Romans 6:1-14
Dead to Sin Must Mean Alive to God

Now what is our response to be?  Shall we sin to our heart’s content and see how far we can exploit the grace of God?  (Romans 6:1)

Indeed!  Rather absurd!   We scoff and read further.

We, who have died to sin—how could we live in sin a moment longer?  (Romans 6:2)

Well now wait a minute… I suppose I do still live in sin.  Is that what he means by exploiting God’s grace?  I’m afraid so.  Now, sinning in itself is not exploiting God’s grace.  We cannot help but sin, and that’s the very reason God gave us His grace.  However, living in sin is exploiting that precious grace.  This a grave matter.  We cannot shout aloud with Paul, “May it never be!” and go on our jolly way.  Of course, we aren’t sinning to our heart’s content.  This is Paul’s sarcastic paraphrase of his critics.  Anyone who’s heart is contented by sinning is surely not a christian anyhow.  But all too many of us continue to live in sin, in apathetic consent to our sin nature, in a lack of effort to do otherwise.  In so doing we ignore the grace that releases us from sin—the grace that brought Jesus to the cross.  We have died to sin.  How could we live in sin a moment longer?

We were dead and buried with Him in baptism, so that, just as He was raised from the dead by that splendid revelation of the Father’s power, so we too might rise to life on a new plane altogether.  If we have, as it were, shared his death, let us rise and live our new lives with Him!  (Romans 6:4-5)

Through Christ we too have access to the Father’s power—that self-same power that raised Him from the grave.  If we have truly died with Him, we must not relax there in the grave.  We must daily invoke the power of God to free us to live new lives of righteousness with Him!