Romans 6

CHAPTER VI

Newness of Life and Sanctification, chapter 6

Romans 6:1

1 The first effect of the righteousness of God (justification by faith) is salvation and life through Christ as set forth in chapter 5. The second effect is newness of life and sanctification. The great paragraph 5:12–21, with its “as—so” and “if—much more” statements has been written, the sonorous phrase, “through Jesus Christ, our Lord,” marks its conclusion. With characteristic simple facility Paul turns to the next effect of justification. What then shall we say? Shall we be remaining in the sin in order that the grace may increase? Perish the thought! We such as died to the sin, how shall we still be living in it?

We do not interpret: “What shall we say to the objector” who tells us that, according to our doctrine, we should remain in the sin in order to increase the grace we are praising as the salvation from sin? This objector has been repeatedly mentioned. In 3:8 he mentions slanderers and their slander that the Christians teach: “Let us do the base things that the good things may come.” But when Paul faces opponents he tells his readers this fact. Here as elsewhere he speaks only to sincere Christians who, like himself, do serious thinking about the blessed truth to which they hold. These verbs that contain a “we” are plain on that point. “What shall we then say?” refers to 5:20, the grace superabounding where the sin increased. This superabundance of the grace is the blessed fact on which our justification and our salvation rest.

It is misunderstanding Paul to render “Shall we say then: Let us be remaining,” etc.? This is not a hortative subjunctive: “let us remain,” but a deliberative subjunctive (R. 934) which turns a question over in the mind: “Shall we be remaining in the sin?” A few texts have the future indicative, but this would have the same sense. The present subjunctive refers to continuous remaining.

The purpose clause states the motivation: “in order that the grace may increase,” aorist, be brought to the point of greater increase. This is one of those many silly deductions that constantly arise in our foolish minds with a show of sound logic: if this is so (real truth), then must this other not also be so (some foolish conclusion)? At times these deductions become very annoying, for instance, when some helpless mind becomes ensnarled in its supposed sound reasonings and fails to find the fallacies involved. For this reason Paul introduces such questions and then solves them for his Christian readers. Should we not by keeping on in sin, by doing more and more of it, help grace to increase vastly in saving us from this mass of sin? If we stopped sinning, less grace would be needed to save us.

Is it not more glory for grace when it superabounds? This sort of reasoning can be carried still farther once it is well started. On “grace” see 3:24. “The grace” and “the sin,” with definite articles as in 5:20, 21, speak of them as powers, and it is best to retain the articles when translating them into English.

Romans 6:2

2 “Perish the thought!” Paul exclaims (see 3:4). There are thoughts and reasonings which in spite of their show of logic are so abominable that the Christian mind instinctively turns from them and refuses even to think them. There are such thoughts and reasonings also outside of Christianity, in all departments of knowledge and of life, that are instinctively rejected by mankind and entertained and acted on only by men who are morbid, slightly unbalanced, badly defective in natural morality, pitifully obsessed by the vicious follies they cannot cast off. Paul’s exclamation: “Perish; the thought!” is the reaction of a mind that is mentally, morally, spiritually sound, and the apostle utters this exclamation in place of all is readers.

That repudiation alone would be enough. For we need not analyze every fallacy in order to reject it; nor need we formally explode every vicious deduction by showing all that it upsets in order to scorn it. That, too, is worth remembering for the sake of our sanity in general. But Paul raises the present question for the very purpose of exposing the viciousness of its contents. Two ways were open to him when giving the answer: either to analyze the question itself and thus to show the fallacy involved; or to confront the question with the solid facts it denies or ignores, the facts which make every such question impossible in the first place. Paul chooses the latter because it is by far the most effective. Here too, we may learn from him, for too often we are inclined to use the less effective way and in our ignorance even to take for granted wrong implications in the questions we attempt to analyze.

How can such a thought of going on in sin arise in the minds of us “who are such as died to the sin”? “How shall we still be living in it?” Logic? sound deduction? The very thought of going on in sin for any reason is in itself a shallow contradiction. It is like having died and yet talking about continuing to live. Only a fool confuses having died and still being alive. Paul points this out sharply: died (aorist, for the act is punctiliar) “to the sin”—still be living (durative) “in it.” The power of grace produced this death to sin; how, then, can we still go on living in sin, to say nothing of such an impossibility as causing grace to increase? Here is an answer, indeed.

This is the ethical dative. The thought is as profound as the fact itself. The moment a man is dead he ceases to respond to stimuli. Coax him, command him, threaten him—no response, no reaction. The sphere in which he once moved (“in it”) is his sphere no longer. So plain in the physical realm, is it less plain in the spiritual where the genuine realities exist? Once sin was the sphere in which we moved and responded to all this power of sin. Then came grace—oh, that blessed grace so vastly greater than the sin!—and possessed our soul which then and there died to the sin and, being thus dead, ceased living in it, ceased responding to it, the sin reached out to this dead one in vain.

This is the glory of grace that it made us die to sin. This is the abounding of grace over sin that it rendered us dead. This is our joy and delight in grace, the one reason that we embraced it: to be dead to sin. It is, of course, only the negative side, death is negative. Paul will add the positive, the newness of life. The negative explodes the fallacious question, the positive does so still more. Both this death and this new life and newness of life are such great effects of justification by faith through grace that they deserve to be unfolded in detail, and even these details are tremendous.

Romans 6:3

3 Or are you ignorant of the fact that we, as many as were baptized in connection with Christ Jesus, were baptized in connection with his death? We then were entombed with him through this (our) baptism in connection with this (his) death in order that, just as Christ was raised up from the dead through the glory of the Father, thus also we on our part might come to walk in newness of life.

“Or are you ignorant of the fact?” is really a litotes for: “But I am sure that you know the fact.” The addition of “as many,” of course, does not mean that some of the Roman Christians had not been baptized but intends to connect them with Paul and all other Christians, all of whom were baptized. We regard the verb as a passive, “were baptized,” and not as a permissive middle in passive form, “we let ourselves be baptized.” The aorist is to designate the past historical fact; it is important here because it matches the aorist “we did die.” The death to sin occurred in the baptism.

It is the task of the grammars to tell the story as to how the Koine εἰς has expanded and invaded the territory of ἐν so that it reached even the static verbs, even those of being, letting us have the construction εἶναι and ὢνεἰς, this invasion being completed in modern Greek, ἐν there being swallowed up entirely by εἰς. All the old grammars and all the old exegeses are superseded by the immense volume of new information now at hand in the papyri, etc. We now see how wrong it was in scores of instances in the New Testament to interpret εἰς as “into,” and how only sheer ignorance forced the idea of motion into the preposition. Here in v. 3, 4, where it is found three times, as in Matt. 28:19, εἰς denotes sphere (R. 592) and not motion. The grammars now call it static εἰς.

Although the thought was unthinkable, men tried to think it: carried by baptism into the Name, into Christ, into his death. This εἰς is simple in and indicates no motion but only sphere; it is in with its first meaning: “in connection with.” We were baptized “in connection with” the Name of the Holy Trinity (Name = revelation), “in connection with” Christ, with his death and all its saving power. Baptism is “the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost” (Tit. 3:5) because of these its connections which reveal the power and the effect with which it works. Baptism connects us with the Messiah Jesus, and Paul says that this means the connection with his death. Here all that he has already said on the efficacy of that death must be recalled: 3:25; 5:6–11, plus all that has been said on Christ’s mediation. Note the chiasm, the two verbs being outside, the two phrases inside, thus placing great emphasis on the second phrase: “in connection with his death.”

Baptism made this connection for us, this sacrament initiated us into the Christian faith and Church (John 3:5). The passives are vital, for not we do something for Christ when we are baptized, he does something for and to us, he with his death. Faith in the Word preceded the baptism of adults, but this faith ever desires baptism as sealing the connection with Christ and his death. So baptism is the full guarantee of this connection. A repudiation of baptism evidences a spurious faith, a lack of the vital connection. To say: “in connection with his death were we baptized,” is not yet mystical language. But we see that there is a mystical thought in Paul’s mind when Paul continues: “entombed then were we with him through (by means of) the (= our) baptism in connection with the (= his) death.”

Romans 6:4

4 A τάφος is a tomb, then also a grave, and thus συνθάπτω = to entomb with someone or something. This is not symbolical language, as some have called it, but mystical language, and that to the fullest degree. What occurred in a physical way in the case of Christ is predicated of us in whom it occurred in a spiritual way, in fact, the two are made one: “entombed were we with him” and this “by means of our baptism in connection with his death.” The phrase modifies the noun (R. 784; C.-K. 272, who admits this modification he e although he is skeptical of such modifications elsewhere). We see that “the baptism in connection with the death” is thus also mystical. For, in order to be entombed, one must have undergone death, entombment follows death as a matter of course, seals the death as it were. For this reason we say in the creed regarding Christ: “dead and buried.” To be entombed with Christ thus involves the fact that in our baptism we died with Christ.

The depth of this mystical language, the wealth of truth concentrated in it, must be fully appreciated. Compare also Eph. 2:5, 6. Here we have no figures or symbols, no verbal beauties, but concentrated facts. Here more is said than that Christ died for us, that God reckoned his death as ours, as though we had died, or even that by baptism and faith all the benefits of his sacrificial death were made personally ours. The spiritual effect in ourselves is at once included. By connecting us with Christ’s death baptism so joined us to it that we ourselves died to sin.

It was a dying together, this death of Christ and of ourselves, a being entombed together as dead. The interval of time vanishes. The difference between Christ’s death as sacrificial and vicarious and ours as escape from sin and its dominion is fully conserved; for only on the verity of this difference rests this concentrated predication. Of course, the next step follows: as we died with Christ so we shall rise and live with him (v. 8).

Those must revise their estimate of baptism who make it a mere symbol of something else, something that will happen at a future time. With διά Paul makes it a means, not only for applying Christ’s death and its benefits to us, but equally for our thus getting rid of sin, even of its dominion. No symbol could do that.

The moment baptism becomes for us what it is, its mode ceases to dominate our thinking. Even in a symbol we need no picturing, no duplication. A few drops of water symbolize as well as, yea better than, a lake or an ocean. Baptism by immersion and submersion becomes no more symbolic than sprinkling or pouring. But the function of this sacrament is not to picture or to symbolize—whatever of that character we see is minor; its function is to act as a most effective divine, spiritual means, one that derives its power from connection with Christ and his atoning death, one that effects in us a death to sin and a new life, regeneration (John 3:5; Tit. 3:5) or new birth, and thus newness of life forever. Βαπτισμός, with its suffix -μος, denotes action; while βάπτισμα, with -μα, like the five terms used in 5:16, denotes the action as to its result, R. 151; C.-K. 199. We properly have the former here, for the very act did for us what Paul predicates.

From the profundity of mystical language Paul rises to the plain language of simple comparison: we were entombed with Christ “in order that, just as Christ was raised up from the dead through the glory of the Father, thus also we on our part might come to walk in newness of life.” Paul could have said: “in order that we might be raised up with Christ” and continued the mystical language. His use of ordinary comparison shows us how his mystical language about being entombed with Christ is to be understood; in fact, in v. 5 he himself interprets that “we have become grown together with the likeness of his death.” The likeness: Christ was entombed as dead, we died to sin, is welded into a unit: “we were entombed with him.” The counterpart is left in its duality and is united by “just as—thus also.”

We regard ἠγέρθη as a passive and not as a passive used in the middle sense, because the means (διά), the glory of the Father, points to the Father as the agent. It is, of course, true that the Scriptures say both: Jesus was raised and he himself arose even as all the opera ad extra are indivisa aut communa. Dead, entombed, raised up from the dead belong together. The Father put his approval on his Son’s death by raising him up. Christ’s resurrection seals the atoning efficacy and the sufficiency of his sacrificial death. The sins of the world were, indeed, atoned; the evidence is this conquering of death by means of Christ’s resurrection, for sin and death go together (5:12).

On the phrase ἐκνεκρῶν as being equal to “from death” see the discussion in Matt. 17:10; Mark 9:9; Luke 9:7; John 2:22; or Acts 3:16; on God’s δόξα, 1:23: the divine attributes as they shine forth. This doxa includes omnipotence but much more as the means in the Father himself which he exercised and displayed in raising his Son from death.

Instead of the counterpart: “thus also we on our part (emphatic ἡμεῖς) were raised up,” Paul at once advances to the result of our spiritual resurrection: “thus also we on our part might come to walk in newness of life.” The aorist is ingressive (R. 850; B.-D. 337, 1). To be alive is to walk; to be raised to life is to be enabled to walk, to move, to show all the evidences of being alive. Remaining in sin is to be without spiritual life and thus without spiritual activity of any kind. Life itself, both physical and spiritual, is invisible, intangible, but it shows its presence by a thousand activities, all of which are absent in death. Thus to start to walk in newness of life involves the fact that a resurrection to this new life has occurred, a resurrection that is analogous to Christ’s physical resurrection from the tomb. The fact that Paul thus at once advances to this life activity is typical of his mind; we see the same quick movement of mind in Jesus.

“In newness of life” is most correct. For there is the opposite: to live in sin (v. 2), and Paul tells about it in what follows. This life in sin is the old life to which Christians are dead. Born anew or raised up spiritually (Eph. 2:5, 6), they have a new life and walk in newness of life. The genitive is adjectival and yet stronger than an adjective, this genitive is the principal word and does not merge into one idea with the noun it modifies as completely as the adjective would (R. 651, 943). “Newness” is a derivative of καινός which is the opposite of παλαιός, “old,” and differs from νέος, “new” as never having existed before. The English lacks these synonyms. Both apply to our life which is new both absolutely and relatively, the latter when it is compared with the old life of sin.

Paul tells the Christians that they know these great facts about baptism as to how by its connection with Christ’s death, entombment, and resurrection it effected their death to sin, their entombment as being dead to sin, their resurrection to the new life and the walk in its newness. How impossible, yea how monstrous, then, even for a moment to entertain such a thought as for some reason or other to remain in sin!

Romans 6:5

5 So important is all this that Paul explains (γάρ) still further by a restatement in other terms. For if we have become grown together with the likeness of his death, indeed also shall we be (grown together with the likeness) of the resurrection; we realizing this that our old man was jointly crucified so that the body of the sin was put out of effect for us no longer to keep being slaves to the sin; for he that died has been declared acquitted from the sin.

This “if” is exactly like those found in 5:15, 17, and in 6:8. Mingled with “just as—so also” statements, these “if—then” statements are only variations in the form of the thought so that either form may be used for the other, here, for instance: “even as we have become grown together so also we shall be,” etc. It is a reality that we have grown together, and Paul speaks of it as a reality when he uses εἰ with the indicative in a condition of reality. “Even as” would do the same as it does in v. 4 (also 5:15, 16, “not as,” 5:18, 19, 21, “even as”).

In v. 3 Paul said, “baptized were we in connection with Christ’s death.” In v. 4, “entombed were we with Christ through baptism.” Now, “grown together have we become with the likeness of his death.” All three speak of the same fact, but the second advances the statement beyond the first, and the third beyond even the second. The advance noted in this third is especially valuable, for it states that the mystical entombment together with Christ is based on reality. Christ’s death and entombment were, of course, real; so also is our death to sin in baptism. The mystical uniting of the two, however, exists not only in our thought and thus in the expression of our thought; this union is a reality, no matter how we think and speak of it. When we use mystical language, “entombed together,” “crucified jointly,” we express nothing beyond the actual fact.

L., following the latest investigators of the pagan mystery cults, thinks that he and they have traced Paul’s “death-baptism” to its source and have discovered the place where the apostle obtained these ideas and this language of his. We are frequently referred to these pagan mystery cults or to Jewish apocalyptic writings. When these do not furnish sufficient evidence, we are told that the “source” has not yet been discovered but that it will be in due time in one of these two fields, pagan or Jewish. The thought that Paul’s source is the divine reality itself, is seen as such by Paul’s own mind, seen through the Spirit’s own revelation, is not considered by these investigators. The fact that Paul again and again states that he is presenting realities as they are, and nothing but realities, is disregarded.

The claim is added that Paul’s readers were acquainted with this pagan and this Jewish apocalyptic material and understood that he was turning it into Christian channels and using it for Christian purposes. But this becomes improbable when we think of the combination of Jewish and of pagan Christians in the apostolic congregations. How much did the former know about the pagan mystery cults, or the latter about the Jewish apocalyptic wisdom? Many Gentile Christians were slaves, “not many wise men after the flesh,” etc. (1 Cor. 1:26, etc.); how much did they know about the mystery cults? Not even the neophytes of these cults knew very much. Give Paul credit for knowing a good deal after having traveled about in the Roman world, but how much did even he know about the inside working of these mystery cults? And does 1 Cor. 2:2, which was written before Romans, have no bearing on this point?

L. offers this sample from the mystery cults: “The keys of the nether world and the care for salvation lie in the hands of Isis, and the transfer itself is celebrated as a voluntary death and as a salvation attained by prayers; as when one, his time of life passed, is placed at the threshold itself of the departing light and is so that the great mysteries of religion may be safely committed to him, then the goddess is accustomed to call him forth and again to place him into paths of new salvation, who by her care in a way was reborn.” Did the goddess die? No. Did the initiate die? No. Were the two deaths combined into one? Absolutely not.

That thought never entered a pagan mind. The initiation is celebrated only in likeness of a voluntary death of the initiate, ad instar voluntariae mortis, like the mock death and resurrection in the Masonic initiation. In the world of paganism nothing was known that remotely resembles our dying with Christ, being crucified with him, being entombed with him, even in the way of a ceremony, to say nothing of the actual reality. We disclaim the use of pagan sources for Paul’s thought or language.

“Grown together with the likeness of his death” has been called “inaccurate,” “quasi-colloquial,” contrary to “the rules of formal literary composition”; Paul should have written “grown together with Christ in the likeness,” etc. In v. 4 Paul does say: “entombed were we with him.” Then he uses “even as Christ—thus also we” and shows the likeness. And now in v. 5, where he explains still further (γάρ), he purposely retains “the likeness of his death,” for “with Christ” = “with the likeness.” The two deaths, Christ’s and ours, are not identical when we die to sin in baptism. We have already dwelt on the differences which leave us only “the likeness,” ὁμοίωμα (-μα a term expressing result, compare those used in 5:16).

“Of his death” has been made an appositional genitive; but in 4:14 and in other passages the genitive cannot be appositional (C.-K. 795, etc.), for who would make “the likeness” = the type and call Christ’s death the type and our death to sin the antitype? When was the type ever greater than the antitype? No, this is “likeness,” which is well explained by Trench, Synonyms, who says that εἰκών is Abbild, which always presupposes a Vorbild, like the image of the sun in the water, while ὁμοίωμα is resemblance only, like one egg resembling another without being derived from the other. Christ’s death is too great, too singular to typify anything. Our little inward death to sin which was made possible by his mighty death for the world’s sin only resembles his death and no more. And the resemblance lies in this that, as he died and rose again, so we died to sin in order to enter a new life. The dative is due to the σύν in σύμφυτοι, although R. 528 calls it associative-instrumental.

Ἀλλά is not adversative (“but”), it is continuative and in this instance climacteric: “indeed,” “yea” (R. 1185, etc.) From the preceding clause we must supply all that we need with the genitive: also we shall be “grown together with the likeness” of the (his) resurrection. The one likeness assures the other. This is so much the case that neither could exist without the other. And this second, too, is only “likeness” and no more. The tenses are important: “we have become” grown together, what we became in our baptism continues to this day (“the likeness of his death”); “we shall be” grown together as long as we live (“with the likeness of his resurrection”). Both tenses admit of increase: becoming more and more; shall be more and more, “grown together” with this twofold likeness.

Romans 6:6

6 We may regard γινώσκοντες as causal: “since we realize”; not as admonitory, “that we may realize,” or as consecutive, “so that,” etc. The experience that has happened to us is one of which we are fully conscious: we realize what has died in us, what has risen in us. And now Paul uses the fullest form of mystical expression for this death: “that our old man was jointly crucified.” There is no need of adding the dative “with him” as was done in v. 4, “we were entombed with him.” The aorist passive points back to our baptism when this crucifixion took place. In v. 3 Paul says, “we died,” in v. 4, “we were entombed”; both are now elucidated: “our old man was crucified.” “We died” does not mean that we experienced a quiet death, that our old man merely declined in death at the time of baptism. Paul uses the word “crucified” which he uses also in Gal. 2:20. Some confuse this cross with the cross which the Christians now bear and disregard the force of the aorist; the shame of the cross is also stressed.

Often the word is passed by as being derived from Christ’s crucifixion. That is true enough, but it denotes a violent, accursed death—our old man was literally murdered in our baptism, he did not die willingly but was slain as one cursed of God, the passive implying God as the agent and the law and the gospel as the means.

Paul might have written, “We were jointly crucified with him” as he does in Gal. 2:20: “I am being crucified with Christ”; here he states what was crucified in our baptism: “our old man,” the opposite of “the new man” (Eph. 4:22–24) and of “a new creature” (2 Cor. 5:17; Gal. 6:5). “Our old man” is more than a personification, for it denotes our entire being as it existed before regeneration, “old” pointing back to that former existence. In us there was nothing even to sicken and to weaken our old man, much less to murder him by crucifixion; God had to do this.

The climax of this mystical expression is reached in the fact that it joins together even the form of Christ’s death with our inward death in baptism. The distinctness of the two acts remains as was pointed out in the paragraph in v. 4 which explains the mystical terms. But our death depends so entirely on Christ’s sacrificial death by crucifixion that, when he is stressing this connection, Paul is able to say that baptism nails our old man of sin on Christ’s cross in order to perish in and with the sins for which Christ died on his cross. To say that Christ’s death is ein schlechthin vergangenes Ereignis, that thus “the crucified Christ does not as such exist any more,” and that therefore only an ideal connection with him is possible, mars all that Paul says. In John 20:25 he reveals even his wounds after his resurrection. He is the crucified Christ forever.

That one past act remains. Time does not change it. It is as efficacious now as it was when Christ yielded up his spirit. Our connection in baptism is real, so real that it carries our old man to the very cross of Christ in a spiritual crucifixion that kills our old sinful self. Fact cannot be expressed more fully.

In 3:19, and 5:20, 21 ἵνα with the aorist states result, and it may well do so here where Paul recites facts: “so that (not: in order that) the body of sin was (not only: might be) put out of effect.” This is also true with regard to τοῦδουλεύειν, on which R. 1002, 1066, 1088 wavers: “probably final.” Both are either result or both are purpose. Either fits the thought. Our only hesitation is that in v. 4 ἵνα seems to be final, and here in v. 6 purpose would suffice. So we submit the question. The beaten track (purpose) is easy, but is it correct? The genitive in “the body of the sin” is attributive: the body marked by the sin; not appositional: the body (mass of sins) constituting the sin.

In v. 12 Paul calls it “the mortal body” and goes on to speak of “the members” used and ruled by the sin. Here we have Paul’s view of the body as the organ by which the sin (the article to designate sin as a power, v. 1) in us operates and works itself out. The sin is by no means only in the body, it is in our entire being and enslaves that being utterly and to its complete destruction. Man, however, consists of soul and body, an immaterial and a material part, and thus the body with all its members is the great instrument through which the soul operates. “The body of the sin” is the body used by the evil power of sin which has enslaved the entire being and thus works itself out through the body and its members.

Καταργέω = to put out of commission or effect. It is made too strong when it is rendered: to destroy, to annihilate. The appeal to “was crucified” is misdirected, for this is predicated of “our old man.” He undergoes death with the result (or purpose) that the body is now no longer “of the sin,” no longer marked by this power as being under its control. Once for all it was put out of commission or effect and no longer functions as “the body of the sin” in helpless slavery under the sin power; but since we have been set free (v. 22), our members become servants of righteousness unto sanctification (v. 19). Our body becomes even the temple of the Holy Spirit, and we ourselves are not our own but belong to him who bought us and we glorify God in both body and spirit (1 Cor. 6:19, 20).

The clause with τοῦ and the infinitive: “that (result or purpose) we no longer keep slaving (i.e., keep being slaves and laboring as slaves) for the sin,” has ἡμᾶς as the subject and refers to “us” and in this way also to our bodies. Once for all the curse of this slavery has been broken since our old man has been crucified. The battle with the sin is not completed in baptism; the admonitions given in v. 12, etc., show what is yet to be done. But the decisive victory has been won. The sin is dethroned, the new man has taken the place of the old man in us, and now it is our task to prevent the sin from again usurping that throne.

Romans 6:7

7 Our escape from the sin is effected by our own death to sin. When Paul says: “For he that died has been acquitted from the sin” (has been and is so still), he explains how our having been crucified freed us from slaving to the sin. Sin can get no slaving out of a dead slave; the dead slave is absolved of all further work for sin. By using δεδικαίωται Paul puts the statement into a forensic form as though by his own death a verdict of acquittal has been rendered regarding the slave. Here this forensic verb is construed with ἀπό, the preposition stating, not whence the justification comes, but from what the dead man is set free by the justification, namely “from the sin.” In the preceding and in the following Paul uses first person plurals, here in v. 7 he suddenly employs a third person singular: “He that died,” etc. This makes the statement general and axiomatic: When any man dies, by his dying he is acquitted and remains so as far as the sin is concerned. The entire context shows in what sense that is true and thus also why this axiom is so pertinent.

Paul is not speaking of our guilt of sin but of sin’s power to make us sin. Now that power of sin over us ends automatically with a man’s physical death. His course of sinning is ended, at death the judgment awaits him, and after the judgment whatever it decrees. Paul applies this effect of physical death on a man’s relation to sin’s power to the ethical death we die in baptism and to its equal effect on our relation to sin’s power. What physical death effects for any and for every man the ethical death in baptism effects ethically for him who is baptized: he, too, is pronounced free from sin’s power. It is scarcely necessary to say that Paul is here not speaking of justification by faith, of acquittal from sin’s guilt; he is making clear the death we die to sin in baptism.

It is also strange to think of death as atoning for sin’s guilt; only Christ’s death atones. The great effect of justification is this our death to sin.

Romans 6:8

8 Moreover, if we died with Christ we believe that we shall also live with him, having come to know that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more; death no more is lord over him. For what he died, to the sin he died once for all; but what he lives, he lives to God. Thus also do you on your part reckon yourselves to be dead to the sin but living to God in connection with Christ Jesus.

Δέ is neither adversative (“but”) nor copulative (“and”); it adds something different (“moreover”), namely the other side, the living ushered in by this our dying in baptism. Here again Paul uses the “if” of reality with the future in the apodosis, as he did in v. 5 and in 5:17. “If we died with Christ,” namely to the sin (v. 2), which includes our crucifixion and our entombment with him, “we believe that we shall also live with him.” Instead of merely asserting the fact Paul advances to the faith which we have in that fact. He is telling his readers nothing new, he is voicing the contents of their faith and of his. The great facts of our salvation are to be embraced by us by faith, all their blessedness is thus made personally our own.

“We died” is the historical aorist to indicate the one act; “we shall also live” is the future, here durative, and this future starts immediately after our death and continues ever after. On the sense of these mystical expressions see v. 4. “We shall also live with him” cannot be dated at the last day and denote our bodily resurrection. “We died with Christ and we shall live with him” are equally mystical and not physical (v. 11). We live with him = we walk in newness of life (v. 4) = we do not live in the sin to which we died (v. 2). The former only unfolds more fully what the latter mean. “With Christ” we shall live as we died with him; it is this our connection with him also in this our life that makes it the blessed reality that it is.

Romans 6:9

9 For this reason Paul (in v. 9, 10) expands Christ’s part in this our joint death and subsequent living. Our part depends wholly on his part. “Having come to know” is the aorist participle which emphasizes the starting point of this our knowing. The participle is scarcely causal (R. 1128) since it merely refers to the knowing contained in our believing. All true faith contains definite and explicit knowledge, which forms its basic part. What we have come to know is “that Christ, raised from the dead, dies no more, death is no more lord of (over) him,” αὐτοῦ is the genitive after verbs of ruling. The aorist passive participle “raised up from the dead” matches the verb used in v. 4, and both these passives match our entrance into the newness of life, which is also accomplished by means of a resurrection, which is passive as far as we are concerned. The great fact, however, is that, after being thus raised up, “Christ dies no more,” the emphatic asyndeton restating this from death’s side: “death is no more lord over him,” death’s lordship has been completely destroyed.

When Christ assumed our sins he made himself subject to death which is the penalty for those sins, and so died for us on the cross. But his death atoned for these sins; by bearing death, their penalty, he expiated all the guilt of the sins. God raised him up from the dead because the expiation and the atonement were complete. The death power of sin was thus broken. Christ, thus raised up, dies no more; death’s lordship over him, once voluntarily acknowledged by Christ for our sakes, is forever ended. These are the elementary facts that are known to every Christian who at all knows that Christ died for our sins and was raised up because his death made full atonement for them.

The point here stressed is the resurrection of Christ as being a part of his work of redemption, that resurrection lifting him out of death, over death, death itself now forever being beneath his feet. His death, his crucifixion, and even his entombment, have already been presented.

Romans 6:10

10 Paul now places the two side by side so that we may see that he is explaining (γάρ) what he has just said: “For what he died, to the sin he died once for all, but what he lives, he lives to God.” The two neuter relative pronouns ὅ do not mean: “in that” he died—lives; nor do they mean: “the death he died”—“the life he lives.” “What he died” = his death and all that his death involved; “what he lives” = his life and all that his now living it involves. The two datives denote relation: “to or in relation to the sin”; “to or in relation to God.” The thought that Christ died for our sins underlies only the dative τῇἁμαρτίᾳ. What Paul says by means of this dative is that Christ was done with sin. Because he had assumed our sin, sin had claims upon him until he died, and these claims put him into relation to our sin. His death and all that it involved ended that relation: “he died to sin once for all.”

In v. 2 Paul says: “we died to sin,” and in v. 7: “we died with Christ.” Yet Christ’s relation to sin and our relation to sin differ vastly: we were sinners, helpless under sin’s curse and dominion; he was the sacrifice for our sin, the sinless Lamb of God without spot or blemish, who died for our sin. Yet when he died for our sin he died to the sin, he was done with it; even as we, justified through him and baptized in connection with his death (v. 3), thereby also died to sin and were done with it. Or, putting the thoughts together: “We died with Christ” (v. 8).

“Once for all” Christ died thus, and this adverb is emphasized in Heb. 7:27; 9:12, 26, 28; 10:10; 1 Pet. 3:18. It is so important because Christ’s death sufficed. “It has been finished!” uttered on the cross, was true. Christ’s resurrection is the absolute proof. As ὅ is the cognate object of “he died,” so “what he died” is the cognate object of the second “he died.”

And now the positive which goes with this negative: “what he lives, he lives to God.” In place of the two aorist tenses with their emphatic “once for all” we now have two present durative tenses—this living is eternal. Both the death and the living refer to Christ’s human nature, which fact helps us to understand the relation expressed by the dative “to God.” When his relation to sin ended in Christ’s death which bore the sin away, he did not lay aside his human nature as though it had finished its purpose with his death for sin; by the resurrection and the ascension Christ’s human nature was glorified, and in his glorified humanity he now lives to God. This his living to God thus rests on his having died to sin, and both pertain to us, first in a redemptive way and then in a sanctifying way, the latter resting on the former, the latter being set forth in this chapter. As our entrance into communion with God is mediated by the death Christ died in making an end of the sin, so our continuation in this communion is mediated by the life Christ now lives to God, both the death and the life in his human nature and through it reaching out to us and embracing us.

Romans 6:11

11 On this basis rests the admonition which rounds out the paragraph: “Thus also do you on your part (emphatic ὑμεῖς) reckon yourselves to be dead to sin but living to God in connection with Christ Jesus.” Paul reverts to v. 1, 2, to the impossibility of our being alive and still being responsive to sin’s dominion. He does not state only the fact that we are dead to sin, etc. In v. 8 he has advanced to our faith in the fact, and in v. 9 to our knowledge, and thus he now bids his readers to act on both. “Thus also reckon” is more than a comparison, for who would say that Christ reckons anything regarding himself? Our reckoning regarding ourselves is to be “thus,” i.e., so that it accords with the great facts seen in Christ.

Λογίζεσθε is the imperative. If it were an indicative it would have to be in the first person plural like all the other plurals in the “we” of this paragraph. The emphatic “you” befits only an imperative. The implication is that Paul most certaily reckons regarding himself as he bids the Romans reckon regarding themselves. For this reason he does not use the hortative subjunctive, “Let us reckon ourselves.” The very fact that he himself needs no such exhortation is to inspire the Romans to attain to a like condition. The verb does not mean “to conclude” in a mere logical fashion but “to reckon” with certain facts as facts so as to act on them because they are facts. Paul says: “Take it ever as a settled fact that you are dead to the sin but living to God in connection with Christ Jesus.” “Dead” in that you died to the sin in baptism, died with Christ, baptism connecting you with his death, not only as removing your guilt, but at the same time as removing you from sin’s dominion and slavery.

To this negative the positive is added, μέν—δέ balance the two: “alive to God” in newness of life (v. 4), baptism connecting us not only with Christ’s death but at the same time with the likeness of his resurrection (v. 5). One may wonder why Paul does not say outright that we are risen with Christ as he does in Col. 2:12, and 3:1, the first of these passages referring also to what was done with us in baptism. The reason is that he is here not speaking of the creation of the new life of faith in us by baptism as in Colossians but of our living this new life. Its creation by an act of quickening is taken for granted; it is included in the death we died in baptism so that we have now come to be in the likeness of Christ’s resurrection (v. 5), “living to God in connection with Christ Jesus.” We are like men who are dead to sin, like men living to God. The touch, solicitation, and command of sin leave us cold as they would one who has been dead a long time; but every touch of God meets with our instant, living, joyous response. So Christ finished what he had to do with sin, finished it on the cross, and left only, and now in heavenly glory, what he has to do with God, to do for our eternal benefit in his human nature as our everlasting Savior, our heavenly King.

For the first time in Romans we meet the pregnant phrase ἐνΧριστῷἸησοῦ which is so often used by Paul and always in this form save in Eph. 4:21. C.-K. 1134 seems to be correct that a difference in meaning between “Christ Jesus” and “Jesus Christ” is scarcely apparent; both refer to the same person and the same office. Yet in many connections one would place the title of the office first even as we say General Washington, President Lincoln, etc.; “Christ” alone often came to suffice as denoting both the person and the office in one.

Deissmann made a study of Paul’s phrase, Die neutestamentliche Formel in Christo Jesus; he finds it used 164 times in Paul’s letters, concludes that it originated with Paul, and explains it as meaning that all Christians are locally united “within the pneumatic Christ” insofar as they and Christ form one body. R. 587 calls the phrase mystical. Some make “in” denote the element in which Christians move, and Meyer specifies this element “in which being dead and living takes place” as “the ethical bond of communion which constitutes the εἷναιἐνΧριστῷ.” We are usually referred to John 15:4: “I in you, you in me.” To say that the phrase always refers to the glorified and never to the historical Christ makes a distinction that misleads. Paul wrote after Christ had been glorified, but John 15:4 was spoken before that time. The glorified Christ is the historical Christ, the same yesterday, today, and forever. It is the crucified Christ who is now glorified.

We submit the following: Ἐν denotes a vital spiritual connection so that we translate: “in connection with.” This connection is established objectively by the means of grace (baptism is mentioned), subjectively by faith. For this reason the Name is often mentioned, meaning the objective revelation (see 2:24): Matt. 28:19; Acts 2:38; 4:12; 8:16; 10:48; 19:5; 1 John 3:23; 5:13. The connection indicated by ἐν applies to every individual Christian as such as well as to all of them as a body, for since each is “in Christ Jesus,” this makes all of them one body.

It is mechanical and misleading to stress the idea of sphere or of element which may be connected with ἐν. While all prepositions can be diagrammed, and thus a circle represents ἐν, such a device is only helpful and must not be extended to make “in Christ” = as living creatures “in” the air, as fish “in” the water, as plants “in” the earth; man living and breathing “in” the air, and the air also “in” him (Deissmann 84, 92). Our connection is that of sphere which embraces both Christ and us and does not extend beyond this. We enter nothing like air, water, or earth; we are “in” the connection only by virtue of the fact of its being formed, and that connection joins us to the crucified, risen, glorified Christ. “In connection with Christ Jesus” is to be construed with both statements, with our being dead to sin as well as with our living to God.

Romans 6:12

12 The basic facts have been presented; we believe and know them as facts (v. 8, 9), and Paul has told us how, in view of them, we must look at ourselves (v. 11). The admonition thus begun in v. 11 continues on the basis of the facts (οὖν) and advances to the two great lines of conduct that must govern our lives throughout, one being negative, the other positive: dead to the sin—no more yielding to the sin and unrighteousness; alive to God—yielding only to him and to righteousness.

Let not the sin, then, reign in your mortal body so as to be obeying its lusts; neither be presenting your members as aids of unrighteousness to sin. On the contrary, definitely present yourselves to God as alive from the dead and your members as aids of righteousness to God. For sin shall not have lordship over you; for you are not under law but under grace.

In 5:17 “the death reigned,” here Paul says, “Let not the sin reign,” meaning “the death” and “the sin” as powers; note this force of the article from 5:12 onward. The very verb βασιλεύω regards “the sin” as a king who “reigns.” Now it would be useless to tell sinners not to let this powerful king, sin, reign over them, whether in their mortal bodies or in the rest of their being; sinners could not prevent the sin’s reigning over them. But Christians who have died to sin (v. 2, 8, 11), who are alive to God, they can, indeed, prevent the sin’s reigning so that they no longer are slaves to the sin (v. 6).

A misleading contrast is introduced when the force of reigning is stressed to mean: just so the sin does not reign even if some sin is present. This subject of still finding sin in ourselves Paul treats in 7:14, etc., not here in chapter six where the great subject is the fact that those who are justified are delivered from the tyranny, the domination of sin, are no longer sin’s slaves, and not the fact that this overthrown tyrant still harasses them.

Paul rightly says: “in your mortal body.” This phrase is often misunderstood. Not for one moment does Paul conceive the body as being the real seat and source of the sin in us. That seat and source is the soul. There is the throne of the sin, and, seated on this throne, the sin reigns over the body which is the instrument of the soul. Our liberation from the tyranny of the sin is not like the capture of a stronghold, like taking the outer works (the body) and then storming the inner citadel (the soul). There is no possibility that this tyrant could hold the inner citadel although he lost the outworks.

The liberation is effected when all of this is reversed. It is like a rebellion in the citadel itself, the tyrant there being cast from his throne and then trying to hold the outer forts in order to regain the citadel and his throne but being ousted from even these outer forts. It is inwardly, in the soul, that we died to the sin (v. 2, 8) and by the power of Christ’s death ousted the sin from its throne in our soul. What remains to be done is to complete the ousting, to exterminate all remnants of the sin’s reign in our bodies. This is the last feature of our liberation, and when it is accomplished, our liberation is complete.

Another fact should not escape us. The inner dethronement is accomplished for us by Christ, by baptism and his means of grace. Hence we have the use of passives in the preceding paragraph: we were crucified, were entombed, and we died (suffered death) to the sin. Hence we have the mystical terms that connect this inner death with Christ’s death, i.e., with its saving and liberating power. But after this inner dethronement of the sin in our soul has been accomplished through Christ’s power, we ourselves are able to cooperate in ousting the sin from our body. For this reason we read in the preceding paragraph that after dying to the sin we are alive to God, walk in newness of life, that our body has been put out of commission with regard to the sin, that we no longer slave for sin. This our cooperation in ousting the sin from even our bodies Paul now calls into fullest activity by means of imperatives, all of which imply that the soul which is already freed is able to wield the power of its new spiritual life.

When Paul says: “Let not the sin reign in your mortal body,” “mortal” corresponds to “the sin.” We recall 5:12, where it was stated that this mortality was caused by Adam’s first sin. Since it is the effect of the sin, this mortality, too, must be cast out from the body. The beginning is made with the ousting of the sin from reigning over the body; the consummation is achieved when this mortal puts on immortality, this corruptible puts on incorruptibility (1 Cor. 15:53). Unless the beginning is made, the consummation cannot follow, namely the glorification of the body in immortal blessedness. Our mortal body cannot be abandoned by our soul, cannot be left behind as being worthless so that sin may rule it as it did through Adam’s fall. Redeemed together with the soul, it, too, must be freed from both sin’s guilt and sin’s dominion so that when it is at last reunited with the glorified soul it, too, may be glorified.

Εἰςτό with the infinitive may express either. purpose or result: let not reign “in order that” or “so that.” Here contemplated result seems best. R. 1090 thinks of hypothetical result, but a condition is absent. The mortal body, which has already been called “the body of the sin” (v. 6), is said to have ἐπιθυμίαι, “desires,” and since this body of sin has them, their nature must be evil, they are “lusts” (C.-K. 501). The sin reigning in the mortal body likewise shows that these desires are lusts. These lusts are attributed to the body (αὐτοῦ) because it is animated, and because the lusts need the bodily members and the physical conditions for their gratification. The subject of the infinitive, however, is not the body but the persons addressed; they obey these lusts by gratifying them, by giving the body what its evil desires want.

In this manner the sin reigns in our mortal body by making slaves of us by inducing us to obey the lusts of the mortal, sinful body. Sinners are helpless slaves. Even when they know the painful, vicious, deadly consequences they obey; and when the body becomes wrecked, they still strain themselves to obey despite the physical inability to obtain gratification.

Once, however, we are dead to the sin, its mandates fall on deaf ears, no obedience follows, a new mandate is heard: “Let not the sin reign,” etc., and that new mandate meets with obedience. The desires of the mortal body are no longer fulfilled; they are repressed, eradicated, supplanted by the desires of the spirit and the holy gratification which these receive. Both the imperative and the infinitive are the present tense and thus durative to indicate constant abolition of sin’s reign and of our obedience to the lusts of the mortal body.

Romans 6:13

13 “Neither” does not indicate another and different thing that we are to do but the same thing expressed in a different way, one that makes the first command clearer: “neither be presenting (present, durative: at any time) your members as aids of unrighteousness to sin.” In place of the unit “body” we now have the various “members” which constitute it. When it is exercising its reign the sin wants now this member, now that, now a few, now all the bodily members.

In the present connection ὅπλα cannot mean “weapons” or “arms,” and one should not gather from the marginal translations of our versions that the Greek word always has this meaning. It means any kind of equipment and thus “weapons or arms” only when a soldier’s equipment is referred to or when a figurative statement is put into military language. Some think that the latter is the case here. But we have no armies, one being commanded by the sin, the other by God; we read of no war or battle. Not until we reach 7:23 do we meet the figure of war.

The sin is presented as a king, the noun that corresponds to βασιλεύω being βασιλεύς, and in v. 14 it is presented as a lord, the noun that corresponds to κυριεύω being κύριος. This king “reigns,” this lord “lords it.” We are supposed to furnish him our bodily members for the purpose of exercising his royal and his lordly authority. In other words, the organs of our body are to serve as his agents which he commands at his will. Find a good word for this thought; “aids” may do, “instruments” (our versions) is less satisfactory.

In negative commands the present imperative often means to stop a previous action, one that is already under way, R. 851, etc. We may thus translate: “Stop letting the sin reign in your mortal bodies … and stop presenting your members as aids to the sin!” Stop it now and always; never do either! Paul says, “aids of unrighteousness,” the genitive being qualitative because it lacks the article. “Unrighteousness” is everything that contradicts God’s δίκη or norm of right. We have the exact opposite in “aids of righteousness.” Unrighteousness and righteousness are not the two contending kings, for then articles would be required, and the two datives and their articles would be out of place: τῇόμαρτίᾳ and τῷΘεῷ. The sin wants our bodily members in order to misuse them as wicked aids. At one time, when we were alive to sin, it pleased us to furnish our members as such aids; but since we died to sin we stopped this and now respond to calls such as this one of Paul’s, ever to stop.

Ἀλλά brings the opposite, but it is extended beyond the negative. The imperative is now an aorist: “definitely present yourselves to God as alive from the dead and your members as aids of righteousness to God.” R. 855 and 950 note the differing tenses but do not mention the fact that the present tenses refer to stopping an action. When this stopping is noted, the force of the aorist becomes more pertinent. Instead of being told only what we are to do with our members, we are first told what to do with ourselves, because what we are to do with our members is only the result of what we do with ourselves. In v. 12 this is reversed. The sin wants to reign in our mortal body and its members in order to regain its dominion over us, which it lost when we died to the sin.

We thus are told to oust the sin from even our members. When Paul now writes “yourselves” and then “your members” he separates the two even more distinctly than he did in v. 12, 13a. As we dispose of our mortal body and of our members, so we are now told first of all to dispose of ourselves. “To God—to God” is emphatically repeated as we have twice had “the sin—to the sin.”

Our very selves, our own ego, we are to present to God. This is an act that is possible only to those who by union with Christ have been brought to die to sin and to be alive to God (v. 11). Hence we have the predicative accusative which indicates in what capacity we are thus to put ourselves at God’s disposal: not as sinners who would respond only to sin and not to him but “as persons living and alive from the dead” (v. 11) who no longer respond to the sin power but only and wholly to God.

Ζῶντας is repeated from v. 11 and is now amplified by ἐκνεκρῶν. Like so many other phrases, this stereotyped phrase never has an article and, unlike v. 4 and in most of the other connections in which it occurs, here refers to spiritual death. The fact that it signifies “from death” and not “out from among other dead men” is shown by the references noted in v. 4. The ὡσεί is not comparative: “as if from the dead,” or “as if living,” or “as if living from the dead”; for we are actually living since we have been raised from spiritual death, this is not a mere appearance or resemblance. Here ὡσεί (like ὡς, some prefer this reading) merely introduces the predicate ζῶντας which is used as a noun: “as actually alive from the dead” (B.-D. 157, 5; 453, 4). As such persons God can use us in his service. We shall be quick and happy to respond to his blessed will.

“And your members as aids of righteousness to God” is the opposite of “your members aids of unrighteousness to the sin.” Having placed ourselves at God’s disposal, we will do the same with our bodily members. He can use only righteous aids, for all the works of God are righteousness: the hands to do good deeds, the feet to run the way of his commandments (Ps. 119:32), the tongue to pray and to praise, the eyes to read his Word, the ears to hear it, etc.

Romans 6:14

14 With γάρ Paul introduces a promise which Melanchthon calls dulcissima consolatio: “For sin shall not have lordship over you.” Here ἁμαρτία has no article in marked contrast with all the articulated ἡἁμαρτία that appear in 5:12 to 6:13. The absence of the article is intentional and makes a great difference in the sense: “the sin” is this definite, great power; “sin” is anything in the nature of sin. In v. 12 the power of sin is not to reign over us like a king; here in v. 14 no single sin of any kind is to play the lord over us. As the nouns differ, so do the verbs: reign as a king or monarch, have lordship as one of the many lords under a monarch. This or that sin would like to play the lord over us, draw us into this or that vice, passion, habit. There is to be no such lord over us.

This is not the imperative future (R. 942, etc.; 1118, etc.) which is used in commands; it could not be, for, as has been pointed out, it would amount to giving a command to “sin” and not to the Christians. And why should Paul use this tense and not, as in v. 12, the present imperative: “let not sin lord it over you”? The tense is simply futuristic, a plain promise full of encouragement. We can, indeed, present ourselves and all our members to God to serve him, for no sin with its lordship shall interfere by controlling some part of our life.

The reason (γάρ) is: “for you are not under law but under grace,” ὑπό with the accusative being used in the Koine to indicate rest (R. 635). “Law” and “grace” are without articles because they are general and at the same time qualitative. Anything in the nature of law would only increase the transgression and thus could not deliver us from “the sin” (this king) or from “sin” (some sin lord). We have escaped from this dominion, are no longer “under” it by being “under law.” All those are under law who are not delivered and placed under grace; hence they are under both the curse and the dominion of sin. Thus far we have had only incidental statements regarding “law” and its effect (cf., 3:20, 21; 4:13, 14; 5:14, 20) although “law” and “grace” have been placed in contrast; in chapter 7 Paul treats the subject more fully.

“Grace,” too, is general, its quality being stressed. Here it is regarded as the opposite of “law.” see 3:24. Here it includes all that comes to us from the favor Dei through Christ: justification, baptism, the new life and newness of life. Law only increases and condemns sin and thus puts us hopelessly under its dominion; grace removes the curse of sin, breaks its dominion, joins us to Christ and God, fills us with spiritual power to trample unrighteousness under foot and to work righteousness. Gratia non solum peccata diluit, sed ut non peccemus facit. Augustine. “Under grace” still regards us as being subjects.

Man is or can never be independent. But being subjects to grace is pure blessedness for sinners, for while law comes with threatening demands which we are helpless to fulfill, grace showers upon us not only what we need but all that it possibly can bestow, even the capacity to receive, and asks no merit or worthiness on our part.

Romans 6:15

15 The admonition ceases at this point but will be repeated in v. 19 with supplementary explanations that place it in the true light and ward off wrong ideas to which our blind logic is ever prone. These explanations advance beyond the basic facts presented in v. 1–11, our death to the sin and our living to God. Since we are dead after this manner and alive in this fashion we must present ourselves and our members only unto God for his service (v. 12–14). Paul continues: we could not turn to a definite course of sin, for that would be going back to the very slavery from which we have escaped. Moreover, looking to the result, this would mean death final and forever while service to God receives the free gift of life eternal. All is exceedingly simple and plain.

More than that, all is full of the effective power of grace which draws us from sin to sanctification, from the servitude which is slavery to the service which is liberty, from eternal death to eternal life. Who would not thankfully submit to this drawing of grace?

What then? Shall we sin seeing that we are not under law but under grace? Perish the thought! Do you not know that to whom you keep presenting yourselves as slaves for obedience, slaves you are of him whom you are obeying, either (slaves) of sin for death or (slaves) of obedience for righteousness? But thanks to God that you were slaves of the sin but you became obedient from the heart to the form of teaching unto which you were delivered and, having been liberated from the sin, you were enslaved to righteousness.

In v. 1: “What, then, shall we say?” is in place because there a principle was at stake, one which hasty logic might “say” leads to wrong practice. Here: “What then?” is in place because only a fact has been pointed out, and a faulty apprehension of this fact may lead to wrong practice. There the principle itself might be questioned by pointing out what seems to be wrong with it; here the fact is admitted and not at all questioned, but it seems to permit something that without a knowledge of it would never be permitted.

Τίοὖν; = “What, then, about this fact?” The point in mind is at once stated: “Shall we sin seeing that we are not under law but under grace?” Paul restates the fact mentioned in v. 14 and thereby emphasizes it, for it is great and blessed, indeed. It is even startling to have it stated so succinctly: “We are not under law of any kind but altogether under all that is grace!” Paul purposely states it so sharply because it is not always stated so clearly. Twice before he has in this categorical way set aside law, in 3:21 in connection with justification and in 4:13 in connection with the promise to Abraham. Here he does it again in connection with our sanctification and our entire life as Christians.

There is a strong inclination to think that law stops sinning, that, unless we have at least some law, we shall not be kept from sinning even when we are under the fulness of grace; that grace alone is insufficient for this purpose. For this reason so many Christians are legalists. On the other hand, some are inclined to think that, since grace pardons sins so freely, one need not be so careful about not sinning, a few sins more or less make no difference to grace which will take care of the additional sins.

We have the deliberative subjunctive: “Shall we sin?” turning the question over in the mind as in v. 1. But here we have the aorist and not the present as in v. 1. The latter indicates continuous action, the former some act of sin: “shall we commit more or less sin as occasion arises?” Ὅτι is consecutive (R. 1001), this commission of sin follows our being under grace and not under law; it is best translated “seeing that”; it is not causal (our versions): “because.” The very idea of Christians proceeding to sin in consequence of being under grace Paul crushes with the exclamation: “Perish the thought!” see 3:4.

Romans 6:16

16 This very idea is made impossible by what everybody knows and what applies so completely in this matter that an alternative or even a deviation is utterly excluded. “Do you not know?” is Paul’s favorite litotes for: “You most certainly know.” What they know is at once stated as to the way in which it applies to Paul’s readers, and thus the second person plural is used. The fact back of this application is the truth that anyone is slave to him to whom he keeps presenting himself for obedience—he is slave to that master by his own choice and volition. Paul attains a double emphasis by means of the two relatives ᾧ and a further emphasis by placing δοῦλοι before ἐστέ: “To whom you keep presenting yourselves as slaves for obedience, slaves are you of him whom you are obeying.” The point which should not be overlooked is that Paul is not addressing sinners who were never freed from sin; for they are involuntary slaves. He is speaking to Christians who by baptism died to sin and were set free to live to God. As such they ought ever to present themselves (present tense here: aorist in v. 13: “definitely present”) to God for obedience; and Paul shows them that the very thought of again obeying sin is wrong although it is possible for them not only to have this thought cross their minds but also in folly to act on it.

Paul retains the verb “to present” which he used in v. 13 but amplifies it by adding the noun and the verb for obeying, for this is the purpose of the presenting. “Whom you are obeying” repeats in condensed form “to whom you present yourselves for obedience.” By adding to “for obedience” the verb “are obeying” and then following these two by “of the obedience” this point of obeying is strongly emphasized; in fact, we have the verb again in v. 17. To whom do we intend to render obedience, and whom do we intend to obey? Slaves are we of his: “either of sin or of obedience.” These are the only alternatives; the first ἤ has τοι (in the New Testament this is always attached) regarding which R. 1154 says that it seems to have the notion of restriction, there being only the two alternatives. The two genitives show that a genitive antecedent is included in the second ᾧ.

It is important to note that the articles are absent: slaves “of sin—of obedience” and not of “the sin—of the obedience.” “The sin” has occurred so often since 5:12, in 5:21–6:1 being contrasted with “the grace,” and in 6:11, 13 with God (ὁΘεός), that the difference is striking when in v. 14 and again here we have “sin” without the article. “The sin” is practically a personification and denotes the whole power of sin as a master while “sin” is anything in the nature of sin and matches “obedience” which also is not personified and is thus not equivalent to “God.”

Paul does not say that by committing sin while being under grace and not under law Christians would at once change masters and adopt “the sin,” their former tyrannical ruler, and leave God, their blessed liberator. These Christians want to remain under grace and God but imagine that grace is not averse to their committing sin on occasion; they do not desire the old tyrant, “the sin,” they think, however, that they may indulge in some measure of “sin.” But even this is impossible. In v. 14 Paul has already said that no little lord of this or that sin is to lord it over us (see the exposition) and here he reverses this statement: by presenting ourselves for obedience and by obeying some “sin” or other we should make ourselves slaves to such sin. And this is by no means harmless because it would be “for death,” namely spiritual and eternal death. Presenting ourselves for obedience and obeying implies voluntary and conscious stooping to some sin: and we ought to recognize the fact that the result of this is death. Every sin of this kind has death in it.

Εἰς is regularly used in phrases which signify purpose and also result. Would any Christian even think of voluntarily sinning and thus courting death? In v. 5, 12, 13 and 21 “the death” = the power, the tyrant death, a practical personification; here “death” = something which kills. The difference is similar to that existing between “the sin” and “sin.” In chapter 5 “the sin” and “the death” properly go together; here both “sin” and “death” are only qualitative. As regards involuntary sin we have Paul’s full exposition in 7:14–20.

All of this helps toward understanding the expression slaves “of obedience for righteousness.” “Obedience” is the opposite of “sin”; in the phrase “for obedience” which is used in the first relative clause the noun is not to be understood in a different sense, the sense is the same but includes both the wrong and the right obedience according to the kind of slaves which we make of ourselves when we become Christians. The two genitives “of sin” and “of obedience” are not merely attributive to “slaves”: “sinful (disobedient) slaves” of God—“obedient slaves” of God. Von Hofmann’s argument, which is adopted by Zahn, that “obedience” is our own conduct, and that we cannot be slaves to what we ourselves do, is annulled by the counterpart “slaves to sin,” where sin denotes our conduct; yet we often say that a man is a slave to some sin or vice. Why, then, can we not be “slaves of obedience”? These are genitives of ownership. A man can be a slave of any virtue. This is exactly what Paul wants to convey here: such slaves of obedience who are bent on nothing but obeying, who would not for a moment let go of obedience to which they wholly belong.

In a second member the thought often leaps far forward, beyond even the counterpart of the first member. Here we have the reverse. Until we reach v. 22, 23 the full opposite is held back. “For death” does not receive its full opposite “life eternal” until we come to the end. Only the intermediate result is stated: “for righteousness,” which is followed in v. 19 and 22 by “for sanctification,” and this explains the other. The acquired righteousness is the result (εἰς) of being slaves of obedience. Our obedient acts are pronounced righteous in God’s court (Matt. 25:34–40, compared with v. 46b).

The thought is not that this acquired righteousness merits life eternal. This matter is made entirely clear in 3:21 to 5:21. Yet when heaven is ours through grace, Christ’s merits, and faith, we finally reach it only by walking “in the paths of righteousness” in which the Lord leads us (Ps. 23:3). And here the important factor is to make that truth fully clear, to impress it most deeply lest some think that because the path of grace is free of law it has stretches of sin in it. Indulging in voluntary sin is leaving grace, is letting sin head us toward death instead of toward heaven. So the intermediate course is plainly and fully marked out by Paul.

Romans 6:17

17 This is the Christians’ course from the very beginning, a course that is involved in the very nature of the change that took place in them—thank God!—when they became Christians. In Paul’s, “Thanks to God!” Bengel finds ardor pectoris apostolici, and it certainly reveals the inner ardor of the heart with which Paul wrote to the Romans. Since the emphasis is on the tenses, an imperfect and an ingressive aorist: “ye were—ye became obedient,” a μέν to balance the δέ would be out of place. “You were slaves to the sin.” Thanks be to God that I can speak of it in that tense, as a state that is past and gone! Here “the sin” is correct, the great sin power and not just “sin,” this or that hold of sin on you. But here the contrast is not as it is in Eph. 5:8 between then and now, “then darkness, now light,” but between what these Christians once were and what they then became, became permanently. However, instead of saying: “but ye became slaves to God” or “obedient to God,” Paul spreads out this obedience, for he is here expounding it: “but you became obedient from the heart to the form of teaching unto which you were delivered and, having been liberated from the sin, you were enslaved to righteousness.” This is Paul’s own interpretation of “slaves of obedience for righteousness” in a wording that is masterly in every term.

“You became obedient” repeats that idea for the fourth time; the whole Christian life is obedience, and while this aorist is ingressive and thus marks the start of the action, it is at the same time decisive: “you became definitely, decisively obedient,” once for all. “From the heart” (one of the many phrases that needs no article in the Greek) adds the sincerity and the depth of this new start of obeying; the opposite is “with eyeservice,” cf., Eph. 6:6. The new obedience was not a mere form.

When one obeys he must have some word or some teaching to obey; so Paul does not stop to say, “you became obedient to God,” but at once advances to the teaching of God which the Christians came to obey. This is the more important since some of the Romans had been Jews and as such had imagined that they were obeying God when they were doing nothing of the kind. For that reason Paul also does not say, “you became obedient to the Word of God”; for the Jews thought that they were doing that, in fact, obedience to the Old Testament regulations was the outstanding mark of all the Pharisees. Paul is compelled to specify closely the Christian teaching, which also included the entire Old Testament, but this in its true meaning as contrasted to the Jewish misreading and with the fulfillment that had come in Christ Jesus. Now if you had to make this specific designation, how would you word it with exactness and terseness? Paul said, “that form of teaching unto which you were delivered,” and the Greek enabled him to make it even shorter than the English, for he could incorporate the antecedent into the relative clause: obedient “to what form of teaching you were delivered,” διδαχή is here the substance, the doctrine.

Paul’s five words are the more masterly since they convey the fact that we were delivered to this form of teaching in order to obey it and not that it was delivered to us. The former does not mean the latter. The expression παραδιδόναιτινὰεἴςτι, “to deliver a person over to something,” always implies handing someone over to what he does not want. It has that force here, for what sinner wants to be handed over to the slavery of God, wants to “be enslaved to righteousness”? He thinks himself free when he is a slave to the sin, and Paul says that he was then free as far as the righteousness is concerned (v. 20).

Moreover, Paul has most emphatically said that our deliverance from the sin was no less than having our old man “crucified” with Christ (v. 6). Shall we forget that Pilate παρέδωκεν, “delivered,” Jesus to be crucified (John 19:16)? And shall we not note that Jesus himself wanted to be thus delivered, wanted to be crucified, dead, and entombed? “We died with him” (v. 2, 8), “we were entombed with him” (v. 4). For the old sinful self all of this was a terrible thing, its very destruction; yet, like Christ, we ourselves wanted it, no man is made a Christian against his will. Paul’s passive “you were delivered” recalls all of this, and to change it so as to mean that the Christian doctrine “was delivered” to us, is not Paul’s meaning. Here, however, “you were delivered” accompanies the idea of being made slaves, slaves to righteousness, obeying as slaves, obeying the voice of our Master (God) who speaks in this teaching. Yet Paul inserts “from the heart,” for this is a most willing slavery, in fact, a slavery that has set us free (v. 19) by its enslavement.

Εἰςὃνπαρεδόθητετύπονδιδαχῆς = τῷτύπῳδιδαχῆςεἰςὃνπαρεδόθητε, for ὑπηκούσατε calls for the dative; R. 719 and W. P. are correct. Bengel resolves the incorporation: εἰςτύπονδιδαχῆςᾧ vel εἰςὃνπαρεδόθητε. Von Hofmann varies it, and Zahn adopts it, but inserts articles before the nouns: auf den lehrhaften Typus hin, welcher euch uebergeben wurde. He also inverts the last clause by making its object its subject and regards διδαχῆς as an adjectival genitive. In the expression “form or type of doctrine” the genitive is possessive; the Christian teaching has a certain form that sets it apart from all other religious teaching.

Τύπος does not here mean form in the sense of outline, for Christians became obedient to more than an outline. Norm, model, “pattern” (R. V. margin) are likewise out of the line of thought, for this word is used in opposition to both the Gentile and the Jewish religious teaching. The idea underlying τύπος is passive and not active: Geformtes and not Formendes, a fixed form and not something that gives us a certain form. The idea of norm, pattern, and something that molds us (active) misunderstands the sense (C.-K. 1078 is a sample). When we ceased to be slaves to the sin and became obedient to the Christian teaching, this obedience included faith and thus newness of life and by no means only the latter. “Form of teaching” = the gospel in its entirety as contrasted with every other teaching, no matter what its form, and not only gospel ethics.

The view that the Christian teaching itself had different forms, Pauline, Petrine, Johannine, is rightly rejected. The Romans had not adopted a peculiar type of the gospel or of gospel ethics, say the Pauline; some of them had been converted before Paul was converted (16:7).

Romans 6:18

18 With δέ Paul adds the rest and states what happened to us when we became obedient to the gospel to which we were delivered after we were no longer slaves to the sin power. This was at the same time a liberation and a new enslavement: “and having been liberated from the sin, you were enslaved to righteousness.” The verb as well as the participle are passive and not passive forms with the sense of the middle: “became (the) slaves,” our versions. God set us free. God delivered us over to the gospel and thus enslaved us to righteousness, i.e., the righteousness of a godly life. The aorists make both acts punctiliar, both took place at the moment of our conversion. The striking thought is the fact that our emancipation is a new enslavement. In v. 20 we are shown what a sad liberty we enjoyed when we were slaves of sin; here we are shown what a glorious liberty we obtained when we were made slaves to righteousness.

“Emancipated from the sin” (note the article), that is liberty indeed. The sin power usurped authority over us (5:12), stole us from God and thus made us slaves. We never rightly belonged to the sin. We were not created for the sin power, to sin. Freed from that power at last, we can fulfill the purpose of our being. We are free as when the bird is free to use its wings and to fly, the flower to expand its petals and to bloom.

We are free to obey our Creator and our Savior in newness of life. It is paradoxical to call this an enslavement. This is done here in order to show how our belonging to God is the direct opposite of our having once belonged to the sin and in addition how completely we must now serve God. The basic thought, of course, is that we are or can never be independent. Our true place is with God, his will is our will even as a slave has no will of his own. But these passives imply grace, the grace in Christ Jesus, and thus reveal the blessedness of our will which is one with God’s will.

You were enslaved “to the righteousness,” the righteousness mentioned in v. 16. The article, however, does not merely refer back but makes “the righteousness” a power, the opposite of the power called “the sin.” As slaves of the sin we had to keep doing sin, now as being enslaved to righteousness we keep doing righteous works. The thought is thus held to its advance, namely that, having been liberated from the sin and living “under grace” (v. 15), we could not dream of letting ourselves slip back into sin. God’s blessed grace has so bound us to itself that we have become its most willing and happy slaves, slaves “to the righteousness,” every work of ours being approved of God, every work thus being a joy and a delight for us.

Romans 6:19

19 Paul excuses himself for speaking of our state under grace and righteousness in terms that are borrowed from our state under the power of sin. Humanly I am speaking because of the weakness of your flesh. Here σάρξ = natura mere humana, the natural weakness found in all of us, and, as the context shows (6:1, 15), the foolish tendency under a false show of logic to draw wrong conclusions from the great spiritual facts. All of us are prone to this tendency of making deductions that seem so sound and yet are so false and contradict the very facts from which we think we are drawing them. To act on them leads us into both false doctrine, as many examples show, and into all kinds of sins and sinful courses, as still more examples show. Paul thus had to put up a great bar against such fleshly reasoning, just as preachers still are forced to do so.

Paul does not mean that in “the weakness of their flesh” the Romans are still on a lower moral level than other churches. His entire letter assumes the contrary. Throughout he treats the Romans with great consideration as being people who are advanced spiritually in every way. For that very reason, however, they might expect him to use more exalted language in speaking of their new life of liberty under grace. Paul does use this high language when occasion requires it; 1 Cor. 13 is incomparable in this respect. But such language does not serve when false logic is to be exploded; then one must often speak in a rough sort of way as is done here when we are called slaves to righteousness, even greater slaves than we were to the sin. This way of phrasing it is so helpful because we were once slaves, and because our liberty is now certainly not license, not liberty to drop back into sins, but a liberty that of our own volition holds us to God and to righteousness to such an extent as though he had completely made us his slaves.

So with an explicative γάρ Paul elucidates still further in this human fashion but now reverts to admonition in order the more to apply the great facts: For just as you presented your members as slaves to the uncleanness and the lawlessness for the lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to the righteousness for sanctification.

This is the human way of stating the admonition: “just as slaves—so now slaves.” The two are paralleled. This admonition repeats that given in v. 13 by using the same verb “present or furnish,” and by speaking of “your members.” The advance lies in speaking of the members themselves as being so many slaves and in designating the two masters, one being the power of uncleanness and lawlessness, the other the power of righteousness, and by adding an εἰς phrase of result to each clause, for Paul intends now to bring out the whole result.

Sinners are only too ready to present their bodily members to the sin power as being so many slaves to do the sin’s bidding. The neuter δοῦλα agrees with the neuter μέλη. For “the sin” Paul now substitutes “the uncleanness and the lawlessness,” both with articles, for they are conceived as powers that exist in the world and receive the members as their slaves. All sin is filthiness even as all sin is lawlessness. We do not have a division of sin into two sections but two aspects of sin. Sin is abominable, it reeks and stinks as does filth; and at the same time it is rebellion, anarchy, a challenge to law.

Imagine giving one’s own bodily members as slaves to such a power! Too often we hide this horribleness from ourselves and shudder at it only when it reveals itself stark and naked in some fearful crime. Learn from Paul what this tyrant looks like so that you will not extend even a finger to him. Uncleanness is not subjective, nor lawlessness objective; nor is the former spoken with respect to man, the latter with respect to God. Both are both, vile also in God’s sight and lawless as expressing our attitude.

“For the lawlessness” with its article differs from the corresponding phrase “for sanctification” which lacks the article. The lawlessness exists as a vicious power, and “for the lawlessness” = for the interest and the increase of that power in the world. This power itself grows the more men lend it their members as slaves to do its will. Paul could have added “for the uncleanness.” For the sake of brevity he lets the one phrase suffice and lets us supply the other in thought.

“So now present” is the peremptory aorist imperative as in v. 13: do so definitely, once for all. Here it may be constative since the object is not “yourselves” as in v. 13 but “your members”; it would thus combine all our acts of giving our members “as slaves to the righteousness” that constitutes the power opposite to the other. This, too, exists in the world, it has been placed there by God. But Paul does not say “for the righteousness,” i.e., for the interest and the augmentation of this blessed, divine power. He makes the parallel phrase say more. Ἁγιασμός is a Scriptural term, and the suffix -μος denotes activity (R. 151), yet not our activity but God’s activity exerted upon us; thus the sense is passive. The idea of result, however, does not lie in the term save as God’s action upon us is not without result.

This is to be noted in regard to C.-K. 59. The sense of the phrase is: “for (in the interest of) God’s work of setting us apart for himself also in our conduct.” This work of sanctifying us as regards our members is usually called sanctification in the narrow sense. It is progressive; hence the idea of result in the Greek term should not be stressed to imply a completely finished result. The absence of the article also makes that plain.

Romans 6:20

20 In further explanation of our past state as compared with our present one Paul admits: For when you were slaves of the sin you were free in regard to the righteousness. That is a fact although it does not bear close examination; for we should then recoil from it. In v. 18 our having been made slaves to the righteousness is described as being joined with our having been set free. Paul admits that this is also true with regard to our slavery to the sin power, it, too, made us free—“free as regards the righteousness,” the dative is not locative (R. 523) but a dative of relation. The A. V. corrects itself in the margin.

Free in regard to the righteousness is not objective, for no man ever escapes the claims of the righteousness; it is only subjective freedom. The sinner merely disregards the righteousness, turns up his nose at it; he feels elated not to be compelled to do this or that but to be free to throw himself into the vile arms of sin just as he pleases. Well, that is freedom if one wants to call it by so noble a name.

Romans 6:21

21 But it does not bear scrutiny. What fruit then were you having at that time of those things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things—death.

All that Paul asks is, “What fruit were you having then?” The point of the question is not what kind of fruit on the assumption that they had some kind; but “what” that in any way was fruit? The implied answer is, “No fruit whatever,” for the end of that slavery to sin was nothing but “death” eternal. It is characteristic of Paul to use καρπός (“fruit” produced by trees, vines, fields) only in a good sense: “fruit of the spirit” (Gal. 5:22), “of the light” (Eph. 5:9), “of righteousness” (Phil. 1:11), but “the unfruitful works of darkness” (Eph. 5:11), and lest we be “unfruitful” we must do good works (Tit. 3:14). In this very point lies the impact of the question. There was not a particle of fruit in that complete service of sin, nothing, nothing, until eternal death would end it all.

The relative clause is a part of the question and is not the answer. After asking with the singular τίνακαρπόν, an answer with an incorporated relative plural such as ἐφʼ οἶς could not be given. So we do not translate: “Things of which you are now ashamed,” i.e., bad fruit as though sin could bear anything worthy of the name “fruit.” And ἐφʼ οἶς is not = τοιαῦταἐφʼ οἶς. Zahn contends that we must resolve into ἐπὶτούτοιςἅ because ἐπαισχύνεσθαι is never construed with ἐπί but only with the accusative of the thing or the person of which one is ashamed or with the accusative and the infinitive of an act from which one refrains because of shame. This may be correct, yet so many verbs that are compounded with prepositions repeat the prepositions. Therefore we still hold to the construction with ἐπί, as do the best dictionaries, until more proof is offered than a few examples of simple accusatives.

It seems most simple to resolve the incorporation into: ἐκείνωνἐφοἶς, the more so since ἐκείνων follows in the next clause. So Paul does not say that the Romans are ashamed of the fruits they had but of “those things” (speaking of them as lying in the far past) which were totally fruitless, their end thus being death.

Romans 6:22

22 But now, having been liberated from the sin and having been enslaved to God, you are having your fruit for sanctification, and the end—life eternal.

Now the two are reversed: then under sin, slaves—free in regard to righteousness and no fruit but only the prospect of death; now freed from sin—enslaved to God and thus fruit at last, fruit indeed, and the prospect of life eternal. This is a different story. Here there are revealed the most powerful motives to keep us away from sin (v. 15) and to keep us joyfully and gratefully in our obedience to God. Note the two passive participles and compare v. 18. Our present state was produced wholly by God. The present ἔχετε = “you are having,” like the imperfect in v. 21, “were you having”; not “do you get” and “did you get.” The intermediate result is “sanctification”; in v. 19 “for sanctification” was the contemplated result, here “for sanctification” is the result in process of attainment.

Since “sanctification” is God’s action upon us, we must identify: our fruit = good works = sanctification. God produces the fruit in us, and this consists of virtues and graces that are implanted by him (Gal. 5:22–24), and these foster his work of sanctifying us more and more.

Romans 6:23

23 Another γάρ brings the final explanation. It is also typical of Paul’s thought. He has been following two contrasting lines and now unites them in a final statement that leaves nothing more to be said. For the wages of the sin—death, but the gracious gift of God—life everlasting in connection with Christ Jesus, our Lord.

Paul has used the same word to designate both the outcome of servitude to the sin power and the outcome of servitude to God, namely τὸτέλος, “the end.” Each servitude reaches a goal when it is finished, and in this respect the two are alike. Yet there is a vast difference between the two. The fact that the one goal is “death” and the other “life eternal” has already been stated (on the latter see 2:7), and that surely should make a Christian drop all thought of ever playing with sin (v. 15). The ultimate and inner difference of the outcome is the fact that death is “the wages of the sin,” ὀψώνια, which is usually used in the plural like “wages” in English; but life eternal could not possibly be the wages of “the righteousness” but is “the gracious gift of God,” τὸχάρισμα (explained in 5:16). Paul uses this term because of v. 15, our being “under grace,” χάρις. The latter with its ending -ις = the activity of grace under which we live; the former with its ending -μα = the result of grace, the gift of grace bestowed (R. 151).

Paul does not say, “The wages of our sins is death” but, “The wages of the sin is death.” Since 5:12 we have seen that this articulated term “the sin” denotes, not sin and sinning in general (which is ἁμαρτία without the article), but “the power of sin.” It is a kind of personification. Like a master “the sin” pay wages, namely this sin power that entered the world by the one act of Adam and by that one act of his enslaved us all. Nor should we forget that “the death” came in with “the sin” and by its very coming in got hold of us all. That was the start; now Paul is stating the τέλος, the end, when sinners finish their earthly existence. Then Paul says, the sin power pays them off, hands them their “wages,” and these are “death,” the death which the sin brought in, death in its finality, eternal and irrevocable separation from God.

Paul uses the term “wages” because the death earned for us by Adam’s first sin is not paid out to us in full until we come to the end of our career as slaves of the sin (Matt. 20:8, “when even was come”). We know the reason for this delay. It is to furnish us the opportunity to die to the sin (v. 2, 8), to escape its power and the payment of these wages. The exegesis that we ourselves earn these wages as slaves of the sin by our own sinning is misleading. Since when do slaves get wages? Luke 17:7–10 teaches the contrary. It is one-sided to consider only the one side, “slaves to the sin” (v. 20) and to apply “wages” to them and to disregard the other side which is made so prominent by Paul, namely that Christians are slaves to God, and that, if slaves and wages go together, these slaves, too, ought to get wages.

The view that ὀψώνια was used also as a term for “subsistence money” as this was paid for the subsistence of a soldier, is ruled out here where the word has the current meaning of “wages” that have been earned. Paul is not speaking of the daily subsistence of the slaves of the sin power but of the end of their career; and how could death be the wages on which sinners subsist here on earth? Slaves earn nothing, for the very idea of “slaves” conveys the fact that they and all their labor belong to their master without wages.

Adam earned these wages for himself and for us (5:12, etc.). The full and final payment is made to each sinner when he reaches his earthly end. What Adam really earned is penalty, and to term this “wages” is ironical. Wages are something good which one longs to receive; death is anything but that. Yet because it was earned for us it is in this sense our wages. But what about our own sinning as slaves of “the sin”?

This question cannot be answered apart from the other: “What about our slaving in righteousness for God?” We must answer these two questions in the same way. Our slave relation as sinners to “the sin” is the evidence and the proof that we have remained in Adam’s sin and that the wages he earned await us. On the other hand, our dying to the sin (v. 2, 8), our new relation to God as slaves, is the evidence and the proof that we have escaped from Adam’s sin and from the payment of what it earned for him and for us. Let us not forget that both slaveries imply works, and that Matt. 25:31–46, like all other passages regarding the judgment, regard the works only as evidence and proof of what men are.

Death is paid out as wages, and 5:12–21 shows how they were earned for all men by one man. But Adam is the type of Christ (5:14, last clause), and Christ earned eternal life for us. Long before we were born Adam did what he did, and Christ, too, did what he did. Yet the χάρισμα of life eternal is not made ours in the same way as Adam’s sin, guilt, and death were made ours (5:15, 16: “not as—so also”). The death automatically passed on to all men; the charisma, which is so much greater as to deliver from that death even as it was earned for us by one who is infinitely greater than Adam becomes ours only by means of personal justification. This gracious gift of life eternal is ours by way of a gift already the moment we believe and are justified, the moment we die to sin and become alive to God (v. 11, 13: “as alive from the dead”); thus it is “the end” of our earthly service to God, for then we enter into the fullness of life eternal in heaven. It is and remains a χάρισμα, a bestowal of pure grace; for although it was earned for us by Christ as Adam earned death for us, this life is received by grace alone, as a gift alone, through faith alone. “Wages” would be wrong, charisma alone is correct.

“In Christ Jesus” is explained in v. 11; here we have the phrase a second time but with the full soteriological title: “in connection with Christ Jesus, our Lord.” The phrase modifies “life eternal.” Since the charisma is this life, the phrase pertains to the subject through this its predicate. Moreover, the statement involves our reception of the charisma, our final full possession of life eternal, and thus our personal connection with Christ, our having been crucified, entombed, and raised up with Christ (v. 2–11).

When we see that we are “under grace” and what being “under grace” means, the thought will not enter our minds that we may yet remain in some sin (v. 1) or that we may yet do some sin (v. 15). The very idea of either is totally excluded so that it will not even cross a true Christian’s mind. The perfection of Paul’s answer to the two questions asked in v. 1 and v. 15 strikes us with greater force when we stop and think how we could or would have answered them apart from Paul and from our own apprehension of the truth.

R. A Grammar of the Greek New Testament in the Light of Historical Research, by A. T. Robertson, fourth edition.

C.-K. Biblisch-theologisches Woerterbuch der Neutestamentlichen Graezitaet von D. Dr. Hermann Cremer, zehnte, etc., Auflage, herausgegeben von D. Dr. Julius Koegel.

B.-D. Friedrich Blass’ Grammatik des neutestamentlichen Griechisch, vierte, voellig neu-gearbeitete Aufiage besorgt von Albert Debrunner.

L. Handbuch zum Neuen Testament Dritter Band. Die Briefe des Apostels Paulus. 1. An die Roemer. D. Hans Lietzmann. 2. Auflage.