ACC ~ Romans 6 v6

AMENDMENT OF LIFE. TERTULLIAN: This refers not to our body structure but to our moral behavior. … It is not our bodily frame which has been transformed, nor has our flesh endured the cross of Christ. The sinful body is destroyed by amendment of life, not by the destruction of our fleshly substance. ON RESURRECTION OF THE FLESH 47.

THE BODY OF SIN DESTROYED. ORIGEN: I think it should be noticed that when the apostle says something must be destroyed he calls it the body of sin, but when he does not use this expression he refers not to the body of sin but to our own selves, who ought not to be serving sin. He does this to show that if the body of sin were to be destroyed we would not now be serving sin, which however we serve as long as our body is not destroyed and our members on earth are not put to death. . . .

The “sinful body” is our body, for it is written that Adam did not know his wife Eve, nor did he father Cain, until after he had sinned. In the law it is commanded that sacrifices of a pair of turtledoves or two pigeons shall be offered for a newborn child. One of these is a sin offering and the other is a burnt offering. For what sin is this first pigeon offered? How can a newborn child have sinned already? And yet the child has sin, for which the sacrifice is commanded to be offered. … For the same reason the church has received a tradition from the apostles to baptize even in-fants. For they, to whom the secrets of the divine mysteries had been committed, knew that there are real stains of sin in everyone which must be cleansed by water and the Spirit. It is because of these stains that the body is called a sinful body and not because of sins which the soul in that body may have committed in a previous life, as some who believe in reincarnation like to think. COMMENTARY ON THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS.

BASIL: By these words we are taught that he who is baptized in Christ is baptized in his death and is not only buried with Christ and planted together with him but is first of all crucified with him. Thus we are instructed that, as he who is crucified is separated from the living, so also he who has been crucified with Christ in the likeness of his death is completely set apart from those who live according to the old man. CONCERNING BAPTISM 1.2.

OUR OLD SELF CRUCIFIED. AMBROSIASTER: Paul underlines and repeats a good deal in order to teach the baptized that they must not sin and above all that they must not return to idolatry, which is a very serious crime and the root of all errors, lest they lose the grace which they have received through Christ. He calls our former behavior “our old self” because, just as the man who has a pure life through Christ and faith in him is said to be new, so the same man is said to be old through unbelief and evil deeds. Paul says that these deeds have been crucified, which means that they are dead, that the body of sin (i.e., all our misdeeds) has been destroyed. Paul calls all our sins a body, which he says has been destroyed by a good life and by orthodox belief. COMMENTARY ON PAUL’S EPISTLES.

CHRYSOSTOM: Paul does not say that we have been crucified but that we have been crucified “with him,” thus linking baptism with the cross. … You are dead not in the sense that you have been obliterated but in the sense that now you can live without sin. HOMILIES ON ROMANS 11.

CHRYSOSTOM: Get for yourself none of the things that are on earth, and do not be active in the affairs of the present life. For your life is hidden now and unseen by those who do not believe, but the time will come when it will be seen. But now is not your time. Since you have died once for all, refuse to mind the things that are on earth. The greatness of your virtue is seen especially when you have prevailed over the arrogance of the flesh and act toward the good things of the world just as if you were dead to this life. BAPTISMAL INSTRUCTIONS 7.22.

NO LONGER SLAVES OF SIN. AMBROSE: Until this price was paid for all men by the shedding of the Lord’s blood for the forgiveness of all, blood was required of each man who by the law and the customary rite was following the holy precepts of religion. Since the price has been paid for all after Christ the Lord suffered, there is no longer need for the blood of each individual to be shed by circumcision, for in the blood of Christ the circumcision of all has been solemnized, and in his cross we have all been crucified with him and buried together in his tomb and planted together in the likeness of his death that we may no longer be slaves of sin. LETTER 16.

HE BORE OUR SIN. AUGUSTINE: This refers to Deuteronomy [21:23]: “Cursed be every man hanged from a tree.” For as the crucifixion of the old man is symbolized in the cross of the Lord, so the rebirth of the new man is signified in the resurrection. It is clear that according to Paul we are in the place of the old man who is accursed. No one doubts that it was because of him that the Lord was called “sin,” because “he bore our sins”and “he was made sin for us,” and “by sin he condemned sin.” AUGUSTINE ON ROMANS 32-34.”

THE POWER TO RESTRAIN SIN. PELAGIUS: Through baptism you who have been made a member of Christ’s body were crucified with Christ.He hangs his innocent body so that you may have the power to restrain your guilty body from sin. Similarly, Moses lifted up the bronze serpent in the wilderness so that every form of wickedness might be torn down, because each vice is a member of the body of sin. Christ was not crucified in part but in whole. Or perhaps we should read this as meaning that our body should be torn away from slavery to sin and that what used to be the property of transgression should now become the property of righteousness, for “everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin.” PELAGIUS’S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS.

THE OLD MAN. CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA: Perhaps some people will think that “the body of sin” is meant to refer to our earthly flesh, which has been joined to the soul as a kind of punishment, in that the soul sinned before bodies were created. Some people think and talk like this, but as it is a pagan idea we must reject it as being incompatible with the truth. Therefore, Paul says that our earthly body is the body of sin and our old man, because it has inherited the necessity of corruption from the old Adam. … Moreover, because of its weakness it has contracted a love for wickedness, and thus sin appears in the flesh as a congenital defect.

We were crucified with Christ at the moment when his flesh was crucified, because it somehow included universal human nature in itself, just as universal human nature contracted the sickness of the curse in Adam at the same time that he incurred the curse. EXPLANATION OF THE LETTER TO THE ROMANS.

THEODORET OF CYR: The “old man” does not refer to our nature but to our evil mind. It is this which has been put to death in baptism, so that the body would not continue to serve sin. INTERPRETATION OF THE LETTER TO THE ROMANS.

GENNADIUS OF CONSTANTINOPLE: “Our old self” refers to our perishable and passible bodies. PAULINE COMMENTARY FROM THE GREEK CHURCH.

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