Romans 8:11

“ Now, if the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, He that raised up Christ Jesus from the dead shall quicken also your mortal bodies, because of His Spirit that dwelleth in you. ”

The δέ, now, denotes the progress of the life which, after penetrating the spirit, takes hold even of the body. That body in which, as well as in Jesus, the Spirit of God has dwelt, will be judged worthy of the same honor as the body of Jesus Himself.

In the first proposition the apostle uses the name Jesus, because the reference is to His person merely; in the second he says Christ, or Christ Jesus, because the subject in question is the office He fills as Mediator between God and us. As Hofmann remarks, the personal resurrection of Jesus merely assures us that God can raise us; but His resurrection, regarded as that of the Christ, assures us that He will do so actually. Once again we see how carefully Paul weighs every term he uses. We have a new proof of the same in the use of the two expressions ἐγείρειν, to awake (applied to Jesus), and ζωοποιεῖν, to quicken (applied to believers). The death of Jesus was a sleep, unaccompanied with any dissolution of the body...; it was therefore enough to awake Him. In our case, the body, being given over to destruction, must be entirely reconstituted; this is well expressed by the word quicken.

The word καί, also, omitted by the Sinaït. and the Vatic., suits the context well: the spirit is already quickened; the body must be so also.

The apostle had said of the body in Romans 8:10, it is dead, νεκρόν. Why does he here substitute the term mortal, θνητόν ? It has been thought that he used this word, which has a wider meaning, to embrace those who shall be alive at the Lord's coming, and whose bodies shall be not raised, but transformed. Hofmann takes the term mortal, of Romans 8:10, as referring to the future state of the body, the state of death to which it is still only destined, and from which the resurrection will rescue it. The true explanation of the term seems to me simpler: In Romans 8:10, Paul means to speak of the fact (death); in Romans 8:11, of the quality (mortal). For the resurrection will not only change the fact of death into that of life, but it will transform the nature of the body, which from being mortal will become incorruptible (1 Corinthians 15:43-44).

The last words of this verse played a somewhat important part dogmatically in the first ages of the church. Those who maintained the divinity and personality of the Holy Spirit were more inclined to read, as is done by some ancient Alex. Mjj., διὰ τοῦ ἐνοικοῦντος αὐτοῦ πνεύματος..., “ by the Holy Spirit who dwelleth in you.”

In fact, by this mode of expression the apostle would ascribe the divine operation of raising from the dead (John 5:21) to the Holy Spirit, which would imply His power of free causation as well as divinity. The opponents of this doctrine alleged the other reading, which is that of Stephens, and which differs here from the received reading: διὰ τὸ ἐνοικοῦν αὐτοῦ πνεῦμα, “ because of the Spirit that dwelleth in you. ” This reading is found in authorities of the three families in the oldest versions, the Itala and the Peshito, and in some very ancient Fathers, such as Irenaeus and Origen. Such being the case, we can only ascribe it to Tischendorf's provoking predilection for the Sinaït., that he adopts the first reading in his eighth edition. Indeed, so far as external authorities are concerned, the decisive fact is the well-attested existence of a reading in the documents of the various countries of the church; now in this case we find the reading διὰ τὸ..., because of, in Egypt (Vatic.), in the West (It. Fathers), in Syria (Peshito), and in the Byzantine Church (K L P, Mnn.), while the received reading is represented by little more than three Alexandrines and a Father of the same country (Clement). The meaning also decides in favor of the best supported reading. The διά with the accusative, because of, follows quite naturally the two similar διά of Romans 8:10: “because of sin, death; because of righteousness, the life of the Spirit;” and because of the life of the Spirit, the resurrection of the body. The entire course of thought is summed up in this thrice repeated because of. Besides, Paul is not concerned to explain here by what agent the resurrection is effected. What is of importance in the line of the ideas presented from Romans 8:5 onward, is to indicate the moral state in consequence of which the granting of resurrection will be possible. That to which God will have respect, is the dwelling of His own Spirit in the believer; the holy use which he shall have made of his body to glorify Him; the dignity to which the Spirit shall have raised the body by making it a temple of God (1 Corinthians 6:19). Such a body he will treat as He has treated that of His own Son. This is the glorious thought with which the apostle closes this passage and completes the development of the word: no condemnation.

This difference of reading is the only one in the whole Epistle to the Romans which is fitted to exercise any influence on Christian doctrine. And yet we do not think that the question whether the resurrection of the body takes place by the operation of the Holy Spirit, or because of His dwelling in us, has been very often discussed in our Dogmatics or treated in our Catechisms.

The apostle does not speak of the lot reserved for the bodies of unbelievers, or of unsanctified believers. The same is the case in the passage 1 Corinthians 15:20-28. But the word of Romans 8:13: “If ye live after the flesh, ye shall die,” should suffice. That is not, especially after all that precedes, a word of salvation. Besides, what would be meant by the sharp contrast between the two propositions of Romans 8:5-6 ? We have to explain his silence by his aim, which was to expound the work of salvation to its completion. It is the same with 1 Corinthians 15:20-28.

We believe, finally, that after that it is quite unnecessary to refute the opinion of those who, like De Wette, Philippi, Holsten, think the expression: to quicken the body, Romans 8:11, should be applied in whole or in part to the sanctification of the Christian's body; Paul does not mix up questions so; he spoke, in Romans 8:2, of two laws to be destroyed, that of sin and that of death. And he has rigorously followed the order which he traced for himself.