What Does Romans 5:11 Mean?
And not only that, but we also boast in God through our Lord Jesus, the Anointed One, by whom we have now taken hold of the exchange.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
And not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement.THE KEY
The reconciliation behind your joy is received through Jesus, so joy begins in a restored relationship with God.
THE MEANING
Through Jesus Christ, you now receive reconciliation with God, and joy rises in God himself. The verse speaks of a restored relationship that is already received in the present.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that you must repair yourself before God can receive you is undone: this verse describes reconciliation as something received through Jesus.
THE ROOT
καταλλαγήν
katallagēn
GROWS FROM
καταλλάσσω
katallassō
To reconcile; to restore a relationship from enmity to accord.
“the exchange” in this verse is katallagēn. The word carries the sense of reconciliation: a relationship changed from hostility to restored connection. Here, that reconciliation is something you have received, and it is the ground of your joy in God.
ALSO GROWS
katēllaxen: reconciled
κατήλλαξεν
This verb form names reconciliation as an action; Romans 5:10 uses the same verb family for being reconciled to God.
katallagē: reconciliation
καταλλαγή
This noun names the restored relationship itself, which this verse says you now receive.
καυχώμεθα
kauchōmetha
GROWS FROM
καυχάομαι
kauchaomai
To boast, exult, or take pride in.
“boast” in this verse is kauchōmetha. The verb translated “joy” can also carry the sense of openly exulting or boasting in someone. God himself is the object of that exultation, so the reconciliation received through Jesus gives joy a relationship to rest in.
ALSO GROWS
kauchēma: a ground for boasting
καύχημα
This related noun points to what a person can boast in; here, joy rests in God.
kauchēsis: boasting, exultation
καύχησις
This related noun echoes the verse’s outward, expressed delight rather than a merely private feeling.
THE PATTERN
When hostility is removed and relationship is restored, joy turns toward God.
On that day you will say, O LORD, I will extend my hands to you. Though you burned against me, your burning turned back, and you comforted me.And all things are out of God, who exchanged us back to himself through Jesus, the Anointed One, and gave us the service of exchange.And so that he might return both to God in one body through the cross, having slain the hostility in it.THE THREAD
For if, while we were enemies, we were exchanged with God through the death of his Son, much more, being exchanged, we will be delivered by his life.The same Greek word family appears here as “reconciled” and “reconciliation”: verse 10 names the restored relationship, and verse 11 names the joy that follows receiving it. The connection places that restoration in the face of enmity, not after the enmity has already vanished.
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