Romans 6
Ro 6:1 What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase?
Having just spoken in glowing terms about the triumph of grace, Paul now balances the picture by returning to the ever-present threat of sin in the life of the believer. Having jumped straight from justification to glorification, he has left himself open to the charge of antinomianism (cf 3:8, see also Jude 4). He now deals with and refutes that charge. He maintains that we are delivered not only from the penalty of sin (we are justified) but also from the power of sin (we are sanctified).
‘Paul pictures Christian experience in terms of a transfer from one ‘regime’ or ‘realm’ to another. To become a Christian, Paul asserts, means to be released from the old regime, dominated by Adam, {Ro 5:12-21} sin (ch. 6), the law (ch. 7) and death (ch. 8) and to be introduced into the new regime, dominated by Christ, {Ro 5:12-21 7:1-6} righteousness (ch. 6), the Spirit (7:6; 8), grace {Ro 6:14-15} and life.’ {Ro 5:12-21 6:4 8:1-13} (Moo, NBC)
Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? – Paul’s critics ‘were implying that Paul’s gospel of free grace actually encouraged lawlessness and put a premium on sin, because it promised sinners the best of both worlds: they could indulge themselves freely in ths world, without any fear of forfeiting the next.’ (Stott)
‘Have we never caught ourselves making light of our failures on the ground that God will excuse and forgive them?’ (Stott)
‘If we are proclaiming Paul’s gospel, with its emphasis on the freeness of grace and the impossibility of self-salvation, we are sure to provoke the charge of antinomianism. If we do not arouse this criticism, the likelihood is that we are not preaching Paul’s gospel.’ (Stott)
‘Do these objectors mean to say that, because God has redeemed us from the curse of the law, therefore we owe him nothing, we have no duty now to him? Has not redemption rather made us doubly debtors? We owe him more than ever: we owe his holy law more than ever: more honour, more obedience. Duty has been doubled, not canceled, by our being delivered from the law; and he who says that duty has ceased, because deliverance has come, knows nothing of duty, or law, or deliverance.’ (H. Bonar)
The chapter is in two matching halves: vv1-14 dealing with union with Christ; vv15-23 dealing with slavery to righteousness.
Ro 6:2 By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?
We died to sin – According to a number of commentators, this means that we are, with respect to sin, immune, insensitive and unresponsive – just like a corpse. But this is inconsistent both with Paul’s urges not to give in to sin (v12f; 13:12,14) and with our own experience, which teaches that, far from being quiescent with regard to sin, we are involved in a pitched battle against it. ‘To explain the expression “dead to sin” as meaning dead to the influence and love of sin is entirely erroneous’ (Haldane). The misunderstanding is based on an inappropriate use of the analogy. The witness of scripture is that ‘death to sin’ is a question of legal standing rather than a state of corpse-like insensitivity, Ro 1:32 5:12 6:23; cf. Ge 2:17. Being ‘dead to sin’ means that sin no longer has any claim or demand on us. We are dead, not to its power, but to its guilt. (See Stott, 169-173).
Ro 6:3 Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?
The argument of vv3-5 is that through baptism we have come to participate in Christ’s death, burial and resurrection.
Baptized into Christ Jesus – That is, brought into union with him. Paul will hardly be teaching baptismal regeneration here, since he has just spent three chapters arguing that salvation is by faith. No, here as in other passages the sign is put in the place of the thing signified. {cf. Ac 22:16 Ga 3:27 1Pe 3:21} The faith of the baptised is taken for granted, not denied.
Ro 6:4 we were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.
Buried with him through baptism – ‘That plunge beneath the running waters was like a death; the moment’s pause while they swept on overhead was like a burial; the standing erect once more in air and sunlight was a species of resurrection.’ It is not clear that all early baptisms were by immersion, for some early pictures have Jesus standing in the river, while John pours water over him. But this verse fits immersion well, even if it does not exclude other methods.
‘This conception of the baptismal pool as a grave in which the pre-Christian self and its ways are buried once and for all and from which a new self rises to a new quality of living appears to be Paul’s own. It looks back to one of Jesus’ metaphors for repentance, self-crucifixion, {Mr 8:34 Ga 2:20 6:14} and recognizes in baptism the moment when the convert does indeed, publicly, take up his or her cross, dying with Christ to self, to sin, and to the world, and rising with him to a life constantly renewed by his resurrection power.’ {Ro 6:1-11} (EDBT)
‘Christian baptism signifies a remarkable union, achieved by the Holy Spirit, between believers and their Lord. It is remarkable most of all for its closeness. Christ and his people are said to be so much one that they share his past, his present and his future: his victory at the cross, his present life and his future glory.’ (Lewis, The Glory of Christ, 367)
‘Some interpreters think that Paul may be referring to ‘spirit’ baptism, but this is unlikely. It is better to understand Paul to be using water baptism as ‘shorthand’ for the Christian’s initial conversion experience. The NT consistently portrays water baptism as a fundamental component of conversion (see, e.g. Ac 2:38 1Pe 3:21). This does not mean that baptism in and of itself has the power to convert or to bring us into relationship with Christ. It is only as it is joined with genuine faith that it possesses any meaning, and what Paul has written in chs. 1-5 makes clear that it is ultimately this faith that is the crucial element in the process.’ (Moo, NBC)
Ro 6:5 If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection.
If we have been united with him like this in his death – lit. ‘united with him in the likeness of his death.’ Baptism pictures this graphically: ‘That plunge beneath the running waters was like a death; the moment’s pause while they swept on oeverhead was like a burial; the standing erect once more in the air and sunlight was a species of resurrection.’ (Sanday & Headlam) ‘In other words our baptism was a sort of funeral.’ (C.J. Vaughan)
We will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection – The reference here is not to our physical resurrection, but to our resurrection to spiritual life. The future tense indicates the certainty of this.
Ro 6:6 For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin—
Our old self – our former self, our Adamic nature – was crucified with him. Sanctification is a definitive act, as well as a continuing process.
So that the body of sin might be done away with – not ‘the sinful body’ (RSV): it was a Gnostic notion that the body was intrinsically corrupt. The doctrines of creation, incarnation and resurrection give lie to this view. Perhaps Paul is using ‘soma’ (body) here as a synonym for ‘sarx’ (flesh). Our old self was crucified with Christ in order that the sinful nature might be ‘defeated, disabled, deprived of power’ (Stott).
‘How can sin be rendered powerless, as Paul says in Ro 6:6? Consider the effect of gravity on a book. Gravity would cause an unsupported book to fall, but gravity can be rendered “powerless” against the book by simply placing a table under it. As long as the table is under the book, gravity cannot cause it to fall. Of course gravity has not really lost its power nor is it no longer present. It is just that the table is “stronger” than gravity’s effect on the book.
For the Christian, the Holy Spirit is like that table and our sin nature is like gravity’s pull. As long as we allow the Holy Spirit to hold us up, which places our dependence on his power to give us victory over sin, our sinful impulses have no power to pull us down.’ (Illustrations for Biblical Preaching, 423)
‘The secret of holy living is in knowing {Ro 6:6} that our old self was crucified with Christ. It is in knowing {Ro 6:3} that baptism into Christ is baptism into his death and resurrection. It is in reckoning, intellectually realizing, {Ro 6:11} that in Christ we have died to sin and we live to God. We are to know these things, meditate on them, to realize that they are true. Our minds are so to grasp the fact and the significance of our death and resurrection with Christ, that a return to the old life is unthinkable. A born-again Christian should no more think of going back to the old life than an adult to his childhood, a married man to his backelorhood, or a discharged prisoner to his prison cell.’ (Stott, Authentic Christianity, 257)
‘This lays the solemn responsibility upon him to live like the new man he is, for the old man is dead and so can no more be blamed for his sins (cf. the awful warning of 1Co 6:15f).’ Wilson)
That we should no longer be slaves to sin – This introduces the theme of freedom from slavery to sin that will be developed in the following verses.
Ro 6:7 because anyone who has died has been freed from sin.
Anyone who has died has been freed from sin – ‘Freed’ is not ‘eleutheroo’, which Paul uses in v18 & v22, but ‘dikaioo’: the meaning could be ‘has been acquitted from sin’, or ‘has quit sin’. ‘For as death clears men of all claims, so “it clears us, who have died with Christ, of the claim of sin, our old master, to rule over us still.”’ (Wilson, quoting Denney)
Ro 6:8 Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him.
If we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him – ‘Although this living with Christ doubtless includes the future resurrection state of glory, the primary reference is to our present participation in the resurrection life of Christ..’ (Wilson)
Rom 6:9 For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him.
Ro 6:10 The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God.
He died to sin once for all – The once-for-all nature of Christ’s death is emphasised in Heb 7:21 9:12,28 10:10 1Pe 3:18.
‘The death he died he died to sin, once for all’. {Ro 6:10} What does that mean? It can mean only one thing; that Christ died to sin in the sense that he bore sin’s penalty. He died for our sins, bearing them in his own innocent and sacred person. He took upon himself our sins and their just reward. The death that Jesus died was the wages of sin—our sin. He met its claim, he paid its penalty, he accepted its reward, and he did it ‘once’, once and for all. As a result sin has no more claim or demand on him. So he was raised from the dead to prove satisfactoriness of his sin-bearing, and he now lives for ever to God.
If this is the sense in which Christ died to sin, it is equally the sense in which we, by union with Christ, have died to sin. We have died to sin in the sense that in Christ we have borne its penalty. Consequently our old life has finished; a new life has begun.’ (Stott, Men Made New)
Ro 6:11 In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.
The doctrine of union with Christ now gives way to practical exhortation.
Ro 6:12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires.
Do not let sin reign in your mortal body – Sin has no right over us, and our behaviour should reflect this. ‘To say to the slave who has not been emancipated, “Do not behave as a slave” is to mock his enslavement. But to say the same to the slave who has been set free is the necessary appeal to put into effect the privileges and rights of his liberation. So in this case the sequence is: sin does not have the dominion; therefore do not allow it to reign.’ (John Murray)
Ro 6:13 Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness.
‘Sin is regarded as a sovereign (who reigns, v12), who demands the military service of subjects (exacting obedience, v12), levies their quota of arms (weapons of unrighteousness, v13), and gives them their soldier’s-pay of death (wages, v23).’ (Lightfoot)
Ro 6:14 For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace.
You are not under law, but under grace – Those who are ‘under the law’ are those who place themselves under its authority, believing that keeping the law will earn salvation. But sin is the master of all such people, because the law says, ‘Obey’, without either giving the power to obey, or offering forgiveness when the law is broken. But, says Paul, ‘You are not under law, but under grace’ – you are not under the power of the law, which can only condemn, but under the power of grace, which brings forgiveness.
‘His assertion that the Christian is not ‘under law, but under grace’ (14b) could imply that there are no more rules the Christian needs to obey and no more penalty for any sins that he or she does commit. Paul’s response is similar to his teaching in vv 3-10: habitual sinning would manifest a state of slavery to sin (v16), a state from which every Christian has been released (vv17-18).’ (Moo, NBC)
‘Even some evangelical believers misrepresent Scripture on the subject of the law. They quote the apostle Paul’s well-known statements that “Christ is the end of the law,” Ro 10:4, and “you are not under law,” turn a blind eye to their context, and misrepresent them as meaning that the category of law has now been abolished, that we are no longer under obligation to obey it, but are free to disobey it. But Paul meant something quite different. He was referring to the way of salvation, not the way of holiness. He was insisting that for our acceptance with God we are “not under law but under grace,” since we are justified by faith alone, not by works of the law. But we are still under the moral law for our sanctification. As Luther kept saying, the law drives us to Christ to be justified, but Christ sends us back to the law to be sanctified.’ (Stott, The Contemporary Christian, 92)
In What Senses are Christians Not ‘Under Law’?
It is true, first of all, in the sense that we are no longer bound by what is broadly called the ceremonial law of the Old Testament. Alongside the Ten Commandments, which enshrine eternal principles of conduct and have permanent validity, there was a large corpus of additional law and it is this additional law that we say no longer binds the Christian. There was a great deal of liturgical law, bound up with the Temple and its ordinances. There was also a great deal of civil and political law. These laws were temporary and transitional. They depended on the Temple itself continuing to stand, on residence in the land of Palestine, on the wilderness journeys and on the fact that one day Christ would come and fulfil the symbolism of Old Testament typology.
None of this is any longer binding: not the specific body of law that dealt with Temple ritual; nor the law that pre-symbolized Christ; nor the law that related to the church’s wilderness journeys; nor the civil statutes relating to ancient Israel. Some of the penalties laid down by the Old Testament had clearly been discontinued before Jesus came. For example, the law that demanded capital punishment for sabbath-breaking was no longer binding in the age of the New Testament. Besides, there was also a corpus of law which was merely the application of the Decalogue to specific instances. It was illustrative of how the law would work in a given society, but did not last beyond that society itself. To quote just one example: the Pentateuch laid down that if a man built a house he must erect a parapet round the top of the wall. That was a humane provision: a safety regulation. But it was not one to bind the people of God at all times and in all places. The obligation to think of a neighbour’s safety is absolutely binding, but those in our Scottish Highlands who built their Black Houses a hundred years ago were not bound to put a parapet around the roof. Such a law, in its own time and place, was a culturally conditioned application of the sixth commandment, ‘Thou shalt not kill.’ We must make our own applications.
In addition to the Old Testament ceremonial law there was also a great body of Jewish law which arose through rabbinical tradition. That law is found today in the Talmud. It never had divine sanction. It was a purely human commentary upon, and expansion of, the law that God had given to his people. Yet it was a grievous burden. Indeed, it is difficult for us today to imagine just what a relief it was for the people of the New Testament age to be given this great deliverance both from Mosaic law and from Rabbinical regulations. It was a yoke which men were unable to bear. When they became Christians they were free from Moses and they were free from the Rabbis. No wonder Paul cries out, ‘Stand firm in the freedom with which Christ has made you free!’. {Ga 5:1}
Secondly, we are not under law in the sense that our justification no longer depends on compliance with the law. There were those in the early church who wanted to say that justification did depend on works of the law. Their position was not at all clear and simple, because they were not opposed to justification by faith as such. They thought that faith was very important. But they also thought, and taught, that in addition to faith men must keep the law of Moses; and they insisted that this was true not only of those born as Jews under the law, but also of Gentiles. Gentiles who came to faith in Christ must be circumcised and keep the law of Moses. Otherwise, said these Judaisers, there could be no justification.
It was providential that this problem arose in the early church because this meant that the apostles were still on hand to deal with it and to lay down with great clarity that by the works of the law no flesh could be justified. It was impossible to be justified by the law, because the law demanded ‘personal, entire, exact, and perpetual obedience’ (Westminster Confession, 19:1). It was no use observing the law most of the time. It was no use almost observing the law. It was no use observing the law through somebody else. It had to be personal, permanent and exact and, as Paul proved to the point of over-kill, no human being had the capacity to give the law that kind of honour and obedience. All the law could do was condemn, and so Paul says, ‘By the law no flesh is justified’. {Ro 3:20 Ga 2:16} The law was weak ‘through the flesh’. {Ro 8:3} The law could say, ‘Do this!’ but the law could never secure compliance with its own demands.
This was the great discovery Luther made when, faced with the shadow of final, personal judgment, he tried to make himself right with God and went where his conscience told him to go: to the law! He began to try to obey the law in order to find peace. He endeavoured to keep the Ten Commandments and even to go beyond the rigours of the Ten Commandments into the whole discipline of monasticism and works of supererogation. He found that the harder he tried the more he fell short of the law’s demands. The law (in the shape of his conscience) simply flogged him, lashed him, scourged and tormented him.
Until he learned this: that we are justified by faith, and not only by faith, but by faith alone; that Christ has endured the law’s curse in our place and that Christ has met the law’s demands in our place. To use the language of the great Covenant Theologians, we are no longer under the Covenant of Works as the way to life. Our acceptance before God does not depend on our having kept the law.
It’s the great question: whom does God justify? At the point of forgiveness, at the point of acceptance with God, at the point of adoption into God’s family, what kind of people are we? We are, astonishingly, ungodly men and women! We are people who have not kept the law. The gospel (God’s Great News) is that God justifies the ungodly (this man who has broken the whole law) through faith in Christ. What a marvellous discovery that is! Even though we have broken the law, we are no longer under the law! Christ has kept the law for us. We are ungodly and yet justified.
Thirdly, we are no longer under law in the sense that it is not from the law that our motivation comes. I lay that down as a principle according to which we ought to live. It is not a statement of fact as to the way Christians do actually live, because very often our motivation does come from the law and that gets us into serious spiritual trouble. Our Fathers in Scotland, and in England too, gave a great deal of thought to this problem. There was what they called a legal repentance: that is, a heart broken by the law, broken by the fear of God and by fear of judgment. And there was a legal sanctification, where one mortified sin because of the dread of God, because of fear of his sanctions and fear of his chastisements. These older theologians said it should not be like that with God’s children! In fact, they said, you will never get real repentance or real sanctification if your motivation comes only from the law. That is servile: a craven fear inducing compliance with God’s requirements.
And so men like John Colquhoun spoke of an evangelical repentance, which is not a response to the terrors of law but a heart broken by the love of God. The Westminster Shorter Catechism grasped this, too, although that is not often appreciated: ‘Repentance unto life is a saving grace, whereby a sinner, out of a true sense of his sin, and apprehension of the mercy of God in Christ … turns from it unto God’ (Answer 87). It is this assurance that God is merciful which leads to grief and hatred of our sin and to our turning from it to God.
This is brought out magnificently in the story of the Prodigal Son. He went back to his father not primarily because he was tormented by an accusing conscience but because he was driven by the hope of mercy.
This is equally true of our sanctification. Walter Marshall, a late English Puritan, has bequeathed to us a great book called The Gospel Mystery of Sanctification. The title itself indicates Marshall’s concern. To him, sanctification was a mystery. It was a response to the gospel. It was not something legalistic, as if holiness were the product of fear or doubt.
Today, Marshall is suspect in some Puritan circles for this very reason, that he seems not to lay enough emphasis on the law and on the more dreadful aspects of God’s revelation. Let’s do full justice to the biblical proportions here. Our God is a consuming fire. But Marshall’s essential thesis is correct. To a large extent, he says, sanctification is the product of assurance. It is the persuasion that God loves me that sanctifies, sweetens, and mellows my soul.
Marshall, living in the wake of a legalistic movement, was well aware that some folk said the exact opposite: that it is the doubts, the fear that you are not saved, that keeps you spiritually active. Marshall disagreed. He said sanctification is love. To be holy is to love the Lord, and we can only love him as a response to his own love. Sanctification, therefore, is a gospel thing. It is a response to mercy: a response to the love that God is showing us. Many Christians know at an experiential level the truth of that. Sometimes, when we have doubts and fears service is not easy. We also know that nothing humbles us so much as the persuasion that God loves us.
For a Christian, motivation does not come from the law. It doesn’t come from fear or from doubt. It comes from the assurance that God loves us.
It has been said that in Christianity, theology is grace and ethics is gratitude. To be a disciple is to respond with thankfulness to all that God has done for us. A slave does not serve as a son or daughter serves. He does not have the inward compulsion, or the affection that a child has for his father. Thank God that our potential for obedience cannot be measured merely from the force of the law. The law can come with clarity, with threats and with sanctions, but God comes with the motivation of his love and the inward working of his Holy Spirit. It is not the law that keeps us holy, but grace; and that grace is God’s strength made perfect in our weakness.’ {2Co 12:9} (McLeod, A Faith to Live By)
Ro 6:15 What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means!
If we are no longer ruled by the terms of the law, but by those of grace, are we now free to sin and to cast aside the Ten Commandments? Paul says, ‘By no means!’
Ro 6:16 Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness?
‘No absolute freedom is conferred upon the Christian, for his position is simply that of a slave who has changed masters.’ (Wilson, citing Nygren)
‘Well before Paul was born, there had been a Roman law stating that no freeborn man could be enslaved. Therefore, a man could literally sell himself into slavery, collect the proceeds, then have a friend come and attest to his status as a freeborn man, and he would have to be released at once. This caused havoc with the Roman economy, which was well oiled by its slave labour. Therefore, just before Paul’s day, a new law was enacted whereby any man who sold himself into slavery could no longer claim free status later. The law could no longer help him. It was therefore clear to Paul’s readers in Rome that “to whom you present yourselves as slaves for obedience, his slave you are.”’ (Illustrations for Biblical Preaching, 423)
Ro 6:17 But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted.
‘Paul does not praise them for having made a better and happier choice; he thanksGod for taking them out of the old bondage.’ (Nygren)
Rom 6:18 You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.
Rom 6:18: *Paradoxes, Mt 23:12n
Ro 6:19 I put this in human terms because you are weak in your natural selves. Just as you used to offer the parts of your body in slavery to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer them in slavery to righteousness leading to holiness.
SIN:-
1. Escalates, v19, ‘Ever-increasing wickedness’
2. Ensnares, v19, ‘Slavery’
3. Corrupts, v19, ‘Impurity’
4. Deceives, v21, ‘What benefit did you reap?’
5. Kills, v23, ‘The wages of sin is death’
Rom 6:20 When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness.
Rom 6:21 What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death!
Rom 6:22 But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life.
Ro 6:23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Gift – = charisma.
‘There is a definiteness and certainty about wages. Wages are different from a spontaneous gift. A man has done his week’s work; he presents himself at the paymaster’s desk, and is paid off…But many people think that the paymaster can be cheated, that after a life of sin we can present ourselves hopefully at the cashier’s window and be paid in some different coin from that which we have earned…God grant that we may not hope to cheat! God grant that we may learn in time that the wages of sin is death!’ J. Gresham Machen
‘We sin on the installment plan. The bills come in later. But come they will for sin pays handsomely, relentlessly.’ (Erwin W. Lutzer)
‘Let DESERVED be written on the door of hell; but on the door of heaven and life, THE FREE GIFT.’ (Baxter
‘You can sin yourself into an utter deadness of conscience, and that is the first wage of your service of sin.’ (Spurgeon)
Two ways to live are shown here: your house is on the sand, or on the rock; you enter the wide gate or the straight and narrow gate; you travel the broad way or the narrow way; you serve God or mammon.
