In his epistle to the Romans, the apostle Paul spoke of God’s justification of believers with a discourse that included: 1) the source of the “righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe” (Rom. 3:21); 2) the example of Abraham whom God deemed righteous because of his faith (4:1-25); 3) the peace with God and other blessings that arise from justification (5:1-11); and 4) the imputation of righteousness to the believer (5:12-21).
A definition of justification may be helpful at this point. “Justification is a judicial act of God, in which He declares, on the basis of the righteousness of Jesus Christ, that all the claims of the law are satisfied with respect to the sinner.”[1] Justification is not an internal act of renewal but an external judicial act of God that declares the sinner forgiven for sin and reconciled to God’s good favor.
Paul had just discussed how God justifies sinners in Christ, and now, in chapter 6, he talks about how the justified should live (i.e., sanctification). The apostle teaches that because of justification through faith, Christians have a new identity in Jesus Christ because of their union with Him in His death and resurrection, which freed them from the dominion of sin. Paul describes the freedom thus received as having died to sin (Rom. 6:1-11).
The apostle taught that though sin always existed after the Fall, God provided the Law to increase the people’s awareness of what sin actually was. He assured everyone that God would meet the “increase” of sin with even greater grace “so that as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Rom, 5:20).
The gospel message of justification through faith seemed to the Jews to be too free and that such a doctrine allows Christians to ignore the Law and continue to sin. Some charged that if God’s righteousness abounds in our unrighteousness, then why not sin more so that God’s righteous glory will be displayed, which is good? Some say that since good (i.e., God’s righteousness) comes from our sin, why not sin more? We will be justified anyway.
Paul addresses this charge of antinomianism in Romans 6:1-11.
Paul had already told the Jews that they were not justified by being Jews and being the chosen people of God as they believed, but that under the gospel of Christ, all, Jew and Greek, can be justified only through faith in Christ Jesus (Rom. 3:30). He wrote of justification by the grace of God through faith in Jesus Christ and how God’s grace abounds even when our unrighteous acts are manifested in sin.
The main point of Romans 6:1-11 is that the very nature of a believer’s union with Christ makes one’s living in sin contradictory. In fact, it would be an oxymoronic absurdity such as “a live dead man” or “a good, bad one.”[2]
In chapter 6, Paul asks the question, “Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound?” (v. 1). And he immediately answers the question with an emphatic “By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?” (v. 2). Here Paul uses the phrase “died to sin” to describe the state of the believer when they profess belief in Christ and are justified by God.
Since justified believers are in union with Christ, they are dead to sin and freed from its dominion and eternal penalty. The “old man” is crucified; the “new man,” with his renewed soul, is imbued with a new life with God as its object—a fellowship with God, manifested by devotion to His service and obedience to His will.[3]
Believers are partakers of Christ’s death and life. They die with him and live with him. Consequently, they should receive this truth in their convictions and consciousness with all its consoling and sanctifying power and manifest it in their lives.[4]
Considering the phrases “died to sin” and “dead to sin,” let’s first look at what being “dead to sin” is not.
WHAT DEAD TO SIN IS NOT
A cursory reading of these verses and others that contain the phrases “dead to sin” (v. 11) and “died to sin” (vv. 2, 10) would lead most to apply the meaning of “deadening.” So, the understanding of this phrase would be that a believer would be numb to sin and not be affected by it. With this understanding, we would lose the sensation of the idea or existence of sin. This is not what the apostle Paul is suggesting. Christians are not numb to sin. All people, believers and non-believers, sin (Rom. 3:9, 10, 23).
Another common understanding of being dead to sin is that believers don’t associate with sin once they are justified. Just as a dead body has no awareness of things around it, the justified believer has no awareness of and, thus, no association with sin. But we know that a believer who is dead to sin still lives in an environment with other sinners and where Satan is actively attacking believers with temptations to sin. Therefore, all Christians must avoid these devilish arrows as they walk in sanctification with Christ and the Holy Spirit.
THE MEANING OF DEAD TO SIN
Paul teaches that those who professed their genuine belief in Jesus died on account of sin, as Jesus died on account of sin (Rom. 6:1-4). Therefore, because believers are dead to sin, they cannot continue living a life of sin as they did before their regeneration and conversion. Professed believers died to sin and consequently were subsumed into Christ’s death on account of sin (v. 3).
Because the believer died to sin in Christ, the believer also participated in Christ’s resurrection and life apart from sin (v. 4). Just as Christ was resurrected to life in heaven with the Father, all believers enjoy a newness of life in Christ. The old corrupt life in sin died, and the new life of righteousness began.
When believers turn to Christ, they die to sin as their dominant master and begin a life in Christ, living with Him as their Lord and master. A slave of a wicked master who dies no longer lives with that master. Likewise, corrupt sinners who follow Satan as their master no longer live a life of sin when they die to sin by regeneration and conversion to belief in Christ through faith.
Jesus died on the cross on account of the sins of believers. He died a voluntary and propitiatory death to pay the ransom for believers’ sins as required by the Father. Christ’s death redeemed all believers by paying the price of their justification.
Because of Christ’s substitutionary death for believers’ sins, all believers died to those redeemed sins, thus breaking the dominance of sin in their lives. Christ died on account of the price that had to be paid for the sins of believers, thereby breaking the hold sin had on the lives of believers. Thus, all believers died to sin in Christ’s death. Christ died on account of paying for our sins, and along with Him, we died because of the price He paid.
Jesus became the redeemer of all believers in His death because of sin. His death ended the dominance of sin in the life of the believer. It changed the believer’s state of nature from corrupt depravity dominated by Satan to a new life dominated by the righteousness of Christ.
The justification for believers is that God legally counts them as righteous by one divine act. By Christ’s redemptive act and on the ground of Christ’s merited righteousness, God deems all believers righteous and dead to sin.
But although Jesus broke Satan’s dominion in the life of the believer, temptation and sin continually attack the believer even though they do not live a life dominated by sin.
So, when a person becomes a believer in Christ Jesus, he or she dies to sin with Christ and breaks the dominance of sin in his or her life. The believer’s new life is one of walking under the dominance of the resurrected Christ in righteousness, all the while using the armor of God to defend against the inevitable temptation of sin that will surely come but will not have dominion over those in Christ Jesus.
[1] Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology (The Banner of Truth Trust, 2012), 533.
[2] Hodge, Charles, A Commentary on Romans, p. 191. The Banner of Trust, Edinburgh, 2009.
[4] Hodge, p. 201.
