Baptism Is a Bigger Deal Than You Think -- Paul's lesson in Romans 6
As a Christian, you can now choose to serve sin or God.
Bible Study Ideas and Commentary for Romans 6:1-14
In our life before Jesus, we were slaves of sin without any choice in the matter. In Romans 6, Paul explains that in Jesus, every Christian has died to that life and risen again to a new life of endless possibility for righteousness and hope and joy. We simply have to choose to trust Jesus' power and choose to live for God's glory. It's not easy, but Jesus will empower us.
So, you too consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. (6:11)
This post was written by a human. I did ask AI a couple of questions this week and included its answers below (because I wasn't worried about accuracy in those cases).
When We Studied This Passage in 2020
I mainly focused on freedom and the image of God. Both of those ideas could be really helpful to you.
You've also got some helpful ideas about "old vs. new" and "sacrifice". And I went really deep on a controversial saying by Augustine. You might enjoy that post!
Getting Started: Things to Think About
Your Restoration Project
One of our Sunday School teachers recently asked if our church had a certain piece of old furniture that their class could "upcycle". Based on your age, you might have said "refinish" or "restore" or "renew" or something like that. I like "upcycle"; it sounds classy.
We've all taken on a restoration project of some scope. What's yours, and how did it go? Give group members some warning so they can bring in before and after photos -- the more extreme, the better! (In my experience, people love to show off before and after photos.)
In Jesus, God took on the ultimate "restoration project" in us. Part of our study today will force us to look at ourselves and look at all the ways God has "restored" us (and to what). We're certainly not a finished project, and we should desire that God "keep working on us".
Your Baptism Story
There are a few key passages in the Bible about baptism, and this is one of them. You should expect that we take some time to talk about what baptism is and why it's important! (As Pastor David would say, "It's in our name.")
Your group might have some new members since the last time we talked about this subject, and it would be great if they were willing to share about when they were baptized. And if they're shy, you sharing your story is still a great way they can get to know you a little better.
I grew up in a United Methodist Church and was sprinkled as an infant. When Shelly and I got married and looked for a fresh start in church together, we settled on a Southern Baptist church in Wichita. When we said we wanted to join, the pastor said I needed to be baptized. There was not a whole lot of explanation behind it, and I was too new to real church involvement to push back. We shoehorned it into a Sunday evening service. I still remember my baptism surprisingly well, all things considered, but I wish I had made a bigger deal of it.
When I later attended seminary and learned the importance of baptism and everything the Bible says about it, I made it a mission to always be as thorough as possible when talking about baptism with anybody else.
So yes, you're going to hear about baptism this week.
When You Renounce Your Citizenship
If no one in your group has been through or knows somebody who has been through this, this is really just an illustration you might consider. What happens when a person renounces citizenship?
I asked Google Gemini and thought it makes a nice illustration what Paul is talking about this week -- we have died to our old self and have been born again into a "new self" -- "we are no longer citizens of the kingdom of this world but are now citizen of the kingdom of God's Son".
Here's what Gemini said:
"Renouncing your U.S. citizenship permanently ends your rights, duties, and legal ties to the United States. According to guidelines from the U.S. Department of State and USAGov, here is what happens when you complete the process:
Loss of Rights and Protections
No U.S. Passport: You must surrender your U.S. passport and cannot get a new one.
No Voting Rights: You lose the right to vote in local, state, or federal U.S. elections.
No Consular Help: U.S. embassies and consulates abroad will no longer protect you or assist you as a citizen.
Foreign National Status: You must apply for a visa or approved travel authorization (like ESTA) to visit the U.S., just like any other foreigner, with no guarantee of entry.
No Government Jobs: You are barred from holding U.S. federal jobs or public office.
Permanent and Irrevocable
No Reversal: Once approved, your renunciation is final and cannot be undone or canceled without a rare legal or administrative appeal.
Financial and Tax Obligations
Taxes Continue Temporarily: Renouncing does not clear past tax debts. You must file final tax paperwork and report your status to the IRS via Form 8854."
I would assume the situation is similar for other countries.
Assuming that information is correct, for my illustration idea, I like the "permanent and irrevocable" (you cannot lose your salvation) and also the "you still have to pay past debts" (becoming a Christian does not make your past problems disappear).
License to Chill
Ever since "007: License to Kill" became a thing, people have spoofed it with lots of other "licenses" (license to grill; license to type; license to graduate; "it's my party and I'll cry if I want to"). The idea is that you can get away with it with impunity.
What "license" do you wish you had? What would you do with that license?
Paul noticed early on that a number of Christians viewed their salvation as a "license to sin". "God has to forgive me, so I may as well do it." I know a few Christians today who seem to act that way.
What's wrong with that attitude?
Track the answers from before you start this lesson and see how they compare with what everybody thinks at the end of the lesson.
This Week's Big Idea: What Else? Baptism!
This has come up a few times in these posts. Rather than repeat a lot of what's been said, I'll summarize and point you to some other posts for more information (if you want it).
Here's one paragraph I wrote from a lesson on Acts 8:
[block quote begins]
In Acts, Peter and Philip shared the gospel with people, and when they responded in faith, they were instructed to be baptized in the name of Jesus. From that pattern, we can draw these conclusions about Christian baptism:
Who should be baptized? People who have declared their trust in Jesus for salvation.
What is baptism? Immersion in water, which is a symbol of cleansing and of burial.
What is the purpose of baptism? To publicly declare one's faith in Jesus for salvation.
When should that person be baptized? The biblical pattern is for someone to be baptized soon after their salvation.
[Note: Salvation is thus separate from baptism. The rest of the New Testament continues to explain and describe what salvation is and how someone is saved (because people kept having questions about it). My favorite is Romans 10:9-10:
9 If you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 One believes with the heart, resulting in righteousness, and one confesses with the mouth, resulting in salvation.
A person is saved apart from baptism; a person is then baptized to profess that salvation. Remember that in those days, openly declaring faith in Jesus was dangerous, so only true believers would even want to submit to be baptized.]
What is the symbolism of baptism?
Death and burial to our old life of sin. (Rom 6:3-4, Col 2:12)
Our unity with all believers all over the world. (1 Cor 12:13, Eph 4:5)
We have "put on Christ". (Gal 3:27)
The cleansing of our souls from sin. (1 Pet 3:21)
What is the "formula" of baptism? Jesus says that when we baptize, we do so "in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit" (Matt 28:19)
Who can baptize? The people who "do" the baptizing in the New Testament are respected Christians.
What does baptism "do"? The expectation that baptism "does" something has led to much of the debate about baptism. Baptism is not magical. I believe the Bible suggests that baptism "does" two things: declare a person's faith publicly, and demonstrate a local church's affirmation of their declaration of faith.
[/block quote ends]
The rest of that post goes into some detail about the history of baptism, why it's very clearly by immersion, and how things got all wonky in the early centuries.
If you want to know more about why only believers should be baptized:
If you want details about why baptism does not save us:
That should be enough. In this week's passage, Paul emphasizes the symbolism of baptism. We should take this symbolism to heart. Any time someone is baptized (like someone will Sunday morning at FBC!), we should be reminded to evaluate ourselves -- are we walking in new life, or are we drifting back to the old, sinful, dead us?
Where We Are in Romans
I'll keep using the "ABCs":
Admit to God that you're a sinner
Believe that Jesus is God's Son
Confess your faith in Jesus as your Savior and Lord
This is parallel with a gospel witness:
My life before I met Jesus
How I came to faith in Jesus
How Jesus has changed my life
The two combine as
Before I met Jesus, I was a sinner
I came to faith in Jesus by admitting my sin and believing in Him
Now that Jesus is my Lord, my life is different
Paul more or less created that framework in the book of Romans.
Part 1
What is the gospel? Salvation through justification by faith (chap 1-4)
1. Humans have a sin problem--Jews and Gentiles alike (1:18-3:20)
2. God has a grace solution: faith, not works (3:21-4:25)
Part 2
What does the gospel bring? Peace and freedom and life (chap 5-8)
1. Peace with God and the hope of glory (5:1-21)
2. Freedom from sin and law, bondage now to righteousness (6:1-7:25)
3. Life eternal in the Spirit, so much more than our present suffering (8:1-39)
Part 3
An aside on a very important question: where does Israel fit? (chap 9-11)
Part 4
How should the gospel affect us? Transformed lives in the power of the Spirit (chap 12-15)
1. Sacrificial service (12:1-21)
2. Humble submission (13:1-7)
3. Urgent love (13:8-14)
4. Not being judgmental (14:1-23)
5. Loving acceptance (15:1-13)
Romans 6 is part of the "how Jesus changed my life" portion of Paul's witness. In the weeks to come, we'll talk about what that looks like. But right now, Paul is establishing the basics: when someone becomes a Christian, they are born again into a new life in Jesus; their old life is gone!
Part 1: We Have Died to Sin (Romans 6:1-7)
What should we say then? Should we continue in sin so that grace may multiply? 2 Absolutely not! How can we who died to sin still live in it? 3 Or are you unaware that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 Therefore we were buried with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too may walk in newness of life. 5 For if we have been united with him in the likeness of his death, we will certainly also be in the likeness of his resurrection. 6 For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be rendered powerless so that we may no longer be enslaved to sin, 7 since a person who has died is freed from sin
Paul wants to make this pretty simple. Our "problem" is not taking him seriously.
"What should we say then?" points us to last week's lesson. Paul has established that we are saved by grace through faith and not works of the law. The logical rebuttal to this would be, "So what was the purpose of the law?" If we're saved by grace, then why does our behavior matter at all?
I recommended that you ask your group this before you get into the lesson because it's very important for us to understand. Christians who don't take their behavior seriously are dangerously missing the point and result of salvation. (I say "dangerously" because a person who really doesn't care about this isn't showing evidence of the Holy Spirit's transforming work.)
When Paul says "baptized into Christ", he's primarily talking about salvation. In the first post I linked, I explained the New Testament pattern -- a person trusted in Christ and was very quickly thereafter baptized in the name of Christ. Their first act of obedience was being baptized (cf. The Great Commission).
The physical act of baptism reflects the spiritual act of salvation. Paul emphasizes the imagery of baptism by immersion:
Being "sprinkled" doesn't come close to expressing what baptism is supposed to symbolize.
Jesus was raised from the dead by God and ascended into heaven. Our baptism pictures a similar resurrection for every Christian -- we died to our past life and we now life a new life to God.
Talk about that: what did we die to?
Follow that up: what end result do you think Jesus was hoping for when He willing died for our salvation?
David is preaching on Ephesians for at FBCT this Sunday, starting with the famous verse,
Therefore I, the prisoner in the Lord, urge you to walk ("live") worthy of the calling you have received (4:1)
Again -- and you can't stress this enough -- we don't "live worthy" in order to earn salvation; we "live worthy" of the salvation we have already received.
Paul really likes the "death" metaphor because it's so effective. If you have had a close relative die, you might be willing and able to talk about the legal ramifications of that person's death. To give you something to work with, I asked Google Gemini:
"Death legally releases a person from personal, civic, and non-transferable contractual obligations, shifting valid financial debts to their estate rather than erasing them entirely.
Criminal charges: Active criminal prosecutions and jail sentences end immediately because a criminal case cannot proceed against a deceased person.
Civic duties: Obligations like jury duty, voting registration, and military service terminate completely.
Personal service contracts: Agreements requiring a specific person's unique skills or talents—such as painting a portrait, performing in a concert, or providing personal coaching—end because they cannot be fulfilled by someone else.
Ongoing public benefits: Obligations tied to receiving government assistance (like reporting income for Social Security or disability) stop, and excess payments must be returned."
That sounds about right. When you die, those obligations cease to apply to you. It's morbid, but it's an illustration that should make sense to anybody who reads Romans.
In Paul's day, slavery was common. Slavery was one of those obligations that ended with a person's death. This week's passage ends before Paul explains why he says this:
6:16 Don’t you know that if you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of that one you obey—either of sin leading to death or of obedience leading to righteousness? 17 But thank God that, although you used to be slaves of sin, you obeyed from the heart that pattern of teaching to which you were handed over, 18 and having been set free from sin, you became enslaved to righteousness. 19 I am using a human analogy because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you offered the parts of yourselves as slaves to impurity, and to greater and greater lawlessness, so now offer them as slaves to righteousness, which results in sanctification.
In other words, "Look, I understand why your former life was one of sin. You were a slave to sin. But when you became a Christian, you died with Jesus to that past life. And when you died, you were released from that slavery. Now that you're born again in Jesus and free from sin, don't go back!"
Summary: "How Jesus Changed My Life": I died to my past life of sin.
Aside: Does This Mean Christians Should Be Sinless?
People who don't like Paul will say that Paul is setting an impossible bar for Christians, so we should ignore him. Here are two phrases from V. P. Furnish that I like very much:
"It is not sin but the sinner who has died."
"Paul speaks not of the Christian's freedom from sinning, but of his freedom from the power of sin."
That's a really important distinction. Morris summarizes things like this: A Christian may sin, but sinning is now out of character for him.
In the rest of Romans, Paul will talk about what it means that we live in a sinful world and "inhabit" a frail body that seeks self-gratification. Long and short: we sin. But we don't have to. And now, we shouldn't want to.
Part 2: We Now Live to God (Romans 6:8-11)
8 Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him, 9 because we know that Christ, having been raised from the dead, will not die again. Death no longer rules over him. 10 For the death he died, he died to sin once for all time; but the life he lives, he lives to God. 11 So, you too consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.
In the previous verses, Paul also mentioned "resurrection". Now he explains why.
When Jesus rose from the dead, He didn't just go back to what He was doing before He was crucified. What did Jesus do after His resurrection?
Paul is using Jesus as an example for us -- our life after we were "born again" (became a Christian) should be different than our life before.
There's a really, really important distinction to clarify -- before Jesus died, He was still the perfect Son of God on mission for God! His life after resurrection wasn't fundamentally different from His life before. That's not true of us!
Paul is thinking of a few important, specific differences between pre- and post-resurrection Jesus. Most importantly, before His crucifixion, Jesus was going to die in His body. After His resurrection, He will never die. Secondly (and importantly for us), before His crucifixion, Jesus lived on earth in the realm of the sinful world. After His ascension, He lives in the presence of God Almighty.
Got that? After Jesus died and rose again, He would not be subject to death anymore and would always be in the presence of God.
Paul uses that as the model for how we look at our life pre- and post-Jesus. Before we met Jesus, we lived in the realm of this sinful world and were subject to its control (we were "slaves of sin"). After we met Jesus (and became a Christian through confession of our faith in Him), we died to that world and that former life, and now we too can live for God.
Our body will one day die*, but our soul will continue forever in the presence of God.
[*If we are alive when Jesus returns, things are a little different. And after Jesus returns and raises all the dead, we will again be in a physical body for eternity.]
And here's where the resurrection/ascension illustration goes: Christians can be confident that there is no sin in heaven. Jesus' sacrifice and ascension proves that definitively.
Here's Paul's primary point -- we should consider ourselves dead to the past life of sin. But Paul (or anybody else) cannot force us to believe that and live like that. We have to know this is true and believe that it applies to us.
Believe it or not, this is Paul's first "command" in the letter! Everything to this point has been truth and foundation. The first consequence of everything Paul has said -- of every truth of the good news about Jesus -- is that Christians should not live as slaves to sin.
Summary: "How Jesus Changed My Life": Jesus set me free from the power of sin.
Implication: any Christian who says, "I just can't help myself" is wrong. And if they insist on making excuses for their own sin, they are calling God a liar and powerless.
Aside: "In Christ"
Another believe it or not -- this is the first time Paul has used the phrase "in Christ". This is really important to Paul (he uses it as much as 200 times) and he never clearly defines it.
Based on context clues, our best guess is to say that Paul emphasizes the "closeness" of the relationship between Jesus and every Christian. And if all Christians are "in Christ", then we should have a real unity with one another.
Morris notes one more likelihood -- Paul is also saying that the reason we have the blessings we receive from God is our "proximity" to Jesus. God pours out love on Jesus, and because we are "in Jesus", we get to share in that love.
Part 3: A Daily Choice (Romans 6:12-14)
12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, so that you obey its desires. 13 And do not offer any parts of it to sin as weapons for unrighteousness. But as those who are alive from the dead, offer yourselves to God, and all the parts of yourselves to God as weapons for righteousness. 14 For sin will not rule over you, because you are not under the law but under grace.
To Paul, this is very simple logic. And he's right! Based on Paul's logic, how would God respond to a Christian who says something like "it's too hard for me not to commit that sin"?
Catch Paul's plea: you can choose to remain a slave to sin. (Don't worry -- Paul will talk about this important topic again a few times in Romans.) You can voluntarily sell yourself back into slavery to sin, the cruelest slavemaster who has ever existed.
But you don't have to. And Paul knows that you don't want to.
So don't!
"Mortal body" is going to be a key idea for Paul moving forward. We're about to learn a lot about the distinction between what he calls "flesh and spirit". Our body has needs. And when our body experiences something it "likes" (and by this I mean things like how our body releases endorphins and the like), it wants to experience that again. This is where "addictions" come from -- the body's chemical processes "overcome" the will of the mind (in part because the mind itself is affected by the physical organ we call the brain).
In short, our "body" "enjoys" sin. Thank you, Adam. This is a real challenge for Christians.
There's a great illustration for this. Your company board goes into a meeting. They can listen to the advice of the lifelong executive with a long track record of excellent advice for the good of the company and every employee. Or they can listen to the brat kid of the new owner who is clearly spoiled rotten and doesn't seem to know anything about the company. Which should they listen to? Which will they listen to? Why?
(Btw, no offense to that kid in the picture. I have no idea who he is. He's just a royalty-free picture of a kid making the "show me the money" gesture.)
Likewise, we can choose to listen to the Spirit of the Living God, or we can listen to the corrupt, self-gratifying, dying mortal body we inhabit. Hmmm.
One question your group should talk about is "how" -- how can we not let sin reign in us? (Actually, that's probably worth spending a good bit of time on.)
Here's something noticed this time through: there are no neutral parties when it comes to life. No one "sits on the sidelines" in this cosmic battle of good vs. evil. You are either a servant ("instrument" or "weapon") of God, or you are a servant of everything opposed to God. How is that true? And, which do you want to be?
Finally, realize that Paul is personifying sin here. That's how "sin" can be a slavemaster. That's also how we can "offer" ourselves to sin, as if a sacrificial offering to a god. By our behavior, we act as if we are choosing between "sin" and God. Paul is flabbergasted that any Christian would seriously consider that a choice. And yet, we have the evidence of lifestyle to show that many professing Christians indeed willingly and routinely choose to serve sin rather than God.
Stop it! Sin is not your master! Paul wants us to read that as a promise, less so a command. When you come to Jesus, He releases you from your slavery to sin. Sin has no power over you -- except what you give it.
What does this have to do with "law"? To make a long story short, the law was given to identify sin. ("the knowledge of sin comes through the law" 3:20) If we try to earn our salvation by doing works of the law, all we will do is identify just how sinful we really are.
But if we come to God in faith appealing to His grace, we will be saved.
This week's passage is the theologically in-depth explanation of what we mean in our testimony when we say that "Jesus has changed my life". It's literal truth.
Yes, we want to also explain what that looks like -- how our life is different now than it was before. Paul is going to say a lot about that in the weeks to come. But for now, the purpose of this lesson is to establish clearly that Christians are supposed to be different than who we were before we came to Christ. And we're supposed to be different from the people around us who are not Christian.
If you're not? Well, this is the perfect time to start investigating your heart. In what way does sin still have power over you? How are you going to change that? (And please ask your Bible study group help you answer that question and give you the support you need to take those steps!)
Do you feel powerless to overcome the sin in your life? Well, it's time to believe the truth of salvation: Jesus has given you His power to overcome that sin. And He has given you His Word. And His Spirit. And His people. You have the tools you need. God wants you to make a choice what you're going to do with those tools.
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