Romans 6 — Meets Two Similar Objections From a hypothetical foil
1 — Hypothetical Objection #1
Shall we continue to sin that grace may abound?
Considerations
1.) The Apostle has so heightened God’s favor (grace) and the liberating character of Christ’s work for us (Chapter 5) that he must pause and deal w/ those who might reach inappropriate conclusions based on his teaching.
One wonders if today God’s favor (grace) and the liberating Character of Christ’s work for us is so emphatically heightened that we are forced to pause to reject accusations of antinomianism.
2.) Sinning is the issue that is being dealt w/ here and as obvious as this might seem we must pause to emphasize that there is no way that we would know what sinning is, which we are to be dead to, or what walking of newness of life is, which we are to be alive to, w/o a standard. There must be some standard that informs us what sin is and what walking in newness of life is. That standard ever remains God’s law.
Now for the Christian that Law is redeemed under Christ, which is to say that we are not using the law as a means to curry or earn God’s favor, (we have no need to do that since we have freely been given God’s favor in Christ) but rather the Christian esteems God’s law for it is the standard that tells him what He must turn from and it is the standard that informs him what walking in newness of life means.
Without any objective standard, as found in God’s word, the idea of being “dead to sin” and “walking in newness of life,” would be impossible to qualitatively and objectively determine.
2-14 — Hypothetical Objection Answered
vs. 2 — Emphatic rejection // Rhetorical Question
Parallel passage — Gal. 2:19 — 19 For I through the law died to the law that I might live to God.
Considerations
1.) Died to Sin — Sin is being referred to here as the controlling principle from which the pagan lives. We have died to the necessity that we must be controlled by sin … by who we are in Adam.
This does not mean that we no longer sin individual sins. It merely means that the person who has died w/ Christ is the person who can now say “no” to sin, because Sin is not that principle, or life source, from which they are being animated.
vs.3 — Parallel passage — Gal. 3:27 For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.
Considerations
1.) “Do you not know”
Appeal to the mind. The Apostles expects them to have learned something important. The Christian life can not be lived apart from the life of the mind. He answers this whole objection by seeking to set people’s thinking straight.
2.) The appeal to Baptism
Notice — The appeal isn’t here to somebody’s decision for Christ. Now, that is not to diminish the necessity to make a decision for Christ but it is to say that when it comes to these soteriological matters Paul puts the emphasis on the objective covenant markers in the Christian’s life. The emphasis is on the means of grace when it comes to correction in thinking and growth in Christ.
3.) Baptized into Christ Jesus // Baptized into His death
Identification – In Baptism we are identified w/ the death of Christ. Vs. 10 seems to be what the Apostle is getting at here. Just as Christ died to sin, we, in being identified w/ Christ in Baptism, likewise should reckon ourselves dead to sin.
– In Baptism the previous controlling principle of our life (sin … sometimes also referred to as “the law”) is broken and we are put into Christ. We thus die to sin and are resurrected to walk in newness of life.
4.) Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father
Excursus – Minor proof for reality of Trinity
19 Jesus answered and said to them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”
Romans 1:7 — According to the Spirit of Holiness
In the New Testament we find varied places where Christ’s resurrection is attributed to each person of the Trinity. Doctrine of perichoresis.
