Romans 5.1-5

Paulos,

Thank you for your great help with Romans 4. Since you placed your translation of the remainder of chapter 4 in your post, I will simply move on to chapter 5, unless any major queries arise that would bring us back to chapter 4. I trust you are okay with this. If now we can go back. But until then, I will press on. Here is my translation of chapter 5:1-5 with commentary. I await your thoughts. Peace to you.

Romans 5:1-5

¹ Therefore, since we have been declared righteous from faithfulness, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, ² through whom also we have obtained access through faithfulness into this grace in which we stand, and we boast in the glory of God. ³ Not only this, but we boast in sufferings, because we know that affliction brings to completion perseverance, and perseverance brings to completion character, and character brings to completion hope. ⁵ And hope does not dishonor us, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.

With Paul beginning this sentence with ‘therefore’ and with the mention of ‘declared righteous from faithfulness’, Paul is bringing his argument from chapters 3-4 to a close, and shifting to the implication(s) of being declared righteous from faithfulness. Since God has justly declared those who belong to Jesus the faithful one to be righteous, because of Jesus’ faithfulness, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. This peace with God is what was promised in the OT for God’s people in the last days, and Paul is saying that those who belong to Jesus, who follow in the footsteps of Jesus, whether Jew or Gentile, now have the peace which was promised (As you can tell from my translation, I am persuaded that the Greek verb for ‘we have peace’ should be indicative and not subjunctive. I trust you see things this way as well). This peace comes through Jesus who is Lord and Christ (King). With the mention of peace and the statement of the agency of that peace, Jesus, Paul is reminding us of the gospel of God, which concerns his son. That is, in the OT, specifically in Isaiah, David was to be the agent of peace, and Jesus, who is according to the flesh a descendent of David, is the one through whom God’s peace comes. Jesus is the long expected Davidic ruler.

It is through Jesus that we who have been declared righteous who have obtained access into the grace in which we stand. Our rebellion with God has ended, and he has brought peace, and we also stand in his grace, no longer under his wrath. With the wording of ‘obtained access’ probably comes cultic themes in that we have now gained access into the dwelling of God, into the holy of holies. Because of all of this, we now boast in God. Instead of boasting in the Law (2:27, 3:27), we boast in the glory of God. This is a great reversal (!), for Paul discussed in Romans 1:18ff that humanity in the pattern of Adam has exchanged the glory of God (1:23) for a image. But now we who are at peace with God boast in the glory of God. God is remaking humanity through Jesus the faithful one.

But we who are at peace with God not only boast in the glory of God, we also boast in our sufferings. This it seems to me means that our sufferings, just like the glory of God is the object of our boast. This, as Wright, claims is a counterintuitive move by Paul, since it would seem that if we have peace with God we would not have tribulations and afflictions. Instead of peace with God and suffering being opposites, they are held together here. This is not on account of afflictions being good in themselves. Rather, we boast in afflictions because of what affliction produces. Affliction brings to completion perseverance, and as we persevere, our character is tested and shown to be true, and this brings to completion hope. The hope would seem to be the hope of the resurrection, but Paul has not fully discussed this, and he will not bring these ideas to completion until chapter 8. It would seem though that as we endure affliction our character is tested (cf. James 1; 1 Peter 1), and hope grows in us as we await the redemption of our bodies and the redemption of all creation at the return of Jesus. This hope, then, is a sure hope, and this hope will not dishonor us, because this hope will one day be realized. We know that this is the case because we have God’s love (here the genitive should be subjective just like ‘God’s righteousness’, ‘God’s wrath’, and ‘Jesus’ faithfulness’), poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who was given to us. This too is a theme that Paul will bring to a close in Romans 8. The idea though at this point is that the Spirit is the love of God poured out to us, and because we have the Spirit, we know God’s love, and this also shows us that if God has given us his Spirit, the hope will be realized, and thus we will not be put to dishonor on the last day before God.