Romans, Chapter 6
Commentary
6:1-One of the most valuable techniques for understanding scripture is a practice called "mirror reading." When the narrator seems to respond to an objection or a criticism, you can use that response to speculate what the objection might have been, and who might have made it. Here, where Paul explicitly anticipates the coming objection, it is not difficult to guess where it originated. Believers who kept the law, in the face of the freedom of the Gospel, likely responded using a slippery-slope argument. "If sin shows God's grace, maybe we should sin constantly." But Paul maneuvers around this objection.
6:2-His rebuttal is that we have been joined with Christ in death-death to sin. Just as a dead person may not respond to stimuli, so a person dead to sin may not respond to temptation. Calvin puts it succinctly-Christ puts sin to death. So the grace of Christ may not be an opportunity for sin to be made alive.
6:3-4-The origins of baptism are shrouded in mystery. It may have developed out of the Jewish Tevilah (ritual washing) which was done for purification from sin. John the Baptist practiced the behavior prior to Christ, but he does not seem to have been its originator. When John offered baptism, it clearly seemed to indicate a break with your sins, and a path to escape the wrath of God. The metaphorical connection with death and resurrection is a Christian addition, though not one clearly outlined in the scriptures themselves. Scripture never records Jesus baptizing anyone, and the incidents where Christian baptism are described lack much detail about liturgy and significance. But in the Didache (Greek: "Teaching") a Christian manual for new believers written around the same time as Revelation, the author specifies that new believers are to be immersed in cold water and to fast prior to baptism (Didache 7:2,4), presumably to connect the event with death through the cold, the submersion, and denying the physical body nourishment. Paul's argument is simple: Just as death is "the end of human possibility," including possibility to sin (Karl Barth), so this spiritual death marks the end of sin. But the same resurrection that awaited Jesus waits for the baptized, with a similar promise of new life.
6:5-This may be an allusion to martyrdom or persecution, or merely a continuation of the spiritual connection between Jesus and his followers. As Calvin writes, just as our sins were mysteriously transferred to Christ in his death, so "reviving us by his Spirit, Christ transfers his own virtue to us."
6:6-8-Here, the theme of bondage and freedom is again in full view. No one can serve two masters (Matthew 6:24), one can either be a slave of Christ (Romans 1:1) or a slave of sin and death. Just as death eliminates choice and decision, so, in life, bondage-to righteousness and God-keeps a person's will focused on obeying the teachings of Christ. Death, which was previously bondage, has now become freedom through the power of the resurrection.
6:9-"Just as people are destined to die once, and after that to face judgment, so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him (Hebrews 9:27-28)." Atonement and Justification is completed only one time. This is why most protestant Christians do not use Crucifixes in worship or devotion-because for Christ, the sacrifice for the unglodly has been completed, and is past.
6:10-11-Christ now reigns forever with God. His death for sin occurred once for all who believe. But good and evil are not Yin and Yang, they are not equal opposites. Good is far greater than evil, because God is good, and evil is only the absence of God. So the life that Christ lives is much greater than the death he died, and, for those who believe in Christ, our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us (Romans 8:18). So we are completely cut off from sin and death, and completely possessed by The Life Himself.
6:12-While it is one thing to say, conceptually, that we have died to sin, it is quite another to actually be dead-that is, insensible and unavailable, to sinful actions and desires. Here, Paul trades on the ancient idea, alien to Judaism but likely familiar to the Romans, that the fleshly and material world was inferior and at odds with the higher, spiritual world. While not theologically correct, describing things like greed and lust as physical passions gets Paul's point across without surrendering anything true about the nature of God's creation.
6:13- The Greek word for "present" (παρίστημι, pronounced "par-is-tay-me") is related to the Greek word for making something "stand or stand up" (ἵστημι, pronounced "his-tay-me") and, resurrection, (ἀνάστασις, pronounced "an-ah-stah-sis," which is the root of the name Anastasia, and literally means "to make someone stand up again"). "Present" (paristayme) means to make something stand up, or stand on its own (and it is because of this literal meaning that it is sometimes translated as "prove" rather than "present." Just as death laid down the savior in the ground, so God made him "stand again" (the literal meaning of resurrection). In response we sinners, who have been made dead to sin, should rise up again, and stand by the one who made us able to stand, that is, the Lord who raised Jesus Christ from the dead.
Stand with the one who raised you, not with the evil that destroyed you. Paul has already talked about humans, and Christ, being handed over or given over, but now the choice is up to the believer-we have the choice to sin or to be righteous. Compare Paul's words here to Jesus' words: "Very truly I tell you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life." John 5:24
6:14-Sin's control and domination over us is a fabrication and a sham. We are freed by the power of Christ to love and serve the Lord forever. No matter how strong the compulsion to sin feels, Christ has set us free.
6:15-Paul returns to the theme of the chapter: Grace means mercy for sin, not freedom to sin.
6:16-Paul here explicitly talks about dominion or ownership of God or of Sin. Notice how the devil is not mentioned here. Often, the Devil is cast as a sort of anti-God, but the Devil is a fallen creature, just like sinful humans. He does not cause our sins, rather, sin has caused his state, and our own. Again, compare this to the "two ways" in the Didache, the way of life and the way of death.
6:17-18-The importance of teaching is mentioned here. Just as slaves must be obedient to their master's will, Christians must obey the teaching we have received from Jesus Christ by keeping those words close to our hearts. Imagine being owned and directed by righteousness. What possibilities does it open up? How would your life be different, if your whole purpose was righteousness? Paul dares to make us contemplate what might happened if we wholly obeyed God.
6:19- Compare 1st Corinthians 2:13, "This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual realities with Spirit-taught words" for an understanding of what Paul might mean here by "a human way." Perhaps here Paul offers justification for using the troubling analogy of slavery to express the ideas in this chapter; many of the early Christians were slaves. Christians are to be turned over for sanctification, the continual process where the Holy Spirit works within us to make us more like Christ.
6:20-To be "free from righteousness," means that we did not have the possibility of being righteous, not that we could decide to be righteous or not, as it seems to say in some translations. The NIV makes Paul's intent clear.
6:21-Many sins carry not only spiritual repercussions, but worldly ones as well. The end of these things is death, both literal and spiritual.
6:22-Eternal life is the goal of sanctification, the reward of faith.
6:23-"For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. " This is an excellent verse for all Christians to meditate on or know. Sin "pays," but its wages are terrible and brutal. This is a rare case where not getting what you pay for is a very good thing-The free gift is far better than the one we have earned. Christians should remember that we have not gotten what we deserved, and that is a wonderful thing.
Our eternal life is rooted in Jesus' eternal life. There is no other way to salvation than in and through Christ.
Next: Romans, Chapter 7
Previous: Romans, Chapter 5
Back to the Centennial Scripture Challenge
6:1-One of the most valuable techniques for understanding scripture is a practice called "mirror reading." When the narrator seems to respond to an objection or a criticism, you can use that response to speculate what the objection might have been, and who might have made it. Here, where Paul explicitly anticipates the coming objection, it is not difficult to guess where it originated. Believers who kept the law, in the face of the freedom of the Gospel, likely responded using a slippery-slope argument. "If sin shows God's grace, maybe we should sin constantly." But Paul maneuvers around this objection.
6:2-His rebuttal is that we have been joined with Christ in death-death to sin. Just as a dead person may not respond to stimuli, so a person dead to sin may not respond to temptation. Calvin puts it succinctly-Christ puts sin to death. So the grace of Christ may not be an opportunity for sin to be made alive.
6:3-4-The origins of baptism are shrouded in mystery. It may have developed out of the Jewish Tevilah (ritual washing) which was done for purification from sin. John the Baptist practiced the behavior prior to Christ, but he does not seem to have been its originator. When John offered baptism, it clearly seemed to indicate a break with your sins, and a path to escape the wrath of God. The metaphorical connection with death and resurrection is a Christian addition, though not one clearly outlined in the scriptures themselves. Scripture never records Jesus baptizing anyone, and the incidents where Christian baptism are described lack much detail about liturgy and significance. But in the Didache (Greek: "Teaching") a Christian manual for new believers written around the same time as Revelation, the author specifies that new believers are to be immersed in cold water and to fast prior to baptism (Didache 7:2,4), presumably to connect the event with death through the cold, the submersion, and denying the physical body nourishment. Paul's argument is simple: Just as death is "the end of human possibility," including possibility to sin (Karl Barth), so this spiritual death marks the end of sin. But the same resurrection that awaited Jesus waits for the baptized, with a similar promise of new life.
6:5-This may be an allusion to martyrdom or persecution, or merely a continuation of the spiritual connection between Jesus and his followers. As Calvin writes, just as our sins were mysteriously transferred to Christ in his death, so "reviving us by his Spirit, Christ transfers his own virtue to us."
6:6-8-Here, the theme of bondage and freedom is again in full view. No one can serve two masters (Matthew 6:24), one can either be a slave of Christ (Romans 1:1) or a slave of sin and death. Just as death eliminates choice and decision, so, in life, bondage-to righteousness and God-keeps a person's will focused on obeying the teachings of Christ. Death, which was previously bondage, has now become freedom through the power of the resurrection.
6:9-"Just as people are destined to die once, and after that to face judgment, so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him (Hebrews 9:27-28)." Atonement and Justification is completed only one time. This is why most protestant Christians do not use Crucifixes in worship or devotion-because for Christ, the sacrifice for the unglodly has been completed, and is past.
6:10-11-Christ now reigns forever with God. His death for sin occurred once for all who believe. But good and evil are not Yin and Yang, they are not equal opposites. Good is far greater than evil, because God is good, and evil is only the absence of God. So the life that Christ lives is much greater than the death he died, and, for those who believe in Christ, our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us (Romans 8:18). So we are completely cut off from sin and death, and completely possessed by The Life Himself.
6:12-While it is one thing to say, conceptually, that we have died to sin, it is quite another to actually be dead-that is, insensible and unavailable, to sinful actions and desires. Here, Paul trades on the ancient idea, alien to Judaism but likely familiar to the Romans, that the fleshly and material world was inferior and at odds with the higher, spiritual world. While not theologically correct, describing things like greed and lust as physical passions gets Paul's point across without surrendering anything true about the nature of God's creation.
6:13- The Greek word for "present" (παρίστημι, pronounced "par-is-tay-me") is related to the Greek word for making something "stand or stand up" (ἵστημι, pronounced "his-tay-me") and, resurrection, (ἀνάστασις, pronounced "an-ah-stah-sis," which is the root of the name Anastasia, and literally means "to make someone stand up again"). "Present" (paristayme) means to make something stand up, or stand on its own (and it is because of this literal meaning that it is sometimes translated as "prove" rather than "present." Just as death laid down the savior in the ground, so God made him "stand again" (the literal meaning of resurrection). In response we sinners, who have been made dead to sin, should rise up again, and stand by the one who made us able to stand, that is, the Lord who raised Jesus Christ from the dead.
Stand with the one who raised you, not with the evil that destroyed you. Paul has already talked about humans, and Christ, being handed over or given over, but now the choice is up to the believer-we have the choice to sin or to be righteous. Compare Paul's words here to Jesus' words: "Very truly I tell you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life." John 5:24
6:14-Sin's control and domination over us is a fabrication and a sham. We are freed by the power of Christ to love and serve the Lord forever. No matter how strong the compulsion to sin feels, Christ has set us free.
6:15-Paul returns to the theme of the chapter: Grace means mercy for sin, not freedom to sin.
6:16-Paul here explicitly talks about dominion or ownership of God or of Sin. Notice how the devil is not mentioned here. Often, the Devil is cast as a sort of anti-God, but the Devil is a fallen creature, just like sinful humans. He does not cause our sins, rather, sin has caused his state, and our own. Again, compare this to the "two ways" in the Didache, the way of life and the way of death.
6:17-18-The importance of teaching is mentioned here. Just as slaves must be obedient to their master's will, Christians must obey the teaching we have received from Jesus Christ by keeping those words close to our hearts. Imagine being owned and directed by righteousness. What possibilities does it open up? How would your life be different, if your whole purpose was righteousness? Paul dares to make us contemplate what might happened if we wholly obeyed God.
6:19- Compare 1st Corinthians 2:13, "This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual realities with Spirit-taught words" for an understanding of what Paul might mean here by "a human way." Perhaps here Paul offers justification for using the troubling analogy of slavery to express the ideas in this chapter; many of the early Christians were slaves. Christians are to be turned over for sanctification, the continual process where the Holy Spirit works within us to make us more like Christ.
6:20-To be "free from righteousness," means that we did not have the possibility of being righteous, not that we could decide to be righteous or not, as it seems to say in some translations. The NIV makes Paul's intent clear.
6:21-Many sins carry not only spiritual repercussions, but worldly ones as well. The end of these things is death, both literal and spiritual.
6:22-Eternal life is the goal of sanctification, the reward of faith.
6:23-"For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. " This is an excellent verse for all Christians to meditate on or know. Sin "pays," but its wages are terrible and brutal. This is a rare case where not getting what you pay for is a very good thing-The free gift is far better than the one we have earned. Christians should remember that we have not gotten what we deserved, and that is a wonderful thing.
Our eternal life is rooted in Jesus' eternal life. There is no other way to salvation than in and through Christ.
Next: Romans, Chapter 7
Previous: Romans, Chapter 5
Back to the Centennial Scripture Challenge