Глава VI

The obligations that the justification we have received imposes on us - Christians must no longer remain in sin (1-11). They have become slaves of righteousness and should rejoice in their new condition (12–23). Rom.6:1. What shall we say? Should we remain in sin so that grace may increase? No way. Christianity and remaining in sin cannot be reconciled with one another. This is clearly evidenced by the baptism accepted by Christians, in which a Christian dies to sin and comes to life to a new holy life in Christ. He was previously a slave of sin, but with his (spiritual) death he was freed from this obligation to serve sin and lives together with Christ for God. The Apostle in Romans 3:7 already pointed out the existence of slanderers who reproached him for justifying his indifference to sin with his teaching. What he said in Romans 5:20 could serve as a new reason for accusing him of the same thing. They could say precisely that the Apostle, strengthening in his readers the hope of the all-covering grace of God, thereby, as it were, teaches them not to pay special attention to the purity of life - that sin is not terrible, but on the contrary, it is still useful, because it makes it possible for the sin-cleansing grace of God to act with greater power. The apostle briefly dismisses such a supposition. Rom.6:2. We died to sin: how can we live in it? The Apostle substantiates his answer given in Art. 1 by citing a fact. We, he says, died to sin, but is it possible for someone who has died to come to life again to their former life - in this case, to a life of sin? But what does it mean for sin to die? This expression does not indicate that sin in us has actually died (Bishop Theophan), because in this case the subsequent admonitions of the Apostle would have been unnecessary - not to serve sin any more; Nor does this expression mean a mere act of will, with a person saying: “I no longer want to have fellowship with sin!” It is more natural and more consistent with the context of the speech to see here an indication that in baptism death to sin is depicted - that change that took place in a person only in the first stage and which needs to be confirmed in the subsequent life. The expression is so. hints at Christian baptism, in which a person renounces everything sinful, recognizes sin as harmful to himself, rejects everything that his self-loving self has hitherto lived with. In this case, sin is not completely destroyed in a person, but only ceases to be the guiding principle of his activity, so to speak, it freezes in a person. This, however, does not prevent it from being reborn again if a person does not care about his state of mind: the spark still smolders under a pile of ashes... Rom.6:3. Do you not know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? The Apostle, in order to further convince his readers of the impossibility (in principle) for them to turn to sin, reminds them that, having been baptized into Jesus Christ, they were thereby baptized “into His death.” What does it mean to be baptized into Christ (είς Χρίστον)? It means entering into living and closest communication with Him. A Christian who descends for baptism into a river or font and immerses himself in it (this is indicated by the verb used here βαπτίςω) thereby ends his former life, sinful, and immerses himself in a new area of ​​life, in Christ himself. For him, baptism became what the cross and tomb were for Christ (Zlat.). He also dies, like Christ, feels the same pain, the same suffering as the Savior who died on the cross, although all this happens in the moral, and not in the physical, side of his being. That is why the Apostle says that he who is baptized is baptized into the death of Christ. Rom.6:4. Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, so that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. To prove that death to sin is really represented in baptism, the Apostle now calls this baptism burial. Once the burial has taken place, death is obviously already recognized as valid: otherwise people are not buried. But the Apostle does not limit himself to pointing out our death to sin. He says that we did not die in order to remain dead, but in order to live a new life, just as Christ rose from the dead. With this statement, the Apostle further strengthens our confidence that we have already, so to speak, finished with sin. - “Risen... by the glory of the Father.” According to the general voice of the New Testament writers, the Omnipotence (glory) of God accomplished the resurrection of Christ (Rom 4:24, 8:11; Acts 2:24, 31 et seq. cf. 1 Cor 6:14; 2 Cor 13:4; Eph 1:19) 22. - “That’s how we should go.” The apostle wants to point out the (theoretical) impossibility for believers to return to their former life again. Therefore, he does not speak about their (spiritual) resurrection with Christ, but about their beginning of a new life. This latter, more clearly than the fact of their spiritual resurrection, indicates that returning them to their previous way of life is impossible (in principle). Rom.6:5. For if we are united with Him by the likeness of His death, then we must also be united by the likeness of His resurrection, Here the Apostle repeats the thought of verse 4 in order to confirm the readers in the conviction that baptism represents not only death, but also resurrection. – “We are united” – more precisely: we have grown together with Him (σύμφυτοι from the verb συμφύω together with growth cf. Luke 13:7). - “In the likeness of His death” - that is, baptism - immersion, which means the death of Christ; it is like the death of Christ; By receiving baptism through immersion, a person becomes like a dying person descending into the tomb of Christ. – “That must be” (έσόμει Ί α). Although in Greek In the text, the future tense is set here, however, the Apostle does not consider our resurrection to be a matter of the future, but a fact that has already happened at the moment of our baptism (here the so-called logical future or future consequence is used). - “United by the likeness of the resurrection.” Here the Apostle again means baptism, but already at that moment when the person being baptized emerges and raises his head out of the water. This moment of rising is a likeness, a symbol of our resurrection together with Christ. Rom.6:6. Knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, so that the body of sin might be abolished, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin; Rom.6:7. for the one who died was freed from sin. "Knowing that". The Apostle here refers to the fact that they themselves understand the meaning of the rites during the sacrament of baptism. What do they know about this - the Apostle speaks now. What does our death with Christ mean? What should die in this case? Not ourselves, nor is it sin in us, but our old man, consisting of a combination of mind (νους) and flesh (σαρξ). that is, the very personality of a person, in which, however, as can be seen from the last. to the Galatians (Gal.5:24), the governing principle is the flesh. This old man dies by crucifixion. This expression is a specific and intensified way of denoting the killing or termination of life (1 Cor 2:8; Gal 3:1; Heb 6:6) or the anti-divine direction of an unregenerate person (cf. Gal 5:24). For what purpose does the old man die? Death is the resolution of the connection between the above factors, which together form a living organism - precisely such a resolution in which one of the factors ceases to exist. Which of the above two factors should be destroyed or, more correctly, lose power, become paralyzed (καταργεισθαί - according to Russian translation. - to be abolished)? Not the mind, but the flesh or body of sin (σώμα τ. αμαρτίας), by which expression the apostle means the body, as an instrument of sin, our passions and vices (cf. v. 12 cf. Rom. 7:24 and Col. 1:22, 2:11). Why should the flesh be destroyed or paralyzed? So that we no longer serve sin, which in the flesh has its power. And this renunciation of serving sin is quite natural for one who died to sin, died morally, of course, and not physically, which is why in both the preceding and subsequent verses the Apostle speaks everywhere about moral death, which can be a completely valid basis for serving sin. – The Apostle speaks in other places about what kind of body or flesh we will have instead of the sinful one who died (for example, Eph. 4:24 et seq.; Col. 3:11 et par.). Rom.6:8. If we died with Christ, then we believe that we will also live with Him, Rom.6:9. knowing that Christ, having risen from the dead, no longer dies: death no longer has power over Him. Rom.6:10. For if He died, He died once to sin; and what he lives, he lives for God. Now the Apostle depicts the other side of our dying with Christ - namely, our revival with Him. With the destruction of the old man, our personality, as such, does not disappear at all, but only in the place of the old natural self, which grew along with the flesh, a new self appears, which has grown together (σύμφυτος) with Christ. It receives life content from Christ; our life is life with Him and in Him. Our hope that we will live with Christ is based on the fact that He remained alive at the time of our conversion. He is alive because through His resurrection He entered into eternal life, eternal because there is no longer any place in it for the influence of sin, and yet death was only caused by sin. Christ ended every relationship with sin once and for all by accepting death for the sins of mankind. Now He lives only for God, and, as a result, the indestructibility of His life belongs to Him (and at the same time a guarantee has been given to us that we will live with Him in communion). – “He died... to sin” (v. 10), i.e. in order to destroy sin, the bonds of sin, having once paid tribute to it for all humanity. Christ, thus, recognized the rights of sin over His human brothers and over Himself, since He appeared as a guarantor for them. He satisfied the claims of sin by His death. - “Lives for God,” that is, lives forever, since death no longer has power over Him (John Chrysostom). Rom.6:11. So consider yourselves dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord. From the above, the Apostle makes an application in relation to Christians. They must constantly keep in mind ("honor yourselves") that they, like Christ, are dead to sin and live to God. From this expression: to have in thought, to consider oneself (λογίζεσθαι), some interpreters draw the conclusion that the Apostle Paul did not see in baptism a means of receiving real justification and cleansing from sins, a means of starting a new life for God. He, he says, teaches that we can only consider ourselves justified and dead to sin, and this is not true and effective sanctification. This expression can be answered like this. From all the numerous places where the Apostle Paul speaks about the rebirth that a person receives in baptism, one can derive a clear idea that, according to his teaching, a person in baptism really changes in his nature and the original properties of human nature are communicated to him - likeness to God, and most importantly - holiness. But still, the Apostle does not say anywhere that this holiness makes a person completely pure, holy, i.e. the same way “as Adam came out of the hands of the Creator” (Myshtsyn p. 191). If this were so, then every private sin of man would be identical in its consequences with the crime of Adam, so that in this case a second baptism would be necessary. The Apostle has in mind two sanctifications: one that took place at the moment of baptism, and the other that continues throughout the subsequent life of the one who received baptism (cf. 1 Sol. 5:23; Col. 3:10; Gal. 5:5; Eph. 4:23). That is, here the Apostle says the following: Christians! you are sanctified and become dead to sin by receiving baptism; you began to live for God. But don't reassure yourself with this! Don't fall asleep, but stay awake! Never lose sight of the great revolution that has taken place in your soul - otherwise the sparks of sin, hidden here and there under the ashes in your heart, can again cause a fire in your inner being. This ongoing self-sanctification must continue until the being of Christ “is established in us and we ourselves are transformed into His image.” The Apostle Paul, says John Chrysostom, means here two killings and two deaths. One thing is accomplished by Christ in baptism, and the other we must do ourselves, through our diligence after baptism. Rom.6:12. Therefore let not sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts; So, in baptism we accepted a serious commitment to serve not sin, but God, to serve in deed and truth. Perhaps it will seem to someone that without the law, with grace alone, this service, this constant struggle with sin, will be difficult? But that's just how it seems. In fact, grace becomes no less a powerful ruler for us than the law was before. It can be said that just as the law formerly gave us into slavery to sin, so now we have become obedient slaves of righteousness. And this new service of righteousness is paid much better than your former service of sin: from the new master we receive holiness and eternal life, while our former master paid us for our services with death. Rom.6:13. And do not yield up your members to sin as instruments of unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as alive from the dead, and your members to God as instruments of righteousness. From some of the previous expressions of the Apostle one could conclude that he no longer recognizes the existence of sin in believers. But in reality he is far from such extreme optimism. The Apostle only says that sin can no longer have a royal position in the life of a Christian, but from this it is clear that in general the Apostle does not deny its existence in Christians. What is the reason that sin has lost its former position? He lost his mighty weapon and his mighty ally—the body: it became in Christ an instrument of God. “Let sin not reign.” Although grammatically this admonition is addressed to sin, as it were, to the face, but in the meaning of speech - to the believer himself, since it is his job to put an end to the reign of sin. This exhortation is similar to what the Apostle says in the last chapter. to Colossians: “you are dead... therefore put to death your members that are on the earth” (Col. 3:3, 5). Since we have died to sin in Christ, we can kill sin in our everyday life. - “In your mortal body.” The body is, as it were, the area in which sin is established. The will, enslaved by sin, hands over the body to it, as its fortress, at its complete disposal. The Apostle calls the body mortal in order to impress upon believers how wrong they are doing if, being called to participate in the immortal life of Christ, they allow themselves to enslave the lusts of the body, which must soon die. - “In his lusts,” that is, the body. The lusts of the body are the aspirations and desires of the body that act on the soul and through this arouse in it already passionate and disordered movements of sin. The very word lust (in Greek. επιθυμία - from επι on, against and θυμός heart, feeling, passion) means the force with which the soul, under the power of sensual desire, rushes towards objects that can satisfy the desires aroused in it 23. “And do not betray your members.” Having spoken in general about the body, the Apostle speaks in particular about its members. These members are instruments for satisfying the lusts of the body - these are different organs of the body (the Greek word όπλα - tools, most often means military instruments or weapons, but here, it seems, it has the meaning of simply an instrument through which a certain goal is achieved. - Untruth here has the meaning of immorality in general. “But present yourself to God.” Having spoken about the sanctification of the body from a negative point of view, the Apostle now speaks about the same from a positive point of view. “Imagine” - in Greek. an aorist (παραστήσετε) is inserted, indicating that Christians must perform this action at once (without delay) in Art. in the 1st half. the same verb is put παρίστιμι, but in the present. time - do not betray, which indicated ongoing action). Christians must present to God not just their body, but their entire personality (themselves), together with the body and its organs. - “As those alive from the dead,” that is, as in reality, truly living a true life in faith, whereas previously, one might say, they were dead, remaining in sins (cf. Eph II, 1), i.e., distant from God. - “To be instruments of righteousness.” By righteousness here, as opposed to untruth, we must generally understand moral integrity, the fulfillment of all human duties. Rom.6:14. Sin must not have dominion over you, for you are not under law, but under grace. Having repeated that sin should no longer possess people redeemed by Christ, the Apostle, to assure his readers of this, points out that they are now no longer under the law, but under grace. This state of grace or reconciliation with God and communication with Him imparts to the soul such victorious power, which was completely absent in those who were under the guidance of the law. A person under the law constantly had in his soul only a painful sense of his responsibility before God, fear of condemnation and slavish obedience instead of the childish devotion that a Christian has in relation to God. Rom.6:15. So what? Shall we sin because we are not under the law, but under grace? No way. The Apostle sees an opponent who expresses doubt that grace by itself, without the law, could protect Christians from sins. – “Shall we sin” – αμαρτήσωμεν. This is an aorist denoting a one-time, separate act of sin. So it is obviously a question of whether grace is strong enough to overcome sins in any given case. It may seem very lenient towards individual human sins, while the law strictly punished every case of violation of the will of God. The apostle gives a negative answer to the question he posed. Rom.6:16. Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves as slaves to obey, you are also slaves to whom you obey, either slaves of sin to death, or slaves of obedience to righteousness? It usually happens that the sin we have committed several times already gives our will a certain direction from which it is not able to evade. The same is observed in relation to good deeds. This is how a person develops either bad or good habits. This psychological law is expressed in the words of Christ: “whoever commits sin is a slave of sin” (John 8:34). The Apostle also has this law in mind when speaking here about slavery or sin or righteousness: a person must certainly have a master - without this he cannot exist... This master must be either sin or righteousness. If the readers of the message have followed the path of virtue, then it means that they will undoubtedly come to complete submission to righteousness or grace. The latter will become the same master for them as the law was for the Jew. - “Who do you give yourself to?” This indicates the first steps that people take in one direction or another. At this moment, a person still discovers a certain degree of moral freedom in relation to that principle that wants to master his being, his will - he gives himself. But at the same time as he begins to show a certain pliability before a principle that is still alien to him, he loses more and more freedom and becomes in the position of a slave to this person. - "To death." Here, of course, there is moral death, separation from God, because it is opposed not to eternal life, but to righteousness. Physically, the slaves of righteousness die in the same way as the slaves of sin. - “Obedience”, i.e. faith in Christ and the Gospel. And in the next verse the verb to obey means the actual act of faith. - “Toward righteousness,” that is, to a virtuous life based on faith. This virtuous life is the opposite of the death that sin leads to. Rom.6:17. Thanks be to God that you, having previously been slaves of sin, have become obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you have devoted yourselves. Rom.6:18. Having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness. Between the two masters - sin and faith (obedience), the Roman Christians had already made the choice that every person should make: they took the side of faith. – “They became obedient” – in Greek. an aorist (υπηκούσατε) is inserted, indicating the decisive act when they turned to Christ (better translated: they obeyed, heeded). - “The way of teaching” (i.e. τύπω διδαχής). This expression undoubtedly contains an indication of the existence of a special, clearly formulated sermon about Christ. The Apostle is probably talking about his Gospel (Rom. 2:16, 14:24), which the first preachers of Christianity brought with them to Rome. Paul knew from his own experience that only in the pure spirituality of his gospel could the true support of Christian holiness be found, and that allowing the law to have a share in the sanctification of the Christian would hinder the work of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, he rejoices that the Romans accepted the Gospel exactly in the form in which he proposed it. Rom.6:19. I speak from human reasoning, because of the weakness of your flesh. Just as you presented your members as slaves to uncleanness and lawlessness for wicked works, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness for holy works. Here the Apostle gives an explanation for the expression he used above: slaves of righteousness. He might be asked: is the exercise of virtue really slavery? The Apostle himself previously taught that Christians are called to freedom (Gal. 5:13). The apostle answers the supposed question like this: “in saying this, I am applying to the concepts of the readers, to their weak state.” The Apostle obviously understands that Roman Christians were not always at the height of their calling. No, no, and even their passions awakened, as if completely suppressed. Not everyone, of course, could skillfully and without harm to themselves use Christian freedom. Therefore, for the majority it was necessary to establish themselves in the idea that there is a master over them who will strictly punish them for any violation of Christian purity. That is why the Apostle inspires them that they should consider themselves slaves of righteousness, and not allow themselves any liberties in relation to the law of the Gospel. Otherwise, all their work may be in vain! (cf. the expression of Apostle Jude: “but save others through fear” (Jude 1:23)). – Uncleanness is sin, like personal fall, personal corruption (1 Thessalonians 4:7), lawlessness – contempt for the Law of Moses or the law of conscience. Rom.6:20. For while you were slaves to sin, then you were free from righteousness. Rom.6:21. What fruit did you have then? Such deeds of which you yourself are now ashamed, because their end is death. The Apostle now justifies his call to the service of righteousness by pointing out that the Romans' former service to sin led them to shame and death. “Free from righteousness” is the first consequence of serving sin. The Apostle obviously expresses himself here ironically: “You, indeed, were people free from all concepts of honor and virtue! They seemed shy to you..." - "What... fruit. This is the second consequence of serving sin coupled with a lack of righteousness. Here it is the Apostle who points to the direct, natural result of the previous activities of the Romans, so to speak, to the product of their own moral life. - "End" . Here the Apostle uses an expression that actually indicates what God does in relation to man. The end or crowning of human activity depends on God. For the previous deeds of the Romans, God would have punished them with death, that is, with eternal excommunication from Himself. Rom.6:22. But now that you have been freed from sin and become slaves of God, your fruit is holiness, and the end is eternal life. Now the circumstances have completely changed - the Romans are moving towards holiness and eternal life. – “Your fruit is holiness” – more precisely it should be translated as follows: “you have your fruit in the fact that you are directed towards holiness” (or brought to a state of holiness). This is the result of their persistent activity, taking place depending on God. Each duty fulfilled by a Christian is a new step along the path at the end of which shines the sublime ideal of perfect holiness (αγιασμός), and there - beyond the grave - “eternal life”, that is, eternal glory and perfect activity. Rom.6:23. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. The Apostle briefly repeats the thoughts expressed in vv. 21 and 22. – “Retribution” – in Greek. οψώνιον means initially payment of agricultural products, and then the monetary salary that generals gave to their soldiers. Therefore, the following expression in Greek. text – αμαρτίας should be translated simply in the genitive case – sin (and not “for sin”, as in the Russian translation). Sin here is personified as a ruler who pays his subjects with death, that is, makes them feel all the painful consequences of their misdeeds (Gal 6:7, 8; 2 Cor 5:10). - "Gift of God". From God we receive not payment, not a reward, but a gift that we do not deserve (χάρισμα). “Hell,” says Hodge, “is always deserved, heaven never!” According to ep. Theophan, this indicates that Christ was resurrected “in the lordship and glory of the Divine.” Our Russian (and Slavic) text adds here (Art. 12) a word for him, which is not in the Textus Receptus and many before. codes. The particle in (εν) is also superfluous - not found in most ancient codices. It is necessary to translate the expression of the end of the 12th Art. so: “To obey his lusts.” You might be interested in: