Romans 6: 1-14 Preaching Outline

Summary: Christians who have experienced the end of sin’s power have the duty to recognize this fact, and present themselves as slaves of righteousness who do not let sin reign in their bodies.

Intro: We should not continue sinning for the purpose of grace abounding. (v1)

Preceding Context: The First Adam brings death, the last Adam brings righteousness. The Law comes in so that sin abounds but grace increases where sin does. Grace reigns through righteousness to eternal life. This ties in to the end of the chapter, but we will be focusing more on Paul’s explanation for our response to sin given this historical fact that grace happened to increase

We don’t continue sinning because we died concerning the sin nature and therefore it would be impossible to live to it. (verse 2)

Death will be shown later to refer to the sin nature’s power being nullified.

Furthermore, we don’t continue sinning because those who are identified with Jesus are identified with His death (v3).

There are two key truths Paul develops.

Truth 1: Our sin nature is identified into death for the purpose of leading us to live a Godly life. (vv4-7

Baptism is the means by which we are buried (v4)

Baptism here refers to an identification with Jesus (literal meaing of “planted with”, v5).

A “dry baptism” rather than a wet baptism as one called it. It is figuratively a baptism, not a literal baptism in water.

The purpose is that we would live as a new man simiilarly to Jesus (v4)

There is frequent reference to the condition of Christ after He was resurrected in this passage.

It seems that there is a view here of a goal to live a perfect life like Jesus does now.

The point is that those who experience a death like His will also experience a life like His. (v5)

This does not mean that every Christian automatically lives a perfect life, let alone a Christ-like life.

The burial spoken of is a crucifixion of the old man (vv6-7)

The result of this burial is the nullification of the sin nature (v6), though not removed.

The purpose for this, as you might expect, is that we would never server it again. (v6)

Furthermore, this can be so because we are freed from sin. (v7)

A quick note--the word translated “freed” is the same word for “justified”, referring to our being declared righteous. But this normal meaning doesn’t fit here, and the sense of being freed or vindicated is seen elsewhere and therefore Paul had good reason to

Truth 2: The one who dies with Christ will live with Him (vv8-9)

Verse 8

Heb 2:9, and the one who had power of the devil, Heb 2:14.

THis living is a reference to the resurrected life.

The ground for the application to us is that Jesus Himself dies no more (v9a)

Death indeed has no dominion over Jesus, and therefore the one who has died with Him experiences the same.

Jesus never dies again

He also lives a perfect and resurrection live.

Conclusion: Never Let Sin Reign and Present Ourselves as Servants of Righteousness (vv10-13)

The believer must reckon Himself (vv10-11)

Jesus died to sin only once, and now lives unto God (v10).

It seems reasonable to understand that “lives unto God” is a positional truth as we see the command to reckon this to be truth of us, not make it truth by living Godly on a day to day basiss.

Like Jesus, we must account ourselves to be dead like Jesus and alive unto God (v11).

This is like Eph. 1:4 “Seated in the heavenlies”, It calls us to believe in realities we cannot see, but are nonetheless real and revealed by Scripture as Paul has just explained.

The point of this reckoning leads to two points

We cannot let sin reign in our bodies while we live on this earth. (v12)

If we do, we will follow the lusts of our sin nature.

We also cannot ever present ourselves as instruments of lawlessness to sin (v13)

Rather, we must present our members as what we are -- living from the dead.

And we must also present our members as instruments of righteousness.

We are to just believe what God says about us as being dead to sin and living to God. Then, we are to take on a positive and negative approach. We do not let our sin reign in our lives—by saying no. We also present ourselves to what is right.

Rom 12:1-2 is a good parallel verse commanding this very same thing.

This happens by cultivating our devotional life of being in relationship to God and

“Sin shall not have dominon over you for you are not under the lawb ut under grace.” Being under law leads to bondage due to our sin. Being under grace enables us to be in a position to serve God. Lets do that today.