In verses 6-8 Paul has established the fact of God’s love for the sinner. He now reminds the Romans of what this has meant for them in the past (it has put them into a right relation with God) and calls their attention to what it will mean for them in the future (it will save them from God’s wrath on the final day of judgment). In typical Jewish fashion, Paul reasons from the greater to the lesser. If Christ was willing to die in order to bring men into a right relation with God (the greater), how much easier it will be for him to save us from God’s wrath on the final day of judgment (the lesser).
The second aspect of verse 9 must be carefully introduced in order to indicate specifically the relationship between these two aspects of Christ’s atoning work. This may be done in some languages by saying “if that is so, then obviously he will save us from God’s angry judgment,” “since that is so, then certainly Christ will save us when God will judge in anger.”
By his death (see New English Bible “by Christ’s sacrificial death”; Jerusalem Bible “having died”) is literally “by means of his blood.” In the present passage “blood” is used of Christ’s violent death, and so has the same meaning that it does in 3.25. When Paul speaks of “the blood of Christ,” he is, of course, drawing from the language of the Jewish sacrificial system, which placed two emphases on the experience of the sacrificial death: (1) the initial, violent aspect of the death itself, and (2) the release of life for another purpose through the shedding of the blood (the Jews understood that the life of a person or animal was in his blood). In passages where the use of “blood” is on the initial, violent aspect of death, the Good News Bible translates by death; while in passages where the emphasis is on the result of this experience in the lives of believers, the Good News Bible employs the term blood. Though by his death is specifically the means by which God puts us right with himself, this is expressed in some languages as cause—for example, “because Christ died for us, we are put right with God.”
Paul simply uses the word “wrath,” but the reference is to God’s wrath (see An American Translation* and Jerusalem Bible “God’s anger”); and by the use of the future tense, we will be saved, Paul indicates that the reference is to the expression of God’s wrath on the final day of judgment (see New English Bible “from final retribution”).
Quoted with permission from Newman, Barclay M. and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on Paul’s Letter to the Romans. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1973. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .