3. Benefits of justification by faith (5:1-11)
Christ brings us to the place of divine grace where we stand firm. We are so confident of God’s grace that we can rejoice in the hope of sharing in God’s glory in the future. God’s grace is so powerful that, for those who stand firm in it, suffering produces perseverance. Such perseverance shows that we can meet the test of adversity. The Greek word behind NIV’s character is dokimē, which refers to the quality of approval by test. Meeting the test reinforces the hope (vv.3-4). Such hope does not disappoint us because it is grounded in the love God has for us. We experience that love when we receive the Holy Spirit (v.5).
Vv.6-8 give objective evidences for the love of God. Rarely would anyone die for a righteous person, though some may possibly dare to die for their benefactor. But surely no one would die for the enemy. Yet Christ died for us, ungodly sinners and God’s enemies! God demonstrates his own love for us in this (v.8). The tenses of the verbs are noteworthy. The event of crucifixion was a past one, but the fact that it took place remains as a present proof of God’s love for us.
It is hard to die for one’s enemy. It is much easier to save one’s friend. When we were still sinners and God’s enemies, Christ died for us in order to reconcile us to God and make us his friends. Since God has done this much harder thing, surely we can count on him to do the much easier thing, to save us, his friends, from his wrath in the future. Meanwhile we can now rejoice in God and in his present grace (vv.9-11). V.10 states, We are reconciled to him through the death of his Son; and How much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! This should not be interpreted so as to make a rigid distinction between what Christ’s death and what his life accomplished (see comment on 4:25).
Three important theological issues need further attention. V.9 mentions the blood of Jesus Christ. Some scholars, starting from Lev 17:11, “The life of a creature is in the blood,” maintain that Jesus' blood was shed in order to release his life to be shared with others. However, the parallelism of vv.9-10 indicates clearly that the blood of Jesus stands for his death, not his life.
Reconciliation (v.10) removes enmity. The enmity removed is both human hostility toward God (cf. 8:7) and God’s hostility toward sinners (cf. 11:28; 1:18). God takes the initiative in reconciliation. Paul uses the active voice of the verb only of God and the passive only of human beings. Yet in 2Co 5:20 Paul represents God as calling men and women to be reconciled to him. So the human role in reconciliation is not totally passive.
In vv.9-10, the word saved is in the future tense. The wrath of God from which we shall be saved is in the future. Even though the wrath of God is being revealed from heaven now (1:18), there will still be God’s wrath in the future, at the end of the present age. V.10 also mentions that we shall be saved in the future. Yet Paul uses “saved” in the past tense in 8:24, “we were saved”; in v.9 Paul says, We have now been justified. Evidently salvation took place in the past, has its effect at present, and will be completed in the future. For other aspects of salvation see comment on 1:16.