Is living with Christ a present or future event?

Explanation:

Paul writes that we died with Christ, and we believe that we will also live with him. When he refers to believing that we will live with Christ, he uses the future tense form of the verb to live together. So is living with Christ simply a future reality that awaits the resurrection, or something that takes place in the present? We can detect that likely we live with Christ in both the present and the future because the future tense of the verb to live together is related to the moment we die with Christ.⁴ That is, Paul says that we have died with Christ, so we believe that we will live with him. Believing that we will live with him is a future moment in relation to dying with Christ. So we believe that we will live with Christ from the moment that we die with him, which means that when we put our faith in Christ and died with him in the past, we live with him in the present.⁵    

Counterargument:

Paul does not say that we know the moment we die with Christ we will also live with him. If Paul had in mind that the moment we die with Christ we will also live with him, the verb to die would be in the present tense. That is, Paul would say that in the present moment we die with Christ, we will also live with him. But this is not what Paul writes. Instead, he uses the past tense of the verb to die, which indicates a past event. So Paul has in mind that since in the past we died with Christ, having in mind the moment we put our faith in him, so we believe that we will, in the future, live with him. Since our belief in future life is based on the past experience of dying with Christ, the hope for future life is not in the present but in the future.

Response to counterargument:

Paul opens Romans 6:8 with if, which can be used to indicate a condition. That is, Paul may be indicating in the abstract that on the condition that one has died with Christ in the past, they know at the moment when they died with Christ that they will live with him moving forward. Thus, the conditional may suggest that Paul is thinking abstractly about the fact that in the past moment, when one dies to Christ, that person, in that past moment, also believes that they live with Christ moving forward as they walk in faith in this life.

Explanation:

Paul writes that if we died with Christ, we know that we will also live with him. By using the future tense to indicate that we will also live with him, it sounds as though Paul is referring to a future event of living with Christ. Still, the immediate context also indicates that living with Christ is a present reality.⁶ That is particularly clear from Romans 6:11, where Paul writes that believers must consider themselves dead to sin and alive with God. That aligns closely with Romans 6:8 where Paul writes that if we died with Christ, we will live with him. Thus, while the future tense may indicate future resurrection hope in Christ, Paul likely also has in mind the present reality of life in Christ.

Counterargument:

Paul does not say that we currently live in Christ, but that we will live with Christ. Aside from the fact that the future tense suggests that living with Christ is a future event, the fact that Paul refers to living with Christ also suggests a future event. That we will live with Christ suggests something like living alongside Christ, which is something we will do at the resurrection.⁷ So likely, when Paul refers to being alive to God in Christ, he has in mind living to God in the present, and when he refers to living with Christ, he has in mind the future when we will live with Christ.

One weakness of this view is that in this section, Paul seems to indicate both newness of life in the present (Romans 6:4) and future resurrection hope (Romans 6:5). Given that Paul uses the future tense and references living with Christ, it is difficult to determine whether he has present, future, or present and future hope in mind.

Explanation:

To understand what Paul means when he says that we will live with Christ, it’s important to notice that living with Christ is the object of belief.⁸ In particular, Paul does not say that if we die with Christ we will live with him, but that we believe we will live with him. In other words, the living with Christ that Paul has in mind in Romans 6:8 is something we hold as a belief. Of course, since living with Christ is described here as something we believe will happen, rather than something that is actually happening, it is likely that living with Christ is a future event that we believe will happen.⁹

Counterargument:

According to this argument, since the fact that we will live with Christ is the object of belief, we ought to take it that living with Christ is a future event that will happen at the resurrection. Unfortunately, it could be that when Paul refers to living with Christ, he has in mind believing that at the moment we die with Christ, we will live with him. In other words, the object of belief may be accepting that, as hard as it is to die to sin, once one does die to sin, we believe that we will, in that moment, be raised with Christ. Of course, this implies that living with Christ is not a future resurrection moment, but something we enjoy when we die with Christ.

Response to counterargument:

There is a contrast between Romans 6:8a and Romans 6:8b, which suggests that the object of belief is a future state. This counterargument suggests that Paul is stating a belief regarding the present. That is, Paul is stating the belief that if we die with Christ in the present, we believe we will also live with him. We could highlight the thought behind this counterargument by paraphrasing Romans 6:8 as we believe that if we die with Christ, we will also live with him. But this is not what Paul writes. Instead he writes, If we died with Christ, we believe that we will live with him. In other words, the belief has to do not with the processing of dying and living with Christ but with the fact that those who have died with Christ believe that they will live with him in the future.

Explanation:

To understand what it means that we will live with Christ, we need to consider what Paul writes a few verses earlier in Romans 6:5. There he says that if we have been united in a death like Christ’s we will certainly be united in a resurrection like his. The verb be is the future tense. And since Paul mentions the resurrection, it is clear that he has our resurrection future in mind. Now, there is a parallel between Romans 6:5 and Romans 6:8, which suggests that we should also take the future tense of to live together to refer to our future resurrection. For in Romans 6:8, Paul says that if we have died with Christ, which is equivalent to being united with his death ( Romans 6:5), then we believe that we will also live with him, which is equivalent to being united a resurrection like his (Romans 6:8).¹⁰ Of course, being united to a resurrection like his is a future event, so believing we will live with him is to have future hope for resurrection life.

Counterargument:

The problem here is that there is also correlation between Romans 6:4 and Romans 5:8, which suggests that living with Christ is a present event. For in Romans 6:4 Paul says that we are buried with Christ in baptism in order that we might walk in newness of life. Buried with Christ in baptism is equivalent to dying with him (Romans 6:8), and walking in newness of life is equivalent to living with him (Romans 6:8). Of course, walking in newness of life is a present event, so living with him must also be a present event.

Response to counterargument:

The problem here is that there is a closer parallel between Romans 6:5 and Romans 6:8 than Romans 6:4 and Romans 6:8. There is no question that in Romans 6:4 Paul has in mind present newness of life due to being crucified with Christ. Still, it is equally clear that Romans 6:5 has to do with resurrection life with Christ in the future. So the context indicates that Paul is dealing with both present and future life with Christ. The key is to determine which of these themes is best suited to understanding Romans 6:8. Likely, Romans 6:5 is more suited to understanding Romans 6:8 given that both Romans 6:5 and Romans 6:8 use the future tense to denote being with Christ/united in his resurrection, while Romans 6:4 uses the subjunctive to indicate walking in newness of life.

One weakness of this view is that Paul strongly emphasizes the present reality of newness of life in this section. This is especially clear from Romans 6:4 and Romans 6:11, so it is hard to see how he could only have a future state in mind.