Fathers

Romans 6

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What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? May it never be! We who died to sin, how could we live in it any longer? Or don’t you know that all we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life. For if we have become united with him in the likeness of his death, we will also be part of his resurrection; knowing this, that our old man was crucified with him, that the body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be in bondage to sin. For he who has died has been freed from sin. But if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him; knowing that Christ, being raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over him! For the death that he died, he died to sin one time; but the life that he lives, he lives to God. Thus consider yourselves also to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Therefore don’t let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts. Also, do not present your members to sin as instruments of unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. For sin will not have dominion over you. For you are not under law, but under grace. What then? Shall we sin, because we are not under law, but under grace? May it never be! Don’t you know that when you present yourselves as servants and obey someone, you are the servants of whomever you obey; whether of sin to death, or of obedience to righteousness? But thanks be to God, that, whereas you were bondservants of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were delivered. Being made free from sin, you became bondservants of righteousness. I speak in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh, for as you presented your members as servants to uncleanness and to wickedness upon wickedness, even so now present your members as servants to righteousness for sanctification. For when you were servants of sin, you were free from righteousness. What fruit then did you have at that time in the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. But now, being made free from sin and having become servants of God, you have your fruit of sanctification and the result of eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

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What the Fathers say

Romans 6:17

Eastern Fathers

John Chrysostom

After shaming them by the slavery, after alarming them by the rewards, and so exhorting them, he again rights them by calling the benefits to mind. For by these he shows that they were great evils from which they were freed, and that not by any labors of their own, and that things henceforth would be more manageable. …

Homily on Romans 11 ↗

Theophylact of Ohrid

"Thanks be to God." Our deliverance from those evils is not a matter of human strength, but of God's; which is why one must give thanks. Then you became obedient not by compulsion, but by your own heartfelt disposition; therefore do not return to the worse things, from which you withdrew voluntarily. As proof that although they themselves came, yet all this depended also on the grace of God, he added: "you delivered yourselves," that is, you were guided by God to the form of teaching. And what is the form of teaching? …

Commentary on Romans ↗

Western Saints

Thomas Aquinas

Then when he says, but thanks be to God, he shows the folly of obeying sin and thereby returning to the slavery of sin: first, by considering the benefit we have received. For if someone, by another's graciousness is freed from slavery, it is unfitting to subject oneself freely to slavery. Hence, since we have been freed from sin by the grace of God, it is unfitting willfully to return again to the slavery of sin. Second, by considering the state into which we were led after freedom from sin, namely, that we are slaves to justice. …

Commentary on Romans ↗