BOOK 45 OF 66 · PAULINE EPISTLES · KING JAMES BIBLE

Romans 6

Romans book home•Chapter 6 of 16•23 verses

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Romans 6 Overview

Paul rejects the idea that grace gives believers permission to continue in sin. Those baptized into Jesus Christ are identified with His death and raised to walk in newness of life. Believers are told to reckon themselves dead to sin and alive to God, refuse sin’s reign, and yield their members to God. They are not under law but under grace, yet grace does not authorize sin. The chapter ends by contrasting sin’s wages—death—with God’s gift of eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

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Before you read Romans 6

Coming from

Having been justified by faith, believers have peace with God through Jesus Christ, access into grace, and hope of God’s glory. Tribulation can produce endurance and hope because God’s love is shed abroad by the Holy Ghost. Christ died for the ungodly while they were sinners and enemies, securing reconciliation. Paul then contrasts Adam and Christ: sin and death entered through one man, while grace and the gift of righteousness abound through one Man, Jesus Christ.

In this chapter

Romans 5 magnified grace where sin abounded. Romans 6 answers the predictable objection: if grace is so abundant, why not continue sinning?

Leads into

Romans 7 explains release from the law through death with Christ, the law’s holy role in exposing sin, and the conflict of a person who knows good yet cannot find deliverance through self-effort.

Key understandingExplore deeper

Romans 6 is addressed to people already justified. Commands to yield, reckon, and obey concern sanctification and service, not how to become justified.

Baptism language visibly portrays identification with Christ’s death and resurrection. It must be read alongside Romans 3–5, where justification and eternal life are grounded in faith and grace apart from works, not turned into a ritual cause of justification.

Major truths in this chapterExplore deeper

Grace changes the believer’s relationship to sin

Freedom from condemnation is not permission to make sin a master.

Union with Christ creates a new walk

His death and resurrection define the pattern of Christian life.

Believers must actively yield themselves to God

Sanctification includes real choices about what rules the body.

Being under grace changes the master relationship

Sin shall not have dominion as the believer lives under grace rather than law.

Eternal life is God’s gift

The final contrast is wages earned by sin versus a gift received through Christ.

Connections to the rest of ScriptureExplore deeper

Matthew 28:19

Christian baptism is commanded for disciples and serves as public identification with Christ.

Galatians 2:20

Paul likewise describes life in relation to Christ’s death and indwelling life.

Colossians 2:12–13

Baptism imagery again accompanies union with Christ’s burial and resurrection.

John 10:28

Jesus calls eternal life His gift to His sheep, consistent with Romans 6:23.

What is clear, and where care is neededExplore deeper

Do not move Romans 6 backward into Romans 3 and make sanctification commands conditions for justification

Paul has already settled how sinners are justified.

Do not use “obedience unto righteousness” to teach salvation by works

The context is slavery/service imagery for justified believers yielding themselves.

Do not treat baptism as a meritorious work that purchases union with Christ

The letter’s controlling salvation argument is faith and grace apart from works.

Do not use grace as an excuse for sin

Paul explicitly rejects that conclusion twice.

Read Romans 6 watching for…

The two ‘God forbid’ responses.

Death/resurrection imagery connected with Christ.

The commands reckon, yield, and let not.

The change from law to grace.

The master/slave illustration.

The wages-versus-gift contrast in verse 23.

Chapter outline3 sections

1-11Believers are baptized into Christ’s death and should reckon themselves alive unto God 12-18Sin must not reign because believers are under grace and have obeyed from the heart 19-23Yielding to righteousness leads to holiness, while the wages of sin is death and God’s gift is eternal life

What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?

God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?

Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death?

Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.

For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection:

Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.

For he that is dead is freed from sin.

Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him:

Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over him.

For in that he died, he died unto sin once: but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God.

Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof.

Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God.

For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace.

What then? shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid.

Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?

But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you.

Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness.

I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh: for as ye have yielded your members servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity; even so now yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness.

For when ye were the servants of sin, ye were free from righteousness.

What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed? for the end of those things is death.

But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life.

For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

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Romans 6:4

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