Who was delivered for our offenses, and was raised again for our justification.
Read Chapter 4
Ambrosiaster
AD 400
Those who were baptized before Christ’s passion received only the remission of their sins. … But after the resurrection both those who were baptized before and those who were baptized after were all justified by the set form of faith in the Trinity, and they received the Holy Spirit, who is the sign of believers that they are children of God…. For by the Savior’s passion death is vanquished. Once it was dominant because of sin, but it does not dare to hang on to those who have been justified by God. Commentary on Paul’s Epistles.
The eternal Father delivered his Son to death, to expiate our offences; he raised him from the dead for our justification. His death is our redemption; his resurrection is the principal object of our faith. Our faith in the resurrection, is imputed unto justice, as was the faith of Abraham in the promises of God. The apostle here seems to refer our faith and justification only to the resurrection, not to the exclusion of other mysteries of religion, which are all, and every one of them, the objects of our faith. But the resurrection is, as it were, the zeal and consummation of the rest; it eminently includes in itself all the others. (Calmet)
After mentioning the cause of Christ’s death, Paul goes on to make the same cause a demonstration of the resurrection. For why was Christ crucified? Not for any sins of his own—and this is plain from the resurrection. For if Christ had been a sinner, how could he have risen from the dead? So if he did rise, it is clear that he was not a sinner…. Moreover, Christ did not die in order to make us liable to punishment and condemnation but in order to do good to us.
You see how divine Wisdom has murdered even her own proper, first-born and only Son, who is certainly about to live, nay, to bring back the others also into life. I can say with the Wisdom of God; It is Christ who gave Himself up for our offences.
