CHAPTER 6
Romans 6:1-2
- Quid ergo dicemus? manebimus in peccato,
ut gratia abundet? - What shall we say then? Shall we continue
in sin, that grace may abound? - Ne sit ita: qui mortui sumus peccato,
quomodo adhuc vivemus in eo? - God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to
sin, live any longer therein?
1.What then shall we say? Throughout this chapter the Apostle proves, that they who imagine
that gratuitous righteousness is given us by him, apart from newness of life, shamefully rend Christ
asunder: nay, he goes further, and refers to this objection, — that there seems in this case to be an
opportunity for the display of grace, if men continued fixed in sin. We indeed know that nothing
is more natural than that the flesh should indulge itself under any excuse, and also that Satan should
invent all kinds of slander, in order to discredit the doctrine of grace; which to him is by no means
difficult. For since everything that is announced concerning Christ seems very paradoxical to human
judgment, it ought not to be deemed a new thing, that the flesh, hearing of justification by faith,
should so often strike, as it were, against so many stumbling-stones. Let us, however, go on in our
course; nor let Christ be suppressed, because he is to many a stone of offense, and a rock of
stumbling; for as he is for ruin to the ungodly, so he is to the godly for a resurrection. We ought,
at the same time, ever to obviate unreasonable questions, lest the Christian faith should appear to
contain anything absurd.
The Apostle now takes notice of that most common objection against the preaching of divine
grace, which is this, — “That if it be true, that the more bountifully and abundantly will the grace
of God aid us, the more completely we are overwhelmed with the mass of sin; then nothing is better
for us than to be sunk into the depth of sin, and often to provoke God’s wrath with new offenses;
for then at length we shall find more abounding grace; than which nothing better can be desired.”
The refutation of this we shall here after meet with.
2.By no means. To some the Apostle seems to have only intended indignantly to reprove a
madness so outrageous; but it appears from other places that he commonly used an answer of this
kind, even while carrying on a long argument; as indeed he does here, for he proceeds carefully to
disprove the propounded slander. He, however, first rejects it by an indignant negative, in order to
impress it on the minds of his readers, that nothing can be more inconsistent than that the grace of
Christ, the repairer of our righteousness, should nourish our vices.
Who have died to sin,etc. An argument derived from what is of an opposite character. “He who
sins certainly lives to sin; we have died to sin through the grace of Christ; then it is false, that what
abolishes sin gives vigor to it.” The state of the case is really this, — that the faithful are never
reconciled to God without the gift of regeneration; nay, we are for this end justified, — that we
may afterwards serve God in holiness of life. Christ indeed does not cleanse us by his blood, nor - For as through the disobedience of one man, Sinful were made many; So also through the obedience of one, Righteous
shall be made many. - But the law entered in, That multiplied might be transgression; But where sin multiplied, Superabounded has grace: So
that as sin reigned Into death; So also grace shall reign through righteousness, Into eternal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord.
— Ed.