Newness of life

The apostle now anticipates that some objectors to what he has just taught will suggest that because grace super-abounds where sin abounds recipients of that grace might well continue in sin, for to do so would magnify grace. Such things are still suggested by many who insist that salvation is by works, and not by grace.

The answer to this objection is, in this chapter, linked to the fact that believers have died with Christ to sin. By that association with Him in His death they have been delivered from that old master to walk in newness of life, serving the new Master, God. Just as a master cannot demand obedience from a dead slave, no more can sin demand service from the believer who by death has been delivered from its mastery. The believer’s death to sin occurred, from the divine standpoint, at Calvary, v. 8. When Christ died, the believer died. This was made good to them at conversion and it was symbolized in their ‘baptism into death’, v. 4.

The old man, that Adamic order to which we once belonged (and not to be confused with ‘the flesh’), was utterly judged by God at the cross when ‘our old man was crucified with him’, v. 6. We owe the old man nothing. Adamic man was given every opportunity in the Old Testament to prove himself, but all that God could do with man in Adam was to bring him under judgement. ‘I am crucified with Christ’, Gal. 2. 20, is true of every believer, whose body is now not the territory where sin reigns but the vehicle through which God is to be glorified.

All of this is not an aspiration for the believer to achieve, but solid fact for faith to apprehend. It is continually to be reckoned, v. 11, or counted as true, by the believer that he has died unto the old master, sin, and is alive unto the new master, God. When temptation to sin comes along, the believer is to look back to Calvary and remember this great fact, not letting sin reign in his mortal body, nor yielding its members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin. Rather, he is to yield himself unto God as being alive from the dead and the members of his body as instruments of righteousness unto Him.