Romans 6:1-14

6 What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? 2 By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? 3 Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. 5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. 6 We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. 7 For one who has died has been set free from sin. 8 Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. 9 We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. 10 For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. 11 So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

12 Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. 13 Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. 14 For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.

Paul has hit this question previously in Romans. If God’s grace shows up wherever sin is present, and if the greater the sin means the greater the grace, then why don’t we just sin more so there is more grace?

Paul emphatically answers the question from the previous verse: NO WAY. We don’t sin to “increase” God’s grace because that would imply we are still under the slavery of sin. But, in fact, in a mystical way, we have been united with Christ through faith, and our old sinful self has been crucified with Christ. What this means is that there is no reason whatsoever that Christians must continue to sin. It’s like we’ve been let out of prison—there is no reason to walk back inside the prison walls. Or, to use the biblical example: once the Israelites have been delivered from Egypt, it would be insane to walk right back into slavery.

I find this passage really encouraging and convicting: there is no reason for me to be tolerant of sin in my life, because Christ has set me free from sin. This means there is nothing inevitable about my sin—through the work of the Holy Spirit, I can shut the door on past practices and live as a new man.

For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace. [6:14]

What do you need to walk away from today?