John Calvin Commentary Romans 6

What then shall we say? Throughout this chapter, the Apostle proves that those who imagine that gratuitous righteousness is given to us by Him, apart from newness of life, shamefully tear Christ apart. Indeed, he goes further and refers to this objection: that there seems in this case to be an opportunity for the display of grace if people persisted in sin.

We indeed know that nothing is more natural than for the flesh to indulge itself under any excuse, and for Satan to invent all kinds of slander in order to discredit the doctrine of grace, which for him is by no means difficult. For since everything that is announced concerning Christ seems very paradoxical to human judgment, it should not be considered a new thing that the flesh, hearing of justification by faith, so often strikes, as it were, against so many stumbling-stones.

Let us, however, go on in our course; nor should Christ be suppressed because He is to many a stone of offense and a rock of stumbling, for as He is for ruin to the ungodly, so He is to the godly for a resurrection. We should, at the same time, always seek to counter unreasonable questions, so that the Christian faith does not appear to contain anything absurd.

The Apostle now addresses that most common objection against the preaching of divine grace, which is this— “That if it is true that the more bountifully and abundantly the grace of God will aid us, the more completely we are overwhelmed by the mass of sin, then nothing is better for us than to be sunk into the depths of sin and often to provoke God’s wrath with new offenses; for then at last we will find more abounding grace; than which nothing better can be desired.” We will encounter the refutation of this later.

By no means. To some, the Apostle seems to have only intended to indignantly rebuke such outrageous madness; but it appears from other places that he commonly used an answer of this kind, even while engaging in a long argument, as indeed he does here, for he proceeds carefully to disprove the alleged slander. He, however, first rejects it with an indignant negative, in order to impress upon his readers that nothing can be more inconsistent than that the grace of Christ, the restorer of our righteousness, should nourish our vices.

Who have died to sin, etc. This is an argument derived from an opposing principle: “He who sins certainly lives to sin; we have died to sin through the grace of Christ; therefore, it is false that what abolishes sin gives strength to it.” The truth of the matter is this: the faithful are never reconciled to God without the gift of regeneration; indeed, we are justified to this end—that we may afterward serve God in holiness of life.

Indeed, Christ does not cleanse us by His blood, nor make God propitious to us by His expiation, in any other way than by making us sharers in His Spirit, who renews us to a holy life. It would then be a most strange inversion of God’s work if sin were to gather strength because of the grace offered to us in Christ; for medicine does not feed the disease it destroys.

We must further bear in mind what I have already mentioned—that Paul does not state here what God finds us to be when He calls us to a union with His Son, but what we ought to be after He has had mercy on us and has freely adopted us. For by an adverb denoting the future, he shows what kind of change should follow righteousness.

Know ye not, etc. What he intimated in the last verse—that Christ destroys sin in his people—he proves here by mentioning the effect of baptism, by which we are initiated into his faith. For it is beyond any question that we put on Christ in baptism, and that we are baptized for this purpose—that we may be one with him.

But Paul takes up another principle—that we are then truly united to the body of Christ when his death brings forth its fruit in us. Indeed, he teaches us that this sharing in his death is what is to be mainly regarded in baptism, for not washing alone is set forth in it, but also the putting to death and the dying of the old man.

Therefore, it is evident that when we become partakers of the grace of Christ, the efficacy of his death immediately appears. But the benefit of this sharing in the death of Christ is described in what follows.

We have then been buried with him, etc. He now begins to indicate the object of our having been baptized into the death of Christ, though he does not yet completely unfold it; and the object is: that we, being dead to ourselves, may become new creatures. He rightly makes a transition from a fellowship in death to a fellowship in life, for these two things are connected by an indissoluble knot: that the old man is destroyed by the death of Christ, and that His resurrection brings righteousness and makes us new creatures. And surely, since Christ has been given to us for life, what is the purpose of our dying with Him, except that we may rise to a better life? Therefore, He slays what is mortal in us for no other reason than that He may give us life again.

Let us understand that the Apostle does not simply exhort us to imitate Christ, as if he had said that the death of Christ is a pattern all Christians are to follow. For he undoubtedly ascends higher, as he announces a doctrine with which he evidently connects an exhortation. His doctrine is this: that the death of Christ is efficacious to destroy and demolish the depravity of our flesh, and His resurrection to effect the renovation of a better nature, and that by baptism we are admitted into a participation in this grace.

With this foundation laid, Christians may very suitably be exhorted to strive to respond to their calling. Furthermore, it is not to the point to say that this power is not apparent in all the baptized. For Paul, according to his usual manner when he speaks of the faithful, connects the reality and the effect with the outward sign; for we know that whatever the Lord offers by the visible symbol is confirmed and ratified by their faith. In short, he teaches what is the real character of baptism when rightly received. So he testifies to the Galatians that all who have been baptized into Christ, have put on Christ (Galatians 3:27). Indeed, this is how we must speak, as long as the institution of the Lord and the faith of the godly unite; for we never have naked and empty symbols, except when our ingratitude and wickedness hinder the working of divine beneficence.

By the glory of the Father, that is, by that illustrious power by which He exhibited Himself as truly glorious and, as it were, manifested the greatness of His glory. Thus, the power of God, which was exercised in the resurrection of Christ, is often set forth in Scripture in sublime terms, and not without reason. For it is of great importance that, by such an explicit record of the ineffable power of God, not only faith in the last resurrection (which far exceeds the perception of the flesh) but also faith concerning other benefits we receive from the resurrection of Christ, should be highly commended to us.

For if we have been ingrafted, etc. He strengthens in plainer words the argument he has already stated. The analogy he mentions now leaves nothing doubtful, since grafting signifies not only a correspondence of example but also a secret union by which we are joined to him. Consequently, reviving us by his Spirit, he transfers his own power to us.

Therefore, just as the graft shares the same life or death with the tree into which it is ingrafted, so it is reasonable that we should be partakers of Christ's life no less than of his death. For if we are ingrafted according to the likeness of Christ’s death, which was not without a resurrection, then our death will not be without a resurrection.

However, the words allow for a twofold explanation: either that we are ingrafted in Christ into the likeness of his death, or that we are simply ingrafted in its likeness. The first reading would require the Greek dative ὁμοιώματι to be understood as indicating the manner. I do not deny that it has a fuller meaning, but as the other harmonizes more with simplicity of expression, I have preferred it, though it matters little, as both interpretations lead to the same meaning.

Chrysostom thought that Paul used the expression likeness of death for death itself, just as he says in another place, being made in the likeness of men. But it seems to me that there is something more significant in the expression. It not only serves to suggest a resurrection, but it also seems to indicate this: we do not die a natural death as Christ did, but there is a similarity between our death and his. For as he, by death, died in the flesh, which he had assumed from us, so we also die in ourselves, that we may live in him. It is not, then, the same death, but a similar one; for we are to notice the connection between the death of our present life and spiritual renewal.

Ingrafted, etc. There is great force in this word, and it clearly shows that the Apostle does not exhort, but rather teaches us what benefit we derive from Christ. For he requires nothing from us that is to be done by our own attention and diligence, but speaks of the grafting made by the hand of God.

However, there is no reason why you should seek to apply the metaphor or comparison in every particular. For between the grafting of trees and this spiritual grafting, a disparity will soon become apparent. In the former, the graft draws its nourishment from the root but retains its own nature in the fruit. But in the latter, not only do we derive the vigor and nourishment of life from Christ, but we also pass from our own nature to his.

The Apostle, however, meant to express nothing else but the efficacy of Christ's death, which manifests itself in putting our flesh to death, and also the efficacy of his resurrection, in renewing a spiritual nature within us.