For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.

People's New Testament

5:10 For if... we were reconciled to God. As sinners, we are the enemies of God, rebels, under his divine displeasure. Through the gospel of the Crucified Redeemer, we obtain peace with God. We turn to him, and are reconciled to him, obtaining forgiveness through faith, God is not reconciled to us, but we to him. His love ever shines, and is shown in his gospel. He is ever ready to pardon, and when we cease our rebellion, and come to him, through Christ, for mercy, he receives us.

We shall be saved by his life. He who gave his blood for our reconciliation, will not leave his work incomplete. He died, has risen and ascended on high, and he will not leave us in the grave, but we shall rise with him (1Co 15:22).

Wesley's Notes

5:10 If - As sure as; so the word frequently signifies; particularly in this and the eighth chapter . We shalt be saved - Sanctified and glorified. Through his life - Who ever liveth to make intercession for us.

Scofield Reference Notes

Margin Reconciliation

See Rom 5: 10,11 2Cor 5:18-20 Col 1:21.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

10. For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being now-"having now been"

reconciled, we shall be saved by his life-that is "If that part of the Saviour's work which cost Him His blood, and which had to be wrought for persons incapable of the least sympathy either with His love or His labors in their behalf-even our 'justification,' our 'reconciliation'-is already completed; how much more will He do all that remains to be done, since He has it to do, not by death agonies any more, but in untroubled 'life,' and no longer for enemies, but for friends-from whom, at every stage of it, He receives the grateful response of redeemed and adoring souls?" To be "saved from wrath through Him," denotes here the whole work of Christ towards believers, from the moment of justification, when the wrath of God is turned away from them, till the Judge on the great white throne shall discharge that wrath upon them that "obey not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ"; and that work may all be summed up in "keeping them from falling, and presenting them faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy" (Jude 24): thus are they "saved from wrath through Him."

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

5:6-11 Christ died for sinners; not only such as were useless, but such as were guilty and hateful; such that their everlasting destruction would be to the glory of God's justice. Christ died to save us, not in our sins, but from our sins; and we were yet sinners when he died for us. Nay, the carnal mind is not only an enemy to God, but enmity itself, chap. 8:7; Col 1:21. But God designed to deliver from sin, and to work a great change. While the sinful state continues, God loathes the sinner, and the sinner loathes God, Zec 11:8. And that for such as these Christ should die, is a mystery; no other such an instance of love is known, so that it may well be the employment of eternity to adore and wonder at it. Again; what idea had the apostle when he supposed the case of some one dying for a righteous man? And yet he only put it as a thing that might be. Was it not the undergoing this suffering, that the person intended to be benefitted might be released therefrom? But from what are believers in Christ released by his death? Not from bodily death; for that they all do and must endure. The evil, from which the deliverance could be effected only in this astonishing manner, must be more dreadful than natural death. There is no evil, to which the argument can be applied, except that which the apostle actually affirms, sin, and wrath, the punishment of sin, determined by the unerring justice of God. And if, by Divine grace, they were thus brought to repent, and to believe in Christ, and thus were justified by the price of his bloodshedding, and by faith in that atonement, much more through Him who died for them and rose again, would they be kept from falling under the power of sin and Satan, or departing finally from him. The living Lord of all, will complete the purpose of his dying love, by saving all true believers to the uttermost. Having such a pledge of salvation in the love of God through Christ, the apostle declared that believers not only rejoiced in the hope of heaven, and even in their tribulations for Christ's sake, but they gloried in God also, as their unchangeable Friend and all-sufficient Portion, through Christ only.