Remnant: A Daily Verse-by-Verse Devotional

Paul starts verse 19 by acknowledging that he's trying his best to find an analogy our flawed human minds can understand, and then hammers the point that while our prior sin led to more sin, our new righteousness leads to sanctification.

Paul sums up his point by making clear that we are no longer slaves of righteousness, but slaves of righteousness. We talk about the words Paul uses here and how they were used in the gospels too.

Paul thanks God in verse 17 that the pattern of sin has been replaced in our hearts by the "standard of teaching" or the "pattern of teaching," depending on the translation. We talk about what that teaching is, and how it is so much better than following the pattern of sin in this world.

We are hard-wired to worship. That's a fact. The question is whether we will worship things of this world, or God. We talk about what comes of worshipping things of this world.

Paul sets up the next eight verses to close our chapter six with another question--one that tweaks the question asked in verse one of chapter six. We'll answer that in the coming days, but we give a short answer today.

Paul writes that sin no longer controls us, using words that parallel verse nine. We talk about that parallel, and the new life we have under grace.

Paul offers us a long verse that says we are to offer every part of ourselves to God instead of allowing any part to be offered to sin.

Paul writes that we consider ourselves dead to sin because we need to stop sin from reigning in our mortal bodies. We talk about what it means to reign and let sin reign.

Paul writes that since Jesus died to sin, we must consider ourselves dead to sin. It's not enough that we are in fact dead to sin--it's important that each day we credit that death to sin to ourselves so that we remember our status.

Paul includes three words in the middle of verse ten that are so impactful: that Jesus died to sin "once for all." That echoes what Paul wrote in Chapter 5, that Adam disobeyed God's command once and it impacted all. We talk about those three powerful words, "once for all."

Paul follows up his transition from death to life with a verse that further fleshes out the vacuum that death now is.

If we are dead to sin, then what are we? Paul answers that in verse eight by saying that we who have died to Christ are therefore alive with Him. We talk about stories of people alive with Him.

Paul provides a succinct summation of the point he's trying to make in the first part of chapter six here in verse seven: that when we die in Christ we have been set free from sin. That's a powerful concept.

Paul again broadens his message in this verse, writing that Jesus was crucified to free us from being enslaved to sin, and that as He was crucified, our old selves were crucified with Him.

Paul broadens the message from verse four here to apply to our deaths in general--both our spiritual death and the physical--stating that since we are united with Christ in death, we shall be united with him in resurrection.

Paul analogizes our baptism with the death and resurrection of Jesus, writing that when we go underwater it is like we are buried, and when we come up it is like we are risen. All of this is so we can experience a newness of life.

Paul asks a rhetorical question in verse two, but he answers it anyway in verse three by pointing to our baptism. How does our baptism mean that we have died to sin? We lay out the meaning of baptism today, and will get to how it means we've died to sin tomorrow.

Paul answers his question from verse one here by saying that we simply cannot live in sin because we have already died to it. We unpack that major concept of dying to sin.

Paul starts chapter six by posing a question he's likely heard before from those trying to poke holes in his and Jesus's radical theology of received righteousness. We set up the question by zooming out and showing where we are in Paul's letter and where we're going.

Paul closes out chapter five by stating that not only does grace always outmatch sin, but that grace leads us to eternal life. We talk about man's quest for eternal life.

Paul is closing out chapter 5 by circling back to the concept that God gave us the law to increase the trespass. We talk about what that means, and then we talk about Paul's solution to the increased sin in the world: a superabundance of grace.

Paul writes that we have been appointed to the station of sinners, but points out the alternative path of classification: righteousness through Christ's obedience. We talk about the decision we have to move about classifications.

Paul both sums up his prior verses and pivots to new verses in verse 18, noting that one act led to our downfall and one act led to our salvation. We talk about one person can do.

Paul identifies another difference between death flowing from Adam's sin and grace flowing from Jesus's sacrifice, and shows how much greater grace is than death.

Today we get nerdy with greek word definitions and talk about how the free gift of grace, given by one man, that we have is so much more powerful than universal condemnation.