Romans 5:10

Vv. 10 is, strictly speaking, only a stronger repetition of the argument of Romans 5:9. Paul makes the reasoning more evident 1. By adding the term enemies, which renders the a fortiori character of the proof more striking; 2. By substituting for justified (Romans 5:9) the term reconciled, which corresponds better with the word enemies; 3. By describing the death of Christ as that of the Son of God, which presents its value more impressively; 4. By explaining the indefinite term: through him (Romans 5:9), by the more precise expression: by his life.

The for is explained by the new force which the argument derives from these various changes. It is our en effet (in fact); comp. the relation between Romans 5:3; Romans 5:5 in John 3

Three stages are indicated: enemies, reconciled, saved. Divine love, which has brought us from the first to the second, will yet more certainly bring us from the second to the third.

The terms: weak, ungodly, sinners (Romans 5:6; Romans 5:8), are here summed up in the word enemies. Does this word denote man's enmity to God, or that of God to man? Hating God (Dei osores), or hated of God (Deo odiosi)? The first notion would evidently be insufficient in the context. The enmity must above all belong to Him to whom wrath is attributed; and the blood of Christ, through which we have been justified, did not flow in the first place to work a change in our dispositions Godward, but to bring about a change in God's conduct toward us. Otherwise this bloody death would have to be called a demonstration of love, and not of righteousness (Romans 3:25). Here, besides, the saying Romans 11:28 should be compared, where the term enemy of God is contrasted with the title beloved of God; the first therefore signifies: one not loved, or hated of God; comp. Ephesians 2:3: “by nature children of wrath. ” We must obviously remove from this notion of divine enmity every impure admixture, every egoistic element, and take this hatred in the sense in which Jesus speaks of His disciple hating his father, mother, wife, children, and his own life, Luke 14:26. This hatred is holy; for it is related only to what is truly hateful to ourselves and others, evil, and what is fitted to lead to it. But yet it is not enough to say, with many commentators, that what God hates in the sinner is the sin and not the person. For, as is rightly observed by Oltramare (who on this account rejects the passive sense of the word enemies, which we defend), it is precisely hatred against the sinners, and not against the sin, which meets us in the expression enemies of God, if it be taken in the sense: hated of God. The truth is, as it appears to me, that God first of all hates sin in the sinner, and that the sinner becomes at the same time the object of this holy hatred in proportion as he voluntarily identifies himself with sin, and makes it the principle of his personal life. Undoubtedly, so long as this development remains unfinished, the sinner is still the object of divine compassion, inasmuch as God continues to regard him as His creature destined for good. But the co-existence of these two opposite sentiments, of which, Romans 11:28, we have a very striking particular example, can only belong to a state of transition. The close of the development in good or evil once reached, only one of the two sentiments can continue (see on Romans 1:18). While maintaining as fundamental the notion of divine enmity in the term enemies of God, we do not think it inadmissible to attach to it as a corollary that of man's enmity to God. Our heart refuses to embrace the being who refuses to embrace us. It is in this double sense that the word enemy is taken in common language. It implies a reciprocity; comp. the expression ἐν ἔχθρᾳ ὄντες, used of Pilate and Herod (Luke 23:12).

A somewhat analogous question arises as to the meaning of the expression κατηλλάγημεν τῷ Θεῶ, we were reconciled to God. The words may signify two things: either that man gives up the enmity which had animated him against God, or that God gives up His enmity to man. Taken in themselves, the two meanings are grammatically possible. The words 1 Corinthians 7:11 present a case in which the reconciled person becomes so by giving up his own enmity (“if the woman depart, let her remain unmarried, or, be reconciled to her husband”); 1Sa 29:4 and Matthew 5:24 offer two examples of the opposite sense. In the first of these passages, the chiefs of the Philistines, suspecting the intentions of David, who asks permission to join them in fighting against Saul, say to their king: “Wherewith should he reconcile himself (διαλλαγήσεται, LXX.) to his master (τῷ κυρίῳ αὐτοῦ), if not with the heads of our men?” In the second, Jesus exhorts the man who would bring his offering to the altar, and who remembers that his brother has something against him, to go and first be reconciled to him. In both cases it is evident that the enmity, and consequently the giving up of the enmity, are ascribed to the man with whom the reconciliation has to take place (Saul, and the neighbor who thinks himself offended). In our passage the true meaning does not seem to us doubtful. The word being reconciled reproducing the being justified of Romans 5:9, it follows from this parallelism that it is God, and not man, who gives up His enmity. In the same way as by justification God effaces all condemnation, so by reconciliation He ceases from His wrath. This meaning results also from that of the word ἐχθρός, enemy, which we have just established, as well as of the term wrath, Romans 5:9. If it is God who is hostile and provoked, it is in Him first of all that the act of reconciliation must take place. This view is confirmed by the main passage, Romans 3:25. If it was man who had to be brought first to abandon his hostility, the reconciling act would consist, as we have just said in speaking of the word enemy, in a manifestation of love, not of righteousness. Finally, as Hodge observes, to make these words signify that it is we who in the reconciliation lay down our enmity to God, is to put it in contradiction to the spirit of the whole passage. For the apostle's object is to exhibit the greatness of the love testified by God to unworthy beings, in order to conclude therefrom to the love which will be testified to them by the same God in the future. The whole argument thus rests on God's love to man, and not on man's to God. On the other side it is true, as Oltramare remarks, that the expression to be reconciled is nowhere applied to God. It is only said, 2 Corinthians 5:19: “that He reconciled the world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them.” How explain this fact? Certainly the sacred writers felt that it is impossible to compare the manner in which God becomes reconciled to men, with the manner in which one man becomes reconciled to another. It was God Himself who began by doing everything to establish His righteousness and secure the majesty of His position, that He might then be able to pardon. Here there was a mode of action which does not enter into human processes of reconciliation; and hence the apostles, in speaking of God, have avoided the ordinary expression.

If for the word blood Romans 5:10 substitutes death, which is more general, it is in order to call up better the Passion scene as a whole. The words: of His Son, exhibit the immensity of the sacrifice made for enemies! Conclusion: If God (humanly speaking) did not shrink from the painful sacrifice of His Son in behalf of His enemies, how should He refuse to beings, henceforth received into favor, a communication of life which involves nothing save what is ineffably sweet for Himself and for those who receive it! Thus is proved the certainty of final salvation (salvation in the day of wrath), toward which everything pointed from the first words: we have peace.

The clause ἐν τῇ ζωῇ αὐτοῦ, by His life, must not be regarded as indicating the object of the being saved (introduced into His life). The ἐν, in, can only have the instrumental sense, like that of the ἐν τῷ αἵματι, in His blood, Romans 5:9; saved through His life, from which ours is henceforth drawn; comp. Romans 8:2: “The law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.” In fact, justification is not the whole of salvation; it is the entrance on it. If sin continued to reign as before, wrath would reappear at the close. For “without holiness no man shall see the Lord,” Hebrews 12:14. But the mediation of the life completes that of the blood, and makes sure of holiness, and thereby of final salvation. Comp. chaps. 6-8, intended to develop the thought which is here merely enunciated in connection with the grace of justification. The expression be saved therefore denotes salvation in the full sense of the word the final sentence which, along with justification, assumes the restoration of holiness. A sick man is not saved when the trespass which has given rise to his malady has been pardoned; he must also be cured. There are therefore, as we have elsewhere shown, a sentence of initial grace justification, in the ordinary sense of the word founded solely on faith; and a sentence of final grace, which takes account not only of faith, but also of the fruits of faith. The first is the fruit of Christ's death; the second flows from participation in His life. For both of these graces faith is and remains, of course, the permanent condition of personal appropriation. If this is not expressly mentioned in our passage, it is because it refers solely to believers already justified (Romans 5:1).

We cannot help remarking here, with Olshausen, how entirely at variance with the view of the apostle is the Catholic doctrine, which is shared by so many Protestants of our day, and which bases justification on the new life awakened in man by faith. In the eyes of St. Paul, justification is entirely independent of sanctification, and precedes it; it rests only on faith in the death of Christ. Sanctification flows from the life of Christ by the work of the Holy Spirit.

At the end of Romans 5:2, Paul had passed from the absence of fear (“ we have peace,” Romans 5:1) to the positive hope of glory, in which already we triumph. This same gradation is reproduced here from the passage from Romans 5:10 to Romans 5:11, after which the theme contained in the first two verses will be exhausted, and the proposition: “hope maketh not ashamed” (Romans 5:5), fully demonstrated.