UNITED WITH CHRIST

Romans 6:1-14 / Keywords 6:5

If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection.

 

Dead to Sin, Alive in Christ

6:1 What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? 2 By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? 3 Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.

5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his. 6 For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with,[a] that we should no longer be slaves to sin— 7 because anyone who has died has been set free from sin.

8 Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. 9 For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. 10 The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God.

11 In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. 12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. 13 Do not offer any part of yourself to sin as an instrument of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer every part of yourself to him as an instrument of righteousness. 14 For sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace.

Footnotes

a. Romans 6:6 Or be rendered powerless

1. When Paul, in the previous passage, stated that, “where sin increased, grace increased all the more” (Ro 5:20), he didn’t mean that Christians should sin so as to bring about a greater grace of God. In fact, Paul gives that idea an emphatic “By no means!” When we come to Christ and have our sins forgiven through his shed blood, we die to sin and cannot live in it any longer. We are spiritually united with Christ. This means that we are united with him in his death, and we are united with him in his resurrection. We are made new because of him. We cannot be bound to sin any longer. We live new lives in him.

 

2. Dying to sin is neither automatic nor easy. There are daily struggles, even for Christians of strong faith. We do, all of us, have a sinful nature. That is still present in us. That is why Paul says “count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus” (Ro 6:11). Even if we struggle with our sinful nature, God sees us as dead to sin but alive to him. Thus, we do not offer ourselves to our sinful nature, but to him who saves us and loves us.

 

Prayer Father, thank you for Jesus Christ, who died in order to redeem me and to give me new life. Because of him, I offer myself to you as one brought from death to life.

One Word I am united with Christ