How Much More Shall We Be Saved Through His Life!

For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! (Romans 5:10)

Christ died for all, therefore all died, Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5:14. We had been God’s enemies, which is to say that we saw God as our enemy, not that God ever saw us as his. We had turned away from God but God never turned away from us. So, even while we viewed God with suspicion and distrust and went our own way, Christ died for us all.

Through his death, we were reconciled to God. This is the truth about all of us. For inasmuch as Christ died for us all, then whatever his death accomplished, it accomplished for us all. The battle has been waged, the power of sin and death have been broken and peace has been won. We have all been reconciled to God through Christ’s victory on the cross. Though not everyone has heard or believed this good news and embraced this peace, it is true nonetheless.

But notice what Paul says next: “How much more, having been reconciled [through the death of Christ], shall we be saved through his life!” Paul’s how much more is a rabbinic form of argument, qal va homer in Hebrew, a form that moves from the lesser to the greater. If it is true that we are reconciled to God through the death of Christ — as all of us are — then it is even more certain that we will be saved through his resurrection life.

Paul reinforces this just a few verses later: “Consequently, just as one trespass [Adam’s sin in the Garden] resulted in condemnation for all people, so also one righteous act [Christ’s death on the cross] resulted in justification and life for all people” (Romans 5:18). Paul draws it out even more in 1 Corinthians 15:21-22, “For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.” And so he goes on to say in Romans 6:8, “Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him.”

Paul was “convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died” and that “God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ” (2 Corinthians 5:14, 19). That being so, how much more shall we be saved by the life of the resurrected Christ.