Sin's Power is Broken

Opening Summary: Romans Chapters 1–5 (NLT)

Before we dive into Romans chapter 6 today, it’s important that we understand the foundation Paul has laid in the first five chapters. Romans 1–5 is Paul’s powerful explanation of the Gospel — specifically, how sinful human beings can be made right with a holy God.

Let’s walk through it together.

First, Paul introduces the Gospel (Romans 1:1–17) Paul says he is not ashamed of the gospel, because it is “the power of God at work, saving everyone who believes” (1:16). Then he gives us the theme of the entire letter in verse 17:

“This Good News tells us how God makes us right in his sight. This is accomplished from start to finish by faith. As the Scriptures say, ‘It is through faith that a righteous person has life.’” (Romans 1:17 NLT)

Everything that follows flows from this verse.

Second, Paul shows us the bad news (Romans 1:18–3:20) Before we can understand how good the Good News is, we must understand how serious our problem is.

Paul explains that all of humanity is guilty before God.

To the Gentiles (non-Jews), Paul says: You had no Bible, but you had creation and your conscience. Yet you suppressed the truth, worshiped idols, and gave yourselves over to every kind of sin. Therefore, you are without excuse.

To the Jews, Paul says: You have the Law and the Scriptures, but you don’t obey them either. Being Jewish or being circumcised doesn’t automatically make you right with God.

Paul’s devastating conclusion comes in chapter 3:

“For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard.” (Romans 3:23 NLT)

And again:

“No one is righteous — not even one.” (Romans 3:10 NLT)

The Law was never meant to save us. It was given to show us our sin and our desperate need for a Savior.

Third, Paul reveals the good news — Justification by Faith (Romans 3:21–5:21)

This is the heart of the first half of Romans.

Starting in 3:21, Paul shows that God has now made a way for us to be declared righteous — and it has nothing to do with our own efforts. He says:

“We are made right with God by placing our faith in Jesus Christ. And this is true for everyone who believes, no matter who they are. For everyone has sinned… yet now God in his grace declares us not guilty. He does this through Christ Jesus, who sacrificed his life for us.” (Romans 3:22–25 NLT – paraphrased)

Paul uses Abraham as his star witness in chapter 4. Abraham was declared righteous by God before he was circumcised and hundreds of years before the Law was given — simply because he believed God’s promise. This proves that salvation has always been by grace through faith.

Then in chapter 5, Paul lists the incredible benefits we receive when we are justified by faith:

We have (5:1)peace with God

We stand in God’s grace and rejoice in the hope of His glory

We can even rejoice in our sufferings, because God uses them to grow us

God has poured out His love into our hearts through the Holy Spirit

Most amazingly — while we were still sinners and enemies of God, (5:8)Christ died for us

Paul closes this section by comparing Adam and Jesus. Through Adam, sin and death entered the world. But through Jesus’ obedience, grace and righteousness are now available to all who believe.

“Where sin increased, God’s wonderful grace became even more abundant.” (Romans 5:20 NLT)

Summary Statement (to close the opener):

So in Romans 1–5, Paul has clearly shown us two things:

Every single one of us is a sinner who deserves God’s judgment.

God, in His incredible grace, offers us complete forgiveness and a right standing with Him — not because we earned it, but as a free gift received by faith in Jesus Christ.

This brings us perfectly to Romans chapter 6.

Now that we have been declared righteous by faith, the big question becomes: How should we live now? That’s exactly what Paul begins to answer in chapter 6.

1 Well then, should we keep on sinning so that God can show us more and more of his wonderful grace? 

-Paul introduced the idea that where sin abounded, grace abounded much more (Romans 5:20). He now wonders if someone might take this truth to imply that it doesn’t matter if a Christian lives a life of sin, because God will always overcome greater sin with greater grace. (Romans 5:20 God’s law was given so that all people could see how sinful they were. But as people sinned more and more, God’s wonderful grace became more abundant.)

-If God loves sinners, then why worry about sin?  In the early part of the 20th century the Russian monk Gregory Rasputin taught and lived the idea of salvation through repeated experiences of sin and repentance. He believed that because those who sin the most require the most forgiveness, therefore a sinner who continues to sin without restraint enjoys more of God’s grace (when he repents for the moment) than the ordinary sinner. Therefore, Rasputin lived in notorious sin and taught that this was the way to salvation. This is an extreme example of the idea behind Paul’s question “ should we keep on sinning?”

-But in a less extreme way, the question still confronts us. Is the plan of grace “safe”? Won’t people abuse grace? If God’s salvation and approval are given on the basis of faith instead of works, won’t we just say “I believe” and then live any way we please?

-This question being asked here is exactly the false gospel we see preached in the world today. And it is the false faith we see lived by many wo call themselves christians.

-Those who have never experienced the sanctification of grace.

-From a purely natural or secular viewpoint, grace is dangerous. This is why many people don’t really teach or believe in grace and instead emphasize living by law. They believe that if you tell people that God saves and accepts them apart from what they deserve, then they will have no motive to be obedient. In their opinion, you simply can’t keep people on the straight and narrow without a threat from God hanging over their head. If they believe their position in Jesus is settled because of what Jesus did, then the motivation of holy living is gone.

-This is the other side of the coin of a similar false gospel of works (explain).

-BY GRACE THROUGH FAITH ALONE!

-(Fruit bearing) And yet the Bible says you will know them by their fruit.

-Faith in action bears fruit. Faith like Abraham!

-V1 Well then, should we keep on sinning: The verb tense of the phrase keep on sinning (the present active tense) makes it clear that Paul describes the practice of habitual sin. In this first part of Romans 6, Paul writes about someone who remains in a lifestyle of sin, thinking that it is acceptable so that God can show us more and more of his wonderful grace.

2 Of course not! Since we have died to sin, how can we continue to live in it? 

-Of course not! For Paul, the idea that anyone might continue in sin that grace may abound is unthinkable. Of course not! is a strong phrase. It might also be translated, “Perish the thought!” Or, “Away with the notion!”

-Since we have died to sin, how can we continue to live in it? Paul establishes an important principle. When we are born again, when we have believed on Jesus for our salvation, our relationship with sin is permanently changed. We have died to sin. Therefore, if we have died to sin, then we should not live any longer in it. It simply isn’t fitting to live any longer in something you have died to.

We who died to sin: At this point, Paul has much to explain about what exactly he means by died to sin, but the general point is clear – Christians have died to sin, and they should no longer live in it. Before, we were dead in sin (Ephesians 2:1 Once you were dead because of your disobedience and your many sins.); We ere raised to life in Christ, but there was another death that occured.... now we are dead to sin.

-And now we feel that don’t we?...........

3 Or have you forgotten that when we were joined with Christ Jesus in baptism, we joined him in his death? 

4 For we died and were buried with Christ by baptism. And just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glorious power of the Father, now we also may live new lives.

-Or have you forgotten(kjvOr do you not know): The implication is that Paul is dealing with fundamental concepts that every Christian should know.

-When we were joined with Christ Jesus in baptism: The idea behind the ancient Greek word for baptized is “to immerse or overwhelm something.” The Bible uses this idea of being baptized into something in several different ways. When a person is baptized in water, they are immersed or covered over with water.

-When they are baptized with the Holy Spirit (Matthew 3:11, Acts 1:5), they are “immersed” or “covered over” with the Holy Spirit. When they are baptized with suffering (Mark 10:39), they are “immersed” or “covered over” with suffering. Here, Paul refers to being baptized – “immersed” or “covered over” – in Christ Jesus.

-Water baptism (being baptized into Christ) is a dramatization or “acting out” of the believer’s “immersion” or identification with Jesus in His death and resurrection.

-You can see in this and in other references to baptism in Paul’s writings, it is plain that he did not regard baptism as an ‘optional extra’ in the Christian life.

-In vrese 4: Paul also builds on the idea of going under the water as a picture of being buried and coming up from the water as a picture of rising from the dead.

-In this regard, baptism is important as an illustration of spiritual reality, but it does not make that reality come to pass. If someone has not spiritually died and risen with Jesus, all the baptisms in the world will not accomplish it for them.

-Paul’s point is clear: something dramatic and life changing happened in the life of the believer. You can’t die and rise again without it changing your life. The believer has a real (although spiritual) death and resurrection with Jesus Christ.

5 Since we have been united with him in his death, we will also be raised to life as he was. 

-have been united: This expresses a close union. The phrase “exactly expresses the process by which a graft becomes united with the life of a tree… The union is of the closest sort, and life from Christ flows through to him” (Morris). This fits in with Jesus’ picture of abiding from (John 15 the vine).

-i. This close union is both in His death and in His resurrection. God has both experiences for us. Paul expressed a similar idea for his own life in Philippians 3:10-11: that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.

-It seems to me sometimes that we are all too ready to be united together in the glory of resurrection, but we are unwilling to be united together in His death.

-But it can also be too easy for some Christians to focus solely on the “crucified life,” failing to see that it is a part (and an essential part) of a bigger picture: preparation for resurrection life.

6 We know that our old sinful selves were crucified with Christ so that sin might lose its power in our lives. We are no longer slaves to sin. 

-The old man is the self that is patterned after Adam, the part of us deeply ingrained in rebellion against God and His commands.

-The system of law is unable to deal with the old man, because it can only tell the old man what the righteous standard of God is.

-The law tries to reform the old man, to get him to “turn over a new leaf.” But the system of grace understands that the old man can never be reformed. He must be put to death, and for the believer the old man dies with Jesus on the cross.

-In place of the old man, God gives the believer a new man – a self that is instinctively obedient and pleasing to God; this aspect of our person is that which was raised with Christ in His resurrection. The New Testament describes the new man for us.

· The new man, which was created according to God, in righteousness and true holiness (Ephesians 4:24).

· The new man who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of Him who created him (Colossians 3:10).

7 For when we died with Christ we were set free from the power of sin.

-Our slavery to sin can only be broken by death. In the 1960 film Spartacus, Kirk Douglas played the escaped slave Spartacus, who led a brief but widespread slave rebellion in ancient Rome. At one point in the movie Spartacus says: “Death is the only freedom a slave knows. That’s why he is not afraid of it.” We are set free from sin because the old man has died with Jesus on the cross. Now a new man, a free man, lives. 

8 And since we died with Christ, we know we will also live with him. 

9 We are sure of this because Christ was raised from the dead, and he will never die again. Death no longer has any power over him. 

- Since we have already died to sin with Jesus, death no longer has dominion over us. The new man not only has life; he has eternal life.

10 When he died, he died once to break the power of sin. But now that he lives, he lives for the glory of God. 

-But now that he lives, he lives for the glory of God: The new life we are granted isn’t given so we can live unto ourselves. With the new life, he lives for the glory of God. We aren’t dead to sin, free from sin, and given eternal life to live as we please, but to live to please God.

- (Spurgeon)“If God has given to you and to me an entirely new life in Christ, how can that new life spend itself after the fashion of the old life? Shall the spiritual live as the carnal? How can you that were the servants of sin, but have been made free by precious blood, go back to your old slavery?”

 -This change in the life of the one who is born again was understood and predicted as a feature of God’s New Covenant, where because of new hearts our innermost being wants to do God’s will and be slaves to righteousness (Ezekiel 36:26-27  26And I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit in you. I will take out your stony, stubborn heart and give you a tender, responsive heart. 27And I will put my Spirit in you so that you will follow my decrees and be careful to obey my regulations.).

11 So you also should consider yourselves to be dead to the power of sin and alive to God through Christ Jesus.

12 Do not let sin control the way you live; do not give in to sinful desires. 

- The Christian is the one truly set free. The man or woman who isn’t converted yet is free to sin, but they are not free to stop sinning and live righteously, because of the Domination of the old man.

-In Jesus, we are truly set free and are offered the opportunity to obey the natural inclination of the new man – which wants to please God and honor Him.

-This is important, it’s an opportunity........

-12Do not let sin control the way you live: The old man is dead, and there is new life – free from sin – in Jesus. Yet, many Christians never experience this freedom. Because of unbelief, self-reliance, or ignorance, many Christians never live in the freedom Jesus paid for on the cross.

-D. L. Moody Slave story—  This is exactly the place many Christians are. They are, and have been, legally set free from their slavery to sin, yet they are unsure of that truth. The following verses give practical help in living out the freedom Jesus has granted us.

13 Do not let any part of your body become an instrument of evil to serve sin. Instead, give yourselves completely to God, for you were dead, but now you have new life. So use your whole body as an instrument to do what is right for the glory of God. 

14 Sin is no longer your master, for you no longer live under the requirements of the law. Instead, you live under the freedom of God’s grace.

-Do not let any part of your body become an instrument of evil to serve sin. Instead, give yourselves completely to God: A person can be “officially” set free, yet still imprisoned. If a person lives in prison for years, and then is set free, they often still think and act like a prisoner. The habits of freedom aren’t ingrained in their life yet. Here, Paul shows how to build the habits of freedom in the Christian life.

-Do not let any part of your body become an instrument of evil to serve sin: This is the first key to walking in the freedom Jesus won for us. We must not present the parts of our body to the service of sin. The New Living Translation communicates the idea well: Do not let any part of your body become a tool of wickedness, to be used for sinning.

-Do not let any part of your body: Your ears, lips, eyes, hands, mind, and so forth. The idea is very practical: “You have eyes. Do not put them in the service of sin. You have ears. Do not put them in the service of sin.”

-Instruments could be better-translated weapons. The parts of our body are weapons in the battle for right living. When the parts of our body are given over to righteousness, they are weapons for good. When they are given over to sin, they are weapons for evil.

-An example of this is how God used David’s hands to slay Goliath in the cause of righteousness. Later, sin used David’s eyes for unrighteousness when he looked upon Bathsheba.

-Give yourselves completely to God: This is the second key to walking in the freedom Jesus won for us. It isn’t enough to take the weapons away from the service of sin. They must then be enlisted in the service of righteousness – and, as in any warfare, the side with superior weapons usually wins.

-Sin is no longer your master: Spurgeon said that these words give us a test, a promise, and an encouragement.

-It is a test of our claim to be Christians: what has dominion over or lives

- It is a promise of victory. It doesn’t say that “sin will not be present in us,” because that will only be fulfilled when we are resurrected in glory. But it does promise that sin will not have dominion over us because of the great work Jesus did in us when we were born again.

-It is an encouragement for hope and strength in the battle against sin. God hasn’t condemned you under the dominion of sin – He has set you free in Jesus. This is encouragement for the Christian struggling against sin, for the new Christian, and for the backslider.

-You live under the freedom of God’s grace:Under grace: God makes us “safe” for grace by changing us as we receive His grace; He sets us free and equips us to live righteously before Him. Once dead to sin, it is unthinkable to continue our former practice of sin.

-Once the caterpillar has been made a butterfly, the butterfly has no business crawling around on trees and leaves like a caterpillar again.

15 Well then, since God’s grace has set us free from the law, does that mean we can go on sinning? Of course not! 

-Paul has convinced us that a lifestyle of habitual sin is not compatible with one whose life is changed by grace. But what about an occasional sin here and there? If we are under grace and not law, must we be so concerned about a little sin here and there?

-go on sinning: Again, the verb tense of the ancient Greek word sin is important (the aorist active tense). It indicates dabbling in sin, not the continual habitual sin described in the question of Romans 6:1. Again, the verb tense of the ancient Greek word sin is important (the aorist active tense). It indicates dabbling in sin, not the continual habitual sin described in the question of Romans 6:1.: Again, the verb tense of the ancient Greek word sin is important (the aorist active tense). It indicates dabbling in sin, not the continual habitual sin described in the question of Romans 6:1.

16 Don’t you realize that you become the slave of whatever you choose to obey? You can be a slave to sin, which leads to death, or you can choose to obey God, which leads to righteous living. 

17 Thank God! Once you were slaves of sin, but now you wholeheartedly obey this teaching we have given you. 

18 Now you are free from your slavery to sin, and you have become slaves to righteous living.

19 Because of the weakness of your human nature, I am using the illustration of slavery to help you understand all this. Previously, you let yourselves be slaves to impurity and lawlessness, which led ever deeper into sin. Now you must give yourselves to be slaves to righteous living so that you will become holy.

20 When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the obligation to do right. 

21 And what was the result? You are now ashamed of the things you used to do, things that end in eternal doom. 

22 But now you are free from the power of sin and have become slaves of God. Now you do those things that lead to holiness and result in eternal life. 

23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord.