Chapter Six

The obligations that our received justification imposes on us — Christians must no longer remain in sin (1–11). They have become slaves of righteousness and should rejoice in this new condition of theirs (12–23).

Romans 6:1. What shall we say then? Are we to remain in sin so that grace may increase? By no means. Christianity and the persistence in sin cannot be reconciled with each other. Baptism, received by Christians, clearly testifies to this: in baptism the Christian dies to sin and comes alive to a new holy life in Christ. He was previously a slave of sin, but through his (spiritual) death he was freed from this obligation to serve sin and now lives together with Christ for God. The Apostle in Rom 3:7 had already pointed to the existence of slanderers who accused him of teaching, through his doctrine, an indifference toward sin. What he said in Rom 5:20 could serve as a new occasion for the same accusation. It might be said precisely that the Apostle, by strengthening in his readers the hope in God’s all-covering grace, was thereby in effect teaching them to pay no particular attention to purity of life — that sin is not frightening but is in fact even useful, because it gives God’s purifying grace an opportunity to work with greater force. The Apostle briefly sets aside such a suggestion.

Romans 6:2. We died to sin; how then can we live in it? The Apostle grounds his answer given in verse 1 by appeal to a fact. We, he says, have died to sin — but can one who has died come to life again for the old life, in this case a sinful life? But what does it mean to die to sin? This expression does not indicate that sin has actually died within us (Bishop Theophan), because in that case the Apostle’s subsequent exhortations not to serve sin anymore would be superfluous; nor does it merely indicate a single act of the will, by which a person says: ‘I no longer want to have fellowship with sin!’ It is more natural and more consistent with the context to see here a reference to the fact that in baptism the death to sin is depicted — that transformation which has taken place in a person only in its first stage and which must be confirmed in subsequent life. This expression thus hints at Christian baptism, in which a person renounces all that is sinful, acknowledges sin as harmful, and rejects everything by which his self-centered ego has until now lived. In this, sin is not entirely destroyed in the person, but merely ceases to be the guiding principle of his activity — it, as it were, grows still within the person. This, however, does not prevent it from reviving if the person neglects the state of his soul: a spark still smolders under a pile of ash...

Romans 6:3. Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? The Apostle, in order to persuade his readers all the more of the (principled) impossibility for them of returning to sin, reminds them that having been baptized into Jesus Christ, they were thereby baptized ‘into his death.’ What does it mean to be baptized into Christ (είς Χρίστον)? It means entering into living and most intimate communion with him. The Christian who descends into the river or baptismal font for baptism and is immersed in it (the verb βαπτίζω used here points to this) thereby ends his former, sinful life and is immersed into a new realm of life, into Christ himself. For him baptism has become what the cross and tomb were for Christ (Chrysostom). He likewise dies, as Christ did, feels the same pain, the same suffering as the Savior dying on the cross, though all of this takes place on the moral and not the physical side of his being. This is why the Apostle says that the one being baptized is baptized into the death of Christ.

Romans 6:4. We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. To prove that death to sin is indeed depicted in baptism, the Apostle now calls this baptism a burial. Once a burial has taken place, the death is evidently already acknowledged as real — otherwise people are not buried. But the Apostle does not limit himself to pointing to our death to sin. He says that we died not in order to remain dead, but in order to live a new life, just as Christ rose from the dead. By this declaration the Apostle further strengthens in us the conviction that we have, so to speak, already done with sin. — ‘Was raised... by the glory of the Father.’ According to the general testimony of New Testament writers, the resurrection of Christ was accomplished by the Almighty Power (glory) of God (Rom 4:24; Acts 2:24 and following, cf. 1 Cor 6:14; 2 Cor 13:4; Eph 1:19). 22 — ‘So we too might walk.’ The Apostle wishes to point to the (theoretical) impossibility for believers of returning to their former life. Therefore he speaks not of their (spiritual) resurrection with Christ, but of their beginning of a new life. The latter — more clearly than the fact of their spiritual resurrection — testifies that a return to their former way of life is (in principle) impossible.

Romans 6:5. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his, Here the Apostle repeats the thought of verse 4 in order to confirm the readers in the conviction that baptism depicts not only death but also resurrection. — ‘We have been united’ — more precisely: we have grown together with him (σύμφυτοι from the verb συμφύω — to grow together, cf. Luke 13:7). — ‘In a death like his’ — that is, through baptism-by-immersion, which signifies the death of Christ; it is a likeness of Christ’s death; in receiving baptism by immersion, a person is likened to the dying Christ descending into the tomb. — ‘We shall certainly also be’ (έσόμεθα). Although the Greek text uses the future tense here, the Apostle nevertheless does not regard our resurrection as a future matter, but as a fact already accomplished at the moment of our baptism (the so-called logical future, or future of consequence, is used here). — ‘United with him in a resurrection like his.’ Here the Apostle has in view again baptism, but now in the moment when the one being baptized emerges and lifts his head out of the water. This moment of rising is a likeness, a symbol, of our resurrection together with Christ.

Romans 6:6. knowing this, that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be rendered powerless, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin; Romans 6:7. for one who has died has been set free from sin. ‘Knowing this.’ The Apostle here appeals to what they themselves understand about the meaning of the rites of the sacrament of baptism. What they know about this the Apostle states immediately. What does our death with Christ mean? What must die in this? Not ourselves, nor yet sin within us, but our old man, consisting in the union of the mind (νους) and the flesh (σαρξ) — that is, the very person of a human being, in which, however, as is evident from the Epistle to the Galatians (Gal 5:24), the guiding principle is the flesh. This old man dies by crucifixion. This expression is a concrete and intensified way of designating the mortification or cessation of life (1 Cor 2:8; Gal 3:1; Heb 6:6), or of the anti-divine tendency of the unregenerate person (cf. Gal 5:24). For what purpose does the old man die? Death is the dissolution of the bond between the factors mentioned above, which together form a living organism — specifically, such a dissolution in which one of the factors ceases to exist. Which of these two factors, then, must be annihilated or, more precisely, rendered powerless, paralyzed (καταργεισθαί — in the Russian translation: to be abolished)? Not the mind, but the flesh or the body of sin (σώμα τ. αμαρτίας), by which expression the Apostle means the body as an instrument of sin, our passions and vices (cf. v. 12; cf. Rom 7:24 and Col 1:22). Why must the flesh be annihilated or paralyzed? So that we might no longer serve sin, which has its dominion in the flesh. And this renunciation of the service of sin is entirely natural for one who has died to sin — died morally, of course, not physically; which is why in both the preceding and the following verses the Apostle speaks everywhere of moral death, which alone can be a fully effective basis for ceasing to serve sin. — What kind of body or flesh we shall have in place of the dead sinful one the Apostle speaks of in other passages (e.g., Eph 4:24 and following; Col 3:11 and parallels).

Romans 6:8. Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him, Romans 6:9. knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. Romans 6:10. For the death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. Now the Apostle describes the reverse side of our dying with Christ — namely, our coming to life with him. With the destruction of the old man our person, as such, does not disappear entirely; rather, in place of the old natural self that grew together with the flesh, a new self emerges, which has grown together (σύμφυτος) with Christ. It receives its vital content from Christ; our life is life with him and in him. Our hope of living with Christ is grounded in the fact that he remained alive at the time of our conversion. He is alive because through his resurrection he entered into eternal life — eternal because in it there is no longer any room for the influence of sin, and it was sin alone that caused death. With every relation to sin Christ settled once and for all through accepting death for the sins of humanity. Now he lives only for God, and consequently possesses the indestructibility of his life (and along with this a guarantee is given to us that we too will live with him in communion). — ‘Died... for sin’ (v. 10), that is, in order to destroy sin, the bonds of sin, having paid its debt once for all on behalf of all humanity. Christ thus acknowledged the rights of sin over his brothers the human beings and over himself, since he appeared as their surety. He satisfied the claims of sin through his death. — ‘Lives to God,’ that is, lives eternally, since death has no more dominion over him (Chrysostom).

Romans 6:11. So you too must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord. From what was said above, the Apostle makes an application with regard to Christians. They must constantly keep in mind (‘consider yourselves’) that they, like Christ, are dead to sin and live for God. From this expression — to keep in mind, to consider oneself (λογίζεσθαι) — some interpreters draw the conclusion that the Apostle Paul did not see in baptism a means of receiving actual justification and cleansing from sins, a means of beginning a new life for God. He teaches, they say, that we can only consider ourselves justified and dead to sin, and that this is not true and actual sanctification. This expression may be answered as follows. From all the numerous passages where the Apostle Paul speaks of the regeneration that a person receives in baptism, one can derive a clear understanding that, according to his teaching, a person is actually changed in his nature in baptism, and the original properties of human nature are imparted to him — the likeness to God, and above all, holiness. Yet even so, the Apostle nowhere says that this holiness makes a person completely pure and holy, that is, such as ‘Adam came forth from the hands of the Creator’ (Myshtsyn, p. 191). If that were so, then every individual sin of a person would be, in its consequences, identical with the transgression of Adam, so that a second baptism would be needed in such a case. The Apostle has in view two sanctifications: one accomplished at the moment of receiving baptism, and another continuing throughout the subsequent life of the person who has received baptism (cf. 1 Thess 5:23; Col 3:10; Gal 5:5; Eph 4:23). That is, the Apostle is here saying the following: Christians! you have been sanctified and have become dead to sin with the receiving of baptism; you have begun to live for God. But do not rest content with this! Do not fall asleep — stay watchful! Never lose sight of the great transformation that has taken place in your soul — otherwise the sparks of sin, smoldering here and there under the ash in your heart, may once again kindle a fire in your inner being. This continuing self-sanctification must go on until the very being of Christ ‘is established in us and we ourselves are transformed into his image.’ The Apostle Paul, says Chrysostom, has in mind here two mortifications and two deaths. One is accomplished by Christ in baptism, and the other we ourselves are obligated to accomplish through our own diligence after baptism.

Romans 6:12. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, so that you obey its desires; So, in baptism we took upon ourselves a serious obligation to serve not sin but God — to serve in deed and in truth. Perhaps it may seem to some that without the law, with grace alone, this service, this constant struggle with sin, will be difficult? But this only seems so. In reality grace becomes for us no less powerful a ruler than the law used to be. One might say that just as the law previously delivered us into slavery to sin, so now we have become obedient servants of righteousness. And this new service of righteousness is compensated far better than your former service to sin: from our new master we receive holiness and eternal life, whereas our former lord paid us for our services with death.

Romans 6:13. Do not offer the parts of your body to sin as instruments of wickedness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and offer the parts of your body to God as instruments of righteousness. From some of the Apostle’s preceding expressions it might have been concluded that he does not acknowledge the existence of sin in believers any longer. But in reality he is far from such extreme optimism. The Apostle says only that sin can no longer hold a ruling position in the life of a Christian, but from this it is also evident that the Apostle does not deny its existence in Christians altogether. What is the reason that sin has lost its former position? It has lost its powerful instrument and its powerful ally — the body: the body has become in Christ an instrument of God. ‘Let sin not reign.’ Although grammatically this exhortation is addressed to sin, as though to a person, in the meaning of the speech it is addressed to the believer himself, since it is his task to put an end to the dominion of sin. This exhortation resembles what the Apostle says in the Epistle to the Colossians: ‘you have died... therefore put to death whatever belongs to your earthly nature’ (Col 3:3). Because we have died to sin in Christ, we can mortify sin in our everyday life. — ‘In your mortal body.’ The body is, as it were, the territory in which sin establishes itself. The will, enslaved by sin, surrenders the body to sin, as one’s fortress, for its full disposal. The Apostle calls the body mortal in order to impress upon believers how badly they act if, being called to share in the immortal life of Christ, they allow themselves to enslave their body — which must soon die — to desires. — ‘Its desires,’ that is, of the body. The desires of the body are the strivings and cravings of the body, which act upon the soul and thereby stir up passionate and disordered movements of sin within it. The very word ‘desire’ (in Greek επιθυμία — from επι upon, against, and θυμός heart, feeling, passion) denotes the force with which the soul, under the power of sensual craving, rushes toward objects that can satisfy the desires aroused within it. 23 ‘And do not offer the parts of your body.’ Having spoken of the body in general, the Apostle in particular speaks of its members. These members are instruments for the satisfaction of the body’s desires — these are the various organs of the body (the Greek word όπλα — instruments — most often means military weapons or arms, but here it seems to carry the meaning simply of an instrument by which a certain goal is achieved). — Wickedness here has the meaning of immorality in general. ‘But present yourselves to God.’ Having spoken of the sanctification of the body from the negative side, the Apostle now speaks of the same thing from the positive side. ‘Present’ — in Greek the aorist is used (παραστήσετε), indicating that Christians must perform this action at once (without delay); in the first half of v. 13 the same verb παρίστιμι was in the present tense — ‘do not offer,’ which indicated a continuing action. Christians must present to God not the body alone but their entire person (themselves), together with the body and its organs. — ‘As those who have been brought from death to life,’ that is, as those who are in reality truly living the true life in faith, whereas before they were, one might say, dead, dwelling in sins (cf. Eph 2:1), that is, estranged from God. — ‘As instruments of righteousness.’ By righteousness here, in contrast to wickedness, one should understand moral uprightness in general — the fulfillment of all human duties.

Romans 6:14. For sin shall not have dominion over you, because you are not under law but under grace. Having repeated that sin must no longer hold dominion over people redeemed by Christ, the Apostle, in order to assure his readers of this, points to the fact that they are now no longer under the law but under grace. This gracious state — reconciliation with God and communion with him — imparts to the soul a victorious power that was entirely absent in those who were under the guidance of the law. In the person under the law there was constantly in his soul only the wearisome feeling of his accountability before God, the fear of condemnation, and a slavish submission instead of the childlike devotion that a Christian nurtures toward God.

Romans 6:15. What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means. The Apostle sees an opponent who expresses doubt as to whether grace on its own, without the law, could protect Christians from sins. — ‘Are we to sin’ — αμαρτήσωμεν. This is an aorist, denoting a single, isolated act of sin. Therefore the question here is evidently whether grace is strong enough to overcome sin in each individual instance. It may seem very lenient toward individual human failings, whereas the law strictly punished every instance of the transgression of God’s will. The Apostle gives a negative answer to the question he has posed.

Romans 6:16. Do you not know that to whomever you present yourselves as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one you obey — either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? It commonly happens that a sin committed by us several times already gives our will a certain direction from which it is unable to deviate. The same is observed with regard to good deeds. Thus a person develops either bad or good habits. This psychological law is expressed in the words of Christ: ‘everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin’ (John 8:34). The Apostle also has this law in mind when speaking here of slavery either to sin or to righteousness: a person must necessarily have a master — he cannot exist without this... This master must be either sin or righteousness. If the readers of the letter have taken the path of virtue, then they will unquestionably arrive at complete submission to righteousness or grace. The latter will become for them just as much a master as the law was for the Jew. — ‘To whomever you present yourselves.’ This points to the first steps people take in one direction or another. At this moment a person still exhibits a certain degree of moral freedom in relation to the principle that seeks to take hold of his being and his will — he gives himself over. But as he begins to show a certain pliability before this principle that is still foreign to him, he more and more loses his freedom and comes into the position of a slave to it. — ‘To death.’ Here, of course, moral death is meant — estrangement from God — since it is contrasted not with eternal life but with righteousness. Physically, slaves of righteousness die just as much as slaves of sin. — ‘Obedience,’ that is, faith in Christ and in the Gospel. In the following verse as well, the verb ‘to obey’ properly denotes the act of faith. — ‘To righteousness,’ that is, to a virtuous life grounded in faith. This virtuous life stands in contrast to the death to which sin leads.

Romans 6:17. But thanks be to God that, having once been slaves of sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the pattern of teaching to which you were handed over. Romans 6:18. Having been set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness. Between two masters — sin and faith (obedience) — the Roman Christians have already made the choice that every person must make: they have taken the side of faith. — ‘You obeyed’ — in Greek the aorist is used (υπηκούσατε), pointing to the decisive act when they turned to Christ (better translated: you listened, you heeded). — ‘The pattern of teaching’ (τ. τύπω διδαχής). This expression undoubtedly contains a reference to the existence of a specific, clearly formulated preaching about Christ. The Apostle is probably speaking of his Gospel (Rom 2:16), which the first preachers of Christianity brought with them to Rome. Paul knew from his own experience that only in the pure spirituality of his Gospel could one find a true foundation for Christian holiness, and that allowing the law a role in the sanctification of the Christian would hinder the action of the Holy Spirit. This is why he rejoices that the Romans received the Gospel exactly in the form in which he presented it.

Romans 6:19. I am speaking in human terms, on account of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you once presented the parts of your body as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness for lawless deeds, so now present the parts of your body as slaves to righteousness for holy deeds. Here the Apostle offers an explanation of the expression he used above: slaves of righteousness. He could be asked: is the practice of virtue really slavery? The Apostle himself had taught earlier that Christians are called to freedom (Gal 5:13). The Apostle answers the anticipated question thus: ‘in speaking this way, I adapt myself to the concepts of my readers, to their weakened condition.’ The Apostle evidently understands that the Roman Christians were not always at the height of their calling. Every now and then their passions would stir, as if they had been completely subdued. Not everyone, of course, could skillfully and without harm to themselves make use of Christian freedom. Therefore, for the majority it was necessary to establish the conviction that there is a master over them who will hold them strictly accountable for every violation of Christian purity. This is why the Apostle impresses upon them that they should consider themselves slaves of righteousness and permit themselves no liberties with regard to the law of the Gospel. Otherwise all their labors may come to nothing! (cf. the expression of the Apostle Jude: ‘and save others with fear’ (Jude 1:23)). — Impurity is sin as personal fall, personal corruption (1 Thess 4:7); lawlessness is contempt for the Mosaic law or the law of conscience.

Romans 6:20. For when you were slaves of sin, you were free from righteousness. Romans 6:21. So what benefit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. In his call to the service of righteousness, the Apostle now grounds it by pointing to the fact that the former service of the Romans to sin was drawing them toward shame and death. — ‘Free from righteousness’ — this is the first consequence of the service to sin. The Apostle evidently speaks here with irony: ‘you were indeed people free from every notion of honor and virtue! They seemed to you a restriction...’ — ‘What benefit...’ This is the second consequence of the service to sin, combined with the absence of righteousness. Here the Apostle points precisely to the direct and natural result of the Romans’ former activity — the product, so to speak, of their own moral life. — ‘End.’ Here the Apostle uses an expression that points specifically to what God does in relation to a person. The culmination of human activity depends on God. For the Romans’ former deeds, God would have punished them with death, that is, eternal estrangement from himself.

Romans 6:22. But now, having been set free from sin and having become slaves of God, the fruit you have is sanctification, and the end is eternal life. Now circumstances have changed entirely — the Romans are moving toward holiness and eternal life. — ‘The fruit you have is sanctification’ — this should more precisely be translated thus: ‘you have your fruit in that you are being led to holiness’ (or brought into a state of holiness). This is the result of their persistent activity, carried out in dependence on God. Every duty fulfilled by a Christian is a new step along the path at whose end shines the elevated ideal of perfect holiness (αγιασμός), and beyond — beyond the grave — ‘eternal life,’ that is, eternal glory and perfect activity.

Romans 6:23. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. The Apostle briefly repeats the thoughts set out in verses 21 and 22. — ‘Wages’ — in Greek οψώνιον originally means payment in agricultural produce and later the monetary pay that commanders distributed to their soldiers. Therefore the following Greek expression — αμαρτίας — should be translated simply as a genitive — of sin (not ‘for sin,’ as in the Russian translation). Sin is here personified as a sovereign who pays his subjects with death, that is, makes them feel all the painful consequences of their offenses (Gal 6:7; 2 Cor 5:10). — ‘The gift of God.’ From God we receive not wages, not a reward, but a gift that we have not earned (χάρισμα). ‘Hell,’ says Hodge, ‘is always deserved; heaven — never!’ * * * According to Bishop Theophan, this indicates that Christ was raised ‘in the brightness and glory of the Godhead.’ Our Russian (and Slavonic) text adds here (v. 12) the word ‘it,’ which is absent from the Textus Receptus and many ancient manuscripts. The particle ‘in’ (εν) is likewise superfluous — absent from most ancient manuscripts. The expression at the end of verse 12 should be translated thus: ‘So that you would obey its desires.’