Romans 5:11

“ And not only [so], but even glorying in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the reconciliation. ”

The general gradation from Romans 5:10 to Romans 5:11 is well explained by Philippi: “Salvation is not merely negative: deliverance from wrath; we hope for better: participation in glory.” It was by this idea of triumphant entrance into glory that the apostle behooved to crown this whole exposition of justification. For then it is that it will become complete and final.

The construction presents a difficulty. What are we to make of the participle καυχώμενοι, glorying, which does not rest on any finite verb? The ancients and several moderns (Thol., Philip., Rück., Fritzs., Hodge) regard it as the equivalent of a finite verb, understanding ἐσμέν, we are glorying, for we glory. This is the meaning indicated by the reading of L and of the ancient Versions. In this case, we must understand another finite verb after not only, which can be no other than the: we shall be saved, of Romans 5:10. The meaning is: “and not only shall we be saved, but we glory in God even now over this assured salvation.” The logical progress is from the future to the present. It has been objected that it is impossible to make a simple participle a finite verb, at least in prose, (for poetry furnishes numerous examples of such license). But how otherwise are we to explain 2 Corinthians 7:5 ? The real difficulty is to resolve the disagreement between the future we shall be saved and the present we glory. It seems that if the gradation in the mind of the apostle really bore on the matter of time, the νῦν, now, which occurs in the following proposition, should have been placed in this: “not only shall we be saved, but we are so certain of it that now already we triumph in God.” If Paul has not expressed himself so, it is because this was not his meaning. A second construction is adopted by Meyer, Hofmann, and others: it consists in supplying after not only, not: the verb σωθησόμεθα, we shall be saved, but the participle καταλλαγέντες, being reconciled, so that this participle as well as the καυχώμενοι, glorying, rest both of them on the we shall be saved of Romans 5:10: “We shall be saved, and that not only as reconciled, but also as glorying. ” The gradation in this case is not from the future to the present, but from the joy of reconciliation to that of triumph. The objection to this construction is this: The participle being reconciled, in Romans 5:10, is not a simple qualification of we shall be saved; it is a participle of argumentation, as is well said by Oltramare (see also Philippi). It cannot therefore be made logically parallel with the participle glorying. What is to be done if we will not return to the first construction? It only remains, as it seems to me, to derive from the verb σωθησόμεθα, we shall be saved, the idea of salvation, by supplying the participle σωζόμενοι, saved, after not only, and to refer this participle, as well as the following καυχώμενοι, glorying, to the time of final salvation: “Much more certainly shall we be saved (Romans 5:10), and that not only as saved, but as glorying in God. ” The meaning is almost the same as in the preceding construction, but more precise: “And when this hour of salvation shall come, it will not be as men barely saved, like those rescued from shipwreck or a deserved death, that we shall cross the threshold of eternal salvation: it will be in the triumphant attitude of men whom the Son of God has crowned with His own holiness and renewed in His glorious image, and whom the Father has marked with the seal of His adoption, Romans 8:15; Romans 8:29.” It may be objected, no doubt, that by referring this participle glorying to the final hour, we depart from the meaning of the same verb in Romans 5:2, which contains the theme of the whole passage. But Paul, on reaching the close of this development, may easily substitute for the present glorying in hope, the song of triumph at the moment of entrance into glory.

To glory in God was the privilege of which the Jews boasted in virtue of their monotheistic revelation (Romans 2:17). St. Paul here applies this expression to the sanctified Christian who has not only nothing to fear from God, but who as His child is also His heir (Romans 8:17).

Yet he takes care in the same breath to cast down all that might be opposed to humility in this hope of future triumph, by adding: through our Lord Jesus Christ. Even in the possession of perfect holiness and on the threshold of glory, it will be impossible for the Christian to forget that it is to Christ he owes all his eternal triumph as well as his past reconciliation, which was its condition. The last words: by whom we have now received the reconciliation, might be taken to remind the believer in what a sad state he was found, and by what painful means he needed to be rescued from it. The word now would then contrast his present with his past state. But this meaning is not the most natural after the preceding context. In closing, Paul rather contrasts the present with the future state: “through whom ye have now already received the reconciliation,” that first pledge of the deliverance to come, He who acquired for us the first of these favors by His sufferings, even that which is the condition of all the others, will not fail to carry the work to its completion, if we remain attached to Him by persevering faith. This: by whom we have received, is the parallel of the by whom also of Romans 5:2, as the through our Lord Jesus Christ, which precedes, is the parallel of the same words in Romans 5:1. The cycle is closed. It is now demonstrated by this summary argument, that justification by faith includes the resources necessary to assure us of the final justification that spoken of Romans 2:13 and even of final triumph, and that, consequently, the grace of justification is complete.

After thus expounding in a first section (Romans 1:18 to Romans 3:20) universal condemnation, in a second section (Romans 3:21 to Romans 5:11) universal justification, there remains nothing more for the apostle to do than to compare these two vast dispensations by bringing together their two points of departure. Such is the subject of the third section, which closes this fundamental part.

Hofmann thinks that, after describing divine wrath in the section Romans 1:17 to Romans 3:4, the apostle from Romans 3:5 to Romans 4:25 contrasts with it the state of justification which Christians enjoy without cause of boasting; this teaching is entirely in keeping with monotheism, strengthens moral life instead of weakening it (Romans 3:31), and is not at all invalidated by the case of Abraham. The conclusion is drawn Romans 5:1-11, namely, to lead believers to enjoy this blessed state fearlessly and full of hope. This construction breaks down before the following facts: Romans 3:5 cannot begin a new section; Romans 3:9 cannot be a question of the Christian conscience; Romans 3:31 does not refer to the moral fulfilling of the law: Abraham's case cannot have so slight a bearing as that which Hofmann is obliged to ascribe to it; Romans 5:1 is not an exhortation in the form of a conclusion.

The construction of Volkmar is wholly different. According to him, the exposition of justification by faith, begun Romans 3:9, closes at Romans 3:30. Here begins the confirmation of this mode of justification by the Old Testament. It goes from Romans 3:31 to Romans 8:36. And, first, confirmation by the book of the law, chap. 4 (the text of Genesis relating to Abraham); then, confirmation by the law itself, the biblical narrative of the condemnation of all in Adam, which corresponds to the doctrine of the justification of all in Christ, Romans 5:1-21; finally, confirmation by the harmony of the moral consequences of justification with the essence of the law, vi.-viii. But, independently of the false sense given to Romans 3:31 as a general title of iv.-viii., how are we to place the piece Romans 5:1-11 in one and the same subdivision with the parallel between Adam and Jesus Christ, and how are we to see in this last piece only a confirmation of justification by faith, by means of the narrative of the fall in the Old Testament? Finally, this distinction between the book of the law, the law and the moral essence of the law, is certainly foreign to the mind of the apostle. Holsten rightly says: “It is unnecessary to prove that these thoughts and this order belong to Volkmar, not to Paul.” Our construction approaches much nearer to that which Holsten himself has just published (Jahrb. für protest. Theol. 1879, Nos. 1 and 2). The essential difference begins only with the following piece regarding Adam and Christ. This passage, while stating the result of the preceding part, belongs nevertheless, according to Holsten, to the following part, chap. 6-8, of which it is in his view the foundation.

Without failing to perceive a certain transitional character in this passage, we must regard it mainly as a conclusion. Thus it is regarded also by Lipsius in his recent work on the Epistle to the Romans (Protestanten-Bibel).