Being in Christ doesn’t just mean having new information, it means being a new creation.1 The transformation that takes place in the Christian life comes from this new identity. With respect to ethics, Furnish called this the relationship between the indicative and the imperative.2 These concepts, describing the new creation and the new ethic of the Christian life are connected, contained within each other. The imperative is a necessary part of the indicative. The Christian life moves forward with new identity and
1 2 Cor. 5:17; Gal.6:15.
2 See the “Character of the Pauline Ethic” in Furnish, Theology and Ethics in Paul, 207-241.
This conception of new creation and ethic finds a clear statement in Furnish’s work on ethics, but he attributes the idea to a continuation of Bultmann’s slogan, “Become what you are!”, 225. He rightfully nuances the argument against a simplistic logically sequential argument from indicative to imperative, but argues that they are nested within one another. This relationship between the indicative and the imperative has influenced other commentators, specifically on this passage. See Moo, Romans, 404.
new ethic together, “in Christ he knows that redemption is not just deliverance from the hostile powers to which he was formerly enslaved, but freedom for obedience to God.”3
The same thing can naturally be said for the intellectual virtues. They stem from the new identity found in Christ and are employed in living out that identity. In the same way that Christians can be free to obey God, as Furnish describes, they can now be free to practice the virtues of the Spirit. This necessary discipline is the way in which they will live out their calling, by discerning God’s voice and his will. In 6:11, Paul calls on the believers in Rome to consider themselves as new creations, dead to sin and alive to God. This is an essential piece of the new mindset available by the Spirit in Christ.
After discussing the problem of sin in 1:18-3:20 and the righteousness of God revealed in Jesus Christ in 3:21-26, Paul moves into a section on faith, both as it relates to justification and the Abrahamic promise (4:1-25), a restored relationship with God
through Christ (5:1-11) and union with him (5:12-21). Chapter 6 begins with a question;
“What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound?” In response, Paul argues that on the basis of the new reality of being in Christ and knowing that they have been crucified with Christ and raised with him, they should present themselves to God as instruments of righteousness.
Paul argues that those who are in Christ should present themselves to God because they know that they have been united with him in death and resurrection.4 At a minimum, those who are in Christ act upon a new set of beliefs (6:1-10). The content of these new beliefs is the main focus of the pericope, but Paul goes one step further in 6:11.
As a summary of vs. 2-10 and an answer to the question posed in vs. 1, Paul exhorts the Romans to “reckon themselves as dead to sin but alive to God in Christ
3 Furnish, Theology and Ethics in Paul, 226.
4 Keener points out the cognitive element in the language of 6:1-11, specifically in vs. 3, 6, and 9, where Paul uses the verbs ἀγνοέω (see Paul’s use of these verbs in 1 Corinthians and the various
translations. These passages will be discussed in a later chapter. For ἀγνοέω, 10:1; 12:1; 4:38), γινώσκω (1 Cor. 1:21; 2:8, 11, 14, 16), and οἶδα (1 Cor. 2:2, 11, 12; 3:16). The Mind of the Spirit, 44.
Jesus.” The imperative, λογίζεσθε, has two main senses in the New Testament.5 In Romans 4, Paul uses it eleven times to describe God “reckoning” or “accounting”
righteousness to Abraham through faith.6 In the rest of the letter, he uses it to refer to
“considering” or “regarding” events or information.7 He exhibits the same kind of
thinking in 3:28 and 8:18. In each case, λογίζοµαι refers to a thought process leading to an action or an outcome.
Because this word was often used in Stoic epistemology, it’s enlightening to compare what Paul is saying here to what was common in Stoic philosophy. Craig Keener argues that Paul’s use here is very similar to the way the Stoics argued that new and corrected beliefs could reconstitute a person’s identity, and in turn their epistemic virtues.8
The process of deliberation was integral to Stoic epistemology. The Stoics thought virtue was a matter of rationality, and so one of the ways they talked about the sage was through decision making, or assent. Unlike many of the other schools, the Stoics believed in infallible knowledge and that each person had the ability to know what is true and do what is virtuous.9 Most people, however, do not know infallibly even though they have the capacity; that is reserved for the Stoic sage.10
5 The form is ambiguous; it can be indicative or imperative. Jewett takes it as an indicative, but most take it to be imperative. Although it only makes a small difference in this reading, imperative seems more likely. Harvey, Romans, 154; Jewett, Romans, 408; Keener makes an insightful contextual point here,
“Scholars often find in Paul a tension between the indicative and the imperative; Paul summons them to be what he declares they are. This may be because for Paul identity is determined by being in Christ, but the believer must still choose to believe the eschatological reality sufficiently to live accordingly. Through faith one receives a new identity, and through faith one must also continue to embrace and live in that new identity, so that obedient works become expressions of living faith.” Keener, Romans, 82.
6 Romans 4:3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 22, 23, 24.
7 Romans 2:3, 26; 3:28; 6:11; 8:18, 36; 14:14. One other case in 9:8 more closely resembles the use in chapter 4, “to account.”
8 See the chapter on Romans 6:11 in Keener, The Mind of the Spirit, 54.
9 This doctrine goes all the way back to Zeno according to Cicero, Academica, 1.40-42.
10 Hankinson on the incomparable knowledge of the sage, “Stoic Sages never make mistakes.
Secure in their understanding of the providential structure of the world, which is identical with fate, which in turn is identical with the will of Zeus... Sages order their lives in accordance with it, assimilating their will to the will of Zeus, living in accordance with nature, and so achieving the smooth flow of life.”
Thoughts, sense perceptions, and other mental stimuli were called impressions,
“φαντασία.”11 Humans and animals both experience these impressions, animals through their senses and instincts, humans through their senses and their souls. Impressions can be of two kinds, cataleptic (καταληπτικός) or non-cataleptic, either accurately
representative of an object or not. Having apprehended (κατάληψις) the impression, a person can either assent to it or not. At that moment, they stand between knowledge and ignorance, having only received the impression. If it is a cataleptic impression and the Sage assents to it, this is called cognition or knowledge (ἐπιστήµη). If it is true and they do not assent, that is ignorance. If it is false and they assent, that is called an opinion. The wise person assents to the true impressions, the fool to the wrong impressions. Cicero records that Zeno used the analogy of a hand to explain Stoic epistemology:
And this Zeno used to demonstrate by gesture: for he would display his hand in front of one with the fingers stretched out and say ‘A visual appearance is like this’;
next he closed his fingers a little and said, ‘An act of assent is like this’; then he pressed his fingers closely together and made a fist, and said that that was
comprehension (and from this illustration he gave to that process the actual name of catalēpsis, which it had not had before); but then he used to apply his left hand to his right fist and squeeze it tightly and forcibly, and then say that such was
knowledge, which was within the power of nobody save the wise man—but who is a wise man or ever has been even they themselves do not usually say.12
The doxastic process had less to do with truth content of the impressions than with the virtue of the person.13 For example, people who were not virtuous – because for the Stoics virtue was often seen as all or nothing – could have cognitions, but they were considered weak cognitions. Unlike the way the term “proper function” is used in epistemology today, for the Stoics it referred to the perfect application of intellectual
Hankinson, “Stoic Epistemology,” 59.
11 For a concise summary of Stoic epistemology, see Hankinson, “Stoic Epistemology.”
12 Cicero, Academics, II. 145. Translated in Cicero, On the Nature of the Gods. Academics., trans. Harris Rackham, vol. 268, LCL (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1933), 654–55.
13 It’s debated whether or not the Stoics fit into a correspondence model of epistemology.
Hankinson argues that they do not; “Stoic Epistemology,” 78; Long and Sedley likely agree; The Hellenistic Philosophers, 2016, 2:258–59.
virtue.14 So, Long and Sedley summarize the process of cognitive improvement, “What perfects these latter is not a change in their objective content, but the expert
understanding, consistency and moral integrity of their agent.,” and, “what chiefly
inhibits people from becoming wise, in their view, is proneness to emotional disorder, and this is reflected in the startling identification of ignorance with insanity.”15
This brief summary shows that Paul does not share or acknowledge the finer points of Stoic epistemology, but it also illuminates what Paul is saying in this passage.
The role of consideration, or reckoning, that Paul describes here is part of adjusting to the new and true reality of being in Christ. Both Paul and the Stoics share a limited
commitment to a correspondence theory of truth and they each believe the knowledge of this correspondence changes after receiving a new mindset.16 The Stoics believed this could be taught by a sage and Paul believed that it could occur through the leading of the Holy Spirit. One can only know this true reality in Christ.
Considering and Growing
One of the ongoing tensions between Paul and the Greek philosophers is the way they conceive of moral progress. The Stoics have a doctrine of moral improvement (προκοπή), but few were able to progress from being a fool to being a sage. Paul disagrees with the Greeks and the Jews on this point of anthropology, grouping them together as unable to do what is good because of their desires. Unlike the Greeks, Paul does not believe weakness of will can be solved through education. Unlike the Jews, he does not believe that reading and studying Torah can change the will either. Paul is unique in
14 Cicero discusses the role of proper function among the virtuous and the fool in On Ends, 3.58-59.
15 This summary is based on Stobaeus’ quote from Chrysippus, “The man who progresses to the furthest point performs all proper functions without exception and omits none” and other sources. See Stobaeus, 5.906,18-907,5, p. 363, and the discussion of cognition, knowledge, and opinion, Long and Sedley, The Hellenistic Philosophers, 2016, 1:256–59.
16 The limit is more clearly defined in Christian epistemology. Moo comments, “The last phrase of the verse reminds us that this new state is possible only in union with Christ: we are alive to God only ‘in Christ Jesus.’” Moo, Romans, 404–5.
antiquity in asserting, “no one is righteous” in 3:10.17 It is the message he faithfully presents through Romans that can free humanity from the dominion of the passions. In 8:1, Paul puts a caveat on his good news, “for those who are in Christ Jesus.” He speaks similarly in other assurances, like 6:1-4 and 12:1-3, implying that freedom from the passions can only happen in Christ.
Paul asserts that every person who is in Christ should “consider” themselves based on this new reality. While he shares the conceptual framework that thinking is determined by the virtue of the thinker, to an extent, he is more concerned with the correspondence of the believers’ station, being in Christ, and the effect that has on their ability to think, than on learning to practice these virtues. In Paul, the disposition necessary to practice the intellectual virtues is given. Those who are in Christ begin to think of themselves as being alive in him. But they don’t do this by themselves. In Romans 8 and 12, Paul describes the animating force in the minds of those who are in Christ, the Holy Spirit.