Romans 6: How to Live Victorious in Christ

Because we are saved by grace alone, does it make no difference how we live?

Romans 6:1-2 says, “What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it?

After we are saved by the grace of God, we need to learn to live in victory.

This deals with your identification with Jesus. Jesus has acted on our behalf, and what happened to Him happened to us.

“Our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. For he who has died has been freed from sin” (Romans 6:6-7).

When Jesus died for you, you died with Him. (See Galatians 2:20.) This is the key to living victoriously.

Suppose you are a slave, and you have a cruel master who owns you. When you die, he is not your master anymore. He has no more control over you. Our old master has been Satan, the flesh, and the world. But if you are saved, then you died in Jesus: “Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death…” (Romans 6:4a).

Jesus carried our sins into the grave of God’s forgetfulness. The devil would love to intimidate you with the bones of your old life, but they are buried away.

Romans 6:4b says, “…That just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.”

Jesus came out of that grave, living in victory. Christians are new creatures. (See 2 Corinthians 5:17.) The same power that raised up Jesus from the dead, we have in us.

 You must know your identification in Christ, and then you can make the appropriation: “Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:11).

The word reckon is a bookkeeping term. It literally means “count on it”— not because you feel it, but because it is true. Reckoning is not just closing your eyes and pretending, it is acting by faith on what you know to be true.

You may say, “I know that I died with Christ, and I reckon it to be true. Why am I not living in victory? How come the old me keeps coming back?”

You have not learned to yield to Christ.

Romans 6:12 says, “Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts.” 

Before Calvary, before your identification with Jesus, there was no possible way you could live victoriously, even if you wanted to. But now, you have within you all that it takes to have victory over sin. Take the power of attorney: the Word of God. Say to Satan, “Here is something I know to be true. I do not have to let you rule my life.”

Now Christ rules you: “And having been set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness” (Romans 6:18). 

Everybody person is a slave—either to Satan, or to Christ. Say to Jesus, “Lord, you have a right to tell me what to do, when to wake up, when to go to bed, what to eat and not to eat, what to wear and not to wear. You have a right to tell me anything you want.”

Enslavement to Jesus brings perfect liberty.