Romans 5:6-8

“ For when we were yet weak in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For hardly for a righteous man will one die:for peradventure for goodness some would even dare to die. But God establisheth His own love towards us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. ”

The for might be rendered by in fact. The inward revelation of divine love, whereby the Holy Spirit certifies to the believer that his hope of glory shall not be deceived, is now to be set in full light. The authenticity of this for is sufficiently attested (1) By the reading of the Alex., Byz.: ἔτι γάρ; (2) By that of the Greco-Latin: εἰς τί γάρ; (3) By that of the Vat. itself, which reads εἴγε; for this γ seems to be a remnant of the primitive γάρ. The reading of the Alex. and Byz. MSS., which put the ἔτι, yet, at the head of the sentence, is likewise authentic. For, to the weight of the authorities there is added the decisive importance of this little word, in which there is concentrated the whole force of the following verses: “God testified His love to us when we were yet in a state which rendered us wholly unworthy of it....! The Greco-Latin reading: εἰς τί γάρ, for what end? is a corruption of this not understood ἔτι. A question relative to the end of divine love would be out of place in this argument, where it is not the end, but the particular character of the love which is in question. It is wholly different with the reading of the Vat.: εἴγε, if at least, which perfectly suits the meaning of the passage, whether the if be made dependent on the proposition: hope maketh not ashamed, Romans 5:5 and to this the at least points or whether it be taken as the beginning of the following argument: “If Christ died...with much stronger reason...(Romans 5:9).” This construction, adopted by Ewald, is excellent; only it obliges us to make Romans 5:7-8 a parenthesis, which is complicated and unnecessary, since the reading ἔτι, yet, gives in a simpler form exactly the same sense: “When we were yet without strength, Christ died...; with much stronger reason...ver. 9.” Romans 5:6 describes the miserable condition in which we were at the time when divine love was extended to us. We were weak, ἀσθενεῖς. The word often means sick (1 Corinthians 11:30). Here it expresses total incapacity for good, the want of all moral life, such as is healthy and fruitful in good works. It was certainly not a state fitted to win for us the sympathy of divine holiness. On the contrary, the spectacle of a race plunged in such shameful impotence was disgusting to it. Seven Mjj. read after ἀσθενῶν the word ἔτι, yet (five of them read it previously in the beginning of the verse). If this somewhat strange reading be admitted, the comma need not be placed where Tischendorf puts it (8th edition), after this ἔτι, to connect it with what precedes, but before, to join it to the following word: κατὰ καιρόν, yet in time. What led Tischendorf to this construction was, that he mistakenly connected the first ἔτι, in the opening of the verse, with the verb: Christ died. Neither the sense nor grammar is favorable to this connection. But, on the other hand, if the second ἔτι were joined to κατὰ καιρόν, yet in time, there would be too marked an emphasis on an idea in the passage which is purely secondary. We conclude, therefore, that the second ἔτι should be rejected from the text. It is, as Meyer thinks, a mistaken repetition arising from the fact that this little word did not appear suitable in the beginning of the passage, especially if a liturgical lesson commenced with Romans 5:6. So copyists have first transposed it after the ἀσθενῶν, then doubled it by combining the two readings.

The words: in due time, at the right moment, may contain an allusion to the eternal plan, Romans 3:25: “at the hour fixed beforehand by divine wisdom.” Or they express the idea of the suitability of this time in relation to the state of mankind, either because having now made full trial of their misery, they might be disposed to accept with faith the salvation of God; or because it was the last hour, when, the time of forbearance having reached its limit (Romans 3:26), God, if He did not pardon, must judge. This last meaning seems to us, from Romans 3:25-26, to be the one which best corresponds to the mind of the apostle.

The incapacity of mankind for good, their moral sickness, arose from their separation from God, from their voluntary revolt against Him. This is what the apostle brings out in the words: for ungodly ones, which indicate the positive side of human perversity. Their malady inspires disgust; their ungodliness attracts wrath. And it was when we were yet plunged in this repulsive state of impotence and ungodliness that the greatest proof of love was given us, in that Christ died for us. The preposition ὑπέρ, for, can only signify: in behalf of. It neither implies nor excludes the idea of substitution (in the room of); it refers to the end, not at all to the mode of the work of redemption.

To shed light on the wholly exceptional character of the love testified to mankind in this death of Christ, the apostle compares the action of God in this case with the noblest and rarest proofs of devotion presented by the history of our race; and he bids us measure the distance which still separates those acts of heroism from the sacrifice of God, Romans 5:7-8.

In Romans 5:7 he supposes two cases in the relations of man to man, the one so extraordinary that it is hardly (μόλις, hardly) conceivable, the other difficult indeed to imagine, but yet supposable (τάχα, peradventure). The relation between those two examples has been variously understood. According to the old Greek commentators, Calv., Beza, Fritzs., Mey., Oltram., etc., the relation is that of complete identity; the expression: ὑπὲρ τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ, for the man who is good, in the second proposition, designating no essentially different character from the ὑπὲρ δικαίου, for a righteous man, in the first. The second proposition on this view is simply the justification of that remnant of possibility which was implied in the word hardly in the first: “hardly will one die for a just man; I say, hardly; for after all I do not absolutely deny that for such a man of probity one might be found willing to sacrifice his life.” But if such were really the apostle's meaning, why substitute in the second proposition for the word δικαίου, the just man, the term ἀγαθοῦ, the good man (or goodness)? Why prefix the article to the latter, which did not stand before the former: a just... the good (or goodness)? Why put the word ἀγαθοῦ first in the proposition obviously indicating the purpose to establish an antithesis between the two ideas: the good man (or goodness), and a just man? Why, finally, in the second proposition add the word καί, even, which establishes a gradation, and consequently a difference between the two examples quoted? We are aware of the reason that has led so many commentators to this explanation, which is inconsistent with all the details of the text. It is the difficulty of pointing out a satisfactory distinction between the two words δικαίου, righteous, and ἀγαθοῦ, good. According to Olshausen, the first denotes the man who does no evil to any one; the second, the man who does positive good, that is to say, more than men have a right to exact from him. According to De Wette, the one is the simply just man, the other the man who, to justice, adds nobleness. According to Hodge, the one is the man who does everything the law demands, and whose character commands respect; the other, the man whose conduct is directed by love, and inspires love. According to Ewald, the just man is he who is acknowledged innocent in regard to some specific charge; the good man, one who is irreproachable in all respects. Philippi thinks that the righteous one is the honest man, and the good, the generous and amiable man who does good to those about him, in his family, his city, his country, in a word, the pater patriae. Tholuck, finally, arrives at a clearer and more precise distinction, by giving, like many other commentators, to ἀγαθός, good, the meaning of a beneficent man, first, and then by derivation, that of benefactor. In this latter case the article the is explained by saying that the person meant is the benefactor of the man who devotes himself to death, or rather, according to Tholuck himself, by the rhetorical use of the article ὁ, the, in the sense of our phrase: the man of virtue, the philanthropist. This latter explanation of the article might be applied also to the other meanings. But, despite the enormous erudition displayed by the defenders of these various distinctions to justify them from classic writers, all that is gained by most of them is to father a subtlety on the apostle; and all that is gained by the last, the only one which presents a clear contrast between the two terms, is to make him say what he has not said. To express, indeed, this idea of benefactor, he had in Greek the hallowed terms ἀγαθοποιός or εὐεργέτης. Why not use them? Besides, the addition of the article finds no natural explanation in any of these senses. Reuss has even resolutely sacrificed it in his translation: “one may dare to die for a man of virtue.” Jerome, and after him Erasmus, Luther, Melanchthon, have taken the two terms, the just and the good, in the neuter sense: justice, goodness. But as to the former, this meaning would have absolutely demanded the article; the meaning of ὑπὲρ δικαίου can be nothing else than: for a just man.

This last explanation, however, brings us within reach of the solution. Nothing in fact prevents us from applying Jerome's idea to the second of the two terms, and taking ὑπὲρ τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ in the sense of: for goodness (and not for the good man). This is the explanation which Rückert in particular has defended, and which Hofmann has finally adopted. Not that we understand, with the former, the good, in the sense of the useful. The idea of the whole passage would be falsified if there were introduced into it a notion foreign to the purely moral domain. The good here, in opposition to ἀσεβεῖς, the ungodly, Romans 5:6, and ἁμαρτωλοί, sinners, Romans 5:8, can only signify a holy cause; for example, the fulfilment of a sacred duty to which one sacrifices his life, like Antigone; or the defence of the law to which one remains faithful even unto death, like the martyrs in the time of the Maccabees; or the deliverance of our country for which so many men have sacrificed themselves, even among the heathen; or the good of humanity in general, which has inspired so many deeds of heroic devotion. It is in this way that Julius Müller, in his Christl. Lehre v. d. Sünde, ends by returning to the masculine meaning of τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ, applying the adjective to Him who is good par excellence, to God: “For a righteous man one will hardly die; but, for God, yes, peradventure such a thing will occur.” This meaning would be excellent, and the contrast striking: “Hardly will men die for God, the perfectly good, and God puts Christ to death for men the ungodly!” Nevertheless, we believe that if the apostle had thought of God personally, he would have designated Him more clearly. In any case, this last sense would coincide with that of Rückert, since God is the good in the absolute sense of the word.

The reading of the Peshito ὑπὲρ ἀδίκων, for unrighteous men, in the first proposition, gives a very simple meaning, only too simple, and one which completely enervates the force of the contrast to the terms ungodly, and sinners, in Romans 5:6; Romans 5:8. It is condemned, besides, by all the documents. Τολμᾶν, to dare, to have courage for; hence, to resolve to. Καί : it is a case which is also supposable. See, then, how far, in some exceedingly rare cases, the devotion of man in its sublimest manifestations can rise. To sacrifice his life for one whose honorable character inspires respect; hardly! to sacrifice yourself on the altar of a cause whose grandeur and holiness have possessed you; perhaps also (καί)! And now for the contrast between these supreme acts of human, devotion and God's conduct toward us.