Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.
Knowing this ... The apostle now grows more definite and vivid in expressing the sin-destroying efficacy of our union with the crucified Saviour.
That our old man is ('was') crucified with him. The important phrase, "our old man," is not (as Grotius, and such as he, conceive of it) 'our old manner of living' (vivendi ratio); that is rather the practical outcome of the thing intended: it is just 'our old selves' (morally and spiritually), that is to say, all that we were in our old unregenerate condition, before union with Christ (cf. Colossians 3:9-10; Ephesians 1:22-23; Galatians 2:20; Galatians 5:24; Galatians 6:14; also John 3:3; Titus 3:5; and see Beza and Meyer).
That ('in order that') the body of sin might be destroyed (in Christ's death) х katargeethee (G2673)] - or 'annulled,' or 'abolished;' that is, reduced virtually to the condition of death by crucifixion. This is a favourite word with our apostle, used only once by any other of the New Testament writers, and that his own companion Luke (Luke 13:7), but 25 times in the confessedly Pauline Epistles, besides once in Hebrews (Hebrews 2:14). [To the end]
That henceforth we should not serve sin, х tou (G3588) meeketi (G3371) douleuein (G1398)] - or 'be in bondage to sin.' It is of no small importance to fix the precise sense of "the body of sin" here х to (G3588) sooma (G4983) tees (G3588) hamartias (G266)]. A great many, critics take it figuratively, for 'the mass of sin.' (So Chrysostom and other fathers, Greek and Latin; Erasmus, Calvin, Grotius, Philippi, Hodge, etc.) But the marked allusions to the actual body which we find in nearly all the corresponding passages forbid our expounding it in this loose way.
Thus, a few verses below, "Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body," etc. (Romans 6:12); "Nether yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness," etc. (Romans 6:13); "As ye have yielded your members servants to uncleanness," etc. In Romans 7:23 "the law of sin" is said to be "in the members": and in Romans 8:13, "living after the flesh" is spoken of as doing "the deeds of the body." These passages put it, we think, beyond doubt that by "the body of sin," some connection of sin with our corporeal nature is intended. But neither must we go to the opposite extreme, of concluding that the body is here spoken of as the proper seat or principle of sin. Since DeWette correctly says, and Alford after him, this is not true, for the seat of sin, as such, does not lie in the body but in the will. Vaughan goes the length of explaining it of 'the material body, with its proneness to sensual and other evil;' and, much akin, Webster and Wilkinson, of 'the corrupt nature regarded in its physical acts and affections.' When all the passages in which such phraseology is used are weighed together, we think it will appear clearly that whatever may be the reason for the body being so expressly named, the whole principle of sin in our fallen nature is here meant-its most intellectual and spiritual, equally with its lower and more corporeal, features.
It only remains to inquire why this is called the body of sin. The more immediate occasion of it was undoubtedly (as Beza says) the mention of Christ's crucifixion and burial; and as the crucifixion and burial of our old man with him (the nailing of us, so to say, as the doomed children of Adam, to the accursed tree, and thereafter laying us in His grave) was to be emphatically put before the reader, nothing could be more natural than to represent this as bringing to an end "the body of sin." Taking it in this sense, the expression denotes (to use the words of Beza) 'man as he is born, in whom sin itself dwell;' or more comprehensively, 'sin as it dwells in us in our present embodied condition, under the law of the fall.' This sense will be seen to come out clearly in Romans 6:12, and in Romans 12:1.
Verse 7. For he that is dead is freed from sin, х ho (G3739) gar (G1063) apothanoon (G599) de (G1161) dikaiootai (G1344) apo (G575) tees (G3588) hamartias] - 'For he that hath died hath been set free from sin;' literally, 'hath been justified,' 'absolved,' 'acquitted,' 'got his discharge from sin.' As death dissolves all claims, so the whole claim of sin, not only to "reign unto death," but to keep its victims in sinful bondage, has been discharged once for all, by the believer's penal death in the death of Christ; so that he is no longer a "debtor to the flesh, to live after the flesh" (Romans 8:12).