Jesus gave a sobering warning about the spiritual condition of the world in the last days. His words reveal something deeper than a decline in kindness. He describes a world in which lawlessness increases and love gradually disappears from the hearts of many.
1. The Scripture
Matthew 24:12 (NASB 1995)
“Because lawlessness is increased, most people’s love will grow cold.”
Young’s Literal Translation (YLT)
“And because of the abounding of the lawlessness, the love of the many shall become cold.”
Notice the connection Jesus makes: increasing lawlessness produces cooling love.
2. The Greek meaning
Two Greek words help us understand this passage.
A. Love: Agapē (ἀγάπη)
This is the word for love used here. It describes love that gives, seeks another’s good, and is not merely governed by emotion.
Jesus is warning that the love which should characterize His people can become weakened.
B. Grow cold: Psychō (ψύχω)
Meaning: to cool, to become cold, or to lose warmth.
The picture is striking: something that was once warm gradually loses its heat.
Jesus is describing a progressive cooling of love.
Romans 6:1–4: The Believer’s Death to Sin and Newness of Life
The implications of grace, union with Christ, and the believer’s new identity
PRIMARY TEXT · NASB 1995
You have selected a remarkably important passage. Romans 6 is not merely an instruction about how Christians should behave. It is Paul’s explanation of what happened to the believer when he or she was united with Jesus Christ.
The central revelation is this:
God did not merely forgive your old life. He joined you to Christ in His death, burial, and resurrection, giving you a new position and a new way of living.
Let’s examine the passage beyond a conventional summary.
1. The most valuable insights
Insight 1: Grace is not permission to sin. It is God’s power to bring us into a new life.
Paul begins:
Romans 6:1–2 (NASB 1995)
“What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase? May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it?”
Paul anticipates a misunderstanding of his teaching in Romans 5:20:
“Where sin increased, grace abounded all the more.”
Someone might reason that if grace increases where sin increases, then continuing in sin gives grace more opportunity to operate.
Paul rejects that reasoning completely.
But notice something important: Paul does not primarily respond by saying, “You must try harder not to sin.”
He says:
“How shall we who died to sin still live in it?”
That is an identity statement before it is a behavioral instruction.
The foundation of Christian living is not simply what you must stop doing. It is what God has already accomplished in Christ.
Insight 2: “Died to sin” is a statement of spiritual position, not a claim that temptation has disappeared.
The Greek expression translated “died to sin” is:
Greek: apethanomen tē hamartia
ἀπεθάνομεν τῇ ἁμαρτίᾳ
Meaning: We died to sin.
The verb apethanomen comes from apothnēskō, meaning to die.
Paul uses the aorist tense, presenting this death as an accomplished event.
This matters enormously.
Paul does not say that believers are gradually trying to die to sin. He says that something has already happened through their union with Christ.
This does not mean Christians no longer experience temptation, struggle, or the possibility of sinful behavior.
It means sin no longer possesses the same relationship of mastery and dominion over the believer.
Compare:
Romans 6:14 (NASB 1995)
“For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law but under grace.”
The Greek word for master or lord is kyrieuō (κυριεύω).
It describes exercising lordship or dominion.
Paul’s point is that sin is no longer supposed to rule the person who belongs to Christ.
That is a much stronger message than simply telling people to behave better.
2. The hidden significance of baptism into Christ
Romans 6:3 (NASB 1995)
“Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death?”
The phrase “baptized into Christ” is particularly significant.
Greek: baptizō eis Christon Iēsoun.
The preposition eis means into, indicating movement into a relationship or identification.
Paul is describing our identification with Christ.
This is more than identifying with Jesus as a religious teacher. It is participation in what He accomplished.
His death becomes the basis of our freedom from sin’s dominion.
His burial signifies the termination of our former life in Adam.
His resurrection establishes the foundation of our new life.
Paul is not teaching that water baptism itself independently produces all these realities. He is describing the believer’s union with Christ, which water baptism publicly portrays.
Counterintuitive lesson: Christianity does not begin with your determination to imitate Jesus. It begins with God’s work of joining you to Jesus.
3. The burial is just as important as the death
Romans 6:4 (NASB 1995)
“Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.”
You now have a new life whose source is the resurrected Christ.
Here is an important application:
Many believers spend their Christian lives trying to improve the person they were before Christ.
Paul’s message is considerably more radical.
You are not simply an improved version of your former self. You have been brought into a new relationship with God through Christ.
See also:
2 Corinthians 5:17
Galatians 2:20
Colossians 3:1–4
Ephesians 2:4–6
4. An important Greek word: Newness of life
The expression “newness of life” comes from two Greek words:
Kainotēs (καινότης): newness, freshness, a new quality or condition.
Zōē (ζωή): life.
Paul uses kainotēs rather than merely describing something that is recent in time.
The emphasis is on a new quality of life.
This is consistent with the New Testament’s teaching about eternal life.
Jesus said:
John 10:10 (NASB 1995)
“I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”
Eternal life is not merely endless existence after death.
It is the life of God given to us through Jesus Christ.
The practical implication: We should not approach Christianity as though God has merely given us a new set of religious rules. He has given us a new life in Christ.
5. Implicit assumptions Paul is challenging
There are several assumptions buried in the question Paul raises.
False assumption
Paul’s answer
Grace gives permission to sin.
Grace brings us out from under sin’s dominion.
Sin remains our master.
We have died to sin through Christ.
Christianity is self-improvement.
Christianity begins with union with Christ.
The Christian life is primarily about human effort.
Resurrection life is God’s provision.
We must earn a new identity.
Our new identity is established in Christ.
One distinction deserves special attention:
Grace does not make sin harmless. Grace makes freedom from sin’s dominion possible.
6. A connection to the finished work of Christ
This passage connects beautifully with Romans 5:17.
Romans 5:17 (NASB 1995)
“For if by the transgression of the one, death reigned through the one, much more those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ.”
Notice the contrast:
Adam’s transgression brought death’s reign.
Christ’s obedience brought the abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness.
Those who receive God’s provision are to reign in life through Jesus Christ.
This is not a message of religious striving.
It is a message of receiving what God has provided.
And this is where Romans 6 becomes especially important for teaching believers about righteousness consciousness.
You cannot consistently live out of an identity you do not understand.
When believers see themselves primarily through their former failures, they often approach God with condemnation, insecurity, and sin consciousness.
But Paul directs their attention to what happened in Christ.
Romans 8:1 (NASB 1995)
“Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”
The answer to sin consciousness is not pretending sin does not exist. It is understanding the sufficiency of Christ’s finished work and learning to live from your new identity.
7. Practical applications: What do we do with this revelation?
Here are five applications that can be put into practice immediately.
1. Change the starting point. Begin with what God accomplished in Christ, not with your past failures.
2. Reject sin’s claim to authority. When temptation comes, remember that sin is no longer your rightful master.
3. Renew your thinking. Meditate on Romans 6:6–14. Your behavior is to come into agreement with your new identity.
4. Live from resurrection life. Do not merely try to avoid the old life. Walk in the new life God has provided.
5. Teach grace correctly. Grace is neither permission to sin nor a demand to earn God’s acceptance. It is God’s provision in Christ for a new life.
8. A particularly important connection: Romans 6:6
I would not stop at verse 4 when teaching this passage. Verse 6 explains the foundation of Paul’s argument.
Romans 6:6 (NASB 1995)
“Knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin;”
Notice Paul’s progression:
Verse 3: Do you not know?
Verse 6: Knowing this.
Verse 9: Knowing that Christ has been raised.
Verse 11: Consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.
There is a progression from revelation to understanding to reckoning.
The Greek word in verse 11 is logizomai (λογίζομαι).
It means to reckon, consider, count, or regard something as true.
Paul is telling believers to bring their thinking into agreement with what God has already accomplished.
This is not positive thinking. It is faith agreeing with God’s declaration.
Central message: You cannot understand the Christian life until you understand your union with Christ.
Point 1: Grace changes our relationship with sin.
Romans 6:1–2
We have died to sin. It no longer has rightful dominion over us.
Point 2: Our identification with Christ changes our identity.
Romans 6:3–4
His death, burial, and resurrection establish the foundation of our new life.
Point 3: We must reckon ourselves according to God’s finished work.
Romans 6:11
Faith does not attempt to accomplish what Christ has already accomplished. Faith receives and acts upon God’s provision.
Point 4: We walk in the life we have received.
Romans 6:4
The objective is not merely to stop living wrongly. It is to walk in newness of life.
10. Personal meditation and confession
Read this slowly, allowing the truth of Romans 6 to shape your thinking.
My Identity in Christ
Through faith in Jesus Christ, I have been united with Him in His death, burial, and resurrection.
I am not under the dominion of sin. Sin is not my master.
My former life has been dealt with through the finished work of Christ.
I have received a new life in Him.
I am alive to God through Jesus Christ.
I do not live to earn righteousness, acceptance, or God’s favor. I live from the righteousness and acceptance God has provided through His Son.
By the grace of God, I will walk in newness of life.
I am alive to God in Christ Jesus!
Prayer
Father, thank You for the finished work of Jesus Christ. Thank You that through His death, burial, and resurrection, You have brought me into a new life.
Open my understanding to the reality of my union with Christ. Teach me to think, speak, and live in agreement with what You have accomplished.
I refuse to give sin the place of dominion that belongs to Christ. I receive Your grace, Your righteousness, and the life that is mine through Jesus.
May my daily walk demonstrate the reality of the resurrection life of Christ within me.
In Jesus’ name. Amen.
11. The deepest takeaway
There is a distinction between trying to become something and learning to live from what God has already made you in Christ.
Romans 6 is not primarily a chapter about trying to become dead to sin.
It is a chapter about understanding that, through union with Christ, you have died to sin’s dominion and have been raised to walk in newness of life.
The believer’s victory begins with revelation, not human determination.
That is the foundation of grace-centered living.
A final Scripture worth connecting to this entire study:
Colossians 3:3 (NASB 1995):
“For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God.”
That is the believer’s new position.
And it is a truth worth building an entire teaching around.
