TEXT [Commentary]
4. Adam and Christ contrasted (5:12-21)
12 When Adam sinned, sin entered the world. Adam’s sin brought death, so death spread to everyone, for everyone sinned. 13 Yes, people sinned even before the law was given. But it was not counted as sin because there was not yet any law to break. 14 Still, everyone died—from the time of Adam to the time of Moses—even those who did not disobey an explicit commandment of God, as Adam did. Now Adam is a symbol, a representation of Christ, who was yet to come. 15 But there is a great difference between Adam’s sin and God’s gracious gift. For the sin of this one man, Adam, brought death to many. But even greater is God’s wonderful grace and his gift of forgiveness to many through this other man, Jesus Christ. 16 And the result of God’s gracious gift is very different from the result of that one man’s sin. For Adam’s sin led to condemnation, but God’s free gift leads to our being made right with God, even though we are guilty of many sins. 17 For the sin of this one man, Adam, caused death to rule over many. But even greater is God’s wonderful grace and his gift of righteousness, for all who receive it will live in triumph over sin and death through this one man, Jesus Christ.
18 Yes, Adam’s one sin brings condemnation for everyone, but Christ’s one act of righteousness brings a right relationship with God and new life for everyone. 19 Because one person disobeyed God, many became sinners. But because one other person obeyed God, many will be made righteous.
20 God’s law was given so that all people could see how sinful they were. But as people sinned more and more, God’s wonderful grace became more abundant. 21 So just as sin ruled over all people and brought them to death, now God’s wonderful grace rules instead, giving us right standing with God and resulting in eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
NOTES
5:12 sin entered the world. Here “world” means humankind or human life.
Adam’s sin brought death. Lit., “and through sin death [entered the world].”
for everyone sinned. This may be taken to mean that all sinned in their own personal lives (Cranfield 1980:274-279) or, representatively, in Adam’s primal sin (“Adam is mankind,” Bruce 1985:122-123). For a full discussion of the complexities of this verse and the alternative interpretations, see Cranfield 1980:271-281; Moo 1996:316-329; Schreiner 1998:271-279.
5:13 people sinned even before the law was given. The law was not given until the time of Moses (Exod 20:1ff), but sin was a reality in people’s experience before then. Romans 5:13-14 is a digression to deal with the question of how one can speak of sin prior to the giving of the law that defined sin.
But it was not counted as sin because there was not yet any law to break. Or, “Where there is no law, no account is kept of sins” (TEV). Lit., “But sin is not counted when there is no law.” Technically, one cannot speak of “transgressions” if there is no formal law to define transgressions.
5:14 Still, everyone died—from the time of Adam to the time of Moses. The fatal effects of sin were still experienced, even before the law defined sin formally. Genesis 5 drives this point home with its repetition of the phrase “and then he died.”
even those who did not disobey an explicit commandment of God, as Adam did. Lit., “even . . . those whose sin was not like Adam’s transgression” (cf. Gen 2:16–3:24).
Now Adam is a symbol, a representation of Christ, who was yet to come. Lit., “. . . a prototype (tupos [TG5179, ZG5596]) [i.e., example] of the coming one.” Though there are parallels between Adam and Christ, the following verses highlight the contrasts between the two.
5:15 Adam’s sin. Lit., “the trespass.”
God’s gracious gift. Lit., “the gift of grace.”
brought death to many. . . . forgiveness to many (hoi polloi . . . tous pollous [TG4183, ZG4498]). Here “many” is practically equivalent to “all”; cf. 5:12, 18-19.
5:16 God’s free gift leads to our being made right with God. Lit., “the gift of grace [leads] to justification [acquittal]” (to charisma . . . eis dikaiōma [TG5486/1345, ZG5922/1468]); this implies forgiveness.
5:17 will live in triumph over sin and death. Lit., “will reign in life” (en zōē basileusousin [TG2222/936, ZG2437/996]). This phrase may be interpreted with regard either to this life or to the coming one; NLT includes both (cf. 8:2).
5:18 Christ’s one act of righteousness. The word dikaiōmatos [TG1345, ZG1468] here refers not to justification (as in 5:16; so Morris) nor to Christ’s righteous life as a whole (so Leenhardt, Murray, Cranfield, Schreiner), but rather to his crowning act of dying for our sins (so Käsemann, Bruce, Dunn, Mounce, Stuhlmacher). Notice the term is contrasted in this verse with the one sin of Adam and defined as his great act of obedience (cf. Phil 2:5-11) in 5:19.
brings a right relationship with God and new life for everyone. Lit., “[brings] justification of life (or, “justification that is life”; dikaiōsin zōēs [TG1347/2222, ZG1470/2437]) for all people.” Though the gift of justification and new life is potentially for everyone, it is effective only for those who put their trust in Christ (3:21-26; Gal 2:16).
5:19 many became sinners. . . . many will be made righteous. For the meaning of “many,” see notes on 5:15, 18.
5:20 God’s law was given so that all people could see how sinful they were. Lit., “. . . so that the trespass might increase,” or, “. . . so that it might increase the trespass” (hina pleonasē to paraptōma [TG412/900, ZG4429/4183]). “Trespass” may be taken as either the subject or object (though the parallel with 5:20b suggests it is to be taken as the subject), and hina [TG2443, ZG2671] may be interpreted as indicating either purpose (REB, NAB, NJB, NIV) or, less likely, result (NRSV). This clause may be understood in three different ways: (1) The law brings a heightened awareness of sin (NLT). (2) The law increases the “sinfulness” of sin (continuing violation of the explicit will of God now becomes conscious, willful disobedience). (3) The law results in a quantitative increase in sin itself (a perverse tendency in humans inclines them to do what they know is wrong). All three are true and could be part of Paul’s thinking (3:20; 4:15; 5:20; 7:7-13; Gal 3:19). The negative effects of the law, in any case, serve God’s more ultimate purposes of salvation by increasing people’s awareness of their need of forgiveness and deliverance.
But as people sinned more and more, God’s wonderful grace became more abundant. Or, “where sin increased, God’s grace increased much more” (TEV); or, “where sin was powerful, God’s kindness was even more powerful” (CEV). Lit., “But where sin increased, grace abounded.” His grace is greater than all our sin.
5:21 now God’s wonderful grace rules instead, giving us right standing with God. Lit., “[so] grace might rule through righteousness.”
COMMENTARY [Text]
In this section, Paul draws a comparison between Christ and Adam, showing that the positive effects of Christ’s saving work overcome all the negative effects of Adam’s tragic fall. Though the comparison between the “first Adam” and the “last Adam” seems strange to us, the parallels between the two were apparently a matter of discussion in the Jewish-Christian world of Paul’s day (cf. 1 Cor 15:21-22, 45-49). Both figures represent defining moments in human history: Adam, the origin of human sin, with all its ruinous consequences; Christ, the origin of God’s forgiving grace, with all its accompanying blessings. The point of the comparison is clear: The new situation now made possible by Christ completely transcends the old, brought about by Adam. Christ, “the other man,” has the power to undo all the catastrophic effects of Adam’s fall. Just as the sin of Adam affected the whole of humanity for evil, so the sacrifice of Christ has the potential to affect the whole of humanity for good.
Building on the traditional understanding of the Creation story, in which sin—and consequently death—entered the world through the tragic failure of Adam, Paul relates how sin and death then spread to all human beings (5:12-14). In Paul’s comparison, Adam is more than a historical personality; he represents what his name means in Hebrew: “humanity.” His sin represents the sin of the whole of humanity, which has now become alienated from God. The story of Adam, then, is the story of every person—the story of each one of us. “For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard” (3:23; cf. 2 Esdr 7:118: “O Adam, what have you done? For though it was you who sinned, the fall was not yours alone, but ours also who are your descendants,” NRSV). Like Adam, we too have disobeyed the command of God, and we, too, suffer the consequences. Just as “in Adam” all sin, so “in Adam” all die. This is our natural state as human beings descended from Adam.
In traditional Jewish thinking, people are not simply individuals; they are always part of a larger community, and the whole community may be represented by or considered as being “in” a single individual or earlier ancestor with whom they are linked. For example, the Jews are spoken of in the Bible as “Israel” or “Judah”; the people of God are represented in Daniel by the “son of man” (Dan 7:13); the Levitical priests are understood as being “in” their ancestor Abraham when Abraham paid his tithe to Melchizedek (Heb 7:9-10). Similarly, Paul speaks of the natural state of all human beings as being “in Adam”—infected by the sin of Adam. In the same way, all who have been redeemed by receiving the forgiving grace of Christ are spoken of as being “in Christ.” “As all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ” (1 Cor 15:22, NRSV). Linked by sin to Adam, we stand under the judgment of God; but linked by faith to Christ, we stand as forgiven people, recipients of God’s forgiving grace. Our destiny is determined, if you will, by the community of which we are most essentially a part—“in Adam” or “in Christ.” In the quaint words of an earlier Oxford scholar, “In God’s sight, there are two men—Adam and Jesus Christ—and these two men have all other men hanging at their girdle strings.”[8]
The contrast between the two men is striking: Adam’s sin brings us death and condemnation by God; Christ’s righteousness brings us life and a warm welcome by God. Adam’s wrongdoing puts us under the judgment of God; Christ’s sacrifice brings us into the grace of God. Adam’s disobedience dooms us; Christ’s obedience saves us. And the good news is that the freeing power of the latter is greater than the enslaving power of the former (5:15-21). “For all who receive it [God’s grace and his gift of righteousness] will live in triumph over sin and death” (5:17; cf. 8:2-4). “When death reigns, human beings are its helpless victims; when Christ reigns, they share his risen life and royal glory” (Bruce 1985:125). “That one single misdeed should be answered by judgment, this is perfectly understandable: that the accumulated sins and guilt of all the ages should be answered by God’s free gift, this is the miracle of miracles, utterly beyond human comprehension” (Cranfield 1980:286).
We must be careful, however, not to read too much into Paul’s words about the grace of God in Christ bringing a right relationship with God and a new life for “everyone” (5:18). There is no basis for universal salvation here; Paul is clearly an exclusivist, not a universalist. Everything he says in the larger context makes it clear that salvation is given not to everyone but only to those who put their trust in Christ. The grace of God is indeed an undeniably wonderful thing—greater than all our sin—but it is only so for those who accept it for the gift it is. It has the potential to make everyone right with God, but in reality it does so only for those who have faith in Christ (1:17; 3:25-26; 5:1; Gal 2:16). The heart of the Good News proclaimed by Paul is that, by God’s grace, people can now freely be made right with God—if they put their faith in Christ.
Now, let’s turn our attention to another matter: original sin. Parts of Paul’s argument seem to reflect the assumption of original sin—the assumption that there is something inherently evil in the heart of every person born into the world as a result of being a descendant of Adam (5:15-19). As the psalmist says, “I was born a sinner—yes, from the moment my mother conceived me” (Ps 51:5). However, it is important to note that neither Paul nor the psalmist is making a statement about the genetic origins of sin; instead, they are speaking of the universality of sin and the ingrained, all-pervasive nature of sin. The overall focus of the New Testament writers is not so much on “original sin” as on actual sin; not so much on the origin of sin as on the reality of sin as it is expressed here and now in the lives of people.[9] Whenever and however sin arises, Paul emphasized that it is a universal experience with tragic consequences—death and the judgment of God for all who sin.
Paul knew that some of his readers were sure to be troubled by this brief analysis of the history of sin and God’s dealing with it because it omits all reference to the law, which Jewish people commonly assumed God had instituted to deal with sin. Early in this section, Paul acknowledged that, technically, sin cannot be classified as legal culpability before the era of the law, for the law is what legally defines sin. Nonetheless, the reality and the consequences of sin as an expression of disobedience were felt from the very beginning, long before the time of Moses and the law (5:13-14). Sin was a problem long before the law was ever given—and sin remained a problem after the law was given.
The important point implied by Paul is that the law is not really the answer to the problem of sin at all. The law was only instituted to help people see their sin more clearly—until Christ could come to deal with sin effectively. So the law was only a stopgap measure “until the coming of the child who was promised . . . until the way of faith was revealed” (Gal 3:19, 23). Now Christ spells the end (termination) of the law as a way of life so that righteousness may be credited to everyone who believes (10:4).
The ultimate purpose of the law—its deeper function—is not simply to control wrongdoing by restricting people’s behavior but (ironically) to increase their sense of wrongdoing—to give sin its bite, to heighten people’s sense of sin, to make them feel their wrongdoing. The real purpose of the law is to make people aware of how far they fall short of actually keeping God’s law (5:20; cf. Gal 3:19: “Why, then, was the law given? It was given alongside the promise to show people their sins,”). Here, with great insight, Paul goes well beyond the Judaism of his day in his understanding of the negative function of the law of Moses and of “law” as a way of life in general. Paul was keenly aware that no system of law could ever be an adequate basis for the motivation of true love or of the kind of life and attitudes that truly please God. Real goodness cannot be legislated; it has to come from a completely different source of motivation, the awareness of being deeply loved by God. A life of heartfelt goodness is a response not to the demands of law but to God’s wholly undeserved grace.
The astonishing message of the Good News is that, however great our sin and its grip upon us, the amazing grace of God in Jesus Christ is greater still (5:20-21)! Indeed, the more profound our understanding of sin and its consequences, the greater our appreciation of God’s grace—of all he has done for us, undeserving as we are. It is our awareness of the full depths of our sin that makes us realize we can never merit his love; all we can do is accept it as a gift. The heightened awareness of our sin makes us realize the full extent of our dependence on God’s forgiving grace and thus pushes us to a life of simple trust in Christ as Savior. So in the end, in the service of the Good News, the law of Moses performs a most useful function—but not the one most people think. Only in Jesus Christ can the bonds of sin and death be broken (8:1-4). As Paul proclaimed to the people in Antioch of Pisidia, “Through this man Jesus there is forgiveness for your sins. Everyone who believes in him is declared right with God—something the law of Moses could never do” (Acts 13:38-39).