Romans 6 Studies

For those who may wish to ‘study’ this chapter, the following simple resources are provided for you. Each chapter is divided into a number of studies and each study or passage has a simple four-Part, verse-by-verse approach, to help you take in and think further about what you have read.

Passage: Rom 6:1-4

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.

A. Find Out:

1. What supposed question was Paul now facing? v.1
2. Why was the answer to that negative? v.2
3. How do we share with Jesus? v.3
4. Into what were we buried? v.4a
5. What follows on from that? v.4b

B. Think:

1. What is the main point Paul was making?
2. Look up 1 Corinthians 12:13a and 2 Corinthians 5:17. What is our position today? 

C. Comment:

We come to a difficult passage that has often caused confusion. Note first the main point that Paul is making against those who would say, “Well it’s all right to carry on sinning then!”. His response to that is not that we oughtn’t to, but that our position stops it! In asserting this he first says, “We died to sin”. Note the past tense.

“When did it happen?” we might ask. The answer comes quickly, when we were baptized into Christ. The Scriptures talk of Christians being “in Christ”, part of a mystical body united by the Holy Spirit. Paul also says we are “baptized into his death”. In the Greek language the word “baptism” was used of vessels being immersed in liquid, or of cloth being immersed when it was being dyed. It really means to go down into, or in this context to go into and share in, so we share in Christ’s death.

How? Well, when we came to him we had to die to self and surrender our lives to him, just as he did when he went to the Cross. We died to the past. There is a sense, therefore, where we live in a permanent attitude of death to self and death to the old past life. It is in this attitude, this environment if you like, that there is no room for sin. In the environment of death sin has no place. But that, we’ll soon see, is not all there is to it, that is not the end!

D. Application?

1. When I came to Jesus I gave up the past life of self, I died to it.
2. In this life now I am free from the power of sin.

Passage: Rom 6:5-10

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, 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.

A. Find Out:    

1. In what 2 ways are we united with Christ? v.5,8
2. What happened to our old self? v.6a
3. What effect has that had? v.6b
4. What does death do? v.7
5. What was the first effect of the resurrection? v.9
6. What was its second effect? v.10

B. Think:

1. How is unity with Christ essential to Paul’s argument here?
2. Why are we freed from the power of sin?

C. Comment:

Remember Paul’s main point in this section is that we have died to sin. His point now is that for the Christian, resurrection always follows death. He clarifies the point about death by saying, “our old self was crucified with him”. This may be considered in three ways. First, that in coming to Christ we laid down our old self and gave it up to him. Second, Christ died for the punishment that our old godless self deserved, he carried our sin in his body at his death. Third, there is a sense that, because we are “in Him” or “in Christ” we are now part of his body, and what the body has experienced, we experienced.

The emphasis here is that because we have died, sin no longer holds sway over us. Once a body dies physically, the affairs of the world have no effect upon it. Similarly, if we have died to the old self, it no longer has power to lead us into sin.

But we also share something of Christ’s resurrection life. Once Christ died and rose again, death no longer had power over him, and not only that the sin activity of the world about him no longer affected him. His life was now totally God conscious. The inference is obvious. If we died as we have been considering, the resurrection life we receive from Him means that we are now living in a different dimension and the old power of sin can no longer pull us.

D. Application?

1. Christ’s life is mine. Galatians 2:20
2. Sin does NOT have power over this sort of life!

Passage: Rom 6:11-14

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.

A. Find Out:

1. How are we to consider ourselves? v.11
2. What are we not to let happen? v.12
3. What aren’t we to do? v.13a
4. What are we to do instead? v.13b
5. Why is sin not to be our master? v.14

B. Think:

1. How is behaviour to follow understanding?
2. What is the negative aspect of this passage?
3. What is the very positive aspect of it?

C. Comment:

Christianity is very positive! People who say it is all “You mustn’t” have never read the apostle Paul. Having first said our position is one of death to the old life, he says “Be positive, count yourself, or consider yourself, dead to sin”, i.e. consider that sin has no effect upon you. This means that it can no longer rule or dominate you, so you rule over it! Indeed don’t give your body any opportunity to be involved with sin. That was all the past life, the life when you were living by rules and regulations, that is in the past so consider it past.

Now let’s come to the even more positive side of it. You are now “alive to God” through Jesus Christ, you now have access to the presence of God, to the experience of Him. Give yourself to Him, offer your body to be used by Him. You are under grace, under the rule of His love, so simply receive all His blessings.

Note also that we have to believe our position and act upon it. When we start to act in that way we will find our position is true, we ARE dead to (the power of) sin and we’ll also find that we ARE alive to God. It’s when we actually start to live like this that we’ll realise it IS true. The Bible tells us that this IS our position, but we won’t know it until we seek to prove it. Let’s do it!

D. Application?

1. As a Christian, I am dead to sin and alive to God and I must reject Satan’s lies to the contrary.
2. Wow, I don’t HAVE to do wrong!

Passage: Rom 6:15-23

15 What then? Shall we sin because we are not under the law but under grace? By no means! 16 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? 17 But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you have come to obey from your heart the pattern of teaching that has now claimed your allegiance. 18 You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.

19 I am using an example from everyday life because of your human limitations. Just as you used to offer yourselves as slaves to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer yourselves as slaves to righteousness leading to holiness. 20 When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness. 21 What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death! 22 But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. 23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

A. Find Out:

1. What supposed question does Paul now address? v.15
2. To whom do you become a slave? v.16a
3. What are the two possibilities? v.16b
4. What have we become? v.18
5. What are we to do with our bodies? v.19
6. In what had the old life resulted? v.20,21
7. What does the new life result in? v.23

B. Think:

1. What two sorts of life are contrasted?
2. What are the consequences of each?

C. Comment:

Paul now takes another question that might be raised, “Can we sin now we’re not under the law?”. Paul’s answer to that could perhaps be put, “Do you really want to when you think about it?”

First, he says if you give yourself to someone to obey them you are their slave, you are under their rule. Now, he says, you either give yourself to sin (if that’s what you really want) or you give yourself to obedience to God, it’s one or the other. You used to give yourself to sin but you left that to be obedient to God. The two lifestyles are mutually exclusive, you can have one OR the other, but not both.

Right, he continues, think of it in terms of what you do in a practical way. Previously you gave your lives to impurity and wickedness but now you give them over to acts of righteousness (again you can’t do both at the same time, they’re mutually exclusive!).

Lastly he gets them to consider the results of these two opposite lifestyles. The first produced death (which is separation from God). The second produces righteousness (being on right standing with God), holiness (separation to God and definitely different), and eternal life (the life of God’s presence in us and with us for ever).

D. Application?

1. Sin and obedience to God are mutually exclusive, I can’t do them both.   
2. I need to commit myself to one or the other.