Romans 6

     6:1-5.  The false logic that slanders Paul and the gospel is proposed again (1), as it was in 3:7-8, and is again in 6:15.  But though grace is free, it did not come cheap, and Christ’s death is not an encouragement to sin.  For baptism into Christ not only signifies our union with him in his death and burial, but also our union with him in his resurrection (5), so that we might no longer be in fear and bondage to sin and death, but by faith alive with him to serve God in newness of life.

     6:6-7.  Our “old self” is the old Adamic man (margin), see 5:12 ff.  Death, being the penalty for sin, is also the release from it.

     6:8-11.  Though the resurrection life is a matter of faith and not sight at this point, since Christ is our new federal head, we are to consider ourselves already alive to God in him.

     6:9.  Before Christ, death had always been man’s master, but in Christ can be so no longer (cf. Ecc.2:14-17; Heb.2:14-15; Rev.1:18).

     6:11.  Cf. Gal.2:17-21; Col.3:1-3ff.; 1 Peter 2:24.

     6:12-14.  Live out your faith as a liberated new man.

     6:15-23.  Obedience to “that form of teaching to which you were committed” (17), shows that though we are freed from the Law’s penalty, we are by no means free from righteousness (18).  The “form of teaching” is the apostolic instruction of how to live as a new man in Christ.  See 1 Tim.1:5. Paul is “speaking in human terms,” i.e., by way of analogy, as he speaks of slavery and the change of masters.

     We were once earning greater and greater condemnation under the Law.  But now that we are freed to serve righteousness, the result is a growing obedience in which we are renewed and set apart (sanctification, vv.19, 22.  See WSC, question 35).  The outcome of this work of God’s free grace is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord (23).