Romans 5:21

This verse declares the universal end of this divine dispensation which seemed at first to concern only Israel. Paul thus returns to the general idea of the entire passage. The that, as well as perhaps the ὑπέρ in the verb of the preceding sentence, implies that what was passing in Israel contemplated the establishment of a reign of grace capable of equalling and surpassing in mankind generally the reign of sin founded in Adam. This is what the legal dispensation could never effect. Far from bringing into the world the grace of justification, the law taken in itself made the offence and condemnation abound. The passage, Galatians 3:13-14, is also intended to point out the relation between the curse of the Jewish law, borne by the Messiah, and the gift of grace made to the Gentiles. This superabounding of pardon brought to bear on this superabounding of sin in the midst of the Jewish people, had therefore for its end (ἵνα, that) to display grace in such a way as to assure its triumph over the reign of sin throughout the whole earth, and to replace one economy by another. ῞Ωσπερ, absolutely as. The work of grace must not remain, either in extent or efficacy, behind that of sin.

The words ἐν τῷ θανάτῳ, in death, remind us that the reign of sin is present; it manifests itself, wraps, as it were, and embodies itself in the palpable fact of death. The meaning: by death, would not give any clear idea. Far from sin reigning by death, it is death, on the contrary, which reigns by sin.

The antithesis to the words in death is distributed between the two terms: through righteousness, and to life. The first has no reference whatever, as one whole class of exegetes would have it, to moral righteousness; for in this case its meaning would trench upon that of the following term. The word denotes, as in this whole part, of which it contains the summary, the righteousness freely granted by God to faith. Hence the apostle says: “that grace may reign through righteousness.” It is in fact by free justification that grace establishes its reign.

The end of justification is life; εἰς, unto, is opposed to “ in death,” as the future is to the present. But this word eternal life does not refer merely to future glory. It comprehends the holiness which from this time forward should flow from the state of justification (comp. Romans 6:4; Romans 6:11; Romans 6:23). If the word through righteousness sums up the whole part of the Epistle now finished, the words: unto eternal life, are the theme of the whole part which is now to begin (vi-viii).

The last words: by Jesus Christ our Lord, are the final echo of the comparison which formed the subject of this passage. We understand the object of this piece: By the collective and individual fact of death in one, Paul meant to demonstrate the reality of universal and individual justification in one universal as to destination, individual through its application to each believer. And now so this last word seems to say

Adam has passed away; Christ alone remains.

Adam and Christ.

It is to be borne in mind, if we are not to ascribe to the apostle ideas which nothing in the doctrine of this passage justifies, that the consequences which he deduces from our solidarity with Adam belong to a wholly different sphere from those which flow, according to him, from our solidarity with Christ. We are bound to Adam by the fact of birth. Every man appears here below in some sort as a fraction of that first man in whom the entire species was personified. Adam, to use the expression of the jurist Stahl, is “ the substance of natural humanity;” and as the birth by which we emanate from him is a fact outside of consciousness, and independent of our personal will, all that passes in the domain of this natural existence can have no other than an educational, provisional, and temporary character. So, too, the death of which St. Paul speaks in this whole passage is, as we have seen, not eternal damnation, but death in the ordinary sense of the word. Sin itself, and the proclivity to evil which attached to us as children of Adam, as well as the individual faults which we may commit in this state, place us no doubt in a critical position, but are not yet the cause of final perdition. These facts only constitute that imperative need of salvation which is inherent in every human soul, and to anticipate which divine grace advances with love. But on reaching the threshold of this superior domain, we find ourselves face to face with a new and wholly different solidarity, which is offered to us in Christ. It is not contracted by a natural and unconscious bond, but by the free and deliberate act of faith. And it is here only, on the threshold of the domain of this new life, that the questions relative to the eternal lot of the individual are raised and decided. To use again the words of the writer whom we just quoted: “Christ is the divine idea of humanity;” He is this idea perfectly realized. The first humanity created in Adam, with the characteristic of freedom of choice, was only the outline of humanity as finally purposed by God, the characteristic of which, as of God Himself, is holiness. The man who by faith draws his righteousness and life from the new Head of humanity is gradually raised to His level, or, as St. Paul says, to His perfect stature; this is life eternal. But the man who refuses to contract this bond of solidarity with the second Adam, remains for that very reason in his corrupt nature: he becomes answerable for it because he has refused to exchange it for the new one which was offered him, while he is at the same time responsible for the voluntary transgressions added by him to that of his first father; and, corrupting himself more and more by his lusts, he moves onward through his own fault to eternal perdition, to the second death.

We have reached the close of the fundamental part of the treatise which forms the body of the Epistle. In the first section Paul had demonstrated universal condemnation. In the second, he had expounded universal justification obtained by Christ and offered to faith. The third section has furnished the demonstration of the fact of the condemnation of all in one, rendered indubitable by the reign of death, and proceeding, in the way of an a fortiori argument, to establish the fact of the justification of all in one. The question now arises, whether the mode of justification thus expounded and demonstrated can secure the moral renewal of mankind, and explain the theocratic history of which it is the consummation. Such is the subject of the two following parts.