The Two Halves of Romans 6
What then? Shall we sin because we are not under the law but under grace? By no means! Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? …
I put this in human terms because you are weak in your natural selves. Just as you used to offer the parts of your body in slavery to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer them in slavery to righteousness leading to holiness. Romans 6:15,16,19
The opening verse ‘Shall we sin because we are not under the law but under grace?’ (6:15) parallels verse 1, ‘Shall we go on sinning that grace may increase?’ The latter question (6:1) was sparked by what Paul said in 5:20 about the power of grace (‘the law was added so that the trespass might increase. But where sin increased, grace increased all the more’). The former question, which is the one before us now, (6:15) was stimulated by what he just said at the end of 5:14 (‘you are not under law, but under grace’). Proclaiming that believers have been transferred from the regime of the Mosaic law to the regime of grace may lead some Christians to think that sin doesn’t matter. The same question is being asked in both verses, whether grace sanctions sin or even encourages it. In each case Paul answers with the same, ‘By no means!’ (6:2,15).
How are the two halves of Romans 6 different then? Although he develops the same argument that freedom to sin is incompatible with the Christian life, Paul describes this in terms of our being united with Christ in 6:3-14 and of our being enslaved to Christ in 6:16-23.
A second difference between the two halves is how these changes came about. The emphasis in the first is on what was done to us (we were united to Christ) while the emphasis in the second is on what we did (we offered ourselves to God to obey Him). The first is essentially passive and relates to our baptism (we were baptised) while the second is active and relates to our ‘conversion’ (we turned from sin to God).
What Paul does in the first half of the chapter is to draw out the logic of our baptism while in the second he draws out the logic of our conversion. He begins both sections with ‘Don’t you know’ (6:2,15).
Because through baptism we were united to Christ and so are dead to sin and alive to God, how can we possibly live in sin? Because through conversion we offered ourselves to God to be His slaves and so are committed to obedience, how can we possibly claim freedom to sin?