1 What should we conclude from that? That we should persist in sinning so that favor will keep increasing? 2 Absolutely not! How can we who died to sin still live in it? Ridiculous!
Our death and resurrection is like Jesus’
3 You don’t seem to understand that those who are immersed into Christ Jesus are immersed into his death. 4 And just as we were buried together with him through immersion into his death, so also, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the favor of the Father, we will keep pace with him in a new life. 5 For if we have become united with his kind of death, then we have also become united with his kind of resurrection. 6 We know that our old self was crucified along with him, so that the body of Sin would be neutralized, and we would not continue to slave for Sin. 7 The dead have been released from Sin.
8 So if we died along with Christ, we believe that we will also live together with him. 9 After all, since Christ was raised from the dead then Death no longer has control of him. 10 The death he died was to Sin, once and for all, but the life he lives, he lives to God. 11 In the same way, you too should consider yourselves truly dead to Sin, yet alive to God with Christ Jesus.
Living accordingly
12 So then, do not let Sin rule over your mortal body, making you obey its desires. 13 And do not present parts of your body as weapons of unrighteousness in the service of Sin, but instead present yourselves to God as those who have been raised from the dead, and your body parts to God as weapons of righteousness. 14 For Sin will not have mastery over you, because you are not under Law but under Favor.
15 So should we therefore keep sinning since we are not under Law but under Favor? Absolutely not! 16 Don’t you realize that you are the slaves of the one to whom you offer your obedience— whether it’s to Sin and then death, or to Compliance and then righteousness? 17 Now praise God that although you were slaves of Sin, now you listened from the heart to the teaching to which you were handed over. 18 Now that you are free from Sin, you are enslaved to Justice.
19 I am speaking in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you presented your body parts as slaves to impurity and lawlessness (which of course led to lawless acts), so now present your body parts as slaves to righteousness, resulting in holiness. 20 When you were slaves to sin you were free from righteousness. 21 But what did you gain by it? Only that of which you are now ashamed, whose end result was death. 22 In contrast, now you have been freed from sin and enslaved to God. And what you gained from that is holiness, whose end result is eternal life. 23 For sin pays you the wages of death, but God graciously gives you eternal life through Christ Jesus our Master.