Rom. 6 Rom. 6:1–13 Though justified by grace, we may not live in sin; since the very figure of baptism requireth us to die with Christ unto sin, that we may lead a new life of holiness unto God. Rom.

Another anticipation; this Epistle abounds therewith. The apostle here prevents an objection, which might be occasioned, either by the foregoing doctrine in general, concerning justification by the free grace of God, and by a righteousness imputed to us; or by what he said more particularly in the…

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.

Know ye not? q.d. This is a truth which you ought not to be ignorant of and which confirms what I say. Baptized into Jesus Christ: to be baptized into Christ, is either to be baptized in the name of Christ; see Acts 10:48, Acts 19:5; or else it is, incorporated, ingrafted, or planted into Christ,…

Therefore: q.d. Because we are thus dead with Christ, therefore, & c. We are buried with him; i.e. we have communion with him in his burial also, which represents a farther degree of the destruction of sin, by putting it, as it were, out of our sight, Gen. 23:4, and having no more to do with it.

He prosecutes what he had before propounded, and illustrates it by an apt similitude, which is taken from grafting or planting. He takes it for granted, that believers are planted together in the likeness of Christ’s death, i.e. are made conformable to him in his death: see Phil. 3:10.

By the old man is meant, that corrupt and polluted nature which we derive from Adam, the first man: see Eph. 4:22, Col. 3:9–10. The old and new man are opposites; as then the new man is the image of God repaired in us; so the old man is a depravation of that image of God, and a universal pollution…

He that is dead, i.e. to sin, is freed from it; not only in respect of the guilt thereof, which sense the marginal reading of the word seems to respect, but also in regard of the service of it.

i.e. If we have fellowship with Christ in his death, we have reason to believe we shall have fellowship with him also in his resurrection and life: see Rom. 6:5.

q.d. Of this you know you have an example or copy in Christ himself; he so rose again, as never more to come under the power of death.

For when he died unto sin, i.e. to take away sin, he died but once; see Heb. 9:28, Rom. 10:10, Rom. 10:14; but when he rose again from the dead, he lived with God for ever an immortal, endless life. By this phrase is expressed that eternal and indissoluble union which the Son hath with the Father.

So we in like manner must make account, that by virtue of his death we are dead to sin, and by virtue of his resurrection are alive to God, and so alive as never to resume our former courses, or return again to our former sins. Through Jesus Christ our Lord; or, in Jesus Christ our Lord; i.e.

Let not sin therefore: q.d. Seeing this is the case, that you are dead to sin, baptized into Christ, are planted together into the likeness of his death, &c., therefore the rather hearken to and obey the following exhortation.

He fitly compares our bodily members to tools that artificers work, or weapons that soldiers fight withal; for as those, so these, may be used well or ill: e.g. With the hand one man giveth an alms, another stealeth; with the tongue one man blesseth, another curseth.

In the Rom. 6:12 it was an exhortation, but in this it is a promise, that sin shall not reign in and over us. Rebel it may, but reign it shall not in the regenerate. It hath lost its absolule and uncontrolled power. It fares with sin in such as with those beasts in Dan.

What then? doth it follow from hence that we are lawless, and may live as we list? God forbid: q.d. No, by no means, the premises afford no such conclusion; though we are not under the curse and rigour of the law, yet we are under its directions and discipline: the gospel allows of sin no more than…

He refutes the aforementioned cavil by a common axiom, that every one knows and apprehends. Of obedience unto righteousness; which will be rewarded with eternal life. But why doth he not say of obedience unto life? Then the antithesis had been more plain and full.

But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin: q.d. But as for you, God be thanked, that though once you were the servants of sin, viz. when you were ignorant and unregenerate, yet now you are freed from that bondage, and set at liberty from the power and dominion of sin.

Made free from sin; i.e. the servitude of sin; having received a manumission from that hard and evil master, you have given tap yourselves to a better and more ingenuous service.

I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh: q.d. I accommodate myself to your capacity, because of the weakness of your understanding in spiritual things; therefore I use this familiar similitude of service and freedom, that by these secular and civil things you might…

q.d. When you served sin, you knew that God and righteousness had no whit of your service; why then should sin have any of your service now, when ye have delivered up yourselves to righteousness, or godliness, to be the observant followers thereof? Why should not ye now abstain as strictly from all…

q.d. And this will be much more equal and reasonable, if you consider these three things: 1. How little fruit and satisfaction your former sins have afforded you in the very time of committing them. 2. How nothing but shame and sorrow doth follow upon the remembrance of them. 3.

q.d. But now, on the contrary, being set at liberty from the service of sin, and admitted to be the servants of God, you plainly perceive a difference: for: 1. In your lifetime you increase in grace and holiness, and that is no small fruit or advantage; and then, 2.

q.d. Now therefore compare the office of both these services together, and you shall easily see which master is best to serve and obey; the wages that sin will pay you, in the end is death; but the reward that God will freely bestow upon you (if you be his servants) is eternal life through Jesus…