Romans 6:7 - What Does It Really Mean?

by Honesty 16 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  ISP

  I think the correct interpretation of it is.......... that he who has died is dead.

  ISP
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  Leolaia

  M.J....Yes that is a very good point, and is equally valid for Christians in the first century, for ch. 6 clearly assumes that baptism in Christ also releases the person from slavery to sin (as the "old self" dies in Christ, and is thus released from its debts to sin). Paul argues that by becoming a Christian, a person now has God as his slave-holder, not sin. Since Christ's death has made this possible, the idea that Christ only paid off Adam's sin conflicts with the Pauline concept. For Paul, anyone who accepts Christ and dies with him (crucifying their "old self") is automatically released from sin's bondage. That does not mean that they cannot sin. It means that they no longer receive "death" as their payment for being sin's slave. This makes it possible for Christians to pass immediately to a transformation into a new body with Christ, without having to die, should Christ return in one's lifetime. If death should occur, Christians would die without being sin's slave and thus die justified from sin and with the gift of eternal life. Those who die while still a slave to sin would be released from sin's bondage but still responsible for their actions. And those who die who continued to wilfully sin after baptism also would have "give an account of himself" for everybody "will have to stand before the judgment seat of God" (Romans 14:10).
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  Honesty

  Leolaia, you should have been a pastor of education in the WTBTS. They wouldn't have screwed up so many of their doctrines. Oh yeah, they don't have pastors or any significant education, either.
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  Terry

  Leolaia, you should have been a pastor of education in the WTBTS. They wouldn't have screwed up so many of their doctrines. Oh yeah, they don't have pastors or any significant education, either.

  I BEG OF YOU please increase the size of your font!!

  I cannot read it without pasting it in Word.

  PLEASE enlarge it or I'll have a permanent headache.

  Thank you.

  Terry
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  M.J.

  One thing I've learned from these kind of threads thanks to Leo and others is to be very skeptical about a string of "proof texts". I'll bet that if someone collected random sentences from various issues of the Watchtower Magazine, they could probably "prove" that the WTS advocates allowing gay leprechauns to marry during military enlistment.

  Understanding where the author is coming from and what he's trying to say using all available historical insight is clearly the way to go!
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  Riley

  What paul is saying is when a person dies, they sin now more. They can’t sell crack or make porn movies or whatever because they are dead. That is kind of the whole idea of being free from sin, the new person in christ, the death of the old man.

  The NWT changes set free from sin to aquitted from sin which changes the context of the verse. It is just just watchtower dishonestly and also leads to suicides.

  This subject is one of major grievances with the borg and which i saw the changes and more importantly context , i was just pissed. Still am.
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  peacefulpete

  that our old man was crucified with [him], that the body of the sin may be made powerless, for our no longer serving the sin;
  7 for he who hath died hath been set free from the sin.
  we who died to the sin -- how shall we still live in it?

  4 for sin over you shall not have mastery.

  3 are ye ignorant that we, as many as were baptized to Christ Jesus, to his death were baptized?
  4 we were buried together, then, with him through the baptism to the death,
  17 and thanks to God, that ye were servants of the sin, and -- were obedient from the heart to the form of teaching to which ye were delivered up;
  18 and having been freed from the sin, ye became servants to the righteousness.

  The writer of Romans 6 (likely Paul), is here using the fact that a literal slave was "freed" by means of death, to argue that since a Christian baptism was (in part) a death and burial, they were freed from the mastery of Sin.

  This is clear by the expression that as Christians they were already 'set free from Sin' at their baptism.

  As was discussed on another thread, this passage is being misunderstood by the WT. This led to the similarly erroneous conclusion that the resurrected dead are not judged by what they did in their previous life.