Romans Chapter 5

The Glorious Results of Justification by Faith: Peace With God, a
Standing in Grace, Sure Hope of Coming Glory, Present Patience, Joy in
God. Verses 1-11.

The Two Representative Men, Adam and Christ,
Contrasted: Condemnation and Death by Adam to All in Him, Justification
and Life by Christ to All in Him. Verses 12-19.

By the Law, Sin Became Trespass; but GRACE TRANSCENDED ALL! Verse 20.

Grace Now Reigns, “Through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Verse 21.

THIS GREAT CHAPTER naturally falls into two parts:

In
the first eleven verses we have the blessed results of justification by
faith, along with the most comprehensive statement in the Bible of the
pure love and grace of God, in giving Christ for us sinners.

In
the second part, verses 12 to 21, God goes back of the history and
state of human sin, (which in Chapters 1:21 to 3:20 have been before
us) to Adam, as our representative head, who stood for us, and whose
sin became condemnation and death to us; and shows us Christ, as the
other representative Man (whom Adam prefigured), by His act of death on
the cross bringing us justification and life. The emphasis in this
great passage will be in each case upon the fact that the act of the
representative, and not of the one represented, brought the result to
pass.

1 Therefore having been declared righteous on the
principle of faith, we have peace towards God, through our Lord Jesus
Christ: 2 through whom also we have obtained access into this Divine
favor wherein we are standing: and we exult in hope of the glory of
God. 3 And not only so, but we also exult in the tribulations [which
beset us]: knowing that tribulation is working out endurance; 4 and
endurance [a sense of] approvedness [by God]; and [the sense of]
approvedness works out [a state of] hope: 5 and [our state of] hope
does not make us ashamed: because God’s love [for us] is poured out in
our hearts through the Holy Spirit which has been given to us.

6
For Christ, we being yet helpless [in our sins], at the appointed time
died for ungodly ones. 7 For hardly for a righteous man will any one
die: for perhaps for a good [generous] man some one might venture to
die. 8 But God commends His own love toward us, in that, while we were
yet sinners, Christ died for us! 9 Much more then, having been now
declared righteous by [means of] His blood, shall we be saved through
Him from the [coming] wrath. 10 For if, being enemies, we were
reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, being
reconciled, shall we be saved by His [risen] life.

11 And not
only so, but we even exult in God through our Lord Jesus Christ,
through whom we have now received the reconciliation.

Verse 1:
Therefore having been declared righteous on the principle of faith—We
must note at once that the Greek form of this verb “declared
righteous,” or “justified,” is not the present participle, “being
declared righteous,” but rather the aorist participle, “having been
declared righteous,” or “justified.” You say. What is the difference?
The answer is, “being declared righteous” looks to a state you are in;
“having been declared righteous” looks back to a fact that happened.
“Being in a justified state” of course is incorrect, confusing, as it
does, justification and sanctification. “Whatsoever God doeth, it shall
be forever.” The moment you believed, God declared you righteous, never
to change His mind: as David says, “Blessed is the man to whom the Lord
will not reckon sin” (Rom. 4:8). If therefore you are a believer, quote
this verse properly, and say, “Having been declared righteous on the
principle of faith I have”—these blessed fruits and results which are
now to be recorded.

The Epistle takes on a new aspect in each
chapter: in Chapter Three, Christ was set forth as a propitiation for
our sins; in Chapter Four, Christ was raised for our justification; in
Chapter Five, we have peace with God through Christ, a standing in
grace, and the hope of the coming glory.

We have three
blessings, then, in this first part of our chapter: (1) peace with God,
in looking back to Calvary where Christ made peace by His blood; (2) a
present standing in grace, in unlimited Divine favor; and (3) hope of
the glory of God—of being glorified with Christ when He comes.

We
have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ—“Peace” means that
the war is done. “Peace with God” means that God has nothing against
us. This involves:

1. That God has fully Judged sin, upon Christ, our Substitute.

2.
That God was so wholly satisfied with Christ’s sacrifice, that He will
eternally remain so—never taking up the judgment of our sin again.

3.
That God is therefore at rest about us forever, however poor our
understanding of truth, however weak our walk. God is looking at the
blood of Christ, and not at our sins. All claims against us were met
when Christ “made peace by the blood of His cross.” So “we have peace
with God.”103

“If Thou hast my discharge procured,

And freely in my place endured

The whole of wrath Divine:

Payment God will not twice demand,

First at my bleeding Surety’s hand,

And then again at mine!”

Our
peace with God is not as between two nations before at war, but as
between a king and rebellious and guilty subjects. While our hearts are
at last at rest, it is because God, against whom we sinned, has been
fully satisfied at the cross. “Peace with God through our Lord Jesus
Christ” does not mean peace trough what He is now doing, but through
what He did do on the Cross. He “made peace” by the blood of His cross.
All the majesty of God’s holy and righteous throne was satisfied when
Christ said, “It is finished.” And, being now raised from the dead, “He
is our peace.” But it is His past work at Calvary, not His present work
of intercession, that all is based upon; and that gives us a sense of
the peace which He made through His blood.104

This peace with
(or towards) God must not be confused with the “peace of God” of
Philippians 4:7, which is a subjective state; whereas peace with God is
an objective fact—outside of ourselves. Thousands strive for inward
peace, never once resting where God is resting—in the finished work of
Christ on Calvary.105

“I hear the words of love,

I gaze upon the blood;

I see the mighty Sacrifice,

And I have peace with God.

“ ’Tis everlasting peace,

Sure as Jehovah’s name;

’Tis stable as His stedfast throne,

For evermore the same.

“My love is oftimes low,

My joy still ebbs and flows;

But peace with Him remains the same,

No change Jehovah know.

“I change, He changes not,

God’s Christ can never die;

His love, not mine, the resting-place,

His truth, not mine, the tie.”

—(Bonar)

Verse
2: Look a moment at the second benefit: Through whom also we have had
our access into this grace wherein we stand—The word “also” sets this
blessing forth as distinct from and additional to that of peace with
God. Through Christ, in whom they have believed, there has been given
to the justified “access” into a wonderful standing in Divine favor.
Being in Christ, they have extended to them the very favor in which
Christ Himself stands. Notice that the words “by faith” (as in A.V.)
here should be omitted. It is not by an additional revelation, and
acceptance thereof, that believers come into this standing in grace. It
is a place of Divine favor given to every believer the moment he
believes. In Chapter 6:14 we are to be told that we are under grace,
not law. It is a glorious discovery to find how fully God is for us, in
Christ.106

Now, as to this third great matter: We rejoice in
hope of the glory of God. This is the future of the believer: to enter
upon a glorified state, glorified together with Christ, as it is in
Chapter 8:17. It is not merely to behold God’s glory, but to enter into
it! “When Christ, who is our life, shall be manifested, then shall we
also with Him be manifested in glory” (Col. 3:4). “The glory which thou
has given Me I have given unto them” (John 17:22). We shall speak of
this further, in its place in Chapter Eight. The translation “exult”
rather than “glory,” or “boast,” suits Paul’s meaning here. So in the
next verse, we exult in our tribulations. It is an inner, joyful
confidence, rather than an outward glorying or boasting before others,
although this latter will often necessarily follow!

Verses 3
and 4: And not only so, but we also exult in the tribulations [which
beset us]: knowing that tribulation is working out endurance: and
endurance [a sense of] approvedness [by God]; and [the sense of]
approvedness works out a state of hope—So now we find that not only
does the believer look back to peace made with God at the cross; at a
God smiling upon him in favor; and forward to his coming glorification
with Christ, but he is able also to exult in the very tribulations that
are appointed to him. Paul constantly taught, as in Acts 14:22; II Thessalonians
3:3, that “through many tribulations we must enter into the kingdom of
God,” and that “we are appointed unto afflictions.” The word means
pressure, straits, difficulties; and Paul had them! “Pressed on every
side, perplexed, pursued, smitten down”; “in afflictions, in
necessities, in distresses, in stripes, in imprisonments, in tumults,
in labors, in watchings, in fastings; by evil report, . . . as
chastened, and not killed; as sorrowful,—yet always rejoicing; as poor,
yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing all
things!” (II Cor. 4:8, 9; 6:4-10). He regarded these as “our light
affliction” said he, “which is for the moment, and is working for us
more and more exceedingly an eternal weight of glory,” (II Cor. 4:17);
and so Paul “took pleasure” in them! (II Cor. 12:10).

We need
to take a lesson from the martyrs, who lived in the freshness and
strength of the early faith of the Church of God, who often sang in the
midst of the flames! We hear today of Just the same courage where
persecution and trial are greatest. We can but give here a testimony
from Russia that will reach all our hearts. It is a classic on
suffering for Christ’s sake.107

The Divine process is as
follows: God brings us into tribulations, and that of all sorts;
graciously supplying therewith a rejoicing expectation of deliverance
in due time; and the knowledge that, as the winds buffeting some great
oak on a hillside cause the tree to thrust its roots deeper into the
ground, so these tribulations will result in steadfastness, in faith
and patient endurance; and our consciousness of steadfastness—of having
been brought ‘by grace through the trials,—gives us a sense of Divine
approval, or approvedness, we did not before have; and which is only
found in those who have been brought through trials, by God’s
all-sufficient grace. This sense of God’s approval arouses within us
abounding “hope”—we might almost say, hopefulness, a hopeful, happy
state of soul.

Verse 5: And [our state of] hope does not make
us ashamed: because God’s love [for us] is poured out in our hearts
through the Holy Spirit which has been given to us. Furthermore, then,
no matter how much the world or worldly Christians may avoid or deride
us, this hopefulness is not “ashamed,” or is not “put to shame”:
because there is supplied the inward and wonderful miracle of the
consciousness of God’s love shed abroad in our hearts through that
second mighty gift of God to us (Christ Himself being the first),—the
indwelling Holy Spirit.

Paul now takes up this “love of God”
in what is, as regards Gods sheer grace, the highest place in Paul’s
epistles. It is the greatest exposition in Scripture of God’s love, as
announced in John 3:16: “For God so loved the world .that He gave—.”
Ephesians unfolds the marvelous heavenly calling into which God’s grace
has brought us. But, as to God’s love itself, what it is, we must come
to the present verses of Romans: as John says, “Herein is love, not
that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the
propitiation for our sins” (I John 4:10).

First of all, the
indwelling Holy Spirit, given freely to all believers, sheds abroad in
our hearts this love of God—making us conscious of it in a direct inner
witness: and that especially in times of trial or need.

A THREE-FOLD VIEW OF GOD’S LOVE FOR US—SINNERS

Next, we see three stages of our sinnerhood, each connected in a peculiar, fitting, and touching way with God’s love.

1.
Verse 6: For Christ,—we being yet helpless [in our sins], at the
appointed time died for ungodly ones—The fact of man’s total moral
inability is stated here in the gentlest possible terms. It is a
bankruptcy of all moral and spiritual inclination toward God and
holiness, as well as of power to be or do good. Yet into a scene of
helplessness like this, God sends His Son,—for what? To die for the
“ungodly.” No return or response is demanded: it is absolute grace—for
the ungodly.

Verse 7: For scarcely for a righteous man will
anyone die: though perhaps for a good man some one might even venture
to die—Paul proceeds with his wonderful pean of praise concerning God’s
love: Among men, while for a sternly honest man no one would die, yet
some one might be found to venture death for a “noble” person, one of
generous-hearted goodness. But what of God’s love?

2. Verse 8.
God commendeth His own love toward us, in that, while we were yet
sinners, Christ died for us—Now “sinning” is a stronger word than
“strengthless”: but it is strong in the wrong direction! Strengthless
indeed toward God and holiness, we were all; yet vigorous and active in
sin. And what did God do? What does God here say? It was while we were
thus sinning that Christ died for us! And thus doth God “commend”108
His peculiar love toward us. It is most astonishing, this announcement
that God is “commending” this love of His for us,—a love “all uncaused
by any previous love of ours for Him.”109 Salesmen “commend” their
wares to those whom they deem able and willing to buy them. God
“commends” His tender love to us; for He loved us as wretches occupied
in sin, unable and unwilling to pay Him or obey Him. This is absolute
grace.

3. Verse 10: For if, while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the DEATH of His Son, much more, being reconciled, shall we be saved in His LIFE.

Now,
“enemies” is a much worse word than either “strengthless” or “sinners”;
it involves a personal alienation and animosity. “The mind of the flesh
is enmity against God . . . not subject to the law of God, neither,
indeed, can it be.” What a condition! And yet, while we were going
about avoiding and hating God, that same God was having His Son,
Christ, meet all the Divine claims against us by His death on Calvary!

Mark
that, while we were enemies, He did this. No change of our hateful
attitude was demanded by God before He sent His Son. “Herein is love,
not that we loved God, but that God loved us, and sent His Son to be
the propitiation for our sins.” Grace, brother, grace,—unasked,
undesired, and, of course, forever undeserved,—Divine kindness! “When
the kindness of God our Savior, and His love toward man appeared, not
by works which we did ourselves, but according to His mercy. He saved
us.”

Here, then, whoever you are, read your record:
strengthless, sinning, hating: then you can begin to conceive of, if
you will believe, this sovereign, uncaused love which God here in this
great passage “commends” to you. Do not try to be “worthy” of it; for
offers to pay, by an utter bankrupt, are not only worthless, but an
insult to grace! Self-righteousness seeks to discover in itself some
cause for that Divine favor that God declares has its only source in
Himself and His love. “Strengthless”—“sinners”—“enemies”—such were we
all, and God sent His Son to die for us as such!

Now let us
not dare try to get God to be reconciled to us through our prayers, our
consecration, our works. We were reconciled to God while His enemies,
through the death of His Son. One who has believed is overwhelmed to
find that this reconciliation was effected while he himself was an
enemy to God; and so the “much more” gets hold of his heart: I was
reconciled by His death while I was an enemy: how much rather, now that
I have accepted this reconciliation and share Christ’s own risen life,
shall God pour His salvation-favor upon me! I was an enemy then, and
God gave Christ for me; now that I am God’s friend, He cannot do
less!110

This is the important thing to see, in the matter or
reconciliation: it was necessary for us to be reconciled to God
Himself, to that holiness and righteousness in God, that was infinitely
against sin. This was brought about in Christ’s death.

So, we
read, “God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself” (II Cor.
5:19). “While we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death
of His Son.” All sin is contrary to God’s holiness, righteousness,
truth, and glory, but sin was put by God on Christ, and God “spared Him
not.” And now God says to His messengers: “Go be ambassadors on behalf
of Christ. Tell sinners that I have smitten Him instead of them. Tell
them I forsook Him on the cross, that I might not forsake them forever!”

THE FOUR “MUCH MORES”

There
are in this remarkable chapter four “much mores” which it is
interesting and profitable to note. Two are in this first section; and
two in the second. First, we have the two “much mores” of future
safety; verses 9 and 10; then the two “much mores” of grace’s
abundance: verses 15 and 17, which are developed in the other section
of the chapter.

Verse 9: Much more then, having been now
declared righteous by [means of] His blood, shall we be saved through
Him from the [coming] wrath—God has done the harder thing: He will do
the easier thing. He has had Christ die for us while we were “yet
sinners”; “much more” will He see that we, being now believers and
accounted righteous in view of Christ’s blood, shall be saved from the
coming wrath through Him (Christ).111

Notice that shed blood
is the justifying ground, the procuring cause, of our being accounted
righteous; and that instead of our being uncertain of preservation from
the wrath which is coming at the Last Judgment, the fact that Christ
died for us while were were still sinners should give us a constant
state of calm security!

Verse 10: Much more, being reconciled,
shall we be saved by His [risen] life—Again, God has done the harder
thing—delivering Christ to death to reconcile us to Himself. He will
certainly—much more! do the lesser thing for us: He will see that we
share Christ’s risen life forever; and thus, even in the hour of
visitation upon the wicked, we shall be “saved by His life.” (This will
more fully come out in Chapter Eight, where the blessed Spirit supplies
that life which is in Christ to us, as a very “law of life.”)

We
were reconciled to God by God’s having Christ meet in His death all the
claims of His throne,—His majesty, His holiness, His righteousness, His
truth. “Much more,” being from our side reconciled, shall we be saved
now and in the future by and in Christ’s risen life which we now share!

This
“saved by His life” evidently looks forward to the coming Day of
Judgment referred to in verse 9112 as the coming wrath, into which
judgment our Lord has told us we shall not come (John 5:24). Indeed,
Paul writes in I Thessalonians 1:10,—“Jesus, who delivereth us from the
wrath to come”!

And now the apostle closes up this section of the Epistle with a note of highest exultation:

Verse
11: And not only so, but we also exult in God through our Lord Jesus
Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation—He says.
We exult in God. How great a change! Three chapters back, we were
sitting in the Divine Judge’s court, guilty—our mouths stopped, and all
our works rejected! Now, “through our Lord Jesus Christ” and His work
for us, we are rejoicing, exulting, in Him who was our Judge! This is
what grace can do and does! And we see that it is simply by receiving
the reconciliation that has been brought in by Christ. For the word
here is not “atonement,” which means to cover up, and is applied to the
Old Testament sacrifices. The word reconciliation here (katallaga) is
simply the noun form of the verb “reconcile,” in verse 10. Compare “God
was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself, not reckoning unto
them their trespasses (II Cor. 5:19).

To “receive” a complete,
accomplished reconciliation,—how simple! We have seen men and women
exult in God, thus! Every believer has this great right of exultation.
This is a “song of the Lord” that lasts forever—“through our Lord Jesus
Christ”

GOD’S PLAN: THE “REIGN OF GRACE” THROUGH CHRIST

Romans 5:12-21

THE TWO MEN

ADAM

CHRIST

} Verse 14.

THE TWO ACTS

ADAM—one trespass: Verses 12,15,17,18,19.

CHRIST—one righteous act (on the cross): Verse. 18.

THE TWO RESULTS

By ADAM—Condemnation, guilt, death: Verses 15, 16, 18, 19.

By CHRIST—Justification, life, kingship: Verses 17, 18, 19.

THE TWO DIFFERENCES

In degree

Verse 15

{ God the Creator’s grace by Christ, abounds beyond the sin of the creature, Adam..

In kind or operation

Verse 16

{

One sin, by Adam—condemnation and reign of death.

Many sins on Christ—justification and “reigning in life” for those accepting God’s grace by Him.

THE TWO KINGS

SIN—reigning through Death: Verse 17.

GRACE—reigning through Righteousness: Verse 21.

THE TWO ABUNDANCES

OF GRACE

OF THE GIFT OF RIGHTEOUSNESS

} Verse 17.

THE TWO CONTRASTED STATES

CONDEMNED MEN, SLAVES OF DEATH, BY ADAM

JUSTIFIED MEN, REIGNING IN LIFE, BY CHRIST

12
Therefore it [salvation through Christ’s work] is just as when through
one man sin entered the world, and through the sin, death: and in that
way death passed to all men, for that all sinned [in Adam]: for before
the Law [of Moses] 13 sin was in the world: but sin is not put to
account if there is not law [against it]. 14 Notwithstanding, death
reigned-as-king from Adam until Moses, even over those not having
sinned after the likeness of the transgression of Adam,—who is a type
of the Coming One [Christ].

15 But not as the trespass, so
also is the grace-bestowal (charisma). For if by the trespass of the
one the many died, much more did the grace of God, and the free-gift
(dorea) of the One Man. Jesus Christ, abound unto the many! 16 And not
as through one that sinned, so is the act of giving (dorema): for the
judgment came out of one [trespass] unto condemnation; but the
grace-bestowal (charisma) came out of many trespasses unto a righteous
[or justifying] act (dikaioma) [at the cross].

17 For if by
the trespass of the one, death reigned-as-king through the one, much
more those accepting the abundance of grace and of the free-gift
(dorea) of righteousness, shall reign-as-kings in life through the One,
Jesus Christ!

18 So then just as [the principle was] through
one trespass unto all men to condemnation; even so also [the principle
is] through one righteous [or justifying] act [dikaioma] unto all men
to justification of life! 19 For just as through the disobedience of
the one man the many were set down as sinners, even so, through the
obedience of the One the many shall be set down as righteous.

20 Law, moreover, came in alongside, that trespass [of law] might abound. But, where the sin abounded, the grace overflowed!

21
In order that, just as sin reigned-as-king by means of death: grace
might reign-as-king, through righteousness, unto life eternal, through
Jesus Christ our Lord.

THE GREAT DOCTRINE OF THE TWO MEN

We
have seen, in Chapters One to Three, the fact of universal human guilt,
that all thus are “falling short of God’s glory”; and we have seen
Christ set forth by God as a “propitiation through faith in His blood.”
We also found that believers were declared righteous; and seen
connected with a Risen Christ, in Chapter Four. Then we saw, in the
first part of Chapter Five, the blessed results of this “justification
by faith.”

When we come to Romans 5:12, a new phase or view of
our salvation appears. (Although note our comments on Chapter 3:23.) A
general view of the passage will be helpful.

The two men, Adam
and Christ, with their distinct federal113 or representative
consequences, are before us. It is no longer what we have done—our
sins, but the one trespass of Adam that is in view. And it is the work
of Christ, also, looked at as an “Adam,”—His “righteous act” of death;
with its effect of justification for us. So now we look back to the act
that set us down as sinners, instead of to our own deeds; and to the
act that sets us down righteous, apart from our own works.

There
is no more direct statement in Scripture concerning justification than
we find in verse 19: Through the obedience of the One shall the many be
constituted righteous [before God]. It is true that up to verse 11 the
question has been one of sins rather than the thing sin itself. It is
true also that in verse 18, in the expression justification of life,
the resurrection-side of salvation is before us. But we need to mark
that God, in the great passage from verse 12 to verse 21, grounds our
justification wholly in the work of Another than ourselves, even
Christ; showing also the incidental place that the Law had—“that the
trespass might abound”; thus opening the flood-gates of Grace!

The key word of this great passage is “one.” You will find it as follows (14 times in all) :

“One man”—“one man”—“one man”—verses 12, 15, 19.

“The one”—“the one”—“the One”—verses 15, 17, 19.

“One”—“one”—“one” (trespass) “one” (righteous act)—verses 16 (twice), 18 (twice).

“Through—one act of righteousness”—verse 18. “Through—the obedience of THE ONE”—verse 19.

“Through {

one trespass”—verses 15, 17, 18.

one man’s disobedience”—verse 19.

“Through {

one act of righteousness”—verse 18.

the obedience of THE ONE”—verse 19.

It
will never do to go about counting ourselves justified in the sense
merely of having our own trespasses, those we have committed, forgiven;
for this would amount to counting ourselves as innocent before we
personally sinned, and to have become guilty merely because we
personally sinned. But this is to forget that we all were made sinners
‘by Adam’s act,—not our own. Nor does this mean that we got a “sinful
nature” from our “first parents”: “By nature” we were, indeed,
“children of wrath,” Paul tells us in Eph. 2; and David declares: “In
sin did my mother conceive me.” But Romans Five does not talk of a
nature of sin received by us from Adam, but of our being made guilty by
his act. We were so connected with the first Adam that we did not have
to wait to be born, or to have a sinful nature; but when Adam, our
representative, acted, we acted. Verse 19 plainly says, Through the one
man’s disobedience the many were set down as sinners, while the
preceding verse says the principle was, through one trespass—unto all
men to condemnation.

“Condemnation” is a forensic word, it belongs to the court, not to the birth-chamber.

The
same Divine principle is illustrated in the fact that “through Abraham
even Levi,” Abraham’s great-grandson, ‘who receiveth tithes, hath paid
tithes, for he was yet in the loins of his father when Melchizedek met
him” (Heb. 7:9). God says of Levi, who was not yet born, whose father
was not yet born, whose grandfather (Isaac) was not yet born: “LEVI PAID TITHES!”

The great truth of Romans 5:12 to 21 is that a representative acted, involving those connected with him.

We see immediately how Paul in a seven-fold way insists on the fact that Adam’s act of sin affected his race:

1. Through one man sin entered into the world (vs. 12a).

2. So in that way death passed unto all men, for that all sinned, [when Adam sinned] (vs. 12b).

3. By the trespass of the one the many died (vs. 15).

4. The judgment came out of one [trespass] unto condemnation (vs. 16).

5. By the trespass of the one, death reigned-as-king through the one (vs. 17).

6. Through one trespass [the effect was] towards all men to condemnation (vs. 18).

7. Through the one man’s disobedience the many were set down as [or made to become] sinners (vs. 19).

On the other hand, as regards Christ, we find:

1.
That He is also an Adam—a representative or federal Man who acts for
all, and in whom all in Him are seen. Adam is called a figure [Greek:
typos—type] of Him that was to come—Christ (vs. 14).

2. That
by the One Man Jesus Christ, the grace of God, and the free-gift [by
that grace] did abound unto the many much beyond the evil results of
Adam’s sin (vs. 15).

3. That through our Lord’s one righteous
act [His death on the cross] the free-gift goes out to all men to
justification of life, just as through [Adam’s] one trespass the
judgment came to all men to condemnation (vs. 18).

4. That
through the obedience [unto death] of the One [Christ] the many [those
who received the gift] shall be set down righteous [before God] (vs.
19).

5. That those who receive the abundance of [God’s] grace
and of the gift of righteousness shall reign-as-kings in life through
the One, Jesus Christ,—much beyond death s reigning through the one
[Adam] (vs. 17).

We may now consider this passage briefly, verse by verse:

Verse
12: This whole plan of salvation,—by Christ’s work, not ours, which we
have been considering in Chapters Three, Four and Five, gives rise to
the “therefore” which introduces this verse: Therefore [this plan of
salvation of all by a single Redeemer], is on the same principle as
when through [the other] one man sin entered the world; and, with it,
its wages, death. Paul proceeds to emphasize that it was in that
way,—that is, by one man, that death passed to all men, because when
Adam sinned, all sinned. It was a federal representative act. Evidently
physical death is primarily in view. “Man’s breath goeth forth, he
returneth to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish” (Ps.
146:4). And read carefully the note below.114 So death passed unto all
men, for that all sinned—The word “so” refers to the sin of the one
man, but the words all sinned must not be read “all have sinned” (as
the King James Version unfortunately mistranslates). The whole point is
that all acted when Adam acted: all sinned. We have remarked on the
aorist tense, “sinned” (Greek: hēmarton) in connection with its use in
Chapter Three. To translate it here (5:12) “have sinned” is utterly to
obscure the Scripture, making man’s “sinnership” to depend on his own
acts rather than on Adam’s—which latter is the whole point of the
passage.

Verses 13 and 14: Now comes the remarkable statement
that although sin was in the world during the first 2500 years, from
Adam to Moses, it is not put to account when there is no law. The Greek
word “put to account” used here occurs only one other time—Philemon 18.
It signifies to charge up something to anyone as a due. (The wholly
different word “reckon” in Chapters 3:24 and 4:23, 24 regards the
person; this word in 5:13 regards some item put to one’s account.) It
was to Adam, not to us, that God said: “In the day that thou eatest
thereof thou shalt surely die.” It was to Israel through Moses that God
gave the ten commandments. The general argument of the apostle here is
to show the effect of a federal or representative sin, in which an Adam
acted, bringing an effect upon the individuals connected with him. Paul
is about to prove that death passed to all men not because they sinned,
but because Adam sinned. He is also about to show (verse 18) that all
men were condemned by Adam’s act,—were made to become sinners.

To
understand, therefore, the force of the words, sin is not put to
account where there is no law,—or, as Conybeare enlighteningly
paraphrases, “Sin is not put to the account of the sinner when there is
no law forbidding it,”—we must remember:

1. That sin was in the world, between Adam and Moses.

2.
That, according to Chapter One, the race had rejected light and were
without excuse; though they were “without law” (anomos): for God’s
definition of sin is not “transgression of law” (I John 3:4, A.V.), but
anomia, which means refusal to be controlled—self-will.

3.
That there was a “work” (working) written in their hearts, to which
their consciences bore witness, either accusing or else excusing them;
and that this working necessarily corresponded morally to any law to be
afterwards revealed by Jehovah.

4. That condign judgments,
such as the Flood, and the overthrow of Sodom, and the destruction of
the Canaanites, followed the “filling up of the cup of iniquity” at
such times: for such sinners both trampled on their own consciences,
and inherited the previous generations of guilt.

5. That,
nevertheless, the sins between Adam and Moses did not bring about the
sentence of death upon humanity, however much individuals or nations
might hasten death’s overtaking them. For these people, though they
sinned, had not sinned after the likeness of Adam’s transgression,
which was a wilful violation of a direct command of a revealed God; as
was Israel’s making, through Aaron, the calf at Sinai: evolving
judicial consequences to others besides themselves. For we read in
Exodus 32:34 of a set future “visitation” on Israel, because of that
sin at Sinai of their fathers: “In the day that I visit, I will visit
their sin upon them”; this will be in “the time of Jacob’s trouble,” in
the Great Tribulation—long after the calf-worship; indeed, still future!

6.
We therefore must regard the human race as under a sentence of death
they did not bring upon themselves: death reigned from Adam until Moses
(vs. 14). Unlike Adam, and unlike Israel after Moses, those who lived
between the two had no positive outward Divine law, the breaking of
which would be a direct transgression and a threatening of death
therefor. Nevertheless “death reigned”—even over them. Constantly
before our eyes is the attestation to the same truth: babes that know
nothing of right or wrong, die. Every little white coffin,—yea, every
coffin, should remind us of the universal effect of that sin of Adam,
for it was thus and thus only that “death passed to all men.”

We
see then, that from Adam until Moses, death “reigned-as-king”115 on
account of Adam’s sin. Paul has said(Rom. 4:15), “Where there is no law
neither is there transgression”; so that those between Adam and Moses,
not having direct commands of God, consequently had not transgressed
known commands as Adam had done. Nevertheless, Adam’s transgression had
involved his whole race.

Verse 14: Here Adam is declared a
type of the One who was to come—that is, of Christ, the last Adam. We
cannot sufficiently urge the study of this great passage: until the
mind sees, and the heart understands—and that gladly, condemnation by
the one, and justification by the Other. It is just as necessary to see
this “by the one” doctrine regarding our spirits, as regarding our
bodies. As to the latter, Paul says, “As in Adam all die, so also In
Christ shall all be made alive”; “The first man is of the earth,
earthy; the second Man is of heaven . . . And as we have borne the
image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly” (I
Cor. 15:22, 47, 49). To discover that we are even now no longer
connected with that first Adam in which we were born, but with the
Risen Christ, the last Adam—this will be our joy in Chapters Six to
Eight. But the foundation of this blessed truth is laid here in the
Doctrine of the Two Men.

We find in verses 15 to 17 a sort of
parenthesis in which the results of Adam’s trespass and Christ’s act of
obedience are shown to differ in two respects (but not at all in the
principle of the one involving the many). In the first case (verse 15)
there is the difference of degree in the result, because of the
infinite chasm between the creature Adam, and the Creator—God and His
Son Jesus Christ! So we read:

Verse 15: For if by the trespass of the one [Adam] death came to the many; MUCH MORE did the grace of God, and the gift by the grace of THE ONE MAN, JESUS CHRIST,
abound unto the many! It takes faith to esteem this true now, seeing,
as we do, the cemeteries all about us; death on every hand,—the general
dire results of sin; but we must believe that the free gift will
finally be seen, in its results, to be as far beyond the results of the
trespass, as God and Christ are greater than the creature Adam!116

Verse
16: And not as through one that sinned, so is the act of giving: for
the judgment came out of one unto condemnation; but the grace-bestowal
came out of many trespasses unto a righteous act. This tells us that
out of Adam’s one trespass came judgment, but that out of many
trespasses laid upon Christ came not judgment, but a righteous act
(dikaioma).117 In short, all men acted,—sinned in Adam’s act of sin.
They that receive is on the principle of “the one for the many,” but
manifestly does not include all men, because some reject; although we
find in verse 18 that the free gift “came” unto them,—“unto all men.”

Note what it is that believing ones “receive”:

First,
abundance of grace: The cross having met righteously all the claims of
the Divine being, and the Divine throne, against sinners, God has now
spoken to us as He is, in abounding grace, for “God is Love.” Over and
over are “abound,” “abundance” used here to express God’s attitude; and
the free motion, since the cross, of His infinitely loving heart toward
sinners, in gracious kindness. Those who “receive” God’s grace give Him
the honor of His graciousness.

Second, Those that “receive”
this abundance of grace have therewith the gift of righteousness. What
a gift! Apart from works, apart from the Law, apart from ordinances,
apart from worthiness, an out and out gift of righteousness from God!
Many times in teaching this passage to Bible classes I have asked them
to repeat three times over each of these expressions: “The abundance of
grace,” “the gift of righteousness.” We earnestly commend this to you,
dear reader! Try it.

Alas, how few believers have the courage
of faith! We have looked so long at our unworthiness that the very
thought of pushing away from the shore-lines and launching out on the
limitless, fathomless ocean of Divine grace makes us shrink and waver.
When some saint here or there does begin to believe the facts and walk
in shouting liberty, we say (perhaps secretly), “He must be an
especially holy, consecrated man.” No, he is just a poor sinner like
you, who is believing in the abundance of grace! And if we hear some
one praising God for the gift of righteousness, because he is now
righteous in Christ before God, we are ready to accuse him of thinking
too highly of himself. No, he is just a poor sinner like you and me,
but one who has dared to believe that he has received an outright gift
of righteousness, and is rejoicing in it.

Verse 17: For if by
the trespass of the one, death reigned-as-king through the one, much
more those accepting the abundance of grace and of the free-gift of
righteousness, shall reign-as-kings in life through the One, Jesus
Christ! It is not only that you have life, and that eternal life, in
Christ: but here in verse 17 we find two kingdoms:

First, By
the trespass of the one death reigned-as-king through the one. And is
that not true? I travelled around this world from west to east,
beginning from Chicago. As we went eastward to the older parts of the
States, we saw the stones thicker and thicker in the cemeteries. Then
in England and Scotland, still more cemeteries, with still more
monuments to the reign of death. But when we got out to old China, I
was literally appalled at the number of the tombs and the coffins!
Surely death has reigned, through Adam!

But second (for the
fourth time in this chapter), God now uses the words “much more,”
applying them to those who accept the abundance of His grace and of His
gift of righteousness, saying these shall reign-as-kings in life
through the One, even Jesus Christ. Look now at this expression,
reign-as-kings in life. I am writing this during the week of the
coronation of George VI of England, and have heard of the splendors
with which the ceremony was attended; and we do thank God for the
British Empire, and honor, with her subjects, her monarch. But, ah,
believer, look closely at these words of Paul, reigning in life. Here
is a kingdom before which all of earth is dust. And who are the kings
here? Believers! Those whose humble faith has “received the abundance
of grace and of the gift of righteousness”: these shall reign-as-kings
through Jesus Christ.

God has “the ages to come” in which to
manifest fully this mighty reigning! But it is already begun for those
in Christ. Gideon, speaking of certain Israelites, asked the kings of
Midian, “What manner of men were they?” “As thou art, so were they,”
they answered; “each one resembled the children of a king.” “They shall
reign forever and ever,” is God’s description of the saints of the New
Jerusalem (Rev. 22:5). And their reign has already, in this life,
begun; because they are in Christ the mighty Victor! Satan would fain
keep from your ears this news, believer, that you stand in the
abundance of God’s grace; that you have received the gift of
righteousness in Christ; and that you are to reign-as-a-king-in-life
now and forever, through the One, Jesus Christ. May God awaken us to
the facts!118 Satan is deathly jealous of the Church of God, which is
already in the heavenlies, from which he is soon to be cast out. He
knows that the Church will share Christ’s throne and soon reign with
Him in indescribable glory. Therefore he will blind you, if he can, to
your present place of royal power of life in Christ. It will, we are
sure, be a matter of fathomless regret to many Christians, at Christ’s
coming, that their lives on earth were characterized by doubt, defeat
and depression; rather than by victorious reigning in life in Christ.
God has no favorites. Each one who is in Christ has a complete Christ.
The exhortations of the Epistles are addressed alike to all. David
Livingstone early wrote in his diary, “I have found that I have no
unusual endowments of intellect, but I this day resolved that I would
be an uncommon Christian.” Concerning such it is written, “Considering
the issue of their manner of life, imitate their faith” (Heb. 13:7).
Let us refuse to be content with a Christian existence that cannot
finally be summed up as “He reigned in life through Jesus Christ,”—over
sin, Satan, the world, difficulties, adverse surroundings and
circumstances. Let us remember the apostles, the martyrs. Reformers,
godly Puritans, the holy Wesleys, and Whitefields, the Havergals and
Crosbys; and the humble saints we know, whose existence is described by
Paul’s glorious phrase “reigning in life through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Verse
18: So then, just as [the principle was] through one trespass unto all
men to condemnation; even so also through one righteous [or justifying]
act [the principle is] unto all men to justification of life! Through
one trespass [it was] unto all men to condemnation—The expression “the
many” in verses 15 and 19 indicates the principle of the evil effect of
the act of the one going forth to others; the expression “all men,” of
verse 18, emphasizes the extent of the application of that principle:
absolutely all human beings were condemned when Adam sinned.

Now
do not question either God’s right or His wisdom here, or His love. He
had the right to have a judgment day of our whole race in Eden, in our
head, Adam; and He did so. He always does right. Furthermore, He knew
that creatures would ever fail,—there is no sufficiency in the
creature, but only in the Creator. You and I would fail, as did Adam!
and God desired that believers should be secure forever, by Christ’s
work. It was in love He held that judgment day in Eden. In love He
judged us, condemned us, in our federal head, Adam, that He might
justify us in the work and Person of the other federal Head, Christ!

The
ordinary conception of justification does not go beyond the pardon of
sin. This indeed is first; and we should also have confidence that our
sins will never be reckoned against us—whether they be past, present,
or future sins. This is seen in Chapter 4:7, 8; and in Chapter 5:9, we
see ourselves “justified in His blood,” “justified from all things,” as
Paul says in Acts 13:39. But this leaves the believer without a
positive standing. We do not come to “justification of life”119 until
Chapter 5:18.

Now it is Christ Risen who is made our
“standing”: so that, as we see else where, we do not need aught else:
for we are in Christ. Justification provides therefore not only release
from the penalty of sin, but also a place in the Risen Christ Himself.
This begins to be indicated in Chapter Four, where righteousness is
reckoned to those who “believe on Him who raised Jesus our Lord from
the dead.” It is, of course, necessarily comprehended in the
astonishing phrase IN CHRIST JESUS,—used
first in Chapter 6:11! And it is amplified and developed through the
rest of Paul’s epistles. In I Corinthians 1:30 we see that Christ
Himself, Risen, was made unto the believer, righteousness. Paul also in
Galatians 2:20, 21 directly connects his having been “crucified with
Christ” with righteousness. That is, the history in Adam of believers
was ended at the cross. (Yet always remember that it was as ungodly
ones that they believed!)

In Colossians 1:12 we read: “Giving
thanks unto the Father, who made us meet to be partakers of the
inheritance of the saints in light.” Then hear again that most
stupendous utterance of all: “Him who knew no sin He made to be sin on
our behalf; that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (II
Cor. 5:21). It is this glorious revelation, which men have been loathe
to read, teach, or refer to, which we must apprehend by God’s grace,
and by that grace believe!

Now, how, in what sense, are we “the righteousness of God” in Christ?

It
is at once evident that to set us in His own presence in Christ as He
has done, God must ( I ) reckon to us the infinitely perfect expiation
of Christ in putting away our sin by His blood; (2) make us one with
Christ in His death; and (3) place us in Christ Risen, even as Christ
is received before Him. All this He has done; so that He says we are
the righteousness of God in Christ. If we are in Christ, we are before
God in Christ, “even as He,”—“accepted in Him.”

Verse 19: For
just as through the disobedience ot the one man the many were set down
as sinners, even so, through the obedience of the One the many shall be
set down as righteous.

Set down as sinners—the word “sinners,”
here, is not an adjective (sinful), but a substantive,—sinners.120
Verse 19 first sums up the doctrine of our federal guilt by Adam’s sin,
then sums up our justification by Christ’s death.

The whole
emphasis of verses 12 to 19 is upon the fact that the effect, whether
in the case of Adam or in the case of Christ was produced by a federal
head acting apart from any actions of those affected. There was a
judgment held in Eden, by the righteous God, the pronouncement of which
is, “unto all men to condemnation.’’121 This, of course, has no
reference to eternal damnation, which is a consequence of the rejection
of “the Light which has come into the world”—men loving darkness rather
than light “because their deeds are evil.” But it does assert a
judgment of sinnerhood, by the guilt of Adam’s action, upon the whole
human race.

The whole lesson of this passage is, that just as
we have Christ only as our righteousness, we have Adam only as sin and
death to us. (God’s Word, however, puts Adam’s act and its effect
first, as a type of Christ’s work.) We repeat these things over and
over, because of their importance, both for our settled peace, and also
for our enjoyment of the normal, joyous Christian life.

Even
so through the obedience of the One—This was our Lord’s death, as an
act of obedience:122 “He became obedient unto death, yea, the death of
the cross.” He was of course always obedient to His Father, but it
cannot be too strongly emphasized that His life before the cross,—His
“active obedience” as it is called, is not in any sense counted to us
for righteousness. “I delivered to you,” says Paul, “first of all, that
Christ died for our sins.” Before His death He was “holy, guileless,
undefiled, separated from sinners.” He Himself said: “Except a corn of
wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it
bringeth forth much fruit.” Do you not see that those who claim that
our Lord’s righteous life under Moses’ Law is reckoned to us for our
“active” righteousness; while His death in which He put away our sins,
is, as they claim, the “passive” side, are really leaving you, and the
Lord too, under the authority of the Law?

“Justified in (the
value or power of) His blood,” and of that alone, gives the direct lie
to the claim that man must have “an active righteousness” as well as “a
passive righteousness.” The specious assertion is, that “inasmuch as we
have all broken the Law (although God says that Gentiles were ‘without
law’—and those in Christ are not under it!) and inasmuch as man cannot
by his works himself recover his righteous standing, Christ, forsooth,
came and kept The Law in man’s place (!); and then went to the cross
and suffered the penalty of death for man’s guilt so that the result is
an ‘active righteousness’ reckoned to man:—that is, Christ’s keeping
The Law in man’s place; and, second, a ‘passive righteousness,’ which
consists in the putting away of all guilt by the blood of Christ.”

Now,
the awful thing here is the unbelief concerning man’s irrecoverable
state before God. For not only must Christ’s blood be shed in expiation
of our guilt; but we had to die with Christ. We were connected with the
old Adam; and the old man—all we had and were in Adam, must be
crucified—if we were to be “joined to Another, even to Him that was
raised from the dead.” Theological teaching since the Reformation has
never set forth clearly our utter end in death with Christ, at the
cross.

The fatal result of this terrible error is to leave The
Law as claiment over those in Christ: for, “Law has dominion over a man
as long as he liveth” (7:1). Unless you are able to believe in your
very heart that you died with Christ, that your old man was crucified
with Him, and that you were buried, and that your history before God in
Adam the first came to an utter end at Calvary, you will never get free
from the claims of Law upon your conscience.123

I say again,
that the Law was given to neither Adam. The first Adam had life: God
did not give him law whereby to get life! Not until Moses did the Law
come in, and then only as an incidental thing to reveal to man his
condition. The Law was not given to the first Adam, nor to the human
race; but to Israel only (Deut. 4:5-8; 33:1-5; Ps. 147:19, 20). Again,
the Law was not given to the Last Adam! “The Last Man Adam became a
life-giving spirit”: this is Christ, Risen from the dead, at God’s
right hand, communicating spiritual life. Is He under law? It is only
the desperate legality of man’s heart, his self-confidence, that makes
him drag in the Law, and cling to the Law,—even though Christ must
fulfil it for him! “Vicarious law-keeping” is Galatian heresy!

Our
Lord said plainly that His work in this world was to die: “The Son of
Man came to give His life a ransom”; and indeed, “through the Eternal
Spirit He offered Himself without blemish unto God.” True, He must be a
spotless Lamb. But for what? For sacrifice! He did not touch our case,
had no connection with us, until God laid our sins upon Him and made
Him to become sin for us at the cross. Christ was not one of our race,
“the sons of men”: He was the Seed of the woman, not the man. He was
the Son of Man, indeed, for God prepared for Him a body (Ps. 40; Heb.
10), by the power of the Holy Spirit (Luke 1:35). But, though He moved
among sinners, He was “separated from sinners,” and had no connection
with them ‘until God made Him their sin offering at the cross.

Christ
Himself, Risen, is our righteousness. His earthly life under the Law is
not our righteousness. We have no connection with a Christ on earth and
under the Law. We are expressly told in Rom. 7:1-6, that even Jewish
believers who have been under law were made dead to the Law by the Body
of Christ, that they might be joined to Another, even to Him who was
raised from the dead. One has beautifully said, “Christianity begins
with the resurrection.”

Verse 20: Law, moreover, came in
alongside [of sin] that the trespass [of law] might abound—The
reference to law here shows that Paul has justification from guilt, and
not our state of sinfulness, in view. “Law entered alongside”
(pareisēlthen)124 not, in this connection, to reveal sinfulness, but
thatthe trespass of law,—the act of law-breaking might abound. The Law,
being given to neither Adam, came in alongside sin,—after sin had been
there 2500 years, that vain self-confident Israel (as a public example
for us all!) might see God’s standard for those in the first Adam, and
promising to obey it, fail; and thus know sin in order that Grace might
overflow. That so, where sin had reigned, Grace might reign-as-king,
through the righteous work of Christ on the cross, unto eternal life,
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Thus neither our sins nor our
“sinful nature” has, in this passage, anything to do with our
condemnation: but Adam’s act only. And not our new life in Christ, nor
our walking in the good works unto which we are created (Eph. 2:10),
has anything to do with constituting us righteous, but Christ’s act of
death only (vv. 18, 19). As we have said, law “came in alongside,”—not
as in any sense a means of salvation, but that Israel (and through
Israel, all of us) might discover guiltiness by breaking law; for law
gives no power to keep law!

But, where sin abounded, grace did
completely overflow. Grace began to work for Israel immediately after
the Law was broken! For instead of cutting off Israel as a nation, God
appointed Moses a mediator; and when sin came to a climax with the
Jews’ crucifying their Messiah, the Lord’s words were “Father, forgive
them.” And as we shall read in Chapter Eleven, God will indeed yet
forgive them,—will take away their sins and “bring in everlasting
righteousness.” Grace will yet over flow for Israel, nationally, as it
has now overflowed to us as individual sinners, both Jews and Gentiles.

“Where
sin abounded, grace overflowed,” for such is ever the result of the
work of the cross. Paul, who had been Christ’s greatest enemy, the
chief of sinners, declares himself to be the great example of mercy and
grace: “I obtained mercy,” he says “that in me as chief might Jesus
Christ show forth all His long-suffering, for an example of them that
should hereafter believe on Him unto eternal life.” And again: “By the
grace of God I am what I am” (I Cor. 15:10; I Tim. 1:16).

We
might turn to David and Manasseh in the Old Testament as examples of
the overflowing heart of mercy of God. Or we might call up such
examples in Church History as the reckless profligate Augustine, whom
God made a shining light in His Church; or John Bunyan, the profane
tinker, who wrote his wonderful experience of the Divine goodness in
“Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners”; or John Newton, once a
libertine and infidel, “a servant of slaves in Africa,” as he wrote of
himself for his epitaph,—whom God transformed into one of the great
vessels of mercy of the eighteenth century, and whose hymns of praise
all the saints sing. It was Newton who wrote:

“Amazing grace! how sweet the sound

That saved a wretch like me.”

and who told his own experience—so really that of all the saints—in the words of the beautiful hymn:

“In evil long I took delight

Unawed by shame or fear,

Till a new object met my sight,

And stopped my wild career.

“I saw One hanging on a tree,

In agonies and blood;

Who fixed His languid eyes on me,

As near His cross I stood.

“Sure, never till my latest breath,

Can I forget that look;

It seemed to charge me with His death,

Though not a word He spoke.

“My conscience felt and owned the guilt,

And plunged me in despair,

I saw my sins His blood had spilt,

And helped to nail Him there.

“Alas, I knew not what I did,

But all my tears were vain;

Where could my trembling soul be hid,

For I the Lord had slain!

“A second look He gave, that said,

‘I freely all forgive!

This blood is for thy ransom paid,

I died that thou mayest live.’”

On
November 18, 1834, Robert Murray McCheyne, of St. Peter’s Free Church,
Dundee, Scotland, whose memory is like ointment poured forth, wrote his
remarkable confession that his sins had caused Christ’s death. The
title, “Jehovah Tsidkēnu,” is the Hebrew for “The Lord Our
Righteousness.” Let it serve our use also, as it has that of thousands:

JEHOVAH TSIDKĒNU

“I once was a stranger to grace and to God,

I knew not my danger, and felt not my load;

Though friends spoke in rapture of Christ on the tree,

Jehovah Tsidkēnu was nothing to me.

“I oft read with pleasure, to soothe or engage,

Isaiah’s wild measure, and John’s simple page;

But e’en when they pictured the blood-sprinkled tree,

Jehovah Tsidkēnu seemed nothing to me.

“Like tears from the daughters of Zion that roll,

I wept when the waters went over His soul;

Yet thought not that my sins had nailed to the tree

Jehovah Tsidkēnu—’twas nothing to me.

When free grace awoke me, with light from on high

Then legal fears shook me, I trembled to die;

No refuge, no safety, in self could I see,—

Jehovah Tsidkēnu my Savior must he.

“My terrors all vanished before the sweet Name;

My guilty fears banished, with boldness I came

To drink at the fountain, life-giving and free—

Jehovah Tsidkēnu is all things to me.

“Jehovah Tsidkēnu! my treasure and boast;

Jehovah Tsidkēnu! I ne’er can be lost;

In Thee I shall conquer, by flood and by field—

My cable, my anchor, my breastplate and shield!”

We
might multiply examples like these: but these words, “Where sin
abounded, grace did completely overflow,” with the salvation of Saul of
Tarsus as the Scripture example, will suffice. I stood on the bluff at
Memphis, Tennessee, and saw the mighty Mississippi, normally a mile
wide, stretch over forty miles in flood, covering deep under its
multitude of waters the land as far as I could see. So, where sin
abounded, the grace of God overflowed everything.125

Verse 21:
In order that, just as sin reigned-as-king by means of death: grace
might reign-as-king, through righteousness, unto life eternal, through
Jesus Christ our Lord. This verse unfolds God’s great object: that
Grace should have a kingdom where Death had had its kingdom: and that,
of course, through righteousness,—that is, that all Divine claims
should be first righteously met at the cross, and thus that all should
be “through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

The question of
justification is still on in Chapter Five, and not until Chapter Six is
“our old man”—all we were from Adam—brought in. Furthermore, to bring
into Chapter Five our sinful state by nature, is to confuse our sinful
condition with that condemnation which over and over God says was
brought about by Adam’s single act, and by that only. “The judgment
came of ONE TRESPASS unto condemnation,” etc.

Now
if you and I were condemned in Adam’s sin, it is plain that to be
justified we must be cleared not only of our own sins, but of our
condemnation in Adam: our justification must cover all our condemnation.

Our
justification, is, therefore, in this great passage, related not to our
personal sins, as in Chapters Three and Four; but to our guilt by and
in Adam, from which we are cleared by Christ’s death. And Christ being
now raised, we, connected with Him at the cross, now share His life: so
that our justification is called “justification of life” (vs. 18).

It
is true that we are not spoken of as “in Christ” until Chapter Six,
where death with Christ is unfolded and our history in the first Adam,
and our relation to sin, ended. But Paul speaks of being “justified in
Christ” (Gal. 2:17). And certainly the subject in the last section of
Chapter Five is justification: condemnation by Adam’s trespass, and
justification by Christ’s righteous act of death.

Thus, not
until we come to Chapter Six is our walk, our sanctification, taken up.
It is true that the doctrine of the two men (5:12-21) makes possible of
understanding the great fact of Chapter Six,—that we died with Christ.
But the subject of the latter section of Chapter Five is condemnation
by Adam, justification by Christ.

103

As to the Greek text having the subjunctive in verse 1, we believe that
the Authorized Version and the American Revised Version are correct in
reading “we have peace” rathe

r than the English Revised Version, “Let us have peace.” See
Jamieson, Fausset and Brown, Darby, Meyer, Godet and many others. The
whole context proves that “we have peace” is correct, for the passage
is not an exhortation, but an assertion of facts and results, true of
all those declared righteous or justified.

104

The Romanist will go to “mass” and “confession”; and the Protestant
“attend church”; but neither will find peace with God by these things.
Prayers, vows, fastings, church duties, charities—what have these to do
with peace?—if Christ “made Peace by His blood”!

105

The difference may be brought out by asking ourselves two questions:
First. Have I peace with God? Yes; because Christ died for me. Second,
Have I the peace of God in quietness from the anxieties and worries of
life in my heart? We see at once that being at peace with God must
depend on what was done for us by Christ on the cross. It is not a
matter of experience, but of revelation. On the contrary, the peace of
God “sets a garrison around our hearts and thoughts in Christ Jesus,”
when we refuse to be anxious about circumstances, and “in everything
(even the most ‘trifling’ affairs) by prayer and supplication with
thanksgiving let our requests be made known unto God.” Every ‘believer
is at peace with God, because of Christ’s shed blood. Not every
believer has this “peace of God” within him; for not all have consented
to judge anxious care and worry as unbelief in God’s Fatherly kindness
and care.

106

Sanday
quotes Ellicott’s translation: “Through whom also we have had our
access,” and adds, “‘have had’ when we first became Christians, and now
while we are such.”

And Darby comments: “We are not called on
to believe that we do believe, but to believe that Jesus is the Son of
God, by whom we have access, and are brought into perfect present
favor, every cloud that could hide God’s love removed; and can rejoice
in hope of the glory of God.”

107

1. A letter that
lately came out of Northern Siberia, signed “Mary,” reads: “The best
thing to report is, that I feel so happy here. It would be so easy to
grow bitter if one lost the spiritual viewpoint and began to look at
circumstances. I am earning to thank God for literally everything that
comes. I experienced so many things that looked terrible, but which
finally brought me closer to Him. Each time circumstances became
lighter, I was tempted to break fellowship with the Lord. How can I do
otherwise than thank Him for additional hardships? They only help me to
what I always longed for—a continuous, unbroken abiding in Him. Every
so-called hard experience is just another step higher and closer to
Him.”

Another recent letter from “Mary” reads, “I am still in
the same place of exile. There is a Godless Society here; one of the
members became especially attached to me. She said, “I cannot
understand what sort of a person you are; so many here insult and abuse
you, but you love them all” . . . She caused me much suffering, but I
prayed for her earnestly. Another time she asked me whether I could
love her. Somehow I stretched out my hands toward her, we embraced each
other, and began to cry. Now we pray together. My dear friends, please
pray for her. Her name is Barbara”

In a letter a month later,
“Mary” writes; “I wrote you concerning my sister in Christ, Barbara.
She accepted Christ as her personal Savior, and testified before all
about it. We both, for the last time, went to the meeting of the
Godless. I tried to reason with her not to go there, but nothing could
prevail. She went to the front of the hall, and boldly testified before
all concerning Christ. When she finished she started to sing in her
wonderful voice a well-known hymn,

‘I am not ashamed to testify of Christ, who died for me,

His commandments to follow, and depend upon His cross!’

The very air seemed charged! She was taken hold of and led away.”

Two
months later, another letter came from “Mary”: “Yesterday, for the
first time, I saw our dear Barbara in prison. She looked very thin,
pale, and with marks of beatings. The only bright thing about her were
her eyes, bright, and filled with heavenly peace and even joy. How
happy are those who have it! It comes through suffering. Hence we must
not be afraid of any sufferings or privations. I asked her, through the
bars, ‘Barbara, are you not sorry for what you have done?’ ‘No,’ she
firmly responded, ‘If they would free me, I would go again and tell my
comrades about the marvelous love of Christ. I am very glad that the
Lord loves me so much and counts me worthy to suffer for Him.’” The Link

108

“Proves, as in 3:5” (Meyer); “establishes” (Godet); “confirms”
(Calvin); “manifests” (Haldane); “gives proof of” (Alford);
“demonstrates” (Williams); “commendeth” (Sanday). The English word
“commendeth” happily covers the double meaning of the Greek: (1)
approving or establishing things, and (2) recommending persons (16:1).

109

“In sovereign grace He rises above the sin, and loves without a motive,
save what is in His own nature and part of His glory. Man must have a
motive for loving, God has none but in Himself, and ‘commendeth His
love to us’ (and the ‘His’ is emphatic as to this very point), in that,
while we are yet sinners, Christ died for us; the best thing in heaven
that could be given for the vilest, most defiled, and guilty sinners”
(Darby).

110

To illustrate reconciliation:

Suppose
I am the master of a school and I make a rule that there is to be no
profane swearing. I write that rule on the blackboard, and the whole
school sees and hears it. The penalty I announce, too: there is to be a
whipping if any one breaks the rule.

Now, there is a boy named
John Jones in my school, a boy I am fond of. At recess-time he swears.
Everybody hears him; I hear him; everybody knows I hear him. When I
call the school to order, all the scholars are looking at me to see
what I will do.

I have a son of my own in that school room, a
beloved son, Charles. I call him, and we go outside to counsel, while
the school waits. I say, “Son, will you bear John Jones’ whipping for
him? He doesn’t believe that I love him. He thinks I hate him because
he has broken my rule. There must be a whipping. I must be true to my
word, but you know how I love John.” My son says, “Yes, father, I’ll do
anything for you that you wish. And I love John Jones, too.”

I
bring my boy, Charles, out before the whole school, and I say, “This is
John Jones whipping I am giving to my son Charles. The law of the
school was broken by John Jones. I am putting the penalty on my boy. He
says he will gladly do this for me, and for John.” Then I whip my son
Charles; and I do not spare him. I whip him just as if he were John
Jones, just as if he had broken the rule himself.

When the
whipping is over, I say to some scholar, “Go and tell John Jones I have
nothing against him,—nothing at all. And ask him to come and give me
his hand.” This breaks John Jones up, and he comes forward, in tears,
and says, “I didn’t know you loved me that much! I thank you from my
heart!”

Now he is reconciled from his side, to me. But you see
I reconciled him to myself, first. I had to deal with his disobedience,
or be myself unrighteous.

111

1.Concerning Christ’s bearing in our place God’s wrath against sin, let us say:

To
regard God as “angry,” or as demanding that Christ suffer “the exact
equivalent of all the agonies the elect would have suffered to all
eternity,” is to miss the whole meaning of propitiation.

1.
Remember it is God Himself who “loved us and sent His Son to be the
propitiation for our sins.” God held no enmity against us. God loved us.

2.
Therefore, strictly speaking, it was not punishment which Christ bore
on the cross, but wrath. Punishment is personal,—against the offender;
but wrath upon Christ was against the thing—sin. Christ bore that wrath
which God’s being and nature always and forever sustains toward sin.
The sinner cannot come nigh Him, but must die, must perish in His holy
presence,—not because God hates him, but because God is the Holy One.
Therefore did Christ die,—and that forsaken of God under wrath—because
He was bearing our sins in His own body on the tree. So it was, that,
sin being placed on Christ, judgment and wrath fell upon Him. So it is,
also, that the believer has not been “appointed unto wrath” (I Thess.
5:9): the wrath has fallen on Christ.

3. The conception that
Christ on the cross was enduring all the agonies of the elect for all
eternity grew directly out of the Romish legalism from which the
Reformers did not escape,—to wit: that we still have connection with
our responsibilities in Adam the first; that our history was not ended
at the cross. But the shed blood brought in before God on the Day of
Atonement simply witnessed ‘that a life had been laid down, ended. “The
sufferings of all the elect for all eternity” could never take the
place of the laid down life of the great Sacrifice. God did not ask for
agonies: sin simply could not approach Him! There must be banishment of
the sinner from His presence—unless a substitute should come, who,
taking the place of the sinner, and bearing his sin, could lay down his
life. Such was Christ. He “laid down His life that He might take it
again,” But remember both parts of this great utterance: (a) “He laid
down His life,” bearing our sin, putting it away from God’s presence
forever. But even Christ, when bearing our sin, could not, as it were,
come nigh God, but was forsaken, under holy wrath against sin. Not the
agonies of Christ could avail, but that, bearing sin, He laid His life
down, poured out His soul unto death. Thus He owned God’s holiness to
be absolute and infinite, and said, “It is finished.” (b) Now in taking
up His life again, it was not that life which, according to Leviticus
17:11, was “in the blood,” because the blood was “all one with the
life” (Lev. 17:14), and therefore “given to make atonement for souls,”;
“it was not the blood-life” which He took up, but newness of life” in
resurrection!

God indeed permitted man to inflict the terrible
sufferings of crucifixion upon His Son. But those sufferings were not
“the cup” that His Father had given Him drink. The cup was the cup of
Divine wrath against sin, and it involved His being “cut off out of the
land of the living” under the hand of Divine judgment.

112

The
Greek preposition en in verse 9, is not fully or exactly rendered by
tht English word “in”; for the Greek en here includes: in the shed
blood of Christ (vs. 9), as the ground before God of our justification;
in view of that blood’s power as seen by God the Justifier; in the
eternal availingness of that blood before God; and the consequent
eternal redemption it has procured.

Likewise, in the same
construction in verse 10, we translate, “in His life”: meaning that the
believer shares that risen life of Christ; that in the power of that
endless life the believer will abide both now and forever: as John
says, “we may have boldness in the day of judgment; because as He is,
even so are we in this world,”

113

Federal: in this book we use this word as indicating the action of one
for all in a representative manner; or for the consequences of such
action.

114

Death
is a Divine decree: “It is appointed unto men once to die and after
this cometh judgment,” Death involves four consequences:

First, the utter ending of what we call human life.

Second,
falling consciously into the fearful hands of that power under which
men have during their lifetime lightly lived, unprotected from the
indescribable terrors and horrors connected therewith.

Third, being imprisoned in Sheol or Hades—in “the pit wherein is no water,” as was Dives in Luke 16. Compare Zech. 9:11.

fourth,
exposure to the coming judgment and its eternal consequences. Of
course, the believer is rescued from all this—even physical death,—from
bodily. “falling asleep,” if Christ comes during his lifetime! while it
is true of all saints, those who keep Christ’s word, that they shall
“never see death” (John 8:51). Death and judgment are past for the
believer, Christ his Substitute having endured them.

Nevertheless,
in this day of mad pleasure-seeking, it certainly behooves all of us to
reflect on the fearful realities connected with death! (See also Note
on Chapter 6:23.)

115

We say, “reigned-as-king,” because the Greek word means that. Not the
power of sin to hold in bondage, as in Chapter Six, is here meant; but
the royal word, basileuo, is used, denoting sovereignty, not mere
lordship.

116

David
Brown (in Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s excellent commentary) disagrees
here, saying: “The ‘much more’ here does not mean that we get much more
of good by Christ than of evil by Adam (for it is not a case of
quantity at all); but, that we have much more reason to expect,—or, it
is much more agreeable to our ideas of God, that the many should be
benefited by the merits of one; and, if the latter has happened, ‘much
more’ may we assure ourselves of the former.”

But after all
this does not disagree with what we have above said, for it is Adam,
the sinning creature, on the one hand; and the infinitely great and
good God, and His grace by His Son Christ, on the other. Measure,
quantity, must enter in: as, indeed, in saying of God “we have much
more reason to expect,” Dr. Brown tacitly admits. “Much more,” says
Paul, “did the grace”—of whom? GOD. This emphasizing God brings out everything!

117

To the student of Greek (and to others, also), it is most instructive
to note Paul’s use of the words connected with righteousness: dikaios
means righteous; dikaiosune means righteousness; dikaioō is to declare
righteous; dikaiōsis means justification, or the act of declaring one
righteous; dikaiōma, the “righteous act,” that makes justification
possible.

118

When Israel inquired of the Lord about Saul, the eon of Kish, who had
been anointed as their King (for they could not find him), the Lord
answered, you remember’ “Behold, he hath hid himself among the stuff.”
“And they ran and fetched him thence” (I Sam. 10:22-23). How sad if
some of us who have received the abundance of grace and of the gift of
righteousness, and whom God desires to be reigning in life in Christ,
have gotten ourselves hidden “among the stuff,”—of earthly goods, and
ambitions, “religious” traditions, and the literature of this world!

119

The expression “justification of life” seems to stand over against that
condemnation and death which came by Adam’s trespass. It is a
characterizing word: What is offered unto all men, through Christ’s act
of righteousness at the cross is not only a cancellation of guilt, but
life in the Risen One. For, since Adam’s sin, there was only spiritual
death in his race. The words of John 1:4, regarding Christ, “In Him was
life,” describe the only source of life for man. And justification must
be of life: for those justified are most certainly taken, out of their
place of death in Adam, and given a place of life in Christ.

120

The
Greek word (hamartōlos) means not merely one possessed of a sinful
nature or tendency, but one who is regarded as having committed sin.
The same word is used in 3:7 and 5:8.

“Substantive, hamartōlos, a sinner; common acceptance, LXX,
New Testament, etc.”—Liddell and Scott. This word is used in N.T. to
designate sinners 41 times’ beginning with Matthew 9:10; five times in
Luke 15:1-31, and four times in John 9:1-41; and only four times in an
adjectival sense (Mark 8:38; Luke 5:8; 24:7; Rom 7:13).

121

Human reasoning is futile and dangerous here. Men form themselves into
“schools of theology” over this subject, each founding a “system” upon
his notion of how Adam’s trespass affected all. But that a man may act
before he is born in person of his responsible forbear is evident, as
we have shown, in the case of Levi, in Heb. 7:9.

122

Vaughan (as so frequently) gives a rendering of startling accuracy
concerning disobedience and obedience in verse 19: “The one (parakoees)
is properly, mishearing; the other, hupakoees, submissive hearing.”
Disobedience in its essence is refusal to hearken; and obedience is
bowing the ear to submissive listening.

123

“Both Calvinists and Arminians think that the flesh is not so bad that
it cannot be acted on for God by Christ using the Law of God and giving
it power through the Spirit”—This is Wm. Kelly’s shrewd and correct
comment.

124

It is very striking to note that in verse 13 where we read “through one
man sin entered into the world,” the word for entered is eisēlthen; and
now law enters alongside,—the word being the same—eisēlthen—with the
preposition para, alongside, prefixed. And so, “through law is the
knowledge of sin.” Sin entered, and law, entering alongside, revealed
the sin.

125

Two
entirely different Greek words are translated, in the Authorized
Version, “abounded.” But the first, used of sin, means to increase, he
augmented; while the Second, used of grace, means to abound beyond
measure, to overflow. Second (Thayer) These words come from entirely
different roots, and should have been so distinguished in translation.
But one who undertakes to express in English the depth of the Hebrew,
and the extent of the Greek language, will soon discover the frequent
poverty of the English tongue. Hebrew seems to be the language in which
God first spoke with men; it is the vehicle of praise. But to the
Greeks He gave that great intellectual development of their “Golden
Age” in which their endeavor to perfect their language extended even to
public assemblies where the most exact possible phrasing to express an
idea was decided by contest. So when our Lord came as “the Savior of
the World,” that coming, according to the grand old Hebrew prophecies,
was recorded in the Greek, which Alexander the Great had spread
throughout the known world. The Romans, to whom had been given the
power to govern, themselves admitted that they must borrow from the
Greeks not only their philosophy, but also their method and manner of
literary expression. Then also when the Roman Empire went into
collapse, and the dark “Middle Ages” came in, the so-called Renaissance
was the bringing of the Greek classics into crude Europe after the fall
of Constantinople in 1453. And above all, the translation directly from
the Greek New Testament manuscripts of our English Scriptures; for men
had so long depended upon the faulty Latin (or Vulgate) translation.

Perhaps
the greatest wonder the last century and a quarter has seen is the
translation into over 800 tongues and dialects of these same Hebrew and
Greek Scriptures—with such transforming power that It is written of one
Bible-bearing missionary, a man of God, in the South Sea Islands: “When
he came, there were no Christians; when he left, there were no heathen.”

How
wonderful that God should have a language of spiritual praise and
worship—the Hebrew; and a language exact, intellectually rich,—the
Greek, in which He could express the great doctrines concerning His
Son! And both languages capable of being reproduced as to their spirit
and meaning, not only in English, German, and French, but in the
dialects of the most benighted heathen tribes,— “every man in his own
language.”