Romans 6

Notes

Ver. 1, 2. But if our justification thus wholly depend upon the free grace of God through the impartation of Jesus' righteousness, and God's free favour superabound where sin had abounded, should we thence take encouragement to continue in and more eagerly practise wickedness, that God's grace may be the more illustriously displayed in pardoning and saving us? Nothing could be more detestable and horrid, or even more unnatural, to a renewed heart; for though we cannot be justified by our own works, yet how could we, who are delivered from the guilt and dominion of sin, and whose affections are mortified to it, in any consistency with our state and character, or any sense of duty or gratitude, or with any conscience, hope, or peace, allow ourselves to continue in or practise any known iniquity? 3. Know ye not that our baptism with water, by the authority and into the profession, faith, and obedience of Jesus Christ, signified and sealed our spiritual union to him, as members of his mystical body; and the mortification as well as the remission of our sin, through the influence of his death; and our federal obligation to concur with the end of his death, to redeem us from all iniquity? 4. It is therefore not only incumbent on us to be conformable to Christ's death in the crucifixion of our sinful lusts, but to give continued proofs thereof, in conformity to his lying in the grave; that as he was raised from the dead by the glorious power and operation of his Father, and in order to receive with him the reward of his glorifying him on earth, we, by virtue derived from him as our living and quickening Head, being quickened to a spiritual and heavenly life, should, with freedom, constancy, and in a progressive manner, daily live in all holy obedience, from new principles and motives, and by a new rule, and to new ends—the praise and glory of God. 5. For if, as is represented in baptism, we are so united to Christ as our mystical Head that we receive from him gracious influences to render us conformable to him in his death, by the mortification of sin and separation of our souls from it, we shall certainly receive influences from him as our risen Saviour to enable us to live like him in holiness, till we are admitted into immediate fellowship with him in his heavenly glory. 6. For from the principles of the gospel we know that the subtle corruption of our nature derived from Adam, and spread into all the members of our body and faculties of our soul, is mortally wounded through Jesus Christ's death, he having died for this very end, that its whole frame, power, and authority should be gradually but powerfully mortified, subdued, and utterly destroyed, that from this very time we should never willingly yield ourselves to its inclinations and influence, or serve its interests and designs. 7. For whosoever is thus dead to the reign and love of sin, through conformity to his crucified Head and Saviour, is freed from its domineering power and command over him, and is delivered from all allowed inclinations and desires to serve it. 8. Now if, through the merits and influence of Christ's death, we, by virtue of union to and fellowship with him, are thus conformed to him in an effectual death unto sin, we are assured, from God's Word and by his Spirit, that, through virtue derived from him as our risen Redeemer, we shall be enabled to live a spiritual, holy, and heavenly life here, till we are raised to an eternal life of immediate fellowship with him hereafter. 9, 10. For we are certain that Christ, our risen and exalted Head, will never more die, or be obnoxious to death; but having, by his one death on the cross, fully because of our faith in Christ, pardoned our sins, he is raised from the dead to a life heavenly, immortal, and divine, wholly calculated to promote the glory of his Father's perfections. 11. If he then, by dying once, made possible the pardon of sin through faith in him, and so destroyed the power of it, that he now lives in eternal honour to the glory of God, it becomes you to reckon yourselves dead, and actually to be dead, to the reign, love, and practice of sin, through union to and fellowship with him; but spiritually alive in your hearts and affections, loving and serving God in thought, word, and deed, as under the power of gracious principles and influences derived from him as our common Saviour and Lord. 12, 13. Take heed therefore that ye never suffer sin so to prevail in either your souls or your frail, corruptible, and mortal bodies, as to make you yield any voluntary obedience to the corrupt desires and solicitations of those sinful lusts which still remain in you, or at any time to make you willingly employ your bodily members, or the affections of your souls, as instruments of warfare against God, or of serving the cause or gratifying the perverse inclinations of sin; but with full consent, and without reserve, give up your whole selves, soul and body, to God through Christ, your only rightful Sovereign, to whom all your obedience is due, that ye may therein act as persons delivered from condemnation and quickened by his regenerating Spirit; and cheerfully employ all the members of your body and powers of your soul as instruments of warfare with sin, and of serving God in holiness and righteousness. 14. To encourage you in which, know assuredly that, however your inward corruptions may trouble, perplex, and wound you, and strive for the mastery in you, yet they shall never regain their allowed and uncontrolled power over any who accept Christ; for ye are not now under the covenant of works, which, however severely it forbids and condemns for sin, affords no pardon of it or effectual assistance against it; but ye are under the covenant of grace, which secures full forgiveness of, redemption from, and assistance against sin, and affords every powerful motive and help to holy obedience; and under the influence of God's sin-subduing and heart-sanctifying favour; and under the government of a gracious principle of grace implanted in your hearts. 15. Now nothing can be more contrary to the perfections of God, the design of the gospel, or your gracious character and state, than to pervert such a gracious deliverance and state as an encouragement to sin. 16. Ye cannot but know that it is impossible for you to divide your chosen services between opposite governors, but ye must be the proper servants of whatever you voluntarily give up yourselves to the habitual obedience of, whether it be to sin, the service of which is deadly, and issues in eternal death, or whether it be to holiness in the obedience of faith, for bringing forth the fruits of righteousness to the glory of God. 17. But blessed be God that though all of you who are real Christians were once the voluntary servants and slaves of your sinful lusts, ye have, by his almighty and gracious influences, and through your faith in Jesus Christ been made to receive and obey those evangelical doctrines and commands which have been communicated to you by Christ and his ministers, and which, by their powerful impression on you, have formed you after his own image. 18. And being set at liberty from the tyrannical dominion and lordship of sin in your wills, affections, and conversation, ye have through your faith in Christ, ye have been brought to holiness which God has implanted in your hearts in conformity to his own righteous law. 19. In condescension to your weak capacities, enfeebled by the present frailties of nature and remains of a sinful nature, I use this common similitude of master and servant, and I affirm that, as in your unregenerate state ye resigned and employed all the members of your body and powers of your soul in the voluntary service of unclean, unrighteous, and ungodly principles and habits of sin, which cruelly reigned and tyrannized over you, and rendered you more guilty, vile, and miserable, by adding sin to sin, — so ye should now, when brought into a state of grace, act up to the dignity, obligation, and holiness of your character, earnestly employing all your members and faculties in the exercise of your faith in Christ, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, and living soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world. 20. For when ye were the willing servants and slaves of your sinful lusts, ye were wholly estranged from and disaffected to every principle of holiness, insensible of all obligations to piety or virtue, and even pleased with an unrestrained inclination to wickedness. 21. But what real profit, honour, or satisfaction did ye ever find, or could you expect to find, in your former sinful courses? Were they not attended with remorse, defilement, reproach, trouble, disappointment, loss, and mischief to yourselves? And are ye not now filled with holy confusion, self-abasement, and shame in every review of them, as things foolish and unworthy, highly ungrateful, offensive, and dishonourable to God, and no less ruinous and destructive to your own souls and bodies in time and eternity? 22. But now that, by the mighty power and grace of God in assisting you by his love in Jesus Christ and giving other principles and habits to you, ye are set at liberty from the reign and love of sin, as well as from the guilt of it, and made the willing and obedient servants of God in Christ, ye grow in grace, and bring forth the fruits of righteousness and holiness in this world, the final issue and perfection of which is an honourable and everlasting blessedness graciously bestowed in the world to come. 23. For death, in all its hideous forms, spiritual, temporal, or eternal, is all the wages allotted by the law of God, or which can be procured by all our labours and sufferings in the service of sin; but that everlasting life which consists in the immediate and full enjoyment of and conformity to God, which is the issue of holiness in heart and practice, though not indeed the proper wages of it, is the transcendently free gift of God bestowed on us, because we through the influence of the Holy Spirit repent of our sins and exercise faith in Jesus Christ, our only, and appointed, and well furnished Saviour and Lord. Ver. 5. Planted. Christ, as the seed of life, was 'planted' in the grave, whence, as the tree of life, he arose, and is now planted in paradise, Re. 22. 2. Believers were planted with him in death, and shall with him spring up to spiritual newness of life. See 1 Co. 15. 42-44. C. Ver. 6. Our old man. All that is derived from Adam 'is crucified;' for all believers die with Christ on the cross, as they were all represented by him as their Saviour, Ep. 1. 22; Col. 3. 9. C. Ver. 7. The word here translated 'freed' occurs fifteen times in this epistle, and twenty-five times in other parts of the New Testament; and except in one other instance, where it is translated 'righteous,' it is uniformly rendered 'justified,' which sense should certainly be retained in this place. C. Ver. 15. Not under the law. Rather, 'not under law;' any law, whether natural or revealed as a covenant of works, not merely commanding and requiring, but judging and condemning us as sinners, ch. 3. 19, 20.—Under grace—as a covenant of promise, pardon, acceptance, and spiritual help, Ep. 2. 12-19; He. 4. 16. C. Ver. 16. Obedience. Not obedience to law for production of righteousness, for that is plainly impossible (ch. 3. 20), but 'obedience to faith' (ch. 1. 5; 16. 19), submission to the doctrine of the gospel (ch. 2. 8), in accordance with the passages where the expression elsewhere occurs, as Ac. 6. 7; Ga. 3. 1; 2 Th. 1. 8; 1 Pe. 1. 22; Ro. 10. 3, comp. with 16. 'Obedience to Christ,' 2 Co. 10. 5, which obedience conducts to the righteousness of Christ, produces the fruits and works the works of righteousness—see ver. 14, 18, 19—righteousness being personified as a master. C.

Reflections.—Groundless and very injurious is every charge of lawlessness on the doctrine of the free justification of sinners through the great sacrifice of Christ. Nothing is more detestable to a renewed heart than to continue in sin because grace does, or that it may, abound. For though our good works do not procure, yet they necessarily follow our justification by faith; and to indulge ourselves in sin, or to neglect the study of holiness, is a flat contradiction to all the signification and engagements of our baptism, and is absolutely inconsistent with our character, privilege, or duty, as members of Christ, and partakers of his grace and glory. Yea, delightful, excellent, and useful are the effects of regenerating grace. What dying to sin! what spiritual quickening to our holy and heavenly life! What a holy, comfortable, and edifying walk before God, from new principles and ends, and after the new pattern of Christ, and by virtue derived from his death and resurrection ! There is need then to examine ourselves fully, whether sin or holiness have the ascendency in our hearts and lives. It is shameful to be less for the Lord Christ after our conversion than we were for sin before it. And all the blessed deliverances from sin ought to render it and its service detestable to us.—Alas! what confusion and wrath follow upon sin! But abundant, eternal, and free is the redemption which comes to us through Jesus Christ.