The work of Christ on the cross

Romans 6:1-2: "What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?"  

1 Corinthians 15:3: "Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures" 

Romans 6:3: "Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death?"  

1 Corinthians 15:4: "he was buried" 

Romans 6:4: "we are buried with him by baptism into death" 

1 Corinthians 15:4: "he rose again the third day according to the scriptures" 

Romans 6:4: "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."

Romans 6:5-23:  

"For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection: 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. For he that is dead is freed from sin.

Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him: Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over him. For in that he died, he died unto sin once: but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God. 

Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof. Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God. For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace.

What then? shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid. Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness? But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you. Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness. I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh: for as ye have yielded your members servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity; even so now yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness.

For when ye were the servants of sin, ye were free from righteousness. What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed? for the end of those things is death. But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life. For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord."

Romans 7:

Know ye not, brethren, (for I speak to them that know the law,) how that the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth? For the woman which hath an husband is bound by the law to her husband so long as he liveth; but if the husband be dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband. So then if, while her husband liveth, she be married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress: but if her husband be dead, she is free from that law; so that she is no adulteress, though she be married to another man.

Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God.

For when we were in the flesh, the motions of sins, which were by the law, did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death. But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held; that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter.

What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet. But sin, taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence. For without the law sin was dead. For I was alive without the law once: but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died. And the commandment, which was ordained to life, I found to be unto death. For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it slew me. Wherefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good.

Was then that which is good made death unto me? God forbid. But sin, that it might appear sin, working death in me by that which is good; that sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful. For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin. For that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I. If then I do that which I would not, I consent unto the law that it is good. Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not. For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do. Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.

I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me. For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.

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[Romans 6] Verse 6: Coming to know this, that our old man was crucified with Him, in order that the body of sin might be annulled, that we might no longer be in slave service to sin. 

The word translated “coming to know,” means, in the Greek, coming into knowledge ,—a discriminating apprenhension of facts. See note below.134

[134 The Greek word for “know” (gignōskō) here, means to get to know, come in the knowledge of, become acquainted with the fact. It is an entirely different word from the one translated “knowing” in verse 9 (eidō), meaning “a clear and purely mental conception, in contrast both to conjecture and to knowledge derived from others” (Thayer). In this latter verse the fact spoken of is a matter of common knowledge. We, by God’s word here, come to know (verse 6) that our old man was crucified with Christ; whereas we know as a necessary thing that Christ, being raised, dieth no more (verse 9). This is not a fact we “come to know,” as in the matter of our vital connection with His death, verse 6. The manner in which we “come to know” our old man was crucified is by faith in God’s testimony to fact!]

Our old man—This is our old selves, as we were in and from Adam. It is contrasted with the new man (Col. 3:9, 10)—which is what we are and have in Christ. The word our indicates that what is said, is said of and to all those who are in Christ. The expression “our old man,” of course is a federal one, as also is “the new man.” The “old man,” therefore, is not Adam personally, any more than the “new man” is Christ personally. Also, we must not confuse the “old man” with “the flesh.” Adam begat a son in his own likeness. This son of Adam, as all since, was according to Adam,—for he was in Adam; possessed of a “natural” mind, feelings, tastes, desires,—all apart from God. He was his father repeated. Cain is a picture before us of the meaning of the words, “the old man.” Moreover, since man’s activities were carried on in and through the body, he is now morally “after the flesh.” Inasmuch as his spirit was now dead to God, sin controlled him both spirit and soul, through the body. And thus we read a little later, in the Sixth of Genesis, upon the recounting of the horrible lust and violence that filled the earth, God’s statement: “In their going astray, they are flesh!” (R. V. margin.) What a fearful travesty of one created in the image of God, and into whose Divinely formed body God had breathed the spirit of life, so that he was “spirit and soul and body” (I Thess. 5:23); and with his innocent spirit able to speak with his Creator! with his unfallen soul-faculties, and with body in blessed harmony.

When we are told, for instance, in Colossians, that we have put off the old man, we know that we are being addressed as new creatures in Christ, and that the old man represents all we naturally were,—desires, lusts, ambitions, hopes, judgments: looked at as a whole federally: we used to be that—now we have put that off. We recognize it again in the words “Put away as concerning your former manner of life the old man” (Eph. 4:22).

1. First, then, our old man was crucified (Romans 6:6). That is a Divine announcement of fact.

2. Those in Christ have put off the old man.

3. He still exists, for “the old man waxeth corrupt after the lusts of deceit” (Eph. 4:22).

4. He is to be put away as belonging to our former manner of life: for we are in Christ and are “new creatures; old things are passed away; behold they are become new” (II Cor. 5:17).

Now as regards the flesh:

1. While our old man has been crucified, by God, with Christ at the cross,—the federal thing was done; yet of the flesh we read, “They that are of Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with the passions and the lusts thereof” (Gal. 5:24).

2. The flesh has passions and lusts.

3. It has a mind directly at enmity with God.

4. As we shall see in Chapter Seven, the flesh is the manifestation of sin in the as yet unredeemed body. “Our old man,” therefore, is the large term, the all-inclusive one—of all that we were federally from Adam. The flesh, however, we shall find to be that manifestation of sin in our members with which we are in conscious inward conflict, against which only the Holy Spirit indwelling us effectively wars. Our bodies are not the root of sin, but do not yet share, as do our spirits, the redemption that is in Christ. And as for our souls (our faculties of perception, reason, imagination, and our sensibilities),—our souls are being renewed by the indwelling Holy Spirit. Not so the body. “The flesh,” which is sin entrenched in the body, is unchangeably evil, and will war against us till Christ comes. Only the Holy Spirit has power over “the flesh” (Chapter 8:1).

Our old man was crucified—The matter of which we are told to take note here is the great federal fact that our old man was crucified with Christ. Perhaps no more difficult task, no task requiring such constant vigilant attention, is assigned by God to the believer. It is a stupendous thing, this matter of taking note of and keeping in mind what goes so completely against consciousness,—that our old man was crucified. These words are addressed to faith, to faith only. Emotions, feelings, deny them. To reason, they are foolishness. But ah, what stormy seas has faith walked over! What mountains has faith cast into the sea! How many impossible things has faith done!

Let us never forget, that this crucifixion was a thing definitely done by God at the cross, just as really as our sins were there laid upon Christ. It is addressed’ to faith as a revelation from God. Reason is blind. The “word of the cross” is “foolishness” to it. All the work consummated at the cross seems folly, if we attempt to subject it to man’s understanding. But, just as the great wonder of creation is understood only by faith: (“By faith we understand that the worlds have been framed by the Word of God,”—Heb. 11:3) so the eternal results accomplished at the cross are entered into by simple faith in the testimony of God about them.

No, it is no easy or light thing that is announced to you and me, that all we were and are from Adam has been rejected of God. Scripture is not now dealing with what we have done, but with what we are.

And really to enter spiritually into the meaning of this awful word, Our old man was crucified, involves, with all of us, deep exercise of soul. For no one by nature will be ready to count himself so incorrigibly bad as to have to be crucified! But when the Spirit of God turns the light upon what we are, from Adam, these will be blessed words of relief: “Our old man was crucified.”

Now here is the very opposite of the teaching of false Christianity about a holy life. For these legalists set you to crucifying yourself! You must “die out” to this, and to that. But God says our old man, all that we were, has been already dealt with,—and that by crucifixion with Christ. And the very words “with Him” show that it was done back at the cross; and that our task is to believe the good news, rather than to seek to bring about this crucifixion ourselves.

The believer is constantly reminded that his relation to sin was brought about by his identification with Christ in His death: Christ died unto sin, and the believer shared that death, died with Him, and is now, therefore, dead unto sin. This is his relationship to sin—the same as Christ’s now is; and believing this is to be his constant attitude.

Difficulty there will be, no doubt, in taking and maintaining constantly this attitude: but faith will remove the difficulty, and faith here will grow out of assiduous, constant attention to God’s exact statements of fact. We are not to go to God in begging petitions for “victory,”—except in extreme circum stances. We are to set ourselves a very different task: “This is the work of God, that ye believe” We may often be compelled to cry, with the father of the demoniac, “Lord, I believe; help Thou mine unbelief!” But it is still better to have our faces toward the foe, knowing ourselves to be in Christ, and that we have been commanded to reckon ourselves dead to sin, no matter how great and strong sin may appear. Satan’s great device is to drive earnest souls back to beseeching God for what God says has already been done!

“Our old man was crucified with Christ.” This is our task: to walk in the faith of these words. Upon this water God commands us to step out and walk. And we are infinitely better off than was Peter that night, when he “walked on the water to come to Jesus”; whereas we are in Christ. And our relationship to sin is His relationship! He died unto it, and we, being in Christ Risen, are in the relationship Christ’s death brought about in Him, and now to us who are in Him: whether to sin, law death, or the world.

If I did not die with Christ, on the cross, I cannot be living in Him, risen from the dead; but am still back in the old Adam in which I was born!

Christ died once—once for all, unto sin. He is not dying continually. I am told to reckon myself dead—in that death of Christ. I am therefore not told to do my own dying, to sin and self and the world: but, on the contrary, to reckon by simple faith, that in His death I died: and to be “conformed unto His death.” But, to be conformed to a death already a fact, is not doing my own dying,—which is Romanism. If you and I are able to reckon ourselves dead—in Christ’s death: all will be simple.

That the body of sin might be annulled—The word for “annulled” is katargeo. See note on Chapter 4:14. The meaning is, to “put out of business.” The “body of sin” refers to our bodies as yet unredeemed, and not delivered from sin’s rule; as Paul says in the Eighth Chapter: “If Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin.” Now we shall find that we have no power to deliver our body, our members, from “the law of sin” (See Chapter 7:8-24). But since our old man has been crucified with Christ, all the rights of sin are gone; and the indwelling Holy Spirit can annul “the body of sin”; thus delivering us from sin’s bondage. We know the Spirit is not mentioned here (as He will be constantly in Chapter Eight); but inasmuch as it is His work to apply all Christ’s work to us, we speak of His blessed annulling of the power of indwelling sin. It is blessed to know that we do not have to crucify the old man: that was done in Christ’s federal death at the cross. Nor do we have to “annul” the “body of sin”: that is done by the blessed Spirit as we yield to Him.

Verse 7: For he that hath died hath been declared righteous from sin!

We must seize fast hold of this blessed verse.

Let us distinguish at once between being justified from sins—from the guilt thereof—by the blood of Christ, and being justified from sin—the thing itself.

“Justified from sin” is the key to both Chapters Six and Seven and also to Eight! It is the consciousness of being sinful that keeps back saints from that glorious life Paul lived. Paul shows absolutely no sense of bondage before God; but goes on in blessed triumph! Why? He knew he had been justified from all guilt by the blood of Christ; and he knew that he was also justified, cleared, from the thing sin itself: and therefore (though walking in an, as yet, unredeemed body), he was wholly heavenly in his standing, life and relations with God! He knew he was as really justified from sin itself as from sins. The conscious presence of sin in his flesh only reminded him that he was in Christ;—that sin had been condemned judicially, as connected with flesh, at the cross; and that he was justified as to sin; because he had died with Christ, and his former relationship to sin had wholly ceased! Its presence gave him no thought of condemnation, but only eagered his longing for the redemption body. “Justified from sin”—because, “he that hath died is justified from sin.” Glorious fact! May we have faith to enter into it as did Paul!135

[135 ”Justified from sin” does not mean “sinless perfection,”—but something utterly different, and infinitely beyond that! It is different, in that it does not refer to an “experience” of deliverance from sin, but a passing beyond, in death with Christ at the cross, the sphere where the former relationship to sin existed! We are justified, accounted wholly righteous, with respect to the thing sin itself! This, therefore, is infinitely beyond any state whatever of experience. It is a newly-established relationship to sin, which the saints have because they died with Christ: in which they stand in Christ as He is toward sin. They are “meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light.” They are heavenly. Their old relation to sin is over forever. They are justified from it. They rejoice, indeed, and have a most blessed “experience.” But they do not say sin is gone from their flesh: but that they, having died, are declared righteous from it; that they are cleared, before God, of all condemnation because of sin’s presence in this unredeemed body; and delivered from all sin’s former rights and bondage over them.]

It is the deep-seated notion of Christendom that gradually we become saints,—gradually worthy of heaven: so that sometime,—perhaps, on a dying bed, we will have the right to “drop this robe of flesh and rise.”

But Scripture cuts this idea off at once, by the declaration that we died, and that we are now, here, justified from sin! 

“Giving thanks unto the Father, who made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light.” 

The saints in light are those in glory, and they are there for one reason alone: the work of Christ on the cross.

How unspeakably sad is our little faith! And I am speaking of true believers, certainly.

1. Many have turned truly to God, but not knowing the finished work of Christ, that is, that He actually bare their sins and put them away, are never sure of their own salvation.

2. Many have appropriated gladly Christ’s finished work, as respects the guilt of their sins, and they no longer have apprehensions of judgment, knowing that He met all God’s claims against them on the cross. But as to their relation to sin itself, it is an “O-wretched-man” life that they live, for they see honestly their own sinfulness and unworthiness, but have never heard how they are now in a Christ who died to sin, and that they share His relationship now, dead to sin and alive to God (6:10, 11).

3. Thank God, there are some who have seen and believed in their hearts that their relationship to sin itself was completely changed when God identified them with Christ in His death. Their relationship to sin was broken forever; and they present themselves unto God as alive from the dead, and, through an ever increasing faith, walk about on earth in newness of life; knowing that the same God who declared them justified from the guilt of their sins through Christ’s shed blood, has now declared that, in being identified with Christ in His death to sin, they are themselves declared righteous136 from sin itself!

[136 The Greek word is the perfect tense of the verb dikaioō, to declare righteous.]

As we have elsewhere remarked, relief from guilt and danger, through the shed blood of Christ, comes first. And the conscience concerning judgment being relieved, the heart ever rests in the blood of Christ. But to have God tell us further, that we, having died with Christ, are declared righteous from sin itself, is a new, additional, and glorious revelation, which sets us in the presence of God not only declared righteous from what we have done, but declared righteous from what we were—and as to our flesh, still are! We should have no more dejection and self-condemnation when we see our old selves; for we have been declared righteous from that old state of being, as well as from what we had done! Very excellent and godly men, not recognizing this blessed fact, have spent much time before God “bemoaning the sinfulness” of their now revealed old nature. But this was really not to recognize the Word of God that we have been justified, declared righteous, from the old state of being, from sin itself!

If Gabriel, the presence angel, were to appear before you, your natural thought would be. He is holy, sinless; and I am unholy, sinful. Therefore, I am not worthy to stand in his presence. But this would be completely wrong. If you are in Christ, you stand in Christ,—in Christ alone,—even as He! The presence of sin in the flesh has no more power to trouble your conscience, than have your sins: for both were dealt with at the cross! Your old man was crucified, sin in the flesh was condemned (8:3) at the cross. And Paul definitely declares that we have now come “to the innumerable hosts of angels,” as well as that we have been made meet to be “partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light”!

One of the most astonishing things (and yet, why astonishing?) that came to us in the study of the book of the Revelation was, that once the apostle John had “fallen as one dead” at the feet of the glorified Christ, in Chapter One, and the Lord had “laid His right hand” upon him, saying, “Fear not, I am the First and the Last, and the Living One, and I became dead, and behold I am alive for evermore, and I have the keys of death and of Hades” (Rev. 1:17, 18)—after that, John, all unconsciously, but really, fears nothing, and no one! Not even the vision of the glorious throne in heaven before which the four living ones and the four and twenty elders are falling down, crying, “Holy, Holy, Holy,” stirs John with the least emotion of fear or shrinking. In fact, he is found weeping because no one can take the sealed book. Not once is he concerned about his own moral or spiritual condition. He goes boldly up to the mighty angel in the Tenth Chapter, requesting according to Divine direction, that he give him the little book in his hand. Twice he falls at the feet of the angelic messenger that is revealing these glorious things to him, but it is not on account of a sense of moral or spiritual unfitness, but rather a being enraptured, overwhelmed with the glory of the scene.

Now why is this? Or how could Paul be caught up to the third heaven, into Paradise, and hear unspeakable words?

Simply because the work of the cross was complete! Not only were sins put away by the blood of Christ, but our connection with Adam was ended, our old man was crucified, we died to sin; our former history was completely over, before God. Thus it is written, as we quoted, 

“Giving thanks unto the Father who made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light” (Col. 1:12).

Now as to the fact, all this is as true of us here on earth, as it will be in the ages to come. Our realization of the truth may be small; yea, sad to say, our faith may be weak; but the fact is the same!

How utterly marvelous, then, to know that we have been justified from sin itself. Not only has it lost all right and power over us, but we are declared righteous from the hideous thing itself; we are standing with God, in Christ, outside the region of sin, “children of light,” yea, even called “light in the Lord” (Eph. 5:8).

Verse 8: But if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also be living with Him [in this world].

Here we take it for granted that we died; that our old man was crucified with Christ. And we go on to the expectation of a blessed life in Christ. For it is not only that we shall “live with Him” in resurrection glory when He comes, but even now we walk in newness of life in Him, as verses 10 and 13 set forth. This is no uncertain confidence, because “Christ, being raised from the dead, dieth no more.” The brief lordship of death over Him is ended forever, and it is His death and life we share.

Meyer well paraphrases: “Whosoever has died with Christ is now also of the belief that his life, i.e., the positive, active side of his moral being and nature, shall be a fellowship of life with the exalted Christ; that is, shall be able to be nothing else than this.” And Rotherham: “If we jointly died with Christ,—we believe that we shall also jointly live with Him.” And Conybeare: “If we have shared the death of Christ, we believe that we shall also share His life.”

This word, shall also be living with Him, must finally include, doubtless, the consummation of our salvation at the coming of Christ, and the fashioning anew of our mortal bodies. But the word refers directly to that expressed by Paul in Galatians 2:20: “I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I that live, but Christ that liveth in me.” Here in Romans Six it is called a living with Him, as over against our death with Him. Hodge well says: “The future tense is used here, referring not to what is to happen hereafter, so much as to what is the certain consequence of our union with Christ.” And Alford: “The future (‘we shall also live with Him’) as in verse 5, is used, because the life with Him, though here begun, is not here completed.”

And now the reason for this assurance that we shall keep on sharing the risen life of Christ, is given:

Verse 9: Knowing that Christ having been raised from among the dead dieth no more: death over Him no longer hath dominion.

Knowing—“This participle justifies the ‘we believe’ of verse eight.” We know (eidotes) both that our present spiritual participation in Christ’s risen life will continue, and also that our mortal bodies will be finally delivered, in view of the fact we are conscious of, that Christ has been once and irrevocably raised; that God “loosed the pangs of death”; that “He raised Him up from the dead, now no more to return to corruption,”—for it was written, “Thou wilt not give Thy Holy One to see corruption.” Sin never had dominion over Him; and death could have had no dominion except that our sin was transferred to Him! Death, therefore, the “wages,” had a brief dominion, but now that is ended forever; and we are in Him,—also forever! Therefore death with its dominion is for the believer forever passed away. Our identification with Christ in death at the cross made possible of fulfillment His wonderful promise in John 8:51, 

“Verily, verily, I say unto you, If a man keep my word, he shall never see death.” 

If a believer falls asleep (God’s word for a believer’s physical death) his spirit goes to be with Christ: there is no “dark valley.” On the tomb of an early Christian were these words: “I sinned, I repented, I trusted, I loved; I slept, I shall rise, I shall reign!”

It is a terrible thing to contemplate—that death once held the Prince of Life, the Lord of all. Yet behold the Lord of Life, under the dominion of death! But He is not making atonement during those three days and nights,—that was all finished on the cross. And now, praise God, we read, Death no more hath dominion over Him. He liveth unto God, in a glad resurrection life which shall never end. This is the life that we share, for we shared His death.

Verse 10: Therefore we must go on to verse 10 and read God’s statement of Christ’s death unto sin: For in that He died, unto sin He died once for all; but in that He is living, He is living unto God.

Now we beseech you, do not change God’s word “UNTO,” here! Do not confuse with this passage those other Scriptures that declare that Christ died FOR our sins. For this great revelation of Romans 6:10 is that Christ died UNTO sin! There is here, of course, no thought of expiation of guilt. That belongs to Chapters Three to Five. Here, the sole question is one of relationship, not of expiation. Christ is seen dying to sin, not for it, here.

What is meant by that?

In II Corinthians 5:21, God declares: “Him who knew no sin God made to be sin on our behalf; that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” Christ is made to be what we were, that we might become, in Him, what He is! Might not Christ, the Sinless One, bear the guilt of our sins and that be all? Nay, but we were connected federally with Adam the first—with a race proved wholly unrighteous and bad. And that we might be released from that Adam-state, there must be not only our sins borne, but we ourselves released from the old-Adam headship,—all we had from Adam: which involved the responsibilities we had in him—responsibility to furnish God, as morally responsible beings, a perfect righteousness and holiness of our own.

Now God’s way was, not to “change” the old man, but to send it to the cross unto death, and release us from it. No one who remains in Adam’s race will be saved! “Ye must be born again!” should sound the tocsin of alarm, yea, terror, to every one not yet in Christ. For God’s method was to set forth a Second Man, a Last Adam,—Christ; (with whom indeed all God’s eternal plans were connected), whom God would not only set forth to make expiation of guilt, but would make to become sin itself: thus to get at what we were, as well as what we had done. Our old man would thus be crucified with Christ, so that all the evil of the old man, and all his responsibilities also, would be completely annulled before God for all believers. For they must righteously be released from Adam, before they are created in Christ, another Adam! And this must be by death.

Thus God would say to believers, to those in Christ, “Your history now begins anew!” just as He said to Israel at the Passover: “This month shall be unto you the beginning of months: it shall be the first month of the year to you.” So Paul triumphantly writes, “If any man is in Christ, he is a new creature: the old things are passed away; behold, they are become new.” What a day was that when Christ, made to be sin itself, died to it, and was forever done with it! So that now He lives unto God in light and joy eternal without measure!

Verse 11: Therefore the eleventh verse becomes a necessity: God must say to us: Thus [because of the facts of the preceding verse] do ye also reckon, yourselves dead, indeed, to sin, but living to God, in. Christ Jesus! Your relationship to sin is exactly the same as Christ’s! Why? Because Christ is now your only Adam: you are in Him! His act of death unto sin involved all who are connected with Him.

Thus, in His death, all Christ’s connection with sin was broken, ended, forever. Not only did He no longer bear sin; but He had died unto sin. When He was raised, it was as One who lived unto God, in an endless life with which sin had nothing to do,—resurrection-life, newness of life!

And, because believers were united with Him in His death, they too died to sin in and with Him. And their relationship to sin is now exactly His relationship: they are dead to it. They are also “alive unto God” in Christ Jesus.

This is not a matter of “experience,” but of fact. The truth about believers is, that they are dead to sin and alive to God, being in Christ! And they hear it said by God, and are asked to reckon it so! Their path of faith is plain: 

“Reckon140 ye also yourselves to be dead unto sin, but alive unto God, in Christ Jesus.”

[140 This word “reckon” is a favorite word of Paul’s in Romans, where he uses it 19 times, and only 16 times in all his other epistles. The Greek word (logidzomai) might be called both a court word and a counting-room word. Paul uses it as a court word as to God’s action in accounting the believer righteous. In this sense it is used 11 times in Romans Four alone—where it should be studied: see verses 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 22, 23, 24. Again, this word logidzomai is used to express man’s belief and consequent attitude as illustrated in Romans 14:14: “To him that reckoneth anything to be unclean, to him it is unclean.” Here, we repeat, an expression of belief, and of an attitude in view of that belief, is included in this word. This is its meaning in Chapter 6:11: “Reckon ye also yourselves to be dead unto sin.” The belief of the fact and the attitude in view of the belief, are both involved in the word “reckon” in this verse. (Consult note on Chapter 4:3.)]

John Wesley truly counselled:

“Frames and feelings fluctuate:

These can ne’er thy saviour be!

Learn thyself in Christ to see:

Then, be feelings what they will,

Jesus is thy Saviour still!”

Lay to heart the very words of the eleventh verse: Reckon yourselves dead indeed to sin, but living to God, in Christ Jesus. There are two words signifying death in this passage. The word for dead (nekros) here in verse 11, does not refer to the act or process of dying, but to the state or effect produced by death. The other word (thnēsko) signifies the act, and occurs in verses 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9 and 10; and is used when Christ’s dying, or our dying with or in Him, is set forth. It is, therefore, with the already accomplished death unto sin of our great Substitute and Representative, Christ, that believers—those now in Christ—find themselves connected; and as we said above, the believer is to reckon himself dead (nekros) unto sin, but alive unto God,—because he is in Christ Jesus, who died unto sin once for all; but now, in resurrection life, is living unto God. You will realize anew the meanings of these two words for death, when you notice, in verses 4 and 9, that Christ, having died (thnēsko) was raised “from among dead ones” (nekroi). Christ’s body lay in Joseph’s tomb. He was not now dying: that was over. He was dead. And so we are not told to die to sin: because we are in Christ who did die to it; and therefore we also are dead to it, in His death; and reckon it so.

This should make the believer’s task simplicity itself. The only difficulty lies in believing these astounding revelations! That we should be dead to sin, and now alive unto God as risen ones, sharing that newness of life (verse 4) which our Lord began as “the First-born from among the dead,” is at first too wonderful for us. We see in ourselves the old self-life, the flesh—and straightway we forget God’s way of faith, and turn back to our “feelings.” We say, Alas, if I could escape from this body, I would be free. But that is not at present God’s plan for you and me. We wait for the redemption of our body. This body is yet unredeemed. Nevertheless, we are to reckon ourselves dead unto sin and alive unto God. Not dead to sin, notice, through prayers and strugglings, nor dead to sin in our feelings or consciousness; but in that death unto sin which Christ went through on the cross, and which we shared, and in that life which He now lives in glory!

Indeed, when we come down to verses 12 and 13, we shall find Paul’s definite directions to us to present ourselves unto God “as those that are alive from among dead ones.” (All out of Christ are of course “dead ones,” in God’s sight.)

This is really the heart of the struggle in the matter of our walk,—of our having our “fruit unto sanctification.” It is hard to reckon and keep reckoning that we shared Christ’s death to sin, and that we are alive unto God in Him. Yet, there is no establishing of our souls along any other line! To turn back from this sheer faith that we died with Christ and now are alive to God in Him, is to turn back—to what? to the weary, hopeless struggle Paul tells us in Chapter Seven he “once” went through to make the flesh obey God; or else back to groanings before God, begging Him to give us personal deliverance. And all the time God is saying, The word of the cross is the power of God. It is God’s word as to what was there done that will establish your heart. God says you died with Christ. Reckon it so. “If ye will not believe, surely ye shall not be established” (Isa. 7:9).141

Now if the declaration in verse 2 that we died to sin meant that sin is now absent from our flesh, there could be no exhortation in verse 11 to “reckon” ourselves dead to sin. If the fact that we died to sin with Christ means that sin is gone from these bodies of ours, there would be no thought of “reckoning.” The statement would simply have been, “Sin is absent,—no longer a present thing with you!” The word reckon is a word for faith—in the face of appearances.

The same place for faith is left in the matter of our justification. Christ is “the propitiation for the whole world” (I John 2:2). But in Romans 3:25 it is said,

“God set Him forth as a propitiation through faith in His blood.”

So in Romans 6:2 it is said that we died to sin, while here in the eleventh verse we are told to “reckon ourselves dead to sin.” The reckoning does not make the fact, but is commanded in view of the fact.

It has pleased God to call for our faith, both in connection with salvation and with deliverance. Therefore, if we would obey and please God, let us follow His method! Let us learn to reckon ourselves dead,—that Christ’s death to sin was our death; and is the present relation of us who are in Christ, unto sin.

The path of faith is always against appearances,—or, if you will, against human consciousness. God says certain things; and we, obeying the “law of faith,” say the same things; like Abraham, not regarding our own body, which says the contrary thing. Facts are facts: and these are what God reveals to us. Appearances, or “feelings,” are a wholly different thing from facts! God says, “You died to sin: reckon yourself dead!”

Obedient souls do so, and enter the path of deliverance in experience. Doubting souls fall back on their “feelings,” and turn back to prayers and struggles, avoiding faith.

Now note carefully again: the apostle does not tell us to reckon sin dead, but ourselves dead to it. We are now in Christ, and His history becomes ours. He died unto sin (verse 10), and left the whole sphere of sin forever. It is not said even concerning Christ that He reckoned sin dead, but that being made sin, the thing itself. He died unto it, and now liveth unto God. It seems to us most unfortunate that some very excellent teachers fall into the manner of saying that “sin is to be reckoned dead” and that “our old man is counted dead and gone,” and so forth. One of the clearest teachers of Pauline gospel that I know, though generally speaking accurately, in Paul’s language, that we ourselves died to sin, and that the old man is to be regarded as having been crucified with Christ, yet sometimes lapses into such expressions as “we are to hold the old man as dead and gone.”

Yet the old man, though having been “crucified with Christ,” and having been “put off” by the believer, still exists; and believers are commanded to “put away, as concerning your former manner of life, the old man, that waxeth corrupt after the lusts of deceit.” We have spoken of this elsewhere. It is of course the intense desire of a saint truly exercised by the Spirit to be quit of the consciousness of the old man. This has been so in all ages. But the temptation is very strong in Christians, in times of great spiritual uplifting, to regard the old man as having disappeared.

But it is the very essence of a holy walk according to Scripture, to receive God’s testimony concerning the old man’s having been crucified. To reckon ourselves dead to sin while conscious of sin in our members, is faith indeed; and is walking according to God’s Word, instead of according to our feelings. “Those that are of Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh and its lusts”: because they know that the federal thing, the “old man,” has been crucified (Gal. 5:24). It is in the power of the faith that God has dealt with all that we were, that we are able to deal with the manifestations of the self-life.

Nevertheless, this life in this present world, is not the Christian’s place of resting. Christ will bring him rest at His second coming (II Thess. 1:7).

It is to those who are described in the opening chapters of Romans,—guilty, under Divine judgment; and also in the flesh, under the old man; far from God, without hope,—to such the gospel message has come! These statements that we belong up there, in Christ, are issued by the High Court of Heaven, itself. God says that no matter how things may seem, we died with Christ, and share His newness of life; and we are to present ourselves unto God as those alive from the dead.142 The glorious promise follows: “Sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under law, but under grace.” We have not been brought to a Sinai, to a hard, demanding master, but are under the sweet favor in which Christ Himself is, being ourselves in Him, yea, the very righteousness of God in Him!

Verse 12: Do not, therefore, be allowing sin to reign-as-king in your mortal body, that ye should obey the desires of it (the body):—and the Greek is emphatic: “Be not at all allowing sin to reign!”

1. Notice first, our present body is mortal, that is, subject to physical death. We are waiting for the redemption of the body, at Christ’s coming.

2. Sin is present in our members, and ready to reign-as-king, if permitted. That is, our bodies have not yet been redeemed from the possibility of sin’s being king, if we permit such kingship.

3. It is through the lusts or desires of the body that sin is ready to assume control. The body has many desires not in themselves evil. Paul, speaking of foods, says, “All things are lawful for me; but I will not be brought under the power of any” (I Cor. 6:12). It is when natural desires are yielded to in self-will or self-indulgence, that sin uses the desires of the body to assert sin’s power and establish its reign.

4. The believer is directed to reject this reigning of sin, which would involve our obeying the desires of the body.

5. Note the important word, “therefore.” This looks back at the first part of Chapter Six, in which our death with Christ unto sin has been asserted, our relationship to sin being now the same as Christ’s—we have done with it in death and burial. Notice that these present verses of exhortation are built wholly upon the fact that we died with Christ: we reckon ourselves dead because we participated in Christ’s death. Therefore we dare refuse sin’s dominion. We owe sin nothing. We are dead to it; justified from it, and living in another sphere!

Verse 13: Neither be presenting your members unto sin as instruments of unrighteousness. But on the contrary present yourselves to God as being alive from among the dead; and your members to God, as instruments of righteousness.

The moment we come to exhortation, we have to do with the will; whereas believing is a matter of the heart: “With the heart man believeth.” In learning that I am dead to sin, all I need to do is to listen to God’s marvelous unfolding of the fact that I was identified with Christ in His death, and in my heart believe it. My will has nothing to do with that. When God says, “Your old man was crucified with Christ,” that is Divine testimony. It is a revealed fact. I hear it and from my heart believe it, because God is true. I reckon myself to be “dead unto sin and alive unto God in Christ Jesus,” because God has said that I was.

But when it comes to the application of this stupendous fact, my will is addressed: “Let not sin therefore reign.” Well, some one asks, if I am dead to it, how can it still reign? We answer, By your presenting your bodily members unto sin for sin to use, as “instruments of unrighteousness.” Your tongue, for instance, which James calls “an unruly member,”—you have only to hand it over to sin, and it will talk angrily, lyingly, filthily.

Now, what is God’s way? Present yourselves unto God, as those in a Risen Christ, those “alive from among the dead.” Of course, this will test your faith: you will not feel dead to sin. Your old man will seem anything but crucified. But the path of true faith is always one of obedience; and God has commanded you to reckon yourself dead unto sin and alive unto Him (as a risen one) in Christ Jesus. It is in this character, of being alive from the dead, that you are commanded to “present yourselves unto God.”

Now two things about this word “present”:

First, as to its meaning here: it does not in Chapter Six signify consecration: but the taking of an attitude in accordance with the facts. In Chapter Twelve, it is true, the same word is used to signify consecration to God (12:1). But here, “present” (A.V., “yield”), signifies an attitude to be taken in recognition of the facts: “Present yourselves as those alive from among the dead.” We are not here looked at as giving ourselves to God, but as believingly assuming the aspect toward God of those in Christ—those who died to sin in Christ’s death, and are now alive in Christ unto God.

If the colonel of a certain regiment of soldiers,—say the One Hundredth, should give notice to all his regiment to repair to his headquarters at a stated hour for review, they would “present” themselves there as members of the One Hundredth Regiment. It would be as such and in that consciousness that they would come. So believers are to take the attitude toward God of risen ones because they are risen ones. They are in Christ, they are alive from among the dead. This is the fundamental consciousness of a believer, as described in the Pauline Epistles:

“If then ye were raised together with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is . . . For ye died, and your life is hid with Christ in God” (Col. 3:1, 3).

If you do not have risen life, you are not in Christ; for those in Christ are all alive from among the dead.

Second, the command to present ourselves thus unto God is in the aorist tense, which indicates a definite entering upon this attitude of presenting ourselves as risen ones to God. As to sin it is, “Do not be presenting (present tense of habitual and continued action) your members unto sin.” The exhortation is believingly to take the attitude of a risen one in Christ, and thus present yourself once for all to God. Whether in prayer or thanksgiving, or praise or service, you are alive from the dead. It is not that you make yourself alive by presenting yourself unto God; but that since you are in Christ, you are alive to God in risen life, and you thus present yourself. And it becomes an habitual attitude,—you keep on presenting your members unto God as a habit of life. He will now use them as “instruments of righteousness”; as, before,—you well remember! your members were instruments of sin.

Then comes a glorious promise, and also a royal pronouncement:

Verse 14: For sin shall not have dominion over you, for ye are not under law, but under grace.

Note the two “fors.” The first “for” announces the Divine decree that sin’s lordship over us shall be ended. The second reveals the happy condition of things in which such a release is possible: we are not under the legal principle,—which first demanded duty, and then offered blessing; but we are under the grace principle,—which confers blessing first, and, behold, fruits follow!

It is deeply significant here that even to us, new creatures in Christ, and recipients of the Holy Spirit, it is definitely announced to us that we are not under law,—else bondage and helplessness would still be our lot. Note, God does not say we are not under the Law,—the Mosaic Law: (Gentiles never were!) But, God says we are not under law,—under the legal principle. In the opening part of Chapter Seven, Paul will show the Jewish believers, (who had been under law), that only death could release them from their legal obligation; and that they had been made dead to the Law, through being identified with Christ in His death.

Only when we believe that our history in Adam, with all its responsibilities and demands to produce righteousness, ended at the cross, shall we find ourselves completely free to enjoy these words of heavenly comfort—UNDER GRACE!

Study carefully the contrast between Romans 6:14 and I Corinthians 9:21. Paul declares in the former passage, “We are not under law.” The Greek here is, hupo nomon. This expression evidently indicates placing one under external enactments—under that principle. Now in I Corinthians 9:21, Paul, in describing his ministry to souls, says, “To those without law (anomois), I became as without law (anomos), not at all being without law Godward, but, on the contrary, en-lawed (ennomos) to Christ,”—as the members of a body to the head, controlled naturally by the one spirit and will.

There is every possible difference between the two,—between being “under law,” and “en-lawed.” Israel under law, placed under the Law at Sinai, with a veil between them and God, had to think of their behavior, in all its details, as affecting their relationship to God. The Law was “written on tables,” by the hand of Divine authority. It was external to them: there was no union between them and Jehovah; nor was the Holy Spirit within them (although He was upon certain of them, for certain service, at certain times).

But, with us, all is different. We are in Christ, members of Christ. The Spirit of God’s Son, also, has been sent forth into our hearts, crying, “Abba, Father!” We are “no longer bondservants, but adult sons” (Gal. 4:4-7). Our relationship is settled.

“Walking by the Spirit,” who indwells us, takes for us today the place that observing the things written in the Law had with Israel. “Being dead to the Law, and discharged therefrom,” says Paul, “we bring forth fruit unto God”; “We serve in newness of spirit and not in oldness of letter” (7:4, 6).

When Paul says (as above) in I Corinthians that he was “en-lawed to Christ,” the Greek word ennomos signifies that blessed control by the Holy Spirit proceeding from Christ as the Head, which corresponds to the control of our natural bodies by our physical heads. This, of course, is the very opposite of being “under law” in the sense of verse 14. To speak of a believer’s being “under the Law to Christ,” would be no more true, than to say that your hand has a set of external rules by which it obeys your head and seeks to render itself pleasing to you! No, your hand is en-lawed to your head, in that it is one with your head; your spirit dwells in every member of your body, and the head intelligently directs every member.

I am more and more inclined to the belief that in order to a consistent interpretation of the New Testament, we must scrupulously regard Israel only as having been placed under The Law, though doubtless all men have moral responsibility. See Paul regarding this below.145

Whether then it be the Jew under law, or the race of Adam under conscience, the freedom that is in Christ means deliverance from trying to “be good” to be accepted of God. Sinners are accepted freely on account of Christ’s sacrifice, and placed in Him Risen. For such, therefore, as are in Christ, the walk is one of rejoicing faith,—appropriating Christ,—and nothing else. The Law of Moses has nothing to say to a believer! We know the legalists and the pretenders to human righteousness will cry out at this. But God says about the Law two things that cannot be escaped:

First, that the Gentiles were not under Moses’ Law, that Law having never been given to them, but to Israel only.

And, second, that God, who gave to Israel the “foregoing commandment”—the Law—has “disannulled” the same, and brought in by another way, even simple faith in Christ, “a better hope,” through which alone all believers, Jew or Gentile, “draw nigh to God” (Heb. 7:18, 19).

Not behaving, but believing, is God’s way: behaving follows believing!

I know that true faith is a living thing, and has two feet, and will walk; but it will be “walking in works”—not working in works!—“Good works that God afore prepared.” Walking by faith in “prepared” works; discovering in this walk of faith, the beautiful will of God day by day; treading this fresh and living path, is the believer’s great secret! The children of Abraham all follow their father in walking by faith!

The believer is not under law, not under external enactments, not under conditions; but he has already an eternal standing in grace,—that is, in already secured Divine favor, by a sovereign act of God; which has not only reckoned to him Christ’s atoning work, but has placed him fully in the place of Christ’s present acceptance with God!

The believer today is neither in the Old Testament with the Patriarchs, nor with Israel at Sinai; nor walking with the disciples during our Lord’s earthly life and kingdom ministry! The believer lives now after the cross, and in the full right and power of all that Christ did there. God gave Israel at Sinai a Law,—a holy, just and good Law, but they kept it not. The Lord Jesus when on earth said to His disciples, “If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me”; but they all failed and fled. Why? Man was still under testing. The cross ended that; revealing, as it did, utter wickedness in man; and, also, complete weakness in the disciples,—in God’s saints!

Then what? Christ is raised from the dead through the glory of the Father: that we may walk in newness of life. Not only are our sins forever put away by His blood, but we ourselves find our history in Adam over, we being dead with Christ, crucified with Him.

Then the Holy Spirit is given at Pentecost as the power of this new, heavenly walk. Men were then, for the first time, transferred into the Risen Christ. They shared His risen life; for they had been identified with Him as an Adam, a federal man, in His death, at the cross; and were now placed by God in Christ Risen: yea, they were “created,” now, in Him; and even made members of His Body,—which, of course, is an additional favor, based on their identification with Him, as an Adam, at the cross.

Now Paul could say, in triumph,

“I through law died to law!” 

“I have not [desire not] the righteousness of law; yet I know nothing against myself.” 

“Thanks be to God, who always leadeth us in triumph in Christ”; 

“For me to live is Christ”; 

“Thanks be to God who giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

And he could say this right in the teeth of sin, and of the Law which gave sin its power! (I Cor. 15:56, 57). Both sin and the Law had passed away for Paul, at the cross, as victors over him!

Yet, alas, most believers are not walking on the resurrection side of the cross, and by the “new creation rule” of Galatians 6:14, 15:

“Far be it from me to glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world hath been crucified unto me, and I unto the world. For neither is circumcision anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation. And as many as shall walk by this rule, peace be upon them, and mercy!”

If you had been in heaven fifty years, and were then sent down by God to earth to live and witness for fifty years, then to be taken back to Heaven:—how would you live? Would you fall under daily doubt as to whether you should count yourself as belonging to Heaven? Would you not, rather, be a constant witness, both in walk and word, that you really belonged in and to Heaven?

Now God says He has “made us alive together with Christ and raised us up with Him, and made us to sit with Him in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus” (Eph. 2:5, 6). Are you going to try to add to that glorious heavenly calling the Law,—that was given to Israel down here on earth to make them know their sin? A Law under which God says you are NOT? May God forbid such folly in any of us! For we all tend toward it.

May Colossians 1:5, 6 be fulfilled in us all:

“The word of the truth of the good news which is come unto you; even as it is also in all the world bearing fruit and increasing, as it doth in you also,—since the day ye heard and knew THE GRACE OF GOD IN TRUTH”!

Verse 15: What then? Are we to sin, because we are not under law but under grace? Far be the thought!

Here Paul warns against the abuse of that liberty which the believer has: He shows that those who commit sin come under the bondage of sin as master; even as the Lord said in John 8:34: “Every one that committeth sin is the bondservant of sin.”

The two questions in Chapter Six: “Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound?” (verse 1); and, Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? (verse 15); are distinct, but not really diverse, questions. For each considers that same lawlessness, that same independence of the Creator, which is ever the creature’s great temptation. The fact that these two questions are written down here is the proof of this. Now Paul, with holy abhorrence, repudiates at once both these thoughts:

The answer to the first question is: We are in the Risen Christ, and we shared His death; our relation to sin is broken forever; we walk “in newness of life.”

Verse 16: Do ye not know that to whom ye present yourselves as bondservants unto obedience, his bondservants ye are whom ye obey,—whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?

And the answer to the second question is: God has set believers free, to serve Himself. The only other master is sin. And bondage to sin results from serving sin. But the Word of God says to the believer. Ye are not under law, but under grace.

Many people who have been convicted of the guilt of sin and have relied on the shed blood of Christ as putting away that guilt, have not yet, however, seen a state of sin as abject slavery. The strength of sin is just as real as its guilt. No creature can free himself from the bondage of sin. Sin brought to fallen man the inability to do anything else but sin (Gen. 6:5). Although contrary to conscience, to reason, to desire for liberty; in spite of the terror inspired by the tragic examples about them,—yea, despite awful warnings and expectations of personal impending ruin, men continue in sin and its bondage.

But there is another “obedience,”—that unto righteousness. And the case turns on the words, to whom ye present yourselves as servants. Although we cannot free ourselves, or change our own spiritual condition, the great fact of human responsibility is plainly written here. God, who would have all men to be saved, is always ready to have them present themselves to Him. And it is by means of the gospel that we do so,—whether to take our place as sinners, in the first instance; or, after we have believed, when we present ourselves to Him and our members as instruments of righteousness.

We all know this, be our theological training what it may. We all know we are doing wrong if we do not obey the gospel of God concerning His Son. “When He, the Spirit of truth, is come, He will convict the world in respect of sin . . . because they believe not on Me” (John 16:8, 9).

Let us remember then, that the obedience unto righteousness of verse 16, is “the obedience of faith,” always.

Verses 17, 18: But thanks be to God, that whereas ye were bondservants of sin, ye became obedient from the heart to that pattern of teaching [salvation by the cross] unto which ye were handed over [by God in the gospel]. And, being set free from sin, ye were made bondservants to righteousness.

Now, our becoming obedient from the heart to the Word of the cross involves a work of Divine wisdom and power far beyond that involved in the creation of the world! For how shall a creature remain, and behold his utter judgment on the cross? How shall he despair eternally of himself, and yet find hope? How shall he continue a free being and yet consent to be bound forever,—“with cords of a Man, with bands of love”? How shall he walk with confidence into the Court where very thoughts come into judgment? Moral and spiritual impossibilities are greater than physical impossibilities. It was impossible that where nothing at all existed the physical universe should leap into being—out of nothing but God’s word! Man, having sinned, ran from God. Men yet sin and flee from God. Now God’s holy nature. His infinite righteousness, bar the way back. But Christ comes, sent of the Father. And there is the blood of the cross. And from the North and South, and East and West, men, women,—and children, too, come, obeying from the heart this impossible news: of peace by the blood of His cross,—peace for those ‘whose sins slew Christ! They come to be gladly bound with the unbreakable “bands of love, the cords of a Man”—Christ Jesus! (See Hos. 11:4.)

And we see that mighty work of response to grace in such hearts abide and endure. We see God’s willing “bondservants” pouring out their lives in glad service, in all lands, to all limits!

Now, this becoming obedient from the heart to that pattern of doctrine of salvation by the blood of the cross, and the freedom from sin that goes with it, may be enjoyed even in this life, “without stint or limit.” For “all things are possible to him that believeth.”

Note that the Old Version misses the entire sense of this seventeenth verse in translating: “that form of doctrine which was delivered unto you,” whereas the true rendering is, that form of doctrine unto which ye were handed over (or, delivered). For the verb is in the plural—ye were delivered over! This statement instructs us deeply in the Divine arrangements. The Israelites, for example, were delivered over to Moses and the Law. It was not only that the Law was delivered by Moses to them; they were themselves delivered over to a legal dispensation—to a “mold of doctrine,” which had the Ten Commandments as the foundation, and the “ten thousand things of the Law” spoken in accordance therewith. The Jews knew they were under the Law. They had been handed over to it, to its demands, and to its whole economy. Likewise, believers now are delivered over to a form or pattern of teaching. Summarily, this is the Gospel,—particularly, the work of Christ on the cross. Believers have been handed over by God to the mighty facts, not only that their guilt was put away on the cross, but that they, as connected with Adam, died with Christ; that their history in Adam is thus entirely ended before God; and that they now share the risen life of Christ, and are before God as risen ones (Romans 6:10, 11). And all believers are comprehended in these great truths, whether they apprehend them or not! It is the first duty of every teacher of God’s saints to open to them the glorious facts already true about them, and unto which great mold or form of doctrine, they have been “delivered over” by God.

Now in verse 17 we see that these Roman believers had become obedient from the heart unto this mold of doctrine,—that of salvation by Christ on the cross. They had yet much to learn concerning their salvation, (and Paul was coming to “establish” them). But they had seen and accepted redemption by the blood of the despised Lamb of God: which involved everything,—of separation from a sinful world, as well as of safety from Divine judgment.

Verse 18: Being set free from sin, ye were made bondservants to righteousness. It will help us to note carefully that in this verse is the first description of “experience” in this Sixth of Romans. But it is the result of that “obedience of faith” in which these believers had received the good news of their salvation by Christ crucified; for lo! they found themselves thereby “set free from sin,”—sin was no longer their master.

Verse 19: I am speaking in human terms on account of the [moral] strengthlessness of your flesh—Paul here explains why he is using this word “bondservants” throughout this passage. He declares the “infirmity of our flesh” to be such, that we must necessarily be in bondservice—either to sin or to God. Rome was full of slaves,—indeed, many of the Christians to whom he was writing were slaves, as seems to be indicated in Chapter Sixteen (which see). In the Roman Empire, freedom was a most difficult thing to secure (Acts 22:28). So Paul speaks in human terms, “after the manner of men,” and he says that we are strengthless naturally, that we must be servants, either of God or of sin.

Man hates this fact. He boasts his independence, whether it be in the realm of intellect—“free thought!” in the matter of private wealth—“independent!” or in the manner of government—“free!” But it is all really a delusion. We indeed rejoice at the intellectual shackles thrown off at the Renaissance, and at liberty of thought and expression, wherever found among men. We also honor those who, like Boaz, are “mighty men of wealth,”—for God has permitted it to be so; and we rejoice at that relief from governmental tyranny which is yet found in some parts of this earth.

But what we most earnestly assert is that not only Paul here, but our Lord Himself, and Scripture generally, sets forth that only those that know the truth and walk therein, are free. The Jews (in John 8:33 ff) horribly rebel against our Lord’s saying:

“If ye abide in My word, then are ye truly My disciples: and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free! . . . Every one that committeth sin is the bondservant of sin . . . If the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.”

There is no freedom out of Christ. “Whose service is perfect freedom” is the beautiful expression of obedience to God.

We must see this necessity of service to God or service to sin for our own lives. When John wrote to believers, “We know that we are of God, and the whole earth lieth in the evil one” (I John 5:19),—what a revelation was that!

These Roman Christians had formerly, like the pagans among whom they lived, presented their members bondservants to uncleanness [in every inward thought], and to lawlessness unto [further] lawlessness [in outward practice]. A blacker page of iniquitous abominations history does not write than that of the Roman Empire of Paul’s day. And out of these fearful states of sin, God had delivered these believers! Compare I Corinthians 6:9-11.

Verses 20 and 21: For when ye were bondservants of sin, ye were free in regard of righteousness. What fruit had ye at that time in the things whereof ye are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death!

And in those former evil days, they had been, as Paul says, free in regard of righteousness. They were altogether given to iniquity, without any check whatever. And those were fruitless days of which they were now ashamed. Free and fruitless! what a pair of words to describe the life of one who is going on daily toward eternity! Let each believer look back to those days when God was “not in all his thoughts.” The pleasures and treasures of sin we sought—free in regard of righteousness, like the beasts which perish. What saved one can say of his unsaved life, I can treasure this or that as fruit? of any particular iniquity, I cherish good results from it? What fruit had you? Shame, only: things of which ye are now ashamed. Furthermore, we were going on steadily in that path unto the end, which was death, and that eternal. Remember the relentless but true description of sin’s horrid birth and end, in James 1:14,15.

Now from all this, God has in sovereign grace rescued us, and should we not, do we not, gladly enter upon the path of loving service, yea, bondservice, to Him?

Verse 22: But now, having been freed from the fearful Master, Sin, and brought into a sweet, willing bondservice to God, there was not only the daily delightful fruit, which those given over to sanctification were ever bearing; but there was the consciousness that every day brought nearer, the full realization of that blessed eternal life,—which they already possessed, but the full enjoyment of which was the end of the path of God’s saints!

They were now and would be forever under the domination of that motive which is the strongest of all,—LOVE. Their service to God would be no longer one of seeking to fulfil certain enactments by Him (as under law) but a glad willingness, such as Christ expressed toward His Father in the prophetic words of Psalm 40:8: “I delight to do Thy will, O my God!” There is no relief comparable to this surrender to the all-wise and all-loving will of God! Our Lord prescribes for those “laboring and heavy-laden,” first, to come to Him, and He will give them rest (that is, salvation); and then, having come, to take His yoke upon them (the yoke of Him who is meek and lowly in heart) and they shall find rest to their souls (that is surrender)!

Verse 23: For sin, which they had once served, was a terrible Paymaster’ Sin’s wages was death,—appointed so by God Himself. What a hideous employer—Sin! What a horrid service! What hellish wages! Yet sin is the chosen master of all but Christ’s “little flock”! Of sin’s flock, it is written: “Death shall be their shepherd.”

Death, as we read in verse 23, is the “wages of sin.” Men. speak of it lightly. But it is indeed “the king of terrors” for the natural man (Job 18:14). A well-known writer says: “Man finds in Death an end to every hope, to every project, to all his thoughts and plans. The busy scene in which his whole life has been, knows him no more. His nature has given way, powerless to resist this master (death) to which it belongs, and who now asserts his dreadful rights. But this is far from being all. Man indeed, as man alive in this world, sinks down into nothing. But why? Sin has come in; with sin, conscience; with sin, Satan’s power; still more with sin, God’s judgment. Death is the expression and witness of all this. It is the wages of sin, terror to the conscience, Satan’s power over us, for he has the power of death. Can God help here? Alas, it is His own judgment on sin. Death seems but as the proof that sin does not pass unnoticed, and is the terror and plague of the conscience, as witness of God’s judgment, the officer of justice to the criminal, and the proof of his guilt in the presence of coming judgment. How can it but be terrible? It is the seal upon the fall and ruin and condemnation of the first Adam. And he has nothing but this old nature.

“But Christ has come in. He has come into death—O wondrous truth, the Prince of life! What is death now for the believer? ‘Death is ours,’ says the apostle, as all things are. By the blessed Lord’s entering into it for me, death,—and judgment too, is become my salvation. The sin, of which it was the wages, has been put away by death itself. The judgment has been borne for me there.”

But the grace-bestowal (charisma) of God—here is the same dear word as in Rom. 5:15,16. It is the expression which describes what is behind God’s gift,—his grace (Greek, charis). And what is, here, God’s grace-bestowal? Eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord! What a bestowment of grace is this! Sins borne, pardoned, gone,—and more! A welcome in Heaven,—and more! Life granted to a lost soul dead in sins,—and more! Eternal life,—to last as long as God its Giver. But more,—life in Christ Jesus our Lord Himself! Sharing His life, who is the Well-Beloved of the Father, sharing “the love wherewith God hath loved Christ.” Life, eternal life, in Christ Jesus,—God’s grace-gift!

The wages of sin as over against the free gift of God!

Mark this, that God will keep the contrast constantly before us, even at the end of this chapter, between what is earned and what is given. In verses 21 and 22, “the end” of two paths is seen: one, death; the other, eternal life. But it must finally be said here, at the chapter’s close, that while death is earned wages, eternal life is a FREE GIFT!

And also note the blessed Sphere of this Eternal life: In Christ Jesus our Lord. Every advance in the glorious truth of salvation is marked by Christ’s own Name!—from His being “set forth” by God as “Christ Jesus,—a propitiation through faith in His blood (3:24, 25); raised as Jesus our Lord from the dead (4:24); our exulting in God through our Lord Jesus Christ (5:11); and grace reigning through righteousness and eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord (5:21); reckoning ourselves dead unto sin, but alive unto God in Christ Jesus (6:11); and now the gift of God, eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord (6:23). And victory will come, in Chapter 7:25: “I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” And, at last, no separation “from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord”! (8:39).

. . . [Romans 7] Verse 4: Wherefore my brethren, ye also were made dead to the Law through the body of Christ.

As touching Gentile believers, this latter fact was to be reckoned on for the disannulling (Chapter 6:6) of “the body of sin,” relieving them of sin’s bondage. But for the Jewish believer, there was the additional fact that he was under the Law, which bound his conscience, and gave sin very peculiar power over him. For he must obey the Law, for it had been given his nation by Jehovah, and they had covenanted at Sinai to let their obedience be the condition of their relationship to Him. To the Jewish believer, then, the announcement is now directly made that he was made dead to the Law through the body of Christ, in order to be to Another, to the risen Christ, thus to bring forth fruit to God; and that he has been [verse 6] discharged from the Law [literally, annulled with respect to the Law], thus bringing him out into service in newness of spirit.151 This was the startling announcement made to those who, for 1500 years had known nothing but the Law: they had died to it all; the Law knew them no more.

[151 The expressions dead to the Law (vs. 4) and discharged from the Law (vs. 6) cannot possibly be referred directly to Gentiles, who had never been alive to the Law—it never having been given to them; and who could not be discharged therefrom, because they were not under it.]

Now what Paul affirms in Romans 6:14 covers, of course, both the Gentile and Jewish believer: “Ye are NOT UNDER LAW”: that is, not under that principle in any sense. The Gentiles had moral obligations as responsible children of Adam, though not under the Law, indeed, “without law.” There was the work of the Law in their hearts (as we saw in Chapter Two), with which their consciences bore witness. To Gentiles, therefore, the announcement that in Christ they are not at all under the principle of law, sets them free to delight in Christ, and to surrender to the operations of the Holy Spirit within them. The additional announcement is made to those under the Mosaic Law that they have the same liberty, having died to that wherein they were held.

The great lesson which each of us must lay to his own heart, is, that those in Christ, whether Jew or Gentile, are not under law as a principle, but under grace,—full, accomplished Divine favor—that favor shown by God to Christ! And the life of the believer now is (1) in faith, not effort: as Paul speaks in Galatians 2:20:

“The life which I now live in the flesh, I live in faith, the faith which is in the Son of God”;

(2) in the power of the indwelling Spirit; for walking by the Spirit has taken the place of walking by external commandments; and (3) exercising ourselves to have a good conscience toward God and men always: particularly, not wrongly using our freedom.

While the form of the language in the first six verses makes it evident that the Mosaic Law was before Paul’s mind, at the same time it is of profit to us because: (1) We all have a moral responsibility to produce a righteousness and holiness before God and we cannot; (2) Both Jew and Gentile are included in the tremendous statement of Chapter 6:6, “our old man was crucified.”

Through the body of Christ—This is a peculiar manner of speech. God speaks not here of propitiation or justification, which are through the blood of Christ (Rom. 3:25; 5:9; Eph 1:7). But God speaks here of that identification with Christ in which; in God’s view, all believers were brought to the end of their history at the cross, so that their former relationships (to sin, law, the world), are ended. It is to be noted that both concerning Christ’s death for us, and our death with Christ, Christ’s own body is mentioned. As to the first, we remember I Peter 2:24: “Who His own self bare our sins in His body upon the tree.” And as to the second, the present verse: made dead . . . through the body of Christ.

That ye should be joined to Another, to Him who was raised from among the dead. The great lesson to learn in this whole passage lies in what we might call the two Christs: first, there is “the body of Christ,” of Christ made sin, and our old man crucified with Him: our history in Adam thus ended before God; and, second, Christ raised from the dead. It is this latter Christ to whom we are now vitally united, to Him only.

That we might bring forth fruit unto God. In this Risen Christ, as we saw in Chapter 6:22: “Ye have your fruit unto sanctification”; or Philippians 1:11; “being filled with the fruits of righteousness which are through Jesus Christ,” brought about—made to bud, blossom, grow and ripen, through the indwelling Spirit: or “the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, self-control” (Gal. 5:22)—what a cluster of grapes that is: fruit unto God, indeed!

Now—however the principle may apply to all believers—Paul evidently, in verses 4, 5 and 6, has the Jew under the Law definitely before him; for he says “Ye were made dead to the Law.” It is implicitly asserted here that those under law could not bring forth fruit to God. Because, in order to bring forth such fruit, they had to be made dead to the Law. This cannot be sufficiently emphasized, for all about us we find those who are earnestly seeking to bear fruit to God, while “entangled with the yoke of bondage,” not knowing themselves dead to the legal principle.

But before our very eyes those publicly placed under law, yea the Mosaic Law directly from God, did not bring forth fruit in that condition. Else would God have had them die wholly out of that position with Christ on the cross? 

No, it is only those who see themselves to have died with Christ and to be now joined to a Risen Christ in glory, that fully bring forth fruit to God.

It Is a glorious day when a believer sees himself only in a Risen Christ—dead, buried and risen; and can say with another, “I am not in the flesh, not in the place of a child of Adam at all, but delivered out of it by redemption. The whole scene of a living man, this world in which the life of Adam develops itself, and of which the Law is the moral rule, I do not belong to, before God, more than a man who died ten years ago out of it.”

Verse 5: For when we were in the flesh, the passions of sins which were through the Law wrought in our members to bring forth fruit unto death. Now in this one verse is seen the whole of the great struggle detailed by the apostle in the latter part of this chapter: When we were in the flesh—Note, it does not say, in the body, for we are all that! Being in the body has no moral significance, but the words are, in the flesh—the condition of those not saved, as we see from Chapter 8:8, 9: “For ye are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you.” This [in the flesh] does describe a moral state or condition,—absence of life, absence of the Holy Spirit, and control by the fallen nature.

The passions of sins which were through the Law—To those in the flesh controlled by the evil nature through a body dead to God, legal restraint was intolerable. As we shall see in the last part of the chapter, sin was there, but quiescent, until the Law came, demanding obedience and holiness. Thus came the arousings [or passions] of sins—sins of all sorts. It is evident that the Jew who had the Law, is distinctly and especially before the apostle’s mind here. For these words could not be written of “Gentiles who have not the Law” (2:14, 15); although these very two verses assert that there was a “work” written in the hearts of the Gentiles, which is called “the work of the Law,” unto which their consciences bear fellow-witness. (See carefully, comment on Chapter 2:14.) Nevertheless, it cannot be said that verse 5 describes accurately any but an Israelite to whom the Law was given, and in whom the commandments of that Law directly aroused the opposition of sin in the flesh.

Wrought in our members to bring forth fruit unto death—Even in the last part of the chapter, in Paul’s great struggle—after he is saved, we find a law of sin in his members, against which he is powerless, and which would have engulfed him in everlasting hopelessness, except for the revelation of deliverance in Christ. Here, in verse 5, where an unsaved man, a man in the flesh, is in view, fruit unto death is brought forth by those “arousings of sins” which came through the Law

Verse 6: But now we have been annulled from the Law, having died to that wherein we were held: so that we serve in newness of spirit, and not in oldness of letter.

This word which we have rendered annulled, is Paul’s old word katargeo,—“put out of business.” In Chapter Six we read that “our old man was crucified with Him in order that the body of sin might be annulled”—put out of business. That blessed message could be given to all believers, Jew or Gentile. For it is a federal one, as the words “our old man” reveal. But the Jew had not only the body of sin: he had distinctly given to him the Mosaic Law. Therefore it is written, in Chapter 7:6, that he has been annulled, put out of business, from that Law, having died to it.

The Law which once “held” him now had nothing to do with him, for he had been put out of the Law’s domain, out of the place of business in which the Law operated, that is, on natural children of Adam, on men in the flesh. What a glorious deliverance!

Now let us who are Gentile believers most carefully note two things: (1) that the Jewish believer, who was put publicly, and under sanctions of death, under the Law, by God at Sinai, has been declared by that same God to have died to that wherein he was held, so that the Law has no more business with him. (2) That therefore, however deeply taught by tradition that we Gentile believers are under law, we must throw that tradition all away. For if the Jew, who was Divinely placed under the Law, has been made dead to it and discharged therefrom, put out of the sphere and domain of the Law, then what presumption for a Gentile to claim that he is under that Law before God!

So that we serve!—Wonderful paradoxes of the gospel! In verse 4, having died, they bear fruit; and here, having been discharged, they serve. What an unspeakable satisfaction filled the apostle’s heart, at finding himself serving God, in all the capacities of his love-filled being, the more he felt his complete freedom from that Law that once “held” him. In the old days, it was, “I verily thought I ought to do”; now it is, “I delight to do.” As we say elsewhere, the instructed believer finds himself doing the will of God as it is in heaven, that is, in the very spirit of service, and not by forms, or ordinances—which are earthly “rudiments.” Oldness of letter it once was—minute particulars of legal observances according to the tradition of the fathers; newness of spirit it had become when the apostle learned that he had died out to the whole legal sphere, to the Adam-position—man in the flesh, unto whom the Law had been given at Sinai.

Truly Paul could say to his Jewish fellow-believers, God has here, concerning the Law, conferred on us a heavenly degree of D.D.: “Dead, Discharged.” (Beware that you do not turn into an LL.D. and go about “desiring to be teachers of the Law, understanding neither what you say, nor whereof you confidently affirm!” (I Tim. 1:7)

Now unto us Gentile believers, what a breeze from the delectable mountains this passage is! For our poor consciences are always—sad to say—ready to hear of some new “duty” or “path of surrender,” or “dying out” to this or that: not satisfied with God’s plain announcement that we died to sin, are not under law: that even those whom He placed under The Law had died to it, and been discharged therefrom! And that we are to present ourselves to Him as “alive from the dead, and our members as instruments of righteousness unto God—‘whose service is perfect freedom.’“

William R. Newell

Excerpts from Romans Verse by Verse, Chapter 6 and Chapter 7