Rom. 5:1 KJV ¶ Therefore being justified by faith, we
have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ:
Rom. 5:1 jvb ¶ Therefore made (and being made) righteous by
(and in) faith, be at peace toward God, my brethren, through our Lord Jesus
Christ:
The
form of the Greek verb gives it a base meaning of "make righteous".
The use of the verb in judicial decisions has caused scholars to adopt the
meaning "declare righteous". There are two good reasons to reject scholarship.
One. The declaration and act of the Almighty are a unity. When He says
"This man is righteous", the man indeed is made righteous. Two. The
ancient legal use of "make righteous" is akin to our modern use of
"not guilty". Both apply to the legal status of the individual in regard
to the issue being resolved. It is a sort of legal fiction. The court cannot
make an individual either righteous or not guilty, nor even with absolute certainty
declare him to be such, even in regard to the issues of the case. But the court
is declaring that the individual is to be treated under the law as such in
regard to the issues of the trial. When God declares that a man is righteous,
that man is righteous (or is absolutely certain to become righteous).
The
tense of the Greek verb is aorist. The meaning of the Greek name of the tense
is without horizons or without limits. Specifically it looks at an action as a
whole. It specifies that the action has begun, in present or past time, but
says nothing about duration or ending. It is a tense with eternity future in
it. It is unique to Greek. Made available to the New Teatament as the first
alphabet was made available to Moses.
An
important part of the believer has already been made righteous. His new spirit
is "life because of righteousness" (Rom 8.10 - disregard
capitalization). The rest of being made righteous is the cleansing (aorist) from
all unrighteousness in 1Jo 1.9. (Note that the cleansing from all sin in 1Jo
1.7 is present tense and shows a repetitive action in eliminating the habits and
memories of the onetime servant of sin. The believer is aware of this and prays
for its success. For the completion of the aorist given gift of righteousness,
the believer trusts in the faithfulness and the justice of God. His acknowledgement
of sins committed when an unbeliever is a declaration of this trust.)
Rom
5.1 is literally "out of faith". This prepositional phrase (or the
phrase "faith of Christ") generally point us to the faith of our Lord
when He became sin for us. This ended His normal spiritual communion with the
Father and made Him dependant on faith, particularly in the last three hours of
His suffering when His being spiritually in outer darkness is indicated. The
revelation of the Good News of Christ has its beginning in the faith and
obedience of faith of our Lord when He bore the sins of believers. The faith
and obedience of faith to the Gospel by the believer are a part of his willing
acceptance of Christ as Lord and Savior. It is literaly out of faith and into
faith in Rom 1.16-17. (See Hab 2.4 Septuagint, Rom 3.22,26 Darby, Gal 2.20. The
communicable attributes of the Savior are given to the Christian believer as
part of the gift of Christ. This includes faith, obedience of faith,
righteousness, and much else.)
The
manuscript evidence clearly indicates an exhortative sense to the "having peace"
phrase in Rom 5.1. Scholarship maintains that proper literary composition rules
out an exhortation at this point in the epistle. There are two reasons to go
against scholarship. One. The preposition indicates peace before or toward God.
This indicates more an action or attitude of the believer than the acceptance
of an action or attitude of God. Two. The new believer has experienced an
enormous change. It is natural for him to ask; "What do I do now?". The
first thing would seem to be to get rid of all the feelings and attitudes
toward God that we had when we were enemies. Phi 4.6-7 is called for from the
first and whenever anxiety raises its worrisome head. I have avoided the use of
"let" in this and other exhoratives and imperatives which are
difficult to render in English because of the relative limitations of the
English imperative. The somewhat awkward English imperative is necessary to
give the active sense of the Greek exhoratative construction or non-second-person
Greek imperative. The "my brethren" compensates for the lack of a
first person plural imperative in English.
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