Romans 5:1-11 Commentary

Some of Jesus’ friends, including preachers, are so familiar with Paul’s professions in verses 6 and 8 that they’ve lost some of their power to startle us. “When we were still powerless [asthenon*],” the apostle marvels there, “Christ died [apethanen] for the ungodly [asebon].” “While we were still sinners [hamartolon],” he adds in verse 8, “Christ died for us.”

Here, in some ways, is one of the gospel’s beating hearts: Christ died for people who naturally couldn’t give a flying fig for his love or him. The incarnate Son of God let himself be tortured to death in order to rescue people who naturally hate both God and our neighbor.

While this profession oozes grace, part of it naturally feels scandalous. After all, the Spirit is so effectively sanctifying Jesus’ friends that it’s tempting to forget who and what we are outside of that transforming power. When Christ died for us we were still, professes Paul in verse 6, asthenon (“powerless”).

Some preachers may feel the Spirit prompting us to explore the chronological relationship between Christ’s death and our life. No one currently alive was, after all, alive when the Romans crucified Jesus. Preachers could say so many things about this. But perhaps we need to say little more than this: Paul implies had we been alive when Christ died, we naturally would have either approved of or stayed away from his crucifixion.

What Paul means is that while we may have all sorts of power, we are too feeble to rescue ourselves from all the messes we make for ourselves, our neighbors and the creation. We are naturally so spiritually sick that we’d die both physically and spiritually without Christ’s redeeming death.

Even God’s adopted children are, what’s more, according to verse 8, naturally hamartolon (“sinners”). We don’t, in other words, just sin. Outside of God’s redeeming grace, sin negatively impacts every part of us. Verse 7 also at least implies that we’re naturally neither “righteous” [dikaiou] nor even “good” [agathou]. In fact, a possible meaning of the Greek word hamartolon that we translate as “sinners” suggests that we are naturally detestable.

Here is yet another scandalous grace about the gospel: Jesus died for us while we were “still” [eti] “powerless” and “ungodly” (6), as well as “sinners” (8). He didn’t, in other words, wait for his adopted siblings to “clean up” our spiritual “act.” Jesus didn’t wait for us to go to him.

Like the prodigal’s father, he, instead, got up and “sprinted” toward us while we were still a long way from him. Jesus didn’t even wait for us to come in penitence to him at Calvary’s cross. He died for us while we were still quite content to stay with most of his disciples far away from his suffering, death and him.

Christ died for God’s dearly beloved people while we were still, to put it another way, on a one-way road to God’s “wrath” [orges] (9). This feels like another scandalous element of Paul’s profession about the nature of Christ’s saving death. Few citizens of the 21^st century like to think or talk about God’s wrath over sin’s destructive impact – except, perhaps, when we think of others’ sinfulness.

This Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson reminds Jesus’ followers that sin and the misery it causes infuriates God. God so passionately loves God’s image-bearers and hates sin’s effects on them that God will take all necessary steps to both punish its perpetrators and eradicate sin.

The gospel’s great news, however, is that God loves powerless, sinful people so much that God in Christ “saves” [sothesometha] (9) us from the eternal separation from God that we naturally deserve. Through Christ’s life, death and resurrection God graciously rescues God’s adopted children from the punishment that our sinful selves naturally deserve.

As a result, we have been, according to verse 1, “justified [dikaiothentes] through faith [ek pisteos].” While God’s justification of Jesus’ friends has a number of elements, verse 1b at least suggests that it includes “peace [eirenen] with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” We have naturally and voluntarily made ourselves God’s “enemies” [echthroi] (10). However, through our Lord Jesus Christ God made peace with us, graciously reconciling us to himself. “When we were at our worst,” as The Message paraphrases verse 10’s great news, “we were put on friendly terms with God by the sacrificial death of his Son.”

This is a gift, Paul professes in verse 2, that we need to and, in fact, only can receive with our faith: “We have gained access [prosagogen] by faith [te pistei] into this grace in which we now stand [hestekamen].” Because of Jesus’ rescuing work, God graciously grants Jesus’ friends free prosagogen (“admission”) to a right relationship with God. In fact, that’s such a free gift that the Holy Spirit (5b) also graces us with the faith that receives that entrance. Here we hestekamen (“stand”), strengthened and upheld by God’s amazing grace.

Romans 5 mentions at least two outcomes of this startling gift. Twice Paul refers to “boasting” [kauchometha] (2, 11). In fact, boasting basically brackets this Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson. In verse 2 the apostle says, “We boast in the hope [elpidi] of the glory of God [doxes tou Theou].” And in 11 he reports, “We boast in God, through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

It may seem hard for at least some of Jesus’ followers to imagine how we can kauchometha (“boast”) in anything, including God. Christian humility, after all, seems to leave no room for any kind of arrogance. Perhaps, then, the NRSV can offer some help. It, after all, translates verse 11’s form of kauchometha as “rejoicing.” This leaves some space for Jesus’ friends to rejoice not only in God himself, but also the prospect of sharing in God’s glory in the new earth and heaven. The paraphrase The Message offers of verse 11 may also prove helpful: “We sing and shout our praises to God through Jesus, the Messiah!”

God’s loving justification of and peace with us, what’s more, changes how God’s dearly beloved people think about suffering. Even Christians sometimes at least suspect that God is somehow punishing us by making us to suffer. While human suffering is sometimes a result of our sinfulness, Christ’s rescuing life, death and resurrection severed any connection between God’s punishment and Jesus’ friends’ suffering.

In fact, in verses 3-4 Paul makes what seems like an audacious claim about Christians’ response to our own suffering: “We … glory [kauchometha] in our sufferings [en tais thlipsesin].” Preachers might note a couple of things about this assertion. It again uses the Greek word kauchometha that the NIV translates as “glory in.” It, in other words, employs a form of the word that’s also translated in Romans 5 as “boast” and “rejoice.”

What’s more, Paul doesn’t claim that we somehow rejoice over our distress. He, instead, professes we rejoice en (“in”) them. Jesus’ friends celebrate not our misery itself, but in the midst of and perhaps even in spite of our tribulations. The Message paraphrases this as “We continue to shout our praise even when we’re hemmed in with troubles.”

Why can Paul make this apparently shocking profession? Because of where our distress leads. “We know,” the apostle professes in verses 3-4, “that suffering produces [katergazetai] perseverance [hypomonen]; perseverance character [dokimen]; and character, hope [elpida].” Few biblical assertions are more startling. The suffering Jesus’ followers experience is never pleasant. But it’s always productive in a positive way. By the grace of God mitigated through the power of the Holy Spirit, Christians’ suffering somehow results in hope that never lets us down.

All because while we were still perfectly content with God and our neighbors’ enemies, Christ died to rescue us.

*I have here and elsewhere added in brackets the Greek words for the English words the NIV translation uses.

Illustration

Preachers might listen for the Spirit’s guidance as we prayerfully seek a way to reintroduce Paul’s radical assertion that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. We might land somewhere near here: President Putin’s four year (though in reality more like 10+) declaration of war on Ukraine has infuriated many peace-loving people. Yet his grip on power is so tight that some people have wondered if his unjust war would end only with his death.

Preachers might suggest our hearers imagine an armed person somehow slipping behind Mr. Putin’s elaborate security system. Imagine that person firing some kind of gun that unless stopped will kill its target. All of that fits the way the world often responds to violence. We respond to violence with further violence.

But then imagine a young Ukrainian orphaned by Mr. Putin’s war stepping in the path of the bullet intended for that leader. Imagine that young boy or girl voluntarily sparing Mr. Putin’s life by dying in his place. Imagine him or her doing so before Mr. Putin ever took even just one step to end his assault on Ukraine with a just and righteous peace.

Yet would that be less imaginable than the perfect incarnate Son of God willingly absorbing sinners’ punishment in our place?

[Note: For the Year A Season of Lent and leading up to Easter, CEP has, in addition to these weekly sermon commentaries, a special Lent and Easter Resource Page with links to whole sermons, commentary on Lenten texts, and more.]