Romans 6:5

“ For if we have become one and the same plant [with Him] through the likeness of His death, we shall be also partakers of His resurrection; ”

The apostle had used the rite of baptism to illustrate the impossibility experienced by the believer of continuing in his former life. Now he expounds the same truth didactically. The in order that of Romans 6:4 becomes as it were the text of this development (Romans 6:5-11), of which Romans 6:5 contains the summary.

The for bears directly on this in order that. The idea of Romans 6:4 was: “We were buried by baptism only with the intention of rising again.” This intention is demonstrated by the moral fact formulated Romans 6:5: “The man who participates in the death of Christ cannot but participate in His resurrection.” There is much said in a certain theological school about the possession of the life of Christ. This vague phrase seems intended to take the place of all Christian doctrine. Does it really mean what St. Paul understood by it? I do not examine the subject here. But in any case it should not be forgotten, as is usually done from this view-point, that the participation in the life of Christ of which the apostle speaks, has as its necessary and preliminary condition, participation in His death. The docile acceptance of the cross is the only pathway to communion in the life of the Risen One. Forgetfulness of this point of departure is full of grave consequences. For the second fact has no reality save in connection with the first.

The construction of each of the two propositions of this verse has been understood in a variety of ways. Bisping has proposed to make τοῦ θανάτου, of death, the complement not of τῷ ὁμοιώματι (the likeness), but of σύμφυτοι (partakers), while taking τῷ ὁμοιώματι as an adverbial clause, meant to indicate the means or mode of this participation: “If we were made partakers of His death in a likeness; ” this notion of resemblance being applied either to the figurative rite of baptism, or to the internal fact of death to sin, which would thus be as it were the moral copy of Christ's death. This construction would enable us to establish an exact parallelism between the two propositions of the verse, for the genitive τῆς ἀναστάσεως (of the resurrection) in the second proposition would depend on σύμφυτοι (partakers), exactly as τοῦ θανάτου (of death) in the first on this same adjective. But one cannot help feeling how harsh and almost barbarous this construction is. Besides, it is now abandoned. The complement of death depends naturally on τῷ ὁμοιώματι, the likeness, as has been acknowledged by Chrys., Calv., Thol., Rück., Olsh., de Wette, Mey., Philip., Hofm. By this likeness may be understood either the external act of baptism, as representing figuratively the death of Christ, or our own death to sin as spiritually reproducing it. But whether in the one sense or the other, it is surely uncouth to connect so concrete a term as σύμφυτος, born with, partaking, with an abstract notion such as likeness. One is made a partaker not of the likeness of a thing, but of the thing itself. Besides, baptism is not the representation of death, but of burial (see above). It therefore appears to us, that the only admissible construction is to join the adjective σύμφυτοι with the understood regimen σὺν αὐτῷ, with Him; “ born with Him, united to Him, by the likeness of His death.” This is the opinion of Er., Grot., and others. The ellipsis of this pronoun arises naturally from the preceding phrase: we were buried with Him, Romans 6:4; it reappears obviously in Romans 6:6 (συνεσταυρώθη, was crucified with). The expression: through the likeness of His death, refers, according to what precedes, to the inner fact by which the death of Christ for sin is reproduced in us, that is to say, to our own death to sin implied in the act of faith.

The term σύμφυτος (in classic Greek more commonly συμφυής) is derived from the verb συμφύω, to be born, to grow together. This adjective, therefore, denotes the organic union in virtue of which one being shares the life, growth, and phases of existence belonging to another; so it is that the existence, prosperity, and decay of the branch are bound up with the state of the stem. Hence we have ventured to translate it: to be made one and the same plant with Him. Not a case of death to sin passes in the church which was not already included in the death of Christ, to be produced wherever faith should be realized; not a spiritual resurrection is effected within the church, which is not Christ's own resurrection reproduced by His Spirit in the heart which has begun by uniting itself to Him in the communion of His death.

It must, however, be remarked (and we shall meet with this characteristic again in the sequel of the passage) that the fact of participation in the death is put in the past (we have become one and the same plant...), while participation in the resurrection is expressed in the future: we shall be partakers...Some of the Fathers have concluded from this change of tense, that in the latter words the apostle meant to speak of the future resurrection, of the bodily glorification of believers. But this idea is foreign to the context, which is governed throughout by reference to the objection of Romans 6:1 (the relation of the believer to sin). The expression, therefore, denotes only sanctification, the believer's moral resurrection. The contrast indicated between the past and the future must find an entirely different explanation. As the communion of faith with Christ crucified is the condition of sharing in His life as risen, the apostle speaks of the first event in the past, and of the second in the future. The one having taken place, the other must follow. The past and future describe, the one the principle, the other the consequence. We begin with union to the person of Christ by faith in that mysterious: He for me, which forms the substance of the gospel; then this union goes forward until His whole being as the Risen One has passed into us. Gess makes τῷ ὁμοιώματι a dative of aim: “We have been united to Him in order to the likeness of His death,” to be made conformable to it (Php 3:10). But this meaning does not harmonize with Romans 6:2, where the reproduction of the death is looked upon as wrought in the believer by the fact of his death to sin implied in his faith.

The words ἀλλὰ καί, which connect the two propositions of the verse, might here be rendered: well then also! The second fact stands out as the joyous consequence of the first.

The genitive τῆς ἀναστάσεως, of the resurrection, cannot depend on the verb ἐσόμεθα, we shall be: “we shall be of the resurrection,” meaning: we shall infallibly have part in it (in the sense of the expressions: to be of the faith, to be of the law). Such a mode of speech would be without ground in the passage; and the term resurrection is not taken here in the general sense; it refers solely to Christ's personal resurrection. Meyer and Philippi, true to their explanation of the first proposition, here supply the dative τῷ ὁμοιώματι : “As we have shared in the likeness of His death, we shall share also in the likeness of His resurrection.” This ellipsis is not impossible, but it renders the phrase very awkward. Following the construction which we have adopted in the first clause, it is simpler merely to understand σύμφυτοι in this second, making the genitive τῆς ἀναστάσεως, of the resurrection, dependent on this adjective: “Well, then, we shall be partakers also of His resurrection!” This solution is possible, because the word σύμφυτος is construed indifferently with the genitive or dative, like our English word to partake (to partake of or in). This direct dependence (omitting the idea of likeness) is according to the nature of things. Jesus does not communicate to us His death itself; we possess only its likeness in our death to sin. It is otherwise with His resurrection and His life as risen. It is this life itself which he conveys to us: “And I live; yet not I, but Christ in me” (Galatians 2:20). “Because I live, ye shall live also” (John 14:18). The believer being once ingrafted into Christ by faith in His death, and thereby dead to His own life, lives again through the Holy Spirit on the very life of the risen Christ. Thus the difference of form between the first and second propositions is perfectly explained.

This summary demonstration of the truth of the in order that (Romans 6:4) required to be developed. Romans 6:6-7 expound the contents of 5a; Romans 6:8-10 those of 5b.