Commentary on Romans 6:3-11

The Epistle reading assigned for Easter Vigil is especially appropriate for congregations where baptism(s) will take place in the context of that service. It offers the preacher a chance to link the resurrection Gospel to baptism, and to the “newness of life” possible for believers. The language of sin as Paul uses it in Romans may be confusing for some, so I discuss that here for the preacher’s own background.

The legacy of theological tradition has left many people with the understanding that a central theme of Paul’s letters generally is the “problem” of sin. However, a word search for “sin” (Greek, hamartia) reveals that the Epistle to the Romans far outweighs the other epistles in discussion of sin, with 60 instances of hamartia and related words. First Corinthians contains 12 instances. Three letters have no discussion of sin at all. 

What Paul is addressing in Romans is a local dispute among the Roman house churches over who is under sin and who is not. In other words, Paul is picking up on the term “sin” because various Roman Christians are leveling it at each other, and he is seeking a way to stop their divisive practice.

• In the capital city of the Roman Empire, there is a relatively large number of house churches that appear to be divided between Jewish-Christian gatherings and assemblies of Gentile converts (see Resources below for more information on the constitution of the house churches).
• In short, the Jewish-Christian churches see the Gentile converts as embedded in societal sin in such a profound way that faith alone cannot solve the problem. They need the help provided by the system of Temple sacrifices and daily holiness outlined in the Torah. The Gentile converts, on the other hand, appear to see strict Jewish observance as a weakness not sufficiently grounded in faith (Romans 14:1; 15:1).
• In 3:21–26, Paul uses a powerful image of the Jewish sacrifice of atonement to put both groups on the same level, in need of reconciliation with God and with one another. This reconciliation has been achieved by God’s willingness to receive the death of Jesus on the cross as a sacrifice of atonement, effective for Gentiles without their own effort (3:21–26). It is God’s startlingly generous move to make reconciliation and justice possible in a broken world.

In chapter 6, Paul picks up on the language of sin that has proven so divisive among the Roman churches. The sin he speaks of here does not consist of small-scale human deeds, but is Sin as a transcendent power that enslaves human beings.

• The passage assigned for Easter Vigil focuses very tightly on the image of baptism as a union with Christ in his death so that the baptized may “walk in newness of life,” free from the power of Sin.
• Without much of the very complex language that occurs later in Romans 6, the preacher can focus on the newness of life made possible in baptism.
• For Paul, the baptismal font is a womb for new life, as he says in 2 Corinthians: “If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation” (5:17–18).

Romans 6:3–4

These first two verses are the dynamic crux of how the power of Christ’s death and resurrection are received by the baptized.

• Baptism unites believers with Christ in his death so that by the intensity of God’s power made known in Christ’s resurrection, believers may be freed from any elements of their former way of life that would keep them from being able to “walk in newness of life.”
• In Judaism, a person’s “walk” refers to how they act morally in the world. Using this Jewish term, Paul sees the font as the place where the body of Christ is born into the world through his followers, the place where justice and righteousness take on flesh again in the body of Christ that is the church.

Romans 6:5–11

These verses expand upon the first four. It is important to note that Paul does not conceive of the baptized as having been raised with Christ during their lifetimes (unlike the author of Colossians; see Colossians 3:1–4, the epistle for Easter Day).

• To the Romans, Paul is careful to say, “If we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his” (6:5). Resurrection is a future reality for the faithful. 
• What is the present reality? Christ’s death has broken the enslaving grip that sin had upon us, and now what opens up before us is the freedom to live “to God,” a reorientation of our lives moment by moment in relation to the God who made us and loves us infinitely.

The promise of this beautiful, short passage is that, through the death and resurrection of Christ, a way has been made for human beings—amid all the confusion and uncertainty of life—to be “alive to God in Christ Jesus.” Paul’s insights into baptism move the story of Christ’s death and resurrection into an autobiography of new life for the baptized.

Resources

Robert Jewett, Romans: A Commentary, Hermeneia (Fortress, 2006). Jewett’s is an exhaustive study of the on-the-ground realities of the people Paul was writing to in Romans. The size of the book is daunting, but I have found that people are riveted by getting a glimpse into the possibilities for who the people were who were drawn to Paul’s teaching in mid-first-century Rome.

Stanley K. Stowers, A Rereading of Romans: Justice, Jews, and Gentiles (Yale University Press, 1994). Stowers asserts that Romans was written with a Gentile audience in mind, challenging the long-held assumption that he was addressing Jews and Gentiles universally about sin and salvation. This was a pivotal book for my understanding of Romans, and I continue to unpack its insights 30 years later.