Romans 6:5,6 - We shall be united with Him in a resurrection like Him

6:5

We need to appreciate the nature of Christ’s death. He died because of our sin. He took our sin upon Himself and suffered the due penalty. Through faith we are united with Him in that death. We have said farewell to sin. Now let me make it clear that we are not talking about sinless perfectionism here! Paul’s writings make it plain that sin is still a battle. What Paul is doing is making clear what we have believed, what we have signed up to. So we are united with Christ in His death, we shall also be united with Him “in a resurrection like His”. There are two aspects to this. One is that we will be raised from the dead as He was raised from death, Clearly this hasn’t happened yet as we haven’t died yet! The other is that we live a different life now, a life which is free from sin (again, not sinless perfectionism!). 

6:6

Paul now applies this to our old self. To continue to live as our old self, i.e. a life subject to the slavery of sin, is just ridiculous. We have been called to a new life. Our old self (literally “old man”) was crucified with Christ. Our old self died with Christ. This happened so that “the body of sin might be brought to nothing”. “Body of sin” means the body enslaved by sin. The defeat and end of our enslavement to sin is part of the goal of our coming to Christ. Fundamental to the gospel is that our unregenerate self is a slave of sin. We need to be set free, and seeking to continue in sin is just anathema to that.