Romans 6:8-10

“ Now, if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him:knowing that Christ after being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over Him. For the death that He died, He died unto sin once for all: and the life that He liveth, He liveth unto God. ”

The δέ, now, marks the progress to be made from participation in Christ's death to communion in His life. This gradation corresponds exactly with the force of the well then also, ἀλλὰ καί, Romans 6:5. As, indeed, Romans 6:6-7 were the didactic paraphrase of 5a, so Romans 6:8-10 are that of 5b. Participation in death is mentioned as a past event, included in the fact of faith (we are dead with Him; comp. 5a), while participation in the life is described as an event to come: we shall also live with Him. The first, indeed, is to every true believer an object of experience; it is not yet so with the second. At the time of baptism, the view-point of the apostle (Romans 6:3-4), the new life is yet an object of hope and faith. Hence, in relation to the former, the term γινώσκοντες, knowing, Romans 6:6, and in relation to the latter, πιστεύομεν, we believe, Romans 6:8. The baptized one stands between the death which he experienced on believing, and the life which he awaits with certainty as a gift from Him who is not only dead, but risen again.

To live with Christ, συζῇν αὐτῷ, is to share His life as one risen and glorified. Jesus, from the depths of His heavenly state, communicates Himself to the man who has appropriated His death by faith, and thus fills up with His holy life the void formed in us by the renunciation of our own life. This is our Pentecost, the aualogue of His resurrection.