Dead to sin, alive to God
1What shall we say, then? Shall we stay on in sin so that grace may grow? 2Never. We died to sin—how can we go on living in it? 3Or do you not know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4By that baptism into death we were buried with him, so that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. 5For if we have been grown together with him in the likeness of his death, we will certainly be one with him in his resurrection as well. 6We know this: our old self was crucified with him, so that the body ruled by sin might be broken of its power and we might no longer be servants of sin. 7For anyone who has died has been justified from sin. 8And if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. 9We know that Christ, raised from the dead, dies no more; death has no hold on him any longer. 10The death he died, he died to sin once and for all; the life he lives, he lives to God. 11In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. 12So do not let sin reign in your mortal body, making you obey its cravings. 13Do not hand over any part of yourselves to sin as weapons of wrongdoing. Hand yourselves over to God as people brought from death to life, and every part of yourselves to God as weapons of righteousness. 14Sin will not be your master, because you are not under law but under grace.
Two masters, two wages
15What then? Shall we sin, since we are not under law but under grace? Never. 16Do you not know that when you hand yourselves over to someone as obedient servants, you are the servants of the one you obey—either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? 17But thanks be to God: you were servants of sin, and then from the heart you obeyed the pattern of teaching to which you were handed over. 18Set free from sin, you became servants of righteousness. 19I am putting it in human terms, because your flesh is weak. Just as you once handed over the parts of yourselves as servants to uncleanness and to one lawless thing after another, so now hand them over as servants to righteousness, and the end of it is holiness. 20When you were servants of sin, you were free as far as righteousness was concerned. 21And what fruit did you have then? Things you are now ashamed of; and the end of them is death. 22But now, set free from sin and made servants of God, the fruit you have leads to holiness, and its end is eternal life. 23For sin pays a wage, and the wage is death; but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
