Paul has just spent five chapters building one of the most glorious arguments in all of scripture: that we are justified by faith, that where sin abounded, grace did much more abound (Romans 5:20). And then, as any good preacher does, he anticipates the objection his own words will provoke. If grace increases wherever sin increases — if God's mercy is magnified by our failure — then why not sin more, so that grace has more to cover?

Paul's answer is immediate and violent: God forbid. In the Greek, me genoito — "may it never be," the strongest possible rejection. Grace was never meant to be a license. It is not a cushion for sin; it is deliverance from it.

Dead to Sin

Paul's argument is not merely moral — it is positional. He does not simply say "you should not sin." He says something far more radical: "How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?" (v.2). The believer's relationship to sin has not just been forgiven — it has been terminated.

"Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death?"Romans 6:3, KJV

Baptism is not a ritual we perform to show we've changed. It is a declaration of what already happened at the cross: our old self was crucified with Christ, buried with Him, and raised with Him into a new kind of life. Sin's claim on us was not merely excused — it was executed.

Grace Is Not a License

This is the error Paul is correcting, and it is an error that has outlived the first century. Grace, misunderstood, becomes an excuse. "God will forgive me anyway" becomes the quiet justification for compromise. But Paul will not let that stand. Grace that does not produce holiness is not the grace of the New Testament — it is a counterfeit.

"Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord."Romans 6:11, KJV

The word "reckon" is an accounting term — count it, consider it settled, act on it as fact. Paul is not asking us to try to feel dead to sin. He is telling us to act on what is already legally and spiritually true: we are no longer who we were, and we are not obligated to live as though we still are.

Walking in Newness of Life

The chapter closes with one of the clearest summaries of the gospel's moral logic anywhere in scripture.

"For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord."Romans 6:23, KJV

Sin pays a wage — it always has, and it always will. But what God gives is not a wage. It is a gift, undeserved and unearned, received by grace through faith. That gift does not free us to sin more; it frees us from sin's dominion altogether, so that, as Paul writes earlier in the chapter, "like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life" (v.4).

The Word for Today

If you have believed the gospel of grace, do not let that grace become an excuse to stay where you are. You were not saved to remain the same — you were saved to walk in a life sin no longer has the right to rule. The old you was buried. Reckon it so. Walk as what you already are — alive to God, in Christ Jesus our Lord.