Full Text for The Christian Under Grace: According to Romans 6:1-14 (Text)
,a 4il44 WALTER A. MAIER -= sua THE CHRISTIAN UNDER GRACE, According to Romans 6:1-14 EL£LSU Concordia -Theological Seminary Press -Fort Wayne, Indiana . FORT WAYNE -THE CHRISTIAN UNDER GRACE, ACCORDING TO ROMANS 6:1-14 A Thesis Presented to the Faculty of Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, Department of New Testament Theology in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Sacred Theology by Walter A. Maier May 1967 Approved by: [Martin H. Franzmann J Advisor [Victor Bartling J Reader TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter Page I. INTRODUCTION. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 1 II. THE GRACE WHICH THE CHRISTIAN HAS RECEIVED, ACCORDING TO ROMANS 6:1-10 ................................... 3 Verses 1 and 2 .................................................. 3 Verses 3 and 4 .................................................. 4 Life Through Faith and/or Baptism? ................................... 7 The Question of Time and Space Relationships .......................... 10 Verse 5 ...................................................... 13 Verses 6 and 7 ' . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 15 Verses 8-10 ................................................... 21 III. GRACE THE CHRISTIAN MUST STRIVE TO APPROPRIATE, ACCORDING TO ROMANS 6:11-14 ................................. 24 Verse 11 ..................................................... 24 fV XptO''tip Il1O'oi) .............................................. 28 Verses 12 and 13 ............................................... 31 Verse 14 ..................................................... 34 IV. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS .................................. 37 ENDNOTES.. ............................................................ 41 BIBLIOGRAPHY ........................................................... 56 CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION If ... at morning's dawn we consecrate ourselves anew to God and at nightfall plead again the perfect sacrifice of Christ, into whose death we have been baptized and into whose new divine life we have been engrafted, Baptism will mean more to us than a rite and we shall experience the constant power of the new birth's sanctifying operation.1 These words of Arthur Carl Piepkorn reflect a central truth of Lutheran theology, namely, that the sacrament of Holy Baptism is an efficacious means of grace, through which God bestows saving blessings on the baptized at the time of his baptism and for the whole of his life subsequent. Christians are privileged to return in faith daily, and continually within each day as spiritual needs may require, to the fact of their baptism and the fountain of grace and strength for godliness which God has made this holy washing for them. This thesis proposes to discuss one of the basic New Testament passages dealing with baptism and its significance for baptized believers, Romans 6:1-14. In this section the Apostle Paul speaks of one of the mighty, saving effects of the sacrament, the fact that it establishes spiritual union of the baptized with Christ. This is sometimes referred to as the "mystical union" of the believer and his Lord. Because of the union with Jesus, the child of God participates spiritually in Christ's crucifixion, death, burial, resurrection, and continuing life. As a result, the Christian is a new creation in Christ and, as the Apostle Paul shows, is provided with fundamental motivation and power for a godly life. To this motivation and power the believer is instructed to have recourse in his daily struggles against sin, so as regularly to emerge the victor. Often the Pauline theology of baptism in Romans 6 is neglected in Christian circles, possibly because of its difficulty. The writer can assert that in the approximately tllirty years since his confrrrnation he has heard very little preaching on this chapter; very little emphasis upon the vital implications of the doctrine of the mystical union for Christian sanctification; very little instruction concerning the sin-defeating power which the baptized Christian, as a man "in Christ," derives from union with Jesus for the personal day-to-day battle with evil and striving for holiness. He also recalls his own struggles in past years with "second-level" motivations (love, gratitude, fear, hope of reward) for godliness and resultant frustrations of spiritual endeavor, on the one hand; and the joy over discovery of the truths of Romans 6 and concomitant power for sanctification experienced, on the other. It is this past contact with, and personal benefit obtained through understanding and use of Paul's teaching, that has prompted the writer's interest in undertaking a more thorough investigation of Paul's statements in Romans 6. The wording of the thesis topic, "The Christian under Grace, According to Romans 6:1-14," has been suggested by the reference to divine grace in the first and last verses of this Scripture section -particularly by the closing words, "you are not under law but under grace." Chapter II of the thesis considers the first ten verses of the Pauline text under the heading, "The Grace Which the Christian Has Received, According to Romans 6:1-10"; Chapter III, the remaining verses under the heading, "Grace the Christian Must Strive to Appropriate, According to Romans 6:11-14." A final chapter, IV, offers a summary and conclusions. The body of the thesis, therefore, is essentially an exegetical study of the first fourteen verses of Romans 6.2 In the concluding chapter the relevance of Pauline theology in Romans 6 for the teaching and proclamation of the Church in the twentieth century is discussed. 1 The writer states at the outset of this study that, as his basic assumption, he considers the Bible to be the Word of God, the product of divine inspiration; that the Sacred Book is a unity and presents a unified message. In accordance with his basic assumption he uses Scripture to illumine and explain Scripture. Clearer understanding of Paul's terms and concepts as employed in Romans 6 is sought through a comparison with their usage elsewhere not only in the Pauline corpus but in other writings of the New Testament. A final preliminary observation. Since there is no serious question regarding the authenticity and integrity of the section of Romans under consideration, matters pertaining to the introduction to Romans are not discussed in the thesis. The writer assumes that the Apostle Paul wrote the epistle at Corinth in 56 A.D.3 to the Christian congregation at Rome, in order to acquaint them with Ws missionary and travel plans and provide the membership with a systematic presentation of the chief doctrines of the Christian faith. 2 CHAPTER II THE GRACE WHICH THE CHRISTIAN HAS RECEIVED, ACCORDING TO ROMANS 6:1·10 In the first section of our study we shall consider the grace which the Christian has already received from God, as set forth in verses 1-10 of Romans 6. First, a word about the context of this Scripture. Chapters five to eight of Romans present the effects, or fruits, of justification by grace through faith, which is the theme of the epistle. Among these are life and salvation through Jesus, the Head of the new humanity, treated in chapter five; union with Christ and release from the dominion of sin, chapter six; freedom from the coercion of the law through the same Lord, chapter seven; and the guidance, comfort, and help of his indwelling Holy Spirit throughout earthly life, chapter eight. The first-mentioned benefits, life and salvation, are not only blessings of the future, extending into a heavenly eternity; they have their beginning and a significance for the believer from the moment he comes to faith and is justified. What is involved in tlle reception of life is detailed in the first portion of Romans 6: it includes union with Christ in his death and resurrection. This brings us to the discussion of the ten verses before us. The third chapter will consider Paul's emphasis on the fact that possession of the new life through union with Christ carries with it ethical responsibility and supplies ultimate ethical dynarnic.1 Verses 1 and 2 Paul introduces the subject of Romans 6 by taking up a misunderstanding to which his immediately previous statement might be liable. In 5:20 he stated: "where sin abounded, grace did much more abound." In this immediate context he asks, verse 1: What shall we say, then? Are we to continue2 in sin, so that grace may abound?3 The less sinning, the less divine grace required to pardon sin; the more sinning, the greater the application of grace required, and the more that grace would be magnified, the more brightly its luster would be exhibited. Would not continuance in sin, then, serve to enhance the grace of God?4 , A).ICXp't(a appears with the article in verse 1 and in its other occurrences throughout this section, except in verse 14; It will be helpful to note at the outset of a chapter which sets forth the Christian's rescue from the dominion of sin that the apostle appears to view it as a personal power (especially in verses 6, 7, 10-14, 16-20, 22, 23; compare also such passages as 5:21; 7:8, 9, 11, 13, 14, 17, 20, 23, 25; and 8:2,3. Hans Lietzmann says: "die Suende wird bei PIs stets als fast persoenliche Macht betrachte1."s Similarly, Sanday and Headlam: It is remarkable how S1. Paul throughout these chapters, Romans v, vi, vii, constantly personifies Sin as a pernicious and deadly force at work in the world, not dissimilar in kind to the other great counteracting forces, the Incarnation of Christ and the Gospe1.6 Gustav Staehlin, who finds that "the personal conception of u)lap'tta (mostly with the article) ... is often found in the New Testament, especially Romans 5-7," speaks of the possible significance here of a demonic agency: It is hard to say how far what we have here is the concrete notion of a demon "sin" (Dibelius) standing in the place of Satan, who is not mentioned at all in R. 6f., and how far it is simply poetic imagery (Feine). How fluid are the boundaries between these NT fonns of the u)lap't£a concept may be seen from John (cf. esp. Jn 8:34; 1 Jn 3:5; and e.g., Jn 8:21 with V.24).7 3 Walter Grundmann pointedly states: sin is here [Romans 5-8] personified as a demon .... Sin has a demonic character. This demonic character emerges quite clearly in the fact that it uses the holy will of God to increase its power ... (7:13) .... He [man] is possessed by the demonic power of sin. Sin controls him and finally gives him the reward of death .... The demonology and satanology of Paul is not dualistic speculation, but a way of expressing the fact of sin.8 We have in this personification of sin a case of metonomy; the effect, sin, is named for the personal cause -:-. Satanic spirit, or spirits in combination (all opposed to God).9 Paul's idea would be: shall we remain under the control of the sin-power, consciously and voluntarily following its directives? Xaptt;; also has the article and seems here and in its anarthrous appearance in verse 14 (as well as with 1'\ again in verse 15), likewise to be a personification. This is the positive, saving power of a graciolis God, which abounds for sinners: it represents the Deliverer-God Himself, engaged in the rescue of lost mankind. His graceas-attribute moves Him to bestow the infinitely enriching gifts of grace, here the declaration of justification, the pronouncement of forgiveness, and bestowal of life and salvation. Paul continues in verse 2: Perish the thought! We who died with reference to sin, how shall we still go on living in it? The apostle categorically rejects the suggestion of verse 1 with his emphatic "Perish the thought!" His reaction is instinctive and immediate to a thought and idea which, despite a show of logic, is actually abominable, absolutely untenable. It is a thought that cannot stand in the presence of God, as in Romans 3:8. With the next words "We who died with reference to sin" placed forward in the following sentence for emphasis, Paul begins to mention the specific gifts of grace to which his Romans 6 Gospel presentation calls attention. Noteworthy in verses 2-8 are the verbs in the indicative and in the past tenses, aorist and perfect. These, together with the futures in verses 5 and 8, signify past saving experiences which a gracious God has caused every Christian to undergo (at baptism and conversion) and prepare for the Pauline imperatives issued in verses 11_13.10 The first great Gospel indicative is: we Christians died to sin. The dative 'til Ctjlap'tta is the dative of reference. The aorist Ct1tE8aVOllEV indicates an act in the past which occurre.d once-for-all. The death which every believer died has removed him from sin's sphere, the sphere in which it exists, operates, influences, and tyrannizes. This death is precursor to immediately consequent resurrection and life in a new sphere, the sphere dominated by "Christ." Now, "We who died with reference to sin, how shall we still go on living in it?" "Shall ... go on living" is the rendering of S1jO'OllEV, which is best regarded here as a durative futureY As in the physical domain, when a person dies, he ceases to react to external earthly stimuli, so in the domain of the application of divine grace here under consideration: when a Christian dies in his inner being, this self ceases to respond in any way to sin's stimuli. This being the situation, how can there really be any serious thought or talk about a believer's living "in it" [sin]? It is utterly contrary to fact. Verses 3 and 4 The apostle in the next two verses proceeds to explain the believer's death to sin, the manner in which it came about, its implications, and the life in the new field of existence, or domain, into which the Christian has been translated. Or12 do you not know that all of us wlw were baptized into union withI3 Christ Jesus, were baptized into union with his death? Now, through our baptism into union with his death we were buried together with Him, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so also we might come to walk in a newness of life. 4 The New English Bible's "Have you forgotten" brings out the force of the more literal "do you not know," ayvoEi'tE. Paul assumes that what he tells the Romans in these verses concerning union and dying with Christ has certainly been told them previously and has been understood by them. If Lightfoot's comment on '" ayvoEi'tE -"Such a supposition betrays the grossest ignorance"14 -means that the Romans had never known of their union with Christ and its sigificance, it is obviously wrong, as a comparison with Paul's use of the same phrase in 7:1 makes clear.15 Hans Wilhelm Schmidt writes: Paulus hebt nachdruecklich hervor, dasz er darnit seinen Lesern nichts Neues sagt: '" ayvoEi'tE ist nicht Ausdruck der Besorgnis, sie koennten es noch nicht recht wissen, sondem hat den Sinn: "Ich brauche euch ja wirklich nicht daran zu erinnern. ,,16 He goes on to suggest that the apostle perhaps is here using terms and familiar words from liturgical formulas (possibly a baptismal liturgy) which had been entrusted to his readers. The Romans have known about the truths to which Paul makes reference, and a recollection of their death to sin would actually make the question of verse 1 impossible. In order that these Christians may fully recall and continually apply tlns Gospel information in their lives, however, the apostle sets it forth in greater detail. He says: "All of us who were baptized into union with Christ Jesus, were baptized into union with his death." This is how the Roman Christians had died to sin. The death came about through, and occurred at the time of, their baptism. Baptism joined the believers to Christ -in vital, intimate union -and t11is union with Christ instantaneously effected their participation in Christ's death; it is thus that they "died with reference to sin" (verse 2). The two historical aorists (a1tE8uvOllEV, Ef3am{cr8rlllEv) refer to past, contemporaneous acts. What exactly is the meaning of f3amtsEtV dC; Xpta't6v? Alfred Wikenhauser offers the following interpretation, which is shared by many scholars: Der Ausdruck fuer Taufen (f3amtsEtV) hat fuer den Griechen stets die Vorstellung des Hineintauchens in ein Element bawahrt, und so hat wohl die paulinische Formel "auf [EtC;] Christus getauft werden" den Sinn: in die Person Christi, dies lokal vorgestellt, hineingetaucht oder hineingesenkt und darnit in die innigste Verbindung und Lebensbeziehung zu ihr gebracht werden. I? Rudolf Schnackenburg speaks of t11is view as embracing "the spatial idea" and having a deep, mystical significance.1s The baptized person is mystically immersed into (local dC;) Christ as into a new element and becomes a part of Him. Schnackenburg's own contrasting interpretation, however, given in his Baptism in the Thought of St. Paul, "allows Etc; to reproduce only an outer relation, or connection";19 it, too, has many supporters. He argues that the notion that baptism necessarily includes the idea of immersion is not demonstrable. He points out that in I Corint11ians 10:2, where the Israelites are spoken of as baptized EtC; 't()v Mroucrfjv, the local signification is an absurdity. Concerning this verse he goes on to say: Certainly, this passage is to be regarded as a secondary imitation of the expression f 3 a m { ~ E t V EtC; Xptcr't6v; but t11is procedure would be impossible if f 3 ( X 1 t n ~ E t V EtC; XptO''t6v necessarily possessed a mystical significance. Besides, in 1 Cor. x.2 the element in which the Israelites were "baptized" is expressly named: EV 't'f.I V E ~ t / v ' l J Kat EV't'f.I 8a/vucrcri;l. The "baptism of Moses" is manifestly a sign of "adherence to Moses, in order to belong to 5 him as the leader chosen of God" (Huby). This passage, therefore, suggests that the formula /3CX1tTISEtv d<; should be closely linked with /3cxm{sEl,V d<; 'to t)VO}lcx. Among the many baptisms that existed at that time, baptism is defined by means of the name of the person to whom it sets a man in a particular relationship of belonging.2o Finally he suggests setting /3CX1tTISEtv d<; in parallelism with mcr'tEuEtv d<;, remarking that the latter indicates the direction of faith while not expressing any mystical movement toward Christ. Scbnackenburg's arguments are compelling. /3CX1tTISEtv E{<;Xptcr't6v thus expresses an ablution for the purpose and toward the goal (contruing the d<; as final) of binding or attaching to Christ, so that the baptized belongs to Him. Now in the New Testament sacrament this attachment to Christ is of such a nature that it consists of the baptized's intimate spiritual21 union with the Lord and effects for him a real participation in the most significant events of Jesus' life, his death, burial, resurrection, and in his eternal life. Combining all these thoughts, we may render /3cxm{SEtv d<; Xptcr't6v simply as "baptize into union with Christ."22 The expression /3cxm{SEtV d<; 'tOv 9avcx'tov CX1>'tO\) , which speaks of an immediate consequence of the believer's baptism into union with Christ, may be conceived of as formed on the analogy of /3cxm(SEtv d<; Xptcr't6v. The baptismal ablution connects the baptized with the death of Christ in such a way as to effect the baptized's "union with" or participation in that death; that is, it brings about his real experience of a death with Christ. The ouv in verse 4 is simply continuative.23 Paul is moving on with his subject, proceeding from one thought to another. E{<; 'tOv 9avcx'tov is more naturally construed with ota 'to\) /3CX1tTIcr}lcx'to<; than with cruvE'ta'I1}lEV ... cx{ytl'p, and repeats the thought of verse 3b. To be "buried into union with death" does not make much sense; and in Christ's case burial followed his death and was not the instrument which brought about the death. Paul's point here is that the baptism which united believers with Christ and with Christ's death also joined them to his burial, so that they were really "buried with Him." Colossians 2:12a is a parallel. Now, burial or entombment, which follows death, seals the death, as it were. Murray remarks: "The burial of Jesus was the proof of the reality of his death ... it is burial that gives meaning to resurrection."24 Just so, the burial of the Christian with Christ seals and makes sure and clear the reality of his death with Jesus.25 Death and burial with Christ occur for the baptized, says Paul, "in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so also we might come to walk in a newness of life" (verse 4bc). The two previous participations come about in order that the third here mentioned may take place, that is, participation in Christ's resurrection. On the first Easter Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father. "The glory of the Father" has been variously interpreted as the power of God, as the sum total of the divine attributes of the deity, and as the Holy Spirit.26 Perhaps M ~ ' I 1 < ; here refers primarily to the power of God in view of the parallel in Ephesians 1:19-20, where Paul refers to "the working of his mighty power, which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead .... " Compare also Colossians 2:12. The apostle might have continued in 4c: "so also we might be raised from the dead." He does not, however; rather, he merely implies this occurrence and proceeds at once to the Christians' walk as affected by this momentous occurrence. Paul Althaus writes: Der Schlusz von Vers 4 ist ueberraschend. Man erwartet zunaechst, dasz Paulus fortfahren wird: wie Christus erweckt wurde, so sind auch wir jetzt zu neuem Leben erweckt, oder: so werden auch wir erweckt werden (amjuengsten Tage). Aber Paulus redet gar nicht erst von der durch die Taufe verrnittelten Erweckung zu neuer Lebendigkeit, sondem sogleich von dem Wandel im neuen Leben, als Ziel und Forderung der Taufe. Das entspricht dem ganzen 6 Zusammenhange: es kommt darin alles auf die sittliche Haltung der Christen anP That Christians, however, are raised from the dead is clear from the fact that they possess "a newness of life," in which they can walk. Their being raised is stated in so many words in Colossians 2:12: "Buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him." Regarding KatV6't11<; Johannes Behm says: In the NT it is found only in Paul. In accordance with the use of Katv6<; ... it denotes the fulness of the reality of salvation whcih Christ has given to Christians in comparison with the worthlessness of their former condition.28 KatV6't11'tt sOJJi<; signifies a new quality or condition, which is life, life spiritual and eternal; the genitive sOJJi<; is probably epexegetical. Bauer-Arndt-Gingrich prefer to view the words as a Hebraistic usage, the noun for an adjective, and so translate "a new life."29 Either analysis of the construction brings us to the same meaning. The baptized Christian is, and is enabled to act and conduct himself, in the sphere of spiritual and eternal life, that is, following the (path)way of life, drawing on. the sin-defeating and sin-destroying power of this spiritual life. That believers "might come to walk" (ingressive aorist) in this "newness of life" is the final purpose of their union, death, and resurrection with Christ. Katv6't11<; is a "teleological term in apocalyptic promise," like the adjectival KatV6<;.30 It brings to mind such eschatological realities as a new heaven and a new earth (Revelation 21:1; 2 Peter 3:13); the new human creation (2 Corinthians 5: 17); the new aeon, which has dawned with the coming of Christ. Concerning the new aeon, Nygren has written: Paul thinks in terms of aeons. Two realms stand over against each other. One is the dominion of death over aU that is human, the age of Adam. The other is the dominion of life, the age of Christ. . . . Christ has been given to us. . . . the new aeon, the aeon of life, has come upon us. Thereby have they who stand with Christ, in faith on Him, been taken out of the dominion of death which overshadows Adam's race. This is the fact which was written to the Colossians (1:13), "He [God] has delivered us from the dominion of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son."31 Baptism introduces sinners into the new aeon. In the words of Nygren: He who, through baptism, is in Christ is a new creation, a new man, formed according to the nature of the new aeon. All the old, which belonged to the dominion of death, has passed away. Now he lives and acts EV KatV6't11'tt sOJJi<;, "in newness of life," in the nature which corresponds to the resurrection aeon, the aeon of life.32 Life Through Faith and/or Baptism? The two quotations from Nygren speak, the one of faith, and the other of baptism, as fundamentally connected with the Christian's status in the new aeon. It may be convenient at this point to ask: what is the relationship between the two in Paul's thought? In view of Paul's teaching in Romans 3:21-5:21 it must be said that faith is the divinely designated medium for the reception of life and salvation. Yet here in Romans 6 the prominent emphasis is on baptism, as the means of grace which puts men into possession of these gifts.33 Is a harmonization of these two emphases possible? We meet a wide array of opinions among scholars. An extreme position, which discounts altogether the saving efficacy of baptism, is Adolf Deissmann's. He says: 7 The question, "What, according to St. Paul, brings about the fellowship of Christ?" is answered from the hints which we have given conceming St. Paul's converison. It is God who brings about fellowship with Christ. Not that every Christian has an experience equal to that of St. Paul on the road to Damascus, but everyone who possesses the living Christ or the Spirit has received the gift from God Himself, or is "apprehended" by Christ Himself. There are numerous passages in which God is celebrated as the giver of the Spirit. The assertion that in St. Paul baptism is the means of access to Christ, I take to be incorrect. There are passages which, if isolated, might be held to prove it but I think it is nevertheless more correct to say that baptism does not bring about but only sets the seal to the fellowship of Christ. In St. Paul's own case at any rate it was not baptism that was decisive, but the appearance of Christ to him before Damascus . . . ?4 W. D. Davies is of the same persuasion: Nor was it by any celebration of outward rites such as Baptism ... that the union and dying and rising with Christ was achieved .... On the contrary it is faith, "a joyful self committal of the whole personality to God" in Christ, that always determines his being "in Christ" ... . The critical verse is the familiar one: "I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me."3S Diametrically opposed to the views above expressed is Albert Schweitzer, a prime exponent of "sacramental mysticism." He writes: The idea that it is only through a believing self-surrender to absorption in Christ that the Elect can bring about the mystical fellowship with Him is quite outside of Paul's horizon. He assumes as self-evident that a grafting into Christ takes place in Baptism and is bound up with this ceremonial act. In primitive Christianity Baptism guaranteed the forgiveness of sins and allegiance to the coming Messiah, and the prospect of sharing the glory which is to dawn at His coming. In this significance Paul takes it over, but he explains its operation by his Christ-mysticism. On this basis he asserts that what takes place in Baptism is the beginning of the being-in-Christ and the process of dying and rising again which is associated therewith. He makes no use of the symbolism of the ceremony to explain what happens. He does not make it an object of reflection. In Romans vi. 3-6 he nowhere suggests that he thinks of Baptism as a being buried and rising again with Christ just because the baptized plunges beneath the water and rises out of it again. These ingenious explanations have been read into his words by interpreters; Paul himself follows no such roundabout ways. Baptism is for him a being buried and rising again, because it takes place in the name of Jesus Christ, who was buried and rose again. It effects what the mysticism of being-in-Christ accepts as the effect of redemption.36 Obviously Deissmann, Davies, and Schweitzer, who reject the efficacy either of baptism or of faith, do not help us to an understanding of the relationship between the two in the scheme of individual salvation. How shall this be determined? The following factors should be noted: 1. Paul does indeed teach that God grants sinful men life and salvation through faith, Romans 1:16-17; 8 3:21-5:21; 10:1-17; 11:19-32; the epistle to the Galatians; 2 Corinthians 5:14-21; and many more passages. (Here may also be adduced Pauline passages like 1 Corinthians 4:15; where the apostle speaks of the regenerative effects of his Gospel-Word. The correlative of the Word in these contexts is faith. Compare Romans 6:15-23, James 1:18, 1 Peter 1:23 and other texts.) 2. Paul teaches the same concerning baptism, as a means of grace: Romans 6; Galatians 3:27; Colossians 2:12; Titus 3:4-7, and other passages. Compare John 3:5. 3. According to Paul's theology, faith is absolutely necessary for salvation (compare the passages in 1). His epistles nowhere predicate such absolute necessity of baptism. When the Philippi an jailer cries out, "Sirs, what must I do to be saved?" Paul and Silas reply, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved .... " (Acts 16:30-31). Compare Mark 16:16. 4. The account in Acts 16 continues, however, reporting that Paul and Silas at once "spake unto him the word of the Lord, and to all that were in his house. And he [the jailer] ... the same hour of the night ... was baptized, he and all his, straightway" (verses 32 and 33). "And when he had brought them into his house, he set meat before them, and rejoiced, believing in God with all his house" (verse 34). Paul immediately baptized the jailer, when the latter had come to faith in Jesus.3? This procedure sheds light on the apostle's conception of the connection between faith and baptism of adults: a person must first believe in Christ and the Gospel; then, when faith is present, he ought at once receive the sacrament of baptism. Paul would have the two experiences to be brought into closest conjunction -an individual's being baptized, with his beginning to believe -so that these appear almost as two phases of one great experience. F. F. Bruce observes: In apostolic times it is plain that baptism followed immediately upon confession of faith in Christ. The repeated accounts of baptism in Acts give ample proof of this . . .. Faith in Christ and baptism were, indeed, not so much two distinct experiences as parts of one whole; faith in Christ was an essential element in baptism, for without it the application of water, even accompanied by the appropriate words, would not have been baptism.38 5. In Ephesians 5:25-27 Paul asserts: Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water [baptism; compare Titus 3:5] by the word [ev (rf\Jl formula he cites Paul Feine's interpretation, which the former tenns "psychological identification": Der Glaeubige soIl sich dergestalt in das Leiden und den Tod Christi versenken, dass er mit diesen Erlebnissen Christi innerlich zusammenwaechst und sie so stark empfindet, als seien sie auch an ihrn vollzogen.46 Bartling is right in rejecting this explanation. Feine would have the Christian become a mystic47 and thus attain communion with Christ and his death. Paul, however, does not say that the believer by his personal mental effort, by a process of contemplation or meditation of the passion, induces and achieves a kind of participation in that death. Union with Christ in his death and resurrection is rather a miracle wrought by God, instantaneously, through the means of baptism. It is, as Paul states in Romans 6, an actual joining Christ on the cross and in the grave; vivification with Him; and procession with Him from the tomb. It is a real occurrence, upon which the believer can look back in faith and with gratitude for the rest of his life. Schnackenburg's may be termed the "representative-man" explanation. He says that Paul's statements: are founded on a Semitic idea, according to which the founder of a people is inseparably bound up with those who are joined to him; he represents and takes the place of his followers, and these again share his destiny. Baptism is the place where this union of believers with Christ, the Founder of a new humanity, is established, and therefore they die "with Him" and live "with Him." The entire process takes place in them sacramentally by grace.48 This is also Nygren's view: Some have suggested that Paul here affinns a "contemporaneousness," a "paradoxical contemporaneousness" between Christ and one who believes in Him. Indeed, it has been suggested that the category of time, belonging only to the old aeon, plays no role in the new aeon. But such an interpretation is not true to Paul. Paul has not ceased to take time into account. He knows very well that Christ died at a precise point in human history, and that a certain period of time had elapsed between that event and the date when Paul writes this epistle to the Romans. It is no challenging problem for him that believing Christians were not contemporaneous with Christ. The death and resurrection of Christ do not need to be "contemporary" with a Christian to be able to bring their blessing to him. Here too the parallel between Adam and Christ can show us the way. I am not, according to Paul, "contemporary" with Adam; and yet I stand in relation with him and bear the condemnation which comes from him. And we can add that already through him, through his action, it was detennined that I, even now, should stand under the dominion of sin and death. We are 11 indeed remote from each other in time. That fact is not abolished; but neither are the results of his actions on me abolished. The same is true as to life "in Christ." The separation in time does not prevent me from being, even now, a real member in "the body of Christ," in a&}la Xpta'wO; and as such I share in His death and resurrection.49 These ideas are attractive, but also inadequate as a precise interpretation of the Pauline declarations. First of all, the apostle does not employ the Adam-Christ parallel in Romans 6. Secondly, we may note, Paul neither in Romans 5 nor 6, or elsewhere, suggests that human solidarity with Adam is of the same nature as the Christian's union with Christ. All indeed sinned in and through Adam (Romans 5:12), but Paul does not describe this as a going "with" Adam in the Garden of Eden and hearing of the voice of temptation "with" him, and eating "with" him of the forbidden fruit and then a dying "with" him. The point in Romans 5 is simply that God regards all mankind in solidarity with Adam and accounts it that all men sinned when their ancestor sinned; thus death came upon all. Thirdly, the union with Christ, on the other hand, is itself of a different nature -it is spiritual, a union of spirits (as will be shown in the discussion of subsequent verses of Romans 6) -and fourthly, provides the Christian with experiences which are said throughout to be with Christ. Note the cruv-compounds, a u v E ' t ~ ~ l 1 } l E V , verse 4; a U } l ~ u ' t o t , verse 5; auvEa'taupro911, verse 6; aus1jaO}lEV, verse 8; and the phrase auv Xpta'tlP, in verse 8. This is theauv of accompaniment, and it stands stubbornly in the way of the "representative-man" interpretation. It denotes actual joint-personal-participation -here, in context an actual passing through the experiences of death, burial, and resurrection along with Christ on Calvary and in the garden. A death really takes place in the case of the Christian; a resurrection to life really takes place in the case of the Christian -and these are both with Christ in Palestine. Bartling points out that in: This intimate relationship between dying and rising with Christ ... we have to do here with nothing less than the actual death of Christ on Calvary. Galatians 6:14 lends solid support to this interpretation of Romans 6: "Far be it from me to glory except in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world." The Apostle's own death to the world has its source, its locus, in the Cross of the Crucified. so How is this possible? The statements and the concepts are hard. We shall have to let them remain so. What Paul tells us is simply beyond the natural realm, and beyond our present, poor, limited powers of comprehension. So Bartling: All that we can confidently say is that this teaching of Paul implies a complete overthrow of the usual time relationships. And we must leave it at that. "Angesichts der Bestimmtheit der paulinischen Aussagen kommt eine unbefangene Betrachtung gar nicht urn das Zugestaendnis herum, dass das exk1usive Verhaeltnis, das fuer das empirische Urteil zwischen verschiedenen Subjekten, Raumpunkten und Zeitpunkten besteht, in diesen Saetzen aufgehoben ist. ,,51 Having thus acknowledged our intellectual incapacity, however, one can still hold to the truths which Paul reveals, the reality of our death, burial, and the resurrection with Christ, infaith. In this lies profound benefit for all believers, as Paul will show. 12 Verse 5 Verses 3 and 4 present the principal thought of the section (verses 3-10), which constitutes the doctrinal basis upon which Paul grounds his admonitions in verse 11-13. Verse 5 is transitional to verses 6-10, which may be grouped together. In verse 5 Paul explicates further (yap) the nature of the Christian's union with Christ in his death, and resurrection, the profound truth he has set forth in 3-4. Two thoughts predominate: the Christian's resurrection (to unending life) necessarily (eO'OJle9a, a logical future) follows his death with Christ; and the nature of the Christian's death and resurrection is in either case like (OJlOlOO}lan), not identical with, those of Christ. Verses 6-7 expand upon the latter idea; verses 8-10, upon the former. Verse 5: For if we have become grown-together with Him in a death like his, we shall indeed also be grown together with Christ in a resurrection like his. The d with the indicative (')'EyovaJleV) indicates that Paul assumes the condition's protasis to be a fact: Paul and the Roman Christians have become grown-together with Christ (au't0 is to be supplied, as implied by Paul; see below). The perfect ')'E-y6vaJleV signifies past occurrence with lasting result: this having become grown together with Christ occurred in baptism and is a characteristic of the believer's condition ever since. L . U J l ~ \ ) ' t o t is a hapax in the New Testament, a compound of O'uv and ~ u r o , which in the active means "bring forth," "produce"; in the passive, "spring up," "grow." The passive sense is applicable in the compound; thus the rendering, "grown-together.,,52 Sanday-Headlam translate "united by growth," see in the term an expression of "the process by which a graft becomes united with the life of a tree," and comment: So the Christian becomes "grafted into" Christ. For the metaphor we may compare xi. 17 m) B ~ a y p l , ~ A . m O C ; &v EVeKeV'tp{O'9T)c; EV au'totC; Kat O'\)'YKOlVroVOC; 'tl')c; P { ~ l 1 C ; Kat 'tl')c; mo't111:0C; 'tl')c; EA.a{ac; e y ~ v o \ ) . 5 3 Murray remarks that "No term could more adequately convey the intimacy of the union [with Christ] involved. ,,54 To understand or supply an aU1:ip (or, 'tip Xpl,O''t0) with O ' U J l ~ \ ) ' t O l instead of taking the latter directly with the following 1:0 o}lotooJlan 1:0'0 9ava1:0\) is to read the apostle's mind correctly. This makes for better sense in translation. The Revised Standard Version and The New English Bible have adopted this rendering; Nygren and others favor the construction. This interpretation is not unopposed, however. Involved in the debate is the meaning of OJlOlooJla1:t. H. W. Schmidt points out that Th. Zahn, H. Lietzmann, A. Schlatter u. a. verbinden 'to o}lotooJlan unrnittelbar mit 0 ' { ) } l ~ \ ) ' t 0 l : "Wir sind mit der Nachbildung seines Todes verwachsen," eine Wendung, in der H. Lietzmann eine verkuerzte und daher logisch ungenaue Ausdrucksform fuer: "wir sind durch die Nachbildung seines Todes mit seinem Tod zusammengewachsen" sieht. ... Wichtig ist auch die Frage, wie hier o}lo{ro}la zu uebersetzen ist (1:23). Th. Zahn denkt an "Modell," "Vorbild" und versteht 1:0'0 9ava1:0\) als Gen. appos: "Verwachsen mit dem Vorbild, welches der Tod Christi ist." 55 The correctness of Zalm's view is called into question by the observation that, while o}lo{roJla may have the meaning "model" in the sense of "prototype," this is not its significance in New Testament usage; certainly not in its other occurrences in Romans, 1:23; 5:14; and 8:3 -where the meaning of oJlo{ro}la is "likeness" or "resemblance," and simply expresses similarity.56 As for the other rendering, which connects 1:0 o}lotw}lan directly with O ' U J l ~ \ ) ' t O l " we may ask: what does it mean to become grown together with a copy or imitation -here the copy or imitation of Christ's death? This combination of words and ideas yields a concept which actually has no sense.57 13 It seems better to construe an ai)'tl{> with the (Jup.qnytot and the 'tl{> 6p.ot(DJ.la'tt as a dative of reference. The supplying of ai)'tl{> with (Jup.$'U'tOt is suggested by the construction in verse 4; there au'tl{> occurs with the (Juv-compound (J'UVE'ta$Tlp.EV. In verse 6, where aU'tl{>, or 'tl{> Xpt(J'tl{>, must be supplied with (JuvE and (JUS1j(JOP.EV au'tl{>. Paul then says literally, "we have become grown-together with Him for the attainment of the likeness of his death," or, rendering the last words more smoothly, "in a death like his." This is a meaningful assertion. With it Paul brings out two points clearly: (1) baptism joins the baptized to Christ and his death in order that they may experience a death of their own, and (2) the death which they thus experience is not identical to Christ's own, but similar to it; it is a death like his. Christ's death differs from the Christians' through baptism both in kind and purpose, and this distinction must be carefully preserved. Christ's death on Calvary was a physical death, the separation of spirit from body; each Christian's is "spiritual," consisting in the destruction of the old unregenerate spirit. Moreover, Christ's death on Calvary was mediatorial, redemptive; the Christian's may be termed "appropriative," that is, for the personal reception of the new spirit and spiritual life and the personal appropriation of the fruits of the redemption. Murray comments: The apostle is not dealing here with our physical death and resurrection; he is dealing with our death to sin and our resurrection to Spiritual life, as is apparent from the preceding context and will become even more apparent in the verses that follow. Hence it is necessary to introduce the principle of analogy. Our union with Christ is his death and resurrection must not be bereft of its intimacy, but with equal jealousy it must be interpreted in terms of Spiritual and mystical relationship. And the death and resurrection of Christ in their bearing upon us must likewise be construed in such terms. It is to this that "likeness of his death" refers.58 Paul's language is compressed in verse 5. The second clause consists simply of tlle words a'Jv'Jvti Kat 'til<; ava(J'taaEOJ<; f.(J6p.c9a. Sense compels us to supply (Jup.$'U'tot aU't0 'to 6p.otrop.an. The o:'Jv'Jvti here is not adversative or contradictory but what Robertson calls continuative or climacteric59 and may be rendered "certainly," "indeed." Blass-Debrunner says of the combination a'Jv'Jvti Kat that it's significance is "not only this, but also," and it is "used to introduce an additional point in an emphatic way.,,60 Paul, then, says literally: "we shall indeed also be grown together with Him for attainment of the likeness of his resurrection," or, rendering the last words more smoothly, "in a resurrection like his." Again, the Christian's resurrection (spiritual; appropriative) is similar but not identical in nature and purpose to Christ's (physical; redemptive, compare Romans 4:25), as has been indicated above. The context requires that the future f.(J6p.E9a be taken first of all as logical and not chronological. Paul's statement in verse 4 that the believer is in present possession of "a newness of life" and the argument in verses 8-11 (as will be shown) require this interpretation. C. K. Barrett objects to this opinion as follows: This might be a purely "logical future," as in the proposition: If A is true then B will follow. But this would not agree with the undoubtedly temporal future of v. 8. In fact, Paul is always cautious of expressions which might suggest that the Christian has already reached his goal, and to say in so many words "we have died with Christ and we have been raised with Christ" would invite, if not actually to commit the error condemned in 2 Timothy ii. 18.61 Barrett, however, overlooks the fact that Paul elsewhere unmistakably, in so many words does say that the believers in Christ "have been raised with Christ": the apostle does so explicitly in Colossians 3:1 «J'UvTI')'tp9T1'tE 'to Xpt(J't0), and he certainly is not committing the error condemned in 2 Timothy 2:18. We may also compare Colossians 2:12, where Paul uses (J'UvTI,%p9T1'tE and refers to exactly the same event the 14 future in Romans 6:5b designates. A spiritual resurrection is referred to in the Colossians passages as well as here in Romans. The future of the verbs in verse 5 and in verse 8 of Romans 6 is logical. Murray states that "The future tense . . . is indicative of certainty," and holds that The underlying thought is again the inseparable conjunction of Christ's death and resurrection, and the inference drawn from this conjunction is that if we are united with Christ in his death we must be also ill his resurrection. Disjunction in our case is as impossible as disjunction in his.62 The future E,cr61lE8a also has a durative significance. The resurrection condition and life which the believer receives in baptism will remain his through the rest of his existence on earth and into eternity. This thought Paul will develop in verses 8-10, where it becomes prominent, beginning with the logical and durative cr'\)s'f\crOllEV of verse 8. We may add here that the Scriptures seem to regard the future bodily resurrection and life simply as a consummation of the spiritual resurrection and the bestowal of spiritual life occurring for believers in this world; compare Colossians 3:1-4; Philippians 3:8-11; John 5:24-25; 11:25-26. Verses 6 and 7 Verses 6 and 7 are a continuation of the sentence begun in verse 5: -since we know this, that our old man was crucified with Christ, so that our body might cease to be one exclusively controlled by sin and we might no longer keep on slaving away for sin: for he who has died has been declared free from sin. Paul in these verses becomes more specific about "the death like Christ's" which union with Him through baptism has effected for God's people. This death which each Christian dies is, he says, the death of his "old man"; it is for this old man a death by crucifixion with Christ, a death which involves an acquittal and release from the sin-power and has as its final purpose the Christian's conquest of sin in his behavior. The 'toi}'to ytvrocr1(OV'teC; makes clear that the Roman Christians as well as Paul know about these things. Toi}'to refers forward to what follows, the l)u-clause, which presents the content of their knowledge. "Our old man was crucified with Christ." The "old man" is the former, decrepit, worthless, sinful self,63 belonging to the unregenerate condition. Paul speaks of the "old man" also in Ephesians 4:22 and Colossians 3:9. This old self of the Christian was crucified with Christ. The crvv of cr'\)Vecr'ta'\)pro8T\ and the fact that this verb stands in series with cr'\)vE'troplllleV au't crOJJ.ux" the human body, the physical mechanism (through which sin works itself out). It is used in this sense in 6:12; in 8:10, 11, 13, 23; and in 12:1. Tile; ' ~ a o v Xp6vov ~ 1 l . Romans vi. 7 refers only by implication to the death of Christ or to that of the believer, since the maxim applies to any man under the law. Sometimes uJlap'tta is understood as a personified power. In this case Paul is saying that death releases man from the control or power of sin.88 Scroggs rejects the above interpretations on the grounds that otKatoua8m does not usually mean "to be free"; that uJlap'tta can only with distortion be taken to mean "obligation to the Torah; that if uJlap'tta means the "power of sin," the verse makes sense only if otKato'\)a8m means "to be free," which it does not; that interpreted as a general maxim, the verse "sits loose" in its context; that if Paul wants to say the same thing in Romans 6:7 as he does in Romans 7:1-6, he has unfortunately obscured in the one place what he simply and clearly states in the other -but the difference in contexts shows that the apostle is not repeating himself. Scroggs also mentions an alternative proposal made by K. G. Kuhn.89 According to Kuhn, "Paul in Romans vi. 7 is quoting a rabbinic maxim . . . 'All who die receive atonement through their death. '" Scroggs summarizes: Kuhn believes that the notion of death as a means of atonement, independent of any ethical or religious quality of the person or of his death, was a popular belief among Jewish theologians of the early rabbinic period. The verse in Romans thus applies to the Christian because through baptism he has participated in a death, the death of Christ.90 While granting that Kuhn's interpretation takes otKm6ro in the usual Pauline sense, Scroggs immediately objects: 20 Nevertheless, the argument of Kuhn that death per se was a commonly accepted means of atonement in Judaism cannot be substantiated. Out of the wealth of evidence he presents, only two logia really support his claim. With Paul's emphasis upon the centrality of the cross as the only means of atonement how the Apostle could have accepted this minority view, even assuming that he knew it, is difficult to see. The basic assumption of the rabbis was rather that for certain kinds of serious sins death atones, if there is a previous repentance.91 Dismissing Kuhn's proposal because he attempts to take Romans 6:7 as a general maxim and does not succeed in correlating the verse either with its immediate context or with Paul's soteriology, Scroggs states his own view, which is in agreement with the exegesis offered in this thesis: Romans vi. 1-11 is concerned with the death of Christ and the participation of the believer in this death. By baptism the Christian is incorporated into that kind of death which Christ died .... thus the most natural way of understanding verse 7 in its context is to see that the death spoken of is the death of Christ. It is this specific death that brings justification. 0 (t1t08avcbv does refer to the believer but only in so far as he has died with Christ in baptism. The verse would then be not a general maxim about death in itself but a statement of the specific situation of the believer in so far as he has died a specific death with Christ.92 Verses 8-10 Verses 8-10: Now, ifwe have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also continue living together with Him, since we know that Christ, raised from the dead, dies no more, death no longer has dominion over Him. For, the death He died, He died with reference to sin once for all time; but the life He lives, He goes on living to God. The Christian has died with Christ in order that he might rise and live with Him; the apostle has already indicated this, particularly in verse 4 and 5. Now, what kind of life is this which the believer lives with Christ? Specifically, what about the extent and duration of this life? Paul speaks to this point in verses 8-10. The Christian's life with Christ, which necessarily follows death with the Savior (verse 5), he now describes forthrightly, in emphatic elaboration, as a life perpetual, unending, eternal, one which no death shall ever bring to a termination. M, is continuative and transitional from the consideration of death with Christ to that of life with Him. TItcr'teU0JlEV (verse 8) and dOO'tEc; (verse 9) are in parallel with ytVOOcrKOV'tEc; (verse 6). What Paul tells his readers in verses 8-10 is, again, nothing new to them; he is merely voicing the contents of their mutual (the Romans' and Paul's) faith and confession.93 Together they believe that if they have died with Christ -as they are certain they surely have (d with the indicative BEct> are datives of reference. In keeping with the context of Romans 6, which deals with the Christian's release from sin's dominion (especially verses 2,6,7,9, 11-14), it is best to think of Christ's death 'ttl I X } l a p ' t { ~ in verse 10 as a death to the power of sin. Surely He died to the mass of sin placed upon Him and to the guilt of the sin He vicariously bore; but it is also true that, when dying for men's sin, the Savior also died to sin. This does not mean that sin exerted its might on Jesus, while He walked on earth, in such a way as to make Him sin (as is the case with men). On the contrary, He remained perfectly sinless throughout his life's course. Sin, however, did bring its power to bear upon the stainless Christ in the form of temptation and especially in the form of the consequences of transgression which He had to endure including death itself, the wages of 1'\ IX}lap't{a (6:23). Murray comes to the same conclusion concerning Christ's death, that in Romans 6 it is represented as a death to tlle dominion of sin: As applied to believers in verses 2 and 11 the thought is that they died to the power of sin. May the same be said of Christ? It cannot be said of Christ that sin exercised its power over him in the same sense in which it ruled over us. We were the bondslaves of sin in its defilement and power; sin did not thus rule over him. Nevertheless, Christ was identified in such a way with the sin which he vicariously bore that he dealt not only with its guilt but also with its power. Death ruled over him until he broke its power (vs. 9). So sin may be said to have ruled over him in that his humiliation state was conditioned by the sin with which he was vicariously identified. He was made sin (II Cor. 5:21), and sin as power must be taken into account in this relationship. It was by his own dying that he destroyed the power of sin, and in his resurrection he entered upon a state that was not conditioned by sin. There is good reason to believe that it is this victory over sin as power that the apostle has in view when he says that Christ "died to sin once." And it is because Christ triumphed over the power of sin in his death that those united to him in his death die to the power of sin and become dead to sin (vss. 2, 11).97 To underscore the fmaIity and decisiveness of Christ's death Paul adds to the aorists in verse lOa the word e < l > a n a ~ , "once-for-all," "once for all time." A host of parallel passages come to mind, such as Hebrews 7:27; 9:12, 26, 28; 10:10; and 1 Peter 3:18. The words of Gustav Staehlin are an eloquent commentary on the usage of e < l > a n a ~ here in 6:10: In the NT this [ e $ a n a ~ ] is a technical term for the definiteness and therefore the uniqueness or singularity of the death of Christ and the redemption thereby accomplished: R. 6: 10: 'ttl I X } l a p ' t { ~ IXntBavEv e $ a n a ~ , where e $ a n a ~ , prepared for and emphasized in v. 9 by OUKt'tt 22 OOto8v1jmcet, 8ava'to<; O U K ~ ' t t KUpteUel, sharply expresses the basic significance of the death of Christ, namely, that sin and Christ are quits, and Christians with Christ, since His one death is of paradigmatic and dynamic effect for us. To the a1to8avetv 'til a J l a p ' t { ~ ~ q ) ( ~ 1 t a s in the case of Christ there corresponds veKp0'tJ<; e{vat (dead once and for all) 'til a J l a p ' t t ~ . There here rules a divine casuality mediated through baptism .... Like Christ, man can die this death only once (as he can rise again only once ... ); there is a turning from sin to God which cannot subsequently be reversed. The man who has died this death lives once and for all according to Paul, i.e., in eternity like ChriSt.98 The verbs in the durative present tense, verse lOb, signify Christ's eternal continuance in life. This living of Christ concerning which the apostle speaks takes place in and through his human nature. Mter completing redemption and sealing this with his triumphant resurrection, Christ still retained his human nature; with it He ascended into heaven, in it He received glory from the Father, in and with that nature He continues to live to God.99 "This his living to God ... rests on his having died to sin, and both pertain to us, first in a redemptive way, then in a sanctifying way, the latter resting on the former."lOo Thus far the consideration of the text of Romans 6 in which the apostle treats of grace the Christian has received from God. Paul has provided the information that in baptism God has joined each of his people to Christ in intimate, vital spiritual union, a union which effects the believer's very crucifixion, death, burial, and resurrection with Christ. As a result the believer lives with his risen Lord in the power of an eternal life. On the basis of these fundamental Gospel facts Paul in the immediately following verses of Romans 6 structures a series of exhortations which direct his readers' thoughts to grace of God they must yet strive to grasp. This aspect of the matter will be treated in the next chapter. 23 CHAPTER III GRACE THE CHRISTIAN MUST STRIVE TO APPROPRIATE, ACCORDING TO ROMANS 6:11-14 The Nestle-Aland text with the larger space between verses 11 and 12 indicates that tlle editors suggest verse 11 be taken with the preceding nine, verses 2-10, and that 2-11 be considered a unit of Pau1's thought in Romans 6. The translators of the Revised Standard Version and The New English Bible are in agreement, both these New Testament versions starting a new paragraph with verse 12. Doubtless this is correct. Verse 11 belongs in thought with verse 10, the adverb 0'\)-];0)(; signaling the close relationship between the two passages. The reason why in this thesis' discussion of the text we consider verse 11 along with 12-14 is that the series of imperative verbs in 11-14 ( A O y { ~ E O ' e E , pamAE'Ut"Cco, naptc'l"tavE"CE, napaa't1jaa"CE) form a natural unit, and contrast with the series of indicatives of 2-10. Together these imperatives direct the Christian to the way in which he should use the Gospel which the apostle has set forth in the previous portion of the chapter and show him grace of God he must yet strive to grasp. This grace is that the believer, in the power of his new life in Christ, prevent sin from ruling his still mortal body and its members; that he devote these rather to God and his service exclusively. In 11-14 Paul builds "practically" on the foundation of doctrine laid in 2-10. Verse 11 Verse 11: In this way also you must keep on accounting yourselves to be dead with reference to sin but continually living to God in union with Christ Jesus. The opening o { l ' t c o ~ refers Paul's readers back to the previous sentence, verse 10. He had there made the summary statement concerning Christ: "The death He died, He died with reference to sin once for all time; but, the life He lives, He goes on living to God." Now the apostle makes the application of this to his readers. Let them think of themselves, of the death which they died in baptism and the life which they live with Christ, in exactly the same way. As Christ died with reference to sin once for all time, so did they. As Christ since his resurrection lives an uninterrupted, unending, eternal life, so do they who have been joined with Him in his resurrection and through faith remain in union with Him, their living Lord. These are the facts of spiritual reality, as far as the Roman Christians are concerned. The apostolic instruction added is that they keep reckoning ( A o y { ~ E a e E , a durative present) with these facts, consciously recalling and continually considering them. Commentators almost universally regard A O y { ~ E a e E as imperative and not indicative. It fits more naturally after what precedes and corresponds with the imperatives which follow, as was indicated. If Paul had wished to continue here with an indicative, he would no doubt have used a first personal plural of the verb, as he has all along in the paragraph. The addition of the emphatic ' \ ' ) J l E i ~ accords with the change to an imperative. It is important for an understanding of verse 11 to be clear on the meaning of A O y { ~ e a e e here. We come upon a strange idea, for example, in the writings of John Knox. He asks in his Life in Christ Jesus: What are we to say about this way [Paul's in Romans 6] of dealing with the antinomian's question -this way of understanding the nature and ground of ethics within the Christian life? Two remarks are appropriate: one somewhat critical . . . . First we must recognize, I think, that Paul does not altogether succeed in refuting the antinomian's argument. For the fact of the matter is that we are not "dead to sin," or "free from sin." We can "sti11live in it," and to a considerable extent still do. Paul's tacit acknowledgment of this fact, so obviously true but so contradictory to his theoretical point, appears in his saying: "So you must also consider yourselves dead to sin .... " and in his exhortations that we "not yield [our] members to sin as instruments of wickedness .... " There would be no need of these exhortations if we were 24 "free from sin," and it would be irrelevant whether we considered ourselves "dead to sin" or not, if in fact we were. It is precisely because we are not dead to sin that we are urged to think of ourselves as being so and to act as being so. The time will come, of course, when we shall be thus "free," and the future is so surely promised, so fully guaranteed, as, in a sense, to be ours already. But it is still actually future. . .. And until we shall have come fully to share in his [Christ's] death and life ... we are still (one would suppose, and from our experience we know) not free from the enslaving power of sin and from the guiding, guarding, and judging power of law. Knox supposes that he "explains" Paul by observing: This "interim," for Paul too brief and transient to be important or even quite real, could be passed over in his thought in a way in which it cannot be in ours, whose whole lives, not to mention the lives of our fathers and children for innumerable generations, are spent within it. . .. The new age was so imminent that for all theoretical purposes it had arrived. The persistence of this evil world could be ignored in one's thinking, although obviously in actual fact one was called on to bear it and, in a degree, to bear with it for awhile. Here is, certainly at least in part, the explanation of the contradiction we are considering, a contradiction which Paul expresses without intending to in his question: "How can we who died to sin still live in it?"l Knox, whose exegesis in these paragraphs runs directly counter to the statements of Paul in verse 11 and the foregoing passages, is mistaken in his conception of the significance of A . o y t ~ e O ' e e . The verb does not mean, according to Paul's usage, to regard a non-existent situation as a reality; it does not in this context mean that the Romans are to think of themselves as dead to sin when actually they are not. No, the apostle is asking his readers to deal with facts, to consider these facts as facts, to accept them in unswerving faith, and on this basis to act upon them in their lives. Hans-Wolfgang Heidland in his article in Kittel points out that A . o y t ~ e O ' e a t in Romans 6: 11 (as also in 3:28; 8: 18; 14: 14; and Philippians 3: 13) designates "Glaubensurteil," and explains: Die Norm des A . o y t ~ e O ' e a t steht ... auszer und ueber ihrn [the Christian], als Heilsgeschehen nur dem Glauben faszbar. Sie ist nicht ein Prinzip, sondem ein Faktum, nach dem sich jeder Denkakt ausrichten musz. Dann ist das A . o y t ~ e O ' e a t gehorsam. Heidland goes on to point out: Bezeichnend fuer das Glaubensurteil ist nun seine unbedingte Gueltigkeit. Urteilt PIs ueber den Stand seiner Vollkommenheit (Phil 3,13) oder ueber seine Stellung als Ap (2 K 11,5), so ist von seiten der Gemeinde ein Einspruch unmoeglich. Nach R 14,14 kommt darum auch der "Schwache" durch den Genusz von Opferfleisch in seinen Glauben selbst zu Fall: Die "Beurteilung" des Fleisches als unrein bedeutet eine fuer ihn verbindliche Wirkiichkeit, deren Verletzung auch eine Erschuetterung seiner selbst ist. So enthaelt die gehorsame Erfassung der Glaubenswirklichkeit im A . o y t ~ e O ' e a t zugleich die Aufforderung, sich dieser Wirklichkeit auch im Leben unterzuordnen: R 6,11 mahnt der Imperative A . o y t ~ e O ' e e , sich fuer tot der Suende, doch lebend fuer Gott "zu halten," dann: sich danach aber auch zu "verhalten."2 There is faith in Paul's A . o y t ~ e c r e e to be sure, but this faith of the Christian's embraces divinely revealed reality; it clings to the accomplished historical occurrence of one's death with Christ in baptism and its necessary consequence -life perpetual with the living Lord. And we may add in the words of Martin Franzmann's characterization of faith: "Thus, by receiving from God, by purely receptive relatedness to divine 25 and gracious omnipotence, by committal to God . . . thus faith becomes power, ,,3 power, as Paul will show, for the utter defeat of sin in the believer's earthly walk and total dedication of being and behavior to God. C. H. Dodd, too, is mistaken in his interpretation of what Paul means to indicate, when he employs A.o)1i::ecrSe in verse 11. He supposes the apostle is saying that: Unless he [the Christian] "considers himself dead to sin," he is in effect not dead to sin, in spite of his baptism .... The steady intention of mind and will is needed to make explicit in fact what is already given in principle.4 Kenneth Wuest speaks directly to Dodd's error in his comment: "Reckon" is logizomai, "to calculate, take into account." The fact that he takes into account the change God wrought in his inner being when He saved him does not make it so, but his act of reckoning puts into operation the machinery which gives him victory over sin and enables him to live a life pleasing to God. When the saint counts upon the fact that the power of indwelling sin is broken he will refuse to obey it and will fulfill Paul's admonition.5 We come next to the word ~ a : u ' t o u c ; in Paul's directive "keep on accounting yourselves to be dead with reference to sin but continually living to God." The reference is to the essential self of each Christian to whom Paul is writing; this self died once with Christ and then instantaneously rose with Him to enter upon a continuous life with the living Lord. The apostle thinks of the individual, regenerate selves of the Roman believers together and uses the plural "yourselves," ~ < X ' \ ) ' t o u c ; , as he speaks to them. In the previous verses he has combined himself with these "selves" and has written "we": "we" died to sin with Christ, how shall "we" go on living in it? "We" were baptized into union with Christ and with his death. "We" were buried with Him that "we" might be raised with Him. "We" have become grown-together with Him in a death and in a resurrection like his. "We" shall continue living together with Him. The essential self, the ego, the "I," of the believer is the "new creation," KatVl) lC't{crt<;;, of 2 Corinthians 5:17 and Galatians 6:15; "the new man" of Colossians 3:10 ('t()V v ~ o v ~ v S p o m o v ) and Ephesians 4:24 ('t()V lCatV()V ~ v S p o m o v ) , who has replaced "the old man" of Romans 6:6 (0 1tCXA.at()C; 1'tJlU:lV ~ v S p o m o C ; ) and of Colossians 3:9 and Ephesians 4:22 ('t()V 1taA.at()v ~ v S p o m o v ) ; "the inner man" of Romans 7:22 ('t()V ~ c r r o ~ v S p o m o v ; compare the expression also in Ephesians 3:16 and 2 Corinthians 4:16), where Paul says, "I delight in the law of God according to the inner man." To be identified with this inner man is the "I" of Romans 7:15 and following which wants to do the total good and avoid all evil in the behavior, wills what is right and hates what is wrong, agrees with and serves the law of God. That this "I" so delights, wants, wills, hates, agrees, and serves is due to the fact that the "I" has life -this is what it means for the regenerate ego to be "continually living to God -or, as Paul tells us in Ephesians 4:24, that the new man is created righteous and holy (he is 't()V lCatv()V ~ v S p o m o v 't()V K a ' t ~ Se()v l C ' t l c r S ~ v ' t a t.v BtlCatocruVlJ Kat ocrt()tt\'tt 'ti'\c; aA.l1Se{ac;) and thus constantly exercises himself in such godliness. It is the nature of the new man always to have his will in harmony with God's; the new man is a morally perfect creation of the Almighty. This is true, despite the fact that the apostle also says in Romans 7, "I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do" (verse 19, Revised Standard Version), for he immediately adds in the next verse, "Now if I do what I (eyro) do not want, it is no longer I (eyro) that do it, but sin which dwells within me." In other words, it is actually not the new man ever who himself does wrong; it is rather sin, the sin-power, which still dwells in the flesh6 (the as yet unregenerate nature in the Christian), verse 18a, and compels the flesh to follow its dictates, when the believer does not employ the powers of the new life in Christ to overcome sin. When the believer yet sins, the new man experiences temporarily and unwillingly a kind of "subjection" to the 26 sin-power, until the child of God repents and the new man comes to the fore and "holds the field" in the Christian once again. But, even though the believer's regenerate ego is sinless, this inner man -as the essence of the human being the Christian is -nevertheless bears the responsibility for the sin committed in the flesh; and so Paul writes, "with my flesh I serve the law of sin" (Romans 7:25, Revised Standard Version). Luther, commenting on 7:18 puts the matter this way: Just because one and the same man as a whole consists of flesh and spirit, he [Paul] attributes to the whole man both of the opposites that come from the opposite parts of him. Thus there comes about a communio idiomatum: one and the same man is spiritual and carnal, righteous and sinful, good and evil. Just so the one person of Christ is at the same time both dead and alive, both suffering and blessed, both active and inactive, etc., because of the communio idomatum, even though there belongs to neither of his two natures what is characteristic of the other, for as everyone knows, they differ absolutely from each other.7 Now the essential self, the ego, the new, inner man of the believing child of God is his regenerate spirit. Paul declares in 1 Corinthians 6: 17, "he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit"; that is, the union with Christ which takes place in baptism is a union joining the believer's spirit to Christ's. In Romans 8:10 the apostle makes the assertion, "if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the spirit is life because of righteousness." In the previous passage we have reduced the King James Version capital "s" of the word "Spirit" to a small "s," since it is not the Holy Spirit but the regenerate human spirit signified here. (Compare the Revised Standard Version, The New English Bible, renderings, "your spirits are alive" and "the spirit is life itself," respectively.) The apostle, then, is saying that the Christian's spirit is so fully possessed of life -the life to which believers have risen, and in which they continually live, with Christ -that it can be called life itself. A striking parallel to this Pauline teaching, the identification of the believer's ego with his spirit, presents itself in implications of two "words" which Jesus spoke from the cross on Calvary. To the penitent malefactor on his right the Savior gave the comforting assurance, "Verily I say unto thee, Today shalt thou be with me in paradise" (Luke 23:43; italicizing mine); then when Christ was ready to die He spoke to his Heavenly Father, saying, "Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit" (verse 46; italicizing mine). As Christ immediately thereafter expired ( ~ ~ t 1 t V e u c r e v ) , his human spirit departed the body to be with the Father in heaven (for the parts of three days, until Easter Sunday when this spirit returned again to his body in Joseph's tomb and vivified it for resurrection); the Lord's body was interred in a customary manner. Yet Jesus had said that He would be in paradise that very day. This ego of Christ was his spirit. The same can be stated with regard to the penitent criminal. His body was buried, no doubt in a common burial plot near Jerusalem, but he went at once to be with Jesus in paradise -and that according to the spirit, that is, in his regenerate spirit.s Luther, the great student and exegete of St. Paul, understood that the believer's death and life with Christ are "in the spirit." In a gloss on Romans 6:7-11, for example, he writes (and our interest in the following quotation is not so much in the commentary as on the repeated use of the terms "spiritual" and "spirit"): For he, who actualizes this "If we have been planted together," etc., is dead: by a good spiritual death he is made righteous from his sin, i.e., he is risen in a spiritual resurrection. Now if we be dead by a spiritual death through baptism, in order to end sin with Christ: we believe ... that we shall also live in spirit and newness, now and forever, with him .... death shall have no more dominion over him; in other words: therefore it cannot have any dominion over you in spirit. ... So do you also reckon, i.e., feel, know, that you are dead to sin, I Peter 2:24: "That we, having died to sins, might live to righteousness," but alive in a spiritual life to God in Christ Jesus, by faith in Christ.9 27 In many passages of the Reformer's lectures on chapters 6-8 he speaks of the inward man, the spiritual man, the spirit of the child of God, dying and living spiritually, and so on.10 Each Christian, then, is continually to account himself to be dead with reference to sin but perpetually living to God. The present infinitive dvat has a durative significance, indicating unchanging condition, the condition described by the balanced phrases with )It.v and ot.. As our translation indicates, the datives are datives of reference, as in verse 10. The participle su>v'ta<; is in the durative present tense, again denoting a continuing state; compare the durative verbs in verse 8, ous1'\OO)leV, and 10, silo The combination of su>vta<; with etVat is the "heaping" of durative present upon durative present and an emphatic stress of the permanent continuance of the "living to God." This is the "living to God" of the Christian's inner self, the new man, created in baptism. It includes the believer's faith in and love for God; his delight in, and desire to have the entire person render obedience to, God's will, as has been mentioned. tv XptO'1: At the end of verse 11 we meet for the first time in Romans the phrase tv XptOt(\) '111001), which together with the similar expressions tv KUp{rp, tv aut(\), and others were frequently used by Paul. In the passage before us the apostle tells the Romans to keep on accounting themselves dead to sin but continually living to God tv XptOt(\) '111001), which we have translated "in union with Christ Jesus." What is the meaning of this expression? What is the justification for rendering the tv "in union with"? In modem times Adolf Deissmann kindled widespread interest in the tv Xpto't(\) phrase with the publication (1892) of his dissertation Die neutestamentliche Formel "in Christo Jesu. ,,11 Finding 164 occurrences (32 outside the Pauline corpus) of the formula or one of its variants in the Pauline corpus (196 in the New Testament), this scholar related it closely to another of Paul's expressions, "in the Spirit," and concluded as to its significance: Christ is Spirit; therefore He can live in Paul and Paul in Him. Just as the air of life which we breathe is "in" us and fills us, and yet we at the same time live and breathe "in" this air, so it is with St. Paul's fellowship of Christ: Christ in him, he in Christ. This thoroughly Pauline watchword, "in Christ," is meant "vividly and mystically, and so is the analogous "Christ in me." ... this formula -so closely connected in meaning with the other: "in the Spirit" -must be conceived as the peculiarly Pauline expression of the most intimate fellowship imaginable of the Christian with the living, spiritual Christ.12 Deissmann also says: "the Christian ... is 'in Christ,' and also 'in the Spirit'; that means in fact 'in Christ who is the Spirit. ,,,13 The latter amounts to personal identification of the Second and Third Persons of the Trinity and is Scripturally incorrect.14 Deissmann's "mystically local conception" (so Oepke describes it)15 of dwelling in Christ as in a pneuma element comparable to the air is open to the objection that it depersonalizes the Son of God. Eric Wahlstrom points out that Johannes Weiss was one of the first to see clearly "that in order to arrive at the mystical interpretation it is necessary to dissolve the conception of the person of Christ into a vague, formless, and impersonal being.,,16 Wahlstrom adds: This life "in Christ" is closely connected with faith. That "Christ lives in me" is explained as a life in "the faith which is in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me" . . . . Faith, according to these words, is a personal dependence upon the adequacy of the work of him "who loved me and gave himself for me." It is a dependence, however, not upon some natural or magical force, or on some "formless, impersonal, all-penetrating being," but upon a Person who has manifested an attitude of love to Paul, and has done something for him 28 which involved this Person's death.17 William Barclay sees in Deissmann's interpretation "a nebulousness which is not in the Pauline conception"18 and states that certain other Pauline pictures of the Christian experience of Christ enable us to approach more nearly the meaning of his phrase "in Christ." Among these Barclay refers to the description of the believer's being "clothed with Christ" (Galatians 3:27), having Christ "born and formed" in him (Galatians 4:19), and having Christ "live" in him (Galatians 2:20) and suggests the idea of "indissoluble union." The author says: It was not a case of identification with Christ; Paul did not lose his own personality; for Paul could still kneel and look up and worship and adore. But something had happened [on the Damascus road] which brought Christ into Paul's heart and joined Paul's life to the life of Christ in such a way that he could only say that he was for ever in Christ.19 Another explanation of the formula is that of Albrecht Oepke. He writes in Kittel-Bromiley on £v XptO''t . InO'o\): At root is the view of Christ as a universal personality. This is to be construed cosmically and eschatologically rather than mystically in the current Hellenistic sense. Cf. 1 C. 15:22,45-49; R. 5:12-21. The first and the second Adam ... are progenitors initiating two races of men. Each implies a whole world, an order of life or death .... Each includes his adherents in and under himself .... By baptism ... believers are removed from the sphere of the first Adam, which is that of sin and death, into the sphere of the second Adam, which is that of righteousness and life . . . . This underlying spatial concept gives us the clue to the true significance of the formula £v XptO''t and its parallels. Yet here, too, there is both a local and an instrumental element. 20 We have had occasion to consider the Christ as "representative man" or "universal personality" concept earlier in this thesis and have shown that it is not applicable to Paul's teaching in Romans 6. For the reasons cited in Chapter II (to which the reader is referred21) Oepke's interpretation of the £v XptO''t formula, if this be proposed for the phrase as appearing in verse 11, is unacceptable. Closely related to Oepke's is C. H. Dodd's idea: in the £v XptO''t phrase, "Christ" = the Church. He says in his commentary on Romans: In verse 11 we have the first instance in this epistle of Paul's characteristic use of that phrase ["in Christ"], the formula of what has been called his "Christ-mysticism." The context in which it here occurs offers a clue to its meaning. It is the baptized person who is in Christ. He has been baptized into the Church, into the Body of Christ, and so into Christ. He has become one of that company of people who embody the new humanity of which Christ is the inclusive Representative (cf. xii. 5: for all our numbers, we form one Body in Christ).22 Now it is true that when persons are baptized d<; XptO''tOv, they are immediately baptized d<; ~ v O'(J)I.uX (1 Corinthians 12:13), which is the Church; compare Galatians 3:27-28 and Ephesians 2:13-16. In one sense £v XptO''t = £v tKKA.11O'tq:. But, as Walter Bartling puts it, though the two are inseparable, "they are not quite the reverse sides of the same coin, because tv XptO''t is logically and soteriologically prior in time and importance to tv tKKA.11O'tq:."23 Our study of Romans 6:2-11 has shown that in this chapter the Apostle Paul is speaking of the believer's vital, intimate, personal union with the Christ-as-individual, through whom he receives the life to live in the community of God's people. 29 It is probably correct to assume that Paul ultimately derived his EV Xpt(J'tlP concept and expression from Christ Himself,24 in view of Jesus' extensive teaching about "being in" (etVat EV) and "abiding in" ().ltVEtv EV) Him as recorded particularly in the Fourth Gospel. Vincent Taylor in a study of Johannine and Pauline mysticism shows the close resemblance between the two, "the principal differences being that the former discloses itself also as a God-mysticism and does not make use of the Pauline idea of dying and rising with Christ." Taylor further summarizes: Like the Pauline mysticism, that found in the Johannine writings is a "fellowship-mysticism" in which the personal relationship is so reciprocal in character that, alternatively, it can be described by saying that God or Christ "abides in" the believer or that the believer "abides in" God or "in" Christ. In this respect also the Pauline use of the phrases "Christ in you" and "You in Christ" supplies a close parallel. More important still is the strong ethical note which so decisively distinguishes this teaching from the characteristic utterances of Hellenistic piety. Less varied in range than in the Pauline Epistles, this ethical emphasis is clearly marked in ... Johannine passages .... 25 In other words, the mystical expressions in John's epistles, the Pauline corpus, and the discourses of Jesus as preserved in the Fourth Gospel are of a kind. Both apostles were true disciples of their Master.26 The best illustration of the "in Christ" formula is provided by the words of Jesus in John IS, which indicate that He is related to those who believe in Him as a vine is to its branches. The Savior says: I am the true vine .... Abide in me [EV E).lOt], and I in you [EV U).llV]. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine [EV 'til ap.1ttA.q:>]; no more can ye, except ye abide in me [EV E).lOt]. I am the vine, ye are the branches. He that abideth in me [EV E).lot], and I in him [EV au'tlP], the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me [xropt<; E).lO'D] ye can do nothing. (verses la, 4,5) As a branch is vitally joined to a vine stem (trunk), so that from the stem it receives its nourishment and support and derives its very life (separate the branch from the stem, and it dies); so the Christian is vitally joined by faith to Christ, in intimate spiritual connection or union ("mystical," because we cannot with our minds penetrate its mysterious nature), such that he keeps receiving from Christ his very life and the means to support and maintain it. This picture of vine and branches accords also with the idea of grafting which is inherent in the c r u ) . l ~ U ' t o t of verse 5. L. S. Thornton, in elucidating the,thought tllat "as we are in Christ by baptism, for that very reason he is in us," states: The truth that Christ is in us because we are in him is made clear by the illustration from grafting ([Romans] 6:5). For we are "in Christ," not as a pebble in a box, but as a branch in a tree. Now the branch which is grafted in becomes partaker in the life of the tree (11:17). The act of grafting may, accordingly, be regarded from two points of view. As soon as the act itself has been completed, there results a new fact which is both immediate and obvious. The grafted branch is now "in" the tree. That new fact, however, becomes at once the starting-point of a new stream of consequences. Sap begins to flow from the tree into the new branch. The new branch is still, and continues to be, this particular branch and no other. It does not lose its identity . Yet as soon as the act of grafting is complete, a new life begins to enter the branch. Just because the branch is "in" the tree, the life of the tree is henceforth also "in" the branch. It is more natural, however, to speak of the branch being in the tree than of the tree being in the branch. The former way of speaking is true in a more literal sense than the latter. We express the second truth more frequently by saying that the sap or the life 30 of the tree is in the branch. These facts correspond broadly to St. Paul's two ways of expressing the truth about our relation to Christ.27 To say that a branch abides "in" a vine, then primarily denotes and emphasizes vital connection or union. So the Christian "in" Christ Jesus is in vital connection with Him, or simply "in union with Christ Jesus," which is the translation we have provided for the ~ v XptO''t0 formula in Romans 6:11 (thus also The New English Bible). The believer's inner self, or spirit, is in intimate union with Christ's glorified human spirit. Compare 1 Corinthians 6:17: (') o ~ lCOA,AO:lJlEVOC; 't0lCuptrp ~ v 1tVEi}Jla ~ O ' ' t t v . On the basis of the Gospel facts of which Paul has reminded them in verses 2-10 Paul urges his readers each one continually to account himself, in his essential spiritual being, to be dead to the sin-power -beyond the reach of its coercing might and free of its influence -but perpetually living to God in union with Christ Jesus. In such life each believer has full desire to please God in total being and behavior, and the power to overcome sin in the body (verses 6 and 7). We may take note of the sequence of the imperative ( A o ~ t ~ E O ' e E ) verb after the previous indicatives. This is a prominent Pauline pattern. The recitation of "the great things God has done" for and in his people calls for action on the part of everyone of the hearers -first and foremost the response of faith; and then, with this, an appropriate response of life, as the imperatives in verses 12 and 13 will indicate. Here is the grace which each Christian must constantly strive to grasp: through faith personally to appropriate the great truths Paul presents in Romans 6:2-10; to keep continually in mind all that has happened to and within him in baptism; to account himself, ever since baptism and the implanting of faith in his heart, as actually dead to sin and really living to God in union with Christ Jesus. Verses 12 and 13 Let not sin, therefore, reign in your mortal body, so that you obey its lusts, and do not furnish your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin; on the contrary, present yourselves once-andjor-all to God, as men alive from the dead, and your members as instrurnents of righteousness, to God. GUv is plainly inferential. In view of the facts presented in the foregoing verses; in view of his readers' knowledge of their death, resurrection, and life with Christ and assuming their accounting themselves as dead to sin and living to God accordingly, Paul urges his readers to have done with the reign of sin in, over, and through the body, this part of each Christian's nature which still has contact with sin, in which sin dwells and can exert its influence, and which the sin-power still can tyrannize, if the believer is not on his guard. In view of all that has been told the Roman saints let none of them any more furnish the members of his body as instruments to the sin-power. Let these Christians rather yield themselves wholly to God and present the body's members as instruments of righteousness to Him. The ouv of verse 12 "picks up," as it were, the thought introduced by the ouv of verse 1. What shall be the readers' reaction to the abounding grace of God of which Paul has spoken in 5:20-21? Are they to continue in sin? No, the apostle now again in effect replies. The only proper conclusion to draw with reference to the grace of God which removes the guilt of sin and also -as he has now shown in the first ten verses of Chapter 6 -breaks its coercive might in the believer's life is to use the sin-defeating and sin-destroying power it bestows and progressively produce the righteousness which glorifies God. To state it one more way, the Roman Christians are alive to God, they have new spiritual life within: this means (1) that each one in his inmost being, in his real self, no longer wants to sin but desires only to do the will of God; and this means (2), that because the old man has been killed off, they can now use the body and its members to serve God alone (verses 6 and 7), which thought verse 14 strongly emphasizes again. Now, since Paul's readers truly have botll the desire and the power to obey the Lord, let them believe that this is so and then act -let them stop sinning and live in righteousness. Let their outer nature and life conform wholly to their transformed inner nature ("created in righteousness and holiness") and life. Let them "become" what they "are." Werde was du 31 bist.28 In this way Paul presents his readers with the basic, ulti..'l1ate motive and calls to their attention the basic, ultimate power upon which they can draw to overcome sin in their lives. We can now see clearly the Godordained connection between justification and sanctification, between faith and works, in the life of the believing individual, according to Pauline theology. The question is: Why should a Christian who is justified by grace through faith alone, without the deeds of the law, be eager to live a holy life, be zealous in performing good works? The apostle's final answer is: Because this Christian wants to; dead to sin and alive to God, in his real self he really desires to serve God perfectly and uninterruptedly. This is the effect justification has wrought in him. Let the believer reckon with this fact, understand it thoroughly, believe it, and he will have total and powerful incentive to live the godly life. And, since sin's dominion over the body· has been terminated, as tlle Christian sets out to do the right, he can and will produce God-glorifying fruits of righteousness. Thus, good works naturally and inevitably follow faith and justification in the behavior of the true child of God. In verse 13 sin is once again depicted as a reigning power: this is indicated not only by the presence of the article Witll cXJ!ap'tta but also by the verb 1 3 a m A £ u ~ ' t c o and the infinitive tJ1taKO'IJEtV. The present tense of 1 3 a m A £ u ~ ' t c o is durative, which gives the word the significance, "hold uninterrupted sway"; this idea is adequately conveyed by the single English word "reign."29 Paul says the sin-power is not to reign "in your mortal body, so that you obey its lusts." Baptism has removed sin's control of the Christian's spirit; the only field left for sin's operation is the "mortal body" (compare 'tb a(O)la 'ti)c; tX)lap'tfac;, verse 6). Loo)la'tt here certainly refers to the human body, the physical organism. This is confirmed by the attributive adjective "mortal," eVTl'tq>. Even the Christian's body is subject to death, and this because of Adam's sin (Romans 5:12). As mortal, and in the process of perishing, the body is too weak to resist the sin-power; sin can still operate in and through the body. Neither intrinsically evil (for the body can be used for the service of God; the body will be glorified) nor the source and seat of sin in man, it is the "victim" upon which sin "pounces," whose members sin still can coerce and use for its purposes. We confront a problem, however, when Paul attributes "lusts," ~ m e U ) l t a t c ; , to the "body" -alno\) refers to aoo)la'tt -and intimates that the sin-power stirs up these lusts of the body. Normally we speak of "appetites" or "needs" of the body. The production of "lust," "desire," "longing," or "craving" -any of these terms may be employed to translate ~ m e u ) l { a , and in context here each takes on an evil significance, evil lust, sinful desire, and so on -is rather a function of the psychical part of man. What does it mean that the "body" has "lusts"? The answer lies, no doubt, in a comparison with the New Testament usage of the term "flesh," alXpS. Thaye2° offers a convenient and helpfully organized summary of the pertinent information. (1) The basic meaning of a ~ p s is "flesh," the soft substance of the living body, which covers the bones and is permeated with blood; flesh of both man and beasts. (2) LlXpS is frequently used in Scripture also in the sense of "body;" not designating it, however, as a skillful combination of related parts ("an organism," which is denoted by the word a(Opa), but signifying the material or substance of the living body. (3) Sometimes "flesh" also means simply "a living creature." (4) But a ~ P S , when either expressly or tacitly opposed to 'tb 1tVE\))la, has an ethical sense and denotes mere human nature of man apart from the influence of the Holy Spirit, and therefore prone to sin and opposed to God; accordingly it includes whatever in the soul is weak, debased, tending to ungodliness and vice, according to Thayer. We may add that in the case of the unbeliever his whole being -spirit, psychical nature, and body -is "flesh"; whereas in the case of the Christian his inner being, the spirit, has been recreated in righteousness, and only his body and psychical nature are "flesh." It should be noted, however, that the unregenerate psychical nature of the Christian is a part of his "flesh." This is clearly indicated, for example, 32 by Galatians 5:19-21, where Paul gives a list of "the works of the flesh" and includes such sins as enmity, jealousy, anger, selfishness, and envy. LCOJla, according to Thayer,31 is our English "body," primarily of men and animals. (Not significant for our discussion are some of the word's transferred meanings such as the body of a plant, or a heavenly body; its figurative usage as designating the mystical body of Christ, the Church; and other meanings.) The author adds: "the fact that the body includes 1't c r a p ~ , and in the flesh also the incentives to sin [see meaning (4) of c r a p ~ above], gives origin to the foIl. phrases: JlT\ ~ a c r t A e u ~ ' t O ) 1't 9VTt'tet> uJlCOV crooJlan, Ro. vi. 12 ... at 1 t p a ~ E t C ; 'tou crooJla'toc;, Ro. viii. 13." In other words, crcoJla in certain New Testament contexts takes on a meaning practically equivalent to c r a p ~ in sense (4) above.32 In the passage before us, then, we may conclude the term crcoJla is used in a wider sense -to include along with the physical human body also the unregenerate psychical nature of the Christian.33 It is the latter nature, however, which actually produces the "lusts" spoken of, and this at the instigation of the sin-power. What is the whole of the apostle's thought in verse 12? He is saying in effect: "Enough of sin's reigning in your mortal body (your unregenerate nature), stirring up all kinds of lusts, with the result that 34 you obey these lusts, embrace them and commit acts of sin." The Roman Christians are to battle and overcome the very lusts themselves, which are indeed sins in their own right (Romans 7:7) and also lead to further sins of deed. Sin is not to be allowed to reign through the unregenerate nature even in so far as the stimulation of evil desires is concerned -to say nothing of the production of consequent acts of sin (with which the next verse specifically deals). We are reminded of the statement attributed to Luther to the effect that the sinful lusts in the Christian are like birds: "you can't keep them from flying over your head, but you can keep them from making a nest in your hair." Paul continues in verse 13: "and do not furnish your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin." This admonition is a natural sequel to the one previous. The thought progression is: do not allow sinful lusts to remain within you, and certainly do not let the sin-power compel you to obey these lusts, which means that you tum over your members for sin to use these as its instruments for the production of wickedness. The body's "members," ' t ~ J l ~ A , ' l l , here include the various parts of the physical anatomy, eyes, ears, mouth, hands, and so on, and -in view of the significance of "the body" in verse 12 -the various components of (unregenerate) human psychical nature such as the intellect, the emotions, and the will. In context, ~ 1 t A , a is better rendered "instruments" than "weapons," which the word certainly also means and which some commentators prefer as the translation in this passage.35 'ABtlctac; is a genitive of quality: the sense is, "instruments for the production of unrighteousness," transgressions of every type which violate the divine norm and standard of right as set down in God's law. The present tense of 1taptcr'tavE'tE may be regarded as iterative. In plain terms, then, Paul is telling the Romans: do not let sin rule your members so that your eyes look at the wrong things, your feet take you to the wrong places, your mind thinks the wrong thoughts, your emotion of love be misdirected toward material things, and so on. First the negative, then the positive. "On the contrary ( < X A , A , ~ after a negative clause is strongly adversative, introduces a sharp contrast), present yourselves once-and-for-all to God, as men alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness, to God." The aorist imperative 1tapacr't1\cra'tE calls for a decisive, once-for-all break with past sinful practice, through a once-for-all-time presentation of self and bodily members to God, as the new Lord and Master. Interestingly, the apostle asks here first that each believer devote and furnish36 his inner being, his ego, his regenerate spirit to God in a conscious act of self-dedication and vow of deathless loyalty. 'Eau'toi)c; is to be conceived of exactly as in verse 11, the real inner self, the spirit; the contrast between the self and the members which belong to, but do not constitute, the self is very evident in this verse. The phrase rocrEt BK VEKpCOV scov'tac; shows the "spirit" (if we may be permitted to use this term) in which the presenting of the self to God should be done -as really alive from the dead! as beneficiary of 33 a stupendous miracle, such as being raised and alive from the dead. Paul implies: well, this happened to you -your old self was crucified with Christ and killed off; with Christ your new self was raised from the dead -you are actually alive. Be congnizant of, and demonstrate your recognition of, this as you present yourselves to God. Act as men raised to life, men who are really alive from the dead. Secondly, the apostle directs his readers in the same act of consecration to present their members (same meaning as at the beginning of the verse) once-and-for-all as instruments of righteousness, to God, for use in his service. l 1 t K a t o c r u v l l ~ is a genitive of quality; and the sense, "for the production of righteousness." Let it be forever decided that the ears will be used exclusively to hear the things God wants his children to hear; the tongue, to speak the things God wants them to speak; the hands, to be active in the deeds God wants them to perform; the mind, to produce the thoughts God wants them to think, and so on. And should any of the body's members temporarily yield to the service of sin, let these immediately, by repentance, be returned to the service of God. This is grace, indeed, for the Christian to strive after -to exercise the powers of the new being and life bestowed in baptism and gain the facility of their use so as to triumph over sin; decisively to remove tlle body and its members from the service of the old tyrant and present them a living sacrifice acceptable to God; to conquer lust, to suppress the evil thought and feeling, to hold in check the stubborn, contrary will; to devote energy and talents to the work of the Lord; daily to seek fIrst the Kingdom and its righteousness; unremittingly to pursue the godliness which is full of blessing for this life and leads to glory in the life to come. Once the believer is shown the way to lay hold of this grace -and Paul gives the clearest directions in Romans 6 -he must pursue it Witll all his might. But what about its actual attainment? Might this not after all be beyond the reach of the ordinary Christian -such as would be found, for example, in the rank-and-file of the Church's membership in Rome? Paul anticipates this and any other misgiving which might arise in the hearts of those who would ponder his words in Romans 6 by adding the assurance of verse 14. Verse 14 Each evangelical instruction which the apostle has given the Roman Christians in verses 12 and 13 they can most assuredly carry out. Why? Verse 14 (the last clause of the sentence begun in verse 12) supplies the unequivocal answer; for sin shall not have dominion over you; for you are not under law but under grace. rap is illative, introducing a reason. The first clause of the verse constitutes a categorical promise, a climax guarantee, full of strengthening encouragement: "sin shall not have dominion over you." What has been implicit in Paul's argumentation right along in the previous verses (compare especially verses 6 and 7) he now at the conclusion of this section enunciates in the form of clearest, point-blank assurance. Sin's power to "rule as lord" (KUpteucret) and to enslave -more specifically, the power of any sin (anarthrous ap.apna) thus to have dominion -is utterly at an end for the believer, today, tomorrow, next week, next year, throughout the period of life on earth, forevermore! This is the emancipation God has effected for every one of his children in baptism. Let his people believe this with all their hearts and then proceed boldly to the conquest of sin. To understand fully the apostle's declaration, two points must be noted. To the fIrst we have already made reference. Ap.ap't{a here is anarthrous; the point in omitting the article is to stress quality and not the personification of sin as previously.37 Paul refers to "anything in the nature of sin" and, in context, "known to be sin"; any known sinful act, word, thought. He implies; not only will the sin-power itself no longer reign over you like a king; no single sin of any kind at all will be able to hold you in subjection or even temporarily lord it over you. Putting it another way, there is not a single recognized transgression which the believer cannot overcome in his "body" (unregenerate physical and psychical nature), and in the power of Christ. Kenneth Wuest writes; 34 Here is one of the secrets of the victorious life, the realization that we are set free from the clutches of the sinful nature with the ability to say no to it, the realization that we have the same power over this fallen nature that we have over our radio. We can snap it off at will and in an instant. It has no more control over us than that which we allow it to have.38 This is not to suggest, however -and this is the second point -that the Christian will never again commit wrongs which he knows to be sins, after regeneration or after learning Paul's doctrine in Romans 6. In his inner being, the new man, to be sure, he is altogether righteous and living to God without sin. The flesh, though, is weak. When the believer is not on his guard, sin can still tempt him in this unregenerate nature and lead him into transgression. In such cases the ego is temporarily "taken captive," as has been explained previously; and, though the "I" itself does not do evil, it nevertheless must bear responsibility for whatever wrong is done. Because of the frailty of the flesh the problem of "falling into" sins of weakness will remain with the child of God throughout the course of his earthly walk. On the other hand, it should be stressed that when the Christian consciously addresses himself to the problem of sin in his life, to particular and besetting transgressions; when he recalls what Paul has stated in Romans 6 and applies this to himself in faith, then the victory over the sin-power and individual sins is assured. The important thing, then, in the struggle with evil and the pressure of temptation, is that he keep on accounting himself dead to sin and living to God in union with Christ Jesus; that he hold in unswerving trust to the pledge "sin shall not have dominion over you." To engage in such accounting and have such faith is to operate in the invincible strength of Christ. The second clause in verse 14 gives the reason (illative "(tip again) why no sin at all will exercise dominion: "for you are not under law but under grace." "Law" and "grace" are not strange or abrupt "imports" into Paul's discourse at this point. The apostle had spoken of both in the verses immediately preceding 6:1. Romans 5:20 reads (Revised Standard Version): "Law [anarthrous V6J.1OC;] carne in, to increase the trespass; but where sin increased, grace [1'\ XtlptC;] abounded all the more"; and 5:21: "so that, as sin reigned in death, grace [1'\ xtlptC;] also might reign through righteousness to eternal life tlrrough Jesus Christ our Lord." The reference to grace in 6:1 we have already considered. Before 5:20 these terms, either with or without the article, have appeared in many passages of the first five chapters of the epistle. What is their significance in 6:14, and why their introduction into the context of verses 12-14? To be "under law," under the authority and rule of law, and to be "under grace," under the authority and rule of grace, is plainly here a direct antithesis: either the one or the other.39 If a person is still under "law" -and anarthrous v611oc; in verse 14, as frequently in Romans, signifies anything in the nature of law, law in general, law of any kind or code, God's written law included40 -then he is by no means free of the dominion of the sin-power or even any single sin. To man under law an appeal for holiness in inner nature or outer behavior (like that which Paul issues in verses 12 and 13) would be fruitless. The apostle has stated in 5:20 that God let law come into the world to exert an influence on men alongside sin and death, and its express function is "to increase the trespass," to multiply transgressions, to strengthen the sin-power's grip upon, and tyranny over, human beings.41 The more men would deal with law in whatever form they had it, come under its authority, and try to obey its precepts, the more they would violate the very precepts and ordinances to which they had committed themselves. How this result of law-use comes to be Paul has alluded to in 4:15 and spells out in detail in chapter 7, especially verses 5 and 8-13; the sin-power employs law to increase human transgression. Law could never render its devotees capable of resisting this sin-power and producing actual righteousness, because it has no capacity to bestow spiritual life upon the sinner (Galatians 3:21). The situation is entirely different, on the other hand, if a person is under grace. In anarthrous XtlptC; the emphasis is upon quality, that which has the quality of grace. The term grace in Scripture names an attribute 35 and action of God according to which He shows sinful men undeserved kindness, unmerited favor, particularly in bestowing upon the objects of his grace the infinitely enriching gifts of salvation. Paul's first mention of grace in the course of the formal doctrinal presentation of Romans is in 3:24, where grace as divine attribute is said to be the cause of the believer's justification. In this verse (and in the entire section on justification, 3:21-4:25) Paul shows that divine grace operates and bestows the saving blessing of forgiveness upon men apart from any coefficiency of law. In chapter 5 grace's function of imparting life and salvation by justification is emphasized. Writing the article with X(xptC; so as almost to personify grace as a sin, and deathdispelling power -the very opposite of 1'\ u)lap'tt:a and (') S(xva'toc; -Paul states in verses 20 and 21: "grace abounded . . . so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." Again, we see that grace confers its blessings without the help of law, for verse 20 indicates that law carrie in "on the side of" sin and death and "to increase the trespass." Now the Christian to whom grace has brought its gifts of forgiveness or justification, life, and salvation cannot be "under law" but is rather "under grace" -exclusively under its jurisdiction and control. This is plain to see, because grace is said to reign "to," that is, "for the bestowal of" (final 8iC;), "eternal life." Where there is life, and life that is to continue everlastingly, there is of necessity also given along with this life the means of its perpetual maintenance -(1) the capacity to defeat and destroy sin, which brings on death,42 and (2) a freedom from domination by, or a "being under," coercing law (in any form), which only serves to multiply sin and thus bring on death. For the benefit of his readers Paul details the first, (1), in Romans 6 and the second, (2), in Romans 7. Having briefly considered this background of the apostle's thought, we are in a position to understand the reference to "law" and "grace" in 6:14. The Roman Christians have the ability to follow Paul's directives in verse 12 and 13; he assures tllem, "sin shall not have dominion over you." When they became believers and received justification and life (by union with Christ in his death and resurrection), they were freed from being under not only the sin-power itself but also "law," which is the one great agency tllat supports and multiplies sin. When Christians are removed from the control of sin and law and placed "under grace," there is no other opposing power which could prevent their withdrawing the body's members from sin's use and employing them in the service of God. The believer's triumph over sin, in Christ, is complete. With the consideration of Paul's assurance "you are ... under grace" in verse 14 we have come the full circle in our study of the apostle's doctrine in Romans 6:1-14. We have seen the grace the Christian has received, 1-10; the grace the Christian must strive to appropriate, 11-13; and in the last verse of the section Paul has brought us once again to the grace received. It remains for us to draw some conclusions as to the relevance of the theology of Romans 6 for the teaching and proclamation of the Church today. 36 CHAPTER IV SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS It will be well at this point briefly to summarize Pauline doctrine in Romans 6:1-14, as we have interpreted his statements in the preceding pages. Our study has shown that substantial differences of opinion exist among New Testament commentators in the explanation of these verses but that there is exegetical support for the position this thesis has taken on the significant controverted issues. The facts of stupendous importance, of which Paul reminds his readers in verses 1-10 in Romans 6 (which is located in the section dealing with the effects of justification for the believer in Christ) are the following: when these Christians were baptized and came to faith in Jesus, they were joined to Christ, spiritually united to Him. This union was such that it brought each of them into participation in Christ's own death and resurrection. They each one experienced crucifixion with Christ, death and burial with him, and then, in the same moment and miracle of regeneration, they experienced resurrection from the dead for entrance upon a condition of endless spiritual life with Christ. The Christian's union with Christ is a spiritual union, that is, a union of the believer's spirit with Christ's spirit, and thus with Christ. The old spirit-self with its opposition to God was done away with; a newly created inner spirit-being with a loving responsiveness to God was provided the believer in the act of baptismal regeneration. Because the union with Christ and the participation in his death, resurrection, and eternal life are of a mysterious nature, that is, beyond the powers of the human intellect to penetrate and comprehend, this being joined to Christ is sometimes called the believer's mystical union with Jesus. All the effects of justification described in verses 2-10 constitute grace which the believer has received in Christ. In verses 11-13 the apostle proceeds to make application of the Gospel information provided in 2-10. Because of their death and resurrection with Christ all the Roman Christians, Paul urges, ought constantly do two things. First, according to verse 11, these believers are to take seriously ( A . o y t ~ £ < J e a t ) that, just as Jesus died once-forall-time on Good Friday but was subsequently vivified and resurrected on Easter morning and has been continually living ever since in the power of his resurrection life, so also they severally by the baptismally established union with Christ (a) died once-for-all-time and have ever since remained dead to the sin-power which once dominated their former inner being; and (b) are continually living to God -have been so ever since baptism, and will continue thus to live (t-v Xpt, in union with Christ, drawing on his power for their performance, is included. And any endeavor to live the godly life apart from the employment of the motivation and power Paul presents in Romans 6 is to that extent deficient. It is important that God's people in the Christian Church today realize these facts. 40 ENDNOTES CHAPTER I 1. Arthur Carl Piepkorn, "The Lutheran Church A Scramental Church," The Augustana Quarterly, XVII (1938),50. 2. The Greek text on which this investigation is based is Nestle's: Eberhard Nestle, Erwin Nestle, and Kurt Aland, editors, Novum Testamentum Graece (Twenty-fifth edition; Stuttgart: Wuerttembergische BibelanstaIt, 1963). 3. This date is adopted by Martin H. Franzmann: "Paul, then, wrote to Rome from Corinth during the winter of AD. 55-56," The Word of the Lord Grows (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1961), p. 111. Other datings, however, are possible. Paul Feine, Johannes Behm, and Werner Georg Kuemmel suggest "the spring of 55 or 56, Introduction to the New Testament, translated from the fourteenth revised German edition by A J. Mattill, Jr. (New York: Abingdon Press, 1966), p. 220. A H. McNeile and C. S. C. Williams designate the year as 57, An Introduction to the Study of the New Testament (Second edition; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1953), p. 124. Alfred Wikenhauser states that "Romans was written during Pau1's last sojourn at Corinth at the beginning of 58 AD.", New Testament Introduction, translated from the German by Joseph Cunningham (New York: Herder and Herder, 1958), p. 405. CHAPTER II 1. This understanding of the coherence and thought progression of the epistle to the Romans is opposed to the view of a man like Albert Schweitzer: "In the Epistle to the Romans an amazing thing happens, that, after the new righteousness has been presented at length as corning from faith in Christ's atoning sacrifice (Romans iii. 1-5:21), it is explained a second time, without any reference whatever to the previous exposition, as founded on the mystical dying and rising again with Christ (Romans vi. 1-8: 1). To the presence of these two independent expositions of the same question is d.ue the confusing impression which the Epistle to the Romans always makes upon the reader." The Mysticism of Paul the Apostle, translated from the German by William Montgomery (New York: HeillY Holt and Company, 1931), pp. 225-226. 2. emptVOOJlEv. The textual variants given in Nestle-Aland apparatus, the present and the future indicative actives of e m J l ~ V O O for the present subjunctive e m J l ~ V O O J l E V , are insufficiently attested to warrant the preference of either of them over Nestle's adopted reading. John Murray, The Epistle to the Romans (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, c.1959), I, 212, points out in a footnote that the subjunctive here "lends strength to the implied objection that there is some obligation to continue in sin because it magnifies grace .... It is the strongest form in which the question could be asked and the rejoinder 'God forbid' takes on the greater vehemence." -Because none of the remaining variant readings occurring in texts of Romans 6:1-14 are weighty or affect the exegesis of this section, this thesis will not take note of them. Cf. William Sanday and Arthur C. HEadlam, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans (Eleventh edition; New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1906), p. 156: "The various readings in this chapter are unimportant." 3. In Chapters II, III, and IV, the writer will provide his own translation of the Greek text, indicating the same with underlining. Other Bible passages cited are quoted from the KJV, unless otherwise specified. 41 4. Cf. the argumentation in 3:5-8. 5. Hans Lietzmann, Einfuehrung in Die Textgeschichte del' Paulusbriefe (Second edition; Tuebingen: Verlag von J. C. B. Mohr, 1919), p. 65. He remarks: "Woher diese Personifikation der . Allap'tta stammt, wissen wir noch nicht: sie findet sich z.B. Sirach 27:10, nicht aber Genesis 4:7 LXX." The latter passage, however, may very well be a source of the concept. The anarthrous uJlap'tta in v. 14 is also "sin as a power" -F. Blass and A. Debrunner, A Greek Grammar of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, a translation and revision of the nineth-tenth German edition by Robert W. Funk (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, c.1961), Section 258(2). 6. Sanday-Headlam, p. 145. 7. Gustav Staehlin, co-author of the article on uJlap'tta in Gerhard Kittel's Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, edited and translated by Geoffrey W. Bromiley (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1965), 1,296. Cf. Sanday-Headlam, p. 146: "We see ... that just as in the other books of the N.T. the Gospels, the Apocalypse, and the other Apostolic Epistles, evil is referred to a personal cause. And although it is doubtless true that in chapters vi, vii, where St. Paul speaks most directly of the baleful activity of Sin, he does not intend to lay special stress on this; his language is of the nature of personification and does not necessarily imply a person; yet, when we take it in connexion with other language elsewhere, we see that in the last resort he would have said that there was a personal agency at work. It is at least clear that he is speaking of an influence external to man, and acting upon him in the way 'in which spiritual forces act." 8. Walter Grundmann, co-author of the article on ullap'tta ibid., p. 311. See also James S. Stewart, A Man in Christ (New York: Harper and Brothers, n.d.), pp. 104-105. 9. Compare the personification of sin in Romans 7:7-25, which recalls the account of the first temptation in Genesis 3. 10. On the significance of the indicatives and imperatives in these verses see Paul Althaus, Del' Brief an die Roemer (Sixth revised edition of Das Neue Testament Deutsch, Vol. VI; Goettingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1949), pp. 55-56: "Das Neue Leben als Wirklichkeit und Aufgabe (Indikative und Impertive)." The relationship of the imperatives to the indicatives is discussed in Chapter III of this thesis. 11. A. T. Robertson, A Grammar of the Greek New Testament in the Light of Historical Research (Second edition; New York: George H. Doran Company, 1915), pp. 888-889. So also H. E. Dana and Julius R. Mantey, A Manual Grammar of the GreekNew Testament (New York: Macmillan Company, 1944), Section 178(2). This distinction of a "durative" future is not allowed by Blass-Debrunner-Funk, Section 348, but would seem to be supported by usages such as the present passage and, e.g., Phil. 1:18; 2 Thess. 3:4. 12. This "or," ft, could be left untranslated, as, e.g., in the RSV and NEB. Bauer-Arndt-Gingrich translates "or" and suggests that the ft here is that which often occurs in interrogative sentences, to introduce and add rhetorical questions. See Walter Bauer, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, translated and adapted by William F. Arndt and F. Wilbur Gingrich (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1957), p. 343. The question in the text is asked in order to supplement the one previous and to provide additional information. 42 13. The rendering "into union with" is a periphrastic translation which will be justified in subsequent discussion. 14. J. B. Lightfoot, Notes on the Epistles of St. Paul (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1957), p.295. 15. Franz J. Leenhardt, The Epistle to the Romans, translated from the French by Harold Knight (New York: World Publishing Company, 1961), p. 152. Also indicative of the Romans' knowledge of these Gospel facts are the -ytVU>aKOV'tEt; of v. 6 and the 7ttO''tEUO}lEV of v. 8. 16. Hans Wilhelm Schmidt, Der Brief des Paulus an die Roemer, Vol. VI of Theologischer Handkommentar zum Neuen Testament (Berlin: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt GmbH., 1962), p. 108. 17. Alfred Wikenhauser, Die Christusmystik Des Apostels Paulus (Second revised and enlarged edition; Freiburg: Verlag Herder, 1956), pp. 71-72. 18. Rudolf Schnackenburg, Baptism in the Thought of St. Paul, translated from the German by G. R. Beasley-Murray (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1964), p. 21. 19. Ibid.; see Schnackenburg's entire second chap., pp. 18-29. Cf. Albrecht Oepke's discussion of "Christian Baptism" under 13am{sffi in Kittel-Bromily, I, 538-545. Oepke, who rejects the "spatial" interpretation, says pointedly, p. 539: "The idea of a mystically understood medium of baptism ('to be immersed in Christ, etc. ') is always and in every respect wide of the mark. 13ani{SEw means technically 'to baptise in water.' Hence it is unnecessary to specify a medium." 20. Schnackenburg, pp. 22-23. In the previous consideration of the expression "baptism in the name of Christ" the author had observed, p. 20: "the formula [dt; 'tt> llVO}la] when linked with 13am{SEw must surely be derived from the language of the Rabbinic schools as the translation of D W?, . It indicated to what purpose an ablution took place. The naming of a person had the meaning of attaching the baptized to this person so that the baptized belonged to him .... " Schnackenburg's conclusion: "Thus the formula expresses a binding to Christ, but the nature of the relation is not more closely defined. From other passages it may be gathered that Paul understands the koinonia of the baptized with Christ as realistic, spiritual and personal, established through the divine nveO}la (cf. Gal. iii. 27, 1 Cor. xii. 13); but there is nothing mystical in the formula itself. 'No mystic ideas whatsoever are bound up with the expression: the juristic interpretation approximates more closely to its intention.' H. Bietenhard in Kittel" -On dt; 'tt>v Mrof>O'1jv, see also Leenhardt, p. 153. 21. The characterization of the believer's union with Christ as "spiritual" will be justified later in this thesis. 22. So the NEB translates the expression here in Romans 6:3 and in Galatians 3:27. -F. F. Bruce, The Epistle of Paul to the Romans (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1963), p. 137, comments on "Baptized into Jesus Christ": "Cf. Galatians iii. 27: 'as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ' -i.e. have been incorporated into Him, have become members of His body (cf. 1 Corinthians xii. 13), and so have shared by faith-union with Him those experiences which were His historically, His crucifixion and burial, His resurrection and exaltation." With the "and so" following the reference to 1 Corinthians 12:13 Bruce would seem to imply that union with the "body" of Christ is to be conceived of as (logically prior to and) in some way 43 determinative of Christians' sharing with Christ "those experiences which were His historically." This is hardly correct. In Romans 6 -it should be clear -Paul is speaking exclusively of the believer's union with the person of Christ effected in baptism and of participation in the major events of his life by virtue of that union. Cf. Schnackenburg, p. 21: "Next to this soteriologicalline, which fmds its high point in Romans vi. 1-11, is the ecclesiological, which rates baptism as the basis of the unity of the Christian Church .... " (italicizing, ours) 23. The ouv is not inferential, as Bauer-Arndt-Gingrich suggests (p. 597), because what follows does not seem to follow as a natural inference from union with the death of Christ. The Christian's burial and resurrection with Christ are facts of additional information. 24. Murray, p. 215. 25. Some commentators suppose that Paul's words "through our baptism ... we were buried together with Him [Christ]" give an indication of the mode of baptism and hold this to be immersion -for only immersion provides an analogy to burial. Anders Nygren asserts: "It is immediately evident that in these words Paul makes reference to the external form of the rite of baptism. When he who is baptized is immersed in the water, the act signifies burial 'with Christ'; and when he again comes up out of the water, that signifies resurrection 'with Christ. '" Commentary on Romans, translated from the Swedish by Carl C. Rasmussen (Philadelphia: Muhlenberg Press, 1949), p. 233. Similarly, J. Barmby, expositor of "The Epistle of Paul to the Romans" in The Pulpit Commentary: "The reference ... is to the form of baptism, viz. by immersion, which was understood to signify burial, and therefore death." The Pulpit Commentary, edited by H. D. M. Spence and Joseph S. Exell (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1950), XVIII, 156. Also Sanday-Headlam, p. 153: "It [baptism] expresses symbolically a series of acts corresponding to the redeeming acts of Christ. Immersion = Death. Submersion = Burial (the ratification of Death). Emergence = Resurrection." Their views are not acceptable, however. These men focus their attention exclusively on the believer's burial with Christ in baptism. They fail to give due consideration to the next verses in which Paul says that Christians are persons who by the same baptism came to be "grown together" ( O ' u p . ~ U ' t O t ) with Christ and were "jointly crucified" (0't>veO''ta:upro8T1) with Him. The latter expressions, which also designate effects of baptism, bear no analogy to immersion, and would not suggest this as mode of baptism. Nor, we may add, do the "putting on Christ" (as a garment) of Galatians 3:27 and the "baptism into one body" (as a unified organism) of 1 Corinthians 12:13. Cf. John Murray, "Christian Baptism," Westminster Theological Journal, XIII (1950-1951), 133-135. 26. George Farmer, "Romans 6:4," Expository Times, III (1893-1894), 223, equates "the glory of the Father" with the Holy Spirit. 27. Althaus, p. 50. 28. Johannes Behm, author of the article on KIXW(YtT1C; in Kittel-Brorniley, III, 451. 29. Bauer-Arndt-Gingrich, p. 395, under K'tot simply as "united with"; the NEB, as "incorporated with." Neither rendering, however, brings out the relationship to the stem word $'Clro. Cf. oup.$'Clop.al in Luke 8:7. 53. Sanday-Headlam, p. 157. Similarly, L. S. Thornton, The Common Life in the Body o/Christ (London: Dacre Press, c.1942), p. 144. Cf. Leenhardt, p. 160; and Nygren, p. 234: "We are branches which did not formerly belong to Christ, the vine; but we were ingrafted into the vine and have been united with it in groth, so that we are henceforth a part of the vine and derive our nourishment and strength from it." We may think of John 15:1-8 in this connection. 54. Murray, Romans, p. 218. 55. Schmidt, p. 109. 56. Richard Chenevix Trench, Synonyms 0/ the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1953), in his discussion of eiKUlv, op.otrocrtC;, o)lotro)la (pp. 49-53) brings out clearly the basic significance of o)lotro)la, as used in the New Testament, in the comparison of its meaning with that of eiKUlV. While granting that the two words might often be used as equivalent, there is, he says, an essential difference in them. "EiKUlV ... always assumes a prototype, that which it not merely resembles, but from which it is drawn, a 1tapdoet'Y)la ... it is the German "Abbild," which invariably presumes a "Vorbild" .... Thus, the monarch's head on the coin is eiKUlv (Matt. xxii. 20); the reflection of the sun in the water is dKUlV, (Plato, Phaedo, 99d); the statue in stone, or other material is eiKUlv (Rev. xiii. 14) .... But in the op.otro)la ... while there is resemblance, it by no means follows that it has been acquired in this way, that it is derived: it may be accidental, as one egg is like another, as there may exist a resemblance between two men in no way akin to one another." (p. 50). He further states: "EiKUlV is weak; for what image is of equal worth and dignity with the prototype from which it is imaged? But it has also its strong side; it implies an archetype from which it has been derived and drawn; while o)lot6'tllC;, o)lotroO'tC;, and words of this family, expressing mere 47 similarity, if they did not actually imply, might yet suggest, and if they suggested, would seem to justify error, and that with no compensating advantage" (p. 51). 57. Schmidt sees in 6}l0{oo}la a reference to the act of baptism. He writes, pp. 109-110: "Man verstand 6}l0{OO}lCX auch so, dasz es die Identitaet oder Gleichheit ausdrueckt; 'wenn wir mit ihm zusammengewachsen sind in der Gleichheit seines Todes.' Paulus will nun wohl nicht sagen, dasz wir mit einem den Tod Christi nur abbildenden Vorgang oder Zustand zusammengewachsen sind. Denn nur in Christi Tod selbst sind wir der Suende wirklich gestorben. Wenn er trotzdem nicht sagt: 'wir sind mit dem tod Christi zusammengewachsen,' sondern: 'mit dem Gleichbild des Todes Christi,' so will er damit zum Ausdruck bringen: nur die Taufe ist es, welche diese Verbundenheit mit Christi Tod verschafft und uns in diesen Tod hineinversetzt. 'Mit dem Gleichbild seines Todes' heisst also: 'sakramental mit seinem Tod' oder 'in der Taufe mit seinem Tod.' Die freie Uebersetzung: 'zusammengeschlossen mit ihm durch gleichen Tod' (A. Nygren) ist richtig; aber 6}l0{oo}lcx will den Ort und das Mittel dieses Geschehens anzeigen: die Taufe." Schmidt's view is unacceptable. It appears altogether inappropriate (1) to designate baptism as a likeness or copy of Christ's death and then (2) to suppose that Paul means to say that Christians have become grown-together with this rite, which makes no sense. There is no textual, contextual, or other reason which justifies the statement: "aber 6}l0{oo}la will den Ort und das Mittel dieses Geschehens anzeigen: die Taufe." 58. Murray, Romans, p. 218. Cf. Lenski, p. 405: "Our little inward death to sin, enabled by his mighty death for the world's sin, only resembles his death and no more. And the resemblance lies in this, that as he died and rose again, so we died to sin in order to enter a new life." 59. Robertson, pp. 1185-1186. 60. Blass-Debrunner-Funk, 448(6); see also (5). 61. Charles Kingsley Barrett, A Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans (London: Adam and Charles Black, 1957), p. 124. 62. Murray, Romans, pp. 218-219. A similar argument is advanced by Leenhardt, p. 161: "Is it [the future tense of ecr6}le8cx in verse 5] an allusion to the general resurrection, or to the present participation of the believer in the life of the Risen Lord which should flow logically from his participation in the death of the Crucified? The second meaning is preferable both because of the indissoluble unity constituted by the cross and the resurrection as also because of the parallel thought expressed in Colossians 2: 12. Further on, Paul will make another allusion to the new life of the believer which cannot be understood except on the basis of his sharing in the life of the Risen Lord (v. 11)." 63. Kenneth S. Wuest speaks of the old man as the worthless, worn-out "individual self'; "Victory over Indwelling Sin in Romans Six," Bibliotheca Sacra, CXVI (1959), 46. Sanday-Headlam, p. 62, call the old man "our old self'; Murray, p. 219, "the old self or ego." The RSV translates 6 1 t C X A a u ) ~ 1'\}lO)v ~ v 8 p O O 1 t o ~ "our old self"; the NEB, "the man we once were." 64. Cf. Galatians 2:20, Xptcr't!:p cr'l)vecr'ta'OpOO}lat. 65. Murray, Romans, e.g., makes the mistake of identifying the "old man," "the old self or ego" with "the unregenerate man in his entirety [including the body]." 66. A full discussion of this concept that man's essential self or ego is his spirit (both in the case of the 48 unregenerate and the regenerate) appears in connection with the exegesis of verse 11. 67. Lenski, p. 406. 68. Ibid., p. 407. 69. The "new man" is designated as Katv6C;; in Ephesians 4 and as v ~ o c ; ; in Colossians 3. Both adjectives (standing in opposition to 1tcxA.at6C;;) describe this "man"; the former denotes the new primarily in reference to quality, as utterly fresh, different; the latter denotes the new primarily in reference to time, as recent, or relatively young. The "old man" of the unregenerate is full of lust, deceit, rottenness, corruption (Ephesians 4:23); the "new man" of the believer is new in the sense that he did not exist before and that he has been created in righteousness and holiness, that is, he is righteous and holy (Ephesians 4:24). -In connection with Ephesians 4:22,24, we should note that the infinitives a 1 t 0 8 ~ c r 8 a t and tvoucrcxcr8at are better taken as declarations of past occurrence than as expressions of exhortation; compare John Murray's excellent discussion in Principles of Conduct (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., c. 1957), pp. 214-218. 70. Small Catechism, p. 17. Cf. Eric Wahlstrom, The New Life in Christ (Philadelphia: Muhlenberg Press, 1950), p. 124: "And forever afterward, whenever this 'old man,' this 'self' arises again, he must be destroyed and put to death. This is 'the crucifying of the flesh,' 'the putting to death of your members which are upon the earth. '" 71. Murray, Principles, pp. 211-213. Murray in the pages following demonstrates that a study of Colossians 3:9-10 and Ephesians 4:22-24 confirms the viewpoints presented in the quotation. Cf. also Bruce, p. 138; Sanday-Headlam, p. 158. 72. John Calvin, Commentary upon the Epistle of Saint Paul to the Romans, edited from the original English translation of Christopher Rosdell by Henry Beveridge (Edinburgh: Edinburgh Printing Company, 1844), p. 152. 73. Martin Luther, Lectures on Romans, Vol XV of The Library of Christian Classics, translated from the German and edited by Wilhelm Pauck (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1961), p. 183. 74. C. H. Dodd, The Epistle of Paul to the Romans in The Moffatt New Testament Commentary (New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, n.d.), p. 90. 75. Leenhardt, p. 162. 76. From James Fraser, A Treatise on Sanctification (London: n.p., 1897), p. 61; as quoted in Murray, p. 220. 77. Nygren, p. 234; cf. the two preceding pages. 78. T. W. Manson, "Romans" in Peake's Commentary on the Bible, edited by Matthew Black and H. H. Rowley (New York: Thomas Nelson & Sons, 1962), p. 945. Cf. also Schmidt, p. 107: "Der Getaufte ist nicht mehr Glied am Leib der Suende; er wird dem Leib Christi eingegliedert, in Christi Tod und Leben miteingeschlossen." Again, p. 111: "Der Text redet von der Vernichtung des Leibes. Es ist deshalb die von A. Nygren vorgeschlagene Deutung zu erwaegen. Er versteht den 'Leib der Suende' als dem Gegensatz zum 'Leib Christi.' Paulus kann der Suende einen Leib zuschreiben, weil er sie 49 personifiziert als die Herrin des altern Aeons denkt. So wie der Gerechtfertigte jetzt 'in Christus' lebt und dem 'Leib Christi' angehoert, so war er varher unter der Suende und ein Glied am 'Leib der Suende.' Der 'alte' Mensch wird mit Christus gekreuzigt, damit der Leib (das Reich, das Machtsystem) der Suende zerstoert werde und wir in unserer leibseelischen Ganzheit nicht mehr der Suende versklavt sind." 79. Bruce, pp. 138-139. 80. So Dana-Mantey conceive this genitive, 90(1); Murray, p. 220; Lenski, p. 408; and others also. 81. So Sanday-Headlam conceives the genitive, p. 158, and Wuest, p. 46. 82. Cf. Bruce's footnote, p. 46. 83. "Paulus ... zeigt, dasz die Christusgnade den Getauften von der Suende trennt, nicht so, dasz er schon 'Suendlosigkeit' gewinnt und den Kampf mit der Suende hinter sich hat, aber so, dasz er jetzt, erst jetzt, diesen Kampf fuehren kann und die Frieheit zu echtem Gottesdienst hat." Schmidt, p. 107. 84. Leenhardt says, p. 163, in a footnote on this verse, "To be justified is to be the object of a judgment which eXCUlpates and restores to the accused freedom of person," and refers to the comparable usage of OlK in Gerhard Kittel's Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, edited and translated by Geoffrey W. Bromiley (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1965), II, 541-542. 16. Eric H. Wahlstrom, The New Life in Christ (Philadelphia: Muhlenberg Press, 1950), p. 90. 17. Ibid., p. 92. 18. William Barclay, The Mind of St. Paul (New York: Harper and Brothers Publishers, 1958), p. 130. 19. Ibid., p. 132. 20. Kittel-Bromiley, p. 542. 21. See supra, p. 29, "The Question of Time and Space Relationships." 22. Dodd, pp. 87-88. 23. Walter Bartling, "The New Creation in Christ: A Study of the Pauline tv XptO"'t4> Formula," Concordia Theological Monthly, XXI (June 1950),413. Bartling cites Traugott Schmidt to the same effect: "Jenes ist die Voraussetzung fuer dieses, die Gemeinde hat ihr Dasein ueberhaupt erst durch Christus und in ihm, er bleibt immer die ueber-geordnete Groesse, und die Zugehoerigkeit zur Gemeinde ist immer erst die Folge des Seins in Christus." 24. Deissmann supposes it to be a Pauline creation, one of the apostle's most original creations. 25. Vincent Taylor, Forgiveness and Reconciliation (London: Macmillan & Co. Ltd., 1956), p. 122. 26. The notion that the background of Pauline mysticism and the apostle's tv XptO"'t4> formula should be found in the Mystery Religions of the Graeco-Roman world of Paul's day is not true, as many scholars have shown. See, e.g., the discussion of W. D. Davies, Paul and Rabbinic Judaism (London: S.P.C.K., 1965), pp. 88-98, who concludes: "All that we can safely assume as to the impact of the mysteries on ... Paul is that the mysteries quite definitely formed part of the milieu into which Paul brought his gospel; that Paul undoubtedly would therefore be open to their influence, and that many of the terms he used would have an undertone of meaning which would strengthen the appeal of the gospel to the Hellenistic world. Further than this, however, we cannot go; the attempt to make Paul the 1 C J j p ' \ ) ~ of a new mystery offering a mystic death and rising again has failed." Cf. also the first two chapters in Albert Schweitzer's The Mysticism of Paul the Apostle, translated from the German by William Montgomery (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1931); and Kurt Deissner, Paulus und die Mystik seiner Zeit (Second revised edition; Leipzig: A. Deichert'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1921). 27. L. S. Thornton, The Common Life in the Body of Christ (London: Dacre Press, c.1942), pp. 144-145. 53 28. Cf. Paul Althaus' discussion, "Das neue Leben als Wirklichkeit und Aufgabe (Indikative und Imperative)," pp. 55-56. Also: George T. Montague, "Paul's Teaching on Being and Becoming in Christ," Bible Today, I (1962), pp. 78-85. Archibald Hunter, p. 115, cites an old Puritan theological work: "Both these laws (the law of Moses and 'the law of Christ') agree in saying, Do this. But there is this difference. The one says, Do this and live. The other says, Live and do this. The one says, Do this for life. The other says, Do this from life." 29. R. C. H. Lenski in The Interpretation of St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans (Columbus: Lutheran Book Concern, 1936), p. 417, remarks on ~ c x < J t A e \ } t ' t O ) : "A false contrast is injected when the force of reigning is pressed to mean: just so the sin does not reign, even if some sin is present. This subject of still finding sin in ourselves Paul treats in 7:14 etc., not here in chapter 6, where the great subject is the fact that they who are justified are delivered from the tyranny, the domination of sin, are no more sin's slaves, not the fact that this overthrown tyrant still harasses them." 30. Joseph Henry Thayer, editor, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, translation, revision, and enlargement of Grimm's Wilke's Clavis Novi Testamenti (New York: American Book Company, c.1886), pp. 569-571. 31. Ibid., p. 611. 32. Cf. F. F. Bruce, The Epistle of Paul to the Romans, Vol. VI of Tyndale Bible Commentaries (New Testament Series; Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1963), pp. 45-46. Also: Barclay, pp. 190 and 198-205. For extensive discussion of the terms craps and cr(bJlcx, see Stacey, pp. 154-173 and 181-193; and John A. T. Robinson, The Body: A Study in Pauline Theology (Chicago: Henry Regnery Company, 1952), pp. 11-33. 33. Since occurring in the same context with 'tlP . crooJlcxn of verse 12, the 't<'> cr(bJlcx of verse 6 may also be thought of as having this wider meaning. 34. E t ~ 't<'> with the infinitive expressing result here, just as in Romans 1 :20, e.g. 35. J. Barmby, author of the exposition of Romans in The Pulpit Commentary, edited by H. D. M. Spence and Joseph S. Exell (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1950), XVIII, 159-160, is one commentator who supports my rendering of both 'tl'i JltA.l1 and lS1tA.cx. He explains: "By our members seem to be meant, not merely the several parts of our bodily frame -eye, tongue, hand, foot, etc. -but generally all the parts or constituents of our present human nature, which sin may use as its instruments, but which ought to be devoted to God (cf. Col. iii.5). Many commentators would translate {)1tA.CX 'weapons' rather than 'instruments,' on the ground that St. Paul usually uses the word in this sense (ch. xiii. 12; 2 Cor. vi. 7; x. 4; Eph. vi. 11,13); and also that 0'l'OOVta in ver. 23, taken in the sense of the pay of a soldier (as in Luke iii. 14; 1 Cor. ix. 7), is supposed to imply that the apostle has had all along the idea of warfare in view. The second of these reasons really proves nothing. Whatever the meaning of lS1tA.cx in v. 23, it is too far removed from the passage before us to be taken in any connection with it. Neither is the ftrst reason at all cogent. "01tA.CX bears the sense of instruments as well as of weapons, and may more suitably bear it here. When St. Paul elsewhere speaks of armour, it is the armour of light, or of righteousness, which we are told to take up, and to put on, in order to fight against our spiritual enemies. Such a conception is inapplicable to our own members, which we have already, which we may use either for good or evil, and which require the protection of heavenly armour rather than being themselves armour; and we certainly could not be told to take them up or put them on." S4 36. Compare the use of napt ~ 1 t a ~ by Gustav Staehlin Vol. III, 447-454: article on 1 C a t V 6 ' t 1 1 ~ by Johannes Behm. Kittel, Gerhard, editor. Theologisches Woerterbuch zum Neuen Testament. Stuttgart: Verlag von W. Kohlhammer, n.d. Vol. IV, 287-295: article on A , o y ( ~ O J l a t by Hans-Wolfgang Heidland. Knox, John. "The Epistle to the Romans," Vol. IX in The Interpreter's Bible. 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