V. SANCTIFICATION: THE IMPARTATION OF RIGHTEOUSNESS (6:1–8:39)

OVERVIEW

Up to this point, the letter has answered such questions as these: Why is salvation needed? What has God done to effect it? How can we appropriate it? The answers have come in terms of sin, condemnation, the gift of Christ, faith, and justification. Is there need for anything more? In fact, this is hardly the end of the story of salvation—for those who are presently justified have not yet reached the goal of perfection. They must still contend with sin and must depend on divine resources to do so. God’s plan of salvation does not stop with justification but continues on in sanctification.

The Christian life begins with conversion or, objectively seen, with regeneration—a fixed point at which the fact of justification takes place. In this event, sinners are declared righteous solely by means of the work of God on their behalf. Justification by faith means that one is lifted once and for all to the level of God’s righteousness. The Christian’s standing before God is complete and perfect because it is the work of Christ who has been made the Christian’s righteousness (1Co 1:30; cf. 2Co 5:21). At no time in this life or in the life to come will the Christian’s status in terms of righteousness be any greater. It will neither diminish nor fade, “for God’s gifts and his call are irrevocable,” as Paul says in another connection (11:29).

Of course, God is concerned not only with the believer’s status but also with the state, or actual condition, of the believer. No sooner has God justified a person than he begins a process of growth that we know as sanctification. This is a process, to be sure, but it should be observed that the term “sanctification” is used in Scripture also to express a “setting apart” that is true at conversion and that is basic to any progress in the Christian life. Consider the description of the Corinthian believers as (already) “sanctified in Christ Jesus” (1Co 1:2), in seeming contradiction to the unholy state of many of them, as the letter testifies. The puzzle is solved by Paul’s observation about what happened at their conversion: “But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God” (1Co 6:11). Mention of their sanctification is actually given priority over their justification, which reverses the expected order. But this is initial or “positional” sanctification, a setting apart of the sinner to God, which is basic to any improvement in his or her manner of life (cf. 1Pe 1:2). This aspect of sanctification cannot be distinguished from justification in respect to time. But sanctification as a process is naturally dependent on and subsequent to justification.

Eventually the process of sanctification will reach its consummation, when the saints will experience complete sanctification because the sinful nature is left behind and their lives are fully conformed to the divine standard as seen in God’s Son (8:29). This will occur at death (Heb 12:23) or at the return of Christ, in the case of the saints who are alive at that time (1Jn 3:2). Then for the first time the believer’s actual experience in terms of righteousness will conform to the status conferred at the point of justification (Gal 5:5). Then the Christian’s standing and experience will be identical. Righteousness de jure will become righteousness de facto. The gap between what we are in Christ and what we are in Adam will be fully closed.

A. The Believer’s Union with Christ in Death and in Resurrection Life (6:1–14)

OVERVIEW

In this section, we will see that Christ passed through certain epochal experiences—namely, death, burial, and resurrection. Viewed from the standpoint of his substitutionary sacrifice for sin, these events do not involve our participation, though our salvation depends on them. Christ was alone in enduring the cross, in being buried, and in being raised from the dead. But his redeeming work is not only substitutionary; it is also representative: “One died for all, and therefore all died” (2Co 5:14). So Christians are viewed as being identified with Christ in his death, burial, and resurrection. And as truly as Christ, having borne our sin, is now removed from any claim of sin against him—because he died to sin and rose again—we also by virtue of being joined to him are delivered from any claim of sin to control us. This line of thought is what Paul proceeds to develop in this passage. It is evident that God has a plan for dealing with the power of sin as well as with its guilt. The way has been prepared for this emphasis by the presentation of the solidarity between Christ and the redeemed in 5:12–21.

1. The Statement of the Fact (6:1–11)

1What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? 2By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? 3Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.

5If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection. 6For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin—7because anyone who has died has been freed from sin.

8Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. 9For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. 10The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God.

11In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.

COMMENTARY

1 It is notable that Paul begins this discussion by raising an objection and answering it. The objection grows out of his presentation of justification in the previous section of his letter, especially the teaching that “where sin increased, grace increased all the more” (5:20). The query, then, is to this effect: “Are we not able or even obliged, by the logic of justification, to continue on in sin now that we are Christians, in order to give divine grace as much opportunity as possible to display itself? The more we sin, the more will God’s grace be required to meet the situation, and this will in turn contribute the more to his glory.”

2 The apostle shows his horror at such a perverse suggestion: “By no means!” Other renderings are possible, such as, “Away with the notion!” “Perish the thought!” or “Certainly not!” Paul has already repudiated a similar suggestion in a somewhat different context (3:8). It is probable that in his earlier missionary work as he taught justification, objections of this sort were raised from time to time by those who feared that his teaching opened the door to libertinism by encouraging indifference to the ethical demands of the law. If so, his answer is not something recently developed, but rather forged through years of reflection under divine guidance.

His answer is crisp: “We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?” Throughout this chapter, as indeed from 5:12, Paul speaks of sin in the singular (cf. the personified “sin” in 5:21), not of “sins” in the plural. Sin, as a formidable power, is the basic problem that gives rise to specific sins, and hence the problem that must be dealt with. Note that Paul does not say that sin is dead to the Christian. Chapter 7 may serve as a sufficient refutation of any such notion. At this point, Paul does not explain when or how we died to sin, being content to state the fact and its obvious implication, namely, that to go on sinning is therefore logically impossible. What he does present here is not the impossibility of committing a single sin but the impossibility of continuing in a life dominated by sin. Death to sin is not something hoped for or resolved on by the believer; it is something that has already taken place. It is a simple fact basic to the living of the Christian life. The explanation of our death to sin follows immediately (vv.3–4).

3 Our death to sin was accomplished by being “baptized into Christ Jesus” (cf. G. Bornkamm, “Baptism and New Life in Paul: Romans 6,” in Early Christian Experience [New York: Harper & Row, 1969], 71–86; G. Wagner, Pauline Baptism and the Pagan Mysteries [Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1967]). What is being described in this phrase is a spiritual reality of the deepest import. Just as we are identified with Adam (ch. 5), so now we are identified with Christ by means of baptism. In the act of baptism, one is identified with and participates with Christ in his death, burial, and resurrection. Paul’s focus here is our participation in Christ’s death. The metaphor of baptism is clearly used in a relational sense elsewhere, as in the case of the Israelites baptized into Moses by reason of the crossing of the Red Sea (1Co 10:2). They became identified with and united to him as never before, recognizing his leadership and their dependence on him. Union with Christ means union with him in his death. Baptism is a metaphor for death in Mark 10:38 and Luke 12:50.

4 Paul uses baptism to illustrate this vital union with Christ in his death. Paul apparently pictures burial with Christ, however momentarily, in the submergence of the body under the baptismal waters. The importance of burial is that it attests the reality of death (1Co 15:3–4). It expresses with finality the end of the old life governed by relationship with Adam. It also expresses the impossibility of a new life apart from divine action. The God who raised Jesus Christ from the dead has likewise imparted life to those who are his. The ability to “walk in newness of life” (NASB; NIV, “live a new life”) is the evidence of the new type of life granted to the child of God. This is a distinctive type of life realized only by one united to Christ (cf. 2Co 5:17), so that Christ is its dynamic. In this connection, the question arises, Why should the resurrection of Christ be described as accomplished “through the glory of the Father?” It is because “glory” here has the meaning of “power” (cf. Jn 11:40).

The latter half of v.4 has a noticeably balanced structure (“just as Christ . . . , we too”), recalling the pattern in 5:12, 18, 21. This suggests that the principle of solidarity advanced in 5:12–21 is still thought of as operating here in the significance of baptism. There is no explicit statement that in baptism we were raised with Christ, as well as being made to share in his death. Resurrection is seen rather as an effect that logically follows from the identification with Christ in his death. However, resurrection is verbally connected with baptism in the important parallel passage in Colossians: “having been buried with him in baptism and raised with him through your faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead” (Col 2:12). So it would not be wrong to associate resurrection with baptism here (cf. vv.5, 13).

There is a certain awkwardness in the statement that we were buried with Christ through baptism into death, since in human experience, burial follows rather than precedes death. However, as Sanday and Headlam, 156, have pointed out, this awkwardness disappears in the prominence given death in the whole passage. It is not into Christ’s burial that believers are baptized but into his death, because it was there that he dealt with sin. (On these verses, see E. Schweizer, “Dying and Rising with Christ,” NTS 14 [1967–68]: 1–14.)

5–7 A difficult question in v.5 is whether Paul is referring to the future bodily resurrection of the saints. Many commentators think so, and they can point to the future tense of the verb esometha (“we will be,” GK 1639). Ordinarily, of course, the future tense relates to something that will happen. Occasionally, however, it indicates what must logically or inevitably occur (e.g., Gal 6:5). So if there are other grounds on which to question a future bodily resurrection here, the tense of the verb is not an insuperable obstacle. A second factor to consider is that Christ’s resurrection, mentioned in the previous verse, was indeed a bodily resurrection. This is true enough. But it should be observed that Paul does not say that just as Christ was raised, we too will be raised. Instead he connects the resurrection of Christ with the possibility of a new life for those who are his. And this new life belongs to the present time. Furthermore, the syntax at the beginning of v.6 is intended to relate closely to the mention of resurrection at the end of v.5. Yet one looks in vain for anything in v.6 that relates to future bodily resurrection. Instead Paul returns to consider the matter of participation in Christ’s death in its bearing on freedom from the bondage of sin. Consequently, one is led to conclude that “resurrection” in v.5 has to do with spiritual resurrection—raised with Christ now—as in Colossians 2:12; 3:1 (cf. Eph 2:6).

The certainty of our present participation in this new resurrection life is grounded on the truth that “we have been united with him like this in his death.” Paul uses the phrase symphytoi gegonamen (GK 5242, 1181), translated here “united with”; more literally it means “grown together,” virtually with the force of “fused into one.” Clearly this union is not something gradually arrived at through a process of sanctification. Rather, it is something established by God that becomes the very basis of sanctification, in which the Christlike life is expressed through the individuality of the one joined to him.

6–7 The problem of sin, however, continues to dominate the thought of this section, and Paul returns to this theme by insisting that “our old self was crucified with him” (v.6). While the relation to v.5 is close, the language now becomes sharper and more realistic—e.g., “united with him like this in his death” becomes “crucified with him” (cf. Gal 2:20). Our spiritual history began at the cross. We were there in the sense that in God’s sight we were joined to him who actually suffered on it. The time element should not disturb us, because if we sinned in Adam, it is equally possible to have died to sin with Christ. At this stage of the teaching, it is not a question of our personal, conscious participation but simply of our position as God has arranged it and as he sees it.

But what was it that was crucified? “Our old self” is literally “our old man” (ho palaios [GK 4094] hēmōn anthrōpos). The same truth is taught in Colossians 3:9. In Ephesians 4:22, however, the putting off of the old man is a matter of exhortation. In some sense, then, the old man has been crucified; in another sense, he may still claim attention. Since “man” has been used of Adam (Ro 5:12, 17, 19), whose name means “man,” it is possible that what has been crucified with Christ is our place in Adam, our position in the old creation, which is under the sway of sin and death. Our solidarity with Adam has been broken. For Christians, the old is gone; they belong to the new creation order (2Co 5:17).

Yet the old order seeks to dominate the believer, as Ephesians 4:22 implies and experience confirms. Though the seeming inconsistency between that passage and this one is not easy to resolve, it may be that in his epistle to the Ephesians, Paul, while presupposing the supplanting of the old Adam, wants to exhort his readers to refuse to live in terms of the old self and instead to live deliberately and consciously in the reality of the new creation. It is necessary to distinguish between the old creation—namely, our inheritance from Adam—and our old nature, or the flesh. The latter still persists in the life of the redeemed and can become a prey to the operation of sin unless countered by the powerful influence of the new life in Christ.

The purpose behind the crucifixion of our old self is that sin should be rendered powerless so far as we are concerned. But the expression “body of sin” (to sōma tēs hamartias, GK 5393, 281) is a phrase that needs clarification. It should not be regarded as equivalent to “sinful body,” for the body itself is not sinful. Scripture is clear in its teaching that sin arises from the heart, the inner life (cf. Mk 7:21). Should we settle for “sinful self” (REB)? This is suggestive, since the word sōma (“body”) sometimes conveys the idea of the totality of a human being, not simply the physical organism. But this may be going too far in the present passage. The term “body” may allude to the fact of crucifixion, which Christ endured in the body. Our body can become the instrument of sin, thus negating the truth of crucifixion with Christ. So “body of sin” seems to mean “body insofar as it may become the vehicle of sin.” Paul tells us that the “body of sin” has been “done away with,” or possibly “rendered powerless,” as katargeō (GK 2934) may also be translated. Its previous slavery to the dictates of sin is broken. This annulling of the power of sin is based on a recognized principle, namely, that death settles all claims. A dead person is no longer subject to the penalties or power of sin. Our union with Christ in his death, which was designed to deal with sin once and for all, means that we are free from the hold of sin. Its mastery is broken (v.7). Hence, “we should no longer be slaves to sin” (v.6).

8–10 Union with Christ continues to be the theme in vv.8–10, which essentially restate the argument of vv.5–7:

• v.5 = v.8
• v.6: “For we know . . .”
• v.9: “For we know . . .”
• v.7: gar (“because . . .”; NASB, “for . . .”; ground for the preceding statement)
• v.10: gar (NASB, “for . . .”; untranslated in NIV)

Resurrection again comes into view in these verses. Though there is considerable similarity with the close of v.4 and v.5, the note of futurity (“we will also live with him,” v.8) makes it apparent that now future bodily resurrection is in view. Our future resurrection will constitute a final victory over sin and its fruit, death. But this future resurrection is anticipated in our present resurrection, and therefore there is also the possibility of a victory over sin already in the present. For a brief time, death, as the executor of sin, held Christ, but not for long (v.9). Since he was not guilty of personal sin, death had no right to hold him indefinitely (cf. Ac 2:24). Likewise, it had no right to recall him to experience death again. Once having been raised from the dead, our Lord is alive forever and ever (Rev 1:18). Through him death has finally been conquered. A totally new order of life has been inaugurated.

10 It was important for Paul to emphasize this truth: “[Christ] died to sin once for all [ephapax, GK 2384]” and now “the life he lives, he lives to God.” Similarly, since we have been united with him in baptism, we are to exhibit the same death to sin and the living out of a new life characterized by righteousness. In this respect, Christ presents a pattern for believers in their expectation of the future and also in their motivation for life in the present time (2Co 5:15). Christians are thus called to “live in this world as those who do indeed share in Christ’s death, not yet fully liberated from the power of death, but no longer in bondage to sin, as those who draw their vital energies and motivations from God in Christ Jesus” (Dunn, 1:333).

11 In the previous verses, Paul has been imparting information on the subject of union with Christ, and in keeping with this he has three times used the word “know” (vv.3, 6, 9), as a way of focusing on what is true. Now he employs a different key word—“count” or “reckon” (logizomai [GK 3357], the same term used so often in ch. 4 in connection with righteousness), used in the imperative. We encounter here the oddity of the juxtaposition of the indicative and the imperative—i.e., something is flatly affirmed to be true, and then immediately we encounter the command to act in a way that manifests this truth. This interesting feature of Pauline thought is the result of the tension between what is sometimes called “positional” truth and “experiential” truth and is not unlike that between present and future eschatology. The challenge of Christian living for Paul can be stated in the maxim, “Be what you are,” or, “Act out your true identity.”

Counting something as true does not create the fact of union with Christ but makes it operative in one’s life. The charge to consider oneself “dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus” is thus in the present tense, stressing the necessity to keep up the process if one is to avoid reactivating the body of sin. Paradoxically, the Christian is dead and alive at the same time, as in Galatians 2:20—dead to sin and self but alive and responsive to God. The Christian is to give no more response to sin than a dead person can give. On the other hand, all the potential afforded by redeemed life is to be channeled godward: “alive to God.”

Paul seems to lay considerable stress on the importance of this process of counting true or reckoning. It is not a matter of attempting to convince oneself of something untrue, thus amounting to self-deception. Rather, it is a matter of letting the truth of union with Christ have its intended effect. What is factually true must be allowed to become a matter of experience. Christians are “to arm themselves with the mentality that they are dead to sin; for that is what happened to them in the baptismal experience” (Fitzmyer, 438).

2. The Appeal Based on the Fact (6:12–14)

12Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. 13Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness. 14For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace.

COMMENTARY

12 The element of willing cooperation receives emphasis in v.12. The implication is that sin has been reigning. The believer must refuse obedience any longer to sin’s enticements. The word “obey” (hypakouō, GK 5634) has as its root idea “listening” or “heeding.” If the body is kept mortified, it will have no ear for the subtle suggestions of evil. Paul here describes the body as “mortal” (thnētos, GK 2570)—a reminder that, despite the glorious asset of being united to Christ, we are still living in a frail instrument affected by the fall and subject to death. The “evil desires” (epithymiai, GK 2123) of the mortal body continue to be a force that can still, but need not (v.14), bring one into slavery again.

13 Turning from the body as a whole to its separate members, Paul admonishes his readers not to hand these over to sin (the old master). But this is only half of the Christian’s obligation. On the positive side, they are to offer themselves (personalities and life-potential) to God with, as a corollary, their separate bodily capacities as “instruments of righteousness.” The word “instruments” (hopla, GK 3960) is the word used for weapons and thus conjures up the notion of a battle against evil and for righteousness. The word “offer,” by virtue of its tense, “implies a critical resolve, a decision of surrender” (H. C. G. Moule, Epistle of Paul to the Romans [London: Pickering & Inglis, 1902], 168). This passage prepares the way for a similar emphasis in 12:1.

14 Paul concludes this portion of the text with encouragement and an incentive. He promises the Roman Christians that if they will do as he has enjoined, sin will not be their master (kyrieuō, GK 3259; lit., “will not be lord over”), and he adds, “because you are not under law, but under grace.” What is the relevance of this closing statement? Why should law be injected here? Surely because under law sin increases (5:20; cf. 1Co 15:56). The inference is that law lords it over its subjects. It condemns and brings them into virtual slavery. It faces them with their guilt and uses that guilt as a manacle to keep them in helpless subjection. But under grace there is liberty to live in accord with a higher principle—the resurrection life of the Lord himself. Fitzmyer, 447, writes, “The kyrios of Christian life is not legalism of any sort, but the prompting Spirit of God, whence comes grace.”

It is worthy of attention that Christians are said to be “under grace” (hypo charin, GK 5921). Usually grace indicates a principle of divine operation, a moving out in kindness and love to lift the sinful and unworthy to God. Occasionally it is used of the sphere of the believer’s life of privilege (5:2). But here in 6:14 it appears as a disciplinary power, in line with the apostle’s effort to show that grace is not license (6:1–4). Somewhat parallel is the word of Jesus promising rest to the weary and burdened but followed up with the mention of his yoke (Mt 11:28–30). Related also is the reminder that God’s grace has appeared for the salvation of all, training us to live sober, upright, and godly lives (see Tit 2:11–12).

NOTES

1–4 Addressing the question of the unity of the argument in this chapter and its coherence, Nygren, 263, notes that Paul presents two basic affirmations: (1) that Christians are dead to sin and hence free from sin, and (2) that Christians must fight against sin. He argues that these statements are not incompatible. On the contrary, the former fact makes the latter charge both possible and necessary: “He who is not free from sin cannot fight against it, for he is the slave of sin. . . . Only he who, through Christ, has been freed from sin can enter the battle against it; and he, because of his status as a slave of righteousness, is obligated to join in that battle.”

4 It is clear that Paul has baptism in mind here. This need not mean, however, that he views the act of baptism as an operative power in itself. Yet baptism is more than merely a symbol. Nygren, 233, has written, “That which baptism symbolizes also actually happens, and precisely through baptism.” Paul, of course, presupposes the faith of the recipient in baptism, so that he would probably have agreed with the later church that the sacrament of baptism is the outward sign of an inward reality based on the grace of God.

11 Many important manuscripts have the infinitive εἶναι, einai (“to be”), after “yourselves”: “count yourselves to be dead to sin,” making explicit what is already implied in the sentence.

B. Union with Christ Viewed as Enslavement to Righteousness (6:15–23)

15What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! 16Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? 17But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted. 18You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.

19I put this in human terms because you are weak in your natural selves. Just as you used to offer the parts of your body in slavery to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer them in slavery to righteousness leading to holiness. 20When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness. 21What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death! 22But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. 23For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

COMMENTARY

15 Paul has just affirmed, “you are not under law.” He goes on to show that this does not mean that Christians are free from the demands of righteousness. It would be strange and contradictory if those who are under grace should now evidence a manner of life inferior to the standard held by those who are under law. As a matter of fact, the believer must face the fact that salvation actually means a change of masters. Once the servant of sin, the Christian is now committed to a life of practical righteousness. Obedience becomes the key issue.

At first glance the opening question seems virtually a repetition of v.1. The difference, however, lies in the tense of the verb. In v.1 we encounter the present tense: “Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase?” Here we find the aorist tense: “Shall we sin [in any given case, or sin at all] because we are not under law but under grace?” Law is supposed to be a restraining influence. If one moves out from under the umbrella of law, will one not be exposing oneself to the danger of committing sin even more than in the previous situation?

16 In answering, Paul appeals first to a fact familiar to all, namely, that whatever one submits to becomes in effect one’s master: “Everyone who sins is a slave to sin” (Jn 8:34). To commit sin, then, puts one in bondage to sin, and the sequel to that is death (cf. 5:12; 8:13). The other option is a life of obedience resulting in “righteousness” (dikaiosynē, GK 1466). The word is a surprise since it breaks the parallel. One expects the word “life,” as in v.22. “Righteousness” and “life” have become nearly synonymous.

17 Paul is happy to acknowledge that his readers have renounced the service of sin and are now wholeheartedly obeying Christian teaching. Attention should be called to the KJV’s mistranslation at this point: “that form of doctrine which was delivered you.” In some other context, Paul might have expressed himself that way, because he frequently spoke of Christian tradition—that which had been handed down to the church as apostolic teaching. But here the normal order is reversed: “you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted.” By virtue of becoming Christians, the believers had obligated themselves to obey what we might call “the law of Christ” (Gal 6:2; cf. 1Co 9:21). Even though he had not founded the Roman church, Paul was confident that those who had preached the gospel there and taught the converts had reproduced the characteristic teaching that had been standard from the beginning (Ac 2:42, “the apostles’ teaching”). The word “form” translates typos, “type,” or better, “pattern” (GK 5596), and refers to a relatively fixed form of ethical teaching (cf. 1Th 4:1–2). Just as the gospel had certain ingredients (the kerygmatic substratum of 6:1–5, namely, Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection, as in 1Co 15:3–4), so the teaching relating to the life the believer was expected to live was standard throughout the church (cf. C. H. Dodd, Gospel and Law [Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1951]).

The teaching of Jesus and the apostles, especially in terms of the demands of discipleship, the ethical requirements of the faith, and the principles that must guide believers in their relationships with each other and the world became in time so definite and fixed that one could go from one area of the church to another and find the same general pattern. The Mosaic law was a fixed, definite entity with precepts and prohibitions. Grace has its norms also. (For an illuminating study of this subject, see E. G. Selwyn, The First Epistle of Peter [London: Macmillan, 1946], 363ff.)

18 The term that most adequately describes the standard Christian instruction is “righteousness.” Here Paul arrives at the full answer to the question raised in v.15. To be set free from obligation to serve sin means entrance into the service of righteousness (“have become slaves [douloō, GK 1530] to righteousness”). There is no middle ground, no place in Christian experience where one is free to set one’s own standards and go one’s own way. So it is idle to object that on becoming a believer one is simply exchanging one form of slavery for another. There is no alternative. The psalmist perceived this long ago when he wrote, “O LORD, truly I am thy servant; I am thy servant, and the son of thine handmaid: thou hast loosed my bonds” (Ps 116:16 KJV). Let no one say, however, that the two slaveries are on the same plane. The one is rigorous and relentless, leading to death; the other is joyous and satisfying, leading to life and peace. To be free from bondage to sin is a great boon in itself. But life cannot be lived in a vacuum. Service to righteousness means an enrichment of self and others that adds meaning to life, even as it fulfills the will of God.

19 Reviewing his own remarks, Paul grants that he has spoken “in human terms.” This is really a kind of apology for using language that is not strictly appropriate (see comments at 3:5), here for having described Christian life in terms of servitude to righteousness. As Nygren, 257, points out, “There is a difference as wide as the heavens between the two forms of bond service spoken of. The service of sin is an actual bondage and the service of righteousness and of God is an actual freedom.” In the metaphors of slavery, Paul uses language that is foreign to the OT and Judaism. David Daube (The New Testament and Rabbinic Judaism [London: Athlone, 1956], 284) has written, “There is not a single Old Testament or rabbinic text with the phrase ‘slaves of righteousness’ or anything like it—say, ‘slaves of the law’ or ‘slaves of good deeds.’ The faithful are ‘slaves of God’; they could be slaves to no one and nothing else.”

Paul gives a reason for using the unusual language: “because you are weak in your natural selves.” The nature of the weakness is not expressed—whether it relates to comprehension, so needing an illustration such as slavery, or whether it refers to moral fiber. At any rate, the weakness of the Roman Christians has called for strong language to drive the point home. The remainder of the verse may be said to favor somewhat the second alternative because the apostle enlarges his earlier description of their pre-Christian life as slaves of sin, going so far as to speak of their “impurity” (akatharsia, GK 174) and “wickedness” (anomia, GK 490; NASB, “lawlessness”)—uncleanness within and lawlessness without—indeed, as Paul graphically puts it, “slaves . . . to lawlessness, resulting in further lawlessness” (NASB).

The readiness and zeal with which they once served sin now becomes the basis for a challenge. Surely the new master is worthy of at least equal loyalty and devotion! This new master is not described in personal terms but in personification—as “righteousness” and “holiness.” The latter word suggests not so much a state of sanctity as an activity, a progression in the life of sanctification: “righteousness leading to holiness.” This is also implied by the antithetical parallel “lawlessness, resulting in further lawlessness.” Again Paul presents the call to offer the parts of one’s body in “slavery to righteousness” (cf. v.13).

20 To be a slave of sin, Paul affirms, is to be “free from the control of righteousness.” Under the circumstances, this is a most undesirable freedom. It would be a misunderstanding to interpret these words as meaning that a sinner has no obligation with respect to righteousness. The intent is simply to maintain that one cannot serve two masters. Each involves a master so rigorous, so exacting, that it consumes the whole of one’s attention.

21 So far is the pre-Christian state from being a desirable one that Paul can say it yields no “benefit” (karpos, GK 2843; lit., “fruit”). In fact, it leaves behind memories that produce shame. Its end is death (cf. 1:32).

22 On the other hand, the Christian state of freedom from the necessity of serving sin and the corresponding new slavery to God has produced a harvest of “holiness” (NASB, “sanctification,” hagiasmos, GK 40). At the end of this process is “eternal life” (cf. Gal 6:8). Paul is not denying the present possession of eternal life, as v.23 makes plain, but is simply presenting eternal life as the inevitable conclusion of the process of sanctification (cf. N. A. Dahl, “In What Sense Is the Baptized Person ‘simul justus et peccator’ According to the New Testament?” Lutheran World 9 [1962]: 219–31). Jesus similarly taught that eternal life was the sequel to genuine discipleship (Mk 10:29–30). Bruce, 142–43, has written, “Those who have been justified are now being sanctified; if a man is not being sanctified, there is no reason to believe that he has been justified.”

23 In a fitting conclusion, Paul puts God over against sin, gift over against wages, eternal life over against death, crowning it all with the acknowledgment that the mediation of “Christ Jesus our Lord” accounts for the shift from the one camp to the other. The term “wages” (opsōnia, GK 4072) is found mostly in military contexts to indicate the pay of the soldier. Something of this background is retained in the present passage (cf. “instruments” or “weapons” in v.13). Particularly striking here, in a context where the emphasis has been on the need to live righteously, is the breaking of the parallelism encountered in the immediately preceding verses (cf. also vv.16, 19). Now life is the result not of righteousness but very noticeably of “the gift [to charisma, GK 5922] of God.” Salvation for Paul is always a matter finally not of righteous works but of God’s sovereign and free grace. And it is always the result of what Christ has done for us.

NOTES

23 In his study of the word “wages” in this context, H. W. Heidland (TDNT 5:592) finds a threefold connotation: (1) since ὀψώνια, opsōnia, means provision for one’s living expenses, sin turns out to be a wretched paymaster, promising life but meting out death; (2) since in practice wages are paid not in a lump sum but regularly and periodically, death is not to be regarded merely as the final payment but as that which already casts its dark shadow over life, a portent of the deeper darkness to come; and (3) inasmuch as ὀψώνια, opsōnia, is a legal term, in contrast to χάρισμα (charisma, “gift”), we are to see a pitting of law over against grace. “Man has rights only in relation to sin, and these rights become his judgment. When he throws himself on God without claim, salvation comes to him” (ibid.). Cf. C. C. Caragounis, “Opsōnion: A Reconsideration of Its Meaning,” NovT 16 (1974): 35–57.

REFLECTIONS

Looking back over vv.15–23 of ch. 6, we see that truth has been taught by means of the elaboration of one great contrast. Obedience, whether to sin or to righteousness, is the one concept common to both sides of the contrast; otherwise, all is different:

Obedience to sin→fruitlessness and shame→death

Obedience to righteousness→sanctification→life

C. Union with Christ Viewed as Deliverance from Law (7:1–6)

OVERVIEW

As already observed, sin and death in their correlation have occupied Paul to a great degree from 5:12 on, with an occasional reference to a third element, namely, the law. In ch. 6, he has sought to explain that the believer’s crucifixion with Christ has brought freedom from enslavement to the dominion of sin. Since the law has served to promote sin (5:20), it is expedient now to show that Christ’s death, which involved the death of those who are his, effected release from the law also. At the same time, Paul is careful to indicate that this emancipation from the law is in order to permit a new attachment, namely, to the risen Lord and his Spirit, so that from this union will flow a fruitfulness of life unattainable under the law. Since union with Christ has already been shown to be so powerful a factor in its intended result as to warrant the figure of “slavery” (to righteousness), the way has been made clear to teach deliverance from the law as not opening the door to irresponsible and sinful conduct.

These verses reveal an argument parallel to that of ch. 6 (adapted from Nygren, 268):

6:1—sin	7:1—the law
6:2—we died to sin	7:4—you also died to the law
6:4—we too may live a new life	7:6—we serve in the new way of the Spirit
6:7—anyone who has died has	7:6—by dying to what once bound us,
been freed from sin	we have been released from the law
6:18—you have been set free from sin	7:3—she is released from that law

1Do you not know, brothers—for I am speaking to men who know the law—that the law has authority over a man only as long as he lives? 2For example, by law a married woman is bound to her husband as long as he is alive, but if her husband dies, she is released from the law of marriage. 3So then, if she marries another man while her husband is still alive, she is called an adulteress. But if her husband dies, she is released from that law and is not an adulteress, even though she marries another man.

4So, my brothers, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit to God. 5For when we were controlled by the sinful nature, the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in our bodies, so that we bore fruit for death. 6But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code.

COMMENTARY

1 The readers are described as those “who know the law.” Because the definite article is lacking before nomos, “law” (GK 3795), in the original, some have thought that perhaps the Mosaic law is not in view here. Could it be that since the recipients of the letter reside in Rome, the seat of legislation and government for the empire, Paul is referring to secular law? This conclusion is hardly necessary, however, since “law” similarly occurs without the article in passages that clearly have to do with the Mosaic legislation (e.g., 5:20). Almost certainly that is what Paul is referring to here. At the same time, it may be that Paul is not interested so much in identifying which law he has in mind as in pointing to the character of law as that which has binding force.

Already in this initial statement we have a clue for determining the thought that Paul is about to develop. The law has authority over a person only for that person’s lifetime. Since it has been established that the believer died with Christ, one can anticipate the conclusion—that whatever authority the law may continue to exercise over others, for the believer that power has been abrogated: “Only for him who in faith appropriates the righteousness of God in Christ is the law abolished” (TDNT 4:1075). It remains, of course, as an entity that expresses the will of God. The life under grace does not belittle the ethical demands of the law (cf. 3:31).

2–3 To illustrate the binding character of the law, Paul presents the case of a woman who is married to a husband and remains bound by law in this relationship as long as the husband is living. During this time, she is not free to seek another sexual relationship. This may be done only in the event that the husband dies. By design, the status of the wife as subject to the husband is presented by the term hypandros (GK 5635), a rather rare word meaning (lit.) “under a husband” (NIV, “married”). This pictures more readily than “married woman” what Paul is seeking to bring out. Particularly in Jewish life this was the actual legal status of the wife, for she could not divorce her husband; divorce was a privilege granted only to the man. If the husband died, she was then released from “the law concerning the husband” (NASB; cf. REB, “she is released from the marriage bond”). A new marriage became possible in which the woman would not be regarded as adulterous (v.3).

4–6 The opening “so” (hōste, lit., “so that”) indicates that illustration is now giving way to application. But the careful reader may be somewhat disturbed in that there is a measure of inconsistency in the way the illustration is applied. Note that in the case under consideration three essential statements are made: a woman is married to a man; the man dies; then the woman is free to be married to another (vv.2–3). In the application, three statements likewise appear or can be readily inferred: the readers have had a binding relation to the law; they have died to the law; and they are now free to be joined to another, even the risen Lord. A glance at these two triadic propositions shows that the parallel breaks down at the second item, for the law, which is the assumed master or husband in the application, is not represented as dying, since the readers are said to have died to the law. Paul avoids saying that the law died—something that is never affirmed in Scripture—though the law had a certain, temporary course to run (Gal 3:19). All he is concerned with is continuing the emphasis already made in ch. 6, namely, that death ends obligation. It was not feasible in the illustration to have the woman die, because then she would not have been available for marriage to another, which is vital to the application in which a new relationship is set up between the believer and Christ.

Paul was no doubt aware of this incongruity between illustration and application, but he counted on the understanding of his readers that he was seeking merely to underscore the truth that death with Christ brought to an end the sway of the law over those who are in him and ushered in a new relationship, as superior to the old as Christ is superior to the law.

4 Death to the law is said to have occurred “through the body of Christ.” This is a reference to the crucifixion of Christ’s body. Through the same means, believers became dead both to the law and to sin (cf. 6:6). “The body of Christ” (tou sōmatos [GK 5393] tou christou) should not be interpreted here as a reference to the church, since the word has not been used in the corporate, mystical sense thus far in Romans, and when it is so used (12:4–5), Paul brings in the human body as an analogy in order to make his meaning clear, as he had done in an earlier letter (1Co 12:12–13).

Death to the law occurred so that believers “might belong to another” (cf. Gal 2:19–20). To be joined to Christ involves participation not only in his death but also in his resurrection (6:5). Severance from obligation to serve the law is only part of the truth. We are married, as it were, to the risen Lord, with a view to “bearing fruit to God.” It is probably “far-fetched” (thus Bruce, 146) to argue that an analogy is intended here—as a marriage produces progeny, so the believer’s union with Christ results in spiritual fruit. (The general idea, however, is consonant with the Johannine emphasis on the secret of fruit bearing as being union with Christ [Jn 15:1–8].) A somewhat different background for fruit bearing is presented in Galatians 5:22–23, where the fruit is attributed to the Spirit, in contrast to the output of the flesh and of the law. Since Paul also speaks of the Spirit in Romans 7:6, the parallel with Galatians 5 is close. Fruit is readily attributed both to Christ and to the Spirit. The point here is that “it is only when man is free from the law that he can really bear fruit for God” (Nygren, 275).

5 Pre-Christian experience produced fruit of a sort, but it was corrupt and perishable, emanating from the “sinful nature” and produced by the “sinful passions” as these were aroused by the law (cf. vv.7–13). The contrast between the two types of fruit is striking (cf. 6:21). Paul has used sarx (GK 4922; NASB, “flesh”; NIV, “sinful nature”) in several senses thus far: (1) the humanity of Jesus Christ (1:3); (2) the physical body (2:28); (3) humanity—lit., “all flesh” (3:20); and (4) moral, or possibly intellectual, weakness (6:19). Now he adds a fifth: the so-called “ethical” meaning of “flesh,” which is the most common use of the word in his writings and denotes the old sinful nature. It is this sense of the word that pervades chs. 7 and 8, together with a final use in 13:14. Paul did not earlier employ the word “flesh” in this sense when exposing the universality of sin in chs. 1–3. In noting that the “sinful passions” (ta pathēmata tōn harmatiōn, GK 4077, 281) are aroused by the law (v.5), Paul is anticipating his fuller statement in vv.7–13 about the manner in which the law promotes sin. These passions were formerly at work in our bodies, bearing fruit for death.

6 The strong language of our freedom from the law in v.6 should be stressed: “by dying to what once bound us, we have been released [katērgēthēmen, GK 2934] from the law.” In the same way that the death of a husband releases the wife for a new relationship, so the law has no remaining power over us: “The power of sin is the law” (1Co 15:56). We are now free for something other, something new. Release from the law has as its objective a bond service to God “in the new way of the Spirit” in contrast to the “old way of the written code.” This contrast is not between a literal mode of interpreting Scripture and one that is free and unfettered. “The written code,” which has special reference to the law rather than to Scripture in general, has no power to give life and to produce a service acceptable to God. Only a human can beget human life, and only a divine person can impart spiritual life, which is then fostered and nurtured by the Spirit. The word kainotēs (GK 2786; NASB, “newness”; NIV, “new way”) refers not so much to the idea of newness in time as freshness and superiority. This is the only mention of the Spirit in ch. 7. It anticipates ch. 8, with its unfolding of the wealth of blessing to be experienced through the Spirit.

NOTES

4–6 Stuhlmacher, 102, calls attention to a rabbinic parallel based on Psalm 88:6: “If a person has died, he has become free from the Torah and from fulfilling the commandments” (b. Šabb. 30a).

5 Stuhlmacher, 104, regards v.5 as a kind of heading and table of contents for the remainder of the chapter, with v.6 serving in a similar way for 8:1–17.

6 Though γράμμα, gramma (lit., “letter,” GK 1207), comes from the same root as γραφή, graphē (GK 1210), the word for “Scripture,” the two are not treated by Paul as equivalents. The very fact that γράμμα, gramma, is pitted against πνεῦμα, pneuma (“Spirit,” GK 4460), is revealing. It becomes a surrogate for law in its written form. G. Schrenk (TDNT 1:768) notes that “gramma is not used when [Paul] speaks of the positive and lasting significance of Scripture. This positive task is always stated in terms of graphē. When the reference is to gramma, Paul is always thinking of the legal authority which has been superseded, while graphē is linked with the new form of authority determined by the fulfillment in Christ and by His Spirit, the determinative character of the new no longer being what is written and prescribed.”

Considerable affinity can be detected between the presentation here and that in 2 Corinthians 3:6, where the γράμμα-πνεῦμα, gramma–pneuma, tension likewise appears. In both passages, the concepts of death and life occur; also the verb καταργέω, katargeō, occurs (Ro 7:6; 2Co 3:7, 11, 13–14), with the meaning “to be released from” in Romans and “to fade away or disappear” in the 2 Corinthians passage, except for v.14, where it has the force of “to be taken away.” In both passages, the subject is the abrogation of the law, though the matter is put somewhat differently in Romans, where believers are said to have been discharged from service to the law. But the thought is essentially the same in both places.

Not all translations allow for mention of the Holy Spirit here. The REB, for example, has “to serve God in a new way, the way of the spirit, in contrast to the old way of a written code” (similarly the NJB). However, it is probable that we have in 7:6 an anticipation of that fullness of treatment of the Spirit that comes out in ch. 8. Also, the parallelism between Romans 7:6 and 2 Corinthians 3 favors a reference to the Holy Spirit, since there is no doubt that πνεῦμα, pneuma, refers to the Spirit in the latter passage.

The contrast between the newness and freedom of the Spirit and the oldness and bondage of the written code probably alludes to the “new covenant” passage of Jeremiah 31:31–34. Note how Paul alludes to the same passage in 2 Corinthians 3:6.

D. The Relationship between Law and Sin (7:7–13)

OVERVIEW

Paul now turns to clarify the relationship between law and sin. When he flatly states that the believer has died to sin (6:2) and to the law (7:4), does this mean that the two are so similar as to be in some sense equated? The relation between the two has been touched on briefly in 7:5, but Paul now digs into the subject more fully. In essence, the solution of the problem is this: the law cannot be identified with sin, because it is the law that provides awareness of sin (cf. 3:20). Can one say of an X-ray machine that reveals a disease that the machine itself is diseased? That would be utterly illogical.

From v.7 through the end of the chapter Paul employs the first person pronouns “I” and “me.” The identity of this “I” remains one of the greatest enigmas of the epistle. In fact, the question is a double one since the “I” of vv.7–13 is not necessarily exactly the same as the “I” of vv.14–25, where all the verbs suddenly change to the present tense. Commentators remain divided on the question. Here we will address the question of vv.7–13, reserving the question of vv.14–25 for an extended note on those verses.

Verses 7–13 present a historical perspective on the subject Paul addresses. It is clear that even if Paul speaks autobiographically here, the “I” may also be representative of a larger entity. Since vv.7–13 concern the law of Moses, the “I” must represent a Jew or Jews (or possibly Gentiles who were God-fearers). A decisive issue is how to explain the statement of v.9 that “once I was alive apart from law; but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died.” If one takes the “I” as Paul himself, perhaps the turning point was when he became bar-mitzvah, “a son of the commandment,” being accountable thereafter to obey the law. Another obvious candidate is Adam, for whom the coming of the commandment became a crucial turning point. Bruce, 148, who is inclined to identify the “I” of this passage as Paul (so too Barrett, Sanday and Headlam), notes that “Paul, of course, did not think of his own experience as unique; he describes it here because it is true in a greater or lesser degree of the human race . . . it may well be that here, as in Romans v. 12 ff., Paul has Adam’s transgression in mind as well as his own.” Dunn, 1.378, also opts for Adam, as does Stuhlmacher, 106. Bruce, 148, quotes T. W. Manson approvingly: “Here Paul’s autobiography is the biography of Everyman.” It is also possible that Paul speaks more generally of the experience of the people of Israel, to whom the law was given through Moses (preferred by Moo, 431, who concludes that the “I” is “Paul in solidarity with Israel”). What is important is not so much who is in view in the “I” but rather the contrast of the pre-law and post-law state.

As Paul has appealed to the experience of his converts to support Christian truth (Gal 3:1–5; 4:1–7), so now he begins suggestively with his own experience, as a mirror of both Adam and Israel (Ro 7:7–13). This personal reference then broadens into a more general picture of the soul-struggle of a person who tries to serve God by obeying the law but who encounters only failure because of the continued power of sin (vv.14–25).

The observation that consciousness of sin is produced by the law is sharpened by a specific example. Paul seizes on the tenth commandment, which says, “You shall not covet” (Ex 20:17; Dt 5:21). This is of the highest importance for our understanding of the meaning of law in Romans 7:1–6, the law from which the believer has been released. What the apostle has in mind includes the moral law. While students of Scripture find it convenient at times to distinguish between the ceremonial law and the moral law, Paul regards the law as a unit. To any who may be disturbed by the thought that the divine standard for one’s life is abandoned by maintaining release from the law, Paul will reply in due course that no such danger exists (cf. 8:4).

7What shall we say, then? Is the law sin? Certainly not! Indeed I would not have known what sin was except through the law. For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, “Do not covet.” 8But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind of covetous desire. For apart from law, sin is dead. 9Once I was alive apart from law; but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died. 10I found that the very commandment that was intended to bring life actually brought death. 11For sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, deceived me, and through the commandment put me to death. 12So then, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous and good.

13Did that which is good, then, become death to me? By no means! But in order that sin might be recognized as sin, it produced death in me through what was good, so that through the commandment sin might become utterly sinful.

COMMENTARY

7–13 “Sin” is an oft-repeated word in this section. It does not refer here to specific acts of sin but to the “sin principle,” to that mighty force which cannot be tamed but which lurks dormant or relatively inactive in a person’s life, then is brought to the fore by prohibition, and proceeds to rise up and slay its victim, whom it has utterly deceived. Sin, then, has the same meaning here as in 5:12–21. The same conditions of prohibition and desire, leading to a fall, are latent in both passages. But whereas in 5:12–21, sin is further defined as paraptōma (GK 4183), “trespass,” which has in it the very word for “fall,” here hamartia (GK 281) alone is used. This is suggestive, for since the fall of Adam and Eve there is an inability to get back to God. Humanity is always “falling short,” which is precisely the meaning of hamartia (cf. 3:23). Paul strongly denies the outrageous idea that the law itself is sin. Rather, as he has already indicated, the law serves to expose sin (cf. 3:20; 5:13).

7 The words “indeed I would not have known” could be translated, “I did not know,” giving them a fully historical setting, but the hypothetical construction is no doubt preferable. In view is the awareness of sin in a personal, existential sense—an awareness created by the law’s demands. To come to grips with this, the apostle selects an item from the Decalogue, the very last of the ten commandments. Is he selecting more or less at random one of the ten for an illustration? Could he have chosen just as readily the prohibition against stealing or bearing false witness? Possibly he saw something basic here, for “coveting” (epithymia, GK 2123) is more precisely “desiring.” If one gives rein to wrong desire, it can lead to lying, stealing, killing, and all the other things prohibited in the commandments. The sin indicated here is not so much a craving for this or that wrong thing but the craving itself. (Note that Paul does not bother to spell out the particulars of the tenth commandment, such as mentioning the object of the coveting—the possessions or spouse of one’s neighbor.) In analyzing sin, one must go behind the outward act to the inner person, where desire clutches at the imagination and then puts the spurs to the will.

8 In the background is the Genesis story of the temptation and the fall (Ge 3:1–24). Adam and Eve were faced with a commandment—a prohibition. When desire was stirred through the subtle suggestion of the serpent, a certain rebelliousness came into play that is the very heart of sin—a preference for one’s own will over the expressed will of God. The warning “Don’t!” to a small child may turn out to be a call for action that had not even been contemplated by the child. A sure way to lose blossoms from the garden is to post a sign that says, “Don’t pick the flowers!” The word “opportunity” in the Greek (aphormē, GK 929) is a military term meaning “a base of operations.” Prohibition furnishes a springboard from which sin is all too ready to take off. The possibilities for seeking satisfaction through giving way to wrong desire are manifold: “every kind of covetous desire.”

Paul concludes this verse, “For apart from law, sin is dead.” It appears from a comparison of “dead” here with “sprang to life” in v.9 that the word “dead” is intended to be taken in a relative sense, namely, quiescent, dormant, inactive. The statement appears to be an axiom, a broad principle. But since the verb “is” does not appear in the original, a possibility exists that “was” should be supplied, making the reference personal to Paul rather than a general statement (so Murray, 250). On the other hand, when some part of the verb “to be” is left for the reader to supply, as here, it is more apt to be a generalization than a specific historical allusion.

9 Paul was the son of a Pharisee (Ac 23:6) and lived in strictest conformity to the regulations of his sect (Ac 26:5). If there was ever a time when he was not yet under the law, it would have been as a child, before he became bar-mitzvah. Insofar as he speaks generally or implicitly of Adam or Israel, however, it is easier to understand this verse as referring to the time before the coming of the commandment or the law. With the coming of the commandment, sin “sprang to life” (anazaō, GK 348). When Paul writes in v.10 that as a result “I died” (egō de apethanon [GK 633]), this dying is, of course, entirely unrelated to dying with Christ, of which we have been informed in ch. 6. This refers not to a death to sin but a death because of sin.

10 The commandment referred to, like the others, “was intended to bring life.” That is to say, its design and ideal were to promote observance that would lead to divine blessing and consequent human happiness: “Keep my decrees and laws, for the man who obeys them will live by them. I am the LORD” (Lev 18:5). The practical difficulty, of course, is that sinful humanity fails to do the will of God as set forth in the commandments. The contradictory result was that the law led to death.

11 In v.11 sin is strongly personified, being represented as an acting person taking up an opportunity (cf. v.8). The language is reminiscent of the fall, with sin taking the place of the tempter and provoking a deception that led to death. (The spiritual death that occurred then and there was prophetic of the physical death to follow.) The word “deceived” (exapataō, GK 1987) occurs here in a strong form, indicating a thorough deception. Paul uses the same word on two other occasions when speaking of the deception effected by the serpent in relation to Eve (2Co 11:3; 1Ti 2:14; cf. Ex 8:25 [LXX]). The statement is reminiscent of the words of Eve in Genesis 3:13, where the LXX uses the verb without the prepositional prefix (apataō, GK 572). Sin within him led Paul to do the very thing the commandment forbade, thus bringing him under condemnation as a lawbreaker. Recall his statement about the law in 2 Corinthians 3:6—“the letter kills.”

Günther Bornkamm’s insight (Early Christian Experience, 91–92) is helpful:

What constitutes this deception and death? The deception of sin can only consist in the fact that it falsely promises life to me. This it cannot do by itself, but only with the help of the divine commandment. Deceptively it appropriates the call to life, which actually declares God’s law: do that, and you shall live. What it quietly and deceptively conceals from me is simply this, that it has now usurped this call to live, and therefore the encounter with the divine commandment is no longer direct. Sin always stands in between and has fundamentally perverted my relationship to God’s commandment. This perversion is both deception and death.

12 It is time for the apostle to give a decisive answer to the question he had raised in v.7: “Is the law sin?” So very far from being identifiable with sin, “the law is holy” (hagios, GK 41), as are the individual commandments it contains. It is possible to understand “the commandment” (hē entolē, GK 1953) as a reference to every single precept of the law, but the singular form leads one to think that Paul is casting a backward glance at the tenth commandment. But what Paul says of that commandment refers equally to the law as a whole. The commandment is “holy” because it comes from a holy God and searches out sin. It is “righteous” (dikaia, GK 1465) in view of the just requirements it lays on humans, and also because it forbids and condemns sin. It is “good” (agathē, GK 19), or beneficent, because its aim is life (v.10). The misuse of the law at the hands of sin has not altered its own intrinsic character. Its goodness is twice reaffirmed in v.13. Stuhlmacher, 108, writes, “In contrast to what his opponents maintain, the law is, for Paul, in no way a sinful power, but rather the arrangement and gift of God.”

13 Having detached the law from any wrongful association with sin, Paul still has the necessity of treating the problem of the law’s relation to death, the other great enemy of humanity. Continuing to present the case in personal terms, he insists that the responsibility for incurring death must be assigned to sin rather than to the law. Its use of the law to bring death shows how “utterly sinful” sin is. At the same time, the law, which seemed to be victimized by being taken over by sin, emerges as having gained an important objective: it has exposed sin for the evil thing it is. Nygren, 283, has written, “By reason of its relation to sin, the law becomes a destroying power—something which, in its own nature, it is not. From that destroying power Christ has saved us.”

NOTES

8 In the KJV, the word for “desire” (ἐπιθυμία, epithymia, GK 2123) is rendered “lust” in v.7 and “concupiscence” in v.8. Since both of these renderings are readily associated with sexual desire, they unduly restrict the frame of reference.

9 The objection often mentioned as disqualifying the view that Paul’s bar-mitzvah is in view is that he had been circumcised on the eighth day and thus was not “apart from law.” But what is in view is Paul’s consciousness of the demand of the law, and that reaches a formal turning point at the age of accountability and does not arise merely by circumcision or early childhood training in the commandments.

E. The Struggle to Observe the Law (7:14–25)

OVERVIEW

A shift of emphasis is discernible on moving from vv.7–13 to vv.14–25. In the former section, Paul has shown that the fault lay not with the commandment of God but with sin in its use of the commandment. In this section, he maintains that the responsible party, ultimately speaking, is not “I” but the sin that dwells within.

From this point on to the end of the chapter, the personal emphasis continues but with increased intensity, as the powerful forces of law and sin are depicted as producing a struggle that ends in a confession of despair relieved only by the awareness that in Jesus Christ there is deliverance. Paul does not shrink from putting himself prominently in this arena of conflict if only his doing so will help others (cf. 1Co 4:6).

If his portrayal of the struggle of the soul to observe the law despite the enticement of sin is presented at greater length and with greater intensity than the struggle with the powers of darkness (cf. Eph 6:10–18), it is not necessarily because the former is intrinsically more important (seeing that the powers are evil also), but because it is so immediately and desperately personal (the other is equally so only in cases of demon-possession).

14We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. 15I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. 16And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. 17As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. 18I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. 19For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. 20Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.

21So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. 22For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; 23but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. 24What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? 25Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!

So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.

COMMENTARY

14 At the outset, Paul wants it understood that he is not depreciating the law, for it is “spiritual” (pneumatikos, GK 4461)—i.e., emanating from God (vv.22, 25), who is Spirit (Jn 4:24). Of course, it is true also that the law as a part of Scripture is the product of the Holy Spirit, who inspired the writers. But that aspect is not prominent here. The law is a reflection of the character of God. Godly people recognize this fact (“we know”).

“But I am of flesh [sarkinos, GK 4921]” (NASB; NIV, “unspiritual”). What a stark contrast! “Flesh” is used here in the sense of moral corruption, what I am in myself. I am not subject to the law and therefore I am in rebellion against God, since the law is from him. Fitzmyer, 474, observes, “The Ego possesses a nature in which sin is entrenched because of Adam.” (The problems as to whether Paul speaks individually or universally here, and whether as a Christian or a non-Christian, will be dealt with in an extended note on 7:14–25.) Here he moves on to a second description more wretched than the first: he has been “sold as a slave to sin.” This strikes the keynote of what follows, down to the anguished cry, “Who will rescue me . . . ?” (v.24).

15 The slavery extends to the totality of his being. It numbs and blinds him, for he confesses that he does not know what he is doing. It is a graphic picture of many an action carried out by a slave, going through certain motions under the authority and direction of a master. If there appears to be obedience, it is really not a matter of volition but something almost mechanical. Paul’s figure of slavery is cogent here, since he is forced to carry out what he does not want to do, what he really hates, whereas what he would like to do he never manages to accomplish.

16 The failure to do what he desires to do is not to be attributed to some defect in the law, since Paul concurs in the verdict that the law is praiseworthy. It inculcates the right kind of conduct, the things that are beneficent in their results. The very act of not wanting to do what the law forbids is itself an admission that the law is good.

17 If the failure does not come from an intrinsic weakness of the law or a wrong attitude toward the law, such as indifference or defiance, then the doing of things contrary to the law must be traced to the power of sin working within him. Paul is not attempting to escape responsibility but rather is putting his finger on the real culprit—indwelling sin. The invader had managed to secure more than a foothold; he roams the place, considering it his home. In putting the matter this way, Paul has moved from a consideration of outward acts to an emphasis on the unwanted tenancy of sin. With this alien master in control, no matter how strongly he wants to do the good, he finds himself frustrated.

18–20 The inability to do the good that he wants to do points to the fact that “nothing good lives in me” (v.18; cf. 3:12, “there is no one who does good, not even one”). But Paul quickly adds the important qualification “that is, in my flesh [sarx, GK 4922],” i.e., in his fallen, sinful nature (NIV). Verse 19 is a virtual repetition of v.15; the same is true of v.20 in relation to v.17.

Since Paul was a Jew, it is natural to inquire whether there was anything in his Jewish inheritance he may have been drawing on to depict the struggle against sin. A strong case can be made, simply on the basis of similarity, for the conclusion that Paul was indeed dependent on rabbinic teaching at this point as far as the formal framework of his presentation is concerned (cf. W. D. Davies, Paul and Rabbinic Judaism [4th ed.; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1980], 17–35). The rabbis taught that within man there are two impulses, both attributable to God. One is evil (the yetzer ha-ra, the evil impulse), usually understood as present from birth but inactive during the early years, and the other good (the yetzer ha-tôb, the good impulse), making itself felt at the time a Jewish lad at thirteen became a bar-mitzvah (“son of the commandment”). Thereafter the two impulses contend for mastery within the person. The rabbinic remedy suggested for this situation was a devoted study and application of the law. At this point, however, Paul’s presentation differs radically from the rabbinic view, for he stoutly maintains that the law, despite its divine origin and intrinsic excellence, is not able to counteract the power of sin.

21–23 The language here clearly indicates a purpose to summarize what has gone before. The word nomos (GK 3795) is translated “principle” by the NASB; elsewhere nomos is usually translated “law.” So far, the law under discussion is the law of Moses, but here the specialized meaning “principle” is intended (see comments at 3:27 and 8:2). Some insist, however, on retaining the meaning of nomos as Mosaic law throughout the chapter (see, e.g., A. A. Das, Paul and the Jews [Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 2003], 161–63). But would Paul really have referred to the Mosaic law in this way? This usage makes it necessary, when speaking once more of the (Mosaic) law, to call it “God’s law” (v.22) for the purpose of differentiation.

The “principle” is that for the one desiring to do good, “evil [kakon, GK 2805] lies close at hand”—which is the more literal rendering of the verb parakeimai (GK 4154) than the NASB’s “is present in me” (v.21). In Paul’s inner being, the divine law is welcome and brings delight (v.22), but that which manifests itself in his bodily members (what may be called the “outward man”) is the “law [principle, or perhaps authority] of sin.” It is a state of war (v.23), and he finds himself taken captive (cf. the earlier figure of a slave in v.14) to the imperious operation of sin.

24 The agony of this unhappy condition bursts forth in the cry “Wretched [talaipōros, GK 5417] man that I am!” It is a powerful and moving cry recalling the words of Isaiah when he became aware of his sin (Isa 6:5). Since Paul is unable to help himself, he must look elsewhere. In this verse and the next one, the “I” is clearly the man himself, which warns us against trying to analyze the “I” at earlier points in the chapter in schizophrenic terms. Barrett, 141–42, has noted, “The source of Paul’s wretchedness is clear. . . . it is not the conflict of a ‘divided self.’ Through sin, the word of God in the law has become not a comfort but an accusation. Man needs not a law but deliverance, a new creation.”

In line with this, the apostle does not ask, “What will rescue me?” but “Who . . . ?” Deliverance is provided by God through Jesus Christ. No answer is to be found within the Christian: “Threatened by defeat in the conflict between willing and execution, the Ego finds no relief in its own native resources” (Fitzmyer, 476). The appeal from self to Jesus is meaningless if the latter has the same problem as the tormented suppliant. Jesus’ sinlessness and triumph over evil are assumed. It is because of who Jesus is and what he has done that he can deliver us. The NASB’s “the body of this death” (tou sōmatos [GK 5393] tou thanatou [GK 2505] toutou) is better understood as “this body of death” (so NIV), taking the last word (“this”) as modifying “body.” A body marked by sin is a body marked for death.

25 The final statement (v.25b) of the chapter is another summary. Coming as it does after the cry of thanksgiving for deliverance through Christ (v.25a), it seems strange that there should be a reversion to the state of tension described earlier. Because of this, some students have ventured the opinion that this part of the verse has somehow been misplaced in the course of the transmission of the text. In his translation, Moffatt actually puts it after v.23 (Dodd agrees), despite the fact that there is no manuscript authority for this. In v.25, the expression “I myself” serves as a contrast with “Jesus Christ our Lord.” How, then, shall we account for the strange order? Apparently Paul felt the desirability of stating once more the essence of the struggle he had depicted in order to prepare the reader to appreciate more the grand exposition of the deliverance in terms of Christ and the Spirit that is presented in ch. 8.

Romans 7 performs a service by calling into question certain popular notions that lack biblical foundation: that the soul’s struggle is essentially against specific sins or habits (Paul talks here not of sins but of sin); that human nature is essentially good (cf. v.18); that sanctification is by means of the law; that if one will only determine to do the right, one will be able to do it. These are some of the misconceptions that must be removed, and they might not have been removed had the apostle proceeded directly from ch. 6 to ch. 8. Without ch. 7 we would not be able to fully appreciate the truths presented in ch. 8.

NOTES

1–25 On Romans 7, see G. Bornkamm, “Sin, Law and Death: An Exegetical Study of Romans 7,” in Early Christian Experience (New York: Harper & Row, 1969), 87–104; C. L. Mitton, “Romans 7 Reconsidered,” ExpTim 65 (1953–54): 78–81, 99–103, 132–35.

14–25 See the following for further discussion of this passage: J. D. G. Dunn, “Romans 7:14–25 in the Theology of Paul,” TZ 31 (1975): 257–73; R. Y. K. Fung, “The Impotence of the Law: Towards a Fresh Understanding of Romans 7:14–25,” in Scripture, Tradition and Interpretation: Essays Presented to Everett F. Harrison, ed. W. W. Gasque and W. S. LaSor (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1978), 34–48; D. Wenham, “The Christian Life: A Life of Tension? A Consideration of the Nature of Christian Experience in Paul,” in Pauline Studies: Essays Presented to F. F. Bruce on his 70th Birthday, ed. D. A. Hagner and M. J. Harris (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1980), 80–94.

18 The final clause of the sentence in v.18 ends in οὐ, ou (“not”), unaccompanied by a verb. Some manuscripts (D F G and TR) add εὑρίσκω, heuriskō (GK 2351), “find”; a few others, γινώσκω, ginōskō, “know” (GK 1182). The NASB appropriately supplies “is” (“the doing of the good is not”). The NIV translates, “I cannot carry it out.”

REFLECTIONS

Before moving on to ch. 8, we must return to the problems of interpretation in 7:14–25. First of all, is Paul giving a truly autobiographical sketch, or is the “I” a vehicle to present humanity in its extremity, a means to universalize the experience treated here? It is difficult to decide. The first person (“I”) was occasionally used in antiquity as a rhetorical device for expressing something applicable to others. It was so used somewhat by the rabbis (see W. G. Kümmel, Römer 7 und die Bekehrung des Paulus [Leipzig: Hinrich, 1929], 128–31—a book widely regarded as a classic treatment of the subject). That Paul could think and write in this fashion is apparent from Romans 3:7. Romans 7, however, is unique in its extent. Perhaps the personal and the universal are intended to mingle here. As we have seen, it is probable that the “I” of vv.7–13 refers not only to Paul but is also an allusion to Adam, the man who had so much to do with sin and death.

With regard to the particular issue of the interpretation of vv.14–25, are we to regard the state pictured here as that of the non-Christian, such as the Jew (perhaps the Pharisee Saul)—so Dodd, Taylor, Moo, Stuhlmacher (the Adamic I before baptism and without Christ)—or the moral secular person (Fitzmyer: “unregenerate humanity faced with the Mosaic law—but as seen by a Christian”)? Or is it that of the Christian (so Nygren, Bruce, Barrett, Cranfield, Mounce, Edwards)? After reviewing the arguments, Schreiner, 390, concludes that Paul speaks with neither group in mind, but rather of humanity in the broadest sense. Interesting secular parallels to the idea of doing what one wants not to do and vice versa have been found, e.g., in Horace, Ovid, and Epictetus, but there are also significant differences (cf. Bruce, 154).

The case for concluding that in view is non-Christian or pre-Christian experience includes the following points: (1) It was the prevailing view among the Greek fathers of the early church. (2) Such expressions as “I am of flesh” (NASB) and “sold as a slave to sin” (v.14) seem incompatible with Paul’s earlier statements—“anyone who has died has been freed from sin” (6:7), “sin shall not be your master” (6:14), and “you have been set free from sin” (6:18, 22)—and also with statements to come in 8:4–9, where the Spirit is said to overcome the sinful nature, enabling the achievement of righteousness. (3) If the “now” of 8:1 means what it seems to mean (cf. the “now” of 7:6), Paul is passing from a consideration of the pre-Christian to the present Christian condition. (4) Romans 7:14–25 provides the grounds for the statement in 7:13 (cf. gar, “for” [NASB], at the beginning of v.14; untranslated in NIV), thus indicating its application to the non-Christian. (5) The absence of the Holy Spirit from the discussion, and even of Christ (until the very close), is hard to understand if a redeemed experience is under review.

A second interpretation holds that a Christian is being depicted, despite the emphasis on wretchedness. For this view the following arguments may be mentioned: (1) This was the conclusion of Augustine, Martin Luther, and John Calvin. (2) Appeal is made to the change from the use of the past tense in vv.7–13 to the consistent use of the present tense in vv.14–25. This is readily understandable if the former section relates to Paul’s pre-Christian experience and the rest of the chapter, beginning with v.14, to his present post-conversion experience. (3) The author’s description of his pre-Christian life in Philippians 3:6 as a blameless condition in terms of the law does not jive with the passage before us. Paul counted this faultlessness as one of the things that could be listed as gain. Both pictures cannot readily apply to the same period. It has been replied that he is speaking in Philippians of his standing with others and not, as in Romans 7, of his relation to God. Paul, however, was a transparent person who would hardly have represented himself as possessing what he recounts in Philippians in a merely human frame of reference, if everything within him protested against it as a hollow unreality. (4) The progress of thought in Romans needs to be taken into consideration. Paul has passed beyond his description of the unsaved state and is now giving attention to sanctification and its problems; so the theme here is really relevant only to believers. (5) The sort of conflict described here can and does characterize the Christian life, as is apparent elsewhere in Paul, especially in Galatians 5:17. (6) The power of self-diagnosis at the penetrating level found here (vv.22–23) is beyond the capacity of the natural human being. Advocates of the other view suggest that the explanation here is that Paul is writing retrospectively as a Christian who naturally has gained in perception, and this colors his presentation. (7) A person desiring holiness of life, as pictured here, could only be a believer, for the non-Christian person does not long for God but is hostile toward him (cf. 3:11, 18). (8) The end of the chapter, in terms of the text as it stands and without attempted rearrangement, acknowledges the deliverance in Christ yet goes on to state the very problem sketched in vv.14–24 as though it continues to be a problem for one who knows the Lord.

The wide difference between these two views has plagued interpreters of Romans. Since each view seems persuasive, perhaps one way to do justice to the complexity of the question is to conclude that the passage does not refer exclusively to either group. If it primarily has in mind the non-Christian—the arguments here seem strong—there may at the same time be a secondary sense in which it also refers to Paul the Christian.

Several recent commentators have found such an approach appealing. For example, Stuhlmacher, 114, who identifies the “I” as the Adamic “I” of the preconversion experience, can nevertheless write these words: “Once again, the apostle intentionally formulates this summarizing maxim from 7:7–24 in the present tense and in so doing brings to expression the fact that every believing Christian bears in himself or herself the unhappy dichotomy of the Adamic ‘I,’ whose spirit is willing, but whose flesh is weak (cf. Mk. 14:38 par.). The Christian bears this dichotomy in the sense of a need which is more than something that is simply well remembered, but has been overcome with God’s help.” Similarly, though Dunn, 1:410, refers to the larger passage as describing “everyman in the present,” concerning v.24 he writes, “Here certainly Paul speaks for himself, and not merely as a spokesperson for humanity at large; this is not the stylized formulation of one who is long since removed from the situation in question. The one who cries for help so piteously cries from within the contradiction; he longs for deliverance from the endless war and frequent defeat.”

The applicability of vv.14–25 to the Christian is readily explained by the tension of life between the first and second comings of Christ. John Reumann (“Romans,” in Eerdmans Commentary on the Bible, ed. J. D. G. Dunn [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003], 1296) points to this in the following words: “It remains worth pondering whether the key is not eschatological (‘now’ is the same phrase as in 3:21), a tension in existence, even under Christ. Paul surely describes life under the law in the aeon of Adam, but though the new age of Christ has broken in and marks believers’ lives, the old age continues on until the parousia.” This perspective has been worked through most thoroughly by Nygren, who finds the tension between the old and new aeons to be the key to the entire epistle. Consonant with this understanding is the future tense of rhysetai, “will rescue me” (GK 4861, v.24), which points to the end of the tension in the future. For the present, just as the Christian is free from death yet still subject to it, thus too the Christian is free from sin yet still in an inescapable struggle against it. Cranfield’s observation, 1:346, is worth quoting: “With regard to the objection that it is incredible that Paul should speak of a Christian as [sold as a slave to sin], we ought to ask ourselves whether our inability to accept this expression as descriptive of a Christian is not perhaps the result of failure on our part to realize the full seriousness of the ethical demands of God’s law (or of the gospel).” And in this struggle the Christian will experience the occasional defeat. Calvin, 148, has written, “It should be noted that this conflict mentioned by the apostle does not exist in man until he has been sanctified by the Spirit of God.” It is the righteous person who knows the struggle against sin, and who is sensitive to sin in a way that the oblivious sinner never can be. For the present, the Christian is a walking civil war. But Paul will speak more encouragingly in ch. 8, referring to the power of the Spirit in the life of the Christian.

F. The Blessings of Life in the Spirit (8:1–39)

OVERVIEW

It is altogether too narrow a view to see in this portion of Romans simply the antidote to the wretched state pictured in ch. 7. Chapter 8 is one of the absolutely high points in the entire corpus of Pauline literature. It gathers up various strands of thought from the previous discussion of both justification and sanctification and unites them under the crown of glorification. Like ch. 5 it presents the blessings of the justified life, grounded in the removal of condemnation. Like ch. 6 it stresses freedom from the bondage of sin and ultimately from the bondage of death. Like ch. 7 it deals with the problem of the law and the flesh, finding the solution in the liberating and productive ministry of the Spirit. The Spirit dominates the chapter (the word occurs nineteen times), which begins with instruction, rises to consolation, and culminates in jubilation. This is high and holy ground indeed for the Christian pilgrim to tread.

1. Liberation by the Spirit from the Law of Sin and Death (8:1–13)

1Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, 2because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. 3For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in sinful man, 4in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit.

5Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. 6The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace; 7the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. 8Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God.

9You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ. 10But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness. 11And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you.

12Therefore, brothers, we have an obligation—but it is not to the sinful nature, to live according to it. 13For if you live according to the sinful nature, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live,

COMMENTARY

1 The reader is hardly prepared by the contents of ch. 7 for the glorious pronouncement that there is “no condemnation” at all for those who are in Christ Jesus. Here is the statement of the gospel in just a few words. Here is the answer to the condemnation mentioned in 5:18. It is not easy to associate the “therefore” with anything in the immediately preceding context. The connection must be sought in the entire sweep of the thought as developed from ch. 3 on. The natural antithesis to the sentence of condemnation is justification. It can be replied, of course, that Paul has already covered this truth and would not be likely to revert to it here. However, this is such a basic truth that Paul brings it even into his discussion of the Christian life (vv.33–34; cf. v.10). Justification is the basis and starting point for sanctification. One must be assured of acceptance with God before one can grow in grace and conformity to Christ.

At the same time, it is clear that the construction of vv.2–4 carries us beyond the thought of freedom from condemnation in the sense of guilt. What is developed is the application of the redeeming work of Christ by the Spirit to the believer’s life in such a way that the dominion of sin is broken and the reign of godliness assured. In Christ we have entered a new aeon, and those “in Christ Jesus,” i.e., Christians, participate in the freedom of this new aeon. The noun “condemnation” (katakrima, GK 2890) has its counterpart in the verb “condemned” (v.3), which is followed immediately, not by a statement about the standing of the believer, but by one concerning the believer’s manner of life (v.4). Consequently, there is both a forensic and a practical force in “no condemnation.”

2 Verse 2 immediately picks up this practical, dynamic aspect by concentrating on freedom from the imperious rule of sin (cf. 6:18) and death (cf. 6:22–23), the two archenemies of humanity. This new freedom is now available to and made possible for the believer through the operation of the Spirit. The word “law” is again probably to be understood figuratively here (cf. 7:21, 23). It seems improbable (though not impossible) that Paul would refer to the law of Moses as “the law of sin and of death,” even though it provokes sin (7:7–8) and produces death (7:9–11; 2Co 3:6, 7). For Paul, the law in itself remains holy (7:12). In the present passage, therefore, “law” is used in the sense of a “principle” to indicate the certainty and regularity of operation that characterizes sin (which leads to death) on the one hand and the work of the Spirit on the other. Whereas the word “law” (nomos, GK 3795) emphasizes regularity, “life” (zōē, GK 2437) emphasizes both supernaturalness and spontaneity—hence the superiority of the Spirit’s operation over that of sin (cf. L. E. Keck, “The Law and ‘the Law of Sin and Death’ [Romans 8:1–4]: Reflections on the Spirit and Ethics in Paul,” in The Divine Helmsman, ed. J. L. Crenshaw and S. Sandmel [New York: KTAV, 1980], 41–57).

The syntax leaves unclear whether the words “through Christ Jesus” are to be taken with the words “the Spirit of life” or with “set me free.” Probably the latter is to be preferred. “The Spirit of life through Christ Jesus set me free” points to the Spirit as the life-giver (cf. 2Co 3:6) but only as mediating that which is in, or through, Christ (cf. Col 3:4). Paul has already noted the enslaving power of sin and the freedom from it achieved by Christ (6:18, 22; cf. Jn 8:34–36).

3 But how was this freedom gained? The opening statement here about the powerlessness of the law because of the weakness of the sinful nature to which its commands are addressed is an obvious reminder of the major thrust of ch. 7. The problem is not caused by something intrinsic to the law but is rather the result of the flesh and sin. The law makes demands, and it condemns when those demands are not met, but it cannot overcome sin. This inability of the law necessitated another solution, namely, the personal action of God in Christ. God thus sent “his own Son.” The mission could not be entrusted to anyone else or anyone less than his Son. While the preexistence of the Son is not formally taught here, it is implied (as it is in the gospel of John, where the sending of the Son is often mentioned; cf. e.g., Jn 3:17; 7:33; 17:18; 20:21; also Gal 4:4; 1Jn 4:14). Taken together, vv.2–3 can be seen to contain Trinitarian implications and bear a close resemblance to Galatians 4:4–6, where Father, Son, and Spirit are also pictured as involved in the mission of Christ.

The Son was sent “in the likeness of sinful flesh” (en homoiōmati sarkos hamartias, NASB). Paul exercises great care in the choice of words here. He does not say “in sinful flesh,” lest the Son’s sinlessness (cf. 2Co 5:21) be compromised, nor “in the likeness of flesh,” which would convey a docetic idea and thereby deny the reality of the humanity of Jesus, making it only an appearance of corporeality.

So much for Christ’s person. What about his work? “To be a sin offering” (NIV; NASB, “as an offering for sin”) expresses the purpose of his coming. The proper translation of the phrase peri hamartias (lit., “for sin”) is a matter of some controversy. Since the phrase is used regularly in the LXX for “sin offering,” the NIV’s “sin offering” is a possible rendering (cf. the similar point made in the language of 2Co 5:21: “made him . . . to be sin”). But this may not be what Paul intends to say, since he does not surround the expression with sacrificial language. And if it were his intent to stress expiation, we might expect the use of the word “offering” or “sacrifice.” If we translate literally, “for sin,” we can conclude that Paul is simply stating broadly that the mission of Christ was to deal effectively with sin, thereby making possible among his people the type of life presented in the following verse. This includes expiation but also goes beyond it.

Possibly the words “he condemned sin in the flesh” (NASB) are to be correlated with “through the flesh” (NASB; NIV, “by the sinful nature”) at the beginning of the verse, so that what is in view is the judgment of sinful humanity (cf. NIV. “so he condemned sin in sinful man”). However, since “flesh” can be used of Christ apart from any sinful connotation (e.g., Col 1:22), it is also possible to refer the phrase to the corporeality of Jesus (so Schweizer, TDNT 7:133) and in particular his sacrificial death on the cross. Stuhlmacher, 120, observes, “As a result, with the condemnation of Jesus, sin brought God’s judgment upon itself in its most inherent sphere of power, the flesh.” This brings the teaching in line with 6:5–11. The viewpoint is well expressed by Murray, 282:

In that same nature which in all others was dominated and directed by sin, God condemned sin and overthrew its power. Jesus not only blotted out sin’s guilt and brought us nigh to God. He also vanquished sin as power and set us free from its enslaving dominion. And this could not have been done except in the “flesh.” The battle was joined and the triumph secured in that same flesh which in us is the seat and agent of sin.

4 The purpose of the incarnation, as far as the believer’s life is concerned, is stated here in such a way as to indicate that the apostle has not allowed the agonizing struggle of ch. 7 to fade from view. There the law was pictured as faultless in itself, a revelation of a holy God but agonizingly elusive for the person who tries to keep it on his or her own strength. Those who are self-satisfied will minimize the law’s demands by magnifying their own achievements, whereas those who are conscientious will end up in despair. In God’s plan, however, the law is to be honored not simply in lip service or in desire but in reality. Its “righteous requirements” (dikaiōma, GK 1468; cf. 2:26) are to be fully met in the life of the Christian (contra Moo, who maintains that this refers to justification accomplished by Christ on our behalf). Schreiner, 399, observes correctly, “Thus those who limit Romans 8:1–4 to forensic categories fail to perceive the connection drawn in the text between judicial and dynamic realities; those freed from the curse of the law are now liberated to keep the law’s commands.” The requirements of the law can be accomplished only by living according to the Spirit rather than according to the flesh, i.e., the sinful nature of humanity (cf. “Spirit of life” in v.2). It is only those who “live . . . according to the Spirit” who are able to exhibit the righteousness of the law. Divine aid is needed to meet the divine requirement. Stuhlmacher, 121, draws out the significance in the following words:

It is thus not a rhetorical pretense when the apostle maintains in 3:27, 31 that he establishes the law anew as a mark of faith. Rather, he teaches and shows how the breakthrough of the new revelation and spiritual internalization of the instruction of God promised in Jeremiah 31:31ff. comes about in and through Christ and now this instruction is then followed by Christians in the power of the Spirit!

Paul makes no attempt to particularize the divine requirement, but later on he significantly depicts love as “the fulfillment of the law” (13:10). That love is the primary item in the fruit of the Spirit (Gal 5:22) is surely no happenstance. Observe the balance in this passage between the divine and human elements in Christian life. Paul recognizes that believers have a life to live; believers are not robots but persons accountable for their redeemed life as a stewardship. At the same time, and most important, Paul pictures the requirement of the law as fulfilled (a key passive) in believers, not by them, as though to remind them that redeemed persons do not possess spiritual power they can control and utilize on their own. Rather, the Spirit is always channeling this power and never releases it to those he indwells for them to use independently of him. The power resides in the Spirit, not in the one he indwells (cf. Eze 36:27).

It would be a mistake to ground the Christian walk solely on the enabling ministry of the Spirit. The close connection with v.3 demands that we include the saving work of Christ. In a previous passage, Paul has observed that identification with the Savior in his death and resurrection has this very objective, namely, that “we too may live a new life” (6:4; NASB, “walk in newness of life”).

The conclusion that v.4 refers to the actual fulfillment of the law in Christian living does not entail perfectionism. It refers to a basic orientation of one’s life and basic patterns of righteousness about which Paul will speak in chs. 12–14. Nevertheless, in view is a degree of victory that answers to the defeat of ch. 7. Bruce, 160, 162, has written, “The warfare between the two natures still goes on, but where the Holy Spirit is in control the old nature is compelled to give way. . . . All that the law required by way of conformity to the will of God is now realized in the lives of those who are controlled by the Holy Spirit and are released from their servitude to the old order. God’s commands have now become God’s enablings.”

5–8 At this point, Paul launches a fairly extended statement contrasting the terms “flesh” (NASB; NIV, “sinful nature”) and “Spirit,” which he has just used in v.4. Both terms are difficult because they can have more than one meaning. For example, “flesh” can be used of ordinary physical life shared by believer and unbeliever alike (cf. 2Co 10:3). But usually in Paul the ethical force of the word, referring to human nature as corrupted and weakened by sin, is dominant. Because the variety of expressions about the flesh may be confusing, some explanation is necessary. To be “in the flesh,” as the word is used in v.8 (NIV, “controlled by the sinful nature”), is to be in the unregenerate state. To be (ontes, v.5) “according to the flesh” is to have the flesh as the regulating principle of one’s life. To “walk [peripatousin, GK 4344; NIV, “live”] according to the flesh” (v.4) is to carry out in conduct those things dictated by the flesh, i.e., to live sinfully.

Less complicated is the use of “Spirit,” but even here there is some question as to whether the word used in contrast to “flesh” may not properly be considered as referring to the (redeemed) human spirit. (In the original manuscripts all the letters are capitalized.) This much is clear: in the passage under consideration, pneuma (GK 4460) does not mean “spirit” simply as an element in the constitution of man as, for example, clearly in 1 Corinthians 5:3. The problem is to determine whether pneuma in this passage means the divine life-principle (the new nature communicated to the believer), or whether it should be understood to mean the Spirit of God.

The presence or absence of the definite article does not decide the question, since a reference to the Holy Spirit, considered as a proper name, would not require the article. Neither does the contrast (flesh versus spirit) necessitate a reference to the new nature on the ground that if flesh has a human reference, the same must be true of spirit, for the context of Galatians 5:16–17, where the two terms are in evident contrast, requires that this be understood as a reference to the Holy Spirit.

Two considerations strongly favor the view that these verses refer to the Holy Spirit: (1) The chapter has begun with an obvious allusion to the divine Spirit (v.2), so that unless there is clear indication to the contrary, one should expect this to be the intended meaning of pneuma in the verses that follow. (2) It is likely that in stating the ground of Christian victory over sin, the apostle would assign the basis of that victory to the highest source rather than to a lower, intermediate factor such as the human spirit. It is the indwelling Spirit of God who makes the victory of renewal and sanctification possible. (The decision on the meaning of pneuma in v.10 is more difficult and will be deferred until we come to that verse.)

The statements made about the flesh or human sinful nature in vv.5–8 are to be understood as referring to the unregenerate person, judging by the care with which Paul excludes his readers in v.9. This is not sufficient ground, however, for claiming that the Christian has nothing to do with the flesh. The warning of vv.12–17 would be meaningless if that were the case. But for the moment Paul wishes to expose the flesh in its stark reality as being totally alien to God and his holy purposes. He makes the point that there is a correspondence between the essential being and the interests or outlook of a person. The fleshly are occupied with fleshly things, whereas those who possess the Spirit are controlled by and concerned with the things of the Spirit. Paul has already taught (1Co 2:14) that the natural or fleshly person does not welcome the things of the Spirit. They are foolishness to such a person, who neither comprehends them nor desires to do so. That mind-set is totally different. To “set one’s mind on” (phronousin, GK 5858, v.5) denotes far more than a mental process. It includes not only concentration of thought or perspective but also desire (cf. Php 2:5ff.; Col 3:2).

The same root word appears again in v.6, now in the nominal form (to phronēma, GK 5859): “the mind set on the flesh is death” (NASB; NIV, “the mind of sinful man is death”). The unregenerate person is cut off from God, and this amounts to death in the sense of separation from God. The spiritual person, on the other hand, enjoys life from God (cf. v.2) and the peace such life affords (cf. 14:17). The dead state of the natural person, both present and future, is traced to the inveterate opposition to God that characterizes “flesh” (v.7). This hostility manifests itself in the natural person’s attitude toward the law of God. The fact that it is God’s law does not move or soften such individuals. They refuse to obey it and thereby put themselves into the position of rebels against God, since the law is an expression of God’s will.

Note the sharp contrast in the response of the believer to the law (v.4). There is a contrast also with the “I” in 7:14–25, where there is at least a desire to fulfill the law’s demands, even if the doing of it is grossly deficient. Sinful human beings are plagued by a double limitation: they neither submit to God’s law nor are able to do so (cf. a similar twofold limitation of fallen human nature respecting spiritual knowledge, as stated in 1Co 2:14). They “cannot please God” (v.8). Such persons neither can nor will receive the things of the Spirit. In summary, Paul has named four characteristics of sinful humanity: hostility toward God, insubordination to his law, failure to please God, and death. It is no wonder that when Jesus spoke to Nicodemus of the flesh (and the Spirit), he went on to declare, “You must be born again” (Jn 3:7).

9 Turning now to his readers Paul reminds them of the basic difference between themselves and those he has been describing, those who have nothing more than sinful human nature. As believers, they have in the Spirit an antidote for the flesh. Furthermore, the Spirit of God “lives” in them. The “if” is not intended to raise doubt, as though to suggest that some of Paul’s readers might have to be excluded. In this type of construction, the “if” presupposes the truth of the statement (in effect, “since”; so too in vv.10–11). Previously (v.2) the Spirit has been called “the Spirit of life” because of his regenerating and renewing power; here he is set forth as “the Spirit of God” and as “the Spirit of Christ,” indicating that he carries out the purposes of God and applies the fruit of Christ’s redemptive mission to the lives of believers (cf. “the Spirit of his [God’s] Son” in Gal 4:6).

No one who lacks the Spirit belongs to Christ. According to Paul, for Christians the indwelling Holy Spirit is the sine qua non. It is a given that everyone who trusts Christ has the Spirit (5:5; 1Co 6:19; cf. Eph 1:13). The title “Spirit of Christ” is justified and made meaningful by the deliberate way in which Paul says essentially the same thing about both the Spirit and Christ in relation to the believer: the Spirit “lives in you” (vv.9, 11) and Christ “is in you” (v.10). The presence and fullness of Christ are realized in the life of the Christian by means of the indwelling Spirit (Eph 3:16–17). Clearly, the notion that “the Spirit of Christ” is a reference to Christ’s disposition, his kindness, etc., is entirely wide of the mark.

10 Paul’s observation about those in whom Christ lives—“your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness”—has proved difficult for interpreters. Translation is to some extent interpretation, and the NIV stands in line with most leading modern translations in making “spirit” refer to the spirit of the Christian rather than to the Spirit of Christ. On the other hand, able commentators in increasing numbers (e.g., Michel, Barth, Barrett, Bruce, Murray, Leenhardt, Moo) are coming to a different conclusion. Two factors seem decisive. One is the unlikelihood that in a passage that has consistently referred to pneuma in terms of the Spirit of God, the word would be given a different frame of reference in this one instance. To be sure, the use of “body” over against “spirit” might seem to be sufficient ground for assuming that Paul is talking about two contrasting elements of the human constitution. But whereas such a sharp contrast is congenial to Greek thought, it is alien to the Hebraic concept of life that characterizes both Testaments. In fact, it has been recognized that in Paul’s usage, “body” usually means the totality of one’s being, “man as a whole, not a part which may be detached from the true I” (TDNT 7:1064). Can we really suppose that when he speaks of “this body of death” (7:24) he has reference merely to the physical organism? In the passage before us, he is asserting that sin necessitated our dying with Christ and that even so we must expect physical death in the future. The second reason for choosing the rendering “Spirit” over “spirit” is found in the last clause of v.10, where the pneuma is said to be “alive because of righteousness.” In reality Paul says more than this, for the word he uses is actually the noun “life” (zōē, GK 2437)—hence “the Spirit is life.” This is more than can be properly said of the human spirit. It has been said, however, of the Spirit at the beginning of the chapter (v.2).

So the best conclusion is that pneuma refers to the Holy Spirit. The very fact that the first part of the following verse (v.11) refers to the living presence of the Spirit in the believer seems to indicate that Paul is repeating what he sought to say at the end of v.10 in order to build on it for a further observation, namely, that the same Spirit will provide resurrection life in due season. The end of v.10 teaches that the Spirit who is life in himself brings life to the person he indwells only because that person has already been granted God’s righteousness (justification). So the presence of the Spirit in the redeemed life is at once the evidence of salvation bestowed and the earnest of that final phase of salvation that belongs to the future (v.11). In v.10, righteousness cannot be understood in any other sense than as imputed righteousness (cf. 1Co 1:30).

11 Here the Spirit is given yet another title: “the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead.” The reference is, of course, to God (cf. 4:24). Paul is not asserting, as some claim, that the Spirit raised Jesus from the dead. The title is a specialized variation of the Spirit of God now related to the resurrection of Jesus. His future work in behalf of the saints will similarly be to “give life” to their mortal (i.e., subject-to-death) bodies (cf. 1Co 6:14). This accords with Paul’s description of the glorified bodies of believers as “spiritual” (pneumatikon, GK 4461; 1Co 15:44). The life bestowed by the Spirit in that coming day is beyond the power of death or any other agency to vitiate or destroy. It is the very life of God, blessedly spiritual and indestructibly eternal.

12–13 These are transitional verses, which many take as beginning a new section but which are better understood as concluding the preceding discussion with a word of application and exhortation, moving from what God has done through Christ and the Spirit to what the believer is expected to do by way of response. Even with the strong emphasis here on human responsibility, we see behind the human effort that which can be accomplished only “by the Spirit.” It is the message of 6:11–14 all over again, except for the reminder that no one can hope to deal effectively with the sinful nature simply by determination alone. The Holy Spirit is needed, and he is the Spirit of power.

“Obligation” is the keynote. Only the negative side is stated; the positive side—that we are debtors to the Spirit—must be inferred. If we do not have an obligation to live in terms of the sinful nature, the conclusion must be that our obligation is to live and serve God in terms of the Spirit. It is tremendously important to grasp the import of v.12, because it teaches beyond all question that the believer still has a sinful nature, despite having been crucified with Christ. The flesh has not been eradicated. But we are obliged not “to live according to the flesh [sinful nature].” There is really no option, for the flesh is linked to death as life is linked to the Spirit. Sanctification is not a luxury but a necessity. Life in accordance with the flesh is doomed to suffer death (cf. v.6).

The temptations of the fleshly nature are virtually constant; hence the necessity to continually “put to death [the force of the present tense of the verb thanatoute, GK 2506] the misdeeds of the body” (v.13). Though this may seem to give a negative emphasis to the life of sanctification, it should be stressed that this is only part of the divine plan. The positive is just as important—the clothing ourselves with the Lord Jesus in such complete preoccupation with him and his will that the believer does not think about gratifying the desires of the flesh (cf. 13:14). Yet since the Spirit is the Spirit of life, he cannot do otherwise than oppose the flesh and its desires, the things that lead inevitably to death.

In summary, Stuhlmacher, 122, observes, “Christians may thus answer the lament of the Adamic ‘I’ in 7:24 as follows: By the power of the Holy Spirit which indwells us, we participate in the righteousness, sanctification, and redemption established by Jesus (1 Cor. 1:30). As a result, we fulfill the instruction of God and, in faith, are certain of our eschatological resurrection.”

NOTES

1 Some late manuscripts (TR) conclude v.1 with the added words, “who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit” (cf. KJV). This addition is not warranted, being absent from the leading manuscripts; clearly it has been introduced by scribal zeal from the end of v.4.

2 A decision must be made between two readings: “me” (με, me) or “you” (σε, se). “You” has the stronger manuscript support ( B F G), and for this reason a number of versions follow this reading. On the other hand, there are two factors that warrant retaining “me.” For one, it is the logical term for Paul to have used, in agreement with the personal thrust of ch. 7. Also, the close of the preceding word in the Greek text (ἠλευθέρωσεν, ēleutherōsen, “set free”) has in it the letters σε, se (the final ν, “n,” would have been indicated by a stroke over the σε, se), so that a copyist could easily have transcribed σε, se, for με, me, by visual error. If this is what happened, it must have occurred early in the transmission of the text, since σε, se, appears in many of our early and most reliable manuscripts. (A mistake of this kind was more easily made in the earlier copies because for several centuries the text was written without any space between the words.) A further argument in favor of retaining “me” is the oddity of the singular “you.” Had Paul shifted to the second person pronoun, one might have expected the plural ἡμᾶς, hēmas.

2. Additional Ministries of the Spirit (8:14–27)

14because those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. 15For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.” 16The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. 17Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.

18I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. 19The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. 20For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.

22We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. 23Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. 24For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? 25But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.

26In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. 27And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God’s will.

COMMENTARY

14–17 If the Spirit’s ministry in v.13 can be described as mortification, his ministry here can be thought of as his attestation, in which he confirms for the believer the reality of his or her position as a child of God based on adoption into the heavenly family. Though this ministry is mentioned after that of mortification, it is basic to it, because to be successful in contending against the flesh, one must be assured that one has been claimed by God and hence equipped with his infinite resources. Later (v.23) Paul will set forth another aspect of adoption that belongs to the future, identified with redemption in its ultimate realization.

14 The relation of the Spirit to the “sons of God” (i.e., “children of God”; cf. vv.16–17) is presented as being much like that of a shepherd to his sheep. They are “led” by him as their guide and protector. In Galatians 3:24, the law is pictured as a tutor having the responsibility to lead us to Christ. Once this goal is achieved, however, the law must hand over the guiding role to the Spirit, who guides into the truth (Jn 16:13) and into holiness. Unlike sin, which may at first only gently seduce, then deceitfully begin to drive as a hard taskmaster, the Spirit relies on persuasion rather than force. In fact, Paul goes to some pains to avoid misunderstanding on this very point (v.15), assuring us that the Spirit’s leadership does not involve a new bondage that is no improvement over the old one in which fear ruled (probably a fear of the consequences of sin and a fear of death, as in Heb 2:15).

15 It is difficult to know whether the word “spirit” should be capitalized in v.15. The NASB uses the lower case “spirit” in both occurrences of the word. It would be equally possible to capitalize the word in both instances. On the other hand, Paul may well be playing on the word, so that we could take the first as “spirit”—“spirit that makes you a slave”—and the second as “Spirit”—“the Spirit of sonship” (so NIV). The new title given to the Spirit, “the Spirit of sonship,” emphasizes the vast gulf between slavery and family relationship. It is by the Spirit that believers can cry, “Abba, Father.” The two terms are equivalent, the first being the Aramaic word Jesus used in prayer (Mk 14:36). Paul’s use of the Aramaic alongside the Greek both here and in the closely related Galatians 4:6 may well indicate that the tradition concerning the prayer life of Jesus filtered down through the church even before Mark wrote his gospel. J. Jeremias (The Central Message of the New Testament [New York: Scribner’s, 1965], 28) notes that in permitting the Twelve to use the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus “authorizes his disciples to follow him in saying Abba. He gives them this address as the token of their discipleship.” The “cry” refers to calling on God in prayer.

The important term huiothesia (GK 5625; NASB, “adoption”; NIV, “sonship”) bears a relationship to justification in that it is declarative and forensic (inasmuch as it is a legal term). Adoption bestows an objective standing, as justification does; like justification, it is a pronouncement that is not repeated. It has permanent validity. Like justification, adoption rests on the loving purpose and grace of God (Eph 1:5). Though the term is used of Israel in relation to God (Ro 9:4; cf. Hos 11:1), it is doubtful that adoption was practiced in the OT period. Much more likely is the conclusion that Paul was drawing on the background of Roman law both here and in Galatians 4:5. The readers of both epistles would be familiar with adoption in their own society (for a thorough discussion, see J. M. Scott, Adoption as Sons of God [WUNT 2.48; Tübingen: Mohr, 1992]). Paul’s readers are called “sons” (v.14) and “children” (v.16) without any appreciable distinction. Both are family terms used interchangeably by Paul.

16 Here, as in Galatians 4:6, the Spirit is represented as bearing witness together with the redeemed spirit in Christians to the reality of membership in the family of heaven, i.e., to the actuality of salvation through Christ. Hebrew law prescribed that every matter was to be established by the mouth of two or three witnesses (Dt 17:6; cf. Mt 18:16). Similarly, there are two witnesses to one’s salvation: the inner person and the Holy Spirit, who confirms the believer’s realization that he or she has indeed been made God’s child through faith in Christ. Because this witness takes place in the heart (Gal 4:6), it is not a witness others receive, though it may be the basis for testifying to others about the reality of salvation. It may be aided by Scripture (Jn 20:31; 1Jn 5:13) but is not dependent on the written word. It is a secret inner witness (cf. Bernard Ramm, The Witness of the Spirit [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1959]).

A comparison of vv.15 and 16 will bring out an important truth concerning the assurance of salvation. All too often believers may come to the point of doubting their salvation because their sanctification has proceeded so slowly and so lamely. The Spirit, however, does not base his assuring testimony on progress or the lack of it in the Christian life. He does not lead us to cry, “I am God’s child.” Rather, he leads us to call on God as Father, to look away from ourselves to the One who established the relationship.

17 A final truth about adoption is the important point that it involves an inheritance. If Christians are God’s children, they are also “heirs of God.” In line with current legal provisions that enabled even a slave, once adopted, to inherit his master’s possessions, Paul teaches that the Christian follows a similar course: a slave (to sin), a child, then an heir (vv.15–17; cf. Gal 4:6–7). The marvel of the goodness of God’s grace increases with the news that we are “co-heirs with Christ.” Sharing his sufferings may be looked at as the cost of discipleship. Yet it also has a brighter aspect, for it is the prelude to partaking with him of the coming glory (cf. vv.18–21; 1Pe 4:13).

18–25 Before passing to the final ministry of the Spirit in vv.26–27, Paul lingers over the concept of future glory in relation to the present era of suffering. His presentation may be seen as an expansion of what he had already written to the Corinthians (2Co 4:17 NASB, “an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison”). Weighed in the scales of true and lasting values, the sufferings endured in this life are light indeed, compared with the splendor of the life to come—a life undisturbed by anything hostile or hurtful. Scripture does not tell us much of what that glory will be, but it assures us that it will be. The glory will be revealed “to us” (eis hēmas, v.18; NASB; NIV, “in us”), as well as exhibited within us (v.21; cf. J. C. Beker, “Suffering and Triumph in Paul’s Letter to the Romans,” HBT 7 [1985]: 105–19).

19 Instead of considering the future simply from the standpoint of the redeemed, Paul enlarges the perspective to include the whole creation, which is here personified in exuberant language as longing for the time when the children of God will finally enjoy the consummation. The creation’s own deliverance from the frustration imposed on it by the fall cannot come until that time. The glorious future that awaits the children of God accords with the superior place given humanity in the creation (Ge 1:26–28; Ps 8:5–8). Literally Paul’s sentence reads, “The eager expectation [apokaradokia, GK 638] of the creation awaits eagerly [apekdechetai, GK 587] the revelation of the sons of God.” In the NT, the verb most often concerns the Christian’s attitude toward the Lord’s coming (e.g., Gal 5:5; Php 3:20; Heb 9:28).

20–21 The personification of creation is continued with the verbal construction “subjected to frustration,” which, as Sanday and Headlam, 208, note, “is appropriately used of the disappointing character of present existence, which nowhere reaches the perfection of which it is capable.” The one who subjected the creation is not named. Some early Fathers assumed that Adam is in view. Others (e.g., Godet, 315) incline to the notion that Satan is meant. But by far the most natural interpretation is that which postulates God as the One who did the subjecting. The words “in hope” (of a future redemption) are otherwise difficult to understand. The personification is sustained, with the creation being pictured as not willingly enduring the subjection, yet having hope for something better, i.e., liberation from its “bondage to decay” (v.21). Thus the creation longs to share the “glorious freedom” of the children of God. Bruce, 169, has observed:

At present, as old Qoheleth proclaimed, “Vanity of vanity” is writ large over all things beneath the sun. But this vanity—this state of frustration and bondage—is only temporary; just as man at present falls short of the glory of God, so creation as a whole cannot attain the full end for which she was brought into being. Like man, creation must be redeemed because, like man, creation has been subject to a fall.

The entire creation suffered from the effects of the fall, coming under bondage to corruption, but with fallen humanity creation will also experience the benefits of redemption. So humanity and the creation stand together as they await the glorious redemption and renewal promised by God. The consummation will bring a new garden of Eden, where all will be even more wonderful than it was initially.

22–23 From v.22 it appears at first sight that “the whole creation” includes humankind. But v.23 alters this impression, for it sets the creation over against the whole body of the redeemed (“we ourselves”) and therefore does not include in it the people of God. The groaning of the creation looks back to its subjection to frustration (v.20), whereas “the pains of childbirth” anticipate the age of renewal. In other words, the same sufferings are at once a result and a prophecy. Jesus spoke of the renewing of the world and called it a “regeneration” (palingenesia, GK 4100; Mt 19:28 NASB).

Paul makes a parallel between the saints and the material creation. In at least two respects their situation is the same—groaning (cf. 2Co 5:2) and eagerly awaiting the new age (v.23). Perhaps a third element of comparison is intended: “the redemption of our bodies,” corresponding to the transformation of the earth. But in one respect no parallel can be made: only the people of God have “the firstfruits of the Spirit.”

The concept of firstfruits (aparchē, GK 569; v.23) is prominent in the OT, where, according to the law, Israelites were expected to bring each year’s first-ripened elements of grain, fruit, etc., to the Lord as an offering (Ex 23:19; Ne 10:35). By this observance of worship, the offerer acknowledged that all produce was the provision of God and really belonged to him. Implicit also in the ritual was the assurance from the divine side that the general harvest to be enjoyed by the offerer would providentially follow. As applied to our passage, the concept may appear to be somewhat out of place, for if the Spirit is truly a person, how can any more of him be given in the future than has been given at conversion? Clearly this is not the line of thought intended. On the contrary, it is a matter of what the Spirit provides. We are to understand that the gift of the Spirit to the believer at the inception of Christian life is God’s pledge of the completion of the process of salvation, which is here stated as “our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.” Recall that previously Paul has described the finished product as “a spiritual body” (1Co 15:44). The future bodily resurrection of believers will be the full harvest of redemption. Our bodies will be like that of the glorified Lord (Php 3:21).

In this connection, we encounter adoption for the second time (cf. v.15). The saints already have an adoption: they are already acknowledged as God’s children. They are “sealed” by the Spirit for the day of redemption (Eph 1:13–14; 4:30). Then will take place the second and final adoption. Between the two there stretches the course of sanctification; but only at the final adoption will the child of God be fully conformed to the likeness of God’s Son (v.29; cf. 1Jn 3:2). As the physical body is admirably suited to life in this world, the promised spiritual body will be seen to be wonderfully congruent with the coming world. But most important of all, it will be like the body of him who has provided redemption from sin and death. This is the Spirit’s work of glorification.

24–25 In keeping with the eager waiting of those who long for their complete salvation (v.23) is the emphasis on hope (vv.24–25). Far from being a kind of wishful thinking as in ordinary parlance, “hope” (elpis, GK 1828) is the confident expectation of the promised future Christians can and should have in the present era. The connection between hope and suffering should not be overlooked (cf. 5:4). The translation “in this hope” (v.24) is correct, suggesting that from the very moment of the reception of the gospel, i.e., from the moment of initial salvation, the Christian life is characterized by the anticipation of the final phase of salvation alluded to in v.23. The Christian pilgrim is on the road to glory, assured that the promises of the word and the spiritual energy provided are not illusory. The dark tunnel of death cannot take away the Christian’s confidence that beyond it the road leads on to a glorious destination, though it remains unseen. Simply because a very important element of our salvation—the redemption of the bodies—is held in reserve, we have a legitimate exercise of hope. If all were ours now, there would be no place for hope. Since this object of our hope is not yet realized in the present, “we wait for it patiently” (v.25).

26–27 At length, Paul arrives at the final ministry of the Spirit mentioned in this chapter, namely, his work of intercession. “In the same way” seems to link this ministry with hope. Both help sustain the believer amid the burdens and disappointments of life. It is unclear whether the “weakness” spoken of here refers generally to the Christian’s limitations while still in the flesh or whether it is intended to point to weakness in the specific area of prayer. We know that the apostle had long before discovered his weakness and along with it the compensating factor of the power of God (2Co 12:9–10). The broader interpretation of weakness may well be correct here. Paul may be saying that we do not know how to pray so as to get help for our many-sided weakness. “How to pray as we should” (NASB) may suggest that we do not know the art of prayer—how to phrase our petitions properly. But we do not have here the Greek word commonly used for “how.” More probably the literal wording “what we should pray” indicates what is in view. This would be not the manner or even the topics, but rather the actual content of our prayers. Do we know our real needs as God sees them, and do we know the needs of others? Going deeper, do we know the will of God with regard to these things? In the last analysis, this will determine how our prayers will be answered.

Standing over against this severe limitation is the gladdening information that the Spirit is present to help us. Indeed so important is the Spirit to our prayers that we fail to find in the remainder of the passage any statement about our praying. Everything that is said relates to the activity of the Spirit on our behalf, culminating in the declaration that he “intercedes for the saints.” It is clear, however, that our praying is assumed throughout the passage. The Spirit, therefore, “helps” us in our praying. A previous mention of prayer and communion with God also shows that prayer is a joint activity of the Spirit and the children of God (vv.15–16). Since “hearts” (v.27) suggests immediate personal involvement as well as the residence and operation of the Spirit, the best conclusion seems to be that prayer activity on the part of the believer goes on together with the indispensable work of the Spirit of God. Elsewhere (Eph 6:18) the same reality is referred to as “praying in the Spirit.”

Verse 27 is needed to clarify something referred to in v.26, i.e., the inexpressible “groaning” (stenagmois, GK 5099). How can such prayer, if it be called prayer at all, be answered? Are not such prayers unintelligible? Not for God! He is no stranger to the intent of the Spirit. He knows what the inexpressible meaning is, because the petitions the Spirit voices are strictly in accord with the will of God. Karl Barth (A Shorter Commentary on Romans [Richmond, Va.: John Knox, 1959], 102) observes that God “makes himself our advocate with himself, that he utters for us that ineffable groaning, so that he will surely hear what we ourselves could not have told him, so that he will accept what he himself has to offer.” It is a mistake to associate the inexpressible groanings with glossolalia. The passage is intended to include all Christians, whereas speaking in tongues is a special charismatic gift not possessed by all. In addition, tongues are not mentioned elsewhere in connection with intercession.

NOTES

24 The KJV’s “we are saved by hope” unnecessarily makes hope encroach on the sphere of grace (cf. Eph 2:8). The translation of the JB, “For we must be content to hope that we shall be saved,” is both inaccurate (Paul says we have been saved) and unfortunate, suggesting that one cannot in this life be sure of one’s salvation. The NJB has corrected this to, “In hope, we already have salvation.”

A twofold textual problem is encountered in v.24. Some good authorities, including and A, read ὑπομένει, hypomenei (“endures,” GK 5702), perhaps by influence of the word ὑπομονῆς, hypomonēs, in v.25, instead of ἐλπίζει, elpizei (“hopes,” GK 1827). The latter reading has the better textual support (P⁴⁶ B C D G, as well as ancient versions and patristic citations). Secondly, in v.24c the NKJV follows the reading that has the interrogative τί, ti (“why does one still hope”). Probably, however, τίς, tis (P⁴⁶ B* and a few other witnesses), is to be preferred: “who hopes for” (so NIV, NASB).

25 Whether to translate δι᾽ ὑπομονῆς, di’ hypomonēs (GK 5705), as “with perseverance” (so NASB), “patiently” (so NIV; cf. NRSV), or “with fortitude” is a difficult decision. If God’s promise is chiefly in view (cf. Abraham in 4:18), then “patiently” is appropriate, but if the hardships and sufferings that remain to be faced are in view (note the emphasis on suffering in the context), then the more usual force of the word as “perseverance” or “endurance” should be preferred. One can understand the reason for the combined rendering sometimes chosen, e.g., “we wait with patient endurance” (cf. REB).

26 The word for “helps” (συναντιλαμβάνεται, synantilambanetai, GK 5269) occurs in the NT in only one other passage (Lk 10:40). Martha had more than she could handle in the preparation of the meal and asked the Lord to bid her sister Mary to come to her aid. We can paraphrase the request in this way: “Tell her to help me by taking hold of her end of the task.” Prayer is the work of the Christian and the Spirit who helps.

3. The Security and Permanence of the Life of the Redeemed (8:28–39)

OVERVIEW

God’s provision for his own is spelled out in exalted and fervent language that reaches back into the past to include his eternal purpose and its implementation in the love and sacrifice of Christ, moves into the present to proclaim God’s keeping power, and sweeps down the years to defy any power that would separate the saint from the abiding love of God in Christ.

28And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. 29For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. 30And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.

31What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? 33Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. 34Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. 35Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? 36As it is written:

“For your sake we face death all day long;

we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”

37No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

COMMENTARY

28 Verse 28 has problems of text, of connection with the context, and of interpretation. As to the text, some manuscripts make “all things” (panta) the subject; others include God as the subject. The problem is not crucial, since even without God’s being named, there could be no thought in Paul’s mind that all things by themselves worked for the good of believers. The entire chapter protests against any such impersonal notion. As to the context, the thought may be connected with the foregoing if we assume we now have a broad general statement after a more specific one relating to the work of the Spirit as intercessor. So, for example, the REB reads, “and in everything, as we know, he co-operates for good with those who love God.” The difficulty with taking the Spirit as the subject of the verb is that in the remainder of the sentence, “purpose” must then refer to the Spirit, whereas elsewhere this is regularly the function of God the Father.

We must also try to settle the meaning of “all things.” It is unlikely that the items in vv.29–30 are intended to provide the content of the “all things,” which is deliberately general. In view are especially those things that, while themselves adverse, are turned to good account by the sovereign operation of God in our behalf. This line of thought agrees with 5:3–5 as well as with the mention of sufferings and opposition in the present chapter. The “good” is not defined but should be sought in the intended conformity to God’s Son. The beneficiaries are those who on the human side “love him [God]” and on the divine side are “called according to his purpose.” Paul seldom refers to love for God on the part of the saints (1Co 2:9; 8:3). Nor does he introduce the idea here as the ground for the benefit he has been describing, for it is not meritorious but simply a response to the divine love and grace. The “called” are not those who are merely invited to respond to the proclamation of the gospel; they are those who are called according to God’s (electing) purpose.

29 This calling is further explained in terms of “foreknowledge” and “predestination.” The former term does not indicate advance awareness or knowledge of someone; it refers to God’s choice, his electing decision. This is rendered crystal clear from the use of the same word in 1 Peter 1:20. God’s calling is not haphazard, nor is it cold and formal. It is filled with the warmth of love, as in the Hebrew word “to know” (Ge 18:19; Am 3:2 [LXX, ginōskō, GK 1182]). Though foreknowledge is not mentioned in Deuteronomy 7:6–8, that passage illumines the concept. The antecedent character of God’s choice precludes any possibility of human merit as entering into the decision (cf. Eph 1:4). Observe also that we are called according to purpose, not according to foreknowledge, hence foreknowledge must be included in the electing purpose.

If “predestined” stood by itself without any amplification, one might conclude that all that is involved is an action by God whereby one is chosen to salvation. But the remainder of the sentence indicates otherwise, pointing to much more than deliverance from sin and death. The background is adoption, but now presented not as in v.15 (where it is related to the Father and the Spirit) but as related to the Son. Paul elsewhere presents two aspects of being “conformed to the likeness of his Son.” By a sharing in the sufferings of Christ (Php 3:10) that is based on having the mind of Christ (Php 2:5–8), the believer is gradually being made into his likeness. This is the essence of sanctification. Its second and final aspect is conformity of the body to that of the risen Lord to be realized at the resurrection (Php 3:21), which is the culmination of a growth in likeness to Christ based on the Spirit’s work in the believer (2Co 3:18).

From passages such as these we learn that fellowship with Christ in his sufferings is the prelude to sharing with him in his glory. God sent his Son in our likeness (v.3) that we might eventually be like him. This makes understandable and legitimate the use of “brothers” (cf. Heb 2:17) as a description of believers in relation to the Son. The likeness will be complete except for the fact that glorified humanity never, of course, becomes deity.

30 Verse 30 presents the various steps involved in the realization of the divine purpose: the call (cf. v.28), justification, and glorification. The marvel is that the final item is stated by means of a verb in the past (aorist) tense (“glorified,” edoxasen, GK 1519) as though it had already occurred. This led Denney, 652, to declare that this is the “most daring” verse in the Bible. One is reminded of the so-called prophetic perfect used occasionally in the OT, as for example, in Isaiah 53, where the future work of the Servant of Yahweh is spoken of as though his sacrifice had already been made. What God will do can be relied on to such an extent that it can be spoken of as already having happened.

Why is sanctification not mentioned in this verse? Since the goal of predestination according to the preceding verse is conformity “to the likeness of his Son,” it may well be thought of as including sanctification. On the other hand, it is possible that it is left out deliberately because the focus is on what God alone does, and sanctification is the one area in which human cooperation is essential. There is no appeal anywhere to be called or justified or glorified, but there are numerous appeals to cooperate with God in the realization of the life of holiness.

31–32 From this point on to the end of the chapter Paul expounds the impregnable position of the believer. The key lies in the sentence, “If God is for us, who can be against us?” (v.31). God has not given empty promises. He has acted, and what he has done in Christ and by the Spirit constitutes all the proof we need that the glorification will be ours in due season. This is precisely the point of v.32. God’s activity has cost him dearly—he “did not spare his own Son.” In the background is the readiness of Abraham to give up his son Isaac (Ge 22, the Aqedah, the “binding” of Isaac). But whereas a substitute was found for Isaac and he was restored to his father without dying, no other than God’s own Son could take away the world’s sin and provide reconciliation. So Jesus had to endure the cross. In all of this God was with or in him (2Co 5:19). Moreover, the Son was not an unwilling victim pressed into sacrificial service. God “gave him up” expresses the Father’s participation, but the same verb is used of the Son’s involvement (Gal 2:20). With the cross before us as the mighty demonstration of God’s grace in giving his dearest to help the neediest, it naturally follows that the same gracious spirit will not withhold anything from those who are his. Such is the assurance given in 2 Peter 1:3 that “everything we need for life and godliness” has been given to us.

33 Paul, of course, does not deny that the Christian faces foes and hardships. Yet his challenging question stands: “If God is for us, who can be against us?” (v.31). Amplifying it, he proceeds to ask a series of questions, to which he also provides answers. The first question is, “Who will bring a charge against those whom God has chosen?” (v.33). None can successfully press charges, no matter how hard they may try. Satan may be busy doing just that (Rev 12:10), no doubt pointing out the discrepancy between the profession of believers and their “walk,” but he gets nowhere with his pretended zeal for righteousness. In the final analysis, as David also perceived (Ps 51:4), all sin is ultimately committed against God, no matter how much it affects others. Logically, therefore, God is the only one in a position to bring charges against us. This, Paul says, God refuses to do, because he is “for us,” not against us (v.31). And because he is the injured party, he alone can forgive and justify, i.e., declare the sinner righteous.

34 The second question, “Who is he that condemns?” suggests the futility of such condemnation. Because of Christ no one can condemn the Christian. Christ will never renounce the efficacy of his own work on our behalf. Paul packs four aspects of that work into one great sentence (v.34b): (1) Christ “died” and thereby secured the removal of sin’s guilt; (2) he was “raised” to life and is able to bestow life on those who trust him for their salvation (cf. Jn 11:25; 14:19); (3) he was exalted to “the right hand of God,” with all power given to him both in heaven, so as to represent us there, and on earth, where he is more than a match for our adversaries; and (4) he “is also interceding for us” at the throne of grace, whatever our need may be (Heb 4:4–16; 7:25).

35 A third question is, “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?” Can there conceivably be a contradiction between Christ’s love for his own and his allowing suffering to overtake them? Should the saints question whether Christ’s love has grown cold? Severance from his love is no more thinkable than that the Father ceased to love his Son when he allowed him to endure the agonies of the cross, apparently forsaken. Christ predicted trouble for his people who are left in the world, but he told them to be of good cheer because he had overcome the world (cf. Jn 16:33).

36 The quotation from Psalm 44:22 reminds believers that suffering has always been the lot of the people of God, and therefore their own situation is not peculiar. The church follows in the steps of Israel. But whereas the people of God in the OT were often perplexed about the reason for their trials, the saints of NT times can trace their sufferings to identification with Christ and rejoice that they are counted worthy to suffer for his name (cf. Ac 5:41).

37 Here Paul bursts into a magnificent piece of eloquence, as he will do on occasion (e.g., 1Co 3:21–23; 1Co 13). This passage (vv.37–39) is especially notable for its largeness of conception and majesty of expression: “No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us” (cf. NASB, “we overwhelmingly conquer,” which some find puzzling; it could mean that believers turn their enemies into helpers, as 5:3–5 suggests, but this is rather conjectural). BDAG, 1034, affirms that the verb hypernikaō (GK 5664) used here is a heightened form of “conquer” and suggests the translation, “we are winning a most glorious victory.” Bauernfeind (TDNT 4:945) renders it, “we win the supreme victory through him who loved us.”

By saying “loved us,” Paul does not intend to restrict Christ’s love to the past; rather, he is emphasizing the historic demonstration of this love on the cross that gives assurance of its continuing under all circumstances. Nothing in all of life, with its allurements and dangers and trials, can separate the believer from that love. Not even the last and great enemy, death, can separate him or her from that love (cf. 2Co 5:8; Php 1:21). Death has lost its sting and victory (1Co 15:54–55).

38 Surprisingly, Paul includes “angels” here. Since he uses other terms for hostile supernatural powers, the angels should be understood as good ones. Perhaps the meaning is that no angel of this sort would seek to come between Christ’s love and the object of that love. We are dealing with a strictly hypothetical possibility (cf. the idea that an “angel from heaven” might preach a gospel different from Paul’s [Gal 1:8]). “Demons” are evil spirits such as those often mentioned in the Gospels. Being agents and underlings of Satan, they would delight to separate Christians from Christ, but they cannot do so. Time is equally powerless to do this, whether it be “the present” with its temptations and sufferings or “the future” with its uncertainties. “Powers” probably has reference to hostile spiritual intelligences who, though conquered by Christ (Eph 1:21), are nevertheless permitted to carry on spiritual warfare against the saints of God (Eph 6:12).

39 Nor can space come between us and the love of Christ. Samuel Angus (The Religious Quests of the Graeco-Roman World [New York: Scribners, 1929], 254) translates “neither height nor depth” as “neither the ascension of the stars nor their declinations,” considering that Paul has in mind the fatalism of astral religion. If there are other possibilities, Paul is sure they are all equally impotent. For he declares that in fact there is nothing conceivable “in all creation” that can drive a wedge between the love of the Savior and his redeemed people. After all, the creation itself is his handiwork and cannot possibly thwart the will of the Creator. God is love, and this love has been manifested in the redemption of humanity.

NOTES

28 The KJV’s rendering, “all things work together for good,” is based on the text attested by C D G and the great bulk of manuscripts and many ancient versions, as well as quotations from the Fathers. The rendering “in all things God works for the good,” with the subject ὁ θεός, ho theos, is supported by P⁴⁶ A B, among others. Though the second group includes what are generally the superior manuscripts, the first group is more diversified and hence to be preferred (cf. Metzger, 458). It is probable that the second form of the text came into being at an early date to clarify the meaning by specifying God as the subject of the verb, tracing this activity definitely to God. Otherwise it is hard to explain how “God” (ὁ θεός, ho theos) could have dropped out of the majority of witnesses to the text.