Romans 6:2

we, that are dead, &c. More lit. and fully, we, as those who died to sin. The reference is again to a single past act; the death of the Second Adam, at whichHis brethren too, regarded as "in Him," "died to sin." See last note on ch. Romans 5:12.

dead to sin See below, Romans 6:10: "He died to sin, once and for ever." It appears then that our"death to sin" (in Christ) must be explained by what Hisdeath to it was. And His was a death such as to free Him not from its impulses(for He was essentially free from them) but from its claim, its penalty, endured for us by Him. His death once over, the claim of sin was cancelled [36]. Therefore, for those who "died in Him," it was cancelled likewise. The phrase thus has, in the strict sense of it, not a moral but a legal reference. But the transition to a moral reference is inevitable when the Redeemer's Death is seen to be the act which exhausted the claim: in that death we see not only the strength of the claim, but the malignity of the claimant.

[36] Sin here, obviously, is used as a practical synonym for the broken Law; but so that its proper meaning is ready at once to reappear. Properly, sin's only "claim" is to be itself put down;but by a natural modification it appears as that which exacts the punishment of the sinner.

live any longer therein "Live" is emphatic, in contrast to "dead." St Paul puts it as inconceivable that the soul which is so freed from such claimcan endure, after its death in Christ to sin, (or, in other words, after His death to sin for it,) to yield its faculties as before to sin's influence. Strictly, deathand lifeare used here in different respects; death in a legal respect, life in a moral; but see last note for the reconcilement of the seeming inconsistency. "Therein:" surrounded by it, as the body by the air it breathes; in vital connexion.