Death to Sin
Lesson 10 Notes: Romans 6:1-11
“In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.” (Romans 6:11)
Who are you? How you define yourself when you first meet people often reveals who you believe yourself to be. Some people define themselves by their family name or position within the community. Others choose ethnicity or special interests to distinguish themselves and establish a connection with others. Many describe themselves by their work, family roles, or achievements. Unfortunately, people also define themselves and others in less favorable ways: failure, loser, disappointment, degenerate, hopeless. Almost without thinking, we strive to preserve what positively characterizes us and redefine what does not. Can people change who they are any more than a leopard can change its spots? Perhaps our true identity rests on something deeper than observable characteristics and shifting circumstances. Who or what decides our identity? Does a truly objective perspective exist?
As Romans 6 opens, Paul plunges into proclaiming the power of God’s righteousness, which transforms a believer’s identity. In Adam, sin dominates all people. However, faith in Christ and the justification He secures permanently redefine people. Paul taught that God alone decides who people are based on their relationship to Him. In Christ, sin no longer directs lives, perspectives, plans, and priorities. A believer’s new identity in Christ frees them from sin’s power. Having been freed from sin, we respond in love for God and gratitude for Jesus.
As Paul concluded his contrast of Adam’s sin and Jesus’s sacrifice in Romans 5, he introduced the complicated relationship between sin and grace. Mercifully, Paul offered further instructions to clarify salvation’s implications for those who believe. As we study Romans 6 and 7, we join Paul and the faithful Romans in wrestling with sin’s role in a believer’s life. While God’s moral standards remain central in the life of a flourishing believer, Paul explained that sin cannot be defeated by either ignoring or following the law.1 Only Jesus’s death and resurrection can defeat sin.
New Identity – Romans 6:1-4
Believers live in the glorious reality of who they have become in Christ. Paul used baptism to illustrate how Christ’s followers fully participate by faith in His death, burial, and resurrection. A believer’s union with Christ changes everything about their life today and forever.
“What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase?” Paul’s opening questions reflect his rhetorical style from Romans 3.2 Paul’s teaching that God saves by grace apart from works3 may have led some Gentile believers to justify participation in the idolatrous Greco-Roman culture around them. Meanwhile, Jewish believers, who had defined their identity by God’s law, likely wondered if God’s increasing grace would encourage increasing sin. Paul clearly declared that faith in Jesus upholds rather than nullifies the law.4
Paul emphatically answered his proposed question with a literary shout: “By no means!” His insistent tone reflected his belief in God’s miraculous power to curb sinful appetites apart from the law. He went on to say, “We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?” Paul did not say, “Following God’s commands keeps us from sinning,” although that is true. Instead, Paul presented the gospel’s radical power. While sin dominates and dictates the lives of unbelievers, Jesus defines and renews the lives of believers. Once believers were in Adam; now they are in Christ.5 In Jesus, believers have a new destiny and identity apart from sin.
Paul’s Grammar – Paul’s repetition of the word “we” emphasizes the distinction he was drawing. Believers with a new identity in Christ are different than unbelievers, who are still in Adam—a believer’s former state. Paul also used the word “died” to reveal a completed action. Paul did not say here, “We are dying to sin” or “We are continuing to die to sin.” Nor did he say, “We shall die to sin.” The death to sin that defines believers was eternally accomplished when Jesus died more than two thousand years ago.
Possible Views – In what sense have believers died to sin? Many have pondered this mystery since Paul originally penned his letter. Thoughtfully considering various views helps us better understand why and how we live holy lives—dead to sin. Each view listed below contains a basic idea with positive points and problems.
God’s work in believers’ hearts and lives remains a partial mystery. Our finite minds cannot grasp the vastness of His truth. Our inability to fully capture a believer’s complicated relationship with sin does not diminish the glorious truth that God plainly sees: Believers “are those who have died to sin.” We are called to consider ourselves dead to sin on an ongoing basis in thought, word, and deed. We are freed from sin’s rule and guilt, empowered by the Spirit to live for Christ.
Paul referenced baptism, a familiar practice for all Jewish and Gentile believers, to help explain their new relationship to sin.13 Water baptism originated in Israel’s exodus from Egypt. In 1 Corinthians, Paul says that when God brought the Israelites through the Red Sea, “they were all baptized into Moses.” This meant God joined them to Moses—their mediator before God, who led them to freedom.14 Through Moses, God brought the Israelites out from slavery in Egypt.15
Although water is powerless to change people, in baptism it symbolizes the Holy Spirit’s work uniting believers with Christ. When believers are “baptized into Christ Jesus” by faith, the Spirit permanently joins them to Christ—the Mediator reconciling believers to God.16 Believers were once in Adam. Now, they have a new, permanent spiritual presence in Christ; where He is, they are.17 Water baptism symbolizes a believer’s inner spiritual “change of address.” Believers may sin, but spiritually, believers do not and cannot live in Adam any longer. Christians have been delivered from slavery in sin’s kingdom into Christ’s kingdom, where grace reigns.
A believer’s union with Christ blends heaven with earth. How could the one true God of the universe dare to stoop and become one with His people? But He did, and He does; all who believe are in Christ. Although we cannot fully comprehend this wonderful gift, the Bible offers helpful illustrations in addition to baptism. The vine and the branches show that believers bear fruit because Jesus works in and through them.18 The Lord’s Supper displays the spiritual reality that Jesus’s life sustains us.19 Paul helped early Christians understand that marriage between a man and a woman illustrates Jesus’s loving, sacrificial, eternal bond with His Church.20
Paul deepened readers’ grasp of this powerful, divine reality by explaining that through the Holy Spirit, God joins believers to Christ in every way. Believers are identified with Christ in His life, death, burial, and resurrection. Paul repeated his emphasis on death with these statements: “All of us who were baptized ... into his death ... were therefore buried with him through baptism into death.” Baptism portrays a believer’s death to sin through forgiveness, burial with Christ, and resurrection to new life in God-given righteousness.
What point was Paul trying to make for his readers? Until we bury a dead body, the decaying corpse remains part of our lives in some ways. Burial fully and permanently separates the dead from the living. While death and burial may seem negative, burial in this context means that the believer’s death to sin is final. Believers are dead to sin and united to Christ. To go back to sin would be like digging up a dead body. A believer’s absolute death to sin paves the way forward: “Just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.”
New Power – Romans 6:5-10
Verses 5-10 unfold the truth that for Christians, resurrection and life follow death. In verse 5, Paul asserted that believers are united with Christ’s death and resurrection. In verses 6-10, he further explained his assertion.
Building on verse 4, Paul highlighted the cause-and-effect relationship of sharing in Christ’s death. “If we have been united with him in a death like his,” something miraculous results: “We will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his.” Christ’s resurrection and the power to live a new life transform a believer’s reality. Union with Christ in His death frees believers from sin’s absolute control.
Imagine this truth’s impact on believers of Paul’s day. Jewish believers would have been freed from battling sin through rule following. Gentile believers would have been freed from their culture’s habitual rebellion against God. If Christ is your Savior, then you have died to sin in Him. Your ultimate victory over sin is certain: “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.”
Once again, understanding Paul’s terms highlights God’s power at work. The “old self” is the old, unsaved life, the whole self that believers once were in Adam—their former identity. For all who are united to Christ, that old self is gone forever—dead and buried.21 “The body ruled by sin” is different than the old self. This phrase likely refers to every Christian’s continuing bias toward sin.22 In this context, this phrase may also acknowledge that until the day our bodies die a natural death, they may behave sinfully as an “instrument of wickedness.”23 Because a believer’s former identity was crucified with Christ, their ongoing bias toward sin can be overcome through Christ’s resurrection power.
A believer’s union with Christ guarantees a remarkable reality: “We will also live with him.” Paul’s words include a believer’s future resurrection into eternal life and a foretaste of resurrection life here and now. Through His death and resurrection, Jesus passed forever from the world where death reigned. He lives and reigns in resurrection life, now and forever. Similarly, God has brought believers out from under death’s reign and into the reign of grace—into a present resurrection in Christ.24 In his letter to the Philippians, Paul expressed his desire for this present victory over sin: “I want to know Christ ... [and] the power of his resurrection.” 25
Sin’s inescapable presence impacts all who live on earth. While still in Adam, people are powerless to resist sin’s temptation.26 While alive on earth, Jesus also lived in relationship to sin, but He was not powerless against it. He suffered sin’s temptation for us without ever yielding to sin.27 When Jesus died for our sin and rose from the dead, He triumphed over sin and death forever—securing our victory over the same. Paul wrote, “Since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him.” Believers share this victory through union with Christ.
The words “died (or dead) to sin” occur three times in Romans 6; twice these words describe believers,28 and once they point to Jesus.29 Because Paul chose to repeat this phrase within the same flow of thought, we can compare a believer’s death to sin with Christ’s death to sin. In verse 10, Paul did not say Jesus died for sin, but He died to sin—the exact phrase used about believers. Jesus’s relationship to sin is finished forever because “he died to sin once for all.” A believer’s relationship to sin is finished in Christ.
The writer John Stott compared the lives of Christians to a two-volume biography. He wrote, “Volume one is the story of ... the old self, of me before my conversion. Volume two is the story of ... the new self, of me after I was made a new creation in Christ. Volume one of my biography ended with the judicial death of the old self. I was a sinner. I deserved to die. I did die. I received my [just punishment] in my Substitute with whom I have become one. Volume two of my biography opened with my resurrection. My old life [has] finished, a new life to God has begun.”30
Sin Rendered Powerless
Salvation in Jesus frees believers from sin,1 securing an entirely new quality of life that begins now and extends forever. 2 Jesus saves believers from the penalty, or punishment, their sin deserves—erasing sin’s guilt and shame. Jesus also saves believers from sin’s power and control, which are often coated in fleeting and enticing pleasure. One day, Jesus’s reign on the restored earth will save His children from every trace of sin’s presence in His creation. In salvation by grace through faith, the Holy Spirit’s power cancels sin’s allure, exposes its destructiveness, and emancipates believers to reject sin’s downward pull.
Paul’s assertion that believers died to sin helps us understand God’s heart in salvation. When God saves people, He does more than ensure their eternity in heaven. God takes believers out of Adam and places them in Christ, demolishing our present bias toward sin. He delivers us from sin’s slave-like rule over our will, emotions, and behaviors. Through a believer’s union with Christ in His death and resurrection, the death-producing sinful life in Adam has ended. God’s glorious power through Christ has brought believers into a new life of righteousness for eternity.
If we believe salvation only includes sin’s punishment being satisfied on the cross, we forfeit the freedom Christ secured from sin’s persistent and ravenous power. If Jesus did not defeat sin’s power to rule us, then no hope exists for righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit as part of God’s spiritual kingdom today.3 Without hope, people accept sin’s temptations as an inevitable defeat rather than an opportunity to participate in Jesus’s victory—already won on our behalf.
Believing the good news that Jesus has already won every believer’s battle with sin—past, present, and future—ignites gratitude and increasing determination to shake off sin’s grip. Believers will still sin, but sin’s slavery and the old, sin-loving self are gone forever. To remain in sin is unthinkable when destined for an eternity without it. From the moment of salvation, sinless Jesus securely anchors believers’ most authentic identity. If you believe in Jesus Christ, rejoice; His victory has changed your identity forever! The mighty Holy Spirit stands ready to enable you to resist sin and live in Christ.
New Understanding – Romans 6:11
The compounding truths of Paul’s letter climax in his first command. While Paul later wrote about specific behaviors of those who have died to sin, verse 11 targets what Christians think and believe: “In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.” With this verse, the tone and mood of Paul’s letter shifts to explaining how believing people live day-by-day in response to the gospel’s truth.
With the words “In the same way,” Paul connected this first command with a believer’s new reality in Christ. Jesus is believers’ new spiritual address and identity. Where He is, they are; what He is, they are—dead to sin and alive to God. While unable to fully grasp this incomprehensible truth, countless Christians have believed what God declares and enjoyed freedom from sin and a relationship with their loving God.
Paul next addressed believers’ thinking and beliefs with the Greek word logizomai, translated as “count,” “credit,” “consider,” or “reckon.” In mathematics, counting verifies concrete reality and has nothing to do with wishful thinking. Earthly bank balances confirm this reality. God demonstrates logizomai in action. In chapter 4, Paul used “count” or “credit” 11 times, explaining how God justifies the ungodly through faith.31 God does not count believers’ sins against them.32 Paul commanded the Roman Christians and believers today to accept what God declares as true.
Paul’s command did not end with believers counting themselves dead to sin. He included another life-altering reality believers must reckon as true: “Count yourselves ... alive to God.” In the gospel’s great exchange, God has counted our sins against His beloved Son and punished them there.33 God then credits Christ’s perfect righteousness to believers.34 The trajectory of a believer’s salvation remains secure because these facts are true: Jesus really died for our sin, suffering for our transgression. God really does transfer His Son’s perfect righteousness to all who believe.
Those whom God counts as righteous in Christ enjoy a new life and fellowship with Him—now alive to God. From this point forward, Paul discussed the characteristics of an abundant life lived to God. But first, God calls all believers to count as true what is in fact true. Believers’ union with Christ undergirds God’s loving and ongoing sanctification and growth as they walk on earth toward eternity. A completely new relationship to sin changes the way God’s children think and live. A believer’s new identity in Christ frees them from sin’s power.
Take to Heart
Paul offered believers God’s perspective on their new identity in Christ. Sin no longer characterizes or enslaves believers. Through their union with Christ, believers have died to sin. While temptations remain, the old self and sin’s irresistible draw are buried with Christ. In Christ, believers can enjoy resurrection-empowered lives through the indwelling Holy Spirit. Union with Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection overwrites a believer’s past identity.
With Jesus’s invitation for believers to live in Him by faith, sin permanently loses its power to determine their destinies. Through Christ, believers are saved from sin’s eternal death penalty and present power to destroy life. A believer’s new life begins with accepting what God has declared true of them. With unrivaled authority, Creator God declares believers righteous, united to Christ, dead to sin, and alive to Him in Christ Jesus. These truths form sanctification’s solid foundation.
If you are a believer, Paul’s command is for you: Consider yourself dead to sin and alive to God. In Christ, you died to everything that defined you before your conversion. That former identity is buried and gone forever. However, we still live in a sin-driven world. Satan wields a perspective of our past, present, and future potential that seeks to define us. But God, your Creator, overrules every opinion and defines you through your relationship with His Son. Whether you view your old self fondly or with regret, rejoice that striving to measure up to God’s righteous standard is over and your consistent failure to do so is erased from your record. What do you believe to be true about who you are? Does your identity come from yourself, others, or God? How can you nourish your identity in Christ with God’s true Word this week?
What does your attitude toward sin show that you believe about the gospel? Do you look forward to a consequence-free eternity while embracing, excusing, or even cherishing sin today? Sin cannot destroy God’s saving purpose to transform believers into the likeness of His Son.35 However, God’s Word warns that if we continue carelessly and unrepentantly in willful sin, it may be a sign our faith is not genuine.36 Will you take this opportunity to examine yourself and your faith? Why make excuses for sin that brings you guilt and shame when you could run to Jesus, whose grace overpowers sin’s rule? God restores the repentant and never crushes those who struggle.37
Because believers still feel temptation’s pull, many doubt their new identity in Christ. At some point, most Christians ask, “What if I go back to sin?” If your weakness frightens you, know Christ is stronger than sin’s hold on you. Your identity is now in Him, and you cannot return wholeheartedly to sin. Every time you experience conviction over sin, your new identity in Christ is confirmed. You can sin. You do sin. But sin now collides with who you are in Jesus. Where are you experiencing conflict between your new identity and sin’s lingering allure? Rejoice in this evidence of your position in Christ! Be encouraged! How does the truth that you are united to Christ’s death and resurrection power help you count yourself dead to that sin and alive to God?
1. Law’s limitations: Romans 6–7
2. Rhetorical questions: Romans 3:1, 3, 5, 7, 8
3. Grace proclaimed: Romans 5:20-21
4. Faith upholds law: Romans 3:31
5. Adam’s sin, Christ’s gift: Romans 5:12-21
6. Our sinfulness: 1 John 1:8–2:1
7. Paul’s commands: Romans 6:11-13
8. Sanctification: 2 Corinthians 6:14-18; Galatians 5:16-26
9. Believers and sin: Romans 6:6; 2 Corinthians 5:17
10. Put sin to death: Romans 8:13; Colossians 3:5
11. Resisting temptation: 1 Corinthians 10:12-13
12. Christ’s reign: Romans 5:12-21; Colossians 1:13
13. Believers’ baptism: Matthew 28:18-20
14. Joined to Moses: 1 Corinthians 10:1-2
15. Israel’s deliverance: Exodus 12–14
16. Jesus, the Mediator: 1 Timothy 2:5
17. Adam versus Christ: Romans 5:12-21
18. Bearing fruit: John 15:1-16; Romans 11:17-21; Galatians 5:22-23
19. Lord’s Supper: Matthew 26:26-28
20. Christ and His Church: Ephesians 5:22-32; Revelation 19:7-8; 21:9–22:5
21. Old self: Ephesians 4:22-24; Colossians 2:11-15; 3:9-10
22. Sinful nature: Romans 8:12-14
23. Instruments of wickedness: Romans 6:13
24. Reigning grace: Romans 5:21; Colossians 1:12-13
25. Power of resurrection: Philippians 3:10-14
26. All sinned: Romans 5:12
27. Jesus sinless: Matthew 4:1-11; Hebrews 4:15; 5:8-9
28. Believers died to sin: Romans 6:2, 11
29. Jesus died to sin: Romans 6:10
30. John R. W. Stott, Men Made New: An Exposition of Romans 5–8 (InterVarsity Press, 1966), 49.
31. Justified through faith: Romans 3:21-26; 4:5
32. Sins not counted: Psalms 32:2; 130:3-4; Isaiah 43:25; Acts 22:16
33. Sin’s punishment: John 3:16; Romans 8:32
34. Righteousness credited: 2 Corinthians 5:21
35. Saving purpose: Romans 8:29; Philippians 1:6; 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24; 1 John 3:2
36. Warning: Matthew 7:21-23; 1 Corinthians 6:7-11
37. God restores: Matthew 11:28-30; 12:20
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