Walk in Newness of Life – Romans 6:1-5
Bethel Baptist Church – David Rising
Romans 6:1-5; September 27, 2026 – Sunday AM
Walk in Newness of Life
Paul taught us in Romans 5 that sin entered the world through Adam. Children of Adam inherit a sin nature and all of Adam’s children are sinners. As a result, death spread to all men.
What Adam did devastated humanity. Apart from God’s help, this has left us all in a terrible spot.
However, God did not leave us helpless and throughout scripture we see His kindness toward sinners – over and over.
Most notably, in the fullness of time God sent forth His Son, Jesus, and He gave His life so that we might have life.
There is death in Adam, but there is life in Christ because of His death, burial, and resurrection. That is the message we proclaim in the gospel of Jesus Christ.
When we are transformed by God’s grace, we are justified and have peace with God. We are changed and God begins a work in transforming our lives.
When God saved us by His grace, did we instantly become sinless? Of course not. We wish that were the case, but it is not. However, our relationship to sin was changed.
In 1 John, John addresses some who were making the claim that they had no sin – they did not sin. John calls that self-deception and the words of a liar. His answer, as with Paul, is to point us to Jesus where we find forgiveness and hope.
Since believers still struggle with sin, how can we get some help with this? Our study in Romans 6 will point us in the right direction.
Today we look at verse 1-5 and see what the Apostle Paul has to say about our life in Christ. Pray.
Ever since God gave Moses the Law, Paul tells us in Romans 5:20 that the effect was that sin has increased. The more law we recognize, the more we come to discover our lawlessness. And as as result, we see God’s grace abound even more.
Notice verse 1 of chapter 6 where Paul follows a logical progression:
6:1 What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?
Τί οὖν ἐροῦμεν; ἐπιμένωμεν τῇ ἁμαρτίᾳ, ἵνα ἡ χάρις πλεονάσῃ;
1. Should we sin more so grace can increase? (6:1)
This sounds absurd, but it is a logical question based on the fact that grace superabounds when sin abounds.
If the end result of my sin is good – God’s grace abounds – then why not trigger God’s abounding grace by continuing to sin?
If doing something bad results in God doing something good, then why not keep doing something bad?
It’s a little like the strange logic of someone who hits their head on the wall for no apparent reason. When asked, they respond that it feels so good when they stop. So then we should keep hitting our head on the wall?
Of course, that is absurd, just as Paul’s theoretical question is. He will give the obvious answer in verse two, but he will add to that answer something we need to understand.
Now, I am simplifying this a bit since there are those who say that the question Paul raises here is an actual question by his opponents – Jewish Christians, or perhaps just Jews. Paul had been accused at times of having a libertine gospel – somehow advocating a disregard for the Law. We don’t know who is raising this question, but it certainly would be a logical question based on what he had said at the end of chapter 5.
Does God’s grace encourage us to remain in sin? That is another way of asking the question here in verse 1. What is the answer? Verse 2:
2 Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it? 3
2μὴ γένοιτο. οἵτινες ἀπεθάνομεν τῇ ἁμαρτίᾳ, πῶς ἔτι ζήσομεν ἐν αὐτῇ;
2. No! We died to sin (6:2)
Paul emphatically says “no” to the absurd question. KJV says “God forbid!” NKJV says “Certainly not!” ESV & NIV says “By no means!” NET says “absolutely not! NASB says “may it never be”. This is actually closest to the original language. I think we get it.
On the one hand, we might say that is a ludicrous line of reasoning and we should never think like that. To say that I should sin more so that God’s grace could been seen even more is to disgrace God’s grace.
On the other hand, this verse actually tells us that believers in Christ really can’t live any longer in sin as before. ESV says: “How can we who died to sin still live in it?”
If you are a genuine, born-again believer in Christ God has begun a work in your life of transformation. You died to sin.
Sin entered the world and brought death. Sin not only entered the world but also reigned as a power. Sin has a tremendous power that has a grip on mankind. But for those who are identified with Jesus, sin does not have the same grip. We have died to sin.
What does it mean that we have died to sin?
When we die, our earthly life is over. Death means there is no longer any life.
If we died to sin, that means we have a new relationship to sin. Sin no longer has that reign over us as it once did.
Sometimes we hear of broken relationships where one person might say “you are dead to me.” It is as if the other person does not exist, or their existence does not move the other person with any feelings. The relationship is broken.
Paul says that a true believer in Jesus cannot continue to sin as before because sin no longer has the power over us as it once had.
Now the question is this: how is it that believers have died to sin? How did that happen? Paul explains this in the rest of verse 2:
Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death?
3. Why? We were united with Christ (6:3)
Here Paul explains the connection between the believer and the work of Jesus Christ. He speaks as if the reader should already know this information, almost in a sarcastic kind of way – “do you not know”? But of course, keep in mind, he is responding likely to the rhetorical question which is kind of absurd.
We learn here that believers are identified with Christ and His death. Paul discusses this by using the language of baptism.
There is a long history of how bible students have understood verse 2, but I’ll try to make it simple.
A genuine Christian has a restored relationship with God. We are at peace with God. We have a relationship with God. We have a relationship with His Son, Jesus.
To be ‘baptized into Christ Jesus’ is a way of describing the believer’s union with Christ.
We speak about water baptism as a way for the believer to identify publicly with the work of Christ. Some see this as a reference to spirit baptism, and that could be.
But the point here as I see it is the emphasis of our union with Christ. Believers are united with Christ by faith, and therefore when Christ died, we essentially died. What Christ did, He did for us. He took upon Himself our sin and died in our place.
The sin for which Christ died had a grip on us, a dominion over us. Death reigned because sin dominated our lives.
Paul says by way of baptism language that all true believers identify with the work of Christ.
Genuine believers in Christ died to sin and according to verse 2 can no longer and should no longer live under its reign as before.
That is an important point to understand.
It is inconceivable in scripture for a true believer to persist in sin as before. John makes this clear in 1 John.
As Christians we need to understand more fully what God has done for us and what He requires of us .
Paul shows us in verse 4 the next logical application of this truth:
4 Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.
4. The result: we should walk in newness of life (6:4)
Not only did we die when Christ died, but we also were in union with Him in burial. Paul again uses the language of baptism to show our union with Christ in death and burial.
Death and burial are not the end of the story. Paul draws out the implications for believers of the resurrection of Christ.
When we think of the resurrection, we often think about it only in terms of our doctrine. We preach about the resurrection as a key component of the gospel, and we preach that without the resurrection we have no gospel. That is true.
But what Paul adds here is a practical dimension of the resurrection for our daily walk in life.
Resurrection is important not only for the truthfulness of the gospel, but also about the new life that believers have in Christ.
Just as Christ rose from the dead by the glory of the Father never to die again, even so we should walk in newness of life.
Adam brought to us death through his sin.
Christ brings to us life through His death, burial, and resurrection.
Paul speaks of the gospel in 1 Corinthians 15 as death, burial, and resurrection. We should also speak about the complete story of Christ’s work on our behalf whenever we speak about the gospel.
Whenever we teach about water baptism, we often go to these verses to speak about the picture that water baptism gives. This is also one of the reasons we believe that biblical baptism is water baptism – immersion.
Notice that verse 4 speaks about baptism into death, and so the picture of death, of going down, into the grave, is best pictured by immersion into water. We are buried in baptism as he was buried in the tomb, and we are raised in baptism as Christ was raised never more to die.
The implication, then for us, is not just theoretical. It is every-day practical. We must live a new life!
We are not the same person as we were before. Something happened, and God changed us.
We do not believe that water baptism confers to us anything in addition to our salvation. It does not give us brownie points with God. It does not add grace to our lives.
It is simply an act of obedience for the believer to show forth in his life what Christ has done. What God has done for us in Christ is a finished work; baptism demonstrates to those who view it what has happened in our lives.
We are identified with Christ in his death, burial, and resurrection.
No one goes to heaven because they were baptized.
But the NT implies that baptism goes hand in hand with salvation.
The Ethiopian eunuch, upon receiving Christ as his Savior, asked immediately: “what hinders me from being baptized?” (Acts 8:36). Salvation and baptism go together, and this is why we encourage all true believers to follow the Lord in the waters of baptism.
This is also why if someone refuses to be baptized, we have to wonder why? Why refuse to be identified with Christ publicly like this?
And so, as we think of the question of verse 1 and the answer of verse 2, we can now see why a believer is not able to sin as before. We have died with Christ to sin, and we are no longer under its power as before.
The end of verse 4 shows us that Paul is NOT advocating a lawless kind of Christianity. No, our union with Christ results in our transformation and thus we should walk in newness of life. We are different, and now we live for the glory of God rather than for our own pleasure.
Paul continues in verse 5 to explain even further the effect of our union with Christ:
5 For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection,
5. The future: resurrection, like Christ (6:5)
Verse 5 repeats essentially what he already said, showing the fact of our union with Christ, and simply explains it more. Since it is true that believers have been united with Christ in the likeness of his death, then it follows as well that believers share in the effect of his resurrection – which is, to walk in newness of life.
Verse 5 shows the importance of our union with Christ in His death and resurrection.
Notice that our union with Christ places us in Him in a similar way to participate in His death.
This actually points to our future resurrection but has application in the present:
Believers are enabled to walk in newness of life because the power of Christ’s resurrection has become theirs by virtue of their union with Christ. Through Christ’s resurrection the power of the [future] has entered the present evil age. This does not mean that believers have experienced fully the age to come, for they still await the resurrection of the body (Rom. 8:10–11, 23–25). Nonetheless, the glorious power of the resurrection (6:4) has grasped those who belong to Christ, enabling them to walk in the newness of [what will be fully realized in the future].[1]
There is a great tension in the Christian life because we have a longing to be free from this body of sin. Prone to wander the hymnwriter says.
There is much more in this chapter that will be a great aid to us as we learn to deal with sin in our lives as believers.
Application
1. God’s grace is not a license for us to sin. Paul raises this point in Galatians 5 in a similar discussion when he speaks about freedom:
Galatians 5:13 (NKJV) 13 For you, brethren, have been called to liberty; only do not use liberty as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one an other.
No, we should not be cavalier with our sin casually remembering that God will just forgive us. That is to presume upon His grace rather than to marvel in it.
2. When we were saved, our relationship to sin forever changed. When we became a Christian, our relationship to sin changed. We died to sin. Sin no longer reigns over us as it did before. This is probably one of the greatest truths in Romans. When Christ died, we died and we can no longer live in sin as we did before.
Now, of course, the question for us is this: why do I still sin? Why do I still want to sin after all that Jesus has done for me?
We will dig into this question more as we go through Romans 6, but let this truth sink in. Though we still sin, yes, it does not have the grip on us as it did before.
3. Because of our union with Christ, let us walk in newness of life. Our Christian life is new. We do not live the same way we used to live. Remember, we do not live under the dominion of sin as before, but we still let sin have its way in our lives far too often. Let us continually look to Christ and marvel in His grace.
Next week we’ll see Paul explain more fully our death to sin and what that means for our daily walk.