1 What shall we say, then? Shall we persist in sin, in order that grace might increase? 2 No way! Whoever among us died to sin, how can we still live in it any longer? 3 Or are you ignorant that as many as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 Therefore, we were buried together with him through this baptism into death, in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so also we, let us walk in newness of life.
Timotheos, you properly stated, After stating in Romans 5.20 'Where sin abounded, grace superabounded' Paul anticipates a question that may arise. What is the question? It would seem the reasoning could go like this: if sin increases grace, and grace gives glory to God, then we could glorify God by sinning more and receiving more grace. This is the question. We should, however, recall where Paul raises the same essential question much earlier in his letter, back in Romans 3:1-8. I quote my comments concerning this passage.
What does Paul's argument in 3:1-8 assume but leaves unstated until chapter 9? It is the fact that God ordained that Israel should be unfaithful that he might display his faithfulness to his promise to the patriarchs. God ordained that Israel should be unrighteous in order that he might demonstrate his righteousness in the gospel. God ordained that Israel should be untruthful that he might exhibit his truthfulness in Jesus Christ. God ordained that Israel should be unfaithful, unrighteous, and untruthful in order that God's own faithfulness, righteousness, and truthfulness might shine all the more brilliantly (cf. Rom 9:22ff, "What if? . . .").
This assumption is made most evident in 3:7 in two specific ways--But if by my falsehood God's truthfulness abounds for his glory, why am I still condemned as a sinner?--first with the supposition if by my falsehood God's truthfulness abounds for his glory, and second by the question portion why am I still condemned as a sinner? The supposition links "my falsehood" (which is Paul's way of speaking of Israel's falsehood) as purposefully designed as the occasion by which "God's truthfulness abounds for his glory." This entails God's foreordination which Paul expounds substantively in chapter 9. Notice that the question why am I still condemned as a sinner? anticipates the same question Paul will raise in 9:19, "Why does he still find fault? For who resists his will?" The question of 3:8 also foreshadows Paul's argument in 5:20-6:1ff, once again underscoring how central to his gospel is his belief in the sovereign foreordaining purposes of God.
In case anyone doubts the veracity of what I have just stated, Paul's words in 3:8 should put objections to rest. He states, And why not say (as we are slandered and as some claim we say) ‘Let us do evil that good may come about?’ Their condemnation is just! The charge would be pointless, if Paul's argument were not that God ordained Israel's covenant disloyalty (unfaithfulness, unrighteousness, untruthfulness). Why such a slanderous charge? It is because those who hurl the accusation do not believe in the compatibility of God's foreordaining of all things and the accountability of human sinning. In other words, subtle as it may seem to be, Paul is contending that it is vital to his gospel that he preach that God's foreordained purposes for Israel were realized through Israel's unfaithfulness, unrighteousness, and untruthfulness, for God purposed this in order that he might demonstrate his own faithfulness, righteousness, and truthfulness in the gospel, through his Son, Jesus Christ.
I recall the earlier passage and my comments on it to keep before us the fact that God's ordained purposes for the Law and for the Reign of Sin in Death do not warrant the foolish conclusion that Paul's opponents hurled at him, as he recounts in Romans 3:8 and now poses in 6:1-2.
Unlike in Romans 3:8, in 6:1-4, Paul explicates the reason why the seemingly logical question is entirely unwarranted. Your comments are exactly right. I will add a few comments on the matter of baptism, comments that will appear in a forthcoming essay that I wrote for a book to be published in January 2007 (Thomas R. Schreiner & Shawn Wright [editors], Believer's Baptism: The Covenant Sign of the New Age in Christ. Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 2007).
The expressions in Rom 6:3-4 beckon Christians who view conversion and baptism as separate to acknowledge that the apostle Paul regards them as inseparable though distinguishable as sign and thing signified. Baptism is into (eis) Christ Jesus. Baptism is into (eis) his death. Baptism into death is the means by which (dia, through) we are buried with Christ as Paul says, “Therefore we were buried with him through baptism into death in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the Father’s glory, we also may walk in newness of life” (Rom 6:4). Jack Cottrell presses the significance of Paul’s words, “through baptism,” arguing that the apostle envisions no time separation of the symbol, baptism, from the reality accomplished, burial and death with Christ. Paul connects “our baptism and our death to sin together as cause and effect. This does not mean that the water or the physical act as such produces this spiritual effect. Only spiritual working of God himself, which he graciously performs in conjunction with the physical act, can cause us to die to sin and rise again.”
However, if we describe baptism in terms of “cause” we do not mean “effectual cause” but at most “instrumental cause.” It is unthinkable that Paul’s expressions in Romans 6 attribute to the act of baptism with water itself an effectuality that he has already denied to the act of circumcision of the flesh in Romans 2. There he argues that the external rite, circumcision of the flesh, is not efficacious to render anyone a Jew, for the ritual is powerless to enable one to practice what the Law requires. God regards as uncircumcised all who have their flesh circumcised but do not have their hearts circumcised. By way of contrast, however, God reckons as circumcised Gentiles who possess neither the Law nor circumcision of the flesh but yield the fruit of faith as they keep the righteous requirements of the Law. From the beginning, being a Jew (i.e., being of Abraham’s seed) was never merely a matter of wearing the outward sign of circumcision, for an external sign is meaningless apart from possessing the inward reality to which the sign points, in this case the reality of a heart circumcised by God’s Spirit (Rom 2:17-29).
Therefore, it is inconceivable that Paul, who has already mounted this argument concerning the ineffectuality of the outward act of circumcision, would lapse within his same letter to the Roman Christians to represent the outward rite of baptism itself as effecting salvation. At the same time, however, it is equally implausible for us to suppose that Paul’s theologically weighty words of Rom 6:3-4 have no reference to the rite of baptism with water, the rite authorized by Christ Jesus for making disciples. In this passage, the apostle Paul assumes for the sake of his argument that he is appealing to people for whom the thing symbolized and the symbol converged when they submitted to baptism. Thus, he reasons, “Those of us who died to sin, how can we live in it any longer? Or are you ignorant that as many as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We, therefore, were buried with him through this baptism into death in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the Father’s glory so also we will walk in newness of life” (Rom 6:2-4).
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