Romans — Chapter 6

Authorship & Background

Deep Dive

Setting: Paul is still writing from Corinth around AD 57 to the believers in Rome, a mixed church of Jews and Gentiles that included slaves, freed slaves and free citizens (several names in Romans 16 were common slave names). Chapter 5 ended on a high note: "where sin increased, grace abounded all the more" (5:20). Paul knows how that sounds. Some were already twisting his message into "let us do evil that good may come" (3:8). Chapter 6 answers the objection twice, in two parallel rounds (vv1 and 15), each opening with a question and the same flat refusal. His answer is not "grace has limits." It is that grace has joined believers to Christ, and that union changes who they are and whom they serve.

Dead to Sin, Alive to Christ (vv1–14)

• "Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound?" (v1). The question grows straight out of 5:20. If more sin means more grace, why not sin more? The verb pictures staying on, remaining in sin as a settled way of life.
• "By no means!" (v2). The Greek mē genoito is Paul's strongest refusal, roughly "May it never be!" He uses it to reject false conclusions drawn from his teaching (3:4, 6, 31).
• "How can we who died to sin still live in it?" (v2). This is the thesis of the chapter. The verb "died" points to a past event, done and finished. Paul does not say believers should die to sin, or that sin has died in them, but that they have died to it. The Tyndale notes are careful here: being dead to sin does not mean a believer no longer feels temptation, since Paul goes on to command a fight against sin (vv12–14). It means believers are no longer helpless slaves to it. Death changes a person's relationship to everything that ruled them in life.
• "Baptized into Christ Jesus… baptized into his death" (v3). "Baptize" (baptizō) means to dip, plunge or immerse, and in ordinary Greek it could describe a sinking ship or a person overwhelmed. "Into" (eis) marks entry into a new belonging, as Israel was "baptized into Moses" at the sea (1 Cor 10:2). Baptism places a person into Christ, and so into everything that happened to him, starting with his death. The Tyndale notes add that in the New Testament baptism often stands for the whole event of conversion (Acts 2:38, 41), and that it has no value apart from faith.
• "Buried therefore with him by baptism into death" (v4). Burial proves a death is real (1 Cor 15:3–4), and baptism is pictured as the believer's burial with Christ. Immersion, common in the early church, makes the picture vivid: down as into a grave, up as from a tomb. Colossians 2:12 uses the same image.
• How traditions read vv3–4. Catholic, Orthodox and Lutheran teaching, with many Anglicans, read baptism as a means God uses to unite a person to Christ, received by faith. Reformed teaching sees baptism as a sign and seal of union with Christ, closely joined to the reality but not the cause of it. Baptists and many evangelicals see it as the believer's public testimony to a union already received by faith, which is why they baptize believers only. A minority take "baptized" here as the Spirit's work of joining believers to Christ (1 Cor 12:13), with water only in the background. All agree on Paul's main point: what matters is real union with Christ, and that union makes continuing in sin a contradiction.
• "Walk in newness of life" (v4). "Walk" is the regular Hebrew picture for a way of living (Ps 1:1). "Newness" (kainotēs) means freshness, a new quality of life, not merely more of the old. Paul uses it once more, "the new way of the Spirit" (7:6).
• "United with him in a death like his" (v5). "United" (symphytos) appears only here in the New Testament. It comes from a verb meaning to grow together, and the lexicon gives "grown along with, united with." The picture is organic, two things growing as one, like a branch grafted into a vine. "A death like his" is careful wording: believers do not die on a cross, but they share in the reality of his death.
• "We shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his" (v5). The future tense points to bodily resurrection when Christ returns, as the Tyndale notes take it. Elsewhere Paul can also say believers are already raised with Christ spiritually (Eph 2:5–6; Col 3:1). Both are true: a new life now, and a resurrected body later.
• "Our old self was crucified with him" (v6). Literally "our old man" (palaios anthrōpos). The Tyndale notes explain that this is not one part of a person, such as a bad nature living alongside a good one. It is the whole person as they were "in Adam," under the reign of sin and death described in 5:12–21. That person died with Christ (Gal 2:20). Compare Ephesians 4:22 and Colossians 3:9, where the old self is "put off."
• "That the body of sin might be brought to nothing" (v6). "Brought to nothing" (katargeō) means to make idle, render inoperative, put out of action. It does not mean annihilated. The "body of sin" is most likely the person in their bodily life as sin once used it, not the physical body as something evil in itself. The goal is spelled out: "so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin."
• "One who has died has been set free from sin" (v7). The ESV footnote gives the Greek literally: "has been justified from sin." The verb is dikaioō, the same word used throughout chapters 3–5 for God's declaring people righteous, and the lexicon lists this verse under that legal sense. The idea is a legal release. A dead person is beyond the reach of a former master's claims, much as a later rabbinic saying held that the dead are free from the commandments. Death settles the account, and in Christ, that death has happened.
• "We believe that we will also live with him" (v8). The pattern of v5 again. 2 Timothy 2:11 may echo an early saying built on it: "If we have died with him, we will also live with him."
• "Death no longer has dominion over him" (v9). "Has dominion" (kyrieuō) means to be lord or master over. Lazarus was raised only to die again; Christ was raised never to die.
• "He died to sin, once for all" (v10). Christ never sinned (2 Cor 5:21; Heb 4:15). The Tyndale notes explain that he "died to sin" in the sense that he entered a world where sin held power, bore its penalty, and left its realm forever. "Once for all" (ephapax) is the word Hebrews uses for Christ's single, unrepeatable sacrifice (Heb 7:27; 9:12; 10:10). His death will never need to happen again, and neither will the believer's death to sin.
• "Consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God" (v11). This is the first command in the chapter, and it comes only after ten verses of facts. "Consider" (logizomai) is the verb translated "counted" in 4:3, where Abraham's faith "was counted to him as righteousness." It means to reckon, to calculate, to treat as true. Believers are not told to make themselves dead to sin, but to count on what God says has already happened "in Christ Jesus."
• "Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body" (v12). "Reign" picks up the two kings of 5:21, sin reigning in death and grace reigning through righteousness. Sin has been dethroned, but it still tries to give orders. "Mortal body" is a reminder that believers still live in bodies that will die and still feel desires pulling the wrong way. "Therefore" ties the command to the facts of vv1–11.
• "Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness" (v13). "Members" means the parts of the body: hands, eyes, tongue, feet. "Present" (paristēmi) is to place at someone's disposal, the same verb as 12:1, "present your bodies as a living sacrifice." "Instruments" (hoplon) can mean a tool or a weapon, and the ESV footnote offers "weapons." In the plural it is usually military, "the armor of light" (13:12) or "weapons of righteousness" (2 Cor 6:7), so many readers hear a soldier reporting for duty.
• "Sin will have no dominion over you" (v14). The same verb as v9. Sin will no more lord it over believers than death lords it over the risen Christ.
• "Not under law but under grace" (v14). The Tyndale notes read this as a change of era. With Christ's coming, the period ruled by the law of Moses came to an end (Gal 3:19–25), and grace now rules the age believers live in, though God was always gracious (John 1:17). Others take "under law" more personally, as trying to stand before God by law-keeping. Either way, the law could command but could not free, while grace both forgives and empowers.
• How traditions read vv6–14. The nature of sanctification, growing in holiness, is where Christians differ. Reformed teaching sees a once-for-all break with sin's reign at conversion, then lifelong, progressive growth, with sin fought but never fully gone in this life. Lutheran teaching stresses that the believer is "at the same time righteous and a sinner," returning daily to baptism by repentance. Wesleyan and Holiness traditions hold that grace can bring a believer to "entire sanctification," a heart made perfect in love, though not free from mistakes or temptation. Keswick or "higher life" teaching treats v11 as a decisive act of faith that steps into a life of victory. All agree that Paul expects real change, that the power comes from union with Christ, not from willpower, and that the fight with sin is real.
• Commentators: Guzik and JFB both stress that "died to sin" (v2) is a completed fact, and JFB says the new creature's instincts recoil from the very thought of sinning so grace may abound. Matthew Henry reads it as dead to sin "in profession and in obligation." On baptism, Guzik insists the rite dramatizes a spiritual reality and cannot produce it without faith. JFB says the mode "is not of much consequence" and puts the stress on what baptism signifies. Henry sees baptism as binding believers to Christ's death, so that continuing in sin contradicts what it professes. On v6 JFB defines the old man as "all that we were in our old unregenerate condition," in line with the Tyndale notes. Henry calls crucifixion "a sure death, long in expiring, but expired at last." On v7 JFB renders "freed" as "acquitted," matching the lexicon's legal sense of dikaioō. On v5 Guzik uses the picture of a graft, and the lexicon's "grown along with" supports that kind of organic image. Guzik calls "reckon" (v11) an accounting word, which fits the lexicon's core sense of counting and calculating. He also reads "instruments" (v13) as "weapons." The lexicon lists this verse under "tool, instrument," though the ESV footnote allows "weapons," so the military picture is possible but not certain. On v14, Henry: "Sin may struggle in a believer, and may create him a great deal of trouble, but it shall not have dominion."

Slaves to Righteousness (vv15–23)

• "Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace?" (v15). The second objection grows out of v14 as the first grew out of 5:20. If the law no longer rules, is anything forbidden? The verb tense differs from v1. There the question was about continuing in sin. Here it is about sinning at all, even now and then. The answer is the same: "By no means!"
• "You are slaves of the one whom you obey" (v16). Slavery was everywhere in the Roman world. Many scholars estimate that a third or more of the population of the city of Rome were slaves or former slaves, and some of the letter's first hearers would have been slaves themselves. No one is truly independent. The only question is which master, sin "which leads to death," or obedience "which leads to righteousness." The ESV uses "slave" for the Greek doulos, a word that ranges from a household servant to a slave in the full sense. Jesus said the same (John 8:34).
• "Righteousness" (v16). The Tyndale notes point out a shift: in chapters 1–5 dikaiosynē mostly meant the right standing God gives; here it carries its Old Testament sense of right living.
• "Thanks be to God… obedient from the heart" (v17). Paul thanks God, not the Romans, for their change of masters. And the obedience is not grudging outward compliance but comes from inside, the new heart promised in Jeremiah 31:33 and Ezekiel 36:26–27.
• "The standard of teaching to which you were committed" (v17). "Standard" is typos, the same word as "type" in 5:14. It meant the mark left by a blow, an impression, a stamp, a form. The gospel teaching is pictured as a pattern that presses its shape on those who receive it. Notice the direction: the teaching was not handed over to them. They were "committed," handed over, to it. The verb is often used of transferring someone into another's control. Believers have been transferred to a new master, and his teaching shapes them.
• "Having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness" (v18). The paradox is deliberate. The way out of slavery to sin is not self-rule but a good master. Biblical freedom is belonging to the right one.
• "I am speaking in human terms" (v19). Paul almost apologizes for the slavery picture, since serving God is not degrading bondage, but it makes the point plain. The ESV footnote gives the Greek literally as "because of the weakness of your flesh." The Tyndale notes explain that sarx ("flesh") here means human weakness and the tendency to sin.
• "Lawlessness leading to more lawlessness" (v19). Sin grows. Each yielding makes the next easier. Holiness grows the same way in the other direction.
• "Righteousness leading to sanctification" (v19). "Sanctification" (hagiasmos) can mean the state of being holy, but the lexicon notes that as a verbal noun it properly describes the process of being made holy. Here it is where the road of righteous living leads, step by step. The same word appears in v22.
• "Free in regard to righteousness" (v20). The irony is plain: the old life was "free," but only from righteousness. The Tyndale notes suggest Paul means either that unbelievers feel no obligation to obey God or that they are unable to.
• "What fruit were you getting at that time?" (v21). Paul asks the Romans to look back honestly. Sin delivered things they are "now ashamed" of. "The end of those things is death." The Tyndale notes explain that throughout chapters 5–8, "death" is more than physical dying. It goes back to God's warning in Genesis 2:17 and means separation from God, which lasts forever unless faith in Christ reverses it.
• "But now" (v22). These two words mark the turn, as in 3:21, "But now the righteousness of God has been manifested." The order is clear: set free, made slaves of God, bearing fruit, growing in holiness, and at the end, "eternal life."
• "The wages of sin is death" (v23). "Wages" (opsōnion) originally meant provisions or ration-money, the regular pay given to soldiers (Luke 3:14; 1 Cor 9:7). Sin is pictured as a commander who pays his troops exactly what they have earned. Death is what sin has earned (Gen 2:17; Ezek 18:20; Jas 1:15).
• "But the free gift of God is eternal life" (v23). Paul breaks the pattern on purpose. Sin pays wages, but God does not. Life is a charisma, a free gift of grace, the same word as "the free gift" in 5:15–16. No one earns eternal life by serving God well. It is given "in Christ Jesus our Lord," the same full title that closed chapter 5 (5:21).
• Commentators: All three see v15 as v1's abuse of grace in a new form. Henry: "Some perhaps might suck poison out of this flower, and disingenuously use this as an encouragement to sin." Guzik draws a contrast between the present tense in v1, which he reads as habitual sin, and the aorist tense in v15, which he reads as occasional acts. The tenses are as he says, but many grammarians warn that the aorist by itself does not mean "occasional," so the point is better drawn from context than from the grammar. On v17, Guzik (following Adam Clarke) and JFB both picture the teaching as a mold into which believers are poured, JFB rendering it "cast, as in a mould." The lexicon's sense of typos as an impression or stamp supports that image. On v21 Henry writes that "the present pleasure and profit of sin do not deserve to be called fruit," and asks, "Who would wilfully do that which sooner or later he is sure to be ashamed of?" On v23 Guzik notes that God pays no wages but gives far more as a gift. JFB insists eternal life "is in no sense or degree the wages of our righteousness." Henry puts it most sharply: "Sinners merit hell, but saints do not merit heaven," and "the death is the wages of sin, it comes by desert; but the life is a gift, it comes by favour."

Pointing to Christ

Romans 6 is about union with Christ. Everything Paul says about the believer first happened to Jesus. He died, was buried, was raised by the Father's glory, and now lives to God, never to die again. Those joined to him by faith share that story: their old self crucified with him, their old master's claims settled, their lives now pointed toward God. Holiness is not something grace leaves for believers to achieve alone. It flows from belonging to the risen Lord. The chapter ends where the whole gospel rests: sin pays its wages in death, but God gives life freely, "in Christ Jesus our Lord."

Commentary

• Enduring Word (David Guzik): enduringword.com Guzik examines the objection to grace, union with Christ in death and resurrection, the command to reckon, and the two masters.
• Jamieson-Fausset-Brown (1871): blueletterbible.org A critical and explanatory commentary on the whole Bible, more concise than Matthew Henry and closer to the Hebrew and Greek, with attention to historical and geographical detail. Public domain.
• Matthew Henry's Exposition (1710): blueletterbible.org A devotional verse-by-verse commentary in the Puritan tradition, still among the most widely read three centuries on. Public domain.

Videos

Articles

• Crossway: crossway.org On the whole letter: why Romans has carried the weight it has in church history.
• Crossway: crossway.org Why Paul's own story of being overtaken by grace is the right way into the letter.
• GotQuestions.org: gotquestions.org On the whole book: an overview of the book of Romans -- who wrote it, when, why, and how it fits the rest of Scripture.

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Reflection

• Grace Doesn't License Sin (vv.1-2) — Paul rejects the idea that more sin means more grace, since believers have died to sin's rule. Does your view of grace produce gratitude and change, or a quiet excuse to keep sinning?
• The Old Self Was Crucified (v.6) — Paul says the person we were apart from Christ was put to death with Him, breaking sin's claim on us. Are you living out of that new identity, or still thinking and acting like your old self?
• Reckon Yourself Dead to Sin (v.11) — Paul commands believers to actively consider themselves dead to sin's authority and alive to God. Do you live like someone whose chains are actually off, or like a freed prisoner who forgot the door is open?
• Not Under Law but Under Grace (vv.13-14) — Paul explains that sin no longer has to rule believers because they now live under grace rather than law. How might grace actually motivate you toward holiness more than fear of breaking rules does?
• Whoever You Obey, You Serve (v.16) — Paul points out that everyone is a servant to whatever they consistently yield themselves to, whether sin or obedience. Looking honestly at your daily choices, who are you actually serving?
• Wages Versus a Gift (v.23) — Paul closes the chapter by contrasting sin's payout of death with God's gift of eternal life through Christ. Which economy do your everyday decisions reflect right now?