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 useful 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 to be forgiven of sin and reconciled to God’s good favor.
Paul had just discussed the way God justifies sinners in Christ and now in chapter 6 he goes on to talk about the way 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 a good thing. Some said since good (i.e., God’s righteousness) comes as a result of our sin, then why not sin more since we will be justified anyway.
Paul addresses this charge of antinomianism in Romans 6:1-11.
Paul had already told the Jews that they are not justified by being Jews and 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 a contradiction in terms. 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 its 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, which is manifested by devotion to His service and by obedience to His will.[3]
Believers are partakers of the death and life of Christ. They die with him and they 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 phrase “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 itself so as to not be affected by it. With this understanding, we would lose the sensation to the very 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 justified. That 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 deal with avoiding 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 of believers being dead to sin, they cannot continue living a life of sin as they did prior to their regeneration and conversion. Professed believers died to sin and consequently were subsumed into Christ’s death on account of sin (v. 3).
Because of the believer’s death 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 price 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 in 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 to that sin He paid for.
Jesus became the redeemer of all believers in His death on account of sin. His death ended the dominance of sin in the life of the believer and changed the believer’s state of nature from one of corrupt depravity dominated by Satan to a new life dominated by the righteousness of Christ.
The justification of believers is God legally counting them as righteous by one divine act. By the redemptive act of Christ and on the ground of Christ’s merited righteousness, all believers are deemed by God as 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, one dies to sin with Christ and breaks the dominance of sin in his or her life. The new life of the believer 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 Truth Trust, Edinburgh, 2009.
[4] Hodge, p. 201.
