Dead to Sin, Alive to the Father
If grace covers everything, why not sin freely? Paul's answer is not a rule but a death: baptism joined us to Christ's, so returning to sin means going back to a grave we already left. Offer your body to our Father — you will serve whatever you obey.
6 1What should we say, then? Should we go on sinning so that grace may increase? 2Absolutely not! How can we who died to sin still live in it? 3Or are you unaware that all of us baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4So we were buried with him through baptism into death, that as Christ was raised from the dead through our Father's glory, we too might walk in newness of life.
5For if we've been joined to his death's likeness, we'll surely also be joined to his resurrection. 6We know our old self was crucified with him to destroy sin's body, so we'd no longer be enslaved to sin. 7For anyone who has died has been set free from sin. 8Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. 9For we know Christ, raised from the dead, never dies again; death no longer rules him. 10For the death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to our Father. 11In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to our Father in Christ Jesus.
12Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its desires. 13Do not offer your body's parts to sin as weapons for wrongdoing; instead, offer yourselves to our Father as those brought from death to life, and your body's parts to him as weapons for righteousness. 14For sin will not have mastery over you, because you are not under law but under grace.
15What then? Should we sin because we are not under law but under grace? Absolutely not! 16Don't you know that offering yourselves to someone as slaves to obey makes you slaves of whoever you obey—whether sin, leading to death, or obedience, leading to righteousness? 17Thanks to our Father: you were slaves of sin, but you obeyed from the heart the teaching pattern you were entrusted to. 18Having been set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness.
19I speak humanly, since your flesh is weak. As you offered your body's parts as slaves to impurity and lawlessness, resulting in more lawlessness, now offer them as slaves to righteousness, resulting in holiness. 20For when you were slaves of sin, you were free from righteousness. 21What did you gain then from what you're now ashamed of? For those things end in death. 22But now, freed from sin and enslaved to our Father, your fruit leads to holiness, and the end, eternal life. 23For the wages of sin is death, but our Father's gift is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
