Romans 6:1-11 Exegeticial Paper

Introduction:

Of all the books of the Christian New Testament, St. Paul’s letter to the Church in Rome is one of the most inspirational and life giving texts that exists. Romans is Paul’s letter seeking the support of the Church of Rome for his future missions therefore he uses this letter to explain his theology and mission to its congregants so that when he arrives they are already informed of his theological stance and his intentions. This God inspired work of scripture is packed full of passages that set the bound conscience free from the demands of the law while still maintaining that Christians are not given a license to sin so that grace may abound. Romans 6:1-11 is one of these passages. It not only explains the death of the sinner’s flesh but also the freedom and the mission of the new creation. This death of the flesh and resurrection of the new life of a Christian is the chief thought behind the sacrament of baptism. While exegeting any New Testament text one must first translate the Greek to English and consider any textual variants contained in this translation.
Translation & Explanation of Textual Variants Romans 6:1-11:
What shall we say then? Are we to remain in sin so that grace may increase? 2 May it not be! How can we who died to sin still live in it? 3 Or do you not know that as many as have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into his death? 4 Therefore we have been buried with him through baptism into death, in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the power of the Father, so we too may walk in the newness of life. 5 For if we have become united with him in the likeness of his death, we will certainly also of his resection. 6 Knowing this that our old self has been crucified with him in order that the body of sin would be done away with, with the purpose that we would no longer be serve sin. 7 (For someone who has died has been made free from sin.) 8 Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. 9 Knowing that since Christ, having been raised from the dead, he is never going to die again; death no longer has mastery over him. 10 For the death he died, he died to sin once for all, but the life he lives, he lives to God. 11 So also you consider yourselves dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.
Romans 6:1-11 is a straight forward passage. There are no major controversies in translation between the NRSV, NET, NASB, etc…. The differences are all minor.
The only major textual variance comes in verse 11 when the term “to kurio amon” (our Lord) was left out of some of the manuscripts. In his textual commentary of the New Testament Bruce Mertzger is quoted as saying, “The words appear to be a liturgical expansion, derived perhaps from v. 23. If they were original, no good reason can be found why they should have been deleted from such weighty witnesses as p46, A B D G etc…” While interesting this variance isn’t enough to change any meaning in this passage.
Purpose for Romans 6:1-11:
Chapter 5 of Paul’s Letter to the Church in Roman concludes the apostle’s discussion of sin, the law, faith, righteousness, and reconciliation in answer to his critics. Stuhlmacher states, “ Paul’s remarks concerning justification and reconciliation in chapter 5 again immediately engaged those critics in battle who are attacking his proclamation of Christian freedom (Gal. 5:1) by accusing the apostle, all the way to Rome, of preaching cheap grace to the Gentiles (Gal. 3:8). These objections are of such significance to the apostle that he now takes them up directly in 6:1 and 15 and refutes them in detail.” Chapter 6 then expresses his views concerning the fundamental questions of the new life which the Christians are to lead under the reign of righteousness. Verses 6:1-23 is the discussion of the freedom from the power of sin and service to righteousness; the area of concentration thus far has been Romans 6:1-11 which addresses the change of Lordship in baptism. I will continue with this section.
Stuhlmacher states, “With 6:1 Paul begins a new discourse. The catchwords “sin,” “Christ,” “Jesus,” “righteousness,” “rule,” and so on show, of course, that the apostle is arguing on the foundation of his statements in 5:12-21.” Paul is stating the position of his critics that we heard in 3:8. Verse 2 is his answer to this accusation and then he goes on to explain his position in verses 3-10 and then sums up his position in verse11.
The remembrance of their baptism becomes Paul’s reminder to them of their confession in Christ. His assertions of Christ’s death on the cross was a once and for all death to sin and that they have been buried with Christ in this death and are now raised with him in his resurrection to new life through their belief in Jesus’ finished work on the cross servers to invoke the law within them putting to death their old self and yet giving them the gospel promise of resurrection to raise them up to new life.
The controversy between adult, “believer’s baptism,” and infant baptism was not yet an issue. Both adults and infants were baptized when the head of the household became a believer. The person being baptized was immersed entirely in flowing or still water. Baptism was viewed as a complete transformation of the self and was viewed as washing away sins. This bestowed to the person being baptized both sanctification and justification through the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and the Spirit of God. Instead of being slaves to and lorded over by sin they are now servants to and Lorded over by Christ.
The purpose for Romans 6:1-11 is to reiterate the false claim of Paul’s critics as a discussion ender form chapter 5, to answer to this claim, and to state the proof for and explain his answer.
Application of this passage to life today:
Doug was a man I met while serving as a chaplain at Hope ministries’ Bethel Rescue Mission. He was a kind and loving man who cared very deeply for his wife and daughter whom recently had asked him to leave home. He wasn’t a scholarly man nor was he completely uneducated rather he was an average American trying to make his way in the world. He knew about God and worshiped Jesus in a rather surface kind of relationship at a Pentecostal church on the south side of Des Moines. He knew of Jesus but I would suspect that when I met him he didn’t really know Jesus or the implications that Christ’s death on the cross meant for his life.
For years Doug worked the night shift, enriching Sam Walton’s pockets, at a Wal-mart in Des Moines. This night shift was responsible for stocking the shelves with the affordable and practical merchandise that Wal-Mart sells to those who are lured in by the store’s slogan promise of “Save money, Feel Better.”
Doug was in his mid forties when I met him but he looked like man well beyond that age. You see while lifting boxes of bicycles onto a shelf Doug strained his back terribly. So bad in fact that it would take surgery to fix it; however Wal-mart’s health insurance refused to cover this surgery so Doug was given a variety of pain pills to keep him comfortable until he could either come up with the money for the surgery or litigate the insurance company into covering the procedure. Doug started on Vicodin covered by insurance but when he was unable to return to work he was relieved of his job and insurance and had to go to Broadlawns Hospital in Des Moines who deals with those who do not have insurance. He was switched to the generic form of Vicodin called Hydrocodone. Both pills sell for about $25 a pill on the street behind the mission. But Doug wasn’t selling his medication; he had become addicted to it.
He spent most of his days asleep or in a daze. When he was awake he would talk to you but wouldn’t be looking at you but it seemed like he was looking through you. Looking into his eyes it was obvious that nobody was home. Fearing for the well being of their teenage daughter his wife asked him to leave. With no money and no prospect of being physically able to work he came to the mission.
When I met Doug he still had moments of clarity in which he would come into my office and cry uncontrollably about the state of affairs that his life had fallen into. We would devise a plan to wean him off the pain pills but he would inevitable stop cold turkey and his pain would become unbearable and he would then take way too many pills and return to his daze. Several times when he passed out at or near the mission he would have his medication stolen from him however when he entrusted his pills to the secure area behind the desk he couldn’t take them as he desired so that plan ended quickly. To have a pharmacy refill a narcotic due to theft there must be a police report filled out. After the third report the police told him they would not fill out a fourth so he better get his life straight.
Doug was baptized in a Lutheran Church as a child, so I knew that inevitably his soul belonged to Jesus. Doug would ask me to assign him parts of the Bible to read and he read them diligently; when he was coherent. I knew what I was witnessing in Doug was the death of his body and the salvation of his soul.
Don’t miss understand me Romans 6:1-2 reads, “What shall we say then? Are we to remain in sin so that grace may increase? 2 Absolutely not! How can we who died to sin still live in it?” (Rom 6:1 NET) Doug didn’t have a license to sin so that he could have more grace but as Luther explains it in his “Lectures on Romans,” quoting Augustine, “Beginning with this passage, the apostle describes exclusively a man who has been placed under grace, where in his mind he already serves the law of God even though in the flesh he may still serve the law of sin.” Doug was baptized as a child therefore his mind and soul belonged to Jesus as Christ’s promises had been bestowed upon him. But his body, the body of death as the apostle puts it in Romans 7:24, was a still serving sin. Luther goes on to say in his “Lectures on Romans,” “But we should note that it is not necessary that all be found in this stage of perfection as soon as they are baptized into this kind of death. For they are baptized “into death,”..ie, toward death; in other words: they have taken only the first steps toward the attainment of this death as their goal. In fact though they are baptized to eternal life and the Kingdom of God, they do not right away possess its fullness, but they have taken only the first steps toward it---for baptism was ordained that it prepare us for this death and through it give us life –therefore it is necessary that we comply with what has been ordained for us.” Doug, like most of you, desired to follow the law in his heart but he did what he desired not to do in his body. Baptism doesn’t immediately transform behavior however it does transform the eternal resting place of your soul. Again this doesn’t give you the right to keep sinning, quite the contrary; you should make a conscious effort to follow the law of God; not to gain your salvation but because of it.
Doug was baptized therefore he was buried with Christ in his death so that he could be raised with him into new life through the glory of the Father. “Therefore we have been buried with him through baptism into death, in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too may live a new life.” (Rom 6:4 NET) Doug was struggling every day with the dying of his flesh so that he could become a new creation. Luther states, “To destroy the body of sin means, therefore, to break the desires of the flesh and of our old man by exertions of penitence and the cross, and so to decrease them from day to day and out them to death.” Life after baptism is a day to day struggle with sin; to each day die a little more to the old sinful self. This process is not some ladder that you climb and based upon on how high you get determines you worthiness before God. You salvation is secure after baptism based on the promise giver not the promise receiver.
Doug continued to slip further and further into his drug educed state. In the end he was on ten different medications by seven different doctors at Broadlawns. Not only pain pills now he was also on Lithium a lethal combination. He was so drugged out in the end that he had mixed all his pills together in a sack and took handfuls of them at a time. I took him to the hospital one night and explained to them that he was on several medications from several doctors and that I was not a doctor but this guy was going to die. That is exactly what happened one week later. Doug died in the hospital of an overdose. I was furious and felt helpless. All I could say to his wife and daughter, when they came to the mission to collect his car and things, was that Doug was a child of God and even though his body is gone his soul is eternally with Jesus.
When Doug died he completed the process that was started at his baptism. He is now completely a new creation. Romans 6:11 tells us, “So you too consider yourselves dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.” (Rom 6:11 NET) I encourage each of you to become what you are, dead to sin and alive to Christ.

Bibliography:

1. Bornkamm, Gunther. “Paul.” Minneapolis, Fortress Press
2. Cousar, Charles B. “The Letters of Paul.” Nashville, Abingdon Press
3. Hultgren, Arland J. “Paul’s Gospel and Mission.” Philadelphia, Fortress Press
4. Metzger, Bruce M. “A Textual Commentary on the New Testament.” London, New York. United Bible Societies
5. Pauck, Wilhelm editor. “Luther Lectures on Romans.” Philadelphia. The Westminster Press.
6. Stuhlmacher, Peter. “Paul’s Letter to the Romans A Commentary.” Louisville, Kentucky. Westminster/John Knox Press.