necessary that the former should be done once for all, and that the latter should be carried on
continually: not that the flesh, as we have already said, dies in us in a moment, but that we ought
not to retrograde in the work of crucifying it. For if we roll again in our own filth, we deny Christ;
of whom we cannot be the participators except through newness of life, inasmuch as he lives an
incorruptible life.
9.Death no more rules over him,etc. He seems to imply that death once ruled over Christ; and
indeed when he gave himself up to death for us, he in a manner surrendered and subjected himself
to its power; it was however in such a way that it was impossible that he should be kept bound by
its pangs, so as to succumb to or to be swallowed up by them. He, therefore, by submitting to its
dominion, as it were, for a moment, destroyed it for ever. Yet, to speak more simply, the dominion
of death is to be referred to the state of death voluntarily undergone, which the resurrection
terminated. The meaning is, that Christ, who now vivifies the faithful by his Spirit, or breathes his
own life into them by his secret power from heaven, was freed from the dominion of death when
he arose, that by virtue of the same dominion he might render free all his people.
10.He died once to sin,etc. What he had said — that we, according to the example of Christ,
are for ever freed from the yoke of death, he now applies to his present purpose, and that is this —
that we are no more subject to the tyranny of sin, and this he proves from the designed object of
Christ’s death; for he died that he might destroy sin.
But we must observe what is suitable to Christ in this form of expression; for he is not said to
die to sin, so as to cease from it, as the words must be taken when applied to us, but that he underwent
death on account of sin, that having made himself ἀντίλυτρον, a ransom, he might annihilate the
power and dominion of sin.^190 And he says that he died once, not only because he has by having
obtained eternal redemption by one offering, and by having made an expiation for sin by his blood,
sanctified the faithful for ever; but also in order that a mutual likeness may exist between us. For
though spiritual death makes continual advances in us, we are yet said properly to die only once,
that is, when Christ, reconciling us by his blood to the Father, regenerates us at the same time by
the power of his Spirit.
But that he lives, etc. Whether you add with or in God, it comes to the same meaning; for he
shows that Christ lives a life subject to no mortality in the immortal and incorruptible kingdom of
God; a type of which ought to appear in the regeneration of the godly. We must here remember the
particle of likeness, so; for he says not that we shall now live in heaven, as Christ lives there; but
he makes the new life, which after regeneration we live on earth, similar to his celestial life. When
he says that we ought to die to sin, according to his example, we are not to suppose it to be the
same kind of death; for we die to sin, when sin dies in us, but it was otherwise with Christ; by dying
it was that he conquered sin. But he had just said before, that we believe that we shall have life in
common with him, he fully shows by the word believing that he speaks of the grace of Christ: for
if he only reminded us of a duty, his mode of speaking would have been this, “Since we die with
(^190) This difference may be gathered from the general tenor of the whole passage; for his death and our death are said to have
a likeness, and not to be same. And farther, in mentioning our death in this connection, in the next verse, he changes his
phraseology; it is and not , which means those deprived of life — the lifeless. “The dead ( ) in trespasses and sins,”
are those who have no spiritual life; and to be dead to sin is not to have life for sin, to be freed from its ruling power. See Romans
6:18
It is usual with the Apostle to adopt the same form of words in different senses, which can only be distinguished by the
context or by other parts of Scripture, as it has been noticed in a note on Romans 4:25. — Ed.