Colin D Smith

¹² Therefore, do not let sin reign in your mortal body such that you obey its passions, ¹³ and do not present your parts [as] tools of unrighteousness for sin, but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your parts [as] tools of righteousness to God. ¹⁴ For sin will not have lordship over you; for you are not under the Law, but under grace.

In the previous section, Paul affirmed the Roman Christians’ position before God: they have been buried and raised with Christ. Therefore, since Christ’s death crucified our “old man” and his resurrection broke the power of sin and death, as those that are “in Christ,” they too should recognize that sin no longer has any claim over them. And that’s how they should live: dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ.

Paul begins this next section by hinting back at the question in 6:1. Why not sin so grace may abound? Because you are in Christ, and your bondage to sin has been broken, so don’t let sin try to claim authority in your life. Your citizenship has been transferred from the old domain of sin and death, to a new land of grace and righteousness where Christ rules. Sin has no power in the new land, so why would you want to give it a controlling interest in your thoughts or actions?

The term “mortal body” (Greek: thnêtô sômati) in verse 12 is interesting. We discussed what Paul might mean by this. Why not just say “body,” or “life,” or “flesh”? Why might our “mortal body” be susceptible to the reign of sin? Is there something about our flesh-and-bone bodies that is inherently sinful? This was at the heart of the ancient Gnostic belief systems, whose manifestation in the early church was rejected as heresy (see 1 John 4:2-3). They believed that matter, including our fleshly bodies, is evil, and only spirit is pure and undefiled. Because of this, many groups taught that the God who made this world must be evil, since a good God would not create matter. Also, Jesus could not have come in the flesh, since he was good. He must have only appeared to be flesh and blood (from which came the heresy known as Docetism, from the Greek verb dokein meaning to seem or appear).

I think it’s fair to say we don’t believe that our bodies, as creations of God, which He Himself declared to be “good” at creation, are inherently evil. However, we must acknowledge that they are part of a fallen creation, and will, one day, be cast off in favor of immortal bodies (see Paul’s discussion in 1 Corinthians 15:50-57). I think we can say that these mortal bodies are weak, and filled with desires that can easily be manipulated into serving sinful purposes. Where we might have strength of spirit and the desire to do the right thing, we shouldn’t let our bodies fall under the power and influence of sin so that our good intentions are subverted by their weakness to resist.

Another interesting term in this context is at the end of verse 12: the Greek word epithumia. The NASB, and other translations, render this word “lust.” I translated it above as “passion,” which is a legitimate translation, but not quite as negative. It’s true that, more often than not, the word epithumia has the negative connotation in the New Testament. However, since there is some question here whether the “mortal body” has sinful passions that we are tempted to obey, or whether the “mortal body” has desires that, in its weakness, can be used sinfully (e.g., hunger leading to gluttony), I decided to use a more neutral English word. Given what follows, I tend toward the latter understanding (the mortal body has desires that can be used sinfully), but we can take this up further in the comments.

The next exhortation in this passage is for the Romans not to present their parts as tools of unrighteousness. The sense behind the verb “to present” here (Greek paristhêmi) is not that of a sacrificial offering, but of putting something into someone else’s service. I think “parts” here, given the preceding verse, is reference to body parts. As they shouldn’t let sin reign over the mortal body, they shouldn’t put the parts of that body into the service of sin as unrighteous tools. “Tools” here (Greek hopla) can also be translated “weapons.” In ancient Greece, the “hoplites” were the heavily-armed foot soldiers, so named for the heavy shield they used to carry. I think “tools” or “instruments” is a perfectly good translation, but the idea of “weapons” should also remind us that our bodies are as much a part of spiritual warfare as our minds.

Verse 14 reiterates the exhortation of verse 12: sin will not have lordship over you. We didn’t get to the second half of verse 14 (“for you are not under the Law, but under grace”) and I think that’s appropriate, since verse 14b leads into the question posed in verse 15. This shall be our starting point next week.

³ Or do you not know that we who were baptized into Christ Jesus, were baptized into his death? ⁴ Therefore we have been buried with him through baptism unto death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, similarly we also might walk in newness of life. ⁵ For if we have become united with the likeness of his death, so also shall we be [united with the likeness] of his resurrection. ⁶ Knowing this, that our old man has been crucified in order that the body of sin may be destroyed, no longer for us to be enslaved to sin. ⁷ For the one who died has been justified from sin. ⁸ And if we have died with Christ, we believe that also we shall be made alive with him, ⁹ knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead no longer dies; death no longer is his lord. ¹⁰ For that [death] that he died, he died to sin once for all; but the [life] that he lives, he lives to God. ¹¹ In this way also you too reckon yourselves on the one hand to be dead to sin, but on the other living to God in Christ Jesus.

We made progress this Sunday: Mike was determined we would get to verse 11, and we did! Not without some controversy, however. Well, it’s bound to happen every so often when you have a Reformed Baptist co-leading a Sunday School with a Presbyterian. The apostle Paul started it by the fact that he chose to use the term “baptize” in verses 3 and 4! In my study of this passage, I tried to understand what Paul is saying in context from a paedobaptist (i.e., one who believes in infant baptism) point of view. How does one who believes that baptism is a sign of God’s covenant promise, but which does not guarantee salvation (or in any way disposes a child to salvation) understand Paul’s use of the term here?

To me, baptism is an outward sign of an inward action. It speaks of the act that God has done in the life of one who has professed faith in Christ. And in this passage, Paul is speaking of our union with Christ, and the benefits that come from being united with Christ. We agreed that it is at least legitimate to understand “baptism” here as shorthand for “conversion”–but that is inconsistent with the paedobaptist explanation of what baptism is (as I briefly outlined above). Especially since Paul speaks of this death-and-resurrection with Christ as something that has happened already in the lives of his readers, not something promised to them.

The arguments presented from the paedobaptist side insisted that Paul is not here discussing baptism, so we shouldn’t try to derive from these few verses the entire Pauline understanding of baptism. This is true; however, since this is the only time in the entire epistle Paul uses the verb baptizô, there must be something about baptism and what it signifies that struck him as appropriate for this discussion.

I welcome further discussion on this point–especially from those that were at the study–in the comments. Yes, I am being one-sided in my presentation, and deliberately so–the comments for these notes have been very quiet and I want to get some good discussion going. So go ahead–comment!

The bigger, and more important, point of the passage–a point with which we could all agree–is that Christ’s death and resurrection has freed us from the bonds of slavery to sin. Where Christ’s death paid the penalty for our sin, so our sin is atoned for, and the wrath of God no longer is against us, Christ’s resurrection set us free from the bonds of sin and death permanently. We are no longer predisposed to sin.

And this goes back to the question in 6:1–why do we not sin so that grace may abound? Because we are united with Christ in his death and resurrection. While Christ walked this earth in flesh, death had mastery over him (in so far as Christ submitted himself to death, see Philippians 2:8). In his resurrection, Christ broke that lordship, and when we unite with Christ in his resurrection (which happens at conversion), we too are free to walk “in newness of life.” The old man, our old self with its sinful cravings, has been crucified. Our flesh, with its sin-ward orientation, has been destroyed.

The answer to the question of 6:1 is simply that we are free to obey God, to honor Christ, and to live by the Spirit, so why would we want to subject ourselves to the dominion of sin again? We are now able to do something that, prior to the Spirit of God changing our hearts, we were unable to do: live for Christ. Now that our natural impulse to fulfill sin’s desires has been crucified, we should no longer want to do those things. Of course, the fact of life is that we do. We make stupid choices–and we’ll come to that in chapter seven.

For now, we need to bask in the simple fact that because of the cross and the empty tomb, we are dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ.

And finally: CONGRATULATIONS to my co-teacher, Mike Bossé, who became a grandfather Monday afternoon!