Romans 6:2

“ Let it not be so! We who are dead to sin, how shall we live any longer therein? ”

Just as a dead man does not revive and resume his former occupations, as little can the believer return to his old life of sin; for in his case also there has been a death.

The phrase μὴ γένοιτο, let it not be so! expresses the revolting character of the rejected assertion, as well as a conviction of its falsehood.

The pronoun οἵτινες is the relative of quality: people such as we. We have a quality which excludes such a calculation: that of beings who have passed through death. To what fact does the phrase relate: we are dead, literally, we have died? It is obvious at a glance that there can be no reference here to the condemnation which came upon us in Adam (“dead through sin”). It is difficult to understand how the Swiss version could have committed such an error. All that follows (the being buried with Christ, Romans 6:3; participation in His death and resurrection with Him, Romans 6:4-8; and especially the expression: dead unto sin, alive unto God, Romans 6:11) leaves no doubt as to the apostle's thought. The clause τῇ ἁμαρτίᾳ, to sin, is the dative of relation; comp. the expressions: to die to the law, Romans 7:4; Galatians 2:19; to be crucified to the world, Galatians 6:14. The words therefore denote the absolute breaking with sin. It is the opposite of persevering in sin, Romans 6:1.

This figure of dying is generally applied to baptism. But we shall see that baptism is the consequence of the death spoken of by Paul in Romans 6:2, not that death itself. What proves it, is first the οὖν, therefore, of Romans 6:4, then the ἐθανατώθητε, ye were put to death, Romans 7:4 an expression which, accompanied with the words: through the body of Christ, sets aside every attempt to identify the death undergone by believers with their baptism. The fact in the mind of the apostle is of a purely moral nature. It is the appropriation of our Lord's expiatory death. The sentence of death with which God visited the sin of the world in Christ is reproduced in the conscience of every sinner. The instant he applies the expiation to himself, it becomes in him the sentence of death on his own sin. He could not appropriate Christ to himself as dead for his sin, without finding himself die, through this death undergone for him, to sin itself. It was under this impression that the believing Bechuana exclaimed: “The cross of Christ condemns me to be holy.”

The righteousness of God, in pronouncing this sentence of death on the sin of the world, the consciousness of Jesus in accepting and submitting to this sentence in the tortures of the cross and the agonies of His abandonment by God, and in ratifying it with a humble submission in the name of humanity which He represented, have thus smitten sin in the consciousness of every believer with a mortal blow. Such is the unparalleled moral fact which has put an end to the former life of the world in general, and which puts an end to the life of sin in every individual believer. And this result is so thoroughly implied in that of justifying faith, that Paul appeals to it in our passage as a fact already known by his readers (comp. chaps. 1-5), and understood as a matter of course.

On the meaning of the expression: To die unto sin.

We find ourselves here met by four interpretations, which seem to us more or less false, and which it is well to set aside.

1. Many find in this and the relative expressions in the following verses nothing more than simple figures, metaphors signifying merely the duty of imitating the example of virtue which Christ has left us. Even Ritschl declares (II. p. 225) that “this reasoning of the apostle makes rather too strong an appeal to the powers of imagination.” But we think we have just demonstrated the grave moral reality of the relation by which Christ brings the believer into the fellowship of His death. We shall see immediately the not less grave reality of the relation through which He communicates to him His own heavenly life, and thus makes him a risen one. The death and resurrection of Jesus are metaphors, not of rhetoric, but of action; it is divine eloquence.

2. R. Schmidt regards the death to sin of which Paul speaks as of a purely ideal nature, and as exercising no immediate influence whatever on the moral state of believers. The apostle simply means, according to him, that to the divine mind they appear as dead in Christ. He would have it that participation in the life of the Risen One is the only real fact, according to the apostle. But we do not find Paul making such a distinction in the sequel. He regards participation in the death of Christ as being as real, and even more so (for he puts it in the past. Romans 6:4; Romans 6:6; Romans 6:8); and fellowship in His life, which is represented as a future to be realized (Romans 6:4; Romans 6:8); and in Romans 6:11 he puts the two facts exactly on the same footing.

3. Death to sin is regarded by most commentators as expressing figuratively the act of will by which the believer undertakes for himself, and promises to God, on the blood of reconciliation, henceforth to renounce evil. This would make it an inward resolution, a voluntary engagement, a consecration of the heart. But St. Paul seems to speak of something more profound and stable, “which not only ought to be, but which is ” (as Gess says). This appears clearly from the passive form: ye have been put to death, Romans 7:4; this expression proves that Paul is thinking above all of a divine act which has passed on us in the person of another (by the body of Christ), but which has its counterpart within us from the moment we appropriate it by faith. It is not, then, an act merely which is in question, but a state of will determined by a fact performed without us, a state from which our will cannot withdraw itself from the time that our being is swayed by the power of faith in the death of Christ for us.

4. It was attempted, in the religious movement which stirred the church so deeply a few years ago, to represent the effect produced on the believer by the death of Christ as a fact achieved in us once for all, existing in us henceforth after the manner almost of a physical state, and as outside of the will itself. From this point of view men spoke daringly of a death of sin, as if this were identical with Paul's expression: death to sin. We appreciate the intention of those who promoted this style of teaching; their wish was to bring back the church to the true source and the full reality of Christian sanctification. But they committed, if we mistake not, a grave and dangerous exaggeration. This mirage of an absolute deliverance, which had been reflected on the eyes of so many souls thirsting for holiness, soon vanishing before the touch of experience, left in them a painful disappointment and even a sort of despair. The death to sin of which the apostle speaks is a state no doubt, but a state of the will, which continues only so long as it keeps itself under the control of the fact which produced it, and produces it constantly the death of Jesus. As at every moment Jesus could have withdrawn Himself from death by an act of His own will (Matthew 26:53), so the believer may at any moment free his will from the power of faith, and take up the thread of that natural life which is never completely destroyed in him.

If it were otherwise, if ever the believer could enter into the sphere of absolute holiness, a new fall, like that of Adam, would be needed to remove him from it. If ever sin were entirely extirpated from his heart, its reappearance would be something like the resurrection of a dead man. At what point, besides, of the Christian life would such a moral event be placed? At the time of conversion? The experience of all believers proves the contrary. At some later period? The New Testament teaches us nothing of the kind. There is found in it no particular name for a second transformation, that of the convert into a perfect saint.

We conclude by saying that death to sin is not an absolute cessation of sin at any moment whatever, but an absolute breaking of the will with it, with its instincts and aspirations, and that simply under the control of faith in Christ's death for sin.

The practical application of the apostle's doctrine regarding this mysterious death, which is at the foundation of Christian sanctification, seems to me to be this: The Christian's breaking with sin is undoubtedly gradual in its realization, but absolute and conclusive in its principle. As, in order to break really with an old friend whose evil influence is felt, half measures are insufficient, and the only efficacious means is a frank explanation, followed by a complete rupture which remains like a barrier raised beforehand against every new solicitation; so to break with sin there is needed a decisive and radical act, a divine deed taking possession of the soul, and interposing henceforth between the will of the believer and sin (Galatians 6:14). This divine deed necessarily works through the action of faith in the sacrifice of Christ.