What does it mean that believers “died to sin”?

Explanation:

In Romans 6:2, Paul asks how we who died to sin can still live in it. We can understand what he means by dying to sin by considering all that he has said in Romans 5:15–21. There he has compared and contrasted two epochs of history. There is the epoch initiated by Adam, where one transgression led to the death of all humans (Romans 5:15). Then there is the epoch of Christ, whose one act of righteousness leads to justification for all (Romans 5:18). Of course, that one act of righteousness was the death of Christ, and now Paul asks how we who died to sin can still live in it (Romans 6:2). What Paul is saying is that all who put their faith in Christ have died with Christ, and since we died with Christ, we are no longer under the reign of sin but the reign of grace (Romans 5:21). In other words, those who have faith in Christ are no longer under the reign of sin, they have died to it; instead, they are under the reign of grace. ³

Counterargument:

The problem with this argument is that it asserts putting one’s faith in Christ means dying with Christ. But Paul does not say anything about putting faith in Christ in Romans 5:15–21. Rather, he refers to the epoch of Adam’s sin leading to death and Christ’s one act leading to righteousness, but nowhere does he mention faith. So it is not clear how we move from Christ’s one act leading to a new epoch, and the Romans’ dying to sin in the sense that they move from being under the dominion of sin to the dominion of Christ. In other words, it is clear from Romans 5:15–21 that Christ ushers in a new epoch, but it is not clear that by putting one’s faith in Christ one enters that epoch. Rather, all that is clear is that Christ ushers a new epoch, and those who die to sin no longer live in it, whatever it means to die to sin.

Response to counterargument:

The counterargument is fair except that it fails to notice what Paul writes in Romans 6:3. There Paul clarifies that there is a connection between believing in Christ and dying with him so that one shares in the new epoch that he has ushered in. In particular, Paul says that those who are baptized into Christ are baptized into his death. Of course, it was generally assumed at the time that all believers were baptized, so Paul is not saying the physical act of being immersed in water unites one with Christ’s death, but the faith associated with baptism unites one to Christ’s death.⁴ And of course, being united to Christ’s death means that one has moved from the realm of death through Adam in the old epoch to the realm of grace in the new epoch. Thus, by being united with Christ, one dies to sin so that sin no longer has power over the Christian.

Explanation

We can detect what Paul means by dying to sin by two lines of reasoning. First, we know that death is a decisive state for humans. When humans die, this marks a decisively new state of being, that is, non-being. So to die to sin is to enter a decisively new state of being in regard to sin, as in non-being toward sin. Of course, this leads us to wonder what Paul means by sin. Does he mean that believers never sin again, or that sins are counted against them? Likely, he means believers are decisively separated from the power of sin as something that has dominion over them. We can deduce this because Paul characterizes sin as a power in Romans 6:6 and Romans 6:14. ⁵ In Romans 6:6 Paul refers to no longer being enslaved to sin. And in Romans 6:14 he says sin will have no dominion over those who are under grace. So sin is a power from which believers have been decisively separated through the work of Christ.

Counterargument:

While Paul characterizes sin as a power, he also characterizes sin as discrete acts of disobedience. For example, in Romans 6:15 Paul asks whether we are to sin because we are not under law but under grace. Clearly, Paul is asking whether we are to continue committing discrete acts of sin. Of course, if Paul has discrete acts of sin in mind, then when he says that we have died to sin, he means that we have been decisively separated from committing discrete acts of sin. So it is plausible, based on the context, that Paul has in mind decisive separation from discrete acts of sin, rather than decisive separation from the dominion of sin.

Response to counterargument:

The problem with this counterargument is that it assumes Paul would teach that Christians are decisively separated from committing discrete acts of sin. But this is not consistent with his broader writings. For example, in Romans 7:21–23 Paul explains that the law of sin continues to work in him, instigating him to sin. So it is not true that he has been decisively separated from committing discrete acts of sin. Still, he has been decisively separated from the dominion of sin as something that reigns over him because grace now reigns over him through faith in Jesus Christ (Romans 5:21). So Paul envisions sin as a power that reigns unto death, and he teaches that those who have faith in Christ have died to sin, which means that they are decisively separated from the reign of sin’s power.

Once we accept that Paul personifies sin as a power that reigns over believers unto death, it is hard to see what the weakness of this view might be. For if sin is a power that reigns, to die to sin is to decisively separate from this power that reigns.

Explanation:

Paul writes that we died to sin. We can deduce what he means that we died to sin because he says the same in 2 Corinthians 5:14–15, where he explains what the phrase means. ⁷ Specifically, in 2 Corinthians 5:14 Paul writes, One has died for all, therefore all have died. Thus, in his letter to the Corinthians he articulates something similar to Rom 6:2, noting that we all have died. He then goes on to explain that the reason Christ died for all was so that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for the sake of Christ who died for them. In other words, Paul explains in 2 Corinthians 5:14–15 that we died so that we would no longer be self-centred but would live for Christ. Likely, Paul has the same idea in mind in Romans 6:2. That is, likely Paul has in mind that we died to sin in the sense that we have put to death our self-centred way of life.⁸

Counterargument:

The problem with using 2 Corinthians 5:14–15 to understand what Paul means in Romans 6:2 is that, while there are similarities between these, there are also notable differences. For in 2 Corinthians 5:14–15 Paul is explaining his love for the Corinthians, which is motivated by the fact that Christ sacrificed himself for others. Thus, since Christ served others by dying for them, Paul is also willing to serve others. On the other hand, in Romans 6:2 Paul is not explaining what motivates him to love others, but is stating that in Christ, the Romans have died to sin. Dying to sin and dying with Christ in the sense of sacrificing for others are not the same concepts. Of course, we want to know what it means to die to sin, so relying on 2 Corinthians 5:14–15, which is about serving others, is not relevant to the notion of dying to sin.

Explanation:

To understand what Paul means when he writes that we died to sin, it is important to first understand what makes dying to sin possible. ⁹ We learn in Romans 5:6 and Romans 5:8 what makes this death possible, namely, that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. In fact, Paul explains that Christ’s dying for us while we were still sinners is a display of God’s love. So the fact that we die to sin is made possible by the fact that God displayed his love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners. Of course, if our dying to sin is made possible by Christ’s sacrificial love, then dying to sin is likely related to this in some important sense. That is, it is likely that dying to sin has to do with putting to death self-centredness, just as Christ died for us in self-sacrificial love. 

Counterargument:

While it might be that Christ’s self-sacrificial love is what makes possible the fact that we die to sin, this does not tell us anything about what it means to die to sin. That it is Christ’s sacrificial love that makes it the case that believers can die to sin does not explain what it means to die to sin. Rather, it simply tells us that one state of affairs, namely, Christ’s display of self-sacrificial love, makes possible another state of affairs, that we die to sin. Still, the fact that one state of affairs makes another state of affairs possible does not tell us much about the nature of the state of affairs that was made possible. Rather, it simply tells us what made it possible for that state of affairs to come about.

The weakness of this view is that it does not offer good arguments to support it. The notion that dying to sin is related to putting aside one’s self-centredness is possible given the fact that self-centredness is sinful. Paul could be saying that by dying to sin, we put aside our sinful natures and no longer live sinful self-centred lives. The problem is that the arguments ushered in support of this view don’t support it.