May it never be! We who died to sin, how could we live in it any longer? Or don’t you know that all we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life. 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.
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What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? May it never be! We who died to sin, how could we live in it any longer? Or don’t you know that all we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life. 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.
Parallel Translations
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May it never be! We who died to sin, how could we live in it any longer?
Or don’t you know that all we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?
We were buried therefore with him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life.
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.
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God forbyd. How shall we that are deed as touchynge synne live eny lenger therin?
Remember ye not that all we which are baptysed in the name of Iesu Christ are baptysed to dye with him?
We are buryed with him by baptism for to dye that lykewyse as Christ was raysed vp from deeth by the glorye of the father: even so we also shuld walke in a newe lyfe.
For yf we be graft in deeth lyke vnto him: even so must we be in the resurreccion.
This we must remember that oure olde man is crucified with him also that the body of synne myght vtterly be destroyed that hence forth we shuld not be servauntes of synne.
For he that is deed ys iustified from synne.
Wherfore yf we be deed with Christ we beleve that we shall live with him:
remembringe that Christ once raysed from deeth dyeth no more. Deeth hath no moare power over him.
For as touchynge that he dyed he dyed concernynge synne once. And as touchinge that he liveth he liveth vnto God.
Lykewyse ymagen ye also that ye are deed concernynge synne: but are alive vnto God thorow Iesus Christ oure Lorde.
Show all 3 translations
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Howe shall we, that are dead to sinne, liue yet therein?
Knowe ye not, that all we which haue bene baptized into Iesus Christ, haue bene baptized into his death?
We are buried then with him by baptisme into his death, that like as Christ was raysed vp from the dead to the glorie of the Father, so we also should walke in newnesse of life.
For if we be planted with him to the similitude of his death, euen so shall we be to the similitude of his resurrection,
Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sinne might be destroied, that henceforth we should not serue sinne.
For he that is dead, is freed from sinne.
Wherefore, if we bee dead with Christ, we beleeue that we shall liue also with him,
Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead, dieth no more: death hath no more dominion ouer him.
For in that hee died, hee died once to sinne but in that he liueth, he liueth to God.
Likewise thinke ye also, that ye are dead to sin, but are aliue to God in Iesus Christ our Lord.
Cross-references (145)
- 2 Corinthians 5:17 (v4) Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old things have passed away. Behold, all things have become new.
- Galatians 2:20 (v6) I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. That life which I now live in the flesh, I live…
- Colossians 3:10 (v4) and have put on the new man, who is being renewed in knowledge after the image of his Creator,
- Ephesians 4:22-24 (v4) that you put away, as concerning your former way of life, the old man that grows corrupt after the lusts of deceit, and that you be renewed…
- Colossians 3:3-5 (v11) For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, our life, is revealed, then you will also be revealed with him in…
Show all 100 cross-references
- Galatians 5:24 (v6) Those who belong to Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and lusts.
- Galatians 3:27 (v3) For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.
- Romans 7:6 (vv2, 4) 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…
- 1 Peter 3:21 (vv3–4) This is a symbol of baptism, which now saves you—not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward…
- Ephesians 4:22 (v6) that you put away, as concerning your former way of life, the old man that grows corrupt after the lusts of deceit,
- Galatians 6:14 (vv2, 6) 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…
- Galatians 2:20-21 (v3) I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. That life which I now live in the flesh, I live…
- John 8:34-36 (v6) Jesus answered them, “Most certainly I tell you, everyone who commits sin is the bondservant of sin. A bondservant doesn’t live in the…
- Romans 6:9 (v4) knowing that Christ, being raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over him!
- 2 Corinthians 13:4 (vv4, 8) For he was crucified through weakness, yet he lives through the power of God. For we also are weak in him, but we will live with him…
- Colossians 3:5 (v6) Put to death therefore your members which are on the earth: sexual immorality, uncleanness, depraved passion, evil desire, and…
- Romans 6:8 (vv3, 7) But if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him;
- 1 Corinthians 6:20 (v11) for you were bought with a price. Therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.
- Philippians 3:10-11 (v5) that I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, becoming conformed to his death, if by any…
- Romans 6:2 (vv7, 11) May it never be! We who died to sin, how could we live in it any longer?
- 1 John 3:9 (v2) 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 3:9-10 (v6) Don’t lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old man with his doings, and have put on the new man, who is being renewed in…
- Romans 6:3 (v4) Or don’t you know that all we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?
- Romans 8:13 (v6) For if you live after the flesh, you must die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.
- Colossians 3:3 (v2) For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
- Romans 6:13 (v11) Also, do not present your members to sin as instruments of unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as alive from the dead, and your…
- Romans 7:24-25 (v6) What a wretched man I am! Who will deliver me out of the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ, our Lord! So then with the…
- Colossians 3:17 (v11) Whatever you do, in word or in deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father, through him.
- Romans 6:14 (v9) For sin will not have dominion over you. For you are not under law, but under grace.
- Romans 13:13-14 (v4) Let’s walk properly, as in the day; not in reveling and drunkenness, not in sexual promiscuity and lustful acts, and not in strife and…
- 1 Corinthians 12:13 (v3) For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether bond or free; and were all given to drink into one…
- 2 Corinthians 5:21 (v10) For him who knew no sin he made to be sin on our behalf; so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
- Colossians 2:12 (v5) having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the working of God, who raised him from the…
- 2 Peter 1:4-9 (v4) by which he has granted to us his precious and exceedingly great promises; that through these you may become partakers of the divine…
- 1 John 2:6 (v4) he who says he remains in him ought himself also to walk just like he walked.
- Romans 6:4-5 (v3) We were buried therefore with him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father,…
- 2 Corinthians 4:10 (v5) always carrying in the body the putting to death of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body.
- Colossians 2:11-12 (v6) In him you were also circumcised with a circumcision not made with hands, in the putting off of the body of the sins of the flesh, in the…
- Colossians 2:11-13 (v4) In him you were also circumcised with a circumcision not made with hands, in the putting off of the body of the sins of the flesh, in the…
- 2 Timothy 2:11-12 (v8) This saying is trustworthy: “For if we died with him, we will also live with him. If we endure, we will also reign with him. If we deny…
- 1 Peter 2:24 (v2) 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 (vv2, 7) 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…
- Colossians 3:1-3 (vv4, 7) If then you were raised together with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated on the right hand of God. Set your…
- Romans 8:11 (v4) But if the Spirit of him who raised up Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised up Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life…
- Galatians 2:19-20 (v11) For I, through the law, died to the law, that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but…
- 1 Peter 4:1 (v7) 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…
- Revelation 1:18 (v9) and the Living one. I was dead, and behold, I am alive forever and ever. Amen. I have the keys of Death and of Hades.
- Romans 6:8-12 (v5) 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.…
- Galatians 6:15-16 (v4) For in Christ Jesus neither is circumcision anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation. As many as walk by this rule, peace and mercy…
- 1 Peter 3:18 (v10) Because Christ also suffered for sins once, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring you to God, being put to death in the…
- 1 Peter 4:6 (v10) For to this end the Good News was preached even to the dead, that they might be judged indeed as men in the flesh, but live as to God in…
- 1 Corinthians 6:14 (v4) Now God raised up the Lord, and will also raise us up by his power.
- 2 Corinthians 5:15 (v10) 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.
- Galatians 2:19 (v2) For I, through the law, died to the law, that I might live to God.
- Colossians 3:3-4 (v8) For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, our life, is revealed, then you will also be revealed with him in…
- Romans 8:1 (v7) There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who don’t walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.
- Colossians 3:1 (v5) If then you were raised together with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated on the right hand of God.
- Acts 2:24-28 (v9) whom God raised up, having freed him from the agony of death, because it was not possible that he should be held by it. For David says…
- Acts 2:38 (v3) Peter said to them, “Repent, and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins, and you will…
- Romans 6:12 (v6) Therefore don’t let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts.
- Romans 7:2 (v7) For the woman that has a husband is bound by law to the husband while he lives, but if the husband dies, she is discharged from the law of…
- Ephesians 4:17 (v4) This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that you no longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles also walk, in the futility of their mind,
- Philippians 3:17-18 (v4) Brothers, be imitators together of me, and note those who walk this way, even as you have us for an example. For many walk, of whom I told…
- 1 Peter 1:14 (v2) as children of obedience, not conforming yourselves according to your former lusts as in your ignorance,
- 1 Peter 4:1-2 (v4) 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…
- Ephesians 2:5-6 (vv4–5) even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him,…
- Isaiah 26:13 (v6) Yahweh our God, other lords besides you have had dominion over us, but we will only acknowledge your name.
- Matthew 28:19 (v3) Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
- John 11:40 (v4) Jesus said to her, “Didn’t I tell you that if you believed, you would see God’s glory?”
- Romans 6:19 (v4) I speak in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh, for as you presented your members as servants to uncleanness and to…
- Romans 8:3 (v10) For what the law couldn’t do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God did, sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for…
- Romans 8:3-4 (v6) For what the law couldn’t do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God did, sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for…
- Romans 8:18 (v11) For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which will be revealed toward us.
- Romans 12:1-2 (v4) Therefore I urge you, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your…
- Romans 14:7-9 (v10) For none of us lives to himself, and none dies to himself. For if we live, we live to the Lord. Or if we die, we die to the Lord. If…
- 2 Corinthians 4:10-14 (v8) always carrying in the body the putting to death of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who…
- Hebrews 9:26-28 (v10) or else he must have suffered often since the foundation of the world. But now once at the end of the ages, he has been revealed to put…
- James 4:4 (v3) You adulterers and adulteresses, don’t you know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Whoever therefore wants to be a…
- 1 Peter 4:1-3 (v2) 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…
- Psalms 119:104 (v2) Through your precepts, I get understanding; therefore I hate every false way.
- Luke 20:38 (v10) Now he is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for all are alive to him.”
- John 15:1-8 (v5) “I am the true vine, and my Father is the farmer. Every branch in me that doesn’t bear fruit, he takes away. Every branch that bears fruit,…
- John 20:31 (v11) but these are written, that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name.
- Acts 2:24 (v4) whom God raised up, having freed him from the agony of death, because it was not possible that he should be held by it.
- Romans 6:11 (v10) Thus consider yourselves also to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
- Romans 6:22 (v6) But now, being made free from sin and having become servants of God, you have your fruit of sanctification and the result of eternal life.
- Romans 6:23 (v11) For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
- 2 Corinthians 5:14-17 (v2) 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…
- Ephesians 1:19-20 (v4) and what is the exceeding greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to that working of the strength of his might which he…
- Ephesians 2:7 (v11) that in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus;
- Colossians 1:9-12 (v4) For this cause, we also, since the day we heard this, don’t cease praying and making requests for you, that you may be filled with the…
- Colossians 2:20 (v2) If you died with Christ from the elements of the world, why, as though living in the world, do you subject yourselves to ordinances,
- Hebrews 10:12-13 (v9) but he, when he had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down on the right hand of God, from that time waiting until his enemies are…
- Psalms 16:9-11 (v9) Therefore my heart is glad, and my tongue rejoices. My body shall also dwell in safety. For you will not leave my soul in Sheol, neither…
- John 14:19 (v8) Yet a little while, and the world will see me no more; but you will see me. Because I live, you will live also.
- Acts 19:5 (v3) When they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.
- Romans 5:1 (v11) Being therefore justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ;
- Romans 6:16 (v3) Don’t you know that when you present yourselves as servants and obey someone, you are the servants of whomever you obey; whether of sin to…
- Romans 7:1 (v3) Or don’t you know, brothers (for I speak to men who know the law), that the law has dominion over a man for as long as he lives?
- 1 Corinthians 9:13 (v3) Don’t you know that those who serve around sacred things eat from the things of the temple, and those who wait on the altar have their…
100 distinct cross-references across this passage (145 total citations).
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this passage (24 sources)
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John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain On vv2–11 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 On vv2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 10 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 On vv2–11 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 On vv2–11 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.
William Burkitt 1703 · Public Domain On vv3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11 To be baptized into Christ, is by baptism to…
To be baptized into Christ, is by baptism to take the name of Christ upon us, to be incorporated, ingrafted, and implanted into the church of Christ, being made visible members of his mystical body by baptism. To be baptized into Christ’s death, imports, our being conformed to him in the likeness of his death; our being engaged to die unto sin; as Christ died for sin.
Learn hence, That the death of Christ was a lively representation of the death of sin; and believers are to imitate his death, in their dying daily unto sin.
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Did Christ die for us a painful, shameful, and accursed death? such a death must sin die in us. Was his death for sin free and voluntary?
so must we die to sin.
Was his death an universal crucifixion, did no life, sense, or motion remain with him?
thus must we imitate the likeness of his death, by an universal mortification of every known sin, which occasioned his dying.
In a word, did Christ die and rise again, never to die more?
so must we die unto sin, and walk in newness of life.
How shall we that are dead unto sin, live any longer therein?
Thus it appears the indispensible duty of all Christians, to transcribe the copy of Christ’s death in their hearts and lives.
William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv2–11 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 On vv2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10 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 On vv2–11 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.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv3, 5, 8 Rom 6:3-4. Know ye not — Can any of…
Rom 6:3-4. Know ye not — Can any of you be ignorant of this great and obvious truth, that so many of us as were baptized into Christ — That is, into the profession of the Christian faith; or implanted into and made a part of the mystical body of Christ by baptism, (as εις Χριστον seems to imply,) were baptized into his death — Engaged by baptism to be conformed to his death, by dying to sin, as he died for it, and crucifying our flesh with its affections and lusts, as his body was crucified on the cross; and also were made partakers of the benefits thereof, one of which is the mortifying of sin, and all sinful passions. Being baptized into Christ, or ingrafted into him through faith, we draw new spiritual life from this new root, through his Spirit, who fashions us like unto him, and particularly with regard to his death and resurrection. Therefore we are buried with him — Alluding to the ancient manner of baptizing by immersion; by baptism into death — That is, to engage us to die unto sin, and to carry on the mortification and death of it more and more: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory — That is, the glorious power; of the Father, even so we also — In conformity thereto, should rise again by the same power; and should walk in newness of life — As Christ being raised from the dead lives a new life in heaven. From all this it appears, that baptism, the rite of initiation into the Christian Church, is an emblematical representation of our dying to sin, and living to righteousness, in consequence of our union with Christ as members of his body; as also of the malignity of sin, in bringing death upon Christ, (Rom 6:10,) and upon all mankind, and of the efficacy of Christ’s death, in procuring for all pardoning mercy, renewing grace, and future glory; a resurrection both from spiritual and temporal death, to spiritual and eternal life.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv2–8 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 On vv2, 3, 7, 10 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 On vv2–11 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 On vv2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10 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 On vv2–11 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 On vv2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11 (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 On vv2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11 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.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv3, 5, 8, 11 Know ye not that as many as were baptised…
Rom_6:3-4
Know ye not that as many as were baptised into Jesus Christ were baptised into His death?
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Christian baptism
I. What it is--
1. A sign of grace.
2. A mystery of faith.
3. A seal of the covenant.
II. What it requires. The death of the old man.
III. What it is intended to secure.
spiritual and eternal life. (J. Lyth, D. D.)
Christian baptism
I. Its significance and nature.--
1. It was no novelty. Pious lustrations had been practised for ages among the Hindoos, Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans. The Jews also, in addition to the legal ablutions, baptised proselytes. John practised the same ceremony. And when Christ adopted this ordinance, it must have been with the same general significance, viz., initiation into a new mode of life. The past was to be renounced and forgotten, and a new, higher and holier career entered upon. Hence baptism was regarded among the philosophers and Rabbis as a new birth: not that it produced any real change of heart, but was a solemn and public separation from a former course of life, and a new start on a more hallowed career. Now, this is exactly the idea of baptism in the New Testament. It is like a Rubicon crossed: or a river which divides two continents occupied by hostile nations.
2. Such being the general idea of baptism, what is its specific meaning in the Christian system? Christian baptism generally is baptism into Christ. Just as one may be baptised into Hindooism, Judaism, or Mahometanism, so may a man be baptised into Christianity, or Christ. But Paul describes it as baptism into Christs death: and here we shall see how essentially it differs from baptism into any other form of religion. To be baptised into Moses or Mahomet would not signify to be baptised into his death, but only the acknowledgment of their authority. Baptism into Christs death is expressed four times, and by as many different phrases, in this passage.
(1) Baptised into His death. We think of the death of Christ as the central and most momentous event of His mediatorial mission. He was put to death by wicked men, the representatives of the world in its depraved condition; but He also died in the sinners stead, and for sin, that He might condemn and cancel it, and deliver His people from its curse. By it, therefore, we express our acquiescence in that death, both as a protest against the wickedness of the world, and as an atoning sacrifice for human sin. If so, we are expected to be dead to the world which slew Him; and to the sins for which He died.
(2) Buried with Him by baptism. The interment of Christ gave conclusive evidence of the reality of His death. The world had done with Him, and He with it. To denote therefore the absoluteness of our death in Christ, we are said to be buried with Him--as a man who is completely done with this life is said to be dead and buried.
(3) Planted together in the likeness of His death. The idea is that of growing together into one, as a new branch grafted into an old stock. Our death is entirely owing to the death of Christ; yet it is only in the likeness of His death that we die. There are points of difference as well as of resemblance. He died for sin, we die to sin; He died vicariously, we for ourselves. His death was to cover the guilt of sin; ours is to escape from its pollution and power; His death was physical, ours spiritual.
(4) Our old man is crucified, that the body of sin might be destroyed. By the old man we understand our unrenewed moral disposition (Eph_4:22-23); by body of sin, the fact that our lower animal nature is the great occasion and instrument of sin. Jesus died a death of slow, lingering torment and ignominy. And our death to sin is one of corresponding painfulness, difficulty, and seeming dishonour. So Paul, in the Galatians, twice declares that he is crucified with Christ (Gal_2:20; Gal_6:14). Indeed the whole idea of this passage is repeated in several others (see Col_2:11-13; 1Pe_3:18-22; 1Pe_4:1-6). How the world scoffs at a man who gives up his sins!
II. The subsequent state of the baptised as dead to sin. Now we are said to be dead to anything when we have ceased to be under its influence, and have become indifferent to it. Thus many a passion of human love or hate dies away, and the heart is perfectly unmoved by the presence of its once exciting object. Or a man utterly alters his studies and pursuits, and becomes callous to speculations or adventures which once had fired him with uncontrollable ambition. In like manner a converted man is dead to his former life of sin. He is a new creature in Christ Jesus. Old things have passed away, and all things have become new (2Co_5:17).
1. He is indifferent to its pleasures (Gal_5:19-26).
2. He has renounced its principles and practices.
3. These things he has been enabled to do. Dead to sin, he is emancipated from its bondage. He is raised up from the death of sin, as Christ from the grave, by the glorious power of the Father, and so, filled with the Spirit, he is able to walk in newness of life.
Christian baptism
I. The moral significance of our baptism into Christ--our baptism into His death.
1. The forms of expression are elliptical. For just as Christ gave commandment to baptise into the name of the Father, etc., the meaning was that they were to be baptised into the faith and for the service of the Triune God; so here, to be baptised into Christ and His death is to be baptised into the faith of Christ crucified.
2. Regarded from its human side baptism is an act by which a man makes open profession of faith in Christ as his Saviour and Lord; an act in which he makes full renunciation of self and sin, and unites himself to the Church (1Co_12:12, etc.). It does not, however, constitute its subject a really living member; it is but a material act which cannot possibly of itself have any moral effect. Thus, though Simon bad been baptised, he had neither part nor lot in the Christian salvation. But the faith of which baptism is the profession does bring its possessor into living fellowship with Christ.
3. This faith is in Christs death, and really brings its possessor into union with Christ. Hence by our baptism into Christs death, we were buried with Him. It is very commonly supposed that there is here a reference to immersion: but the apostle does not say that we were buried in baptism, but that we were buried together with Christ by means of the baptism into His death. That is to say, if we have that faith of which baptism is the open profession, then are we brought into such legal and effective union with Christ as that we are treated by God as though we had been crucified when Christ was crucified, and buried when He was buried.
4. But there is yet a further moral significance in this act of faith, viz., a confession that the believer himself, because of his sins, deserves to die; that but for the death of his Divine Substitute he must himself have died; that he hates and renounces those sins which thus imperilled his own soul and caused such agony to his Redeemer; and that he thankfully and with all his heart avails himself of this provision of salvation from sin. It is not consistent with our profession of faith that we should continue in sin. For how shall we that died to sin, live any longer therein?
II. Its purpose--that like as Christ was raised, so we, being quickened together with Him, should walk in newness of life.
1. Though Jesus died, He does not continue dead. He died unto sin once. By that one death He satisfied the demand of the law, and having satisfied that demand, He could legally claim a complete justification from sin (verse 7). But, being so justified, death had no further dominion over Him. He was therefore raised on account of our justification by the glory of the Father, i.e., by His power, working out His will and purpose, according to the demands of His glory.
2. For the glory of the Father demanded the resurrection of His Son on two accounts.
(1) To clear Him from false accusations. The Jews condemned Him as a blasphemer, because that He had called God His own Father, making Himself equal with God. No doubt the Jews were right, if the claim had not been true. But it was true. And to prove its truth, and vindicate His Son, the glory of the Father raised Him from the dead.
(2) To attest the sufficiency of His atoning death. Not according to mans arrangement, but by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, Jesus was delivered to death to expiate sin. It was declared that His death should effectually accomplish this purpose. But, in proof thereof, it was needful that He should rise again. For how could we have trusted in Him for salvation, and how could it have been consistent with the glory of the Father, if the sinless One had continued under the power of death after the demands of justice had been fully satisfied? Therefore the glory of the Father could not suffer that Holy One to see corruption.
3. But we are baptised into Christs death, and by that baptism buried with Him, in order that we also might participate His restored and glorious life. For, as in our Representative, so also in us these things of necessity go together, namely--
(1) Death to sin and burial in death;
(2) Justification from sin in consequence of that death; and--
(3) Restoration to holy and prevailing life. If in Christ we have not been made alive to God, then it is quite certain that we have not been justified in Christ.
4. Thus it comes to pass that, both by profession and by privilege, Christian men are bound to renounce a life of sin, and to live a life of holiness. That we may do this effectually, we have but to attend to two things; namely--
(1) To be indeed what we profess ourselves to be, believers in the saving work and power of Jesus; and--
(2) To do, with resolute courage, what we are bidden to do, even to yield ourselves to the service of God as those who are alive from the dead. Doing these things, we shall no longer continue in sin, but shall reign in life by One, Jesus Christ. (W. Tyson.)
Therefore we are buried with Him by baptism into death.--
Baptism--a burial
1. Paul does not say that all unbelievers and hypocrites, etc., who are baptized, are baptized into our Lords death. He intends such as come to it with their hearts in a right state.
2. Nor does he intend to say that those who were rightly baptized have all of them entered into the fulness of its spiritual meaning; for he asks, Know ye not? Some perhaps saw in it only a washing, but had never discerned the burial. I question if any of us yet know the fulness of the meaning of either of Christs ordinances. Baptism sets forth the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ, and our participation therein. Its teaching is two fold. Consider--
I. Our representative union with Christ as a truth to be believed. Baptism as a burial with Christ signifies--
1. Acceptance of the death and burial of Christ as being for us. We are not baptized into His example, or His life, but into His death. We hereby confess that all our salvation lies in that which we accept as having been incurred on our account.
2. An acknowledgment of our own death in Christ. My burial with Christ means not only that He died for me, but that I died in Him, so that my death with Him needs a burial with Him. Suppose that a man has actually died for a certain crime, and now, by some wonderful work of God, he has been made to live again. Will he commit that crime again? But you reply, We never did die so. But that which Christ did for you comes to, and the Lord looks upon it as, the same thing. You have died in Christs death, and now by grace you are brought up again into newness of life. Can you, after that, turn back to the accursed thing which God hates?
3. Burial with a view to rising. If you are one with Christ at all, you must be one with Him all through. Since I am one with Christ I am what Christ is: as He is a living Christ, I am a living spirit. So far the doctrine: is it not a precious one? Shall the members of a generous, gracious Head be covetous and grasping? Shall the members of a glorious, pure, and perfect Head be defiled with the lusts of the flesh and the follies of a vain life? If believers are indeed so identified with Christ that they are His fulness, should they not be holiness itself?
II. Our realised union with Christ as a matter of experience. There is--
1. Death--
(1) To the dominion of sin. If sin commands us we will not obey, for we are dead to its authority. Sin cannot reign over us, though it may assail us and work us harm.
(2) To the desire of any such power. The law in the members would fain urge to sin, but the life of the heart constrains to holiness.
(3) To the pursuits and aims of the sinning life. We are in the world, and have to live as other men do, carrying on our ordinary business; but all this is subordinate, and held in as with bit and bridle.
(4) To the guidance of sin. Our text must have had a very forcible meaning in Pauls time. An average Roman of that period was a man accustomed to the amphitheatre. Taught in such a school, he was cruel to the last degree, and ferocious in the indulgence of his passions. A depraved man was not regarded as being at all degraded; not only nobles and emperors, but the public teachers were impure. When those who were regarded as moral were corrupt, you may imagine what the immortal were. See here a Roman converted by the grace of God! What a change is in him! His neighbours say, You were not at the amphitheatre this morning. No, he says, I am totally dead to it. If you were to force me to be there, I must shut my eyes, for I could not look on murder committed in sport! The Christian did not resort to places of licentiousness; he was dead to such filthiness. The fashions of the age were such that Christians could not consent to them, and so they became dead to society.
2. Burial. This is--
(1) The seal of death, the certificate of decease. There have been instances of persons being buried alive, and I am afraid that the thing happens with sad frequency in baptism, but it is unnatural, and by no means the rule. But if I can say in very truth, I was buried with Christ thirty years ago, I must surely be dead.
(2) The displaying of death. When a funeral takes place, everybody knows of death. That is what baptism ought to be. The believers death to sin is at first a secret, but by an open confession he bids all men know that he is dead with Christ.
(3) The separateness of death. The dead man no longer remains in the house. A corpse is not welcome company. Such is the believer: he is poor company for worldlings, and they shun him as a damper upon their revelry.
(4) The settledness of death; for when a man is dead and buried you never expect to see him come home again. They tell me that spirits walk the earth; I have my doubts on the subject. In spiritual things, however, I am afraid that some are not so buried with Christ but that they walk a great deal among the tombs. The man in Christ cannot walk as a ghost, because he is alive somewhere else; he has received a new being, and therefore he cannot mutter and peep among the dead hypocrites around him.
3. Resurrection.
(1) This is a special work. All the dead are not raised, but our Lord Himself is the first fruits of them that slept. He is the First-begotten from among the dead. As to our soul and spirit, the resurrection has begun upon us, and will be complete as to our body at the appointed day.
(2) By Divine power. Christ is brought again from the dead by the glory of the Father. Why did it not say, by the power of the Father? Ah, glory is a grander word; for all the attributes of God are displayed here. There was the Lords faithfulness; for He had declared that His Holy One should not see corruption. His love. I am sure it was a delight to the heart of God to bring back life to the body of His dear Son. And so, when you and I are raised out of our death in sin, it is not merely Gods power, or Gods wisdom that is seen, it is the glory of the Father. If the tiniest spark of spiritual life has to be created by the glory of the Father, what will be the glory of that life when it comes into its full perfection, and we shall be like Christ, and see Him as He is!
(3) This resurrection life is--
(a) Entirely new. We are to walk in newness of life.
(b) Active. The Lord does not allow us to sit down contented with the mere fact that we live, nor allow us to spend our time in examining whether we are alive or no; but He gives us His battle to fight, His house to build, His farm to till, His children to nurse, and His sheep to feed.
(c) Unending. Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more.
(d) Not under the law or under sin. Christ came under the law when He was here, and He had our sin laid on Him, and therefore died; but after He rose again there was no sin laid on Him. In His resurrection both the sinner and the Surety are free. What had Christ to do after His rising? To bear any more sin? No, but just to live unto God. That is where you and I are. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Buried alive
(Psa_31:12; Rom_8:6, and text):--The subject would perhaps suggest a terrible physical calamity, such as the closing of a coal pit upon toiling miners; or of an interment ere life was extinct. But there are other senses in which men are buried alive.
I. In an unfortunate sense. Men are often buried alive--
1. For the want of opportunities of mental development. How frequently we hear men say in certain spheres and conditions that they are buried alive! There is an amount of mental life in all men. But the development of that life requires certain external conditions and favourable opportunities. Sometimes, indeed, but rarely, we find men, through the force of genius, breaking through the most unfavourable circumstances; but the millions remain in the mental grave of thoughtlessness and ignorance. Englishmen have at last realised the magnitude of this calamity; the loss which it involves to commerce, literature, and moral influence.
2. Through the infirmities of age. Some, thirty or forty years ago, played prominent parts in the drama of public life; but where are they today? We are constantly reading of the death of an old Waterloo hero, or Trafalgar veteran, or distinguished statesman, or great scholar, who have not been heard of for years. This is a sad entombment, one that awaits us all if we live long enough.
3. Through the envy of their contemporaries. This was perhaps what David meant. Malice always wishes to murder, and to bury. Many a noble man in Church and State, who is too truthful to temporise, too independent to cringe, is kept in the background by envy. No invitation shall be given to him to take a prominent part in the movements of his party, no mention shall be made of his doings in the organs of their clique.
II. In a criminal sense (Rom_8:6). In the case of all unrenewed men, the soul, the conscience with all its Divine instincts and sympathies, is buried in the flesh, in the sense in which a slave is buried who has no liberty of action. Hence Paul speaks of it as carnally sold under sin. A man may be a merchant, artist, author; but, the inspiration of his business, the glow of his genius, the tinge and form of his thoughts, will be flesh rather than spirit. Nay, he may be a religionist, and that of the most orthodox stamp: but his creed and devotions will be after the law of a carnal commandment, and his Christ known only after the flesh.
III. In a virtuous sense. We are buried with Him by baptism unto death. Not the baptism of water, but of that holy fire that burns up all corrupt carnalties. What is buried here? Not the mental faculties, for these are quickened into action; not the conscience--no, this is brought out of its grave and put upon the throne. But the old man with its corruptions and lusts. Whilst this carnal I is buried, the moral I is quickened and raised. Nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me. Now, this is a virtuous burying alive. It means being dead indeed unto sin, and alive unto righteousness. As you must bury the seed in the earth before you can have the living plant, so you must bury the carnal nature before you have spiritual life. (D. Thomas, D. D.)
Dead and buried with Christ
In the fourth century, when the Christian faith was preached in its power in Egypt, a young brother sought out the great Macarius. Father, said he, what is the meaning of being dead and buried with Christ? My son, answered Macarius, you remember our dear brother who died, and was buried a short time since? Go now to his grave, and tell him all the unkind things you ever heard of him, and that we are glad he is dead, and thankful to be rid of him, for he was such a worry to us, and caused so much discomfort in the Church. Go, my son, and say that, and hear what he will answer. The young man was surprised, and doubted whether he really understood; but Macarius only said, Do as I bid you, my son, and come and tell me what our departed brother says. The young man did as he was commanded, and returned. Well, and what did our brother say? asked Macarius. Say, father! he exclaimed; how could he say anything? He is dead. Go now again, my son, and repeat every kind and flattering thing you have ever heard of him; tell him how much we miss him; how great a saint he was; what noble work he did; how the whole Church depended upon him; and come again and tell me what he says. The young man began to see the lesson Macarius would teach him. He went again to the grave, and addressed many flattering things to the dead man, and then returned to Macarius. He answers nothing, father; he is dead and buried. You know now, my son, said the old father, what it is to be dead with Christ. Praise and blame equally are nothing to him who is really dead and buried with Christ.
That like as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.--
Christs resurrection and ours for the glory of God
It glorifies His omnipotence. For if creation required omnipotence, so does the new creation. It glorifies His wisdom; for what wisdom is required to bring a clean thing out of an unclean! To reconcile sinful man to a holy God. It glorifies His justice; for how could God have forgiven us, except at the expense of His justice, had He not received atonement in the person of Jesus; and how could He have given us any comfort in that atonement, if He had not raised Jesus from the dead, and thus show us that the price of our redemption was fully paid, and we were set free? It glorifies His truth; for God had said that it should be so, and we had to wait for the fulfilment of His promise, and in the fulness of time Jesus came, died, and rose again. (Bp. Montagu Villiers.)
Resurrection life
1. The chapter connects the historical resurrection of Christ with the spiritual resurrection of the heart by the golden link of baptism.
2. We have to consider what is the newness of life in which we are to walk, or walk about, the metaphor referring to our ordinary walk in the beaten track of everyday life; for this is the newness of life which God loves--not the striking out of some novel path, but the old path trodden every day with new affections and new attainments. And may we not all say that there has been now quite enough of old, dull, religious duties, enough of worldly-mindedness, enough of things which have done nothing else but disappoint us, enough of things that die? And could there be a better season than this Easter for starting afresh upon the journey of life? Look at this life as new--
I. In the method of its formation.
1. There is a natural life which we all obtain from our father and mother. It carries an entail from Adam--a stream of corruption and a carnal-mindedness. But Jesus took manhood, and did His mediatorial work, that He might become, like another Adam, the root of another pedigree. Our entrance into the lineage takes place by an act of spiritual union to Christ.
2. Now see the processes of that life. When Christ died on the Cross our nature died in Him. And now Christ, being the Head, rising, draws up the body. First, in this present life, our souls begin to be drawn up to ascending desires, to nearer communion, to loftier enjoyments, to a more heavenly-mindedness. Afterwards, at the resurrection, by the same process, our bodies will be raised up.
II. In its own constitution. Gods way of making a new thing is not mans way. God uses up the old materials; but, by His using and moulding them, makes them new. Thus, the new heavens and the new earth will only make another heaven and earth formed out of the old materials. Or, take that expression, a new heart. God does not annihilate a mans original temperament--remove his old habits, and tempers, and feelings, and make another man with him; but He restrains, sanctifies, and elevates the mans primary character. The characteristic of his unconverted state is the characteristic of his converted condition; but new feelings have given new directions to old things; and new principles have given another development; and new grace has given new power: and so, though he is the new man, he is the old man still!
III. The new element thrown in to make a new man. Love. Of this command we read that it is old and new. St. John in a breath calls it both. Old, in the letter; new, in the spirit. Old, as an universal obligation; new, in the standard. Old, in the fact; new, in the motive. As I have loved you, that ye also love one another. (J. Vaughan, M. A.)
Christs resurrection and our newness of life
I. The resurrection of our Lord was attended with glory. It was glorious--
1. In itself the most marvellous occurrence in history.
2. In contrast with Christs humiliation.
3. In its effects. He was raised--
(1) For our justification.
(2) To secure our own resurrection.
(3) That through His life of intercession He might save them to the uttermost that come unto God by Him.
4. As to its cause, for it was a display of the glory or power of the Father. But it was more than a miracle of power, for all the attributes of God united their glory in it, love, wisdom, justice, and mercy. The veil which concealed the sacred presence was rent from top to bottom; and the glory of the Lord was seen in the resurrection of Christ from the dead.
5. Because of its sequel in reference to our Lord. Once hath He suffered, but it is once for all. His victory is final. And now, therefore, to the child of God death furnishes a couch of rest, and is no longer a dark and noisome prison cell. The body is sown in corruption, but it is raised in incorruption and immortality.
II. The parallel in our experience is also full of glory. Partakers of His death, we are also partakers of His resurrection. This body of ours will have its share in it in due time. The spirit has its resurrection even now; but we are waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.
1. It is a blessed thing that we should be made alive in Christ.
2. This quickening is a needful part of sanctification. Sanctification, in its operation upon our character, consists of three things. First, Jesus strikes at the heart of evil. His death makes us die to sin. After this we are buried with Christ, and of this burial baptism is the type and token. To complete our actual sanctification we receive heavenly quickening, for he that believeth in Him hath everlasting life.
3. Being thus quickened you are partakers of a new life. You are not like Lazarus, who had the same life restored to him. True, you have that same life about you. But your true life has come to you by your being born again from above. In this there is a striking display of the glory of God. It is one of the highest displays of Divine power.
4. Thus we have a preeminent security for future perfection. If He raised us up when we were dead in sin, will He not keep us alive now that we live unto Him? This life springeth up unto eternal life. You shall surely behold His face whose life is already within your breast.
III. The life is emphatically new. I expect to read, even so we also should be raised by the glory of the Father; but it is not so. It is in Pauls mind that we are raised together with Christ; but his thought has gone further, even to the activity which comes of life; and we read, that we also should walk in newness of life. As much as to say, I need not tell you that you have been quickened as Christ was; but since you have been made alive, you must show it by your walk and conduct. But he reminds us that this life has much newness about it. This new life is--
1. A life which we never before possessed--an exotic, a plant of another clime. It is not written, You hath He fostered, who had the germs of dormant life; but, You hath He quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins. You had no life, you had nothing out of which life could come. Eternal life is the gift of God.
2. New in its principles. The old life at its very best only said, I must do right that I may win a reward. Now you are moved by gratitude, now you serve not as a servant, but as a child. It is your joy to obey out of love, and not from slavish fear.
3. Swayed by new motives. You live now to please God; aforetime you lived to please yourself, or to please your neighbours.
4. One which has new objects. You aim higher; yea, at the highest of all; for you live for Gods glory.
5. One of new emotions. Your fears, hopes, sorrows, and your joys are new.
6. One of new hopes; we have a hope of immortality; a hope so glorious, that it causes us to purify ourselves in preparation for its realisation.
7. One of new possessions. God has made us rich in faith. Instead of groaning that life is not worth having, we bless God for our being, because of our well-being in Christ. We have peace like a river, and a secret joy which no man taketh from us. We drink of a well which none can dry up; we have bread to eat that the world knows not of.
8. One by which we are brought into a new world. I often compare myself to a chick, which aforetime was imprisoned in the shell. In that condition I neither knew myself, nor aught that was about me, but was in a chaos, as one unborn. When the shell was broken, like a young bird I was weak and full of wonderment at the life into which I had come. That young life felt its wings and tried them a little. It moved with trembling footsteps, essaying a new walk. It saw things it never dreamed of.
IV. The walk which comes out of this life is new.
1. The new life that God gives us is exceedingly active. I have never read that we are to lie down and sleep in the newness of life. I greatly question whether you have new life if you do not walk.
2. This activity of life induces progress. If we are really quickened we shall march on, going from strength to strength.
3. This walk is to be in newness of life. I see a Christian man coming back from a place of question amusement. Did he go there in newness of life? The old man used to go in that direction. When a man has made a bargain which will not bear the light; is that done in newness of life? When an employer grinds down the workman; is that done in newness of life? Put off the old man. If Christ has quickened you, walk in newness of life.
4. This life should be one of joyful vivacity. A healthy Christian is one of the liveliest creatures on earth. Newness of life means a soul aglow with love to God, and therefore earnest, zealous, happy. Come, my soul, if Christ has raised thee from the dead, do not live after the fashion of the dark grave which thou hast quitted. Live a God-like life; let the divine in thee sit on the throne, and tread the animal beneath its feet. It is easier said than done, cries one. That depends upon the life within. Life is full of power. I have seen an iron bar bent by the growth of a tree. Have you never heard of great paving stones being lifted by fungi, which had pushed up beneath them? If you choose to contract your souls by a sort of spiritual tight lacing, or if you choose to bend yourselves down in a sorrow which never looks up, you may hinder your life and its walk; but give your life full scope, and what a walk you may have! Conclusion: I have seen boys bathing in a river in the morning. One of them has just dipped his toes in the water, and he cries out, as he shivers, Oh, its so cold! Another has gone in up to his ankles, and he also declares that it is fearfully chilly. But see! another runs to the bank and takes a header. He rises all in a glow. You Christian people are paddling about in the shallows of religion, and just dipping your toes into it. Oh, that you would plunge into the river of life! How it would brace you! What tone it would give you! In for it. Be a Christian, out and out. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Newness of life
When the gospel was first preached, its novelty must have impressed both Jew and Gentile. Not only was the Christian doctrine something fresh in the history of human thought; the Christian morality was something new in the sphere of the individual and social existence of mankind. The novelty may not strike us as it struck the men of the first century, but still Christianity summons all men to newness of life. The new life--
I. Commences with a new birth. Every human life has a beginning, so with the spiritual life; there is what is called regeneration, in which the birth of the body is followed by that of the soul.
II. Is quickened by a new power. Mysterious even to the present men of science is the secret of vitality. We can only account for the new and spiritual life of Christianity by accepting the doctrine that the Holy Spirit takes possession of the nature, vivifying it with a celestial vitality and energy.
III. Is inspired by a new principle. What is it which distinguishes the life of the Christian from that of the worldly, unspiritual man? It is the prevalence and power of Divine love in his nature.
IV. Is perfected in an ever new immortality. The life of the body perishes; but the life of the Christian is renewed day by day; age and infirmity have no power over it; even death fails to destroy it; in fact, its fairest blossom and its richest fruit appear only beneath celestial influences, and when the Omnipotent makes all things new. (Family Churchman.)
Newness of life
1. We are called upon this Easter morning to contemplate the master miracle of Divine love as set against and triumphing over the masterpiece of Satans malignity. As death must be regarded as the supreme development of evil, so resurrection must be regarded as the highest triumph of good. Now not only does God triumph over death, but He actually employs the enemy to produce this greater benefit.
2. The question of Nicodemus is a natural one. He might well conclude, I must of necessity carry my old self along with me to the grave. Not so, Ye must be born again. But what form of birth is there for the man grown old in habits of sin? The great discovery was not made until from the womb of death there arose the newborn man, the first-begotten of the dead, the first born of many brethren! and from that time forward it became possible for the sinner to be severed from the incubus of the past, and to rise into newness of life in virtue of his union with Christ.
3. Now, observe the difference between Gods way of dealing with fallen man, and ours. Nicodemus objects, How can a man be born when he is old, etc. A moments reflection will show us that the change in itself is exceedingly desirable. But all that we can suggest is to patch up the old creature; but a thing seldom looks well after it is mended, and it becomes less and less serviceable the more frequently it is mended; and the fact of its being patched indicates that it is nearly worn out, and will soon be laid aside. But a man with a new garment makes a fresh start. Now God does not mend--He recreates, and He presses death into the service, and through that we rise to newness of life, in which we are able to stand free from sin.
4. As we go into the country at this springtime, and gaze on the opening leaves and flowers, the newness of everything powerfully impresses us. God might have restored nature by a process of repair; but no! until the withered dead leaf is swept away into the tomb of corruption the new leaf does not unfold itself; but as soon as the old is dead and buried there arises a newness of life. How like the work of God! The most skilful artist who endeavours to imitate nature cannot reproduce natures freshness. So there are many imitations of religion, but they are all devoid of that virgin freshness which is only produced by the touch of the Life-giver.
5. As the Lord teaches us this lesson in nature, so He enforces it by the striking symbolism of one of the sacraments. Baptism is not a mere washing; it is a burial and a resurrection. Not that the mere outward observance of the ordinance can ever produce this; there must be faith in the operation of God. When I have this whether it takes place at the moment of baptism, or after, or before, makes no difference. The point is this, that when my faith lays hold on the operation of God, manifested in the resurrection of Christ, and which is symbolised in baptism, then that ordinance in itself is a pledge that the reality of the blessing which the ordinance typifies is actually mine.
6. With these thoughts in our minds, I want you to observe that Paul says that we are buried and raised up again with a definite object, viz., the walk in newness of life. You cannot walk inn place if you do not reach that place; and I cannot walk in newness of life without having first of all been introduced into a condition of newness of life. As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, even so walk in Him. And now what are the distinguishing characteristics of this newness of life?
I. The newness of relationship to God. In the old life we felt there was something wrong between God and us; we desired that that something should be set right, and we hoped gradually to win His approval by a life of consistency. Some of us laboured very hard, and yet the end was disappointment. How was all this to be changed, and every barrier to confidence and love swept away? Not by patching ourselves up. We saw ourselves, represented by Christ, as enduring the penalty of the law; and were content to reckon ourselves as crucified with Christ; but he that is dead is justified from sin, and so we found that there was now no further condemnation for us who are in Christ Jesus. From the grave we rose into newness of life, and our first experience was the discovery that God was a reconciled Father.
II. Newness of power. Faith introduced me into this blessed condition; faith is to be the law of my experience in it. There is a power now working within me; the power of God, whose mighty Spirit has taken possession of me, and is working out His purposes within me. Electricians tell us that our nervous system is so constituted that under the force of electricity we can perform prodigies of strength and endurance which would be impossible under ordinary circumstances. We will suppose this book to contain a weight of several pounds. I hold it out at arms length. Presently the sense of fatigue comes insupportable, and my arm must fall to my side; but turn on a current of electricity to the outstretched arm, and I am able to sustain the weight indefinitely, without any such sense of fatigue. Where does my part in the matter lie?--not in struggling to force my arm to do what it is too weak to do, but in yielding my member to the power which can enable it to accomplish what is otherwise impossible. I have to see to it that no non-conductor breaks the invisible stream of power; and that is just what I have to see to in my spiritual experience. Am I in full connection with Divine Omnipotence? I can do all things through Christ that strengtheneth me. Now do you not see the difference between going about the work of life flurried with anxiety and weighted with care, now straining every nerve in an agony of effort, and now, weary and discouraged, sinking into lethargy, and the quiet, happy confidence of him who is walking in newness of life, assured that, whatever may arise, the new life within him is equal to any and every emergency.
III. Newness of character. I meet with a great many who do not seem to expect this. How many of us are there who have so very much of the old self about us that even our fellow Christians cannot help being distressed and pained at it? Are we walking in newness of life? Are the old features passing away?--have they passed away? You who were naturally uncontrolled, are your natural passions well in hand?--not in your hand--in Christs hand? You who were ready to say a bitter word without thinking how much pain it might give, who rather plumed yourself on being blunt even to rudeness, is the beauty of the Lord our God beginning to rest upon you? You, whose gifts of conversation were apt to degenerate into idle gossip, have you learned to keep the little member in its place? Are you doing all to the glory of God? What manner of man are we? We are children of the resurrection. When we get down to the exchange, to the workshop, do we forget that? The glorious beauty of the Lord our God is for us; His freshness, purity, the very bloom of newness of life, is ours. Shake yourself loose of every encumbrance, turn your back on every defilement, give yourself over like clay to the hand of the Potter, that He may stamp upon you the fulness of His own resurrection glory, that we, beholding as in a mirror the glories of the Lord, may be changed from glory unto glory as by the Spirit of God. (W. Hay Aitken, M. A.)
Newness of life
I. Its connection with Christs resurrection. Like as--
1. Material things may be compared to material and spiritual to spiritual; but is not this comparison of a moral revelation to a physical transaction arbitrary and fanciful? The answer is that the source and motive power of the two are the same. The manner and proportion of the Divine action at the tomb of Christ, when they are addressed to sense, enable us to trace and measure them in the mystery of the souls life when they are addressed to spirit.
2. Something of the same kind may be observed in the case of the human mind. A mind capable of writing a great poem or history, and of governing at the same time a great country, is not to be met with every day. But when we do find the two things combined it is reasonable to compare the book with the policy of the king or statesman, on the ground that both are products of a single mind; and it is further reasonable to expect certain qualities common to the two forms of work. This is Pauls position; Christs resurrection and the souls regeneration are works of one powerful, wise, and loving will.
3. Nature can no more give us newness of life than a corpse can raise itself. Prudence, advancing years, the tone of society, family influences, may remodel our habits, but Divine grace alone can raise us from the death of sin to the life of righteousness. Reflect on that terrible reality--spiritual death. The body is in the full flush of its powers, the mind is engaged with a thousand truths, but neither boisterous spirits nor intellectual fire can galvanize the spirit into life. The spiritual senses do not act--the eyes, ears, mouth, of the soul are closed. Its hands and feet are bandaged with the grave clothes of selfish habit. It cannot rise, and must lie on in its darkness, and the putrefaction of its spiritual tomb. And a great stone has been rolled to the door--the dead weight of corrupt and irreligious opinion which bars out the light and air of heaven and makes the prison house secure. How is such an encumbrance to be thrown off? Even if angels should roll away the stone, how can life be restored, unless He who is its Lord and Giver shall flash into this dead spirit His own quickening power?
II. The characteristics common to both.
1. Reality.
(1) Christ really died. The piercing of His side proves this; and being truly dead He really rose.
(a) Some say only in the heart of His disciples. But supposing such a process of imagination to have taken place in the case of two or three, is it reasonable to suppose that it could have occurred simultaneously to many.
(b) Nor was it a phantom that rose. Had that been the case it would surely have been found out, by the women, by Peter, by the eleven to whom He said, A spirit hath not flesh and bones as ye see Me have, and by Thomas. Undoubtedly His risen body had added qualities of subtlety and glory; but these did not destroy its reality. It had been sown in dishonour; it was raised in glory, etc.
(2) So the souls newness of life must be, before everything, real.
(a) What avails it to be risen in imagination and in the good opinion of others, if having a name that we live while yet we are dead? Is it well for a dead soul to be periodically galvanised by unmerited flattery into awkward mimicries of the language and action of Christian life?
(b) What is the value of the mere ghost of a moral renewal; of prayers without heart, actions without religious principle, religious language in advance of conviction and feeling? Ah, the phantoms of a renewed life stalk through the world and the Church--picturesque in the distance, and like waxwork figures hard to distinguish from the living. There is the phantom life--
(i) Of imagination when a lively fancy has thrown around religion the charm of an intense interest without touching religious principle.
(ii) Of strong physical feeling where occasional bursts of religious passion are mistaken for discipline and surrender of the will.
(iii) Of sheer good nature, when however much is done, it is done without inward reference to God and His law.
(iv) Of good taste, where it is simply taken for granted that certain religious properties belong to a particular social position--phantoms each and all; for they melt into thin air under the harder stress of service or sorrow. They may not safely challenge the Handle Me of the risen Jesus. So then the first lesson is genuineness. Feel more deeply than you talk--act as you feel in your best moments.
2. Durability.
(1) Jesus did not rise that, like Lazarus, He might die again. I am alive for evermore. Death hath no more dominion over Him. His triumphant life could not be exchanged again for a life of sin and suffering.
(2) So should it be with the Christian. His, too, should be a resurrection once for all. I say should be, for Gods grace does not put force upon us. The Christian must reckon himself to be dead indeed unto sin, etc. And if this seems hard to flesh and blood the Christian will remember that he has forces at his command equal to cope with them. If the risen Christ be in us the body is dead because of sin, etc. Once risen with Christ we need die no more. God will certainly be true, and we have but to cling to Him and keep a tight hand upon ourselves. Nothing from without can avail to destroy our life if it be not seconded from within. Louis XIV went year by year through his Lenten and Easter duties and then fell back into debauchery--a hideous libel on the teaching of Christs resurrection. And yet what if we with slighter temptations repeat his experiences?
3. Secrecy.
(1) Much of Christs risen life was hidden from the eyes of men. His visible presence after His resurrection was the exception rather than the rule; and by this the disciples were gradually trained for their future. It was a gentle passage from the days of Christs ministry to the days of that invisible presence which was to last to the end of time. But who can doubt what the risen Christ was doing? He needed not strength as we need it, but communion with the Father was His one glory and joy.
(2) Who can fail to see here a lesson and a law for Christian life? Much and the more important side of it must be hidden. No doubt our business, families, etc., have their claims; but where there is a will there is a way, and time must be made for prayer, self-questioning, etc. Alas for souls who shrink from solitude and secret communion with God. Does not the forest tree, while flinging its trunk and branches high towards the heavens, strike its roots for safety and nourishment ever deeper into the soil beneath? (Canon Liddon.)
The several degrees of personal religion
Progress in the new life, commenced at the time of the second birth, is more desirable than success in business, or growth from infancy to manhood. It is in this text urged as a duty, and proposed as a favour, in consideration of the resurrection of our Redeemer from the dead.
I. I explain the words of my text. The Apostle Paul, who experienced in his own progressive attainments the influence of Christs resurrection, holds it up to the view of the believing Romans as the reason and the means of their walking forward in newness of life. Walking indicates not only vital action, but also progress from one place to another. That walking in newness of life which is urged in the text, in consideration of the resurrection of our Lord, must of course signify both the exercise of the Christian life in all its parts and relations and our progressive improvement in piety.
II. I describe, from the Scriptures, the several distinct degrees of personal attainment in true religion.
1. The state of mind which exists in the earliest stage of true religion is characterised by anxiety to escape from evil and enjoy salvation. The anxiety of the young believer must be distinguished from that of unconverted minds. This is easy in theory, but difficult in practice. When we act, it is with imperfect instruments; with faculties corrupted by sin and disordered by our passions. It is the Spirit, however, that helps our infirmities. The Christian is anxious to be delivered from sin; the unrenewed man cares only for its consequences. The anxiety of the believer if from the Holy Spirit, is exercised with a spiritual discernment of the covenant of grace, and is influenced by an ardent desire to enjoy righteousness, and holiness, and happiness in Christ; the anxiety of the unconverted is a blind, unholy passion, pungent indeed, but indefinite, and equivocal in respect to all these objects.
2. The state of mind enjoyed by the Christian in the second grade of spiritual attainments is characterised by admiration of Jesus Christ and the salvation which He administers. Great power, magnanimity, and condescension are in their own nature admirable: infinite perfection is an object of the admiration of all intelligent creatures; and, in a certain sense, the Divine excellency is admired by the unregenerate. Christians, too, from the very commencement of their new life, and throughout every stage of their progress, feel an admiration for God in Christ: nor does it cease in heaven; but in this stage, after having ascertained their own interest in the grace of God, it becomes the most prominent part of their character. They admire the dignity of the mediatory Person, God manifested in the flesh: the attributes and, especially, the love of God in Him; the wisdom of the plan devised for our redemption through a covenant ordered in all things and sure; and His fitness in everything to our condition, in whom it pleased the Father that all fulness should dwell. They admire the tenderness of His compassion, the fortitude displayed in His sufferings, the gracious Spirit which rests upon Him, and which He liberally communicates, grace for grace, from His own fulness to our wants. They admire the place on high, where He is enthroned in light, and into which they have now themselves a sure hope of admission.
3. The third period of Christian progress is characterised by a thirst for religious knowledge. In every art or science, the period most favourable to the ardent pursuit of knowledge is immediately after the habits and the language peculiar to it, and at first strange, have become familiar and easy; after a high admiration of the objects of study is felt by the learner; and before the actual business of life demands his chief attention. There is a similar period in the religious life of man. The knowledge of Divine things, always desirable and useful, is pursued with peculiar ardour so soon as we have attained to that patient admiration of its glorious objects which accompanies the full assurance of hope. Then the speculative powers of the mind, enlightened by the Holy Ghost, search for knowledge, and procure it on account of its own intrinsic worth.
4. The fourth period of Christian progress is characterised by public spirit in promoting the interests of the Church. A benevolent disposition towards mankind, and a special regard for the godly, are coeval with the Christian life; and wheresoever these exist, there will also be some exertions for promoting the good of the house of the Lord: but it requires great progress in the new life before anyone is characterised by self-denial in the Churchs service similar to that of Moses, who chose affliction with the people of God; by an enlightened ardour in the work of righteousness, like Elijah the prophet; and by such disinterestedness as was practised by Paul the apostle. This is not a blind devotion to the interests of party, but a spirit of magnanimity and liberality, fostered and directed by the Word of God.
5. The fifth degree of progress in personal piety is characterised by heavenly-mindedness.
6. The highest rank in personal godliness on earth is attained by those who willingly suffer for Christs sake. Voluntary martyrdom for any cause is an evidence of personal resolution and sincerity--the highest which man can give of his attachment to the cause he has espoused. And it is easy to show that the disciple who willingly carries the cross, for which he is misrepresented and maligned by his contemporaries, rises far superior in heroism to the patriot soldier who, encouraged by the honours of a military life, and cheered by the voice of applause loudly raised by his country, exposes himself to danger and to death. Reason, as well as Divine revelation, of course, justifies the Christian in sacrificing cheerfully the honours and comforts of this life, and even life itself, when they come in competition with the honour which cometh from God and with the never-ending enjoyments of the heavenly life. The duty and the reward of such a sacrifice are sufficiently obvious: Whosoever shall lose his life for My sake and the gospels, the same shall save it; but the disposition of mind to perform the duty in view of the high reward is a rare attainment in grace. The Lord Himself will, however, bestow it according to His good pleasure, in those extraordinary times of trial which call for it, upon them whom the King delighteth to honour. (A. McLeod, D. D.)
Freshness of being
1. In everything which is really of God there is a singular freshness; it is always like that tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month; there is a continual novelty. And yet some people speak of the sameness of a religious life.
2. Through a new spirit, endowed with a new heart, by a new and living way, in obedience to a new commandment, with mercies new to us every morning, carrying a new name, we travel to a new heaven and a new earth, where we shall sing a new song forever and ever. Well might Christ say, Behold I make all things new.
3. If there be a time when we ought specially to study newness, surely it is now in this springtime, when the resurrection of Christ is telling us of risen beings coming forth to new affections, and higher enterprises. Therefore let us study newness.
4. For who has not a great deal which he would get rid of? Old levels of thought, old appetites, clingings, selfishnesses, prejudices, sins! And may we not be thankful that we have to do with a religion which is always giving grace through new opportunities, for new actions, whose very essence is a daily renovation, and whose keynote all along is resurrection?
I. What is newness?
1. It is better than creation. Beautiful as must have been the Holy Child, as He lay a babe at Bethlehem, the same form, risen from the tomb, was lovelier. The heavens and the earth of innocence were fair. But the new heavens and the new earth which are to be, shall exceed the glories of Eden.
2. The good that comes out of evil is better than the good which has never been soiled. The old goes to make the new. The old passions, the old bias, the old elements of the natural man, go to make the strength, the elevation of the new creation, the same, yet not the same.
II. Let us trace where the newness lies.
1. There is set a new motive, God loves me. How can I show Him that I do indeed love Him who has been so exceedingly kind to me?
2. Bars and fetters have been falling off from that mans soul, and he feels a new principle. He is emancipated from a long, dark bondage. And he goes forth into the old world, its scenes are just the same, but a new sunshine lies upon everything, it is the medium of his newborn peace, it is a smile of God. And oh! how changed that world looks to him.
3. And so his standard is always rising. He leaves the past attainments behind, as nothing to the heights which are opening before him. He has ever a new ambition, therefore he enterprises new works for God. And all the while, Christ reveals Himself to him with ever-increasing clearness. Some new view of some old truth, some yet untasted sense of his own pardon, is always breaking upon his wondering mind. (J. Vaughan, M. A.)
Christianity the renewal of the race
1. Christianity has become to us such an everyday and old thing, so different from the amazing, respiring miracle which once it was, that we fail to realise how Divine a revolution it was intended to effect. Yet Christ and His apostles tried to impress upon us that the gospel was not a slightly improved Judaism, not a mere scheme to produce the average morality of men, but a vast reversal of the past, a fresh beginning for the future. May we know what this new teaching is? cried the votaries of obsolete philosophics on Mars Hill. The writer to the Hebrews describes Christ as a new and living way to God. St. Paul describes conversion as putting off the old man, with his affections and lusts, and putting on the new man, and says: If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature; old things are passed away, behold they are come new. And St. Peter speaks of a new heaven and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness. And St. John in the Apocalypse talks of a new name and a new song, and a new Jerusalem descending out of heaven from God, and He that sitteth on the throne said: Behold, I make all things new. Life from the dead--newness of life--that was the conception which the apostles and evangelists had formed of Christianity.
2. It was not that any ostensible change had taken place in the world around them. Men married, and gave in marriage, and sinned, and suffered, and lied, as before. Heathenism hardly deigned to cast one single glance upon Christianity, or, if so, simply scorned it as an insane enthusiasm or hated it as an execrable superstition. And that despised handful of artisans and fishermen was right, and the world, with all its powers, and splendours, was wrong. Not with the diadem, and the purple, the wisdom of Greece, the venerable institutions of Jerusalem, were the truth, and the force, and the glory of the future. With them was the ebbing, with these was the flowing tide. The peopled walls of the amphitheatre broke into yells of sanguinary exultation when the tiger sprang upon some aged martyr; but the hope and the meaning of all human life were with him, and not with them.
3. Yes, the cynic will coldly answer, the world goes mad at times, and this was one of the worlds strange delusions; but we have changed all that. Now we have come to the time when every little nobody can pose in the attitude of immense superiority to the ignorant superstition of Christians. First comes the materialist, who thinks himself great because he cannot believe in anything which he cannot grasp with both hands. Why should I accept, he asks, anything which I cannot verify? But he forgets to ask whether for the truths which he rejects there can be any verifying faculty but that spiritual faculty of which he denies the very existence. When we are assured by the materialist that man is but an animal, that he is a chance product of evolution; that what he takes for his thoughts are only a chemical change of the molecules in the grey substance of his brain--at everything of this kind Christians can only smile, not in anger, but in deep sorrow. If a man resolutely closes his eyes we cannot greatly respect his asseveration that there is no sun in heaven; if a man declares that there is no God, are we astonished if he has purposely atrophied within himself the faculty by which alone we are able to believe that God is? Christianity has less than nothing to dread from this dry and dusty system which supremely fails to account for the human consciousness and the moral nature, and which offers to mens unquenchable spiritual yearnings nothing but a chaos of brute forces blindly evolving order out of mazy dream. But next we have the pessimist telling us, with a bitter sneer, that, after all, our Christianity has hopelessly failed. It is one of the notes of condemnation of these moral systems that they all, unlike Christianity, despair of man. Pessimism tells us by the voice of Schopenhauer that the human race always tends from bad to worse, and that there is no prospect for it but ever-deepening confusion and wretchedness. It asserts with Von Hartmann that existence is unspeakably wretched, and society will ever grow worse; and with Carlyle, More dreary, barren, base, and ugly seem to me all the aspects of this poor, diminishing, quack world, doomed to a death which one can only wish to be speedy.
4. To all such slanders and caricatures of humanity Faith gives her unwavering answer. To the materialist she opposes her unalterable conviction that the worlds were made by the Word of God, and that He is the Governor among the nations. To the pessimist she answers that though the road trodden by the long procession of humanity seems often to be rough and devious, and often even to sweep down into the valley of the shadow of death, it is yet a road which does not plunge into the abyss, but is ever leading us nearer to our God.
5. But Faith can appeal not only to intuition, but to reason, to experience, and to history. Admitting that change does not always or necessarily imply advance, she can yet show that even amid the most vehement moral earthquakes of history mankind has still ever found in Christianity the secret of rejuvenescence and of victory. Humanity may sometimes advance over ruins, but humanity advances still. The Church tamed the barbarians and silenced the scoffers; upon the disencumbered debris of past superstition she rebuilt the fairer and firmer fabric of her reformed faith; and now whatever ruins may ensue, we feel secure that God will once again, as ever heretofore, lay the stones of His Church with fair colours, and her foundations with sapphires, and that her walls should be salvation and her gates brass.
6. But after so many splendid victories, when it has undoubtedly blessed the world, how is it that men allow themselves so easily to speak slightingly and scornfully of Christianity as they do? I answer, it is our fault. A man must be ignorant indeed if he does not know how Christianity changed the life and character of the whole civilised pagan world. What need have I to tell you how it rescued the gladiator, how it emancipated the slave, how it elevated womanhood, how it flung over childhood the aegis of its protection, how it converted the wild, fierce tribes from the icy steppes and broad rivers of the North, how it built from the shattered fragments of the Roman empire a new created world, how it saved learning, how it baptized and recreated art, how it inspired music, how it placed the poor and the sick under the angel wings of mercy, and entrusted to the two great archangels of reason and conscience the guidance of the young? And is not Christianity exactly what it ever was? Is her force spent? Where is the Lord God of Elijah? Is His hand shortened that it cannot save, or His ears heavy that they cannot hear? God is where and what He was. It is not the I am that I am who has changed, but it is we who are dead, faithless, hollow and false. The new life of the gospel is as full of fire as it ever was; but because we have never truly felt and tested it we work no miracles, we cast out no devils, we subdue no kingdoms. God never does for man the work which He has assigned to man himself to do. It is of no use for us to say, Well, God will mend all. We must help Him. A handful of peasants, beaten, imprisoned, treated as the offscouring of all things, faced pagan Rome in the plenitude of her despotism, made whole armies drop their weapons before their defenceless feet. If they, with so little, did so much, how is it that we, with so much, do so little? Of what use is it for us to cry, Awake, O arm of the Lord? It is we who must awake. If Christianity does not prosper, it is only because the vast majority of us are Christians in name alone. We no longer feel that newness of life; we multiply organisations, but we enkindle no enthusiasm: we posture, and pray, and boast, and babble, and rail at one another, and Christ stands far away; we give a guinea to a missionary society, and think that we have discharged all our responsibilities to the heathen world. Thus our Christianity is smitten with vulgarity; it is commonplace, tamed out of its heroic faith and its splendid passion. If in one single congregation the fire of God burst forth again in every heart as in some of those congregations of the early Christians--yea, if there were but one man here and there capable of a God-like and absolute self-sacrifice--how would such a man flash the vivid thrill of nobleness into ten thousand hearts; how would life move again among the dry bones of the valley of vision! To very few in the long generations is it given to achieve a mighty work like this; but to every one of us it is given to help it forward and to carry it on. Every one of us can at least catch some faint and feeble and twinkling spark from that unemptiable fountain of eternal light. (Archdn. Farrar.)
The new life in the nation and the fatally
1. The prophets were interested not only in their own nation, but in the world around them. Christianity always suffers when it is dwarfed into individualism, or when it is made simply selfishness expanded to infinity. If Christianity was meant to be a new life in the world, it surely ought to exercise a profound influence upon every nation. But can we honestly say that in any lofty sense even those kingdoms which call themselves Christian have become the kingdoms of our God and of His Christ?
2. The earliest of the prophets is Amos, and he begins his book by looking at the seven neighbouring nations, each of which he is compelled to condemn, and then turning to his own. The voice of prophecy has long dwindled down into smooth generalities; but suppose one true prophet were living, and were to turn his gaze upon the nations of Europe, would he be content to indulge in the song of Peace on earth? Strange peace, when there are in Europe upwards of thirteen millions of men under arms. Look at the relations of European nations. The Kaffir, the Hindu, the Australian, etc., have not the footsteps of our race among them been dyed in blood? Two crimes fling their lurid light over every land. There is the crime of the man stealer, which makes whole regions of Africa red with human blood; and the yet more ruinous crime of selling to the natives a filthy poison christened gin or rum. We, the Pharisees of the world, in the name of Free Trade, are inoculating the world with a virus of a deadly pestilence. It is greed which prevents Germany and England and America from combining at once as righteous and noble nations ought to do, to prevent this decimation of the Dark Continent.
3. If Amos were alive in these days would he not cry, Thus saith the Lord, For three transgressions of Russia, and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof, because her Church is torpid, and her upper classes unbelieving. For three transgressions of Germany, and for four, will I not turn away the punishment thereof, because she has the spirit of militarism, and is grasping and insolent. For three transgressions of France, and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof, because, unwarned by the collapse and catastrophe of twenty years ago, she still suffers her sons to flood Europe with filthy literature, and has erased from her statute book the name of God? Might not such a prophet also proceed to mention the names of Spain, Italy, and Turkey, and after looking around at these nations, what would he say of England? Thus saith the Lord, For three transgressions of England, and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof. Are not men estimated for what they have far more than for what they are? Are there not spurious goods and lying advertisements? Are there no sweaters dens? Is not Christ sold for filthy lucre? Are not thousands ruined by gambling? Are there not in London alone a number equal to the whole population of Norwich of lost, degraded beings? Are there not streets as full as Sodom of youths who have poisoned their own blood and the blood of generations yet to come? Is it no crime that in spite of the warning of fifty years, drink should still continue to be the potent curse which has folded this nation round and round in its serpent coils?
4. Dare we say otherwise than that Christian nations are not walking in newness of life? Let none of you say, It does not concern me. It does concern you; and every one of us is guilty and responsible so far as we have suffered Christ in our lives to become nothing but a name, and Christianity in our examples to be dwarfed and dwindled into a sectarian squabble or a paltry form. Look at America sixty years ago. One boy--William Lloyd Garrison--confronts enraged statesmanship, and alone, with the dagger of the assassin flashing every day across his path, proclaimed to the slave States of America the duty of emancipation, and lived to carry the great plan which as a boy he had devised. Look at England fifty years ago--filled with sullen discontent, with starving poor; children in factories were made a holocaust to Mammon; women bent double; half-naked men dragging wagons of coal, like beasts of burden, in wet, black collieries; the streets were alive with ignorance and vices. Then arose Anthony Astley Shaftesbury. We cannot all be great heroes, but we may be humble soldiers in that great army when the Son of God goes forth to war.
5. For is there not one of us who does not belong to some family? And always the cornerstone of the commonwealth is the hearthstone. The chief hope for any country, the chief element for Englands safety, now lies in the purity of her homes. If you can do nothing more, every one of you may perform in your home the high duty of patriotism. If the Spartans were invincible, if the Romans carried into the world their majestic institutions, it was because Spartan and Roman mothers would tolerate no effeminate sons, no lackadaisical daughters. Let us each try so to illustrate the workings of the new life that by thus kindling throughout the length and breadth of England myriads of twinkling points of light there may be one broad glow of Christianity throughout the world. (Archdn. Farrar.)
The new life in the individual
1. As the family is the unit of the nation, so the individual is the unit of the family. We get at the inmost meaning of what the gospel was intended to achieve when we ask, What should the new life effect for each separate soul?
2. Look out into the world around you and see, as Ezekiel saw, the torn and wandering flock, sheep without a shepherd, scattered on the dark hills in the dark and cloudy day. Many simply shrug their shoulders at the sight in despair. They say all this curse is irretrievable. Some have nothing but scorn and contempt. Not so Christ. There is nothing irretrievable with God.
3. And how did the Lord of Mercy work? It was not in accordance with the laws of the Divine will to convert the whole world, as it were, by one lightning flash. Such compulsory conversion is no conversion. Christs word was, as ours ought to be, largely with the individual. He came to a land full of misery. He saw the blind, the halt, the leper, etc., and He cured the incurable who came to and believed on Him. But far Diviner was the miracle which He wrought upon the souls of all who received Him. The official religionism and ritual and priestliness had wholly failed to touch this mass of sin and misery. But He turned the wretched to his Father in heaven, and shed on the souls of the humble and the penitent the pure eternal ray of His transcendent love. Then each soul, however lost and fallen, revealed the beauty which was in it; and as when one uplifts a torch in a cavern full of gems, and they awaken into million-fold lustre, so at the touch of Christs heavenly sympathy each soul flashed back its inward gleam of peculiar light.
4. Herein lies the secret of our regeneration, and of the regeneration of the world. The publicans were hated, and naturally hated, as the greedy jackals of a distasteful oppression. Yet even of these wretches Christ did not despair. One loving word to Zaccheus, and lo! one half of his goods he gives to the poor; one loving word to Matthew, and lo! he springs up an evangelist and an apostle. And so it was with yet more miserable outcasts. The woman that was a sinner, lost to purity, to innocence, to womanhood--yet He suffered her to wash His feet with her tears and to wipe them with the hairs of her head. The dying malefactor, even he repented and heard the gracious words, This day shalt thou be with Me in paradise. And, as though to show us that these were not accidental cases, He, the Friend of publicans and sinners, embraced the degradation of all sinners alike in His pearl of parables--the parable of the prodigal son. It was the revelation of God as a loving Father; it was not any weak and beggarly observances, it was not any threats of a bodily hell which made multitudes holy in a world of paganism, where heretofore the very ideal of holiness had been unknown. And herein lies the essential and the irrevocable evidence of Christianity--the changed lives of multitudes of Christian men.
5. But here we come back to the momentous question--Christ has saved a multitude whom no man can number, but are we saved? The work of salvation is, and it must be personal; it must be not only Christ for us, but Christ in us. Alas, multitudes know nothing of personal salvation--because they love their sins better than their Saviour, or out of carelessness, defiance, or despair, and some because of the religiosity which they mistake for religion have been ossified into mere function and routine, and their souls are rotting asleep amid formula and rites; but the vast majority, I think, chiefly because they have not faith to believe that they can be healed and Christ can heal them. You know, many of you, that you are living in a state of sin--sloth, or dishonesty, or hatred, or falsehood, or impurity, or habitual discontent. You do not love your sin; it may be that you loathe it, and yet you have become a slave to it. You are like the leper, who thinks his leprosy is altogether incurable. I bid you shake off this despair; I bid you hope. Fly into the stronghold. You are the slaves of sin; but Christ came to ransom you from sin. You think that you can never be born again when you are old. So did Nicodemus; yet he became a servant of Christ. Christ is mighty to save.
6. He saves in many ways. Sometimes gently and gradually He wins the soul with cords of love; sometimes He rends from the destroyer; sometimes He breaks the hard soul with the blows of affliction; sometimes He makes it soft with the gracious rain of sorrow; but so long as there is one sign of hope He will not break the bruised reed nor quench the smouldering wick. (Archdn. Farrar.)
The new life in religion
1. Can we say Christianity still is a new life? Does it achieve one thousandth part of what it was intended to achieve; and if not, what is the reason? Why has the Church been smitten with the curse of a spiritual sterility? It is one of the sophisms of infidel argument to charge upon Christianity the crimes and faults of men who have acted in flagrant contradiction to its spirit. The representatives of the Church have in many an age condoned vice, leagued with tyranny. But to charge these crimes on Christianity is absurd and false; they are to be charged on anti-Christ. Satan is ten-fold Satan when he dons the cowl or the mitre, and would pass himself off as an angel of light. And a religion may retain the name and the semblance of a religion long after it is dead; and when a religion has lost its life how deep the death! If the light that is within us is darkness, how great is that darkness! Christianity was meant to be the salt of the earth, but if the salt has lost its savour wherewith shall it be salted? He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire; but when men have ceased to believe that there is so much as a Holy Ghost, how shall spiritual miracles be wrought?
2. Now, the one peril of all religions is to lose their life, to lose their fire. We talk of false religions, but no religion worthy of the name can be wholly false. The value of religions may sometimes be more easily tested by their results than by their doctrines, by their fire than by their abstract truths. Confucianism, for instance, is now arid and empty enough, and yet Confucius once taught great truths. Buddhism is the religion of masses of the human race, and is rife with error; and yet Buddhism is still kept alive by its great demand for self-conquest and self-sacrifice. Mahomedanism, notwithstanding all its deadly degeneracies, saved Arabia from idolatry, and its demand for abstinence has been to many nations an inestimable boon. Each of these religions has sunk into inanition, because their priests have suffered their votaries to make a mere fetish of their formulae, and to violate their essential life. Judaism stood incomparably above other religions in its Divine origin, but it proved to be no exemption from this law of decay. Is it possible that Christianity could undergo a fate so terrible, and become no better than a phantom? Yes. Many a time has nominal Christendom been tamed out of its splendid passion, and sunk into Pharisaism, and lost its renovating power.
3. Now, when any faith has sunk into this condition, when it has got to rely mainly upon worthless symbols and pompous claims, it is for the time dead. It needs resurrection and a new Pentecost. And the Christian Church has had many such. The work of Benedict, Wycliffe, Huss, Savonarola, and Francis of Assisi, was but a successful rekindling of dead or dying claims. So, too, it was when Luther disinterred the true gospel from the heaped debris of priestly falsehoods. So, too, was it when George Fox made men believe once more in the living power of the Spirit of God with every human soul. So, too, was it when Wesley and Whitefield awoke the full-fed and torpid Church of England. And so it would be now if among the many echoes God would send us one voice--but one man with his soul so electric with the fire of God that he would make us feel that God is face to face with every one of us.
4. The real question to ask about any form of religious belief is, Does it kindle the fire of love? Does it make the life stronger, sweeter, more noble? Does it run through society like a cleansing flame? There is no error more fatal than the notion that correct belief or church membership are of any value whatever in comparison with righteousness of life. Just as a living dog is better than a dead lion, so a good heretic or a righteous schismatic may be immeasurably dearer to God and nearer to heaven than is, or can be, a bad Christian.
5. How necessary is it, then, that our religion, which is so Divinely great and true, should not degenerate in our hands into a pompous system or an outward formalism. And yet is there no danger of this? What is the state of things in Christian England, and what is predominantly occupying its attention? You know that of all the fifteen hundred millions now alive only one in three is even yet a nominal Christian; that in Europe at this moment thirty-six millions of men are in arms. You know the vice, the squalor, the misery of these great cities; you know how in this awful city there are tens of thousands of the unemployed, of paupers, of criminals, of drunkards, of prostitutes; and that there are at least two millions and a half who scarcely ever enter any house of God. And when you have gazed long enough on this weltering sea of shame and misery, you turn to the professors of religion and find two hundred and seventy rival sects, and the Church of the nation rent asunder by questions as to who can fail to ask, Is this the outcome of nineteen centuries of Christianity? Is it about such questions that the new life is concerned? Is Nero fiddling during the burning of Rome a sadder spectacle?
6. Oh, if Christianity as ever fully to be what it was meant to be, if it is to be something more than a clamour of contending sects and contending parties; if it is to be a new life and a new walk, then it must inspire once more such a sense of eternity, such a sense of the near, immediate presence of God, such a belief in the infinite love of Christ and the power of His resurrection, such a consciousness of the Spirit, as shall restore it once more to its olden glory, and make it adequate to fulfil the vast promise of its Lord, He that believeth on Me, the works that I do shall he do also, etc. (Archdn. Farrar.)
The present pledge of life to come
1. The argument of the text is that the hope of a new life, like Christs, beyond the grave ought to find its justification in a new life here; that on either side of the grave the life of the spirit is the same.
2. It is commonly supposed that the fact of immortality can only be established by some external evidence such as the resurrection of Christ; but the text refers us to the ultimate proof both of that and of the resurrection of all in whom a life like Christs dwells. And here the eyewitnesses of Christs resurrection have no advantage over us, and the unlearned man is on a level with the critic.
3. The peculiarity of man is the blending in him of two kinds of life. There is, first, that the lower animals possess; but in this there is for man no more than the lowest animals. It seeks nothing, sees nothing, and says there is nothing beyond. One who has not first come to the truth of immortality in a higher line of thought can never discover it by any process of physiological explanation. That which is born of the flesh is flesh. From things that are merely temporal we can never attain to certainty of things eternal. The life of flesh and blood has here all its satisfactions, its goal and end. It is as perishable as the things on which it feeds.
4. But on the stock of this animal life is manifest a bud prophetic of an unfolding which is independent of the material world. What the apostle calls newness of life is not merely new, but radically distinct from all other life, and unfolds itself in an opposite way. Search its annals, and you will find them luminous with the names of those who, for the sake of living in a world of higher satisfaction, refused to live in a world of inferior content. From the Good Shepherd giving His life for the sheep to the martyr of Erromanga perishing in his mission to cannibals, we see a moral life developing in a way diametrically opposite to the animal life, declaring itself independent of the material things that are sought by a life which is for this world alone.
5. Will this life, then, survive? The answer must come from the life itself. Life is a conclusive witness to the nature of life, as Jesus said, Though I bear record of Myself, yet My record is true, for I know whence I came, and whither I go. We accept the witness which the animal life bears to its perishable nature, when we see it shrink instinctively from death as its destruction. We must equally accept the witness of the moral life to its imperishable nature, when we see it instinctively welcome death as its deliverer. What is it, then, that we see in the multitude who in the spirit of Christ have turned their backs on a transitory world in preference for that which they seek as eternal? Evidently a mighty, vital force overmastering the imperious dictates of a lower life. Now is this a delusion, a dream? Look at this newness of life, walking down the ages with the torch of truth and the gifts of love; look at the transcendent inspirations by which it transforms brutish into Christly natures! See now what would follow on the hypothesis of its termination at death, viz., that the self-preserving instinct of the lower life of selfish appetite is trustworthy, but that the self-preserving instinct of the moral life catches at a shadow; that the highest and holiest aspirations of Jesus, and of all who, like Jesus, have sought a higher world through the sacrifice of a lower, have only been a deceitful lure to an utter loss.
6. Our own personal certitude of immortality depends on the development which we give to this newness of life in ourselves. Long ago was this pointed out in Ciceros remark that the presage of a future life takes the deepest root in the most exalted souls. To one, therefore, who seeks to be convinced of his immortality, I would say not Hear or read this, but Be this. He who lacks a working belief of his immortality cannot borrow it, but must cultivate it by creating the moral soil in which it grows. The actual resurrection of Christ is something, but that newness of life which is the earnest of the inheritance is better. But let the old life get uppermost, with its selfish desires and gratifications, and the inward witness which the new life bears to an eternal hope will grow faint and mute (Rom_8:13). (J. M. Whiton, Ph. D.)
Newness of life
I understand, said this chief to a congregation which he was called to address at Plymouth, in the year 1837, that many of you are disappointed because I have not brought my Indian dress with me. Perhaps if I had it on you would be afraid of me. Do you wish to know how I dressed when I was a pagan Indian? I will tell you. My face was covered with red paint, I stuck feathers in my hair, I wore a blanket and leggings, I had silver ornaments on my breast, a rifle on my shoulder, a tomahawk and scalping knife in my belt. That was my dress then. Now, do you wish to know why I wear it no longer? You will find the cause in 2Co_5:7, Therefore, if any man, etc. When I became a Christian, feathers and paint were done away; I gave my silver ornaments to the mission cause; scalping knife done away, tomahawk done away--that my tomahawk now, said he, holding up at the same time a copy of the Ten Commandments, in his native language. Blanket done away. Behold! he exclaimed, in a manner in which simplicity and dignity of character were combined, Behold! all things are become new.
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
B. W. Johnson 1891 · Public Domain On vv2–11 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 On vv2–11 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 On vv2–11 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 On vv2, 3, 6, 10 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.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On v3 The power of Baptism:
The power of Baptism:
v. 3. Know ye not that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into His death?
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v. 4. Therefore we are buried with Him by Baptism into death, that, like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.
v. 5. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of His death, we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection;
v. 6. knowing this, that our old man is crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.
v. 7. for he that is dead is freed from sin.
v. 8. Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him,
v. 9. knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over Him.
v. 10. For in that He died He died unto sin once; but in that he liveth He liveth unto God.
v. 11. Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ, our Lord.
The fact that Christians are delivered from the power and bondage of sin is brought out by Paul by a reference to Baptism and its power. Or do you not know, are you ignorant of the fact? If his readers should doubt that justification has caused them to die to sin, they should remember what they knew with regard to their Baptism, whose meaning had been explained to them. As many of us as are baptized into Christ Jesus are baptized into His death. The Christians are not merely baptized with reference to Christ, to be united to Him in His death and to be partakers of its benefits, but, as the papyri have shown, any one baptized into the name of a person of the Godhead thereby became the property of the divine person indicated. Christ’s salvation is our salvation, because we were baptized into His death. By taking our sins upon Him and paying the full price for them by His suffering and death, Christ has delivered us not only from the guilt and punishment, but also from the power of sin. And since we have become Christ’s own by Baptism and have been baptized into His death, we are delivered from the power of death; its authority and sovereignty over us is at an end.
Since this is the nature of our union with Christ, given and sealed to us in Baptism, it follows that we are buried with Christ through Baptism into death, Col 2:12, in order that, just as Christ was raised up from the dead through the glory of the Father, so also we should walk in newness of life. In Baptism the believer dies with Christ. in a spiritual sense. He passes through a death, dies unto sin, is really, totally, dead unto sin. But this dying and being buried with Christ had the purpose, and that was the intention of God, that, in accordance with the resurrection of Christ, we also should walk in newness of life. Christ left the weakness of humiliation of His body and sin which He bore on His body in the grave. And He was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, by a manifestation especially of His omnipotence, and entered into a new, spiritual life. And to this life of Christ the new life of the Christians, the life after Baptism, corresponds. It is a new life, and in this new life we are supposed to walk, to have our conversation, to show it in all the acts of our daily life. The salvation of which we become partakers in Baptism works sanctification in us. The idea of purity is always associated with that of newness in Scriptures, and so we say with Luther that the consequence of our Baptism must be that we live before God in righteousness and purity forever.
Just how this new life has been wrought in us is explained in the nest sentence.
v. 5. For if we are grown together with the likeness of His death, we shall also be with that of His resurrection. We have grown together, we have entered into the most intimate union with the death of Christ by virtue of our dying typically in Baptism. Our dying to sin and Christ’s death are thus similar, and the apostle can speak of a likeness, of a picture, which is the death of Christ. Now: if united with Christ in death, we shall certainly be united with Him in life. The one thing having happened, the other is sure to follow. In the case of Christ, His death and resurrection were intimately connected. He, therefore, that has part in His death also has part in His resurrection and is bound to show the new spiritual life with which he has been endowed, which he has received in Baptism. All this can be asserted, knowing, as we do, that our old man is crucified with Christ, in order that the body of sin may be put away entirely, may lose all influence, power, and dominion, to the end that we no longer serve sin. Christians should at all times know and remember that their old man, their corrupt, sinful condition and state, their natural depravity, is crucified with Christ in Baptism, since in Baptism they have become partakers of the death of Jesus on the cross and of its fruit. As a result, the body of sin, the sinful body: that body which sin has used as its instrument: is now put out of commission as such, can no longer serve in that capacity, and therefore we no longer serve sin. That is God’s object and intention, that we henceforth no more, as before, serve sin; this our Baptism has worked, effected, in us. Because the old Adam, in Baptism, has been killed with all his evil lusts and no longer controls the organism of the body as his instrument, therefore we no longer need, we no longer shall, serve sin. For, as Paul declares in the next sentence, in the form of a general axiom, he that is dead is free from sin, is absolved, acquitted from sin, is pronounced just and free from sin in every respect: from its dominion as well as its curse, with the emphasis upon the deliverance from its jurisdiction. Since our old man was crucified with Christ, the axiom finds its application in such a way that sin has now lost power and dominion over us, and that we are no longer obliged to serve and obey sin. That is the wonderful blessing and benefit of Baptism.
But the apostle draws a further conclusion from the fact of our participating in the death of Christ: If we have died with Christ, if we are dead with Christ, we believe, we are confident of the fact, we trust, that we shall also live with Him. We have not merely been delivered from evil of every kind by becoming partakers of His death, but we have also received positive benefits. And this is further explained: Knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, will die no more; death no longer rules over Him. Since Christ was raised from the dead, the dominion of death is at an end in His case. When Jesus died on the cross, He Fielded up His spirit, He laid down His life. But in His resurrection He reassumed His life and showed that death was not His lord and master. He has entered upon the full and unhampered enjoyment of the life of which He is the Lord. For: what He died He died unto sin once and for always; but what He lives He lives to God. Jesus had been in relation to sin, He had taken sin upon Himself, and what He did as our Substitute He performed for the purpose of expiating sin, the crowning work of His life in this respect being His death, by which sin was removed, forever put away, so far as Christ is concerned. Therefore for US also, by virtue of our Baptism into the death of Christ, sin is removed, it has lost its dominion and power. What Christ now lives He lives unto God: His heavenly Father. He has entered into the state of His glorification, at the right hand of His heavenly Father. And therefore we also, according to the admonition of the apostle, consider, reckon ourselves as being dead to sin, but living unto God in Christ Jesus. In the same manner as Christ, though not in the same degree: me Christians, by virtue of our Baptism, are dead unto sin and live unto God, because the new life of God is planted into our hearts in Baptism. We live unto God according to the internal man, according to the regenerated mind and heart. And this is possible for us because we live in the communion with Christ and our life is hidden with Christ in God.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv4, 6, 8, 10 We were buried, then, with him through baptism into…
We were buried, then, with him through baptism into death
Here Paul speaks of a believer's baptism in water as if it were a death and burial. AT: "When someone baptized us, it is just like that person buried us with Christ in the tomb" (See: Metaphor)
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just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so also we might walk in newness of life
To raise from the dead is an idiom for causing a person to live again. This compares a believer's new spiritual life to Jesus coming back to life physically. The believer's new spiritual life enables that person to obey God. You can translate this in an active form. AT: "just as the Father brought Jesus back to life after he died, we might have new spiritual life and obey God" (See: Simile and Active or Passive and Idiom)
from the dead
From among all those who have died. This expression describes all dead people together in the underworld. To be raised from among them speaks of becoming alive again.
become united with him in the likeness of his death ... be united with his resurrection
Paul compares our union with Christ to death. Those who are joined with Christ in death will share in his resurrection. You can translate this in an active form. AT: "died with him ... come back to life with him" (See: Metaphor and Active or Passive)
translationWords
bury
baptize
Christ
raise
glory
God the Father
walk
life
resurrection
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 10 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.