From Covenant Declaration to Confessional Practice by J.E. Rose

Romans 6

What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? ² May it never be! We who died to sin, how could we live in it any longer? ³ Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? ⁴ We were buried therefore with him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life (Romans 6:1-4)

I first memorized Romans 6 when I was a teenage boy struggling with “youthful lusts” and was desperate for spiritual help. Though I had grown up in the church no one ever explained the power of biblical meditation in temptation and, though the success was not immediate, God used this passage to give freedom I never imagined possible. 

It’s been a long time since I studied the details of this passage. And, as I go through new struggles–particularly paralyzing fears and anxieties about various medical issues in my life–I am once again struck with the promises of God and also reminded of the gap  between the promise and the practice. I’ve learned so much about God’s faithfulness to his promises. I’ve deepened in my theological frameworks. I am hoping this article can put some finer points on the old standby passage particularly in the larger covenant theology I’ve embraced. 

In the broader argument of Romans, the promise of freedom from sin comes after the dire description of the consequences of sin. Particularly in Romans 5 he contrasts the death of sin in Adam to the life of freedom in Christ. This discussion makes the most sense in its covenantal context–the two “Adams.” So, when Paul begins Romans 6 with,. “What shall we say then…” it’s the practical application of what he has been saying. The promises of Romans 6-8 make the most sense and have the most practical application seen in the covenant context. 

This is all well and good, but as I’ve found in my current struggles, just having good theology does not insure momentary freedom from sin. I want to explore that in this article. My title brings the two perspectives together hopefully in some useful process.

If Romans 1-5 lays the covenant foundation for freedom, Romans 6 provides strategy to apply it. But how? Let’s think of the covenant foundation as the “legal” ground. Theologians sometimes call these “positional truths” in contrast to “practical.” That may not be the most theologically precise distinction but it gets to my point. Another imprecise contrast is to view the positional, covenantal truth as God’s declaration in the gospel. However, that declaration does not, in itself, free us from the practice of sin. The outworking of his declaration is what I mean by “confessional practice.” 

Confession is such a big deal in scripture, particularly Paul. “If you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord and believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead you will be saved” (Romans 10:9,10). Confession is not some work that we perform to merit God’s favor, however it is something we must do. I think this is what Paul has in mind in Romans 6. Admittedly, he doesn’t use the term “confession” (HOMOLOGEO). However, it is important to see that he uses another term that has similar practical significance, 

Thus consider yourselves also to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord (6:11).

The word “consider” (reckon) is LOGIZOMAI. It was a business and accounting term that figured highly in Paul’s theology because it explained how theology is worked out in daily life: like two sides of a ledger: “positional truths” declared by God in his covenant get carried over into “practical truths” on the other side of the ledger through “LOGIZOMAI”. 

I have known this for a long time but never studied LOGIZOMAI before.  I had never considered (no pun intended) the etymological connection between it and the Greek word “LOGOS”, not to mention the related term HOMOLOGEO.” I think this is where confession and “consideration” are linked to covenant declaration. 

When think about the word LOGOS I usually do so in verbal terms. After all, “in the beginning was the word (LOGOS)...” (John 1:1). But LOGOS isn’t just a few letters on a page. It describes data. In fact, that word comes from LEG which means to gather–like gathering stones. So, LOGOS is gathered information with a verbal, propositional form. From what I’ve been learning, LOGIZOMAI describes the “gathering” process. So, here is how the terms relate: 

 [ LOGOS ]             --> The objective account, truth, or reality.

     |

     v

  [ LOGIZOMAI ]         --> The internal “gathering’ or reckoning, weighing the facts and 

                             entering them into your mental ledger.

     |

     v

  [ HOMOLOGEŌ ]         --> The external declaration; speaking the "same word" 

                             out loud in agreement with that reality.

I believe this is how we move from covenant declaration to daily freedom. It is the very action of “confessing” that activates the process. In the ancient Greco-Roman world, homologeoˉ was a legal term used for making a binding contract, entering a formal plea in court, or making a public treaty. You couldn't make a contract or enter a legal plea just in your head; it required an overt, binding sign or spoken word.

This has important significance for my article. Just as confession, as verbal alignment, is the outworking of reckoning, so the absence of confession suggests that the reckoning gets stalled. 

For me, this means when I am not experiencing the power of God’s Romans promises it’s because I am not confessing them like I must. I can definitely see how this happens in me. When the temptation persists (and that’s spiritual warfare which is a huge part of the problem) the LOGOS gets hidden in the fog of war. The thicker the fog, the more I fail to LOGIZOMAI it. And the less I LOGIZOAMI the less I HOMOLOGEO. 

The spiritual warfare component of all this strikes me, especially because of my own experience. I wonder if a verbal declaration (confession outloud) is not just for ourselves and our neighbors but for the powers of darkness–maybe even the angels of light? Many spiritual warfare experts would say that demons cannot read our minds. While they are no doubt expert at observing us and reading the signs of what is going on in our minds, they cannot actually read them. Here is a powerful reminder about verbal confession and why it isn’t enough to do the mental reckoning. Maybe when I’m under particular assault it means I need to pray out loud.

The Baptismal Confession

A powerful historical demonstration of all this is in the early church liturgy of baptism. Whether we talk about pedo or creedal baptism, around the second century, the liturgy included a “baptismal renunciation” of the works of the devil which was a verbal confession  before the church. Significantly, it included two confessions: renouncing the devil and embracing Christ. Could it be that the renunciation was not just witnessed by the faithful but by the unseen realm? Could this be yet another part of spiritual warfare neglected today? I also find it curious that in Romans 6 Paul specifically talks about baptism! 

What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? ² May it never be! We who died to sin, how could we live in it any longer? ³ Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? ⁴ We were buried therefore with him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life (Romans 6:1-4)