Romans 6:5 For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, 6 knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be [a]done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. 7 For he who has died has been [b]freed from sin. 8 Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, 9 knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over Him. 10 For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. 11 Likewise you also, [c]reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Too often this passage is approached to on a subjective, experiential manner and so is appealed to as an existential event in the life of the individual believer. It goes something like, “I gave my life to Jesus and when I did that I was united together with him in the likeness of His death, with the promise that I shall one day be resurrected with Him and so I count myself dead to sin but alive in Christ. This is my testimony.” While such a reading is not completely errant there is another way to read the passage that perhaps is more accurate. What if the Apostle is teaching here in Romans 6 that it is the corporate body (the Church) as the body that was crucified and resurrected with Christ? What if St. Paul is speaking here of eschatological realities and what he is saying, as inspired by the Spirit, is that the Church as the Church, because of the crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension of Christ (see Ephesians 2:6) is now living in the eschatological “age to come.” Because we are living in the eschatological age to come (with a fuller fulfillment yet ahead) we are a people (as the Church) who can live increasingly as dead to sin as a controlling agent in our lives (as we did when we were united to Adam covenantally) but alive to God in Christ.
This reading of this portion of Romans is a covenantal reading that requires us to understand that the Church as the body of Christ is in the New Creation (II Cor. 5:17) right now because of the Redemptive work of Jesus Christ. This reading has a much more objective status then the reading that concentrates on the individual believer. There are certain realities in the Church that are objectively true because of the finished work of Jesus Christ and the Church’s union with Him in that work. Because of the Church’s union with Christ in His finished work we have been translated from the Kingdom of darkness (our former eschatological status) and have been translated into the Kingdom of God’s dear Son whom He loves. The Church as the body of Christ was united to Christ so that in his crucifixion, resurrection, ascension and session the Church itself currently experiences the eschatological realities which are true of Christ in such a way that while “not yet” having all that is to come we genuinely have a foretaste of what is not yet in the fullness of the “now” that we have been given as united to Christ. The Church has what the Old Testament saints could only long for and that is the “nowness” of eschatological Kingdom life. The Church lives in the eschatological inauguration of the Kingdom.
Too often the contemporary Reformed church because of its refusal of the eschatology that teaches this (Vosian amillennialism which finally found a way to be consistent and so become postmillennialism) to often lives like it remains in a Old Covenant position of the saints waiting for the in-breaking of the Kingdom of God. Too often the modern Reformed Church lives as if they remain in the epoch of the “not yet,” forgetting that with the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ the “now” of the Kingdom has dawned upon us and that the Church, living in the inaugurated now, is God’s new humanity living in God’s new creation, enjoying the fruits of His triumph. Right now, as the Church, we are living in the New Jerusalem commissioned to expand the borders of that age to come community so that the present Kingdom of God covers the earth as the waters cover the sea. And all this because in being united to Christ and His work of Redemption we are His conquering agents of redemption.
We often claim Romans 6 as true for us individually (and it is) but we don’t reckon ourselves alive to God in our Lord Jesus Christ as those who are prophets, priests, and kings under sovereign God together as the Church come of age. Instead we reckon ourselves to be like the OT saints who were still waiting for the fullness of all those realities that Christ ushered in by bringing in the Kingdom. Alternately, if we do reckon ourselves alive to God in our Lord Jesus Christ we sterilize the meaning of that phrase by saying that such reckoning is “spiritual,” or only “personal” and so gnosticize the text.
If we have been already now raised with Christ (Eph. 2:6) then we as Christians should expect to rule now with Christ over the nations. Our ambitions should be global to the end of embracing Warfield’s post-millennial universalism – the expectation that all men will bow to Christ with the current nations being delivered as nations to become outposts of the Kingdom of God.
Anything less is dereliction of duty.
