Romans 5:1-11, Commentary
Jul 22nd, 2009 by Micah Tillman | Start the Discussion |
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Romans 5:1-11 (NRSV)
1 Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. 3 And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5 and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.
6 For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. 7 Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die. 8 But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us. 9 Much more surely then, now that we have been justified by his blood, will we be saved through him from the wrath of God. F21 10 For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more surely, having been reconciled, will we be saved by his life. 11 But more than that, we even boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.
5:1-5 — Here we have a number of important points. “We,” that is Paul and his Jewish and Gentile fellow Christians in Rome, have all obtained peace with God. They have, as he will say later, been “reconciled” to God.
God, in other words, is the center of their unity with each other. They are united with each other through all being reconciled to the same God by the same means.
Thus, the only thing they can boast in now is the hope they all share, whether Jew or Gentile.
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Here the issue of “boasting” returns from chapters 2 (vv. 17-23) and 3 (vv. 27-31).
But remember what the problem was with boasting. It was the boasting of those who had a special relationship with God by being the inheritors and followers of the Law.
It was the boasting of those who saw themselves as belonging to an inherently better group than the other group within the Roman church.
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In other words, the problem Paul is addressing is not that of boasting in having earned your own personal salvation, but of boasting that you are a higher and better kind of person because of the ethnic group to which you belong.
And the problem with that is not only that it is false, but that it divides the church; it makes church unity impossible.
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Instead of boasting in their subgroup’s awesomeness, Paul suggests they boast in their shared sufferings, since those sufferings remind them of the gift they have all received.
That gift is the same Spirit. And if they all have one Spirit, how can they help but be one “body”?
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5:6-11 — Paul here is addressing people who were at least somewhere between 20 and 30 years of age — people who were born before 33 AD, and thus were sinners when Christ died.
As opposed to normal people, who prefer not to die for even good people, Christ loved Paul’s audience enough to die for them even though they weren’t good.
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Thus, we are saved from “the wrath” and are no longer enemies. But note that in the Greek there is no “of God” after “the wrath,” and that of whom we were enemies is not specified.
Read Ephesians 2, which is an expanded restatement of the above passage, for example. There it is clear that the reconciliation of enemies has both to do with the uniting of Jews and Gentiles, and the reconciliation of everyone to God. The latter, in fact, produces the former.
Ephesians 2 speaks of salvation through faith eliminating boasting, and leading to reconciliation of everyone with God, and therefore of both ethnic groups with each other.
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In other words, all these issues are practical for Paul, not just theological. Paul is a pastor, not just a teacher. He wants his audience to see the truth about themselves, God, and Christ, not just so that they will have the right doctrine, but also so that they will live the right life.
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[ Romans 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5: Intro, 1-11, 12, 12-14, 15, 16-21, Summary ]
