Romans 6:1-11

The Voice

We arrive here, children of a common ancestor, Adam. As such, we have inherited his traits, physically and spiritually. Although our sin may be of a different sort than his, we sin no less than Adam. The proof of that is death. Adam opens the way for sin and death to pursue us and run rampant across the earth. But from the beginning, God has a plan to reverse the curse. At just the right moment in human history, Jesus arrives, a son of Adam and the Son of God. Through His faithful obedience to His Father, He challenges the twin powers of sin and death and defeats them. Sin no longer reigns unchecked. Death no longer has the last word.

6 How should we respond to all of this? Is it good to persist in a life of sin so that grace may multiply even more? ²Absolutely not! How can we die to a life where sin ruled over us and then invite sin back into our lives? ³Did someone forget to tell you that when we were initiated into Jesus the Anointed through baptism’s ceremonial washing,^[a] we entered into His death? ⁴Therefore, we were buried with Him through this baptism into death so that just as God the Father, in all His glory, resurrected the Anointed One, we, too, might walk confidently out of the grave into a new life. ⁵To put it another way: if we have been united with Him to share in a death like His, don’t you understand that we will also share in His resurrection? ⁶We know this: whatever we used to be with our old sinful ways has been nailed to His cross. So our entire record of sin has been canceled, and we no longer have to bow down to sin’s power. ⁷A dead man, you see, cannot be bound by sin. ⁸But if we have died with the Anointed One, we believe that we shall also live together with Him. ⁹So we stand firm in the conviction that death holds no power over God’s Anointed, because He was resurrected from the dead never to face death again. ¹⁰When He died, He died to whatever power sin had, once and for all, and now He lives completely to God. ¹¹So here is how to picture yourself now that you have been initiated into Jesus the Anointed: you are dead to sin’s power and influence, but you are alive to God’s rule.