Romans Chapter 5
Verses 1/2 “Therefore being justified by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom also we have access to faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.”
Righteousness was acquired by Abraham through faith. In this state God gave him the promise. God thus committed Himself to the realising of eternal purpose on earth. Now that the righteousness of God has been fully set forth in Christ, God has acquired the means by which the promise can be fulfilled. We now enjoy the blessings of the promise in fact as Abraham did in type. What Abraham found was that
a. being without strength in the flesh, God constituted him righteous, and
b. he received the seed and that in resurrection, in figure.
In setting forth the position for us, Paul now reverses the order. We receive through the Lord Jesus, the true seed in actual resurrection, all the benefit of His work toward God. Then, being ungodly in the flesh, we also receive within ourselves the righteousness which God imputes. Abraham’s blessings were bound up with the seed which he received from divine intervention. This opened his mind to, and set his heart upon, the new realm of resurrection thereby unfolded. God was able and willing to act upon that which was dead for the giving and fulfilment of the promise. So we also do not yet receive the complete fulfilment of the promise, the glory which shall be revealed. We receive the Christ of resurrection and this introduces us spiritually into the new creation, into the realm which our Lord Jesus Christ has entered. In such a Christ we have and enjoy every present blessing which has resulted from divine intervention.
Paul now delineates the christian position. This is the third part of the ‘mechanics’ of Paul’s gospel. He shows how the gospel acts as the power of God in the present time to give us access into this present grace in which we stand. We can enjoy all that exists in the spiritual realm in which God lives and acts to fulfil the promise.
The Person of our Christ is introduced as being the One in whom all present blessing exists. The two titles of our Lord, now declared, demonstrate the two-fold power in the gospel. In this chapter He is set forth as our Lord Jesus Christ, or Jesus Christ our Lord; in chapter 6 He is presented as Christ Jesus (our Lord); in chapter 7 and 8 both titles are used. As our Lord Jesus Christ He is One who lived on earth as a Man and has accomplished the work of redemption. Thereafter He has become our Lord in heaven to open up that realm for us. As Christ Jesus He is a glorified Man in heaven, who is our life and resurrection and ascension.
The christian position, as typified in Abraham, rests upon life out of death and deadness. The power of the gospel toward us acts in resurrection. The blessings associated with our being alive toward God in this spiritual realm arise from the work of God through the Lord Jesus. We have peace with God, the grace of God and hope in God.
a. Peace with God. This comes from resting in the finished redemptive work of God in Christ. ‘Having been justified’ is an aorist participle, a work complete in itself. This brings us into an eternal relationship with God which is characterised by peace. We enjoy the benefits of this peace offering.
b. The grace wherein we stand. This is the present enjoyment of the divine activity by which God is perfecting us spiritually. God is acting toward us that we might enjoy the right of access to His presence which grace has opened up. The possibility is opened up to us to enjoy the things of the God of revelation in His presence. We have in us a nature which is capable of enjoying God fully revealed in Christ. For this we must live and act in the realm of life beyond death. We have a nature great enough spiritually to understand revealed truth, to interpret Scripture aright.
c. The hope of the glory of God. We boast of being in possession of this hope, as was Abraham. We know and enjoy spiritually that which the fulfilment of the promises has opened up. We know what God will accomplish on earth in the future as a result of His redemptive work. Promised glory is now enjoyed as the hope of God’s calling. We boast that God has already given to us, by the effectiveness of His work, the sure token that His promises shall be fulfilled. We already enjoy the fulfilment in spirit.
Thus, the past, present and future is secured for us by Christ the Seed. That which He has done, which He now is and does and which He shall yet do, is what we are associated with through the gospel by the divine power which operates in it toward us.
Verse 3 “And not only so, but we glory in tribulation also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience.”
Not only have we been so placed and blessed but this divine operation in the gospel governs
a. our present experience in the world (verses 3-10) and
b. our present appreciation of God (verse 11, the second ‘not only so’)
The work of God and His blessings are so perfect as to make the effects of the curse remaining upon the world the occasion for our more perfect enjoyment of that which is of our God. That God has involved us in divine purpose, results in present tribulation at a natural level. We are called to suffer for righteousness’ sake. This tribulation sets off a chain of spiritual experiences and developments which ultimately manifest the shedding-abroad of the love of God in our hearts. The gospel is so perfect and perfecting, spiritually, that opposition to it serves only to bring out its perfections to us experientially. Like Abraham, we need not, in the prosecution of our spiritual lives, consider the difficulties and weaknesses associated with our own fleshly shortcomings and the troubles afflicting us in the world. God has, by the death of the Christ and the giving of the Holy Spirit, completed in us a work which is insusceptible to the powers confronting us in our advancement in the things of God. The love of God has been poured forth in our hearts. That which is in us is divine.
Present experience in our life and service toward God on earth works toward enlarging us as spiritual vessels. It deepens our capacity to hold more of this outpoured love of God. Because we now live in hostile circumstances on earth, the Holy Spirit acts to make us spiritually superior to the difficulties and powers which still govern human life on earth. A proper appreciation of a fully revealed God is the effect produced by God’s work in us in the present time. This arises from an intelligent appreciation of our place toward God in a world in its present chaotic and unblessed state. Present circumstances bring home to us the divine realities into which we are introduced. A deepening knowledge of the true nature of good and evil is being formed in us by our experience with God and in the world. We glory in tribulation, experiencing what results from it – patience, experience and hope. Patience has its perfect work in us, both positive and negative. Tribulations in the flesh demonstrate the inability of the flesh to be effective as to our divine calling. Thereby comes endurance. This is the development and strengthening of the new nature. We are thus enabled to bear with present difficulties and troubles. We accept that God has not given us power to resolve the present tribulations in which we are involved in the world but are being developed spiritually for future reference.
Verse 4 “And patience experience; and experience hope.”
The endurance produces experience. This is the proof that we can live admidst tribulation and serve the purpose for which God called us. We gain experience in the things of God by living and acting toward revealed truth in a world in which chaos and evil are rampant. God has chosen to realise eternal purpose by giving to man His Word, eternal truth. The present time in our experience in the christian position is a time when we acquire mature spiritual wisdom in order to know and live by the truth. God triumphs over evil in the world by effectively introducing into it His eternal truth in a manner in which we can fully know it.
We have this internal proof that God is at work and this is the ground of hope. We have confidence that He who began the good work in us shall perfect it unto the day of the Lord. In such hope, our lives are lived in the light of a day which is still to dawn for the world. The hope is not natural hope, nor a pious wish but the divine certainty begotten in us experientially as we come to know the things of God in greater measure.
Verse 5 “And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given to us.”
The hope does not make us ashamed as being the present people of God’s gifts and calling. We justify our existence by such a response to being made to stand in present grace. We cannot end the tribulations of the world by the manner in which God’s eternal power acts in us in the present time. Yet we are not put to shame by the power of evil, even in the sight of God, by our present spiritual work. We live and act in hope, knowing that God will respond.
The present result of this effective, divine operation in the gospel in us is that the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit. The manner in which divine love acts to beget itself in man is by revelation. The self-revelation of God and the conferral by Him of spiritual power to apprehend it, is the effective proof on earth that God is love. In the christian position, ideally, we respond aright to the God of revelation. This establishes spiritual conditions between us and God in which His love flows to us unhinderedly. A spiritual ability is formed in man by the gospel to develop him as a spiritual vessel, which contains the love of God in all its revealed fullness. This is the present work of the Holy Spirit. The same truth is presented in Ephesians 3:16-21. Ideally we are strengthened by the Spirit in the inner man to know the fullness of divine love.
The Holy Spirit has been given to us to complete in us the divine work for which the Christ established us into peace with God. The Holy Spirit is the power who makes the gospel effective. God has given Him to us that He might perfect us spiritually for God’s eternal purpose. It takes the power and wisdom of God to enable man to apprehend the love of God. A work in which all the Persons of the Godhead act is being performed for the realising of divine purpose in creation. Verse 5, the Holy Spirit, verse 6 Christ, verse 8 God. The faith, hope and love which are of God and not of man have thereby been given for our present enjoyment.
Verse 6 “For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.”
Without strength in ourselves we have become by the gospel the vessels upon whom God is now working for His eternal purpose. Of ourselves we are insufficient unto these things. The death of Christ met us when we were without strength spiritually for divine purpose. In that death the love and power of God were acting unhinderedly to produce a seed according to the promise. God’s eternal purpose could never have been realised by man because he lacked strength in spiritual things.
So, in due time, Christ died for the ungodly. “In due time” is the time when the promise was due to be fulfilled by God. Those to whom the promise was to be fulfilled were found in such weakness that they could not benefit from the fulfilment. Christ has died for the ungodly, for those who had become ungodlike.
Christ is the promised, anointed Messiah. He did not come into the world to claim it for His own as He might have done. He did not come to improve it naturally by His power and wisdom. He came to perform a work by which eternal realities might effectively be known on earth, to fulfil the promise there. He came as Christ and died for the ungodly. This includes all as Paul has previously shown. His death was not only for the Jew in his spiritual failure but for the Gentiles also in theirs. Men qualify for the benefits of the death of Christ by being ungodly. God is fulfilling the given promise to man involved in spiritual evil. The Christ gave up His earthly, natural rights for their sake and for this eternal cause.
Verse 7 “For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die.”
Paul is contrasting God’s activity with man’s. Two sorts of men are envisaged, a just man and the good man. Both present men who live and act for the welfare of their fellows. Human love is so great that by it a man may give up his life to save another whom he regards as his better. The extent of human love is to honour and preserve that which is reckoned to be naturally good. The righteousness and goodness in this case is human and natural. Men will scarcely, or perhaps, die for greater natural good. He may, perhaps, devote his strength in daring to die so that natural good might live.
Verse 8 “But God commendeth His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”
God, however, does not act upon these principles. In fact, God sees none righteous, much less good. Yet this is in accordance with divine purpose. God can act in full, unhindered display of His love to sinners but He could not do so to men who were righteous or good in His sight. Then He would only reward them for the good He saw in them. He could only have blessed them naturally for being found acceptable to Him in the world. To such, the reward would be reckoned as their due. God has acted, however, according to His eternal love, the dictates of His own nature. He does not act to preserve natural righteousness and good in the world but in order to introduce that which is eternal and wholly of Himself, the God of purposeful self-revelation.
Man becoming involved in spiritual evil drew out the fullness of divine love to him. We being still sinners, Christ has died for us. Man showed himself incapable of availing himself of divine provision, both in creation and in law, to perfect himself spiritually for God’s service. Paul reveals that whilst we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Now it is not a question of Christ dying for the ungodly but for those who have embraced the gospel. The love of God is commended toward us in Christianity and not as yet to the whole world. The effective sphere of divine influence is still selective. Christ died for us while we were sinners, in spiritual failure before God, to make us His present people. We now belong to God in virtue of the death of God’s Anointed. The Man who was anointed by God so that His eternal purpose might be fulfilled, has died for us. He died to gain a people for God, made good and righteous spiritually, in virtue of His death alone.
Verse 9 “Much more then, being now justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him.”
The extent of God’s eternally purposeful work in Christ goes beyond the justification of sinners by His blood, “Having been justified”: this is merely the beginning of the work of God. We are justified by, in the virtue of, His blood. The blood of Christ sets forth His death in the flesh. “Like as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, He also took part of the same”. The blood which caused Him to live in the flesh was shed for our justification. He gave up that sort of life and its natural rights for greater eternal good. By His death God has justified us from our sinnership.
Much more significantly, “we shall be saved from the wrath by Him”. As a result of the present effectiveness of the work of God in Christ we shall be saved from the wrath. God must, by the virtues presented to man in the gospel, acquire a people who will in turn render to God the eternal service for which He has justified them from their sins. In the gospel, the wrath of God has been revealed against the spiritual failure of humanity. “There is none that doeth eternal, spiritual good.” By the gospel, God will acquire a people who will render such perfect service to divine purpose that, when the day of wrath comes, they shall be justified for their spiritual activity. The salvation presented here is in the future. In this case, salvation signifies that the people formed for God by the death of Christ will justify the present salvation which God has conferred upon them. It presents present eternal purposefulness.
Verse 10 “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.”
We have been saved as sinners by His death; we shall be saved as saints by His life. Being enemies, we have been reconciled to God. In nature and by nature we were found as God’s enemies, frustrating the eternal purpose for which God had created and then acted purposefully in creation. That life in which we were enemies has been closed in God’s sight in virtue of His work in Christ for sinners. We are brought into the state of reconciliation with God, spiritually. The estrangement wrought by our spiritual failure has given place to the grace in which we stand before God by virtue of His work. This work involved the death of His Son. The work of reconciliation is a work enacted between the Persons of Deity. It involved the death of the Son, death to the form of life which He had assumed as Son in the flesh. God the Son had proceeded forth into the world in order to establish those who avail themselves of the virtues of His death into full communion with God, fully revealed by the Son.
This opens up the way for man to live by His life. So long as He lives in glory, in virtue of His complete and accepted work, we shall live also. He lives in the justified and glorified life which He already possesses in resurrection and glory. They whom He has justified, God has glorified in Him. We live in the possession and in the power of that life in our present service to divine purpose. This is and will be our salvation. Just as Christ in His life in glory still effects divine purpose, so also as being alive in that life we can further this purpose by our present work on earth.
Verse 11 “And not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement.”
“And not only so”, as in verse 3. From verse 3 Paul shows how we boast in the tribulations associated with present service. In our present service in the christian position the love of God is in us and is commended to us. Thereby we shall be saved from wrath. Now Paul further reveals that in the present time we make our boast in God. Not only shall we be saved from wrath but saved so that we may already boast in God. The Jews boasted in the law that they were the people of God. Yet they did not prove this to be valid before God in experience. This is the possibility opened up to the present people of God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
It is those who are convinced by the gospel that they were total spiritual failures toward God, either in nature or in the law, who are made to boast in God. The Jews boast in their own righteousness, brought about by their own deeds under the law. We boast in a God who has completed a work to constitute us righteous and to enable us to live and act before Him acceptably. We do so through our Lord Jesus, who has introduced us into this present grace. He is the Apostle and High Priest of our confession, of this christian way of access to God. We are set into a realm in which we can boast in a Saviour-God through the reconciliation we have received from our Christ. We boast in God as being in possession of the spiritualfitness which the work of the Christ confers upon sinners.
Verse 12 “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.”
Paul now proceeds to look at the issues in which we are involved spiritually from God’s point of view. This is the cause for which God permitted man to become involved in sin, in the issues of good and evil in creation. It is for this cause that Jesus died and we now live. The issue dealt with by Paul here is the reign of good and evil in the world. God has dealt with it by forming a Head of a new human race in the sphere of a new creation insusceptible to sin because of redemption and reconciliation.
“By one man sin entered into the world.” By the disobedient activity of a man, sin came. One man involved humanity in the issues of good and evil already existing in creation. Adam failed in the divine purpose for which God had revealed that He had made him. By him sin entered into the world in that, instead of introducing divine order into a chaotic world, he introduced sin in addition to evil already at work. He involved himself in the spiritual issues identified with the spirit of evil and anti-purpose in the world. Death entered by the sin of the one man. This is spiritual death, man’s deadness in the sight of God regarding the purpose for which He had made man in His image and likeness, not merely natural death.
“Thus death passed upon all men.” The whole human race, begotten through the one man, became spiritually dead in the sight of God. They existed in spiritual death in being profitless to God. “For that all sinned.” This involvement in evil was made manifest in the life and work of the whole human race. They sinned in that they failed not only at a natural level but more particularly in not availing themselves of the provision God made for them in their sinful state to return to Himself. Man was involved in a power of spiritual evil from which he failed to extricate himself, even though God had provided a means. Enoch was the example which proved the rule.
Verse 13 “For until the law sin was in the world: but sin is not imputed when there is no law.”
This verse to verse 17 is parenthetical. Paul deals with the spiritual question raised in the giving of the law. “Until the law sin was in the world.” Sin is man’s involvement in evil against God. Man has become anti-purposeful rather than a purposeful being in the world. Man was in a spiritual state in which he sinned against God even before the coming of the law. This was God’s definition of righteousness. God did not put sin to man’s account before law. The time of this ignorance God overlooked, as in Acts 17:30. God had established the rule of providence in the world and left humanity to its own devices under this form of government. God did not charge men with guilt for specific acts of sin against Himself. In His longsuffering patience, God allowed this spiritual state of affairs to continue without any specific intervention on His part.
Verse 14 “Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam’s transgression, who is the figure of Him hat was to come.”
But death reigned in this spiritual period of the outworking of divine purpose, from Adam to Moses. Paul is setting forth the spiritual realities which governed man’s life in the old creation, with that which now obtains in the new. Where sin abounded, grace super-abounds. The spiritual death, existing from man’s sinful involvement in evil, reigned, in that it characterised the life and work of man in the time when God gave them up to its reign. No hope of salvation for the world resulted from human effort in this economy. Evil abounded because of the nature of man’s activity in God’s creation.
Death reigned even upon those who had not yet sinned after the likeness of Adam’s transgression. Adam had received specific commands from God in his original state of innocence. He was commanded not to involve himself in the spiritual issues of good and evil in the world, that is, not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Adam sinned against the given commandment of God. Thereafter men lived without, and apart from, divine communications until the law was given. Humanity sinned against that which may be known of God in creation but not necessarily against the known Word of God, the communication of revealed truth. Yet even by such sin, death reigned. Human life on earth continued to be spiritually anti-purposeful.
Yet, the first man, and the spiritual system associated with his reign on earth, prefigured the coming One. That which had happened on earth was, from the divine standpoint, eternally purposeful despite the failure of Adam and his seed. This had brought about spiritual conditions into which God could introduce the true Man of divine purpose. Man prefigured that which God had in mind in Christ and His introduction into a world in which death reigned. Positively, God had commanded Adam to be fruitful, multiply, replenish the earth and subdue chaos. He might have done so at an earthly level by His innate powers had he not involved himself in the greater issues of spiritual good and evil. The One who was to come was introduced by God into this scene of death and spiritual failure on man’s part to overcome the reign of death.
Verse 15 “But not as the offence, so also is the free gift. For if through the offence of one many be dead, much more the grace of God, and the gift by grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many.”
Adam is a figure of the Christ but the figure falls short of displaying the surpassing glory of the Person and work of the coming One, who was to introduce eternal rather than natural perfection. The superiority is heavily in favour of the good. The difference between the reigns of the two is qualitative rather than quantitative. Adam’s sin introduced the reign of anti-purpose. The reign of the Lord Jesus, because of His saving deed, introduced eternal life into creation, that which is uncreated.
“But not as the offence, or as by one who sinned, is the act of favour, or the gift.” Adam is a type of Christ but in his activities toward God he is not. He is a type of Christ in that he is the head of a race of humanity. He acted as head of that race and wrought an offence against God. This produced an estrangement concerning which none of the race could bring a reconciliation. Christ has acted as antitypical Head toward God in an activity which is representative of His seed. His act of favour identifies His seed with the eternal virtues of His redemptive work.
“By the offence of one the many died.” By Adam’s one offence toward God in the situation into which He had set him, he brought about a spiritual state of death for humanity. There was no going back upon it and there was no escape by the many from its consequences. The exception to this was Christ Himself, the last Adam. He was not involved in the offence or its consequences. “In Him there was no sin.” Hence the word “many” and not “all” is used.
The gospel, the form in which the free gift comes to man, does not merely cancel out the offence. It does not merely restore man to the status quo of Adam in innocence. Man in Christ remains involved in the issues of spiritual good and evil but by the grace of God he has become a new sort of humanity and a power for eternal good. The grace of God has been manifested and the gift of grace is now at work in this spiritually transformed scene. The grace of God is His power and willingness to stoop down to the level at which man is found in nature and to lift him up into the spiritual realm in which He lives and acts in self-revelation. Grace abounds amidst the situation brought about by Adam’s offence. God can act according to His own intentions in such a situation and not according to human merit.
The free gift of grace which is of one Man, Jesus Christ, also abounds in a world in which death was reigning. At length, in the outworking of God’s eternal purpose, virtue was found in the world to which God could respond for the benefit of man. It is of one Man, Jesus Christ. The virtue of His redemptive work takes the form of the free gift of grace toward the many. Each race of humanity shares the consequences of the actions of its head. From Christ’s work of reconciliation toward God we receive the free gift of His grace. This is more than the forgiveness of sin. It is the free gift of His life in the form of the Person of the Holy Spirit. Grace abounds because of this work of God. Eternal life, the free gift, abounds now in the world because of God’s work for man in the spiritual situation in which he was found. It abounds in the sense that God effectively introduces that which is of His own activity, and hence is eternal, into a world previously governed by spiritual death. It abounds unto the many but not as yet to all
Verse 16 “And not as it was by one that sinned, so is the gift: for the judgment was by one to condemnation, but the free gift is of many offences unto justification.”
The effects produced by God’s saving activity far outweigh the effect produced in the world by Adam’s sin. God had, in the outworking of eternal purpose, brought about a situation in the world, as a result of one man’s sin, in which He could act fully in grace apart from any other consideration. A new word (dorema) is now used by Paul for the gift of God. God is justified in permitting the reign of death by introducing a gift, which could not have come had man not become involved in the issues of good and evil.
“The judgment, or sentence, of one was unto condemnation.” It had its foundation in one single act. God sentenced humanity to spiritual death following one offence. He had to do so necessarily because of His righteousness and holiness. Yet the coming of the gift causes such condemnation to further the outworking of divine purpose. Humanity will enter into greater, eternal good as a result of becoming involved in evil because of the act of divine favour to him in such spiritual death. ‘The sufferings of the present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which is still to be revealed.”
“The act of favour is of many offences unto justification.” The seed of Adam in their course on earth, in creation and in the law, had perpetrated many offences against God. Man had continued to live and act in trespass against the provisions of God in both these systems in which they might have glorified God despite Adam’s sin. In due time God has by Himself performed an act of favour toward man in relation to all his offences. God can, in perfect righteousness, extend His favour rather than manifest condemnation upon humanity. He can deal with the offences of a sinful nature as well as with the sinful nature itself. The justification here is God’s judicial righteousness. He still acts as man’s righteous judge but can now declare the offender to be cleared of his offences because of His act of favour.
Verse 17 “For if by one man’s offence death reigned by one; much more they which received abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ.”
By the original offence, the one man, who is a type of the coming Man, caused death to reign in God’s creation. God subjected the whole creation to vanity, making it spiritually purposeless so long as Adam and his seed lived in death godwardly. Death reigned through the one. Anti-purpose reigned as a result of the spiritual inability of the first order of humanity to overcome, when by Adam’s act of disobedience he involved himself in the highest spiritual issues in creation.
Much more shall men reign in life through the One., Jesus Christ. “Much more” signifies the extent to which the eternal excels the natural. Creation is characterised by the reign of mere natural powers, with the reign of death being the most characteristic power. God has now intervened in such a state by means of the gospel, which shall ensure the reign of men in the power of eternal life. Those receiving the abundance of grace and of the free gift of righteousness shall be God’s rulers in the day when the promise is fulfilled universally.
Already we receive these things by which we shall be made perfect spiritually to reign in the day when the Kingdom of God shall be established universally. The abundance of grace is the eternal blessing which abounds to us now as a result of God having acted in grace. We have been given the eternal truth to be occupied with in the new spiritual realm into which we have been introduced. We have also received the free gift of righteousness, the divine nature, by which we may profitably be occupied with heavenly things.
The end result of this spiritual occupation, in which we are already engaged, is that in the spiritual knowledge and wisdom thereby acquired, we shall reign in life. This is not natural but spiritual, eternal life. This reign will result through the One, Jesus Christ. He is the New Man, the Man of God’s eternal purpose. By His present effective work on earth He is begetting a race capable of reigning in life. This is the life He acquired for His people by means of death and resurrection.
This closes the parenthesis begun in verse 13. In it Paul has shown what God has achieved and will achieve as a result of allowing the reign of death and of intervening through the Lord Jesus in the prevailing spiritual conditions on earth. Adam being a type of the coming One shows that the whole process was purposeful and intentional on God’s part. Three excelling results are thereby achieved by God:
a. The exceeding greatness of the person involved. Adam was head of the soulish creation. The second Man was the gift and measure of the grace of God and as a result grace abounds to the many. He is concerned with spiritual, eternal things as Head of the new creation;
b. The work done by the Head of the new creation for eternal good far exceeds that done by the first man in the cause of evil (verse 16);
c. The reign of life which shall result excels that which has been brought about by the first man causing death to reign.
Thus the whole question of good and evil has been revealed to man as a result of Paul’s gospel. The work of eternal redemption, by which the spirit of evil has been overcome by God, is the foundation of the new creation. Resurrection life has been acquired and is presented to us by divine grace as the means of access for man into this new creation.
Verse 18 “Therefore as by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life.”
The gospel makes plain the eternal purpose of God and the ways by which He will realise the same. The universal implications of God’s work in the face of man’s work are now shown – so then, etc. The issue of one offence was toward all men. The gospel reveals the spiritual situation in creation from the divine viewpoint. The work of God is concerned particularly with spiritual evil as well as with eternal good. One offence, a wilful transgression (the fall), involved all men in its spiritual consequences. The gospel deals with the spiritual effects produced by this rather than with natural, moral defects in human life. Men are not morally responsible for the offence which condemned them to spiritual death. Yet they are involved in its consequences. They are all condemned to live and act toward God in a state of spiritual death and impotence as to the realising of the eternal purpose for which God created. The seed of Adam no longer lives to be the means whereby God’s ultimate intentions shall be fulfilled in creation.
So the issue of ‘one accomplished subsisting righteousness’ (JND) is toward all men. Adam’s one spiritual offence toward God brought out His “no” toward all. The one accomplished act, or justifying decree (as in 1:32, 2:26 and 5:16) is toward all. It is not the act of justifying which is toward all by the activity, or agency, of Christ, as in 4:25. All men are not justified by His accomplished act. The scope of the act, or proclamation, is toward all. The righteous requirements made by God of man in creation (1:32) and of the Jews under the law (2:26) were met by the act of favour in respect of many offences, by Christ (5:16). Now Paul declares that his gospel reveals that the virtues of this completed act of Christ, by which God’s righteous requirements were met, is presented to all. He reveals the divine implications of Adam’s act and of Christ’s act for all men, that they might realise this.
Man is not morally responsible for the offence which condemned all. He is now spiritually responsible for hearing the message of the gospel which makes known his condemnation by God and the work which Christ has enacted to deliver him from this condemnation. This one accomplished righteousness is revealed to be for justification of life. By an act through which God’s righteous requirements have been met for humanity involved in condemnation, justification of life can result. The virtue of the act of Christ is proclaimed and is to be received. Justification of life is more positive than man’s removal from God’s condemnation. God’s “no” has not merely been removed from him. His eternal “yes” is upon him by the work of Another, accepted by God as being referable and appropriate to all. The life that justifies man before God is the life procured by Christ as a result of His completed work in respect of the divine condemnation of all men. Eternal life is freely offered because God condemned the human race for man’s sin and then did something about it through the work of Christ on earth and from heaven. He has raised up apostolic gift by the Holy Spirit, which reveals eternal realities in the gospel. Eternal death is the sentence of God upon man because of Adam but the sentence has not yet been executed openly in the world. It has been put off meantime so that the divine grace made possible by the finalised work of Christ can produce the eternal effects which God purposes to bring about.
Verse 19 “For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of One shall many be made righteous.”
The effects of the offence and of the free gift are neither yet universal. The many were constituted sinners in divine estimation by the offence of Adam. The exception was the Lord Jesus in the flesh. He was a son of Adam according to the flesh as a partaker of human nature but as such He did not share in the otherwise universal sinnership. The question of disobedience is now brought in. Christ in His life was obedient to God, even unto death, and in no way subservient to the power and designs of evil. Though the Christ in flesh was in no way involved in the disobedience of Adam toward the commands given to him by God, He obediently involved Himself in the spiritual effects resulting from the offence.
By his obedience to the Father’s will, which involved deliberately associating Himself with the condemnation of God upon men, He undertook to perform the act which would resolve it in perfect righteousness. Thereby the many, not all, will be constituted righteous. The positive spiritual obedience of the Christ to perform the divine work, by which God’s requirements of sinners could be met for them, has resulted in this work whose virtue is presented in the gospel. God saves sinners by means of the perfect obedience of Christ. “Lo, I come to do thy will, O God”. The obedience was to the will of God but was directed toward man’s sinnership. It was God’s revealed intention to constitute man righteous before God. Christ obeyed God for the sake of divine purpose, that men might be constituted righteous by living in the power and virtue of Christ’s work and life.
Verse 20 “Moreover the law entered, that the offence might abound. But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound.”
Paul now shows how law fits into the divine pattern. It came in, both to deepen man’s offence by manifesting its spiritual nature, and to set the standard of the obedience incumbent upon Christ. The law manifested the complete inability of human nature to live according to God. The offence is that of Adam, that which had brought God’s condemnation upon all. God resumed His activities toward men at the coming of the law. This, however, was merely negative as to man in the flesh. It condemned him further by showing him that there was no basis for escaping from condemnation by his own works. Man compounded the offence by the way in which he responded to the law. He was the same spiritual failure toward God in it. This is a fact which is revealed in the gospel rather than one which is evident naturally.
Yet from the divine standpoint the giving of the law was purposeful. Abundant sin brought about a spiritual situation in which there can be super-abundant grace. It is the spiritual state of sin rather than the acts of sin which abounded. Man failed spiritually toward the law in not realising its divine significance. He accepted it as a fleshly ethic given to govern his natural life in the nation. This is an abundance of sin in that it is a defamation of that which was of God for the advancement of His work rather than of man’s works.
Man’s spiritual failure in not realising the true implications and significance of law did not frustrate the purpose for which God gave it. The offence abounded and sin abounded thereby. Spiritual evil developed its fullness in man. This brought about a spiritual situation in which God could act in His fullness and not merely in response to human merit. Grace abounds exceedingly. Eternal power is unhindered, irresistible fullness came to work amidst such a state. Abounding sin and offence drew forth hyper-abundant grace, since God is the sort of God He is. He is a God of love who remained determined to effect His purpose in spite of the opposition. In fact He used this opposition, the power of anti-purpose, to create conditions in which He might act purely from within Himself.
Verse 21 “That as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord.”
God’s ultimate intention for man in the world is that grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life. The gospel reveals why God introduced the power of evil, why He created Adam in a life which would come under its domination, and why the law came. Evil and man’s sins are not a ghastly mistake on God’s part. Because of His grace, this became a means by which the gospel could come into being. The gospel in its turn is a means by which God’s ultimate intentions will be realised in the world.
“Sin has reigned in death”. This describes the spiritual state into which man necessarily came in the outworking of divine purpose. Because of God’s activity in Christ in this situation, the gospel has resulted. Man has failed to realise the spiritual significance of his life. This is the sin which has reigned. His involvement in spiritual evil has characterised and governed the world in the sight of God. Now as a result of the activity of Christ in obedience, God has finished a work by which perfection of rule shall ultimately be introduced. Grace might reign (aorist). This is the end result of the accomplished act of the one Man, Jesus Christ. In verse 17 Paul reveals that those who receive grace shall reign in life. The bride of Christ, begotten by the gospel, shall reign in possession of eternal life. That sets forth the people who will reign. Here Paul reveals the nature of the reign, the form of God’s ultimate government in creation. Grace is the form in which God acts in His eternal power to accomplish divine purpose. This eternal power shall govern all men in the day when they shall receive eternal life.
“Grace shall reign through righteousness”. In this case righteousness, as in 3:21, is the quality itself. God will act toward all according to His own nature and character but will then do so in blessing and not judgment because all will be recipients of His grace. This will be the day when the Holy Spirit is poured upon all flesh. All men will then live in possession and enjoyment of eternal life. The gospel leads us to such a day. It will be through Jesus Christ, our Lord in the christian system. He will be made both Lord and Christ unto all when the ways of God are completed.