5.

New Humanity in Christ

5.1. New life in Christ (Romans 6:4; Galatians 2:19-20)

Karl Barth clarifies about Romans 6 saying that the man who is righteous before God through his
faith is the man who has been sanctified by God. The transition from the old age to the new takes
place when an individual undergoes conversion, and this is accomplished through the redemptive
work of Christ with the conscious experience of the believer. Therefore, he who is righteous by
means of his faith ‘walks in a new life’.1

The affirmation and expectation of salvation in chapter 5 imply that Christian life and conduct not
only include the fulfilling of obligations, but even demand it. The new life brought by Christ
involves a reshaping of people. Through baptism, they are identified with Christ’s death and
resurrection, and their very being or “self” is transformed. Paul portrays the new life that the
justified and reconciled individual delights in: a freedom from sin and self. Therefore, Paul’s
understanding of a newly justified person is one who is liberated from sin and self-centeredness.2

The key aspect is the eschatological claim that with Christ’s death an entire age has passed and a
new age has begun.3 It is the purpose of our burial with Christ that we might walk in newness of
life empowered by God’s Spirit which reflects the values of a new age.4 Paul continues his
argument in Gal 2:19-20, where he depicted Christian life as, “For through the law I died to the
law, that by might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but
Christ who lives in me. The very life that I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God
who loved me and gave himself over for me.” Paul articulated the standard of integrated Christian
life, one in which the ontological reality (I Am in Christ) needs to surface the psychological level
(I live in Christ). Since our sin have been buried, we ought to put to death the old self; and as we
have been raised with Christ, we ought to carry on with a new life with Him. Consequently, the
physical life that a justified individual lives must be lived out deliberately in faith.5

1
Karl Barth, A Shorter Commentary on Romans (London: SCM, 1959), 64.
2
Joseph A. Fitzmyer, Romans, A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, AB 33 (New York: Doubleday,
1993), 429.
3
James D.G. Dunn, Romans 1-8, WBC 38A (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1988), 313.
4
Douglas J. Moo, The Epistle to the Romans, NICNT (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1996), 366.
5
Fitzmyer, Romans: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, 430.
By alluding to burial here, Paul has communicated the reality of us having died with Christ. Here,
the newness of life alludes to the moral life and the quality of conduct that we are to uphold
thereafter. There is a transition from the prospect of death (burial) in baptism to the resurrection in
the moral sense. In the light of this, Paul brings the positive content of the new obedience.6

5.2. Neither Circumcision nor Uncircumcision (No discrimination of race and gender)
(Galatians 6:15)

The distinction between circumcised and uncircumcised has a place with the old age and there is
no further record. For Christians, they have vanished of the old aeon through union with Christ
crucifixion, and have been born into the new age where they encounter the power of the Holy
Spirit.7 For Paul, all that matters is a new creation. Every single outside articulation are to be
comprehended as culturally relevant but not spiritually necessitated, for all that truly matters is
that the Christian should be “a new creation” and that he or she express that new work of God in
ways reflective of being “in Christ” and coordinated by “the Spirit”. Therefore “all that matters”
for the Christian is the reality of being “a new creation”, with the newness of creation reflected
externally in culturally relevant lives of worship and service.8

Paul here rejects every material ground of boasting, regardless of whether it be the circumcision
of the Jew or the uncircumcision of the Gentile. The emphasis of the articulation is upon the radical
change of character implied in a new moral life.9 Paul concludes that it is absolutely irrelevant in
his context whether a man is circumcised or not, unlike the old order of the law where the
distinction between Jew and Gentile was of central significance. According to him, in this new
situation the issue of circumcision or of any other ancestral tradition loses all religious significance.
The new creation in its fullness has a place with the future, yet to those in Christ it is here and now
acknowledged through the Spirit.10

6
C.E.B Cranfield, Romans: A Shorter Commentary (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1985), 132-133.
7
John Bligh, Galatians: A discussion of St. Paul’s Epistle (London: St. Paul, 1970), 494-495.
8
Richard N. Longenecker, Galatians, WBC 41 (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1990), 296.
9
Ernest De Witt Burton, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians (New York: Charles
Scribner’s Sons, 1920), 355.
10
F.F. Bruce, The Epistle to the Galatians: A Commentary on the Greek Text, NIGTC (Eerdmans: The Paternoster,
1982), 273.
 BIBLIOGRAPHY

Barth, Karl. A Shorter Commentary on Romans. London: SCM, 1959.

Bligh, John. Galatians: A discussion of St. Paul’s Epistle. London: St. Paul, 1970.
Bruce, F.F. The Epistle to the Galatians: A Commentary on the Greek Text, New International
Greek Testament Commentary. Eerdmans: The Paternoster, 1982.
Burton, Ernest De Witt. A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians.
New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1920.
Cranfield, C.E.B. Romans: A Shorter Commentary. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1985.
Dunn, James D.G. Romans 1-8, Word Biblical Commentary, Vol.38A. Nashville: Thomas Nelson,
1988.
Fitzmyer, Joseph A. Romans: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, The Anchor
Bible, vol.33. New York: Doubleday, 1993.
Longenecker, Richard N. Galatians, Word Biblical Commentary, vol.41. Nashville: Thomas
Nelson, 1990.
Moo, Douglas J. The Epistle to the Romans, New International Commentary on the New
Testament. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1996.