Romans 6

==Romans 6:1==
1What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?
Paul continues his thought concerning saving grace from the last chapter. His rhetorical question asks the assumption that many made from the idea that God’s grace (Christ and his teachings) are more powerful than sin (Adam’s and everyone’s). If Grace is so much more powerful, we should be able to just go out and sin as we please because Grace will cover it. 
This is the very implication of eternal security, that no matter what a person does after they have been saved, they cannot exit that saved state.
==Romans 6:2==
2God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?
Paul answers the question by saying essentially “absolutely not!”. Those that are dead to sin should not live any longer in sin. It is important to note that Paul is not saying “cannot” live any longer therein. Its not about ability. 
1 John 1:6 teaches that Christians can turn to walk in darkness again. 
James 5:19-20 says that brethren (Christians) can be in need of being saved from sin and spiritual death again. 
He is saying they should not live in sin. The other point is that Paul is speaking of continuing in sin, living in sin. This is the walking, the constant action. He is not denying that Christians ever sin again, or that they are incapable of sinning. Paul is saying that Christians, saved by the Grace of God, should not then turn around and go back to walk in darkness (a moot point for Calvinists).
==Romans 6:3==
3Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death?
There is no other way for a human to get “into Jesus Christ”, into his body, the church, than through NT immersion. It is at the point of immersion that we are immersed into His death and come into contact with His blood. All of the other parts are essential and prerequisite to immersion (hearing, belief, repentance, confession), but it is the actual immersion that puts us into Christ, into the body of the save, into the church.
==Romans 6:4==
4Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.
Paul then says that the conclusion of the point (in verse 3) is that we are buried with him by immersion into spiritual death (obviously our physical/natural self does not die when we are baptized). It is a burial, an immersion, so that like Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of God the Father, we are also resurrected, returned to life again, made a new creature, reborn. This is the spiritual rebirth by water Jesus spoke of in John 3:3,5.
==Romans 6:5==
5For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection:
Our immersion is a figure or symbol of Christ’s death. It is not ALSO a figure or symbol of our salvation for symbols cannot point to two realities or have two meanings else they mean anything and nothing at all. Paul says NT immersion represents Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection.
This is a conditional statement. IF we have been planted (immersed or buried as a seed), we shall be raised (a new life). The implication of the opposite is true as well: if you are not immersed, you are not raised to new life. This is the answer to the silly argument anti-immersion folks bring concerning Mark 16:16b. “It doesn’t say if you are not immersed you won’t be saved, it just says if you don’t believe.” The argument is inane to begin with because of the affirmative conditions of the first part of the verse (belief + immersion = saved), and since faith is a prerequisite of immersion, of course if you don’t believe, immersion doesn’t even come into the picture. But in Romans 6:5, Paul is considering only immersion and the negation of the premise that is a conditional statement says that if you are not immersed, you do not get saved.
==Romans 6:6==
6Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.
This is something the Christians at Rome knew. It is a basic teaching. In immersion, our old sinful self is crucified, destroyed, killed in order that we no longer serve sin. It no longer has dominion over us because now we have constant access to the blood of Christ.
==Romans 6:7==
7For he that is dead is freed from sin.
Much like marriage, till death do you part. Once death to sin comes, we are no longer bound to it according to God’s law and it does not rule our destiny any longer.
==Romans 6:8==
8Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him:
Here is faith in what God said immersion does. If we believe that in immersion we are dead with Christ, and we believe that Christ was raised from the dead, we must also believe that rising up out of that watery grave, we are resurrected to new life. Those of you who don’t believe immersion actually does anything, don’t believe we are resurrected with Christ by implication.
==Romans 6:9==
9Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over him.
The church at Rome also knew that death had no power over Christ after He rose form the dead. Death could not hold Him.
==Romans 6:10==
10For in that he died, he died unto sin once: but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God.
Christ only needed to die once to be the propitiation for all sins for all time. In His resurrection and new life Christ shows the power of God and His life is the Father’s.
==Romans 6:11==
11Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.
So they, like Christ, died and death has no more dominion over him, the Christians at Rome had died to sin once and it had no more dominion over them. Now they live for God through Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection. This is the same as Galatians 2:20 where Paul says, “I am crucified with Christ nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ, liveth in me, and the life that I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.”
==Romans 6:12==
12Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof.
Paul then admonishes them that since they are dead to sin and it has no more dominion over them, they were not to return to sin as a master once more. This verse has no meaning in the eternal security paradigm.
==Romans 6:13==
13Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God.
Remember that Paul is talking to Christians. In dying to sin they were servants of God. Yet he admonishes them not to yield to sin (a command that can be followed). It is like Jesus telling the prostitute “go and sin no more”. We can mature as Christians to the point that we can fulfill this command.
==Romans 6:14==
14For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace.
The law of Moses could only condemn. It had no means to actually justify once a person had sinned. Under the New Law, the gospel, the unearned gift that God gave to us, we can truly be free from sin. (Rom. 8:3; Heb. 10:1-4) Look especially at Heb. 10:1-4. The writer there also refers to “the law” and contextually, again, we know that it must be the law of Moses. You MUST understand this point if you are to have any hope of understanding the book of Romans.
==Romans 6:15==
15What then? shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid.
The common eisegesis of this passage is to say that Christians are not under any law but under God’s favor. The true exogesis of this passage though is to understand that Paul is asking that since we are under a system now that can actually forgive sins instead of the old, flawed one that could not, should we just go ahead and sin because God will cover it? The Calvinist implicitly answers yes to this by teaching that there is nothing one can do to lose your salvation, that there are no eternal consequences for continuing to live in sin or turning back to a life of sin, to walk in darkness.
Paul says God forbid.
==Romans 6:16==
16Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?
A devastating verse to the idea of Once Saved Always Saved. Paul is talking TO Christians here. He tells them that whomever they, as Christians, yield themselves to obey, they are slaves to whom they obey. There are only two options. They, as Christians, can continue to obey God, willfully enslaved to righteousness, or they, as Christians, can yield themselves to sin again and die spiritually once more.
Essentially Paul is saying that God requires our continued obedience, our continued walk in the light, if the blood of Christ is going to continually cleanse us. We must continue to obey to remain in that saved state. I didn’t come up with this, God did.
This verse also implies free will on the part of the individual. We choose whom we serve else this verse and the rest like it have no meaning.
==Romans 6:17-18==
17But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you.18Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness.
Paul then thanks God because the Christians at Rome had been servants of sin, but they OBEYED. That’s work to you faith only people. They obeyed from the heart that form or pattern of doctrine that he just got finished talking about. ConFORMing to Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection. That is the template, the pattern we must follow.
What happened when they obeyed? They were set free from sin at that moment (then) and became servants of righteousness. Not before, but when they obeyed.
# Tell me obedience to the gospel is not required for salvation from sin.
# Tell me how one obeys the command to be immersed in the Holy Spirit.
==Romans 6:19==
19I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh: for as ye have yielded your members servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity; even so now yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness.
Because of the limitations of mortal men, Paul is using terms they can understand. The relationship of slave to master is one they were likely personally familiar with, or at least culturally so. He tells them that as they had in the past yielded themselves to sin, now he commands them to yield to righteousness and purity. This command has no meaning if once they are saved they cannot be lost again.
==Romans 6:20==
20For when ye were the servants of sin, ye were free from righteousness.
I’ve always liked the implication Paul draws from what he is teaching. If being free from sin made us servants of righteousness, being servants of sin makes us free from righteousness. A Christian CAN turn to walk in darkness (1 John 1:6) and die spiritually once more (James 5:19-20) and so loose their salvation.
==Romans 6:21==
21What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed? for the end of those things is death.
Paul then asks them what did they really have to show for the life of sinned they lived. Sin is the cause, spiritual death the only effect of consequence.
==Romans 6:22==
22But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life.
Now that they have been made free from sin through their obedience (vs. 17-18 in context), they became servants of God. When? When they first had faith? No. Faith only enables one to become a child of God (John 1:12), it does not actually make one a child of God in and of itself. They became servants of God, children of God, when they did all that God commanded them to, to be saved. That culminates at the point of NT immersion. To deny this, is to deny Romans 6.
When they became slaves to God by their free will choice, they had something of value to show for it, the immediate result of their faithful obedience to God’s grace is salvation. The end result (fruit), however, is God’s gift of everlasting life.
This of course shows decisively that salvation and eternal life are distinct concepts.
==Romans 6:23==
23For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Then he contrasts the two masters and what one receives from the master they choose to obey:
# They can choose sin as a master and earn spiritual death.
# They can choose the kind and loving master to obey, God, who gives His servants eternal life which is granted because Jesus Christ, our Lord and King, was raised from the dead to die no more.
One point more I'd like to make here is about eternal life and grace. Many folk have come to this verse when I state that salvation is not a gift, usually when I'm explaining Biblical grace to them. They say that grace is God's gift and eternal life is God's gift therefore eternal life is grace, ergo salvation is a gift. There are some problem with this reasoning.
First of all, which comes first, grace or being in Christ Jesus? Grace has appeared unto all men (Titus 2:11) so it comes before we are in Christ. When we are immersed into Christ, we find all spiritual blessings (Romans 6:3; Gal. 3:26-27; Eph. 1:3) including eternal life. Eternal life is that which we had before sin separated us from God. My kids, currently all very young, have eternal life already. They've never sinned. Since they've never been lost, they aren't subject to being saved. It's therefore logical to conclude that eternal life and salvation are not the same concept. Neither are grace and eternal life.
Eternal life follows grace, follows salvation. Salvation is not a gift. Grace is the plan of salvation including Jesus and the New Testament. They are all separate.
In Truth and Love.Category:Apocalyptic
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