Commentari biblici

(4) We are buried with him.—Burial, is the consequence of death. It is the seal set upon it, as it were, which shows that no revival is possible. Besides, it is the one step which separates it from resurrection. The idea of “buried with Christ” is therefore introduced, on the one hand, to show that the ethical death with Him was final and decisive, and on the other, to prepare the way for an ethical (as well as physical) resurrection with Him.

Into death.—The ideas of physical and moral death and resurrection and life are inextricably blended in the thought of the Apostle.

By the glory of the Father.—The resurrection of Christ is more usually and more naturally ascribed to the power or Omnipotence of God. The word “Glory” is here to be taken as standing for the sum of the divine perfections, power being included among them, “the Majesty on High.”

Even so.—It is to be observed that the mysticism is here resolved into a relation of resemblance. The resurrection of Christ, and the new life of the Christian, are compared instead of being identified. The Apostle does not say “being dead with Christ, let us rise with Him;” but, “as Christ rose again, so we also should walk in newness of life.” The mystical expression for this is given in the next verse.

4. we are buried with him] Better, we were buried, &c.; the reference being to the past fact of baptism. Burial is the final token of death, and so the strongest expression of death as a fact. Perhaps there is an allusion to the immersion of baptism, as a quasi-burial. (The only parallel passage is Colossians 2:12.) But the significance of the rite would not depend on such a form of it: the essential is that every true baptism is the ratification of covenant connexion with Christ and His Death. It thus lays the baptized Christian, as it were, with the Lord in that grave where He lay as the slain Propitiation; i.e. it ratifies our share in the Justification of the Cross.

by baptism] by means of baptism, i.e., of course, not by the mere act, but by all that is involved in a true baptism. Baptism is not an isolated thing, but a summary and seal.

into death] Better, into the death, the Lord’s Death. Connect these words with “we were buried.” The whole idea is a union with Christ as the Slain One, so real that it is expressed by the figure of a share in His grave.

that, &c.] The sequence indicated is as follows:—Our new position and conduct as Christians was both to be, and to seem, radically new; as new as resurrection-life after death. Therefore our admission to the covenant was by a rite essentially connected with the Lord’s Death, and thus intended both to remind us of the price of justification, and of the totally new position, principles, and conduct, of the justified.

by the glory of the Father] By the majestic harmony of His Power, Holiness, and Love; all consenting in the great miracle. Perhaps the thought is suggested here that the same “glory” shall be exercised in the “new life” of the justified.

walk in newness of life] i.e. move and act with the new principles and powers of those who, as the justified, are “born again to a living hope.”—“Newness:”—the Gr. word expresses not so much youth as novelty; a condition without precedent in our experience.—“Life:”—in the sense not of a course of life, but of the principle of life. Through the Death of Christ, the justified “live;” in the “newness” of that condition they are to “walk.”—Here again (as in Romans 6:2) note the transition of ideas; from a “death to sin” (with Christ) in respect of penalty, to a “life” (with Christ) in respect not merely of remission but of new principles and acts; i.e. from Justification simply to Justification as resulting in Sanctification. The “life” is not merely the extension of existence to a pardoned man, but the condition and use of that existence where the pardoned are also, as such, accepted among the “brethren” of Christ.

We are buried with (συνετάφημεν)

Rev., more accurately, were buried. Therefore, as a natural consequence of death. There is probably an allusion to the immersion of baptism. Compare Colossians 3:3.

Into death

Through the baptism into death referred to in Romans 6:3. Both A.V. and Rev. omit the article, which is important for the avoidance of the error buried into death.

Glory (δόξης)

The glorious collective perfection of God. See on Romans 3:23. Here the element of power is emphasized, which is closely related to the idea of divine glory. See Colossians 1:11. All the perfections of God contribute to the resurrection of Christ - righteousness, mercy, wisdom, holiness.

We might walk (περιπατήσωμεν)

Lit., walk about, implying habitual conduct. See on John 11:9; see on 1 John 1:6; see on 3 John 1:4; see on Luke 11:44.

In newness of life (ἐν καινότητι ζωῆς)

A stronger expression than new life. It gives more prominence to the main idea, newness, than would be given by the adjective. Thus 1 Timothy 6:17, uncertainty of riches; not uncertain riches, as A.V.

We were buried therefore with him by means of baptism unto death (συνεταφημεν ουν αυτω δια του βαπτισματος εις τον θανατον). Second aorist passive indicative of συνθαπτω, old verb to bury together with, in N.T. only here and Colossians 2:12. With associative instrumental case (αυτω) and "by means of baptism unto death" as in verse Romans 6:3. In newness of life (εν καινοτητ ζωης). The picture in baptism points two ways, backwards to Christ's death and burial and to our death to sin (verse Romans 6:1), forwards to Christ's resurrection from the dead and to our new life pledged by the coming out of the watery grave to walk on the other side of the baptismal grave (F. B. Meyer). There is the further picture of our own resurrection from the grave. It is a tragedy that Paul's majestic picture here has been so blurred by controversy that some refuse to see it. It should be said also that a symbol is not the reality, but the picture of the reality.

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Romans 6:4. This symbolism interpreted. συνετάφημεν οὖν αὐτῷ κ.τ.λ.: Therefore we were buried with Him (in the act of immersion) through that baptism into His death—burial being regarded as the natural sequence of death, and a kind of seal set to its reality. Cf. 1 Corinthians 15:3 f. It introduces a false abstraction to say (with Meyer) that εἰς τὸν θάνατον means “unto death,” not “unto His death”: death in the whole context is perfectly definite. διὰ τῆς δόξης τοῦ πατρός: in nothing was the splendour of God’s power revealed so much as in the resurrection of Jesus, Ephesians 1:19 f. ἐν καινότητι ζωῆς: in life of a new quality; cf. Romans 7:6, 1 Timothy 6:17 : the construction makes the new quality of the life prominent. Winer, p. 296.

Romans 6:4. An inference from Romans 6:3, by which the impossibility indicated in Romans 6:2 is now made completely evident.

Buried with Him therefore (not merely dead with Him, but, as the dead Christ was buried in order to rise again, buried with Him also) were we, in that we were baptized into His death. The recipient of baptism, who by his baptism enters into the fellowship of death with Christ, is necessarily also in the act of baptism ethically buried with Him (1 Corinthians 15:4), because after baptism he is spiritually risen with Him. In reality this burial with Him is not a moral fact distinct from the having died with Him, as actual burial is distinct from actual dying; but it sets forth the fulness and completeness of the relation, of which the recipient, in accordance with the form of baptism, so far as the latter takes place through κατάδυσις and ἀνάδυσις (see Suicer, Thes.), becomes conscious successively. The recipient—thus has Paul figuratively represented the process—is conscious, (a) in the baptism generally: now am I entering into fellowship with the death of Christ, εἰς τὸν θάνατον αὐτοῦ βαπτίζομαι; (b) in the immersion in particular: now am I becoming buried with Christ; (c) and then, in the emergence: now I rise to the new life with Christ. Comp on Colossians 2:12.

εἰς τὸν θάνατον] is necessarily, after Romans 6:3, to be joined with διὰ τοῦ βαπτίσμ., in which case, since one can say βαπτίζεσθαι εἰς τι, the connecting article was not required (comp on Galatians 3:26; Ephesians 3:13); consequently: through baptism unto death. It is not however specially the death of Christ that is again meant, as if αὐτοῦ were again annexed; but the description is generalised, agreeably to the context, in a way that could not be misunderstood. Whosoever, namely, as Paul has just set forth in Romans 6:3, has been baptized unto the death of Christ, has in fact thereby received baptism unto death; i.e. such a baptism that, taken away by it from his previous vital activity, he has become one belonging to death, one who has fallen under its sway. This however is just that relation of moral death, which, in the concrete, is the fellowship of the death of Christ. The connection with συνετάφ., in which εἰς τ. θάνατον is sometimes referred to the death of Christ (Grotius, Baumgarten-Crusius), and sometimes to the death of sin (Calovius, Wolf, Winzer, Progr. 1831), is erroneous, for this reason, that whosoever is buried does not come into death, but is in it already; and hence “the becoming buried into death” would yield quite an incongruous conception. This also applies against the expedient tried by Hofmann of making θάνατος here the death-state of Christ, unto which we were given up. Even in this view that incongruity continues:[1394] but after Romans 6:3 θάνατος can only be again death simply, not state of death (as if Paul could not have conveyed that sense by εἰς τὸ μνημεῖον, or ΕἸς ΤΟῪς ΝΕΚΡΟΎς, or in some other suitable way). Observe, moreover, how Paul here also, since he has the bodily resurrection of Christ in view,[1395] mentions specially the correlative of the burial that preceded it. Comp on 1 Corinthians 15:4.

ἽΝΑ] purpose of the συνετάφημεν.… θάνατον, and this statement of purpose has the chief importance, corresponding to the Πῶς ἜΤΙ ΖΉΣΟΜΕΝ ἘΝ ΑὐΤῇ in Romans 6:2.

ΔΙᾺ Τῆς ΔΌΞ. Τ. ΠΑΤΡΌς] through the majesty of the Father was the resurrection of Christ brought about. The δόξα, כָּבוֹד, the glorious collective perfection of God, certainly effected the raising of Jesus chiefly as omnipotence (1 Corinthians 6:14; 2 Corinthians 13:4; Ephesians 1:19 f.); but the comprehensive significance of the word—selected with conscious solemnity, and in highest accordance with the glorious victory of the Son—is not to be curtailed on that account (in opposition to Koppe, Baumgarten-Crusius, and earlier expositors). According to the invariable representation of the N. T. God is the raiser of Jesus (Romans 4:24, Romans 8:11; Acts 2:24; Acts 2:31 ff. et al[1397]; see on John 1:19); but yet the δόξα of God does not in this case any more than elsewhere in the N. T. denote God Himself (Langer, Judenth. in Paläst. p. 210 ff.). Erroneously however Theodoret, Theophylact, and several Fathers explain: διὰ τ. δόξ. τ. πατρ., τουτέστι διὰ τῆς οἰεκίας θεότητος. Linguistic usage admits as in itself allowable the view of Castalio and Carpzov: “in paterna gloria resurrexit,” so that διά would be used of the state; to which also van Hengel inclines. But, had Paul desired to express a relation corresponding to the ἐν καιν. ζ. in the apodosis, he must have inserted ἐν also; since the conception of the raising of Jesus through the Father was one of so solemn importance, and all the more appropriate here, since believers also owe their moral resurrection-life to the Father of Christ (Ephesians 2:10 al[1398]); it is in fact the life of regeneration. Besides, the paterna gloria was attained by Christ only through His ascension. See on Luke 24:26.

ἐν καινότητι ζωῆς] in a new (moral) constitution of life;[1399] a stronger way of bringing out the idea of ΚΑΙΝΌΤΗς, than ἘΝ ΖΩῇ ΚΑΙΝῇ would be, for which it does not stand (in opposition to Grotius, Koppe, Reiche, and others). See Winer, p. 221 [E. T. 309]. Comp Romans 7:6. According to van Hengel ΖΩῆς is the genitive of apposition: “in novo rerum statu, qui vita est.” But this qui vita est is self-evident; and therefore the emphasis must remain upon καινότητι. This newness is the ethical analogue of the new estate in which Christ was alive from the dead, conceived in contrast to the ΠΑΛΑΙΌΤΗς which prevailed prior to baptism. Comp Romans 6:8.

[1394] This cannot be got rid of by any artificial turns (like that of Hofmann: “His burial removed Him from the sphere of sin expiated through His death.… whereby His existence in the world of sin came to a complete close”). Certainly the θάνατος of the Lord, even regarded as a state, occurred at that great moment when He cries His τετέλεσται and departs; and in nowise has He been translated into the θάνατος through His burial.

[1395] i.e. His resurrection as respects the buried body; so that the latter no longer remained in the grave, but came forth thence living and immortal. That the body of Christ “vanished” and “made room” for a new pneumatic body (Holsten, z. Ev. d. Paul u. Petr. p. 133), is an unsuitable conception, seeing that the pneumatic body must necessarily have been assumed even in death, and independently of the burial of the old body. Thus the resurrection of Jesus would be nothing else than the change of body that took place in death.

[1397] t al. and others; and other passages; and other editions.

[1398] l. and others; and other passages; and other editions.

[1399] τὴν καινὴν πολιτείαν τὴν κατὰ τὸν παρόντα βίον, ἐκ τῆς τῶν τρόπων γινομένην. Ὃπου γὰρ ὁ πόρνος γένηται σώφρων καὶ ὁ πλεονέκτης ἐλεήμων καὶ ὁ τραχύς ἥμερος, καὶ ἐνταῦθα ἀνάστασις γέγονεν, Chrysostom.

Romans 6:4. Buried with him by baptism— As the ordinance of baptism seems plainly to be sometimes represented, by sprinkling or pouring water; as particularly when God is said to save us by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost, which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour (Tit 3:5-6): so some have thought that it is here mentioned with an allusion to the laying of a body under water; and yet, according to this mode of reasoning, it more naturally alludes to the throwing of earth upon the dead corpse, in which the body is entirely passive, and not at all active in going down into the grave, than to plunging it into the earth or water. But, after all, I am very much of opinion with Mr. Henry, or his continuator,Dr.Evans,who, in the exposition of this passage, says, "Why this burying in baptism shouldso much as allude to any custom of dipping under water in baptism any more than our baptismal crucifixion and death should have any such reference, I confess I cannot see. It is plain, that it is not the sign, but the thing signified in baptism, that the Apostle here calls being buried with Christ; and the expression of burying alludes to Christ's burial. As Christ was buried, that he might rise to a new and more heavenly life; so we are in baptism buried, that is to say, cut off from the life of sin, that we may rise again to a new life in faith and love." Others have thought, that the reference is onlyto the benefits of spiritual baptism, and that nothing can be concluded about the external mode of baptism from this verse, more than from the next, which speaks of our being therein symbolically planted together in the likeness of Christ's death; or than from the figure of baptism saving us, as represented by the floating of Noah's ark, when the few that were in it were saved by water; 1 Peter 3:20-21. But no mode of baptism can be signified by either of these. As the church at Rome seems to have been planted about the year 43, and this Epistle was written in the year 58, that is, fifteen years after; and yet the Apostle speaks of the converted Romans in general as baptized; it must be supposed that baptism was administered to those whose parents had been Christians at the time of their birth. See Gale's Serm. vol. 2: p. 202.

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