---
title: Romans 6:6
url: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/romans-6-6/
markdown: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/romans-6-6.md
type: verse
perspective: Protestant (historic Nicene) response to Jehovah's Witness teaching
reference: Romans 6:6
testament: NT
section: Letters
index: https://jw-apologetics.app/llms.txt
---

# Romans 6:6

## Text (Berean Standard Bible)

> We know that our old self was crucified with Him so that the body of sin might be rendered powerless, that we should no longer be slaves to sin.

## NWT Wording of the Key Phrase

- NWT (1984 edition): ""our old personality was impaled with him""
- NWT (2013 revision): "For we know that our old personality was nailed to the stake along with him in order for our sinful body to be made powerless, so that we should no longer go on being slaves to sin."

## JW Usage

JWs read Romans 6:6 as describing the believer's break with the former corrupt personality through Christ's sacrifice — applied pastorally to the brother fighting compulsive sin, often paired with the expectation that visible behaviour change should follow the union with Christ as evidence of the spirit's operation.

## Protestant Usage

Paul's logic is union-with-Christ-as-the-ground-of-mortification. The old self was crucified with Christ; the body of sin is rendered powerless; the believer is no longer enslaved to sin. This is Paul's theological architecture for the rescue of the brother fighting pornography — UNION first (v. 6 — old self crucified), then mortification by the Spirit (Romans 8:13 — "if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live"), inside a fellowship of mutual confession (James 5:16). The Watchtower's tribunal-and-classification model interrupts that architecture by making confession institutionally costly — the brother fights alone in shame, with the rescue mechanism scripture prescribes locked behind a judicial committee door.

## NWT Issue

The NWT 2013 renders palaios anthropos as "old personality" — distinctive of the NWT and consistent with its psychological rather than theological framing of conversion. Standard translations (BSB, ESV, NASB) render "old self"; KJV "old man". The "personality" rendering shifts the metaphor from the representative-headship language Paul uses (Adam vs Christ) toward modern psychological vocabulary, which can soften the judicial- representative dimension of union with Christ. The NWT also renders stauros as "stake" rather than "cross" — a translation consistent with Watchtower teaching that Jesus died on an upright pole rather than a traditional cross-shaped instrument; this is not exegetically forced by the Greek but is a Watchtower distinctive.

## Arguments Using This Verse

- [Pornography and Judicial Escalation — From Tribunal to Throne](https://jw-apologetics.app/arguments/pornography-judicial-escalation.md) — 1 Corinthians 10:13 — A way of escape, not a way of removal [Sanctification]