Word Biblical Commentary 38A: Romans 1-8

12 διὰ τοῦτο ὥσπερ διʼ ἑνὸς ἀνθρώπου, “therefore as through one man.” The διὰ τοῦτο does not signify a conclusion drawn simply from an immediately preceding argument; v 11 had already effectively rounded off the preceding train of thought. Its function is rather to indicate that vv 12–21 serve as a conclusion to the complete argument from 1:18—5:11 (see further 5:1–21 Introduction). The ὥσπερ, “just as,” clearly is intended to introduce the first half of a contrast which is not in fact completed until v 18 (see also Form and Structure). The “one man” obviously is Adam, although he is not named till v 14. Paul may have it in mind that Adam = = “man” = ἄνθρωπος, but his argument does not depend on it. And though he will use Adam to characterize the state of humankind (vv 15–19), he does not use ἄνθρωπος here to characterize humankind as a whole; the concept of “corporate personality” (H. W. Robinson, Man, 121; Bruce, 126) is more of a hindrance than a help here (so rightly Käsemann; see further Rogerson); still less can it be maintained that Paul has in mind some universal mythical Man—as the distinction between “one man” and “all men” makes clear (see further on 5:14c). The further step back, already behind Moses (and the law) to Abraham (chap. 4), and now behind Abraham to Adam, is deliberate. Not only does it bring the argument back to its starting point (the indictment of human sin in terms of Adam’s fall—see on 1:22) and so completes the circle of his argument (1:18—5:21—see again 5:1–21 Introduction), but it also highlights the universal sweep of God’s saving purpose through Christ: God is Savior (vv 9–10) as Creator (cf. 4:17) and not merely as the God of Israel.

ἡ ἁμαρτία εἰς τὸν κόσμον εἰσῆλθεν καὶ διὰ τῆς ἁμαρτίας ὁ θάνατος, “sin entered into the world and through sin, death.” Paul here shows himself familiar with and indeed to be a participant in what was evidently a very vigorous strand of contemporary Jewish thinking about Adam and the origin of evil and death in the world. Note particularly Sir 14:17, 25:24 (“From a woman sin had its beginning and because of her we die”); Wisd Sol 2:23–24 (“God created man for incorruption . . . but through the devil’s envy death entered the world, and those who belong to his party experience it”); Adam and Eve 44 and Apoc. Mos. 14, 32; 4 Ezra 3.7, 21–22; 4.30; 7.116–18; 2 Apoc. Bar. 17.2–3; 23.4; 48.42–43; 54.15, 19; 56.5–6; for rabbinic references see Str-B, 3:227–29. Gen 6:1–4 was also drawn into this speculation (see on 1:27); the texts are set out by Kuss, 261–72. Unlike most of his contemporaries Paul does not speculate about the way in which sin entered the world—through Satan (as in Wisd Sol 2:24), through Eve (as in Sir 25:24; Adam and Eve 44; Apoc. Mos. 14, 32; cf. 2 Cor 11:3; 1 Tim 2:14; 2 Enoch 30.18), through the “evil heart” (as in 4 Ezra 4.30). Nor like the later Gnostics does he try to trace the cause further back to some primordial cosmic dualism (cf. Bornkamm, “Anakoluthe,” 83–84, 90; Gaugler, who also quotes Bultmann, “Rom 5,” 152—“sin” came into the world through sinning”). And though he clearly personifies “sin” and “death” (see on 3:9 and 1:32 respectively) his language is not so different from that of Sir 25:24 and Wisd Sol 2:24, and his concern is not so much to designate them as cosmic powers as to characterize them as forces of existential reality: what sin entered was the world of human beings, of human experience (“all men”—v 12c; cf. 7:7–12) rather than creation (Wilckens, 315 n. 1037). This is the language of universal experience, not of cosmic speculation (cf. Dodd—Paul “is not really concerned about origins, but about the facts as they are”). Where Paul does come closer to the broader Jewish thought is in the tension between sin as part of human nature and the responsibililty for sinning (see below); and in the clear implication that death was a consequence of sin and so not part of God’s purpose for his creation (cf. Wisd Sol 1:13; 2:23–24; see also Black, “Death,” 414–15, 421). As in the broader sweep of Jewish thought also, there is no suggestion of a distinction between “spiritual” and “physical” death: human weakness (5:6), the corruptibility of the flesh (see on 1:3 and 7:5), and death are all of a piece in that they characterize the whole sweep of creaturely alienation from the Creator (cf. Kuss; against Schmidt). “Sin” and “death,” appearing here for the first time as interdependent categories, will largely dominate the discussion for the next three chapters (“sin” 42 times between 5:12 and 8:10; “death” 19 times between 5:12 and 8:6; together—5:12, 21; 6:16, 23; 7:5, 13; 8:2; see further chaps. 6–8 Introduction).

καὶ οὕτως εἰς πάντας ἀνθρώπους ὁ θάνατος διῆλθεν, “and so death came to all men.” The καὶ οὕτως does not provide the apodosis for the ὥσπερ clause (see particularly Cranfield and Schlier; otherwise Kirby—“so too [sc. through one man, Adam] death came to all men”—but without offering any explanation for the sequence of thought through vv 12d and 13a). Paul seems to be going off at a tangent, but his purpose is to emphasize the universal rule of death (Robinson, Wrestling, 61), whether as a consequence of all men’s sinful acts (v 12d) or as a consequence of human sin, even if unaccounted (vv 13–14); his theme is original death more than original sin (Feuillet, “Règne,” 482–92; Theobald, 80; Maillot). However, he chooses a linking phrase which prevents the transition from jarring unnecessarily (καὶ οὕτως, where the construction expects οὕτως καί, as in v 18). The διῆλθεν (usually used of journeys) may be chosen to increase the force of εἰσῆλθεν: death passed through the whole range of humankind (SH, Michel; cf. Wisd Sol 7:24). Dibelius, “Vier Worte,” 8, and Englezakis emphasize the chiastic structure of v 12:

sin entered and death

and so death came to all in that all sinned

ἐφʼ ᾧ πάντες ἥμαρτον, “in that all sinned.” The classic debate on the meaning of ἐφʼ ᾧ has more or less been settled in favor of the meaning “for this reason that, because” (cf. 2 Cor 5:4; Phil 3:12; 4:10; classical parallels in BGD, ἐπί IIbγ), “in view of the fact that” (Moulton, Grammar, 1:107); see particularly the full discussion of Cranfield; Black, however, favors the sense “wherefore, from which it follows that” (following Lyonnet) = “thus providing proof that”; unacceptable is Schmidt’s interpretation, “up to which (the end [Ziel] of eternal death) all sinned.” What comes to expression here is not some concept of “corporate personality” or cosmic Man or theology of Adam as Everyman. However much Paul wants to stress the universality of the effects of Adam’s sin (vv 13–14, 18–19), the fact remains that he begins with (v 12) and maintains throughout (vv 15–19) a distinction between “one” and “all”/“the many.” The link between the “one” and the “all” is not explained, but the distinction is clear: the “one” is not the “all,” and the “all” are not simply subsumed within the “one.” What comes to expression is rather what we also see in the same broad stream of Jewish reflection on the Genesis account of Adam’s fall—viz., the tension between the inescapableness of human sin operating as a compelling power from within or without (cf., e.g., Philo, Mos. 2.147—συμφυὲς τὸ ἁμαρτάνειν ἐστίν; Qumran’s “spirit of perversity”—1QS 3:18–4:1; 4 Ezra’s “evil heart”), and the recognition of human responsibility in sinning (particularly 4 Ezra 8.35; 2 Apoc. Bar. 54.15, 19—“Though Adam sinned first and has brought death upon all who were not in his own time, yet each of them who has been born from him has prepared for himself the coming torment . . .”). So here the distinction between the “one” and the “all” is matched by the distinction between ἁμαρτία and ἥμαρτον, where the latter clearly denotes human responsibility in sinful acts (as in 2:12 and 3:23)—hence the problem (v 13) of whether individuals ἥμαρτον when there was no law (Wedderburn, “Rom 5:12,” 351–52; see further Denney, 627–29; Kuss, 241–48; Fitzmyer; Käsemann, 148–49; Kümmel, Theology, 179; Schlier, 160–63; Hendriksen; cf. Danker; against Nygren; Bruce; Murray; Ridderbos, Paul, 96; Johnson, 306–7; and Ladd, Theology, 404). In modern terms we would want to balance questions of individual responsibility against the constraints of hereditary, educational, and other social conditioning factors (cf. Dodd; Leenhardt; Robinson, Wrestling, 61–63). “No one sins entirely alone and no one sins without adding to the collective burden of mankind” (Byrne, Reckoning, 116).

13 ἄχρι γὰρ νόμου ἁμαρτία ἦ ἐν κόσμῳ, “for until the law sin was in the world.” For ἁμαρτία see on 3:9 and 5:12; κόσμος is again the world of human beings, human experience (as in 5:12). νόμος clearly refers to the Torah, and the clause to the period of history prior to the giving of the law at Sinai (between Adam and Moses—v 14). Very noticeable is the speed with which Paul’s thought and argument reverts to the law (cf. Jüngel, “Gesetz,” 52)—a further indication that here was the chief point of tension for Paul the Jew become Christian and for his understanding of the gospel of Christ in relation to the traditional emphases of Judaism.

ἁμαρτία δὲ οὐκ ἐλλογεῖται μὴ ὄντος νόμου, “but sin is not accounted in the absence of the law.” ἐλλογέω is a commercial t.t., “charge to someone’s account” (BGD; cf. its only other NT use, Philem 18). Paul draws here on the idea of the heavenly tablets or books in which the sins (and righteousness) of humankind are recorded—an idea already current in Judaism (see particularly Jub. 30.17–23; 1 Enoch 104.7; 2 Apoc. Bar. 24.1); Black translates “is not entered into the ledger against.” Once again νόμος does not mean “law” in general, but the law, the Torah. The meaning of ἁμαρτία has moved from that of power to that of act (see further on 3:9 and 5:20). Lietzmann appropriately compares Philo, Immut. 134, “For so long as the divine reason (θεῖος λόγος) has not come into our soul . . . all its (our sours) works are free from guilt,” since for Philo the law is also θεῖος λόγος (Migr. 130).

Paul’s reasoning here has puzzled many commentators. “Verse 13 is completely unintelligible. . . . What sort of sin was it if it did not originate as contradiction of the Law? And how can it have brought death after it if it was not ‘counted’? These questions cannot be answered” (Bultmann, Theology, 1:252). “The statement ἁμαρτία οὐκ ἐλλογεῖται is a mere verbal expedient without any real significance. Paul tries to show that, as regards man and sin, the coming of the law makes a difference; what he actually shows is that there is none” (Räisänen, Paul, 146 n. 91). Certainly there is some tension here with what Paul says elsewhere, but such strictures are excessive. What is clear is that Paul’s primary object here is to stress the universal sway of death over the epoch introduced by Adam (cf. Bultmann, Theology, 1:252): v 13 functions as an explanation of v 12c; and v 14 makes it clear that v 13 is to be regarded as raising a possible objection to the claim that death’s sway has been unbroken from the beginning. The objection centers not on sin, because it was through sin that death entered (v 12). It centers rather on the nexus between sin and the law: that sin is not counted except as a breach of the law; and therefore in the absence of the law no acts worthy of death could have happened. Paul could have met this objection by arguing as he did in chaps. 1 and 2 that those outside the law have a knowledge of God and of his will in terms of which they will be judged (see on 2:14), or by arguing that the law itself was already known in whole or in part already in the garden (see on 7:7). That he chooses not to do so, when he was prepared to take up such ideas elsewhere in the same letter, must be significant (cf. Zeller). What the significance is, however, remains unclear. But it must be tied up with Paul’s evident concern here to emphasize the role and power of sin and death as ultimately independent of the law (vv 13–14). Probably because, on the one hand, he already has in mind the argument he will have to make in chap. 7, which will leave a positive role for the law when it is not sin’s catspaw (Theobald, 86–87). And probably also because he is willing to trade on the Jewish claim to a distinctive possession of the law, since he has already been able to turn it against his Jewish interlocutor: the law was given to the Jews to make them conscious of sin (see on 3:20 and 4:15)—the very point he will make with greater force in 5:20. The awkwardness of 5:13 is to be explained in large part therefore by the fact that it is like 3:1–8: it foreshadows lines of argument and emphases which Paul is not yet ready to develop.

What emerges here, however, is two potentially important distinctions. (1) Between sin as a power in human experience from which no one in the epoch can escape, and sin as something for which the individual can be charged—between sin = human sinfulness, and sin “counted” = individual “transgression” (v 14). Once again the two-sidedness of the human condition within the epoch of Adam comes to expression—sin as a given of human character and social environment (“sin was in the world”), and sin as an accountable action of individual responsibility (see also on 5:12d). Paul seems to think of both elements as present in greater or less degree in all sinning—the verb ἁμαρτάνω covering the complete range (vv 12d and 14). We may compare the distinctions already accepted within Judaism between unwitting sins and sins “with a high hand,” between sins atonable within the covenant and sins which put the sinner outside the covenant = outside the scope of forgiveness (Num 15:27–31; cf. 1 John 5:16–17). (2) Between death as an inescapable part of the human condition for which the individual cannot be held responsible, and death as a consequence of the individual’s responsible transgression (1:32; 6:23). It is not entirely fair to criticize Paul here by noting that it makes no difference—all die, for whatever reason (cf. Räisänen above). For, on the one hand, Paul is again giving expression to a much more widely experienced tension between unavoidable destiny and individual responsibility (see Scroggs, Adam, 36, and on 5:12). And, on the other, he is quite capable of distinguishing between different levels of judgment, different qualities of judgment (cf. 2:7–10; 1 Cor 3:12–15): no one can escape death as a destiny; but Paul certainly sees its hold on individuals as something which can be broken (cf. 6:7–11).

14 ἀλλὰ ἐβασίλευσεν ὁ θάνατος ἀπὸ Ἀδὰμ μέχρι Μωϋσέως, “but death ruled from Adam to Moses.” For θάνατος as a power see on 1:32 and 5:12. The imagery of kingly rule appears for the first time—death reigned, “damnation carried all before it” (Lightfoot); it is used equally of “death” (vv 14, 17) and “sin” (5:21; 6:12). The personification is more vivid, but it is still the existential reality which is in view—death as exercising a power over human life which no individual can escape. Whatever the precise relation Paul has in mind between death as consequence of human sinfulness and death as “payment” for sin (6:23; see on 5:13), it is certainly the former he has in mind here—death as man’s inescapable end, an oppressive power for those who delight in life, “the last enemy” (1 Cor 15:26). The period “from Adam to Moses” could hardly be regarded as an “age of innocence” (cf. Gen 6:5!). Paul’s analysis here reflects the related tension in Jewish thought between, on the one hand, pride in the law as given especially to Israel and in God as Israel’s God, and, on the other, the conviction that his rule reached to the ends of the earth (see on 3:29, and again on 5:13). The exception of Enoch (Gen 5:24) hardly constitutes a weakening of Paul’s argument, since Paul’s generalization here is shared by the wisdom and apocalyptic traditions in Judaism (see on 5:12).

καὶ ἐπὶ τοὺς μὴ ἁμαρτήσαντας ἐπὶ τῷ ὁμοιώματι τῆς παραβάσεως Ἁδάμ, “even over those who did not sin in the very manner of Adam’s transgression.” ἁμαρτάνω is used here in a way which implies that there is a sinning which is not a transgression, but nevertheless a responsible act whose result is death (v 12d). παράβασις obviously = “sin accounted” (v 13) = breach of the law (4:15). Adam’s sin was παράβασις since it was an act of disobedience to what he knew to be a command of God (Gen 2:16–17); hence NEB’S “by disobeying a direct command” (see further on 7:7). The clear implication is that even if there was sinning in the period between Adam and Moses which did not have the character of deliberate rebellion against God, it was equally pernicious in its outworking on the perpetrators (cf. 1:18–32). Paul does not mean by this that since Moses all sinning the world over has the character of “transgression.” The inference here, as in 3:20 and 4:15, is that “transgression” is something of which Israel in particular is guilty, since Israel in particular has the law (so 2:1—3:20). The precise meaning of ὁμοίωμα is much disputed—probably “precise likeness,” “exactly like” (Black; see on 6:5); but the meaning here is clear enough—“who did not sin in just the way that Adam transgressed.” Cf. Hos 6:7 MT—“like Adam they transgressed the covenant.” There is no thought of children who die in infancy here (as still in Murray).

ὅς ἐστιν τύπος τοῦ μέλλοντος, “who is the type of the one to come.” τύπος was an obvious and familiar metaphor in the ancient world. The primary sense is of the impression made by a blow; so either “what is stamped,” the “mark” left, or the form or outline of what made the mark. So the chief sense in Paul is “pattern, model” (6:17; Phil 3:17; 1 Thess 1:7; 2 Thess 3:9), but here and in 1 Cor 10:6 it has the more technical sense of “type”; that is, an event or person from the epoch-shaping beginning time (of the world or of Israel) which provides a pattern for the end time (see further (BGD, TDNT 8:246–53; Cranfield’s stretching of τύπος to include every man as a human being [295] distorts the typology unacceptably). Here Jewish eschatology predominates over the use of Exod 25:40, more amenable to a Platonic view of an upper world of realities of which objects on earth are only a shadow and imperfect copy (Heb 8:5; cf. Acts 7:44). The reality to which Adam points is not a heavenly being on whom Adam was patterned, but “the one who was to come” (see further below). “The one to come” is clearly Christ (not Moses, or “man under the law” as Robinson, Body, 35 n. 1, followed by Scroggs, Adam, 81, similarly Haacker, quite inappropriately suggested): Christ is the eschatological counterpart of primeval Adam; Adam is the pattern, or “prototype” (Käsemann) of Christ in that each begins an epoch and the character of each epoch is established by their action. That the actions are very different and the outcomes markedly disproportionate (vv 15–19) does not alter that basic similarity. Conceivably Paul has in mind the fact that the mark made by a stamp is precisely the converse of the pattern on the stamp itself. The μέλλοντος has an eschatological ring, but it is the realized eschatology of what Christ has already accomplished (as in Gal 3:23; Col 2:17), rather than the eschatology of what is yet to come (as in 8:18). It may be this more consistent eschatological overtone which made ὁ μέλλων more attractive to Paul than ὁ ἐρχόμενος (cf. Matt 11:3//Luke 7:20).

The debate which was a significant feature of the earlier decades of the twentieth century still lingers on, as to Paul’s source for his Adam/Christ parallel. The older History of Religions hypothesis that Paul was in fact drawing on a pre-Christian Gnostic Redeemer myth (Bultmann) is still pushed forward, but despite attempts to deduce a form of it from the Nag Hammadi codices it has increasingly taken on the appearance of a wild goose chase. Insofar as the argument affects the exegesis of Rom 5, it has now focused principally on the parallel passage in 1 Cor 15. In brief compass, the argument is that in 1 Cor 15:46 Paul attacks a distinction between spiritual man and natural man which we also find in Philo as an exegetical distinction between Gen 1:27 (the heavenly man) and the man of clay of Gen 2:7 (Leg. All. 1:31), where the heavenly man can also be identified with the Logos (Conf. 41, 62–63, 146–47; more details in Dunn, Christology, 100); and that both reflect a pre-Christian myth of the Urmensch, the pretemporal primal man in heaven. The inference drawn is that the same primal man myth lies behind Rom 5 (see particularly Bultmann, “Romans 5,” 154; Brandenburger, Adam, 117–31; still in Kümmel, Theology, 156–57; Käsemann, 144; and Wilckens, 1:308–10; on the complexity of the claim being made, see Schenke, 220–221; Barth’s insistence that not Adam but Jesus Christ is “first” [still in Shorter, 62] actually depends on a Gnostic Christology, as Bultmann, “Romans 5,” 150, notes). However, the reasoning is highly suspect.

(a) Philo’s treatment of Gen 1:27 can be explained wholly as a combination of three strands of his philosophical theology: (1) the Wisdom figure of the wisdom tradition; (2) the Stoic belief in the λόγος as the rational power which sustains the universe; and (3) the Platonic view of the heavenly world as the realm of eternal realities (Dunn, Christology, 221–22). The Urmensch myth is an unnecessary hypothesis; nor can it find any real foothold in the Wisdom figure of Prov 8 and Sir 24, since Wisdom there is simply a classic expression of the vivid personifications which typify Hebrew poetic style and which in this case provide a way of speaking of God’s immanence without falling back into the outdated anthropomorphisms of the early tradition (ibid., 168–76). Philo’s “heavenly man” is simply the ideal equivalent or pattern of the human version on earth, and otherwise is no different from the “forms” and “ideas” which provide the patterns for all earthly existents (ibid., 124). Even in the case where the heavenly man is identified with the Logos, that is simply an example of Philo’s allegorical exegesis which sees the Logos, the self-revelation of God, in multifarious forms of heaven and earth (ibid., 223–28). See also Wedderburn, “Heavenly Man.”

(b) The most surprising element in the hypothesis is the use made of 1 Cor 15:44–49. Paul does indeed seem to be intent on denying some philosophically based view that the spiritual must precede the natural. But we hardly need to hypothesize more than that to provide a fully adequate explanation of Paul’s reasoning. Where the argument loses touch with the text is in the deduction that by “the man from heaven” (1 Cor 15:47) Paul must have in mind the preexistent Christ taking over the role of the primal Man. For clearly the logic of Paul’s argument runs quite counter to that deduction: the spiritual is subsequent to the natural, as Christ is subsequent to Adam; Christ as heavenly man is the resurrected Christ, Christ the pattern not for the first Adam, but for resurrected believers (vv 21–22, 48–49). If Paul presupposes Christ to have been preexistent, then his whole argument at this point collapses (the “spiritual” does precede the “natural”). Nor does it make too much sense to argue that Paul must have been attacking even a belief like Philo’s, since his argument then becomes reduced to mere assertions which could be easily countered by mere denials. Paul’s argument in 1 Cor 15 is clearly governed by eschatology: Christ as the eschatological equivalent to Adam, his resurrection inaugurating a new epoch as Adam’s creation in corruptible clay inaugurated the old; the importation of the idea of Christ’s preexistence as heavenly man is both unnecessary and undermines what Paul himself is clearly trying to say (see, e.g., Black, “Adam,” 171–72; Scroggs, 92; Ladd, Theology, 422; Dunn, Christology, 107–8, 124, with bibliog, in notes; Schade, 83). At this point the Christology of Rom 5 and that of 1 Cor 15 come close together: Adam as pattern of life leading to death—Christ as pattern of death leading to life; Christ as pattern of a new humanity (dead and risen)—Adam as pattern (in epochal significance) for the one to come. Jewish eschatology is everything here; of a primal Man mythology there is no trace. On the other hand, there is also no real ground for seeing behind the Adam language here an earlier Son of Man Christology (so rightly, e.g., Vögtle, 208–12; see further Dunn, Christology, 90–91, with bibliog). Nor have I been convinced by Wright’s attempt to push the earlier Jewish use of Adam and creation motifs in regard to Israel to support the thesis that there is an apocalyptic belief regarding Israel as the Last Adam, which provides “the correct background against which to understand Paul’s Adam-Christology” (“Adam,” 372).

(c) We might simply add that Paul’s thought here is close to its Jewish Heimat and markedly distinct from that of the later Gnostic systems at several other points—particularly in treating sin and death as quasi-cosmic powers and in his emphasis on human responsibility in sinning (see further Wedderburn, “Rom 5:12,” 342–44, 348–49); see also on 5:12.

On the other hand, we should not go to the opposite extreme and attribute the whole of Paul’s Adam Christology to Paul himself. There is sufficient indication in the combined use of Ps 110:1 and Ps 8:6 that the Adam Christology involved was more widely canvassed in the first generations of Christianity (Mark 12:36//Matt 22:44; 1 Cor 15:25–27; Eph 1:20–22; Heb 1:13—2:8; 1 Pet 3:22; see further Dunn, Christology, 107–23); hence the fact that here Paul can assume the typological Adam/Christ correlation without pausing to prove it (Lietzmann; Eichholz, Theologie, 175–76). The importance of Ps 110:1 in the development of Adam Christology is a further confirmation that it is primarily as the (crucified and) risen one that Christ is last Adam.

15 ἀλλ’ οὐχ ὡς τὸ παράπτωμα, οὕτως καὶ τὸ χάρισμα, “but not as the trespass, so also the effect of grace.” The comparison between Adam and Christ begun in v 12 and taken up again in v 14c is once more interrupted to stress the disparity between them, but with a formula (οὐχ ὡς . . . οὕτως καί) which is again similar to the one which is held in suspense (ὥσπερ . . . οὕτως καί—vv 12, 18) and which reduces the jarring effect of the long interruption (cf. v 12c). παράπτωμα (4:25; 5:15–18, 20) now replaces παράβασις (2:23; 4:15; 5:14). Whether Paul intended them to bear a different meaning is unclear: παράπτωμα can have more the sense “false step, slip, blunder” (LSJ), whereas “transgression” is the more fitting translation for παράβασις (so Cranfield). But the distinction does not amount to much (cf., e.g., Ezek 18:22, 24, 26); both refer to Adam’s disobedience; and it may be that Paul switched to παράπτωμα simply because it read more euphonistically with the other -μα compounds which predominate in the following verses (see Form and Structure). On the other hand, since παράβασις elsewhere in Romans has the force of deliberate breach of the law, the effect of using παράπτωμα is to reinforce the idea of a broader concept of sinning (vv 12d–14). χάρισμα as usual means a concrete enactment of grace (see on 1:11). Here the act of Christ is characterized as an embodiment of grace; with the clear implication that the epoch making χάρισμα stamps the character of the whole epoch as “charismatic” (see further on 12:6).

εἰ γὰρ . . . πολλῷ μᾶλλον, “for if . . . how much more”—see on 5:9 and 10; but here the construction denotes contrast (as in v 17).

τῷ τοῦ ἑνὸς παραπτώματι οἱ πολλοί ἀπέθανον, “by the trespass of the one, the many died”—referring back to and rephrasing v 12. “The one . . . the many” has a Semitic ring (Michel). “The many” has an inclusive sense in Hebrew and Aramaic—“the many who cannot be counted, the great multitude, all” (TDNT 6:536). So here it is clearly synonymous with the “all” of vv 12 and 18; cf. 2 Cor 5:14.

ἡ χάρις τοῦ θεοῦ καὶ ἡ δωρεὰ ἐν χάριτι τῇ τοῦ ἑνὸς ἀνθρώπου Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ εἰς τούς πολλοὺς ἐπερίσσευσεν, “the grace of God and the gift in grace, which is of the one man Jesus Christ, has overflowed to the many.” For χάρις see on 1:5. The double expression here should not be taken to imply that “the grace of God” is (merely) God’s gracious disposition, with only the second phrase referring to his gracious giving. Both speak of God’s gracious action. The redundancy partly attests Paul’s concern to express the superlative quality of the act (both in its power and generosity), and partly is intended to hold together the grace (χάρις, χάρισμα) of the Christ event, and the grace actually received by those who believe in Christ. With δωρεά the gift of the Spirit in particular may be in view (see on 5:5), or the gift of righteousness (5:17), but in the description of what comes to man from God “gift,” “grace,” “righteousness,” and “Spirit” are all near synonyms, and so can be used in various prepositional combinations (cf. 3:24; 5:17, 21; 8:10; Gal 4:4–5; Acts 2:38; 10:45; Eph 3:7; 4:7). 1 Tim 2:5 suggests that Paul’s formulation “the one man Jesus Christ” became established in a creedal form in the Pauline churches; but the attempt to see behind the phrase Jesus’ own self-designation as “the son of man” goes too far (Kuss; against Jeremias, TDNT 1:143). περισσεύειν, “overflow,” is one of Paul’s favorite words: he uses it both for God’s generosity (see particularly 3:7; 5:17; 15:13; 2 Cor 9:8) and for believers’ response (1 Cor 14:12; 15:58; 2 Cor 8:2, 7; Phil 1:9; Col 2:7). That he saw the two as interdependent and sought to pattern his own outgoingness on God’s is the implication of 2 Cor 1:5; 4:15; 9:8, 12; Phil 4:12, 18; and 1 Thess 3:12. Here the implication is clearly that God’s response to Adam’s trespass sought not merely to make up the ground which had been lost but also to bring to completion the destiny of which Adam had fallen short (see also on 3:23). “The act of grace does not balance the act of sin; it overbalances it” (Barrett; see further, Theobald, 96–97).

16 καὶ οὐχ ὡς δἰ ἑνὸς ἁμαρτήσαντος τὸ δώρημα, “and not as through one who sinned, the gift.” The language is very compressed, but the thought clear enough. The οὐχ ὡς . . . (οὕτως καί) of v 15 is repeated, but this time the contrast is between the gift and what came through Adam, rather than with Adam’s trespass as such (v 15). The διʼ ἑνὸς ἁμαρτήσαντος brings together the complementary formulations of vv 12a and 14b, with ἁμαρτάνω broad enough to support the full range of παράβασις and παράπτωμα (see on 5:14 and 15). δώρημα, a word rarely used in prose (LSJ; elsewhere in the NT only James 1:17), is obviously chosen for rhetorical effect, as another -μα word.

τὸ μὲν γὰρ κρίμα ἐξ ἑνὸς εἰς κατάκριμα, “for the judgment is from one to condemnation.” κρίμα can mean “judgment” in the sense of “condemnation” (see on 2:2 and 3:8), but here it is complemented by the stronger word κατάκριμα where the idea of “condemnation” includes the carrying out of the sentence (TDNT 3:952); elsewhere in the NT only at 5:18 and 8:1. The thought adds nothing materially to v 15 except that together with v 15 it once again highlights the two-sidedness of humankind’s plight—death as a consequence of the belonging to the epoch inaugurated by Adam, and condemnation as falling upon acts of responsible trespass. As Käsemann observes, “the intensifying of κρίμα by κατάκριμα corresponds to the διὸ παρέδωκεν of 1:24ff.” (see further Käsemann). In view of the rhetorical variation present in the next clause, it is quite possible that Paul intended the ἐξ ἑνός to refer either to Adam or to Adam’s act or to both.

τὸ δὲ χάρισμα ἐκ πολλῶν παραπτωμάτων εἰς δικαίωμα, “but the effect of grace is from many trespasses to justification.” Perhaps conscious of the danger of lapsing into mere repetition Paul varies the use of πολλοί—altering the contrast from the one and the many to the one trespass (or trespass of the one) and the many trespasses (= the trespasses of the many). “Christ stands not with the sin of the one, but with the damnation which has come to all and the transgressions of the many” (Bornkamm, “Anakoluthe,” 86). For χάρισμα see on 5:15. δικαίωμα normally means “regulation, requirement” (BGD; and see on 5:18). But here it is chosen obviously as yet another -μα word to provide rhetorical balance to κατάκριμα. As such it has to be taken as the opposite of “condemnation,” so “Justification, acquittal.” The reintroduction of δικαι- words is significant (see Form and Structure). The use here confirms that Paul’s theology of justification always has in view (implicitly or explicitly) acquittal at the last judgment (see further on 2:13); as κατάκριμα stands at the end of the old age, so δικαίωμα is the goal of the new (Michel). Moreover the fact that he can use δικαίωμα in this way confirms that for Paul final acquittal is in no way at odds with the requirements laid down by God upon both Jew and Gentile (1:32; cf. 3:26).

17 εἰ . . . πολλῷ μᾶλλον, “if . . . how much more”—for the fourth time in 9 verses (see on 5:15).

τῷ τοῦ ἑνὸς παραπτώματι ὁ θάνατος ἐβασίλευσεν διὰ τοῦ ἑνός, “by the trespass of the one, death reigned through the one”; another recapping clause which encapsulates what had already been said in vv 12 and 14. The repetition is not merely redundant. V 14 showed that the chief focus of Paul’s characterization of the age of Adam was the universal reign of death. To that he must return and show how the “much more”-ness of God’s grace transforms that too. The aorist refers either to death’s accession to its kingly role (through Adam’s sin) or views the whole sweep of Adam’s epoch as summed up in the one instant of the death to which all must bow the knee.

οἱ τὴν περισσείαν τῆς χάριτος καὶ τῆς δωρεᾶς τῆς δικαιοσύνης λαμβάνοντες, “those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness.” Paul’s piling up of language in superfluous repetition is an instinctive or deliberate attempt to mirror the superabundant quality of grace given and received. περισσεία, “surplus, abundance,” a rare word (elsewhere in the NT 2 Cor 8:2; 10:15; James 1:21), is drawn in to provide a noun form of περισσεύω (see on 5:15). Paul declines the opportunity to introduce another -μα word in περίσσευμα (“abundance, fullness”—2 Cor 8:14), presumably because in this instance περισσείαν τῆς χάριτος was a more pleasing match for τῆς δωρεᾶς τῆς δικαιοσύνης. Characteristic of his understanding of “grace” is that it is abundant, more than enough (see on 5:15).

The further variation of v 15 (ἡ δωρεὰ ἐν χάριτι) allows Paul once again to recall the principal theme of 1:17—5:21 (ἡ δωρεὰ τῆς δικαιοσύνης). The fact that he can speak so explicitly of “righteousness” as a “gift received” is important. It is not merely a rhetorically stretched usage (like δικαίωμα in v 16); but neither should the usage be given determinative significance for all the other occurrences (in view of the rhetorical character of the context). The phrase signifies that the status of one acceptable to God is a gift of God. As such it is a concrete expression of the outreaching grace of God (χάρισμα) and cannot be separated from the overflowing grace of God (ἡ περισσεία τῆς χάριτος). As such it cannot be regarded as an object, a package received and retained, as if it was one’s own property; on the contrary, the relational force of righteousness remains and is reemphasized—God’s acceptance as always God’s—a gift given not by passing the gift from God’s hands but by drawing the receiver into his arms. See further on 1:17 and 6:18, 22; but also on 6:16 and 10:10.

The use of the participle form (οἱ λαμβάνοντες) is unusual in Paul. The verb he uses quite regularly, usually in a first person plural form to remind his readers of what they have received—grace (1:5), reconciliation (5:11), the Spirit (8:15; 1 Cor 2:12; Gal 3:2, 14). The participle he uses quite regularly with πιστεύειν (1:16; 3:22; 4:5, 11, 24; etc.). He can vary these more regular patterns here presumably because believing and receiving are for him two sides of the same coin. The present tense may be used for the same reason that he regularly uses πιστεύειν in the present (see on 1:16). But here part of the reason at least is to provide a contrast (together with the future tense in the next clause) to the aorist of v 17a. Where the rule of death is abrupt and peremptory, the new era of grace has an open and future character. For the significance of οἱ λαμβάνοντες taking the place of οἱ πολλοί (= πάντες), see on 5:19.

ἐν ζωῇ βασιλεύσουσιν διὰ τοῦ ἑνὸς Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ, “shall reign in life through the one, Jesus Christ.” The future tense underlines once again the eschatological tension characteristic of the whole passage (cf. vv 2, 5, 9–10—that ἐν ζωῇ refers to Christ’s life instrumentally, as in v 10, cannot be ruled out); they are already receiving grace, but they are not yet reigning (see further Kösemann; Theobald, 107). The implication clearly is that their rule will be a consequence of their δικαίωμα = final vindication (v 16); elsewhere Paul’s talk is of a still future inheritance of the kingdom (see on 4:13; in 1 Cor 4:8 the ἐβασιλεύσατε is sarcastic!); cf. Bornkamm, “Anakoluthe,” 87; Bultmann, “Romans 5,” 157–58; Wilckens; and see further on 5:21. The expectation that the recipients of God’s favor would exercise kingly rule in the coming age was, of course, a characteristic feature of Jewish hope (e.g., Dan 7:22, 27; Wisd Sol 3:8; 5:15–16; 1QM 12:14–15). But, as usual, Paul has severely transformed it: those receiving grace are those justified by faith (not those who join themselves to Israel); they will reign through Jesus Christ; also, as a further consequence of the “denationalizing” of the older Jewish hope, the idea of a rule exercised over others (the Gentiles) is lacking (they will reign “in life”). Such transformation is typical of Paul’s whole understanding of God’s covenant purpose through the gospel (e.g., chap. 4).

It is also significant that Paul avoids the obvious parallel: death has ruled, life will rule. The thought of “life” as exercising rule over believers is evidently inappropriate (cf. Michel). The opposite to the coldly final rule of death is the unfettered enjoyment of life—the life of a king.

18 ἄρα οὖν ὡς . . . οὕτως καί, “so then, as . . . so also.” In classical Greek ἄρα is never put at the beginning of a clause (BGD), but the fuller phrase used here (ἄρα οὖν) is evidently a feature of Paul’s style of reasoning (12 times in his letters, 8 in Romans); see Lagrange and also on 8:1. The οὖν also serves to resume the main line of argument (v 12) interrupted by vv 12d–17 (cf. BDF §451.1), with ὡς corresponding to the ὥσπερ of v 12, and the οὕτως καί introducing the long-delayed apodosis. The compressed style (v 18 has no verb), however, is closer to that of v 16, as Paul strives to achieve epigrammatic conciseness.

διʼ ἑνὸς παραπτώματος εἰς πάντας ἀνθρώπους εἰς κατάκριμα, “through the trespass of one to all men to condemnation”—a masterly compression of the different aspects picked out in the preceding verses (διʼ ἑνός—vv 12, 16, 17; παράπτωμα—vv 15–17; εἰς πάντας ἀνθρώπους—v 12; εἰς κατάκριμα—v 16). The ἑνός could be taken as a neuter (“through one trespass”—so Schmidt, Murray), but most understandably prefer to take it as a masculine (“through one man’s trespass”), since the parallel phrases being echoed all refer to Adam (vv 15–17), and the contrast is with “all men” rather than with “many trespasses” (as in v 16). But we should recall that the Greek allows a degree of ambiguity not easy to retain in translation. For παράπτωμα and κατάκριμα, see 5:15 and 5:16 respectively.

διʼ ἑνὸς δικαιώματος εἰς πάντας ἀνθρώπους εἰς δικαίωσιν ζωῆς, “through the righteous act of one to all men to righteousness of life.” The ἑνός here is more obviously “the one (man) Jesus Christ” (vv 15, 17, 19), but the ambiguity remains, since Paul evidently has in view a single action which inaugurated a whole epoch (see further on 5:19). The focus is on the act of Christ rather than its outcome, as in χάρισμα, δώρημα, and δικαίωμα in vv 15–16. δικαίωμα normally means “regulation, requirement” (as in 1:32, 2:26, and 8:4; 5:16 is rhetorically determined); but the sense of “righteous act” is attested in Aristotle and the LXX (see BGD; Lagrange also notes that in one LXX passage [2 Sam 19:28] δικαίωμα renders ), and that clearly fits best here, even though rhetorical considerations (the sequence of -μα words) again play a part. The choice of δικαίωμα enables Paul to maintain the sequence of δικαι-words, but the reference is not to “the gift of righteousness” (v 17; “righteous creating act”—Wilckens). On the other hand, to see in it a reference to Christ’s whole life (TDNT 2:221–22, Leenhardt, Gaugler, Murray, Cranfield) weakens both the point of contrast (Adam’s “trespass”) and the echo of 3:24–26 (God’s righteousness displayed in Christ’s death as expiatory sacrifice).

On the issue of whether the “all men” implies a “universalist” view of salvation, see on 5:19. For δικαίωσις see on 4:25. It can embrace the idea of a process as well as its result (BGD), so although the final outcome is primarily in view (final vindication = salvation, vv 9–10 = the still future reign in life, v 17), the eschatological tension is again encapsulated: believers already experience something at least of the new life (cf. particularly 6:4, 11, 13), even if its full manifestation is not yet (cf. particularly 6:5, 22–23; 8:11, 13); see further on 2:13; 5:16; 6:5–6; and 8:23. It is unnecessary to press the genitive (ζωῆς) for one specific sense (genitive of source, cf. v 10; genitive of result, cf. BDF §166; epexegetic genitive). Once again the ambiguity of the genitive form allows a richer sense which need not necessarily exclude any of the particular meanings (cf. Schlier).

19 ὥσπερ γὰρ . . . οὕτως καί, “for just as . . . so also”—the construction previously stretched over vv 12–18 is repeated in summary and climactic form.

διὰ τῆς παρακοῆς τοῦ ἑνὸς ἀνθρώπου, “through the disobedience of the one man.” A further and final contrasting pair is introduced παρακοή/ὑπακοή; cf. vv 15–16). Adam’s sin, transgression, trespass is further identified as an act of disobedience—naturally recalling the account of Gen 2–3 (2:16–17; 3:1–6). The word is little used by Paul and was probably as much prompted by the possibility of the rhetorical antithesis with ὑπακοή (so also in his only other usage—1 Cor 10:6) as by the record of Adam’s disobedience. See also on 11:30–31.

ἁμαρτωλοὶ κατεστάθησαν οἱ πολλοί, “the many were made sinners.” ἁμαρτωλοί probably has the more general sense of “sinners” (as in 5:8), but it is quite possible that Paul intended to recall the more specific sense in which it was then current within Judaism to denote those ignorant of or disobedient to the law (see on 3:7), especially since its antonym here (δίκαιοι) was a favorite self-description of pious Jews (see Introduction §5.3 and on 1:17). Paul then alludes in summary fashion to one of his main theses: the many, Jews as well, stand under the law’s condemnation (cf. 4:15); Jews have not escaped the entail of Adam’s disobedience by virtue of the law. Certainly the intensification of law-related words (disobedience, obedience; sinners, righteous) prepares the way for the reintroduction of the law in v 20.

The anxiety sometimes evident in commentators (e.g., Kirk, Taylor, Hendriksen, Zeller) lest καθίστημι here be too deterministic (Adam’s sin caused the many to become sinners) is unnecessary. Although “make” is the simplest translation, the causal connection indicated thereby is non-specific and can be very loose, so that the passive can function simply as equivalent to γίνομαι (TDNT 3:445; Bultmann, “Romans 5,” 159; see the range of meanings in LSJ and references in BGD; Michel compares Deut 25:6; Barrett notes that “the words ‘sinners’ and ‘righteous’ are words of relationship, not character”). The use here then expresses adequately the two-sidedness in human sinfulness which was clearly in Paul’s view earlier (see on 5:12d). Certainly the only occasion when Paul reaches for this word, and in a passage where rhetorical considerations have pushed other words into less usual meanings and correlations (particularly δικαίωμα—v 18), should not be regarded as sufficient basis for an important theological thesis.

διὰ τῆς ὑπακοῆς τοῦ ἑνός, “through the obedience of the one.” ὑπακοή is an important thematic word in Romans (see on 1:5). It is important for Paul that he can speak of Christ’s death as an “act of obedience” and as a “righteous act” (v 18), both stressing that whereas Adam acted in breach of a divine ruling, Christ acted in accordance with God’s will revealed in the law (cf. again 3:24–26). Several commentators see the reference here as embracing Christ’s whole life (e.g., Michel, Cranfield; cf. 6:17 and 15:2–5), but almost certainly Paul’s thought at this point focuses more or less exclusively on Christ’s death. (1) In the context it stands as the antithesis to the one act of disobedience of Adam. (2) It is the answer to Adam’s disobedience because it provided the counter to the consequences of Adam’s trespass: by being a sin offering (3:25; 5:18; 8:3) he breaks the power of sin; by dying he breaks the rule of death (6:9). (3) In the Adam Christology being used here the theme of Christ’s “obedience” refers to his submission to death (Phil 2:8; Heb 5:8). (4) Since the representative significance of “the one” is an integral part of Paul’s Adam Christology, it is significant that he confines the idea of union with Christ to that of sharing in his sufferings and death as well as his resurrection (hence the closely following sequence of 6:3–11). The writ of the first Adam runs to death. It is by his death and resurrection that Christ breaks through the cul-de-sac of death and inaugurates a new humanity as last Adam (1 Cor 15:21–22, 45–49; see further Dunn, Christology, 127; in his criticism of my formulation in Christology, Wright, “Adam,” 388, underplays the full statement of the theme [Christology, 108–13] and ignores the fact that the Adam imagery is only one formulation of Paul’s Christology which should not be expected to provide a complete statement of Paul’s soteriology).

δίκαιοι κατασταθήσονται οἱ πολλοί, “the many will be made righteous.” For the force of καθίστημι see above. The future could be taken as a logical future, and so δίκαιοι refers to “the present life of believers” (Cranfield; similarly Althaus, Murray), as the parallel with ἁμαρτωλοί suggests. But here again Paul probably has in view the future ratification of the final judgment in part at least (cf., e.g., Dodd, Schlier with further bibliog.): as death is the final ratification of Adam’s age, so it is only with the final acquittal that the divine response will be complete. Certainly it is inviting to regard δίκαιοι κατασταθήσονται as synonymous with δικαιωθήσονται of 2:13 (see on 2:13 and cf. Gal 5:5).

οἱ πολλοί = πάντες (see on 5:15). On the “universalism” of Paul’s thinking here see particularly Käsemann: “all powerful grace is unthinkable without eschatological universalism”; also Hultgren, Gospel, 82–124. According to Boring, “Paul affirms both limited and universal salvation” (“Language,” 292). Wilckens attempts to short-circuit the issue by arguing that here Christ is “not the representative of men before God, as Adam is . . . but the representative of God before men.” But while it is true that for Paul “God’s action comes to effect in Christ’s action” (Wilckens; cf. 2 Cor 5:19, 21), that is not the point Paul is making here. Throughout this section, up to and including v 19, Paul is working with an Adam Christology, where Christ is thought of as the man Adam was intended to be and would have become had he not fallen. Here particularly (v 19) the point hangs on the representative significance of Christ as the one whose action (like Adam’s) determines the character and condition of those who belong to the age he inaugurated by that action. The theme throughout the section is the solidarity of “the all/many” with the one epochal figure whether in trespass to condemnation or in grace to righteousness. What has usually been missed in the discussion is the significance of the δίκαιοι. Since it was such a favorite self-description of devout Jews (see on 1:17), the force of Paul’s final phrase is to emphasize that not just Israel, or the righteous of Israel, will be finally acquitted, but “the many.” The “universalism” therefore is in part at least a way of denying the limited nationalism of the normal Jewish hope—“all” = Gentiles as well as Jews (cf. Hendriksen; see also on 11:32). Alternatively, if death is truly the end of those belonging to Adam’s epoch (vv 12, 14, 17, 21), the “all” may simply denote all those who through sharing Abraham’s faith in the life-giving God (4:17, 23–25) can hope to share also in the life that lives beyond death (cf. 1 Cor 15:22) = “those who receive the abundance of grace” (v 17; cf. Kuss, 237). See also on 11:32.

20 νόμος δὲ παρεισῆλθεν ἵνα πλεονάσῃ τὸ παράπτωμα, “the law came in to increase the trespass.” As consistently in Paul, νόμος means, of course, the Jewish law, the Torah (see on 2:12 and 14). Paul once again, as in v 13, narrows the universal sweep of his exposition by introducing the factor of Jewish particularity. His contrast between the two epochs had been neatly rounded, but he could hardly ignore the fact that for his own religious tradition the law itself had epochal significance, as marking out the people through whom God would effect his righteous and eschatological purpose (see further on 6:14). Paul challenges this positive salvation-history role for the law (cf. Michel, Schmidt); the law rather brings the force of the Adam story to existential reality (Jüngel, “Gesetz,” 67–68). It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that Paul chose παρεισῆλθεν deliberately (since he could have repeated the εἰσῆλθεν of v 12). So the more negative overtone suggested by the double prefix (BGD, “slip in,” “interpose”) was probably intentional (cf. its only other occurrence in the NT—Gal 2:4; Wilckens; otherwise Cranfield). Taken together with the voice (active, rather than divine passive—contrast Gal 3:19), the effect is to set the law alongside sin and death who likewise “entered” human experience (v 12). This in itself may be sufficient explanation of the negative overtone, but Paul may also intend to imply that the law’s purpose (to increase the trespass) is a lesser role than that of grace, or indeed that the law’s entry was later and more temporary than grace’s (Lightfoot, SH; cf. 5:13 and Gal 3:15–29) since its role in increasing sin ends with death and condemnation and does not (in that role at least) last into the new age of life beyond death (cf. 7:1–6); see also on 5:13 and 7:7–13.

Even if “law” is treated as a quasi-power here, analogous to “sin” and “death” (v 12), the ἵνα indicates that it serves God’s purpose (Michel). The πλεονάζω is chosen probably as a slightly lesser equivalent to Paul’s favorite περισσεύειν (though in fact they are near synonyms—cf. 6:1; 2 Cor 4:15; 1 Thess 3:12), possibly in some dependence on Sir 23:3 (cf. Pss. Sol. 5.16). The cutting edge of the verb is that it attributes the multiplying of the one trespass into many trespasses (v 16) to the law. This constitutes an intensifying of the role attributed to the law in 3:20 and 4:15. Here again the polemic against traditional Jewish evaluation of the law is of the essence of the point being made (pace Luz, Geschichtsverständnis, 206): God’s purpose for the law was not to distinguish Jewish righteous from gentile sinners (cf. v 19; Introduction §5), but to make Israel more conscious of its solidarity in sin with the rest of Adam’s offspring. This is not to say that Paul would thus confine the law’s trespass-increasing effect to Israel: Paul was at one with his fellow Jews in his belief that the law increased the Gentiles’ sins, whether by revealing the extent to which they were ἁμαρτωλοί (see on 5:19) or because the just requirements contained in the law were more widely known (1:32); but where he needed to press home the argument was in stressing this more negative role of the law for the Jewish people itself (see also on 3:20, 4:15, and 5:13). For παράπτωμα see on 5:15; no longer, of course, the one transgression of Adam, but the act characteristic of the whole epoch which his transgression began and typifies. Leenhardt lays stress on the singular—“what constitutes sin as sin.”

οὗ δὲ ἐπλεόνασεν ἡ ἁμαρτία, ὑπερεπερίσσευσεν ἡ χάρις, “but where sin increased, grace abundantly overflowed.” The οὗ may be intended as more than a linking word: in the very place/epoch where sin increased, there in the man Christ, in his dying the death of the old epoch, grace overwhelmed the effects of sin (cf. Schmidt). The fact that Paul replaces παράπτωμα by ἁμαρτία here should be noted—a reminder that his concept of “sin” is more flexible than commentators often allow—not just or not always a personified power, but also the act of trespass itself (see on 3:9). The use of the superlative form ὑπερπερισσεύω (elsewhere in the NT only in 2 Cor 7:4) is clearly deliberate, since πλεονάζω and περισσεύω are such close synonyms (see above). In a manner typical of Jewish apocalyptic it signifies eschatological abundance (cf. particularly 4 Ezra 4.50; TDNT 6:60; Philo, Opif. 23, cited by Zeller, is different precisely as referring to this present creation) and makes a fitting climax to the sequence of contrasts begun in v 15, resuming and outdoing the μᾶλλον . . . ἐπερίσσευσεν (v 15).

21 ἵνα ὥσπερ ἐβασίλευσεν ἡ ἁμαρτία ἐν τῷ θανάτῳ, “in order that as sin ruled in death.” The ἵνα matches the ἵνα of v 20a, and introduces the final ὥσπερ . . . οὕτως καί completing the sequence properly begun in v 18. NEB preserves the force of the aorist—“established its reign.” ἁμαρτία shifts back in sense to personified power (see on 3:9 and 5:20), and where Paul had previously spoken of death reigning (vv 14, 17), in this concluding formulation he brings the two powers back into conjunction in a variation of v 12 (death entered through sin). The ἐν can be ambiguous: sin has exercised its rule by means of, through, or in the sphere of death. The sense is plain without pressing for greater precision: sin’s power over the epoch of Adam is characterized by and summed up in its final effect—death (see also 6:16, 21, 23; 1 Cor 15:56). Since the phrase “sin ruled in death” is bound up with the increased trespass (v 20; cf. vv 15, 17), the implication is that ἵνα here as well (as in v 20) catches up sin’s rule within God’s plan—not as a concession or as an unplanned plight but as part of the divine structure of the world of humankind: sin’s rule in death is thus another way of speaking of God’s wrath (1:18–32; 4:15); God’s purpose of salvation embraces death since it is through death that the epoch of Adam ends and the power of sin is broken (6:7–10).

οὕτως καὶ ἡ χάρις βασιλεύσῃ διὰ δικαιοσύνης εἰς ζωὴν αἰώνιον, “so also grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life.” Whereas in v 17 the eschatological equivalent of death’s reign was the reign of the saints, here the contrast to sin’s reign is the reign of grace. As it is sin (power and act) which characterizes the epoch of Adam, so it is grace which characterizes the epoch of Christ—with all the correlations and contrasts already gathered round it in 3:24, 4:4 and 16 (see also Form and Structure). The aorist subjunctive (βασιλεύσῃ) retains the eschatological note characteristic of the chapter to the end. That the sequence of δικαι- words climaxes in one of the key words of the epistle (δικαιοσύνη) is obviously deliberate. Here again the sense should not be forcibly confined to the sense “status of righteousness” (Cranfield), but must at least include the sense of God’s action—δικαιοσύνη as the means by which grace achieves its effect as well as the effect itself (Schlier; see on 1:17; 5:17; and 6:13). So too the ongoing and future dimension of this “righteousness” is indicated in the εἰς ζωὴν αἰώνιον (= εἰς δικαίωσιν ζωῆς, v 18). The ζωή of vv 17–18 is in this climactic conclusion given the fuller description, “eternal life” (see on 2:7), presumably to underscore its eschatological character and to emphasize that in contrast to the epoch which ends in death the epoch of grace is life unbounded. For Paul’s view of salvation-history as implied here see further Kuss, 275–91.

διᾶ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν, “through Jesus Christ our Lord.” The piling up of prepositional phrases (διά . . . εἰς . . . διά . . .) and the concluding Christological formula marks the end of this stage of the argument (Käsemann); see on 6:23 and 8:39. The use of διά as in vv 1 and 11 (see Form and Structure) maintains to the end the emphasis on Christ’s mediatorship as the decisive factor in effecting the transformation from one epoch to the other (see on 5:1). The double διά has the effect of reminding readers that Christ himself is the fullest embodiment and mediator of grace and righteousness.

Explanation

Paul now raises his sight from believers as a group (“we, us”) to embrace humanity as a whole (“man”). Having recalled his earlier indictment of Israel’s pride in chap. 2 (5:11), he now deliberately extends his thought backward to recall the earlier stage of his argument (1:18ff.). As his opening indictment focused on humankind as a whole, with clear enough allusions to the figure of Adam, so now in conclusion to this first major part of his argument he turns again to view humanity as a whole by reference to Adam. And as it was Christ who made the difference between an acceptable boasting in God (5:11) and an unacceptable boasting in God (2:17), so here too it is Christ who forms the counterpart to Adam, and Christ in whom the history of humankind takes its decisive turn for the better. In these verses we might well say that Paul presents the history of humanity as a drama in two parts—two epochs dominated by the two figures, Adam the tragic hero, and Christ the redeemer hero.

12 Paul begins with what is in effect a summary of chap. 1, the condition of the man who has rejected God. At once he introduces the two chief “villains of the piece”—sin and death. Up to this point they had made only brief appearances (3:9, 20; 1:32). But now they take up positions center stage. In dramatic style they are presented as personified powers who exercise a dominant influence upon humanity. “Sin” is not initially defined, but clearly it is the power which human beings experience drawing them into disobedience and transgression. “Death” needs no further definition either: it would have been universally understood as the power which defeats and ends that life which was the chief effect of creation and indeed its whole point.

The first act unfolds the scope of the tragedy with a few concise phrases. Sin, the first hostile power, managed to gain entry through one man (Adam); in its train came its sinister companion death, and death extended its sway over everyone. They enter upon the world stage from “off-stage”; where they actually come from Paul does not stop to say; nor, presumably, did he think it necessary to speculate on the subject. The only pertinent fact is that they are there, brooding presences whose influence determines the unfolding of the plot. Nor is the initial relation of the two powers to each other made any clearer. It is simply assumed that death is the consequence of being under the power of sin and that no one since the beginning has been exempt from their twin rule. The implication is that death is not the proper end of man: death was not part of the original program for humankind; it was the entry of sin, the corrosive effect of man’s refusal to live in dependence on God, which ate away his life. Without sin man would not have died.