Deeper Commentary
ROMANS CHAPTER 6
6:1 What shall we say then? Shall
we continue in sin, that grace may abound?- Paul says he had been
slanderously accused of teaching this (Rom. 3:8). He’s here not only
answering that false charge, but more positively, analysing what our
response should be to the great grace in which we now stand. In doing so,
he expounds in more detail how we come to that position of being “in
Christ”, what “the obedience of faith” means in practice. And he’s quite
clear that this faith in Christ is expressed in the act of baptism.
Paul didn't just decide to write about baptism in Romans 6; the classic
exposition of baptism which we find there is within a context. And it's
not an appeal for people to be baptized- it's written to baptized
believers, appealing for them to live out in practice the "in Christ"
status which they had been given as a result of their baptisms. If we
really feel the result of our baptism, we will not "continue in sin".
Martin Luther used to overcome temptation by taking a chalk and writing baptizatus
sum- 'I am baptized'. And therefore we simply cannot continue in
servitude to sin. As Karl Barth put it in his needle-sharp analysis of
baptism's implications: "Baptism recalls me to the service of witness,
since it recalls me to daily repentance" (Karl Barth, Dogmatics In
Outline (London: S.C.M., 1972 ed.) p. 151). It should be noted that
allusions to baptism in Paul's letters are in passages where Paul is
trying to correct misunderstandings about unity and way of life (Rom. 6;
8:12-17; Gal. 3:27-4:6; 1 Cor. 1-4, 12). The early brethren had a tendency
to forget the implications of baptism. And so it is with us all today.
Entering the body of Christ by baptism means that our sins are in a sense
against our own brethren, our spiritual body, as well as against the Lord
personally. Like the prodigal, we realize we sin against Heaven and men.
The Implications Of Baptism
One of the reasons for baptism is perhaps so that we realize that we can't
just drift into relationship with God; there must be a concrete point at
which we decide for Him and His Son. The whole thing is so
counter-instinctive, as Naaman discovered- to get wet, with all the
awkwardness of it being so public, to be exposed and vulnerable to the
view of others, to be dipped under water by another person... it's not
exactly painless and effortless. Commonly enough, the New Testament speaks
of baptism as a calling upon the Name of the Lord. This must be understood
against its Hebrew background- qara' beshem Yahweh, which
originally referred to approaching God in sacrifice (Gen. 12:7,8; Ps.
116:4,17). God placed His Name upon places in order to make them suitable
places for sacrifice to be offered to Him (Dt. 12:4-7,21; Jer. 7:12).
Baptism was thus seen as a sacrificial commitment to Yahweh in solemn
covenant.
Further, in the first century, such baptisms were required of Gentiles who
wished to become proselyte Jews and thus enter "Israel". For orthodox Jews
to submit to baptism demanded a lot- for it implied they were not by birth
part of the true Israel as they had once proudly thought. The Jews thought
of Israel in the very terms which Paul applies to Jesus: "We Thy people
whom Thou hast honoured and hast called the Firstborn and Only-Begotten,
Near and Beloved One" (The Apocalypse Of Ezra 6.55-58 (London:
S.P.C.K., 1917 ed.) p. 47). The New Testament uses these titles to
describe the Lord Jesus Christ- and we must be baptized into Him in order
to be in His Name and titles. The Lord Jesus was thus portrayed as Israel
idealized and personified, all that Israel the suffering servant should
have been; thus only by baptism into Christ of Jew and Gentile could they
become part of the true seed of Abraham, the Israel of God (Gal. 3:27-29).
The act of baptism into Christ is no less radical for us in our contexts
today than it was for first century Jews. All we once mentally held dear,
we have to give up.
Our Relationship With God
Being baptized into the Name has quite some implications. In Hebrew
thought, you called your name upon that which was your personal property-
hence a wife took on the name of her husband because he placed it upon
her. By baptism into the Name of the Father and His Son, we become their
personal property, their woman, upon whom they have unique claims and
obligations. Baptism in this sense is a kind of marriage contract with
none less than the God of the universe. We can't drift into relationship
with God; God has designed the whole experience of baptism so that we once
and for all make a choice, to be with Him and not this world, to be in
Christ and covered in Him, rather than wandering in the rags of our own
righteousness and occasional half-hearted stabs at real spirituality.
There is no doubt that the cross and baptism into that death was
central to the preaching message of the early brethren. According to the
Bible, baptism is essential to salvation; yet we can't draw hoops around
God and limit His salvation ultimately. The completeness and reality of
the redemption achieved is expressed in Hebrews with a sense of finality,
and we ought to not let that slip from our presentation of the Gospel
either. There in the cross, the justice and mercy of God are brought
together in the ultimate way. There in the cross is the appeal. Some of
the early missionaries reported how they could never get any response to
their message until they explained the cross; and so, with our true
doctrinal understanding of it, it is my belief that the cross is what has
the power of conversion. A man cannot face it and not have a deep
impression of the absoluteness of the issues involved in faith and
unbelief, in choosing to accept or reject the work of the struggling,
sweating, gasping Man who hung on the stake. It truly is a question of
believe or perish. Baptism into that death and resurrection is essential
for salvation. Of course we must not bully or intimidate people into
faith, but on the other hand, a preaching of the cross cannot help but
have something compulsive and urgent and passionate about it. For we
appeal to men on God's behalf to accept the work of the cross as
efficacious for them. In this sense baptism is essential to salvation from
our perspective. It can be that much of our preaching somehow fails
in urgency and entreaty. We seem to be in places too expository, or too
attractive with the peripherals, seeking to please men... or be offering
good advice, very good advice indeed, background Bible knowledge, how to
read the Bible effectively... .all of which may be all well and good, but
we should be preaching good news, not good advice. The message of the
cross is of a grace and real salvation which is almost too good to
believe. It isn't Bible background or archaeology or potshots at
interpreting Bible prophecy. It is the Man who had our nature hanging
there perfect, full of love, a light in this dark world... and as far as
we perceive the wonder of it all, as far as this breaks in upon us, so far
we will hold it forth to this world. If we think there could be other
paths to salvation, then we wouldn't preach Christ as we do. The zeal of
the early brethren to witness for Him was because, as they explained,
there is no other name under Heaven whereby we may be saved. People do not
drift into covenant relationship with God; they have to consciously chose,
and God has instituted baptism as a means to that end; to force a man or
woman to a conscious decision and crossing of boundaries. And this is why
we preach towards baptism, with an eye on future conversion, knowing that
baptism is essential to salvation.
Lk. 3:12 records how there "came also publicans to be baptized, and said
unto him, Master, what shall we do?". There is a parallel between desiring
baptism and realizing that they must do something concretely in
their lives. The baptism process brings us into the realm of God's
gracious forgiveness and redemption, and into living contact with the real
Christ. There is no way we can be passive to this and do nothing about it.
6:2 God forbid! We who died to
sin, how shall we any longer live in it?- The idea is of living in the
sphere of sin, identifying ourselves with being “in Adam” rather than the
sphere of “in Christ”. Romans 6 is talking about being in one of two
spheres- in the flesh, and in the Spirit; in Adam, or in Christ;
continuing in condemnation, or rejoicing in our justified status in
Christ. It is actually impossible for us to ‘live in sin’ for a moment,
because we are no longer “in” that sphere or position.
Baptism is a change of masters- but we are still bondslaves, not of sin,
but of God. The implications of this figure may not be immediately
apparent to the modern mind. We are totally committed to the Master- this
is who we are, bondslaves. In Gen. 44:9, being dead is paralleled with
being a slave; and there appears a parallel between being a bondslave and
dying in Gen. 44:9,17. Indeed, Romans 6 draws the same parallel- death to
sin is part of being a slave of Christ. The very fact we are baptized
means we should not continue in sin, seeing we are dead to it (Rom. 6:2).
This is one of the most basic implications of a first principle which we
live in ignorance of most of our days.
6:3 Or are you ignorant of the fact
that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his
death?– A common appeal of Paul’s in his letters (Rom. 7:1; 11:25; 1
Cor. 10:1; 12:1; 1 Thess. 4:13). His earnest desire was that his
readership would appreciate the real import of what they knew in theory.
Galatians was one of Paul’s earlier letters. In it, he speaks of his own
baptism: “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live”
(Gal. 2:19-21). Years later he writes to the Romans about their baptisms,
in exactly the same language: “All of us who have been baptized… our old
self was crucified with him… the life he lives he lives to God” (Rom.
6:1-10). He clearly seeks to forge an identity between his readers and
himself; their baptisms were [and are] as radical as his in their import.
Note how in many of his letters, especially Galatians and Corinthians, he
switches so easily between “you” and “we”, as if to drive home the fact
that there was to be no perception of distance between him the writer and
us the readers.
6:4 We were buried therefore with
him through a baptism into his death- Gk. dia baptism. It is
through baptism, on account of it, that we are “in Christ” and associated
with the saving death of the Lord Jesus. This is how, mechanically, as it
were, we become “in Christ”. The use of dia here demonstrates the
colossal importance of baptism.
“Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death...
knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him" (Rom
6:4,6). Every time someone is baptized, the Lord as it were goes through
His death for them again. And yet baptism is an ongoing process, of dying
daily. We are in Christ, connected every moment with the life and living
out of His cross. We are dying with Him, our old man is crucified
with Him because His death is an ongoing one. “It is Christ that died...
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?... As it is written, For
thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the
slaughter" (Rom 8:34-36). According to Isaiah 53, He on the cross was the
sheep for the slaughter; but all in Him are all day long counted
as sharing His death, as we live out the same self-control, the same
spirit of love and self-giving for others, regardless of their response...
That like as Christ was raised up
from the dead through the glory of the Father- This doesn’t mean that
some bright light as it were hauled the body of Jesus out of the grave.
The glory of God is essentially His character and attributes; when Moses
asked to see God’s glory, He heard the essential character of God
proclaimed. Christ was raised from the dead dia , for the sake
of, this glory. He perfectly revealed it in a life and personality which
was totally like God’s, omitting no aspect of righteousness and not
committing any sin. He gave His life for us, to become our full
representative; and therefore it was appropriate that He be raised again,
for the wages of sin is death, but He had done no sin. His same perfection
is counted to us, if we believe in Him and into Him through “the obedience
of faith” in baptism. And it is on this basis that we too shall rise
again. Paul mentions this aspect of the Lord’s resurrection to explain to
us something more about how and why immersion into His death and
resurrection can lead to our resurrection. We must consider that
His resurrection is in fact going to be ours exactly because His
righteousness is counted to us, and therefore, dia, that, for the
sake of it, we took shall be raised to life eternal.
The theory of Him only ‘acting out’ reaches its nadir when we come- as
each Christian must- to personally contemplate the meaning of the dead
body of Jesus. That lifeless corpse, in contrast with the immortal God who
cannot die, was surely the ultimate testament to Christ’s total humanity.
God did not die for three days. The Lord Jesus did. His subsequent
resurrection doesn’t in any way detract from the fact that He was really
dead for three days. Indeed, His resurrection would also have been a cheap
sham if He had actually not been really dead, with all that death means.
We too, in our natural fear of death (cp. Heb. 2:15), come to that dead
body and wish to identify ourselves with it, so that we might share in His
resurrection. Baptism is a baptism into His death (Rom. 6:3-5). It’s more
than some act of vague identification with the dead and resurrected Jesus.
We are “buried with him”, literally ‘co-buried’ (Gk. syn-thaptein)
with Him, inserted into His death, sharing the same grave. If His death
was not really death, then baptism loses its meaning, and we are left
still searching for another Saviour with whom we can identify in order to
rise out of the grave. Jesus Himself was baptized in order to emphasize
our identity with Him: “Now when all the people were baptized,
and Jesus also had been baptized…” (Lk. 3:21).
Our experience of grace means “that we should serve in newness of
spirit and not in the oldness of the letter” (Rom. 7:6). We don’t have to
serve God in the sense that He grants us salvation by pure grace, not by
works. The blessing of the Lord has nothing added to it by human toil
(Prov. 10:22 RVmg.). But just because we don’t have to do it, we
do. This is the power of grace; it doesn’t force us to monotonous service,
but should be a wellspring of fresh motivation, to do perhaps the same
things with an ever fresh spirit. The pure wonder of it all needs
to be felt- that for nothing but pure faith the Lord will grant
us eternal redemption for the sake of the Lord’s death and resurrection.
Which is why Rom. 6:4 says that because of this, and our appropriation of
it in baptism, we therefore live in newness of life, a quality of
life that is ever new. Through His death, a new and living way is opened
(Heb. 10:20). We share the ever fresh life which the Lord lived from His
resurrection. It does us good to try to imagine that scene- the Son of
God, coming out of the grave at daybreak. He would have seen the lights of
Jerusalem shimmering away in the distance, a few kms. away, as everyone
woke up and went back to work, the first day after the long holiday.
Getting the children ready, caring for the animals… it was back to the
same old scene. But as they did so, the Son of God was rising to newness
of life, standing alone in the fresh morning air, with a life that was
ever new, with a joy and dynamism that was to know no end… His feelings
are beyond us, but all the same, distorted by our nature, by our spiritual
dysfunction, into our lives His life breaks through.
So we also might walk in newness of life- The similar passage
in Tit. 3:5 speaks of how "according to His mercy He saved us, through the
washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit" (see note there).
This regenerative power is from the Spirit working within our minds,
making life ever new as the Spirit is progressively poured out. Paul will
develop this further in chapter 8.
6:5 For if we have become united
with him- Gk. 'planted together'. The image appears to be of
two seeds growing up together out of the ground. To parallel Christ with
us in this way is arresting; that we, so far behind Him, our Master, King
and hero- should actually be seeds and tender plants growing up next to
Him. The suggestion could be that Christ is still growing, His life is a
newness of life, an ever fresh experience, a growth, which goes on
eternally; and we are growing together with Him. And that growth has
started even now. The initial planting under the earth is symbolized by
going under the water of baptism.
In the likeness of his death, we
shall also be in the likeness of his resurrection- The reference could
be to baptism itself as the likeness of His death. But perhaps the idea
more essentially is that our death to sin is a copy, a “likeness”, of
Christ’s death to sin (6:10). It’s an elevating thought- that we are
seeking to copy His death in our daily death to sin. Not only through our
rejecting of temptation, but our recognition that we are in a state of
being dead to sin and its demands, because we are counted right before God
by our faith in His grace. “Likeness” is used in the LXX in the frequent
warnings not to make an image or likeness of any god, let alone Yahweh
(Ex. 20:4; Dt. 4:16-25; Ps. 106:20; Is. 40:18,19). The reason for this
prohibition becomes clearer in the New Testament; the ultimate likeness of
God is in His Son, and we are to create the likeness of His Son not as a
mere physical icon, but within the very structure of our human personality
and character. In this we as it were die with Christ (6:8)- not just in
the dirt and heat of battling and resisting temptation to sin, but in that
we have identified ourselves with Him there, we are in the sphere of
Christ rather than Adam. What we do with our thoughts, our spare time,
what our aims and ambitions are in life, where our heart is- is within the
Christ sphere rather than the Adam sphere, the spirit rather than the
flesh. We are in the “likeness” of Christ’s death by baptism, and He is in
the “likeness of [our] sinful flesh” (Rom. 8:3)- thereby showing the
mutuality between Him and us, and how representation and response to it is
two-way. He is like us, and we therefore seek to become like Him.
God forbid that for us, the cross should be a mere art form that we admire
from afar. We are to be intimately connected with the spirit of the Lord
as He hung there. In baptism, we are to be ‘incorporated with him in a
death like his’ (Rom. 6:5). The Greek word symphytoi speaks of a
symphony, in which we and the Lord in His time of dying are united
together. Likewise Rom. 8:29 and Phil. 3:21 speak of being ‘fused into the
mould of his death’. He, as He was there, is to be our mould. The strange
ability of the cross to elicit powerful response in practice is one way in
which the blood of Christ sanctifies us. His sacrifice not only brings
forgiveness for past sins, it is the inspiration to a sanctified future
life.
6:6 Knowing this- see on Rom. 6:3. As in 6:9, “knowing” these
things means more than factual knowledge; Paul is driving home the
practical implications.
That our old man- the contrast between the old man and the new
man is similar to that which Paul draws in 1 Cor. 15:45 between the “first
man”, Adam, and the “last” man, Christ. Therefore I suggest that the “old
man” here is a reference to our status in Adam; by baptism we pass from
that status to that of the “new man”, Christ. Eph. 4:22-24 exhorts
baptized believers to put off the old man and put on the new man- i.e. to
live out in practice the change in status which occurred in baptism. “The
new man” comprises Jew and Gentile (Eph. 2:15; Col. 3:10,11)- connecting
with how Gal. 3:27-29 explains that baptism into Christ likewise gives us
a status of “in Christ” which thereby obviates any difference between Jew
and Gentile. If “the old man” refers to our status in Adam which has now
ended, been crucified, then we need no longer be phased by the fact that
no baptized believer manages to totally avoid sinning; none of us have put
to death the old manner of life in totality. All our days we seek to
respond to the change of status which has occurred, living appropriate to
that change.
Is crucified with Him- the very pinnacle of the Lord’s
achievement, which we tend to gape at from an awed distance reflecting
that ‘I would not, could not, possibly, have done that’, is counted to us
insofar as we are in Christ. “Is crucified” is a translation which misses
the point- the Greek speaks of this as a one time act which we did with
Christ, rather than any ongoing identity with the crucifixion through our
sufferings over the course of our life. That one time point of identity
was surely baptism, when we were counted as in Christ, changed status from
Adam to Christ, and His crucifixion was counted to us as if we had died
there. This interpretation is in context with Paul’s argument in Romans;
he’s not merely saying that our sufferings in fighting sin bring us
identity with Christ’s crucifixion, or that thereby we know something of
the spirit of the crucified Christ. For we are so, so far behind Him. And
our paltry efforts fall far short, and certainly would not entitle us to a
resurrection. By our being counted as dead, even crucified, with Christ,
because we are seen as “in” Him, we will be thereby also resurrected with
Him in that we will share in His resurrection life just as we were
identified with His death. Indeed, all that is true of Him becomes true of
us. We died with Him (6:8), were crucified with Him (6:6), buried with Him
(6:4), raised with Him (Col. 2:12; 3:1); are seated with Him in Heaven
(Eph. 2:16), are simply “with” Christ in life today (Rom. 8:17,29), and so
will eternally be “with the Lord” Jesus (1 Thess. 4:17).
That the body of sin might be done
away, that so we should no longer be in bondage to sin- Is the body of
sin done away with at the day of judgment? Or is it now; for therefore we
no longer serve sin, and that surely is our status now. It’s a case of
‘now but not yet’. Paul speaks of how the life / living of Jesus is now
manifested in our “mortal flesh” (2 Cor. 4:11). So we still have “mortal
flesh” now. It will only literally be no more at the Lord’s return. This
could require the next clause to be translated “that from then onwards
[i.e. after the day of judgment] we shall no longer serve sin”. However,
this phrase could be returning back to this life- with the idea being that
because at the day of judgment our body of sin will be destroyed, and this
was guaranteed by our baptism into Christ, we therefore shouldn’t serve
sin, in having sin as our master. We are no longer in that sphere, under
that domination- but instead under the domination of Christ and within His
sphere. Note the difference between the “old man” being crucified and the
“body of sin” being therefore, henceforth, destroyed. The old way of life
[which is how Paul uses “the old man” in Eph. 4:22; Col. 3:9] is dead, we
have changed status, living as “the new man”, Christ. This will come to
its physical manifestation in the destruction of our physical body and the
gift of the new body at the day of judgment.
6:7 He that has died is set free from sin- is virtually quoting
Rabbinic writings. However in the Talmud there is the statement that “when
a man is dead he is freed from keeping the law” (B. Shabbat, 151
B). Paul provocatively replaces “law” with “sin”. Not that God’s law is
sinful in itself, but he has been emphasizing that the Law is associated
with sin because it as it were magnifies sin and leads to the conscious
crossing over of a Divine line which results in sin being imputed to man.
However, “freed” here translates the usual word for “justified” or
acquitted. A slave can no longer serve a master after the death of the
slave. And this is how God counts us.
6:8 But if we died with Christ-
In baptism into Christ’s death. Paul is writing to baptized believers; his
thought is therefore ‘Since we died with Him’.
We believe that we shall also live with Him- yet the fact someone
has been baptized doesn’t necessarily mean that they do at this point
believe that they will live with Christ. Paul surely means that if we
really accept the reality of what happened at baptism, this must influence
our faith now- that we shall therefore live with Him eternally in the
future, and we therefore shall live with Him and in Him, within the sphere
of His life, right now. The logic here is powerful, intense, and cutting.
It can’t be squirmed out of. If we really were baptized into His death-
then we [almost] have to believe that we will also live with Him, because
He didn’t stay dead but rose to life. The power of baptism, therefore, is
that it reminds us subsequently in our lives of the simple fact that
therefore, as Christ died and lives, so I too “shall”, I really will,
“live with Him”.
6:9 Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead, dies no more-
“We believe that we shall live with Him” (6:8) because we know that Christ
was raised from the dead. To believe that He rose from the dead is
therefore no painless intellectual matter. If He rose, and if I really
died with Him, then I shall for sure live with Him. Because He is me and I
am Him; He in me and I in Him. This is what Paul is saying, amidst our own
doubts and fears about our moral failures trying to shout him down.
Death no more has dominion over him-
If death and sin have no more dominion over Christ, they have no dominion
over us, and therefore we are to live as if sin has no dominion over us
(6:14).
6:10 For the death that he died, he
died to sin once- This apparently obvious fact is added to develop the
argument that because He totally isn’t under the power of sin and death
any more, we who are in Him are likewise free from it, totally and
utterly- by status. And seeing His death isn’t ongoing, our freedom from
sin should likewise be ongoing.
But the life that he lives, he lives to God- The fact that even
now, the Son of God lives “unto God”, to His glory, for His sake, unto
Him… is a sure proof that He isn’t “God” in any Trinitarian sense. But
just as His life is constantly and in every dimension “for God”, so we
also should be living unto God now (6:11)- not a hobby, a part time
religion, but a devotion to His sphere in every aspect of our existence.
The life that He lived and now lives, and the death that He died, become
ours (Rom. 6:10 RV). We identified with that life, that death, at baptism.
But it’s an ongoing thing. We live in newness of life. The life
in Christ is not a stagnant pond, but rather living water, spring water,
bubbling fresh from the spring. The Lord Jesus died and rose as our
representative. Therefore we live out His life, His death, His rising
again to new life; and so as we sing, “into my life your power
breaks through, living Lord”. And this is what we give out to others- for
“he that believeth in me, out of his innermost being shall flow rivers of
springing water” for others (Jn. 4:10; 7:38). We can experience the
newness of life of Christ right now. His life is now made manifest in our
mortal flesh (2 Cor. 4:11), insofar as we seek to live our lives governed
by the golden rule: ‘What would Jesus do…?’. The life that He had and now
lives is the essence of the Kingdom life.
Throughout the New Testament, there is a clear link between the preaching
of the cross, and men and women being converted. There is a power of
conversion in the image and message of Christ crucified as our
representative. Man cannot remain passive before this. Baptism is an
appropriation of His death and resurrection to ourselves. This is why the
response to the preaching of the cross in the 1st century was baptism. And
the response doesn't stop there; it continues, in the living of the life
of the risen Jesus in our lives after baptism: "For the death that he
died, he died unto sin… the life that he liveth, he liveth unto God. Even
so reckon ye also yourselves to dead unto sin but alive unto God [because
you are] in Christ [by baptism into Him]" (Rom. 6:10,11 RV). The death
Christ died for us, the life He lives, are all imperatives to us now.
6:11- see on Rom. 2:26; 6:10.
Even so count yourselves to be
dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus– “Count” translates the
common Greek word for “impute”. As God imputes Christ’s righteousness to
us, we are to count ourselves, perceive ourselves, feel ourselves, as
really like that. Hence the emphasis- “you also yourselves”, we, us, are
to see ourselves as God sees us, rather than merely accepting that He
wishes to see us as He chooses to see us. His opinion of us in the
ultimate reality for us- and we are to share that view.
Paul’s emphasis is not so much that baptized believers will be resurrected
when Christ returns, true as this is and important within his overall
argument; but rather that having been raised with Christ, the new
resurrection life of Jesus breaks through into our lives right now.
Elsewhere Paul likewise talks of our participating in glory right now (2
Cor. 3:16), whereas the ultimate glory is yet to come and the
transformation of our bodies (Phil. 3:21).
6:12 Therefore do not let not
sin reign - We are to live out in practice the status we have in
Christ. “Sin shall not reign over you” (6:14); but we must therefore make
an effort to not let sin reign. Likewise in Rom. 8:9,12: “You are not in
the flesh… do not live according to the flesh”.
In your mortal body- Having said that “the body of sin” is to be
destroyed (6:6) and that we are to live in the sphere of Christ rather
than Adam, we have changed masters and should live and feel like that,
Paul reminds us that our body is still mortal- reminding us that we are
still awaiting the change of body which is to come at the final judgment
when Christ returns.
That you should obey the lusts of it- There are within the human
body the natural passions / desires to sin, “the passion of the flesh”
(Gal. 5:16). They aren’t sinful in themselves- for the Lord Jesus was
sinless and yet had our same “mortal body”. But the fact they are the
source of sin and are within our bodies explains why there is such a
strong connection between sin and our bodies, leading to expressions such
as “the body of sin” (6:6) and “sinful flesh” (8:3). But this isn’t to say
that the body is itself sinful or that it’s somehow a sin to be human.
6:13 Neither present your members to
sin as instruments of unrighteousness- “Instruments” is s.w. armour, weapon (Jn.
18:3; 2 Cor. 6:7; 10:4). We are called to fight, to serve in the army- of
either sin or Christ. No passivity or wavering between the positions is
therefore possible. We have changed sides. See on 6:23.
But present yourselves to God, as
alive from the dead; and your members as instruments of righteousness to
God- The aorist tense could suggest a one time presenting of
ourselves- at baptism? And if we didn’t appreciate at the time of our
baptism that this is what we were doing, we can do it now. Maybe that
explains the otherwise difficult to translate tense usage here.
6:14- see on Rom. 6:12.
For sin shall not have dominion over
you- Yet we still sin. But Paul is again talking about our changed
status- sin is not now our Lord, our master; instead, Jesus is. Kurieuo (“have
dominion”) is clearly intended to contrast with Kurios, the usual
Greek word translated “Lord” with reference to the Lord Jesus. See on Rom.
6:9. The Lord Jesus rose again so that He might be our Lord, s.w.
“dominion”, over us His people (Rom. 14:9). “Shall not” can be translated
as “Sin will not have dominion” (ESV)- so that it’s not a demand that we
stop allowing sin to dominate, but rather an exaltation that the “sin”
sphere of things will not in the end have dominion in our lives, because
we are in Christ.
For you are not under law, but under grace- This would’ve been
more radical to Jewish readers and listeners than we may appreciate; for
Judaism’s big issue has always been that the Law is required in order to
curb or restrain sin, and that societies without the Law are more sinful
than those influenced by it. But here Paul is saying that if we forget
about the Jewish Law and live as believers justified by pure grace, this
will have more practical power in delivering a man from sin’s dominion
than any attempt at obedience to a legal code. “Under” was appropriate to
slaves ‘under’ a master. We are ‘under’ grace as our master rather than
law. The strength of sin is the law (1 Cor. 15:56); if the law isn’t our
master, then sin likewise isn’t our master, and therefore sin will not
ultimately dominate us.
6:15 What then? Shall we sin,
because we are not under law but under grace? God forbid!-
See notes on “under…” at 6:14. If we are under grace rather than law, then
we will not be counted by God as sinning. We declared right, justified.
Paul may mean there that we are not counted as continual sinners
[even though we believers do keep on sinning, sadly], because we are under
grace as a master rather than law. Or he may mean that those truly under
grace don’t keep on sinning, because the wonder of their position inspires
them not to. This contrasts sharply with the Judaistic view that it is the
Law which curbs sin. Paul is arguing the very opposite: that leaving the
sphere of Law and coming under grace will actually curb sin.
6:16 Do you not know, that to whom
you present yourselves as slaves to obedience, his slaves you are whom you
obey? Whether of sin to death- See on 6:13. The obedience would seem
to be a one time obedience- in baptism- an obedience to a form of doctrine
delivered to them (6:17). “The obedience of faith” which Paul spoke of in
Rom. 1:5 he now interprets as baptism. Note the parallel between faith and
obedience in Rom. 10:16.
Paul expected other believers to share his familiarity with the words of
Christ. There's an example in Rom. 6:16: " Know ye not, that to whom ye
yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are... whether of
sin... or of obedience?". This is alluding to Mt. 6:24 concerning not
serving two masters. Paul is surely saying: 'Come on, this is Matthew 6,
you can't serve two masters! That principle ought to be firmly lodged in
your heart!'. In terms of Paul’s argument about which status or sphere we
are in, his point is simple: you can only be in one sphere or the other,
either under law or grace, sin or obedience. It’s therefore impossible to
continue sinning. in God’s view [and it’s His view of the matter which is
the only thing worth anything]- because we are either justified in Christ,
or not justified and condemned sinners. The tree brings forth either good
or bad fruit (Mt. 7:18)- in that we are “in” either the good tree or the
bad one. Paul deploys this argument to answer the objection that we may as
well continue sinning- he’s saying not merely that we ought not to do
that, but rather that ultimately we cannot do that, because we
are either under sin or under obedience. Notice that he personifies
“obedience” as a slave owner, to whom we now belong. The two slave masters
in view here are called “sin” and “obedience”. We are clearly to identify
“obedience” with the Lord Jesus. And Paul has just written about the
singular and spectacular “obedience” of Jesus in dying for us on the cross
(see on Rom. 5:19). This act made Jesus to be Lord and Master for us. We
are obedient to His obedience, as it were. Which is the whole idea of
baptism- we are buried together with Him, we die with Him, His death
becomes ours, and thus His obedience unto death is ours.
Or of obedience to righteousness- The end result of our serving
“obedience”, i.e. the Lord Jesus, is righteousness. But Paul’s argument
has been that all our righteousness is as filthy rags, and righteousness
has to be imputed to us. The end result of being under “obedience”, in
Christ, is that righteousness is imputed to us, we are declared righteous,
justified, as we stand before the final judgment. Lack of attention to
Paul’s argument and the meaning attached to the terms being used in Romans
can lead the casual reader of this verse to think that by acts of
obedience we become righteous- and that is the very opposite of what Paul
has been teaching all along.
6:17 But thanks be to God, that
whereas you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that
form of teaching which was delivered to you- This must be interpreted
in the context of Paul’s insistent theme that we have changed masters,
changed status. “Handed over” could be an allusion to handing over a slave
from one master to another- the form of teaching would therefore refer to
the form or mould to which we are exposed under our new master, the Lord
Jesus. In this case it would refer to post baptismal rather than pre
baptismal teaching. Alternatively he may be referring to the fact that the
teaching or doctrine of Christ had been delivered or handed over to them
from Christ Himself (s.w. 1 Cor. 11:2,13; 15:3). However, it should be
noted that Paul says that the baptized believer is handed over to the
doctrine / teaching of Christ- and not the teaching to the believer.
Perhaps the contrast is with Rom. 2:20, where we read of the “form of
knowledge and of truth in the law [of Moses]”. We have been handed over to
the form or mould of teaching which is in Christ rather than Moses.
Paul’s writing that he thanks God for their change of status was maybe to
encourage his readers to understand the degree to which in very deed they
had changed status- because they seemed to doubt it, as we too tend to.
We are frequently spoken of as being slaves of God. At baptism, we changed
masters (Rom. 6). Yet the implications of being a bond-slave are
tremendous. We are not our own. We have been bought with a price. And we
cannot serve two masters. There’s a powerful, powerful logic here. We are
either slaves of ourselves, or slaves of God. Ultimate freedom to do ‘what
we want’ is actually not possible. So we may as well take the path of
slavery to the Father and Son. Unless we firmly accept this, life will
become motion without meaning, activity without direction, events without
reason.
The doctrines we believed at baptism were a 'mould of doctrine' (Rom. 6:17
Gk.)- they define the person we turn into. The calling of the Gospel is
ongoing- it's not that we hear the call, respond to it, and the call in
that sense ceases. There is a set of doctrines which Eph. 4:4-6 calls "the
one faith"; which Rom. 6:17 calls "that form of doctrine" to be believed
before baptism; "the form of sound words" (2 Tim. 1:13).
“Repent ye and believe the Gospel" (Mk. 1:15) might seem to be in the
wrong order- for surely belief of the Gospel comes before repentance. And
so it does. But the point is, life after conversion is a life of believing
the basic Gospel which led us to conversion and repentance in the first
place. Thus Rom. 6 teaches that we were once servants of sin... and we
expect the sentence to conclude: 'But now you are servants of
righteousness'. But it doesn't. We were once servants of sin but now we
have obeyed the form of doctrine delivered to us... and are therefore
servants of righteousness. The service of righteousness is a result of
accepting "that form of doctrine", perhaps referring to an early catechism
or statement of faith taught to baptismal candidates, summarizing the
power of the Gospel.
“Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin" (Jn. 8:34), but those in
Christ are counted as not being the servants of sin, but of Christ (Rom.
6:17). The connection with Jn. 8:34 makes this tantamount to saying that
they are reckoned as not committing sin.
6:18 And being made free from
sin- An allusion to 1 Sam. 17:8,9? This would imply a
manumission, a payment of a price by some gracious person to free a person
from slavery. Note that the image isn’t of one slave master buying a slave
from another master. It’s of genuine freedom being bought for the slave,
by grace. But “being then made free”, because of this, the freed slave
decides to become a slave of the gracious Saviour who paid for their
release. Being a slave of Christ is therefore described in 6:19 as a
freewill yielding of our bodies, every part of them, to His service. 1
Enoch 5:7,8 and other Jewish writings spoke of ‘freedom from sin’ coming
in the Messianic Kingdom and the destruction of Satan; but Paul applies
that phrase to the experience of the Christian believer now - see
on 1 Cor. 10:11. [J. Milik, The Books of Enoch: Aramaic Fragments from
Qumran Cave 4(Oxford: Clarendon, 1976) pp. 248-259. The same phrase
occurs with the same meaning in the Testament of Levi 14.1.]
You became slaves to righteousness- The change of status is so
great that there can be no real question about who in practice we should
serve. By status we are the servants of righteousness- but that is not to
say that we don’t at times in our humanity serve sin in practice. We have
yet to become in practice who we are in status. The language of ‘being
made free’ and ‘being made slaves’ suggests the power of an external
process working upon us; and that is the work of the Spirit.
6:19 I speak in human terms because
of the weakness of your human nature; but as you presented your limbs as
slaves of uncleanness and iniquity, now present your limbs as slaves of
righteousness unto holiness- In Paul’s case, being all things to all
men meant that at times He sacrificed highest principle in order to get
through to men; he didn’t just baldly state doctrinal truth and leave his
hearers with the problem of whether to accept it. He really sought to
persuade men. He magnified his ministry of preaching to the Gentiles, he
emphasized the possibility of Gentile salvation, “If by any means I may
provoke to emulation [‘incite to rivalry’] them which are my flesh [the
Jews], and might save some of them” (Rom. 11:13,14). This hardly seems a
very appropriate method, under the spotlight of highest principle. But it
was a method Paul used. Likewise he badgers the Corinthians into giving
money for the poor saints in Jerusalem on the basis that he has boasted to
others of how much they would give (2 Cor. 9:2), and these boasts had
provoked others to be generous; so now, they had better live up to their
promise and give the cash. If somebody promised to give money to charity
and then didn’t do so, we wouldn’t pressurize them to give. And we
wouldn’t really encourage one ecclesia to give money on the basis of
telling them that another ecclesia had promised to be very generous, so
they ought to be too. Yet these apparently human methods were used by
Paul. He spoke “in human terms” to the Romans, “because of the infirmity
of your flesh” (Rom. 6:19 NIV); he so wanted to make his point understood.
And when he told husbands to love their wives, he uses another rather
human reason: that because your wife is “one flesh” with you, by loving
her you are loving yourself. ‘And’, he reasons, ‘you wouldn’t hate
yourself, would you, so – love your wife!’. The cynic could reasonably say
that this is pure selfishness (Eph. 5:29); and Paul seems to recognize
that the higher level of understanding is that a husband should love his
wife purely because he is manifesting the love of Christ to an often
indifferent and unappreciative ecclesia (5:32,33). And yet Paul plainly
uses the lower level argument too. It is possible to discern an element of
human appeal in some Biblical statements. Thus the Spirit encourages
husbands to love their wives as themselves, because effectively they are
loving themselves if they do this (Eph. 5:29). Yet we are also warned that
a characteristic of the last days will be a selfish loving of ourselves.
Paul speaks of how he puts things "in human terms" (Rom. 6:19 NIV); e.g.
he suggests that fear of the judgment alone ought to at least make us sit
up and take our spiritual life seriously (2 Cor. 5:11), even though the
tenor of Scripture elsewhere is that this shouldn't be our motivator.
We should note that Paul is almost apologizing for his metaphors, as if he
had put something too crudely. His metaphors are ‘humanly’ quite
acceptable- from the courtroom, slavery etc. Given the height and wonder
of the grace we are considering, any metaphor, any similitude, any
language- is inadequate and even borders on the inappropriate. And note
that Paul is writing all these things, both the metaphors and the apology
for them, under Divine inspiration.
The changeover from the downward spiral to the upward spiral ought to have
begun at baptism; but as with some of the Roman believers in the first
century, a believer can slip back into the downward spiral: "Just as you
used to offer the parts of your body in slavery to impurity and to ever
increasing wickedness, so now offer them in slavery to righteousness
leading to holiness" (Rom. 6:19 NIV). The life of sexual impurity is an
"ever increasing" downwards path; the endless quest for new relationships
and sexual novelty doesn't need to be described.
Rom. 6:19 speaks of how the ever increasing downward spiral of obedience
to sin is turned around at baptism, so that we begin an upward spiral of
obedience to righteousness. God does good unto those that are good, but
leads those who turn aside even further astray (Ps. 125:4,5). Those who
are "[born] of God" are able to hear and understand God's words (Jn.
8:47)- and baptism is surely how we are born of God (Jn. 3:3-5). This
seems to open up the possibility of yet higher growth once we are
baptized- it's all an upward spiral, like any functional relationship.
Rom. 6:19-23 makes the contrast between how serving sin leads to ever
increasing sin, whilst serving Christ results in ever increasing
righteousness. We are all too aware of the upward (downward!) spiral of
sin- we well know the feeling of losing our spiritual grip for an hour,
day or week, and sensing how sin is ever increasing its hold over us. But
by our union with Christ in baptism it is quite possible, indeed intended,
that we should get into an upward spiral of obedience, in which one
spiritual victory leads to another.
6:20 For when you were slaves of
sin, you were free from righteousness- Gk. ‘not a slave of’. Again
Paul is labouring the point that one cannot serve two masters. And he does
so in a way which makes us think: ‘That’s stating the obvious! Why are you
repeatedly stating the obvious?’. He does this because it’s not obvious to
us that we really are servants of “righteousness” rather than “sin”. We
wonder whether we are really counted as righteous or not. Note here that
the names of the two slave masters are “sin” and “righteousness”- in Rom.
6:16 they were “sin” and “obedience”. We are slaves of Christ, He is our
righteousness, and it is counted to us; so “righteousness” is an
appropriate title for Him, “the Lord our righteousness”.
6:21 What fruit had you at that time…?- There was no fruit in
slavery; it was existence, rather than a life lived.
In the things of which you are now
ashamed? For the result of those things is death- Shame is associated
with condemnation at the final judgment. We recognize we are condemned
sinners, and feel the shame for that. The verse could be punctuated: “What
fruit did you have then? That of which you are now ashamed”. This is the
great paradox in the Christian experience- feeling condemned for sin, and
yet believing in our new status, that we are declared right before the
judgment seat of God.
6:22 But now being made free from
sin, and having become slaves of God- See on 6:18. We were made free
from slavery, rather than being bought by a slave master from our previous
owner. But we chose to become His slaves out of gratitude for His grace.
The same Greek is found in 1 Cor. 9:19: “I have made myself a slave to
all, that I might gain the more”. The idea is that made ourselves servants
/ slaves, having been made free from our old master. The two slave masters
are now called “sin” and “God”.
You have your fruit unto
holiness- and the result is eternal life- But Paul’s whole intention
of writing to the Roman church and ministering to them was so that they
would bear fruit (Rom. 1:13 cp. 15:28). If we truly understand that we are
no longer in “sin” but the servants of God, in His sphere of things and
His acceptance, then we will bear fruit in practice, it simply has to be
like that, it’s inevitable. The idea of bearing fruit is connected in the
context to baptism into Christ. Jn. 12:24 records the Lord likening His
death to a seed falling into the ground, going as it were into a grave
under the soil, but rising again and bearing fruit. Again- all that is
true of the Lord Jesus is true of us who are in Him. Paul has been saying
that we were planted together with Him (6:5), buried with Him, rose with
Him- and as He is the plant that bears fruit, so are we. We therefore
aren’t being exhorted to bear fruit, so much as being told that we have
our fruit- for we are in Him. And naturally, this means we will try to
live in practice as we are by status. But by status, we do now have our
fruit- His fruit- and the end of all this will at the final judgment be
“everlasting life”. And yet it is quite legitimate to read the Greek here
as meaning that living a spiritually fruitful life now is the “eternal
life”- an idea in harmony with the repeated promises in John’s gospel that
we can right now live the kind of life we shall eternally live.
6:23 For the wages of sin
is death- Used specifically of pay given to soldiers (Lk. 3:14; 1 Cor.
9:7; and every usage in the LXX is in this connection- 1 Esdra 4:56; 1
Macc. 3:28; 14:32). This would continue the military analogy which was
used in Rom. 6:13- of presenting our limbs as armour, weapons [Gk.], to
King Sin. See also the military term in Rom. 7:8.
The wages of sin and the gift of God are here
contrasted. “God” and “sin” are the names of the two slave masters in
6:22. We noted under 6:22 you have your fruit that the
everlasting life will be the end result of our service, given at the day
of judgment at Christ’s return. It may be that we are intended to
visualize the wages of sin being paid at the same time. In any case, all
believers, all servants of God, will die in any case. This isn’t the wages
of sin. Surely the “death” that is in view here in 6:23 is the second
death at the day of judgment.
Asaph laments how the wicked seem to be so prosperous, and then remembers
that one day God will awake. More than this, he comes to see that
"they... shall perish: thou hast destroyed them... how
are they brought into desolation, as in a moment! they are utterly
consumed with terrors" (Ps. 73:27,19). The wages of sin is death
(Rom. 6:23)- not 'it will be death at the judgment', it is right
now the response God makes to sin. Because God is without time, the
judgment has effectively happened to them. We are come to "God the judge
of all"- even now (Heb. 12:23).
But the free gift of God is eternal
life in Christ Jesus our Lord- Remember that the context of this whole
section in Romans is that of becoming in Christ by baptism into Him.
This is what associates us with the gift of eternal life.
Our natural man, the devil, is a personification of sin. He cannot be
reformed; he can only be destroyed by death. "The wages of the sin: death"
(Rom. 6:23 Diaglott) seems to suggest that Rom. 6:23 is not saying that we
die for each specific sin we commit (you can only die for one sin anyway,
because we only have one life); rather is it saying that the end of the
natural man, "sin", the devil within us, is death. Therefore we must
associate ourselves with the man Christ Jesus, both in baptism and in our
way of life, so that the personification of Christ within us will be
clothed with a glorious bodily form at his return.
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