Romans 6
ROMANS 6
LIFE IN CHRIST AND THE SPIRIT (5:12—8:39), cont.
Dead to Sin, Alive in Christ (6:1–11)
As Paul in 5:1–11 applied to believers’ lives insights gleaned from Abraham’s example in ch. 4, so in 6:1–11 Paul applies insights gleaned from the contrast with Adam in 5:12–21. Paul’s detractors, who believe that Gentiles should keep the law, consider him antinomian (3:8; Acts 21:21), apparently fearing that his view of the law will generate more sin. Paul instead argues that by revealing sin law increased the level to which sin is knowing revolt against God (Rom 5:20a)—but that God provided grace more than commensurate with the sin (5:20b). Paul’s focus on grace raises the objection: is Paul saying that one should sin all the more so all the more grace may be added (6:1)? Paul retorts that the opposite is true: grace delivers not merely from punishment, but from sin’s power. It is empowering grace rather than law (as a standard), that transforms. It is thus God’s gift rather than his standard that produces genuine righteousness from the heart.
Why does Paul suddenly shift to speak of having “died” to sin in Christ (6:2–11)? He has been pointing out how Adam introduced death to humanity, whereas Christ brought life (5:12–21). Those who are in Christ share his death (6:3–4), a death justly incurred by Adamic humanity’s transgression (5:12, 15, 17, 21). But because Christ himself was righteous yet embraced Adamic flesh and death (8:3), he not only embodies death to the old way, but inaugurates a new way of righteousness and life for those united with him (5:18–19). Those who are in Christ are no longer in the sphere of Adam, hence are “dead” to their former sin (6:5–7) and even to death (6:8–10), at least in a proleptic way that will effect their resurrection someday (6:5, 8; 8:23); Christ does not need to die again (6:9–10). Thus the palaios anthrōpos, the “old person” crucified with Christ (6:6), represents who humanity was in Adam. Those who are in Christ (in whom Adamic sin and death died) should no longer identify themselves with the toxic legacy of fallen humanity, but rather with their eternal identity secured by Christ.1
Whereas all people are born in solidarity with Adam, solidarity with Christ (hence his death and resurrection) begins through baptism into him (6:3–4). Elsewhere Paul uses analogous language for baptism into Moses (1 Cor 10:2), but baptism into Christ (Gal 3:27) or his body (1 Cor 12:13) seems a more organic metaphor involving transfer of not only allegiance but identity. Gentile converts to Judaism were immersed to wash away their former Gentile impurities;2 they were being initiated into a new solidarity with the descendants of Abraham. Christians in such a context would understand baptism as an act of conversion—not that the water itself was holy or efficacious, but the act of obedience, demonstrating committed faith, offered an open demarcation of conversion. The divine side of conversion, however, initiates a new identity in the righteousness and life initiated by Christ (Rom 5:18–19), a solidarity with Christ and his body that includes sharing his death and burial to Adam as well as new life.3
“Glory” (6:4) may evoke the resurrection hope (8:18, 21, 30), a body raised in glory (1 Cor 15:40–43; Phil 3:21), resurrected by the Spirit (Rom 8:10–11; cf. 1 Cor 15:43–44). To “walk” (peripateō) in newness of life evokes especially ot and early Jewish language for how one behaves; it is identical here with walking properly (13:13), in love (14:15), and by the Spirit (8:4; Gal 5:16). God’s Spirit provides the “newness” here that the law could not provide (7:6), and this new identity and role in Christ contrasts with the old person in Adam (6:6).4 In 6:5 Paul indicates that believers live in a period of what some call “eschatological tension”: already they walk in newness, delivered from sin, but they still await the resurrection of their bodies (6:5; 8:23). As suggested in 5:12–21, once believers shared the “image” or “likeness” of Adam (cf. 1:23; 5:14; 8:3; Phil 2:7; a cognate in Gen 1:26), but now they share the likeness (homoiōma) of Jesus’s death and will also share his resurrection (Rom 6:5; cf. 1 Cor 15:49).
In 6:6, Paul introduces the slave metaphor, which he will develop in 6:12–21 (cf also 7:6, 25; 8:15).5 Both slavery and manumission (freeing slaves) were extremely common in Rome. Slavery was a common metaphor; ancient thinkers often warned against being enslaved by passions or false ideologies.6 Like manumission, death ended one’s slavery (6:6), just as divorce (literally “freeing”) or death ended one’s being bound by marriage (7:2–3).7 Sin was the source of death (5:12–21). Thus, because believers have been freed by Christ’s death from sin (6:6–7), their union with Christ, who died once and now remains alive forever, guarantees them future resurrection and eternal life (6:8–10).8
In 6:11, Paul climactically evokes his earlier arguments about righteousness. Eleven times Paul speaks of God “reckoning” righteousness to someone’s account in chapter 4. In 6:11, however, he summons believers to agree with God’s perspective; as God has “reckoned” righteousness to them, they must reckon themselves righteous. They are righteous because they are in Christ, in whom they both died to their identity as sinners in Adam and were raised to a new master, God. They must view their identity as those who have died and been raised in Christ, and hence must live accordingly. Paul is simply demanding belief congruent with the truth he has explained in 6:2–10: in Christ, believers died to the sin of Adamic humanity and have new life. If they believe this, they will “walk” (6:4) accordingly.9 If they can have faith that Jesus rose, having faith that they share this resurrection life should be a natural corollary. Some ancient commentators also recognized this approach. Origen comments, “Whoever thinks or considers that he is dead will not sin. For example, if lust for a woman gets hold of me or if greed for silver, gold or riches stirs me and I say in my heart that I have died with Christ … the lust is immediately quenched and sin disappears.”10
Scholars often find in Paul a tension between the indicative and the imperative; Paul summons them to be what he declares they are. This may be because for Paul identity is determined by being in Christ, but the believer must still choose to believe the eschatological reality sufficiently to live accordingly. Through faith one receives a new identity, and through faith one must also continue to embrace and live in that new identity, so that obedient works become expressions of living faith.11
Do Not Serve Sin (6:12–23)
Having established that in principle believers are dead to sin, their identity defined by their union and future with Christ, Paul now exhorts them to live accordingly. If they are no longer slaves to sin (6:6), then sin must no longer reign (basileuō) in them (6:12; cf. 5:14, 17, 21) or rule (kurieuō) them (6:14; cf. 6:9; 7:1; 14:9). They must be slaves who obey God and righteousness rather than sin (6:16–22).12 Jesus had preached the impending reign of God; Paul’s explanation of the new life in Christ and by the Spirit shows how he believes that God reigns in believers in the present (cf. 14:9, 17).
In 6:12 Paul warns against following the passions or illicit “desires” (cf. 1:24; 7:7–8; 13:9, 14) of the body destined for death. Whatever else “flesh” means (see the excursus after 7:14–25), it has some association with the body’s susceptibility to following its passions rather than deliberate submission to Christ. Bodily members can be used for evil (1:24; 6:6; 7:24; 8:10, 13), but they can also be presented to God’s service (6:13, 19; 12:1), presumably as members of a greater body (7:4; 12:4–5).13 The presenting of bodies to God as his “instruments” (6:13) and slaves (6:16) could perhaps evoke weapons for battle, a very common meaning of the term here for “instruments” (hopla; see 13:12; 2 Cor 10:4). Reckoning themselves new (6:11), believers must no longer view themselves as under death (6:12), but rather, as alive from the dead (6:13).
Paul again shocks the sensibilities of his audience by reversing traditional expectations. It is those under the law rather than those under grace who are prone to sin (6:14–15), which he will soon identify with lawlessness (6:19). Those of us in societies lacking many moral boundaries may appreciate the helpfulness of external laws,14 but Paul demands an inner transformation that yields a desire to submit to God’s will (8:5–9).15 One must serve either sin or righteousness (6:16–20). (Paul sometimes mixes his contrasts, e.g., sin leading to death versus obedience leading to righteousness in 6:16, but rather than weakening his antitheses Paul is strengthening the moral dualism established in 5:12–21, with everything bad on one side of the ledger and everything good on the other.) The “teaching” they obeyed (6:17) at least includes the gospel (16:17), which they embraced in conversion expressed in baptism (6:3–4). “Obeying” that teaching meant that they had left their past way of life, in which they used whatever freedom they had to serve their own interests, and now recognized a new lord and master over their lives, namely Christ (cf. 6:23; 10:9–10; 14:8–9).16
Paul admits that his depiction of the rule of sin and righteousness in terms of slavery is merely a human analogy (6:19a),17 but it is, nevertheless, a very intelligible one for his audience. A former slave of a bad master would not want to return to that master; in the same way, no sensible person would want to return to a lifestyle the fruit18 of which was death (6:21). Paul has already established that sin brought death just as Christ’s obedience inaugurated righteousness (5:12–21). Why then would someone choose sin when they have the choice to embrace life? In 6:23 Paul shifts or reverts to an economic metaphor: household slaves often on the side earned some “wages” (though this term is often a military one). Wages were not a matter of grace, but of what one deserved (4:4, though using a different term). Sin merited death, but God’s free gift (charisma, 5:15–16) in Christ was eternal life, the life of the resurrection (cf. Dan 12:2).
1. That “old person” alludes to Adam is clear also in other Pauline texts; thus in Eph 4:22–24 and Col 3:9–10 the “new person” is “created in God’s likeness,” as one would expect in the new Adam (cf. Gen 1:26–27; 1 Cor 15:49).
2. See Epictetus Disc. 2.9.20; Juvenal Sat. 14.104; Sib. Or. 4.162–65; m. Pesah. 8:8; other sources in Keener 2003b: 444–47. But Dunn (1988: 1:312) may be right to find the connection with Jesus’s death in Mark 10:38–39; Luke 12:50. Apparently relevant comparisons with “dying and rising” gods are significantly later than Paul (see esp. Wagner 1967).
3. Just as identity in Adam transcended ethnicity, so does identity through baptism into Christ (1 Cor 12:13; Gal 3:27–28).
4. Both ancient (e.g., Cyril of Alexandria Expl. Rom. on Rom 6:6) and modern (e.g., Barth 1933: 197) commentators have recognized the connection here with Adam in the preceding context.
5. Dikaioō in 6:7 may continue the image of freedom if it plays on both Paul’s usual sense of the term (making one right) and another possible (albeit related) sense, to “free” one from claims against. Some note here a Jewish tradition that death cancels one’s debts.
6. See e.g., the survey of metaphoric uses (with references) in Keener 2003b: 749–51. For ideologies, see e.g., Plutarch Superst. 5, Mor. 167B; Ps.-Crates Ep. 16; for passions or pleasure, see e.g., Xenophon Apol. 16 (Socrates on bodily passions); Plato Phaedrus 238E; Isocrates Ad Nic. 29 (Or. 2); Let. Aris. 277–78; T. Jos. 7:8; Josephus Ant. 1.74; idem J.W. 1.243; Philo Heir 269; for the body, Philo Abraham 241; for sin, see e.g., T. Sim. 3:4; T. Jud. 15:2.
7. Some point out how conversion, insofar as it effected a new identity, could theoretically effect manumission if not prevented (cf. b. Yebam 45b–47b; Bamberger 1968: 127; Buchanan 1970: 206; for broader discussion of slaves’ immersion, see Hezser 2005: 35–41). Wright 1999: 28–29, citing 1 Cor 10:2 and the context of salvation history in Romans, views Rom 6 as related to the exodus (also Allen 1964: 31; Daube 1969: 59–60; for slavery and the exodus, see Hezser 2005: 363–76).
8. For martyrs “alive to God,” cf. 4 Macc 7:18–19.
9. For the eschatological destruction of sin, relevant to believers foretasting resurrection life in Christ, see e.g., Jer 3:17; 31:32–34; 1QS 4.17–26; 5.5; Jub. 50:5; 1 En. 5:8–9; 91:8–11, 17; 92:5; 107:1; 108:3; Ps. Sol. 17:32; 4 Ezra 7:92; T. Mos. 10:1; T. Zeb. 9:8 (MSS); on the eschatological execution of the evil impulse in later rabbis, see e.g., Pesiq. Rab Kah. 24:17; Pesiq. Rab Kah. Sup. 3:2; b. Sukkah 52a. Evil desire ceases after death in L.A.B. 33:3.
10. Origen Comm. Rom. on 6:11 (Bray 1998: 162).
11. Engberg-Pedersen 2000: 55, 65, 233, helpfully compares a similar conceptualization about belief in Stoicism, though the conceptual pattern may have existed somewhat more widely (Pindar Pythian Odes 2.72; Pliny Ep. 1.3.5; see comment on Rom 8:1–11), perhaps even (in a more general way) in Scripture (Rosner 1999: 86–89; cf. Sir 7:16; Josephus Ant. 3.44–45). Many believed that the mind and correct beliefs could overcome passion (e.g., Cicero Off. 2.5.18; idem Leg. 1.23.60; idem Inv. 2.54.164; Stowers 2001: 92; 4 Macc 1:1, 9); Paul rejects mere human mental power (Rom 7:22–23; 8:6), here stressing rather faith in Christ and solidarity with him.
12. The transference of slavery to another master occurred in sacral manumission (to temples), but Paul probably has the more general slave image in mind. Like slavery in general (see comment on 6:6), kurieuō could be used for evil (e.g., T. Dan 3:2; 4:7) or good (Marcus Aurelius Med. 5.26) ruling one.
13. On some philosophers’ warnings about bodily passions, see comment at 7:7–13.
14. Probably even Paul would have also accepted the value of laws for societies (cf. 13:1–7), following the philosophic dictum that the truly wise or righteous were the only ones who needed no external law (Gal 5:23; cf. 1 Tim 1:9–10).
15. Even if others did not press it as far as Paul, the idea that grace and a God-given identity generates righteousness should have been intelligible (cf. Wis 15:2–3).
16. This differs from the common emphasis on self-mastery (e.g., Epictetus Disc. 1.11.37; 4 Macc 13:1), but thinkers could speak of being slaves of philosophy (Seneca Ep. Lucil. 8.7) or of God (Philo Cherubim 107).
17. Later rabbis argued that Scripture used “ordinary language” to convey divine truth (Sipra Qed. par. 4.206.1.1) and sometimes noted that they were using human analogies (Song Rab. 1:1, §10; Johnston 1977: 519–20).
18. “Benefit” (NASB; TNIV) or “advantage” (NRSV) here is karpos, also meaning “fruit” or “product” (or “profit”; Musonius Rufus 14, p. 92.23). Paul will soon associate the law even with arousing passions bearing fruit for death (7:5). The natural product of the Spirit’s activity is very different (Gal 5:22–23). In an economic context, karpos also meant “profit” or “gain” (hence flows naturally into “wages” in Rom 6:23).