Step 5: Christ is Dead to Sin But Alive to God
Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. Romans 6:8-10
The act of baptism involves the Christian in dying and rising with the Messiah. When people submit to Christian baptism, they die with Christ and are raised with Him into a new life. This means, first and foremost, a change of status. We are no longer located ‘in sin’; grace has met us there to rescue us and take us into a new realm. Paul uses the image of planting. Once we’ve been planted in a particular soil, that’s where we must grow. Baptism pictures that we were planted into the death of Jesus so that we can now live as a renewed human being, planted also in His resurrection life.
Paul is explaining our new status in eight steps:
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)
We come now to the next step:
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)
6:6,7 explained the implications of Christ’s death for us, that our former self was crucified with Him. 6:8-10 now explain the implications of Christ’s resurrection for us – that we will live with Him. ‘Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him’ (6:8). The verb ‘will live’ could refer to sharing Christ’s life now or sharing His resurrection on the last day. In Paul’s thinking the two are rarely separated (e.g. 8:10).
The guarantee of the continuing nature of our new life, beginning now and lasting forever, is Christ’s resurrection. ‘For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again’ (6:9). Jesus was not resuscitated; He was resurrected, raised to a completely new plane of living, from which there is no return. ‘Death no longer has mastery over him’ (6:9). Jesus has passed beyond death’s jurisdiction forever. ‘I am the Living One; I was dead, and behold I am alive forever and ever´ (Revelation 1:18). Paul then summarises Jesus’ death and resurrection, ’The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God’ (6:10). Although Jesus’ death and resurrection belong together, there are some major differences between the two. There is a difference of time (the past event of death, the present experience of life), of nature (he died to sin bearing its penalty, but lives to God seeking His glory) and of quality (the death ‘once for all,’ the resurrection life continues). These differences not only help us understand Christ’s work, but also discipleship, which by our union with Christ begins with a once-for-all death to sin but continues with an unending life of service to God.
Imagine your life divided into two books. The first book covers your whole life from birth up until the moment before your conversion and the second from your conversion on until the present. As we begin to read the second book, we find it opens with you being united to Christ. Your old self died with Christ to sin. Sin’s penalty was carried and completed by the Saviour. At the same time you rose again with Christ as a completely new person, to live a new life to God. You died with Christ (6:6,7). You rose with Christ (6:8,9). Your old life terminated with the judicial death it deserved and your new life began with a resurrection. Which book are you reading from? Don’t ever go back to the first. Don’t even open its pages. Only the second book describes your present life. Take hold of its truths and live in them.