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Romans

About this book
Chapter 6

1 What shall we say then? Are we to remain in sin so that grace may increase?⁠ 2 Absolutely not! How can we who died to sin still live in it? 3 Or do you not know that as many as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 Therefore we have been buried with him through baptism into death, in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too may live a new life.⁠ 5 For if we have become united with him in the likeness of his death, we will certainly also be united in the likeness of his resurrection. 6 We know that our old man was crucified with him so that the body of sin would no longer dominate us, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin.⁠ 7 (For someone who has died has been freed from sin.) 8 Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. 9 We know that since Christ has been raised from the dead, he is never going to die again; death no longer has mastery over him. 10 For the death he died, he died to sin once for all, but the life he lives, he lives to God. 11 So you too consider yourselves dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus. 12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its desires, 13 and do not present your members to sin as instruments to be used for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who are alive from the dead and your members to God as instruments to be used for righteousness. 14 For sin will have no mastery over you, because you are not under law but under grace. 15 What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? Absolutely not! 16 Do you not know that if you present yourselves as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one you obey, either of sin resulting in death, or obedience resulting in righteousness? 17 But thanks be to God that though you were slaves to sin, you obeyed from the heart that pattern of teaching you were entrusted to, 18 and having been freed from sin, you became enslaved to righteousness.⁠ 19 (I am speaking in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh.) For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification. 20 For when you were slaves of sin, you were free with regard to righteousness. 21 So what benefit did you then reap from those things that you are now ashamed of? For the end of those things is death. 22 But now, freed from sin and enslaved to God, you have your benefit leading to sanctification, and the end is eternal life. 23 For the payoff of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Texts in conversation

Compare Romans 6:6 and Mishnah Sanhedrin 6:2

New Testament · Rabbinic

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Summary

In Romans 6, Paul describes dying with Jesus as release from sin. Rabbinic tradition in tractate Sanhedrin connects a repentant person's execution with forgiveness, giving death a similar role in removing guilt.

Passages

Romans 6:6

New Testament
4 Therefore we have been buried with him through baptism into death, in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too may live a new life. 5 For if we have become united with him in the likeness of his death, we will certainly also be united in the likeness of his resurrection. 6 We know that our old man was crucified with him so that the body of sin would no longer dominate us, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. 7 (For someone who has died has been freed from sin.) 8 Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. 9 We know that since Christ has been raised from the dead, he is never going to die again; death no longer has mastery over him.
55–58 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in Romans

Mishnah Sanhedrin 6:2

Rabbinic · Mishnah
For so we find with regard to Achan, that Joshua said to him: “My son, please give glory to the Lord, God of Israel, and make confession to Him” (Joshua 7:19). And the next verse states: “And Achan answered Joshua, and said: Indeed I have sinned against the Lord, God of Israel, and like this and like that have I done.” And from where is it derived that Achan’s confession achieved atonement for him? It is derived from here, as it is stated: “And Joshua said: Why have you brought trouble on us? The Lord shall trouble you this day” (Joshua 7:25). Joshua said to Achan as follows: On this day of your judgment you are troubled, but you will not be troubled in the World-to-Come. And if the condemned man does not know how to confess, either from ignorance or out of confusion, they say to him: Say simply: Let my death be an atonement for all my sins. Rabbi Yehuda says: If the condemned man knows that he was convicted by the testimony of conspiring witnesses, but in fact he is innocent, he says: Let my death be an atonement for all my sins except for this sin.
190–230 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in Mishnah Sanhedrin

References

"... the terminology in 1 Corinthians 5:5 is similar to the baptismal formulations in Romans 6:6-11, Colossians 2:12-15 and Galatians 5:16-24 which refer to the death of the old man and the life of the new man ... In Judaism, death was occasionally regarded as the means of "atonement for sins." (For example, see Mishnah, Sanhedrin 6:2. This rule was even applied to criminals who were instructed to say, 'May my death be an atonement for all my sins') However, the death penalty could serve to expiate the sin of the offender only when the offender had repented. The Essenes had a notion similar to the one in Judaism. The Essene community believed that the suffering of an offender resulted in atonement, and that he thus could be received back into the community again ..."
Sang-Kue Lee, “Church Discipline in the Pauline Churches: A Socio-Theological Approach” (ThD diss., University of the Free State, 2010), 144–147.

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Romans 6:6 and Mishnah Sanhedrin 6:2

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