Romans 14:9

“ For to this end Christ died and revived;that He might be Lord both of the dead and living. ”

With the view of securing the possession of His own, whether as living or dead, Jesus began by resolving in His own person the contrast between life and death. He did so by dying and reviving.

For what is one raised again except a dead man living? Thus it is that He reigns simultaneously over the two domains of being through which His own are called to pass, and that He can fulfil His promise to them, John 10:28: “None shall pluck them out of my hand.” Comp. also John 11:25-26. Of the three principal readings presented by the documents, the simplest and most agreeable to the context is certainly the Alexandrine reading: “He died and revived.” These two terms correspond to the living and the dead. This very simple relation has been changed in the other readings. The word rose again, in the Byz. reading, has evidently been introduced to form the transition between these: died and revived. The reading of two Greco-Lats. and of Irenaeus: “lived, died, and rose again,” has certainly arisen from the desire to call up here the earthly life of Jesus; which was not necessary, since the domain of the living belongs now to Jesus, not in virtue of His earthly existence, but in consequence of His present life as the glorified One. To understand this saying rightly, Ephesians 4:10 should be compared, where the apostle, after pointing to Christ “descended into the lowest parts (the abode of the dead),” then “ascended to the highest heavens,” adds: “that He might fill all things.” Which signifies that by traversing all the domains of existence Himself, He has so won them, that in passing through them in our turn as believers, we never cease to be His, and to have Him as our Lord. Hence the inference expressed Romans 14:10.