Romans 6:14b

...since you are not under law but under grace. Romans 6:14b ESV

The first part of verse 14 promised us that sin has no dominion over us - the second part of verse 14 explains how that is possible. Sin cannot control us or condemn us any longer because we are not under the law but under grace...grace - God's unearned favor towards us, giving us what we don't deserve - eternal life because His Son died on our behalf, paid our penalty and gave us His righteousness! 

I think it's also important to look at what is being said here about us before we were saved. If sin has no dominion over us because we are not under the law, we can also know that sin did have dominion over us when we were under the law.

We need to understand this in order to respond correctly to the gospel. When we were lost, sin had the power to control us, and ultimately condemn us - it had dominion over us. 

Sin controlled us because it satisfied the desires of our flesh, our heart, and our mind - it felt good, so we didn't turn from it but partook of it. Paul will talk more about this in a few verses - we are slaves to whatever we present ourselves to, in our lost state this is sin.

Sin condemned us because, while we were living in it, it put us at enmity with a Holy God. Because of our sinfulness, there had to be a payment in order for us to be reconciled to this Holy God who cannot have sin in His presence. We could not afford the payment, therefore sin would ultimately condemn us for eternity, we would be separated from God forever - had it not been for His Amazing grace, giving His perfect Son as payment for our debt.

So what does the law have to do with this? We know from this verse that the law has to do with lost people, and grace has to do with saved people. We were under law, but now we are under grace. The law is God's 'standard' - it reveals the debt that we were under, the payment that had to be made in order to be reconciled to God. God being holy and sinless, perfectly righteous, is revealed through His commandments, His attributes, His promises, throughout His Word.

As we read about God, and see all of these things, we should begin to realize we have a big problem - that problem being that we are under a debt we can never pay - we cannot satisfy the law, that is, we cannot measure up to God, we cannot adhere to His standard - and as a result, we are guilty as charged.

Think of it like this: we live in a land of many laws and regulations. These laws and regulations legally require us to do certain things and keep us from doing others. When we disobey the laws and/or regulations, we can be charged, and if we are found guilty, there is a payment to be made in order to satisfy the transgression. Since sinful, fallen man is involved, we know that with many laws and regulations, the line is gray - the speed limit for example. We also know that the payment for breaking the law is not always applied equally. This law reveals a 'standard', a way of living that is supposed to be correct - however filled with error it is due to man's involvement.

With God, however, His law reveals the perfect way to live - the way that will perfectly glorify Him, perfectly reveal who He is - and there are no gray lines or unequal payments. The slightest disobedience to God, the 'slightest' transgression against His perfection, that robs Him of being perfectly glorified and perfectly revealed through us, is sin - and in God's eyes, all sin is equally black, and all sin carries an equal judgement: eternal separation from Him, eternal condemnation.

The law, God revealing who He is through His Word, was meant to make us realize that we are sinful. Romans 5:20 tells us that the law came in to increase the trespass...the more we read God's Word, and realize who He is, the more we realize how much we have fallen short of keeping the law, and how sinful we really are, how in need of someone to remove this debt from us we really are.

Then we read the end of verse 14: we are not under this law, we are under grace. All of the beautiful truth that Paul described in the beginning of Chapter 6, describing what has happened to us as God's children...
- baptized into Christ Jesus
- baptized into His death
- raised to walk in newness of life
- united with Christ in His resurrection
- crucified with Him
- no longer enslaved to sin
- set free from sin, justified
- alive with Christ, alive to God
...all of that is God's grace being poured out on us as we are set free from the law, Jesus Christ was that someone who paid the debt we incurred for disobeying God's perfect law.

I said earlier that we needed to understand this in order to respond correctly to the gospel. This is why: as humans, we are conditioned to expect a result from things we do. We go to work, we get paid. We make the correct amount of payments on our house, we own it. We give to charity, we feel good. We obey the law, we expect to live in peace with law enforcement (usually). Our life is full of doing something in order to receive something, whether it's physically, emotionally, or some other way.

This makes it difficult for us to understand God's grace. God pours out His grace on us while we are doing everything not to deserve it - Romans 5:8 says that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us, and in 5:10 - while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by His Son! God doesn't reward us with eternal life - that being a relationship with Him - because we did something good, or enough good things. Our attempt to do good things in order to cause God to love or accept us is our attempt to pay our own debt for disobeying God's law...the problem is we cannot even scratch the surface of paying this debt.

When we attempt to pay our own debt to God by doing something, we show our lack of faith that Jesus Christ paid the debt in full on our behalf.

Even though we live in grace, set free from the law, we live as though somehow God is going to reward us with eternal life if we live a good enough life - this is based on our interaction with other humans and how we are used to living, but is the wrong way to respond to God's grace.

Tragically, if we do not grasp the power of God's grace over the law, if we continue to live a life trying to satisfy a debt that cannot be paid, we can begin to water down God's law in our minds in order to feel that we are satisfying the debt we owe. We begin to think that some of the 'smaller', less obvious, hard to overcome sins aren't really sin. This is a dangerous trap, because it lines up so perfectly with what we are used to in our daily life: going 56 in a 55 isn't really breaking the law, it's kind of a gray area that can be overlooked, and doesn't usually require payment, maybe a warning. 

We need only to look at Adam and Eve to realize that with God there is no gray area, disobedience is disobedience, all sin is equally black and requires a payment that we cannot afford, all sin results in death, eternal condemnation as just judgement - unless we accept Christ's payment on our behalf, and have faith that it was payment in full. 

We need to realize we are free, so that we can live a life of pursuing God in love and appreciation, not a life trying hard to satisfy a debt that cannot be paid. We tend to argue, then, that if we are free and not required to do something in order to be saved or stay saved, can we just live according to flesh, expecting God to cover us with His grace...to overlook our sin because of His grace? This is what Paul addresses in the upcoming verses.

 

Romans 6:14a

For sin will have no dominion over you...
Romans 6:14a

In verses 12 and 13, Paul has been exhorting us to take sin in our lives very seriously, to purge it as God reveals it to us so that it may not gain a foothold, recognizing the terrible hindrance it is to our relationship with our Father, who is to be our everything. Anything that affects our relationship with the One, the Great I Am, affects every part of our life.

To sin is to miss the mark - the mark being the standard that is God, which is to be perfectly sinless and perfectly righteous.

Obviously, the Bible has a lot to say about sin - it is what separates us from God at birth, and it will be the reason we are eternally separated from Him at death - unless we experience the forgiveness of our sin through the blood of Christ.

That being said, I want to look at some of the things Paul has stated about sin just in the first part of Chapter 6. It's very important that we have the proper perspective on sin as God's children, and the context Paul is working in here is crucial.

For one who has died has been set free from sin (vs 7)

So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus (vs 11)

Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions (vs 12)

What is Paul saying in these verses? As God's children, we have been set free from sin, meaning we have been justified, forgiven, saved! We are dead to sin, it no longer separates us from our Holy God! We can now see the ugliness of sin, and make the choice to not allow it to reign in this mortal body!

We must approach sin in our lives with confidence, knowing that, by the power of God, we can - and must - purge sin from our lives as He reveals it to us. While it's crucial to recognize the importance of moving away from sin and towards God, we cannot allow Satan to convince us that we are powerless over sin, or that sin has the power to do anything to us as God's children. If we do, we will begin to feel beaten and downtrodden, like we are losing the battle - which results in us not being the light of God to the world - a light that burns brightest when it is fueled by the boldness of victory in God through Jesus!

We need to understand that we are not losing the battle, and that the war has already been won - approaching sin with the confidence that it has no power over us and it can be overcome by the power of God in our lives will result in great sanctification!

So, with those three verses above in mind, Paul says again in here in verse 14: For sin will have no dominion over you...

The word 'for' is important, because it tells us that Paul is giving a reason for something. Here, Paul is giving us the reason for verse 13. We are not to present our members to sin, but rather present ourselves to God, and our members to righteousness, 'for' (or because) sin has no power over us.

Paul is saying that, since sin has no power over us, we have the power, by God, to choose what we are going to do with the members of our body. Sin cannot make us present our members to sin, nor can sin prevent us from presenting our members to righteousness. These are choices we have the power to make because sin has no dominion over us!

If we have sin in our lives, it's because we have not exercised the power of God in our lives over that sin! This should start build that confidence we ought to have as children of the Almighty God!

Sin has no dominion over us - sin can no longer control us because it does not align with the desires of our heart any mind anymore, it is in opposition to the Holy Spirit living in us, and no longer provides any pleasure or happiness that lasts or compares to the joy we find in a growing relationship with God!

Sin has no dominion over us - sin can no longer condemn us because it no longer separates us from God. We are eternally alive, we cannot die spiritually - thus sin has been emptied of all power over us!

Sin has no dominion over us - because we know the previous two statements are true, we also must know that any negative affects of sin in our life are our fault. We have the choice to overcome and purge sin as God reveals it to us, and we need to be constantly praying for Him to do so. When He does, and we don't respond correctly, we are refusing to approach sin with the confidence and power that God can work in our life.

Sin has no dominion over us - sin itself is never an excuse - we are always responsible for the results in our lives brought on by any sin that is present - this is true because we have the power to not allow sin to control us. 

Sin has no dominion over us - be confident! Take on sin with confidence that we have a God whose grace, mercy, and power are greater than any sin! Sure, we will stumble. Sure, we will slip. We will never be perfect this side of heaven, but oh the joy that comes from seeking God's face!

As we focus on God alone, sin will lose it's appeal, and it's influence in our lives...we must become completely occupied with drawing close to God!

Romans 6:13b

...but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness.  Romans 6:13b ESV

We have been looking at the commands God gives us in verse 13, and how they relate to the command in verse 12. From the last blog:

" So - the command here has to do with what we are doing with our body as God's children. Keep in mind the context here...Paul started this chapter by asking how any child of God could possibly think it's alright to live in a life of sinfulness. The command we read here also stems from a command giving right before it, in verse 12: 

 Let not sin reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions.  

What is Paul doing by stacking up these commands? (and there is one more to come at the end of verse 13) - Not only is Paul driving home the importance of repentance, the turning away from sin, but Paul is also using verse 13 as instructions on how to obey the command in verse 12! We have no excuse now...look at it: 

  

vs 12: Let not therefore sin reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. 

Paul...how do we make sure we are defeating sin in our lives, not allowing it control?

vs 13a: Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness

(and Paul goes even further in this verse, which we will cover later) 

vs 13b: present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. "
 

We see that if we focus on the decision we make concerning the members of our body, we will be experiencing the power of God in our lives which includes power over sin, and is in obedience to verse 12. As we focused on the first part of verse 13 in the last post, we looked at how we should approach this command, the seriousness of this command, and what the motivation for our obedience to this command should be. 

As he began verse 1, Paul told us - don't allow your body to be a part of sinful things. The question comes up then: do we occupy ourselves with not sinning? Absolutely not - or as Paul might say - by no means! Not only are we to be in control of our members by keeping them from sin, but we are to be giving ourselves entirely to God, for His service. Let's break down how Paul explained it. 

but present yourselves to God 

Paul doesn't jump right in talking about our members here, but talking about our entire being. Our focus, as God's children, should be giving ourselves over to Him entirely - starting with the heart and mind. As lost souls, our heart and mind (as Paul described in the first chapter of Romans) were satisfied with the lusts of the flesh, which were in gross opposition to God. Now, God is commanding us to present these inner parts of our being to Him as His children. 

What should be our motivation for doing this? 

as those who have been brought from death to life

Our motivation is everything that Paul talked about in the first part of chapter 6 - that he sums up here. We are to present our entire self to God, starting with our heart and mind, because God renewed both our heart and our mind by bringing us from death to life.

As humans, when we see these things described as commands from a holy God, we tend to have a negative reaction...as though these are things that we have to make ourselves do in order to please Him. This is a very dangerous way to look at God's commands because it's wrong. 

We looked, in the last post, at what God's commands do:

1. They serve to reveal Him.
2. They serve to glorify Him.
3. They are a blessing to us when we keep them! 

As God's children, who have experienced His power of regeneration that completely changes us, we should be noticing, and nurturing, a desire to know and love God more deeply, more personally - this should be the pursuit of our new heart and mind. We will battle the flesh no doubt, because it is of this world, but the battle should prove that the desire of our flesh is in opposition to the desire of our heart and mind. 

This desire to know and love God more each day is crucial, and it must be the root from which everything else grows. This is why the greatest commandment is this: "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind." Mathew 22:37. If we focus on loving God with all of our being, His commands will be a delight to us! We will see clearly how they reveal Him, how He glorifies Himself through them, and how they bless us when we keep them!

Our effort should never be in doing 'good' things for God, but drawing close to God so that we might experience His promise in James 4:8 "Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you..." As we draw near to Him, and He draws near to us, our desire to know Him will grow, our love for Him will grow, and He will work through us. The natural result of Almighty God working through His children is spiritual growth! 

We draw near to God when we do as Paul commands here in verse 13, when we present ourselves to Him as those who have been brought from death to life, making evident our new heart and mind. The result of this drawing near to God?

and your members to God as instruments for righteousness.

We begin to see the power of God take over our lives. The desires of our heart and mind to pursue God and the joy of being in His presence begins to outweigh the lusts of the flesh and it's influence in our decision making. God's influence on our decision making causes us to want to present our members to Him, that we might be used by Him for righteousness - this is His righteousness being revealed through His children - what a blessing! Thank you Father!

The final thing I want to look at is the order that Paul used here. Paul lays entire books of the bible out in a very specific order, but for now I want to focus on verse 13 - if we follow this order, we will experience a relationship with God that is more powerful and more life-changing than we could imagine - and by His power we can!

1. "Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness"
Repent! That is - be moving away from sin and towards God continually. We must always be praying for God to reveal sin in our life, with the purpose of purging it from our life. We can never allow ourselves to have a nonchalant view of sin - all sin is dangerous.

2. "present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life"
As we move away from sin and towards God, we will find it possible to spend time reflecting on what made this new life possible - His Love, His Grace, His Mercy, His Power! We need to pursue God with all of our heart, mind, and soul! Presenting ourselves to Him completely, as His servants to be used by Him!

3. "and your members to God as instruments for righteousness"
As we draw close to God, and He draws close to us, it will become clear that our desire is to nurture this relationship! We need to make sure we do that! As we do, we will find joy in presenting the members of our body to God, to be used by Him to reveal His righteousness to a broken world!

 

Romans 6:13a

Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness... Romans 6:13 ESV

Our first thought when we read this line should be that we have been given a command directly from Almighty God...what do we know about commands from God?
1. They serve to reveal Him. 
2. They serve to glorify Him. 
3. They are a blessing to us when we keep them! 

This is obviously very serious, and as is true with all of God's Word, this should never be taken lightly...the things of God are never minor. 

So - the command here has to do with what we are doing with our body as God's children. Keep in mind the context here...Paul started this chapter by asking how any child of God could possibly think it's alright to live in a life of sinfulness. The command we read here also stems from a command giving right before it, in verse 12: 

 Let not sin reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions.  

What is Paul doing by stacking up these commands? (and there is one more to come at the end of verse 13) - Not only is Paul driving home the importance of repentance, the turning away from sin, but Paul is also using verse 13 as instructions on how to obey the command in verse 12! We have no excuse now...look at it: 

  

vs 12: Let not therefore sin reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. 

Paul...how do we make sure we are defeating sin in our lives, not allowing it control?

vs 13a: Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness

(and Paul goes even further in this verse, which we will cover later) 

vs 13b: present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. 

Paul will expound on this idea of how we are to present our members a little later in chapter 6. We will look more in depth at how this plays out in our lives at that time. For now, we will look at the first part of verse 13 and how it relates to verse 12, as well as how it ties in to what Paul laid out for us in the first part of chapter 6 as a whole. 

We know, from verse 7, that we have been set free from sin, set free meaning justified. As a result, we are no longer controlled by sin, because sinfulness is no longer aligned with the desires of our heart and mind. Sin can no longer condemn us, because we have been declared righteous through the blood of Christ our Savior! 

This does not mean, however, that we are not vulnerable to sin, that we don't battle the flesh. Though we can no longer find long term satisfaction in the sinfulness that once defined us, our flesh still longs for it...and Satan is always lurking, hoping to convince us that what the flesh wants will provide satisfaction...IT WILL NOT. 

Because we still battle the flesh, we have a decision to make...as God's children are we going to be nonchalant about sin in our lives, trying to turn a blind eye to it, refusing to deal with it? If this is the case, we are in direct opposition to the command in verse 12...if we refuse to take on the sin in our life with the desire to purge it completely, we are giving sin a foothold...remember the analogy of the steep slope? We are putting a foot over the edge, and we are foolish to think we have control. The evil, demonic forces we are dealing with are much more powerful than us as mere humans - they will do with us what they want, and God will allow them some room - especially as discipline...

Paul is telling us in verse 13 that we need to take a look at what we are doing in our day to day life. I posted about this idea of the micro and the macro earlier this year, not realizing how perfectly it fits here. If we look at the macro (purge sin from your life) we can become completely overwhelmed...especially if how we see our self before God has even a small bit of accuracy.

We need to look at the micro, and allow that to shape macro. The micro here is what we are doing with our bodies on a day to day basis. Remember the song O Be Careful Little Eyes? 

O be careful little eyes what you see...
O be careful little ears what you hear...
O be careful little hands what you do...
O be careful little feet where you go...
O be careful little mouth what you say...
There's a Father up above
And He's looking down in love
So, be careful little mouth what you say

This is how we need to approach the command in verse 12 to keep sin from gaining a foothold in our lives! Take each verse, look at the part of the body, and ask yourself if you are protecting that member from sin...through the power of Christ these things ought to be under control, we are in God's hand. Jesus had stern words if we are allowing the members of our body to hinder us:

And if your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life crippled or lame than with two hands or two feet to be thrown into the eternal fire. And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into the hell of fire.  Mathew 18:8,9

This doesn't literally mean that we are to be mutilating our body, but that there is no room for a casual attitude towards sin. As God's children, we MUST exhibit control over the members of our body, and we can (Paul will explain as we study the rest of vs 13).

As we pray for God to give us a passion and power to be in control of the members of our body, to purge sin from our lives, refusing to give any control or power to the demonic forces around us, we cannot forget why we are doing this. It is NOT an attempt to earn God's love, and it is NOT an attempt to obtain salvation. Paul is very clear about this.

In the first seven verses Paul explained what has happened to us as God's children - in response to why we shouldn't live in sin. AFTER explaining this, Paul gave us the command to repent and continually be consumed with purging sin completely from our lives in verses 12 and 13 - using the very important word THEREFORE in verse 12.

 Let not therefore sin reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. 

Using the word therefore reveals that we are commanded to do these things not in order to obtain a relationship with God, or eternal life, rather we are commanded to do these things because we have already been adopted into a relationship with God, which is eternal life! 

It's very important that we recognize this order, because we cannot begin to obey these commands of our own power. The only way this purging of sin and control of our members will take place is if we are in a relationship with an Almighty God, who can work His power in us as we pursue Him and submit to Him! When we seek God with a humble, sincere heart, in humility, and He will bless us with power over sin that we never knew existed.

 

Romans 6:12

Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions.  Romans 6:12 ESV

In verse 11, Paul explained that, as a response to the regeneration that God has worked in us, we ought to consider, or see ourselves, as dead to sin and alive to God.  Here, in verse 12, Paul explains further how this 'being dead to sin' ought to play out in our lives.

Keep in mind that these commands are very serious...they are about God getting glory for the powerful miracle that He has performed in the life of every single one of His children. We don't obey these commands as a way to earn or purchase something from God, but to reveal God, in all of His power and glory, to those around us.

When we refuse to pursue God, and instead embrace the sin that used to condemn us, we are in a terrible place. Two tragic results of our embracing sin:

ONE: When we embrace sin, we rob God of the glory He deserves, by hiding His presence in us from the world. Robbing God of His glory is not something He takes lightly. In Acts 12:22-23, King Herod was struck down and killed by an angel of the Lord...why? For one specific reason: "because he did not give God the glory" That is a pretty powerful warning!

We all fail to give God the glory like we should, and the fact that He doesn't strike us down immediately like He did Herod proves He is full of grace and mercy. As God's children, we dare not embrace sin - NO! Instead, we need to be aware that we are guilty of robbing God of His glory through our sinfulness, and repent! This repentance includes pursuing a life that displays 'death to sin'.

TWO: When we embrace sin, we give sin power. This is what Paul talks about in Romans 6:12: 

Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions

Paul, leading off this command with the words 'let not', indicates that we have a choice to make...will we or won't we let sin reign? Paul says, since we have died to sin, do not let it reign.

What does Paul mean by not letting sin reign? - I think this is an important question since we are commanded not to do it. To reign means to rule over, like a king. We know that, since we have died with Christ, sin can no longer control us or condemn us - therefore any power that sin has in our lives is allowed by us. Paul is telling us, commanding us, not to give sin any power in our lives.

Giving sin any power in our lives is very, very dangerous. Satan would have us think that a little sin, sin that doesn't seem to have any lasting affects, is not a huge deal. Satan will deceive by convincing us that, by only giving in a little to sin, we are still in control...we can stop the flesh before the sin gets out of hand. This is not absolutely true...Paul says in Ephesians 6:12:

For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.

When we embrace even a little sin in our lives, we give power to these forces that are far more powerful than we are as humans...and as humans, we have no power whatsoever to stop them. This analogy came to mind as I thought about this:

Picture yourself in the Rocky Mountains. When one visits the mountains, there is always an element of awareness while there because of the ever present steep, dangerous slopes. Of themselves, these slopes have no power to harm us. The only way they can influence what happens to us is if we allow them to by getting too close...and by getting too close, we not only allow the slopes power to harm us, but we lose any control of stopping them.

That analogy is 'speaking in human terms' as Paul says, but paints a clear picture:

When we give Satan's powerful, evil forces a foothold in our life (which would be the embracing of any sin), we are allowing them power...power beyond our control to stop them. These evil forces have the power to cloud our minds, causing us to justify actions that hinder our relationship with God (who initially freed us from these forces), and robbing Him of His glory.

Paul says here in verse 12 that if we embrace sin rather than die to it, it will reign in our lives - making us obey its passions. We do not have the power to overcome this evil...only God does...and He did, making that powerfully evident through the death and resurrection of His Son!

It's painfully obvious that we all struggle with sin, especially the longer we walk with our Lord, and He reveals who we really are in light of who He really is. BUT we don't have to embrace this sin...we don't have to let it reign, we don't have to allow it any power in our lives. Since we are now living to God in Jesus Christ, we have the power to continually move away from sin, destroying its power and influence in our lives, glorifying God as His power, grace, and mercy is revealed through us!

God has set us free from the bondage that was our sinful, lost state - completely controlled by Satan's evil forces. Spiritually, as His children, we have entered into eternal life - that cannot be taken away. If this is true, as the Bible promises it is, why would we ever think its ok to give our mortal bodies over to sinful bondage again? Why would we let sin reign in our mortal bodies, making us obey its passions?

Father, cause us to fix our eyes on YOU...for YOUR glory! Every day, remind us of Your command...to die to sin and live to You - so that our relationship with You would not be hindered, that You will be glorified through us!!!

Romans 6:11

So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.  Romans 6:11 ESV

I had planned on moving into verse 12, but God really laid on my heart to dig a little deeper into verse 11, so that's where we will be for this post!

In verse 11, Paul transitioned from what has happened in us to how we are to respond as God's children. He introduced this transition with the phrase: "so you also must consider..." This is not an option, but a command. What is it that we are commanded to do? So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Two questions that might come to mind:

Question 1: Why are we commanded to do this? Because we are joined with Christ as one (as Paul explained in the previous verses), we have been brought into a holy communion with God, who lives in us through the Holy Spirit. Just think, anything we do, anything we see, anything we partake of...God is right there with us...are there things we do that we would rather God not see? Are there things we do that we know God would not partake of? We are forever justified by the righteousness of our Savior, but that doesn't mean God doesn't see our sinful thoughts and actions...He is right there with us, in us, all day everyday...are we showing Him how much we love Him by how we think and act daily?

Never forget the fact that every sin we have committed, are committing, and will commit, is the reason God crushed His Son physically. These sins are the reason God looked at His perfect Son as an ugly curse on a tree, completely separating Himself from His Son spiritually.  Never forget the absolute pain and agony Christ suffered in the midst of that physical brutality and spiritual emptiness, on our behalf, for our sinfulness.

Question 2: So, just how dead to sin are we supposed to be, and how alive to God? I think this is easiest understood this way...since the reason we are supposed consider ourselves dead to sin and alive to God is because we are joined together with Christ, who showed us what dying to sin and being alive to God was all about, we ought to look to Him for the answer. As we go about our daily lives, we ought to ask ourselves continually, is this something Christ would find acceptable? Is what I'm thinking or doing showing that I am joined with Christ, that the holy God who has no sin lives in me? Are my thoughts and actions driven by who God is or by self satisfaction and pride? 

We are called to be completely dead to sin, so that we can be completely alive to God. Any sin we haven't let go of hinders our new life, our new relationship with God. By God's grace and mercy, perfect joy and peace have been made available to us, why do we continue to hold on to things that keep us from experiencing these blessings?

I think one of the biggest dangers for any child of God is the deception of perceiving God's view of sin as nonchalant. This plays out in so many ways, and can be so hard to see in our lives, but I know we are all guilty of it. It's so easy to justify our sinful actions with excuses like these:

- God wouldn't really consider that a sin 

- God still loves us no matter what

- Even Jesus hung out with sinners

- God's grace is bigger than my sins

- I'm saved no matter what 

There are obviously many other ways we could word these, and many other excuses like them. However, none of these excuses hold any weight...God's view of sin is absolutely not nonchalant, He views sin as sin, in Him there is no darkness - the biggest sinful action and the slightest sinful thought are both black, ugly stains - unacceptable to a God who is perfectly white and stainless.

Don't forget that Adam and Eve did not fall because they physically murdered someone, or because they committed adultery on each other, but because they disobeyed God...the same God that has commanded us to love Him with all of our heart, mind, and soul...the same God that has commanded us to love our neighbor as our self, to put others before our self...the same God who has commanded us to die to sin and live for Him...have we disobeyed any of these commands?

To sin is to miss the mark, to not live up to the standard set before us (Jesus Christ) - we all do this daily...I don't say this to get us down on ourselves, but to create an awareness, so that we can be responding the way Paul is commanding us to...consider yourselves dead to sin...sin cannot control us or condemn us, Christ has set us free and given us the power to say no to sin - this is a lifelong process as God continues to reveal areas of sin in our lives, but it is possible to continually be moving away from sin and towards God!

I think its important for all of us to spend time pondering our heart...are we living in a way that shows we are dead to sin and living for God? If not, its absolutely crucial that we implore God to address our heart, to make us hungry for Him, so hungry that it changes the way we live!

Romans 6:10,11

For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.  Romans 6:10,11 ESV

Death and life...the two points that Paul has really been driving home in Romans. As lost people we are a spiritually dead people...the old man that loves and pursues sin, the very sin that separates us from God, has to be put to death in order to be adopted into the family of a holy God...adoption that not only means walking in newness of life - being made spiritually alive, but life eternal!

Being joined with Jesus in His death, we experience the power of God as He regenerates us - He puts the old man to death and raises us to eternal life, joining us with Jesus in His resurrection!

Everything Paul has explained up to this point has been about how God's power takes affect in our lives, what happens to us, not what we do. God causes this death and resurrection in our lives, God causes us to be joined with His Son, God regenerates our souls, through His Son, so that we can be set free from sin - we have no power of ourselves to cause these things to happen.

Now, in verses 10 and 11, we see a transition. Paul continues to speak of Christ's death and life, but he begins to move towards our responsibility for a response - tying everything he has been saying back to the question he started with: "How can we who died to sin still live in it?"

Paul has revealed in different ways how, being joined with Christ, we have died to sin - which he repeats here in verse 10: "For the death he died he died to sin, once for all" Being baptized with Christ in His death, we need to understand that this applies to us...we, too, have died to sin, once for all. The miracle of our old man, with his sinful lusts and desires, being put to death is a death a Christian only experiences once, as we are transferred from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light. If we have died to sin this way, how can we still live in it? 

Paul isn't saying that we who have died to sin no longer sin...but instead that we who have died to sin should live lives that reveal the miracle of regeneration that has taken place inside of us. Our lives should show that we have been united with Christ in newness of life - a life that is now characterized by longing to know God, desiring God to be glorified in our lives through our obedience to Him and our love for Him and others, moving away from sin and towards God, and when we do sin - conviction and repentance become our response. 

While we still battle, sin no longer has the power to control us or condemn us, and we need to grasp this in order to live confidently in Christ! We can defeat sin! 

Dying to sin means we also live...we are joined with Christ, and Paul says in verse 10: "but the life he lives he lives to God."  We, with Jesus, now live our lives to God...we used to be focused on ourselves, how we could satisfy ourselves - and we can conjure up so many different ways to do this, some seem harmless, some may even seem 'good' in the way they affect people around us - but the truth is, before we are joined to Christ in His death to sin, all of our actions are self serving and rob God of His glory. 

But now, but now....we, with Jesus Christ, live our lives to God - we are free to give all to Him, to serve Him in complete submission, wanting Him to be lifted up in our lives above all else, dying to ourselves daily in order to be used by Him for His glory. Sure, we still struggle with pride and selfishness, those poisons run deep, but we are no longer controlled or condemned by them, we are free to battle them as they are revealed to us...the beautiful power of regeneration means that, in spite of our struggles, our main desire is that God be glorified through us!!

Paul has used these two points in verse 10 as motivators as he transitions to our response. 

1. You, with Christ, have died to sin. 

2. You, with Christ, now live to God. 

"So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. (vs 11)

This seems pretty basic, we already know from the previous verses that we are joined with Christ in His death and resurrection, Paul has made it a point to thoroughly drive those points home (though I would argue that we still don't understand the power of this death and resurrection). Yet, here in verse 11, as Paul once again reminds us that we are joined to Christ, there is a small phrase that is so important:  you also must consider... Paul, up to this point, has been describing things that happened to us, by the power, the grace, and the mercy of God, that changed us from who we were to who we are, but that focus has changed with this phrase, this command.

There is an expected response now, from those who have experienced God's power of regeneration in their lives. Paul will go into much more detail about it in the following verses, but it starts with this small command...you must also consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. This command is a direct response to the question in verse 2 "How can we who died to sin still live in it" and this command also begins to display how, as God's children, we can live a life that glorifies Him above all else! This should be our sole desire, that drives everything else in our lives!

So, as we get ready to dig throughout these upcoming weeks into how we are to respond to God's grace and mercy in our lives, that have changed us in such a powerful way, start by asking these very important questions:

1. Have I died to sin? Am I convicted when God reveals sin in my life? Do I repent when convicted?
2. Do I now live my life to God? Is God being glorified through me what drives me each day?

Meditate on these questions, pray over them, and allow God to mold you. Then, as we move forward, the response that is expected of God's children won't be work, or a checklist, but acts of love towards the God that set us free from eternal condemnation, giving us eternal life with Him!