Romans 6:1–4

The Apostle's statement at the end of Romans 5 — that "where sin increased, grace abounded all the more" — raises the subject of death to sin. That statement at once leads the mind ruled by the flesh to ask the foolish, if not wicked, question, "Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound?" The Apostle rejects this unholy suggestion completely. He will not allow that the believer — who is true to the position in which God has set the Christian — can continue living in sin.

Shall we take advantage of the abundance of grace, and by our self-indulgence make a fresh occasion for its display? The more we sin, the more grace will bestow. Those who talk or think in this way, whether intentionally or not, are liable to turn, as we read, "the grace of our God into sensuality" (Jude 4). And history shows that many gross evils have arisen in Christendom from such abuses of God's abounding grace.

They show that they have no idea how hateful sin is. They assume that punishment is the only thing to fear. So the moment the fear of punishment is gone, all restraint is gone.

As we enter this branch of the Gospel of God, we find that sin, not sins, is the subject before us. Fruitfulness for God, not peace of conscience, is an end in view. It is the sinful nature, and not the acts — what we are, our condition, not what we have done — that has now to be considered. So attention goes to the death of Christ, not to His blood. His blood is not named once throughout this section of the letter.

In chapter 6 he goes on to notice that some will say, "Oh, if Christ has done all, it does not matter what I do. If it is righteousness without works, then we may walk as we like." The answer is not "That ought not to be," but "That cannot be." For we are speaking of death: I have part in righteousness by death. If the thing is real, I cannot live in what I am dead to, and that makes it impossible. If I live, being dead in this way, it is by being alive to God, in Jesus Christ our Lord.

The question in Romans 6 is the usual objection of the flesh, that sovereign grace seems to allow living in sin. The apostle answers this, not by asserting the law as the Christian's rule as if we were Jews. He answers by declaring that in our very baptism we died with Christ to sin. Buried with Him, we now have to walk in newness of life. He argues, not from a motive, but from the blessed fact of Christ's death and resurrection, in which the baptised profess to have a part.

Here, then, is that principle of deliverance from sin so greatly ridiculed — deliverance from sin by death. Nor shall we find any other deliverance from sin in the word of God. For centuries, many sincere people sought deliverance by fasting and by shutting themselves away in monasteries. Many sincere people now seek it by trying to reach a false perfection of the flesh. But here is the full truth of God — deliverance from sin by death.

Grace took us up at the start — grace is going to glorify us at the end; but we are not yet glorified. What are we going to do in between, since we are the recipients of such grace? Continue in sin? "By no means!"

May we continue in sin, so that His grace may be displayed more richly? Away with such a thought. Here the apostle deals with the wicked charge. He answers it not because the thought is appalling in itself, nor because it slanders the character of God, as in Romans 3:8, but because it contradicts the first principles of Christianity. He does not use a motive drawn from our sense of our Saviour's love. He is not asking here how we could so wound His heart or grieve the Holy Spirit of God.

Later in the chapter the apostle will show how the believer is dead to sin. But at the start he assumes that the only possible attitude for the believer to take towards sin is that he is "dead to sin." So he asks, "How can we who died to sin still live in it?" His question does not suggest that we ought not to live in it. It says that, having died to sin, we cannot live in it. The principle behind his words is plain: we cannot die to something and live in it at the same time.

The matter stands like this. He died FOR our sins, making atonement for them. He died TO sin. Taught by the Spirit, we recognise that we are identified with our great Representative, and faith takes His death as ours. We too, then, are "dead to sin," and cannot go on living in it without contradicting ourselves.

The desired translation is the result of misunderstanding the whole passage. It makes it a motive drawn from a previous evil result and nothing more; whereas it is perfectly certain that the passage is about our dying when we become Christians, not our dying by our sins... the doctrine of the chapter is dying out of our old man and living in newness of life — not our dying by our sin so as to be afraid of living in it now.

Scripture points to death itself as the barrier to sin's activity... Note carefully what the verse says, for people often misunderstand it. They misquote it or misread it. Paul does not say that sin itself is dead. He does not imply that the evil nature has disappeared altogether. It is we ourselves who have died to sin. How then can we go on living in sin? It is a dangerous deceit to think that believers no longer have sin within them.

This settles the matter at once against the so-called perfectionists. Paul is not saying that any believer has the experience of being dead to sin. He is certainly speaking of all Christians, and this is not the universal experience... His words later on are, "consider yourselves dead to sin" (older translations read "reckon"), and that reckoning rests on this: Christ "died to sin, once for all." So it is a reckoning of faith, not an experience.

Here, then, is that principle of deliverance from sin which is so much ridiculed — deliverance from sin by death. We shall not find any other deliverance from sin in the word of God. For centuries many sincere souls sought deliverance by fasting. Many shut themselves away in monasteries. Many sincere souls now seek it by striving after a false perfection of the flesh. But here is the full truth of God — deliverance from sin by death.

A dead man is free, or justified, from sin. I cannot charge a dead man with the evil of his past life. Death has taken him right out of it altogether... Death is the starting point for practice. We are set free as dead to sin, and so the apostle says, "Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions."... I can say to sin now: I am no longer your slave. I belong to someone else. God has set me free from sin and given me a life to yield to Him.

The apostle answers from the starting point of every person who confesses Christ. Not only did He die for our sins, laying us under an infinite obligation, but we died to sin: how then shall we go on living in it? This is the meaning of our baptism. Are you ignorant of so plain a truth? It is not a special blessing that only a few Christians enjoy; it is the common property of all the baptized.

The Greek preposition means "to" or "unto" as often as "into." Which one it is depends on the context, or on the nature of the case. It is impossible to think that the Israelites in 1 Corinthians 10:2 were baptized into Moses; there the word must be "unto."… Baptism is the symbol of profession. Reality depends on faith, and faith might or might not be true of the person baptized… To say "into" therefore goes beyond God's word. It claims for the act a life-giving power that Scripture does not grant and does not allow… Not everyone has faith, and baptism will no more save an unbeliever than a dead faith will.

In the figure of baptism we were identified with the death of Christ. This was so that we might share, here and now, in the position His death gives us in relation to sin and the world. Baptism is a figure of death and burial. It is clear that a dead man has finished with the life of self-will he once lived. And a buried man has passed out of the sight of the world he once lived in.

They were baptized to a Christ who had died to sin, and we are buried with Him by baptism to death. John baptized to a living Messiah on earth; Christian baptism is to a Christ who has died and risen again. This is why the disciples of John in Acts 19 had to be baptized again in the name of the Lord Jesus. He had died and risen, and God had made Him Lord and Christ.

Now baptism is, in one word, dissociation. It is only an outward ordinance, yet it has a meaning, and that is its meaning. It is based on the death and resurrection of Christ, for we are baptized to His death, and so we are "buried with Him." Nothing cuts our links with the world, and separates us from the present order of things, more effectively than death and burial.

Every passage of Scripture that speaks of baptism sets out death, not life. Baptism marks a definite separation from the whole world-system. From now on we count its aims, its pleasures, its politics, its honours and rewards among the "things that lie behind." But are we really prepared for such a clean sweep as this? This is what our baptism means — but do we mean it? It is easy to boast about a correct mode, while in the heart refusing all that baptism stands for.

The one baptism is Christian baptism. It commits us to all that is bound up in the truth of Christ Jesus. It announces our identification with the death of our Lord Jesus Christ in all its bearings, and implies our obligation to walk in newness of life. The water we pass under is a picture of death. Understanding our identification with Christ dead and risen again teaches us that we are no longer free to be under sin's dominion, no longer available for sin's control. He — Christ — lives to God. Every pulse, every movement of His risen manhood is Godward, to accomplish God's will and pleasure.

Is this the conclusion to draw from the gospel of God? May we continue in sin, so that His grace may be displayed more richly? Away with such a thought. The apostle answers this wicked inference, not by showing how evil it is in itself, but by showing that it flatly contradicts Christianity in its first principles. He replies from the starting point of every believer in Christ. Christ did not merely die for our sins, laying us under an infinite obligation; we died to sin. How then shall we go on living in it? This is the meaning of our baptism. It is not some special blessing that only a few Christians have. It is the common property of all the baptized.

He rejects the thought outright and puts it away with another question: "How can we who died to sin still live in it?" Asking it as a question shows how unanswerable he thinks it is. And unanswerable it is, if the premise is taken rightly. If we are dead to sin, then we cannot live in it. That consequence cannot be denied.

Notice, then, that deliverance from sin is not the improvement of self, or of an evil nature — the flesh. Instead, "We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death." We are not baptised to the work of the Spirit in us. We are baptised to His death, who died for us and rose again. So the death that delivers from sin is not a death to sin that we reach by ourselves. It is the death of Christ on the cross, and our identification with it — "buried with him." And notice, there is no thought that baptism gives life. Baptism is to death, and life in the risen Christ is beyond it.

A buried man has died to the scene where he once lived. Now suppose a man goes to his own funeral by his own choice. This is exactly what happens to the believer, and he surely believes he will gain by it. What a loss the believer suffers when he leaves the inner meaning of his baptism out of his daily life!

In relation to God, every attribute of His has been perfectly glorified by the atoning death of our blessed Lord. So the resurrection is said to be "by the glory of the Father." It is as though that glory, which the Son had vindicated and displayed so perfectly, waited for the very first moment at the tomb on the first day of the week. It waited to call the perfect obedient One out from death.

Let us notice the closing words of verse 4, "newness of life," for they give a brief answer to the question the chapter opened with. Instead of continuing in sin, which is in effect continuing to live the old life, we are to walk in a life which is new.

This suggests to me that there is a realm where everything matches the glory of the Father. That is the realm Christ is in. He has been raised from among the dead by the glory of the Father... It suggests to me that if I am walking in newness of life, the goal before me is the glory of the Father.

He does not say we are risen with Him. That would in itself assume full redemption, with life, and a place and condition before God. Here it is practical — a new character of life. We are to walk in newness of life.