A Study in the Book of Romans

Lesson #7 : Who do you Serve (Romans 6:1-23)

In Romans Chapter 6 Paul is dealing with the subject of serving sin. Since grace abounded were there was sin, one might argue that we should keep on sinning so that grace might more abound. But Paul answers that question with “God forbid”. So in lesson we will look at how not to be the servant of sin. We will use verse 16 as the key verse for our study.

In verses 17-23 we see that whether a person is lost or saved they are the servant of something. When a person is lost they are the servant of sin which yields death. After you are saved you are the servant of righteousness which yields life. So you must first realize that you are a servant. No one likes that term today but realizing that we are a servant of righteousness is the first step.

Being freed from sin (Verses 3-10)

It is important to realize that we have been freed from sin. The baptism of the Holy Spirit baptizes us into the death of Jesus Christ. Therefore we are considered dead with him as it says in verse 3. This is spiritual baptism (1 Corinthians 12:12-13) and has nothing to do with water.  By this death we are freed from sin.

Since we are baptized into his death then we are spiritually resurrected with him as well. This is why we should walk in the newness of life. This is all speaking spiritually. The water baptism that we do get after salvation is a type of what happens spiritually. We are put under the water which is a picture of being buried with him in death. We are brought up out of the water as a type of being resurrected to walk in the newness of life.

How to serve righteousness and not sin:

1)  We have to know that the old man is dead (verse 6)

• This is why it is important to know that you are baptized into Jesus death. The old man is still alive in the fleshly sense but we are to consider him dead.

2)  We have to reckon the old man to be dead (verse 11)

• The word reckon means to count (Ezekiel 44:26), therefore we have to count the old man to be dead.

3)  We have to not yield to the old man (verse 13)

• Yield means to give way to. When we are tempted by the flesh we will either give in or resist. The key is to resist the flesh and not serve sin.

Looking at these three steps backwards we see how we can get some help in regards to not serving sin. To not yield to sin we must count the old man as dead. When we wants to sin we have to think of him as dead. To be able to count him as dead we have to know that he is dead.

A Study in the Book of Romans

Lesson #7 : Who do you Serve (Romans 6:1-23) Handout

1)  What is the context of the passage?

2)  What is the key verse for our study from the passage?

3)  What do we see about service from verses 17-23?

4)  How are we freed from sin?

5)  How do we serve Righteousness and not Sin?