Romans 6:9

This faith, this firm expectation of the believer who is dead with Him, is not a vain imagination. It rests on a positive fact, the resurrection of Christ Himself: εἰδότες, knowing that. This participle justifies the we believe of Romans 6:8. We believe that our spiritual resurrection will come about, because we know that His resurrection has taken place, and that irrevocably. Now the latter gives us assurance of the former. But faithful to his original subject, the apostle, instead of developing the idea of the new life of Jesus, confines himself to expressing this consequence: that He dieth no more. It is easy to see the logical relation between this purely negative turn of expression, and the question put in Romans 6:2: “How shall we who are dead to sin live any longer therein?” There is no return backward for the risen Jesus; how should there be one for us, from the time that we share His life as the Risen One? No doubt, his death alone would not have rendered His return to an earthly life impossible; but His entrance upon a celestial life absolutely excludes such a retrograde step. Thus mere communion with His death would not suffice to furnish an unhesitating answer to the question of Romans 6:2, while participation in His new life settles it once and forever.

The last words of Romans 6:9 form an independent proposition. This break in the construction throws the idea more into relief. The time having passed when death was permitted to stretch its sceptre over him, He is freed from its power forever.