Death and Life with Christ[a]
Chapter 6
Baptized in Christ Jesus.[b] 1 What then shall we say? Should we persist in sin in order that grace may abound? 2 Of course not! We have died to sin. How can we live in it any longer? 3 Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 Through that baptism into his death we were buried with him, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father,[c] so we too might begin to live a new life.
5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall also be united with him in his resurrection. 6 We know that our old[d] self was crucified with him, so that our sinful body might be destroyed and we might no longer be enslaved to sin. 7 For whoever has died has been freed from sin.
8 However, if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him.[e] 9 We know that Christ, once raised from the dead, will never die again. Death no longer has power over him. 10 When he died, he died to sin once and for all. However, the life he lives, he lives for God. 11 In the same way, you must regard yourselves as being dead to sin and alive for God in Christ Jesus.
12 Therefore, do not allow sin to reign over your mortal body and make you obey its desires. 13 Nor should you present any part of your body as an instrument for wickedness leading to sin. Rather, present yourselves to God as having been raised from death to life and the parts of your body to God as instruments for righteousness. 14 For sin is no longer to have any power over you, since you are not under the Law but under grace.
15 A Slave of Righteousness. What then? Should we sin because we are not under the Law but under grace? Of course not! 16 Do you not know that if you offer yourself as an obedient slave, you are the slave of the one you obey—either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?
17 Once you were slaves of sin, but, thanks be to God, you have become obedient in your heart to that pattern of teaching to which you have been delivered. 18 Now, having been set free from sin, you have become slaves of righteousness.
19 I am speaking in human terms because you are still weak human beings. For just as you once offered your bodies as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to greater iniquity, so now present them as slaves to righteousness for sanctification.
20 When you were slaves of sin, you were free from the restraints of righteousness. 21 But what advantage did you get then from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. 22 However, now that you have been freed from sin and bound to the service of God, the benefit you receive is sanctification, and the end is eternal life. 23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift freely given by God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Footnotes
- Romans 6:1 Salvation is grace that transcends sin and the power of human beings or even of the Law. This passage urges us to reflect on the meaning of Baptism in the life of a Christian.
- Romans 6:1 In the History of Salvation, there is a unique event: the Death and Resurrection of Jesus; it is the departure for a new life. Through Baptism, the believer enters into this experience of Christ and shares its power. Baptism inaugurates a newness of life that will be brought to completion in the future.
- Romans 6:4 Glory of the Father: God who reveals his power and holiness.
- Romans 6:6 The adjective old has a precise meaning for Paul: it describes the reality of a sinful world that is closed against the new life that has its source in Christ (see 1 Cor 5:7-8; 2 Cor 3:14); the old self and the sinful body signify the human being as marked by sin (Gal 3:26-29).
- Romans 6:8 In the experience of Christ, resurrection followed upon death; hence, believers who die with Christ are raised to a new quality of moral life. This resurrection is already a fact, and it exerts itself more and more in the life of believers.