Romans 4:25

‘Who was delivered up for our trespasses, and was raised for our being accounted as in the right (justification).'

For this was why Christ died. He was delivered up for our trespasses, for all the ways in which we come short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23), and He was raised again so that we might be ‘accounted as in the right' before Him. The referring of our ‘justification' to the resurrection is unusual. It is normally connected with His death (Romans 3:24). But there is no difficulty in this, for the raising of Jesus from the dead was unquestionably seen as the moment when He was vindicated, and therefore as the moment when His righteousness became available so as to be reckoned to us. The resurrection was the seal on what He had accomplished. It was then that He was declared to be the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead (Romans 1:4). It was thus the moment at which our being ‘accounted as in the right' was made possible. Now He could visit us with righteousness and salvation (Romans 1:16). The association of His death and resurrection as being two aspects of our salvation will come out strongly in Romans 5:10; Romans 6:1.

The ‘literal' Greek is:

Who was delivered up because of our trespasses,

And was raised because of our justification.

The fact that He was ‘delivered up (handed over) for our trespasses' is probably a reflection of Isaiah 53:12 LXX, where it says, ‘because of their sins He was handed over'. The second line is indicating the success of what He had done. His resurrection was the proof that His death had accomplished its purpose, and that His righteousness was available to be set to our account once we believed in Him. The promises to Isaiah were being fulfilled, ‘It pleased the LORD to bruise Him, He has put Him to grief, when You will make His soul an offering for sin (delivered up for our trespasses) He will see His seed. He will prolong His days (resurrection), and the pleasure of the LORD will prosper in His hand (the triumph of the Gospel and the redeeming of His people). From the travail of His soul He will see light (resurrection) and will be satisfied. By His humiliation will My righteous Servant make many to be to be accounted as in the right, and He will bear their iniquities' (Isaiah 53:10).

Thus our justification, our being accounted as ‘in the right', rests on both His death and resurrection. In that sense His resurrection was ‘because of our justification', it was evidence that our justification had been accomplished. But that is probably not Paul's prime meaning here. Here the second ‘because' should probably be rendered ‘because of our need for' or ‘because the means had been provided for'. He had made the righteousness of God which is from faith unto faith (Romans 1:17) available to all who believe.