Obedience to God‘s Word

Romans 6

THE CROSS

WHAT shall we say then? (This is meant to direct attention to Rom. 5:20.) Shall we continue in sin, that Grace may abound? (Just because Grace is greater than sin doesn’t mean that the Believer has a license to sin.)
2 God forbid (presents Paul’s answer to the question, “Away with the thought, let not such a thing occur”). How shall we, who are dead to sin (dead to the sin nature), live any longer therein? (This portrays what the Believer is now in Christ.)
3 Know you not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ (plainly says that this Baptism is into Christ and not water [1 Cor. 1:17; 12:13; Gal. 3:27; Eph. 4:5; Col. 2:11–13]) were baptized into His Death? (When Christ died on the Cross, in the Mind of God, we died with Him; in other words, He became our Substitute, and our identification with Him in His Death gives us all the benefits for which He died; the idea is that He did it all for us!)
4 Therefore we are buried with Him by baptism into death (not only did we die with Him, but we were buried with Him as well, which means that all the sin and transgression of the past were buried; when they put Him in the Tomb, they put all of our sins into that Tomb as well): that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the Glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life (we died with Him, we were buried with Him, and His Resurrection was our Resurrection to a “Newness of Life”).
5 For if we have been planted together (with Christ) in the likeness of His Death (Paul proclaims the Cross as the instrument through which all Blessings come; consequently, the Cross must ever be the Object of our Faith, which gives the Holy Spirit latitude to work within our lives), we shall be also in the likeness of His Resurrection (we can have the “likeness of His Resurrection,” i.e., “live this Resurrection Life,” only as long as we understand the “likeness of His Death,” which refers to the Cross as the means by which all of this is done):
6 Knowing this, that our old man is Crucified with Him (all that we were before conversion), that the body of sin might be destroyed (the power of sin broken), that henceforth we should not serve sin (the guilt of sin is removed at conversion, because the sin nature no longer rules within our hearts and lives).
7 For he who is dead (He was our Substitute, and in the Mind of God, we died with Him upon Believing Faith) is freed from sin (set free from the bondage of the sin nature).
8 Now if we be dead with Christ (once again pertains to the Cross, and our being Baptized into His Death), we believe that we shall also live with Him (have Resurrection Life, which is more Abundant Life [Jn. 10:10]):
9 Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dies no more (means that His Work was a Finished Work, and will require nothing else); death has no more dominion over Him (because all sin has been Atoned; inasmuch as Christ is our Substitute, if death has no more dominion over Him, it has no more dominion over us; this means that the power of the sin nature is broken).
10 For in that He died, He died unto sin (the sin nature) once (actually means, “He died unto the sin nature, once, for all”): but in that He lives (the Resurrection), He lives unto God (refers to the fact that all life comes from God, and that we receive that life by virtue of the Cross and our Faith in that Finished Work).
11 Likewise reckon (account) you also yourselves to be dead indeed unto (the) sin (while the sin nature is not dead, we are dead unto the sin nature by virtue of the Cross and our Faith in that Sacrifice, but only as long as our Faith continues in the Cross), but alive unto God (living the Resurrection Life) through Jesus Christ our Lord (refers to what He did at the Cross, which is the means of this Resurrection Life).

Swaggart, J. (2005). The Expositor’s Study Bible (p. 1978). Baton Rouge, LA: Jimmy Swaggart Ministries.