Perhaps you are correct, but … how can I know that?
Romans 5:10 [NASB] For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.
“while we were enemies we were reconciled” says something in English that you are claiming it does not mean in Greek. I am unqualified to challenge your explanation of the Greek and “aorist” tense. However, I can ask this: why did the translation teams get the message wrong? Why did they select words and phrases in English that so clearly DO indicate WHEN if that is clearly “not the point” in the original?
How can I know that YOUR opinion is correct? I cannot reasonably be asked to reject my own opinion and the plain reading of the text in English just because “someone says so”.
The text certainly provokes questions about the distinction between “were reconciled” and “shall be saved”, but it appears to place “reconciled” in the past and “saved” at a different event.
Two things are well taken into account, or three.
1) The Bible wasn't written in English —"Plain reading", for all its popularity modern day, is in the original languages, which involves more than anybody nowadays can know. But we can know a lot. We are blessed to have it written in those original languages—in Romans 5, the Greek, which is a very logical language, which fact Paul uses to great advantage. Even in English, it is easy to misunderstand a contemporary writer—I myself have written something I thought cogent and concise and the next day reading it again wondered what in the world was I thinking!
2) Scripture does not contradict itself. There is a modern, and I don't know how old, attitude that believers (and others) have adopted in reading the Scriptures, that I consider rather
superstitious. It is true that the word of God exists throughout any translation —even in some of the worst paraphrases, the truth can be found. But notice how painfully wrong those paraphrases can be in trying to increase the readability or understandability of the text! The same thing happens with any translation. I don't mean to discourage anyone from hoping to understand. God does, after all, illuminate and bring things to mind and even instruct. This attitude toward Scripture is good, in that it holds the word of God in high regard, but it is faulty in that it thinks this 'language of heaven' is to be dealt with differently from plain language. We do, instead of how we do other books, deal with it in a one-thing-at-a-time way. One verse does not stand alone. There are 66 books of verses there, that must agree with it.
3) Orthodoxy is a useful anchor. It's true that we all
read into what we read. We all have our point of view and our worldview and our biases, and we are dangerously adept at drawing patterns from what we see. Something looks reasonable and enthralling, so we check it out against other sound-alike references and forget to check it against time-proven Orthodoxy. The way I think of it is, believe as you think reasonable, even make suggestions to your brothers/sisters, but don't teach as absolute what Orthodoxy does not support, or, particularly, something that contradicts Orthodoxy. The creeds and confessions are very carefully written, and are necessarily concise for both readability, and for avoiding error-via-too-many-words. "Justification [is] by faith" or "...through faith". (In the Greek, "...proceeds out of faith" or even "is an extract of faith"). If anything we teach by some enthralling thought places justification into a timeline that denies justification-by-faith, the enthralling thought is suspect, and needs reworking.
4) You asked, "
why did the translation teams get the message wrong?" They are always going to get it a little bit wrong, or, at least, not completely right. Like I've said, one language doesn't translate precisely into another. But on top of that, and the huge worldview differences between the first century (and earlier) writers and 2026 readers in another language, there is the fact that even the most skilled translators are swayed by bias, by the need for recognition, by pride and weakness of the flesh, the wish to be "done! already", by the shortcuts taken by referring to other translations for a good way to put something, by the need to please those who commissioned their work, and so on. But, again I repeat, the truth is still there. God's word will not return to him void. Not one jot nor one tittle will pass away. We CAN read it confidently. It is ourselves we need to hold in a bit of skepticism.
Concerning this particular passage, the English can be misleading to a reader, perhaps, but let's suppose the translators did as good a job as could be done, into the English. Not all readers who are following and studying Paul's argument read into it any discrepancy between timelines, because they already know he is not speaking of timelines, but the dynamics of what GOD has done, with a logical layout of particulars, irrespective of WHEN.
