The legalist and moralist insists that teaching people they are saved by grace would lead to a slack attitude to morality; the liberated (antinomian) church person may say that since we are saved by grace apart from work, it does not matter what we do; the Christian under pressure from temptation may reason that it is not so bad if we sin – after all God will forgive me anyway – so it is okay to sin and give way to temptation. So, shall we continue to sin so that grace may increase? Apostle Paul’s answer: “Absolutely not! We who died to sin, how shall we still live in it (6:2)? We have noted that there is no perfection here on earth and a Christian is still not beyond temptation, but that does not mean we cannot live a life apart from sin with God’s enabling and with the right understanding of what Christ has done for us.

Paul goes on in Rom. 6 to tell believers why we are to be holy.

We are to be holy and no longer live in sin by continuing to sin as a way of life because we died with Christ (Gal.2:20). Christ’s death was a proxy death for us. We were with Him on the cross, with Him in the tomb, and with Him in the resurrection (vv3-4). When Christ died for sin, we died to sin. Baptism, Paul says, is a constant reminder of our participation in Christ’s death and resurrection. Union with Jesus is the key to our justification and holiness.

When we died with Christ, we died to sin. Sin did not die; rather our physical body which sin used as its instrument was taken out of gear (v6). Conversely, we have been raised with Christ to a new life (vv4,5,8). This new life is never ending (v9).
As God sees us as believers, we are to see ourselves now. Previously, before we died with Christ, our master was Satan and sin; after we died with Christ and were raised with Him, we have a new Master – Christ and righteousness. We no longer need to listen to the old master; although we may be unduly influenced by the devil and sin, we are no longer obligated to do what they desire – we are free to serve God and righteousness because we are born again (united with Christ) and adopted as children of God. As God’s children, we are to be like Him in His character (holy, just and righteous) but because we still have dying bodies and we are still living in the fallen world (where Satan is the prince), there is now the constant battle and fight to be holy and pleasing to God. In one sense, we are free to fight – to say “no” to sin, the old self, and the devil – and to say “yes” to righteousness, the new self, and the new Master and Lord of our new lives. Hence sanctification is a life-long process and ‘struggle’ in this sense.

As we learn in the conclusion of the Sermon on the Mount that we shall not only say we believe and yet we do not do, and we are not just to listen to the preaching and teaching of God’s Word, and not do the application – in other words, we need to obey and apply the truth in our outworking, and to build a strong and stable foundation in God and His Word, by the dwelling and enabling of the Holy Spirit.
Although the sinful nature of the ‘old man’ remains a powerful force within the believer, God has given the believer a powerful gift, the indwelling Spirit who enables us to do God’s will; the Spirit leads us to put to death the misdeeds of the body (Rom. 8:14-15) and He also empowers us for godly living.

Nonetheless, our present experience is one of suffering and groaning; although we have received the down payment of our salvation in the person of the Holy Spirit (Rom.8:23), we groan as we wait for the rest of the payment when our bodies will be transformed (1 Cor. 15:35).
There should be none of the unreal positivism that dominates the churches which claim the experience of life is one of triumph after another. Nevertheless, the first fruits, the down payment (the Holy Spirit) guarantees the rest of full salvation is yet to come. The war is over but the “battles” still carry on but victory has already been secured by our Lord and Master!