Romans 6 explained: Dead to Sin, Alive to God

A tempting misreading (vv. 1-2)

Paul has just said that God's grace, his undeserved kindness, always outweighs human wrongdoing, so some might conclude that more sin means more grace. He rejects this flatly, saying people who have died to sin cannot keep living in it.

Baptism as dying and rising (vv. 3-4)

Baptism, the washing in water that marked someone joining the followers of Jesus, is pictured as being buried with him and raised to a new life. Many think going under the water and coming up suggested this picture, though how baptism was done then is not fully certain.

Sharing his death and new life (vv. 5-10)

Paul says the person someone used to be before joining Christ was put to death with Jesus, so sin no longer owns them, just as death cancels every claim on a dead person. Jesus died once and cannot die again, and Paul expects believers to share his new life now and fully in the future.

Live as who you now are (vv. 11-14)

Paul tells his readers to count themselves dead to sin and to stop handing their bodies over to it as tools for harm. Sin will not be their master, he says, because they live under grace rather than under law, most likely the law given through Moses, though scholars debate exactly what being free of it means here.

Everyone serves someone (vv. 15-19)

Using slavery, a familiar fact of Roman life, Paul argues there is no neutral freedom: people end up serving whatever they keep giving themselves to. He admits the picture is a rough everyday comparison, chosen so his readers can grasp it.

Wages and a gift (vv. 20-23)

The old way earned what Paul calls its pay, which is death, and left only things people now feel ashamed of. Life with God is not earned at all but given as a gift, and it ends in eternal life.

Key verse: Romans 6:11

Where Christians differ

Christians differ on whether baptism here actually brings about a person's union with Christ, as Catholic, Orthodox and Lutheran traditions hold, or is an outward sign of a union that comes through faith, as many Protestants hold.

Something to think about

In your experience, does being forgiven without conditions tend to make people careless, or does it change how they live?