Romans 6
If grace abounds where sin increases, should we sin more to get more grace? Paul's rejection of the conclusion launches into the theology of baptism and death.
Summary
Romans 6 begins where chapter 5 ended — with the declaration that grace abounds where sin increases — and immediately poses the logical trap that follows: should we sin more so that grace may abound more? The question is not abstract; it was apparently a live objection to Paul's preaching. His answer is a counter-question: How can we who died to sin still live in it? The death in question is baptism. Paul describes the ritual act of baptism as a participation in Christ's own death and burial: we were buried with him through baptism into death, so that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. The logic is sacramental — the external act of going under the water and coming up is the enactment of a real transition from death to life.
The middle and end of the chapter work out the moral implications through the language of slavery. Before baptism, the believer was a slave to sin; after, a slave to righteousness. Paul knows the metaphor is imperfect — he says so, speaking in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh — but it captures the totality of the shift he is describing. The old self, the old allegiance, the old bondage to sin has been crucified. You are not under law but under grace, so sin will not have dominion over you. The chapter ends with two contrasting statements, each in the form of a formula: the wages of sin is death; the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. The contrast between wage and gift is deliberate — death is what sin earns, while life is what God gives.
- Romans 1Chapter 1 is the opening of a long letter to a community Paul did not found and has not yet visited.
- Romans 2Chapter 2 is the turn in Paul's argument.
- Romans 3Chapter 3 is the hinge of the letter's first movement.
- Romans 4Chapter 4 is Paul's exegetical demonstration of justification by faith, built entirely from the figure of Abraham.
- Romans 5Chapter 5 opens the second major movement of the letter (chapters 5-8), which draws out the consequences of the justification argued in chapters 1-4.
- Romans 6Chapter 6 opens with Paul's most pointed rhetorical question: Shall we continue in sin so that grace may abound? The question follows logically from the last verse of chapter 5, where he said grace abounds where sin increases, and it is the objection he expects.
- Romans 7Chapter 7 addresses the role of the law in the new life.
- Romans 8Chapter 8 is the climax Paul has been building toward since chapter 1.
- Romans 9Chapter 9 opens the three-chapter meditation on Israel — the hardest sustained argument in the letter.
- Romans 10Chapter 10 continues the argument of chapter 9 but shifts from divine sovereignty to human responsibility.
- Romans 11Chapter 11 brings the three-chapter meditation on Israel to its resolution.
- Romans 12Chapter 12 opens the practical movement of the letter with the word therefore, gathering everything from chapters 1-11 into a single imperative.
- Romans 13Chapter 13 contains the verses that have generated more controversy in the history of Romans' reception than any other passage in the letter.
- Romans 14Chapter 14 addresses a concrete dispute in the Roman church.
- Romans 15Chapter 15 continues directly from chapter 14.
- Romans 16Chapter 16 is the longest closing greeting in any of Paul's letters.