Romans 6:1-14
Receive (vv. 1-10)
- Understand that you have been crucified with Christ
- Understand that you have been resurrected with Christ
- Understand that you are both dead and alive
Believe (v. 11)
- Internalize that you are dead to sin
- Integrate your life as risen with Christ
Achieve (vv. 12-14)
- A choice
- A challenge
- A change
More to consider
Paul opposed the prevalent idea (which some espouse even today) of antinomianism. That is, since God saves people by grace (5:21), it does not matter how people live. Paul found this idea abhorrent—completely inconsistent with salvation’s purpose, which is to produce holy lives. The result of entering into Christ should be victory over sin—ultimately but also presently. This mandates every effort to counter sin’s effects in a believer’s life. Ted Cabal et al., The Apologetics Study Bible: Real Questions, Straight Answers, Stronger Faith (Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers, 2007), 1688.
Paul argued that it would be a perversion of grace to argue that since grace results in freedom and [grace] increases where sin increases, people should continue in sin so that grace can abound. Paul contended that those who have been justified by Christ have died to the power of sin, which no longer has enslaving power. Believers have been identified (“baptized”) with the death and resurrection of Christ, the source of their spiritual life. Since believers are dead to sin and its power, they must realize they have new life in Christ and not yield themselves to unrighteousness. David S. Dockery, “The Pauline Letters,” in Holman Concise Bible Commentary, ed. David S. Dockery (Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1998), 548.
In the first experience of sanctification, we lose altogether the consciousness of our own identity, we are absorbed in God; but that is not the final place, it is merely the introduction to a totally new life. We lose our natural identity and consciously gain the identity that Jesus had, and it is when God begins to deal with sanctified souls on that line that darkness sometimes comes and the strange misunderstanding of God's ways. Oswald Chambers (1874-1917)
