Charles Ellicott Commentary Romans 6

Shall we continue in sin?—Again the Apostle is drawn into one of those subtle casuistical questions that had such a great attraction for him. But he soon returns to the root ideas of his own system. In previous chapters, he had dealt with one of the two great root ideas, justification by faith; he now passes to the second, union with Christ.

The one might be described as the juridical, the other as the mystical, theory of salvation. The connecting link that unites them is faith. Faith in Christ, and especially in the death of Christ, is the instrument of justification. Carried a degree further, it involves an actual identification with the Redeemer Himself.

This, no doubt, is mystical language. When strictly compared with the facts of the religious consciousness, it must be admitted that all such terms as union, oneness, fellowship, identification, pass into the domain of metaphor. They are taken to express the highest conceivable degree of attachment and devotion. In this sense, they are now consecrated by the use of centuries, and any other phrases substituted for them, though gaining perhaps somewhat in precision, would only seem poor and cold. (See Excursus G: On the Doctrine of Union with Christ.)

On verses 1-5:

These considerations might seem to lead to an Antinomian conclusion. If the increase of sin has only led to a larger measure of forgiveness, it might be thought well to continue in sin and so to enhance the measure and glory of forgiving grace. But to the Christian, this is impossible. In regard to sin, he is, in theory and principle, dead.

When he was converted from heathenism and received Christian baptism, he gave himself up unreservedly to Christ. He professed commitment to Christ, and especially to His death; he pledged himself to adopt that death as his own. He entered into fellowship with it so that he might also enjoy the fellowship of the resurrection of Christ. This fellowship or participation is both physical and ethical.

That are dead.—Rather, that died. It is good to keep in mind Dr. Lightfoot’s remarks on the importance of keeping the strict aorist sense as opposed to that of the perfect (i.e., the single past action as opposed to the prolonged or continued action) in passages such as this.

“St. Paul regards this change—from sin to righteousness, from bondage to freedom, from death to life—as summed up in one definite act of the past; potentially to all men in our Lord’s passion and resurrection, actually to each individual man when he accepts Christ, is baptized into Christ. Then he is made righteous by being incorporated into Christ’s righteousness, he dies once for all to sin, he lives from then on forever to God.

“This is his ideal. Practically, we know that the death to sin and the life to righteousness are undeveloped, imperfect, gradual, scarcely realized even by the most saintly men in this life; but St. Paul sets the matter in this ideal light to force upon the consciences of his hearers the fact that an entire change came over them when they became Christians—that the knowledge and the grace then granted to them did not leave them where they were—that they are not, and cannot be, their former selves—and that it is a contradiction of their very being to sin any more. It is the definiteness, the absoluteness of this change, considered as an historical crisis, which forms the central idea of St. Paul’s teaching, and which the aorist marks. We cannot, therefore, afford to obscure this idea by disregarding the distinctions of grammar; yet in our English version it is a mere chance whether in such cases the aorist is translated as an aorist” (On Revision, p. 85).

These remarks will form the best possible commentary on the passage before us. It is also worth adding that the change between the position of the first Christians and our own involves a certain change in the application of what was originally said with reference to them. Baptism is not now the tremendous crisis that it was then. The ideal of Christian life then assumed is more distinctly an ideal. It has a much less definite hold on the imagination and the will. But it ought not therefore to be any the less binding on the Christian. He should work towards it, if he cannot work from it, in the spirit of Philippians 3:12-14.

It would be good for the reader to note immediately the corrections suggested in the rendering of this verse by Dr. Lightfoot’s criticism:

• In Romans 6:4, “we were buried” for “we are buried”;
• In Romans 6:6, “the old man was crucified” for “is crucified”;
• In Romans 6:8, “if we died” for “if we be dead.”

Do you not know?—It should be, as in the Greek, Or do you not know? Do you not admit this principle; or am I to suppose that you are ignorant?

Were baptized into Jesus Christ—i.e., “into communion with Him and incorporation in His mystical body” . As many of you as have been baptised in Christ have put on Christ. Your baptism signified an intimately close and indissoluble attachment to Christ.

Were baptized into His death.—And this attachment had a special relation to His death. It involved a communion or fellowship with His death. This fellowship is ethical, i.e., it implies a moral conduct corresponding to that relation to Christ which it assumes.

Why has baptism this special connection with the death of Christ?

1. The death of Christ is the central and cardinal fact of the Christian scheme. It is specially related to justification, and justification proceeds from faith, which is ratified in baptism.

2. The symbolism of baptism was such as naturally to harmonize with the symbolism of death. It was the final close of one period, and the beginning of another—the complete stripping off of the past and putting on of the “new man.”

We are buried with him.—Burial is the consequence of death. It is the seal set upon it, as it were, which shows that no revival is possible. Besides, it is the one step which separates it from resurrection. The idea of “buried with Christ” is therefore introduced, on the one hand, to show that the ethical death with Him was final and decisive, and on the other, to prepare the way for an ethical (as well as physical) resurrection with Him.

Into death.—The ideas of physical and moral death and resurrection and life are inextricably blended in the thought of the Apostle.

By the glory of the Father.—The resurrection of Christ is more usually and more naturally ascribed to the power or Omnipotence of God. The word “Glory” is here to be taken as standing for the sum of the divine perfections, power being included among them, the Majesty on High.

Even so.—It is to be observed that the mysticism is here resolved into a relation of resemblance. The resurrection of Christ, and the new life of the Christian, are compared instead of being identified. The Apostle does not say “being dead with Christ, let us rise with Him;” but, as Christ rose again, so we also should walk in newness of life. The mystical expression for this is given in the next verse.

If we have been planted together.—“If (as surely as) we have grown into—become conjoined with.” The metaphor is taken from the parasitic growth of a plant, but applies to natural growth, not “planted together with,” as in the Authorized Version. The idea would correspond to the growth of a bud or graft regarded as part of that of the stock in which it is inserted. But without reference to the operation of budding or grafting. It is used here to express the closest intimacy and union.

In the likeness of his death.—Not here “His death itself,” but “the likeness of His death,” i.e., an ethical condition corresponding to, or conformable to, the death of Christ. If our nature has grown “into conformity with” His death, it will also be conformable to His resurrection.

This conformity means, of course, dying to trespasses and sins, being completely removed from the sphere of their influence, and entering a new sphere corresponding to the glorified life of the Redeemer. The ethical resurrection of the Christian begins (or is ideally supposed to begin, and with the early Christian usually did begin) in baptism, is continued through life, and is completed with his physical resurrection.