Romans 5.10a-While We Were Enemies We Were Reconciled to God Through Christ's Death
Wenstrom Bible Ministries
Pastor-Teacher Bill Wenstrom
Wednesday April 16, 2008
Romans: Romans 5:10a-While We Were Enemies, We Were Reconciled to God Through Christ’s Death
Lesson # 153
Please turn in your Bibles to Romans 5:1.
This evening we will begin to study Romans 5:10, in which the apostle Paul once again employs the a fortiori argument in order to teach his readers that if they were reconciled to God through His Son’s death while His enemies, how much more will they be delivered by His Son’s life.
Romans 5:1-11, “Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand; and we exult in hope of the glory of God. And not only this, but we also exult in our tribulations, knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance and perseverance, proven character; and proven character, hope and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us. For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die but God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life and not only this, but we also exult in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation.”
In Romans 5:10, “for” is the “explanatory” use of the post-positive conjunction gar (gavr), which introduces a first class conditional statement that “explains” Paul’s statement in Romans 5:9.
In Romans 5:9, Paul employed an a fortiori argument in order to teach that if Christ died as a substitute for sinners, how much more then, will He deliver from the wrath of God the sinner justified by faith in Jesus Christ.
The fact that God the Father sent His Son to the Cross to die as a substitute for the believer prior to being justified by faith in Jesus Christ guarantees the believer that his confidence in the Lord is not misplaced but rather He can be depended upon.
Christ’s substitutionary spiritual death on behalf of the believer while he was unregenerate and an enemy of God, guarantees that the believer will be blessed in the future and avoid the wrath of God.
In other words, if God the Father expressed His love for the believer by sending His Son to the Cross to die as a substitute for them while they were His enemies, then He will certainly bless the believer now that he is reconciled to God.
If God has done the most “difficult” thing for the believer in sending His Son to die as a substitute for them while they were His enemies, how much more can God be depended upon to accomplish the “easier” thing, namely, deliver them from the wrath of God now that they are reconciled to Him.
If Christ had done the “greater” work of providing the basis for the justification of sinners by dying for them as their substitute, He will certainly then perform the comparatively “lesser” task of delivering them from the Lake of Fire, now that they are reconciled to Him.
The “most difficult” or “greatest” problem facing God when dealing with sinful mankind was fulfilling the demands of His holiness that required that sin and sinners face His righteous indignation while at the same time expressing His love for sinners in providing them a way of avoiding His righteous indignation.
So the logical argument of a fortiori as expressed by the words pollo mallon, “much more” emphasizes that if Christ died for His enemies, it follows that He will deliver His friends or those who have been reconciled to His Father through faith in Him.
The “greater” is the work of salvation accomplished by Jesus Christ’s spiritual death on the Cross, which is an accomplished fact of history.
The “less” is God protecting, sustaining and delivering the believer in time and blessing him in the future and delivering him from the eternal Lake of Fire.
Therefore, in Romans 5:10, the conjunction gar introduces a first class conditional statement that “explains the reason why” the sinner justified by faith on the basis of Jesus Christ’s spiritual death on the Cross will be that much more delivered from the wrath of God.
Namely, if they were reconciled to God through the death of His Son while they were His enemies, how much more will they be delivered by His Son’s life!
If God sacrificed His beloved Son Jesus Christ for the sake of His enemies, He will certainly deliver from His wrath those who have trusted in His Son Jesus Christ as Savior!
Romans 5:10, “For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.”
“If” is the conditional particle ei (ei)) (i), which introduces a protasis of a first class condition that indicates the assumption of truth for the sake of argument.
Paul is employing the first class condition as a tool of persuasion with his Christian audience.
The premise is called the “protasis” and the conclusion is called the “apodasis.”
The “protasis” is the cause that states the supposition or the premise whereas the “apodasis” is the cause that states the conclusion derived from the premise.
The basic relation that the protasis has to the apodasis is “evidence-inference.”
The “evidence” is that while the Christian was an enemy of God, they were reconciled to God through the death of His Son Jesus Christ.
The “inference” would be that if the Christian is reconciled to God through faith in His Son Jesus Christ, then how much more will they be delivered from the wrath of God in the future by the life of Jesus Christ.
The response to Paul’s protasis by his Christian readership would be that of course they believe that they were reconciled to God through the death of His Son while they were enemies of God!
They would agree emphatically with his protasis that they were reconciled to God through the death of His Son while they were yet enemies of God.
Thus, we call this a “responsive” condition.
He is not attempting to prove that his protasis is true rather he is saying with the first class condition that we agree that this is true that we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son while we were His enemies.
The first class condition would then persuade them to respond to the conclusion found in the apodasis that they will emphatically be delivered from the wrath of God.
Therefore, Paul’s audience would have to come to his conclusion if they submit to this line of argumentation.
Romans 5:10, “For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.”
“Enemies” is the adjective echthros (e)xqrov$) (ech-thros), which is used in a “passive” sense rather than an active sense to describe unregenerate humanity as being regarded by God as an enemy.
The active sense denotes the hostility of the subject towards others whereas the passive sense denotes the subject being the object of hostility from others.
In Romans 5:10, those sinners who have been declared justified by God the Father through faith in His Son Jesus Christ and in particular, Paul and his fellow Christians are the subject.
Therefore, if the active sense of the adjective echthros is in view here in Romans 5:10, then this would denote mankind’s hostility towards God whereas, if the passive sense is in view this would denote God’s hostility towards sinful mankind.
Some expositors prefer the active and some the passive whereas many believe that both senses are being used by Paul.
The New Testament teaches that unregenerate human beings are antagonistic towards God (Romans 11:28; Colossians 1:21).
There are several reasons which indicate that Paul is using the adjective in the passive sense.
First of all, in Romans 5:9, Paul argues that because he and his fellow Christians are justified on the basis of Christ’s substitutionary spiritual death, how much more will they be delivered from God’s righteous indignation through Christ.
Notice in Romans 5:9, that before Paul and his fellow Christians were declared justified by God the Father through faith in His Son Jesus Christ that they were the objects of God’s righteous indignation or wrath.
This clearly suggests a holy God’s hostility towards sinners and that the adjective echthros is used in a passive sense.
In fact, this leads to the second reason, which is that up to this point in the book of Romans and in particular, in Romans 1:18-3:8, Paul clearly teaches that both unregenerate Jew and Gentiles are the objects of God’s righteous indignation.
This is the result of their disobedience to the revelation of God in creation, the Law, both inherent and written through mental, verbal and overt acts of sin.
Thirdly, the Scriptures never state that God needs to be reconciled to sinners since He is sinless.
However, they do teach that sinners need to be reconciled to a holy God due to the fact that their sins result in God expressing His holiness with His righteous indignation towards sin and sinners (Romans 1:18-3:18).
This too indicates that God, who is holy, is hostile towards sin and sinners and thus echthros is used in a passive sense in Romans 5:10.
The fourth reason is related to the idea of reconciliation in that the sinner justified by faith in Jesus Christ “received” this reconciliation “from God” who initiated it and brought it about through the death of His Son Jesus Christ.
This is indicated by the passive voice of the verb katallasso, “we were reconciled” that appears in Romans 5:10 and the active voice of the verb lambano, “we have received” and its direct object katallage, “reconciliation.”
This reconciliation from God was accomplished by God when He sent His Son to die in the place of sinners according to Paul’s statements in Romans 3:21-26 and 5:6-8, which indicates that God’s love found a way to satisfy His righteous indignation towards sin and sinners.
God did not receive reconciliation from mankind since mankind as Paul proved Romans 5:6-8 does not have the capacity to sacrificially love those who are its enemies as God does.
Therefore, man cannot initiate a reconciliation with those who are hostile towards him or his enemies.
This then rules out the active sense of the adjective echthros since man does not have the capacity to initiate a reconciliation with those whom he is hostile towards, only God has the capacity to do just that as taught by Paul in Romans 5:6-8.
Paul’s use of a fortiori in Romans 5:10 also indicates that Paul is using the passive sense of the adjective echthros where he argues with his Christian readership that if they were reconciled to God through His Son’s death while His enemies, how much more will they be delivered by His Son’s life.
Now, if the active sense of echthros is in view, then Paul’s a fortiori argument would lose its point since it would indicate that God loved us and saved us when we were enemies in our attitude towards Him.
Paul is not arguing that if he and his fellow Christians have begun to love God that they can count on Him doing the same for them.
Rather, he is arguing that if God has done the most difficult thing in sending His Son to die on their behalf while they were His enemies, then how much more will they be delivered by His Son’s life now that they have been reconciled to Him.
Romans 5:10, “For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.”
“We were reconciled to God through the death of His Son” denotes that while the Christian was God’s enemy, God the Father took the initiative and sent His Son to the Cross to die a spiritual death as a Substitute for them as the means by which He reconciled them to Himself.
There are two word groups, which speak of death in the New Testament: (1) Thanatos (2) Nekros.
In Romans 5:10, the former rather than the latter is used by Paul.
The difference in usage between the two words is that thanatos is always used by the New Testament writers in reference to our Lord’s voluntary substitutionary spiritual death on the cross.
Nekros and its word group are never used in relation to the unique voluntary substitutionary spiritual death of Christ on the cross.
Therefore, in Romans 5:10, the noun thanatos refers to the unique voluntary substitutionary spiritual death of the impeccable humanity of Christ in hypostatic union and which death is recorded in Matthew 27:46.
Matthew 27:45-46, “Now from the sixth hour darkness fell upon all the land until the ninth hour. About the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, ‘ELI, ELI, LAMA SABACHTHANI?’ that is, ‘MY GOD, MY GOD, WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN ME?’”