Have You Actually Died to Sin?
Have you ritualized your faith? Are you going through the motions, forgetting the real, rich meanings behind Scripture? Romans 6 is a beautiful passage about personal commitment and personal Christianity, but we only seem to find it useful for teaching about baptism. Baptism is important, of course, but Romans 6 is primarily about death to sin.
Sin and grace
In the book of Romans, Paul has developed the idea that man cannot be saved by his own works—-what Martin Luther would later call sola fide, or faith alone. Many Christians are frustrated that we can’t be good enough on our own. But from Romans 3:23, “...all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” We are sinful, past, present, and future tense. Without Christ and his grace, we’re undone. In the first five chapters of Romans, Paul thoroughly develops the doctrine of grace, convincing us that there is so much grace—a superabundance of grace—it covers all of the sins mankind has ever committed or will ever commit. “...[w]here sin increased, grace abounded all the more” (Romans 5:20).
The question, then, is not if God contains grace enough for forgiveness. The question is how we respond to it. Do we take advantage of it? Do we take it for granted, or do we try to change our lives and live for him? If there’s so much love and so much mercy, should we continue to sin so that grace may abound? The Apostle Paul answers such questions: “By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?” (Romans 6:2). Continuing in sin is impossible for one who has died to it.
The Bible does not teach that Christians are incapable of sinning; even Paul struggled. What he means is continuing in a lifestyle of sin. 1 John 7-11 says “But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” All of us sin, but we do not continue living in sin.
Death to sin
Death to sin is a mental process. It’s a point we reach and keep reaching. 1 John 3:9 says “No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God's seed abides in him; and he cannot keep on sinning, because he has been born of God.” When the word of God is united with our hearts and minds, we cannot continue in sin. We still stumble. We act or speak wrongly, but we are sorry for it and try to do better.
Death to sin is an imitation of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. In Romans 6:3, Paul writes, “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?” We are reconciled to God by the death of His son, but we are baptized into His death. And as we are raised from the waters of baptism, we imitate his resurrection.
Unfortunately, some Christians merely go through the motions of faith. They are baptized, but they don’t die to sin. Their lives don’t meaningfully change. It takes more to be justified than a tub of water. We have to imitate Christ both outwardly and inwardly. We die to sin when we change the way we think, and not before.
The question that matters
Christ died to sin and now lives for God. “For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus” (Romans 6:11).
When we get up in the morning, do we already know that we will follow the will of God, or is it up in the air? Do we say ‘I may sin or I may not; I may do the will of God or I may not’?” It is a foregone conclusion when our feet hit the floor that we will live for God? If it’s already been decided that you will live for Him, you’ve died to sin. If you’re uncertain, the most important decision of your life is still waiting to be made.
The will of God, for every one of us, is death to sin. Christianity is a firm, personal commitment to God. It can’t be done as spectators.
Have you died to sin?
Reflection questions
