REFORMED BAPTIST PREACHING & TEACHING SERIES — BELIEVER'S BAPTISM
Exegetical Worksheets
Romans 6 and the Baptism Passages of Acts | Group Bible Study & Sermon Preparation
How to Use These Worksheets
These two worksheets are designed for use in adult Bible study, small group discussion, or personal sermon preparation. Each worksheet is structured in three tiers of questions — Observation (what does the text say?), Interpretation (what does the text mean?), and Application (how does the text shape our lives and practice?). Read the passage carefully before beginning. Write your answers in the spaces provided. Come prepared to discuss your responses with the group.
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WORKSHEET 1 OF 2
Dead to Sin, Alive in Christ: Baptism as Union with Christ
Romans 6:1–14 | English Standard Version
Dead to Sin, Alive to God
1What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? 2By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? 3Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4We 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. 5For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. 6We 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. 7For one who has died has been set free from sin. 8Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. 9We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. 10For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. 11So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. 12Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. 13Do 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. 14For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.
The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®), © 2001 by Crossway. All rights reserved.
By Romans 6, Paul has completed one of the most concentrated expositions of justification by grace alone through faith alone in all of Scripture (Romans 3:21–5:21). His argument culminates in the great declaration that "where sin increased, grace abounded all the more" (5:20). This triumph of grace, however, immediately raises an objection that Paul had already anticipated (cf. 3:8): if grace multiplies where sin abounds, why not sin freely so that grace might increase? This is the classic antinomian objection — that the doctrine of sovereign grace undermines the moral law and the call to holy living. Romans 6 is Paul's answer. Rather than retreating from the doctrine of grace, Paul drives deeper into it. His argument is not primarily ethical but theological: the believer's union with Christ in his death and resurrection — signified and sealed in baptism — is itself the ground and power of a new life. To continue in sin is not merely wrong; it is, for the one united to Christ, a metaphysical impossibility. It contradicts the very identity the believer now possesses. Chapters 6–8 unfold the freedom from sin, law, and death that flows from being "in Christ."
TIER 1 — WHAT DOES THE TEXT SAY?
Read the passage carefully and answer the following questions directly from the text. Do not yet move to interpretation. Note chapter and verse references where relevant.