16. And not as it was by one that sinned, so is the gift--"Another point of contrast may be mentioned."
for the judgment--"sentence."
was by one--rather, "was of one," meaning not "one man," but, as appears from the next clause, "one offense."
to condemnation, but the free gift--"gift of grace."
is of many offences unto justification--a glorious point of contrast. "The condemnation by Adam was for one sin; but the justification by Christ is an absolution not only from the guilt of that first offense, mysteriously attaching to every individual of the race, but from the countless offenses it, to which, as a germ lodged in the bosom of every child of Adam, it unfolds itself in his life." This is the meaning of "grace abounding towards us in the abundance of the gift of righteousness." It is a grace not only rich in its character, but rich in detail; it is a "righteousness" not only rich in a complete justification of the guilty, condemned sinner; but rich in the amplitude of the ground which it covers, leaving no one sin of any of the justified uncancelled, but making him, though loaded with the guilt of myriads of offenses, "the righteousness of God in Christ."
17. For if by--"the"
one man's offence death reigned by one--"through the one."
much more shall they which receive--"the"
abundance of grace and of the gift of--justifying
righteousness ... reign in life by one Jesus Christ--"through the one." We have here the two ideas of [Ro 5:15] and [Ro 5:16] sublimely combined into one, as if the subject had grown upon the apostle as he advanced in his comparison of the two cases. Here, for the first time in this section, he speaks of that LIFE which springs out of justification, in contrast with the death which springs from sin and follows condemnation. The proper idea of it therefore is, "Right to live"--"Righteous life"--life possessed and enjoyed with the good will, and in conformity with the eternal law, of "Him that sitteth on the Throne"; life therefore in its widest sense--life in the whole man and throughout the whole duration of human existence, the life of blissful and loving relationship to God in soul and body, for ever and ever. It is worthy of note, too, that while he says death "reigned over" us through Adam, he does not say Life "reigns over us" through Christ; lest he should seem to invest this new life with the very attribute of death--that of fell and malignant tyranny, of which we were the hapless victims. Nor does he say Life reigns in us, which would have been a scriptural enough idea; but, which is much more pregnant, "We shall reign in life." While freedom and might are implied in the figure of "reigning," "life" is represented as the glorious territory or atmosphere of that reign. And by recurring to the idea of [Ro 5:16], as to the "many offenses" whose complete pardon shows "the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness," the whole statement is to this effect: "If one man's one offense let loose against us the tyrant power of Death, to hold us as its victims in helpless bondage, 'much more,' when we stand forth enriched with God's 'abounding grace' and in the beauty of a complete absolution from countless offenses, shall we expatiate in a life divinely owned and legally secured, 'reigning' in exultant freedom and unchallenged might, through that other matchless 'One,' Jesus Christ!" (On the import of the future tense in this last clause, see on [Ro 5:19], and [Ro 6:5]).
18. Therefore--now at length resuming the unfinished comparison of [Ro 5:12], in order to give formally the concluding member of it, which had been done once and again substantially, in the intermediate verses.
as by the offence of one judgment came--or, more simply, "it came."
upon all men to condenmation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came--rather, "it came."
upon all men to justification of life--(So Calvin, Bengel, Olshausen, Tholuck, Hodge, Philippi). But better, as we judge: "As through one offense it [came] upon all men to condemnation; even so through one righteousness [it came] upon all men to justification of life"--(So Beza, Grotius, Ferme, Meyer, De Wette, Alford, Revised Version). In this case, the apostle, resuming the statement of [Ro 5:12], expresses it in a more concentrated and vivid form--suggested no doubt by the expression in [Ro 5:16], "through one offense," representing Christ's whole work, considered as the ground of our justification, as "ONE RIGHTEOUSNESS." (Some would render the peculiar word here employed, "one righteous act" [Alford, &c.]; understanding by it Christ's death as the one redeeming act which reversed the one undoing act of Adam. But this is to limit the apostle's idea too much; for as the same word is properly rendered "righteousness" in [Ro 8:4], where it means "the righteousness of the law as fulfilled by us who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit," so here it denotes Christ's whole "obedience unto death," considered as the one meritorious ground of the reversal of the condemnation which came by Adam. But on this, and on the expression, "all men," see on [Ro 5:19]. The expression "justification of life," is a vivid combination of two ideas already expatiated upon, meaning "justification entitling to and issuing in the rightful possession and enjoyment of life").
19. For, &c.--better, "For as by the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, even so by the obedience of the One shall the many be made righteous." On this great verse observe: First, By the "obedience" of Christ here is plainly not meant more than what divines call His active obedience, as distinguished from His sufferings and death; it is the entire work of Christ in its obediential character. Our Lord Himself represents even His death as His great act of obedience to the Father: "This commandment (that is, to lay down and resume His life) have I received of My Father" ([Joh 10:8]). Second, The significant word twice rendered made, does not signify to work a change upon a person or thing, but to constitute or ordain, as will be seen from all the places where it is used. Here, accordingly, it is intended to express that judicial act which holds men, in virtue of their connection with Adam, as sinners; and, in connection with Christ, as righteous. Third, The change of tense from the past to the future--"as through Adam we were made sinners, so through Christ we shall be made righteous"--delightfully expresses the enduring character of the act, and of the economy to which such acts belong, in contrast with the for-ever-past ruin of believers in Adam. (See on [Ro 6:5]). Fourth, The "all men" of [Ro 5:18] and the "many" of [Ro 5:19] are the same party, though under a slightly different aspect. In the latter case, the contrast is between the one representative (Adam--Christ) and the many whom he represented; in the former case, it is between the one head (Adam--Christ) and the human race, affected for death and life respectively by the actings of that one. Only in this latter case it is the redeemed family of man that is alone in view; it is humanity as actually lost, but also as actually saved, as ruined and recovered. Such as refuse to fall in with the high purpose of God to constitute His Son a "second Adam," the Head of a new race, and as impenitent and unbelieving finally perish, have no place in this section of the Epistle, whose sole object is to show how God repairs in the second Adam the evil done by the first. (Thus the doctrine of universal restoration has no place here. Thus too the forced interpretation by which the "justification of all" is made to mean a justification merely in possibility and offer to all, and the "justification of the many" to mean the actual justification of as many as believe [Alford, &c.], is completely avoided. And thus the harshness of comparing a whole fallen family with a recovered part is got rid of. However true it be in fact that part of mankind is not saved, this is not the aspect in which the subject is here presented. It is totals that are compared and contrasted; and it is the same total in two successive conditions--namely, the human race as ruined in Adam and recovered in Christ).
20-21. Moreover the law--"The law, however." The Jew might say, If the whole purposes of God towards men center in Adam and Christ, where does "the law" come in, and what was the use of it? Answer: It
entered--But the word expresses an important idea besides "entering." It signifies, "entered incidentally," or "parenthetically." (In [Ga 2:4] the same word is rendered, "came in privily.") The meaning is, that the promulgation of the law at Sinai was no primary or essential feature of the divine plan, but it was "added" ([Ga 3:19]) for a subordinate purpose--the more fully to reveal the evil occasioned by Adam, and the need and glory of the remedy by Christ.
that the offence might abound--or, "be multiplied." But what offense? Throughout all this section "the offense" (four times repeated besides here) has one definite meaning, namely, "the one first offense of Adam"; and this, in our judgment, is its meaning here also: "All our multitudinous breaches of the law are nothing but that one first offense, lodged mysteriously in the bosom of every child of Adam as an offending principal, and multiplying itself into myriads of particular offenses in the life of each." What was one act of disobedience in the head has been converted into a vital and virulent principle of disobedience in all the members of the human family, whose every act of wilful rebellion proclaims itself the child of the original transgression.
But where sin abounded--or, "was multiplied."
grace did much more abound--rather, "did exceedingly abound," or "superabound." The comparison here is between the multiplication of one offense into countless transgressions, and such an overflow of grace as more than meets that appalling case.
Chapter 6
Ro 6:1-11. The Bearing of Justification by Grace upon a Holy Life
1. What, &c.--The subject of this third division of our Epistle announces itself at once in the opening question, "Shall we (or, as the true reading is, "May we," "Are we to") continue in sin, that grace may abound?" Had the apostle's doctrine been that salvation depends in any degree upon our good works, no such objection to it could have been made. Against the doctrine of a purely gratuitous justification, the objection is plausible; nor has there ever been an age in which it has not been urged. That it was brought against the apostles, we know from [Ro 3:8]; and we gather from [Ga 5:13]; [1Pe 2:16]; Jude 4, that some did give occasion to the charge; but that it was a total perversion of the doctrine of Grace the apostle here proceeds to show.
2. God forbid--"That be far from us"; the instincts of the new creature revolting at the thought.
How shall we, that are dead, &c.--literally, and more forcibly, "We who died to sin (as presently to be explained), how shall we live any longer therein?"
3. Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ--compare [1Co 10:2].
were baptized into his death?--sealed with the seal of heaven, and as it were formally entered and articled, to all the benefits and all the obligations of Christian discipleship in general, and of His death in particular. And since He was "made sin" and "a curse for us" ([2Co 5:21]; [Ga 5:13]), "bearing our sins in His own body on the tree," and "rising again for our justification" ([Ro 4:25]; [1Pe 2:24]), our whole sinful case and condition, thus taken up into His Person, has been brought to an end in His death. Whoso, then, has been baptized into Christ's death has formally surrendered the whole state and life of sin, as in Christ a dead thing. He has sealed himself to be not only "the righteousness of God in Him," but "a new creature"; and as he cannot be in Christ to the one effect and not to the other, for they are one thing, he has bidden farewell, by baptism into Christ's death, to his entire connection with sin. "How," then, "can he live any longer therein?" The two things are as contradictory in the fact as they are in the terms.
4. Therefore we are--rather, "were" (it being a past act, completed at once).
buried with him, by baptism into death--(The comma we have placed after "him" will show what the sense is. It is not, "By baptism we are buried with Him into death," which makes no sense at all; but, "By baptism with Him into death we are buried with Him"; in other words, "By the same baptism which publicly enters us into His death, we are made partakers of His burial also"). To leave a dead body unburied is represented, alike in heathen authors as in Scripture, as the greatest indignity ([Re 11:8], ). It was fitting, therefore, that Christ, after "dying for our sins according to the Scriptures," should "descend into the lower parts of the earth" ([Ep 4:9]). As this was the last and lowest step of His humiliation, so it was the honorable dissolution of His last link of connection with that life which He laid down for us; and we, in being "buried with Him by our baptism into His death," have by this public act severed our last link of connection with that whole sinful condition and life which Christ brought to an end in His death.
that like as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father--that is, by such a forth-putting of the Father's power as was the effulgence of His whole glory.
even so we also--as risen to a new life with Him.
should walk in newness of life--But what is that "newness?" Surely if our old life, now dead and buried with Christ, was wholly sinful, the new, to which we rise with the risen Saviour, must be altogether a holy life; so that every time we go back to "those things whereof we are now ashamed" ([Ro 6:21]), we belie our resurrection with Christ to newness of life, and "forget that we have been purged from our old sins" ([2Pe 1:9]). (Whether the mode of baptism by immersion be alluded to in this verse, as a kind of symbolical burial and resurrection, does not seem to us of much consequence. Many interpreters think it is, and it may be so. But as it is not clear that baptism in apostolic times was exclusively by immersion [see on Ac 2:41], so sprinkling and washing are indifferently used in the New Testament to express the cleansing efficacy of the blood of Jesus. And just as the woman with the issue of blood got virtue out of Christ by simply touching Him, so the essence of baptism seems to lie in the simple contact of the element with the body, symbolizing living contact with Christ crucified; the mode and extent of suffusion being indifferent and variable with climate and circumstances).
5. For if we have been planted together--literally, "have become formed together." (The word is used here only).
in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection--that is, "Since Christ's death and resurrection are inseparable in their efficacy, union with Him in the one carries with it participation in the other, for privilege and for duty alike." The future tense is used of participation in His resurrection, because this is but partially realized in the present state. (See on [Ro 5:19]).
6-7. Knowing this, &c.--The apostle now grows more definite and vivid in expressing the sin-destroying efficacy of our union with the crucified Saviour.
that our old man--"our old selves"; that is, "all that we were in our old unregenerate condition, before union with Christ" (compare [Col 3:9], ; [Ep 4:22-24]; [Ga 2:20]; 5:24; ).
is--rather, "was."
crucified with him--in order.
that the body of sin--not a figure for "the mass of sin"; nor the "material body," considered as the seat of sin, which it is not; but (as we judge) for "sin as it dwells in us in our present embodied state, under the law of the fall."
might be destroyed--(in Christ's death)--to the end.
that henceforth we should not serve sin--"be in bondage to sin."
8. Now if we be dead--"if we died."
with Christ, &c.--See on [Ro 6:5].
9-11. Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over him--Though Christ's death was in the most absolute sense a voluntary act ([Joh 10:17], ; [Ac 2:24]), that voluntary surrender gave death such rightful "dominion over Him" as dissolved its dominion over us. But this once past, "death hath," even in that sense, "dominion over Him no more."
12. Let not sin therefore--as a Master