Romans 6:8

Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him:

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Benson Commentary

Romans 6:8-11. Now if we be dead with Christ — Conformed to his death by dying to sin; we believe that we shall also live with him — We have reason sufficient to assure ourselves that we shall be conformed to him in life too, by living an uninterrupted life of grace here, and glory hereafter; and shall die no more, even as Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more, Romans 6:9. He died unto sin — To atone for and to abolish it; but he liveth unto God — A glorious eternal life, such as we shall live also. Likewise — Ουτω, so, in correspondence to Christ’s death and life, Romans 6:8-9, reckon ye yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin — To be under an indispensable obligation, from duty and gratitude, to die to it, and never more return under its power, or live in the commission of it; but alive unto God — Endued with spiritual life, and thereby enabled to live to the glory of God, in a steady, uniform, and cheerful obedience to his wise, just, and holy commands; through Jesus Christ our Lord — By virtue of his death and resurrection, your union with him by faith, and grace received from him.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

6:3-10 Baptism teaches the necessity of dying to sin, and being as it were buried from all ungodly and unholy pursuits, and of rising to walk with God in newness of life. Unholy professors may have had the outward sign of a death unto sin, and a new birth unto righteousness, but they never passed from the family of Satan to that of God. The corrupt nature, called the old man, because derived from our first father Adam, is crucified with Christ, in every true believer, by the grace derived from the cross. It is weakened and in a dying state, though it yet struggles for life, and even for victory. But the whole body of sin, whatever is not according to the holy law of God, must be done away, so that the believer may no more be the slave of sin, but live to God, and find happiness in his service.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

This passage is a confirmation and illustration of what the apostle had said before, Romans 6:5-7. The argument is, that as Christ was once dead but now lives to God, and will no more die, so we, being dead to sin, but living unto God, should not obey sin, but should live only to God.

Romans 6:8

Now if we be dead with Christ - If we be dead in a manner similar to what he was; if we are made dead to sin by his work, as he was dead in the grave; see the note at Romans 6:4.

We believe - All Christians. It is an article of our faith. This does not refer to the future world so much as to the present. It becomes an article of our belief that we are to live with Christ.

That we shall also live with him - This does not refer primarily to the resurrection, and to the future state, but to the present. "We hold it as an article of our faith, that we shall be alive with Christ." As he was raised up from death, so we shall be raised from the death of sin. As he lives, so we shall live in holiness. We are in fact raised up here, and, as it were, made alive to him. This is not confined, however, to the present life, but as Christ lives forever, so the apostle goes on to show that we shall.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

8. Now if we be dead—"if we died."

with Christ, &c.—See on [2204]Ro 6:5.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

i.e. If we have fellowship with Christ in his death, we have reason to believe we shall have fellowship with him also in his resurrection and life: see Romans 6:5. Though everlasting be not excluded, yet a spiritual life is principally intended; we shall so live with Christ, as no more to return to dead works. The next words show this to be the sense.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Now if we be dead with Christ,.... This does not imply any doubt about it, but is rather a taking it for granted: seeing we are dead with Christ by union with him, as our head and representative, and by communion with him in the benefits of his death, and being planted together in the likeness of it; or being dead to the law, sin, and the world, through the virtue and efficacy of Christ's death:

we believe that we shall also live with him; not only a life of justification by faith in his righteousness; and a life of sanctification from him, and to his glory; the continuance of which, and a perseverance in it, are firmly believed; but a life of glory and happiness with him hereafter, both in the new Jerusalem, in the new heavens, and new earth, in the glorious state of the church on earth, and in heaven to all eternity; where they shall be personally and visibly with him, in soul and body, and shall live in the most intimate and uninterrupted communion with him, enjoying the highest pleasure, and the most consummate happiness; and are therefore under the greatest obligation, whilst here on earth, to live, not in sin, but to righteousness, and to his praise and glory; with whom they are now dead to sin, and with whom they not only hope, but believe they shall live throughout the endless ages of eternity.

Geneva Study Bible

Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him:

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Meyer's NT Commentary

Romans 6:8 f. Carrying onward the discussion by the metabatic δέ; and thereby passing from the negative side of the having died with Christ as proved in personal consciousness (τοῦτο γινώσκοντες, Romans 6:6) in. Romans 6:6-7, to its positive side, which is likewise exhibited as based on the consciousness of faith (πιστεύομεν). “But if we have died (according to Romans 6:6-7) with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, since we know,” etc. etc.

πιστεύομεν] expresses, not confidence in the divine aid (Fritzsche), or in the divine promise (Baumgarten-Crusius), or in God not leaving His work of grace in us unfinished (Philippi); but simply the being convinced of our συζήσομεν αὐτῷ; in so far, namely, as the having died with Christ is, seeing that He has risen and dieth no more, in the consciousness of faith the necessary premiss, and thus the ground for belief as to our becoming alive with Him. If the former, the ἀπεθάνομεν σὺν Χριστῷ, be true, we cannot doubt the latter.

συζήσομεν αὐτῷ] must necessarily be understood, in accordance with the preceding and following context (Romans 6:11), of the ethical participation in the new everlasting life of Christ. Whosoever has died with Christ is now also of the belief that his life, i.e. the positive active side of his moral being and nature, shall be a fellowship of life with the exalted Christ; that is, shall be able to be nothing else than this. This communion of life is the ἐν Χριστῷ and Χριστὸν ἐν ἡμῖν εἶναι. In the full consciousness of it Paul says: ζῶ δὲ οὐκέτι ἐγὼ, ζῇ δὲ ἐν ἐμοὶ Χριστός (Galatians 2:20). At the same time it is not to be explained as if an ἀεί or the like stood beside συζήσομεν (without falling away), as is done by Tholuck; compare Theophylact. Others, in opposition to the context, hold that what is meant is the future participation of Christians in the bliss of the glorified Saviour (Flatt, Reiche, Maier, following Origen, Chrysostom, Theodoret, Grotius, and Heumann); and others still, at variance alike with the definiteness and unity of the sense, interpret it of the earthly moral and the eternal blessed life together (Sebastian Schmid, Böhme, Rosenmuller; and not rejected by de Wette). The reference or joint-reference to the future glory is not required either by the future, which, on the contrary, demands the same rendering exactly as ἐσόμεθα in Romans 6:5, nor by πιστεύομεν (see above).

εἱδότες, ὅτι κ.τ.λ[1422]] Since we know, that, etc. Were we, namely, obliged to fear that Christ is still subject to the power of death,[1423] that his life is not a perfected life, in that case we should lack the adequate secure ground of faith for that πιστεύομεν Κ.Τ.Λ[1424] The being assured that Christ liveth eternally and dieth no more (Acts 13:34), lends to our faith in our own moral communion of life with Him its basis and firm footing; without that knowledge this faith would be wanting in that which gives it legitimacy and guarantee. For who can cherish the conviction that he stands in that holy communion of resurrection-life with Christ, if he should be compelled to doubt whether his Lord, though indeed risen, might not again fall a victim to death? This thought would only keep us aloof from that faith and make it a moral impossibility for us, since it would set before us the prospect of a similar perishing of the new life which we had gained. Hofmann, who makes a new sentence begin with εἰδότες, which is to continue till Romans 6:11, might have been warned against doing so by the absence of a particle (οὖν); and should have been decisively precluded from it by the tortuous way in which, if Romans 6:10 is set aside in a parenthesis, it is necessary to obtain a forced regimen for the passage.

θάνατος αὐτοῦ οὐκέτι κυρ.] no longer dependent on ὅτι, but an independent and therefore all the more emphatic repetition of the important thought: death is no longer Lord over Him, has no more power over Him, such as it once had at the crucifixion. Comp 1 Corinthians 15:25.

[1422] .τ.λ. καὶ τὰ λοιπά.

[1423] Death had become lord over Him, because in obedience to God (Php 2:6 ff.) Christ had subjected Himself to its power, so that He ἐσταυρώθη ἐξ ἀσθενείας (2 Corinthians 13:4). The κυριεύειν of death over Him was therefore a thing willed by God (v. 8–10), and realised through the voluntary obedience of Jesus. See John 10:18; Matthew 20:28.

[1424] .τ.λ. καὶ τὰ λοιπά.

Expositor's Greek Testament

Romans 6:8. The Apostle now resumes his main thought. συνζήσομεν: see note on ἀνάστασις Romans 6:5 : there is no conscious separation of ethical and transcendent life with Christ—to Paul it is one life.

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

8. Now, &c.] This ver. and Romans 6:9-11 carry on, in a brief paragraph, the truth just stated, with special reference to the permanence and power of the Lord’s resurrection-life, which is the pledge of the Christian’s “new life.” Here too the view of His resurrection-life as a life “unto God” is distinctly stated; (see below on Romans 6:12;) the point which specially affects the argument then following.

if we be dead with Christ] Better, as we died with Christ; (see on Romans 6:2).—Here observe that it is in different senses respectively that man “dies in Adam” (1 Corinthians 15:22), and “dies with Christ.” “In Adam,” he incurs death in his own person, as penalty for inherited guilt (see on ch. Romans 5:12). “With Christ” he, not in his own person, but in that of Christ, his Representative, suffers death as expiation; is viewed as having thereby exhausted the claim of the law against him; and thus arrives in the happy state of justification, with its attendant results of sanctifying change in affections and will.

we believe] On the firm ground of our “death with Him.”

we shall also live] The future points not so much to bodily resurrection and life in glory, as to the immediate prospect, on justification, of “newness of life.” Q. d., “We live, and shall continue to do so, in our near and distant future.” The future “glory” is not yet the direct subject, as it is in parts of ch. 8: the future of the life of grace is in view here.

with him] i.e., by connexion with Him as the Second Adam.

Bengel's Gnomen

Romans 6:8. Ἐι, if) The Apodosis falls principally on the verb, we shall live with.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 8. - Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him; i.e. as explained with regard to the future ἐσόμεθα under ver. 5. The explanation there given accounts for the phrase here, πιστεύομεν ὅτι, without its being necessary to refer our living with Christ exclusively to the future resurrection. For the continuance of God's vivifying grace during life after baptism is a subject of belief. Romans 6:8

Vincent's Word Studies

We be dead (ἀπεθάνομεν)

The aorist. Rev., correctly, we died. The death is viewed as an event, not as a state.

We believe (πιστεύομεν)

Dogmatic belief rather than trust, though the latter is not excluded.

Shall live with (συνζήσομεν)

Participation of the believer's sanctified life with the life of Christ rather than participation in future glory, which is not the point emphasized. Compare Romans 6:11.