Dead to Sin, Alive in Christ

1What then shall we say? Should we continue in sin so that grace may abound?

2Certainly not! How can we who have died to sin still live in it?

3Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into his death?

4Therefore we were buried with him through baptism into death, so that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.

5For if we have become united with him in the likeness of his death, we will certainly also be united with him in the likeness of his resurrection.

6For we know that our old self has been crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin.

7For he who has died has been set free from sin.

8Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him.

9For we know that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more; death no longer has dominion over him.

10For the death that he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life that he lives, he lives to God.

11So you also must consider yourselves to be dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus ²³our Lord.

12Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal bodies so that you obey ²⁴it in the body's sinful desires.

13And do not present your members to sin as instruments of unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as alive from the dead, and present your members to God as instruments of righteousness.

14For sin will have no dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace.

Slaves to Righteousness

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 obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness?

17But thanks be to God that, though you were slaves of sin, you have become obedient from the heart to the pattern of teaching to which you were entrusted,

18and having been set free from sin, you have become slaves to righteousness.

19(I am speaking in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh.) For just as you presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification.

20For when you were slaves of sin, you were free with regard to righteousness.

21So what fruit did you have at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? The end result of those things is death.

22But now that you have been set free from sin and become slaves of God, you have fruit that leads to sanctification, and the end result is eternal life.

23For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.