Romans 6:1-14 — What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? 2 By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? 3 Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.
5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. 6 We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. 7 For one who has died has been set free from sin. 8 Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. 9 We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion 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 also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.
12 Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. 13 Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. 14 For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.
Dying with Christ is a critical part of the equation, but that’s not the end. Look at the 2nd half of v.4, which gives the purpose of dying with Christ—just as Christ was raised, we too are raised to live a new life. We already discussed in the 1st implication from 1:4 that when Christ was raised, he had a brand new existence, having defeated death with divine power. If follows then, that if someone dies with and is raised with Christ, the person will live a brand new kind of life. The word group for newness used here, is the same as the end of Revelation when God creates the new heavens and new earth. To be new is something that’s totally different and in significant contrast to what existed prior. That’s what the resurrection of Christ gives believers now, in that when he died, he took our old self, which is our natural disposition committed to loving ourselves and sinning against God—he took that with him to the grave and it died with him. And when he was raised, he created new life in us that is gradually being realized in our lives until that final day when he comes, when we will be transformed completely into what he has already made us to be when we first believed. That is the main point of this section and this means, as vv.6-7 indicate, that the believer no longer serves sin or is a slave to sin because he or she has died to it and is freed from its dominion!