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MAN AND HUMANITY IN ROMANS 5
| 12 Dia touto hōsper di’ henos anthrōpou hē hamartia eis ton kosmon eisēlthen, kai dia tēs hamartias ho thanatos, kai houtōs eis pantas anthrōpous ho thanatos diēlthen, eph’ hō pantes hēmarton: 13 achri gar nomou hamartia ēn en kosmō, hamartia de ouk ellogeitai mē ontos nomou; 14 alla ebasileusen ho thanatos apo Adam mechri Mōuseōs kai epi tous mē hamartēsantas epi tō homoiōmati tēs parabaseōs Adam, hos estin typos tou mellontos. | 12 Therefore as sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all men sinned— 13 sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. 14 Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sins were not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come. |
| 15 All’ oukh hōs to paraptōma, houtōs to charisma; ei gar tō tou henos paraptōmati hoi polloi apethanon, pollō mallon hē charis tou Theou kai hē dōrea en chariti tē tou henos anthrōpou Iēsou Christou eis tous pollous eperisseusen. 16 Kai oukh hōs di’ henos hamartēsantos to dōrēma; to men gar krima ex henos eis katakrima, to de charisma ek pollōn paraptōmatōn eis dikaiōma. 17 Ei gar tō tou henos paraptōmati ho thanatos ebasileusen dia tou henos, pollō mallon hoi tēn perisseian tēs charitos kai tēs dōreas tēs dikaiosunēs lambanontes en zōē basileusousin dia tou henos Iēsou Christou. | 15 But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man’s trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift in the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many. 16 And the free gift is not like the effect of that one man’s sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brings justification. 17 If, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ. |
| 18 Ara oun hōs di’ henos paraptōmatos eis pantas anthrōpous eis katakrima, houtōs kai di’ henos dikaiōmatos eis pantas anthrōpous eis dikaiōsin zōēs; 19 hōsper gar dia tēs parakoēs tou henos anthrōpou hamartōloi katestathēsan hoi polloi, houtōs kai dia tēs hypakoēs tou henos dikaioi katastathēsontai hoi polloi. 20 Nomos de pareisēlthen hina pleonasē to paraptōma; hou de epleonasen hē hamartia, hypereperisseusen hē charis, 21 hina hōsper ebasileusen hē hamartia en tō thanatō, houtōs kai hē charis basileusē dia dikaiosunēs eis zōēn aiōnion dia Iēsou Christou tou kuriou hēmōn. | 18 Then as one man’s trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one man’s act of righteousness leads to acquittal and life for all men. 19 For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by one man’s obedience many will be made righteous. 20 Law came in, to increase the trespass; but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, 21 so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. |
[Greek transliteration from Nestle text; English translation from the Revised Standard Version.]
Romans 5:12–21, along with the first eleven verses of the chapter, is the first of a series of passages in which Paul develops the main theme of the first part of the epistle, as it is stated in the key verses Rom. 1:16–17. There it is made clear that the gospel is the revelation of dikaiosunē (righteousness)1 also called dikaiōsis (justification; acquittal [Rom. 4:25 and 5:18]) and dikaiōma (righteous decision [Rom. 5:16])—i.e., the revelation of the final righteous decision of God, which, for everyone who acknowledges it in faith, is the power of God unto salvation—dynamis Theou eis sōtērian. Paul brings out the full implications of that statement in chapters 5–8, in each of which, though the context is different, the theme and the way it is treated are the same.
The basis of the detailed arguments of chapter 5 is laid down as follows in vv. 1–11: when this righteous decision of God becomes known to us and effective for us through our acknowledgment and grasp of it in faith (dikaiōthentes ek pisteōs, justified by faith), we have peace with God (v. 1), our struggle against Him has reached its limit and so can go no farther, the lordship of sin over us is broken. The same thing is expressed in v. 10, “we are now reconciled with God”; in v. 11, “we have now received reconciliation”; and in v. 21 where we are told that every alien lordship has now become for us a thing of the past. The clearest description of how this righteous decision of God has been effected is in v. 5, according to which the love of God Himself, His love toward us, has been poured forth into our hearts. That this has happened is the presupposition of our future salvation before the judgment of wrath (vv. 9–10); and, on its positive side, and in relation to the present, it is the presupposition of our hope of partaking in God’s glory, of which (according to 3:23) we must, as sinners, have completely and finally fallen short. That is what has happened wherever God’s righteous decision has been acknowledged and grasped in faith. That is why this righteous decision and the gospel that reveals it are called (1:16) “God’s saving power.” That is why we glory in such hope (v. 2). It will not let us be put to shame (v. 5). For, on this presupposition, even in our present afflictions we can only glory, because they can only make us the more steadfast, can only provide us with assurance, can, in this indirect way, serve only to summon us all the more to hope (vv. 3–4). God’s righteous decision has such power to make peace with God for believers, to reconcile them to God, to pour forth God’s love into their hearts, because it has been carried out in Jesus Christ, who is, quite uniquely (v. 7), the way by which we gain access to the grace in which (v. 2) we have taken our stand. For God’s love toward us commends itself in this (v. 8), that Christ died for us while we were still weak (v. 6), still sinners (v. 8), still godless (v. 6), still enemies (v. 10). It has therefore not waited for us, but has come to meet us and gone before us. In sovereign anticipation of our faith God has justified us through the sacrificial blood of Christ. In the death of His Son God has intervened on our behalf in the “nevertheless” of His free grace in face of the apparently insurmountable power of our revolt and resistance (vv. 9–10). So He has made peace, so reconciled us, so commended His love toward us. Because God in Jesus Christ so exercises His sovereignty on our behalf, because this is the love of God poured forth through the Holy Spirit in our hearts, we have for our future only the bold word sōthēsometha “we shall be saved” (vv. 9–10), and there is nothing left to us but to glory in our existence. On the death of God’s Son there follows His life as the Risen One (v. 10). When we put our faith in God’s righteous decision carried out in Him, we immediately become sharers in Christ’s triumph—“how much more” (pollō mallon).
In this context Paul uses this phrase twice: “Since Christ died for us when we were yet sinners, how much more shall we”—on the ground of our justification which is already objectively complete—“be saved by Him” (vv. 8–9); and “Since, when we were yet enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, how much more shall we, as the reconciled, be saved in His risen life” (v. 10). Here it is explicitly made clear that this argument from reconciliation to salvation is logically based upon the fact that Christ has not only died but has also risen. Ahead of us lies salvation, and—since, having shared His death, we must now share His life with Him as well—we can do nothing but glory in it. In particular, the stupendous fact that the believer may and must glory in his existence has its ground and meaning here. We glory “in God” (v. 11) when we glory in our hope (v. 2). Put concretely, that means that we glory “through our Lord Jesus,” through His mouth and His voice, we glory in the glory which, as the resurrected from the dead, He proclaims. His risen life sets the seal upon the righteous decision of God effected in His death, and because He lives, this peace, and our reconciliation, and the pouring forth of the love of God in our hearts, mark a point in our journey beyond which there is no turning back, going on from which we have only one future, and in which we can only glory. His resurrection is the supreme act of God’s sovereignty; henceforth we are bound to live and think in its light.
It is clear that although Paul sees Christ as belonging together with God and His work, he also sees Him as distinguished from God, and speaks, too, of His human nature. It is clear that he puts the man Jesus in His dying and rising on the one side, and himself and all other men (here, in the first place, believers), with their past, present, and future, on the other side. It is clear that he speaks of Him as a human individual and describes Him as such with unmistakable emphasis. But the existence of this human individual does not therefore exhaust itself in its individuality. The very existence of this individual is identical with a divine righteous decision which potentially includes an indefinite multitude of other men, so as to be manifest and effective in those who believe in Him in a way that is absolutely decisive for their past, present, and future. He reconciles them with God through His death. That means that in His own death He makes their peace with God—before they themselves have decided for this peace and quite apart from that decision. In believing, they are only conforming to the decision about them that has already been made in Him. What matters most to them is that they are no longer the enemies of God that they once were; ahead of them is future salvation instead of certain condemnation in the judgment of God’s wrath; they have, also, the certain hope of sharing in God’s own glory and can only glory in existing in such a hope. All that is due, not to their resolving and disposing, which rather tended in precisely the opposite direction, but to the fact that it was settled without and in spite of them, when He died on Golgotha and was raised up from the grave in the garden of Joseph of Arimathea. In believing in Him they are acknowledging that when He died and rose again, they, too, died and rose again in Him, and that, from now on, their life, in its essentials, can only be a copy and image of His. It is He who is God’s love toward them, and when this love of God is poured forth in their hearts through the Holy Spirit, that can only mean that He is in them and they in Him—and that happens quite independently of any prior love toward God from their side. Afterward, and because this has happened, they are of course asked about that also. But this must be understood quite literally: they glory even now “through Him,” and only through Him (v. 11), in echo of the new glory of human existence proclaimed through His mouth. Apart from that, and of themselves, there would be nothing in human existence in which they could glory.
Such then is the status of this human individual. He is an individual in such a way that others are not only beside Him and along with Him, but in their most critical decision about their relationship to God, they are also and first of all in Him. His individuality is such therefore that with His being and doing, with His living and dying, a decision is made about them also, which at first is simply contrary to their own decision, and which afterward they can only acknowledge and carry out in their own decision. He pleads their cause, not merely as if it were His own, but, in and with His own cause, He in fact pleads theirs. He does that in such measure that it might well be asked how He Himself in His individuality could remain distinct from them. But it appears that His individual distinctness from them is preserved by the unique way in which He identifies Himself with them. And, at the same time, the precedence in origin and status between Him and them remains intact and irreversible. His function remains that of giving, theirs of receiving; His of leading the way, theirs of following. His position remains unchangeably that of original, theirs of copy. He remains unmistakably distinguished from any of them.
It is, however, first in vv. 12–21 that these relationships become quite clear. In this second half of the chapter, Paul goes farther than in the first half by setting the same material in a wider context. Here the new point is that the special anthropology of Jesus Christ—the one man for all men, all men in the one man—constitutes the secret of “Adam” also, and so is the norm of all anthropology. Paul now makes a fresh start with the question of the past out of which believers have come and in which they still have a part, and at the same time he takes up again the question of the totality of men whom, in vv. 6–10 he had first set over against Christ as weak, sinners, godless, enemies.
V. 12 has usually been taken as an anacoluthon.2 More probably it should be taken as a kind of heading to what follows. For this reason (dia touto) are we such as vv. 1–11 described us, for this reason shall we be saved by sharing in the risen life of Jesus Christ, for this reason do we glory in our hope through Him—namely, that already as weak, sinners, godless, and enemies, already as children and heirs of Adam, and so in the past from which we came, we were not completely beyond the reach of the truth of Jesus Christ, but stood in a definite (even if negative) relationship to His saving power. V. 12 sets out this negative relationship. “As through one man sin has broken into the world, and through sin death, and as death has spread to all men, for that all men have sinned”—in other words, the relationship between Adam and all of us then, in the past, corresponds to the relationship between Christ and all of us now, in the present. Because of that correspondence it is true, as Paul has already emphasized in vv. 6, 8, 10, that Christ died for us while we were still living in the unredeemed past with Adam. Because of it, even in that past we were not completely forsaken and lost. Because of it, we can now look back at that past with good cheer—and can therefore “so much the more” glory in our present, and in the future that opens out from it. We were not, even then, in an entirely different world. Even then, we existed in an order whose significance was of course just the opposite of that of the Kingdom of Christ, but which had the same structure.
When we look back we must and we may recognize the ordering principle of the Kingdom of Christ even in the ordering principle of the world of Adam. Even when we were weak, sinners, godless, enemies, though we were traveling in a very different direction, the rule of the road strikingly resembled—was indeed the same as—the one we know now. Between our former existence outside Christ and our present existence in Him there is a natural connection. Our former existence outside Christ is, rightly understood, already a still hidden but real existence in Him. Because of that, we dare to confess that we have peace with God, we dare to glory in our future salvation—we who still have that past, we who today are still the same men who were once weak, sinners, godless, and enemies. Our past cannot frighten us: in spite of it, and even taking it fully into account, we are still allowed and required to confess our reconciliation and glory in our salvation, just because our past as such—namely, the relationship between Adam and all of us—was already ordered so as to correspond to our present and future—namely, the relationship between Christ and all of us. That is what is made clear in the heading in v. 12.
The meaning of the famous parallel (so called) between “Adam and Christ,” which now follows, is not that the relationship between Adam and us is the expression of our true and original nature, so that we would have to recognize in Adam the fundamental truth of anthropology to which the subsequent relationship between Christ and us would have to fit and adapt itself. The relationship between Adam and us reveals not the primary but only the secondary anthropological truth and ordering principle. The primary anthropological truth and ordering principle, which only mirrors itself in that relationship, is made clear only through the relationship between Christ and us. Adam is, as is said in v. 14, typos tou mellontos, the type of Him who was to come. Man’s essential and original nature is to be found, therefore, not in Adam but in Christ. In Adam we can only find it prefigured. Adam can therefore be interpreted only in the light of Christ and not the other way round.
This then is our past—Adam and all of us, Adam in his relationship to us, we in our relationship to Adam. This is the history of man and of humanity outside Christ: the sin and death of a single man, of Adam, the man who in his own person is and represents the whole of humanity, the man in whose decision and destiny the decisions and destinies, the sins and the death of all the other men who come after him, are anticipated. It is also true that each of these others has lived his own life, has sinned his own sins, and has had to die his own death. Even so, the lives of all other men after Adam have only been the repetition and variation of his life, of his beginning and his end, of his sin and his death. That is our past. So were we weak, sinners, godless, and enemies, always Adam in us and ourselves in Adam, the one and the many, in the irremovable distinctness of the one over and against the others, in the irremovable unity of the others with the one. But now our past existence without Christ has no independent status or importance. Because it was constituted by this double relationship between the one and the others, it is now only the type, the likeness, the preliminary shadow of our present existence, which is itself constituted by the relationship between the One Christ and the many others and by the grace of God and His promise of life to men. Now the way in which our past was related to Adam can be understood only as a reflection and witness of the way in which our present is related to Christ. Human existence, as constituted by our relationship with Adam in our unhappy past as weak, sinners, godless, enemies, has no independent reality, status, or importance of its own. It is only an indirect witness to the reality of Jesus Christ and to the original and essential human existence that He inaugurates and reveals. The righteous decision of God has fallen upon men not in Adam but in Christ. But in Christ it has also fallen upon Adam, upon our relationship to him and so upon our unhappy past. When we know Christ, we also know Adam as the one who belongs to Him. The relationship that existed between Adam and us is, according to v. 12, the relationship that exists originally and essentially between Christ and us.
Paul’s next point can best be understood by first passing on from v. 12 straight to vv. 18–19, and then to v. 21. These verses contain the parallel itself. V. 18: “As one man’s trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one man’s righteous act (dikaiōma) leads to the righteous decision which brings pardon and the promise of life (dikaiōsis zōēs, lit.: justification which leads to life) for all men.” V. 19: “As by the one man’s disobedience many were accounted sinners before God, so by one man’s obedience many shall be accounted righteous.” And then v. 21, which is a summary of the whole: “As sin reigned (i.e., held sway over all men) in death, so through the righteous decision grace reigns unto eternal life through Jesus Christ, our Lord.” This parallel must first be seen as such. In both cases there is the one, and in both, the many, all men. Here, in Adam, is the one, who by what he is and does and undergoes, inaugurates, represents, and reveals what the many, all men who come after him, will also have to be and do and undergo. But here, in Adam, are also the many, all men, not one of them the less guilty or the less penalized because he is not himself the one, but each rather finding himself completely in what the one is and does and undergoes, and recognizing himself only too clearly in him. There, in Christ, is, for the first time in the true sense, the One who stands, as such, for all the others. He also is the Inaugurator, Representative, and Revealer of what through Him and with Him the many, all men shall also be, do, and receive. And there, also for the first time in the true sense, are the many, all men, not one of them less righteous or less blessed because he is not himself the One, but each rather finding and recognizing himself again in what this One who takes his place is, and does, and has received. As in the existence of the one, here in Adam, the result for the many, all men, is the lordship of sin, and, with it, the destiny of death; so again, in the existence of the One, there in Christ, the result for all men is the lordship of grace exercised in the divine righteous decision and the promise of eternal life.
That is a general summary of the relationships laid down in vv. 18–19, 21. The parallel is formally complete. In 1 Cor. 15:21–22 also, Paul first makes this formal parallel clear: “As death came through one man, so also the resurrection came through one man. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive.” That is the situation of man here with Adam and man there with Christ. Thus both sides—“Adam and all of us” and “Christ and all of us”—are from the start closely connected, and we immediately become aware of that connection when we see that the same formal relationship that once bound us to Adam now binds us to Christ.
This formal parallel is, however, not Paul’s only concern. Taken by itself, it leaves the material relationship between Christ and Adam still undefined. We still do not know whether, on one side or the other, there is an essential priority and an inner superiority that would make Christ the master of Adam or Adam the master of Christ. Perhaps sin and death are as strong as grace and life. Perhaps they will ultimately prove stronger. It remains still an open question whether Adam or Christ tells us more about the true nature of man. Perhaps it is Adam who embodies basic human nature as it appears in all its many possible forms whereas Christ only embodies it in the one form in which it appears in Christian or religious men: perhaps Christ only tells us the truth about Christians, whereas Adam tells us the truth about all men. But when we look again at Rom. 5, we find that Paul does not deal with the formal parallel between the two sides in isolation, but in a context where their material relationship is made unambiguously clear. Even in vv. 18–19, 21, Paul does not leave it an open question whether Adam is prior to Christ or Christ is superior to Adam. He does not leave the two side by side in a merely formal relationship. It is not enough for him to show that life in Christ helps to explain life in Adam. He is also concerned to make quite clear the material relationship of these two formally parallel sides, so that no uncertainty can remain.
We have already seen that on both sides there is the formal identity of the one human nature which is not annulled or transformed even by sin. But in reaching that conclusion we are bound to recognize that the formal identity itself depends upon the greatest possible material disparity between the two sides. For what we have said about Adam and the rest of us is only valid because it corresponds with what we already know about Christ and the rest of us so that it is Christ who vouches for the authenticity of Adam and not Adam who vouches for the authenticity of Christ.
Therefore the status of Adam is lower than the status of Christ, the sin of Adam counts for less than the righteousness of Christ. So also the relationship of the many to Adam is less significant than their other relationship to Christ. The only thing that is common to both relationships is that in two different contexts true human nature is revealed, and that in two different ways it is shown to be subject to the ordering of God its Creator. But to discover this common factor that connects the two sides, we have to take into account the decisive difference between them. And this difference is that our relationship to Adam is only the type, the likeness, the preliminary shadow of our relationship to Christ. The same human nature appears in both but the humanity of Adam is only real and genuine in so far as it reflects and corresponds to the humanity of Christ.
“The first man is of the earth, earthy, the second man is from heaven.” That is how Paul puts it in 1 Cor. 15:47. Christ is above, Adam is beneath. Adam is true man only because he is below and not above, because his claim to be the “first man” and the head of humanity like Christ is only apparent. We are truly men because we, like Adam, are below and not above, because Adam’s claim to be our head and to make us members in his body is only apparent. We are real men in our relationship to Adam, only because Adam is not our head and we are not his members, because above Adam and before Adam is Christ. Our relationship to Christ has an essential priority and superiority over our relationship to Adam. He is the Victor and we in Him are those who are awaiting the victory. Our human nature is preserved by sharing Adam’s nature, because Adam’s humanity is a provisional copy of the real humanity that is in Christ. And so as Adam’s children and heirs, in our past as weak, sinners, godless, and enemies, we are in this provisional way still men whose nature reflects the true human nature of Christ. And so, because our nature in Adam is a provisional copy of our true nature in Christ, its formal structure can and must even in its perversion be the same.
The whole argument turns on this provisional character of Adam and of our human nature in its relation to him. Right from the start we have to take account of the essential disparity between him and Christ, and between our bond with him and our bond with Christ. This is not a case of right against right, but of man’s wrong against God’s right, not of truth against truth, but of man’s lie against God’s truth. It is not even a case of power against power, but of man’s powerlessness against God’s power. Least of all is it a case of God against God—a god of this world against God the Creator—but simply of man against the one God, and, on the other side, the same one God for man. That is why we cannot rest content with the formal parallel and why the question about the priority and superiority of one side over the other can only be answered in one way. The main point of Rom. 5:12–21 is that here man stands against God in such a way that, even in his opposition, his wrongness, his lie, and his powerlessness, he must be a witness for God, that even as Adam and Adam’s child he must be the mirror that reflects God’s work, and so be the precursor of Christ. Even in his bad relationship to Adam, he still remains man, and the structure of his nature is such that it can find its meaning and fulfillment in his good relationship to Christ. Even under the lordship of sin and death his nature is still human nature and so is the image and likeness of what it will be under the lordship of grace and life. That is how the essential disparity between Adam and Christ is contained within their formal identity. Our relationship to Adam is a subordinate relationship, because the guilt and punishment we incur in Adam have no independent reality of their own but are only the dark shadows of the grace and life we find in Christ.
That is the point which Paul is making clear in the middle section, vv. 15–17. The point here is that when we compare man’s relationship to Adam with his relationship to Christ, although the two are formally symmetrical, there is really the greatest and most fundamental disparity between them. It should be noticed that this passage comes before vv. 18–19, in which the parallel is developed. Paul himself has not adopted our procedure of getting a clear outline of the whole by first concentrating upon the formal identity of the two sides and then going on to explain their essential disparity. What he sees and says first is rather that our relationship to Adam is completely different from and subordinate to our relationship to Christ. It is by first emphasizing the disparity that he comes to recognize the identity as well. The parallel between the one and the many, the heis and the polloi, on both sides in vv. 18–19 is introduced as a corollary of the disparity between them, as the inferential “then” (ara oun) of v. 18 shows. Paul sums up that disparity in two statements which have the same construction, and which taken together make his meaning clear.
The first of these is in v. 15a: oukh hōs to paraptōma, houtōs to charisma—literally: “It is not the same with grace as it is with the transgression.” In other words, grace is not to be measured by sin; in spite of the formal identity between them, the sin of Adam is not comparable with the grace of Christ. V. 15b gives the reason for this statement. It is, of course, true that the sin (paraptōma = peccatum) of the one Adam, brought about the death of the many, not only as its consequence but as something directly involved in itself. It is true that there and then, with sin, death also broke into the world of men (v. 12), so that there and then the many died, even before they were born. But over and against that stands the other truth that in the grace of the other One, the man Jesus, the grace of God overflowed upon these many who were already dead in and with the sin of Adam. Why “overflowed”? Because Adam’s sin is only Adam’s sin, but the grace of Jesus Christ is the grace of God and His gift. And so eperisseusen, it overflowed, it prevailed, it was greater than sin. Thus, when the work of Christ is compared with the work of Adam, though they are formally identical, yet the difference between them is the radical, final, and irremovable difference between God and man. That is why v. 15a said that the grace (charisma) was not to be measured by the transgression (paraptōma). That is why the opposite alone is possible. Paul is not denying that Adam’s sin still brings death to all men, but he is affirming that the grace of Christ has an incomparably greater power to make these dead men alive. He is not saying that there is no truth in Adam, but he is saying that it is a subordinate truth that depends for its validity on its correspondence with the final truth that is in Christ.
The second of our two statements is in v. 16a: kai oukh hōs di’henos hamartēsantos to dōrēma—literally: “It is not the same with the gift [given us through the grace of God] as it is with what has come upon us through the one who sinned.” In other words, the result of grace is not to be measured by the result of sin; in spite of the formal identity between them, the effect of Adam’s sin is not comparable with the effect of Christ’s grace. The supporting argument in vv. 16b–17 is more detailed than in v. 15. It is arranged in two contrasts between Christ and Adam, the first of which prepares the way for the second. V. 16b contains this introductory contrast. What has come upon us through the one who first sinned (ex henos) is judgment (krima) which inevitably led to punishment (katakrima). In and with him we are found guilty and condemned. That is the result of sin. What that means in practice will be explained more closely in v. 17. In v. 16b it is first contrasted with the completely different result of grace. Grace (charisma) enters in just at the point where the work of sin, which started in the one, has been completed in the many, so that in their relationship to the one all men have now sinned and become guilty and ripe for condemnation (v. 12). The place where grace makes its first contact with men is in the transgressions of many, the paraptōmata pollōn, and that is the very place where sin justifies its claim that all men are guilty in and with Adam, and renders them liable to Adam’s condemnation. It is not strange that sin should bring judgment and judgment condemnation in its train. But it is very strange that at the precise point where sin has brought all men under condemnation, grace should intervene, so that what actually follows the paraptōmata pollōn (the transgressions of many) is not the condemnation of sin, but its very opposite, the pardon of God. Paraptōmata—dikaiōma, sin—pardon, the pardon after which the katakrima that follows the krima is not taken into account any more. “There is now therefore no condemnation (katakrima) for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 8:1). But how can sin lead to pardon, how can we pass ek pollōn paraptōmatōn eis dikaiōma (from many transgressions into justification)? Is it not impossible to find a way to pardon from sin? V. 16b leads us to the question by showing us that although it is easy to understand how sin leads to condemnation, it is impossible to understand how grace can lead to pardon for sinful men. But it is v. 17 that gives the real reason for the statement in v. 16a. It should be noted that v. 17 has the same grammatical construction as v. 15b: ei gar tō tou henos paraptōmati.… (if through one man’s transgressions.…). The thing, on the one side, that we can understand, and the thing, on the other, that we cannot understand, are now named. The external disparity of the two sides, which is indicated in v. 16b, is now explained by bringing out what actually happens when sin and grace set to work among men.
What is this katakrima, this punishment or condemnation? Paul’s answer is that it is the lordship of death. By the transgression of the one that lordship has been established and is now being exercised. And through that one it is lordship over the many as well, and all the more so because the many also have sinned, each for himself. To say that death rules over all men is not the same as to say, with v. 15b, that all men have died. It emphasizes that death is an objective and alien power that is now exercising its lordship over man. Death, like sin, is an intruder into human life; in the original scheme for man’s world it had no place at all. When sin broke into the world (v. 12), death found the way by which it could claim all men. That is what happens when as a result of his sin man is condemned. Death is not so much God’s direct reaction against man’s sin; it is rather God’s abandoning of the men who have abandoned Him. Think of the Book of Judges; as soon as Israel turns to strange gods, it is immediately abandoned to the hostile power of alien peoples. With God’s rule there goes also God’s protection, and when Israel cast off that protection, its danger and helplessness are immediately made clear. That is what it means in practice for man’s sin to be condemned. Through the one who sinned there has come upon us the unnatural oppression and constraint of death, which becomes inevitable where man has cast off his obedience to God. As we saw in v. 16b, the logical connection between sin and condemnation is easy to understand, but the practical outcome of death ruling over human life is so unnatural that it is impossible to understand it at all. Its complete contrast to that is the practical significance of the dikaiōma (righteous decision, justifying act). Here grace overflows on all men (v. 15b) and they receive the dōrea tēs dikaiosunēs, God’s free gift of righteousness, and the result is that instead of death ruling over them, they themselves are going to rule in life with God—en zōē basileusousin.
Men who are already under the alien lordship of death and are already dead in their sins, are rescued from that situation and transferred into a completely different situation, in which instead of dying an alien death, they will live their own true life and so will not be slaves but lords. This is the situation which has already been described as our future salvation in vv. 9–10, and as our hope of sharing in God’s glory in v. 2. We have already seen that where the dikaiōma (righteous act) intervenes on the krima (judgment), there is no more katakrima (condemnation). But now we can go farther than this: the dikaiōma is the dikaiōma of God. And so there goes with it hope, the greatest hope of all, the hope of the glory of God, the hope of the basileuein en zōē (ruling in life)—of living the true kingly life of man. This hope, though it is indeed marvelous that men condemned to death should ever come to enjoy it, is the natural result of God’s pardon, and to live in this hope is the natural condition of man, that is, of the man who is righteous in the eyes of God. What could be more obvious than that a righteous man should be able to live in this hope of sharing the glory of God?
This, then, is the difference between the result of sin and the result of grace, namely, the free gift, the dōrēma. As we saw in v. 16b, the logical connection between sin and pardon is impossible to understand, but the practical result that man receives life and lives it is so natural that it can be understood without any difficulty at all. We can now see the disparity between the result of grace and the result of sin, and so once more, in a new way, the disparity between man in Adam and man in Christ. It should be clearly noted that here also there is no question of denying or annulling the truth in Adam. Paul both looks back to the place where death ruled, ebasileusen, as well as looking forward to the place where men will rule, basileusousin, in life (v. 17). He has accurately recognized and explained both results in their inner nature and at the same time has given each its due place. For the two results are quite different. On the one side the logical connection between sin and death is unmistakably obvious, but the practical outcome of the rule of death is impossibly strange: while on the other side the logical connection between sin and pardon is completely miraculous and the material outcome of men living their true life is natural and true to the fundamental nature of man. These glaring contrasts make the difference between the two results quite plain. The result of sin is to destroy human nature, the result of grace is to restore it, so that it is obvious that sin is subordinate to grace, and that it is grace that has the last word about the true nature of man.
We may sum up Paul’s two arguments for the disparity between Christ and Adam as follows: The first is in v. 15, the second in vv. 16–17; the nerve of the first and shorter argument is that on the one side it is man who acts, and on the other God in all His finality; the nerve of the second and more detailed argument is that although our relationship with Christ is formally the same as our relationship with Adam, yet in external context, internal content, in logical structure and in practical outcome, the two are completely different and diametrically opposed.
But we have not yet noticed an important element in this central section of the passage. At first sight it appears to be of no importance, but to consider it will bring to light yet another essential factor in this situation. This is the pollō mallon, the “how much more,” which first appears in vv. 9–10 and is taken up again in the important vv. 15–17. This formula is the key to the relationship of the two sides and to the meaning of the contrast between them. The remarkable thing about it is that it both connects its two terms and subordinates the one to the other. So in this case it both presupposes and affirms the identity of the two sides, and at the same time uses this presupposition to make their disparity clear.
Whenever it is possible to use the phrase “much more” in comparing one thing with another, we are dealing with two things that fall under the same ordering principle, which is valid and recognizable in lesser degree on the one side, and in greater degree on the other. If it was not first valid on one side, it could not be “so much more” valid on the other. If it was not first clearly recognized on one side, it could not be “so much more” clearly recognized on the other. In our context, the first term in the comparison is the entire realm of the truth in Adam, in which, according to vv. 15–17, the many die in the trangression of the one, because through the transgression of the one death has gained lordship over all men. About this truth in Adam the pollō mallon makes one thing clear. It tells us that it stands under the same ordering principle as the truth in Christ, and that even though the truth in Adam is subordinate to the truth in Christ, yet in it that principle is valid and can be recognized.
To understand why this can and must be so, we have to refer back to the use of the same formula in vv. 9–10. There the first term of the comparison, which is put, so to speak, on the left-hand side, is our reconciliation through the death of Christ when we were still weak, sinners, godless, and enemies. Since, we are told in vv. 9–10, this first term on the left-hand side is valid, “how much more” valid is the second term on the right-hand side, which is our hope of salvation through the resurrection of Christ from the dead. And so both reconciliation and salvation are grounded on the same ordering principle, and both find a common validity in the one work of Christ, in the humiliation and exaltation of this one man. And within that work of Christ both can be recognized, the distinction between them stands, for it is because we are sure that Christ achieved our reconciliation that we can be “so much more” sure that He has achieved our salvation as well. In vv. 15–17 the first term on the left-hand side, the sin of Adam and its result, seems to have nothing in common with the second term on the right, the grace of Jesus Christ and the gift it brings. In fact the one seems as different from the other as darkness is from light. But here, as before, the pollō mallon forms a bond and a link and points to an ordering principle that can connect even such opposites as these. And it is because pollō mallon first connects the two terms in vv. 9–10, that it can also connect the opposites of vv. 15–17.
The death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ, our reconciliation through His blood on the one hand, and our hope in the power of His life on the other, are two aspects—two very different aspects, it is true—of one single action. For that reason, in vv. 15–17 also, it is not enough merely to distinguish the truth in Adam from the truth in Christ. Because there is a valid and recognizable connection between Christ’s death for sinners and His rising to bring life to men, there must also be a valid and recognizable connection between Adam in whom men sin and die and Christ in whom they are pardoned and made alive. The only connection between Christ and Adam is that for Adam Christ died and rose again. From the sin of Adam, as such, no way leads to the grace of Christ, no way from krima (judgment) to dikaiōma (righteousness), no way from katakrima (condemnation) to sōtēria (salvation), no way from death to life. If we looked from left to right, we would find every attempt to move in that direction frustrated, every door closed. If we could regard Adam and our participation in his sin and condemnation as an isolated and self-centered whole, then it would be impossible to find there any connection with Christ and our participation in His grace and life.
