Romans 6:10

The first proposition of Romans 6:10 unfolds the reason why death was allowed to reign over Him for a moment; the second explains the reason why this cannot be repeated.

The two pronouns ὅ, that which, may be taken either as a determining expression: in that so far as, or as the direct object of the two verbs: that which He died, that which he lived. For in Greek it is allowable to say: to die a death, to live a life; comp. Galatians 2:20. This parallel and the sense itself appears to us to decide in favor of the second construction. The first would seem to indicate a power of partial rather than temporary death, which is not natural in the context.

The short-lived power of death over Jesus is explained by the regimen τῇ ἁμαρτιᾳ, to sin. The relation which Jesus sustained to sin was the soul cause of His subjection to death. As in this piece death unto sin denotes an absolute breaking with it (Romans 6:2), it might be attempted here to give the meaning: Jesus struggled victoriously against sin during His whole life, not granting it for a moment the right of existing in His person. But the adverb ἐφάπαξ, once, forbids us to extend the application of the term dying unto sin to His whole life. Besides, the commentators who, like Meyer and Hofmann, adopt this meaning, limit the expression to the moment of death: with the end of His life His struggle with sin ended; from that moment sin (in the form of temptation) exercised no more power over His person. This meaning would certainly account to some extent for the ἐφάπαξ, once. But it forces us to take the word die in two wholly different senses in the same sentence, and it is not easy to get a clear idea of this dying unto sin ascribed to Jesus. Does it refer to his struggle against temptation? The phrase dying unto sin is unsuitable. One dies to a real, not a possible fact. Are we to think of the struggle against sin outside of Him? But this struggle continues to this very hour. Is it a personal breaking with evil which is meant? He did nothing else during His whole life. The only possible meaning, therefore, seems to me to be that adopted by Grot. and Olsh.: He died to expiate sin, a sense connected quite naturally with that given by Chrys., Calv., etc.: and to destroy it. There was a moment in His existence in which He bore its penalty, and thereby established its defeat. But this moment was short, and remains single and alone. Such is the force of the term ἐφάπαξ, once for all. It was a transient necessity which He consented to encounter; but such a crisis will not be renewed. The debt once paid is so completely and forever; comp. Hebrews 7:27; Hebrews 9:12; Hebrews 9:26; Hebrews 9:28; Hebrews 10:10; 1 Peter 3:18. The dative τῇ ἁμαρτίᾳ, unto sin, thus signifies: unto the service of sin, that is to say, to accomplish all that was demanded by the entrance and destruction of this fact among mankind. It is obvious from the once for all that the death of Jesus occupies a place by itself in His work, and should not be regarded merely as the culminating point of His holy life.

This crisis once past, Jesus no longer owes anything to sin, and His life may manifest itself without hindrance as an instrument of the life of God.

To live to God, is to live solely to manifest and serve Him, without having to submit any more to certain obligations imposed by a contrary principle. The meaning of this expression is, as Meyer says, exclusive: to God only. The glorified Jesus lives and acts for no other object than to manifest in the heart of men by the Holy Spirit the life of God which has become His life, life eternal; comp. John 17:2: “As Thou hast given me power over all flesh, that I should give eternal life to as many as Thou hast given me.” Thus it is that He serves and glorifies God.

As Christ, then, once entered upon this life and glorious activity, does not depart from it to return back again, so the believer, once dead to sin and alive to God in Christ, cannot return to his old life of sin. Romans 6:11 explicitly draws this conclusion, held in suspense since Romans 6:8, and prepared for in Romans 6:9-10.