The passage opens with no condemnation (Rom. 5:16,18), and proceeds to

show the close association of the believer with the Saviour in His death and

resurrection.  So close is this association that the apostle said, 'Knowing

this, that our old man was crucified with Him' (Rom. 6:6), the state of being

'freed from sin' flowing directly from this.  While all that we have just

seen concerning the manumission of a slave is here, there is more.  This

manumission took place in a temple, but the reference in Romans 6 took place

in a court of law.  The word 'freed' here is dikaioo, one of a number of

words derived from the word 'righteous' and meaning 'justified'.  The word

occurs fifteen times in Romans, and with the one exception of Romans 6:7 it

is translated 'justify'.  For example: 'Being justified freely'; 'Therefore

being justified'; 'It is God that justifieth'.  And so the word is translated

in the R.V. of Romans 6:7.  Moffatt renders the passage:

'For once dead, a man is absolved from the claims of sin',

which gives both 'free' and 'justify' a place.

We must defer further notes until we come to Justification, but we must

pause to observe that the freedom or liberty enjoyed by the believer is not

because he has been excused by an indulgent parent, but because

he has been acquitted by a Judge, and that acquittal is grounded on the

'price' or 'ransom' we have previously considered.  Passing some other words

translated 'free' we come to dorean, 'Being justified freely by His grace'

(Rom. 3:24).  The Greek word evidently belongs to a group that means a 'gift'

of which there are about twentyfour variants and compounds.  Dorean itself is

once translated 'without a cause' (John 15:25), and Moffatt, knowing this,

gives the extraordinary translation of Romans 3:24, 'But they are justified

for nothing by His grace through the ransom provided in Christ Jesus'.  The

reader who has already perused our notes on Forgiveness (p. 213) will observe

with added interest that aphesis, so translated in Ephesians 1:7, is included

in the list (No. 6 p. 232) of words that mean to set at liberty, to make

Emancipated slaves break forth into singing and the reader may

appreciate, therefore, the one or two verses extracted from our Hymn Book:

'There is fulness of freedom, no fetters can bind

The soul that the Spirit of Truth has set free;

When the light of God's Word has illumined the mind,

There is full, unalloyed, and complete liberty',

'Separated for the Father,

Saved to serve the Holy One,

Man -made bonds and fetters vanish

In His well -beloved Son',

or

'Made free from sin, since grace doth reign,

In holy liberty;

May Thy great love, O Christ, constrain