Romans 6:2

6:2 we have died to sin: As Paul makes clear in 6:3-10, our new relationship to sin is possible because of our vital connection with the death of Jesus. Just as dying means entrance into an entirely new state of being, our relationship with sin is now different because of Christ’s death. To be “dead to sin” does not mean to be entirely insensitive to sin and temptation—believers are still involved in a battle with sin (6:12-14). However, Christians no longer have to live as helpless slaves to sin; they can choose not to sin (6:6, 14, 16-22).

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Rom 6:2. Ἀπεθάνομεν, we are dead) in baptism and justification.

Bengel's Gnomon of the New Testament — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1860) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Rom_6:2. Μὴ γένοιτο] Let it not be (see on Rom_3:4), namely, that we continue in sin.

οἵτινες] as those who, contains the reason (of the πῶς ἔτι κ.τ.λ[1381]). See on Rom_1:25. The relative clause is put first with rhetorical emphasis, in order at once to make the absurdity of the maxim plainly apparent. Comp Kühner, II. 2, p. 1104; Bernhardy, p. 299.

ἀπεθάν. τ. ἁμαρτ.] The dying to sin, which took place by baptism (see Rom_6:3), is the abandonment of all life-communion with it experienced in himself by the convert (Col_2:20; Gal_2:19; Gal_6:14; 1Pe_2:24). comp Theodoret: ἠρνήθης, φησὶ, τὴν ἁμαρτίαν καὶ νεκρὸς αὐτῇ γέγονας. This moral change, which has taken place in him, has put an end to the determining influence of sin over him; in relation to it he has ceased to be still in life. Similar is the Platonic conception in Macrob. Somn. Scip. i. 13 : mori etiam dicitur, cum anima adhuc in corpore constituta corporeas illecebras philosophia docente contemnit et cupiditatum dulces insidias reliquasque omnes exuit passiones. Michaelis, Cramer, Storr, Flatt, Nitzsch (de discr. revelat. etc. II. p. 233) take the sense to be: we who on account of sin have died (with Christ), i.e. who have to regard ourselves as if, on account of sin (or Nitzsch: ad eripiendam peccati vim mortiferam), we had ourselves endured what Christ suffered. But in this view the main point with Christ is arbitrarily imported; and see Rom_6:11.

πῶς] denotes the possibility which is negatived by the question. The having died to sin, and the living in it (as the life-element, comp Gal_2:20), are mutually exclusive.

ζήσομεν] purely future. How is it possible that we shall be living in it (in its fellowship) still (ἔτι), namely, at any future time whatever after the occurrence of that ἀπεθάνομεν? The very weakly attested reading preferred by Hofmann, ζήσωμεν, is only a case of mechanical conformity with ἐπιμένωμεν in Rom_6:1.

[1381] .τ.λ. καὶ τὰ λοιπά.

Meyer — Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament — English translation by Peter Christie, edited by Frederick Crombie (T&T Clark, 1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Rom 6:2 . μὴ γένοιτο , cf. Rom 3:4 . οἵτινες ἀπεθάνομεν τῇ ἁμαρτίᾳ : the relative is qualitative: “we, being as we are persons who died to sin”. For the dative, see Rom 6:10-11 , and Winer, p. 263. To have died to sin is to be utterly and for ever out of any relation to it. πῶς ἔτι ζήσομεν ; how after that shall we live in it? impossible.

The Expositor's Greek Testament, edited by W. Robertson Nicoll (1897–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Vv. 2. “Let it not be so! We who are dead to sin, how shall we live any longer therein?”

Just as a dead man does not revive and resume his former occupations, as little can the believer return to his old life of sin; for in his case also there has been a death.

The phrase μὴ γένοιτο, let it not be so! expresses the revolting character of the rejected assertion, as well as a conviction of its falsehood.

The pronoun οἵτινες is the relative of quality: people such as we. We have a quality which excludes such a calculation: that of beings who have passed through death. To what fact does the phrase relate: we are dead, literally, we have died? It is obvious at a glance that there can be no reference here to the condemnation which came upon us in Adam (“dead through sin”). It is difficult to understand how the Swiss version could have committed such an error. All that follows (the being buried with Christ, Rom 6:3; participation in His death and resurrection with Him, Rom 6:4-8; and especially the expression: dead unto sin, alive unto God, Rom 6:11) leaves no doubt as to the apostle’s thought. The clause τῇ ἁμαρτίᾳ, to sin, is the dative of relation; comp. the expressions: to die to the law, Rom 7:4, Gal 2:19; to be crucified to the world, Gal 6:14. The words therefore denote the absolute breaking with sin. It is the opposite of persevering in sin, Rom 6:1.

This figure of dying is generally applied to baptism. But we shall see that baptism is the consequence of the death spoken of by Paul in Rom 6:2, not that death itself. What proves it, is first the οὖν, therefore, of Rom 6:4, then the ἐθανατώθητε, ye were put to death, Rom 7:4—an expression which, accompanied with the words: through the body of Christ, sets aside every attempt to identify the death undergone by believers with their baptism. The fact in the mind of the apostle is of a purely moral nature. It is the appropriation of our Lord’s expiatory death. The sentence of death with which God visited the sin of the world in Christ is reproduced in the conscience of every sinner. The instant he applies the expiation to himself, it becomes in him the sentence of death on his own sin. He could not appropriate Christ to himself as dead for his sin, without finding himself die, through this death undergone for him, to sin itself. It was under this impression that the believing Bechuana exclaimed: “The cross of Christ condemns me to be holy.”

The righteousness of God, in pronouncing this sentence of death on the sin of the world, the consciousness of Jesus in accepting and submitting to this sentence in the tortures of the cross and the agonies of His abandonment by God, and in ratifying it with a humble submission in the name of humanity which He represented, have thus smitten sin in the consciousness of every believer with a mortal blow. Such is the unparalleled moral fact which has put an end to the former life of the world in general, and which puts an end to the life of sin in every individual believer. And this result is so thoroughly implied in that of justifying faith, that Paul appeals to it in our passage as a fact already known by his readers (comp. chaps. 1-5), and understood as a matter of course.

On the meaning of the expression: To die unto sin.

We find ourselves here met by four interpretations, which seem to us more or less false, and which it is well to set aside.

1. Many find in this and the relative expressions in the following verses nothing more than simple figures, metaphors signifying merely the duty of imitating the example of virtue which Christ has left us. Even Ritschl declares (II. p. 225) that “this reasoning of the apostle makes rather too strong an appeal to the powers of imagination.” But we think we have just demonstrated the grave moral reality of the relation by which Christ brings the believer into the fellowship of His death. We shall see immediately the not less grave reality of the relation through which He communicates to him His own heavenly life, and thus makes him a risen one. The death and resurrection of Jesus are metaphors, not of rhetoric, but of action; it is divine eloquence.

2. R. Schmidt regards the death to sin of which Paul speaks as of a purely ideal nature, and as exercising no immediate influence whatever on the moral state of believers. The apostle simply means, according to him, that to the divine mind they appear as dead in Christ. He would have it that participation in the life of the Risen One is the only real fact, according to the apostle. But we do not find Paul making such a distinction in the sequel. He regards participation in the death of Christ as being as real, and even more so (for he puts it in the past. Rom 6:4; Rom 6:6; Rom 6:8); and fellowship in His life, which is represented as a future to be realized (Rom 6:4; Rom 6:8); and in Rom 6:11 he puts the two facts exactly on the same footing.

3. Death to sin is regarded by most commentators as expressing figuratively the act of will by which the believer undertakes for himself, and promises to God, on the blood of reconciliation, henceforth to renounce evil. This would make it an inward resolution, a voluntary engagement, a consecration of the heart. But St. Paul seems to speak of something more profound and stable, “which not only ought to be, but which is” (as Gess says). This appears clearly from the passive form: ye have been put to death, Rom 7:4; this expression proves that Paul is thinking above all of a divine act which has passed on us in the person of another (by the body of Christ), but which has its counterpart within us from the moment we appropriate it by faith. It is not, then, an act merely which is in question, but a state of will determined by a fact performed without us, a state from which our will cannot withdraw itself from the time that our being is swayed by the power of faith in the death of Christ for us.

4. It was attempted, in the religious movement which stirred the church so deeply a few years ago, to represent the effect produced on the believer by the death of Christ as a fact achieved in us once for all, existing in us henceforth after the manner almost of a physical state, and as outside of the will itself. From this point of view men spoke daringly of a death of sin, as if this were identical with Paul’s expression: death to sin. We appreciate the intention of those who promoted this style of teaching; their wish was to bring back the church to the true source and the full reality of Christian sanctification. But they committed, if we mistake not, a grave and dangerous exaggeration. This mirage of an absolute deliverance, which had been reflected on the eyes of so many souls thirsting for holiness, soon vanishing before the touch of experience, left in them a painful disappointment and even a sort of despair. The death to sin of which the apostle speaks is a state no doubt, but a state of the will, which continues only so long as it keeps itself under the control of the fact which produced it, and produces it constantly—the death of Jesus. As at every moment Jesus could have withdrawn Himself from death by an act of His own will (Mat 26:53), so the believer may at any moment free his will from the power of faith, and take up the thread of that natural life which is never completely destroyed in him.

If it were otherwise, if ever the believer could enter into the sphere of absolute holiness, a new fall, like that of Adam, would be needed to remove him from it. If ever sin were entirely extirpated from his heart, its reappearance would be something like the resurrection of a dead man. At what point, besides, of the Christian life would such a moral event be placed? At the time of conversion? The experience of all believers proves the contrary. At some later period? The New Testament teaches us nothing of the kind. There is found in it no particular name for a second transformation, that of the convert into a perfect saint.

We conclude by saying that death to sin is not an absolute cessation of sin at any moment whatever, but an absolute breaking of the will with it, with its instincts and aspirations, and that simply under the control of faith in Christ’s death for sin.

The practical application of the apostle’s doctrine regarding this mysterious death, which is at the foundation of Christian sanctification, seems to me to be this: The Christian’s breaking with sin is undoubtedly gradual in its realization, but absolute and conclusive in its principle. As, in order to break really with an old friend whose evil influence is felt, half measures are insufficient, and the only efficacious means is a frank explanation, followed by a complete rupture which remains like a barrier raised beforehand against every new solicitation; so to break with sin there is needed a decisive and radical act, a divine deed taking possession of the soul, and interposing henceforth between the will of the believer and sin (Gal 6:14). This divine deed necessarily works through the action of faith in the sacrifice of Christ.

Frédéric Louis Godet — Commentaries on Luke, John, Romans, and 1 Corinthians — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1870s–1890s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Rom_6:2

God forbid, μὴ γένοιτο, let it not be. Pauls usual mode of expressing denial and abhorrence. Such an inference is not to be thought of. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein? The relative οἵτινες as usual causative, and it stands first, for the sake of emphasis; ἀπεθάνομεν does not mean are dead, nor have died, but died. It refers to a specific act in our past history: Since we died to sin, how can we still live in it? The act which in its nature was a dying to sin, was our accepting of Christ as our Savior. That act involves in it not only a separation from sin, but a deadness to it. No man can apply to Christ to be delivered from sin, in order that he may live in it. Deliverance from sin, as offered by Christ, and as accepted by the believer, is not mere deliverance from its penalty, but from its power. We turn from sin to God when we receive Christ as a Savior. It is, therefore, as the apostle argues, a contradiction in terms, to say that gratuitous justification is a license to sin, as much as to say that death is life, or that dying to a thing is living in it. Instead of giving τῇ ἁμαρτίᾳ the usual force of the dative, to, or as it respects, sin, Storr, Flatt, and many other commentators, say it should be understood as in Rom_5:15; Rom_11:20, on account of. How shall we, who in Christ, died on account of sin, i.e., who suffered vicariously its penalty, inasmuch as we were crucified in him, live any longer therein?

In favor of this interpretation, it is urged,

1. That this phrase must express the same idea with the subsequent clauses, buried with him, Rom_6:4; associated in his death, Rom_6:5; dead with Christ, Rom_6:8.

2. That it must have this meaning in Rom_6:10, where it is said of Christ, he died unto sin, i.e., on account of sin.

3. The other interpretation, How shall we, who have renounced sin, live any longer therein? it is said, is not suited to the apostles object; because it does not give any adequate answer to the objection presented in Rom_6:1. In order to answer that objection, it was necessary to show not merely that the believer had renounced sin, but that the doctrine of gratuitous justification effectually secures this renunciation.

According to the second interpretation, this answer is plain and conclusive: How shall we, who have died on account of sin, live any longer therein? If we are regarded and treated by God, in virtue of our union with Christ, and if we regard ourselves, as having suffered and died with him on account of sin, we cannot but look upon it as hateful, and deserving of punishment.

The objections to this interpretation, however, are serious.

1. It is not consistent with the common and familiar import of the expression, to be dead to anything, which occurs frequently in the New Testament; as Gal_2:19, dead to the law; 1Pe_2:24, dead to sins; Rom_7:4; Col_2:20; Gal_6:14, etc. In all cases the meaning is, to be free from. Sin has lost its power over the believer, as sensible objects are not able to affect the dead.

2. The opposite phrase, to live therein, requires this interpretation.

3. The object of the apostle does not require that a formal, argumentative answer should be supposed to commence in this verse. He simply denies the justice of the inference from his doctrine, stated in Rom_6:1, and asks how it is possible it should be correct. How can a Christian, which is but another name for a holy man, live any longer in sin?

Charles Hodge — Commentary on Romans (1835), First Corinthians (1857), and Ephesians (1856) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

The benefits of Justification and Sanctification, are always joined together inseparably, and both of them proceed from Christ, by the grace of God: Now sanctification is the abolishing of sin, that is, of our natural corruption, into whose place succeedeth the cleanness and pureness of nature reformed.

They are said of Paul to be dead to sin, which are in such sort made partakers of the virtue of Christ, that that natural corruption is dead in them, that is, the force of it is put out, and it bringeth not forth his bitter fruits: and on the other side, they are said to live to sin, which are in the flesh, that is, whom the spirit of God hath not delivered from the slavery of the corruption of nature.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

God forbid--"That be far from us"; the instincts of the new creature revolting at the thought.

How shall we, that are dead, &c.--literally, and more forcibly, "We who died to sin (as presently to be explained), how shall we live any longer therein?"

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Verse 2. God forbid] Μη γενοιτο, Let it not be; by no means; far from it; let not such a thing be mentioned!-Any of these is the meaning of the Greek phrase, which is a strong expression of surprise and disapprobation: and is not properly rendered by our God forbid! for, though this may express the same thing, yet it is not proper to make the sacred NAME SO familiar on such occasions.

How shall we, that are dead to sin] The phraseology of this verse is common among Hebrews, Greeks, and Latins. To DIE to a thing or person, is to have nothing to do with it or him; to be totally separated from them: and to live to a thing or person is to be wholly given up to them; to have the most intimate connection with them. So Plautus, Clitell. iii. 1, 16: Nihil mecum tibi, MORTUUS TIBI SUM. I have nothing to do with thee; I am DEAD to thee. Persa, i. 1, 20: Mihi quidem tu jam MORTUUS ERAS, quia te non visitavi. Thou wast DEAD to me because I visited thee not. So AElian, Var. Hist. iii. 13: Ὁτι φιλοινοτατον εθνος το των Ταπυρων, τοσουτον, ὡστε ζῃν αυτους εν οινῳ, και το πλειστον του βιου εν τῃ προς αυτον ὁμιλιᾳ καταναλισκειν· "The Tapyrians are such lovers of wine, that they LIVE in wine; and the principal part of their LIFE is DEVOTED to it." They live to wine; they are insatiable drunkards. See more examples in Wetstein and Rosenmuller.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

2. By no means. To some the Apostle seems to have only intended indignantly to reprove a madness so outrageous; but it appears from other places that he commonly used an answer of this kind, even while carrying on a long argument; as indeed he does here, for he proceeds carefully to disprove the propounded slander. He, however, first rejects it by an indignant negative, in order to impress it on the minds of his readers, that nothing can be more inconsistent than that the grace of Christ, the repairer of our righteousness, should nourish our vices.

Who have died to sin, etc. An argument derived from what is of an opposite character. “He who sins certainly lives to sin; we have died to sin through the grace of Christ; then it is false, that what abolishes sin gives vigor to it.” The state of the case is really this, — that the faithful are never reconciled to God without the gift of regeneration; nay, we are for this end justified, — that we may afterwards serve God in holiness of life. Christ indeed does not cleanse us by his blood, nor render God propitious to us by his expiation, in any other way than by making us partakers of his Spirit, who renews us to a holy life. It would then be a most strange inversion of the work of God were sin to gather strength on account of the grace which is offered to us in Christ; for medicine is not a feeder of the disease, which it destroys. We must further bear in mind, what I have already referred to — that Paul does not state here what God finds us to be, when he calls us to an union with his Son, but what it behoves us to be, after he has had mercy on us, and has freely adopted us; for by an adverb, denoting a future time, he shows what kind of change ought to follow righteousness.

John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.

(2) That are dead.—Rather, that died. It is well to bear in mind Dr. Lightfoot’s remarks on the importance of keeping the strict aorist sense as opposed to that of the perfect (i.e., the single past action as opposed to the prolonged or continued action) in passages such as this. “St. Paul regards this change—from sin to righteousness, from bondage to freedom, from death to life—as summed up in one definite act of the past; potentially to all men in our Lord’s passion and resurrection, actually to each individual man when he accepts Christ, is baptised into Christ. Then he is made righteous by being incorporated into Christ’s righteousness, he dies once for all to sin, he lives henceforth for ever to God. This is his ideal. Practically, we know that the death to sin and the life to righteousness are inchoate, imperfect, gradual, meagerly realised even by the most saintly men in this life; but St. Paul sets the matter in this ideal light to force upon the consciences of his hearers the fact that an entire change came over them when they became Christians—that the knowledge and the grace then vouchsafed to them did not leave them where they were—that they are not, and cannot be, their former selves—and that it is a contradiction of their very being to sin any more. It is the definiteness, the absoluteness of this change, considered as an historical crisis, which forms the central idea of St. Paul’s teaching, and which the aorist marks. We cannot, therefore, afford to obscure this idea by disregarding the distinctions of grammar; yet in our English version it is a mere chance whether in such cases the aorist is translated as an aorist” (On Revision, p. 85). These remarks will form the best possible commentary upon the passage before us. It may be only well to add that the change between the position of the first Christians and our own involves a certain change in the application of what was originally said with reference to them. Baptism is not now the tremendous crisis that it was then. The ideal of Christian life then assumed is more distinctly an ideal. It has a much less definite hold upon the imagination and the will. But it ought not therefore to be any the less binding upon the Christian. He should work towards it, if he cannot work from it, in the spirit of Php_3:12-14.

It would be well for the reader to note at once the corrections suggested in the rendering of this verse by Dr. Lightfoot’s criticism:—In Rom_6:4, “we were buried” for “we are buried;” in Rom_6:6, “the old man was crucified” for “is crucified;” in Rom_6:8, “if we died” for “if we be dead.”

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

2. we, that are dead, &c.] More lit. and fully, we, as those who died to sin. The reference is again to a single past act; the death of the Second Adam, at which His brethren too, regarded as “in Him,” “died to sin.” See last note on ch. Rom_5:12.

dead to sin] See below, Rom_6:10 : “He died to sin, once and for ever.” It appears then that our “death to sin” (in Christ) must be explained by what His death to it was. And His was a death such as to free Him not from its impulses (for He was essentially free from them) but from its claim, its penalty, endured for us by Him. His death once over, the claim of sin was cancelled[36]. Therefore, for those who “died in Him,” it was cancelled likewise. The phrase thus has, in the strict sense of it, not a moral but a legal reference. But the transition to a moral reference is inevitable when the Redeemer’s Death is seen to be the act which exhausted the claim: in that death we see not only the strength of the claim, but the malignity of the claimant.

[36] Sin here, obviously, is used as a practical synonym for the broken Law; but so that its proper meaning is ready at once to reappear. Properly, sin’s only “claim” is to be itself put down; but by a natural modification it appears as that which exacts the punishment of the sinner.

live any longer therein] “Live” is emphatic, in contrast to “dead.” St Paul puts it as inconceivable that the soul which is so freed from such claim can endure, after its death in Christ to sin, (or, in other words, after His death to sin for it,) to yield its faculties as before to sin’s influence.—Strictly, death and life are used here in different respects; death in a legal respect, life in a moral; but see last note for the reconcilement of the seeming inconsistency.—“Therein:”—surrounded by it, as the body by the air it breathes; in vital connexion.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

God forbid,.... By which he expresses his abhorrence of such a practice, and that this was a consequence which did not follow from the premises, and was far enough from his thoughts, and which he had in the greatest detestation: and he further argues against it by asking,

how shall we that are dead to sin, live any longer therein? There is a death for sin, a death in sin, and a death to sin; the latter is here mentioned, and persons may be said to be "dead to sin", both as justified and sanctified: justified persons are dead to sin, inasmuch as that is not imputed to them to condemnation and death; they are discharged from it; it cannot hurt them, or exert its damning power over them; it is crucified, abolished, and made an end of by Christ: sanctified persons are dead to sin; sin is not made their business, it is not their course of life; it is no longer a pleasure to them, but is loathsome and abominable; it is looked upon, not as a friend, but an enemy; it does not reign, it has not the dominion over them; it is subdued in them, and its power weakened; and as to the members of the flesh, and deeds of the body, it is mortified: to live in sin, is to live after the dictates of corrupt nature; and persons may be said to live in it, when they give up themselves to it, are bent upon it; when sin is their life, they delight in it, make it their work and business, and the whole course of their life is sinful: now those who are dead to sin, cannot thus live in it, though sin may live in them; they may fall into sin, and lie in it some time, yet they cannot live in it: living in sin, is not only unbecoming the grace of God revealed in the Gospel, but is contrary to it; it is detestable to gracious minds, yea, it seems impossible they should live in it; which is suggested by this question, "how shall we?" &c. The thing is impracticable: for, for a gracious soul to live in sin, would be to die again, to become dead in sin, which cannot be; he that lives and believes in Christ shall never die, spiritually or eternally.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

2 God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?

Ver. 2. Live any longer therein] Fall into it we may and shall; but it is not the falling into the water that drowns, but lying in it; so it is not falling into sin that damns, but living in it.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

God forbid - By no means. Greek, It may not be; Note, Rom 3:4. The expression is a strong denial of what is implied in the objection in Rom 6:1.

How shall we? ... - This contains a reason of the implied statement of the apostle, that we should not continue in sin. The reason is drawn from the fact that we are dead in fact to sin. It is impossible for these who are dead to act as if they were alive. It is just as absurd to suppose that a Christian should desire to live in sin as that a dead man should put forth the actions of life.

That are dead to sin - That is, all Christians. To be dead to a thing is a strong expression denoting that it has no influence over us. A man that is dead is uninfluenced and unaffected by the affairs of this life. He is insensible to sounds, and tastes, and pleasures; to the hum of business, to the voice of friendship, and to all the scenes of commerce, gaiety, and ambition. When it is said, therefore, that a Christian is dead to sin, the sense is, that it has lost its influence ever him; he is not subject to it; he is in regard to that, as the man in the grave is to the busy scenes and cares of this life. The expression is not infrequent in the New Testament; Gal 2:19, “For I ...am dead to the law;” Col 3:3, “For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God;” 1Pe 2:24, “Who ...bare our sins ...that we, being dead to sin,” etc. The apostle does not here attempt to prove that Christians are thus dead, nor to state in what way they become so. He assumes the fact without argument. All Christians are thus in fact dead to sin. They do not live to sin; nor has sin dominion over them. The expression used here by the apostle is common in all languages. We familiarly speak of a man’s being dead to sensual pleasures, to ambition, etc., to denote that they have lost their influence over him.

Live any longer therein - How shall we, who have become sensible of the evil of sin, and who have renounced it by solemn profession, continue to practice it? It is therefore abhorrent to the very nature of the Christian profession. It is remarkable that the apostle did not attempt to argue the question on metaphysical principles. He did not attempt to show by abstruse argument that this consequence did not follow; but he appeals at once to Christian feeling, and shows that the supposition is abhorrent to that. To convince the great mass of people, such an appeal is far better than labored metaphysical argumentation. All Christians can understand that; but few would comprehend an abstruse speculation. The best way to silence objections is, sometimes, to show that they violate the feelings of all Christians, and that therefore the objection must be wrong.

(Considerable difficulty exists in regard to the meaning of the expression “dead to sin? Certainly the most obvious interpretation is that given above in the Commentary, namely, that Christians are insensible to sin, as dead persons to the charms and pleasures of life. It has, however, been objected to this view, that it is inconsistent with fact, since Christians, so far from being insensible to sin, are represented in the next chapter as carrying on a perpetual struggle with it. The corrupt nature, though weakened, is not eradicated, and too frequently occasions such mournful falls, as leave little doubt concerning its existence and power. Mr. Scott seems to have felt this difficulty, for, having explained the phrase of “separation from iniquity, as a dead man ceases from the actions of life,” he immediately adds, “not only ought this to be the believer’s character, but in a measure it actually is so.” It is not probable. however, that the apostle meant by the strong expression under discussion, that believers were not altogether “dead to sin,” but only in a measure.

Perhaps we shall arrive at a more satisfactory meaning of the words by looking at the analogous expression in the context, used in reference to Christ himself. He also, in the 10th verse, is said to have “died unto sin,” and the believer, in virtue of union with Christ, is regarded as” dead with him,” Rom 6:8; and, in consequence of this death with Christ, is moreover freed, or rather justified, δεδίκαιωται dedikaiōtai from sin, Rom 6:7. Now it cannot be said of Christ that he died unto sin, in the sense of becoming dead to its charms. for it was never otherwise with him. The believer, therefore, cannot be dead with Christ in this way; nor on this ground, can he be justified from sin, since justification proceeds upon something very different from our insensibility to sinful pleasures. What then is the meaning of the language when applied to Christ? Sin is here supposed to be possessed of certain power. That power or strength the apostle tells us elsewhere is derived from the Law. “The strength of sin is the law,” which demands satisfaction to its injured honor, and insists on the infliction of its penalty. Though then Jesus had no sin of his own, yet when he voluntarily stood in the room of sinners, sin, or its strength, namely, the Law, had power over him, until he died, and thus paid the penalty. His death cancelled every obligation. Henceforth, sin had no more power to exact anything at his hands.

Now Christians are one with Christ. When he died unto sin, they are regarded as having died unto it also, and are therefore, equally with their covenant head, justified from it. Sin, or its strength, the Law, has from the moment of the saint’s union with Christ, no more power to condemn him, than human laws have to condemn one over again who had already died to answer the demands of justice. “The law has dominion over a man so long only as he liveth.” On the whole, then, the expression “dead to sin,” is to be regarded as entirely parallel with that other expression in the seventh chapter, “dead to the law,” that is, completely delivered from its authority as a covenant of works, and more especially from its power to condemn.

This view exercises a decided influence an the believer’s sanctification. “How shall we that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?” The two things are incompatible. If in virtue of union with Christ, we are dead with him, and freed from the penalty of sin, shall not the same union secure our deliverance from its dominion? “If we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him.”

The whole argument, from the 1st to the 11th verse, proceeds upon the fact of the saint’s union with Christ.)

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Dead to sin, &c. We are then dead to sin when we neither live in sin by serving it, nor sin lives in us by reigning; in this case, how can we still live in it by yielding to its desires? St. Augustine (chap. vi. de spiritu et litera) thus explains the passage: when grace has caused us to die to sin; if we live again in it, we must be exceedingly ungrateful to grace. (Estius)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

God forbid; be it not, or far be it; he rejects any such inference or consequence, as unworthy of an answer: q.d. Away with all such doctrines, as, under pretence of advancing grace, do promote sin, or obstruct a godly life. This phrase is frequent with the apostle, when he is speaking of any absurdity: see Rom 3:4,6,31.

How: by this particle he shows the impossibility, or the incongruity, of the thing: see Mat 6:28; Gal 4:9. The following argument is very convincing, and may be thus formed: They whose property it is to be dead to sin, cannot any longer live therein; but the justified by faith are

dead to sin. They are said to be dead to sin, who do not live under the power and dominion of it; who mortify sin, and suffer it (so far as they can) to have no life or power in it. Fall into it they may, but live and lie in it they cannot. It is not falling into the water that drowns a man, but it is his lying in it; so it is not falling into sin that damns a man, but it is his living in it.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

2. God forbid—See note on Rom_3:4.

Dead to sin—As a corpse is perfectly unsusceptible both in regard to outward things and internal sensations, so should the Christian be insensible both to the external excitements and the internal impulses to sin. Thence the thought of his living in sin that divine grace may be honoured is excluded as a heinous contradiction.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

God forbid! (Mh genoito : St. Paul"s usual way of rejecting an idea indignantly). We who (oitinev , with its proper meaning of being such as) died (not, as in the Authorized Version, "are dead." The reference is to the time of baptism, as appears from what follows) to sin, how shall we live any longer therein! The idea of dying to sin in the sense of having done with it, is found also in Macrob., "Somn. Scip.," 1:13 (quoted by Meyer), "Mori etiam dicitur, cum anima adhuc in corpora constituta corporeas illecebras philosophia docente contemnit et cupiditatum dulces insidias reliquasque omnes exuit passiones."

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Dead to sin - Freed both from the guilt and from the power of it.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

sin

Sin. (See Scofield "Rom 3:23").

The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

2. “It could not be so.” Not as E. V., “God forbid,” which is a strong imprecation, but as the Greek gives it, a positive and unequivocal denial. Hence the advocates of this carnal dogma (and their name is legion) are forced into the attitude of flatly contradicting Paul and the Holy Ghost. “How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it?” Sin is conquered and bound in regeneration, but killed in sanctification. Hence a truly sanctified man can no more commit sin than a dead man lying in his grave can rise up and throw rocks at the passers by. You must remember the Bible is a common-sense book. While sin is dead in me and I can not commit it, yet it is I can commit sin, and if I do not watch and pray, I will. Why? though sin is dead the devil its author is not dead. Armies of demons throng the air ready every moment to put sin back in the heart after it has been destroyed. The house can not burn down, because there is no fire in it. Yet it can burn down, because the incendiaries are lurking round seeking an opportunity to burn it. Good Lord, save us from rushing into foolish, irrelevant conclusions! So long as we are in this world we are in the enemy’s land, liable at any moment to be attacked and killed. This world is no “friend to grace to help us on to God.” Yet it is literally and positively true, as here we have it stated, that Adam the Second is more than a match for Adam the First, and ready to slay him in a moment pursuant to your consecration and faith.

William B. Godbey, Commentary on the New Testament (1896–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

God forbid. We who died to sin, how shall we any longer live therein? [Macknight says, truly, that the thought of this and the next chapter reverts to Rom_3:3 ; and is intended to refute the thought of that verse, as reintroduced by Rom_5:20-21 ; viz.: that justification by faith renders the law useless, and encourages sin, that grace may abound. Paul refutes these thoughts, and asserts the contrary principle, that justification by faith establishes the law. What, says he, shall be inferred from what we have taught? It is true that God's favor abounds in proportion to sin, so as to always exceed it; but are the friends of Christ therefore justified in thinking they can live sinfully ( Gal_5:13 )? or are the Lord's enemies justified in asserting that we teach that men should do evil that good may come ( Rom_3:9 )? or that we teach that Christians should continue to commit sin, as they did before their conversion, in order that they may increase the grace by increasing the sin ( Rom_5:20 )? Not at all. Our gospel destroys sin: can it, therefore, give encouragement and vigor to it? We who, by baptism, have put away sin, so that we died to it, can we, nevertheless, accomplish the impossible by still living in it? The apostle, in asserting that baptism is a death to sin, does not speak literally, but uses a bold and appropriate figure, suggested by the inherent symbolism of the ordinance. Baptism is the consummation of repentance; and were repentance perfect, the immersion would result in such an abhorrence of sin, such a complete cessation of it, and such a love of righteousness as would bring about an actual death toward, or abolition of, sin, and the Lord designed and desires such a full transformation; but truth compels us to acknowledge that repentance, like all other human operations, is imperfect, and, therefore, in baptism we only die to sin in so far that righteousness becomes the rule of life, and sin the painful, mortifying, humiliating, heart-breaking exception.]

J. W. McGarvey (with Philip Y. Pendleton), Commentaries on the New Testament (The Fourfold Gospel, 1914; Acts; and the epistles) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

2. God forbid. The answer is emphatic. The thought is abhorrent, and the thing impossible from the very nature of the Christian life. The Christian life begins with a death to sin. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein? The Revision says, Who died to sin. That is correct. The Greek verb is in the past tense. A fact is referred to that occurred in the past. Death is a separation. When we severed our relation with sin, we died to it. If we have cut loose from it, how can we continue in it?

B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.

2. οἵτινες, the appeal is to the character of the Christian—‘seeing we are men who …’.

ἀπεθάνομεν definitely refers to baptism as explained Rom 6:3 f. τῇ ἁμαρτίᾳ = our sin, the state of sin in which we were; cf. Gal 2:19.

Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge University Press, 1896; 21 vols, various authors incl. Carr, Maclear, Plummer, Farrar, Lumby, Moule, M. R. James, Simcox) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

2.] μὴ γέν. (see reff.), used of some inference in itself abhorrent from reverence or piety, or precluded by some acknowledged fact inconsistent therewith. The latter is here the ground of rejection. An acknowledged fact in the Christian life follows, which precludes our persisting in our sin.

We who (οἵτινες describing quality, not merely matter of fact) died (historic aorist, not perf. as in E.V. [the true reference is thus most unfortunately lost]: the time referred to being that of our baptism) to sin (reff. and examples in Wetst.:—became as separate from and apathetic towards sin as the dead corpse is separate from and apathetic towards the functions and stir of life: μένειν ἀκίνητον ὥσπερ τὸν νεκρόν, Chrys. ‘Sin,’ τῇ ἁμ. = as above), how shall we live any longer therein (= περιπατεῖν ἐν—but not, as De W., ζῇν with a dative: ζῇν ἔν τινι is a further step than ζῇν τινι, implying introition, and not merely sympathy)?

Henry Alford, The Greek Testament (1849–1861) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

2. οἵτινες ἀπεθάνομεν. Naturally the relative of quality: ‘we, being what we are, men who died (in our baptism) to sin,’ &c.

International Critical Commentary — older volumes (1896–1929), various authors — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.