Notes From Paul In Romans
As I began to study this idea in many of the commentators, both old and new, I began to notice over and over again how they repeatedly refer to the “old man” in these above passages in part one that I just mentioned as the unregenerate man before being in Christ, and rightly so, because in each of these passages of Scripture that we will be looking at, Paul speaks of this “old man” as being dead and no longer alive:
…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 to death, that just like 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….present yourselves to God, as alive from the dead (Rom. 6:3-7, 13, World Eng. Bible).The phrases, “our old man was crucified,” in order “that the body of sin might be done away with,” are the verbs aorist passive indicative and the aorist passive subjunctive; which just means that the first event was a punctiliar action done upon us by the action of another once-and-for-all in the past, while the second one is possibly done in us at some point and time thereafter based upon this one-time past tense event of being crucified. One is decisively done once-and-for-all in the past; the other is possibly done based upon this once-and-for-all action in the past.
William Mounce, in his Greek handbook entitled: Basics of Biblical Greek Grammar, after first describing the imperfect tense as a continuous action that has its beginning in the past, describes this other past tense in the Greek language as the "aorist tense," and that this “aorist tense describes an undefined action that normally occurs in the past…It tells you that the action happened, but nothing more about the aspect of the action.”[1] The context determines that. Mounce further states, “you will normally translate the aorist with the simple form of the English past tense: ‘I studied’; not, ‘I was studying’” (ibid); nor, I am studying or I am to study. As I said, the “passive” voice denotes an action that is done “upon us” by another and the “indicative” mood indicates that it really did happen; whereas the “subjunctive” mood denotes something that should happen based upon a past result, but not necessarily right away; the reality of it remaining contingent upon future developments. This latter event is the case with the phrase “the body of sin” that Paul says “might be done away with” as the Christian progresses in their walk.
Now when the phrases above in our text say that our old man was crucified so that the body of sin might be done away with from hereon forward, this one particular encounter of the old man having been crucified happened entirely in the past when we first received Christ. With regards to the crucifixion of the “old man,” it was a once-and-for-all punctiliar action that occurred entirely in the past, never to be repeated again; never to be dealt with again.
But we must nevertheless always approach this “once-and-for-all” idea of this aorist tense with caution in some particular cases, as described above when it is being used in the “subjunctive” mood. Again, Mounce notes in the words of Thomas Schreiner: “The aorist tense has often been mishandled by both scholars and preachers. Aorist verbs too frequently are said to denote once-for-all action when the text has no such intention” (ibid), as in the example of Rev. 20:4, where it says, “they lived and reigned with Christ for a thousand years,” with the Greek using the aorist active indicative. All saints “actively” live and reign at some point and time in the future once they are resurrected. So, as we can see, the aorist tense in and of itself doesn’t necessarily denote any particular time of when this “once-and-for-all” action occurs. Just that it happens for every one of us.
Schreiner continues: “Having been warned of this error, we should not go to the other extreme and fail to see that in some contexts the aorist does denote once-for-all action, not merely because the verb is an aorist, but because of the context” (ibid). He then goes on to mention one of the verses pertinent to our study here of the old man having died "once-and-for-all" in Romans chapter six:
Rom. 6:10 says of Jesus, ho gar apethanen teh harmatia apethanen ephapas (‘for the death that He died, He died to sin once for all’). The aorist apethanen (‘He died’) clearly refers to the once-for-all death of Jesus, for the verb is modified by the adverb ephapas (‘once for all’). Paul’s purpose is to teach that by virtue of His death Jesus has conquered the power of sin and death once-for-all.Now part of the misconception surrounding the Greek “undefined” aspect of the aorist tense verb is due to the fact that, normally, it almost always denotes a once-and-for-all punctiliar action in the past. However, this verb is not “punctiliar” due to any inherent aspect in itself, the context determines its usage and understanding as such. And as we will soon just see, all of this is very pertinent to our subject at hand in the fore-mentioned verses of Rom. 6:6, Col. 3:9-10 and Eph. 4:22-24 that all have to do with the old man as having been decisively once-and-for-all put off (and not still to be put off) in the past.
Jesus’ victory over sin and death is not of mere historical interest, for Romans 6 teaches that those who belong to Jesus share His victory over sin. Verse 2 says…‘we who have died to sin, how shall we still live in it?’ The subsequent verses (vv. 3-6) clarify that we died to sin by being baptized into Christ, for when we were baptized into Him we were crucified together with Christ. The aorist apethanomen (‘we died’) in verse 2, therefore, denotes our once-for-all death to sin at our conversion. When we died with Christ the power of sin was broken decisively for us. This does not mean that we cannot sin any longer. Otherwise, the exhortation not to let sin reign in our lives would be superfluous (vv. 12-14). It does mean that the mastery, dominion, and lordship of sin has been broken in a decisive way for believers. Since Christ conquered sin at His death, and since we died with Christ, we now share in His victory over sin.[2]
So, in getting back to Romans chapter six here, a real “death” has occurred in us of something, but of what? Paul says we have “died to sin” (v. 2) in order “that the body of sin might be done away with” (v. 6). When we physically die, it is a given that our bodies no longer have the capacity to sin. Temptation ceases to arouse us anymore. It is no longer our master. So too, by our “old man” being crucified and put to death in Christ, in essence this has severed the relationship or ability of our flesh from our spirits in the fleshes capacity or ability to sin any longer. Sin shall no longer “have dominion” over us, as we have already affirmed of Paul as saying. Christ rendered “powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil,” that He “might free those who through fear of death were subject to slavery [to sin] all their lives” (Heb. 2:14-15, NASB; bracketed words mine for clarification). This work of Christ in our spirit-man has in effect rendered our flesh, the physical “body” of sin in Rom. 6:6b, powerless to live out its passions and lusts in our lives any longer. And we are no longer controlled by the sin of our old man or sinful nature; we are now controlled by the righteousness of the new man or new nature with one new heart.
Just as the foreskin dies when severed from the genitalia, so does the body of sin severed from its former relationship with the “old man” no longer have the capacity to sin as it use to. Sin no longer dwells in us, i.e., or in our inner man. It is the body of our flesh that is the culprit now. And we “are not in the flesh [as dominated by the old man] but in the Spirit [as dominated by the new man], if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you….if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you” (Rom. 8:9, 11, NASB; bracketed words mine for clarification; see also NIV).
If the Holy Spirit “dwells” within us, which is what these verses above are saying, then sin cannot reside in the same location where the Holy Spirit dwells, as we have already demonstrated earlier in the illustration of the temple. And by this power now residing within us, our mortal bodies are also rendered inoperative to continue in sin any longer by the fact that we by faith just start to now “reckon” it as so (cp. Rom. 6:11).
Christ will not only “give life” to subdue all of our fleshly desires in these mortal bodies right now, but in the life to come will also give life to them in order to redeem them fully from all decay and corruption. But our job for now is for us to assert our authority over these fleshly, mortal bodies through faith in God in order that they will become subservient to us. It is a given fact. We have Paul’s word on it. And we can take that to the bank! In other words, all we need to do is just begin to take up our beds and start walking! It is all just as simple as that! To say all this in another way, our flesh has been severed in its relation to the old man, since that old man has died; and it now no longer controls us, but we as a new man now control it. Hallelujah! Christ is now not only the object of such faith, but the very source now of our life and ongoing sanctification.
As William Hendriksen notes,
Surely, if the hearts of believers are filled with such bounties there will be no room for fleshly indulgences….On the contrary, they are very practical, for the graces that have been enumerated enable them not only to gain victory upon victory in their struggle against fleshly indulgence but also to be truthfully “the salt of the earth” and “the light of the world…”[3]The Christian’s physical body thus becomes essentially—spiritually—a new one, no longer belonging to or marked by the sinful nature, but belonging to the new nature, marked and ruled by the Holy Spirit. Christ becomes “glorified” in our bodies. As Oswald Chambers notes, “The natural life is not spiritual, and it can be made spiritual only through sacrifice. If we do not purposely sacrifice the natural, the supernatural can never become natural to us” (The Opposition of the Natural, Dec. 9).
The Christian's “physical” members (his “flesh”) are no longer instruments of the old nature, but instruments of the new nature in all righteousness and true holiness unto God (cf. Rom. 6:18-22). The old man or nature has been completely removed from his throne and from ruling over the body and its members and making them serve the lusts of the flesh at the behest of his beck and call. In juxtaposition to all of this, the new man in Christ now occupies the throne of our lives, so that the body and its members obey God at the behest of our new nature controlled by the Spirit. The flesh constantly seeks to attempt over and over again a coup-de-gras in order to usurp and overthrow the throne of our hearts. But for the person “in Christ” this is an impossibility. God’s “seed” remains in us, and we can no longer continue in sin because of His seed which is in us (1Jhn. 3:10). Furthermore, this is how John could say, “we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are” (v. 11), by the fact that we “continue” to walk with God free from sin. It is in this victory over the world, the flesh, and the Devil that we no longer “continue” in sin (cp. 5:4-5, 18-19).
John's words are worth repeating here,
If you know that He is righteous,
you may be sure that everyone who practices righteousness has been born of him….
No one who abides in Him keeps on sinning;
no one who keeps on sinning has either seen Him or known Him.
Little children, let no one deceive you.
Whoever practices righteousness is righteous, as He is righteous.
Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil,
for the devil has been sinning from the beginning.
The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil.
No one born of God makes a practice of sinning,
for God’s seed abides in him,
and he cannot keep on sinning because he has been born of God.
By this it is evident who are the children of God,
and who are the children of the devil:
whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God….
We know that everyone who has been born of God does not keep on sinning,
but he who was born of God protects him,
and the evil one does not touch him
(1Jhn. 2:29; 36-10; 5:18, ESV).
Paul couldn’t express this severance of our fleshly bodies from our spirits in order to no longer practice sin any more clear than he does in Col. 2:11-13:
in Him you were also circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, in the removal [lit., putting off] of the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ; having been buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised up with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead. When you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh,[4] He made you alive together with Him… (NASB).
Some refer to this phrase “the body of the flesh” as referring entirely to “the sinful nature,” as the NIV seems to incorrectly translate it. But the analogy in the OT of the outer physical foreskin of “the flesh” being severed from one’s body doesn’t seem to fit the analogy of that of our inner old man or “sinful nature” being cut away. Indeed, our old man has died and has been severed from its relationship to our fleshly bodies, but it is also to be noted that it is in this inward spiritual circumcision of our old fleshly sinful nature that our outer fleshly physical bodies have been incapacitated and rendered inoperative to no longer function according to its desires and lusts. This is how, or why, it is called a circumcision made “without hands.” It isn't a physical outward one but an inward spiritual one, rendering our fleshly physical bodies inoperative to obey the wishes and whims of the old man any longer. An action that is entirely and physically impossible for the natural man to do, but only something that God himself is able to do.
As Kenneth Wuest describes this cutting away of our flesh from our old nature in the words of the Greek expositor Vincent,
As Albert Barnes comments on Deut. 10:16, he concurs with Wuest that, As Kenneth Wuest describes this cutting away of our flesh from our old nature in the words of the Greek expositor Vincent,
Vincent has an excellent word study on the words “putting off.” “The verb ekduomai means to strip off from one’s self, as clothes or armor: ek, out of, having the force of getting out of one’s garments. By the addition to the verb of apo, from, there is added to the idea of getting out of one’s clothes, that of getting away from them; so that the word is a strong expression for wholly putting away from one’s self." [5]Wuest goes on to say,
The expression, “the body of the sins of the flesh,” needs careful study. The words “of the sins,” are not in the best texts [as the NASB quoted earlier above reveals], so that the expression is “the body of the flesh.” Lightfoot, Expositors, Alford, and Vincent concur in the teaching that the body here is the physical body, and the flesh[6] is indwelling sin. The body that was put off when the Colossian saints were saved was the physical body as dominated by the totally depraved nature. This body, while still the possession of the believer, was put off in the sense that it was rendered inoperative so far as the constant control of the evil nature was concerned. Paul states the same truth in Romans 6:6, when he says: “Knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him in order that the body possessed by sin might be rendered inoperative, so that henceforth we are not yielding an habitual slave’s obedience to sin.” The power of the sinful nature was broken, and it was deprived of its control over the body.[7]
It was through the flesh that man first sinned; as it is also in the flesh, its functions, lusts, etc., that man’s rebellion against God chiefly manifests itself still. It was fitting therefore that the symbol which should denote the removal of this estrangement from God should be worked in the body” (Barnes’ Notes on Deuteronomy).In other words, Barnes is intimating that the outward physical circumcision of Abraham's flesh was a smaller token of greater things to come of our entire physical bodies being incapacitated to no longer live according to the old heart or sinful nature.
Along the lines of what Kenneth Wuest says above, another verse understood by many to parallel the verse he mentions concerning Col. 2:11 is in Rom. 6:6, where Paul says,
Our old man has been crucified with him, that the body of sin might be annulled, that we should no longer serve sin (DBY).Like the phrase "the body of flesh" in Colossians, some say that the entire phrase “the body of sin” here in Romans refers to the old man that was destroyed completely at the cross. But the word “annulled” here (Gk. katageo) does not mean to completely annihilate or destroy as some translations would lead us to believe. According to John MacArthur, the word “literally means to render inoperative or invalid, to make something ineffective by removing its power of control.”[8] The idea being presented here is not to destroy this “body” of sin completely, but only to render it inactive with regards to it ever succumbing to the principle and power of sin any longer. Therefore, Paul cannot be talking about the sinful nature here that he says is completely annihilated or put to death at the cross. Clearly, Paul can only be talking here about our fleshly bodies which are rendered “inoperative” to the demands of sin and which are now controlled by the Spirit. “The body of sin” and “the body of the flesh” is understandably where sin manifests itself. And even though sin has its origin in the sinful nature of the unregenerate man, it is in the body that all the sinning occurs. But in our case, our old man or sinful nature has been crucified so that the deeds of our physical bodies might be annulled so “that we should no longer serve sin” in these bodies as Paul everywhere attests to.
This is what the phrase “the body of sin” that is done away with in Rom. 6:6 is referring to. It is not that the body is sinful in and of itself as the RSV implies by translating it “the sinful body.” That was a gnostic idea. And as John Stott says, the bible “gives us a high view of our body as the God-intended vehicle through which we express ourselves.”[9] Having said that though, “the body of sin” is no less to be diminished as the vehicle through which sin does indeed operate.
As John Murray notes,
The expression “the body of sin” would mean the [physical] body as conditioned and controlled by sin....If this is the meaning, how can he [Paul] speak of “the body of sin” as being brought to naught?....The body is an integral part of personality and since the old man has been crucified the destruction of the body of sin is an indispensable aspect of that radical transformation of the entire person which the crucifixion of the old man connotes. The body of the believer is no longer a body conditioned and controlled by sin. The body that is his now is one conditioned and controlled by what has come to be the ruling principle of the believer in his totality, namely, “obedience unto righteousness” (vs. 16).[10]This is what I, Wuest, and a few others believe Paul is talking about when he refers to “the body” of sin. Again, what Paul means to say is that the body's ability to sin any longer has been rendered ineffective. The next verse substantiates all of this with Paul also saying, “The person who has died [Gk. apothanon] has been freed from sin” (v. 7, GWT). Again, Wuest adds here,
The prefixed preposition apo means "off, away from" and the aorist tense refers to a once for all action. Thus we have, "the one who died off once for all," that is, off from the evil nature, this being a separation from that nature.[11]And so what Kenneth Wuest describes here as a “once for all action” of our former old man’s relation with the body of sin is in total agreement with Schreiner's comments noted earlier in Mounce’s book of these passages here in Romans. In addition to our “old man” having died, Wuest denotes how his death also brought about a death to our body's capability of continuing in sin, and our bodies are now “free” to serve righteousness unto holiness as Paul further elaborates for us in verses 19-22 of Romans chapter six.
In agreement with Vincent above cited by Wuest above, Curtis Vaughan similarly notes how the Greek verb for “removal” (apekdusei), in Col. 2:11 above (“putting off” or “stripping off” in other translations), is “a double compound, [which] denotes both stripping off and casting away,”[12] exactly in the same way that one’s outer foreskin is cut away and discarded, or “cast away.” We see this with regards to our physical bodies especially when one physically dies. Our bodies are stripped of all power of any longer residing with us, being completely incapacitated and cast away from our spirit. This is what has occurred when our old man died, leaving the spent casings of our physical bodies incapacitated to live off of that sinful nature any longer; the new man (God in us) having now come and taken up residence to give resurrection life to these fleshly, mortal, bodies of ours. Such fleshly bodies (similar to the foreskin) are a small member indeed in comparison to "greater is He that is in us!" In Christ it is we who are now the "giants" and the overcomers of these small fleshly members of our bodies, not vice-versa.
Now I don’t want to leave this topic without also noting how it is entirely possible that the entire phrase “the body of flesh” in Col. 2:11 (and not just "the body" as those such as Wuest and Lightfoot above conclude) is to be understood as being put off in contradistinction to them, and is to be understood as being completely synonymous with the phrase “the body of sin” in Rom. 6:6 in every respect, with neither phrase having anything to do with the sinful nature at all (something that they, and many others, deny). And akin to the small token of the circumcision of one’s physical foreskin, the entire circumcision of the whole physical body from the sinful nature through the circumcision of the heart is likely what is to be understood here in this phrase “the body of flesh,” Paul similarly also denoting it as the “circumcision of the flesh.” Thus the term "flesh" here is not being used in its ethical/moral (or spiritual sense) of the sinful nature, but it is being used here with regards to our physical bodies. And it is also extremely important to realize here how that “the body of the flesh” in Col. 2:11 is very similar in wording to Col. 1:22, where Paul again speaks of Christ’s death through “the body of His flesh” (ASV) or, “his body of the flesh,” as denoted in the ESV translation and for which no one doubts refers just to His physical body and not to any sinful nature at all.
R. C. H. Lenski, who believes “flesh” refers to the sinful nature in Col. 2:11, in his commentary he says of Col. 1:22 and 2:11 that whereas “of the flesh” is in the genitive case in both instances, the one instance in Col. 2:11 is the “qualitative genitive,” while the one in Col. 1:22 is the “genitive of material.” But this is an assumption that is entirely speculative on his part and subject to a difference of opinion. Lenski attempts to qualify all of this by stating,
In Col. 1:22, “in connection with the body of his flesh through death,” the genitive “of his flesh” (note “of his” flesh) denotes the physical material of Christ's body.[13]But whose to say that “of the flesh” is not a “genitive of material” here in Col. 2:11 just by the fact that the ellipsis of the word “his” (or even “our” in our case) is not mentioned in this verse? Clearly, it refers to all of us and not just one individual, so the word “his” (or even “our”) doesn’t have to be there in order for it to qualify it as a genitive of material. It is of necessity to be assumed that it is! Greek expositor A. T. Robertson doesn’t think the word "his" (or "our") has to be there either. He denotes in his Word Pictures in the New Testament in this “putting off of” the body of flesh, that it is, “as if an old garment (the fleshly body).”[14] Robertson had no problem understanding this entire phrase as “the fleshly body.” So, all I can say is: "Will the real Greek expositor please stand up?" So whatever may be understood by the word “flesh” here in Col. 2:11 (or even “the sin” in the phrase "the body of the sin" in Rom. 6:6), one thing is for certain, the “body” in both instances is to be understood as the physical body and not as the old man or sinful nature; for the Greek word for "body" (soma) is never used in the NT in a mystical or immaterial sense of the human spirit or the fallen human nature, but is always used with a reference to the physical body; whether literally, metaphorically of the Church as the body of Christ denoting diversity and unity, or symbolically of the Eucharist which represents the physical blood and body of Christ. And Paul again immediately uses the word in this sense in Rom. 6:12, right after what he says in verse 6b about the body; and even before and afterward in the rest of this epistle in Rom. 1:24; 4:19; 7:4, 24; 8:10, 11, 13, 23; 12:1, 4, 5.
Exchanging Our Clothing For His Clothing
Now this idea of rendering ineffective or having put off as a garment “the body of the flesh” or “the body of sin” in Col. 2:11 and Rom. 6:6 is referring to, as was noted earlier, to a time in the past at conversion when we “put off” also as a garment in Col. 3:9 the old man, rendering him ineffective to cause the body’s members to sin any longer. Both “the body of sin,” and our old sinful nature, are changed as one would change garments. But these two exchanges of clothing are not to be confused with one another, which has often been the case, and maybe even the reason why they are both often described by many as one and the selfsame thing as the putting off of the old sinful nature. But the truth of the matter is that one of the exchanges expresses a “change” of our old man with that of our new man and the image in Christ, while the other is a “change” that takes place in our body's inability to no longer continue serving sin at the time when our new man or new nature took over.
To further illustrate this dichotomy between the body and our spirit, Col. 3:8-9 in the Darby translation says that we are to now “put off [lit. as a garment] wrath, anger, malice, blasphemy, vile language out of your mouth” after “having put off [also literally as clothing] the old man with his deeds.” So here we see two different exchanges of clothing going on: one that has occurred in the past with our old man, and one that is still ongoing in our bodies as we speak; which takes us all back to the idea presented earlier in Romans of the aorist indicative and the aorist subjunctive verbs; with the one denoting a once-and-for-all action that occurred in the past with our “old man” (aorist passive indicative), while the other being something that continues from that point on to be ongoing and still working itself out in time in our “body of sin” (using the aorist passive subjunctive).
Verses 5-9a in Colossians here tell us what we as believers are to still “put off” as clothing; verses 12-17 tell us what we as believers are to still “put on” as clothing; and verses 10-11 tell us what has already been “put off” and “put on” as clothing at the point of our conversion. Paul uses this terminology of exchanging one garment for another repeatedly as representative ideas of the inward removal of our sin nature, and the outward removal of the sins done in the body; of the inward putting on of our new nature, and the outward putting on of personal holiness.
If all of this seems to be somewhat confusing at times, it isn’t meant to be. What all this really shows us is that there are various exchanges of clothing going on both at conversion and even after conversion; and that we should not pigeon-hole this idea with regards to “putting off” and “putting on” clothing as just something that occurs with our heart at the new birth, but is an ongoing process that is to be worked out also in our fleshly, mortal bodies. Our fleshly bodies begin to take on a radical change and transformation as we are renewed in the knowledge of Christ after the image of Him who created us, taking us from glory to glory right up until our final glorification and resurrection of our bodies.
The Example of the OT Priests
The OT priests wore various pieces of clothing that covered the flesh; with the white fine linen checkered coat or robe representing the righteousness of Christ in the saints (Rev. 19:8). What the rest of the garments typified that the priests put on in the OT one can only guess; but they consisted of the additional accoutrements of a white fine linen cap or bonnet, white fine linen breeches, and a white fine linen sash or girdle intertwined with blue, purple, and scarlet. The high priest wore even additional items of clothing. And no shoes were allowed on their feet, similar to Moses at the burning bush. Everyday an exchanging of garments took place—their clothing for God’s clothing. There was an initial passive once-and-for-all consecration and clothing of Aaron and his sons done by Moses, along with their entire bodies also being washed by him at the door of the Tabernacle in order to set them apart as God's priests (Ex. 29); and then there was thereafter a daily active consecration and exchanging of their clothing for God's clothing done by themselves, along with the washing of their hands and feet (Ex. 30). It is no different today. In the past we have “put off” the old man in our initial consecration, and in the future we continue to “put off” the deeds of the flesh, exchanging the deeds of the flesh for the ideals and thoughts of the new man created in Christ Jesus. It is our calling, our work, and our labor of love as God’s priests before Him to exchange our garments for His. Isaiah alluded to this idea in which one day all of God’s people would be priests (cf. 61:6), and that they would clothe themselves with the spiritual garments of praise, salvation, and righteousness (vv. 3, 10).
Now the point being in all of this is that, similar to Colossians, this idea of the priests taking off their own clothing to put on their priestly garments is no different than what is being described above and being worked out in our own lives. We too as God's priests “have put off” (past tense) as a garment the old man and “have put on” as a garment the righteousness of Christ. And with that initial severance of the old man we also “have put off” the body's ability to keep on sinning, not in an instant, but over time (remember the aorist subjunctive mood?).
And so, according to Colossians, we continue to remove old clothing, or sinful vices of the flesh, in order to still put on even more clothing in accordance to the divine nature of Christ that is now in us. Verse 5 “commands” us (when the aorist tense, as here, is in the imperative mood), by way of another similitude, “to mortify” the members of our body since being converted: “fornication, uncleanness, vile passions, evil lust, and unbridled desire, which is idolatry” (DBY). Verse 8, as noted earlier, also “commands” us (aorist middle imperative) to “put off” as old clothing: “wrath, anger, malice, blasphemy, vile language out of your mouth” (DBY). And verses 12-14 say that from the moment in the past when we received Christ, we are likewise “commanded” (aorist middle imperative) to, “put on [lit., 'clothe' yourselves] therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of compassion, kindness, lowliness, meekness, longsuffering; forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any should have a complaint against any; even as Christ has forgiven you, so also do ye. And to all these add love, which is the bond of perfectness” (DBY).
So we can see in all of this that there is a multifaceted great exchange of clothing going on: 1) Similar to the initial consecration of Aaron and his sons, there is an initial unclothing at salvation of the sinful man of being clothed with the new man along with the removal and incapacitation of the body of sin as a slave to sin, in order to be able to put on the body’s capacity and ability to begin being a slave to righteousness unto holiness, and; 2) similar to the daily exchanging of clothes of the OT priests there is the ongoing continual exchange of putting off and away from our own selves as clothes our old ways and habits of living in the gratifications of our fleshly bodies; even unto the continual putting on as clothes the new ways of living in all true righteousness and holy living created in the new man in Christ Jesus. We put-off sin and put-on holiness based upon the fact that we have already once-and-for-all in the past put-off the old man and put-on the new man.
Now here in our discussion we have been talking about putting off our own garments of sin for the holy and priestly garments of Christ, but in Rom. 13:12; 2Cor. 6:7 and Eph. 6:10-17 Paul also uses the analogy of putting off our garments of sin by putting on warrior’s armor. So what gives?
In Christ, we serve as both priests (holy ministers) and as warriors (or kings). We wear two hats, so-to-speak! Everyday (like the priests of the OT and like soldiers of war), we take off our own clothes and exchange them for God's clothes that have been handed over to us to put on. We exchange the works (or tapestry) of our own hands for the works (or tapestry) of God's hands. The one set of clothing is to minister as God’s priests, the other to minister as His kings (or warriors). And according to Paul in Rom. 6:13, we are to no longer “offer our members as weapons of unrighteousness to sin, but...as...weapons of righteousness” resisting and fighting against all that the world, the flesh, and the Devil has to throw at us.
Like Christ our Melchizedek, we are a royal priesthood setting an example of ministering as both priests and kings to those around us; to one as ministers of peace and reconciliation, to others as ministers of God’s righteous judgment against all sin. And this judgment first begins with us, God’s house (1Pet. 4:17; 1Cor. 11:31), and works its way out. As Paul said in 2Cor. 10:6, “once our obedience is complete we are ready to punish every act of disobedience.”
Like natural Israel in the past, who was a figure, we are fighting against the flesh; but “the flesh” that we are fighting against has to do with sin “in our members” (or in our physical fleshly bodies), and in the sin of those around us. Amen?!
Now all of this was to say that “the body of sin” or “the body of the flesh” is indeed our physical bodies that Paul is talking about in those previous verses we discussed, and not that of our old man or sinful nature. Our activity with regards to sin makes our bodies “the body of sin”; whereas, our inactivity with sin makes our bodies not the bodies of sin. And we can now control our fleshly bodies propensities to sin by the fact that they have been (aorist tense) circumcised or severed from our old man in the spiritual circumcision of Christ. In other words, the old man has been removed from his attachment to our physical bodies in order not to cause them to sin any more. And this all happened from the inside out, instead of from the outside in! And all without men's hands! Even the fact that the Greek word for “body” (soma) in Rom. 6:6 and Col. 2:11 refers everywhere in the NT to our physical bodies and never to our sinful nature (and not even to our bodies as a whole: spirit, soul and body) should be enough to prove that it is our physical body’s severance from the old man to habitually sin any longer that is to be understood in Rom. 6 6b and Col. 2:11.
So Who, Or What, Is Responsible For Our Sins?
So who or what is the culprit behind our sins? The answer, as we will soon see, is not any longer stemming from the sinful nature or our old man, for he's dead! But it is in fact coming from our unredeemed bodies of the flesh that still desire and long after the things of the flesh. If not for these bodies we would no longer sin! Our bodies still have the propensity to sin. But Paul also says in Rom. 8:10 that, “if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of [Gk. dia; lit., 'through'] sin; but the spirit is life because of ['through'] righteousness” (ASV; brackets mine).
What does Paul mean by stating that our bodies are “dead through sin?” This has been a tough nut to crack for some (not to mention what Paul means by pneuma or “spirit” here), and various interpretations have been given. But it first should not go without saying that in order to understand what Paul is saying here in Romans, Peter says basically the same thing with regards to Christ concerning His death, burial, and resurrection: “For Christ also died for sin once for all, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit” (1Pet. 3:18, NASB). Another verse that correlates with all of these verses is in 1Tim. 3:16, which says, “...great is the mystery of godliness, which was manifested in the flesh, was justified in the spirit” (Douay-Rheims).
Many bible translations, noted bible expositors, and even some of the most noted Greek expositors such as A. T. Robertson in his Word Picture's, Vincent in his Word Studies', Kenneth Wuest in his Word Studies', and The Expositor's Greek NT, all see these verses as denoting what happened to either Christ's spirit, or our spirit; what occurred in His body, verses what occurs in our bodies. And, to me, this verse noted above in Peter's epistle is the key to unlocking this mystery of what Paul is trying to tell us here in Romans. What Paul is describing to us is a result of us being “in Christ,” just as Peter has delineated for us of what Christ personally went through. What Christ personally went through in His body and spirit, we too go through in our body and spirit. As Christ was and is, so are we; and He became us in order that we might become Him (see also 2Cor. 5:21 for this same concept and idea).
Many respected commentators and theologians are of the opinion with regards to 1Pet. 3:18 that Christ incurred a death both corporeally and incorporeally; both physically and spiritually. And some even assert this of Him without Him having even necessarily gone into Hell.[15] Many of the reformers such as R. L. Dabney, Francis Turretin, John Calvin and Herman Bavinck all taught and believed in this.
For instance, Herman Bavinck, in his systematic theology entitled Reformed Dogmatics, and Francis Turretin, in his Elenctic Theology, pretty much speak for the rest when they write: “All the Reformed without exception opposed the opinion of Catholics, confessing that Christ bore the wrath of God and tasted the spiritual death of His abandonment also in His soul” (Bavinck),[16] and that “the orthodox [church] refer Christ’s suffering to the soul as well as the body” (Turretin).[17] And being that they are dichotomists, when they say “soul” they also mean spirit.
Turretin goes on to say: “The necessity of our salvation required this. For as we had sinned in soul and body, so Christ, the surety, must suffer in both parts in order to pay a sufficient ransom price (lytron) to the divine justice and to redeem the soul and body.”[18] He continues: “Christ was made a curse for us (Gal. 3:13)….This assuredly does not respect only the body, but especially the soul, which can be affected by such a sense.”[19] He quotes Irenaeus who writes: “who gave His own soul for our soul and His own flesh for our flesh.”[20] And then Turretin adds: “God suspending for a little while the favorable presence of grace…that He might be able to suffer all the punishment due to us.”[21] Reformed expositor, R. L. Dabney, in his systematic theology, notes how Calvin understood the Apostle’s Creed of Christ dying, being buried, and descending into hell to mean, “by Christ’s descending into hell, the torments of spiritual death, which He suffered in dying, not after. His idea is, that the Creed meant simply to asseverate, by the words, ‘descended into hell,’ the fact that Christ actually tasted the pangs of spiritual death, in addition to bodily, and in this sense endured hell-torments for sinners, so far as they can be felt without [He himself having personal] sin.”[22] And Calvin himself thus concludes, “certainly had not His soul shared in the punishment, He would have been a Redeemer of bodies only.”[23] No wonder Paul said in Rom. 6:6 that Christ is said to have crucified our old man. How could He unless He somehow and in some way spiritually became us in His human nature, and then kill us, in order that we might become a new man in Him? We were already dead in sins and trespasses (Eph. 2:1, 5), so how is it that we died with Christ, if it wasn't physically? We died with Christ spiritually to sin, clearly, when He also died spiritually to the sin of our old man created in Adam. And we rise spiritually as well to a new life because Christ was also "made alive in spirit," according to 1Pet. 3:18 and 1Tim. 3:16 in the ASV translation.
Kenneth Wuest writes with regards to Christ being said to be “made alive” in 1Pet. 3:18:
The word “quickened”…does not mean to “energize,” but “to make alive.” To make something alive presupposes a condition of death. A living person may be energized, but only a dead person can be made alive. The opposite of death is life. We have therefore a contrast between two things, death and life.In Greek, the locative idea that is being used here in First Peter (or the “locative dative” as Dana and Mantey like to refer it) simply denotes “sphere.”[25] Christ became dead in the sphere of His flesh, but alive in the sphere of His spirit. Neither is in the instrumental case. In other words, Christ did not die through or by means of the flesh, but IN it; He was not made alive through or by means of the Holy Spirit, but made alive IN His spirit. As Expositor’s Bible Commentary notes: “the antithesis is between 'flesh' and 'spirit.' To translate one member [or the flesh] of the antithesis as a dative of sphere or reference and the other [spirit] as a dative of cause or instrument is inconsistent. It is best to take both as datives…of sphere...and to translate both 'in the sphere of'”[26] Fronmuller writes, “the datives are evidently parallel and must be taken in the same sense. The sense of the first [or flesh] is clear…If this is established it is impossible to interpret the second member [spirit] as follows: He was made alive by the spirit given to Him, by the Higher divine part of His nature.”[27]
The translation reads, “having in fact been put to death with respect to the flesh, but made alive with respect to the spirit.” That preserves the balance in which the apostle contrasts the physical death of our Lord with the fact that His human spirit was made alive. But how are we to understand this latter?
To make alive Christ’s human spirit presupposes the death of that human spirit. Our Lord on Calvary’s cross cried, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (Mat. 27:46). The Greek word translated “forsaken” means “to abandon, desert, leave in straits, leave helpless, leave destitute, leave in a lurch, let one down.” The cry was addressed to the two other members of the Triune Godhead. God the Father had abandoned and deserted Him....Our Lord's prayer was unanswered. This unanswered prayer was predicted in type in Lev. 5:11 where an offerer too poor to bring a blood offering could bring the tenth part of an ephah of fine flour, just enough to bake one day's supply of bread; the giving up of the flour typifying the giving up of life, thus pointing to our Lord's death. But [the offerer] was forbidden to include frankincense with the flour. Frankincense is a type of answered prayer. Flour without frankincense speaks of our Lord's death and His unanswered prayer [for without it the prayers of the saints are not heard, see Rev. 5:8 and 8:3-4].
The question…was also addressed to God the Holy Spirit. The same necessity which caused God the Father to abandon God the Son caused the Holy Spirit to do the same....That human spirit during our Lord’s earthly existence was energized by [and in union with] the Holy Spirit….But now, in the hour of His direst need, the Holy Spirit left Him helpless and in the lurch. He abandoned the Son just as surely as did God the Father. This is [also] predicted in type in Lev. 5:11 where the offerer is forbidden to include oil in the flour. Oil is a type of the Holy Spirit. No oil [mingled] in the flour speaks of the withdrawal of the Holy Spirit's sustaining presence while our Lord was suffering on the Cross. He ceased keeping alive in divine life the human spirit of our Lord. That human spirit, sinless though it was and continued to be, was dead in that the life-giving power of the Holy Spirit ceased to energize it….But when He [supposedly] prayed that He might be raised from the dead, the Holy Spirit…returned to make alive again His human spirit…Sin had been paid for. The atonement was looked upon as complete.[24]
So there you have it. Christ died to sin in His flesh because of sin, but quickened, or made alive (zoopoieo), in His human spirit. And “in Christ” our bodies too have become dead to sin because of sin, while our spirits have become imbued with life (zoe). The antithesis or flip side to our body becoming dead due to sin is our spirit becoming life due to righteousness. This is the natural reading of the text. It is not the “Spirit” becoming life due to righteousness. The Holy Spirit has always been life due to the fact that He has always been righteous. No, it is our bodies that have become dead to sin, through sin; and it is our spirits that have been given life to live holy lives through the righteousness of God.
When God sees us (our spirit), He sees the life of Christ. He no longer sees a man after the flesh, but a man after the spirit (and, yes, that’s a little “s”). As John says, “that which is born of the Spirit, is spirit” (Jhn. 3:6); or even, “gives birth to spiritual life” as the New Living Translation denotes. Like produces like; kind produces kind. Our spirit is life as He is life. And so, in a sense, we are both one and the same. And regardless of whether “life” in Rom. 8:10 is a noun, and “alive” in 1Pet. 3:18 is a verb, they are both describing the same thing but from different aspects or angles. A. T. Robertson took note of these Greek variances in his Word Pictures, but he wasn't the least bit concerned about them in order to make him decide in favor of “spirit” rather than “Spirit.” And neither was Vincent, Wuest, or The Expositor's Greek NT. If anyone is to be taken back by these differences, it should have been them. The “life” that Christ has and gives us is the same which re-animated both Him and us. In Rom. 8:10, it is to be noted as the principle of life or the sustaining life; in 1Pet. 3:18, the begetting life. Like Wuest said, Christ wasn't energized or kept alive, He was re-animated unto life and union by the Holy Spirit of life. Albert Barnes concurs with Wuest:
This [the Greek word zoopoieo] does not mean “kept alive,” but “made alive; recalled to life; reanimated.” The word is never used in the sense of maintained alive, or preserved alive….The sense, then, cannot be that, in reference to his soul or spirit, he was preserved alive when his body died, but that there was some agency or power restoring him to life, or reanimating him after he was dead.[28]Now the most common interpretation of "the body is dead because of sin" is that which understands it as the original sin in Adam that still causes our physical bodies to die someday. But Adam Clarke puts forth another idea that could possibly be expressed here,
If Christ dwell in your hearts by faith, the body is dead because of sin, δια aμαρτιαν, in reference to sin; the members of your body no more perform the work of sin than the body of a dead man does the functions of natural life.[29]I think Adam Clarke is on to something here as to ascertaining what the true interpretation of this passage is all about. And right from the start I would like to say that as noble of an attempt as it may be to think that this text refers to all of our bodies physically dying someday, this is not what Paul has in mind here at all. Like I said, what occurs here is the result of us being “in Christ,” or Christ dwelling in us, as the verse clearly notes, and should not be downplayed as some have done in order to refer it only to what Christ has now done to our spirits (or even by the Holy Spirit) and not also now with our bodies as well. And so if the two events that are occurring in verse 10 take place by the fact that Christ is “in us,” then it makes no sense at all to say that because Christ is now in us that we all physically die some time in the future. In fact, the Greek denotes that this isn’t a future event at all, but a present reality or experience of us being NOW in Christ. And it is also to be noted here that Paul cannot be talking about the sinful nature that dies either, as some erroneously contend, because, as I said earlier, nowhere in the NT is the Greek word soma for “body” here used to denote the sinful nature. And as I also said earlier, while it is repeatedly used with regards to (1) our physical bodies; (2) the physical body of Christ as represented in His Church here on the earth (cf. Eph. 5:30) and; (3) to our physical bodies which become changed into spiritual bodies (cf. 1Cor. 15:44), in every occurrence soma always has a reference to our physical tangible bodies. Therefore, Paul can only be talking here about how that in some sense by Christ now being “in us” and we “in Christ” that we too died to our flesh (or bodies) “through” sin’s death-knell on the cross.
Indeed, this is what Paul says Christ actually did in our stead as our substitute for our sins in Rom. 6:8-12 (see also previous verses 4-7). Just as Christ physically died in and to His flesh and His body became dead “through” the bearing of our own sins and transgressions—i.e. “became sin”—in His death we too in a sense in our flesh died to sin “through” that sin that He bore in our stead, in order that we may arise now in our fleshly mortal bodies to walk in newness of life.
And so Rom. 6:10 is basically saying the same thing that Rom. 8:10 says: “The death He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life He lives, He lives to God.” Verse 10 of Romans 8, after the manner of Rom. 6:10, is taking all of us back to the physical death that Christ died due to or “through” the sin; for “cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree.” We all died to and through sin on that tree. And He became a “curse” for us (or in our stead) in order to bring death to our body of sin, and in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us who no longer walk after the flesh (Rom. 8:4). It is as verse 3 also declares: “God, having sent His own Son, in the likeness of flesh of sin, and for sin, has condemned sin in the flesh” (Darby trans.). Could it be any more clearer for us than this?
With that said, “through” the sacrificial death of Christ's sin-laden soul, He died to our sin in His body. When Christ died to His flesh and the sin in His flesh, we too died to sin being able to have its sway over us in our bodies of flesh! And just as sin was no longer on Him after He died to it, sin is now no longer on us or privy to us; not only positionally, but practically as well. Our relationship to sin was once-and-for-all severed when we died to and through the sin with Christ. That is why Paul could say we are no longer slaves to sin in our bodies, and that sin shall no longer reign in our mortal bodies (cp. Rom. 6:11, 14, 17-18). Christ’s resurrection life (this Seed of life) now dwells in our bodies and takes precedence over them to live holy lives before Him!
It is also to be noted here that when Paul in Romans 8:11 concludes immediately after verse 10 that the Spirit “will also give life to your mortal bodies,” he is not talking about the physical resurrection on the last day as many have also understood of this part of the verse. As one can very well see, this immediate section of chapter eight is discussing our sanctification and not our future physical glorification at all. Paul refers to that idea a little bit later. But here, in Rom. 8:10-11 (and note this even in verses 12-13), Paul is reaffirming the very same thing he earlier spoke about in Rom. 6:11-12: “In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin [i.e., in your bodies] but alive unto God in Christ Jesus. Therefore, do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires.” So, Romans 8:10-11, in effect, mirrors or runs parallel to Romans 6:8-12. Just as Christ died to sin, through sin, our physical bodies are also dead to sin through the sin-bearing death to His body that He incurred for us, in order that He may “also give life” (v. 11) to our mortal bodies this side of heaven in juxtaposition to even our own human spirits having been imbued with “life” (Gk. zoe) as well back in verse 10. Our bodies died in Christ through sin; but just as our spirits are imbued with eternal life to live on because of Christ's righteousness, so also do our bodies no longer remain in a dead state prone to sin, but are as verse 11 declares, “also given life.”
To understand that Romans 8:10 teaches that we are dead through sin in the sense that Christ died through bearing our sins, makes all the more sense now. Especially when we understand that what is happening to us here is result of Christ being in us (or “in you”) as verse 10a notes. Like I said before, everyone physically dies here on earth whether they are in Christ, or not! So this cannot be what Paul is talking about here. Do you see that? Verse 10 is NOT describing a future physical death that we all someday incur in this life, but a death to sin in our bodies through the sin-bearing sacrifice of Christ. Again, it is something that is a result of Christ being “in you.” By Christ being in us (or us in Christ, it makes no difference for they are one and the same) our body of flesh “is” (or has "now") become dead through sin and to sin (not “is dying” or “will die” someday[30]).
And so regardless of whether or not one believes Romans 8:11b is talking about a future, physical, bodily resurrection; verse 10 unequivocally states that what has occurred for us here (as noted already) is a result of Christ being “in you”; which is, (1) the body of sin being dead through (or because of) the sin-laden body of Christ that was put to death, and; (2) our spirit having life through (or because of) righteousness. When Christ died through or for sin, we too died through and for sin; and our spirit is begotten of God with life through His righteousness. As MacArthur concludes on this verse, “the Spirit, who dwells in the believer, gives to that believer new life now and forever,”[31] not just later. And, I would concur, with the added caveat of verses 12-13 lending credence to this fact.
It should also be noted at this venture, that in addition to our bodies of sin having died and then also being given “life,” Paul also says in Ephesians that before our spirits were made alive with Christ, that they too were indeed “dead in sins and trespasses” (Eph. 2:1). But our old spirit-man (or sinful nature) died when Christ died on the cross, in order that our spirits too might be “made alive with Christ” (Eph. 2:5; Gk. suzoopoieo; see also Col. 2:13 for the same idea). What is said of Christ in 1Pet. 3:18 of His spirit being re-animated (zoopoieo) from a spiritual death unto life, is now also said of all of us here in Ephesians (as well as in Colossians) who are in union or, “with” Christ. Do you see that? As Christ spiritually became dead in his human nature and made alive, we too were once dead spiritually in our human nature and made alive "with Him." Now it makes sense how it can be said that Christ crucified our old man in Rom. 6:6. He completely became as us, that we might completely become as He is. In His entire human nature He died both spiritually and physically, that we might be made alive in our entire human nature both spiritually and physically. Oh, I hope you are seeing this brethren!
To summarize all of this, we received a two-fold death-knell on the cross when Christ died. One, to our old man and, two, to our fleshly bodies capacity to sin any longer. When Christ died a violent death to His body to sin and through sin, we too died in our bodies to sin through sin. And in His death He removed all of our sin, by imputing it unto Himself on the cross through His substitution and identification with us; even becoming as it were a sinner in our stead, to remove, bear-away and propitiate the wrath of God in order that Christ might impute His righteousness and regenerating Holy Spirit into us. Our “old man,” as well as our bodies, have received a two-fold death-blow to sin, while yet our fleshly bodies are still able to be tempted to succumb to every evil inclination and desire. But we are now told to, “not let sin reign in our mortal body so that you obey its [not our spirit’s] evil desires. Do not offer the parts of our body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves [your bodies] to God, as those who have been brought from death to life” (Eph. 2:12-13).
This is the teaching of the Bible everywhere with regards to the new creature in Christ. It is not about our regenerated spirit wanting to sin any longer, it is all about our unredeemed and corruptible fleshly bodies wanting us to satisfy its appetite for lusts of all kinds. Our flesh is the culprit, not our spirit. And it is just this that Paul repeatedly says in his epistles that we are to mortify—not our spirit but our fleshly bodies! For us it is all about the physical flesh! It is all about what our physical fleshly desires want. It is not about what our spirit is desiring. Our spirit desires that our flesh would just leave us alone! And one day this will truly come to pass completely. This “corruption” (our body) will one day put on absolute “incorruption” (1Cor. 15:53-55). Hallelujah! But meanwhile greater is He that is in us than he that is in the world! And this is the victory that overcomes the world, the flesh and the devil—even our faith!
All this begins to make more sense when we also read of Paul saying,
We have concluded this: that One has died for all, therefore all have died; and He died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for Him who for their sake died and was raised. From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh [i.e., in a natural, physical, carnal way before any of us were saved], we regard Him thus no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is from God [not of men], who through Christ reconciled us to himself…” (2Cor. 5:13-18, ESV).
As John Gill notes,
Some of them had seen him [Christ] in the flesh; others valued him on account of his being of the Jewish nation, and of his relation to them according to the flesh; and all of them had formerly entertained carnal apprehensions of him, and his kingdom, as though it would be a temporal one (Gill on 2 Corinthians).
All who are in Christ, Paul says, we are to no longer recognize as natural, carnal, fleshly people of the world, but as spiritual people—as “a new creation.” Because when we now look at one another we are looking at Christ, His body, the extension of His very nature and being.
When Paul told some of the Corinthians in 1Cor. 3:1-3 that he could not address them as spiritual, but as carnal, he did not mean that they were actually carnal, sold-as-a-slave-to-sin kind of carnal people as the unregenerate are. He was only saying that they were acting like such people, like the ones he just described in chapter two. It wasn’t that they were actually such people. The NIV captures this idea in verse 3b, “Are you not acting like mere men?” And the Bible in Basic English captures the entire essence of what Paul was truly saying here concerning these certain Corinthian believers: “And the teaching I gave you, my brothers, was such as I was able to give, not to those who have the Spirit, but to those who are still in the flesh, even to children in Christ. I gave you milk and not meat, because you were, then, unable to take it, and even now you are not able; because you are still in the flesh: for when there is envy and division among you, are you not still walking after the way of the flesh, even as natural men?” Paul had to talk to these Corinthians as though they had still belonged to the world, even though they were no longer of the world. Sound familiar?
John MacArthur notes here of verse three, “Paul is compelled to speak to the Corinthian believers much as if they were unbelievers.”[32] Charles Hodge likewise concurs, “Therefore the world means the wicked or the unrenewed; to be worldly, or to act after the manner of men, is wicked.”[33] John Gill also notes from verse one thereon, “not that they were in a carnal state, as unregenerate men are; but had carnal conceptions of things, were in carnal frames of soul, and walked in a carnal conversation with each other; though they were not in the flesh, in a state of nature, yet the flesh was in them…”[34] And Jamieson, Fausset and Brown also finally note of Paul saying, “but I was compelled to speak to you as I would to MEN OF FLESH. The oldest manuscripts read this for ‘carnal.’ The former (literally, ‘fleshy’) implies men wholly of flesh, or natural. Carnal, or fleshly, implies not they were wholly natural or unregenerate (1Co 2:14), but that they had much of a carnal tendency; for example their divisions. Paul had to speak to them as he would to men wholly natural…”[35]
In reality, Paul saw no saint any longer “after the carnal, fleshly nature,” because none of us are any longer of such a disposition. We are God’s “new creation” and “workmanship created in Christ Jesus to do good works…” (Eph. 2:10). We are all good trees that bring forth good fruit. We are no longer thorns and thistles (a descriptive term for the unregenerate throughout the OT). We’ve been miraculously changed from thorns and thistles to fruit-bearing trees! Now that’s what I call a transformation or “new nature.” If we do bear what is contrary to a good fruit-bearing tree, then we are told by Christ to not be deceived in thinking that such individuals are of Him. It is the good “nature” of a good fruit tree to bear good fruit. We can tell a good tree by its good fruit. It indicates to us what is going on inside the tree. Similarly, if the “root” is truly “holy, so are its branches,” says Paul (cf. Rom. 11:16). There is no such thing as a non fruit-bearing Christian who has supposedly made Christ the Lord of his life. Jesus said we are deceived if we think so (cp. Mat. 7:15-20). All such non-bearing fruit trees only give evidence to the fact that He is not really their Lord!
Now that we have seen a little bit of what Romans 6:6 has to say, let’s now observe its companion verses, first in Colossians and then later in Ephesians.
Click here for part three.
Footnotes:
[1] p. 195.
[2] Ibid., p. 203.
[3] New Testament Commentary on Colossians, p. 140.
[4] In the OT we find a group of verses where God speaks of the Gentiles and the Jews as having uncircumcised hearts; and where God commands the Jews to circumcise their hearts and ears (cf. Lev. 26:41; Deut. 10:16; Jer. 4:4; 6:10; 9:25-26 and Ezk. 44:7). In other words, they were to cast away all corrupt affections, selfish lusts, and inclinations of the flesh which hindered them from true devotion to God. In a few places they are told that they are “stiff-necked” and needed to “humble” themselves from their proud, hard, and arrogant hearts. The command to do this doesn’t presuppose their (or our) ability to do this. Only God can circumcise the heart. It is made “without hands,” without the help or intervention of man. Nevertheless, God still commands and requires people to obey Him whether they can or cannot. God is not responsible for one’s obedience to His commands, man is. The onus is on man. And in one particular passage of Scripture in the OT (Deut. 30:6), God promises to one day be the one who actually does the circumcising of the heart:
Burton Coffman in his Commentary on the Whole Bible online also notes here with regards to Jer. 4:4,
We are even told by Christ Himself that God’s Spirit was “with” His disciples, but never really “in” them as He is in us under our “new” covenant (cf. Jhn. 14:17). That this is the only answer that really seems to make sense out of all of this, there can be no denying. Otherwise, what do we have that is any different than what they had, other than no longer being required to keep all the laws of Moses with all of the temple sacrifices and ordinances? Whatever God did in and through the OT saints, He reserved something “better for us” (Heb. 11:40). Nowhere in the Bible do we ever hear of God actually doing any circumcising of hearts, except under the new covenant, which is really the only reason why it is “new.” God’s Law would one day be written on men’s hearts and obeyed before Him in an unprecedented way.
[5] Wuest’s Word Studies, Colossians, vol. 1, p. 205.
[6] Sometimes there is an interplay in Scripture with this word “flesh.” At times it can denote our old, fleshly, sinful nature as it seems to infer here by some (such as Wuest, Lightfoot, Alford and others) in this present verse (though I beg to differ); while at other times it can be referring to our physical bodies (cp. 1Tim. 3:16, et al), which seems more likely to me here in Colossians. In such passages as in Romans 7-8 and Gal. 5:16-25, it is clearly with a reference to our sinful nature (or old man), and the 1984 NIV translates many of these words with the phrase “sinful nature” to denote this. But even this translation in these particular passages is considered by some to be questionable. In all honesty, the NIV really takes more liberties than it should in translating many of its occurrences as “the sinful nature,” when it should just leave it as “flesh,” as most translations tend to leave it, and then let the readers decide for themselves how it is to be interpreted. Although, in the newer 2011 copyright version, it has everywhere been reverted back to “flesh” except for Rom. 7:18 and 25, with a footnote on verse 5 (“the realm of the flesh”) denoting it as “the sinful state of human beings...as a power in opposition to the Spirit.” In the final analysis though, it is the context and the analogy of Scripture that determines how it is to be understood. And in all honesty, if “flesh” in Rom. 7:5 is referring to “the sinful state of human beings” before they are saved, and as something that we have been released from in verse 6, then this “sinful nature” referred to in verses 18 and 25 cannot be the state of the new creature in Christ, but only a further elaboration of the condition of the person in verse 5 who was still under the law with the members of his body being incited to sin all the more through the law's forbiddance.
Some of the greatest difficulty and confusion has come from the meaning of this word “flesh” in many contexts. And this is where a lot of our misunderstanding comes from with regards to what is to be understood as our old “fleshly” sinful nature, as opposed to the sin that occurs just in our physical “fleshly” bodies. A simple perusal through the Strong’s concordance reveals that the same word in the Greek (sarx) is used to denote both ideas in various contexts. So we must be very careful in how we are to understand this word in its given context. It can make all the difference in the world of whether one regards themselves still in the old fleshly sinful nature, or just acting upon the bodily impulses and cravings of our physical fleshly bodies. John MacArthur and John Murray argued for the latter in Romans 7. But the fact that Paul said he continually (Gk. present tense) could not do that which he wanted to do in verses 15-19, tips the scales in favor of a person who was not under the control of the Holy Spirit at all. The Law against coveting “produced” in Paul, as Saul, all covetous desires (v. 8); something he said in Acts 20:33 to the Elders from Ephesus that he no longer as a believer did, and after having just written his epistle to the Romans while staying in Greece for three months in Acts 20:3.
[7] Ibid.
[8] The MacArthur NT Commentary, Romans 1-8, p. 325.
[9] Romans, p. 175.
[10] The New International Commentary on the NT; The Epistle to the Romans, vol. 1, pp. 220-221. On page 268, Murray also adds here with regards to the meaning of “body of sin,” as it relates to the “body of death” in Rom. 7:24: “‘Body’ in Paul’s usage, as was noted in 6:6, refers to the physical body and there is not evidence to support the view that it is used figuratively [of the immaterial spirit]. Hence we are constrained to think in this instance of the physical body.”
[11] Wuest’s Word Studies; Romans, p. 102.
[12] Expositor’s Bible Commentary on Colossians by Curtis Vaughan, vol. 11, p. 200.
[13] The Interpretation of St. Paul's Epistle to the Colossians, p. 104. Italics mine and words in brackets mine to identify the “genitive of material” that Lenski is denoting here.
[14] Epistles of Paul, vol. 4, p. 492.
[15] To this latter idea of Christ not going into hell I would have to disagree. For such an idea, one way or the other, surrounds itself primarily around the meaning of the Greek word pneuma in 1Pet. 3:18, and with it being translated either “spirit” or “Spirit.” Clearly, Christ's human spirit in the latter part of this verse is the antithesis of His human body (or flesh) in the former part of this verse, and not that of the Holy Spirit. And “flesh” (or sarx) here is not to be understood here in the ethical/moral sense, as some erroneously suppose, and as inclusive of that spiritual side of Christ's human nature or humanity, with the pneuma now as a referent to the Holy Spirit. Peter is talking about Christ's fleshly body and Christ's spirit and, in which, in His disembodied “spirit,” He is also said to have preached to the spirits in prison (or tartarus). The preposition and relative pronoun, “in which” in verse 19, which is in the neuter form, refers back to Christ's “spirit” which is also in the neuter form. Wuest concurs: “The word 'which' according to the rules of Greek grammar refers back to the word 'spirit'” (Word Studies, vol. 2, p. 96). And, again, not referring to the Holy Spirit but to Christ's human spirit. Otherwise, we come up with the convoluted idea of many that Christ preached to the spirits who were alive in their bodies in Noah's day, through the Holy Spirit inspired preaching of Noah, but who are now in Tartarus. In this scenario, Christ wasn't personally doing the preaching at all, the Holy Spirit was doing it through Noah in the days of Noah. And this is all said to discount that Christ went into hell. He suffered for us, but not to the extent that we would have to suffer. He experienced God's wrath, but not to the fullest extent that we would have to experience it if we were in the same shoes. What kind of a substitute is that? He died both spiritually and physically in our stead, that we might be made alive both spiritually and physically. He suffered under the pangs and judgment of death, just as sure as we would have had to suffer under the pangs and judgment of death. He became a total substitute, not just a partial one. He unequivocally and absolutely became us, that we might become as He is; that we might all become one.
[16] Reformed Dogmatics (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2006), vol. 3, p. 417. Emphasis min.
[17] Institutes of Elenctic Theology (Phillipsburg: Presbyterian and Reformed Pub., 1994), vol. 2, p. 353. Emphasis mine.
[18] Ibid, p. 354.
[19] Ibid. Emphasis mine.
[20] Ibid.
[21] Ibid.
[22] Systematic Theology (St. Louis: Presbyterian and Reformed Pub., 1878), lecture 45, pp. 546-547.
[23] Institutes of the Christian Religion (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1975), Book II, XVI, 12, p. 445. Emphasis mine.
[24] Word Studies in the Greek NT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1942), vol. 2, pp. 95, 96, 97. Emphasis and words in brackets mine.
[25] As William Mounce notes in his Basics of Biblical Greek: “It is common for grammars to break the dative into three sub-sections: dative proper; locative; instrumental” (p. 53). In 1Pet. 3:18 here, the dative is used in the locative sense of being “in” or “in the sphere of” where something has been done “in” Christ’s body and spirit. It is not denoting something done for Him or to Him (though no less true) but is something that is actually done in His body and in His spirit.
[26] The Expositor's Bible Commentary (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1981), vol. 12, p. 242. Emphasis mine and his.
[27] The Epistles General of Peter (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1867), p. 63.
[28] Barnes’ Notes on 1Peter, public domain online at Biblos.com.
[29] Adam Clarke’s Commentary on the Whole Bible online. Public domain.
[30] There is no verb tense here to describe a past, continual, or future death, but just an adjective that describes the condition of our body as having become dead, so most translations just correctly leave it translated as “is dead.” The body has presently become dead, in Christ, through our sins that were placed upon Him. By Christ being NOW “in us” makes it, by the very nature of the case, a present-tense reality.
[31] The MacArthur NT Commentary, Romans, p. 420.
[32] The MacArthur NT Commentary, 1Corinthians, pp. 70-71.
[33] The Geneva Series of Commentaries, I and II Corinthians, p. 50.
[34] Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible; online.
[35] A Commentary, Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; online.
When Paul told some of the Corinthians in 1Cor. 3:1-3 that he could not address them as spiritual, but as carnal, he did not mean that they were actually carnal, sold-as-a-slave-to-sin kind of carnal people as the unregenerate are. He was only saying that they were acting like such people, like the ones he just described in chapter two. It wasn’t that they were actually such people. The NIV captures this idea in verse 3b, “Are you not acting like mere men?” And the Bible in Basic English captures the entire essence of what Paul was truly saying here concerning these certain Corinthian believers: “And the teaching I gave you, my brothers, was such as I was able to give, not to those who have the Spirit, but to those who are still in the flesh, even to children in Christ. I gave you milk and not meat, because you were, then, unable to take it, and even now you are not able; because you are still in the flesh: for when there is envy and division among you, are you not still walking after the way of the flesh, even as natural men?” Paul had to talk to these Corinthians as though they had still belonged to the world, even though they were no longer of the world. Sound familiar?
John MacArthur notes here of verse three, “Paul is compelled to speak to the Corinthian believers much as if they were unbelievers.”[32] Charles Hodge likewise concurs, “Therefore the world means the wicked or the unrenewed; to be worldly, or to act after the manner of men, is wicked.”[33] John Gill also notes from verse one thereon, “not that they were in a carnal state, as unregenerate men are; but had carnal conceptions of things, were in carnal frames of soul, and walked in a carnal conversation with each other; though they were not in the flesh, in a state of nature, yet the flesh was in them…”[34] And Jamieson, Fausset and Brown also finally note of Paul saying, “but I was compelled to speak to you as I would to MEN OF FLESH. The oldest manuscripts read this for ‘carnal.’ The former (literally, ‘fleshy’) implies men wholly of flesh, or natural. Carnal, or fleshly, implies not they were wholly natural or unregenerate (1Co 2:14), but that they had much of a carnal tendency; for example their divisions. Paul had to speak to them as he would to men wholly natural…”[35]
In reality, Paul saw no saint any longer “after the carnal, fleshly nature,” because none of us are any longer of such a disposition. We are God’s “new creation” and “workmanship created in Christ Jesus to do good works…” (Eph. 2:10). We are all good trees that bring forth good fruit. We are no longer thorns and thistles (a descriptive term for the unregenerate throughout the OT). We’ve been miraculously changed from thorns and thistles to fruit-bearing trees! Now that’s what I call a transformation or “new nature.” If we do bear what is contrary to a good fruit-bearing tree, then we are told by Christ to not be deceived in thinking that such individuals are of Him. It is the good “nature” of a good fruit tree to bear good fruit. We can tell a good tree by its good fruit. It indicates to us what is going on inside the tree. Similarly, if the “root” is truly “holy, so are its branches,” says Paul (cf. Rom. 11:16). There is no such thing as a non fruit-bearing Christian who has supposedly made Christ the Lord of his life. Jesus said we are deceived if we think so (cp. Mat. 7:15-20). All such non-bearing fruit trees only give evidence to the fact that He is not really their Lord!
Now that we have seen a little bit of what Romans 6:6 has to say, let’s now observe its companion verses, first in Colossians and then later in Ephesians.
Click here for part three.
Footnotes:
[1] p. 195.
[2] Ibid., p. 203.
[3] New Testament Commentary on Colossians, p. 140.
[4] In the OT we find a group of verses where God speaks of the Gentiles and the Jews as having uncircumcised hearts; and where God commands the Jews to circumcise their hearts and ears (cf. Lev. 26:41; Deut. 10:16; Jer. 4:4; 6:10; 9:25-26 and Ezk. 44:7). In other words, they were to cast away all corrupt affections, selfish lusts, and inclinations of the flesh which hindered them from true devotion to God. In a few places they are told that they are “stiff-necked” and needed to “humble” themselves from their proud, hard, and arrogant hearts. The command to do this doesn’t presuppose their (or our) ability to do this. Only God can circumcise the heart. It is made “without hands,” without the help or intervention of man. Nevertheless, God still commands and requires people to obey Him whether they can or cannot. God is not responsible for one’s obedience to His commands, man is. The onus is on man. And in one particular passage of Scripture in the OT (Deut. 30:6), God promises to one day be the one who actually does the circumcising of the heart:
And the LORD your God will circumcise your heart, and the heart of your seed, to love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, that you may live (AKJV).Adam Clarke seems to speak for the rest of us when he writes with regards to this verse,
This promise remains yet to be fulfilled. Their heart, as a people, has never yet been circumcised; nor have the various promises in this chapter been ever yet fulfilled. There remaineth, therefore, a rest for this people of God. Now, as the law, properly speaking, made no provision for the circumcision of the heart, which implies the remission of sins, and purification of the soul from all unrighteousness; and as circumcision itself was only a sign of spiritual good, consequently the promise here refers to the days of the Messiah, and to this all the prophets and all the apostles give witness: “for circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter,” Rom. 2:29; and the genuine followers of God are “circumcised with the circumcision made without hands - by the circumcision of Christ,” Col. 2:11-12. Hence we see these promises cannot be fulfilled to the Jews but in their embracing the Gospel of Christ (Adam Clarke’s Commentary on the Bible, online).And as John Gill notes here, “what He [God] calls for, and exhorts unto, as being necessary (Deut. 10:16); He here promises to do; and indeed none but Himself can do it; for He only can come at the hearts of men, to take anything out of them, or put anything into them; it is He that opens the heart, softens, quickens, enlightens, and purifies it.” Elsewhere under Jer. 4:4, Gill again notes,
...though men are exhorted to do this themselves, yet elsewhere the Lord promises to do it for them, Deut. 30:6, and indeed it is purely his own work; or otherwise it could not be called, as it is, “circumcision without hands,” and “whose praise is not of man, but of God” (Col. 2:11), and the reason of this exhortation, as before, is to convince those Jews, who were circumcised in the flesh, and rested and gloried in that, that their hearts were not circumcised, and that there was a necessity of it, and they in danger for want of it (Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible, online).Here, in Jeremiah, God was requiring the natural Jew to remove from themselves all of their natural corruptions. As Matthew Poole notes here, they were exhorted to “take away that brawniness and obstinacy that…is upon your hearts.” Keil and Del. add: “If they then are called to circumcise themselves to the Lord, this must be meant spiritually, of the putting away of the spiritual impurity of the heart, i.e., of all that hinders the sanctifying of the heart.” And Adam Clarke similarly affirms that these Jews were exhorted to, “Put away every thing that has a tendency to grieve the Spirit of God,” and all this saying nothing of their inward capability of being able to do so.
Burton Coffman in his Commentary on the Whole Bible online also notes here with regards to Jer. 4:4,
Some have difficulty understanding the part that man must play in his own conversion, repentance, and regeneration. The passage before us declares that the men of Judah and Jerusalem were to “circumcise their hearts”; but Deut. 30:6 declares that, “The Lord thy God will circumcise thy heart!” Is this a contradiction? Certainly not. The simple fact is that man is both active and passive in regeneration. The text here (Jer. 4:4) stresses his activity, and the passage in Deuteronomy stresses his passivity. This is the way it is in the New Birth. The sinner must “Arise and be baptized and wash away his sins” (Acts 22:16); but the actual cleansing and the convert’s reception of the Holy Spirit are from above, the convert being passive in their reception.So the real question may still be asked, “Were the hearts of the Israelites ever actually circumcised with this circumcision of God?” This could be asked another way, “was the circumcision of Christ yet available to them back then?” Were the saints in the OT “in Christ” and not “in Adam” as we are now today? Or is it really as the author of Hebrews notes that such a “promise” of God’s Spirit through Christ (cf. 11:39) had not yet been afforded unto them? As Elliott and Binns note in the Westminster Commentaries series under Jeremiah 4:4, “Circumcision was the work of the Old Covenant, the New Covenant demanded something deeper; not the outward circumcision of the flesh but the inward circumcision of the heart. In this passage Jeremiah seems to anticipate the teaching of St Paul (Rom. ii. 28 f. and c.).”
We are even told by Christ Himself that God’s Spirit was “with” His disciples, but never really “in” them as He is in us under our “new” covenant (cf. Jhn. 14:17). That this is the only answer that really seems to make sense out of all of this, there can be no denying. Otherwise, what do we have that is any different than what they had, other than no longer being required to keep all the laws of Moses with all of the temple sacrifices and ordinances? Whatever God did in and through the OT saints, He reserved something “better for us” (Heb. 11:40). Nowhere in the Bible do we ever hear of God actually doing any circumcising of hearts, except under the new covenant, which is really the only reason why it is “new.” God’s Law would one day be written on men’s hearts and obeyed before Him in an unprecedented way.
[5] Wuest’s Word Studies, Colossians, vol. 1, p. 205.
[6] Sometimes there is an interplay in Scripture with this word “flesh.” At times it can denote our old, fleshly, sinful nature as it seems to infer here by some (such as Wuest, Lightfoot, Alford and others) in this present verse (though I beg to differ); while at other times it can be referring to our physical bodies (cp. 1Tim. 3:16, et al), which seems more likely to me here in Colossians. In such passages as in Romans 7-8 and Gal. 5:16-25, it is clearly with a reference to our sinful nature (or old man), and the 1984 NIV translates many of these words with the phrase “sinful nature” to denote this. But even this translation in these particular passages is considered by some to be questionable. In all honesty, the NIV really takes more liberties than it should in translating many of its occurrences as “the sinful nature,” when it should just leave it as “flesh,” as most translations tend to leave it, and then let the readers decide for themselves how it is to be interpreted. Although, in the newer 2011 copyright version, it has everywhere been reverted back to “flesh” except for Rom. 7:18 and 25, with a footnote on verse 5 (“the realm of the flesh”) denoting it as “the sinful state of human beings...as a power in opposition to the Spirit.” In the final analysis though, it is the context and the analogy of Scripture that determines how it is to be understood. And in all honesty, if “flesh” in Rom. 7:5 is referring to “the sinful state of human beings” before they are saved, and as something that we have been released from in verse 6, then this “sinful nature” referred to in verses 18 and 25 cannot be the state of the new creature in Christ, but only a further elaboration of the condition of the person in verse 5 who was still under the law with the members of his body being incited to sin all the more through the law's forbiddance.
Some of the greatest difficulty and confusion has come from the meaning of this word “flesh” in many contexts. And this is where a lot of our misunderstanding comes from with regards to what is to be understood as our old “fleshly” sinful nature, as opposed to the sin that occurs just in our physical “fleshly” bodies. A simple perusal through the Strong’s concordance reveals that the same word in the Greek (sarx) is used to denote both ideas in various contexts. So we must be very careful in how we are to understand this word in its given context. It can make all the difference in the world of whether one regards themselves still in the old fleshly sinful nature, or just acting upon the bodily impulses and cravings of our physical fleshly bodies. John MacArthur and John Murray argued for the latter in Romans 7. But the fact that Paul said he continually (Gk. present tense) could not do that which he wanted to do in verses 15-19, tips the scales in favor of a person who was not under the control of the Holy Spirit at all. The Law against coveting “produced” in Paul, as Saul, all covetous desires (v. 8); something he said in Acts 20:33 to the Elders from Ephesus that he no longer as a believer did, and after having just written his epistle to the Romans while staying in Greece for three months in Acts 20:3.
[7] Ibid.
[8] The MacArthur NT Commentary, Romans 1-8, p. 325.
[9] Romans, p. 175.
[10] The New International Commentary on the NT; The Epistle to the Romans, vol. 1, pp. 220-221. On page 268, Murray also adds here with regards to the meaning of “body of sin,” as it relates to the “body of death” in Rom. 7:24: “‘Body’ in Paul’s usage, as was noted in 6:6, refers to the physical body and there is not evidence to support the view that it is used figuratively [of the immaterial spirit]. Hence we are constrained to think in this instance of the physical body.”
[11] Wuest’s Word Studies; Romans, p. 102.
[12] Expositor’s Bible Commentary on Colossians by Curtis Vaughan, vol. 11, p. 200.
[13] The Interpretation of St. Paul's Epistle to the Colossians, p. 104. Italics mine and words in brackets mine to identify the “genitive of material” that Lenski is denoting here.
[14] Epistles of Paul, vol. 4, p. 492.
[15] To this latter idea of Christ not going into hell I would have to disagree. For such an idea, one way or the other, surrounds itself primarily around the meaning of the Greek word pneuma in 1Pet. 3:18, and with it being translated either “spirit” or “Spirit.” Clearly, Christ's human spirit in the latter part of this verse is the antithesis of His human body (or flesh) in the former part of this verse, and not that of the Holy Spirit. And “flesh” (or sarx) here is not to be understood here in the ethical/moral sense, as some erroneously suppose, and as inclusive of that spiritual side of Christ's human nature or humanity, with the pneuma now as a referent to the Holy Spirit. Peter is talking about Christ's fleshly body and Christ's spirit and, in which, in His disembodied “spirit,” He is also said to have preached to the spirits in prison (or tartarus). The preposition and relative pronoun, “in which” in verse 19, which is in the neuter form, refers back to Christ's “spirit” which is also in the neuter form. Wuest concurs: “The word 'which' according to the rules of Greek grammar refers back to the word 'spirit'” (Word Studies, vol. 2, p. 96). And, again, not referring to the Holy Spirit but to Christ's human spirit. Otherwise, we come up with the convoluted idea of many that Christ preached to the spirits who were alive in their bodies in Noah's day, through the Holy Spirit inspired preaching of Noah, but who are now in Tartarus. In this scenario, Christ wasn't personally doing the preaching at all, the Holy Spirit was doing it through Noah in the days of Noah. And this is all said to discount that Christ went into hell. He suffered for us, but not to the extent that we would have to suffer. He experienced God's wrath, but not to the fullest extent that we would have to experience it if we were in the same shoes. What kind of a substitute is that? He died both spiritually and physically in our stead, that we might be made alive both spiritually and physically. He suffered under the pangs and judgment of death, just as sure as we would have had to suffer under the pangs and judgment of death. He became a total substitute, not just a partial one. He unequivocally and absolutely became us, that we might become as He is; that we might all become one.
[16] Reformed Dogmatics (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2006), vol. 3, p. 417. Emphasis min.
[17] Institutes of Elenctic Theology (Phillipsburg: Presbyterian and Reformed Pub., 1994), vol. 2, p. 353. Emphasis mine.
[18] Ibid, p. 354.
[19] Ibid. Emphasis mine.
[20] Ibid.
[21] Ibid.
[22] Systematic Theology (St. Louis: Presbyterian and Reformed Pub., 1878), lecture 45, pp. 546-547.
[23] Institutes of the Christian Religion (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1975), Book II, XVI, 12, p. 445. Emphasis mine.
[24] Word Studies in the Greek NT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1942), vol. 2, pp. 95, 96, 97. Emphasis and words in brackets mine.
[25] As William Mounce notes in his Basics of Biblical Greek: “It is common for grammars to break the dative into three sub-sections: dative proper; locative; instrumental” (p. 53). In 1Pet. 3:18 here, the dative is used in the locative sense of being “in” or “in the sphere of” where something has been done “in” Christ’s body and spirit. It is not denoting something done for Him or to Him (though no less true) but is something that is actually done in His body and in His spirit.
[26] The Expositor's Bible Commentary (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1981), vol. 12, p. 242. Emphasis mine and his.
[27] The Epistles General of Peter (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1867), p. 63.
[28] Barnes’ Notes on 1Peter, public domain online at Biblos.com.
[29] Adam Clarke’s Commentary on the Whole Bible online. Public domain.
[30] There is no verb tense here to describe a past, continual, or future death, but just an adjective that describes the condition of our body as having become dead, so most translations just correctly leave it translated as “is dead.” The body has presently become dead, in Christ, through our sins that were placed upon Him. By Christ being NOW “in us” makes it, by the very nature of the case, a present-tense reality.
[31] The MacArthur NT Commentary, Romans, p. 420.
[32] The MacArthur NT Commentary, 1Corinthians, pp. 70-71.
[33] The Geneva Series of Commentaries, I and II Corinthians, p. 50.
[34] Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible; online.
[35] A Commentary, Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; online.
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