“...the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth.”
– 1 Timothy 3:15

| Home | About Us | Archive | Articles | Directory/Churches | Links | News | Youth |

>> Archive >> The Romans Series

7. DIED TO SIN

The big argument that Paul has made thus far is that the law (as known to the Jews) cannot bring righteousness to anyone since its whole effect is to make sin a glaring stand-out. However, because of God’s graciousness, a righteousness, removed from the law, is made available to all who will come to God through faith in Jesus Christ (3:20-21). To make his point clearer, the apostle declares that sin (or, trespass) actually increases because of the introduction of the law; but where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more (5:20). What the good apostle probably wants to mean by his statement is that the law is constrictive. In contrast, grace flows freely. God’s grace knows no bounds and it is able to impart its undeserved favour of ‘righteousness credited’ even to the vilest of sinners who may find faith in Jesus Christ.

Yet Paul recognizes that his statement ‘where sin increased, grace increased all the more’ (5:20) may be misunderstood, or, even taken advantage of, by certain quarters in the Roman church to live a life of dissolution on the excuse that their sinning ways actually help to churn out more grace from God. To avoid this, the apostle asks rhetorically: ‘Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase?’ and emphatically answers his own question with a strong ‘By no means!’ (6:1,2a).

Paul makes it crystal clear that sin must no longer have a place in Christians’ lives. ‘We died to sin’ (6:2) is how he puts it. He then offers a theological treatment of how a Christian ‘died to sin’. He points out to the Romans that when they were baptized into Jesus Christ, they were baptized into his death (v. 3). Some commentators have argued that when Paul refers to baptism in this passage of scripture, he has in mind pagan ritual ablutions of his time. This is rather startling. Why would Paul use a pagan practice to teach a Christian doctrine? Besides, Paul did not let the word ‘baptize’ stand on its own. It is baptized into Jesus Christ - a clear reference to the Christian practice of baptism ‘in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit’ (Matt. 28:19; cf. Acts 2:38). Moreover, Paul had experienced this baptism himself (see Acts 9:18; 22:16). Thus Paul could not be thinking of pagan washings when he wrote Romans 6. It is the Christian baptism with its rich spiritual significances that Paul had in mind.

Let us get back on track. Paul is explaining how a Christian ‘died to sin’ and therefore should no longer live in sin. A Christian is baptized into Jesus Christ; he is baptized into the death of Jesus. He dies with Christ (Rom. 6:8) and is buried with him. He is then raised (as Christ was raised) to live a new life when he comes up and out of the water of baptism (v. 4). All these are not purely symbolic, but are actual play-outs in real time of the spiritual motions that God intends for each believer to experience. They are the power and the grace of God to save and to justify each sinner who resolves to follow Jesus Christ.

We have not hit at the core of Paul’s theology on ‘died to sin’ quite as yet. We need to do that now. Aside from linking baptism to the death and resurrection of Jesus, Paul also intends to impress upon his readers that they too had experienced a death of their own when they were baptized into Christ. In that one moment of being under the water in baptism, the believer goes through a crucifixion with Christ. His ‘body of sin’, ‘the old self’, is crucified and dies. This is Paul’s language of ‘died to sin’. The ‘body of sin’ is the old sinful person which is ‘senseless, faithless, heartless, [and] ruthless’; depraved, wicked, evil; full of greed, envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice; insolent, arrogant, and boastful: it can only think of ways to do evil (see 1:28-32). It is this ‘body’ which is crucified with Christ; died and buried with Christ. It is therefore dead. It has ‘died to sin’. The body that comes out of the water of baptism is a new body, a body renewed by the Holy Spirit (Paul will discuss this renewing work of the Holy Spirit in chapter 8; but see also Titus 3:5); raised to ‘live a new life’ (6:4). Freed from the ‘law of sin’ (7:25) and released from the law of ‘the written code’ (7:6), the new body comes under and serves ‘the new way of the Spirit’ (7:6). Therefore, it is contrary to the grace of God if the baptised believer were to go back to his old ways of living in sin.

Having seen Paul’s theology of ‘died to sin’, it is pertinent to make one observation of the present time. I believe there are many modern believers who in the enthusiasm of hearing the gospel and in the eagerness of wanting to be saved (or, go to heaven) were baptized all too promptly. But they had not quite figured out this ‘died to sin’ aspect of their new found faith. They had embraced salvation and grace but they never quite personalised the ethics of living the new life. All too often, they would go back to their ‘old self’, thinking ‘salvation’ was all they need. Such believers remain carnal in body and spirit. As one writer (Roy Laurin) puts it: ‘The carnal Christian has a Savior but not a Lord...He is on the right side of the cross but on the wrong side of the throne’. In Paul’s language, he has not ‘died to sin’.

Archive
The Romans Series
1. Being the Community of God’s People
2. Ethno-Religious Tensions
3. The Power and the Wrath of God
4. Justification by Faith
5. Justification Brings Blessings
6. While We Were Still Sinners
7. Died to Sin
8. Slaves to Righteousness
9. The Difference of the Spirit
10. The Israel Problem
11. The Gentile Problem
12. Community Living
13. Community Unity
14. Community Ethics
15. Loving the Enemy Ethic
16. Extra-Community Ethics
17. The Weak and the Strong
18. Community Formation
19. Paul, the Minister
20. Gems in Greetings

Articles on The Da Vinci Code, Gnosticism and
the Gospel of Judas
1. The Da Vinci Code: A Christian Response
2. The Nag Hammadi Documents and Gnosticism
3. The Gospel of Judas
4. The Gospel of Judas - A Retake
5. Teachings in the Gospel of Judas Compared (Part 1)
6. Teachings in the Gospel of Judas Compared (Part 2)
7. Teachings in the Gospel of Judas Compared (Part 3)
8. Canonicity and the Gospel of Judas

| Home | About Us | Archive | Articles | Directory/Churches | Links | News | Youth |

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this page may be reproduced, in any form or by any means,
without permission, oral or written, from the Church of Christ, Seremban, Malaysia.