Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Romans 5:21
That as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord.
21. that as sin, &c.] More lit. that as the sin reigned in death, so also may the grace reign through righteousness, &c. “ The sin reigned in death: ” i.e., death was the expression of its power. Cp. Rom 5:12-14 and notes. “ May grace reign: ” such is the exact rendering, which should be kept, though Gr. idiom makes E. V. (“ might ”) grammatically possible. St Paul is still thinking of the succession of future believers.
through righteousness ] i.e. “through the gift of righteousness,” (Rom 5:17,) Justification. Grace provides the Method of the justification of the ungodly; it gives them a position of acceptance in the eye of the sacred Law; constitutes them, for the purposes of that Law, righteous persons. We do not for a moment here forget that a moral change is intended, and effected, in the subjects of grace; but the argument, up to this point, has in view not this yet, but the judicial acceptance which is the prior condition of it; Justification, not yet Sanctification.
unto eternal life ] The final issue of the “reign of grace.” See Rom 6:22, Rom 8:32, and note on Rom 2:7.
by Jesus Christ our Lord ] Well do these holy words close that great section of the argument which specially explains the Way of Pardon. Jesus Christ is the one Cause and Means of Pardon, and therefore indeed also the “Lord” of those who through Him are accepted and glorified.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
That as sin hath reigned – Note, Rom 5:14.
Unto death – Producing or causing death.
Even so – In like manner, also. The provisions of redemption are in themselves ample to meet all the ruins of the fall.
Might grace reign – Might mercy be triumphant; see Joh 1:17, Grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.
Through righteousness – Through, or by means of, Gods plan of justification; Note, Rom 1:17.
Unto eternal life – This stands opposed to death in the former part of the verse, and shows that there the apostle had reference to eternal death. The result of Gods plan of justification shall be to produce eternal life. The triumphs of the gospel here celebrated cannot refer to the number of the subjects, for it has not actually freed all people from the dominion of sin. But the apostle refers to the fact that the gospel is able to overcome sin of the most malignant form, of the most aggravated character, of the longest duration. Sin in all dispensations and states of things can be thus overcome; and the gospel is more than sufficient to meet all the evils of the apostasy, and to raise up the race to heaven.
This chapter is a most precious portion of divine revelation. It brings into view the amazing evils which have resulted from the apostasy. The apostle does not attempt to deny or palliate those evils; he admits them fully; admits them in their deepest, widest, most melancholy extent; just as the physician admits the extent and ravages of the disease which he hopes to cure. At the same time, Christianity is not responsible for those evils. It did not introduce them. It finds them in existence, as a matter of sober and melancholy fact, pertaining to all the race. Christianity is no more answerable for the introduction and extent of sin, than the science of medicine is responsible for the introduction and extent of disease. Like that science, it finds a state of wide-spread evils in existence; and like that science, it is strictly a remedial system. And whether true or false, still the evils of sin exist, just as the evils of disease exist, whether the science of medicine be wellfounded or not.
Nor does it make any difference in the existence of these evils, whether Christianity be true or false. If the Bible could be proved to be an imposition, it would not prove that people are not sinners. If the whole work of Christ could be shown to be imposture, still it would annihilate no sin, nor would it prove that man has not fallen. The fact would still remain – a fact certainly quite as universal, and quite as melancholy, as it is under the admitted truth of the Christian revelation – and a fact which the infidel is just as much concerned to account for as is the Christian. Christianity proposes a remedy; and it is permitted to the Christian to rejoice that that remedy is ample to meet all the evils; that it is just suited to recover our alienated world; and that it is destined yet to raise the race up to life, and peace, and heaven. In the provisions of that scheme we may and should triumph; and on the same principle as we may rejoice in the triumph of medicine over disease, so may we triumph in the ascendancy of the Christian plan over all the evils of the fall And while Christians thus rejoice, the infidel, the deist, the pagan, and the scoffer shall contend with these evils which their systems cannot alleviate or remove, and sink under the chilly reign of sin and death; just as people pant, and struggle, and expire under the visitations of disease, because they will not apply the proper remedies of medicine, but choose rather to leave themselves to its unchecked ravages, or to use all the nostrums of quackery in a vain attempt to arrest evils which are coming upon them.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 21. That as sin hath reigned unto death] As extensively, as deeply, as universally, as sin, whether implying the act of transgression or the impure principle from which the act proceeds, or both. Hath reigned, subjected the whole earth and all its inhabitants; the whole soul, and all its powers and faculties, unto death, temporal of the body, spiritual of the soul, and eternal of both; even so, as extensively, deeply, and universally might grace reign-filling the whole earth, and pervading, purifying, and refining the whole soul: through righteousness-through this doctrine of free salvation by the blood of the Lamb, and by the principle of holiness transfused through the soul by the Holy Ghost: unto eternal life-the proper object of an immortal spirit’s hope, the only sphere where the human intellect can rest, and be happy in the place and state where God is; where he is seen AS HE IS; and where he can be enjoyed with out interruption in an eternal progression of knowledge and beatitude: by Jesus Christ our Lord-as the cause of our salvation, the means by which it is communicated, and the source whence it springs. Thus we find, that the salvation from sin here is as extensive and complete as the guilt and contamination of sin; death is conquered, hell disappointed, the devil confounded, and sin totally destroyed. Here is glorying: To him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, and has made us kings and priests to God and his Father, be glory and dominion, for ever and ever. Amen. Hallelujah! The Lord God Omnipotent reigneth! Amen and Amen.
WHAT highly interesting and momentous truths does the preceding chapter bring to our view! No less than the doctrine of the fall of man from original righteousness; and the redemption of the world by the incarnation and death of Christ. On the subject of the FALL, though I have spoken much in the notes on Genesis, chap. 3, yet it may be necessary to make a few farther observations:-
1. That all mankind have fallen under the empire of death, through this original transgression, the apostle most positively asserts; and few men who profess to believe the Bible, pretend to dispute. This point is indeed ably stated, argued, and proved by Dr. Taylor, from whose observations the preceding notes are considerably enriched. But there is one point which I think not less evident, which he has not only not included in his argument, but, as far as it came in his way, has argued against it, viz. the degeneracy and moral corruption of the human soul. As no man can account for the death brought into the world but on the ground of this primitive transgression, so none can account for the moral evil that is in the world on any other ground. It is a fact, that every human being brings into the world with him the seeds of dissolution and mortality. Into this state we are fallen, according to Divine revelation, through the one offence of Adam. This fact is proved by the mortality of all men. It is not less a fact, that every man that is born into the world brings with him the seeds of moral evil; these he could not have derived from his Maker; for the most pure and holy God can make nothing impure, imperfect, or unholy. Into this state we are reduced, according to the Scripture, by the transgression of Adam; for by this one man sin entered into the world, as well as death.
2. The fact that all come into the world with sinful propensities is proved by another fact, that every man sins; that sin is his first work, and that no exception to this has ever been noticed, except in the human nature of Jesus Christ; and that exempt case is sufficiently accounted for from this circumstance, that it did not come in the common way of natural generation.
3. As like produces its like, if Adam became mortal and sinful, he could not communicate properties which he did not possess; and he must transmit those which constituted his natural and moral likeness: therefore all his posterity must resemble himself. Nothing less than a constant miraculous energy, presiding over the formation and development of every human body and soul, could prevent the seeds of natural and moral evil from being propagated. That these seeds are not produced in men by their own personal transgressions, is most positively asserted by the apostle in the preceding chapter; and that they exist before the human being is capable of actual transgression, or of the exercise of will and judgment, so as to prefer and determine, is evident to the most superficial observer:
1st, from the most marked evil propensities of children, long before reason can have any influence or control over passion; and,
2ndly, it is demonstrated by the death of millions in a state of infancy. It could not, therefore, be personal transgression that produced the evil propensities in the one case, nor death in the other.
4. While misery, death, and sin are in the world, we shall have incontrovertible proofs of the fall of man. Men may dispute against the doctrine of original sin; but such facts as the above will be a standing irrefragable argument against every thing that can be advanced against the doctrine itself.
5. The justice of permitting this general infection to become diffused has been strongly oppugned. “Why should the innocent suffer for the guilty?” As God made man to propagate his like on the earth, his transmitting the same kind of nature with which he was formed must be a necessary consequence of that propagation. He might, it is true, have cut off for ever the offending pair; but this, most evidently, did not comport with his creative designs. “But he might have rendered Adam incapable of sin.” This does not appear. If he had been incapable of sinning, he would have been incapable of holiness; that is, he could not have been a free agent; or in other words he could not have been an intelligent or intellectual being; he must have been a mass of inert and unconscious matter. “But God might have cut them off and created a new race.” He certainly might; and what would have been gained by this? Why, just nothing. The second creation, if of intelligent beings at all, must have been precisely similar to the first; and the circumstances in which these last were to be placed, must be exactly such as infinite wisdom saw to be the most proper for their predecessors, and consequently, the most proper for them. They also must have been in a state of probation; they also must have been placed under a law; this law must be guarded by penal sanctions; the possibility of transgression must be the same in the second case as in the first; and the lapse as probable, because as possible to this second race of human beings as it was to their predecessors. It was better, therefore, to let the same pair continue to fulfil the great end of their creation, by propagating their like upon the earth; and to introduce an antidote to the poison, and by a dispensation as strongly expressive of wisdom as of goodness, to make the ills of life, which were the consequences of their transgression, the means of correcting the evil, and through the wondrous economy of grace, sanctifying even these to the eternal good of the soul.
6. Had not God provided a Redeemer, he, no doubt, would have terminated the whole mortal story, by cutting off the original transgressors; for it would have been unjust to permit them to propagate their like in such circumstances, that their offspring must be unavoidably and eternally wretched.
God has therefore provided such a Saviour, the merit of whose passion and death should apply to every human being, and should infinitely transcend the demerit of the original transgression, and put every soul that received that grace (and ALL may) into a state of greater excellence and glory than that was, or could have been, from which Adam, by transgressing, fell.
7. The state of infants dying before they are capable of hearing the Gospel, and the state of heathens who have no opportunity of knowing how to escape from their corruption and misery, have been urged as cases of peculiar hardship. But, first, there is no evidence in the whole book of God that any child dies eternally for Adam’s sin. Nothing of this kind is intimated in the Bible; and, as Jesus took upon him human nature, and condescended to be born of a woman in a state of perfect helpless infancy, he has, consequently, sanctified this state, and has said, without limitation or exception, Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of God. We may justly infer, and all the justice as well as the mercy of the Godhead supports the inference, that all human beings, dying in an infant state, are regenerated by that grace of God which bringeth salvation to all men, Tit 2:11, and go infallibly to the kingdom of heaven. As to the Gentiles, their case is exceedingly clear. The apostle has determined this; see Ro 2:14; Ro 2:15, and the notes there. He who, in the course of his providence, has withheld from them the letter of his word, has not denied them the light and influence of his SPIRIT; and will judge them in the great day only according to the grace and means of moral improvement with which they have been favoured. No man will be finally damned because he was a Gentile, but because he has not made a proper use of the grace and advantages which God had given him. Thus we see that the Judge of all the earth has done right; and we may rest assured that he will eternally act in the same way.
8. The term FALL we use metaphorically, to signify degradation: literally, it signifies stumbling, so as to lose the centre of gravity, or the proper poise of our bodies, in consequence of which we are precipitated on the ground. The term seems to have been borrowed from the of the apostle, Ro 5:15-18, which we translate offence, and which is more literally FALL, from , intensive, and , I fall; a grievous, dangerous, and ruinous fall, and is property applied to transgression and sin in general; as every act is a degradation of the soul, accompanied with hurt, and tending to destruction. The term, in this sense, is still in common use; the degradation of a man in power we term his fall; the impoverishment of a rich man ve express in the same way; and when a man of piety and probity is overcome by any act of sin, we say he is fallen; he has descended from his spiritual eminence, is degraded from his spiritual excellence, is impure in his soul, and becomes again exposed to the displeasure of his God.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Before he ascribed dominion and reign to death, now to sin; the reason is evident, because death indeed reigneth by sin. Before also he had made the comparison between Adam and Christ, here it is between sin and grace, the power of one and of the other. The sum is, that as sin hath prevailed over all mankind to bring death upon man, not only a temporal but eternal death, so the grace of Christ prevails, and becomes effectual, to confer upon us eternal life.
Righteousness; i.e. imputed or imparted.
By Jesus Christ our Lord: see how sweetly the end answers the beginning of this chapter, and how Jesus Christ is both the Author and Finisher of all.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
21. That as sinObserve, theword “offense” is no more used, as that had beensufficiently illustrated; butwhat better befitted thiscomprehensive summation of the whole matterthe great general termsin.
hath reigned untodeathrather, “in death,” triumphing and (as it were)revelling in that complete destruction of its victims.
even so might grace reignInRom 5:14; Rom 5:17we had the reign of death over the guilty and condemned inAdam; here it is the reign of the mighty causes of theseofSIN which clothes Death aSovereign with venomous power (1Co15:56) and with awful authority (Ro6:23), and of GRACE,the grace which originated the scheme of salvation, the grace which”sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world,” the gracewhich “made Him to be sin for us who knew no sin,” thegrace which “makes us to be the righteousness of God in Him,”so that “we who receive the abundance of grace and of thegift of righteousness do reign in life by One, Jesus Christ!”
through righteousnessnotours certainly (“the obedience of Christians,” touse the wretched language of GROTIUS)nor yet exactly “justification” [STUART,HODGE]; but rather, “the(justifying) righteousness of Christ” [BEZA,ALFORD, and in substance,OLSHAUSEN, MEYER];the same which in Ro 5:19 iscalled His “obedience,” meaning His whole mediatorial workin the flesh. This is here represented as the righteous mediumthrough which grace reaches its objects and attains all its ends, thestable throne from which Grace as a Sovereign dispenses its savingbenefits to as many as are brought under its benign sway.
unto eternal lifewhichis salvation in its highest form and fullest development for ever.
by Jesus Christ ourLordThus, on that “Name which is above every name,”the echoes of this hymn to the glory of “Grace” die away,and “Jesus is left alone.”
On reviewing this golden sectionof our Epistle, the following additional remarks occur: (1) If thissection does not teach that the whole race of Adam, standing in himas their federal head, “sinned in him and fell with him in hisfirst transgression,” we may despair of any intelligibleexposition of it. The apostle, after saying that Adam’s sinintroduced death into the world, does not say “and so deathpassed upon all men for that Adam “sinned,” but “forthat all sinned.” Thus, according to the teaching of theapostle, “the death of all is for the sin of all”; and asthis cannot mean the personal sins of each individual, but some sinof which unconscious infants are guilty equally with adults, it canmean nothing but the one “first transgression” of theircommon head, regarded as the sin of each of his race, andpunished, as such, with death. It is vain to start back from thisimputation to all of the guilt of Adam’s first sin, as wearing theappearance of injustice. For not only are all other theoriesliable to the same objection, in some other formbesides beinginconsistent with the textbut the actual facts of human nature,which none dispute, and which cannot be explained away, involveessentially the same difficulties as the great principle onwhich the apostle here explains them. If we admit this principle, onthe authority of our apostle, a flood of light is at once thrown uponcertain features of the divine procedure, and certain portions of thedivine oracles, which otherwise are involved in much darkness; and ifthe principle itself seem hard to digest, it is not harder than theexistence of evil, which, as a fact, admits of no dispute,but, as a feature in the divine administration, admits of noexplanation in the present state. (2) What is called originalsinor that depraved tendency to evil with which every child ofAdam comes into the worldis not formally treated of in thissection (and even in the seventh chapter, it is rather its nature andoperation than its connection with the first sin which is handled).But indirectly, this section bears testimony to it; representing theone original offense, unlike every other, as having an enduringvitality in the bosom of every child of Adam, as a principle ofdisobedience, whose virulence has gotten it the familiar name of”original sin.” (3) In what sense is the word “death“used throughout this section? Not certainly as mere temporaldeath, as Arminian commentators affirm. For as Christ came to undowhat Adam did, which is all comprehended in the word “death,”it would hence follow that Christ has merely dissolved the sentenceby which soul and body are parted in death; in other words, merelyprocured the resurrection of the body. But the New Testamentthroughout teaches that the salvation of Christ is from a vastly morecomprehensive “death” than that. But neither is death hereused merely in the sense of penal evil, that is, “anyevil inflicted in punishment of sin and for the support of law”[HODGE]. This is tooindefinite, making death a mere figure of speech to denote “penalevil” in generalan idea foreign to the simplicity ofScriptureor at least making death, strictly so called, only onepart of the thing meant by it, which ought not to be resorted to if amore simple and natural explanation can be found. By “death”then, in this section, we understand the sinner’s destruction,in the only sense in which he is capable of it. Even temporal deathis called “destruction” (Deu 7:23;1Sa 5:11, c.), as extinguishingall that men regard as life. But a destruction extending to the soulas well as the body, and into the future world, is clearlyexpressed in Mat 7:13 2Th 1:9;2Pe 3:16, c. This is the penal”death” of our section, and in this view of it we retainits proper sense. Lifeas a state of enjoyment of the favor of God,of pure fellowship with Him, and voluntary subjection to Himis ablighted thing from the moment that sin is found in the creature’sskirts in that sense, the threatening, “In the day that thoueatest thereof thou shalt surely die,” was carried intoimmediate effect in the case of Adam when he fell; who wasthenceforward “dead while he lived.” Such are all hisposterity from their birth. The separation of soul and body intemporal death carries the sinner’s destruction” a stagefarther; dissolving his connection with that world out of which heextracted a pleasurable, though unblest, existence, and ushering himinto the presence of his Judgefirst as a disembodied spirit, butultimately in the body too, in an enduring condition”to bepunished (and this is the final state) with everlastingdestruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory ofHis power.” This final extinction in soul and body of all thatconstitutes life, but yet eternal consciousness of a blightedexistencethis, in its amplest and most awful sense, is “DEATH”!Not that Adam understood all that. It is enough that he understood”the day” of his disobedience to be the terminating periodof his blissful “life.” In that simple idea was wrapt upall the rest. But that he should comprehend its details wasnot necessary. Nor is it necessary to suppose all that to be intendedin every passage of Scripture where the word occurs. Enough that allwe have described is in the bosom of the thing, and will berealized in as many as are not the happy subjects of the Reign ofGrace. Beyond doubt, the whole of this is intended in such sublimeand comprehensive passages as this: “God . . . gave His . . .Son that whosoever believeth in Him might not PERISH,but have everlasting LIFE”(Joh 3:16). And should not theuntold horrors of that “DEATH”already”reigning over” all that are not in Christ, and hasteningto its consummationquicken our flight into “the second Adam,”that having “received the abundance of grace and of the gift ofrighteousness, we may reign in LIFEby the One, Jesus Christ?”
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
That as sin hath reigned unto death,…. This is another end of the law’s entrance, or rather an illustration of the grace of God, by comparing the reigns of sin and grace together: sin has such a power over man in a state of nature, as amounts to a dominion; it has not only an enticing, ensnaring power, to draw into a compliance with it, and an obstructive power to hinder that which is good, and an operative one of that which is evil, and a captivating, enslaving one to the same; but it has a kingly, governing, and commanding power: its dominion is universal as to men, and with respect both to the members of the body, and faculties of the soul; it is supported by laws, which are its lusts; and has its voluntary subjects, to whom it gives wages; its reign is very cruel and tyrannical; it is “unto death” corporeal, moral, or spiritual, and eternal. The ancient Jews often represent sin in the same light; they frequently speak h of , “the corruption of nature reigning” over men; and say i: that he is “a king” over the several members of the body, which answer to him at the word of command. “The old and foolish king” in Ec 4:13, is commonly interpreted by them of sin; which they say k is called “a king”, because he rules in the world, over the children of men, and because all hearken to him: it is a petition much used by them l,
“let not the evil imagination or corruption of nature “rule” over me:”
and on the other hand, they represent grace, or a principle of goodness, as a king, reigning over the corruption of nature; thus interpreting these words, “my son, fear thou the Lord and the king”, they ask m,
“who is the king? the king (say they) , is “the good imagination”, or principle of goodness, who reigns over the evil imagination, which is called a king.”
And in another place n they say of a good man, that he , “caused the good imagination to reign” over the evil one; with which in some measure agrees what follows:
even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life, by Jesus Christ our Lord; by grace is meant, either grace as it is in the heart of God; which reigns or bears sway in man’s salvation in all the parts of it, “through righteousness”; consistent with the justice of God, in a way in which that is glorified, through the redemption of Christ: it reigns “unto eternal life”; grace has promised, prepared it, and makes meet for it, and will introduce into it, and freely give it: it reigns “by Jesus Christ”; grace reigns by him, righteousness, or justice, is glorified by him, and eternal life is in him, through him, and by him: or grace as it is in the hearts of converted persons, is meant where it reigns, has the dominion, is the governing principle, and that in a way of righteousness and true holiness; and will reign until it is perfected in glory, or is crowned with eternal life; all which are by Jesus Christ, namely, grace, righteousness, and life.
h T. Bab. Succa, fol. 52. 1. & Sanhedrin, fol. 91. 2. i Abot. R. Nathan, c. 16. fol. 5. 2. Targum in Eccl. ix. 14. Midrash Koheleth, fol. 80. 1. k Zohar in Gen. fol. 102. 1. Midrash Koheleth, fol. 70. 2. Caphtor, fol. 20. 1. Tzeror Hammor, fol. 14. 4. Jarchi in Eccl. iv. 13. l T. Bab. Beracot, fol. 60. 1. Shaare Zion, fol. 73. 1. Seder Tephiltot, fol. 3. 1. Ed. Basil. m Bemidbar Rabba, fol. 218. 1. n Midrash Koheleth, fol. 78. 3.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
That–even so grace might reign (— ). Final here, the purpose of God and the goal for us through Christ. Lightfoot notes the force of the aorist indicative (, established its throne) and the aorist subjunctive (, might establish its throne), the ingressive aorist both times. “This full rhetorical close has almost the value of a doxology” (Denney).
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
Unto death [ ] . Wrong. In death, as Rev. As the sphere or dominion of death ‘s tyranny. Compare ver. 14, “death reigned.” Some, however, explain the preposition as instrumental, by death. How much is lost by the inaccurate rendering of the prepositions. Ellicott remarks that there are few points more characteristic of the apostle ‘s style than his varied but accurate use of prepositions, especially of two or more in the same or in immediately contiguous clauses. See Rom 3:22; Eph 4:6; Col 1:16.
Through Jesus Christ our Lord. “And now – so this last word seems to say – Adam has passed away; Christ alone remains” (Godet).
Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament
1) “That as sin hath reigned unto death,” hina hosper ebasileusen he hamartia en to thanato) “In order that just as sin reigned, had jurisdiction to or toward death,” working toward death both physical and Spiritual, for sin “finished bringeth forth death,” Rom 6:21; Jas 1:15, and sin is death matured in every dead body, 1Co 15:55-56; Eph 2:1-3.
2) “Even so might grace reign through righteousness,” (houtos kai he charis Basileuse dia dikaiosunes) “Even so (that) grace might reign or have jurisdiction through righteousness,” with as wide a sway and sovereign (Divine) power, in harmony with justice, bestowing through faith in Christ, the righteousness of God on every transgressor or sinner, Rom 4:4-6; Rom 4:16; 2Co 5- 21.
3) “Unto eternal life,” (eis zoen aionion) “Into life eternal;” First, a believer in Jesus receives eternal life of the soul when he believes, or is born again, Joh 3:16; Joh 10:27-28; 1Jn 5:1; 1Jn 5:13; and Second, one receives eternal life of the body in the resurrection, after death. This is the eternal life of hope for which believers wait, Rom 8:11; Rom 8:23; Eph 1:14; Eph 4:30; Tit 1:2.
4) “By Jesus Christ our Lord,” (dia lesou Christou tou kuriou hemon) “Through Jesus Christ our Lord;” The end or full purpose and promise of Grace involves not only the salvation of the soul but also the body of all believers and the restitution of all things to the Father, as foretold by the prophets, Joh 1:17; Act 3:21; Rom 8:19-23; 1Co 15:24-28.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
21. That as sin has reigned, etc. As sin is said to be the sting of death, and as death has no power over men, except on account of sin; so sin executes its power by death: it is hence said to exercise thereby its dominion. In the last clause the order of the words is deranged, but yet not without reason. The simple contrast might have been thus formed, — “That righteousness may reign through Christ.” But Paul was not content to oppose what is contrary to what is contrary, but adds the word grace, that he might more deeply print this truth on the memory — that the whole is to be ascribed, not to our merit, but to the kindness of God. (181) He had previously said, that death reigned; he now ascribes reigning to sin; but its end or, effect is death. And he says, that it has reigned, in the past tense; not that it has ceased to reign in those who are born only of flesh, and he thus distinguishes between Adam and Christ, and assigns to each his own time. Hence as soon as the grace of Christ begins to prevail in any one, the reign of sin and death ceases. (182)
(181) The antithesis to “sin” is properly “righteousness;” but, as [ Calvin ] observes, “grace” is connected with it. To preserve the contrast, the sentence might be rendered, “grace through righteousness;” and then to show the medium or channel through which this “grace through righteousness” is to reign so as to issue in “eternal life,” it is added, “through Jesus Christ our Lord.” So that in this single sentence, we have the origin, “grace,” the means or the meritorious cause, “righteousness,” the agent, or the procurer of it, “Jesus Christ,” and the end, “eternal life.” Some take “grace” as antithetic to sin, and connect “righteousness” with “eternal life,” and render it “justification;” but this does not so well preserve the antithetic character of the clause. Those who render it “holiness” completely misunderstand the drift of the passage.
The first part is differently rendered: instead of “unto death,” [ Hammond ] renders it, like [ Calvin ], “through death,” and [ Grotius ], “by ( per) death.” The preposition is εν and not εἰ, and its common meaning is “in,” and it may be here translated, “in death,” i.e. , in a state of death. The reign of sin was that of death and misery; the reign of grace through Christ’s righteousness is that of life and happiness, which is never to end. — Ed.
(182) That the antitheses of this remarkable passage, from verse 12 to the end, may be more clearly seen, it shall be presented in lines. The contrast in Rom 5:12 will be found in the first and last line and in the second and the third; and as to all the other verses, in the first and the third line and in the second and the fourth, except Rom 5:13, which are an explanation of the 12th. The 17 includes the two ideas of the 15 and 16, in an inverted order. The 18 and l9 contain the summing up of the argument, —
12. For this reason, — as by one man sin entered into the world, And death by sin, Even so death came upon all men, — Because all had sinned:
13. Sin indeed was until the law in the world, But sin is not imputed when there is no law;
14. Yet reign did death from Adam to Moses. Even over those who had not sinned, After the likeness of the transgression of Adam, Who is the type of him who was to come.
15. But not as the transgression, So also the free favor; For if through the transgression of one Many died. Much more has God’s grace, and his free gift through the grace of one man, Jesus Christ, Abounded unto many:
16. And not as through one sin, So the free gift; For judgment was indeed Through one sir to condemnation, But the free favor Is from many transgressions to justification, —
17. For if for one transgression, Death reigned through one; Much more shall they, who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness, Reign in life through one, Jesus Christ.
18. So then, as through one transgression, Judgment was on all men to condemnation; So also through one righteousness, The free favor is on all men to justification of life:
19. For as through the disobedience of one man, Sinful were made many; So also through the obedience of one, Righteous shall be made many.
20. But the law entered in, That multiplied might be transgression; But where sin multiplied, Superabounded has grace: So that as sin reigned Into death; So also grace shall reign through righteousness, Into eternal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord. — Ed.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(21) Unto death.Rather, in death; death being, as it were, the domain in which its sovereignty was exercised.
In this last section we seem still to trace the influence of the school of Gamaliel. It appears that the Jewish doctors also attributed universal mortality to the fall of Adam, and regarded his sin as including that of the rest of mankind. (On the whole section, see Excursus F: On St. Pauls View of the Religious History of Mankind.)
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
21. By Jesus Christ our Lord And so the apostle closes his contrast in rounded triumph with the glorious name and title of the divine hero, “the Captain of our salvation.” He has now depicted the elements of the remedy; he is henceforth ready to trace the process of the renovation produced by the remedy.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
‘That, as sin reigned in death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.’
For God came to a world where sin reigned in death, where all men were subject to death because of sin, and He acted in totally unmerited favour. He provided a means of righteousness, a gift of righteousness, freely given to the undeserving, so that He was able through His grace to give men and women eternal life as a consequence of that gift. He was able to give them ‘justification of life’ (Rom 5:18). And all this was through what our LORD Jesus Christ has wrought for us and provided for us.
Thus the end result is that His people can reign in life now (Rom 5:17), and can, through reigning grace, enjoy eternal life in the future in all its fullness. These two aspects will be underlined in what follows.
But as we come to the end of this passage let us pause to consider the wonder of these words, ‘grace reigns through righteousness unto eternal life, through Jesus Christ our LORD’. The whole hope of eternal life for all God’s people is the result of the grace of God (God acting towards men in unmerited favour) ‘reigning’ on behalf of men, a reigning which is made possible by the righteousness of Christ being made available to us. And it is all ‘through Jesus Christ our LORD’.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
REFLECTIONS
Precious Lord Jesus! I would say, as I meditate on this sweet Chapter; what hath my God wrought for his Church and people? Here I behold the blessedness of a justified state! Peace with God; access to the throne, to the. mercy seat, to the pardon office of Jesus Christ; and a sure foundation for a daily, hourly rejoicing, in hope of the glory of God. And, have I this peace? Am I indeed justified freely, fully, everlastingly, in the Lord my righteousness? Hath Jesus made my peace in the blood of his cross? Is it God that justifieth me? And shall I not demand with Paul, and say: who is he that condemneth me? Oh! the blessedness of a justified state before God. There is now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the ; Spirit.
Praises to my God and Father, for all his Covenant-love from everlasting! Praises to my God and Savior, whose Suretyship righteousness hath done more for me in the recovery of my poor nature, in the Adam – fall ruin; than all the original and actual transgressions of the Church have done, to cast the redeemed down. And praises to my God the Holy Ghost, in causing this blessed Scripture to be given to the Church; and writing the blessed effects of it in my heart, and the hearts of his people. Oh! for grace, to be in the daily, hourly enjoyment of it, and to live in the constant unceasing dependence upon it. In the Lord shall all the seed of Israel be justified, and shall glory.
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
21 That as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord.
Ver. 21. That as sin hath reigned ] That is, the wrath of God by sin.
Through righteousness ] Imputed and imparted.
By Jesus Christ ] See how sweetly the end answers the beginning of the chapter, and how Christ is both author and finisher, &c.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
21 .] The purpose of this abounding of grace: its ultimate prevalence and reign, by means of righteousness, unto life eternal . That, as sin reigned (the historic indefinite past, because the standing-point of the sentence is, the restitution of all things hereafter ) in death ( , of that in and by which the reign was exercised and shewn: death was the central act of sin’s reign. He does not here say, ‘ death reigned by sin ,’ as in Rom 5:12-14 , because sin and grace are the two points of comparison, and require to be the subjects ), so also grace may reign by means of (not here, though it might be so, if . applied to our being made righteous : but as it applies to the Righteousness of Christ making us righteous, it is ) righteousness, unto (leading to) life eternal through (by means of) Jesus Christ our Lord (‘Jam ne memoratur quidem Adamus, solius Christi mentio viget.’ Bengel).
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
Romans
THE WARRING QUEENS
Rom 5:21
I am afraid this text will sound to some of you rather unpromising. It is full of well-worn terms, ‘sin,’ ‘death,’ ‘grace,’ ‘righteousness,’ ‘eternal life,’ which suggest dry theology, if they suggest anything. When they welled up from the Apostle’s glowing heart they were like a fiery lava-stream. But the stream has cooled, and, to a good many of us, they seem as barren and sterile as the long ago cast out coils of lava on the sides of a quiescent volcano. They are so well-worn and familiar to our ears that they create but vague conceptions in our minds, and they seem to many of us to be far away from a bearing upon our daily lives. But you much mistake Paul if you take him to be a mere theological writer. He is an earnest evangelist, trying to draw men to love and trust in Jesus Christ. And his writings, however old-fashioned and doctrinally hard they may seem to you, are all throbbing with life-instinct with truths that belong to all ages and places, and which fit close to every one of us.
I do not know if I can give any kind of freshness to these words, but I wish to try. To begin with, I notice the highly-imaginative and picturesque form into which the Apostle casts his thoughts here. He, as it were, draws back a curtain, and lets us see two royal figures, which are eternally opposed and dividing the dominion between them. Then he shows us the issues to which these two rulers respectively conduct their subjects; and the question that is trembling on his lips is ‘Under which of them do you stand?’ Surely that is not fossil theology, but truths that are of the highest importance, and ought to be of the deepest interest, to every one of us. They are to you the former, whether they are the latter or not.
I. So, first, look at the two Queens who rule over human life.
Sin reigns. The truths that underlie that solemn picture are plain enough, however unwelcome they may be to some of us, and however remote from the construction of the universe which many of us are disposed to take.
Now, let us understand our terms. Suppose a man commits a theft. You may describe it from three different points of view. He has thereby broken the law of the land; and when we are thinking about that we call it crime. He has also broken the law of ‘morality,’ as we call it; and when we are looking at his deed from that point of view, we call it vice. Is that all? He has broken something else. He has broken the law of God; and when we look at it from that point of view we call it sin. Now, there are a great many things which are sins that are not crimes; and, with due limitations, I might venture to say that there are some things which are sins that are not to be qualified as vices. Sin implies God. The Psalmist was quite right when he said; ‘Against Thee, Thee only have I sinned’; although he was confessing a foul injury he had done to Bathsheba, and a glaring crime that he had committed against Uriah. It was as to God, and in reference to Him only, that his crime and his vice darkened and solidified into sin.
And what is it, in our actions or in ourselves considered in reference to God, that makes our actions sins and ourselves sinners? Remember the prodigal son. ‘Father! Give me the portion of goods that falleth to me.’ There you have it all. He went away, and ‘wasted his substance in riotous living.’ To claim myself for my own; to act independently of, or contrary to, the will of God; to try to shake myself clear of Him; to have nothing to do with Him, even though it be by mere forgetfulness and negligence, and, in all my ways to comport myself as if I had no relations of dependence on and submission to him-that is sin. And there may be that oblivion or rebellion, not only in the gross vulgar acts which the law calls crimes, or in those which conscience declares to be vices, but also in many things which, looked at from a lower point of view, may be fair and pure and noble. If there is this assertion of self in them, or oblivion of God and His will in them, I know not how we are to escape the conclusion that even these fall under the class of sins. For there can be no act or thought, truly worthy of a man, situated and circumstanced as we are, which has not, for the very core and animating motive of it, a reference to God.
Now, when I come and say, as my Bible teaches me to say, that this is the deepest view of the state of humanity that sin reigns, I do not wish to fall into the exaggerations by which sometimes that statement has been darkened and discredited; but I do want to press upon you, dear brethren, this, as a matter of personal experience, that wherever there is a heart that loves, and leaves God out, and wherever there is a will that resolves, determines, impels to action, and does not bow itself before Him, and wherever there are hands that labour, or feet that run, at tasks and in paths self-chosen and unconsecrated by reference to our Father in heaven, no matter how great and beautiful subsidiary lustres may light up their deeds, the very heart of them all is transgression of the law of God. For this, and nothing else or less, is His law: ‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind.’ I do not charge you with crimes. You know how far it would be right to charge you with vices. I do not charge you with anything; but I pray you to come with me and confess: ‘We all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.’
I suppose I need not dwell upon the difficulty of getting a lodgment for this conviction in men’s hearts. There is no sadder, and no more conclusive proof, of the tremendous power of sin over us, than that it has lulled us into unconsciousness, hard to be broken, of its own presence and existence. You remember the old stories-I suppose there is no truth in them, but they will do for an illustration-about some kind of a blood-sucking animal that perched upon a sleeping man, and with its leathern wings fanned him into deeper drowsiness whilst it drew from him his life-blood. That is what this hideous Queen does for men. She robes herself in a dark cloud, and sends out her behests from obscurity. And men fancy that they are free whilst all the while they are her servants. Oh, dear brethren! you may call this theology, but it is a simple statement of the facts of our condition. ‘Sin hath reigned.’
And now turn to the other picture, ‘Grace might reign.’ Then there is an antagonistic power that rises up to confront the widespread dominion of this anarch of old. And this Queen comes with twenty thousand to war against her that has but ten thousand on her side.
Again I say, let us understand our terms. I suppose, there are few of the keywords of the New Testament which have lost more of their radiance, like quicksilver, by exposure in the air during the centuries than that great word Grace, which is always on the lips of this Apostle, and to him had music in its sound, and which to us is a piece of dead doctrine, associated with certain high Calvinistic theories which we enlightened people have long ago grown beyond, and got rid of. Perhaps Paul was more right than we when his heart leaped up within him at the very thought of all which he saw to lie palpitating and throbbing with eager desire to bless men, in that great word. What does he mean by it? Let me put it into the shortest possible terms. This antagonist Queen is nothing but the love of God raying out for ever to us inferior creatures, who, by reason of our sinfulness, have deserved something widely different. Sin stands there, a hideous hag, though a queen; Grace stands here, ‘in all her gestures dignity and love,’ fair and self-communicative, though a sovereign. The love of God in exercise to sinful men: that is what the New Testament means by grace. And is it not a great thought?
Notice, for further elucidation of the Apostle’s conception, how he sacrifices the verbal correctness of his antithesis in order to get to the real opposition. What is the opposite of Sin? Righteousness. Why does he not say, then, that ‘as Sin hath reigned unto death, even so might Righteousness reign unto life’ ? Why? Because it is not man, or anything in man, that can be the true antagonist of, and victor over, the regnant Sin of humanity; but God Himself comes into the field, and only He is the foe that Sin dreads. That is to say, the only hope for a sin-tyrannised world is in the out-throb of the love of the great heart of God. For, notice the weapon with which He fights man’s transgression, if I may vary the figure for a moment. It is only subordinately punishment, or law, or threatening, or the revelation of the wickedness of the transgression. All these have their places, but they are secondary places. The thing that will conquer a world’s wickedness is nothing else but the manifested love of God. Only the patient shining down of the sun will ever melt the icebergs that float in all our hearts. And wonderful and blessed it is to think that, in whatsoever aspects man’s sin may have been an interruption and a contradiction of the divine purpose, out of the evil has come a good; that the more obdurate and universal the rebellion, the more has it evoked a deeper and more wondrous tenderness. The blacker the thundercloud, the brighter glows the rainbow that is flung across it. So these two front each other, the one settled in her established throne-
‘Fierce as ten furies, terrible as hell-’ the other coming on her adventurous errand to conquer the world to herself, and to banish the foul tyranny under which men groan. ‘Sin hath reigned.’ Grace is on her way to her dominion.
II. Notice the gifts of these two Queens to their subjects.
Now, I am not going to enter into the question here, and now, whether physical death passes over mankind because of the fact of transgression. I do not suppose that this is so. But I ask you to remember that when the Bible says that ‘Death passed upon all men, for all have sinned,’ it does not merely mean the physical fact of dissolution, but it means that fact along with the accompaniments of it, and the forerunners of it, in men’s consciences. ‘The sting of death is sin,’ says Paul, in another place. By which he implies, I presume, that, if it were not for the fact of alienation from God and opposition to His holy will, men might lie down and die as placidly as an animal does, and might strip themselves for it ‘as for a bed, that longing they’d been sick for.’ No doubt, there was death in the world long before there were men in it. No doubt, also, the complex whole phenomenon gets its terror from the fact of men’s sin.
But it is not so much that physical fact with its accompaniments which Paul is thinking about when he says that ‘sin reigns in death,’ as it is that solemn truth which he is always reiterating, and which I pray you, dear friends, to lay to heart, that, whatever activity there may be in the life of a man who has rent himself away from dependence upon God-however vigorous his brain, however active his hand, however full charged with other interests his life, in the very depth of it is a living death, and the right name for it is death. So this is Sin’s gift-that over our whole nature there come mortality and decay, and that they who live as her subjects are dead whilst they live. Dear brethren, that may be figurative, but it seems to me that it is absurd for you to turn away from such thoughts, shrug your shoulders, and say, ‘Old-fashioned Calvinistic theology!’ It is simply putting into a vivid form the facts of your life and of your condition in relation to God, if you are subjects of Sin.
Then, on the other hand, the other queenly figure has her hands filled with one great gift which, like the fatal bestowment which Sin gives to her subjects, has two aspects, a present and a future one. Life, which is given in our redemption from Death and Sin, and in union with God; that is the present gift that the love of God holds out to every one of us. That life, in its very incompleteness here, carries in itself the prophecy of its own completion hereafter, in a higher form and world, just as truly as the bud is the prophet of the flower and of the fruit; just as truly as a half-reared building is the prophecy of its own completion when the roof tree is put upon it. The men that here have, as we all may have if we choose, the gift of life eternal in the knowledge of God through Jesus Christ His Son, must necessarily tend onwards and upwards to a region where Death is beneath the horizon, and Life flows and flushes the whole heaven. Brother! do you put out your whole hand to take the poisoned gift from the claw-like hand of that hideous Queen; or do you turn and take the gift of life eternal from the hands of the queenly Grace?
III. How this queenly Grace gives her gifts.
He means this, first, that even that great love of God, coming throbbing straight from His heart, cannot give eternal life as a mere matter of arbitrary will. God can make His sun to shine and His rain to fall, ‘on the unthankful and on the evil,’ and if God could, God would give eternal life to everybody, bad and good; but He cannot. There must be righteousness if there is to be life. Just as sin’s fruit is death, the fruit of righteousness is life.
He means, in the next place, that whilst there is no life without righteousness, there is no righteousness without God’s gift. You cannot break away from the dominion of Sin, and, as it were, establish yourselves in a little fortress of your own, repelling her assaults by any power of yours. Dear brethren, we cannot undo the past; we cannot strip off the poisoned garment that clings to our limbs; we can mend ourselves in many respects, but we cannot of our own volition and motion clothe ourselves with that righteousness of which the wearers shall be worthy to ‘pass through the gate into the city.’ There is no righteousness without God’s gift.
And the other subsidiary clause completes the thought: ‘through Christ.’ In Him is all the grace, the manifest love, of God gathered together. It is not diffused as the nebulous light in some chaotic incipient system, but it is gathered into a sun that is set in the centre, in order that it may pour down warmth and life upon its circling planets. The grace of God is in Christ Jesus our Lord. In Him is life eternal; therefore, if we desire to possess it we must possess Him. In Him is righteousness; therefore, if we desire our own foulness to be changed into the holiness which shall see God, we must go to Jesus Christ. Grace reigns in life, but it is life through righteousness, which is through Jesus Christ our Lord.
So, then, brother, my message and my petition to each of you are-knit yourself to Him by faith in Him. Then He who is ‘full of grace and truth’ will come to you; and, coming, will bring in His hands righteousness and life eternal. If only we rest ourselves on Him, and keep ourselves close in touch with Him; then we shall be delivered from the tyranny of the darkness, and translated into the Kingdom of the Son of His love.
Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren
hath. Omit.
even so, &c. = so might grace also.
eternal. App-151.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
21.] The purpose of this abounding of grace:-its ultimate prevalence and reign, by means of righteousness, unto life eternal. That, as sin reigned (the historic indefinite past, because the standing-point of the sentence is, the restitution of all things hereafter) in death (, of that in and by which the reign was exercised and shewn: death was the central act of sins reign. He does not here say, death reigned by sin, as in Rom 5:12-14, because sin and grace are the two points of comparison, and require to be the subjects), so also grace may reign by means of (not here, though it might be so, if . applied to our being made righteous: but as it applies to the Righteousness of Christ making us righteous, it is ) righteousness, unto (leading to) life eternal through (by means of) Jesus Christ our Lord (Jam ne memoratur quidem Adamus, solius Christi mentio viget. Bengel).
Fuente: The Greek Testament
Rom 5:21. – , in death-unto life) The difference is here exemplified between the particles and . Death has its limits and boundary, whereas life is everlasting, and [by divine power] divinely extended. Death is not said to be eternal; whereas life is said to be eternal, ch. Rom 6:21, etc.- , that grace might reign) Grace therefore has had, as it were, no reign, that is, it has had a most brief reign before the fall. We may believe, that Adam sinned not long after that he was created.-, Jesus) Now no longer is Adam even mentioned: the mention of Christ alone prevails.
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
Rom 5:21
Rom 5:21
that, as sin reigned in death,-[Sin is here personified and represented as reigning like a king. The reign is mighty, and the results are fearful. Previous to Pauls day it was reigning, it was reigning then, it is reigning now, and will continue till death is swallowed up of life. Death is here represented as a ubiquitous tyrant, whose sway embraces all.]
even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.-Grace is here personified as a benignant king who reigns through leading men into the righteousness of God and unto eternal life through Jesus Christ.
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
sin
“Sin” in Romans 6, 7 is the nature in distinction from “sins,” which are manifestations of that nature.
Compare (1Jn 1:8) with (1Jn 1:10), where this distinction also appears.
grace
Grace (in salvation). (Rom 5:2); (Rom 5:15-21); (Rom 11:5-6); (Rom 3:24).
(See Scofield Joh 1:17).
Fuente: Scofield Reference Bible Notes
That: Rom 5:14, Rom 6:12, Rom 6:14, Rom 6:16
grace: Joh 1:16, Joh 1:17, Tit 2:11, Heb 4:16, 1Pe 5:10
through: Rom 5:17, Rom 4:13, Rom 8:10, 2Pe 1:1
unto: Rom 6:23, Joh 10:28, 1Jo 2:25, 1Jo 5:11-13
Reciprocal: Gen 6:17 – shall die Gen 27:33 – yea Exo 34:6 – abundant Num 14:18 – longsuffering Num 21:9 – he lived Num 27:3 – died in his Deu 9:6 – a stiffnecked Job 33:24 – Then Psa 5:7 – in the Psa 17:7 – Show Psa 25:11 – for it Psa 37:18 – their Psa 51:1 – O God Psa 85:10 – righteousness Psa 86:5 – plenteous Psa 86:15 – But thou Psa 103:8 – merciful Psa 106:1 – for he Psa 111:4 – gracious Psa 116:5 – Gracious Psa 130:7 – for with Psa 133:3 – even life Psa 145:8 – Lord is gracious Pro 10:2 – but Pro 12:28 – General Isa 32:1 – king Jer 3:12 – for I am Eze 33:16 – General Joe 2:13 – for Mat 19:16 – eternal Mat 19:30 – General Mat 20:9 – they received Mat 25:46 – the righteous Mar 2:17 – I came Luk 18:13 – a sinner Luk 23:43 – To day Joh 3:15 – eternal Joh 4:14 – shall be Joh 6:40 – and believeth Joh 8:11 – go Joh 14:6 – the life Act 13:43 – the grace Act 15:11 – that Act 20:24 – the gospel Rom 3:21 – righteousness Rom 4:15 – Because Rom 8:2 – from Rom 9:18 – hath Rom 9:23 – might Rom 11:6 – And if 1Co 1:30 – righteousness 1Co 15:45 – a quickening 2Co 3:11 – if 2Co 7:1 – therefore 2Co 8:9 – the grace Gal 3:19 – It was added Gal 3:22 – that Gal 5:5 – the hope Eph 1:8 – he Eph 2:4 – who Phi 3:9 – the righteousness Col 3:3 – your 1Ti 1:13 – but 1Ti 1:16 – believe 2Ti 1:1 – the promise Tit 1:2 – eternal Tit 3:4 – the kindness 1Jo 5:17 – and
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Vv. 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 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, Gal 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 (, 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. , absolutely as. The work of grace must not remain, either in extent or efficacy, behind that of sin.
The words , 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; , 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. Rom 6:4; Rom 6:11; Rom 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 oneuniversal as to destination, individual through its application to each believer. And nowso 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.
Fuente: Godet Commentary (Luke, John, Romans and 1 Corinthians)
that, as sin reigned in death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. [All this reasoning almost wholly ignores the Mosaic law: where then did it come in? and how did it affect the situation? Thus: the law came in, in addition to sin and death, for the purpose of increasing sin, and also that sense of guilt which could not be very poignantly felt while men were dying on account of a prenatal sin committed by Adam. But when the law had thus made men conscious of the abundant and universal prevalence of sin, then the grace of God made itself even more abundant in longsuffering, in patience, in forbearance, etc., and especially in preparing the gospel; that as sin had reigned, and produced death, even so grace might reign through righteousness unto eternal life, through the ministry and sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ.]
Fuente: McGarvey and Pendleton Commentaries (New Testament)
21. And as sin reigned unto death, so may grace also reign through righteousness unto eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. In these Scriptures the doctrine of total depravity is established beyond the possibility of cavil. Total means entire. Depravity means a state in which we are deprived of something, i. e., life. Hence total depravity means deprivation of spiritual life. How we have it repeated here that all are dead in Adam, our federal head. When God calls a thing dead, there is no life in it. Hence the whole human race lost spiritual life in the Fall, and are all in Adam totally depraved. It is equally true that we all receive spiritual life in Christ, in both cases normally and independent of our will. As the Pall is universal, the redemption is equally so. Hence the gracious possibility for every soul to be saved in heaven. By the grace of Christ we are born in His kingdom, and only get out by sinning out, as in case of the prodigal son, who might, like his older brother, have stayed in the fathers house. Doubtless the bitterest anguish of the damned in hell will be the awful reminiscence, The Son of God redeemed me, and purchased heaven for me. I went to hell like a fool, having no plausible excuse for my damnation! Meanwhile devils will berate you and say, If we had been redeemed like you, we would not be here, but shouting with the angels. This horrific reminiscence of heaven and eternal glory purchased for them freely by the Son of God and available at their option, but foolishly and brutally rejected and depreciated, will hunt the damned with the black ghosts of inextinguishable memory through the flight of eternal ages. The Pauline climax of this much-more argument is simply transcendent. Here we have the two Adams representing the whole human race the one in sin and death, the Other in life and holiness. Well does he give the infinite pre-eminence to the Latter. Why? The first Adam who brought sin into the world was only a man like myself; the second Adam, who proposes to take it out, is not only a man, but the Omnipotent God. Hence, well does he say, Where sin did abound, there did grace much more abound. While sin is great, grace is infinitely greater. What a grand inspiration to every sinner to escape from Adam, who has nothing but sin and ruin, to Christ, who has a superabundance of grace, glory and heaven forever.
Fuente: William Godbey’s Commentary on the New Testament
Rom 5:21 is the grand conclusion of the argument in this section (Rom 5:12-21). It brings together the main concepts of sin and death, and righteousness and life. Effectively Paul played down Adam and exalted Jesus Christ. Here Paul contrasted the dominions of Adam’s act and Christ’s act: sin reigning in death and grace reigning to eternal life.
"Paul often thinks in terms of ’spheres’ or ’dominions,’ and the language of ’reigning’ is particularly well suited to this idea. Death has its own dominion: humanity as determined, and dominated, by Adam. And in this dominion, sin is in control. But those who ’receive the gift’ (Rom 5:17) enjoy a transfer from this domain to another, the domain of righteousness, in which grace reigns and where life is the eventual outcome." [Note: Moo, p. 350.]
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Contrasts in Rom 5:12-21 [Note: Adapted from Newell, p. 176. See also the chart in The Bible Knowledge Commentary: New Testament, p. 461.] |
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Two men |
Adam (Rom 5:14) |
Christ (Rom 5:14) |
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Two acts |
One trespass in the garden (Rom 5:12; Rom 5:15; Rom 5:17-19) |
One righteous act on the cross (Rom 5:18) |
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Two results |
Condemnation, guilt, and death (Rom 5:15-16; Rom 5:18-19) |
Justification, life, and kingship (Rom 5:17-19) |
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Two differences |
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In degree (Rom 5:15) |
Sin abounds |
Grace super-abounds |
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In operation (Rom 5:16) |
One sin by Adam resulting in condemnation and the reign of death for everyone |
Many sins on Christ resulting in justification and reigning in life for believers |
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Two kings |
Sin reigning through death (Rom 5:17) |
Grace reigning through righteousness (Rom 5:21) |
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Two abundances |
Of grace (Rom 5:17) |
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Of the gift of righteousness (Rom 5:17) |
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Two contrasting states |
Condemned people slaves of sin by Adam |
Justified people reigning in life by Christ |
This section (Rom 5:12-21) shows that humankind is guilty before God because all of Adam’s descendants are sinners due to Adam’s sin. Earlier Paul wrote that we are all guilty because we have all committed acts of sin (chs. 3-4). Ultimately, we sin and die because Adam sinned and died. Jesus Christ’s death has removed both causes for condemnation righteously, guilt for our sins and punishment for Adam’s sin. This section stresses our union with Christ that Paul explained further in chapter 6.
IV. THE IMPARTATION OF GOD’S RIGHTEOUSNESS CHS. 6-8
The apostle moved on from questions about why people need salvation (Rom 1:18 to Rom 3:20), what God has done to provide it, and how we can appropriate it (Rom 3:21 to Rom 5:21). He next explained that salvation involves more than a right standing before God, which justification affords. God also provides salvation from the present power of sin in the redeemed sinner’s daily experience. This is progressive sanctification (chs. 6-8).
When a sinner experiences redemption-"converted" is the subjective term-he or she simultaneously experiences justification. Justification imparts God’s righteousness to him or her. Justification is the same thing as "positional sanctification." This term means that God views the believer as completely holy in his or her standing before God. Consequently, that person is no longer guilty because of his or her sins (cf. Rom 8:1; 1Co 1:2; 1Co 6:11).
When a sinner experiences redemption, he or she begins a process of progressive practical sanctification. This process of becoming progressively more righteous (holy) in his or her daily experience is not automatic. It involves growth and requires the believer to cooperate with God to produce holiness in daily life. God leads the believer and provides the enablement for him or her to follow, but the believer must choose to follow and make use of the resources for sanctification that God provides. [Note: See Ryrie, So Great . . ., pp. 152-54.] Our progressive sanctification will end at death or the Rapture, whichever occurs first. Then the believer will experience glorification. Then his experiential condition will finally conform to his legal standing before God. He or she will then be completely righteous as well as having been declared righteous. God will remove our sinful nature and will conform our lives fully to His will (Rom 8:29).
In chapters 6-8 Paul explained how justified sinners can become more holy (godly, righteous) in daily living before our glorification. We need to understand our relationship as believers to sin (i.e., victory, ch. 6), to the Law (i.e., liberty, ch. 7), and to God (i.e., security, ch. 8) to attain that worthy goal.
". . . the fundamental thought is that the believer is united to Christ. This new principle makes him dead to sin (ch. vi.); but it also provides a new power which enables him to be free from law (ch. vii.); and still more, it includes a new possibility, for in the gift of the Holy Spirit there is a new position for holiness (ch. viii.)." [Note: Griffith Thomas, St. Paul’s Epistle . . ., p. 164.]