Christ’S Death Linked With His Resurrection
CHRIST’S DEATH LINKED WITH HIS RESURRECTION
ROMANS 5:9-11
Writing boldly and intensely, Paul enlarges our vision.
The argument runs step by step like this. The initial problem is the greatest. How can sinners be reconciled to a righteous God? How can a holy God demonstrate his love for rebels, and give them divine righteousness? How that major difficulty can be overcome has been explained in 3:21-30. God has “put forward” Christ to be an atoning sacrifice for our sins. His death was the demonstration, and by faith in Christ crucified, humanity is brought near to God.
If such grace was shown us while we were still sinners, then much more, with that transaction done, can we trust the living Christ to preserve us, not only from the temptations which come to us in life, but also from final judgment. He died on the cross, but he also rose from the dead. He lives while we live, in us, available, implicated, involved, and he will be present at the awesome encounter in another life when we meet God.
This is a thought to which Paul will return, for example in the triumphant words of chapter 8. Note how intimately Christ’s death is linked with his resurrection. Without a living Christ there can be no assurance, just as without the dying Christ there could be no salvation.
Assurance, in a word, comes from acceptance of the fact of Christ’s atoning death as the basis of our salvation, and the consciousness of union with an indwelling risen Christ as a continuing experience.
5:11 speaks of “boasting” or “rejoicing” in God. Such boasting is not “excluded” (see 3:27). See also Psalm 34:2; 44:8; 2 Corinthians 11:17.