Ver. 4. This symbolism interpreted. συνετάφηµεν οὖν αὐτῷ κ.τ.λ.: Therefore we were buried with Him (in the act of immersion) through that baptism into His death—burial being regarded as the natural sequence of death, and a kind of seal set to its reality. Cf. 1 Cor. xv. 3 f. It introduces a false abstraction to say
a.
απ —9.
καινότητι ζωῆς περιπατήσωµεν.
ade , A ΄ > ~ > a ‘ ~ , > , - τῷ ° ὁμοιώματι τοῦ θανάτου αὐτοῦ, ἀλλὰ καὶ τῆς ἀναστάσεως ἐσόμεθα 6. τοῦτο γινώσκοντες, ὅτι 6 παλαιὸς ἡμῶν "ἄνθρωπος συνεσταυρώθη, ἵνα καταργηθῇ τὸ σῶμα τῆς ἁμαρτίας, τοῦ µηκέτι δουλεύειν ἡμᾶς
ἁμαρτία.
7.6 γὰρ ἀποθανὼν δεδικαίωται ΄ ἀπὸ τῆς ἁμαρτίας.
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5. Et γὰρ °oupputo. γεγόναµεν c Here only,
c/. Luke Viii. 7.
d Ch. i. 23, ν. 14, Vili ~ 3; Phil it
τη ᾖ7; Rev.
+ ¢ Eph. iv.22;
Col. iii. 9,
3 δὲ > θά ‘ % ~ , a ‘ ’ 7 A Et de ἀπεθάνομεν συν Χριστῷ, πιστεύοµεν ὅτι καὶ συζήσοµεν αὐτῷ; ¢ Acts xiii.
Q. εἰδότες ὅτι Χριστὸς ἐγερθεὶς ἐκ νεκρῶν οὐκ ἔτι ἀποθνήσκει : θάνα-
(with Meyer) that εἰς τὸν θάνατον means ‘“‘unto death,” not ‘unto His death”; death in the whole context is perfectly definite. διὰ τῆς δόξης τοῦ πατρός: in nothing was the splendour of God’s power revealed so much as in the re- surrection of Jesus, Eph. i. 19 f. ἐν καινότητι ζωῆς: in life of a new quality ; cf. vii. 6, 1 Tim. vi. 17: the construction makes the new quality of the life pro- minent. Winer, p. 296.
Ver. 5. This verse proves the legiti- macy of the reference to a new life in the preceding one: union with Christ at one point (His death) is union with Him altogether (and therefore in His resurrec- tion). et yap σύμφυτοι γεγόναµεν τῷ ὁμοιώματι τοῦ θανάτου αὐτοῦ: it is sim- plest to take συµφ. and τῷ ὁμοιώματι together—if we have become vitally one with the likeness of His death; 1.ε., if the baptism, which is a similitude of Christ’s death, has had a reality answer- ing to its obvious import, so that we have really died in it as Christ died, then we shall have a corresponding experience of resurrection. τῆς ἀναστάσεως is also dependent on ὁμοιώµματι: baptism, inas- much as one emerges from the water after being immersed, is a ὁμοίωμα of Tesurrection as well as of death. It does not seem a real question to ask whether the ἀνάστασις is ethical or transcendent : one cannot imagine Paul drawing the distinction here. (On the word ὁμοίωμα, see Cremer.)
Ver. 6. All this can be asserted, knowing as we do that “our old man” = our old self, what we were before we became Christians—was crucified with Him. Paul says συνεστανρώθη simply because Christ died on the cross, and we are baptised into that death, not because “our old man” is the basest of criminals for whom crucifixion is the proper penalty. The object of this crucifixion of the old man was ‘‘that the body of sin might be brought to nought”. τὸ σῶμα τῆς ἁμαρτίας is the body in which we live: apart from the crucifixion of the old self it can be characterised as ‘‘a body of
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sin’’, It may be wrong to say that it is necessarily and essentially sinful—the body, as such, can have no moral predi- cate attached to it; it would be as wrong to deny that it is invariably and persist- ently a seat and source of sin. The genitive is perhaps qualitative rather than possessive, though ‘the body of which sin has taken possession” (S. and H.) isa good paraphrase. See Winer, p. 235, 768. This body is to be reduced to impotence τοῦ µηκέτι δουλεύειν ἡμᾶς κ.τ.λ. “that we may no longer be slaves to sin”. The body is the instrument we use in the service of sin, and if it is disabled the service must cease. For the gen. inf., see Burton, § 397.