27/ What occasion is there then for boasting? It is ruled out. On what principle, that of works? No, rather on the principle of faith.
28/ For we consider that a person is justified by faith apart from works of the law.
29/ Does God belong to Jews alone? Does he not belong to Gentiles, too? Yes, also to Gentiles,
30/ for God is one and will justify the circumcised on the basis of faith and the uncircumcised through faith.
31/ Are we then annulling the law by this faith? Of course not! On the contrary, we are supporting the law.
We are supporting the law: giving priority to God's intentions. God is the ultimate source of law, and the essence of law is fairness. On the basis of the Mosaic covenant, God's justice is in question if those who sinned against the law are permitted to go free (see Romans 3:23-26). In order to rescue all humanity rather than condemn it, God thinks of an alternative: the law or "principle" of faith (Romans 3:27). What can be more fair than to admit everyone into the divine presence on the basis of forgiveness grasped by faith? Indeed, this principle of faith antedates the Mosaic law, as Paul will demonstrate in Romans 4, and does not therefore mark a change in divine policy.
God will have the great work of the justification and salvation of sinners carried on from first to last, so as to shut out boasting. Now, if we were saved by our own works, boasting would not be excluded. But the way of justification by faith for ever shuts out boasting. Yet believers are not left to be lawless; faith is a law, it is a working grace, wherever it is in truth. By faith, not in this matter an act of obedience, or a good work, but forming the relation between Christ and the sinner, which renders it proper that the believer should be pardoned and justified for the sake of the Saviour, and that the unbeliever who is not thus united or related to him, should remain under condemnation. The law is still of use to convince us of what is past, and to direct us for the future. Though we cannot be saved by it as a covenant, yet we own and submit to it, as a rule in the hand of the Mediator.
1/ What then shall we say? Shall we persist in sin that grace may abound? Of course not!
2/ How can we who died to sin yet live in it?
3/ Or are you unaware that we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?
4/ We were indeed buried with him through baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might live in newness of life.
5/ For if we have grown into union with him through a death like his, we shall also be united with him in the resurrection.
6/ We know that our old self was crucified with him, so that our sinful body might be done away with, that we might no longer be in slavery to sin.
7/ For a dead person has been absolved from sin.
8/ If, then, we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him.
9/ We know that Christ, raised from the dead, dies no more; death no longer has power over him.
10/ As to his death, he died to sin once and for all; as to his life, he lives for God.
11/ Consequently, you too must think of yourselves as (being) dead to sin and living for God in Christ Jesus.
To defend the gospel against the charge that it promotes moral laxity (cf Romans 3:5-8), Paul expresses himself in the typical style of spirited diatribe. God's display of generosity or grace is not evoked by sin but, as stated in Romans 5:8 is the expression of God's love, and this love pledges eternal life to all believers (Romans 5:21). Paul views the present conduct of the believers from the perspective of God's completed salvation when the body is resurrected and directed totally by the holy Spirit. Through baptism believers share the death of Christ and thereby escape from the grip of sin. Through the resurrection of Christ the power to live anew becomes reality for them, but the fullness of participation in Christ's resurrection still lies in the future. But life that is lived in dedication to God now is part and parcel of that future. Hence anyone who sincerely claims to be interested in that future will scarcely be able to say, "Let us sin so that grace may prosper" (cf Romans 6:1).
Christians have been released from the grip of sin, but sin endeavors to reclaim its victims. The antidote is constant remembrance that divine grace has claimed them and identifies them as people who are alive only for God's interests.
In contrast to humanity, which was handed over to self-indulgence (Romans 1:24-32), believers are entrusted ("handed over") to God's pattern of teaching, that is, the new life God aims to develop in Christians through the productivity of the holy Spirit. Throughout this passage Paul uses the slave-master model in order to emphasize the fact that one cannot give allegiance to both God and sin.
You were free from righteousness: expressed ironically, for such freedom is really tyranny. The commercial metaphors in Romans 6:21-23 add up only one way: sin is a bad bargain.
The apostle is very full in pressing the necessity of holiness. He does not explain away the free grace of the gospel, but he shows that connection between justification and holiness are inseparable. Let the thought be abhorred, of continuing in sin that grace may abound. True believers are dead to sin, therefore they ought not to follow it. No man can at the same time be both dead and alive. He is a fool who, desiring to be dead unto sin, thinks he may live in it.
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.
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