ROMANS 6:1-6,23, C. H. Cayce “What shall we say then?” The things previously stated in the preceding chapter being true, what shall we say? “Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?” The apostle here anticipates and answers an objection which the world often offers to the doctrine of grace. They often say that if they believed this doctrine they would take their fill of sin. This only shows they have not had their fill; they still love sin; they have not been killed to it. Hence the apostle answers, “God forbid.” Because salvation from sin is all of grace, and the grace of God abounds in salvation, is no reason why the child of God should [pg 353] continue in sin. The doctrine of grace is not a licentious doctrine. “How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?” This is a statement made in the form of a question. It is a stronger way of saying that one who has been killed to sin cannot live any longer therein,. A child of God cannot live in sin. He may “drag out a miserable existence” there, but he cannot live there. There is no living in sin for him. His living is in the way of righteousness, not unrighteousness. The child of God is dead to sin, but alive unto God; see Rom. 6:11. “Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into His death?” This is the baptism which puts the sinner into Christ and is by the Spirit of God; see 1 Cor. 12:13.
“Therefore,” for this reason; this being true; “we are buried with Him by baptism into death.”
Baptism is a burial, and in baptism we are separated from the world; we are brought out from the world in our life by baptism because we have been baptized into Christ by the Holy Spirit. “That like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.” As Christ was raised up from the dead, and as we have been raised up out of death into life— being baptized into Christ, into the one body by the Spirit— and now, this being true, we are buried with Him by baptism, and being raised up (baptized— buried and raised again), we should now walk in newness of life. Our life should be such as that we may say by our walk that “we have been with Jesus and learned of Him.” “For if we have been planted together in the likeness of His death.”
The word which is translated planted means “born together with, of joint origin; connate, congenital, innate, implanted by birth or nature; grown together; united with; kindred.” Thayer’s Greek Lexicon says, “If we have become united with the likeness of His death (which likeness consists in the fact that in the death of Christ our former corruption and wickedness has been slain [pg 354] and has been buried in Christ’s tomb), i. e., if that is part and parcel of the very nature of a genuine Christian to be utterly dead to sin, we shall be united also with the likeness of His resurrection, i. e., our intimate fellowship with His return to life will show itself in a new life consecrated to God.” “Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with Him.”
The expression, “our old man,” means, “as we were before our mode of thought, feeling, action, had been changed.”— Thayer. The old man denotes our former condition, as we were in nature; but we have been killed to that. Our old former condition has been crucified or destroyed. This is done when one is born again, made partaker of the divine nature, killed to sin. This is done by the operation of the Spirit of God upon the soul or spirit of the man, “that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.” We should then follow the divine nature, which the Lord has given. We should “through the Spirit mortify the deeds of the body.” We should not live after the flesh, or that old corrupt nature, but should live after the Spirit, walk in Him.
Rom. 6:23 reads, “For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Wages is what one gets for what he does. Sin is the transgression of the law. Sin, then, is what men do. Death is what they get for it. “The wages of sin is death.” Death is what men get for what they do, for they transgress God’s law. This death is everlasting banishment from the peaceful presence of God. Men are lost on account of sin. Reprobation is not unconditional; but eternal life is unconditional. The whole race of man has been plunged into everlasting ruin and misery by sin. “But the gift of God is eternal life.”
God, in His mercy, intervenes, in the person of His Son, and through what He has done some of the race are snatched from everlasting ruin. He gives eternal life to them. He does not simply offer life, but He lifts them up out of their deplorable state, and makes them alive in Christ; He gives them eternal life; He gives them a righteous life; He gives them that life by which they will live with Him in eternity. This is done “through Jesus Christ our Lord.” The Primitive Baptist, March 9, 1915.