1What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? 2May it never be! We who died to sin, how could we live in it any longer? 3Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4We were buried therefore with him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life.
5For if we have become united with him in the likeness of his death, we will also be part of his resurrection; 6knowing this, that our old man was crucified with him, that the body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be in bondage to sin. 7For he who has died has been freed from sin. 8But if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him, 9knowing that Christ, being raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over him! 10For the death that he died, he died to sin one time; but the life that he lives, he lives to God. 11Thus consider yourselves also to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
12Therefore don’t let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts. 13Also, do not present your members to sin as instruments of unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. 14For sin will not have dominion over you, for you are not under law, but under grace.
15What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? May it never be! 16Don’t you know that when you present yourselves as servants and obey someone, you are the servants of whomever you obey, whether of sin to death, or of obedience to righteousness? 17But thanks be to God that, whereas you were bondservants of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were delivered. 18Being made free from sin, you became bondservants of righteousness.
19I speak in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh; for as you presented your members as servants to uncleanness and to wickedness upon wickedness, even so now present your members as servants to righteousness for sanctification. 20For when you were servants of sin, you were free from righteousness. 21What fruit then did you have at that time in the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. 22But now, being made free from sin and having become servants of God, you have your fruit of sanctification and the result of eternal life. 23For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
One of the most unusual words in New Testament Greek is found in Romans 6:5. This Greek word is “sumphutos” is translated as “united together,” “grafted into,” “planted together,” “united with,” “into union with,” “one with him,” or “we have become assimilated.” This expression, only found in this passage, means to “plant in union” or “grow in union.” Some scholars stress a horticultural application of this word, relating “sumphutos” to Jesus’ teaching about the vine and the branches (John 15). If this is the case, then “sumphutos” describes two plants that have been planted so closely together that they are not only intertwined, but are also united. Others reject this horticultural application asserting “sumphutos” simply means “joined” or “united.” Regardless of the horticultural application, the context stresses an intimate and dynamic union between the believer and Jesus Christ. In other words, the believer is in Christ and Christ is in the believer. When one places his or her trust in Jesus Christ, believing that He is God and that He died on the cross for one’s sin and rose bodily from the dead, one becomes united with Jesus Christ in His death (vs. 4) and resurrection (vs. 5). Consider with Whom the believer has become united- Jesus Christ, the Second Person of the one and only Triune God. Jesus is Undiminished Deity and Perfect Humanity. The implications of this union are staggering! Perhaps Lewis S. Chafer described these implications best when he stated, “The believer is in Christ as to positions, possessions, safe-keeping, and association; and Christ is in the believer giving life, character, and dynamic for conduct” [Grace: The Glorious Theme (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1922, 1950), 303]. Why are we not more spiritually mature? The answer is not capability, but willingness (cf. Romans 8:1-18). PRS