Father Cornelius a Lapide's Commentary on Romans 6:3-11

 Translated by Qwen. 

 

Commentary on Romans 6:3-11 by Father Cornelius a Lapide

Rom 6:3: "Know you not that all we, who are baptized in Christ Jesus, are baptized in His death?"

Baptized in Christ: That is, baptized in the virtue, name, and merits not of John but of Christ. Thus Origen and Anselm. Secondly, Pererius says "in Christ" means through Christ. But the Greek has εἰς Χριστόν ("into Christ"), and thus Tertullian reads it in his book On the Resurrection of the Flesh. Paul means: By baptism you have been grafted into Christ as branches into a new tree, and you have been made of His mystical body, namely the Church.

From this passage and similar ones, some have thought there is strong support for the validity of baptism if someone baptizes with this form: "I baptize you in the name of Christ," omitting the name of the Father and of the Holy Spirit. Thus hold the Master of the Sentences in 4 Dist. 3, Adrianus ibid., Cajetan in 3a p. q. 66, a. 6. Pope Nicholas I, responding to the inquiries of the Bulgarians, seems to have felt the same as a private Doctor. For he says: "These indeed, if they have been baptized in the name of the Trinity or only in the name of Christ, ought not to be rebaptized." The same teaches Saint Ambrose, Book 1 On the Holy Spirit, chapter 3, and Bede on Acts 10, just as in the Acts of the Apostles it is read that they were baptized.

Secondly, Saint Thomas, 3a p. q. 66, a. 6, holds that the Apostles baptized in the name of Christ by divine dispensation to make His name illustrious, but that now it is not lawful nor does baptism avail unless conferred by expressing the three Persons of the Most Holy Trinity. But other Fathers and Doctors commonly hold that baptism does not avail nor ever availed unless the individual Persons of the Most Holy Trinity are named. Suarez cites them, 3a p. q. 66, a. 6. Indeed Pelagius the Pontiff defined this very thing in Si revera, de consecrat., dist. 4, where he says that one who has been baptized in the name of the Lord, that is of Christ, ought to be rebaptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. The same Pope Zachary affirms in the same dist., chap. In the Synod of the English.

Therefore, when Paul says we are baptized in Christ, and Luke in the Acts in the name of Jesus, understand:

1. First, in the authority, virtue, and merits of Christ;

2. Secondly, in the baptism instituted by Christ, which is conferred in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit;

3. Thirdly, in the name of Christ, but not alone;

4. Fourthly, it is probable that the Apostles added these words "of Jesus Christ" in the baptismal formula, saying: "I baptize you in the name of the Father and of His Son Jesus Christ and of the Holy Spirit." For this greatly contributed to making illustrious this new name of Christ among the Gentiles, especially since thus Christ with the Father and the Holy Spirit is shown as the author of sanctification.

Thus Saint Basil, Book On the Holy Spirit, chapter 12, asserts that in the form of baptism none of the three can be omitted, and therefore when Paul says we are in Christ or in the Holy Spirit, the other Persons also are to be understood. "For indeed," he says, "the appellation of Christ is the profession of the whole divinity, inasmuch as it declares simultaneously both God the Father who anointed, and the Son who was anointed, and the Holy Spirit who is the unction, as we have learned from Peter in the Acts: 'Jesus of Nazareth, whom God anointed with the Holy Spirit.' Likewise in Isaiah, chapter 61: 'The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because He has anointed me.' And the Psalmist, Psalm 44: 'Therefore God, Your God, has anointed You with the oil of gladness above Your fellows.'"

IN HIS DEATH: Greek εἰς θάνατον ("into death"), that is, into the likeness and representation of the death of Christ we have been baptized. For those who are baptized and immersed in waters represent Christ dead and buried allegorically, and this so that by a tropological likeness they may signify: just as Christ died to temporal life, so by baptism, by which sins are immersed and buried, they die to sin, says Saint Chrysostom. They die to sin, I say, both through the power and efficacy of baptism, as Saint Augustine says in the Enchiridion, chapter 51, where from this he proves that infants have original sin, namely because they are baptized; and through the holy purpose of new life which the baptized conceives. Thus Tertullian, Book 1 On Penance.

Here the Apostle proves that we are dead to sin and ought not to live to it, from the fact that through baptism we have been grafted into Christ, that we may live the life of Christ and a Christian life; for this is diametrically opposed to sin.

Rom 6:4: "We are buried together with Him by baptism into death."

The Apostle proves that we are dead to sin from the mystical burial of baptism, whence he says: We are buried together, that is: We, as if dead to sin, are buried in baptism, just as Christ, having died corporally, was delivered to burial. For the triple immersion allegorically represents the three days of Christ's burial, and tropologically it represents the burial and death of sin. Whence for this cause and representation, on the day of Christ's burial, namely Holy Saturday, solemn baptism is accustomed to be celebrated. See Damascene, Book 4 On the Faith, chapter 10.

Note here the dissimilarity between Christ's burial and Baptism: For Christ first died before He was buried; but this burial of baptism, because it is a Sacrament, effects the death of sin in us, so that it is prior and anterior to the death of sin—not in time, but in nature—as Pererius and Toletus rightly note. And this is what Paul says: We are buried together into death, that is: With Christ in baptism we are as if buried to this end, that we may die to sin; for this death of sin this burial of baptism brings and induces.

Hence morally the Fathers warn us that we should have before our eyes the profession which we make in baptism, saying: "I renounce Satan," and consequently sin. "You have entered," says Saint Ambrose, Book On Those Who Are Initiated into the Mysteries, chapter 2, "the sanctuary of regeneration; recall what you were asked, what you answered. You renounced the devil and his works, the world and its pleasures. Your voice is held, not in the book of the dead, but in the book of the living. You spoke in the presence of witnesses; it is not permitted to deceive, it is not permitted to deny."

And Saint Augustine, Book 4 On the Symbol to the Catechumens, chapter 1, Tome 9: "It is," he says, "the enemy from your hearts; to this you have professed to renounce, in which profession you said not to men but to God and His angels: 'I renounce.' Renounce not only with your voices but with your morals, not only with the sound of your tongue but with your whole life, not only with sounding lips but with works that proclaim. Know that you have undertaken a contest with the cunning, ancient, and inveterate enemy; let him not find his works in you after your renunciation, let him not draw you by right into his servitude. For you will be discovered and exposed, O Christian, when you do one thing and profess another; faithful in name, you demonstrate another thing in deed, not keeping the faith of your promise—now entering the church to pour forth prayers, a little later in the spectacles to shout shamelessly with the actors. What have you to do with the pomps of the devil, to which you have renounced?"

Hence also to the baptized the priest gives a white garment as a token of purity and innocence, saying: "Receive the white, holy, and immaculate garment, which you may bear without stain before the tribunal of Christ, that you may have eternal life." Concerning which matter thus Lactantius sings in his Paschal poem:

"A white army emerges from snowy waves, And in the new stream purges the ancient vice. The shining souls the white garment also signifies, And from the snowy flock the shepherd has joys."

Wherefore pathetically Muritta the Deacon, apud Victorem Uticensem, Book 3 On the Persecution of the Vandals, to Elpidophorus the apostate and executioner both of himself and of other orthodox Christians, spreading out and shaking the linen cloths with which he had once received Elpidophorus from the sacred font: "These," he says, "are the linen cloths, O Elpidophorus, which will accuse you through your error when the majesty of the Judge shall come, preserved by my diligence as a testimony of your perdition, for plunging you into the abyss of the sulphurous pit. These clothed you immaculate, rising from the font. These will pursue you more fiercely when you begin to possess the flaming gehenna, because you have clothed yourself with malediction as with a garment, tearing apart and losing the sacrament of true baptism and faith. What will you do, wretch, when the servants of the master of the house begin to gather the invited to the royal banquet? Then the King, indignantly seeing you, once called, stripped of the nuptial robe, will say to you: 'Friend, how did you enter here, not having a nuptial garment? I do not see what I bestowed, I do not recognize what I gave. You have lost the military cloak which I wove for you in the fabric of virginal members over ten months; I have stretched out the nets, I have cleansed the water, I have decorated it with the purple of My blood—My eyes do not see the character, I do not see the Trinity. Such a one cannot be present at My banquets: bind him feet and hands, etc.'"

"That as Christ is risen from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we also may walk in newness of life."

By the glory of the Father, that is, by the divine virtue; or, as Theodoret and Theophylact, by His own divinity—for the same is the glory or glorious divinity of the Father and of the Son.

Secondly, and more aptly, Cajetan, that the comparison between Christ and us may be fuller, thus explains: by the glory of the Father, that is, he says, by the glorious and immortal life which Christ rising again received from the Father. That is: Christ rose again to this end, that He might lead a glorious life and one befitting the divinity, such as befits the Son of God. Whence it is fitting that we also, rising again by baptism, should lead a new life worthy of the sons of God, and that continually and constantly, persevering and progressing in it; for this the word we may walk signifies.

Thirdly, the Greek διά could be translated propter ("on account of") or, as the Syriac translates, in gloriam Patris ("unto the glory of the Father"). For the Father was greatly glorified in the resuscitation and resurrection of Christ.

Excellent is Saint Augustine in the Enchiridion, chapter 53: "Whatever," he says, "was done in the cross of Christ, in the burial, in the resurrection on the third day, in the ascension into heaven and the sitting at the right hand of the Father, was so done that not only by things mystically spoken but also by things done, the Christian life which is lived here might be configured to them. For on account of His cross it is said: 'They that are Christ's have crucified their flesh with its vices and concupiscences.' On account of the burial: 'We are buried together with Christ by baptism into death.' On account of the resurrection: 'That as Christ is risen from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we also may walk in newness of life.' On account of the ascension and sitting at the right hand of the Father: 'If you have risen with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is sitting at the right hand of God; mind the things that are above, not the things that are upon the earth.'"

Rom 6:5: "For if we have been planted together in the likeness of His death, we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection."

Here the Apostle excites [us] to newness of life through the hope of resurrection.

Note: For planted together the Greek is σύμφυτοι, which is a participle but [used as] a noun, as if you should say conflati ("grown together"). The sense is: If we have been grafted into Christ just as branches are grafted into a tree, that from it they may suck and draw sap, so that from the death of Christ, whose likeness we have borne in baptism, as from a certain root we may suck the death of sin—that if, I say, we are so grafted into Christ, we shall also be partakers of the resurrection of Christ.

Therefore the word in the likeness from Hebraism is taken for into the likeness, that is, into conformation to the death of Christ. It could however, with the Syriac, be taken thus: in likeness, that is, by likeness or in likeness—namely baptism, which is the likeness and representation of the death and burial of Christ. For in like manner tacitly the Apostle subjoins. But the following antithesis sets forth the first sense: sometimes we shall be grafted and inserted into Christ in the likeness, that is, to the likeness of His resurrection, that namely from Christ as a rising tree we ourselves may suck and partake of a similar resurrection.

Paul persists in the metaphor of a plant; for sacred Scripture calls Christ a sprout, a vine; us, branches; and Christ is said to grow in us, and we in Christ are said to mature and to be fruitful trees, which the ministers of Christ are said to plant and water.

He says therefore: Just as a branch grafted into a tree, when the tree dies as if through winter, likewise itself dies together; and again in the time of spring, as if the tree were rising again, it likewise rises again—so he who is grafted into Christ dies together with sin in the winter of this life and passion; and here with Christ also, in that universal spring of the resurrection, when the new heaven and new earth shall sprout again, he shall rise again to glory. Thus Origen.

Whence also Tertullian, Book On the Resurrection of the Flesh, chapter 47, thus reads and explains: "If indeed we have been sown together in the likeness of the death of Christ, we shall also be [sown] in the resurrection; that is, through the likeness, through the representation indeed we die in baptism, but through the truth we shall rise again in the flesh, just as also Christ."

The sense therefore is, as Paul [means]: Just as we have been made partakers of the death and passion of Christ in this life, so likewise we shall be partakers of the resurrection of Christ in the future life; for we have been grafted into this [resurrection] also, as of whose likeness equally as of the death of Christ in baptism we bear the likeness. For just as by the immersion which is done in baptism we are configured to Christ dead and buried, so vicissim by the emersion from the waters of baptism we are configured to Christ rising again. But if indeed we are to be and ought to be partakers of the resurrection of Christ, therefore likewise in the newness of life, which the resurrection of Christ signifies and which our resurrection demands and requires, we must walk.

Beautifully Nazianzen, Oration 1 On Easter: "Yesterday," he says, "I was crucified with Christ; today I am glorified together with Him. Yesterday I died together; today I am made alive together. Yesterday I was buried together; today I rise together, etc."

And Tertullian, On the Crown of the Soldier, chapter 14: "Christ," he says, "tasted gall after the feast, nor before was the King of glory greeted by the heavenly hosts than the King of the Jews, proscribed on the cross, made less than the Father for a little while, less than the angels, thus crowned with glory and honor. So also we, if here we taste the gall, afterwards we shall taste the honey with Christ."

Otherwise, Toletus and Adamus explain these things, namely that to be planted together in the resurrection of Christ is the same as to walk in newness of life, as preceded. That is: Paul [says]: If as certain shoots we have been grafted into Christ through baptism, so that we may have in ourselves the likeness of His death by dying to sins, we shall also by this very fact be planted together or grafted or generated into the likeness of His resurrection, which likeness is placed in newness of life—that namely, just as Christ rose again to a new and blessed life, so also we may rise again to newness of life and live and walk in it.

But if the Apostle had wished this, he would have said rather: we are [planted together in the likeness of the resurrection]; but now he does not say we are but we shall be, whence more genuinely and properly he seems to look to the future resurrection.

Note the force of the preposition σύν ("with") in the Greek words of the Apostle: σύμφυτοι, συνετάφημεν, συνεσταυρώθη, συνζῶμεν, συμπάσχομεν, συμμορφώθημεν, συμβασιλεύσομεν, συνδοξασθῶμεν—that is: we have been planted together, we have been buried together, we have been crucified together, we live together, we suffer together, we have been conformed together, we shall reign together, we shall be glorified together with Christ.

For σύν signifies:

1. First, our likeness in these things with Christ;

2. Secondly, it signifies the cause of all these things in us to be this, namely that we are united to Christ as branches to a tree, so that we may suck all these things as the sap of the tree of Christ from Christ and from the cross and passion of Christ;

3. Thirdly, σύν signifies the effect and fruit which Christ requires from us, namely that we strive to perfect these things with Christ in ourselves, and constantly imitate and pursue Christ in these, that with Him we may be glorified together.

Rom 6:6 "Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with Him."

He refers the word knowing to all the preceding things, but most of all to we are dead and to we have been planted together in the likeness of His death, that we may walk in newness of life. That is: We ought to be dead to sin and to walk in newness of life, knowing this, that is, since we know (for by Hebraism a participle is put for a verb) that our old man has been crucified.

Note: The old man, says Saint Thomas:

1. First, is the stain left from the act of sin;

2. Secondly, the very habit of sinning;

3. Thirdly, concupiscence;

4. Fourthly, and more clearly, Toletus: The old man, he says, is called he who, being born from the old Adam, has drawn and follows sin and concupiscences.

That is: the old life, old morals, the old manner of living in concupiscences and sins, like the old Adam, as I shall say more fully in chapter 7. This therefore now-called old man has been crucified with Christ:

1. First, through representation—for in baptism we represent the cross of Christ and of vices, namely that we are crucified with Christ and have crucified our vices;

2. Secondly, through efficacy—because namely, by the virtue of Christ dead on the cross, which is applied to us by baptism, our sins have been blotted out. For the cross of our sins is their death and destruction.

"That the body of sin may be destroyed."

1. First, Origen, Chrysostom, Ambrose, Anselm, and Toletus: The body of sin, they say, is the whole mass of sins, which is as it were one body of the old man, whose members are lust, avarice, fornication—to be mortified by every Christian, as the Apostle says in Colossians 3:5. The Apostle calls this mass of sins the body of sin, that he may persist in the metaphor of the cross, concerning which he said: Our old man has been crucified; for not accidents nor spirits but the bodies of men are accustomed to be crucified.

Note here that sins are not covered over by imputative justice, but altogether die and are destroyed in baptism through infused grace and justice, as Calvin, forgetful of himself, is compelled to admit here.

2. Secondly, the same Origen thus explains: that the body of sin, that is, the body conceived, nourished, and accustomed to sin in sin, may be destroyed—not in substance but in quality, that is, enervated. For this is the Greek καταργηθῇ. Whence also Tertullian, Book On the Resurrection of the Flesh, chapter 47, thus reads and explains: "That the body of sinning may be emptied out through emendation of life, not through destruction of substance."

3. Thirdly, Theodoret thus reads: that our body may be emptied of sin, that is, that it may be vacant of sins.

But the first sense is more conformable to the mind and phrase of the Apostle.

Rom 6:7 "For he that is dead is justified from sin."

He gives the reason why we ought no longer to serve sin. Because, he says, he who has been confirmed to Christ crucified and to the death of Christ dying on the cross, has died to sin or to the old life—this one is justified, that is, absolved altogether from sin, so that he ought not to have commerce with it, just as a man who is dead is absolved from the affairs of this life, so that he ought not and cannot mix himself with them.

Secondly, Saint Basil, Book On Baptism: "He who," he says, "has died, here is justified," that is, purged from sin through justice given and infused by God, and freed from the right and dominion of a master, put from servitude.

Thirdly, more specially and profoundly, according to the first sense, Saint Chrysostom and Theodoret thus explain, as if Paul alludes to a slave who, while he lives, is bound to servitude, but in death is absolved and freed from the same; for this sense of a slave the Apostle urges in verses 16 and following. That is: Just as a slave who has died, by death is justified, that is, absolved by virtue, so that the master has no lordly right or power over him—in like manner we also have been justified, that is, freed and absolved from the servitude of sin, by this very fact that we have died to the same through baptism, so that consequently we ought no longer to be occupied with and serve sin.

Rom 6:8 "Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall live also together with Him."

We shall live together: namely, in the future life, blessed and eternal. Thus Origen, Chrysostom, Theodoret, and Anselm.

Secondly, Toletus: We believe, he says, that is, we are confident that together with Christ we shall live in the new life of grace, that is, we shall persevere in living. But the prior sense is plainer. For the Apostle, after the manner of a preacher, repeatedly proposes to Christians the reward of eternal life, that he may allure and excite them to a good and holy life; and therefore from the anagogy of baptism he leaps to the tropology, namely from resurrection he leaps to the mortification of vices and newness of life, and soon from it he returns to resurrection—and this he does secondly and thirdly, but with different words. For he proposed this anagogy or resurrection of baptism in verse 5, and the same in this verse 8, and again in verse 9 he inculcates it with other words. Again, to the same he prefixed the tropology concerning newness of life in verse 4, and again subjoined it in Rom 6:6, 7, 9, 11, and following.

Let Faber Stapulensis do the same, who finds fault with ours. The same ought to be done by every ecclesiastic, namely that he may mix rewards with virtues, and that to his hearers he may now propose heaven and heavenly crowns, now the flight from vices and Christian morals by which heavenly crowns are acquired.

Rom 6:9 "Knowing that Christ rising again from the dead, dieth now no more; death shall no more have dominion over Him."

These things hang from the preceding: If we are dead to sin, we believe that we shall also live together with Him, namely in blessed and immortal life. For we know that Christ, after He has risen from the dead, now leads such a life and will no more die, indeed cannot die. Since therefore our blessed life after the resurrection will be similar and conformable to the life of Christ, it follows that we also then will no more die, indeed cannot die.

From which discourse the Apostle tacitly leaves to be gathered by Christians that they, as being already dead to sin and translated into newness of life, and so beginning the blessed life and tending to glorious immortality, ought constantly to persevere in this way and holy life, that they may not relapse into the death of sin, but by constancy of pious and Christian life may represent and begin holy and happy immortality.

Origen infers from what the Apostle says, death shall no more have dominion over Him: therefore death before, namely on the cross, dominated over Christ. Moreover, Origen by death understands the devil; but it is clear from the preceding that death is properly taken here. Death therefore is here introduced as if a lord and king, which dominated over Christ and all men, but through Christ has been despoiled of this dominion.

Rom 6:10"For in that He died to sin, He died once."

Saint Hilary, Book 9 On the Trinity: He takes τό ("that") as relative, and thus translates and reads: That which died to sin, died once; but that which lives, lives to God. That is: The body of Christ died once on account of sin, but His divinity lives and has lived and will live always. And thus the Interpreter ought to be translated, in that he translates mortuus ("he died") not mortuum ("it died").

But Erasmus and others commonly defend our Interpreter, indeed also Beza. For the Greek ὅ is taken for in eo quod ("in that"), or certainly something is to be supplied: namely, καθ᾽ ὅ ("in that"), that is, in eo quod mortuus fuit ("in that He died") or quantum ad mortem Christi attinet ("as far as the death of Christ is concerned"), He Himself died to sin once. For more aptly is Christ said to die and to live than the body of Christ, lest He seem with Nestorius to separate in Christ the body and man from the deity.

TO SIN, HE DIED ONCE: Hilary, Book 9 On the Trinity, and Oecumenius: To sin, they say, that is, in the body—namely, corporally Christ died once. For the body is called sin metonymically, because it is the subject of sin. In a similar sense it is called the flesh of sin, although in Christ there was only the likeness of the flesh of sin; or, as Pererius explains, Christ died to sin, that is, to passible, mortal life, such as is in this body subject to sins.

Secondly, Saint Ambrose, Sermon 18 on Psalm 118, verse 7: Christ, he says, died to sin, that is, to the sinner—namely, on account of sinners.

Thirdly, and best, Saint Chrysostom and Theodoret: Christ died to sin, that is, on account of sin, for the mortifying and abolishing of sin in us; for this force the Hebrew lamed of the dative has.

Therefore in one way Christ is said to have died to sin, in another way we: Christ effectively, we subjectively; Christ once (ἀπέθανεν, "He died"), but we (νεκροί, "dead") nominally, as if we ought always to be and to remain dead to sin.

"But in that He liveth, He liveth unto God."

He liveth unto God: that is, by divinity and soul. Thus Oecumenius.

Secondly, Saint Chrysostom and Toletus: He liveth unto God, that is, by the virtue of God.

Thirdly, and best: Christ now after the resurrection lives unto God, that is, with God and He lives a similar life to God—celestial, divine, blessed, immortal.

Again, He liveth unto God, that is, to the glory of God, that He may perpetually praise and celebrate God; for just as He died on account of sin, so He lives on account of God and the glory of God.

Rom 6:11 "So do you also reckon that you are dead indeed to sin, but alive unto God in Christ Jesus."

What it is to be dead to sin, beautifully and minutely Saint Prosper explains, Book On the Contemplative Life, chapter 21: "It is," he says, "to die to sin, unless to live not at all to works to be condemned, to desire nothing carnally, to aspire to nothing. That just as he who is dead in the flesh now detracts from no one, shuns no one, despises no one, corrupts the chastity of no one by circumvention, is violent to no one, calumniates or oppresses no one, does not envy the good or insult the afflicted, does not serve the lust of the flesh, given to drunkenness, in drinking himself kindles the thirst of drinking more and more, is not inflamed with the torches of hatred, seeks unjust gains, does not flatter the powerful or the rich, is not carried away by restless curiosity, is not distracted by the care of domestic solicitude, is not delighted by the salutations of those meeting him, nor is wearied by the injuries of the proud, pride does not puff him up, vain ambition does not precipitate him, empty glory does not toss him about, the desire of glorious opinion does not inflame him, the contention of another's act cannot disturb him, the love of base baseness does not invite him, the rage of fury does not drive him, the study of sumptuous delights does not slaughter him, the ardor of spirited contention does not exhaust him."

Then by another scheme, through epithets proper to individual vices, he pursues the same thing, saying: "Whom does audacity not make impudent, injustice unjust, inclemency fierce, inconstancy variable, contumacy pertinacious, madness insane, gluttony luxurious, disobedience rebellious, boasting vain, perfidy unfaithful, facility fickle, cruelty savage, base gluttony a devourer, mobility impatient, instability wandering, spiritual weakness, animosity irascible, perversity suspicious, vanity talkative, malignity injurious—he who is removed altogether from secular allurements, removed from uncleannesses and enmities, removed from the snares of others, removed from rapines whether hidden or open, removed from lies or perjuries, finally removed from every kind of crimes and offenses by which those living carnally offend God—just as, I say, one dead in the flesh can neither do nor suffer the things which I have mentioned, so also by these and such vices they do not at all live who, living to God, crucify their flesh with its vices and concupiscences."

BUT ALIVE UNTO GOD: That is, by the Spirit of God or by spiritual and divine life—namely, the life of grace—not serving sin but God, you may live, that is, you may preserve this life of grace received in baptism. For living here signifies an act not begun but continued, according to canon 32. Whence he says: Reckon, that is, consider, think, ponder, resolve, conclude, and altogether decide that you ought and will always henceforth live to God.

IN CHRIST JESUS: That is, through Christ; or, as Toletus, to the likeness of Christ, who so lives that He may no more die. That is: In like manner neither ought you any more to die through sin.

Frequently the Hebrews take בְּ ("in") for "to the likeness of," so that in is the same as like Christ.

CONTINUE