You can be dead to sin and still sin because Romans 6 is describing a change in your relationship to sin’s rule, not the impossibility of ever committing another sin. In Christ, sin is no longer your rightful master, but you can still choose to obey it.
What Does Being Dead to Sin Actually Change?
Paul makes a strong statement in Romans 6:
God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein? (Romans 6:2)
At first, that can sound as though a Christian should be unable to sin. If you’re dead to sin, how could you still do it?
But Paul isn’t saying that sin has become impossible. He is saying that something decisive happened to your former relationship with sin.
A few verses later, he explains what happened:
Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. (Romans 6:6)
Notice where Paul ends: that henceforth we should not serve sin.
Before Christ, sin’s rule belonged to your old condition. But your old man was crucified with Christ. Your freedom rests on what Christ accomplished at the Cross, not on whether your daily conduct has already caught up perfectly with that fact.
You aren’t trying to make your old man die by behaving better. Romans 6 says he was crucified with Christ.
That is your position.
Your practice is how you live in light of it.
Why Does Paul Tell Dead-to-Sin Believers Not to Let Sin Reign?
This is one of the clearest answers to the question.
Paul tells believers:
Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof. (Romans 6:12)
If being dead to sin meant being incapable of sinning, that command wouldn’t be necessary.
You don’t have to tell someone not to do something they cannot possibly do.
Paul knows sin can still be obeyed. That is why he says, Let not sin therefore reign.
The word therefore matters. Paul doesn’t say, “Stop sinning so that you can become dead to sin.” He has already told them they are dead to sin because of what happened in Christ. Then he tells them not to let sin reign.
The order is important.
First comes the fact of what Christ did.
Then comes the call to live according to that fact.
Your failure in practice doesn’t reverse what happened at the Cross. But what happened at the Cross is never an excuse to surrender your practice to sin.
Dead to Sin Does Not Mean Sinless Perfection
Romans 6 itself rules out that interpretation.
Paul continues:
Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God. (Romans 6:13)
The possibility of yielding yourself to sin is still there. Otherwise, Paul wouldn’t warn against it.
But notice how he describes the believer: as those that are alive from the dead.
Paul addresses them according to what is already true of them and then tells them how to live.
This is the difference between position and practice.
Your position tells you what became true of you in Christ.
Your practice describes how consistently your daily life agrees with that truth.
Those two things should increasingly agree, but they aren’t identical.
A believer can act contrary to who he is. That doesn’t mean his behavior is harmless. It means behavior isn’t what created his new identity in the first place.
Does Sin Still Have Power Over Me?
Sin can still be obeyed, but Paul says it no longer has the right to rule you.
For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace. (Romans 6:14)
Paul doesn’t say sin will never tempt you, never influence you, or never be obeyed by you again.
He says it shall not have dominion over you.
That is a much stronger answer than pretending the struggle doesn’t exist.
The Christian isn’t someone who has reached a condition where committing sin is impossible. The Christian is someone whose former bondage to sin has been broken through union with Christ.
Sin may demand obedience, but it no longer owns you.
It may speak like a master, but it isn’t your master.
Does Sinning Prove That I’m Not Really Dead to Sin?
Not by itself.
If one act of sin proved you weren’t dead to sin, Paul’s instructions in Romans 6 wouldn’t make sense. He is speaking to people he has already described as dead to sin, and yet he warns them not to obey sin.
The danger is turning your present failure into a definition of your identity.
You sin and then conclude, “I must still be the same person I was before.”
Romans 6 tells you to reason in the opposite direction. What Christ accomplished defines your position. Your conduct is called to come into agreement with that position.
Paul says:
Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. (Romans 6:11)
He doesn’t tell you to reckon yourself dead to sin because you’ve finally performed well enough to deserve the description.
He tells you to reckon it true because God says it is true in Christ.
So how can you be dead to sin and still sin?
Because being dead to sin describes what happened to your former relationship with sin’s dominion when you were identified with Christ. It doesn’t mean you have lost the ability to make a sinful choice.
You can still obey sin.
But you no longer belong to it.
And that is exactly why Scripture can now tell you not to let it reign.
