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Romans 6

1What, then, will we say? Should we continue in sin so that grace may increase? 2Certainly not! We who died to sin—how can we still live in it? 3Or do you not know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4Therefore we were buried with him through baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the Father's glory, we too might walk in newness of life. 5For if we have become united with the likeness of his death, we will also be united with his resurrection. 6We know this: our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be rendered powerless, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin. 7For the one who has died has been released from sin. 8Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him, 9knowing that Christ, raised from the dead, dies no more; death no longer rules over him. 10For the death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. 11In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.

12Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its desires. 13And do not present the members of your body to sin as weapons of unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and the members of your body to God as weapons of righteousness. 14For sin will not rule over you, because you are not under law but under grace.

15What then? Should we sin because we are not under law but under grace? Certainly not! 16Do you not know that when you present yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one you obey—whether of sin leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness? 17But thanks be to God that, though you were slaves of sin, you obeyed from the heart the pattern of teaching to which you were handed over, 18and, freed from sin, you were enslaved to righteousness. 19I am speaking in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you presented the members of your body as slaves to uncleanness and to lawlessness leading to lawlessness, so now present the members of your body as slaves to righteousness leading to holiness.

20For when you were slaves of sin, you were free from righteousness. 21What fruit, then, did you have at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For their end is death. 22But now, freed from sin and enslaved to God, you have your fruit leading to holiness, and the end is eternal life. 23For sin's wages are death, but God's gift is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Translation notes 5

6:3–5 — Baptism and shared death. “Into” preserves the repeated relationship to Christ and his death. “Walk” is the image for a way of living. “United with” expresses a close joining; the Greek does not require a specific image of grafting. Verse 5 leaves part of its second clause unstated, supplied in English as “be united with.”

6:6–7 — Old self and release. “Old self” translates “old person,” not a specifically male identity. “Body of sin” refers to the body under sin's control; it does not say the body itself is intrinsically evil. The verb in verse 7 is elsewhere translated “declare righteous.” Here “released from sin” expresses the end of sin's claim in the death-and-slavery argument; “acquitted from sin” is a significant alternative.

6:10–14 — Death, members, and weapons. “Once for all” describes the unrepeatable death, not by itself the number of its beneficiaries. “Count” continues the reckoning language of chapter 4. The body's “members” are its parts or capacities. “Weapons” retains the military sense possible here; “instruments” is a broader alternative. Sin is depicted as a ruler to whom a person can yield.

6:16–19 — Slavery and teaching. The metaphor retains slavery rather than voluntary employment. The wording says that the people were handed over to a pattern of teaching, not simply that teaching was handed to them. “Flesh” in verse 19 concerns human weakness. “Holiness” is being set apart for God in one's life, traditionally called sanctification.

6:20–23 — Freedom, fruit, and wages. “Free from righteousness” describes their former lack of service to righteousness, not a commendable freedom. “Fruit” preserves the recurring result image. Verse 21 can also be punctuated as “What fruit did you have then? Things of which you are now ashamed.” Wages and gift contrast what sin pays with what God gives.