Romans 6:1-2 - Zoning in on Believers, Now (Conciliation Series, Part XIII)

 Part IV: God’s Conciliation, Confirmed

What, then, shall we declare?

It’s a fair question. There are many statements that Paul does not make with this statement. Simply put, if he had said something like, “But what shall we declare?” or “What, rather, shall we declare?” the entirety of the beautiful revelations of chapter 5 would be lost on us. If Paul had used “But,” it would have indicated that what follows is a statement that would render Romans 5 helpless against a stronger logic. Everyone could go, “You’re justified by faith, buuuuuut…” and all of our objectors would have merit to do so. If he had used “rather,” it would have implied that Romans 5 is wrong, and needed a “rather” statement to introduce an entirely different thought process. Thankfully, neither are the case.

Even many believers could think, “Well, he’s saying, “What, therefore, shall we declare?” And this is a slightly more complicated one, because it implies that, as a result of Romans 5, you are obliged to “reckon yourself dead to sin,” out of gratitude or thankfulness or something. Say it ain’t so, Joe! Though it’s true that we should indeed be grateful for everything we’ve read so far concerning God’s intimate love for Christ’s body, our actions are an effect of the doctrine that is still being taught, here. Not once has Paul asked us to “do” anything. God justified you. This is “constituted righteous.” Does this mean you are perfect? No. But Paul’s not sitting here explaining that the righteous “are now no longer sinning.” If he were saying that, we today would not believe that we are even in Christ, because all sin.

What’s happening, here? Paul is, I believe, at the beginning of chapter six, zoning in on believers. He’s tightening his lens further and focusing on those who can accept the radical truth presented in chapter five. Justification is based on His blood (Rom. 5:9,) but that is not the focus here. The focus is on His death, which means we are still discussing conciliation (Rom. 5:10.) It follows, then:

A)  The more we understand conciliation, the more at peace we are

B)  The more at peace we are, the more we become reconciled to the Creator

C)  The more we are reconciled, the more holy we become, thus

D)  The more we understand conciliation, the more holy we become

Of course, this is not to say that we achieve understanding, but that God graciously provides it on His terms. He is the One maturing His body (Rom. 9:16, Eph. 4:3, 13-14.) The question is, “What, then, shall we declare?” The ‘then’ here is oun. This is a conjuction, and it is designed to introduce a logical consequence of something, not the result. It’s the conclusion of the previous chapter that launches the objection, not the sanctification discussed here.

The issue I’m getting at is that we should not be presuming that “first we get justification, and then we get conciliation, and then we get sanctified.” Like, it’s presented this way in the evangel, but God’s not a robot. These are His living words. Many of us came into the truth by realizing the lie of the Trinity, or by recognizing that God does not offer free will. The verses people will use to try and prove either of those lies are not usually in Romans 1-5 at all, really. Many of us have spent a lot of time learning that the Bible doesn’t say any of those things. You could argue that, though one is not yet justified or reconciled, they are indeed being sanctified. I studied 1 Thessalonians first, and then Galatians. I hardly learned about the concept of “conciliation” for a long time! I learned about an expectation first, of all things. I learned about the eons. It was years before I even realized that it was a measure of Christ’s faith being manifested in me, not my own faith.

Justification, and its multiple facets, and conciliation, and its multiple facets, complement each other. They build in different ways over the course of our lives. To us, our beliefs can sometimes look like a sloppy, oversized mess. To God, it’s neat, structured, orderly, and abundantly fruitful beyond our comprehension. He reveals exactly what He plans to reveal at exactly the right moments, and we live, and we learn. This topic of “sanctification” that we’re going to go over here is not mutually exclusive from the topic of “conciliation,” and it’s not something we must effect. This is still doctrine, not a request. He’s asking about “What we shall declare,” not telling us “what we shall do.”

What, then, shall we declare? That we may be persisting in sin that grace should be increasing?

This is arguably one of the most important questions asked in Paul’s evangel. This is a major objection, and one that, naturally, must be asked by the objector who is not yet fully understanding the scope of God’s grace and peace. If you are not being regularly bombarded with this question when teaching on the Bible, then you are not teaching grace properly. Let me be clear: if you’re teaching someone and they are trying to learn, they may ask this question in earnest, as in: please resolve this discrepancy in my mind, that what you’re saying may make sense to me. That said, it’s more probable these days that you’ll be teaching someone that wants to disprove your statement, and will ask this question, as in: I don’t believe a word you’re saying, and I’m denying your so-called ‘good news.’

You will receive this question again, and again, and again. So, this verse deserves our fullest consideration, as it’s the question that is on everyone’s minds upon reading Romans 5:18, and Paul’s response is just as crucial.

Let’s break the question itself down. “Should we be persisting in sin, that grace should be increasing?” When asked in contradictory fashion, the person asking is confident that this question blows your silly “Romans 5” out of the water. More faith is put into this line of reasoning, thus prohibiting the reconciliation. We know what it’s asking. It’s a play on Romans 5:20. Remember, where sin increases, grace superexceeds? So, the objector goes, “So, should I increase my sin, that God’s grace toward me superexceeds?”

They perceive a moral danger, here. The word for “we may be persisting” is epinemo, which is, literally, “WE-MAY-BE-ON-REMAINING.” To the objector, you must be saying that “we should remain in sin,” as though we should fatalistically accept that, though God doesn’t ‘like it,’ we must do more of it. To them, rules are far more fitting. Telling someone to “do the right thing” is far more effective to them than preaching a good message. They want to be the “fixer,” and believe themselves more capable of a logical answer than God’s silly “the many shall be constituted just” statement.

Either way you swing here is an example of extremism. They cannot grasp that God would justify the sinner. To them, the sinner is evil. Some may be wise enough to include themselves in the term “sinner,” but none are wise enough on their own terms to apprehend grace. To them, because Paul said “where sin increases, grace superexceeds,” then the converse must be true: “where grace superexceeds, sin increases.” They may also presume the inverse, that “where sin does not increase, grace does not superexceed.”

Now, it’s one thing to use this question as a means of denying the evangel. Troubling as it may be to see one more content on sticking to the law than to grace, it’s even more concerning to see someone truly believe that they should persist in sin, and even attempt to do so. This is called “antinomianism.” You could also call them “sociopaths.” I don’t care enough to look into it further than this, because very, very few people think this way. Alas, some do see justification and conciliation as a means to just go sin however and whenever they want, with complete disregard for growth or consequence.

If you were literally justified, as in, became righteous, in the flesh, the way Jesus was, then the question asked here is ridiculous, because there would be proof of your righteousness upon accepting the facts in Romans. Thankfully, God doesn’t make us righteous, but justifies us by faith, that we may not see the result now, lest we get swell heads. Since the facts are that God justifies the irreverent and unjust, completely apart from works (Rom. 3:28,) the question is less ridiculous and requires answering.

Here’s the thing. It’s not a “moral danger.” The text says what it says, whether you like it or not. Someone was bound to take it so wrongly, because such a contrast needs to exist. Are there any in Christ who believe that we should persist in sin? Not that I know of, but a select few may exist that think this way. Paul gives his response to this in the next verse, but notice that, if the objection were not presented here, Paul would have no falsity with which to contrast the truth (Rom. 3:5, 7.)

May it not be coming to that!

Yeah, obviously. The question presses an issue with Paul’s entire line of reasoning, which roots all the way back to justification. People infer that justification by faith means “you must believe you’re acting perfectly!” It’s a logical fallacy that Paul never said. He doesn’t even go back and repeat himself, because everything we’ve read, in the first five chapters, have been perfectly accurate and grammatically consistent, making them true. He stated facts in Romans 5, but he did not put in a request for you to start making assumptions based on those facts.

Here’s my silly analogy. “A dog took a shit on my lawn,” Romans 5 said. “But I cleaned it up myself.”

The Romans 6 objector replied, “Oh, so you’re saying that you want dogs to shit on your lawn, so you have something to clean?”

Paul already dealt with legalism’s bullshit, before he presented the topic of justification, in Romans 2:18-20. Double check it, here:

Lo! you are being denominated a Jew, and are resting on law, and are boasting in God, and know the will, and are testing what things are of consequence, being instructed out of the law. Besides, you have confidence in yourself to be a guide of the blind, a light of those in darkness, a discipliner of the imprudent, a teacher of minors, having the form of knowledge and the truth in the law.

As this question in Romans 6 usually comes from a lover of the law (that is, one in a religious institution,) we can immediately recognize that this question is vying for control over the narrative. They want to be the ones achieving or doing something for God, or “work” their way into a better position with God, the way they can with their fellow men. That He is truly all-knowing puts Him in an envious position, that all want (Rom. 3:23.) Thus this question, however good-natured it may sound on its surface, is once again, an attempt to push you out of grace and back under the law. With this in mind, Paul immediately discards the notion, and can dismantle it with a single question.

We, who died to sin, how shall we still be living in it?

Who are the ones that died to sin? The ones reigning and ruling with Christ, in life, having been justified and made aware of the peace of God. Like I said at the start of this section: Paul is zoning in. We, the saints, are the subject, now. We have gone from the intimate justification by faith in Romans 3, to broad declarations in Romans 5, that even universalists can understand, and back into the intimate subject of the “saints,” in Romans 6.

We, the saints, died to sin. We are no longer related to sin, in God’s sight. This old flesh that we are is second to God’s perception of our spirit. It is important, again, to contrast what Paul did not say. He did not say, “sin died in us.” Sin is something all of us in Christ do, and so long as we’re on this planet, it will operate in us (more on this in Romans 7.) However, we died to sin, as saints.

How did this happen?? When did this happen?? Shit, here I was, having a normal day! If I didn’t cause my “death to sin,” then it must mean that Christ caused this to come about, somehow.

Paul will explain this in the next few verses, but for now, let’s focus on the question at hand. If you’re dead to sin, how can you still be living in it? Presuming that Paul will explain how we died to sin, we must further understand that, if we are dead to it, it means that, if we were “slaves of” or “serving” sin, we would be “slaves” to something that we died to already. We would be serving “death,” which, per the term “saint” (beloved by God, justified, conciliated,) we are not logically able to effect. It’s impossible for us to go, “Well, we’re justified by faith and conciliated for life, so let’s serve death!” It’s irrational! It’s not that we “no longer sin,” but we can no longer reason that “the more you sin, the more grace you get.” It implies sin as the cause, when we’ve already established that God is the One Who gives and takes away (Rom. 1:22, 24, 26, 28, 2:4, 3:21-22, etc.)

With this in mind, the verses become clearer in scope and focus. Scripture is not asking you to infer anything unprovable. See how Scripture has been very careful not to say statements like, “The justified shall not sin,” or “If you’re saved, you’re no longer sinning,” or “Sin more, please?” These are statements that people add when you present Romans 5, but they are not the evangel, and they are not what God says. People infer that you “must also believe this,” as though this “is automatically true as well,” when in truth these are additional statements that Paul has not made, in covering their exact objection, here.

Last thing, and then I’m done. The word “it” at the end there is autos, which is a pronoun. It is in a “dative” case, which occurs when the indirect object (being us) is received by the direct object (being sin.) How can sin “still be receiving” us, who are dead to sin? As if to further this analogy, the pronoun is feminine, as in “her,” in Greek. It is impossible for “her” to receive “us,” because we are not sin’s, anymore, but Christ’s. It is, rationally, impossible for us to “cheat” when we are “constituted righteous” to Him. Our offenses exist (Col. 2:13,) but they are overlooked (Eph. 1:7, 2:1.) The only one adding to that is the objector themselves.

- GerudoKing