christ.” Romans 7’s not teaching that. The phrase “bride of Christ” never appears in Scripture.

Revelation 21:9 speaks of “the bride, the Lamb’s wife,” and the angel shows John a city — the New Jerusalem — promised to Israel under covenant. That’s not the church. Our union with Christ is not a covenant marriage; it’s a mystery fellowship, being placed into His death and resurrection by the Spirit.

Romans 7 is about something that’s already true: we’re dead to the law now. Revelation’s marriage supper is future. Romans 7 is present truth. Truth for now, today, for the body of Christ.

So Paul’s point is simple:

Christ died. We died with Him.

Christ rose. We rose with Him.

His death frees us from the law.

His resurrection joins us to Him as one new man.

Romans 7 teaches that the “marriage” to Christ has already happened. It happened the moment we believed. If we’re not already united with Christ, wecouldn’t “bring forth fruit unto God” as in Romans 7:4, could we?

Verse 6 says we’re “delivered from the law… that we should serve in newness of spirit.” That only works if we’re already joined to Christ. The mystery revelation says we’re one body, fellow‑heirs, partakers in Christ. Christ in me, me in Christ — done. It’s no use looking for a future ceremony or city.

This union with Christ happens without the law. If we’re dead to the law, then our marriage to Christ cannot be Israel’s new covenant.

The old covenant was Moses’ law written on stone. The new covenant is God writing the law in Israel’s heart so they keep it, as Jeremiah 31:31 and Hebrews 8 tell us. That’s about the new covenant with “the house of Israel and the house of Judah.” That covenant writes God’s laws in their hearts.

Romans 7 is not that. Romans 7 says we’re dead to the law so we can be married to Christ. That is not covenant language. It’s the mystery fellowship. That’s the timeline. That’s our identity.

We’re not joined to a covenant. We’re not joined to Israel or to a nation. We’re joined to Christ Himself. Romans 4–6 already taught that we entered Christ by faith, not by covenant. If we ignore Romans 4–6, we’ll think Romans 7 makes us Israel under a new covenant. But Paul’s talking to Jews about being freed from their law, not putting us under a new one.

Romans 7:4 says we’re “married to another… to him who is raised from the dead.” Marriage means a new identity. When a woman’s husband dies, she’s free to take a new name, a new household. We’re dead to the law, so we can take a new identity in Christ. Our identity’s not Moses, not circumcision, not tithing, and not Jewish heritage. Your identity is Christ risen.

We answer anyone who thinks they’ve got to keep the law with,

“Your identity’s with Christ, not the law.”

A Jew might say, “But I want to keep circumcision for heritage.” Paul says, “Your identity is Christ.”

Another says, “Tithing brings blessing.” Paul says, “Your blessings come from Christ. That’s Romans 5.” The confusion comes from not knowing who we are in Christ.

On to Romans 7:5, which says,

For when we were in the flesh, the motions of sins, which were by the law, did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death.

“When we were in the flesh…”

That means before salvation, in Adam, and for Israel, under the law’s dominion. In the flesh, the law stirred up “motions of sin.” The law shines light on sin. Romans 3:19 says the law stops every mouth. Romans 5:20 says the law makes the offence abound. Romans 3:20 says that by the law is the knowledge of sin. The law brings death, not help.

The law didn’t save Israel. It condemned them. Grace saves. Christ saves.

So, Romans 7’s showing the timeline:

In Adam → in the flesh → under the law → death → in Christ → new identity → fruit unto God.

Our identity is Christ, not the law. Our life is Christ, not Moses. Our fruit comes from Christ, not commandments. Grace is the only power that works.

We come to Romans 7:6, and it’s one of those “but now” verses that we’ve talked a lot about and that many people skip over.

Just like Romans 3 and Ephesians 2, the “but now” marks our new identity in Christ. Paul says,

But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held; that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter.

“But now we are delivered from the law.” That means at one time Israel was under the law, held by it and condemned by it. But now, through Christ’s death, they’re delivered from it.

Paul speaks to the Jewish mind, saying: “Brother, you believed Jesus is the Messiah. Don’t you know you were baptised into His death and resurrection? Don’t you know you’re under grace, not under law?”

Christ’s death — His physical body dying under Moses’ law — released them from that dominion.

Paul speaks the same way to the Gentile Galatians because they were acting like Israel.

As we saw a minute ago in Galatians 5:1, Paul says Christ broke the chains, and they were trying to put them back on. Paul warns: “If ye be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing.”

See, Circumcision once marked Israel as God’s covenant people, but now if someone trusts in that ritual, they reject Christ’s finished work.

If we take one part of the law, we become a debtor to all of it — tithing, sabbath, baptisms, sacrifices, everything.

Paul says in Galatians 5:4, “Whosoever of you are justified by the law, ye are fallen from grace.” Not lost salvation. Fallen out of the mindset, the knowledge of Grace, which causes all sorts of hardship in our daily walk through this life.

In Christ, circumcision and uncircumcision mean nothing. What matters is faith, which works by love. The law cannot give righteousness. Only the Spirit gives righteousness by faith.

Romans 7 is not about unbelievers. It is about saved people — Jews who believed the gospel — learning that they are dead to the law. They lived under it, tried to keep it, failed under it, and were condemned by it. But Christ died, and they died with Him. That death removes the law’s dominion. God can now declare them righteous by faith, not by Moses.

The good news is that Christ rose. So they rise with Him. Romans 7:6 says they are delivered from the law “that we should serve in newness of spirit.” Not to run wild, but to serve God as servants of grace, not servants of the law.

They were In the flesh,  under the law destined for death. Then, in Christ’s death they were delivered they rose with Christ into newness of spirit.

Grace frees. Christ frees. The law condemns. The believer serves God in the Spirit, not in the oldness of the letter.

Romans 7:6 says “that we should serve.” That connects straight back to Romans 6, where Paul said we, Jew and Gentile are now servants of God by grace, not by earning it. Romans 7 explains how we serve: not under the law, but in “newness of spirit.” That means we cannot serve God today under the law. If we try to serve in the “oldness of the letter,” we’re not serving in the Spirit.

This is the first time Paul mentions “spirit” in Romans 7, and it prepares for Romans 8, where “spirit” appears about twenty times. We’re dead with Christ, dead to sin, dead to the law — but we’re not left dead. Romans 8 will show how to walk by grace, which is walking by the Spirit.

“Newness of spirit” here is not the Holy Spirit Himself. It is our enewed inner spirit — quickened when we believed the gospel, renewed by truth, made alive by God’s grace. Paul uses similar language in 2 Corinthians 3:6, where he says God made us “able ministers of the New Testament, not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter kills, but the spirit gives life.” We have a free downloadable booklet in the Resources section of our website explaining further what Paul meant in this verse.

Both Israel’s New Covenant and the mystery fellowship require a renewed spirit, but they’re not the same thing.

Israel’s New Covenant (Jeremiah 31, Ezekiel 36) gives Israel a new heart and new spirit so they can keep God’s statutes. That covenant still has law in it — only now it’s the Holy Spirit that causes obedience not their own works.

But Romans 7 says you are removed from the law entirely and given a new spirit for a new identity, not for covenant obedience. Our life is in Christ, not in a covenant.

This is how we minister to Israel today: even if they reject Christ according to the mystery, the old law cannot save them. Christ ended that system. They need either the New Covenant (future) or the mystery fellowship (present). God is only doing one of those today — the mystery.

Paul explains that the law engraved in stones was glorious, but it was fading. The ministry of the Spirit is more glorious. In Romans 7–8, that Spirit places us into the body of Christ. In Israel’s New Covenant, the Spirit places them into their promised kingdom. Two different operations.

If we don’t understand Romans 5–6 — how we got into Christ by death and resurrection — we’ll mistake Romans 7 for Israel’s New Covenant and make ourselves Israel. But Romans 7 says we serve “in newness of spirit, not in the oldness of the letter.” Hebrews talks about Israel’s New Covenant, but Paul talks about the Spirit’s work in the body of Christ far more. Romans 7–8 mentions “spirit” more than Hebrews through to 3rd John combined.

The Spirit under grace changes our inner man, teaches us to think differently, and bears fruit outside the law. We don’t need miracles or signs to know wehave the Spirit; we need the truth of God’s grace.

2 Corinthians 5:17 says, “If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away.” Romans 10:4 says, “Christ is the end of the law for righteousness.” The law could not save Israel, Jew, or Gentile. Christ ended it.

Romans 7 shows the shift in God’s timeline:

Law to condemnation to death, then Christ’s death to delivereance to newness of spirit to service under grace.

Romans 8 will explain how that Spirit walk works. But Romans 7 makes the foundation clear:

We’re delivered from the law.

We serve God in the Spirit.

Don’t go back to the old letter.

May God bless you in the knowledge of His grace.

Romans 6:18-23 – Grace & Servanthood

In this episode we’re going to finish Romans chapter 6.

We left off last episode at Romans 6:18 which reads,

Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness.

We’re going to study out what that means exactly.

Paul’s still answering the big question in Romans 6:18–23,

“If we’re not under the law but under grace, should we just go on sinning?”

We already learned in Romans chapters 4–6 that we were never saved or justified by the law. We were put in Christ, and that means we now stand under grace, not under the law as we saw in Romans 6:14. Grace came by what Jesus did, not by anything we did.

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Romans 6:18-23 – Transcript

So when people hear us preach the gospel of grace and they say, “Well then, can I just sin? Can I do whatever I want?”—that actually shows they understood what we said. If they don’t understand grace, they’d never ask that question. But Romans 6 answers it clearly.

The question in verse 15 is not the same question as in Romans 6:1 and it’s not about whether sin’s right or wrong? Everybody knows sin’s wrong. The real question is, “Since grace means God isn’t striking me down for my sins, does grace give me a chance to sin? Does grace open the door for sin to run wild?” Paul says no, and he explains why.

First, Romans 5:20 already said it’s the law that makes sin abound. When you make a rule, the breaking of that rule increases simply because people now know that there’s a law, a rule, governing the actions they once performed freely.

That law shows that now, punishment will be rendered to you if you break that law. But what that law can’t do is remove the desire to carry out that action! The heart and mind still desires to perform the actions that the law covers, but the fear of breaking the law prevents us outworking that action.

That desire of the mind to perform the action is sin and it’s that sin within us that’s doing what it’s always done inside our minds. That’s why we’re servants or slaves to sin. It has us by the throat so to speak.

Then grace comes along. Grace doesn’t make that action that breaks the law OK to perform, meaning we can just go on abounding in that action, it saves us from the consequences, the punishment for breaking that law,

but not only that it kills the sin that plants the desire to perform that action.

It makes us a new creature that’s not interested in going on breaking that law intentionally, even though we may slip up occasionally.

Grace saves from sin. Grace kills the old man. Grace puts us dead with Christ and raises us to new life. Grace deals with the sin that’s inside us.

So it’s sin that makes us want to break the law and it’s sin that God deals with through grace.

So Paul gives three answers in Romans 6:

#1 Grace teaches us that we’re no longer a servant of sin. Before we were saved, we had no choice. We were in Adam. We were a slave to sin. But grace freed us.

#2 Grace made us a servant of righteousness. Not because we do good works, but because Christ did the good work. God moved us from one master to another. Grace says, “I belong to righteousness now.”

#3 Sin gives no fruit and we’ll see that in this passage. There’s no profit in it. It doesn’t help us. It only hurts us. So why serve something that only destroys?

None of these reasons say, “Don’t sin because the law said so.” Paul’s talking about who we are now in Christ and what sin actually does to us.

He taught the same thing to the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 6:12 where he says, “All things are lawful”—because we’re not under the law—“but I will not be brought under the power of any.”

The law isn’t the problem. Sin’s the problem. If we choose sin, we put ourself under its power again.

In 1 Corinthians 10:23 he repeats it saying,

All things are lawful for me, but all things are not expedient: all things are lawful for me, but all things edify not.

 

Sin doesn’t help us. It hurts our testimony, hurts others, and hurts us. That’s the same point as Romans 6.

So in Romans 6 Paul keeps asking, “Whose servant are you?” Eight times he uses the word servant. We’re not under the law. We’re not under sin. We’re under grace, which means we serve Christ.

Romans 6:17 says, “Ye were the servants of sin.” Past tense. But when we believed the gospel, God put us into Christ’s death and resurrection. Romans 6:18 says,

Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness.

 

That’s who we are now. So why go back and serve sin?

We became servants of righteousness, not because we fixed our life up, but because God changed us by His grace. So to say, “I’m going to sin now,” goes against who we are. People act based on what they think they are. Grace tells us plainly: we’re someone new in Christ and serving sin doesn’t fit that new identity.

This’s what’s called “positional truth.” The Bible doesn’t use that word, but the idea’s right. God put us into Christ, and that position doesn’t change with our behaviour, our feelings, or our circumstances. God did it. That’s our new identity.

Before grace, people tried to look righteous by their works. Their conscience told them to do good, and the law told them the same, even more so.

So they tried to put on a form of godliness as 2 Timothy 3:5 says. They put on a costume of righteousness and godliness hoping God and everyone else would see their good deeds and call them righteous. But inside, sin was still there.

Today it’s called virtue signalling. Look how good I am, even though the internal person is as wicked and lost in sin as can be.

Romans 6:17 says something different.

…but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you.

 

That’s not a pretend form of righteous works, but a form of teaching—the gospel of grace.

We believed what God said about Christ’s death and resurrection, and that truth worked inside of us.

First Thessalonians 2:13 says the Word of God …effectually works in you that believe.

So instead of us working to look righteous from the outside, God’s Word works in us when we believe it.

Grace doesn’t say, “You’re saved by grace, now here’s a list of good works to do.” Grace says, “You’re saved by grace, and grace itself changes who you are. Now you serve grace, not works.”

That’s harder for people, because a list of must or must not do’s is easy. But grace deals with identity, not performance.

The doctrine Paul mentions in verse 17 was already explained in Romans 3:21—“the righteousness of God without the law.”

That’s the righteousness we now serve. Not our own righteousness that we received by doing good works or keeping the law, but God’s righteousness given to us by Christ.

Romans chapters 4 and 5 taught the same thing: justified by faith, not works. So in Romans 6 Paul isn’t adding works back in. He’s saying, “Since you are righteous in Christ, think like it.”

So when we ask, “Shall we sin?” grace answers, “Why would a servant of righteousness want that?”

We’re justified by faith, declared righteous by God Himself. We may say, “Well, I’m not perfect.” That’s true—but God declared us righteous in Christ. That identity shapes how we think.

Doctrine affects choices. Romans 6 says you obeyed that doctrine. Titus 2:11–12 says grace teaches us to deny ungodliness and live soberly, righteously, and godly. That’s Romans 6 again. The law could never make a man righteous, but grace declares us righteous and teaches us how to live from that truth.

But it must be the right doctrine. Paul warns in 1 Timothy 1:3 not to teach any other doctrine.

If we change the doctrine, we change what people think about Christ, about their position, and about who they are. Then we ruin the whole answer to “Shall we sin?” Romans 6 only works when the doctrine is the gospel of grace.

Paul tells Timothy this in 2 Timothy 1:13,

Hold fast the form of sound words, which thou hast heard of me, in faith and love which is in Christ Jesus.

“Hold fast the form of sound words.” That means there’s a specific form of doctrine that God gave, not man’s doctrine, but God’s.

In 2 Timothy 2:1 he says,

THOU therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.

 

So the doctrine we hold to is the doctrine of grace.

Paul always teaches doctrine first, then behaviour. And he warns in 1 Corinthians 15:33 that “evil communications corrupt good manners.” Wrong doctrine leads to wrong living. Many people who say they believe in God’s grace for salvation still act wrongly because of weak or wrong doctrine.

If we think grace means “I can do whatever I want,” that’s bad doctrine, and it’ll produce bad results. But if we know grace means we died to sin and were raised with Christ, that changes how we think about ourself.

Romans 8:29 shows the “form” that grace is shaping us into, which is being “conformed to the image of His Son.” The law tried to shape us by rules. Grace shapes us by our position in Christ—crucified with Him, risen with Him, seated with Him and blessed in Him. That truth is meant to work in our mind so we walk like who we already are.

So we don’t say, “I’m just a dirty sinner.” We were a servant of sin, but now we’re a servant of Christ by grace.

Philippians 3:9–12 shows Paul thinking that same way.

He counts everything loss so he can “win Christ” and be found in Him.

He says, “not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ.”

He wants to know Christ, the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings. How? By the form of sound words, as we just read in 2 Timothy 1:13, the doctrine of grace. That doctrine makes him “conformable unto His death”—the same truth Romans 6 teaches.

Paul says he hasn’t “attained,” but he follows after what Christ already gave him. Christ gave us “big shoes,” you might say—His own righteousness, His own life. We don’t try to  fill those shoes in order to keep salvation. We already have the position. Now we grow into it.

Romans 6:18 refers to “being made free from sin.”

We’re not free because we stopped sinning. We’re free because Christ died to sin, and we died with Him. We became a servant of righteousness the moment we believed.

Romans 6:19 talks about yielding.

I (that’s Paul) speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh (or the weakness of our flesh): for as ye have yielded your members servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity; even so now yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness.

 

Some people think grace means no service at all. But grace gives liberty from sin, not liberty from being a servant.

Everybody serves something. You either serve sin or you serve God. Grace makes us free from the wrong master and gives us the privilege to serve the right One.

A common saying today is, “I’m my own man.” But nobody’s above God. We believed the gospel because we knew God was our Judge and Christ our Savior. Now, by grace, we serve Him. Grace doesn’t mean we sit back and do nothing. Grace means God did what we couldn’t. He saved us, changed us, and put us where we should be.

People know by conscience that they ought to do good, and when they don’t, there’s a feeling of shame.

But no matter how hard a man tries, he can’t be perfect before God. That’s why grace had to do what we could not—save us and give us a righteousness we could never earn.

Grace doesn’t throw away the idea of doing right. It doesn’t mock the law. Grace says the law condemned me, but Christ saved me from that condemnation. So when Christ made us free from sin and free from the law, it wasn’t so we could be “free to sin.” It was so we could be free from the wrong master and free to serve the right One—Christ.

Our service doesn’t change our salvation or our standing in Christ.

Romans 3–5 already settled that. But we are a servant. Under grace, that’s simply true. And if Christ saved us and is our Lord, then we do have a duty. That’s why Paul says in Romans 6:19, “I speak after the manner of men.” He’s saying, “Let me talk to you in simple human terms.” Just like you once yielded your body to uncleanness, now that you’re saved, yield your body to righteousness unto holiness.

Romans 6:13 talked about ownership—our members belonging to God because we died with Christ and rose with Him.

Romans 6:19 talks about service, that we’re God’s servant now.

Yielding means we acknowledge that truth and choose to act like it. It’s like getting a new job: we don’t keep serving the old boss. So when someone asks, “Shall I sin?” Paul basically says, “Why would you go back to the old master? You don’t work for him anymore.”

Galatians 4 teaches the same thing. The Corinthians served sin. The Galatians served the law. Both were wrong.

Paul tells the Galatians this in 4:7,

Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.

 

He’s not saying we’re not a servant, he’s saying we’re not a servant under the law like a child under tutors.

We’re a grown son under grace acting from knowledge, not fear.

Before we were saved, we served false gods, false religion and false ideas. We tried to earn our way to a god we didn’t know.

Paul says in Galatians 4:8–9,

Howbeit then, when ye knew not God, ye did service unto them which by nature are no gods.

But now, after that ye have known God, or rather are known of God, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage?

 

If we served those false gods so faithfully when we didn’t even know the true God, why would we now—after God saved us by grace—act like we owe Him nothing?”

Just like a child owes his parents everything for raising him, we owe God everything for saving us. It’s not to earn salvation, or to keep it, it’s because He already gave it.

So Paul asks, “Why turn again to the weak and beggarly elements?” Why go back to bondage—whether sin or law—when grace made us a son and an heir? Grace didn’t free us to do nothing. Grace freed us so we could finally serve the right Master.

We’re not saved by serving, but we are a servant under grace. That’s simply part of being in Christ. And if Christ is our Savior and Lord, then we have a duty.

That’s why Paul says in Romans 6:19, “I speak after the manner of men.” He’s saying, “Let me explain this in simple human terms.” Just like you once yielded your body to uncleanness, now that you’re saved, yield your body to righteousness unto holiness.

Romans 6:13 talked about ownership—our members belong to God because we died with Christ and rose with Him then Romans 6:19 talks about service, how we’re God’s servant now.

Yielding means we acknowledge that truth and choose to act like it. So when someone asks, “Shall we sin?” Paul says, “Why go back to the old master? You don’t work for him anymore.”

The Galatians had the opposite problem. They weren’t serving sin—they were serving the law.

We just read what Paul told the Galatians in Galatians 4:7 that “Thou art no more a servant, but a son.”

Paul means they, and by extension us, are not a servant under the law like a child under rules.

Grace motivates differently than the law.

Galatians 5:13 says

For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another.

 

We’re called to liberty, but not to use liberty for the flesh. Instead, “by love serve one another.” Grace doesn’t push us with fear like the law did. Grace pulls us with love.

Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5:14 that The love of Christ constrains us. That means the love of Christ hods us together, keeps us, compresses us to Him.

We know what He did for us. We know who He made us. That truth works inside us.

So Paul says in Romans 6:19 that the same way we once yielded ourself to sin—naturally, willingly, even proudly—now yield ourselves to righteousness.

Before, we were “free from righteousness” as Romans 6:20 points out,

For when ye were the servants of sin, ye were free from righteousness.

 

We thought Christianity would bind us up, but really it was sin that had us bound. Now we’re free from the bondage of that sin and instead, we’re bound to righteousness, which is the place Jesus Christ died to allow us to be in.

It was perfectly natural for us to serve sin because that’s who we were. Now we serve righteousness because that’s who we are in Christ now. Grace changed our inner man. Grace gave us the ability to choose God’s will. We couldn’t do that before. We didn’t need Christ to choose not to lie or steal—our conscience could tell us that but we do need Christ to choose the will of God, to minister His righteousness, and to walk as a servant of grace.

Unbelievers can do many of the things the law commands. They can dress modestly, and clean themselves up and act religiously, and still be lost. But they cannot minister the gospel of the grace of God, because they don’t know it.

Only saved people can do that. Once saved, we can choose to serve Christ as His body but first we must know who we are, then we can yield our members—our hands, our mouth, and our mind—to that truth.

It’s not a duty to earn our position as a minister. It’s a duty we have because of our position.

We’re dead with Christ and alive in Him. Dead men don’t want sin. Living men, in Christ, should want righteousness. That’s the yielding Paul’s talking about, not doing the law better.

Grace doesn’t make us a better law‑keeper. Grace makes us able to serve God in His righteousness, not the righteousness of the law.

The righteousness we serve is the righteousness of God by faith in Jesus Christ. That’s the message only the Body of Christ has. Israel never had this ministry.

Only we in the Body of Christ can preach this gospel and watch grace work in others. That’s amazing. Instead of pushing people to keep commandments, we point them to Christ so they can be saved and learn truth.

When we yield ourself to that calling, we’re not yielding to sin we’re doing what the law could never make us do—loving our neighbour by wanting them saved.

The servant’s duty is to serve grace. We minister grace. We walk by grace. We know Christ in His death and resurrection.

What constrains us? The love of Christ says 2 Corinthians 5. We’re bought with a price says 1 Corinthians 6:19–20. Our body’s not our own. Sometimes the flesh fights that, but truth is truth—we belong to Christ.

Romans 8:35 reminds us that nothing can separate us from Christ’s love. Trouble, distress, persecution—none of that changes what God already proved at the cross.

When we know that, it changes how we face life.

Romans 5 said God gave us gift after gift by grace. Knowing that helps us stand when circumstances get rough.

Serving grace is joyful. Serving the law is bondage.

If Christianity were just “try harder to live better,” we wouldn’t even need Christ. But we do need Christ for grace to work in us.

Victory over sin was accomplished by Christ, but it is applied to us when we yield to what He did. We’re in Christ whether we fully understand it or not, but we grow as we learn and yield.

Romans 6 says the old servant of sin died with Christ. We’re free from that master. Now we can choose to do right when we yield our members to Christ’s ministry, and walk in what we know to be true.

Galatians 6:2 says, “Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.”

Why would we bear someone’s burden? Because grace taught us to care for their soul. When someone falls, we restore them in meekness says Galatians 6:1.

We know what it’s like to need help. Grace makes us want others to know truth and grow. That’s fulfilling the law of Christ—not by rules, but by grace working in us.

The world tries to excuse sin. Even Christians sometimes blame circumstances for their sin. “I couldn’t help it,” “I have this condition,” and so on. But the real “disease” is sin itself. Sinning is a choice. Adam chose it. Eve chose it. We all chose it as slaves to sin.

But when we believed the gospel, that was also a choice.

Now, under grace, we’re more free than ever to choose not to serve sin.

Romans 6 is about that conscious choice. We can’t let sin control us. We have to say, “I will not. I choose not. I’m not a servant of sin.”

We can’t control every circumstance, but we can choose some of them. And even when we can’t change the situation, we can always choose how to think about it.

That’s where doctrine works. We judge our own motives. If we’re doing something “good” but not from grace, that’s a sign we need more truth working in us.

This is why believers need to encourage each other—remind each other of who we are in Christ.

Romans 8:18 says the sufferings of this life can’t compare to the glory that’s coming. Do we believe that? Do we really believe that? If we do, why would we not desire that for others?

Colossians 2:10 says we’re complete in Christ. Grace never leaves us crushed under the circumstances of life. Grace gives hope and teaches us how to think differently but we have to know that, really know that before we can show others.

So how do we choose right?

We think about what God called us to be—His body, His ambassadors, ministers of His grace. We make choices that fit that calling and those choices lead us into a life the law could never produce.

The law said, “Love your neighbour.” Grace gives us judgment and discernment on how to minister truth to people, when to speak what they need to hear.

Romans 13:14 says to “make no provision for the flesh.” How?

Not by building walls around ourself, but by putting on Christ which is thinking about Who He is and who we are in Him. That’s doctrinal and that’s grace.

Romans 6:21–23 gives Paul’s last reason for “Shall we sin?” Let’s read,

What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed? for the end of those things is death.

But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life.

For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

 

Sin has no fruit.

What good came from the things we’re now ashamed of? None.

Sin brings death. Grace brings life.

Grace teaches us to be ashamed of sin, not proud of it.

When Christians brag about sin or treat it lightly, it shows wrong doctrine or doctrine not applied.

Ephesians 5:3 says fornication, uncleanness, covetousness shouldn’t even be named among saints.

Ephesians 5:12 says,

For it is a shame even to speak of those things which are done of them in secret.

 

Grace teaches that. We don’t glory in sin—we glory in Christ who saved us from it.

Testimony is about Christ, not about how bad our sin was.

Romans 6:22 starts with one of those lovely “But now’s”,

But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life.

 

This particular “but now” doesn’t get preached much because it says something our flesh doesn’t like: now that we’re free from sin, we’re a servant of God.

That’s not bad news. That’s grace, but being a servant to anything grates on us. “I did it my way”, still somehow makes us more comfortable even though “my way” seldom made life better in the natural and most certainly doesn’t contribute a jot to righteousness and eternal life.

God doesn’t let sinners serve Him. Their works are filthy rags as Isaiah 64:6 points out.

But when God saved us by grace, declared us righteous in Christ, and accepted us in the Beloved, He made it possible for us to serve Him.

That’s a privilege our flesh doesn’t like, but our inner man should rejoice. We failed under the law and we fail in the flesh. But in Christ, we can serve God in righteousness.

Serving God isn’t water baptism or any other rituals, or outward appearing religion. Those things don’t teach grace.

Serving God is knowing who we are in Christ and yielding our members to Him.

Romans 6:22 says our fruit is unto holiness, and the end is everlasting life. Holiness is good. Godliness is good. Grace should’ve taught us that. The law showed sin. Grace shows life. Holiness is found in Christ alone. Righteousness is found in Christ alone. Obedience is found in Christ alone. Everything God wants is in Christ, and we’re in Him.

So what is the fruit of a servant of God?

It’s not fear! The fruit is holiness and life.

Galatians 5:22-23 says this about our fruit,

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.

 

That’s not a list of things we try to perform. That’s what grace produces when doctrine works in us. Being justified by faith gives peace with God. Knowing truth lets us rejoice in tribulation. That’s the Spirit’s fruit, not the law’s demands.

Can anyone know a believer by their fruit? Not by outward law‑keeping. Many lost, unsaved people can look religious and good. Many unbelievers scrub up better than a lot of Christians

But when someone preaches the gospel of grace, ministers grace, and stands in grace doctrine, that’s fruit. That’s life working. That’s Christ being magnified.

Romans 6 ends with Romans 6:23 reminding us this in one of the bibles most famous verses,

For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

 

Sin never brings life.

Grace does. Grace gives righteousness, eternal life, and a new identity.

So we don’t serve sin anymore. We serve righteousness.

We yield to Christ. We walk by grace and we choose, day by day, to think like who God already made us in Him.

Sin earns death. That’s all it can ever produce but grace gives life. Christ took our death and gave us His righteousness.

So why serve sin?

Why keep paying into something that only brings death?

Serve life. Serve holiness. Serve God. The servants of God receive gifts—free gifts—by grace.

Serving God means seeing souls saved, saints edified, thanksgiving in everything, the love of Christ constraining us, the resurrection life working in us. We can only do these things if we’re a servant of God by grace. And Romans 6 says we already are.

Romans 6:15-18 – Is Sin OK?

Some people say to themselves, “Well, sin’s still all around us, and we still live in this mortal flesh, so maybe we just keep on sinning till we get glorified after this body dies.”

But Romans 6:1–14 already answered that. Paul said no, we’re dead to sin now. Sin has no more dominion over us. We’re a new man in Christ, joined to His death and resurrection, so we walk in newness of life now.

Romans 6 teaches the crucified life, the resurrected life, and the new life we live in Christ.

“Speed Slider”

Romans 6:15-18 – Transcript

As we’ve said a number of times through this study, it’s difficult if not impossible, to fully understand what Paul’s teaching us in Romans unless we see it as one continuous letter.

The chapter and verse separations are extremely value as reference guides but it’s important to realise that they don’t segregate the letter into different subjects. Paul continues the one main subject for many verses and across chapters, injecting vital pieces of information that relate to that subject as he goes.

Romans 6:15-18 which we’re looking at today, is within the subject of  Romans 6:1 which asks, “Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?”

Paul’s giving an in depth, multi-faceted explanation of this question and his answer to it in verse 2 is “God forbid.”

Some people say to themselves, “Well, sin’s still all around us, and we still live in this mortal flesh, so maybe we just keep on sinning till we get glorified after this body dies.”

But Romans 6:1–14 already answered that. Paul said no, we’re dead to sin now. Sin has no more dominion over us. We’re a new man in Christ, joined to His death and resurrection, so we walk in newness of life now.

Romans 6 teaches the crucified life, the resurrected life, and the new life we live in Christ.

Then Romans 6:15 reads,

What then? shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid.

 

At first glance this seems like a reinforcing of the question of Romans 6:1 but it’s not the same as verse 1.

Romans 6:1 asked, “Shall we continue in sin?” while verse 15 asks, “Since we’re under grace and not under the law, does that mean sin is now okay?”

Paul’s just said the famous sentence in verse 14, (Romans 6:14),

For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace.

 

So people are prone to jump to the wrong idea thinking, “If there’s no law and no punishment, then sin must be fine.”

But Paul says this is the wrong idea.

Paul’s been teaching grace since Romans 3:24,

Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus:

 

He uses the word grace eleven times from Romans chapters 3–6. We’ve learned the doctrine that we’re saved by grace, we stand in grace, and we live under the reign of grace. Now Romans 6–8 explains how to live in these sinful bodies while being under grace and the most common thinking is that if we’re saved by grace, and God isn’t judging sin today, and sin can’t condemn us, then why not sin? Can we rob a bank, kill someone, commit adultery, and it’s all fine?

Both believers and unbelievers accuse grace of giving a license to sin. They say that if you teach grace the way Paul teaches it, you’re letting people sin, even encouraging it.

Paul’s answer in Romans 6:15 is short: “God forbid.” That’s our answer too. Just because we’re not under the law doesn’t mean God’s okay with sin.

Sin’s still present in the world and in our mortal body, but grace never gives permission to sin. It’s true that God’s not judging sin today in this dispensation, but that doesn’t mean He wants us to do it.

Paul deals with this problem in Ephesians 5, 1 Corinthians 6, and all through Romans chapters 6–8. People hear the gospel of grace and think, “Well, if my works don’t save me or keep me saved, then sin mustn’t matter.”

But Paul spends two chapters showing how saved people should think about sin, good works, the law, and how to walk when there is no law and he’ll tell us every step to take.

Romans 8 shows the security we have in Christ. Some call it “once saved, always saved.” It’s not a great label, but the truth is there: if Christ saved us, we can’t undo what He did.

Israel under the new covenant didn’t have that same promise, so verses in Matthew, Hebrews, Peter, and John don’t describe our position today.

People say the teaching of grace is giving a license to sin. Some even call it heresy. But grace never says, “Go sin, God doesn’t care.”

Grace says we’re saved by Christ alone, we’re not under the law, and God forbid that we use that freedom to wantonly sin.

A lot of people think the only reason we won’t sin is if God threatens us, or if the law says “thou shalt not,” or if our eternal life is on the line.

We can find that kind of thinking in parts of the Bible, but not under grace. Many call this message “easy‑believism,” like believing is too easy.

But it wasn’t easy for Christ to die on the cross. It wasn’t easy for Him to rise from the dead. It isn’t easy for God to be long‑suffering toward sinners.

Easy believism is a thought that comes from a human perception of salvation and grace that refuses to accept that there’s nothing we personally, can do to either earn salvation or to keep salvation by the works of our own self.

We must do something! But what?

If there was anything we could do to earn or keep salvation there’d be no grace, only our works and Jesus Christ would have hung on that cross in vain. It would have been a wrongful death sacrifice if that wasn’t the only act which could bring salvation and the hope of life to mankind.

This’s another huge stumblingblock for unsaved Jew and Gentile alike. “You mean you can be a vile sinner and still receive salvation and eternal life through God’s grace? Impossible,” they say.

But, the gospel is “easy” only because our works are not part of it. Christ did the work.

People say grace gives a license to sin. They say, “If you teach grace like Paul does, you’re telling people they can sin and nothing’ll happen.” They ask, “What reason do people have to do right?”

All these complaints come from two big errors,

Error #1: Grace means sin is permitted.

Error #2: The law is the best way to control sin.

These errors are common amongst legalists, and especially amongst self‑righteous people, and even in saved people who don’t understand grace.

Some teach this thing called “lordship salvation,” saying that you must prove your salvation by your works, or else you’re not really saved.

That puts people back under a law system—Old Testament law or “New Covenant law”, mistakenly believing that the Holy Spirit helps you keep rules to control sin.

They think rules, fear, and punishment are what keeps a Christian in line while many others go the opposite way, thinking that grace means that works don’t matter at all, so there’s no point in doing good. Just sin and thank God for grace.” That’s wrong too.

Romans 6 deals with the first error—people who don’t resist sin. Romans 7 deals with the second error—people who think the law controls sin.

Romans 3:20 reminds us that the law does not remove sin. It says the law gives the knowledge of sin. Romans 5:20 says the law makes the offense abound.

You don’t stop sin by passing a law—you just catch sinners. The law can scare people, but it can’t change their heart, can’t change their desire to sin. Fear of punishment may hold someone back for a while, but if that fear goes away, the desire’s still there.

1 Corinthians 15:56 says that the strength of sin is the law. So using the law to control sin actually gives sin more power.

Paul uses the picture of a schoolmaster. When the teacher’s in the room, kids behave. When the teacher steps out, chaos starts. That’s how people think grace works: “If the law leaves, we’ll all go wild,” but grace doesn’t leave us a child. Grace teaches us to grow up.

1 Corinthians 14:20 says not to be children in understanding. When we grow up, we gain wisdom and responsibility—things no law can give. A law can’t say, “Be wise,” and suddenly we’re wise.

But grace, through Paul’s epistles, teaches God’s wisdom and how to live as grown‑up sons of God.

Under grace, the law’s removed, and God gives us the chance to walk as a mature son. Can we still act childish? Yes, we can! Should we? No.

Can we grow up in Christ? Yes. Grace gives us the tools to live the way we ought to. Those tools are God’s wisdom, God’s truth, and the new life in Christ.

Paul says this in Ephesians 4:14,

That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive;

 

Once we know Christ and come to the unity of the faith, we should no longer be children tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine.

That ties right back to Romans 6:1–14. We’re a new man in Christ, not a child who gets fooled by almost everything. Grown up people aren’t tricked as easily as kids are. Once we know something, we can stand on it.

That’s how Paul describes our life in this present evil world. We live in mortal bodies, but we don’t need the law to control us. We need to know who we are in Christ and walk by God’s wisdom.

Paul’s old schoolmaster picture only goes so far. Grace doesn’t remove the teacher and let the kids run wild. Grace kills the old man.

Romans 6:6–7 says our old man is crucified with Christ. Grace doesn’t permit sin. Grace kills sin.

If someone thinks that grace means “I can sin now,” they don’t understand Romans 5 and Romans 6:1–14. Grace never teaches sin’s ok. Grace teaches who we are in Christ.

Calling grace a “license to sin,” is a giant myth.

Titus 2:11–12 says,

For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men,

Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world;

 

At first that sounds like law—“do good, avoid evil”—but Paul says grace is a teacher here and grace teaches this, not the law. Grace teaches righteousness without the law.

It doesn’t teach sin with exemption or freedom from punishment, harm, or loss. It teaches that God gives us righteousness freely, and that righteousness should outwork in our life.

If we want to teach salvation by grace alone, or “once saved, always saved,” or that nothing we do can earn or keep salvation, we must teach it from Paul’s epistles. Paul’s the apostle of grace. The only other way to get that doctrine is to invent a system where God saves us by election without us ever believing anything. But Scripture says we must believe the gospel.

Before Paul answers the question of Romans 6:15,

What then? shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace?…

 

…we need to understand sin itself.

Romans chapters 1–3 shows that we’re all sinners. Romans chapters 5–6 talks about sin in two ways:

Sin nature (what we inherited from Adam) and Sins (the actions we commit).

Romans 5 says by one man sin entered the world and death by sin. That’s the nature, the sin nature. Babies are born with that nature, even before they commit any sins. Romans 6:1 asks if we should continue in that nature we inherited from Adam. Paul says no—we’re a new man.

But Romans 6:15 asks about sins—the choices we make and the actions we commit.

“Shall we sin?” That’s about actions.

Christ saves us from both.

Romans 3:25 says His blood paid for the sins we committed. Romans 5–6 says He also saved us from sin, the sin nature we were born with, by giving us a new man. He delivered us from the death that Adam brought and that we inherited and from the guilt of our own actions.

Romans 5:21 says, “As sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness.”

That’s talking about sin and grace as powers. Powers much bigger than just the things we do. Sin reigned because of Adam. Now grace reigns because of Christ.

In Romans 6 we learn we’re dead to sin. Romans 6:7 says, “He that is dead is freed from sin.”

That means sin has no more dominion over us. Jesus Christ cut us loose from Adam’s curse, the source of our mortality, the power that pulls us into death.

But then the question comes: “What about the sins I still commit? I know Christ forgave my sins. I know He took me out of Adam and put me in Christ. But what about the wrong things I continue to choose to do now?” That’s the issue Romans 6:15–23 deals with.

Before we talk about how to handle sins, we need to understand how sin comes out of a person. For that, Paul points us to James 1. James isn’t written to the Body of Christ, but the way sin works in a human heart has never changed. Dispensations change how God deals with people, not how sin operates. Whether in Israel or the Body of Christ, sinners are judged the same way if they die without salvation.

James 1:13 says, “Let no man say… I am tempted of God.” God never tempts anyone to sin. He doesn’t push us toward evil. Jesus Himself had no sin as we see in Hebrews 4 and 2 Corinthians 5:21, proving He’s God. God may test faithfulness, but He never tempts someone to do wrong.

James 1:14–15 explains how sin actually works:

But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed.

Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.

 

So sin doesn’t come from God. It comes from our own lust, our desires, what we want. Lust doesn’t always mean something sexual. It simply means “what I want,” “what I long for,” “what I love.” Paul uses the word concupiscence—the thing that our heart chases after. The problem is that our hearts are sinful (Jeremiah says desperately wicked), so our natural desires often run opposite to what God wants.

Sin happens when our desire meets something that entices us. It may be something we see, hear, or imagine and then we choose it. It takes both: the desire inside and the temptation outside.

It’s stirring up in us that thing that we want. We didn’t know we wanted it so much until now, and now we know we really want it. We’re being seduced. We’re excited to realise we can have that thing which we now desperately want.

So a person is enticed into getting that thing by our lust, our wants and desires.

That’s how sin’s born.

This’s why grace doesn’t tell us, “follow our heart.”

Grace teaches us to follow God’s wisdom, not our own wants. Grace doesn’t say, “Do whatever you feel.” Grace says our old man is dead (Romans 6:6). Grace doesn’t let the old man run wild. Grace kills him.

So Romans 6 is not about God tempting us or the law controlling us. It’s about understanding how sin works and how grace teaches us to live as a new man. Christ saved us from both sin (the sin nature) and from sins (the actions).

Romans 3:25 says His blood paid for the sins I committed. Romans 5–6 says He also delivered me from the sin nature I was born with.

Christ saved me from both the root, the nature, and the fruit, the sin actions.

James says lust conceives and brings forth sin. That means sin doesn’t just happen the moment we want something.

A desire isn’t sin by itself. Even an enticement isn’t sin yet. Jesus was hungry and He longed for bread. That wasn’t sin. The devil tempted Him: “Turn these stones into bread.” That was the enticement. But Jesus didn’t receive that thought. He didn’t let it form in His mind. He answered with Scripture and refused to yield. That’s why He didn’t sin.

James uses the picture of conception. To conceive means to receive something inside and let it form. Before conception, we may want a child, we may be drawn toward it, but nothing’s happened yet.

Sin works the same way. We have a desire. Something entices us. Then, in our mind, we form the thought: “I’ll do this.” Right there’s where sin’s born. First sinful thoughts, then sinful actions, then sinful habits, then bondage.

So how do we stop sin?

James shows the steps leading to it; lust → enticement → conception → sin. To stop sin, we need to interrupt that chain.

We change our desires,  we remove enticements and we refuse to yield when temptation comes.

Now, that’s all very simple to understand, but very hard to do, and it happens thousands of times in life. And here’s the key point: if the law, self‑help, therapy, or human willpower could stop that process we don’t need Christ.

That’s why Paul doesn’t stop with James’s description.

Romans 6 is not a self‑help lesson. It’s about who we are in Christ.

Romans 6:15 asked, “Shall we sin?” Paul’s first answer is God forbid. But then he explains the deeper truth: we must know who we serve.

Romans 6:16–23 uses the word servant eight times. Paul isn’t talking about our service as in our actions. He’s talking about our identity—what we are.

That’s because sin doesn’t start with actions. It starts inside, with what we believe, what we know, and who we think we belong to.

If we deal with sin just by asking, “Is this action a sin?” we’re thinking like someone under the law. The law defines sin by commands and rules. But Romans 6 shows sin begins in the inner man with our desires, our thoughts and our beliefs.

So the real question is: what’s being formed inside us? Before Christ, sin was always forming in us, no matter how good we may have looked on the outside. Now, as a new man, something else can be formed—truth, righteousness, new desires.

Behaviour follows belief. Change what we know, change what’s in our mind and we change what we do. That’s why Paul keeps saying, “Know ye not…?” Romans 6 is the application of everything we learned in Romans 1–5. We simply can’t live the Christian life until we know who we are in Christ.

Paul ‘s already taught us grace—how God saved us by Christ’s finished work, how we’re justified by faith, not by our works, and how God freely gives us all things in Christ.

Now in Romans 6:16 he says,

Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?

 

“Know ye not…?” He points to a simple truth everybody understands, even outside of grace: whoever we obey, that’s who we serve. If we yield to something, we become its servant. If we obey sin, we’re serving sin. If we obey righteousness, we’re serving righteousness.

Paul uses this same idea in 1 Corinthians 6:12. He says,

All things are lawful unto me, but all things are not expedient: all things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any.

 

He means, “I’m not under the law, but I refuse to let sin rule me.” Even under grace, a Christian should resist sin. We may still fail, but our mind should be in rebellion against sin, not in agreement with it.

Romans 6:16 puts the focus on what we are, not just what we do.

Paul asks, “Whose servant are you?” Jesus used the same principle in John 8:42 when He told the Pharisees,

…If God were your Father, ye would love me…

 

Their works showed who they really served.

In John 8:44 Jesus told them,

Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do.

 

They rejected the truth. The principle is simple: you know a tree by its fruit.

But under grace, something changes. We’re not under the law, we’re under grace. So whose authority are we under now? Grace’s authority and grace doesn’t make us a sinner who keeps sinning. Grace makes us a new man in Christ. Grace kills the old man. Grace teaches is to live soberly, righteously, and godly. Grace teaches righteousness without the law.

Titus 2:11 says,

For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men,

Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world;

 

So when someone says, “If we’re under grace, can we sin?” Paul says, “Don’t you know who you are? Don’t you know who you serve?”

If you’re under grace, you serve God through Christ, not sin, not the law, not your old man and not the world.

Romans 6:17 says,

But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you.

 

See, we were the servants of sin. Past tense. We were in Adam. We were under sin. But now something’s changed and it doesn’t show up first in our actions, but in our identity. We’ve obeyed from the heart, obeyed the gospel, the one and only act that we ourselves can and must do to be saved. We believed what God said, His Word, and He made us something new.

Paul says the same thing in 1 Corinthians 6:11. After listing all sorts of sins, he says,

And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.

 

We’re no longer what we used to be.

So Romans 6 is not first about what we do or what we should do. It’s about who we are. Sin starts inside—desire, enticement, conception—so the answer’s got to start inside too.

Grace changes the inner man. Grace gives us new truth, new identity, new desires. And when belief changes, behaviour follows.

We’re not justified because we changed ourselves into a good person or turned our life around and stopped sinning. Only a dishonest person could look at himself and say they’re no longer committing sins. We all commit multiple sins before we’re even dressed in the morning and most of them we’re not even aware of.

No, no, no. We’re justified and sanctified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God. It’s by grace we’re saved by faith.

We were a sinner, but we’re not one now—not because of our works, not because we’ve been miraculously converted into a person who never sins, but because of Christ’s work on that cross.

Paul keeps applying the gospel of grace to our whole life. The cross is not only how we get saved; it’s how we learn to live under grace, how we grow in wisdom, how we think and how we walk.

Colossians 2:2–3 says,

That their (our) hearts might be comforted, being knit together in love, and unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the acknowledgement of the mystery of God, and of the Father, and of Christ;

In whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

 

Grace is far bigger than “I’m saved and now I can sin.” Grace changes who we are.

Romans 6:17 says, “Ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed.”

If Paul meant our good works, then he’d be teaching salvation by works. But Scripture is clear: Romans 3:28,

Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.

Titus 3:5,

Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost;

 

So the “obedience” here is not our good deeds. Obey means to yield, to submit, to comply, and here it’s done without works.

Romans 1:5 calls this the obedience of faith.

Romans 16:26 says the gospel is preached “for the obedience of faith.” Romans 4:3 says Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness. That’s obedience, believing what God said.

So when Romans 6:17 says we “obeyed,” it means we believed the gospel. We obeyed “from the heart” the “form of doctrine” delivered to us—the message of grace, not the law.

That doctrine said:

– all are sinners

– the law cannot save

– Christ died and rose for us

– we’re justified freely by His grace

When we believed that, something changed inside of us. We stopped being a servant of sin and became a servant of righteousness—not by our works, but by God’s declaration.

Romans 5 says we’re justified by faith. Justified means declared righteous. God stamped “righteous” on us because of Christ. That makes us a servant of righteousness even before we do anything right.

Romans 6:18 says,

Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness.

 

If this meant “when you stop sinning, then you become righteous,” that would be the law. But Paul’s teaching righteousness by grace, not by performance.

Grace makes us what the law never could. Grace makes us righteous in Christ.

So when someone says, “If I’m under grace, can I sin?” Paul says, “You’re misunderstanding what grace did.” Grace didn’t just forgive us. Grace made us righteous. Grace put us under a new Master. Grace gave us a new identity. Grace made us a servant of God.

We may struggle to live it out and that’s another issue entirely—but we must first know who we are. If we think grace lets us sin, we don’t understand it. Grace makes us righteous by faith, not by works. Grace declares us washed, sanctified, and justified as 1 Corinthians 6:11 says. Grace gives us a new standing before God. Truly, grace is amazing.

So Paul’s carefully guiding us into a complete understanding of our salvation step by step and he’s pushing home the first critical piece of the puzzle, We’re declared righteous. That’s step one. Knowing who we are. God declared it about us and one day it’ll be true and complete because He’ll change this mortal flesh to immortality. He’ll take away the corruption. It’ll no longer exist and that’ll be a glorious and wonderful day. But this’s where we start. In the next episode we’ll complete Romans 6 by discovering that we’re servants of righteousness, and we’ll also discover exactly what that means and what our duty is as a servant.

Until then may God richly bless you in all knowledge of the truth.

Romans 6:12-14 – Living Under Grace

Romans chapter 6 is where Paul starts showing us how we live our life now that we’re in Christ.

If we want to know how to live now that we’re saved we go to Romans 6, 7, and 8 but to understand these chapters, we have to know Romans chapters 1–5.

Romans 6:12–14 finally brings us to the start of the practical side of the chapter. Verse 14 is that famous verse almost all Christians know, or should know,

For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace.

But Paul doesn’t throw that out by itself. He builds up to it through everything he’s already taught in Romans 6:1–11.

If we pull verse 14 out of context, we can use it wrongly. It’s easy to see it as if sin doesn’t matter, or as if grace means we can live however we want, but reading the whole chapter doesn’t follow that thinking.

“Speed Slider”

Romans 6:12-14 – Transcript

Romans 6 began with the question in verse 1,

WHAT shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?

Paul answered in verse 2,

God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?

Then he explained what that means. In verses 3–5 he showed that we’re identified with Christ or baptised into His death and resurrection.

In verses 5–7 he said we’re freed from sin, not sinless, but freed from its power.

In verses 8–11 he said we’re alive unto God, living Christ’s eternal life now.

So before Paul ever tells us what to do, how to live, he tells us who we are now. Our old man is dead and we live Christ’s life now. Eternal life has already begun for us in Him. Galatians 2:20 says it as well,

I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.

Then comes Romans 6:12.

Romans 6:12 says,

Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof.

The word therefore, which so often used by Paul throughout his epistles to tie concepts together means this command rests on everything he just proved, that we are in Christ.

And the word mortal shows he’s talking about our life right now, before glory.

In heaven sin won’t be present, but here, in our mortal body, sin’s still around. It can still try to reign and Paul says don’t let it.

Although sin’s still present it has no claim over a believer. Christ freed us from its power.

Our body will still die because it’s mortal, but sin can’t condemn us or demand our service.

Romans 8:23 says we’re still waiting for the redemption of our body. So yes, we still live in the same mortal flesh we were born with, but our soul and spirit are saved, and God even claims our body as His.

If we ignore sin, if we don’t care, if we don’t, quote, “let not sin reign,” then sin will still reign over us.

As saved people we can still walk around with sin ruling our life if we simply give up the fight.

This is where Paul begins to deal with our will. He’s not dealing with our works yet, but our will.

What do I want now that I’m a new creature? If I say, “I don’t care,” sin will take over by default.

When Paul says: “Let not sin reign.” That means don’t allow it to reign, don’t give it permission. Don’t hand it the throne of our lives.

Before we were saved, sin ruled automatically. After salvation, sin only rules if we let it. We can be saved and still live like a slave to sin if we refuse to reckon who we are.

Romans 6 is about rights. Who has the right to rule us now? Not sin. Not death. Christ does. Our life is hid with Christ in God remember. So Romans 6:11–14 is telling us to change our mind about who we think we are, because Christ has made us someone new — dead to sin, alive unto God, and no longer under the law but under grace.

“Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body.” The “Let not” here clearly means do not allow.

Paul’s not talking about our outward actions yet — he’s talking about our will, our inner choice to either allow sin to rule or refuse it. This’s about who we give authority to in our mind.

Before we were saved, sin ruled everything — our body, our soul and our spirit. Romans 5:14 says “death reigned from Adam to Moses.” Romans 5:17 says “death reigned by one,” while Romans 5:14 says “sin hath reigned unto death.”

Sin was our master because we were in Adam. But now we’re in Christ. We’re dead with Him, risen with Him, freed from sin’s power, and alive unto God.

That’s what Paul has been teaching in Romans 6:1–11.

But now comes the problem!

Even though sin no longer has the right to rule us, many Christians still let it rule because we like sin too much. We tend to say, “I’m saved, so when I die I’ll go to heaven. Until then, sin is just too strong.” But that’s simply letting sin reign.

Grace doesn’t give us a list of rules — it changes how we think about ourselves. It teaches us to see sin, to regard sin as something that has no claim on us anymore.

Sin is still present in our mortal body, but it can’t condemn us, it can’t demand our service, and it can’t kill our soul. Our body is still mortal — Romans 8:23 says we are waiting for the redemption of our body — but our inner man is saved. So now the question is: what is our will?

If we don’t care, sin will still rule by default. If we reckon ourselves dead to sin, we can refuse its rule.

Romans 6:12 says.

let not sin reign… that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof.

 

Before salvation, we had no choice but to obey sin. Now we do have a choice.

Romans 6:6 says our old man is crucified so we “should not serve sin.” Romans 6:7 says the one who is dead is “freed from sin.” We’re not free of sin — it’s still in our flesh — but we’re free from its power. What power? It’s power to reign over us. It’s power to be the centre point of our lives, to dictate our every thought and action, to shape who we are, to cause us to shame ourselves and to condemn us to eternal death. Sin’s power watches over us with excitement and glee at every failure, egging us on, while delighting in our destruction because of it.

So Paul’s logic so far in Romans 6 is simple:

Know we’re dead with Christ (Romans 6:3–7).

Know we’re alive unto God (Romans 6:8–10).

Reckon it true about ourself (Romans 6:11).

Therefore, don’t let sin reign (Romans 6:12).

This is not Paul saying, “Try harder.” This is Paul saying, “Believe who we are, then choose who we’ll obey.”

If we reckon ourself dead to sin, then refusing sin’s rule becomes the natural next step. We simply stop giving sin permission to sit on the throne of our life.

As we said, Romans 6 is about rights. Who has the right to rule us now? Not sin. Not death. Christ does. Our life is hid with Christ in God. So when Paul says, “let not sin reign,” he’s telling us to align our will with the truth God already declared — that we belong to Christ, not to sin.

The first step in living the Christian life is to refuse sin’s reign.

From now until we’re in glory, we’ll feel a conflict between flesh and spirit, between the old man, still present in our mortal body, and the new man we are in Christ.

We look in the mirror and see the same old face — that’s our mortal body, but by faith, and only by faith, we know we’re saved, regenerated, a new creature. One day we’ll see and experience that glory in our whole body, but right now we must believe what God says about us by faith.

So, we’re to disobey sin.

Sin acts like a king, a tyrant, a dictator. It ruled us from birth. It told us that this creature, this product of original sin in Adam is who we are and we must obey it.

But now we know the truth. That’s sin talking, not God. So we revolt. We say, “No — I’m in Christ Jesus.” That’s what “let not sin reign” means. It’s a righteous rebellion.

Sin still has power in this world. It still drags people to death. But it has no power over me in Christ.

Can sin tempt us? Absolutely. Can it make our life hard? Yes, for sure. Can it change who we are in Christ or take away eternal life? No, never. We belong to Christ, sealed eternally in Him by the Holy Spirit. Our body is His. Sin has no rightful claim.

So Paul says: refuse sin’s rule the same way we’d refuse an evil ruler. We resist. We say no. We stand on the truth of who we are in Christ.

That’s why he says, “let not sin reign… that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof.”

Lust simply means desires — often sinful ones. Our body has natural desires, but sin twists them. So don’t let sin rule those desires but instead bring our body under the truth of who we are in Christ.

Sin will try to convince us that nothing’s changed. It’ll say, “Look at your habits. Look at your failures. Look at your desires. I still own you.” But we answer by faith: “No, you don’t. I’m dead to you. I’m alive to God.”

Romans 6 is dealing with identity. Who are we? Before Christ, sin ruled everything — Romans 5:14, 17, 21 says sin and death reigned. But now Christ is our Head. We’re dead with Him, risen with Him, and alive unto God.

Sin can rule our mortal body if we yield to it, but it can’t touch our soul or spirit and it can’t change who we are in Christ or change the eternal life that we now live in.

 

Romans 13:14 says: make no provision for sin. Don’t feed it. Don’t excuse it. Don’t give it room.

1 Thessalonians 5:22 says to avoid even the appearance of evil. Our attitude toward sin should be refusal, not acceptance. We don’t wait till we’re in heaven to start resisting sin. There’s no sin there. We resist it now because we’re already alive unto God and dead to sin.

Romans 6:12–14 is teaching us to think differently by knowing something. We’re told to change our the thoughts of our mind to a different way of thinking. We’re to think like someone who belongs to Christ.

We rebel against sin because it’s no longer our master. Christ is. As our mind is fed more and more with this knowledge, and our thinking is changed and aligned with what and who we are in Christ, our point of view on everything changes as a result and the source of that knowledge, the information and the truth that we need to cause our mind to be filled with this new way of thinking, is the Word of God.

Romans 12:2,

And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.

 

Romans 6:13 continues the same thought as the previous verse Romans 6:12,

Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God.

 

Notice how the focus has shifted. Earlier in the chapter Paul talked mostly about Christ—His death, His resurrection, His victory.

But now the language turns again and again to you, to us, because once we know what Christ did, we’ve got to choose what we’ll do with that truth.

Verse 12 dealt with our mind, not letting sin reign. Verse 13 deals with our members, our hands, feet, eyes, mouth, the tools we use to live in this world. God doesn’t force our members to obey Him. We choose who we yield them to. We can yield them to sin, or we can yield them to God.

To “Yield” means to surrender. Verses 12 and 13 use battle language.

Sin is at war with our new man. When we got saved, God didn’t remove sin’s presence from our mortal body. He removed it’s power and it’s penalty, but its presence remains, and it will till we shed this mortal flesh. So we must learn to refuse to surrender our members to it.

We say, “You, sin, can’t have my body. You can’t have my mind. I belong to Christ.”

This conflict is why Christians often feel more turmoil than unbelievers. The unbeliever has no battle with — it reigns without resistance.

But the believer has peace with God , as Romans 5:1 points out, and conflict with the old man.

We’re crucified with Christ, but sin still tries to act like our king. It has no rights, but it’ll still try to rule.

A new Christian may avoid sin more simply because they stay busy in their mind with their new experience. It consumes them for a while and they spend time in prayer, learning scripture, and in fellowship with other Christians.

But when they relax, they fall back into old habits because they haven’t yet learned that they must “let not sin reign” and yield, surrender themselves to God. Romans 6 teaches us how to fight that war inside us.

Our peace is with God, not with our flesh or with the world.

Galatians 6:14 says the world is crucified to you and you to the world.

That means we no longer belong to the world’s system of sin. But that also means the world’s system of sin—and our old man—will resist us.

The good news is that the war is already won.

1 Corinthians 15:57 says Christ has given us the victory. Sin is defeated. But sin doesn’t know it. Like a bad loser, it keeps trying to claim authority. Our old man still acts like he’s in charge. But we answer by faith: “No. I’m dead with Christ. I’m alive unto God. You’re not my king anymore.”

So Romans 6:13 tells us to yield ourselves unto God. We choose who rules our members. We choose who gets our obedience. We choose who gets our loyalty. Sin will always try to pull us back, but it has no power unless we hand it the reins.

We must choose what to do with our body, our mind, and our will.

Romans 6:13 says our members are “instruments.” They can be used for righteousness or unrighteousness. Before we were saved, they could only serve sin. But now we’re a new creature, even though we still live in the same mortal body, within the same sin dominated world. So we must choose to yield our members to God.

This is the heart of Romans 6: knowing who we are, refusing sin’s rule, and surrendering ourself to God because we belong to Him.

Paul reminds the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 6:15 saying,

Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ? shall I then take the members of Christ, and make them the members of an harlot? God forbid.

 

In 1 Corinthians 6:19 he says,

What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?

 

Here’s Paul’s “Know ye not” again.

Paul had already taught this to the Corinthians before Romans was written. Paul’s first epistle was almost certainly 1 Thessalonians and it’s obvious from 1 Thessalonians that he’d already taught these things that Christ revealed to him before he actually wrote 1 Thessalonians.

So the “Know ye not” is Paul reminding his audience of what they already knew, or should have already known.

Here he’s reminding them, and us, that our body is the “temple of the Holy Ghost,” and in the next verse, 1 Corinthians 6:20, he says,

For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.

 

We’re “bought with a price” and what a price that was, the death sacrifice of the Son of God Himself. That means our mortal body is not sin’s property. It’s not even our property. It’s Christ’s.

This is part of the mystery revealed by Jesus to Paul, that not only are we in Christ, but Christ is in us as confirmed by Colossians 1:27.

His body was given for me, and now my body is given to Him.

Paul calls this union a “great mystery” in Ephesians 5:30–32—like a husband and wife becoming one flesh.

His body is ours; our body is His.

So when we hear about yielding our members to God, it’s urging us to use our body for righteousness, not for the old life we had in Adam.

Ephesians 4:17–20 says this,

This I say (and that’s Paul saying), This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind, Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart:

Who being past feeling have given themselves over unto lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness.

But ye have not so learned Christ;

 

Unbelievers walk in darkness because their understanding is darkened. Their actions flow from what’s inside them. But we’re not ignorant anymore. We have the life of God in us. So our members should now serve God, because what’s inside us has changed.

Romans 6:13 is telling us that our body belongs to Christ. Don’t hand it back to sin. Yield it to God instead.

Paul keeps showing again and again that what we believe—the truth we hold in our mind—is what changes us.

He labours on this, pushing at it, coming at it time and again. He knows that we become what we think about most, what’s uppermost in our mind, and he wants us to fill, to renew our mind with who and what we are now in Christ and how sin no longer controls our life and our eternal destiny.

First comes the truth of the gospel, the blessings of Romans 5, then the new identity of Romans 6:1–11. Only after we know who we are in Christ does Paul begin talking about what we do. Belief comes first, behaviour follows.

So the order in Romans 6 is simple:

Know who we are in Christ.

Reckon it true about ourself.

Let not sin reign in our mind.

Yield not our members to sin.

That’s the flow.

It’s all to answer the question of Romans 6:1, “Shall we continue in sin?” by saying, “Why would I? That’s not who I am anymore.”

The unsaved person sins because they’re ignorant of the truth that we’ve just seen in Ephesians 4:17–19.

But we know Christ. We have the life of God. So our life should look different.

Ephesians 4:20–24 goes on to confirm that,

But ye have not so learned Christ;

If so be that ye have heard him, and have been taught by him, as the truth is in Jesus:

That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts;

And be renewed in the spirit of your mind;

And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.

 

We “have not so learned Christ.”

Unlike the unsaved person, we learned that Christ died for us, rose from the dead, and made us a new man. So put off the old man by renewing our mind to the reality of the new man and by doing this, we put on the new man—created in righteousness and true holiness.

Only after that does Paul list the behaviours: put away lying, speak truth, stop stealing, stop corrupt communication, etc. Behaviour follows belief.

That’s why Romans 6:13 says, “Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin, but yield yourselves unto God.” Our members—our hands, feet, eyes and mouth—are tools. Before salvation they could only serve sin. Now they belong to Christ. We choose who we yield them to.

Now, this yielding is not “trying harder.”

It’s not a sacrifice we offer to God. It’s ownership. Our body’s not sin’s body anymore. It’s not even ours. It is Christ’s. 1 Corinthians 6:15 says our bodies are “members of Christ.” Verse 19 says our body is the “temple of the Holy Ghost.” Verse 20 says we’re “bought with a price.” So yielding simply means giving Christ what already belongs to Him.

 

It’s said that yielding is the key to spiritual joy, strength, service, and fruit. Not because yielding is some sort of heroic act of sacrifice, but because it’s the moment we stop pretending our body belongs to our old man. It’s like a flower yielding to the sun—it’s what it was made to do. In Adam we were made for death. In Christ we’re made for glory. So yield, surrender, to that truth.

Paul uses pictures to help us understand. A crop yields to the farmer who planted it. A bride yields to her husband in willing union. In the same way, we yield to Christ because we’re joined to Him. Ephesians 5:30–32 calls this the “great mystery” and we read,

For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones.

For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh.

This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church.

 

We’re members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones. His body is ours; our body is His.

So Romans 6:13 is not saying, “Stop sinning and do better.” It’s saying:

Our body belongs to Christ now. Don’t hand it back to sin. Yield it to God.”

That’s the heart of the Christian life—knowing who we are, refusing sin’s claim, and willingly giving ourself to the One who saved us.

So, Paul’s showing that the Christian life starts with what we believe, not what we do. God changed us the moment we trusted the gospel—Romans 5 says we were justified, given peace with God, given access to grace, given hope, given the Holy Ghost. Romans 6 explains what that means for our identity. Only after we know who we are does Paul talk about how we live.

So again, the order is:

Know the truth about Christ.

Reckon it true about ourself.

Let not sin reign in our mind.

Yield not our members to sin.

Yield ourself to God.

Behaviour follows belief. Religion flips that around and says, “Change your behaviour first.” But Paul says we can’t change anything until we know the truth of who we are in Christ.

Our real life is in heaven now. Colossians 3:1-5 says,

IF ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God.

Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth.

For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.

When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory.

Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence (which is strong desire; especially sexual desire and lust), and covetousness, which is idolatry:

 

To “mortify your members which are upon the earth,” means: to live here as someone who belongs up there. To mortify means to make dead, to put to death, to slay.

Our head is in heaven even while our feet stand on earth.

 

All of this leads to Romans 6:14, one of the greatest verses in the chapter and we read,

For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace.

 

Sin has no ownership, no rights, no rule, no authority. We don’t answer to it anymore. Grace reigns now as Romans 5:21 told us. We’re under grace, not under the law.

The law gives sin its strength says 1 Corinthians 15:56,

The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law.

 

The law says, “You broke it—you’re condemned.” But if we’re not under the law, sin has no power to accuse us. We’re dead with Christ, and a dead man’s not under the law. Grace doesn’t give us permission to sin—it gives us freedom from sin’s dominion.

So Paul’s answer to “Shall we continue in sin?” is simple:

No—because the glorious truth is sin has no dominion over us. We’re under grace.

To really feel the impact of that, we have to understand what the law was.

God gave the law to Israel to govern people in their mortal bodies, on this earth. The law could never save anyone. Galatians 3 says the law was added to show sin. Romans 3:19 says, the law was given “that every mouth may be stopped” and “all the world may become guilty.”

God gave the law so people would know they needed grace. It showed how impossible it was for a person to ever meet God’s standard of righteousness in their own strength.

Think about the law of sin and death. Who could escape that? Nobody—except someone who died and rose again. Christ died and rose, and now He’s no longer subject to the law of sin and death. And because we’re in Christ, we’re alive unto God and no longer under that law either. We live in our mortal body under grace, not under sin. Living under grace is a much higher calling.

So why would a Christian try to go back to the law? That’s going back to Israel’s earthly program, back to a system meant to condemn, not save. We’re not under that system today as a saved person.

Galatians 3:13 says Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law. The law’s hardest parts weren’t the ceremonies—those were easy. The hard part was loving God with all your heart and loving your neighbour as yourself. Nobody could do that. But Christ fulfilled it, and now we’re free from the curse that came down on us for not fulfilling it ourselves.

So when Romans 6:14 says, “Sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace,” it means sin has no ownership, no rights, no rule, no authority over our life. We don’t answer to it anymore. Grace reigns now as Romans 5:21 said. We’re under grace the same way we used to be under sin—completely.

Grace doesn’t just give us a little help. Grace governs us. Grace defines us. Grace gives us our position, our blessings, our identity, our mission. We don’t run to God begging for more grace every time we fail. We already live under it. It surrounds us. It holds us. It keeps us.

 

We just saw in 1 Corinthians 15:56 that, “The strength of sin is the law.” The law gives sin its power to accuse. But if we’re not under the law, sin has no strength. It can’t condemn us. It can’t claim us. We’re dead with Christ, and a dead man isn’t under the law. We’re alive with Christ, and grace reigns over us.

So Paul’s answer to “Shall we continue in sin?” is simple:

Why would we? We’re not living under sin. We’re living under grace.

Under law, behaviour affected our standing with God. Under grace, our standing is settled with God. Under law, we obeyed first and only then were we blessed. Under grace, we’re blessed first, and spiritual fruit grows from that. Under law, we were condemned. Under grace, we’re justified. Under law, sin reigned. Under grace, righteousness reigns through Jesus Christ.

That’s why Romans 6:14 is such a glorious verse. It tells us who we are now, free from sin’s dominion, free from the law’s curse and living under the reign of God’s grace.

Romans 6:8-11 – How Do We Live With Christ

Romans chapter 6 is where Paul starts showing us how we live our life now that we’re in Christ.

If we want to know how to live now that we’re saved we go to Romans 6, 7, and 8 but to understand these chapters, we have to know Romans chapters 1–5.

Chapters 1–3 show why we need salvation then chapters 3–5 explain how we get that salvation. It’s by grace through Christ.

Then, in chapter 6, Paul talks about what Christ has made us, what we actually are now that we have salvation, and then how we live now that we’re saved.

“Speed Slider”

Romans 6:8-11 – Transcript

Romans is a complete message, about our complete salvation and we need to understand it if we’ve got any chance of living this life as God wants us to.

Now, in case you’re thinking that we’re going over these things to the point of repeating ourselves we need to see that this’s exactly what Paul’s doing.

He knows how critical it is for us to know how to think, how to train our mind or renew our mind so that we know that we’re this new man now. He knows that without us renewing our mind to these truths we’ll never walk in victory over sin because our thoughts, our mind are still dominated by the old man of sin.

It’s as if Paul’s desperate to get this message across of how important this renewing of the mind, the way we think, is.

In Romans 12:2 he says,

And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.

Studying Romans brings us to the awareness of another reality that’s vital for us to understand.

Most of our lives are spent around physical stuff.

We shop for and cook our daily food. We buy, launder and wear clothes. We build houses and spend a large chunk of our lives maintaining them. We amass all sorts of toys, furniture, cars and a host of gadgets to provide luxury and entertainment. Shopping is a major part of life.

Then we work making stuff for other people so we can earn money to buy more of our own stuff.

An entire economy exists around physical, material things.

They control our desires and, as a result,  they consume our mind, our thinking and our energy.

Many of those physical things are needed to keep us alive and many are not but they occupy nearly all of the fleeting time we have in this physical world.

Religious people create religions around physical objects, such as crucifix necklaces, paintings, stained glass windows or so called gods made of wood or stone or precious metals.

Most religious people, including most professing Christians, pray for physical blessings, either wealth or wellness.

It’s possible to go through life without ever considering spiritual things and that’s most people.

So when God explains, through His word, that a signature, the main characteristic, of this dispensation of grace we live in today is not physical blessings but spiritual blessings many think that means God’s not involved in their everyday life.

1 Corinthians 2:14 says

But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.

 

However what’s most needful for us today is not physical but spiritual.

The present dispensation from God is not physical blessings in the form of a kingdom, hundredfold riches, more land, perfect health or daily bread. The trademarks of our present dispensation are spiritual things: grace and faith.

These can be far more profitable to us for eternity than our temporary physical necessities as 2 Corinthians 4:17-18 tell us. Paul’s epistles to the church force us to look beyond the physical and the material while making it clear that we still need to provide for ourselves and our families.

1 Timothy 6:7 reminds us that we brought nothing, nothing physical, into this world, and it’s certain we can carry nothing out.

The blessings we receive of God today are spiritual in nature.

Ephesians 1:3

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ:

 

It’s only when our eyes are opened to the reality of spiritual things that we can see God’s abundant spiritual blessings freely given to us today.

The world, and large parts of professing Christianity, are blind to how God intervenes in our lives, hoping that He’ll pour physical blessings down from heaven.

When that doesn’t happen they think that God’s absent from their life or they try to induce those physical blessings through some sort of human act.

This results in the most absurd, teaching, and preaching that in turn often causes the craziness that we see all over social media today with people throwing themselves around and acting like they’ve lost all ability to reason and question and to learn sound doctrine.

It’s like trying to bribe the sun with a dance to make it rise. People sometimes act out strange or exaggerated behaviours—thinking if they jump through enough hoops, God’ll be impressed and send blessings.

But God isn’t manipulated by theatrics. He responds to faith, not performance. Only what He’s spoken in His written word can be relied on.

After years or even a lifetime of failing to receive God’s blessings through human acts or human reasoning, they often end up rejecting God altogether or seeing spiritual blessings as being useless in their materially driven life.

The idea is that Jesus healed and fed people when He was on earth and so did the disciples and so that must be the program for us today because, after all, Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever, right?

But there’s a huge question to be answered here.

Why did Jesus and the apostles perform miracles back then?

Picture the time in history.

Jesus is on earth claiming to be the long prophesied Messiah, sent from God, God in the flesh.

There’s no books of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. There’s no Acts of the apostles, only a man claiming to be God.

What’s the only way that the claim can be proven?

There must be evidence of the claim.

What’s the evidence?

Signs and wonders that so plainly, so obviously cannot be performed by anyone except God Himself.

The four Gospels record that Jesus consistently used signs and wonders to reveal His divine identity—not to impress.

These weren’t random acts—they were intentional proofs of His divine nature and mission, to prove He was the Son of God and the promised Messiah.

Likewise the signs and wonders that were performed by the disciples to confirm that the Word that they spoke wasn’t just tradition or some sort of new philosophy, but the very Word of God. No written gospels, or epistles were available, just the word of those that had a firsthand encounter with God Himself.

Through those signs and wonders Acts 5:14 records,

And believers were the more added to the Lord, multitudes both of men and women.

 

Today the faith that we cannot please God without comes only the way Romans 10:17 says it comes,

So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.

 

We have something today they never did back in those past times, the complete Word of God, the Bible.

Faith doesn’t come from supposed signs and wonders or from the doubtful testimonies of people, or from weird circus type acts, or emotionally charged preachers or concert grade music, it comes from an understanding of the Word of God. Only the Word of God can be completely relied on to give us unadulterated truth!

2 Timothy 4:3 explains it this way,

For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears;

 

As we read through Romans we can’t help but see how the depth of wisdom that opens up Who God really is and His will for us today contrasts and makes foolishness out of many modern day church practices and teachings.

Through our study of Romans and all Paul’s epistles, we know better.

Last episode we ended with Romans 6:7 which told us, “he that is dead is freed from sin.”

That word freed matters. It doesn’t say “free from sin,” like we have no sin.

It means we’ve been set free from sin’s power. Sin can’t condemn us anymore. It can’t change who we are in Christ and it can’t bring God’s punishment on us. Why? Because we’re dead with Christ and in Christ’s death our punishment, the price, the wages of sin that we’re due, is fully paid for.

How are we dead with Christ?

We’re still walking around and breathing aren’t we?

Christ died on the cross and offers His death as our death when we trust in His death, burial and resurrection. That’s known as His substitutionary death, Him dying, taking the punishment for sin, which is death, in substitution for us.

The word of God which tells us about that act is called the gospel which we can see in 1 Corinthians 15:3-4, and when we believe the gospel, His death counts for us, and that’s how we’re freed from sin.

But, it’s not physical! Something deeply mysterious and miraculous happens in our spirit and in the realm of the spiritual, that’s far more important to God than our daily physical lives.

When that happens the real life we live, the spiritual life, who we really are, is changed and we no longer have spiritual, eternal death as our destiny.

Eternal life, with Christ becomes our destiny, even though our physical, material world is unchanged.

Now, that spiritual change can very much affect our physical, natural life also but that comes as we study and learn and grow in knowledge, and prove what’s happened to us spiritually, that part of our existence that drives all the other parts of our being.

Romans 6:8 says,

Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him:

 

Everything Paul teaches here depends on being in Christ. Being “In Christ” is spiritual. It doesn’t change a thing about our physical body.

We can’t claim any of what Paul teaches is freely available to us unless we’re identified with Him.

Romans 6:3–5 already said we were baptised into Christ’s death, not by water but by identification, being placed into Christ. Communion also means our common union with Him.

It’s sad that church history turned baptism into water rituals and communion into arguments about wafers and cups, when Paul’s talking about our oneness with Christ, being planted together in His death and resurrection.

So Romans 6:8 is a kind of summary. The first part “dead with Christ” is what he taught in verses 5–7. That’s the crucified life. Our old man is dead. We’re freed from sin’s power. The second part, “we shall also live with him”, is the resurrected life, which is explained in the next verses. Christians live both: crucified with Christ and raised with Christ.

Being dead with Christ is not enough to answer the question, “How do I live now?” We live by the resurrected life.

Many Christians talk about Christ dying for them, but forget that He also lives for them. We can’t live the Christian life by only knowing the crucifixion. We must know the resurrection as well.

Romans 6:9, carrying on from what we just read in verse 8, says,

Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over him.

 

Here’s where we notice that Paul keeps using the word “know“.

Under the law it was “do this and don’t do that,” but living under grace starts with what we know.

In verse 3 we see, “Know ye not…?” In verse 6 it’s “Knowing this…” In verse 9 it’s “Knowing that Christ…”

See, we can’t live for God until our mind is changed and we know something we didn’t know before.

That can only be changed by doctrine, God’s Word, God’s truth. God gave us His word so we can know first, then walk.

We wouldn’t know how to live for God unless we first know the things Paul teaches in Romans 6. Knowing comes before doing.

Later, in Romans 12:1–2, after Paul explains salvation, our identity, who we are in Christ, and God’s work with Israel, he finally talks about the practical side of how to live.

He says to present our body a living sacrifice and to be transformed by the renewing of our mind.

By Romans 12, that renewed mind has already been explained in chapters 5–8.

If we skip those chapters, we’ll think Paul’s teaching legalism, but he’s not. He’s teaching how to live by grace through the right understanding.

So Romans 6:9 says,

Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead…

 

We know, we’re fully persuaded in our mind that Christ rose from the dead. Paul talks about being fully persuaded in Acts, Romans and Timothy as do Matthew, Luke and Hebrews.

Without Christ rising from the dead there’d be no books of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John or Acts and there’d be no Paul. Paul met Christ only as the risen Lord, not in His earthly ministry.

In fact, if Christ never rose from the dead the entire Bible would be what many sceptics believe it to be, a worthless collection of fairy tales.

That’s why Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5:16 that we no longer know Christ “after the flesh.”

His whole ministry, every word in every epistle, comes from meeting Christ raised and glorified, not Christ walking on earth. That truth shapes everything Paul teaches.

When we say “Christ is risen,” we don’t just mean it was a past event. We mean He’s alive right now.

He rose bodily, ascended to heaven, and sits at God’s right hand. Romans 8:34 says He makes intercession for us.

Ephesians 1:18–23 says the same power that raised Christ is working in us, and that Christ is seated far above all powers, with all things under His feet.

Because we’re in Christ, our hope and our position are tied to His resurrection.

The nation of Israel had an earthly hope. We have a heavenly one, because Christ is in heaven now.

So when Romans 6:9 says Christ dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over him… that means eternal life. If He’ll never die again, He lives forever. And if we’re in Him, that’s our life as well. How do we live? We live with eternal life, the life Christ now has. If Christ were not risen, we’d have no hope at all — no salvation, no future, no hope, nothing to look forward to.

Colossians 3:1–3 says,

IF ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God.

Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth.

For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.

 

That’s Romans 6 in a nutshell. Dead with Him. Alive with Him. Living the resurrected life.

That truth is the foundation of how we live. Christ is risen, alive forever, and because we’re in Him, we share that life. Death has no more dominion over Him — and in Him, it has no dominion over us either.

We’re dead with Christ, freed from sin’s power. But now he talks about death, which is different from sin. Sin brings death it’s what condemns us to death. Sin has no power over us anymore, but death still exists in this world. We still walk around in bodies that will die physically.

Many Christians think eternal life starts after they die, so they just wait for death. But Paul’s saying the opposite. If Christ is raised and we’re in Him, then our life right now is eternal life in Christ. We’re not living for death.

As God, Jesus Christ was never under death. But when God took on flesh in Christ, He stepped into a world full of sin and death but He wasn’t a sinner. He lived in a world cursed by sin, and He could die — and He did, for a glorious purpose, but now that He’s risen, death has no claim on Him.

Christ didn’t stop being a man after He rose.

He didn’t “put His deity back on” and drop His humanity. He’s still God and still Man right now in heaven.

That’s why we can be joined to Him. What He is as our Head is the pattern of what we shall be. And what He is right now is a Man who will never die again.

Hebrews 2:14–15 says Christ destroyed the one who had the power of death — the devil — and delivered those who lived in fear of death. Revelation says Christ holds the keys of death and hell.

In 1 Corinthians 15 Paul says the last enemy to be destroyed is death itself.

Christ will throw death into the lake of fire. So Christ not only defeated the devil, He defeated death. And since we’re in Him, death has no dominion over us either.

Romans 6:10 says,

For in that he died, he died unto sin once: but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God.

 

Christ died to sin once — not because He sinned, but because He lived in a world of sin and died under its curse.

Romans 8 says He came in the likeness of sinful flesh and condemned sin in the flesh. But now that He lives, He lives unto God, in the power of eternal life.

This is basic Christian living. His resurrected life, not His earthly life before the cross, is the life we now live.

People often preach that we should follow the life Jesus lived in the flesh. But Paul teaches that our life is patterned after His resurrected life, the life He lives now in heaven, free from sin and death. That’s the life we share.

No one before Paul ever taught that sin and death has no dominion over us, but now, because we’re in Christ, we have no reason to fear death. We live with the same eternal life Christ has.

Paul’s not talking here about the life He lived in the manger, or walking on water, or feeding the five thousand, or healing the multitudes and getting tired and hungry. Paul’s talking about Christ’s life in heaven, His glorified life. That’s Christ according to the revelation of the mystery, not Christ in His earthly ministry to Israel.

Christ lives right now, and the life He lives now is not the life He lived 2000 years ago and the life He wants us to live is not the earthly one He lived before the cross, but the resurrected life He lives now in glory. That’s Paul’s point.

Ephesians 4:24 says to “put on the new man,” created after God in righteousness and true holiness. That new man is Christ resurrected — not subject to sin, not subject to death, glorified with the Father. That’s the life we put on.

 

Romans 6:11 says,

Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

 

We “reckon ourselves” because everything true of Christ in resurrection is now true of us in Him.

To reckon means to take an inventory, to estimate, to conclude, to count as, to impute, to suppose or think.

That’s an amazing truth. Christ is in heaven and we’re on earth, yes, but spiritually we’re in Him, and what He has, we have. His liberty from sin and death is now yours. His glorified life is the life we share and that’s the way we’re told to reckon or count ourselves as.

So, if we “likewise reckon ourselves” the question of Romans 6:1 — “shall we continue in sin?” — starts to fade.

If we’re dead to sin, why would we live in it? If we’re alive with Christ, why would we live like the old man?

Romans 6:11’s not telling us to stop sinning by willpower. It’s telling us to change our mind, to rethink, about who we are. Christian living starts in the inner man, not the outer actions. We renew our mind first as Ephesians 4:23 says,

And be renewed in the spirit of your mind;

 

Then we put on the new man as Ephesians 4:24 says.

Reckoning ourselves dead indeed unto sin means sin’s not our life anymore.

Christ died unto sin once — in the flesh — and He’s done with that life. He said on the cross, “It is finished.”

Now He lives unto God in glory. And Paul says: that’s us now as well. We’re done with the old life in the flesh.

We’re alive with Christ in His resurrected life. That’s our identity. That’s who we are, and once we know who we are, we can learn how to live.

Sin’s not the life we live anymore. We’re not called a “sinner” now.

Yes, we still sin, but that’s not our identity.

The Bible calls us a saint.

There’s a difference between a sinner who sins and a saint who sins.

The flesh hates that word, “saint” and the world hates it too. They think “saint” means someone super holy in their deeds and actions. And they’re right when they believe no one could ever earn that title. But Christ could. And we’re in Him.

We’re only a saint because of His righteousness, His holiness and His glorified life.

So when someone questions our sainthood, we don’t defend ourselves — we point to Christ. He died, He rose, He lives in glory, and we’re in Him.

So what does it mean to be dead to sin?

People often run back to the law here because they think Paul’s saying, “Live right, behave better.” But Paul’s talking about our identity, not our behaviour.

“Dead” means lifeless, powerless, useless, detached. A dead person can’t move, can’t be motivated, can’t claim rights or hold a position. Death separates. That’s the picture.

So when Paul says, “reckon yourselves dead indeed unto sin,” he means: sin has no claim on us. We’re detached from it. It can’t move us. It has no rights over us. We’re dead to it.

Galatians 6:14 says the same thing, the world is crucified to us, and us to the world.

The world’s dead to us, and we’re dead to the world. That means the world has no claim on us, and we’ve got no place in it. It’s not because we try hard to act holy, but because of our position in Christ.

We’ve been translated from the power of darkness into the kingdom of God’s dear Son as Colossians 1:13 tells us.

This is positional truth. It’s about who we are.

Are we still thinking of ourself as the same old person, struggling along until heaven? Or do we reckon ourself as someone who is already freed from sin’s power, already living a new life in Christ?

The most important part is what comes next, which Paul is about to explain. But before that, he warns: this does not mean sin’s removed from our flesh. It means sin’s control is broken.

We simply must know that before we can do anything about walking differently.

If we think sin is no longer present, we’re not dealing with reality. and Romans 7’s going to deal with that. Even saved people still commit sins.

Romans 6 is not teaching that sin’s gone from our flesh. Some holiness groups teach that once you’re saved and walking in the Spirit, you can go long stretches without sinning and that’s just blindness and fantasy. There’re many sins we commit every day that we don’t even know we commit. Pretending sin’s gone doesn’t remove it. It only hides it.

This is why verses like 1 John 3:9 confuse people. It says, “Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin… and he cannot sin.”

That verse is talking about Israel’s future under the New Covenant, as prophesied in Ezekiel 36, when God will cause Israel them to keep His statutes and remove sin from them.

That’s not what God is doing today in the dispensation of grace. Today, sin’s still present, but its power, its ability to condemn is broken.

This brings us back to Romans 6:11. where the most important part of the verse is not “dead to sin,” even though that’s true. The key is: “but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” If Paul only said “dead to sin,” we’d still be asking, “How do we live?” But he answers it saying we live unto God the same way Christ lives unto God.

Christ died once. We died once in Him when we believed the gospel. We’re not being crucified again and again. That old life’s over. Christ lives eternal life now, and that’s the life we have. Christ lives in the present — not waiting for glory — and so do we. Yes, our body will die, but that death’s just a change of location.

So we should live now with the same mindset we’ll have in glory. Christ lives unto God in holiness and righteousness — that’s the new man, and when we identify ourself that way, sin loses its grip.

It won’t disappear, but it loses its strength. Even when our flesh feels weak, our strength is in Christ because we’re living in Him.

Believers have two natures in the inner man: the old man from Adam and the new man from Christ. Only one of them has any rights over us and it’s not the old one. So Romans 6:11 tells me to change my mind about who I think I am. Christ has made me someone new.

When we come to Romans 6:12–14, in the next episode, we’re finally reaching Paul’s full answer to the big question he asked back in verse 1:

“Shall we continue in sin?”

Everything Paul says from verses 3 to 11’s been building up to that.

He’s already told us we’re identified with Christ in His death and resurrection and we’re freed from sin, not free of sin’s presence, but freed from its power. And he told us we have eternal life right now, not just after we die.

One other thing we should know is that our body is not the old man. The old man is crucified, dead in Christ even though our body’s still wandering around here on earth. Our body is not sin.

What does it mean to be dead to sin? The word dead is often used, but not often defined and hearing a definition might seem strange to us.

To be dead means to be without life, without a life force.

It means to have no power to function. To be dead is to be lifeless. All usefulness is gone.

When someone dies, their body and soul are separated. It’s not a cessation of existence. It’s a detachment of the soul, the spirit, from the body. The dead can’t move, can’t be motivated or motivate other people. They can’t inspire.

The spirit has left the dead. There’s no more relationship. We may have had a relationship with that dead person but that person’s not there now. The body lies lifeless.

There’s no possibility of a relationship to the dead. We can only relate to others with life and in life the dead can’t claim rights. The dead have no rights. They’re dead.

The dead has no privilege, has no power, has no control, has no position. You lose all position when you’re dead. In marriage, it’s till death do you part.

The dead can’t even speak. A corpse defines the dead. It’s a dead body. So when Paul says, reckon ye also yourselves to be dead unto sin. he means lifeless, useless, detached from and having no movement or motivation to do anything regarding sin.

Our body is a tool, an instrument, a vessel, and Paul says don’t hand our body over to sin. Don’t let sin use our hands, our eyes, our mouth, our mind, our time or our energy.

We used to yield to sin because we didn’t know any other way when we were in Adam. We were dead in sins.

If we say that person is dead to me what are we saying?

We’re separated, detached from them. They can’t move us or affect us. They’ve got nothing to do with our life. They may have once but not anymore. They’re dead to me.

When Galatians 3:14 says,

But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.

 

It means the world’s dead to me, detached from me. It has no rights, no claim to me. It cannot move me or motivate me.

It doesn’t matter what the world says about me its dead to me. Then Paul flips it and says, and also I’m dead to the world, which is as if the world stands up and says, Paul’s dead to us. Why would the world say that? Because apparently the way that Paul’s living or thinking about who he is in Christ is useless to the course of this world, and so he’s detached from the world, living and thinking and regarding himself different to the world, just by virtue of his position in Christ.

We once walked according to the flesh. But now we know better. Now we have a new identity. Now we have a new life and now we have a new master.

Romans 6:5-7 – We Are Freed From Sin

Romans 6:5–7 is where Paul starts slowing down to show us how we should live now that Christ died for our sins, rose from the dead, and saved us by faith, not by our works.

In Romans 5 we learned the difference between being in Adam and being in Christ. Now in Romans 6 the big question is, “Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?”

Since we’re saved by grace, do we just keep living in sin? Paul emphatically says no.

“Speed Slider”

Romans 6:5-7 – Transcript

Romans 5:21 ended by saying that grace reigns unto eternal life by Jesus Christ. Most people think eternal life starts after we die, but Paul begins to show us that in this dispensation, the dispensation of grace that we live in today, our eternal life starts now, when we first believed the gospel, that Christ died for our sins according to scripture, that He was buried and rose again according to scripture 1 Corinthians 15:3-4.

So the question becomes: how do we live in this sinful, corrupt body before the resurrection?

Paul answers that in Romans 6.

Last episode we looked at Romans 6:1–4 where Paul said we don’t continue in sin because we’re dead to sin.

But we’re still puzzled and we still ask, “Paul, what does that mean? I still struggle with sin.”

That’s why he spends chapters 6, 7, and 8 explaining how to live this new life.

In Romans 6:3–4 Paul brings up baptism, even though he hasn’t talked about it in the previous five chapters of Romans.

Many people think this is water baptism, but Paul explains it right here in Romans 6:3 saying,

Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death?

 

This baptism is into Christ’s death, not water. Christ Himself had two baptisms—one in water by John, and one at the cross, His death. Paul’s talking about that death baptism. When we believe the gospel, we’re placed into Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection. That’s the Ephesians 4:5 ,

One Lord, one faith, one baptism,

 

Romans 6:4 says

Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.

 

Should walk in newness of life. That word should matters.

Paul doesn’t say we automatically walk this way. We need to know something, reckon something, and yield something. The Christian walk doesn’t happen by accident.

Colossians 2:6 says the same thing:

As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him:

 

We received Him by faith in His death and resurrection, and now we walk in that same truth. Romans 6 is explaining how.

So in Romans 6:5 Paul says,

For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection:

 

This is the answer to the question, “How do we live now?” We live the resurrected life. We live out what Christ already did for us.

Paul keeps using words like “like as” and “likeness” to show a comparison. He’s saying: the way Christ died and rose again is now the pattern for how we walk.

This helps us understand what baptism means in Romans 6.

It’s important we look hard at what the Bible actually says relating to baptism because it’s a key factor in the answer to the question, “How do we live now?” How do we live the resurrected life?

Baptism always identifies us with something. Here Paul says we’re baptised into Christ’s death and Christ’s resurrection. That means we’re identified with what He did on the cross, not with water. There’s no likeness between water and Christ’s death. Our sins are washed by His blood, not by water.

This also shows that the baptism in Romans 6 cannot be the same as the baptisms in Matthew 3:11, where John preached water, Holy Ghost, and fire. John couldn’t preach “like as Christ died and rose again,” because Christ hadn’t died yet.

In John 4:1–2 Jesus’ disciples baptised with water, but they also didn’t know yet that Christ had to die and rise again. John 20:9 says,

For as yet they knew not the scripture, that he must rise again from the dead.

 

So they couldn’t preach what Paul does in Romans 6. In Acts 2 Peter preached repentance and water baptism, but he didn’t preach walking in newness of life by being baptised into Christ’s death and resurrection because that truth wasn’t yet revealed to them.

In Acts 1:8 Jesus said the apostles would receive power after the Holy Ghost came. In Acts 2:33 the Holy Ghost was poured out, and people could see and hear that baptism with tongues, miracles and signs.

But Paul in Romans 6 is not talking about visible power. He’s talking about walking in newness of life, which starts in our mind, not in outward miracles.

It’s a renewed and different way of how we think.

So the Romans 6 baptism isn’t the Holy Ghost baptism either.

Our baptism is us being likened or identified with Christ in His death and resurrection. Not like Christ doing miracles, but like Christ dying to sin and rising to new life. How do we know this happened?

By trusting Christ’s work on the cross. And how do we walk it out? By thinking the way Paul teaches in Romans 6–8: like as Christ died, we live as dead to sin; like as Christ rose, we live as risen with Him.

Paul uses another phrase in Romans 6:5, “planted together.”

That means joined, united, put together with Christ. That’s baptism: being immersed into something so we take on its likeness.

Baptised into His death in Romans 6:4, planted together in His death Romans 6:5 it’s the same truth in two pictures.

Paul’s showing that because we’re identified with Christ, we now walk like Him in His death and resurrection.

That’s the point Paul’s making in Romans 6.

Some Bible versions change “planted together” to “united,” and yes, we are united with Christ. But “planted” is the better word, because when you plant something, something grows out of it. Paul’s saying that because we were planted together with Christ in His death, something should come out of that which is new life, the resurrected life.

Water can’t make us like Christ. Our sins are washed by His blood, not by water. So the likeness Paul talks about can’t be water baptism.

It also cannot be the baptisms of Matthew 3:11 where Jesus says,

I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance: but he that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire:

 

John preached water, Holy Ghost, and fire, but he could not preach “like as Christ died and rose again,” because Christ hadn’t died yet.

In John 4:1–2 Jesus’ disciples baptised with water, John 20:9 says,

For as yet they knew not the scripture, that he must rise again from the dead.

 

They also didn’t know yet that Christ must die and rise again.

In Acts 2 Peter preached repentance and water baptism, but he did not preach walking in newness of life by being baptised into Christ’s death and resurrection. That truth was not revealed to them at that point.

So let’s look briefly at this whole issue of water baptism. Does water baptism actually wash away sin and bring forgiveness and why do most churches teach that it does? This’s where history and tradition shaped doctrine not Scripture.

We should remember that for over 1,000 years, the Bible wasn’t the final authority for the church, so whatever the organised church taught about baptism became “the truth,” even though it didn’t come from Paul’s gospel.

When the Reformation happened, they corrected justification by faith — but they didn’t correct baptism theology. They kept the sacramental view.

The early church inherited Jewish, covenant, and kingdom practices.

John the Baptist preached water baptism for the remission of sins — but that was for Israel, under the kingdom gospel, before the cross, before the revelation of the Body of Christ.

Peter preached the same in Acts 2:38 — still Israel, still kingdom, still within the prophetic program before the mystery of the Body of Christ was revealed.

Most churches never separate Israel’s program and the kingdom gospel from the Body of Christ and Paul’s gospel of grace. They blend them together.

By the 300s–400s, the institutional church taught that water baptism regenerates and washes away sin and that its necessary for salvation.

This became official doctrine in Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Lutheranism, Anglicanism and many other Protestant movements.

Even churches that claimed “salvation by faith alone” often kept the old baptismal tradition without re‑examining the Scriptures.

Most churches assume “baptism” always means water but the Bible speaks of multiple baptisms, and only one is for the Body of Christ today.

Below this recording we have a list the baptisms that the bible speaks of. Mathew 3:11 speaks of three different baptisms in the one verse when John says he baptizes with water but The One coming after him (Jesus) will baptize with the Holy Spirit, and He’ll baptize with fire.

No — water baptism does not wash away sin or bring forgiveness, and the reason most churches teach that it is a carrying on of these historical and traditional teachings, a mixing of Israel’s program with the church’s doctrine.

If water could wash away sin, then Christ’s blood wouldn’t be enough, faith wouldn’t be enough and Paul’s gospel wouldn’t be enough.

But Paul says the opposite: faith in Christ’s death and resurrection is the only means of forgiveness.

Our baptism is to be like Christ in His death and resurrection. That means we’re a new man, a new creation in Christ with a new life and a new identity.

In Adam we’re fallen, condemned, and headed for death. In Christ we’re forgiven, righteous by faith, and alive unto God.

So the question becomes: where do we think your life comes from now? From our old flesh, our dreams, and our desires—or from Christ Himself? Our life is now His life, and that’s a spiritual reality even if we don’t always feel like it or walk in it. Paul says we should walk in it because it’s true.

Romans 6:5 uses the word resurrection for the first time in Romans. The 4 Gospels talk about being “raised up,” but “resurrection” is a standing, a position.

In John 11:24 Martha, talking to Jesus, said Lazarus would rise again “in the resurrection at the last day.” That was the Jewish hope—resurrection after death, after corruption is gone.

But Jesus told her something greater in John 11:25: resurrection life can touch you now because I AM the resurrection and the life.

That’s exactly what Paul teaches.

Christ is risen today, glorified with the Father as John 17:4–5 says. He revealed the mystery to Paul from that glory that He’s now in.

And Romans 6 tells us that we can live now in the likeness of Christ’s resurrection.

Ephesians 1:17–20 says the same thing.

The same power that raised Christ and set Him in heavenly places is toward us who believe. That’s the life we have now: a glorious, eternal, resurrected life in Christ.

Paul talks about the “unfathomable power of God” in Ephesians, and often we hear that and think, “What power is he talking about?”

Some days I’m so short on power that even picking up my coffee mug feels like weight‑training.”

The power he means is the same power Romans 6–8 explains: the power that raised Christ from the dead and now keeps us in Him so strongly that nothing can separate you from the love of God as Romans 8:35–39 states. Just like nothing can separate Christ from the Father now that He’s glorified, nothing can separate us from Christ because we’re in Him.

Colossians 3:1–3 teaches the same thing Paul teaches in Romans.

IF ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God.

Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth.

For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.

 

How do we know we’re risen with Him? Because we were baptised into His death and resurrection as we’ve now seen in Romans 6:3–5.

Colossians says to seek things above, where Christ sits at the right hand of God. It says we’re dead, and our life is hid with Christ in God. That’s the same teaching as Romans 6–8. You won’t find this in Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, or Acts 2.

They preach Christ’s resurrection, yes, but not us sharing in His death and resurrection life right now. That’s the fellowship of the mystery.

Colossians 1:27 says the riches of this mystery is Christ in us, the hope of glory.

Not just Christ dying for our sins, but Christ actually in us. How did He get in us?

The same way we got in Him—by His death and resurrection. We trusted the gospel, and God placed us in Christ, making us a new man with His life.

Ephesians 3:4–6 defines the mystery:

Whereby, when ye read (and that’s the words of the revelation Christ gave to Paul), Whereby, when ye read ye may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ)

Which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit;

That the Gentiles should be fellowheirs, and of the same body, and partakers of his promise in Christ by the gospel:

 

How can we inherit with Christ? Because we’re identified with Him. How are we in His body? Because we’re baptised into Him. How do we partake of His promise? By the gospel—His death and resurrection. There’s no covenant here, no Israel here. This is mystery truth, and Paul’s teaching that same truth in Romans 6.

Romans 8:16-17 says

The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God:

And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together.

 

If we’re children, then we’re heirs of God and joint‑heirs with Christ.

That matches Ephesians 3:6.

Romans 8:18 says

For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.

 

The glory that will be revealed in us is far greater than our sufferings. Why do we get glory? Not because we earned it, but because we share in the likeness of His resurrection as we’ve been at pains to see in Romans 6:5. God identified us with Christ by grace, not by any work of our hands.

Romans 6:6 says this and because it’s a continuation of Romans 6:5 we’ll read them together.

For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection:

Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.

 

Do you get the “Knowing this…”?

This means that the fact that we’ve been planted together in the likeness of his death, and that we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection relies on us knowing something.

We’ve got to know some doctrine to live this new life.

The Christian life starts with knowing what God’s done. Our old man is crucified with Christ and that old man is the Adam identity Paul described in Romans 5. We were born in Adam—that was the old man. Now we’re in Christ—the new man.

Romans 6:4-5 already said we should walk in newness of life and that new life comes from being planted together with Christ in His death and resurrection.

Before Paul, most people thought resurrection life only came after death. But Paul says we can live in that standing now. That’s the new man, the resurrected man in Christ and we live it by knowing it!

The Bible always calls something “old” only after God brings in something “new.”

Moses’ law wasn’t called the Old Testament until Paul said it in 2 Corinthians 3.

Hebrews 8:13 says the old is old only because something new has come. It’s the same idea here: Paul calls our old man “old” because he’s already told us about our new man—our new life in Christ.

So when Paul says in Romans 6:6, “Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him,” he means we should already understand what the new man is. Our old man is who we were before we were baptised into Christ’s death and resurrection. Our old man was in Adam—sin‑cursed, condemned and dead. Romans 5 clearly showed that.

In Adam came death and judgment; in Christ comes life and righteousness. That old man is destroyed because of Christ’s death and resurrection. But even though he’s destroyed, he still tries to wake up in the morning. You know that old man by his lusts, his corruption, and his desire to walk in death.

Ephesians 2:1–3 describes that old man,

AND you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins;

Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience:

Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.

 

We were dead in sins, walking according to the world, following the prince of the power of the air, living in the lusts of the flesh and mind, and by nature a child of wrath. That was all of us. That’s the old man. But Ephesians 2:4–5 says,

But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us,

Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;)

 

That’s the new man.

Ephesians 4:22 says the old man is “corrupt according to deceitful lusts.” We only know corruption because we know what truth looks like. The old man is everything opposite of the new life in Christ.

Now, we mustn’t confuse the old man with our mortal body.

Our body is not the old man.

God bought your body as 1 Corinthians 6:13–20 says.

Our body is for the Lord, and the Lord is for our body. God raised up Christ and will raise us up too. Our body will be resurrected because we’re already in the likeness of His resurrection as Romans 6:5 states.

So Romans 6 is teaching that we have a new life because we were planted together with Christ in His death and resurrection. We’re a new man. Our old man is crucified. And now we should live out what God’s already made true. The Christian life starts with knowing these truths. Paul keeps saying, “Know ye not… knowing this…” because maturity begins with knowing what God has done. Only then can we walk in it.

So, Romans 6:6 says our old man is crucified with Christ, and to understand that we need to see the difference between the old man and the body. As we said our body is not the old man.

Yes, we had our body when we were in Adam, but the “old man” is the sin‑cursed identity we had in Adam, We had condemnation, judgment, death, and the desires of the flesh. Paul uses the word flesh to describe that old Adam nature, not the physical body we live in.

However, our body still matters to God. He wants us to use it for Him. That’s why 1 Corinthians 6:19–20 says our body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, and we’re bought with a price.

God bought our body, but He killed the old man. It’s like He bought the car and killed the driver. The old driver was Adam. The new driver is Christ’s life in us. We now live by the knowledge of who we are in Christ.

So when Romans 6:6 says the old man is crucified with Christ, it means the death we inherited from Adam is gone. Adam’s death only kills. But Christ’s death kills the old man and gives us new life. That’s why Paul calls this the crucified life.

Galatians 2:20 says, “I am crucified with Christ…”—that’s the old man. “…nevertheless I live…”—that’s the new man. “…yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.” That’s our identity now.

This’s why early believers were called Christians—because Paul taught them they were identified with Christ in His death and resurrection, not in His earthly flesh.

Romans 6:6 shows the purpose of Christ’s death according to the mystery. Yes, He died for our sins as Romans chapters 3–5 teaches, but He also died so our old man could be put to death and we could walk in newness of life.

Colossians 2:12–13 says you were buried with Him in baptism and risen with Him by faith. We were dead in sins, but God quickened us together with Christ, meaning God gave us life out of that death.

Colossians 3:3 says, “Ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.” In Adam we were dead, and in Christ we’re also crucified—but now our life is found in Him, not in ourself.

Grace doesn’t tell the old man to run free.

Grace kills the old man and moves our life source from Adam to Christ in heavenly glory.

Romans 6:6 continues: “…that the body of sin might be destroyed.”

The “body of sin” is the condemned Adam identity we once had. Romans 7:24 calls it “the body of this death.” By Romans 7 Paul understands he’s a new man in Christ, but he still lives in a mortal body that struggles. That’s why he cries out, “Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?”

Romans 7:25 answers that question,

I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

 

Romans 6:6 already gave the answer: the body of sin was destroyed by Christ’s death. Through Him this body of death was delivered, the old man crucified and resurrection life given to us.

Paul deals with the struggle in his body by knowing his old man is dead. The old man can’t condemn us or control us. It has no authority over us anymore. Yes it’s still hanging around, but it’s got no legal power over us as it did before.

Romans 8:13 says if we live after the flesh (that’s the old man), we will die. But if we, through the Spirit, mortify the deeds of the body, we will live. That’s our situation, our identity now, after we believe the gospel, and it doesn’t matter what we feel.

Walking after the Spirit means there’s now no condemnation. Grace doesn’t give us permission to sin. Grace doesn’t let the old man run free. Grace kills the old man. Grace nails him to the cross. The law could only condemn sin; grace destroys the source of sin.

Romans 6:6 says the old man is crucified so “the body of sin might be destroyed.” We’re not currently “in Adam” until we die. We’re in Christ now. Our old man is dead now. That’s why Paul says “henceforth”—from this moment forward—we shouldn’t serve sin. Not later. Not after death. Now.

If we read Romans 6 and feel condemned, we’re reading it wrong. Paul’s not saying, “Try harder.” He’s saying, “We don’t serve sin anymore.” The old man may scream, and tempt, and pull at us constantly, at every turn but we can say, “I don’t work for you anymore.”

We’re in a world full of sin, but we’re not under its authority. We’re free to say no.

This is why Paul calls it deliverance. We’re still in the prison of this world, but the chains are broken. We’re free from sin’s power, even though sin is still everywhere around us.

Romans 6:7 says,

For he that is dead is freed from sin.

 

How are we dead? We’re dead with Christ. Crucified with Him. That means we’re freed from sin’s rule. We’re not free of sin’s presence, but free from its power to condemn us to eternal death.

This is victory, liberty and redemption.

Galatians 5:1 says,

STAND fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.

 

We don’t go back under bondage—whether that’s the bondage of the law or the bondage of sin. We’re freed from both.

Grace gives you a new identity. God Himself declares us a new man. No other religion or philosophy can give us a new identity that’s real. Only God, the giver of life, can do that. He gives us eternal life, resurrection life, Christ’s life. That’s why we can say no to the old man. That’s why we can walk in newness of life.

Romans 6:6 ends by saying the old man is crucified “that henceforth we should not serve sin.” This is not a law command. It is a statement of freedom. We don’t serve sin anymore. We serve Christ. We’re dead with Him, risen with Him, and freed from sin’s power. That is the Christian life that Paul’s teaching.

Romans 3:24 first introduced the word redemption. Paul said we’re “justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.”

Redemption is more than paying for our sins. It means Christ delivered us and set us free and broke the power of sin, the law, and condemnation. That’s the same redemption Romans 6 is talking about—freedom from the old man and freedom from sin’s rule.

Colossians 1:13–14 says God delivered us from the power of darkness and translated us into the kingdom of His Son, “in whom we have redemption through His blood, even the forgiveness of sins.”

Redemption and forgiveness go together.

Titus 2:14 says,

Who (Christ) gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.

 

The Peculiar people doesn’t mean an odd or strange people, but a people who belong to Him in a special way—not to the world or even to ourselves.

He didn’t just give us eternal life after death—He redeemed us now, freeing us from condemnation, judgment, and the sin of our old man, all of which Paul labours over telling us because of how critical it is to the way we think and the way we see ourselves while we’re still here in this body and still struggling in this world of sin.

Redemption means to release someone from the possession or the power of someone else. We’re no longer owned by sin. Yes, sin is still present in this world and in our flesh, but we’re not under its power. We’re redeemed today because the Spirit baptised us into Christ. That’s why baptism matters—not water, but the Spirit placing us into Christ’s death and resurrection.

Romans shows what you’re freed from.

Romans 3 shows we’re freed from the penalty of sin.

Romans 4 shows we’re freed from the imputation of sin.  Imputation means God counts something to our account that didn’t originally come from us.

Romans 5 shows we’re freed from the curse of sin.

Romans 6 shows we’re freed from the dominion and the power of sin.

Romans 7 shows we’re freed from the law, which gave sin its strength.

Romans 8 shows we’re freed from the condemnation of sin.

This’s why Romans 6 is so important. Being in Christ, baptised into His death and resurrection, means we’re free from, we have liberty from, and we have victory over sin. It no longer rules over us. We’re not waiting for freedom in heaven after this present body dies, we have it now. Christ destroyed the old man, broke sin’s power, and gave us new life in Him. That’s redemption.

Romans 6:1-4 – Baptised Into Christ’s Death

In this episode we’re plunging in to Romans chapter 6. Romans chapters 6, 7, and 8 all deal with how a saved person actually lives now.

Romans 8 will later show how the Spirit helps us walk without condemnation, but Romans 6 starts with the big question: “Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?” Paul answers, “God forbid.” Then he says, “How shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein?”

“Speed Slider”

Romans 6:1-4 – Transcript

We finished Romans 5 last episode, which is a glorious chapter showing what we have freely in Christ. Romans 5:1 says we’re justified by faith. That whole chapter is about what God gives us — not what we earn.

It’s all grace. We’re not doing the work in Romans 5, we’re just receiving what Christ did.

That’s the difference between being in Adam and being in Christ. In Adam, death reigns. In Christ, grace reigns.

That’s a positional truth in this dispensation of grace, revealed through Paul.

A positional truth is something that’s true about where we stand with God. It’s not our feelings or our behaviour. It’s our place in Christ, even if we don’t always feel it. It’s our position, not our performance. It’s a truth because it’s what God says is true about us and He says we’re in Christ when we believed.

Now Romans 6:1 asks,

WHAT shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?

 

The questions about our life here now, on earth, before glory.

Romans 5 told us what we have and Romans 6 asks what we do now that we already have those blessings.

The last chapter ended with Romans 5:20-21 saying,

Moreover the law entered, that the offence might abound. But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound:

That as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord.

 

The law came in and showed up sin. But grace overflowed all of it.

Christ appeared, and the kindness and love of God brought salvation through grace as Titus 3:4–7 says.

Romans 5:21 is the first time Paul mentions eternal life. And it’s not just life after death — it’s life now, in Christ.

Most people think eternal life starts after we die and Paul knows that, so Romans 6 starts with the question: If we’re justified by faith and have eternal life in Christ, what about now? Do we just keep living in sin because we’re still in this flesh? Is grace just for later? Or is it OK to just keep on living the most ragged life we can knowing we’re saved anyway?

Paul answers: “God forbid.” It’s the same strong answer he gave back in Romans 3. Back there, people said, “If our sin shows God’s righteousness, isn’t God unfair to judge us?” Paul said, “God forbid.”

Just because our sin makes God look good doesn’t mean He needs us to sin.

He’s righteous no matter what.

People slandered Paul, saying he taught, “Let’s do evil, that good may come.” But Paul said, “Their damnation is just” . That’s Romans 3:8. That’s not the gospel and it’s certainly not what Paul taught.

Romans 5 made it clear — what we do plays zero part when it comes to being in Adam or in Christ. Our works don’t put us in Christ. Christ’s work does.

So someone might think, “If I’m saved by grace, maybe I’m supposed to sin so grace can abound.” But that’s wrong. God didn’t need us to sin to show grace. He gave grace out of His love and righteousness.

So why do people ask, “Can we continue in sin?”

Because when grace is taught, people think it’s about doing whatever we want because we’re saved anyway.

Romans 6:15 asks it again:

What then? shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid.

 

But that doesn’t register with the religious mind that thinks if we’re not under law, we’re allowed to sin. Paul says no — grace teaches us how to live.

Romans 4 and 5 taught that grace doesn’t depend on our actions. So now Romans 6 asks: Do we just keep living in sin? If grace reigns unto eternal life, why does death still reign in the world? People still die. People still sin. So they ask, “Don’t we still live in Adam?”

That’s the real question behind “Shall we continue in sin?” It’s not just rebellion — it’s confusion. Paul’s going to answer that in Romans 6.

In the last episode we drew the picture how that Adam sinned, and death reigned. Christ died and rose again, and now grace reigns through His righteousness.

That’s Romans 5. One man brought death, the other brought life. But people still think this’s just about eternity which is all after we die in the body and we’re still here in Adam in this life.

Paul says no. Grace doesn’t need sin to exist.

When Romans 6:1 asks, “Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?” And Paul answers: “God forbid,” that phrase shuts the door. It’s a very strong no. Sin is not allowed or encouraged.

“God forbid” shows up 24 times in the Bible, 14 of those times are in Paul’s letters and 10 of those are in Romans.

The Apostle of Grace is the one saying “God forbid” the most. He’s not saying, “Well, if you have to…” He’s saying, “No way.”

Just because we’re saved and in Christ doesn’t mean sin’s okay now.

That idea gets nailed shut here.

There’re some who say “God forbid” is a mistake in the King James Bible because the word “God” isn’t in the Greek and that’s true — but it’s not a mistake.

Translation isn’t always word-for-word and we’ve discussed this before. Sometimes we need idioms to get the meaning across.

An idiom is a saying that doesn’t mean exactly what the words say. It’s a phrase people understand because of how it’s used, not because of the words themselves.

For example, “It’s raining cats and dogs.” Nobody thinks animals are falling from the sky. It just means it’s raining hard.

Or “Break a leg.” We know it doesn’t mean go and hurt yourself. It means “good luck.”

Or “Spill the beans.” Everybody knows it’s not about beans. It means “tell the secret.”

“God forbid” says it better than “Certainly not” or “May it never be.” It’s not wrong — it’s just strong.

So don’t let anyone tell you the King James messed up there. It’s not a mistake — it’s a choice. And it’s the right one.

Paul’s saying sin is never okay.

Romans 8:8 says,

So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God.

 

So if we’re thinking we’re still in Adam, Paul says, “No — we’re in Christ.” Not just in eternity — now.

That’s a big deal. Being in Christ now wasn’t taught before.

Jesus said “abide in me” in John 15, but people didn’t understand it. Paul says you’re in Christ by the mystery — not by fruit, not by law, but by grace.

Ephesians 3:6 says the we’re fellow heirs, part of the same body, in Christ Jesus now!

So if we’re justified by faith, we’re not in Adam anymore.

We still live in the flesh, but we’ve been quickened with Christ, given life out of our inherited death, inherited from Adam.

The Holy Spirit sealed us and baptized us into His body. That’s something we have now.

But sin never glorifies God.

Romans 5:21 says grace reigns through righteousness — not through sin. Grace doesn’t need sin to exist. Grace was in Eden before sin ever showed up. God gave Adam and Eve everything by grace. Grace is what God does that we didn’t earn.

Grace reigns because of what Christ did — not because sin abounds.

He died, He rose, He conquered death. That’s why grace reigns.

Romans chapters 6, 7, and 8 will show us what life in Christ looks like.

Romans 6 says grace separates us from sin. Romans 7 says grace separates us from the law. And when our mind gets changed — when we realise we’re not under sin or law anymore — we start to live by grace. The law tried to separate people from sin, but Romans 7 says we’re dead to that too.

So, Romans 6, 7, and 8 all deal with how a saved person actually lives now. Romans 8 will later show how the Spirit helps us walk without condemnation, but Romans 6 starts with this big question: “Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?” to which Paul answers in Romans 6:2,

God forbid. (Then he says), How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?

 

Up until we believed the gospel, we lived in Adam. Now we’re in Christ. So why keep living like we’re still in Adam? We don’t owe that old man anything. Paul calls “the old man,” our old life in Adam. That old man is dead. Grace doesn’t just save us — it gives us a new way to live now.

So the progression through Romans continues seamlessly through Romans 5 telling us of all the blessings we have in Christ to Romans 6 showing that grace also teaches us how to live in that new life. It’s not the law, it’s not our works, but Christ in us. This is the grace life.

Paul talks about this again in 2 Corinthians 5:15–17.

And that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again.

Wherefore henceforth know we no man after the flesh: yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more.

Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.

 

Since Christ died for all, those who live should not live unto themselves anymore. We don’t know any man “after the flesh” now. Even Christ we don’t know after the flesh anymore. That destroys a lot of Christianity that only focuses on Jesus’ earthly ministry. Paul says if any man be in Christ, he’s a new creature. Old things are passed away, all things are become new.

That’s exactly what Romans 6 is dealing with. The “old things” are Adam, sin, the flesh, the law. The “new things” are life in Christ. So when someone asks, “Shall we continue in sin?” Paul says no — that’s the old thing. You’re in newness of life now.

Paul also says we’re dead to sin in this passage of Romans 6:2.

Notice he doesn’t says we’re dead in sin. Dead in sin is Adam — that’s the whole world. Dead to sin is the believer. And notice he says “we are dead to sin,” meaning right now.

It’s not “will be dead to sin someday.” Not “after we die.” Not “after we get to glory.” Right now.

That’s why the question comes up: “If I’m dead to sin, why do I still walk in it?” Paul’ll answer that in this chapter.

But the truth is that our eternal life begins now. Our position in Christ begins now. Death is no longer the end for us. It’s just the last step before glorification.

Romans 5:11 said, “We have now the atonement.” Not later — now. Atonement means that the separation between us and God has been fixed and we’re reconciled back to Him.

Christ died, and we get the benefit of His death. His death is counted as ours. His death has paid our wages, the wages we’re due for sin which is death. That’s why we’re dead to sin. That’s why we have eternal life now and that’s why grace reigns.

Grace doesn’t reign because sin’s around. Grace doesn’t need sin. Grace was in the Garden before sin ever showed up. Grace reigns because of what Christ did — His death, His resurrection, His victory. Romans 6 will show how grace separates us from sin.

Romans 7 will show how grace separates us from the law. And Romans 8 will show how the Spirit helps us walk in that new life.

Paul’s been showing how in Adam we got everything Adam brought — sin and death — and in Christ we get everything Christ brought — righteousness and life.

That’s why he keeps saying we’re in Christ now. So when we ask, “How should we live?” Paul basically says, “Don’t you remember what we just learned? You’re dead to sin now. Why live in it any longer?”

In Adam, death was the end. Romans 5:12 says death came by one man. Romans 6:23 says the wages of sin is death. Death used to be the final stop. But Christ died and rose again, and that changed everything. His death doesn’t just pay for our sins — it becomes the starting point of our new life. Death is no longer the thing that crushes us. It’s the doorway into walking in newness of life.

Paul will teach that the first step of the Christian life is to quote “reckon yourself dead”.

That sounds strange because death is what we’re trying to avoid. But Paul says Christ died, and we died with Him, so let’s start there. His gospel begins with death and resurrection. Under Israel’s covenants, Christ’s death was the final act of atonement. But for the body of Christ, His death is the beginning of our life.

Galatians 2:20 says,

I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.

 

That means sin and the law have no more power over us. Yes, we’re still living in this flesh, but our real life is Christ in us. And the life we now live, we live by the faith of the Son of God who loved us and gave Himself for us. If righteousness came by the law, then Christ died in vain — but He didn’t. His death’s the only way we live.

Many Christians don’t fully understand that Christ’s death was needed. That’s ignorance of Romans 5 and the mystery. The apostle Peter blamed Israel for killing their Messiah because he didn’t yet understand what Christ’s death would accomplish. It looked like a sad, necessary sacrifice, like killing a lamb. But Paul shows the glory of it.

Christ didn’t just die — He gave His death to me and you.

He performed the act so we could be crucified with Him and reap the benefits of now being freed from the judgment of sin and the penalty, eternal death.

Romans 6:7 says,

For he that is dead is freed from sin.

 

The good news is we’re freed from the consequences and the penalty of sin. Romans 6:8 says,

Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him:

 

Romans 6:11 says

Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

 

Romans 7:4 says we’re dead to the law.

Romans 8:10 says,

But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you.

 

The body’s dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life.

Colossians 3:3 says,

For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.

 

This sounds strange because in this world death is bad. But in Christ, death becomes something else.

That’s why believers don’t sorrow like those with no hope. Being “dead” in Christ means we don’t work to earn anything — dead people don’t work. Romans 5 already said we contribute nothing. We’re in Christ, and all the blessings as a result of that are ours by grace.

So Romans 6:2 asks, “How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?” And the next verses explain what that means.

Paul says, “Know ye not…?” because he’s reminding believers of things they should already know: they’re in Christ, dead to sin, alive to God, and called to walk in that new life.

A lot of true ministry in the church today is reminding believers of what we have and what we are and that’s exactly what Paul’s doing when he says, “Know ye not…?”  He’s reminding people of what they’ve already been taught.

Then he brings up baptism for the first time in Romans 6:4.

Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.

 

Then right away people go directly to their church traditions of water, sacraments, ordinances, confession, tubs, pastors. But none of that came from Romans.

Paul never mentioned water once. What has he talked about?

Christ’s death, our faith, and us being in Christ. So when he says we were “baptised into Jesus Christ,” he means we were baptised into His death. That’s the whole point. Baptism is identification and we’re identified with Christ’s death.

He says “so many of us” because not everybody in Rome was saved. If you’re still in Adam, you’re not baptised into Christ’s death — you’re just dead in Adam’s sin. But if we believed the gospel (Romans 4–5), we’re in Christ, and that’s how we got baptised into Him. Not by water. Not by a priest. Not by a pastor. By faith.

Water isn’t mentioned in Romans at all. Paul barely mentions it anywhere. But he does talk about baptism in 1 Corinthians 12:13:

For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit.

 

That “One body” is Christ.

That’s the same thing he’s saying in Romans 6. How were you baptised into Christ? “By one Spirit.” Not by water. Not by man. But by the Spirit of God.

Why do so many miss this? Through a failure to divide the Word of God correctly as per 2 Timothy 2:15. The result is one more case of seeing what Jesus and the 12 apostles instructed Israel and missing what Jesus, through Paul, instructed us, the Body of Christ, today.

Tradition and history replace the whole counsel of the Word of God.

But tradition and history isn’t the Bible.

For most of church history, the Bible wasn’t even the final authority. Remember that it wasn’t till the 1600’s that the Bible began to be available to every person, commoner and elite alike.

Even the Nicene Creed — which most churches claim — says “we believe in baptism for the forgiveness of sins.”

That’s water baptism saving you. Catholics believe that. The Orthodox church believes that. Lutherans believe that and a lot of ordinary Christians believe that. But, Paul never teaches that.

Romans 4–5 says salvation is by faith, not works, not rituals, and not water.

Yes, Jesus taught water baptism in Matthew 28. Peter preached it in Acts 2. John baptized with water. Israel had water ceremonies. But Paul is the apostle of grace, the apostle of the Gentiles, the one who received the revelation of the church. And Paul never commands water baptism for salvation or blessing.

The real question isn’t “When did the church begin?” was it with the disciples? If so wouldn’t the teaching they received from Jesus be the same for us today?

Well the real question is “When was the message of the church revealed?” How could anyone be the church when there was no message relating to it, no message that defined it?

The doctrine of the church is found only in Paul’s epistles. We can’t pattern the church after something that wasn’t revealed yet. Before Paul, nobody knew Romans 5 truth. Nobody knew about being in Christ, justified by faith alone and walking in newness of life.

So even if the church existed, they couldn’t live like it because the message wasn’t revealed yet.

That message was given to Paul directly by the Lord Jesus Christ Himself which we see in Acts chapter 9.

So when Paul says in Romans 6:3 that we were baptised into Christ’s death, he’s not talking about water. He’s talking about what he’d already taught, that Christ died for our sins, we’re justified by faith, we’re in Christ, and His death is counted as ours.

That’s how we get the all-important atonement which enables reconciliation back to God. That’s how we get eternal life. We’re baptised into His death by the Spirit the moment we believe.

Paul’s reminding them — and us — of what we should already know. We’re in Christ. We’re dead to sin. We’re dead to the law. We’re alive to God. And none of that came by water. It came by the gospel of Christ and the Spirit who put us into His body.

All this about baptism matters because people tend to turn back from the teachings to the church in Romans to the time before Paul and before this mystery dispensation of grace was revealed to him by Christ.

They grab water‑baptism instructions, given before the mystery was revealed, before Acts chapter 9, and try to squeeze them into them into the Body of Christ.

For everything else — salvation, Christian living, walking in the Spirit — they’ll go to Pauls epistles yet turn back to the time before the dispensation of grace, to the time of the law to pull water baptism out and try to force into the body of Christ.

Why?

Traditions of men, traditions of the organised church and it’s denominations, traditions that very often discount or outright reject the change in dispensation that happened as a result of Israel’s rejection of their Messiah.

How critical it is for us in the Body of Christ to recognise this change in God’s dealings with mankind.

Paul does teach baptism in Romans 6. But the Bible has more than one baptism, and not all of them are water and there’s a list below this recording of the different baptisms mentioned in the Bible.

Galatians 3:27 says,

For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ.

 

That’s the same thing as Romans 6 — being identified with Christ. But how did we get baptised into Christ?

Galatians 3:26 tells us:

For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.

 

Children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.” No water mentioned.

Ephesians 1:13 says,

In whom (Christ) ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise,

 

When we hear the gospel and believe it, we’ re sealed with the Holy Spirit.

That Spirit baptism puts us into the body of Christ.

1 Corinthians 12:13 says it this way,

For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit.

 

That happens the moment we believe — not later, not after a class or after a ceremony.

Acts 8 shows something totally different.

The Samaritans believed, but didn’t receive the Holy Ghost until Peter came and laid hands on them.

That fits Israel’s kingdom program, not the body of Christ.

In the church today, we receive the Spirit when we believe — not by so called apostles laying hands on us, not by water, nor any other rituals.

Some churches say water baptism is needed for salvation, forgiveness, or membership. But that can’t be the body of Christ, because we’re placed into the body by the Spirit when we believe.

If a local church group wants a ceremony, fine, no one’s going to be damned for partaking in the ceremony but we should realise, through rightly divided study, that it’s not God’s baptism, it’s a ritual that man wants to hang on to from the time of the law, before this dispensation of grace that we live in today.

The Romans 6:3 baptism is simple.

It only becomes confusing when people bring church traditions into the text. Paul never mentions water in Romans. He hadn’t baptised anyone in Rome.

In 1 Corinthians 1:17 Paul’s writing to the Corinthians who had many problems with their spiritual walk. He’s trying to sort out the confusion and the wrong doctrine that had entered and corrupted what he’d first taught them. Remember, the letter to the Corinthians was written before the letter to the Romans.

Baptism was one of the doctrines the Corinthians were messed up about and Paul’s sorting them out. He says to them,

For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel: not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of none effect.

 

He even says, in 1 Corinthians 1:14, “I thank God I baptized none of you… He says, “Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel.”

If water baptism were required for salvation or forgiveness under Paul’s ministry, He could never have thanked God he didn’t do it.

That’d be like saying, “I thank God I didn’t get any of you saved”, and that’s nonsense, of course.

Paul’s commission was different from the commission given to Israel through Peter and the other 11. In Matthew 28:19, Mark 16:16, and Acts 2:41 we do see water baptism Paul wasn’t even saved then.

His gospel doesn’t include water baptism. His gospel was preached after the blinding of Israel, shown in Romans 11:25, and the introduction of this new dispensation of grace that was the result of Israel’s rejection of all that happened in Matthew, Mark, Luke, John and early Acts.

His message is the preaching of the cross — the gospel of grace — and by that gospel the Spirit baptises us into Christ the moment we believe.

Jesus appeared to Paul (Acts chapter 9) and sent him personally with the dispensation of the grace of God — a message nobody knew before then. Paul was saved by grace without works, and he was sent to preach that same message to the Gentiles. That’s why he doesn’t bring up water in Romans.

The list included below shows different baptisms in the Bible. There’s more than one.

Many of them are dry, no water. That alone shows baptism doesn’t automatically mean water.

So when Romans 6 mentions baptism, and Paul hasn’t said a word about water, sprinkling, pouring, or dunking, it’s clear he’s talking about being identified with Christ, not a water ritual.

The only baptism he talks about is the one that puts us in Christ, not in Adam, identified with Christ and no longer identified with Adam — and that happens by faith, not by works or rituals.

We don’t get newness of life or the atonement by water. Some say you “touch the blood through the water,” but that’s just not in Scripture. Baptism means being immersed into something for identification. Israel used water to identify with ritual cleansing. They dunked themselves in mikvahs to show they were clean. But that was symbolic cleansing, not spiritual salvation.

If we’re baptised into Christ’s by the Holy Spirit, we’re identified with His atonement, redemption, and forgiveness — all the things churches wrongly try to attach to a water ritual.

John’s baptism was for forgiveness of sins, but he wasn’t preaching the cross. So baptism never meant to be a water only thing. It meant identification.

Romans 5 already taught that we’re either in Adam or in Christ. If we’re in Christ, we’re identified with Him. That’s baptism.

So when Paul says, “Know ye not that as many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death?” he’s saying: “Don’t you know you’re identified with His death?” That’s the whole point. If you’re in Him, you’re in what He did — and what He did was die.

Church tradition later tried to explain Romans 6:3 by saying water baptism symbolises Christ’s death. But Paul never said that.

The water‑symbol idea came centuries after Romans 6:3. Jesus isn’t water. Being baptized into Christ doesn’t mean being baptised into water. Paul says you’re baptised into His death in Romans 5 — the one act that brought life.

Jesus Himself had two baptisms.

Luke 3 shows His water baptism, where the Father said, “Thou art my beloved Son.” That identified Him with Israel. But in Luke 12:50 Jesus says,

But I have a baptism to be baptized with; and how am I straitened till it be accomplished!

 

He’s talking about His death.

“How am I straitened” means to hold everything together till it was accomplished.

That’s the baptism Paul’s talking about. If Jesus had a water baptism and a death baptism, and Paul says you’re baptised into His death, it’s obvious which one he means.

Water never put anyone into Christ. The Spirit does. Water never gave atonement. Christ’s blood does. Water never made us dead to sin. Christ’s cross does. The only baptism we need is the one Christ accomplished — His death — and the Spirit places us into that the moment we believe.

So let’s read Romans 6:3-4 together,

Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death?

Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.

 

We’re identified with Christ, His death, His burial, and His resurrection. We’re buried with him by baptism into death.

Why?

Because if we’re in Christ, then what He did counts for us. He died — so we died. He was buried so we were buried. He rose so we rose to have newness of life.

Paul’s taking everything he taught in Romans 5 about being “in Christ” and now applying it to how we live. If we’re in Him, then you walk in the life He gives.

Some say the burial here is water. But if the burial is water, then the resurrection must be you coming up out of the water — but that doesn’t give new life. Romans 6:4 says our new life comes from Christ being raised by the glory of the Father. That’s God’s work, not yours.

 

Colossians 2 teaches the same thing. The whole chapter says we’re complete in Christ.

Colossians 2:10,

And ye are complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power:

 

We don’t need ordinances or rituals.

Colossians 2:12 says we’re,

Buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead.

 

That’s not the operation of a minister or a ceremony. God does it. The same God who raised Christ from the dead is the one who gives us life. That’s why Paul says in Romans 8 that the Spirit who raised Christ will quicken our mortal body.

This’s the whole point: in the body of Christ there are no priests, no spiritual superiors. Christ is the Head. We’re the body. God does the saving, the sealing, the baptizing, the raising. We preach the gospel — He does the work.

So the question was in Romans 6:1, “Shall we continue in sin?”

Paul says, “How can we? We’re dead to it.” Why dead? Because we died with Christ. And if we died with Him, we also live with Him. That’s the life we walk in now — His life in us.

Paul isn’t really trying to teach a whole doctrine of baptism. He’s reminding us who we are. We have new life, eternal life now. So, the life we live in the flesh is the life of Christ. That’s how we live by grace. And Romans 6 is going to keep building on that and showing the mechanics of how we walk in that new life while we’re still here in a corrupted world in corrupted flesh.