But these days, we often hear these profound passages through the lens of a kind of Enlightenment individualistic moralism: “Sin is bad.” “Don’t sin.” “Sinners are bad.” “You are all sinners.” The blame is on us. The guilt is on us. The onus is on us to do something about it. It’s all about us!
And that’s precisely the opposite of where the focus lies for Paul. For Paul, it is always about what God has done; not what we have done or what we do: “ For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.” (Romans 6:14)
As New Testament scholar, Bill Loader, points out, we need to make sure we read everything in its proper context: “the wages of sin [may be] death, but the free gift of God is eternal life” (Romans 6:23). If we focus only on the first half of the verse, we focus on the system that God has not only called us from, but the very life from God has released us—the system from which God has set us free.
In the letter to the Romans, Paul has been talking about the reality of Baptism. He is challenging believers to take the promises of Baptism seriously—not the people’s promises which he probably thinks the people are taking too seriously by putting the onus on themselves; not the people’s promises, but God’s promise, God’s promise of liberation in Christ. “[W]hen we accept God’s generosity, celebrated in baptism, we enter a new way of life.” (Loader) “Ritual life [is] not virtual life; it [is] real life in its most basic form expressed ritually.” (GBoD) Baptism means something. In fact, Baptism means everything.
Our problem is not that we need to keep turning over new leaves and trying harder (Loader), but rather that we need to accept the new reality into which we have been enfolded. Our problem is that we do not live out of the reality that our Baptism declares and embodies (GBoD).
In Baptism, we enter a new way of being, a new dynamic, “a new set of possibilities”, “a new relationship with God where… by opening ourselves to God's goodness we not only experience forgiveness and hope but also begin a journey where [God’s] love produces love in and through us. God's goodness and generosity reproduces itself [in and through us].” (Loader)
[I]n the light of entering this new life with its dynamic generation of love and goodness … Paul declares [that we should not let ourselves] be ruled by the competing system which generates sin. (Loader)Sin is the result of alienation from God; of the failure to live out of God’s free gift of mercy and love. Sin is the expectation that it’s still all up to us to get it right.
When we enter the new life with its new possibilities the old patterns and systems do not shut down. The destructive ruts and routines are still there, [but we do not] have to surrender to them [we do not have to live out of them] because [God’s] new life [lifts us] beyond them.And Paul is reminding us to live out of the new system, not the old, the new dynamic into which we have been baptised. He is calling us to accept the freedom that God gives.
In [verse] 12, [Paul] identifies [sin] as having [its] roots in our human bodies, in particular in our appetites. In this he shares the views of many of his time [and perhaps of our own time too]. [Though] For Paul the body is not evil; nor are its desires, but when we allow our lives to be determined by satisfying our cravings without any thought for the consequences for ourselves or others—whether that is as unsophisticated as [violence and] … abuse or as sophisticated as ripping off the developing world through hogging wealth and resources—then we are caught up into a power network which produces destructive behaviour. Paul is thinking about two different systems: sin and death on the one side and goodness and love [and generosity] on the other. (Loader)
[Verse] 13 is about integration [in] and orientation [to the new life we have been given]. When openness to love becomes a possibility for [us], then [our] journey has just begun. That journey includes the process of bringing all parts of [our] being into the sway of this liberating power [by simply allowing ourselves] to be taken up into the dynamic goodness and generosity of God [by simply allowing ourselves to be open to God’s action]. That is what resurrection life is about. Baptism [means] death to the old system. Christian life means living that reality out so that it affects everything. As [verse] 14 puts it, [the new reality is that] sin no longer rules.
[That same verse] goes on to say that we are no longer under the Law but under grace. [You can almost hear] the hackles of [Paul’s] opponents rise. No longer under the Law, the [Scriptures] (as [they] knew [them])! What does Paul possibly mean? You can just hear them reiterating their argument: "all this talk about love is not enough; you have to have the commandments! That's the trouble with Paul." [But] Paul is being [very] courageous here. [He even seems to court] opposition. [For in verse] 15 he restates [his opponents’] … question for them: doesn't all this mean we should keep on sinning? It echoes the question with which he began [right back at the beginning of chapter 6]. Paul is not, of course, suggesting they dispense with scripture. But he is saying: when you live on the basis that you try to observe the commandments and keep on failing, then you are caught in a system which does not work. The Law treated in this way is bad news. [The next chapter of Romans continues this theme.]
… [God’s promise is freedom] from the old system, so it makes no sense to [keep] surrendering to it. To develop [t]his idea… [Paul] uses the image of slavery (6:16). [H]e refuses to reduce the discussion to rules about doing good. He is [much] more interested in the processes and what they do to people. So he repeats: the sin system produces destructive behaviour; the grace system, … the system based on God's goodness and generosity produces goodness and generosity. Here Paul plays with the [slavery] image: [in Christ] we undergo a transferral of ownership from sin to God and goodness (6:18). Some slavery! But Paul is wanting people to think in systems and the dynamics that they produce.
Ultimately the fruit of living a life which feeds on God's goodness and generosity or grace is not just goodness and grace in our lives (and surely that is even more than the Law demands and more than [what] fulfils it!); [ultimately, the fruit of God’s promise] … is … holiness or "sanctification" … not … withdrawal [from the world] or even [some puritanical perfection, but love].
For Paul God's being is not preoccupied with being untarnished and pure, but with being generous and self-giving, making something out of nothing, raising the dead, helping people from the sin-death syndrome into the goodness-life processes which love generates.
[Verse] 23 then is not primarily about sins leading people to hell, and about the gift of life as escape from hell into heaven… Paul is talking about something much more encompassing and [he’s] doing so with his back to the wall. He is contrasting two fundamental dynamics at work in human beings and their behaviour which had also become the stuff of conflict among Christians [and indeed still is today]. The way of sin and death shows itself in actions, but it is much deeper and stems from powerful forces within our own being which are generated through our alienation from God, from others and from ourselves. They are so destructive they can even take good commandments and subvert them to send us sinking further into the mire [by getting us caught in an impossible cycle of our failure to follow them exactly]. That [cycle] is … death - here and now and forever.
Against it Paul argues the liberating effects generated by the relationship of generous love which God's goodness offers people. [God’s grace transforms us for the sake of extending that] same goodness and generosity [to] the world. That is "eternal life" - beginning in the here and now [and extending beyond…] That is the good news of which Paul is not ashamed (1:16) because it is powerful and is rooted in God's goodness (1:17) [God’s graciousness, God’s generosity]. (Loader)
Baptism happens to us and changes us. We have been buried with Christ in baptism, and raised with Christ to walk in newness of life… If indeed we have been buried with Christ, we are actually dead to and freed from sin. If indeed we have been raised with Christ in baptism, we are actually freed from the power of death.God’s free gift is already begun in us through Christ; and all we have to do is live out of God’s gracious promise.
The key word here is "freed." Just as a captive is set free from bondage, so we have been set free from sin and death. …What former captive in his or her right mind would attempt to live lawlessly after being freed from captivity, unless the condition of captivity has become "home"? Likewise, given that we have been freed in baptism from sin and death, why would we give ourselves to the ways of sin and death again, rather than [opening ourselves to the graciousness ] … of God in which we now stand?
If we have been given grace and power to renounce the forces of wickedness, reject the evil powers of this world, repent from sin, resist evil, injustice and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves, why do we seem so timid and powerless in the face of these things around us? Is not our timidity a sign that we have resubmitted ourselves to sin and death, rather than, as our [Baptismal] vows [affirm, given our allegiance] to Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour in union with his living body, the church?
Put another way, if [in our Baptism, we renounced evil and claimed Christ, what is our calling now?] … Paul understood Baptism [to declare and enact] the very reality into which we have been initiated. (GBoD)
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