I think one of the chief problems we (modern Christians) have with reading Romans is that we do not read with with a sufficiently historical mindset. We want to read Romans theologically and spiritually (as a document about God and our spiritual relationship to God) and this is good.
In so doing though, we can fail to realize that for Paul, God works through persons in history. Paul, of course, does not have the modern concept of history in mind. But what he does have in mind is a real change in the course of the world precisely because of certain concrete things that God has done, is doing, and will do. For instance, Romans 1:16:
Rom 1:16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.
Paul here, and most commentators I have check agree, that Paul is referring to the beginning of the gospel. Christ preached to his own people first, the apostle’s also preached to Jews (or Judeans) first. Then the gospel went to the Greeks (hellenized Jews or Gentiles). Paul’s letter starts with mention of God’s work in history. But then, for some reason, when we get to Romans 6 and see applications of that history to individual believers, the whole focus in interpretation in popular preaching and writing is upon the individual life with Christ. Thus you hear/read quips like:
If you don’t preach grace in such a way that people think they do not have to do good works, then you’re not preaching grace.
But is Paul saying that in reference to an idea like “Since grace is free, is life a free for all?” Should we so preach grace that people really do not consider repentance? Is the conflict between law and grace truly a conflict between rules and freedom? Or is it rather like Romans 5:19-6:18:
(Rom 5:19) For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous. (20) Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, (21) so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Paul here is speaking about the law, not merely as a set of rules, but he means that in space-time, the law came to the Israelites in order to increase the trespass. Paul seems to mean the law, as in, the whole covenant that came through Moses. Not a purely graceless system of earning, but the law came partially to make sin worse. But where the sinfulness (among the Israelites) became all the worse, grace came in Christ. So just as death reigned prior to the law and after the law, Christ’s death and resurrection are precisely what it means for grace to abound. Thus, grace reigns through the righteousness of God revealed in the gospel (Romans 1:17). Paul is speaking of the story of Jesus here, not merely concepts in apparent conflict.
(6:1) What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? (2) By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? (3) Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? (4) We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. (5) For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. (6) We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin.
As an historical principal then, sin is no longer in charge. People, particularly the faithful baptized, are positionally and progressively delivered from the clutching hands of sin. The question Paul is asking and answering is, “If the law came to increase the trespass and heightened trespass was precisely wherein grace abounded in the crucifixion of Jesus, the Lord of glory, by the corrupt leaders of the world, then why should we not continue under the law so that God’s grace can spread in a similarly powerful way? Is it not rational to stick with the set-up you have just established?” Paul’s answer is that baptism (read: accepting the gospel) is accepting that God’s grace has already abounded and that a break with sin’s reign has literally been established in history and now it has been established in your life! Paul is applying this real change in history to the lives of individual believers.
(7) For one who has died has been set free from sin. (8) Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. (9) We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. (10) For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. (11) So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. (12) Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. (13) Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. (14) For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.
Here Paul gives an application for how this can be true. If you have a master (death/sin), but you die you are free from that master. If we have union with Christ, such that he represents us (Romans 5:12-17), then his death is just as good as our own death. He died and was raised, so death and sin have no authority over him. Christians are positionally already in this state, thus they should live accordingly and make progress in overcoming personal sin precisely because one day God will make this positional reality actual. We should do this because we are not longer under law (the system designed to bring about increased sin…like Jesus’ death and its meaning), but under grace (the reign of Jesus who over came death).
(15) What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! (16) Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? (17) But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, (18) and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.
So, Paul asks his question again, but with a hint of sarcasm because of what he just established. The rhetorical effect seems to be, “How silly is it then, to live as though the era under the law was still primary even though we know that era has passed? Don’t you realize that you’ve committed yourselves to obey Jesus?” Paul may also be dealing with the potential charge from Christians who see the Jewish law as the primary moral norm, “But without the law, we have no rules…won’t people just sin it up?” One book I have implies that Paul is struggling with the allegedly serious problem of, “If grace, why commands?” But Paul isn’t struggling with that at all. He proposes the solution in Romans 6:17 when he says, in effect, “If you’ve believed the gospel, then you’ve agreed to live by the moral standards contained therein.” I propose, that Paul means the teachings of Jesus reflected in the gospel preached by the early church. Paul even says that the conflict, at the end of the day isn’t really between rules and forgiveness, but between sin and obedience (Romans 6:16). We know from elsewhere in Romans that the obedience is the obedience of faith, or the kind of obedience that is fueled by loyalty to God, and the Lord Jesus, whom he raised from the death (Romans 1:1-7).
Anyhow, if we look, not just for “How does this passage in Romans apply directly to me?” But if we instead ask, “How does it fit into Paul’s argument about the epochal change that comes with the gospel story?” Then we get the personal application and coherent picture that does not leave us with silly notions that people have which cause them to say, “Law is imperative, gospel is blessing,” or other such nonsense.
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