Union With Christ in His Death and Resurrection
What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptised into Christ Jesus were baptised into his death? 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. Romans 6:1-4
How has Paul so far described God’s people? Having been justified by faith, they are standing in grace and rejoicing in glory. Having formerly belonged to Adam, the author of sin and death, they now belong to Christ, the author of salvation and life. Although the adding of the law had the consequence of increasing sin (5:20), ‘grace increased all the more’ (5:20) so that ‘grace might reign’ (5:21). Against the background of human guilt Paul sees grace increasing and reigning.
Paul immediately anticipates how this truth can be misunderstood, ‘What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase?’ (6:1). If a person can be made right with God by faith alone, then what need is there to live in obedience to God? If the law led to an increase in sin and God met this with an increase of grace, then we should increase our sin to give God the opportunity to increase grace by forgiving. Paul’s gospel of free grace seemed to encourage lawlessness by promising sinners the best of both worlds: free indulgence in this world with no fear of forfeiting the next.
Paul’s answer is that God’s grace not only forgives sin but actually delivers the Christian from sinning. Grace does more than justify; it also sanctifies. It unites us to Christ (6:1-14) and brings us into slavery to righteousness (6:15-23).
God has decisively changed the believer’s position in relationship to sin. Paul portrays sin as a power or master that exercises control over people and he uses the same imagery to declare our freedom, no longer ‘slaves to sin’ (6:6) but ‘slaves’ to God and righteousness (6:17-22). Sin is no longer our ‘master’ (6:14).
In eight systematic steps Paul will outline his defence against the charge of antinomianism, the charge that he is against there being any constraint on our lives from moral law.
Step 1: we died to sin (6:2)
Step 2: how we died to sin was through our being united with Christ in
His death as portrayed in our baptism (6:3)
Step 3: having shared in Christ’s death, we now also share in His
resurrection (6:4,5)
Step 4: our former self was crucified with Christ so that we might be
freed from sin’s slavery (6:6,7)
Step 5: both the death and resurrection of Christ were decisive events:
He died to sin once for all and lives continually before God (6:8-10)
Step 6: we are now what Christ is: ‘dead to sin but alive to God’ (6:11)
Step 7: being alive from death we must now offer our bodies to God as
instruments of righteousness (6:12,13)
Step 8: sin shall not be our master because our position has radically
changed from being ‘under law’ to being ‘under grace.’ Grace
does not encourage sin; it outlaws it (6:14)
You might like to re-read these eight steps, taking a moment to let the truth of each sink in. Grace never opens the door to license. We are not under the law but we likewise are not about to allow ourselves to be brought back under the dominion of sin. We are united with Christ in His death and resurrection. As He is, so we are – dead to sin but alive to God.