The universal need of mankind is salvation from sin. God met that need in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. When we become Christians, we have been saved from sin, but that means every aspect of our lives is no longer governed by sin. In effect, when Christ died, we died. Now we live in Him, and that means we’re freed from the domination of sin! This all starts from the day we’re baptized for the forgiveness of sins.

Our sin brought from God the redemptive plan. We might say that our sin caused God’s grace to be poured out into the world. Should we then remain fixed in sin so that even more of God’s grace might come into the world? Absolutely not! Paul’s point is that we are entirely united with Jesus in His death when we are baptized. That is the moment of our salvation and it signals the beginning of our new life in Christ.

This identification with Jesus is the critical event in our lives. Our unity with Him in death means unity with Him in resurrection, too! Our old person died to sin, so we’re freed from obedience to the dictates of sin in us. Now we live in an entirely new way, subject to the will of God. We are dead to sin, but alive to God. He governs our conduct now and we freely give Him dominion over our lives.

It is as if He revived us from death already and demands that we be instruments of righteousness. Paul hints at a military metaphor in his use of the word for “instruments.” It literally means “armaments,” but came to be used for any kind of tool. We are to be tools of God for working righteousness in the world!

Paul begins this section with a little homespun wisdom: you are a slave to whoever you decide to obey. That means you can choose to be a slave to sin (obeying sin’s demands) and earn the reward for serving sin-death. Or, you can choose to be a slave to Christ (obeying His will for life) and earn the corresponding result-righteousness and life. Our situation is that we used to be slaves of sin, but we rebelled against sin and obeyed the gospel of Jesus. That set us free from sin and made us slaves of righteousness.

We were able to choose righteousness because we came to know about the gospel, God’s pattern for our salvation. This gospel is no haphazard collection of “holy sayings,” but is a definite form of teaching. There is an amount of information we must understand and there are definite responses required to these facts. When we respond appropriately to God’s form of teaching, He adds us to His kingdom. That is not the end of our response, though!

We must improve at our obedience to righteousness! When we obeyed the demands of sin, we became more and more proficient in ungodliness. Now we are ashamed of how deeply enmeshed in sinful conduct we were. Now that we are slaves to righteousness, we must become more and more proficient in righteousness, holiness and peace. Sin pays only death, but God’s great gift to us is eternal life in Christ!

In order to press home the point about our new relationship to God, Paul draws a strong illustration. He begins with the undeniable truth that the law has power over people only during their lives. Death releases people from obligations. One example has to do with marriage vows. If a man dies, his widow is free to remarry without penalty or stigma. If she had done this while the man was alive, she would be an adulteress. But death changes everything.

He draws an extended analogy to our state: we were the “bride” of sin, bearing not children, but more sin leading others and us to death. In Christ, though, we’ve died to sin, so we’re free to be joined to another master. Now we are the bride of Christ (Revelation 19:7) and the “children” we bear are offered to God. We no longer serve the demands of sin and we should not listen to its claims any longer.

Even though we are not slaves to sin and even though we’ve died to sin, we still hear its commands. We struggle with the sinful desires of the flesh as we grow in righteousness. This is not the same as being “governed” by sin! This is the tension between life in the flesh and life in the Spirit.

It is an unfortunate choice that led the NIV translators to erase the contrast Paul is drawing between “flesh” and “Spirit” in Romans. It is not sufficient to relabel “flesh” as “sinful nature” as they chose to do. Paul’s emphasis is that the flesh, the weak, mortal clay, tends to desire self-satisfaction at any price and is quite willing to sin against God. It is drawn toward its natural element-the soil of the earth. The spirit of man, in contrast, is drawn toward God-who is its natural element (Genesis 2:7). The man is a whole, flesh and spirit, but each tends in different directions with different goals.

Our problem is not the law. It is righteous, holy and good. Our problem is that we are weak and we surrender to temptation. Our spiritual side, without the help of God, is not sufficient to overcome the flesh. We are continually amazed at our own wretchedness. We know to do the right, we want to do the right, yet we often do the opposite. When we were controlled by sin, this didn’t bother us in the slightest. Now that Christ controls us, this failure leaves us in an agony of spirit. We are not yet the kind of persons we would like to be. In fact, we would be hopeless and helpless if not for Christ. Paul here has laid the groundwork for his discourse on the life of the Spirit in the next chapter.

1. What happens to us when we’re baptized for the forgiveness of our sins? How can we actively give Christ dominion over our lives?

2. In what realms do we see people choosing to be slaves? How are we able to choose righteousness? What do we need to know in order to respond to Christ’s offer of grace? How do we respond?

3. If we’re dead to sin, why does it seem so alive in us? What fruit do we bear as the “bride of Christ”?

4. How can we grow in righteousness and succeed more often in our struggle against sin? How does our spiritual life affect our fleshly life and our fleshly life affect our spiritual life? When will we become the kind of persons we want to be for Christ?