Romans 6:15-18 – Is Sin OK?

Some people say to themselves, “Well, sin’s still all around us, and we still live in this mortal flesh, so maybe we just keep on sinning till we get glorified after this body dies.”

But Romans 6:1–14 already answered that. Paul said no, we’re dead to sin now. Sin has no more dominion over us. We’re a new man in Christ, joined to His death and resurrection, so we walk in newness of life now.

Romans 6 teaches the crucified life, the resurrected life, and the new life we live in Christ.

Then Romans 6:15 reads,

What then? shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid.

 

At first glance this seems like a reinforcing of the question of Romans 6:1 but it’s not the same as verse 1.

Romans 6:1 asked, “Shall we continue in sin?” while verse 15 asks, “Since we’re under grace and not under the law, does that mean sin is now okay?”

Paul’s just said the famous sentence in verse 14, (Romans 6:14),

For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace.

 

So people are prone to jump to the wrong idea thinking, “If there’s no law and no punishment, then sin must be fine.”

But Paul says this is the wrong idea.

Paul’s been teaching grace since Romans 3:24,

Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus:

 

He uses the word grace eleven times from Romans chapters 3–6. We’ve learned the doctrine that we’re saved by grace, we stand in grace, and we live under the reign of grace. Now Romans 6–8 explains how to live in these sinful bodies while being under grace and the most common thinking is that if we’re saved by grace, and God isn’t judging sin today, and sin can’t condemn us, then why not sin? Can we rob a bank, kill someone, commit adultery, and it’s all fine?

Both believers and unbelievers accuse grace of giving a license to sin. They say that if you teach grace the way Paul teaches it, you’re letting people sin, even encouraging it.

Paul’s answer in Romans 6:15 is short: “God forbid.” That’s our answer too. Just because we’re not under the law doesn’t mean God’s okay with sin.

Sin’s still present in the world and in our mortal body, but grace never gives permission to sin. It’s true that God’s not judging sin today in this dispensation, but that doesn’t mean He wants us to do it.

Paul deals with this problem in Ephesians 5, 1 Corinthians 6, and all through Romans chapters 6–8. People hear the gospel of grace and think, “Well, if my works don’t save me or keep me saved, then sin mustn’t matter.”

But Paul spends two chapters showing how saved people should think about sin, good works, the law, and how to walk when there is no law and he’ll tell us every step to take.

Romans 8 shows the security we have in Christ. Some call it “once saved, always saved.” It’s not a great label, but the truth is there: if Christ saved us, we can’t undo what He did.

Israel under the new covenant didn’t have that same promise, so verses in Matthew, Hebrews, Peter, and John don’t describe our position today.

People say the teaching of grace is giving a license to sin. Some even call it heresy. But grace never says, “Go sin, God doesn’t care.”

Grace says we’re saved by Christ alone, we’re not under the law, and God forbid that we use that freedom to wantonly sin.

A lot of people think the only reason we won’t sin is if God threatens us, or if the law says “thou shalt not,” or if our eternal life is on the line.

We can find that kind of thinking in parts of the Bible, but not under grace. Many call this message “easy‑believism,” like believing is too easy.

But it wasn’t easy for Christ to die on the cross. It wasn’t easy for Him to rise from the dead. It isn’t easy for God to be long‑suffering toward sinners.

Easy believism is a thought that comes from a human perception of salvation and grace that refuses to accept that there’s nothing we personally, can do to either earn salvation or to keep salvation by the works of our own self.

We must do something! But what?

If there was anything we could do to earn or keep salvation there’d be no grace, only our works and Jesus Christ would have hung on that cross in vain. It would have been a wrongful death sacrifice if that wasn’t the only act which could bring salvation and the hope of life to mankind.

This’s another huge stumblingblock for unsaved Jew and Gentile alike. “You mean you can be a vile sinner and still receive salvation and eternal life through God’s grace? Impossible,” they say.

But, the gospel is “easy” only because our works are not part of it. Christ did the work.

People say grace gives a license to sin. They say, “If you teach grace like Paul does, you’re telling people they can sin and nothing’ll happen.” They ask, “What reason do people have to do right?”

All these complaints come from two big errors,

Error #1: Grace means sin is permitted.

Error #2: The law is the best way to control sin.

These errors are common amongst legalists, and especially amongst self‑righteous people, and even in saved people who don’t understand grace.

Some teach this thing called “lordship salvation,” saying that you must prove your salvation by your works, or else you’re not really saved.

That puts people back under a law system—Old Testament law or “New Covenant law”, mistakenly believing that the Holy Spirit helps you keep rules to control sin.

They think rules, fear, and punishment are what keeps a Christian in line while many others go the opposite way, thinking that grace means that works don’t matter at all, so there’s no point in doing good. Just sin and thank God for grace.” That’s wrong too.

Romans 6 deals with the first error—people who don’t resist sin. Romans 7 deals with the second error—people who think the law controls sin.

Romans 3:20 reminds us that the law does not remove sin. It says the law gives the knowledge of sin. Romans 5:20 says the law makes the offense abound.

You don’t stop sin by passing a law—you just catch sinners. The law can scare people, but it can’t change their heart, can’t change their desire to sin. Fear of punishment may hold someone back for a while, but if that fear goes away, the desire’s still there.

1 Corinthians 15:56 says that the strength of sin is the law. So using the law to control sin actually gives sin more power.

Paul uses the picture of a schoolmaster. When the teacher’s in the room, kids behave. When the teacher steps out, chaos starts. That’s how people think grace works: “If the law leaves, we’ll all go wild,” but grace doesn’t leave us a child. Grace teaches us to grow up.

1 Corinthians 14:20 says not to be children in understanding. When we grow up, we gain wisdom and responsibility—things no law can give. A law can’t say, “Be wise,” and suddenly we’re wise.

But grace, through Paul’s epistles, teaches God’s wisdom and how to live as grown‑up sons of God.

Under grace, the law’s removed, and God gives us the chance to walk as a mature son. Can we still act childish? Yes, we can! Should we? No.

Can we grow up in Christ? Yes. Grace gives us the tools to live the way we ought to. Those tools are God’s wisdom, God’s truth, and the new life in Christ.

Paul says this in Ephesians 4:14,

That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive;

 

Once we know Christ and come to the unity of the faith, we should no longer be children tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine.

That ties right back to Romans 6:1–14. We’re a new man in Christ, not a child who gets fooled by almost everything. Grown up people aren’t tricked as easily as kids are. Once we know something, we can stand on it.

That’s how Paul describes our life in this present evil world. We live in mortal bodies, but we don’t need the law to control us. We need to know who we are in Christ and walk by God’s wisdom.

Paul’s old schoolmaster picture only goes so far. Grace doesn’t remove the teacher and let the kids run wild. Grace kills the old man.

Romans 6:6–7 says our old man is crucified with Christ. Grace doesn’t permit sin. Grace kills sin.

If someone thinks that grace means “I can sin now,” they don’t understand Romans 5 and Romans 6:1–14. Grace never teaches sin’s ok. Grace teaches who we are in Christ.

Calling grace a “license to sin,” is a giant myth.

Titus 2:11–12 says,

For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men,

Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world;

 

At first that sounds like law—“do good, avoid evil”—but Paul says grace is a teacher here and grace teaches this, not the law. Grace teaches righteousness without the law.

It doesn’t teach sin with exemption or freedom from punishment, harm, or loss. It teaches that God gives us righteousness freely, and that righteousness should outwork in our life.

If we want to teach salvation by grace alone, or “once saved, always saved,” or that nothing we do can earn or keep salvation, we must teach it from Paul’s epistles. Paul’s the apostle of grace. The only other way to get that doctrine is to invent a system where God saves us by election without us ever believing anything. But Scripture says we must believe the gospel.

Before Paul answers the question of Romans 6:15,

What then? shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace?…

 

…we need to understand sin itself.

Romans chapters 1–3 shows that we’re all sinners. Romans chapters 5–6 talks about sin in two ways:

Sin nature (what we inherited from Adam) and Sins (the actions we commit).

Romans 5 says by one man sin entered the world and death by sin. That’s the nature, the sin nature. Babies are born with that nature, even before they commit any sins. Romans 6:1 asks if we should continue in that nature we inherited from Adam. Paul says no—we’re a new man.

But Romans 6:15 asks about sins—the choices we make and the actions we commit.

“Shall we sin?” That’s about actions.

Christ saves us from both.

Romans 3:25 says His blood paid for the sins we committed. Romans 5–6 says He also saved us from sin, the sin nature we were born with, by giving us a new man. He delivered us from the death that Adam brought and that we inherited and from the guilt of our own actions.

Romans 5:21 says, “As sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness.”

That’s talking about sin and grace as powers. Powers much bigger than just the things we do. Sin reigned because of Adam. Now grace reigns because of Christ.

In Romans 6 we learn we’re dead to sin. Romans 6:7 says, “He that is dead is freed from sin.”

That means sin has no more dominion over us. Jesus Christ cut us loose from Adam’s curse, the source of our mortality, the power that pulls us into death.

But then the question comes: “What about the sins I still commit? I know Christ forgave my sins. I know He took me out of Adam and put me in Christ. But what about the wrong things I continue to choose to do now?” That’s the issue Romans 6:15–23 deals with.

Before we talk about how to handle sins, we need to understand how sin comes out of a person. For that, Paul points us to James 1. James isn’t written to the Body of Christ, but the way sin works in a human heart has never changed. Dispensations change how God deals with people, not how sin operates. Whether in Israel or the Body of Christ, sinners are judged the same way if they die without salvation.

James 1:13 says, “Let no man say… I am tempted of God.” God never tempts anyone to sin. He doesn’t push us toward evil. Jesus Himself had no sin as we see in Hebrews 4 and 2 Corinthians 5:21, proving He’s God. God may test faithfulness, but He never tempts someone to do wrong.

James 1:14–15 explains how sin actually works:

But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed.

Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.

 

So sin doesn’t come from God. It comes from our own lust, our desires, what we want. Lust doesn’t always mean something sexual. It simply means “what I want,” “what I long for,” “what I love.” Paul uses the word concupiscence—the thing that our heart chases after. The problem is that our hearts are sinful (Jeremiah says desperately wicked), so our natural desires often run opposite to what God wants.

Sin happens when our desire meets something that entices us. It may be something we see, hear, or imagine and then we choose it. It takes both: the desire inside and the temptation outside.

It’s stirring up in us that thing that we want. We didn’t know we wanted it so much until now, and now we know we really want it. We’re being seduced. We’re excited to realise we can have that thing which we now desperately want.

So a person is enticed into getting that thing by our lust, our wants and desires.

That’s how sin’s born.

This’s why grace doesn’t tell us, “follow our heart.”

Grace teaches us to follow God’s wisdom, not our own wants. Grace doesn’t say, “Do whatever you feel.” Grace says our old man is dead (Romans 6:6). Grace doesn’t let the old man run wild. Grace kills him.

So Romans 6 is not about God tempting us or the law controlling us. It’s about understanding how sin works and how grace teaches us to live as a new man. Christ saved us from both sin (the sin nature) and from sins (the actions).

Romans 3:25 says His blood paid for the sins I committed. Romans 5–6 says He also delivered me from the sin nature I was born with.

Christ saved me from both the root, the nature, and the fruit, the sin actions.

James says lust conceives and brings forth sin. That means sin doesn’t just happen the moment we want something.

A desire isn’t sin by itself. Even an enticement isn’t sin yet. Jesus was hungry and He longed for bread. That wasn’t sin. The devil tempted Him: “Turn these stones into bread.” That was the enticement. But Jesus didn’t receive that thought. He didn’t let it form in His mind. He answered with Scripture and refused to yield. That’s why He didn’t sin.

James uses the picture of conception. To conceive means to receive something inside and let it form. Before conception, we may want a child, we may be drawn toward it, but nothing’s happened yet.

Sin works the same way. We have a desire. Something entices us. Then, in our mind, we form the thought: “I’ll do this.” Right there’s where sin’s born. First sinful thoughts, then sinful actions, then sinful habits, then bondage.

So how do we stop sin?

James shows the steps leading to it; lust → enticement → conception → sin. To stop sin, we need to interrupt that chain.

We change our desires,  we remove enticements and we refuse to yield when temptation comes.

Now, that’s all very simple to understand, but very hard to do, and it happens thousands of times in life. And here’s the key point: if the law, self‑help, therapy, or human willpower could stop that process we don’t need Christ.

That’s why Paul doesn’t stop with James’s description.

Romans 6 is not a self‑help lesson. It’s about who we are in Christ.

Romans 6:15 asked, “Shall we sin?” Paul’s first answer is God forbid. But then he explains the deeper truth: we must know who we serve.

Romans 6:16–23 uses the word servant eight times. Paul isn’t talking about our service as in our actions. He’s talking about our identity—what we are.

That’s because sin doesn’t start with actions. It starts inside, with what we believe, what we know, and who we think we belong to.

If we deal with sin just by asking, “Is this action a sin?” we’re thinking like someone under the law. The law defines sin by commands and rules. But Romans 6 shows sin begins in the inner man with our desires, our thoughts and our beliefs.

So the real question is: what’s being formed inside us? Before Christ, sin was always forming in us, no matter how good we may have looked on the outside. Now, as a new man, something else can be formed—truth, righteousness, new desires.

Behaviour follows belief. Change what we know, change what’s in our mind and we change what we do. That’s why Paul keeps saying, “Know ye not…?” Romans 6 is the application of everything we learned in Romans 1–5. We simply can’t live the Christian life until we know who we are in Christ.

Paul ‘s already taught us grace—how God saved us by Christ’s finished work, how we’re justified by faith, not by our works, and how God freely gives us all things in Christ.

Now in Romans 6:16 he says,

Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?

 

“Know ye not…?” He points to a simple truth everybody understands, even outside of grace: whoever we obey, that’s who we serve. If we yield to something, we become its servant. If we obey sin, we’re serving sin. If we obey righteousness, we’re serving righteousness.

Paul uses this same idea in 1 Corinthians 6:12. He says,

All things are lawful unto me, but all things are not expedient: all things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any.

 

He means, “I’m not under the law, but I refuse to let sin rule me.” Even under grace, a Christian should resist sin. We may still fail, but our mind should be in rebellion against sin, not in agreement with it.

Romans 6:16 puts the focus on what we are, not just what we do.

Paul asks, “Whose servant are you?” Jesus used the same principle in John 8:42 when He told the Pharisees,

…If God were your Father, ye would love me…

 

Their works showed who they really served.

In John 8:44 Jesus told them,

Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do.

 

They rejected the truth. The principle is simple: you know a tree by its fruit.

But under grace, something changes. We’re not under the law, we’re under grace. So whose authority are we under now? Grace’s authority and grace doesn’t make us a sinner who keeps sinning. Grace makes us a new man in Christ. Grace kills the old man. Grace teaches is to live soberly, righteously, and godly. Grace teaches righteousness without the law.

Titus 2:11 says,

For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men,

Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world;

 

So when someone says, “If we’re under grace, can we sin?” Paul says, “Don’t you know who you are? Don’t you know who you serve?”

If you’re under grace, you serve God through Christ, not sin, not the law, not your old man and not the world.

Romans 6:17 says,

But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you.

 

See, we were the servants of sin. Past tense. We were in Adam. We were under sin. But now something’s changed and it doesn’t show up first in our actions, but in our identity. We’ve obeyed from the heart, obeyed the gospel, the one and only act that we ourselves can and must do to be saved. We believed what God said, His Word, and He made us something new.

Paul says the same thing in 1 Corinthians 6:11. After listing all sorts of sins, he says,

And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.

 

We’re no longer what we used to be.

So Romans 6 is not first about what we do or what we should do. It’s about who we are. Sin starts inside—desire, enticement, conception—so the answer’s got to start inside too.

Grace changes the inner man. Grace gives us new truth, new identity, new desires. And when belief changes, behaviour follows.

We’re not justified because we changed ourselves into a good person or turned our life around and stopped sinning. Only a dishonest person could look at himself and say they’re no longer committing sins. We all commit multiple sins before we’re even dressed in the morning and most of them we’re not even aware of.

No, no, no. We’re justified and sanctified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God. It’s by grace we’re saved by faith.

We were a sinner, but we’re not one now—not because of our works, not because we’ve been miraculously converted into a person who never sins, but because of Christ’s work on that cross.

Paul keeps applying the gospel of grace to our whole life. The cross is not only how we get saved; it’s how we learn to live under grace, how we grow in wisdom, how we think and how we walk.

Colossians 2:2–3 says,

That their (our) hearts might be comforted, being knit together in love, and unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the acknowledgement of the mystery of God, and of the Father, and of Christ;

In whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

 

Grace is far bigger than “I’m saved and now I can sin.” Grace changes who we are.

Romans 6:17 says, “Ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed.”

If Paul meant our good works, then he’d be teaching salvation by works. But Scripture is clear: Romans 3:28,

Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.

Titus 3:5,

Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost;

 

So the “obedience” here is not our good deeds. Obey means to yield, to submit, to comply, and here it’s done without works.

Romans 1:5 calls this the obedience of faith.

Romans 16:26 says the gospel is preached “for the obedience of faith.” Romans 4:3 says Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness. That’s obedience, believing what God said.

So when Romans 6:17 says we “obeyed,” it means we believed the gospel. We obeyed “from the heart” the “form of doctrine” delivered to us—the message of grace, not the law.

That doctrine said:

– all are sinners

– the law cannot save

– Christ died and rose for us

– we’re justified freely by His grace

When we believed that, something changed inside of us. We stopped being a servant of sin and became a servant of righteousness—not by our works, but by God’s declaration.

Romans 5 says we’re justified by faith. Justified means declared righteous. God stamped “righteous” on us because of Christ. That makes us a servant of righteousness even before we do anything right.

Romans 6:18 says,

Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness.

 

If this meant “when you stop sinning, then you become righteous,” that would be the law. But Paul’s teaching righteousness by grace, not by performance.

Grace makes us what the law never could. Grace makes us righteous in Christ.

So when someone says, “If I’m under grace, can I sin?” Paul says, “You’re misunderstanding what grace did.” Grace didn’t just forgive us. Grace made us righteous. Grace put us under a new Master. Grace gave us a new identity. Grace made us a servant of God.

We may struggle to live it out and that’s another issue entirely—but we must first know who we are. If we think grace lets us sin, we don’t understand it. Grace makes us righteous by faith, not by works. Grace declares us washed, sanctified, and justified as 1 Corinthians 6:11 says. Grace gives us a new standing before God. Truly, grace is amazing.

So Paul’s carefully guiding us into a complete understanding of our salvation step by step and he’s pushing home the first critical piece of the puzzle, We’re declared righteous. That’s step one. Knowing who we are. God declared it about us and one day it’ll be true and complete because He’ll change this mortal flesh to immortality. He’ll take away the corruption. It’ll no longer exist and that’ll be a glorious and wonderful day. But this’s where we start. In the next episode we’ll complete Romans 6 by discovering that we’re servants of righteousness, and we’ll also discover exactly what that means and what our duty is as a servant.

Until then may God richly bless you in all knowledge of the truth.