This verse proves the legitimacy of the reference to a new life in the preceding one: union with Christ at one point (His death) is union with Him altogether (and therefore in His resurrecton). εἰ γὰρ σύμφυτοι γεγόναμεν τῷ ὁμοιώματι τοῦ θανάτου αὐτοῦ : it is simplest to take συμφ. and τῷ ὁμοιώματι together if we have become vitally one with the likeness of His death; i.e., if the baptism, which is a similitude of Christ's death, has had a reality answering to its obvious import, so that we have really died in it as Christ died, then we shall have a corresponding experience of resurrection, τῆς ἀναστάσεως is also dependent on ὁμοιώματι : baptism, inasmuch as one emerges from the water after being immersed, is a ὁμοίωμα of resurrection as well as of death. It does not seem a real question to ask whether the ἀνάστασις is ethical or transcendent: one cannot imagine Paul drawing the distinction here. (On the word ὁμοίωμα, see Cremer.)

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Old Testament