This is a rhetorical question which arises from what Paul said [in Romans 5:20] above. . . . He answers it in the next verse, saying that those in whom grace abounds have died to sin. It is clear that someone who has died to sin cannot remain a sinner.

The believer who returns to his former way of life rejects the kingdom of God’s grace and returns to sin, i.e., to the pattern of his previous life. For we have received mercy for two reasons: first, that the kingdom of the devil might be removed, and second, that the rule of God might be proclaimed to the ignorant, for it was by this means that we came to desire this dignity.

Paul is once more starting to exhort his hearers, but he does so indirectly, as if it arose naturally out of his teaching, so as not to appear to be irksome and vexing.

Paul is speaking here of those whom faith found in sin, not of us believers, who have died to sin in order to live for grace.

In order for this point to be clearer, let us inquire as to what it means to live to sin and what it means to die to sin. Just as living for God means living according to God’s will, so living for sin means living according to sin’s will, as the apostle says [in verse 12] below. To live to sin therefore, means to obey the desires of sin. . . . To die to sin is the opposite of this; it means refusing to obey the desires of sin. . . . If someone dies to sin, it is through repentance that he dies.

Note how carefully Paul has weighed his words when he says: Can we still live in sin? To go on in this way means to continue something without interruption. If someone does this it is clear that he has never been converted to Christ. But it sometimes happens not that someone continues in sin but that after having broken with it he goes back to his vomit and becomes most unfortunate, since after having rejected the rule of sin and death and accepted the rule of life and righteousness he returns to the control of sin and death. This is what the apostle calls the shipwreck of faith.^[1]

However, although someone may continue in sin, although he may persist in the rule and power of death, nevertheless I do not consider that this rule of death is eternal in the same way that the rule of life and of righteousness is eternal, particularly as I hear the apostle telling me that death is the last enemy which must be destroyed.^[2] For if the eternity of death were analogous to the eternity of life, then death would not be opposed to life but its equal. One eternal is not contrary to another eternal but identical with it. But it is certain that death is contrary to life, and therefore it is certain that if life is eternal, death cannot be eternal as well. For this reason, the resurrection of the dead is necessary. For when the death of the soul, which is the last enemy, is destroyed, then this common death which we have described as the shadow of that one will of necessity be abolished. Then there will be room for the resurrection of the dead, when the rule of death is destroyed along with death itself.

To sin is to live to sin, and not to sin is to live to God. Therefore, when the grace of God through Christ and through faith came upon us, we began by the spiritual rebirth of baptism to live to God, and we died to sin, which is the devil. This is what dying to sin means: to be set free from sin and to become a servant of God. Therefore, having died to sin, let us not go back to our earlier evils, lest by living once again to sin and dying to God we should incur the penalty from which we have escaped.

Being dead to sin means not obeying it any more. Baptism has made us dead to sin once and for all, but we must strive to maintain this state of affairs, so that however many commands sin may give us, we no longer obey it but remain unmoved by it, as a corpse does. Elsewhere, Paul even says that sin itself is dead . . . in order to show that virtue is easy.^[1] But here, since he is trying to rouse his hearers to action, he says that they are the ones who are dead.

Here Paul makes the point that past sins have been forgiven and that in this pardon grace so superabounded that earlier sins were remitted as well. Thus whoever tries to increase sin in order to feel an increase of grace does not understand that he is behaving in such a way that grace can do nothing in him. For the work of grace is that we should die to sin.

Nothing shorter or better could be said. For what more useful gift does the grace of God confer on us than to make us die to sin?

Paul wants the baptized person to be steadfast and virtually perfect.

Carnal people and unbelievers may live like this, but we are totally incapable of it because we have a new life, having died to sin once for all.

Paul is saying by this that if we have died to sin then we must necessarily be buried with Christ in baptism, but . . . if we have not died to sin, then we cannot be buried with Christ. For nobody is buried while still alive. Then too, anyone who is not buried together with Christ has not been validly baptized.

Paul says this so that we might know that once we have been baptized we should no longer sin, since when we are baptized we die with Christ. This is what it means to be baptized into his death. For there all our sins die, so that, renewed by the death we have cast off, we might be seen to rise as those who have been born again to new life, so that just as Christ died to sin and rose again, so through baptism we might also have the hope of resurrection. Therefore, baptism is the death of sin so that a new birth might follow, which, although the body remains, nevertheless renews us in our mind and buries all our old evil deeds.

What the cross and burial were to Christ, baptism is to us, though not in all respects. For Christ died and was buried in the flesh, whereas we have died and been buried to sin.

To be baptized into the death of Christ is nothing else but to die to sin, just as he died in the flesh. ^[1] [PSEUDO-]CONSTANTIUS: Paul teaches this because we are not under the law but under grace, and therefore we should not sin, because we have died to sin in baptism. ^[1]

Since we are baptized we confess that we have died to the world and have been buried to sin and the devil.

Do you not know about this sacrament of baptism? In the Scriptures baptism is received in three ways: with water, with the Holy Spirit (who is also called fire) and with blood in martyrdom.^[1] We who are believers have died with Christ in our baptism.

Christ died to sin once, but in that he lives, he lives to God. We have undergone a death like his and have practically been buried together with him. For in that we carry his mortification about in our bodies, we have been buried together with him.^[1]

Every soul, by reason of its birth, has its nature in Adam until it is born again in Christ; moreover, it is unclean as long as it remains without this regeneration, and because it is unclean it is actively sinful and infects even the flesh with its shame, because of their fusion.

If we have been buried together with Christ in the way we outlined above, i.e., because we have died to sin, it follows that just as Christ was raised from the dead we shall rise together with him. Just as he ascended into heaven we shall also ascend with him, and just as he sits at the right hand of God, we shall also sit with him, as the apostle himself says elsewhere: (He has) made us sit with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.^[1]

Christ rose from the dead by the glory of the Father, and if we have died to sin and are buried together with Christ, and all who see our good works glorify our Father who is in heaven,^[2] we shall rightly be said to have risen together with Christ by the glory of the Father so that we may walk in newness of life. For newness of life occurs when we have put off the old man with his deeds and put on the new man who has been created according to God^[3] and who is renewed in the knowledge of God according to the image of him who created him.^[4] Nor should you think that this renewal of life, which is said to take place once for all, is enough by itself. Constantly and daily this newness must be renewed, if it can be put that way.^[5]

When Paul said: that we too might walk in newness of life, it seems that he was revealing the spiritual principle that as long as we are making progress we may be said to be walking. For it must not be thought that it is being said that they walk about aimlessly. Rather, those who are making progress will eventually come to the place where they ought to be.

As Jesus died in taking away the sins of the world, that, by doing sin to death, he might rise in righteousness, so too, when you go down into the water and are, in a fashion, entombed in the water as he was in the rock,^[1] you may rise again to walk in newness of life.

Baptism is a likeness of death when you go down into the water, and when you rise again it becomes a likeness of resurrection. Thus, according to the interpretation of the apostle, just as Christ’s resurrection was a regeneration, so the resurrection from the font is also a regeneration.

First of all, this means that Christ raised his own body from the dead. For he is the power of God the Father, as he said: Destroy this temple and I will raise it again in three days.^[1] He was saying this about the temple of his own body. . . . It also means that we now have a new way of life which has been given to us by Christ. For by baptism we have been buried together with Christ^[2] in order that we may henceforth live according to the life into which Christ rose from the dead. Therefore baptism is the sign and symbol of the resurrection, which means that we ought to abide in the commandments of Christ and not go back to what we were before. For the person who dies does not sin; death is the end of sin. This is symbolized by water, because just as water cleanses the dirt of the body, so we believe that we have been spiritually cleansed by baptism from every sin and renewed, for what is incorporeal is cleansed invisibly.

Here Paul hints at the subject of the resurrection along with the duty of a careful walk. In what way? He means: Do you believe that Christ died and that he rose again? If so, then believe that the same will happen to you. . . . For if you have shared in his cross and burial, how much more will you share in his resurrection as well? For now that the greater is done away with (i.e., sin), it is not right to go on doubting about the lesser, viz., the doing away of death.

Newness of life means that we have put off the old life of sin and that our rebirth promises a new way of life.

Paul shows that we were baptized so that through the sacrament we are buried with Christ, dying to our sins and renouncing our former life. So just as the Father is glorified in the resurrection of the Son, so too on account of the newness of our lifestyle he is glorified by us all, as long as none of the signs of the old self is recognizable in us. For now we should no longer want or desire anything that those who are not yet baptized and are still trapped in the errors of their old life want or desire.

As we have been buried, so we must rise with Christ in a spiritual sense. For if to be buried together with Christ means dying to sin, then it is clear that rising with him means living in righteousness.

The sacrament of baptism itself teaches us to turn away from sin. For baptism is a type of the death of Christ. In it we have become participants in the death and resurrection of Christ. Therefore, because we have shared in Christ’s resurrection, we ought to live a new life now.

We die figuratively in our baptism, but we shall rise again in reality in our flesh, even as Christ did.

In saying that we have been united (i.e., planted together) with Christ, Paul compares the death of Christ to a plant to which we have been joined, so that drawing on the sap of his root our root may bring forth branches of righteousness and bear the fruits of life. If you want to know what plant it is that Scripture says we ought to be planted together with and what type of tree it is, listen to what is said about wisdom: She is a tree of life to those who hope in her and who trust in her as in the Lord.^[1] Therefore it is Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God, who is the tree of life with whom we must be planted, for by some new and lovely gift of God his death has become for us the tree of life. . . .

Therefore Paul wants us to be planted together in the likeness of Christ’s death, so that we may also be planted together in his resurrection. For planted together (i.e., united) must be understood of both. Consider how necessary it was for him to adopt the image of planting. For every plant, after the death of winter, awaits the resurrection of spring. Therefore, if we have been planted in Christ’s death in the winter of this world and this present life, so too we shall be found in the coming spring bearing the fruits of righteousness from his root.

Those who have been validly baptized into Christ’s death have been united to him by faith.

Happily Paul says that we can rise again if we have been united with Christ in the likeness of his death, i.e., if we have laid aside all our wickedness in baptism and, having been transferred into a new life, no longer sin. In this way we shall be like him in his resurrection, because the likeness of his death presupposes a similar resurrection. . . . The likeness does not mean that there will be no difference at all between us, of course. We will be like him in the glory of his body, not in the nature of his divinity.

Paul says that there are two mortifyings and two deaths. One of them is accomplished by Christ in baptism, and the other it is our duty to effect by earnestness afterwards. For it was Christ’s gift that our former sins were buried, but remaining dead to sin after baptism must be the work of our own earnestness, however much we find that God gives us enormous help here as well. For baptism does not just have the power to obliterate our former transgressions; it also protects us against subsequent ones.

Paul did not say in death but in a death like his. For both the first and the second are death but not the death of the same thing. The first is the death of the body, the second is the death of sin.

If we are buried with Christ now, we shall be united with him in his resurrection then, and if we have already become new and been changed in our way of life now, we shall likewise be new and changed in glory then.

Emmanuel gave up his soul for us; he died in the flesh. We also were buried together with him when we were baptized. Does this mean that our flesh died in the same way as his did? Hardly. Come, let me explain in what sense we were buried with him in a death like his. Christ died in the flesh in order to remove the sin of the world, but we do not die to the flesh so much as to guilt, as it is written. Thus now we have to break down the power of sin within us by mortifying our earthly members. . . . As we have died a death like his, so we shall also be conformed to his resurrection, because we shall live in Christ. It is true that the flesh will come to life again, but still we shall live in another way, by dedicating our souls to him and by being transformed into holiness and a kind of glorious life in the Holy Spirit.

Christ’s baptism in the Jordan was a type of the mystery of his resurrection.^[1]

See the goodness of God. We have died Christ’s death metaphorically, but we shall share his resurrection truly.

This refers not to our body structure but to our moral behavior. . . . It is not our bodily frame which has been transformed, nor has our flesh endured the cross of Christ. The sinful body is destroyed by amendment of life, not by the destruction of our fleshly substance.

I think it should be noticed that when the apostle says something must be destroyed he calls it the body of sin, but when he does not use this expression he refers not to the body of sin but to our own selves, who ought not to be serving sin. He does this to show that if the body of sin were to be destroyed we would not now be serving sin, which however we serve as long as our body is not destroyed and our members on earth are not put to death. . . .

The sinful body is our body, for it is written that Adam did not know his wife Eve, nor did he father Cain, until after he had sinned. In the law it is commanded that sacrifices of a pair of turtledoves or two pigeons shall be offered for a newborn child.^[1] One of these is a sin offering and the other is a burnt offering. For what sin is this first pigeon offered? How can a newborn child have sinned already? And yet the child has sin, for which the sacrifice is commanded to be offered. . . . For the same reason the church has received a tradition from the apostles to baptize even in-fants. For they, to whom the secrets of the divine mysteries had been committed, knew that there are real stains of sin in everyone which must be cleansed by water and the Spirit. It is because of these stains that the body is called a sinful body and not because of sins which the soul in that body may have committed in a previous life, as some who believe in reincarnation like to think.

By these words we are taught that he who is baptized in Christ is baptized in his death and is not only buried with Christ and planted together with him but is first of all crucified with him. Thus we are instructed that, as he who is crucified is separated from the living, so also he who has been crucified with Christ in the likeness of his death is completely set apart from those who live according to the old man.

Paul underlines and repeats a good deal in order to teach the baptized that they must not sin and above all that they must not return to idolatry, which is a very serious crime and the root of all errors, lest they lose the grace which they have received through Christ. He calls our former behavior our old self because, just as the man who has a pure life through Christ and faith in him is said to be new, so the same man is said to be old through unbelief and evil deeds. Paul says that these deeds have been crucified, which means that they are dead, that the body of sin (i.e., all our misdeeds) has been destroyed. Paul calls all our sins a body, which he says has been destroyed by a good life and by orthodox belief.

Paul does not say that we have been crucified but that we have been crucified with him, thus linking baptism with the cross. . . . You are dead not in the sense that you have been obliterated but in the sense that now you can live without sin.

Get for yourself none of the things that are on earth, and do not be active in the affairs of the present life. For your life is hidden now and unseen by those who do not believe, but the time will come when it will be seen. But now is not your time. Since you have died once for all, refuse to mind the things that are on earth. The greatness of your virtue is seen especially when you have prevailed over the arrogance of the flesh and act toward the good things of the world just as if you were dead to this life.

Until this price was paid for all men by the shedding of the Lord’s blood for the forgiveness of all, blood was required of each man who by the law and the customary rite was following the holy precepts of religion. Since the price has been paid for all after Christ the Lord suffered, there is no longer need for the blood of each individual to be shed by circumcision, for in the blood of Christ the circumcision of all has been solemnized, and in his cross we have all been crucified with him and buried together in his tomb and planted together in the likeness of his death that we may no longer be slaves of sin.

This refers to Deuteronomy [21:23]: Cursed be every man hanged from a tree. For as the crucifixion of the old man is symbolized in the cross of the Lord, so the rebirth of the new man is signified in the resurrection. It is clear that according to Paul we are in the place of the old man who is accursed. No one doubts that it was because of him that the Lord was called sin, because he bore our sins^[1] and he was made sin for us,^[2] and by sin he condemned sin.^[3]

Through baptism you who have been made a member of Christ’s body were crucified with Christ.^[1] He hangs his innocent body so that you may have the power to restrain your guilty body from sin. Similarly, Moses lifted up the bronze serpent in the wilderness^[2] so that every form of wickedness might be torn down, because each vice is a member of the body of sin. Christ was not crucified in part but in whole. Or perhaps we should read this as meaning that our body should be torn away from slavery to sin and that what used to be the property of transgression should now become the property of righteousness, for everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin.^[3]

Perhaps some people will think that the body of sin is meant to refer to our earthly flesh, which has been joined to the soul as a kind of punishment, in that the soul sinned before bodies were created. Some people think and talk like this, but as it is a pagan idea we must reject it as being incompatible with the truth. Therefore, Paul says that our earthly body is the body of sin and our old man, because it has inherited the necessity of corruption from the old Adam. . . . Moreover, because of its weakness it has contracted a love for wickedness, and thus sin appears in the flesh as a congenital defect.

We were crucified with Christ at the moment when his flesh was crucified, because it somehow included universal human nature in itself, just as universal human nature contracted the sickness of the curse in Adam at the same time that he incurred the curse.

The old man does not refer to our nature but to our evil mind. It is this which has been put to death in baptism, so that the body would not continue to serve sin.

Our old self refers to our perishable and passible bodies.

God set a limit to man’s sin by interposing death and thus causing sin to cease, putting an end to it by the dissolution of the flesh, which should take place in the earth, so that man, ceasing at length to live in sin and dying to it, might begin to live in God.

He is set free, he is delivered, he is cleansed of all sin, and not sin in word and deed only but also of all irrational movements of the mind.

Freed means alienated from sin, for the dead do not sin in any way. No one born of God commits sin,^[1] for since he has been crucified and all his members are filled with regret, he will hardly be able to sin.

Whoever saw a dead man sleeping in some harlot’s bed, or bloodying his hands with murder, or doing anything else which is sinful?

Paul writes that we shall live with him in order to show that, while death works in the present, life will come in the future.

It is clear that those who have crucified the body, i.e., the world with its vices and lusts, die to the world and die together with Christ, and that they are also conformed to his eternal and saving life so that they might deserve to be made like Christ in his glory. But the flesh, i.e., the body, is crucified in such a way that the lusts which arise in it as a result of the sin in it, which comes from the transgression of the first man, are trampled underfoot. For the devil is crucified in our flesh; it is he who deceives us through the flesh. But note how the word flesh is sometimes to be understood as the world, i.e., the elements, sometimes as the human body and sometimes as the soul which follows corporeal vices.

If we have not died with him we shall not live with him, because then we are not his members.

Those of us who were buried with Christ ought to die to sin, because we are waiting for the resurrection.

If Christ were to die again, it follows that those who have died with him and who will be raised with him will also die again along with him! Therefore the apostle makes it clear that Christ will never die again, so that those who will live with him may be sure of having eternal life. . . .

Paul was right to say that death no longer has dominion over him. For he will never again give himself up to the rule of the tyrant, nor will he again empty himself in order to take the form of a servant and be made obedient unto death.^[1] Nor will he ever again endure the rule of the tyrant and of death in the form of a servant, even though he assumed it voluntarily and not because he was forced into it.

We shall not fear the second death if we have died willingly.^[1] Or it may mean: You cannot be baptized a second time because Christ cannot be crucified for you a second time, as Paul writes to the Hebrews.^[2] He does not say that these people cannot repent, but he does not allow them to repeat their baptism.

When death first had dominion over Christ, it was only with his consent.

Though Christ is now risen from the dead, and death has no more power over him, yet living in himself immortal and incorruptible he is again immolated for us in the mystery of the holy sacrifice. Where his body is eaten, there his flesh is distributed among the people for their salvation. His blood no longer stains the hands of the godless but flows into the hearts of his faithful followers.

Since Christ died once for all, no one who has died to Christ since then can live again to sin.

In the Scriptures we learn that there are three kinds of death. The first is when we die to sin and live to God. Blessed is that death which, escaping from sin and devoted to God, separates us from what is mortal and consecrates us to him who is immortal. The second death is the departure from this life. . . . The third death is that of which it is said: Let the dead bury their dead.^[1]

Paul shows that in the Savior’s resurrection we have the assurance of eternity, to which we shall attain if we live a better life. For whoever lives to God by doing good is truly alive here and now and has eternal life.

Paul is saying that if Christ had died for sinners two or three times, there would be no danger in going back to our old sinful ways. But as he only died once, we who have been buried and risen again with him will not die to sin again. There will be no second baptism, no second death of Christ. Therefore we must be careful to stay alive.

What does died to sin mean? It means that he was not subject to sin but that, in order to destroy it and remove its power, he died for our sin. Do you see how Paul frightens them? For since Christ does not die twice, there is no second washing, so you had better steer clear of any inclination toward sin!

Christ carried our sins and suffered for us so that in the future we might not sin. Christ now lives in the glory of his divinity.

Whoever thinks or considers that he is dead will not sin. For example, if lust for a woman gets hold of me or if greed for silver, gold or riches stirs me and I say in my heart that I have died with Christ . . . the lust is immediately quenched and sin disappears.

The addition of alive to God in Christ Jesus does not seem to me to be superfluous. It is as if Paul were saying that we are alive to God in wisdom, peace, righteousness and sanctification, all of which Christ is. Living to God in these is the same as living to God in Christ Jesus. For as nobody lives to God without righteousness, peace, sanctification and the other virtues, so it is certain that no one can live to God except in Christ Jesus.

Paul attributes death to sin, i.e., to our body, but life to God, to whose nature it belongs that he lives, so that we must die to our body in order to live in Christ Jesus. While assuming the body of our sin, Christ already lives wholly for God, since he has united the nature that he shared with us in a mutual participation in the divine immortality.

Paul says: Consider yourselves . . . because complete freedom from sin is not a reality as yet. . . . We are told to live for God in Jesus Christ our Lord and to lay hold of every virtue, having Jesus as our ally in the struggle.

As members of Christ you should understand that having died with him once for all you ought now always to live for God in Christ. In him our life is hidden with God, and since we have been clothed with him we should follow his example.

In these same members in which we used to serve sin and bring forth fruit unto death, God wants us to be obedient unto righteousness, that we may bring forth fruit unto life.

The apostle declares that all sins are works of the flesh. . . . Now if it were not in our power that sin should not reign in us, he would not have given us this command. How then is it possible that sin should not reign in our flesh? It is possible if we do what the apostle says—Put to death what is earthly in you^[1]—and if we always carry around in our body the death of Christ.^[2] For it is certain that where the death of Christ is carried around sin cannot reign. For the power of the cross of Christ is such that if it is placed before our eyes and kept faithfully in mind in such a way that the eye of the mind may keep its gaze fixed on the death of Christ, no lust, no desire, no passion and no envy will be able to overcome it. At its presence the whole host of sin and the flesh will always flee.

Why does Paul add that the body is mortal, when this seems to be obvious? Perhaps, but I think there is a reason for this addition. For Paul was showing by this how it is possible for sin not to reign in our bodies. . . . If we realize that our body can be put to death and be dead to sin, it may happen that sin will not reign in it. Insofar as it is dead, it is said to be justified from sin. Nor does a dead man lust or get angry or have passions or steal what is not his. Therefore, if we suppress all these desires in our bodies they may be said to be dead to sin. This is what the apostle appears to be telling us by adding the adjective mortal in this context.

What sin is this? The sin committed before baptism, of course.

The body is mortal because of the sin of Adam, but by faith in Christ we believe that it will be immortal. But in order for it to inherit the promise, Paul says that it must not listen to the voice of sin, so that sin may not reign in our mortal body. For it reigns as long as it is in control. But if it does not reign, the body will no longer appear to be mortal, because it dwells in the hope of eternal life. Paul did not say that the body is mortal because it will disintegrate but because of the pain of hell, so that the man who is sent to hell is said to be mortal because whoever hearkens to sin will not escape the second death, from which the Savior has delivered those who believe in him. Therefore, the mortal body refers to the entire human being because those who hearken to sin are said to be mortal. For Scripture says: The soul which sins shall surely die,^[1] which means the whole human being. For nobody will be judged apart from his body.

It is absurd for those who are being led toward the kingdom of God to have sin ruling over them or for those who are called to reign with Christ to choose to be captives to sin, as if one should throw down the crown from off his head and choose to be the slave of a hysterical woman who comes begging and covered in rags. . . . How is it that sin can reign in you? It is not from any power of its own but only from your laziness.

Because men are not my masters, because sin is not my lord—for sin does not reign in my mortal body—I am your servant.

The reign of sin is overthrown and destroyed, partly by such an amendment on the part of men that the flesh is made subject to the spirit and partly by the condemnation of those who are persevering in sin, in order that they might be so justly restrained that they cannot be troublesome to the righteous, who reign with Christ.

We must engage in a constant, daily struggle not to obey those desires which are forbidden or improper. For from this sort of fault it comes about that the eye is turned to where it ought not to look, and if this fault grows strong and prevails, even bodily adultery is carried out, which is committed in the heart as much more quickly as thought is quicker than action and has nothing to hinder or delay it.

You should live in your mortal body as if you were immortal. Paul also explains how sin reigns in the body—by obedience and consent.

A reign is different from a tyranny in that a tyrant rules without the consent of his subjects, whereas a reign applies in those cases where the subjects have assented to it. Therefore Paul is urging his hearers not to assent any longer to the reign of sin, for the Lord destroyed sin’s reign when he took on human flesh.

Paul did not say: Let sin not exist, but Let it not reign. Sin is within you if you take delight in it; it reigns if you consent to it.

Here Paul shows that the reason we no longer sin is not that after baptism we are no longer made of flesh. Up to this point, we claim Christ’s perfection by faith only and not by experience. For we have not yet become impassible or immortal. . . . Therefore Paul does not say: Do not sin, but rather: Let not sin reign in your mortal bodies.

Note carefully the subtle distinctions which Paul makes here. When he talks about yielding to sin, he does not talk about us but about our members. However, when he talks about yielding to God, it is not our members which he mentions but our very selves. By this he means that we must give our souls and our whole persons to God so that, as we present ourselves before him as godly people and cling to him, we shall be making our members instruments of righteousness at the same time.

This injunction would be successfully carried out, I believe, if we were willing always to keep the same disposition of mind as we had at the time of danger. For surely we realized to some degree the vanity of life, as well as the unreliability and instability of human affairs, which change so easily. And in all likelihood we felt contrition for our past faults and promised that for the future, if we were saved we would serve God with watchful exactitude.

Paul shows that the devil fights against us by using our members. For the opportunity is given to him by our sins, so that when God abandons us he acquires the power to deceive and destroy us. Therefore we must protect our members from every work of iniquity so that our enemy may be left defenseless and subdued. Paul did not say: Present your bodies, but Present your members, for a person goes wrong when his members and not his whole body lead him wherever sin dictates.

Death in this context means ignorance and unbelief, combined with an evil life, because life is to know God through Christ.^[1] Just as nobody acquires life without a parent, everyone has obtained life through Christ.^[2] Therefore whoever does not recognize that God is the Father of all through Christ is said not to have life, i.e., what he has here on earth does not count as life. For such a person denies himself as long as he thinks he can live without God as his Father. Therefore ignorance and a wicked life are death. For wickedness obtains death, not the death which is common to us all but the death of hell, as I mentioned above. Likewise, knowledge of God the Father and holy behavior are life, not that life which is subject to death but the life of the world to come which is called eternal. For this reason Paul says that you should present yourselves to God, for by knowing him you will go on to salvation. Having turned away from an evil life you will be like people who have risen from the dead.

Such great modesty ought to govern our conduct that our behavior will lead to the righteousness of God, not to earthly righteousness. For the righteousness of this world is without faith in Christ, and without that it is death, not life. Let us then yield our members to him so that he can defend us. For when we yield our members to him through good works, we make ourselves worthy to be aided by God’s righteousness, because that righteousness is not given to those who are unworthy to receive it. Where God’s righteousness is, there the Holy Spirit dwells and helps our infirmity. Just as we yield our members to sin when we act wrongly, so we yield them to righteousness when we behave rightly, protecting them from all wickedness.

The body, like a military weapon, is not in itself inclined to either vice or virtue. It can go either way, depending on the user. . . . The flesh becomes either good or evil according to the mind’s decision, not because of its own nature.

Every part of the body can become a weapon of wickedness which will defeat righteousness if it turns its purpose to bad use. At the same time, note that it is by freedom of choice that a man offers his members to the side of his choice.

By telling us to yield our members to God as instruments of righteousness, Paul teaches that the body is not evil but the creation of a good God. Therefore if it is properly and correctly controlled by the soul it can serve God.

Once again note the subtlety of Paul’s language. When he talks about us he says that sin will have no dominion over us, but when he talks about Christ he says that it is death which will have no dominion over him, for there was room for death in Christ but not sin.

The law of which he speaks here is the law in our members, which is opposed to the law of the mind. It is clear that those who have put to death their members will not be under the law of their members but under the grace of God. If someone wants to read this as referring to the law of Moses, the text will doubtless mean that we are not under the law of the letter, which kills, but under the law of the Spirit, which gives life and which Paul here calls grace.^[1]

If we walk according to the commandments which he gives, Paul says that sin will not rule over us, for it rules over those who sin. For if we do not walk as he commands we are under the law. But if we do not sin we are not under the law but under grace. If, however, we sin, we fall back under the law, and sin starts to rule over us once more, for every sinner is a slave to sin. It is necessary for a person to be under the law as long as he does not receive forgiveness, for by the law’s authority sin makes the sinner guilty. Thus the person to whom forgiveness is given and who keeps it by not sinning anymore will neither be ruled by sin nor be under the law. For the authority of the law no longer applies to him; he has been delivered from sin. Those whom the law holds guilty have been turned over to it by sin. Therefore the person who has departed from sin cannot be under the law.

Paul says that unless we sink very low, sin will not get the better of us. For it is not just the law which exhorts us but also grace which has remitted our former sins and protects us against future ones.

Having shown that they should avoid sinning for the sake of future benefits, Paul goes on to add that they should live as though they were incapable of sinning at all. For if the time was coming when they would be transformed and act as sinless people, then here and now they ought to cleanse their minds of any thought of sin and earnestly try to do what is good.

This refers to the third state^[1] of man, when in his mind he serves the law of God even though his flesh still serves the law of sin. For he does not obey the desire to sin, even though lusts will continue to court him and urge him to surrender until the body is raised to new life and death is swallowed up in victory. Because we do not give in to evil desires we are under grace, and sin does not reign in our mortal bodies. But the man who is controlled by sin even if he wants to resist it is still under the law and not yet under grace.

Grace causes sin not to have power over you. Therefore do not trust in yourself, lest sin thereby have much more power over you.

It is not that the law is evil but that it makes those under it guilty by giving commands without providing help to fulfill them. In fact, grace helps one to become a doer of the law, for without such grace one living under the law will be no more than a hearer of the law. ^[1] GRACE ENDS SIN’S REIGN. [PSEUDO-]CONSTANTIUS: As long as someone is involved in sins he lives according to the old man, but when he is converted into the right way he is said to be upright. Because it is not impossible for those who have received grace to sin, Paul says: Let not sin reign in you. But he knows well that those who are under grace are strangers to the many and varied commandments of the law and to their burdens, for the law was given because of the hardness of heart of the Jews. . . . For those who are partakers of the grace of Christ have learned how to overcome their passions and love God and their neighbor, as it is written.^{[1] [2]}

Sin will not overcome you, for you are not children but adults.^[1] It is like the teacher who says to a student: Avoid stylistic errors; you are no longer learn-ing from a primary school teacher but from a professor. Paul offered teaching and example as a way to overcome sin by grace.

In other words, nature is no longer struggling on its own but has the Holy Spirit to help it.

Be contented with one baptism alone, that which is into the death of the Lord [Rom 6:3; Col 2:12–13]. . . . [H]e that will not be baptized out of contempt will be condemned as an unbeliever, and reproached as ungrateful and foolish. For the Lord says: “Except a man be baptized of water and of the Spirit, he shall by no means enter into the kingdom of heaven” [Jn 3:5]. And again: “He that believes and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believes not shall be damned” [Mk 16:16].

And this is the meaning of the great sacrament of baptism that is solemnized among us, that all who attain to this grace should die to sin, as he is said to have died to sin, because he died in the flesh, which is the likeness of sin; and rising from the font regenerated, as he arose alive from the grave, should begin a new life in the Spirit, whatever may be the age of the body. For from the newborn infant to the old man bent with age, as there is none shut out from baptism so there is none who does not die to sin in baptism. But infants die only to original sin; those who are older also die to all the sins their evil lives have added to the sin they brought with them.

This then is what it is to be born again of water and of the Spirit, the being made dead being effected in the water, while our life is wrought in us through the Spirit. In three immersions and with three invocations the great mystery of baptism is performed, so that the type of death may be fully figured, and that by the Tradition of the divine knowledge the baptized may have their souls enlightened. It follows that if there is any grace in the water, it is not of the nature of the water, but of the presence of the Spirit.

There are, however, many who think that because we are baptized with water and the Spirit, there is no difference in the offices of water and the Spirit, and that they do not differ in nature. They do not observe that we are buried in the element of water that we may rise again renewed by the Spirit. For in the water is the representation of death, in the Spirit is the pledge of life, that the body of sin may die through the water, which encloses the body as it were in a tomb, that by the power of the Spirit we may be renewed from the death of sin, being born again in God.

Paul repeats here what he said [in verse 1] above. The only difference is that [in verse 1] he posed the question as if he were speaking to people who had not yet abandoned their sinning, and so he appears to be telling them not to persist in what they had been doing up till then. Here, on the other hand, he seems to be talking to those who have already given up sinning. [In verse 1] he spoke as if abundant grace did not yet exist, but here he speaks as if grace is already present, because we are not under law but under grace.

Although it was right for the law to be given—for it was given in order to show that those who sinned against it were guilty before God and in order to dissuade people from continuing to sin—yet because of the weakness of its infirmity the human race was unable to restrain itself from sin and had become subject to the death of hell. God was moved by the righteousness of his mercy, by which he always comes to the aid of the human race, and through Christ he provided a way by which he could reward those who were without hope. By forgiving their sins he released them from the law which had held them subject. Restored and made whole again by the help of God, they could reject the sins by which they had previously been held down. Therefore we did not sin in rejecting the law but rather we followed the providence of God himself through Christ.

I think that Paul is saying this to the Jews because it is the nature of the law to tell us what we should and should not do. If we find ourselves outside the law, there is nothing to stop us from doing what we like, but if there is some way of determining what should and should not be done, then we are back under the law again, and what is said here will easily apply to us. Paul has expres-sed himself in this seemingly contradictory way because he is saying that since we are free of sin we are no longer under the law. He does not mean that the outpouring of grace has given us license to sin.

If you sin, you will not be under grace.

This is what the apostle is teaching in this passage: that each person has it in his control and in the power of his will to be either a servant of sin or a servant of righteousness. He proves himself to be a slave of whatever side he chooses to obey and of whatever side he inclines toward.

Note that Paul assumes that anyone who yields himself to sin is a slave of sin, but he does not go on to add that anyone who yields himself to righteousness is a slave of righteousness. . . . It would not have been right to phrase it like that, because although God himself does what is righteous he cannot for that reason be said to be a slave of righteousness! On the contrary, he is the Lord of righteousness. Therefore it is not true to say that everyone who does what is righteous is a slave to righteousness in the same way that everyone who sins is a slave to sin. For even the devil himself is a slave to sin, because he departed from the obedience of righteousness and rebelled in the face of Almighty God, for which reason he is called an apostate.

Paul warns us not to say one thing and do another, so that when we are said to be servants of God we should be found by our actions to be servants of the devil. He proclaims that we are servants of the one whose will we do and that it is not fair to confess God as Lord but do the works of the devil. For God himself notices this and attacks it: This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me,^[1] and the Lord says in the Gospel: No man can serve two masters,^[2] and in the law it is written: God is not mocked.^[3]

Without saying a word about hell or eternal punishment as yet, Paul talks about the shame which comes in this life when people become slaves, and especially when they do so of their own free will, and to sin, of all things, whose wages are the second (i.e., spiritual) death.

Righteousness and sin are mutually incompatible. As the Lord himself said in the holy Gospel: No man can serve two masters.^[1]

It appears that Paul is saying this to those whose eternal life and spiritual progress are assured. These are the same people of whom he spoke [in 1:8] above. Then he goes on to point out that, to begin with, all men were slaves of sin. . . . But what follows is said to a few, to those who have been converted.

We all were slaves to sin, but when the standard of teaching was handed down to us and we chose to follow it, not in any which way nor in words only but from the heart, from the mind, with complete devotion, we were set free from the slavery of sin and made servants of righteousness.

As it is right to obey Christ, for he is himself righteousness and what he commands is righteous, Paul therefore says that we have become servants of righteousness from the heart, not from the law. We do this voluntarily and not out of fear, so that our confession of faith might find expression in the judgment of our mind. For by nature we have been led to faith, not by the law, in which standard of teaching we have been made for the rule of God, who created nature. For by nature we know by whom and through whom and in whom we were created. Therefore the standard of teaching is that into which our Creator has led us naturally. This is what he said above: They are a law unto themselves,^[1] when their own natures see what they believe, that what the law and the Prophets predicted to the Jews concerning Christ is what the Gentiles have confessed from the heart. For this reason Paul gives thanks to the Lord, because when we were still servants of sin we obeyed from the heart, believing in Christ, so that we might serve God not according to the law of Moses but according to the law of nature.

After shaming them by mentioning their slavery and alarming them by talking about its rewards, Paul puts the balance right by recalling the benefits which they have received. For by mentioning them he shows that they were set free from very great evils indeed and that this had happened without any labor on their part. . . . For no human power could have set us free from such great evils, but thanks be to God, who was willing and able to do such great things. And well he says that they were obedient from the heart, because they were neither forced nor pressed but came of their own accord, with a willing mind. . . . This shows that they exercised their free will.

We were slaves to sin, but we are no longer.

You who once were slaves to sin have broken away from it by the free will of your mind and have embraced spiritual teaching instead.

What is it which sets us free from sin? Knowledge of the truth, of course! This is what Jesus said to the Jews: If you believe my word, you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.^[1]

There are two gifts of God which Paul points out here. First there is the freeing from sin, and then there is the making of slaves of righteousness, which is better than any freedom. For God has done the same as if a person was to take an orphan who had been carried away by savages into their own country, and was not only to free him from captivity but to set a kind father over him and raise him to a very great dignity. This is what has happened in our case. For it was not just that God freed us from our old evils; he also led us into the life of angels. He opened the way for us to enjoy the best life, handing us over to the safekeeping of righteousness and killing our former evils, putting the old man in us to death and bringing us to eternal life. ^[1] WE ^[1]

This is according to the teaching and example of Christ, who has taught us to get rid not only of sins but also of opportunities to sin.

What is there so human, so trivial, so light that no weakness of the flesh can excuse it? . . . It is hardly cause for boasting that someone should serve virtue in the same way as he once served vice. Righteousness ought to be honored much more fully and much more seriously than that! But here Paul says: I am speaking in human terms, meaning that he requires the same zeal from the convert as was present in him as a sinner. Once your feet ran to the temples of demons; now they run to the church of God. Once they ran to spill blood; now they run to set it free. Once your hands were stretched out to steal what belonged to others; now they are stretched out for you to be generous with what is your own. Once your eyes looked at women or at something which was not yours with lust in them; but now they look at the poor, the weak and the helpless with pity in them. Your ears used to delight in hearing empty talk or in attacking good people; now they have turned to hearing the Word of God, to the exposition of the law and to the learning of the knowledge of wisdom. Your tongue, which was accustomed to bad language, cursing and swearing has now turned to praising the Lord at all times; it produces healthy and honest speech, in order to give grace to the hearers and speak the truth to its neighbor.

But our members must be said to be circumcised if they are devoted to the service of God. But if they go beyond the laws divinely ordained for them, they must be considered uncircumcised. . . . For when our members served iniquity they were not circumcised, nor was the covenant of God in them. But when they began to serve righteousness unto sanctification, the promise which was made to Abraham is fulfilled in them.

In recalling the weakness of the flesh, Paul wants to say that he is demanding less from us than the worship of God would normally require. . . . In order to remove from us any reason to be afraid of coming to faith, because that might seem to us to be unbearable and rough, Paul commands us to serve God with the same amount of zeal that we previously served the devil. For as we ought to be more willing to serve God than the devil, given that God brings salvation and the devil damnation, yet the spiritual physician does not demand more from us, lest in avoiding the more difficult precepts on account of our weakness we should remain in death. Thus the Lord says: Take my yoke upon you, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light.^[1]

Paul says that he is speaking in human terms in order to show that he is not making any exorbitant demand, nor even as much as might be expected from someone who enjoyed so great a gift, but rather a moderate and light request. . . . The two masters are very different from each other, but even so, Paul is asking for no more than the same amount of servitude. People really ought to give much more to the service of righteousness, since righteousness is obviously so much bigger and better. But because of their weakness, which he does not ascribe to their free will or to their spirit but to their flesh, Paul is not making any greater demands on them.

Paul is saying, in effect: Although you ought to serve righteousness much more than you previously served sin, I nevertheless make allowance for your weakness so that you might serve righteousness just as much as you once served sin. Or perhaps it is this: Whatever the soul does in a carnal fashion is held against the flesh, but if the flesh performs a spiritual deed the whole person becomes spiritual. . . . We offered our members to serve sin; it is not the case, as the Manichaeans say, that it was the nature of the body to have sin ingrained in it.

Here free means alien, and rightly so. For no one can serve sin and righteousness at the same time, as the Savior said: No one can serve two masters.^[1]

It is clear that whoever is free of God is a slave of sin. For as long as he sins he goes away from God and comes under sin.

In the past you did not split your service between righteousness and sin but were wholly given over to sin. So now that you have come over to the side of righteousness, you should do the same thing and give yourselves over entirely to righteousness, doing nothing at all that is wicked.

As you are in no way slaves to sin inwardly, you should become free of every sin.

He who serves the devil is free from God, but he who being freed serves God is free from the devil. As a result it is apparent that a false liberty could have been had from a defect of the human will but that a true liberty could not have been received without the help of the liberator.^[1]

Death is the fellowship of the soul in a state of sin with the body, and life is separation from that sin.

Someone who turns his heart and mind to righteousness will undoubtedly blush and condemn himself when he thinks back on what he did before, when he was acting under the power of sin, for the end of those things is death. But what death, I ask? Certainly not the death that is common to us all. . . . Is it perhaps that which is called the death of sin, as when Scripture says: The soul which sins will surely die.^[1] Or should it rather be understood as referring to that death by which we die with Christ to sin and put an end to wickedness and crimes, so that it can be said, as it is here, that death is the end of them? Paul compares fruits with fruits and declares that the fruits of sin for which we are now ashamed because we have been set free from sin and become servants of God end in death, whereas the fruits of righteousness, which lead to sanctification, end in eternal life.

What are the fruits of sin? Learning from them what a good life is we are ashamed by the way we lived so wickedly before. And it is not only that the opinion of the pagans is wicked but also the heresy which is found most of all in Phrygia, to which only a morally corrupt person would belong, in which there is no sacrament and Christian piety has died out. Behold a freedom full of sins and bound by wickedness, whose deeds have only shame as their reward and whose end is death! Our departure is the end of this life and its deeds, and either death or life will succeed it. But here the word death has a double meaning, for it shifts from one kind of death to another.

If even the recollection of your former slavery makes you ashamed, think how much more the reality of it would do so. You have gained in two ways—by being set free from your former shame and by having come to recognize your past life for what it was.

Throughout this chapter, while withdrawing our members from unrighteousness and sin and applying them to righteousness and holiness, and transferring the same from the wages of death to the gift of eternal life, Paul undoubtedly promises to the flesh the reward of salvation. Now it would not have been consistent for a rule of holiness and righteousness to be especially enjoined for the flesh if the reward of such a discipline were not also within its reach; nor could even baptism be ordered for the flesh if by its regeneration a course were not inaugurated tending to its restitution.

Paul repeats what he has already said [in verse 18] but with an important difference. There he said that we have become slaves to obedience, which leads to righteousness, but here he says that we have become slaves to God. By saying this, Paul shows that after someone has been set free from sin he ought to serve righteousness and perform all the virtues in the first instance and then ascend by the way of spiritual progress to the point where he becomes a slave of God, even though to be a slave of righteousness is also to be a slave of God. For Christ is righteousness, and to serve Christ is to serve God. Nevertheless, there is a scale of spiritual perfection, and there are different levels of virtue. For this reason Christ is said to reign, because he is righteousness, until such time as the fullness of all virtue is complete in everyone. Then, when the measure of perfection is reached, it is said that he will give up the kingdom to God the Father, so that God may be all in all.^[1]

If when we receive the forgiveness of sins we become imitators of good deeds, we shall acquire holiness and we shall obtain eternal life at the end, for we shall pass from death, which Paul said was the end, to life, which is without end.^[1]

Instead of the shame and death which you deserved before, you now have the hope of attaining holiness and eternal life. Note how Paul says that some things have already been given, while others are still hoped for, but that the former point to the latter. Thus if we can come to holiness now, we can be assured of obtaining eternal life in the future.^[1]

Doubtless there is no blessing in something for which one feels shame when repenting of it. Everyone who comes to know goodness is ashamed of his former actions, but anyone who is ashamed of righteousness is not aware of its fruit.^[1] Therefore, those who sin get nothing out of it in the present, and in the future they will reap eternal death. But those who serve God have the gift of the Holy Spirit in the present and eternal life in the future. Or perhaps it should be read like this: what have you got out of doing things which make you feel ashamed whenever you think of them? The return you have already received is that, having been sanctified by baptism, you are alive.

Paul employs a military metaphor to good effect by saying that death is the wage due to those who fight under King Sin. But God does not give his soldiers a wage, as if they have something owing to them. Rather, he gives them the gift of grace, which is eternal life in Christ.

The death being referred to here is not the death which separates the body from the soul but the death by which because of sin the soul is separated from God.

Paul says that the wages of sin is death because death comes through sin, and thus whoever refrains from sin will receive eternal life as his reward. Those who do not sin will not undergo the second death.

Just as those who follow sin obtain death, so those who follow the grace of God, that is, the faith of Christ which pardons sins, will have eternal life.^[1] They will therefore rejoice at being dissolved for a time, knowing that they will obtain this life which is free of all care and has no end. It was when he saw this from afar that St. Simeon asked to be released from this world that he might go into peace, that is, into life which allows no disturbance.^[2] And he bears witness that this gift is given to us by God through Christ our Lord, so that we should offer thanks to God through no one other than his Son.

Paul does not parallel the wages of sin with the wages of good deeds because he wants to show that they were not set free by their own efforts, nor had they done anything to earn their salvation. It was by grace alone that all these things came about.^{[1] [2]} DEATH ^[1]

One who does military service for sin receives death as his wages. Paul does not use the term wages of righteousness because there was no righteousness in us before our baptism which God could repay. Righteousness is not obtained by our effort but is a gift of God.

Eternal life is unjustly given for good merits. Rather, merit is first given freely by a benevolent Savior.