May it never be! We who died to sin, how could we live in it any longer?
Parallel Translations
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May it never be! We who died to sin, how could we live in it any longer?
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God forbyd. How shall we that are deed as touchynge synne live eny lenger therin?
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Howe shall we, that are dead to sinne, liue yet therein?
Cross-references (16)
Passages linked to Romans 6:2 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- 1 John 3:9 Whoever is born of God doesn’t commit sin, because his seed remains in him, and he can’t sin, because he is born of God.
- Colossians 3:3 For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
- 1 Peter 2:24 He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live to righteousness. You were healed by his wounds.
- Romans 7:4 Therefore, my brothers, you also were made dead to the law through the body of Christ, that you would be joined to another, to him who was raised from the dead, that we might produce fruit to God.
- Galatians 2:19 For I, through the law, died to the law, that I might live to God.
- Romans 7:6 But now we have been discharged from the law, having died to that in which we were held; so that we serve in newness of the spirit, and not in oldness of the letter.
- 1 Peter 1:14 as children of obedience, not conforming yourselves according to your former lusts as in your ignorance,
- 1 Peter 4:1-3 Therefore, since Christ suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same mind; for he who has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, that you no longer should live the rest of your time in the flesh for the lusts of men, but for the will of God. For we have spent enough of our past time doing the desire of the Gentiles, and having walked in lewdness, lusts, drunken binges, orgies, carousings, and abominable idolatries.
- Psalms 119:104 Through your precepts, I get understanding; therefore I hate every false way.
- 2 Corinthians 5:14-17 For the love of Christ constrains us; because we judge thus, that one died for all, therefore all died. He died for all, that those who live should no longer live to themselves, but to him who for their sakes died and rose again. Therefore we know no one after the flesh from now on. Even though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now we know him so no more. Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old things have passed away. Behold, all things have become new.
- Colossians 2:20 If you died with Christ from the elements of the world, why, as though living in the world, do you subject yourselves to ordinances,
- Galatians 6:14 But far be it from me to boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.
- Genesis 39:9 No one is greater in this house than I am, and he has not kept back anything from me but you, because you are his wife. How then can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?”
- Romans 3:1-4 Then what advantage does the Jew have? Or what is the profit of circumcision? Much in every way! Because first of all, they were entrusted with the revelations of God. For what if some were without faith? Will their lack of faith nullify the faithfulness of God? May it never be! Yes, let God be found true, but every man a liar. As it is written, “that you might be justified in your words, and might prevail when you come into judgment.”
- Romans 5:11 Not only so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation.
- Romans 6:5-11 For if we have become united with him in the likeness of his death, we will also be part of his resurrection; knowing this, that our old man was crucified with him, that the body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be in bondage to sin. For he who has died has been freed from sin. But if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him; knowing that Christ, being raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over him! For the death that he died, he died to sin one time; but the life that he lives, he lives to God. Thus consider yourselves also to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (19 sources)
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John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain 2. By no means. To some the Apostle seems…
2. By no means. To some the Apostle seems to have only intended indignantly to reprove a madness so outrageous; but it appears from other places that he commonly used an answer of this kind, even while carrying on a long argument; as indeed he does here, for he proceeds carefully to disprove the propounded slander. He, however, first rejects it by an indignant negative, in order to impress it on the minds of his readers, that nothing can be more inconsistent than that the grace of Christ, the repairer of our righteousness, should nourish our vices.
Who have died to sin, etc. An argument derived from what is of an opposite character. “He who sins certainly lives to sin; we have died to sin through the grace of Christ; then it is false, that what abolishes sin gives vigor to it.” The state of the case is really this, — that the faithful are never reconciled to God without the gift of regeneration; nay, we are for this end justified, — that we may afterwards serve God in holiness of life. Christ indeed does not cleanse us by his blood, nor render God propitious to us by his expiation, in any other way than by making us partakers of his Spirit, who renews us to a holy life. It would then be a most strange inversion of the work of God were sin to gather strength on account of the grace which is offered to us in Christ; for medicine is not a feeder of the disease, which it destroys. We must further bear in mind, what I have already referred to — that Paul does not state here what God finds us to be, when he calls us to an union with his Son, but what it behoves us to be, after he has had mercy on us, and has freely adopted us; for by an adverb, denoting a future time, he shows what kind of change ought to follow righteousness.
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain The benefits of Justification and Sanctification, are always joined…
The benefits of Justification and Sanctification, are always joined together inseparably, and both of them proceed from Christ, by the grace of God: Now sanctification is the abolishing of sin, that is, of our natural corruption, into whose place succeedeth the cleanness and pureness of nature reformed.
They are said of Paul to be dead to sin, which are in such sort made partakers of the virtue of Christ, that that natural corruption is dead in them, that is, the force of it is put out, and it bringeth not forth his bitter fruits: and on the other side, they are said to live to sin, which are in the flesh, that is, whom the spirit of God hath not delivered from the slavery of the corruption of nature.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain 2 God forbid. How shall we, that are dead…
2 God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?
Ver. 2. Live any longer therein] Fall into it we may and shall; but it is not the falling into the water that drowns, but lying in it; so it is not falling into sin that damns, but living in it.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain God forbid; be it not, or far be it;…
God forbid; be it not, or far be it; he rejects any such inference or consequence, as unworthy of an answer: q.d. Away with all such doctrines, as, under pretence of advancing grace, do promote sin, or obstruct a godly life. This phrase is frequent with the apostle, when he is speaking of any absurdity: see Rom 3:4,6,31.
How: by this particle he shows the impossibility, or the incongruity, of the thing: see Mat 6:28; Gal 4:9. The following argument is very convincing, and may be thus formed: They whose property it is to be dead to sin, cannot any longer live therein; but the justified by faith are
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dead to sin. They are said to be dead to sin, who do not live under the power and dominion of it; who mortify sin, and suffer it (so far as they can) to have no life or power in it. Fall into it they may, but live and lie in it they cannot. It is not falling into the water that drowns a man, but it is his lying in it; so it is not falling into sin that damns a man, but it is his living in it.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain God forbid,.... By which he expresses his abhorrence of…
God forbid,.... By which he expresses his abhorrence of such a practice, and that this was a consequence which did not follow from the premises, and was far enough from his thoughts, and which he had in the greatest detestation: and he further argues against it by asking,
how shall we that are dead to sin, live any longer therein? There is a death for sin, a death in sin, and a death to sin; the latter is here mentioned, and persons may be said to be "dead to sin", both as justified and sanctified: justified persons are dead to sin, inasmuch as that is not imputed to them to condemnation and death; they are discharged from it; it cannot hurt them, or exert its damning power over them; it is crucified, abolished, and made an end of by Christ: sanctified persons are dead to sin; sin is not made their business, it is not their course of life; it is no longer a pleasure to them, but is loathsome and abominable; it is looked upon, not as a friend, but an enemy; it does not reign, it has not the dominion over them; it is subdued in them, and its power weakened; and as to the members of the flesh, and deeds of the body, it is mortified: to live in sin, is to live after the dictates of corrupt nature; and persons may be said to live in it, when they give up themselves to it, are bent upon it; when sin is their life, they delight in it, make it their work and business, and the whole course of their life is sinful: now those who are dead to sin, cannot thus live in it, though sin may live in them; they may fall into sin, and lie in it some time, yet they cannot live in it: living in sin, is not only unbecoming the grace of God revealed in the Gospel, but is contrary to it; it is detestable to gracious minds, yea, it seems impossible they should live in it; which is suggested by this question, "how shall we?" &c. The thing is impracticable: for, for a gracious soul to live in sin, would be to die again, to become dead in sin, which cannot be; he that lives and believes in Christ shall never die, spiritually or eternally.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain Dead to sin - Freed both from the guilt…
Dead to sin - Freed both from the guilt and from the power of it.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 2. God forbid] Μη γενοιτο, Let it not…
Verse 2. God forbid] Μη γενοιτο, Let it not be; by no means; far from it; let not such a thing be mentioned!-Any of these is the meaning of the Greek phrase, which is a strong expression of surprise and disapprobation: and is not properly rendered by our God forbid! for, though this may express the same thing, yet it is not proper to make the sacred NAME SO familiar on such occasions.
How shall we, that are dead to sin] The phraseology of this verse is common among Hebrews, Greeks, and Latins. To DIE to a thing or person, is to have nothing to do with it or him; to be totally separated from them: and to live to a thing or person is to be wholly given up to them; to have the most intimate connection with them. So Plautus, Clitell. iii. 1, 16: Nihil mecum tibi, MORTUUS TIBI SUM. I have nothing to do with thee; I am DEAD to thee. Persa, i. 1, 20: Mihi quidem tu jam MORTUUS ERAS, quia te non visitavi. Thou wast DEAD to me because I visited thee not. So AElian, Var. Hist. iii. 13: Ὁτι φιλοινοτατον εθνος το των Ταπυρων, τοσουτον, ὡστε ζῃν αυτους εν οινῳ, και το πλειστον του βιου εν τῃ προς αυτον ὁμιλιᾳ καταναλισκειν· "The Tapyrians are such lovers of wine, that they LIVE in wine; and the principal part of their LIFE is DEVOTED to it." They live to wine; they are insatiable drunkards. See more examples in Wetstein and Rosenmuller.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain God forbid - By no means. Greek, It may…
God forbid - By no means. Greek, It may not be; Note, Rom 3:4. The expression is a strong denial of what is implied in the objection in Rom 6:1.
How shall we? ... - This contains a reason of the implied statement of the apostle, that we should not continue in sin. The reason is drawn from the fact that we are dead in fact to sin. It is impossible for these who are dead to act as if they were alive. It is just as absurd to suppose that a Christian should desire to live in sin as that a dead man should put forth the actions of life.
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That are dead to sin - That is, all Christians. To be dead to a thing is a strong expression denoting that it has no influence over us. A man that is dead is uninfluenced and unaffected by the affairs of this life. He is insensible to sounds, and tastes, and pleasures; to the hum of business, to the voice of friendship, and to all the scenes of commerce, gaiety, and ambition. When it is said, therefore, that a Christian is dead to sin, the sense is, that it has lost its influence ever him; he is not subject to it; he is in regard to that, as the man in the grave is to the busy scenes and cares of this life. The expression is not infrequent in the New Testament; Gal 2:19, “For I ...am dead to the law;” Col 3:3, “For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God;” 1Pe 2:24, “Who ...bare our sins ...that we, being dead to sin,” etc. The apostle does not here attempt to prove that Christians are thus dead, nor to state in what way they become so. He assumes the fact without argument. All Christians are thus in fact dead to sin. They do not live to sin; nor has sin dominion over them. The expression used here by the apostle is common in all languages. We familiarly speak of a man’s being dead to sensual pleasures, to ambition, etc., to denote that they have lost their influence over him.
Live any longer therein - How shall we, who have become sensible of the evil of sin, and who have renounced it by solemn profession, continue to practice it? It is therefore abhorrent to the very nature of the Christian profession. It is remarkable that the apostle did not attempt to argue the question on metaphysical principles. He did not attempt to show by abstruse argument that this consequence did not follow; but he appeals at once to Christian feeling, and shows that the supposition is abhorrent to that. To convince the great mass of people, such an appeal is far better than labored metaphysical argumentation. All Christians can understand that; but few would comprehend an abstruse speculation. The best way to silence objections is, sometimes, to show that they violate the feelings of all Christians, and that therefore the objection must be wrong.
(Considerable difficulty exists in regard to the meaning of the expression “dead to sin? Certainly the most obvious interpretation is that given above in the Commentary, namely, that Christians are insensible to sin, as dead persons to the charms and pleasures of life. It has, however, been objected to this view, that it is inconsistent with fact, since Christians, so far from being insensible to sin, are represented in the next chapter as carrying on a perpetual struggle with it. The corrupt nature, though weakened, is not eradicated, and too frequently occasions such mournful falls, as leave little doubt concerning its existence and power. Mr. Scott seems to have felt this difficulty, for, having explained the phrase of “separation from iniquity, as a dead man ceases from the actions of life,” he immediately adds, “not only ought this to be the believer’s character, but in a measure it actually is so.” It is not probable. however, that the apostle meant by the strong expression under discussion, that believers were not altogether “dead to sin,” but only in a measure.
Perhaps we shall arrive at a more satisfactory meaning of the words by looking at the analogous expression in the context, used in reference to Christ himself. He also, in the 10th verse, is said to have “died unto sin,” and the believer, in virtue of union with Christ, is regarded as” dead with him,” Rom 6:8; and, in consequence of this death with Christ, is moreover freed, or rather justified, δεδίκαιωται dedikaiōtai from sin, Rom 6:7. Now it cannot be said of Christ that he died unto sin, in the sense of becoming dead to its charms. for it was never otherwise with him. The believer, therefore, cannot be dead with Christ in this way; nor on this ground, can he be justified from sin, since justification proceeds upon something very different from our insensibility to sinful pleasures. What then is the meaning of the language when applied to Christ? Sin is here supposed to be possessed of certain power. That power or strength the apostle tells us elsewhere is derived from the Law. “The strength of sin is the law,” which demands satisfaction to its injured honor, and insists on the infliction of its penalty. Though then Jesus had no sin of his own, yet when he voluntarily stood in the room of sinners, sin, or its strength, namely, the Law, had power over him, until he died, and thus paid the penalty. His death cancelled every obligation. Henceforth, sin had no more power to exact anything at his hands.
Now Christians are one with Christ. When he died unto sin, they are regarded as having died unto it also, and are therefore, equally with their covenant head, justified from it. Sin, or its strength, the Law, has from the moment of the saint’s union with Christ, no more power to condemn him, than human laws have to condemn one over again who had already died to answer the demands of justice. “The law has dominion over a man so long only as he liveth.” On the whole, then, the expression “dead to sin,” is to be regarded as entirely parallel with that other expression in the seventh chapter, “dead to the law,” that is, completely delivered from its authority as a covenant of works, and more especially from its power to condemn.
This view exercises a decided influence an the believer’s sanctification. “How shall we that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?” The two things are incompatible. If in virtue of union with Christ, we are dead with him, and freed from the penalty of sin, shall not the same union secure our deliverance from its dominion? “If we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him.”
The whole argument, from the 1st to the 11th verse, proceeds upon the fact of the saint’s union with Christ.)
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain Dead to sin, &c. We are then dead to…
Dead to sin, &c. We are then dead to sin when we neither live in sin by serving it, nor sin lives in us by reigning; in this case, how can we still live in it by yielding to its desires? St. Augustine (chap. vi. de spiritu et litera) thus explains the passage: when grace has caused us to die to sin; if we live again in it, we must be exceedingly ungrateful to grace. (Estius)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain God forbid--"That be far from us"; the instincts of…
God forbid--"That be far from us"; the instincts of the new creature revolting at the thought.
How shall we, that are dead, &c.--literally, and more forcibly, "We who died to sin (as presently to be explained), how shall we live any longer therein?"
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain 2. God forbid—See note on Rom_3:4.
2. God forbid—See note on Rom_3:4.
Dead to sin—As a corpse is perfectly unsusceptible both in regard to outward things and internal sensations, so should the Christian be insensible both to the external excitements and the internal impulses to sin. Thence the thought of his living in sin that divine grace may be honoured is excluded as a heinous contradiction.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 2. we, that are dead, &c.] More lit. and…
2. we, that are dead, &c.] More lit. and fully, we, as those who died to sin. The reference is again to a single past act; the death of the Second Adam, at which His brethren too, regarded as “in Him,” “died to sin.” See last note on ch. Rom_5:12.
dead to sin] See below, Rom_6:10 : “He died to sin, once and for ever.” It appears then that our “death to sin” (in Christ) must be explained by what His death to it was. And His was a death such as to free Him not from its impulses (for He was essentially free from them) but from its claim, its penalty, endured for us by Him. His death once over, the claim of sin was cancelled[36]. Therefore, for those who “died in Him,” it was cancelled likewise. The phrase thus has, in the strict sense of it, not a moral but a legal reference. But the transition to a moral reference is inevitable when the Redeemer’s Death is seen to be the act which exhausted the claim: in that death we see not only the strength of the claim, but the malignity of the claimant.
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[36] Sin here, obviously, is used as a practical synonym for the broken Law; but so that its proper meaning is ready at once to reappear. Properly, sin’s only “claim” is to be itself put down; but by a natural modification it appears as that which exacts the punishment of the sinner.
live any longer therein] “Live” is emphatic, in contrast to “dead.” St Paul puts it as inconceivable that the soul which is so freed from such claim can endure, after its death in Christ to sin, (or, in other words, after His death to sin for it,) to yield its faculties as before to sin’s influence.—Strictly, death and life are used here in different respects; death in a legal respect, life in a moral; but see last note for the reconcilement of the seeming inconsistency.—“Therein:”—surrounded by it, as the body by the air it breathes; in vital connexion.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (2) That are dead.—Rather, that died. It is well…
(2) That are dead.—Rather, that died. It is well to bear in mind Dr. Lightfoot’s remarks on the importance of keeping the strict aorist sense as opposed to that of the perfect (i.e., the single past action as opposed to the prolonged or continued action) in passages such as this. “St. Paul regards this change—from sin to righteousness, from bondage to freedom, from death to life—as summed up in one definite act of the past; potentially to all men in our Lord’s passion and resurrection, actually to each individual man when he accepts Christ, is baptised into Christ. Then he is made righteous by being incorporated into Christ’s righteousness, he dies once for all to sin, he lives henceforth for ever to God. This is his ideal. Practically, we know that the death to sin and the life to righteousness are inchoate, imperfect, gradual, meagerly realised even by the most saintly men in this life; but St. Paul sets the matter in this ideal light to force upon the consciences of his hearers the fact that an entire change came over them when they became Christians—that the knowledge and the grace then vouchsafed to them did not leave them where they were—that they are not, and cannot be, their former selves—and that it is a contradiction of their very being to sin any more. It is the definiteness, the absoluteness of this change, considered as an historical crisis, which forms the central idea of St. Paul’s teaching, and which the aorist marks. We cannot, therefore, afford to obscure this idea by disregarding the distinctions of grammar; yet in our English version it is a mere chance whether in such cases the aorist is translated as an aorist” (On Revision, p. 85). These remarks will form the best possible commentary upon the passage before us. It may be only well to add that the change between the position of the first Christians and our own involves a certain change in the application of what was originally said with reference to them. Baptism is not now the tremendous crisis that it was then. The ideal of Christian life then assumed is more distinctly an ideal. It has a much less definite hold upon the imagination and the will. But it ought not therefore to be any the less binding upon the Christian. He should work towards it, if he cannot work from it, in the spirit of Php_3:12-14.
It would be well for the reader to note at once the corrections suggested in the rendering of this verse by Dr. Lightfoot’s criticism:—In Rom_6:4, “we were buried” for “we are buried;” in Rom_6:6, “the old man was crucified” for “is crucified;” in Rom_6:8, “if we died” for “if we be dead.”
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain God forbid! (Mh genoito : St. Paul"s usual way…
God forbid! (Mh genoito : St. Paul"s usual way of rejecting an idea indignantly). We who (oitinev , with its proper meaning of being such as) died (not, as in the Authorized Version, "are dead." The reference is to the time of baptism, as appears from what follows) to sin, how shall we live any longer therein! The idea of dying to sin in the sense of having done with it, is found also in Macrob., "Somn. Scip.," 1:13 (quoted by Meyer), "Mori etiam dicitur, cum anima adhuc in corpora constituta corporeas illecebras philosophia docente contemnit et cupiditatum dulces insidias reliquasque omnes exuit passiones."
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
B. W. Johnson 1891 · Public Domain 2. God forbid. The answer is emphatic. The thought…
2. God forbid. The answer is emphatic. The thought is abhorrent, and the thing impossible from the very nature of the Christian life. The Christian life begins with a death to sin. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein? The Revision says, Who died to sin. That is correct. The Greek verb is in the past tense. A fact is referred to that occurred in the past. Death is a separation. When we severed our relation with sin, we died to it. If we have cut loose from it, how can we continue in it?
B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.
William B. Godbey 1900 · Public Domain 2. “It could not be so.” Not as E.…
2. “It could not be so.” Not as E. V., “God forbid,” which is a strong imprecation, but as the Greek gives it, a positive and unequivocal denial. Hence the advocates of this carnal dogma (and their name is legion) are forced into the attitude of flatly contradicting Paul and the Holy Ghost. “How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it?” Sin is conquered and bound in regeneration, but killed in sanctification. Hence a truly sanctified man can no more commit sin than a dead man lying in his grave can rise up and throw rocks at the passers by. You must remember the Bible is a common-sense book. While sin is dead in me and I can not commit it, yet it is I can commit sin, and if I do not watch and pray, I will. Why? though sin is dead the devil its author is not dead. Armies of demons throng the air ready every moment to put sin back in the heart after it has been destroyed. The house can not burn down, because there is no fire in it. Yet it can burn down, because the incendiaries are lurking round seeking an opportunity to burn it. Good Lord, save us from rushing into foolish, irrelevant conclusions! So long as we are in this world we are in the enemy’s land, liable at any moment to be attacked and killed. This world is no “friend to grace to help us on to God.” Yet it is literally and positively true, as here we have it stated, that Adam the Second is more than a match for Adam the First, and ready to slay him in a moment pursuant to your consecration and faith.
William B. Godbey, Commentary on the New Testament (1896–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. W. McGarvey 1914 · Public Domain God forbid. We who died to sin, how shall…
God forbid. We who died to sin, how shall we any longer live therein? [Macknight says, truly, that the thought of this and the next chapter reverts to Rom_3:3 ; and is intended to refute the thought of that verse, as reintroduced by Rom_5:20-21 ; viz.: that justification by faith renders the law useless, and encourages sin, that grace may abound. Paul refutes these thoughts, and asserts the contrary principle, that justification by faith establishes the law. What, says he, shall be inferred from what we have taught? It is true that God's favor abounds in proportion to sin, so as to always exceed it; but are the friends of Christ therefore justified in thinking they can live sinfully ( Gal_5:13 )? or are the Lord's enemies justified in asserting that we teach that men should do evil that good may come ( Rom_3:9 )? or that we teach that Christians should continue to commit sin, as they did before their conversion, in order that they may increase the grace by increasing the sin ( Rom_5:20 )? Not at all. Our gospel destroys sin: can it, therefore, give encouragement and vigor to it? We who, by baptism, have put away sin, so that we died to it, can we, nevertheless, accomplish the impossible by still living in it? The apostle, in asserting that baptism is a death to sin, does not speak literally, but uses a bold and appropriate figure, suggested by the inherent symbolism of the ordinance. Baptism is the consummation of repentance; and were repentance perfect, the immersion would result in such an abhorrence of sin, such a complete cessation of it, and such a love of righteousness as would bring about an actual death toward, or abolition of, sin, and the Lord designed and desires such a full transformation; but truth compels us to acknowledge that repentance, like all other human operations, is imperfect, and, therefore, in baptism we only die to sin in so far that righteousness becomes the rule of life, and sin the painful, mortifying, humiliating, heart-breaking exception.]
J. W. McGarvey (with Philip Y. Pendleton), Commentaries on the New Testament (The Fourfold Gospel, 1914; Acts; and the epistles) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain Sin. (See Scofield "Rom 3:23").
sin
Sin. (See Scofield "Rom 3:23").
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 6:2 we have died to sin: As Paul makes…
6:2 we have died to sin: As Paul makes clear in 6:3-10, our new relationship to sin is possible because of our vital connection with the death of Jesus. Just as dying means entrance into an entirely new state of being, our relationship with sin is now different because of Christ’s death. To be “dead to sin” does not mean to be entirely insensitive to sin and temptation—believers are still involved in a battle with sin (6:12-14). However, Christians no longer have to live as helpless slaves to sin; they can choose not to sin (6:6, 14, 16-22).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.