In Romans 5, the apostle Paul writes:

“But while we were yet weak, even according to the present term, Christ died for the unrighteous. – For hardly anyone will die for a righteous man.”
Rom 5:6-7

The end of religious behavior

Christ died for the unfaithful, writes Paul. Because, he adds, hardly anyone would die for a righteous man. Clear language that means the end of all religious zeal. Christ did not die for pious zealots, not for people who scrupulously followed all the “rules” or tried to “approach God”. All this is not rewarded with the “death of Christ”. That would be insane. Christ did not die for the pious, He died for the unpious.

He doubles down when he writes that hardly anyone would die for a righteous man. That would not have been necessary. Those who are already righteous need no solution for alienation from God, no salvation. Nothing needs to be restored, nothing needs to be repaired in a righteous person. A righteous man is already righteous, therefore he is called so! Then why does such a person need God’s righteousness, which He brought about on the cross? Those who are already righteous by their own efforts have no need for the grace of God.

Paul is sober. Incredibly sober. He stated earlier in Romans that no man is righteous (Rom 3:10). There is also no one who earnestly seeks God (Rom 3:11). All men sinned, missed the mark, and lack the glory of God (Rom 3:23). All people suffer from a deficiency. However, this is a sharp contrast to the pious efforts of some people, or to the rulebooks of human religion.

The Gospel, the Good News that Paul proclaims, goes in a completely different direction. No one is righteous, but everyone receives God’s own righteousness for free (Rom 1:15-16, Rom 3:21-24). This kind of preaching is transverse to any human effort.

After declaring this righteousness of God for every person in chapters 3 and 4, the apostle develops thoughts about the implications of this message in Romans 5. Wider and wider circles are being drawn. In these verses he looks back and sketches a contrast with the time before we came to faith. Paul reminds us of how it was before and how it became after.

“For when we were weak …”
Rom 5:6

This is what he writes to the church in Rome. He writes to the believers. I don’t want them to forget what it was like before. Paul says: At that time, when you were still weak, still living without faith in this world, Christ died for you! It must be remembered that the crucifixion and resurrection had happened only a few years before. Many people were already alive when the crucifixion was carried out in Jerusalem. Paul lectured on the fact that the people in Rome at that time only lived their own lives and knew nothing of all this.

This circumstance that Jesus died when most people were living their own lives unsuspectingly, Paul now takes the opportunity to talk about the purpose of God. Only later did the Romans come to believe. A false piety that Paul does not mention here can quickly take hold. Therefore, now the comparison: you were still clueless when Christ died for you. So he did not die because of your good intentions, your blameless behavior, or your pious views. All this did not apply. Christ died for the unfaithful!

God’s action central

Paul does not reject godliness. In another place he writes “Well is godliness a great capital …” (1Tim 6,6). There, however, the context is different. Here in the Epistle to the Romans, it is a matter of clarification. God’s action took place when you were still clueless. It has nothing to do with your effort or mine. We did not trigger the action of God. He did that on His own. We will come later.

“For while we were yet weak, even according to the present term, Christ died for the unrighteous. – For hardly anyone will die for a righteous man; but for the good cause someone might still dare to die.”
Rom 5:6-7

Paul always places God’s action centrally. We were not fair. God would hardly send His son for that. It all starts with Him. From this springs the radical power of the gospel of grace. However, by this we also recognize God’s purpose and His love.

“But God exalts His love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”
Rom 5:8

God’s love is emphasized because it happened selflessly and without involvement. God loves Himself. We have nothing to do with it. This proves His love. Christ died for the unfaithful, namely for the Romans and every other human being while they were still sinners. God does not need our approval for loving us.

God’s love has consequences

Paul builds his argument step by step. Now he summarizes these words and derives an encouragement from them:

“How much more consequently
we are now justified in His blood,
be saved from wrath through Him!”
Rom 5:9, cf. 1Th 1:10

The wrath of God has already been mentioned by Paul in chapter 1: “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven…” (Rom 1:18). Let us not confuse the wrath of God with the final judgment. The wrath of God is the judgment that God brings “from heaven” upon the earth. However, we are saved from this, he writes here. What is meant by this wrath of God?

The Wrath of God

Paul lived from a near expectation. The prophets of Israel had spoken of a coming Messianic kingdom. Even though the church is not Israel, a wrath of God is expected, as has been reported. This is not about a final judgment or about a hereafter, but about God’s judicial action here in this world. (Those who are not familiar with this idea can simply look up all the places in the Bible where the wrath of God is mentioned. Everywhere it takes place on earth).

The wrath of God becomes visible at the dawn of the Day of the Lord, when the establishment of the Messianic Kingdom is imminent. It is a judgment on earth, and it leads over into the Messianic promises (Mt 24 and 25, cf. Isa 13:9, Rom 2:5). The church will see this wrath coming but will not fall into it (Rom 5:9, 1Th 5:9, 1Th 1:10).

Saved from the wrath

Paul writes that we are saved “from wrath” or “out of the coming of wrath” (1Th 1:10). That’s why we’re talking about time here. This is important if we want to understand the text. We are not saved “from wrath,” but saved temporally “from wrath.” This is also logical, because Paul is talking about salvation here, not declaring wrath here (he already did that in the first chapter). Of course, both are true, because whoever is saved from wrath is also saved from wrath.

Paul encourages. If God already testifies to His love for us, isn’t it clear that He also saves us from wrath? Significantly, Paul places the personal understanding of faith by the people of Rome in a much larger context. Of course, the believers in Rome knew that God was working in the world, and not just in their personal lives (this is often somewhat lost today). Paul wants them to appreciate the personal experience based on the cross and resurrection, but also to understand from it what their position is in the much larger plan of God. First, according to the words of the prophets, a wrath of God would become visible worldwide. That’s why Paul mentions this. This comes from the expectation of that time and no one has known that 2000 years later we read these lines again.

Docking” in the right place

At the end, let’s keep in mind why it really works. It is about God’s work that takes place in Christ without our intervention. He died for the infidel. I can “dock” there, because that is how I am meant too. When we “keep this realization sharp,” much misguided piety dissolves.