Rom. VI. 5
For if we have been planted together in the likeness of His death, we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection.
What I had before occasion to remark, that I mention here too, that he continually digresses into exhortation, without making any twofold division as he does in the other Epistles, and setting apart the former portion for doctrines, and the latter for the care of moral instruction. Here then he does not do so, but blends the latter with the subject throughout, so as to gain it an easy admission. Here then he says there are two mortifyings, and two deaths, and that one is done by Christ in Baptism, and the other it is our duty to effect by earnestness afterwards. For that our former sins were buried, came of His gift. But the remaining dead to sin after baptism must be the work of our own earnestness, however much we find God here also giving us large help. For this is not the only thing Baptism has the power to do, to obliterate our former transgressions; for it also secures against subsequent ones. As then in the case of the former, your contribution was faith that they might be obliterated, so also in those subsequent to this, show forth the change in your aims, that you may not defile yourself again. For it is this and the like that he is counselling you when he says, for if we have been planted together in the likeness of His Death, we shall be also in the likeness of His Resurrection. Do you observe, how he rouses the hearer by leading him straightway up to his Master, and taking great pains to show the strong likeness? This is why he does not say in death, lest you should gainsay it, but, in the likeness of His Death. For our essence itself has not died, but the man of sins, that is, wickedness. And he does not say, for if we have been partakers of the likeness of His Death; but what? If we have been planted together, so, by the mention of planting, giving a hint of the fruit resulting to us from it. For as His Body, by being buried in the earth, brought forth as the fruit of it the salvation of the world; thus ours also, being buried in baptism, bore as fruit righteousness, sanctification, adoption, countless blessings. And it will bear also hereafter the gift of the resurrection. Since then we were buried in water, He in earth, and we in regard to sin, He in regard to His Body, this is why he did not say, we were planted together in His Death, but in the likeness of His Death. For both the one and the other is death, but not that of the same subject. If then he says, we have been planted together in His Death, we shall be in that of His Resurrection, speaking here of the Resurrection which (Gr. be of His Resurrection) is to come. For since when he was upon the subject of the Death before, and said, Do you not know, brethren, that so many of us as were baptized into Christ were baptized into His Death? he had not made any clear statement about the Resurrection, but only about the way of life after baptism, bidding men walk in newness of life; therefore he here resumes the same subject, and proceeds to foretell to us clearly that Resurrection. And that you may know that he is not speaking of that resulting from baptism, but about the other, after saying, for if we were planted together in the likeness of His Death, he does not say that we shall be in the likeness of His Resurrection, but we shall belong to the Resurrection. For to prevent your saying, and how, if we did not die as He died, are we to rise as He rose? When he mentioned the Death, he did not say, planted together in the Death, but, in the likeness of His Death. But when he mentioned the Resurrection, he did not say, in the likeness of the Resurrection, but we shall be of the Resurrection itself. And he does not say, We have been made, but we shall be, by this word again plainly meaning that Resurrection which has not yet taken place, but will hereafter. Then with a view to give credibility to what he says, he points out another Resurrection which is brought about here before that one, that from that which is present you may believe also that which is to come. For after saying, we shall be planted together in the Resurrection, he adds,
Ver. 6. Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be destroyed.
So putting together both the cause and the demonstration of the Resurrection which is to come. And he does not say is crucified, but is crucified with Him, so bringing baptism near to the Cross. And on this score also it was that he said above, We have been planted together in the likeness of His Death that the body of sin might be destroyed, not giving that name to this body of ours, but to all iniquity. For as he calls the whole sum of wickedness the old man, thus again the wickedness which is made up of the different parts of iniquity he calls the body of that man. And that what I am saying is not mere guesswork, hearken to Paul’s own interpretation of this very thing in what comes next. For after saying, that the body of sin might be destroyed, he adds, that henceforth we should not serve sin. For the way in which I would have it dead is not so that you should be destroyed and die, but so that you sin not. And as he goes on he makes this still clearer.