Romans 6 — Greek text and reception
Each card preserves the Greek reading and its textual and reception notes. This source provides a Greek study edition; Hebrew counterparts and Hebrew–Greek classifications are not supplied.
Chapter 6
Baptized into Christ’s death; alive to God
Verse 6:1
Greek–English Saints Priority
What, then, shall we say? Should we remain in sin so that grace may increase?
Textual & Reception Notes
The question proposes continued sin for the sake of increasing grace; the following rejection must remain attached to it.
Verse 6:2
Greek–English Saints Priority
May it never be! We who died to sin, how will we still live in it?
Textual & Reception Notes
Verse 6:3
Greek–English Saints Priority
Or do you not know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death?
Textual & Reception Notes
Both occurrences of ‘into’ are explicit: into Christ Jesus and into His death. Baptism is not replaced with a merely explanatory inward event.
Verse 6:4
Greek–English Saints Priority
Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the Father’s glory, so we also might walk in newness of life.
Textual & Reception Notes
Burial with Christ, baptism, death, resurrection through the Father’s glory, and newness of life are all retained as distinct parts of the sentence. Reception: John Chrysostom, Homily 10 on Romans, on 6:3–4, connects baptism with Christ’s cross and burial while distinguishing His bodily death from believers’ death to sin. He joins the promised resurrection to the obligation of a changed present life. [CHR-ROM10]
Verse 6:5
Greek–English Saints Priority
For if we have become united with the likeness of His death, we will also be united with that of His resurrection,
Textual & Reception Notes
Σύμφυτοι expresses being grown together or united. The latter half is elliptical; ‘united with that of’ supplies the corresponding relation to resurrection without claiming those English words are separately present.
Verse 6:6
Greek–English Saints Priority
knowing this, that our old person was crucified with Him, so that the body of sin might be rendered powerless, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin;
Textual & Reception Notes
‘Old person’ is the old human self, not only the male person. Καταργηθῇ means rendered ineffective or deprived of power; it does not require annihilation of the physical body.
Verse 6:7
Greek–English Saints Priority
for the one who died has been justified from sin.
Textual & Reception Notes
Δεδικαίωται is the perfect passive of justify, also expressing release or acquittal here. ‘Has been justified from sin’ keeps the root connection visible; idiomatic ‘has been freed from sin’ conveys a contextual interpretation.
Verse 6:8
Greek–English Saints Priority
And if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with Him,
Textual & Reception Notes
Verse 6:9
Greek–English Saints Priority
knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, no longer dies; death no longer rules over Him.
Textual & Reception Notes
Verse 6:10
Greek–English Saints Priority
For the death He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life He lives, He lives to God.
Textual & Reception Notes
Ἐφάπαξ is once for all. The text says Christ died ‘to sin,’ without stating that He had committed personal sin.
Verse 6:11
Greek–English Saints Priority
So also reckon yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.
Textual & Reception Notes
The source ends with Christ Jesus, without a further ‘our Lord’ in this verse.
Verse 6:12
Greek–English Saints Priority
Therefore let not sin reign in your mortal body, so that you obey its desires;
Textual & Reception Notes
The possessive ‘its’ refers to the mortal body’s desires in this construction; the command concerns sin’s reigning through obedience to them.
Verse 6:13
Greek–English Saints Priority
neither present your members to sin as weapons of unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members to God as weapons of righteousness.
Textual & Reception Notes
Μέλη are bodily members. Ὅπλα can mean implements, instruments, or weapons; ‘weapons’ preserves the conflict image without implying a command for human violence.
Verse 6:14
Greek–English Saints Priority
For sin will not rule over you, for you are not under law, but under grace.
Textual & Reception Notes
The future ‘will not rule’ accompanies the statement of being under grace. The next question rejects permission to sin as an inference from that status.
Verse 6:15
Greek–English Saints Priority
What, then? Should we sin because we are not under law, but under grace? May it never be!
Textual & Reception Notes
Verse 6:16
Greek–English Saints Priority
Do you not know that when you present yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin resulting in death, or of obedience resulting in righteousness?
Textual & Reception Notes
Verse 6:17
Greek–English Saints Priority
But thanks be to God that, though you were slaves of sin, you obeyed from the heart the pattern of teaching to which you were handed over;
Textual & Reception Notes
The source says they were handed over to the pattern of teaching, not that the teaching was handed over to them. The unusual direction of the image is preserved.
Verse 6:18
Greek–English Saints Priority
and, having been set free from sin, you were enslaved to righteousness.
Textual & Reception Notes
The paired liberation and enslavement metaphors remain explicit; the latter is not weakened to occasional assistance.
Verse 6:19
Greek–English Saints Priority
I speak in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness resulting in lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness resulting in sanctification.
Textual & Reception Notes
Paul identifies his language as a human analogy. The repetition ‘lawlessness resulting in lawlessness’ is retained, and sanctification is the contrasting outcome.
Verse 6:20
Greek–English Saints Priority
For when you were slaves of sin, you were free with respect to righteousness.
Textual & Reception Notes
Verse 6:21
Greek–English Saints Priority
What fruit, then, did you have at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death.
Textual & Reception Notes
The question is provisionally construed as asking what fruit came from the former shameful practices. An alternative punctuation makes ‘things of which you are now ashamed’ the answer to the question.
Verse 6:22
Greek–English Saints Priority
But now, having been set free from sin and enslaved to God, you have your fruit resulting in sanctification, and the end, eternal life.
Textual & Reception Notes
Verse 6:23
Greek–English Saints Priority
For sin’s wages are death, but God’s gift is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Textual & Reception Notes
Ὀψώνια is wages or a soldier’s pay, contrasted with χάρισμα, a gracious gift. Both results, death and eternal life, are stated.