As we begin Romans 6, we see at once that we are not entering upon a radically new section. This is because the chapter begins with a question that immediately turns us back to chapter 5. In one way or another, the entire sixth chapter is going to answer this question. Paul’s response, after he has asked the question is, “By no means!” (v.2). This expression has already occurred in a similar exchange in chapter 3, and it’s a powerful one. The Greek words literally mean “let it not be,” and they have the force of a powerful negation. They actually mean, “It is inconceivable for it to be thus” or “It is unthinkable,” – “It should not even be considered.” Some translators render the expression, “God forbid!”

By now you should be able to see that there is no possible alternative to God’s path, for those who are truly saved. The life of sin is what we have died to. There is no going back for us, any more than there could be a going back to suffer and die for sin again by our Lord. If there is no going back – if that possibility has been eliminated – there is no direction for us to go but forward! A holy life comes from knowing – I stress that word – knowing that you can’t go back, that you have died to sin and been made alive to God. The secret of sanctification is not some neat set of experiences or emotions, however meaningful or intense they may be. It is knowing what has happened to you.

What Paul says we are to know is in verses 3 and 4. But before we plunge into that we need to think about the meaning of the word baptism, since it is the key term he uses. We gain help from classical literature. The Greeks used the word baptizo from about 400 B.C. to about the second century after Christ, and in their literature baptizo always pointed to a change having taken place by some means. The main idea is that the act of “baptizing” produces a permanent change, not necessarily by immersion in water. Mark 16:16 is well known. Jesus says here: “Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved…” Scores of people have wrongly concluded from that verse that unless a person first believes in Christ and then is also immersed in water, he or she cannot be saved. But even the poorest Bible student knows that this is not true. A person is saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ alone. If baptism in water is necessary for salvation, then the believing thief who was crucified with Christ is lost.

Once we get away from the mistaken idea that baptism always refers to water baptism, the verse becomes clear. For what Jesus is saying in Mark 16:16 is that a person needs to be identified with Him to be saved. He was saying that mere intellectual assent to the doctrines of Christianity is not enough. It is necessary, to use another of His teachings, that “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow Me” (Luke 9:23). This last verse is an exact parallel to what the apostle is teaching in Romans 6:3-4, for it means that a true follower of Christ has died to his past life – like a man on his way to execution. Only, in Romans 6, the man has already died and been buried (had permanently changed).It is that we have died to sin: “We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?” Union with Christ! And death to sin!

This is what baptism signifies, and in that order. The most important idea is that we have been taken out of one state and put into another. We have had an experience similar to that of the Jews after they had been brought through the Red Sea. They were joined to Moses; we are joined to Christ. Or, to put in the words of Galatians 3:27, we have been clothed with Christ. We are in Christ’s uniform. And what that means, if we look backward, is that we have died to whatever has gone before. We died to the old life when Christ transferred us to the new one. As soon as we see how these ideas go together, we see why Paul’s thoughts turned to the word baptism as a way of unfolding what he had in mind when he said: “How can we live in [sin] any longer?”

When Paul refers to our being baptized into Christ, he is not thinking chiefly of the sacrament of baptism but rather of our having been joined to Christ by the Holy Spirit. The very next verses (vv. 5-7) prove this view, for in them Paul speaks explicitly of our being “united with Him in His death [and] resurrection.” This is something the Holy Spirit does. But while emphasizing this, I don’t want to miss the significance of the sacrament of baptism as a Christian’s public renunciation of his past life and a profession of his new identification with Christ.

This is not so obvious to us today perhaps, since baptism is something that generally takes place in an exclusively Christian environment and for many people means very little. But this was not so in Paul’s day. And it’s not so in many places in the world even today. In the ancient world, to be identified with Christ in baptism was a bold and risky declaration. It often put the believer’s in jeopardy. When a Christian was baptized, he was saying to the state as well as to his fellow believers that he was now a follower of Jesus Christ and that he was going to be loyal to Him regardless of the outcome. It meant “Christ before Caesar.”

Baptism was as nearly an irreversible step as a believer in Jesus Christ could take. Therefore, even though Paul is not thinking primarily about water baptism in Romans 6 – water baptism is something we do; the baptism Paul is talking about is something that has been done to us – the sacrament of baptism is nevertheless a fit public testimony to what baptism into Christ by the Holy Spirit means: that we have been united to Christ and that the old life is done for us forever. That is what you professed is you have been baptized, particularly if you have been baptized as an adult. You have told the world you are not going back, that you are going forward with Jesus.

I know there are questions on many people’s minds: “But what if I do go back? What if I do sin?” Here are three points to remember: (1) It won’t work. If you are a true Christian, you cannot return to sin in the same way you were in it previously. You can sin. We do sin. But it’s not the same. If anything else, you cannot enjoy sin as you did before, and you will not even be able to do it convincingly. (2) God will stop you. God will not stop you from sinning, but He will stop you from continuing in it, and He will do it in one of two ways. Either He will make your life so miserable that you will curse the day you got into sin and beg God to get you out of it, or God will put an end to your life. Paul told the Corinthians that because they had dishonored the Lord’s Supper, God had actually taken some of them to heaven (1 Cor. 11:30). If God did it to them for that offense, He will do it to you for persistence in more sinful things. (3) If you do return to the life you lived before coming to Christ and if you are able to continue in it, you are not saved. In fact, it’s even worse than that. If you are able to go back once you have come to Christ, it means, not only that you are not saved, but that you even have been inoculated against Christianity (see Heb. 6:4-6). Those verses in Hebrews are not referring to a true believer in Christ being lost – how could they in view of Paul’s teaching in Romans 5 and 8? – But rather of one who was close enough to have tasted the reality of Christ and who nevertheless turned back. It teaches that the closer you are to Christ, if you do go back, the harder it will be to come to Christ again. In some cases it will be impossible.

So don’t go back! If you have been saved by Jesus, you have been saved forever. There is nothing before you but to go on growing in righteousness!

Romans 6:1-4 Reflection Questions:

Where do you see echoes of the Exodus story in 6:1-5?

How does Paul proceed to answer the question he raises in 6:1?

What is Paul’s understanding of baptism in 6:1-5?

According to Paul’s argument in these first five verses, a believer has experienced a change of status. What is required of those with this new status?