Romans 4:25

“ Who was delivered on account of our offences, and was raised again on account of our justification. ”

In the title our Lord there was involved the idea of a very intimate relation between Jesus and us. This mysterious and gracious solidarity is summed up in two symmetrical clauses, which in a few clear and definite terms present its two main aspects. He was delivered on account of our offences. Perhaps Paul means by the phrase: being delivered, to remind us of the description of the servant of Jehovah, Isaiah 53: “His soul was delivered (παρεδόθη) to death” (Romans 4:12). He who delivers Him, according to Romans 8:32, is God Himself: “who spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all.” Paul has told us, Romans 3:25, for what end this act was necessary. It was required to manifest conspicuously the righteousness of God. Every sinner needed to be brought to say: See what I deserve! Thus justice was satisfied and pardon possible. And He was raised again on account of our justification. Commentators are unanimous, if I mistake not, in translating: for our justification, as if it were πρός or εἰς, and not διά (on account of). This for is explained in the sense that the resurrection of Christ was needed in order that faith might be able to appropriate the expiation which was accomplished, and that so justification, of which faith is the condition, might take place. But what a roundabout way of arriving at the explanation of this for! And if the apostle really meant for (with a view to), why repeat this same preposition διά which he had just used in the parallel proposition, in its natural sense of on account of, while the language supplied him with prepositions appropriate to the exact expression of his thought (πρός, εἰς, Romans 3:25-26)? I am not surprised that in this way several commentators have found in this symmetry established between the facts of salvation nothing more than an artificial distribution, belonging to the domain of rhetoric rather than to that of dogmatics, and that one has even gone the length of reproaching the apostle “for sacrificing to the mania of parallelism.” If we were shut up to the explanation referred to, we could only join regretfully in this judgment. But it is not so. Let us take the διά in its natural sense, as we are bound to do by its use in the first proposition. In the same way as Jesus died because of our offences, that is, our (merited) condemnation, He was raised because of our (accomplished) justification. Our sin had killed Him; our justification raised Him again. How so? The expiation of our trespasses once accomplished by His death, and the right of God's justice proved in earnest, God could pronounce the collective acquittal of future believers, and He did so. Over the blood of the sacrifice a sentence of justification was pronounced in favor of guilty man; his condemnation was annulled. Now, in view of this divine fact, a corresponding change must necessarily be wrought in the person of Christ Himself. By the same law of solidarity whereby our condemnation had brought Him to the cross, our justification must transform His death into life. When the debtor is proved insolvent, his security is thrown into prison; but as soon as the latter succeeds in clearing the debt, the debtor is legally set free, and his security is liberated with him. For he has no debt of his own. Such is the bond of solidarity formed by the plan of God between Christ and us. Our lot is as it were interwoven with His: we sin, He dies; we are justified, He lives again. This is the key to the declaration, 1 Corinthians 15:17: “If Jesus be not risen, ye are yet in your sins.” So long as the security is in prison, the debt is not paid; the immediate effect of payment would be his liberation. Similarly, if Jesus were not raised, we should be more than ignorant whether our debt were paid; we might be certain that it was not. His resurrection is the proof of our justification only because it is the necessary effect of it. What Paul required to say, therefore, was διά, on account of, and not εἰς, with a view to. If in Christ dead humanity disappeared condemned, in Christ raised again it appears acquitted. And now what is the part of faith in relation to the resurrection thus understood? Exactly that of Abraham in regard to the divine promise. On hearing the promise, he no longer saw himself as he was, but he considered himself as the promise made him. So, the resurrection of Christ once completed, we have no longer to see ourselves as we are in ourselves, but as this fact reveals us to our view: justified. For this resurrection is the incarnation of my justification. If death is the payment of my debt, resurrection is, as it were, the acknowledgment of it.

We must beware, therefore, if we would not efface from the Scriptures their most magnificent revelation, of giving to the word δικαίωσις, justification, as several commentators, Döllinger for example, the entirely arbitrary sense of sanctification: Jesus was raised with a view to our moral amelioration! or of bringing in here, as some Protestant commentators do (Calv., Thol., Philip.) with the notion of the resurrection, those of the heavenly dominion and the intercession of Christ. The resurrection is here presented by Paul in express terms in its relation to what preceded, namely, His death, not the glorified existence which followed.

Thus is finished the demonstration of the harmony between the revelation of the Old Testament and the justification by faith revealed in the gospel. The grand truth of the righteousness of faith, summarily enunciated 3.21, 22, was first placed on its historical foundation, the work of God in Christ, Romans 3:23-26; then it was confirmed by its harmony with the Old Testament; first with the spirit of the law, Romans 3:27-31, then with the example of Abraham, Romans 4:1-24. One question might yet be raised: Will this justification by faith, which saves us at present, hold good in the future? Can it assure us of salvation even before the judgment-seat? It is to the solution of this so grave question that the following piece is devoted. Thus will be closed the didactic exposition of justification by faith.