Romans 6:3. Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into
Christ Jesus were baptized into His death?
Romans 6:4. Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into
death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father,
even so we also should walk in newness of life.
The Apostle explains how we died to sin—through baptism. We were
baptized into Christ’s death, therefore, we must also die, just as He died. For
what the Cross and tomb were for Christ, baptism is for us—albeit in a
different way. Christ died and rose again bodily; we die to sin and rise again
to virtue, so that, just as Christ was raised bodily from the dead “by the
glory of the Father”—that is, by His own Divinity (for the glory of the Father
is the Son)—so too are we raised by another kind of resurrection: a new manner
of life. Thus, when a fornicator becomes chaste, he presents in himself both death
and resurrection–the death of vice, and the resurrection and animation of
virtue within man.
Romans 6:5. For if we have been united together in the likeness of His
death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection,
Romans 6:6. knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him,
that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be
slaves of sin.
Romans 6:7. For he who has died has been freed from sin.
He does not say that we merely partook of the likeness of His death,
but that we were “united”—showing by the word the fruit of Christ’s death in
us. Christ’s body, buried in the earth, bore the fruit of salvation. Since we
are buried in water while Christ was buried in the earth—and we are buried for
sin, whereas He was buried in the flesh—he does not call it “death,” but the “likeness
of death.” Therefore, we shall also be partakers of the resurrection,
inheriting eternal life, having demonstrated our resurrection by good works.
“Our old man”—that is, our sinful disposition—“was crucified with Him,”
meaning, like Christ’s body, it was buried in baptism. “That the body of sin might
be done away with”—that is, the various forms of vice composing it, or our body
inclined toward sin. Hence he adds: “that we should no longer be slaves of sin.”
I desire, he says, that the body be dead—not in the sense of annihilated, but
of not sinning. “For he who has died has been freed from sin.” This refers to
the whole person. As the dead man is no longer in bondage to sin, but free from
it, so you, having died in baptism to sin, remain dead to it. (The New
Testament Commentaries of Theophylact of Ohrid, 3 vols. [trans. Dean
Marais; Based Book, 2025], 2:132-33)
[on Rom 9:8-9]
I am not giving you my own interpretation, he says, of who truly is
the seed of Abraham, it is the Old Testament that teaches this, saying: “In
Isaac your seed shall be called” (Genesis 21:12). Therefore, those born in the
manner of Isaac—that is, by promise—are truly the children of Abraham, and even
more so, children of God. For all took place by the word of God. Isaac was born
not by law or natural power, but by the power of the promise: “At this time I
will come, and Sarah shall have a son” (cf. Genesis 18:10).
Thus, Isaac was formed and born by the word of God. Likewise, we, the
children of God, are formed in the baptismal font—as in a womb—by the word of
God, which give us form. For when we are baptized by the name of the Father and
the Son and the Holy Spirit, we are born anew. Just as God then promised Isaac
birth and afterward fulfilled it, so too He promised our rebirth through the
prophets and has brought it to pass. Therefore, the phrase “In Isaac your seed
shall be called” should be understood in this way: the seed of Abraham are
those who are born after the manner of Isaac’s birth—that is, by the word of
God.
Thus, the word of God has indeed been fulfilled. But God granted the
promised gift to the true seed—that is, to believing Gentiles who become children
of God, like Isaac, because they to are of the promise. If the Jews argue that “In
Isaac our seed shall be called” means only those born of Isaac are counted as
Abraham’s seed, then one must include the Edomites and all his descendants,
since their forefather Esau was Isaac’s son. But the Edomites are not only
excluded from being called sons of Abraham—they are considered altogether alien
to Israel and are called foreigners. (Ibid., 2:147)
