Romans 6 v 1 – 4
1 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. (ESV)
Paul is teaching us that we are saved by Grace alone, and some people wrongly thought that they could continue in sin so that grace can abound.
Paul answers this wrong understanding by telling us why we should not sin. He is saying that what happened to Christ, happened to the Christian – all who are baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death, being united with Him in that death.
What does he mean by that? He is not talking about something that needs to happen to you, but something that happened to Christ. The fact that you died in Christ is as objectively actual as that you sinned in Adam. We must think more about what Christ experienced and did than about our experiences. It’s not about us – it’s about Him!
Being baptized into Christ’s death is not something that still has to happen to you, but what has happened to Him already, because we are joined to Him.
“I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me.”
Galatians 2:20 (KJV)
Paul speaks only about justification here – not sanctification, but what Christ has already achieved in our stead. He says that every Christian has been crucified with Christ. God justifies only those whom He joins to Christ.
Think on what it means that as a Christian you cannot keep on sinning so that grace may abound:
When He died that sinful Adamite died, and a dead person cannot sin.