What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?
In the opening remarks on the foregoing chapter it was stated that the second great Head of the apostle's subject, the Fruits of Justification in Privilege and in Life, extended over three chapters-the sixth, seventh, and eighth. In the first eleven verses of the preceding chapter the Privileges of the Justified are handled, the remaining verses being a digression. The new Life of the believer falls now to be opened up. To this fruitful topic the apostle devotes two whole chapters; in the present chapter treating of the Union of believers to Christ as the source of the new life, and in the following one continuing this subject, but following it up with some profound considerations on the great principles of sin and holiness in fallen men, both under law and under grace.
The General Bearing of Gratuitous Justification on a Holy Life (Romans 6:1-2)
What shall we say then? This, it will be observed, is a marked characteristic of our apostle's style in this Epistle-to mark sudden transitions to a new branch of his subject, as a mode of putting and answering questions, or a way of calling attention to some important statement (cf. Romans 3:5; Romans 4:1; Romans 7:7; Romans 8:31; Romans 9:14; Romans 9:30).
Shall we continue in sin, х epimenoumen (G1961)]. But this reading, in the future tense, has hardly any support [and has been occasioned, no doubt, as Fritzsche and Meyer suggest, by the immediately preceding future, eroumen (G2046) ... epimenoumen (G1961)]. The only well-supported reading is in the subjunctive mood х epimenoomen (G1961)] - 'May we,' or, more idiomatically, 'Are we to continue in sin?' (On this deliberative subjunctive, as grammarians call it, see Kuhner, 259, 1. b.)
That grace may abound? - acting on the detestable principle, 'The more sin, the more scope for grace to pardon it.' This objection, with the very phraseology in which it is couched, was plainly suggested by the closing verses of the foregoing chapter, about 'grace superabounding over the abundance of sin.' It is thus indisputable that the doctrine which the apostle has been all along teaching and elaborately proving in this Epistle is that of a purely gratuitous justification. For had his doctrine been that salvation depends in any degree upon our good works, no such objection to it could have been raised; whereas against the doctrine of a purely gratuitous justification the objection is plausible, nor has there ever been an age in which it has not been urged. That it was brought against the apostles, we know from Romans 3:8; and we gather from Galatians 5:13; 1 Peter 2:16, and Jude 1:4, that some did give occasion to the charge; but that it was a total perversion of the doctrine of Grace the apostle here proceeds to show.