[Sidenote: Ver. 1.] =What shall we say then? Shall we cling to (ἐπιμενοῦμεν, ἐπιμένωμεν) the sin that the grace may multiply,= the grace of the acceptance of the guilty? [Sidenote: Ver. 2.] =Away with the thought! We, the very men who[85] died to that (τῇ) sin,=--when our Representative, in whom we have believed, died for us to it, died to meet and break its claim--=how shall we any longer live,= have congenial being and action, =in it,= as in an air we like to breathe? It is a moral impossibility that the man _so_ freed from this thing's tyrannic claim to slay him should wish for anything else than severance from it in _all_ respects. Or [Sidenote: Ver. 3.] =do you not know that we all, when baptized[86] into Jesus Christ,= when the sacred water sealed to us our faith-received contact with Him and interest in Him, =were baptized into His Death,= baptized as coming into union with Him as, above all, the Crucified, the Atoning? Do you forget that your covenant-Head, of whose covenant of peace your baptism was the divine physical token, is nothing to you if not your Saviour _who died_, and who died because of this very sin with which your thought now parleys; died because only _so_ could He break its legal bond upon you, in order to break its moral bond? [Sidenote: Ver. 4.] =We were entombed therefore with Him by means of our (τοῦ) baptism,= as it symbolized and sealed the work of faith, into =His (τὸν) Death;= it certified our interest in that vicarious death, even to its climax in the grave which, as it were, swallowed up the Victim; =that just as Christ rose from the dead by means of the glory of the Father,= as that death issued for Him in a new and endless life, not by accident, but because the Character of God, the splendour (δόξα) of His love, truth, and power, secured the issue, =so we too should begin to walk (πετιπατήσωμεν) in newness of life,= should step forth in a power altogether new, in our union still with Him. All possible emphasis lies upon those words, "_newness of life_." They bring out what has been indicated already (v. 17, 18), the truth that the Lord has won us not only remission of a death-penalty, not only even an extension of existence under happier circumstances, and in a more grateful and hopeful spirit--but a new and wonderful life-power. The sinner has fled to the Crucified, that he may not die. He is now not only amnestied but accepted. He is not only accepted but incorporated into his Lord, as one with Him in interest. He is not only incorporated as to interest, but, because His Lord, being Crucified, is also Risen, he is incorporated into Him as Life. The Last Adam, like the First, transmits not only legal but vital effects to His member. In Christ the man has, in a sense as perfectly practical as it is inscrutable, new life, new power, as the Holy Ghost applies to his inmost being the presence and virtues of his Head. "In Him he lives, by Him he moves."