02.11. Chapter 6A
CHAPTER 6A
We Died with Christ: Our Baptism being Witness; and are to Reckon Ourselves Dead unto Sin and Alive unto God in Christ Jesus. Romans 6:1-11.
Presenting Ourselves to God as Risen Ones, not under Law but under Grace, Sin loses Its Dominion over Us. Romans 6:12-14.
Grace Not to be Abused, for Sin Always Enslaves, and would End in Death; Obedience brings Freedom, with the End, Eternal Life,--God’s Free Gift in Christ Jesus Our Lord. Romans 6:15-23.
WE COME NOW to the second part of Christ’s work for us--our identification with His death. [126]
[126] There are five parts to our salvation: 1. Christ’s propitiatory work toward God through His blood: bearing the guilt and condemnation of our sins. 2. Christ’s identification with us as connected with Adam, "becoming sin for us," releasing us from Adam, our federal head: "our old man" being crucified with Christ. 3. The Holy Spirit’s whole work in us, as "the Spirit of grace," involving conviction, regeneration, baptism into Christ’s Body; being in us as a "law of life" against indwelling sin, the Witness of our sonship; our Helper, Intercessor, and, finally, the mighty Agent in the Rapture. 4. Christ’s present work in Heaven; leading our worship and praise as our Great High Priest; and protecting us should we sin, as our Advocate with the Father (as against our accuser). 5. Christ’s second coming to redeem our bodies, and receive us to Himself in glory: The Rapture.
It is not until we come to Romans 6:1-23 that the question of a holy walk as over against a sinful walk, comes up. For the blessed verses which describe the results of the discovery of peace with God, and of "justification of life" and "reigning in life" through Christ, as revealed in Chapter Five, are things of experience, of rejoicing,--even in the hope of the glory of God Himself! But the question of a holy walk under this "abounding grace" is now brought up, in Chapter Six, in the answers to two questions: First, Shall we keep sinning that grace may keep abounding? and, Second, The fact having been revealed that we are not under the principle of law but under that of grace, shall we use our liberty to commit sin? That is, Shall we use our freedom from the law-principle for selfish ends? The answer to the first question is, that for all who are in Christ, the old relationship to sin is broken,--for they federally shared Christ’s death to sin, and are to reckon it so, and walk in "newness of life" unto God. The answer to the second question is, that anyone "yielding his members" becomes servant that to which he yields,--whether of sin unto death, or of righteousness unto sanctification.
Romans 6:1 : Are we to [127] remain in sin that grace may be abounding? This question arises constantly, both in uninstructed believers, and in blind unbelievers. The message of simple grace, apart from all works, to the poor natural heart of man seems wholly inconsistent and’ impossible. "Why!" people say, "If where sin abounds grace overflows, then the more sin, the more grace." So the unbeliever rejects the grace plan.
[127] It is what is called the deliberative subjunctive here; "May we?" or "Should we? But best rendered in English by the form we have chosen: "Are we to"-- "is such the path?" And so in Romans 6:15.
Moreover, the uninstructed Christian also is afraid; for he says, "If we are in a reign of pure grace, what will control our conscious evil tendencies? We fear such utter freedom. Put us under rules for holy living,’ and we can get along."
Another sad fact is that some professing Christians welcome the "abounding grace" doctrine because of the liberty they feel it gives to things in their daily lives which they know, or could know, to be wrong.
Romans 6:2 : Such ones as we, who died to sin! how shall we any longer be living in it?
Here we have, (1) such ones as we (hoitines). This is more than a relative pronoun: it is a pronoun of characterization, "placing those referred to in a class" (Lightfoot). Paul thus has before his mind all Christians, and he places this pronoun at the very beginning: "such ones as we!"
(2) He characterizes all Christians as those who died. The translation, "are dead" is wrong, for the tense of the Greek verb is the aorist, which denotes not a state but a past act or fact. It never refers to an action as going on or prolonged. As Winer says, "The aorist states a fact as something having taken place." Note how strikingly and repeatedly this tense is used in this chapter as referring to the death of which the apostle speaks: [128] Mark most particularly that the apostle in Romans 6:2 does not call upon Christians to die to sin but asserts that they shared Christ’s death, they died to sin!
[128] Romans 6:2, "We died to sin" (an aorist tense,--definite past fact). Romans 6:6 : "Our old man was crucified with Him" (another aorist tense); not "is crucified," as in the Old Version, which expression is a relic of Romanism, and the meaning of which no one knows. Romans 6:7 : "The one having died" (aorist again; and meaning anyone in Christ) "is declared righteous from sin." Romans 6:8 : "If we died [aorist] with Christ." Romans 6:10-11 : "The death that He died. He died unto sin, once for all. (Aorist tenses, the second specially emphasized by "once for all.")
(3) Paul here therefore affirms that it was in regard to their relationship to sin that believers died. He is asserting concerning Christians that they died--not for sin, but unto it.
(4) Paul now asks the question: "How shall those whose relationship to sin has been broken by their dying, be still, as once, living in sin?" The answer to this can only be, It is an impossibility. In this second verse, therefore, the apostle is not making a plea to Christians not to live unto sin; but asking how they who died to sin could go on living in it. It is as if one would say, Those who died in New York City, shall they still be walking the streets of New York City? This does not mean that all Christians have discovered, or walk in, the path of victory over sin; for in this second verse Paul is answering directly the bald bold insinuation of verse 1--that grace abounding over sin warrants and enables one believing that doctrine to go right on in his old life! We know from other Scriptures the impossibility of this: "Whosoever is born of God doth not practise sin, because His [God’s] seed abideth in him, and he is not able to practise sin, because he is begotten of God." [129]
[129] Of course, John deals with the new life; Paul, with the new relationship, the new creation. See 2 Corinthians 5:17 : "If anyone is in Christ,--a new creation! the old things are passed away; behold, they are become new." The seed of God the new creature, being of God does not consent to sin: however weak and ignorant of the truth of the deliverance of the cross they may be, there is always the absolute difference between those in Christ and those not in Christ.
Note the repeated declarations in this Sixth Chapter of our actual identification with the death of Christ:
Romans 6:2 : "We who died to sin."
Romans 6:3 : "We were baptized into His death."
Romans 6:4 : "We were buried with Him through baptism into death "
Romans 6:5 : "We became united with Him in the likeness of His death."
Romans 6:6 : "Our old man was crucified with Him."
Romans 6:7 : "He that hath died is justified from sin."
Romans 6:8 : "We died with Christ."
Romans 6:11 : "Reckon yourselves dead unto sin, but alive unto God in Christ Jesus."
Romans 6:13 : "Present yourselves unto God as alive from the dead." The same great federal fact is brought out in Colossians 2:20 : "If ye died [aorist tense, past fact, again] from the religious principles of the world"; and Colossians 3:3 : "For ye died [aorist tense again] and your life is hid with Christ in God."
It is most evident that the apostle is not here speaking of some state that we are in, but of a federal fact that occurred in the past, at the cross.
It was upon this federal fact that Paul’s whole life hung, as he testified to Peter: "I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I that live, but Christ liveth in me" (Galatians 2:20).
Such ones as we, who died to sin! How shall we go on living in it? Paul expresses his very soul in that opening word--"Such ones as we!" Believers were seen by him as risen ones,--dead with Christ to sin. How shall we any longer be living in sin--if indeed we died to it? This perplexes many, this announcement that we died to sin,--inasmuch as the struggle with sin, and that within, is one of the most constant conscious experiences of the believer. But, as we see elsewhere, we must not confound our relationship to sin with its presence! Distinguish this revealed fact that we died, from our experience of deliverance. For we do not die to sin by our experiences: we did die to sin in Christ’s death. For the fact that we died to sin is a Divinely revealed word concerning us, and we cannot deny it! The presence of sin "in our members" will make this fact that we died to it hard to grasp and hold: but God says it. And He will duly explain all to our faith.
Romans 6:3 : Or [in the very matter of our baptism] are ye ignorant that all we who were baptized unto Christ Jesus unto His death were baptized?
Here the apostle turns them back to their baptism, that initial step in public confession of the Lord upon whom they had believed. Did they not realize the significance of that baptism--that it set forth their identification with a crucified and buried Lord? For in their baptism they had confessed their choice of Him, as against sin and the old life. But Christ having been "made sin on our behalf," had died unto sin; had been buried, and had been raised from the dead through the glory of the Father; and now lived unto God in a new, resurrection life.
Therefore they could see in their baptism the picture of that federal death and burial with Christ which Paul sets forth so positively in the second verse: "Such ones as we, who died."
We must first of all receive the statement of our death unto sin with Christ (Romans 6:2 and Romans 6:11) as a revealed federal fact; and then allow the Apostle to press the symbolical setting forth of that federal death by the figure of water-baptism. For these early Christians had not been befuddled regarding the simple matter of baptism,--as later generations have been! To them it was a vivid and happy memory,--the day they dared step out, against the whole world, and often in the face of persecution and even death, and confess the Lord Jesus, definitely and forever, as their own Savior and Lord.
Now, says Paul, in that very matter of your baptism, you set forth what I am teaching you, that you who are Christ’s died with Him. Not only so, but your baptism set forth further that you were buried with Him: for was it not a vivid portrayal of your death and burial, when you went down into the waters which signified--not cleansing, but death? "Water," says Peter, "which after a true likeness doth now save you--even baptism: not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God through the resurrection of Jesus Christ." Eight souls. Peter here says, were saved in Noah’s day in the Ark--type of Christ. For those eight were, in the Ark, brought safely through the waters of judgment which drowned the world; as we were bought, through Christ, safely through the judgment of sin at the cross; and now have "a good conscience toward God"--through God’s having raised up Christ: all of which, baptism sets forth--"after a true likeness" (1 Peter 3:20; 1 Peter 3:21).
Scripture here connects baptism with death, not with cleansing; with burial, not with exaltation; with the ending of a former connection that we may enter a new one. Or [in the very matter of our baptism] are ye ignorant that all we who were baptized unto Christ Jesus unto His death were baptized? We find therefore, here in Romans 6:3
1. That Paul, along with all believers of his day, had been baptized. He offers no explanatory word, thus showing that the matter of having been baptized was a common consciousness among Christians.
2. That it was unto Christ Jesus that believers had been baptized. The preposition "unto" (eis) seems best rendered here as in 1 Corinthians 10:2, where we read that the fathers of Israel were all "baptized unto (eis) Moses." Those Israelites were not baptized into Moses, but were indeed judicially associated by God with the Mosaic economy,--"into a spiritual union with Moses, and constituted his disciples." So believers are baptized unto Christ Jesus, which we believe, must be the meaning here. They were indeed so "baptized unto the name of the Lord Jesus" (Acts 19:5), that they thereafter bore His Name (James 2:7, marg.). But we must not confuse this water-baptism of Romans Six, which stands for the identification of believers with Christ in death, burial, and resurrection; with that Holy Spirit baptism of 1 Corinthians 12:13. For our identification with Christ-made-sin, and our death in and with Him) must never be confounded with what follows our Lord’s ascension and the coming of the Holy Spirit,--baptism into the one Body. These are two absolutely different things. One has to do with taking us out of our old man, justifying us from sin, as well as from sins. The other, the Spirit’s baptism into "one Body," has to do with the glorious heavenly position God gives us in a Risen Christ. To seek to have a man baptized by the Spirit into Christ before he has been identified with Christ at the cross in death and burial, is really to ignore man’s awful state in the old man which God had condemned to crucifixion with Christ made sin. So with the Bullingerites and many others: they do not distinctly see or solidly preach our identification with Christ in death and burial. "Buried with Him in baptism"--how can these words of Colossians 2:12 possibly apply to the work of the Holy Spirit? We beg all to consider this. Death to sin, and burial with Christ, water-baptism, and that alone, sets forth.
3. Unto His death were baptized. Neither must we confuse baptism unto Christ Jesus here with that actual identification in Christ’s death of which baptism is a symbol. That our old man was crucified with Christ is one thing; baptism, quite another. However much baptism portrays our death with Christ, it in no wise brings about that death. If we had not died with Christ, there would be no meaning to baptism.
Certainly baptism sets forth the fact of our death with Christ. Christian baptism in water is the Scripture picture,--not of our being cleansed, nor of our being introduced into the Body of Christ by the Holy Spirit (which is an entirely different matter); and not, of course, of our regeneration. But it is a setting forth of the great fact that we federally died and were buried with Christ, unto sin, unto the world, and unto all of the old creation; and are now raised with Him and share His risen life;--on new ground altogether.
Romans 6:4 : We were buried therefore with Him through the baptism unto [His] death. Here the apostle declares that all believers by the very matter of their baptism, proclaimed themselves as having been so identified with Christ’s death that they were buried: that their past was ended,--not, of course, by the ordinance, though the ordinance confessed and proclaimed it. [130] And now the object of our identification with Christ’s death is set forth: in order that, just as Christ was raised from among the dead through the glory of the Father, thus also we might be walking about in newness of life.
[130] 1.Godet remarks: "Burial is the act which consummates the breaking of the last tie between man and his earthly life. This was likewise the meaning of our Lord’s entombment. Similarly, by baptism there is publicly consummated the believer’s breaking with the life of the present world, and with his own natural life." And he relates this striking incident, which proves how these sayings of the apostle, apparently so mysterious, find an easy explanation under the light of the lively experiences of faith: A missionary was questioning a converted Bechuana as to the meaning of a passage analogous to Romans 6:5,--namely, Colossians 3:3. The Bechuana said to him: "Soon I shall be dead, and they will bury me in my field. My flocks will come to pasture above me. But I shall no longer hear them, and I shall not come forth from my tomb to take them and carry them with me to the sepulchre. They will be strange to me, as I to them. Such is the image of my life in the midst of the world since I believed in Christ."
Christ on the cross not only bare our sins in His own body, but He was also made to be sin,--to be the thing itself. Then God the Father, through His glory, raised Him from the dead,--"that working of the strength of His might which He wrought in Christ when He raised Him from the dead." This was the most marvelous display of glorious. Divine power ever known. The words "through the glory of the Father," bring into action all that God is. Christ had fully glorified God in all that He is, in His earthly life, and on the cross (as we saw in Romans 3:24, Romans 3:25). Then God raised Christ from the dead in glorious triumph. And thereafter Christ walked for forty days on earth "in newness of life." He was "the First-born from the dead." He was the Last Adam, now become (though having His flesh and bones body) "a spirit making [others] alive," the Second Man, "a new starting point of the human race." The old man was crucified with Christ, and all that belonged to "man in the flesh" was ended before God there on Christ’s cross. Now the "glory of the Father" is put forth in raising Christ and placing Him in that risen "newness of life" never known before, and in receiving Him up in glory!
Walking in newness of life. Note that walking presupposes the possession of life. The literal translation of this word is seen in 1 Peter 5:8, "walking about." [131] Now mark in this verse that it is Christ who is raised from the dead, and the saints are to walk, consequently, in "newness of life"--showing at once their union with Him; that as He was raised, so also they, when they are placed in Him, walk about in newness of life.
[131] Unfortunately, we do not have this word "walk" in this Pauline sense in ordinary English use. Men have substituted the word "live," and that in a legal sense: "Live the Christian life," "Live as you ought to live," etc.
Note that it is life--not a mere manner of living. Then it is newness, or a new kind of life, for that is the meaning of the word. Resurrection life was never known until Christ was raised from the dead. Lazarus, and the widow of Nain’s son and Jairus’ daughter, were brought back into this present earth-life. Indeed, it is written concerning Jairus’ daughter, that when the Lord said, "Maiden, arise!" her "spirit returned," and she rose up instantly. The spirit had left the body, the earth-life had ceased; it was now resumed. But in Christ’s resurrection this was not so. He was the First-born from the dead, the First-fruits of them that slept. It was not back into the old flesh and blood earthly existence that He came. He had, indeed, His body: "Handle Me and see." "Have ye here anything to eat?" Yet He had poured out His blood. The life of the flesh was in the blood (Leviticus 17:11). He had laid that life down. He is now a heavenly Man. He is in the heavenlies. And He is there as to His human body: "God . . . wrought in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead, and made Him to sit at His right hand in the heavenlies." Poor human reason attempts to follow here; but this revelation is addressed to faith only. The disciples "were glad when they saw the Lord." Into the upper room He came, and stood in the midst; and "He showed unto them His hands and His side." And Thomas was told, "Reach hither thy finger, and see My hands; and reach hither thy hand, and put it into My side: and be not faithless, but believing"; and further, "Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed."
It is in this newness, this new kind of life, which they now share, [132] that believers are to walk about in this world. They are one with this Risen Christ! Being "joined unto the Lord," they are "one spirit" with Him now; and shall have bodies, shortly, conformed unto the body of His glory (1 Corinthians 6:17; Php 3:20; Php 3:21).
[132] Many quote Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 15:31 : "I die daily," to prove the Romish idea of our "dying daily to sin." But we need only remember that the great message of 1 Corinthians 15:1-58 has to do with the body, to refute this. Indeed the preceding verse and the following verses (1 Corinthians 15:30 and 1 Corinthians 15:32) show what Paul meant by "dying daily." "We stand in jeopardy every hour,"--meaning the physical dangers that beset his ministry. And, "If after the manner of men we fought with beasts at Ephesus,"--referring to the terrible outward trials he had faced and yet would face. To make the words "I die daily" mean an inward spiritual struggle with sin, is to falsify Paul’s plain testimony: "I have been crucified with Christ"; "Our old man was crucified with Him"; "He that hath died is righteously released from sin"; "Reckon ye yourselves dead unto sin." Paul indeed says he desired to be "conformed unto" Christ’s death (Php 3:10); but as one who had federally shared it: and not as one who sought to approximate, ,or imitate, Christ’s death! This last is Romanism. But Paul was a believer,--in the work of the Cross!
Romans 6:5 : For if we became united with [Him] in the likeness of His death, so shall we be also [in the likeness] of His resurrection: Here Paul looks back to Romans 6:2, to the fact he declared true concerning all believers, that they died to sin; and he now insists that that death is a fact about true believers only--those who have been vitally enlifed with Christ. The word means to grow together [133] --as a graft in a tree, so that the graft shares the tree’s life. The meaning of Romans 6:5 may be paraphrased: If we became actually united with Him, which, in our baptism--the "likeness of His death," we profess; so we shall also be united in the likeness of His resurrection: (so therefore to be walking in newness of life!). Conybeare well remarks concerning Romans 6:5 : "The meaning appears to be, If we have shared the reality of His death, whereof we have undergone the likeness" (in baptism).
[133] The Greek word is sumphutoi--used only here. It was confounded by the King James translators with sumphuteuo, translated in Romans 6:5, "planted together," whereas the proper word means to be actually enlifed together with.
Now when the apostle says we are to be united with "the likeness of His resurrection," he refers to the walking in "newness of life" just spoken of in the preceding verse. (For this verse explains that.) To be joined in life with the Risen Christ, and thus daily, hourly, to walk, is a wonder not conceived of by many of us. But it is the blessed portion of all true Christians. They shared Christ’s death, and now are "saved by [or in] His life"--as we read in Romans 5:10. But not only saved: we walk here on earth by appropriating faith, in the blessedness of His heavenly "newness" of resurrection life! This is what Paul meant when he said, "To me to live is Christ"; "our inward man is being renewed day by day"; "I was crucified with Christ; Christ liveth in me . . . the life I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God." Of course Romans 6:5 may look on, also, to that day when our bodies will share this resurrection-life,--as we have seen in the verse before; but the context here shows Paul is speaking of our "walking about in newness of life" in Christ today!
We reap the exact effect of what Christ did. Did Christ bear our sins in His own body on the tree? He did. Then we hear them no more. Was Christ made to be sin on our behalf and did He die unto sin? Truly so. Then Christ’s relation to sin becomes ours!
Romans 6:6 : Coming to know this, that our old man was crucified with Him, in order that the body of sin might be annulled, that we might no longer be in slave service to sin. The word translated "coming to know," means, in the Greek, coming into knowledge ,--a discriminating apprenhension of facts. See note below. [134]
[134] The Greek word for "know" (gignOskO) here, means to get to know, come in the knowledge of, become acquainted with the fact. It is an entirely different word from the one translated "knowing" in Romans 6:9 (eidO), meaning "a clear and purely mental conception, in contrast both to conjecture and to knowledge derived from others" (Thayer). In this latter verse the fact spoken of is a matter of common knowledge. We, by God’s word here, come to know (verse 6) that our old man was crucified with Christ; whereas we know as a necessary thing that Christ, being raised, dieth no more (Romans 6:9). This is not a fact we "come to know," as in the matter of our vital connection with His death, verse 6. The manner in which we "come to know" our old man was crucified is by faith in God’s testimony to fact! Our old man--This is our old selves, as we were in and from Adam. It is contrasted with the new man (Colossians 3:9; Colossians 3:10)--which is what we are and have in Christ. The word our indicates that what is said, is said of and to all those who are in Christ. The expression "our old man," of course is a federal one, as also is "the new man." The "old man," therefore, is not Adam personally, any more than the "new man" is Christ personally. Also, we must not confuse the "old man" with "the flesh." Adam begat a son in his own likeness. This son of Adam, as all since, was according to Adam,--for he was in Adam; possessed of a "natural" mind, feelings, tastes, desires,--all apart from God. He was his father repeated. Cain is a picture before us of the meaning of the words, "the old man." Moreover, since man’s activities were carried on in and through the body, he is now morally "after the flesh." Inasmuch as his spirit was now dead to God, sin controlled him both spirit and soul, through the body. And thus we read a little later, in the Sixth of Genesis, upon the recounting of the horrible lust and violence that filled the earth, God’s statement: "In their going astray, they are flesh!" (R. V. margin.) What a fearful travesty of one created in the image of God, and into whose Divinely formed body God had breathed the spirit of life, so that he was "spirit and soul and body" (1 Thessalonians 5:23); and with his innocent spirit able to speak with his Creator! with his unfallen soul-faculties, and with body in blessed harmony. When we are told, for instance, in Colossians, that we have put off the old man, we know that we are being addressed as new creatures in Christ, and that the old man represents all we naturally were,--desires, lusts, ambitions, hopes, judgments: looked at as a whole federally: we used to be that--now we have put that off. We recognize it again in the words "Put away as concerning your former manner of life the old man" (Ephesians 4:22).
1. First, then, our old man was crucified (Romans 6:6). That is a Divine announcement of fact.
2. Those in Christ have put off the old man.
3. He still exists, for "the old man waxeth corrupt after the lusts of deceit" (Ephesians 4:22).
4. He is to be put away as belonging to our former manner of life: for we are in Christ and are "new creatures; old things are passed away; behold they are become new" (2 Corinthians 5:17).
Now as regards the flesh:
1. While our old man has been crucified, by God, with Christ at the cross,--the federal thing was done; yet of the flesh we read, "They that are of Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with the passions and the lusts thereof" (Galatians 5:24).
2. The flesh has passions and lusts.
3. It has a mind directly at enmity with God.
4. As we shall see in Romans 7:1-25, the flesh is the manifestation of sin in the as yet unredeemed body. "Our old man," therefore, is the large term, the all-inclusive one--of all that we were federally from Adam. The flesh, however, we shall find to be that manifestation of sin in our members with which we are in conscious inward conflict, against which only the Holy Spirit indwelling us effectively wars. Our bodies are not the root of sin, but do not yet share, as do our spirits, the redemption that is in Christ. And as for our souls (our faculties of perception, reason, imagination, and our sensibilities),--our souls are being renewed by the indwelling Holy Spirit. Not so the body. "The flesh," which is sin entrenched in the body, is unchangeably evil, and will war against us till Christ comes. Only the Holy Spirit has power over "the flesh" (Romans 8:1). Our old man was crucified--The matter of which we are told to take note here is the great federal fact that our old man was crucified with Christ. Perhaps no more difficult task, no task requiring such constant vigilant attention, is assigned by God to the believer. It is a stupendous thing, this matter of taking note of and keeping in mind what goes so completely against consciousness,--that our old man was crucified. These words are addressed to faith, to faith only. Emotions, feelings, deny them. To reason, they are foolishness. But ah, what stormy seas has faith walked over! What mountains has faith cast into the sea! How many impossible things has faith done!
Let us never forget, that this crucifixion was a thing definitely done by God at the cross, just as really as our sins were there laid upon Christ. It is addressed’ to faith as a revelation from God. Reason is blind. The "word of the cross" is "foolishness" to it. All the work consummated at the cross seems folly, if we attempt to subject it to man’s understanding. But, just as the great wonder of creation is understood only by faith: ("By faith we understand that the worlds have been framed by the Word of God,"-- Hebrews 11:3) so the eternal results accomplished at the cross are entered into by simple faith in the testimony of God about them.
No, it is no easy or light thing that is announced to you and me, that all we were and are from Adam has been rejected of God. Scripture is not now dealing with what we have done, but with what we are. And really to enter spiritually into the meaning of this awful word, Our old man was crucified, involves, with all of us, deep exercise of soul. For no one by nature will be ready to count himself so incorrigibly bad as to have to be crucified! But when the Spirit of God turns the light upon what we are, from Adam, these will be blessed words of relief: "Our old man was crucified."
Now here is the very opposite of the teaching of false Christianity about a holy life. For these legalists set you to crucifying yourself! You must "die out" to this, and to that. But God says our old man, all that we were, has been already dealt with,--and that by crucifixion with Christ. And the very words "with Him" show that it was done back at the cross; and that our task is to believe the good news, rather than to seek to bring about this crucifixion ourselves. The believer is constantly reminded that his relation to sin was brought about by his identification with Christ in His death: Christ died unto sin, and the believer shared that death, died with Him, and is now, therefore, dead unto sin. This is his relationship to sin--the same as Christ’s now is; and believing this is to be his constant attitude.
Difficulty there will be, no doubt, in taking and maintaining constantly this attitude: but faith will remove the difficulty, and faith here will grow out of assiduous, constant attention to God’s exact statements of fact. We are not to go to God in begging petitions for "victory,"--except in extreme circum stances. We are to set ourselves a very different task: "This is the work of God, that ye believe" We may often be compelled to cry, with the father of the demoniac, "Lord, I believe; help Thou mine unbelief!" But it is still better to have our faces toward the foe, knowing ourselves to be in Christ, and that we have been commanded to reckon ourselves dead to sin, no matter how great and strong sin may appear. Satan’s great device is to drive earnest souls back to beseeching God for what God says has already been done!
"Our old man was crucified with Christ." This is our task: to walk in the faith of these words. Upon this water God commands us to step out and walk. And we are infinitely better off than was Peter that night, when he "walked on the water to come to Jesus"; whereas we are in Christ. And our relationship to sin is His relationship! He died unto it, and we, being in Christ Risen, are in the relationship Christ’s death brought about in Him, and now to us who are in Him: whether to sin, law death, or the world.
If I did not die with Christ, on the cross, I cannot be living in Him, risen from the dead; but am still back in the old Adam in which I was born!
Christ died once--once for all, unto sin. He is not dying continually. I am told to reckon myself dead--in that death of Christ. I am therefore not told to do my own dying, to sin and self and the world: but, on the contrary, to reckon by simple faith, that in His death I died: and to be "conformed unto His death." But, to be conformed to a death already a fact, is not doing my own dying,--which is Romanism. If you and I are able to reckon ourselves dead--in Christ’s death: all will be simple. That the body of sin might be annulled--The word for "annulled" is katargeo. See note on Romans 4:14. The meaning is, to "put out of business." The "body of sin" refers to our bodies as yet unredeemed, and not delivered from sin’s rule; as Paul says in the Eighth Chapter: "If Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin." Now we shall find that we have no power to deliver our body, our members, from "the law of sin" (See Romans 7:8-24). But since our old man has been crucified with Christ, all the rights of sin are gone; and the indwelling Holy Spirit can annul "the body of sin"; thus delivering us from sin’s bondage. We know the Spirit is not mentioned here (as He will be constantly in Chapter Eight); but inasmuch as it is His work to apply all Christ’s work to us, we speak of His blessed annulling of the power of indwelling sin. It is blessed to know that we do not have to crucify the old man: that was done in Christ’s federal death at the cross. Nor do we have to "annul" the "body of sin": that is done by the blessed Spirit as we yield to Him.
Romans 6:7 : For he that hath died hath been declared righteous from sin!
We must seize fast hold of this blessed verse.
Let us distinguish at once between being justified from sins--from the guilt thereof--by the blood of Christ, and being justified from sin--the thing itself.
"Justified from sin" is the key to both Chapters Six and Seven and also to Eight! It is the consciousness of being sinful that keeps back saints from that glorious life Paul lived. Paul shows absolutely no sense of bondage before God; but goes on in blessed triumph! Why? He knew he had been justified from all guilt by the blood of Christ; and he knew that he was also justified, cleared, from the thing sin itself: and therefore (though walking in an, as yet, unredeemed body), he was wholly heavenly in his standing, life and relations with God! He knew he was as really justified from sin itself as from sins. The conscious presence of sin in his flesh only reminded him that he was in Christ;--that sin had been condemned judicially, as connected with flesh, at the cross; and that he was justified as to sin; because he had died with Christ, and his former relationship to sin had wholly ceased! Its presence gave him no thought of condemnation, but only eagered his longing for the redemption body. "Justified from sin"--because, "he that hath died is justified from sin." Glorious fact! May we have faith to enter into it as did Paul! [135]
[135] "Justified from sin" does not mean "sinless perfection,"--but something utterly different, and infinitely beyond that! It is different, in that it does not refer to an "experience" of deliverance from sin, but a passing beyond, in death with Christ at the cross, the sphere where the former relationship to sin existed! We are justified, accounted wholly righteous, with respect to the thing sin itself! This, therefore, is infinitely beyond any state whatever of experience. It is a newly-established relationship to sin, which the saints have because they died with Christ: in which they stand in Christ as He is toward sin. They are "meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light." They are heavenly. Their old relation to sin is over forever. They are justified from it. They rejoice, indeed, and have a most blessed "experience." But they do not say sin is gone from their flesh: but that they, having died, are declared righteous from it; that they are cleared, before God, of all condemnation because of sin’s presence in this unredeemed body; and delivered from all sin’s former rights and bondage over them.
It is the deep-seated notion of Christendom that gradually we become saints,--gradually worthy of heaven: so that sometime,--perhaps, on a dying bed, we will have the right to "drop this robe of flesh and rise." But Scripture cuts this idea off at once, by the declaration that we died, and that we are now, here, justified from sin! "Giving thanks unto the Father, who made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light." The saints in light are those in glory, and they are there for one reason alone: the work of Christ on the cross.
How unspeakably sad is our little faith! And I am speaking of true believers, certainly.
1. Many have turned truly to God, but not knowing the finished work of Christ, that is, that He actually bare their sins and put them away, are never sure of their own salvation.
2. Many have appropriated gladly Christ’s finished work, as respects the guilt of their sins, and they no longer have apprehensions of judgment, knowing that He met all God’s claims against them on the cross. But as to their relation to sin itself, it is an "O-wretched-man" life that they live, for they see honestly their own sinfulness and unworthiness, but have never heard how they are now in a Christ who died to sin, and that they share His relationship now, dead to sin and alive to God (Romans 6:10, Romans 6:11).
3. Thank God, there are some who have seen and believed in their hearts that their relationship to sin itself was completely changed when God identified them with Christ in His death. Their relationship to sin was broken forever; and they present themselves unto God as alive from the dead, and, through an ever increasing faith, walk about on earth in newness of life; knowing that the same God who declared them justified from the guilt of their sins through Christ’s shed blood, has now declared that, in being identified with Christ in His death to sin, they are themselves declared righteous [136] from sin itself!
[136] The Greek word is the perfect tense of the verb dikaioO(G1344), to declare righteous. As we have elsewhere remarked, relief from guilt and danger, through the shed blood of Christ, comes first. And the conscience concerning judgment being relieved, the heart ever rests in the blood of Christ. But to have God tell us further, that we, having died with Christ, are declared righteous from sin itself, is a new, additional, and glorious revelation, which sets us in the presence of God not only declared righteous from what we have done, but declared righteous from what we were--and as to our flesh, still are! We should have no more dejection and self-condemnation when we see our old selves; for we have been declared righteous from that old state of being, as well as from what we had done! Very excellent and godly men, not recognizing this blessed fact, have spent much time before God "bemoaning the sinfulness" of their now revealed old nature. But this was really not to recognize the Word of God that we have been justified, declared righteous, from the old state of being, from sin itself! [137]
[137] The author many years ago edited a little book called Extracts from the Journal of David Brainerd--the wonderful missionary to the Indians in New Jersey in the eighteenth century, whose prayer-life has inspired hundreds; whose devotion to Christ was sublime. But many, many pages of his diary were found to be occupied with bemoaning (often alone on the room-floor, or in the forest, before God) his sinful state. For example, "May 13, 1742. Saw so much of the wickedness of my heart, that I longed to get away from myself. I never before thought there was so much spiritual pride in my soul. I felt almost pressed to death with my own vilencss. Oh what a body of death is there in me! Lord, deliver my soul. "May 15. Indeed I never saw such a week as this before; for I have been almost ready to die with the view of the wickedness of my heart. I could not have thought I had such a body of death in me. "June 30. Spent this day alone in the woods, in fasting and prayer; underwent the most dreadful conflicts in my soul that ever I felt, in some respects. I saw myself so vile, that I was ready to say, I shall now perish by the hand of Saul.’ I thought, and almost concluded, I had no power to stand for the cause of God, but was almost afraid of the shaking of a leaf. Spent almost the whole day in prayer, incessantly. I could not bear to think of Christians showing me any respect." God forbid that we should disparage in the least such a very saint as Brainerd, whose Memoirs draw out our hearts with their sincere godliness as do almost no other uninspired writings. Yet Paul’s attitude is the Divine example. He believed what he wrote--that he had been justified from sin itself. So that all struggles from self-condemnation were over. He knew that in him was "no good thing"; but that he had been justified from even indwelling sin. George Whitefield used to say, "When I see myself I seem to be half devil and half beast," and again, as he passed through great crowds on his way to preach: "I wondered why the people did not stone so vile a wretch as myself." You may say, This is just the Seventh of Romans, and Paul had that experience. Yes, Paul had it; and found that in him, in his flesh, there was no good thing. But, having come to this vision of himself, and agreeing with God as to the evil of the flesh, he found deliverance in Christ and afterwards rejoiced in Him alway. There is no hint in his epistles of a continued struggle, nor of the slightest consciousness of Divine condemnation because of the presence of the flesh within. He walked in the consciousness of justification not only from guilt, but from sin itself! therefore, the Risen Christ, rather than ill thoughts of his old self, filled his vision! The trouble with most of us is, we do not believe we are utterly bad. Or if, like Brainerd or Whitefield, we see and own it, we do not see ourselves where God sees us, only in Christ.
If Gabriel, the presence angel, were to appear before you, your natural thought would be. He is holy, sinless; and I am unholy, sinful. Therefore, I am not worthy to stand in his presence. But this would be completely wrong. If you are in Christ, you stand in Christ,--in Christ alone,--even as He! The presence of sin in the flesh has no more power to trouble your conscience, than have your sins: for both were dealt with at the cross! Your old man was crucified, sin in the flesh was condemned (Romans 8:3) at the cross. And Paul definitely declares that we have now come "to the innumerable hosts of angels," as well as that we have been made meet to be "partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light"!
One of the most astonishing things (and yet, why astonishing?) that came to us in the study of the book of the Revelation was, that once the apostle John had "fallen as one dead" at the feet of the glorified Christ, in Chapter One, and the Lord had "laid His right hand" upon him, saying, "Fear not, I am the First and the Last, and the Living One, and I became dead, and behold I am alive for evermore, and I have the keys of death and of Hades" (Revelation 1:17; Revelation 1:18)--after that, John, all unconsciously, but really, fears nothing, and no one! Not even the vision of the glorious throne in heaven before which the four living ones and the four and twenty elders are falling down, crying, "Holy, Holy, Holy," stirs John with the least emotion of fear or shrinking. In fact, he is found weeping because no one can take the sealed book. Not once is he concerned about his own moral or spiritual condition. He goes boldly up to the mighty angel in the Tenth Chapter, requesting according to Divine direction, that he give him the little book in his hand. Twice he falls at the feet of the angelic messenger that is revealing these glorious things to him, but it is not on account of a sense of moral or spiritual unfitness, but rather a being enraptured, overwhelmed with the glory of the scene.
Now why is this? Or how could Paul be caught up to the third heaven, into Paradise, and hear unspeakable words?
Simply because the work of the cross was complete! Not only were sins put away by the blood of Christ, but our connection with Adam was ended, our old man was crucified, we died to sin; our former history was completely over, before God. Thus it is written, as we quoted, "Giving thanks unto the Father who made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light" (Colossians 1:12).
Now as to the fact, all this is as true of us here on earth, as it will be in the ages to come. Our realization of the truth may be small; yea, sad to say, our faith may be weak; but the fact is the same!
How utterly marvelous, then, to know that we have been justified from sin itself. Not only has it lost all right and power over us, but we are declared righteous from the hideous thing itself; we are standing with God, in Christ, outside the region of sin, "children of light," yea, even called "light in the Lord" (Ephesians 5:8).
Romans 6:8 : But if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also be living with Him [in this world].
Here we take it for granted that we died; that our old man was crucified with Christ. And we go on to the expectation of a blessed life in Christ. For it is not only that we shall "live with Him" in resurrection glory when He comes, but even now we walk in newness of life in Him, as Romans 6:10 and Romans 6:13 set forth. This is no uncertain confidence, because "Christ, being raised from the dead, dieth no more." The brief lordship of death over Him is ended forever, and it is His death and life we share.
Meyer well paraphrases: "Whosoever has died with Christ is now also of the belief that his life, i.e., the positive, active side of his moral being and nature, shall be a fellowship of life with the exalted Christ; that is, shall be able to be nothing else than this." And Rotherham: "If we jointly died with Christ,--we believe that we shall also jointly live with Him." And Conybeare: "If we have shared the death of Christ, we believe that we shall also share His life." This word, shall also be living with Him, must finally include, doubtless, the consummation of our salvation at the coming of Christ, and the fashioning anew of our mortal bodies. But the word refers directly to that expressed by Paul in Galatians 2:20 : "I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I that live, but Christ that liveth in me." Here in Romans Six it is called a living with Him, as over against our death with Him. Hodge well says: "The future tense is used here, referring not to what is to happen hereafter, so much as to what is the certain consequence of our union with Christ." And Alford: "The future (we shall also live with Him’) as in Romans 6:5, is used, because the life with Him, though here begun, is not here completed." And now the reason for this assurance that we shall keep on sharing the risen life of Christ, is given:
Romans 6:9 : Knowing that Christ having been raised from among the dead dieth no more: death over Him no longer hath dominion.
Knowing--"This participle justifies the we believe’ of verse eight." We know (eidotes) both that our present spiritual participation in Christ’s risen life will continue, and also that our mortal bodies will be finally delivered, in view of the fact we are conscious of, that Christ has been once and irrevocably raised; that God "loosed the pangs of death"; that "He raised Him up from the dead, now no more to return to corruption,"--for it was written, "Thou wilt not give Thy Holy One to see corruption." Sin never had dominion over Him; and death could have had no dominion except that our sin was transferred to Him! Death, therefore, the "wages," had a brief dominion, but now that is ended forever; and we are in Him,--also forever! Therefore death with its dominion is for the believer forever passed away. Our identification with Christ in death at the cross made possible of fulfillment His wonderful promise in John 8:51, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, If a man keep my word, he shall never see death." If a believer falls asleep (God’s word for a believer’s physical death) his spirit goes to be with Christ: there is no "dark valley." On the tomb of an early Christian were these words: "I sinned, I repented, I trusted, I loved; I slept, I shall rise, I shall reign!"
It is a terrible thing to contemplate--that death once held the Prince of Life, the Lord of all. Yet behold the Lord of Life, under the dominion of death! But He is not making atonement during those three days and nights,--that was all finished on the cross. [138] And now, praise God, we read, Death no more hath dominion over Him. He liveth unto God, in a glad resurrection life which shall never end. This is the life that we share, for we shared His death.
[138] Our Lord’s last words were, "Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit." As Peter writes: "Being put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit, in which [quickened spirit] He went and preached unto the spirits in prison," etc. (1 Peter 3:18; 1 Peter 3:19). Christ’s human spirit, we know, from His own word, was to be "three days and three nights (Matthew 12:40) in the heart of the earth." This of course does not refer to His body, which lay in Joseph’s tomb on the surface of the earth.
Romans 6:10 : Therefore we must go on to Romans 6:10 and read God’s statement of Christ’s death unto sin: For in that He died, unto sin He died once for all; but in that He is living, He is living unto God.
Now we beseech you, do not change God’s word "UNTO," here! Do not confuse with this passage those other Scriptures that declare that Christ died FOR our sins. For this great revelation of Romans 6:10 is that Christ died UNTO sin! There is here, of course, no thought of expiation of guilt. That belongs to Chapters Three to Five. Here, the sole question is one of relationship, not of expiation. Christ is seen dying to sin, not for it, here.
What is meant by that? In 2 Corinthians 5:21, God declares: "Him who knew no sin God made to be sin on our behalf; that we might become the righteousness of God in Him." Christ is made to be what we were, that we might become, in Him, what He is! Might not Christ, the Sinless One, bear the guilt of our sins and that be all? Nay, but we were connected federally with Adam the first--with a race proved wholly unrighteous and bad. And that we might be released from that Adam-state, there must be not only our sins borne, but we ourselves released from the old-Adam headship,--all we had from Adam: which involved the responsibilities we had in him--responsibility to furnish God, as morally responsible beings, a perfect righteousness and holiness of our own.
Now God’s way was, not to "change" the old man, but to send it to the cross unto death, and release us from it. No one who remains in Adam’s race will be saved! "Ye must be born again!" should sound the tocsin of alarm, yea, terror, to every one not yet in Christ. For God’s method was to set forth a Second Man, a Last Adam,--Christ; (with whom indeed all God’s eternal plans were connected), whom God would not only set forth to make expiation of guilt, but would make to become sin itself: thus to get at what we were, as well as what we had done. Our old man would thus be crucified with Christ, so that all the evil of the old man, and all his responsibilities also, would be completely annulled before God for all believers. For they must righteously be released from Adam, before they are created in Christ, another Adam! And this must be by death.
Thus God would say to believers, to those in Christ, "Your history now begins anew!" just as He said to Israel at the Passover: "This month shall be unto you the beginning of months: it shall be the first month of the year to you." So Paul triumphantly writes, "If any man is in Christ, he is a new creature: the old things are passed away; behold, they are become new." What a day was that when Christ, made to be sin itself, died to it, and was forever done with it! So that now He lives unto God in light and joy eternal without measure!
Romans 6:11 : Therefore the eleventh verse becomes a necessity: God must say to us: Thus [because of the facts of the preceding verse] do ye also reckon, yourselves dead, indeed, to sin, but living to God, in. Christ Jesus! [139] Your relationship to sin is exactly the same as Christ’s! Why? Because Christ is now your only Adam: you are in Him! His act of death unto sin involved all who are connected with Him.
[139] The A.V. translation, "through Christ Jesus," is unfortunate, as it does not, as does God’s Word, emphasize the place of blessing in which we now are--in (Gr. en) Christ Jesus. It is not, in this verse, what shall be done through Christ for us; nor only what has been done through Him; but the place of federal blessing in which we now are, that is in view: we are lit Him who died to sin, and His death was ours.
Thus, in His death, all Christ’s connection with sin was broken, ended, forever. Not only did He no longer bear sin; but He had died unto sin. When He was raised, it was as One who lived unto God, in an endless life with which sin had nothing to do,--resurrection-life, newness of life!
And, because believers were united with Him in His death, they too died to sin in and with Him. And their relationship to sin is now exactly His relationship: they are dead to it. They are also "alive unto God" in Christ Jesus. This is not a matter of "experience," but of fact. The truth about believers is, that they are dead to sin and alive to God, being in Christ! And they hear it said by God, and are asked to reckon it so! Their path of faith is plain: "Reckon [140] ye also yourselves to be dead unto sin, but alive unto God, in Christ Jesus."
[140] 2. This word "reckon" is a favorite word of Paul’s in Romans, where he uses it 19 times, and only 16 times in all his other epistles. The Greek word (logidzomai) might be called both a court word and a counting-room word. Paul uses it as a court word as to God’s action in accounting the believer righteous. In this sense it is used 11 times in Romans Four alone--where it should be studied: see Romans 4:3-6, Romans 4:8-11, Romans 4:22-24. Again, this word logidzomai is used to express man’s belief and consequent attitude as illustrated in Romans 14:14 : "To him that reckoneth anything to be unclean, to him it is unclean." Here, we repeat, an expression of belief, and of an attitude in view of that belief, is included in this word. This is its meaning in Romans 6:11 : "Reckon ye also yourselves to be dead unto sin." The belief of the fact and the attitude in view of the belief, are both involved in the word "reckon" in this verse. (Consult note on Romans 4:3.) John Wesley truly counselled:
"Frames and feelings fluctuate:
These can ne’er thy saviour be!
Learn thyself in Christ to see:
Then, be feelings what they will, Jesus is thy Saviour still!"
Lay to heart the very words of the eleventh verse: Reckon yourselves dead indeed to sin, but living to God, in Christ Jesus. There are two words signifying death in this passage. The word for dead (nekros(G3498)) here in Romans 6:11, does not refer to the act or process of dying, but to the state or effect produced by death. The other word (thnesko) signifies the act, and occurs in Romans 6:3-5, Romans 6:7-10; and is used when Christ’s dying, or our dying with or in Him, is set forth. It is, therefore, with the already accomplished death unto sin of our great Substitute and Representative, Christ, that believers--those now in Christ--find themselves connected; and as we said above, the believer is to reckon himself dead (nekros) unto sin, but alive unto God,--because he is in Christ Jesus, who died unto sin once for all; but now, in resurrection life, is living unto God. You will realize anew the meanings of these two words for death, when you notice, in Romans 6:4 and Romans 6:9, that Christ, having died (thnesko) was raised "from among dead ones" (nekroi). Christ’s body lay in Joseph’s tomb. He was not now dying: that was over. He was dead. And so we are not told to die to sin: because we are in Christ who did die to it; and therefore we also are dead to it, in His death; and reckon it so. This should make the believer’s task simplicity itself. The only difficulty lies in believing these astounding revelations! That we should be dead to sin, and now alive unto God as risen ones, sharing that newness of life (Romans 6:4) which our Lord began as "the First-born from among the dead," is at first too wonderful for us. We see in ourselves the old self-life, the flesh--and straightway we forget God’s way of faith, and turn back to our "feelings." We say, Alas, if I could escape from this body, I would be free. But that is not at present God’s plan for you and me. We wait for the redemption of our body. This body is yet unredeemed. Nevertheless, we are to reckon ourselves dead unto sin and alive unto God. Not dead to sin, notice, through prayers and strugglings, nor dead to sin in our feelings or consciousness; but in that death unto sin which Christ went through on the cross, and which we shared, and in that life which He now lives in glory!
Indeed, when we come down to Romans 6:12-13, we shall find Paul’s definite directions to us to present ourselves unto God "as those that are alive from among dead ones." (All out of Christ are of course "dead ones," in God’s sight.)