Commentary - Romans 5:12-21

Bird's-eye view

In this monumental passage, the apostle Paul pivots from the individual experience of justification by faith to the grand, cosmic history of two humanities. He presents us with a tale of two Adams. The entire human race is comprehended in one of two federal heads: the first Adam or the last Adam, who is Jesus Christ. Through the first Adam's one act of disobedience, sin and death entered the world and took up a tyrannical reign over all his posterity. We are not sinners because we sin; we sin because we are sinners, constituted as such by our union with our fallen father. But Paul's glorious point is that this principle of federal headship, which brought such ruin, is the very same principle God uses to bring about an even greater salvation.

Through the one act of righteousness by the second Adam, Jesus Christ, the free gift of grace, justification, and life abounds to all who are in Him. The comparison is one of both similarity and radical dissimilarity. The logic is parallel, but the results are gloriously asymmetrical. Where Adam's sin brought death, Christ's obedience brings life. Where Adam's transgression brought condemnation for one sin, Christ's gift provides justification from many transgressions. The entire passage is a magnificent exposition of how God in His wisdom ordained the fall of the human race in its first head in order to bring about a far more glorious restoration in the second. It is the bedrock of a covenantal understanding of sin and salvation.

Outline

Context In Romans

Romans 5:12-21 is the theological hinge of the entire epistle. Having spent the first three chapters establishing the universal sinfulness of man and the doctrine of justification by faith alone (Rom 3:21-4:25), Paul then, in the first part of chapter 5, describes the blessed results of that justification: peace with God, access to grace, and joy in tribulations (Rom 5:1-11). Now, he zooms out to provide the covenantal framework that makes this individual justification possible. He explains how it is that God can justly declare a sinner righteous. He does so by grounding it in the doctrine of federal headship. This section provides the theological foundation for the discussion of sanctification in chapter 6, the struggle with sin in chapter 7, and the glorious liberty of the Spirit-led life in chapter 8. Without the doctrine of the two Adams, the rest of the book makes no sense. It is the explanation of how we got into our mess and the far more glorious explanation of how God got us out.

Key Issues

The Tale of Two Adams

At the heart of the gospel is a magnificent exchange, a substitution. But for that substitution to be just and meaningful, there must be a real, organic, and legal connection between the substitute and those for whom he stands. This is the doctrine of federal headship. God has chosen to deal with the human race not as a disconnected mass of individuals, but through representative heads. All of humanity was "in Adam" when he stood as our representative in the Garden. His choice was our choice; his fall was our fall. His guilt and corruption became ours. This is the bad news, the terrible news that explains why the world is the way it is.

But God, in his infinite wisdom, used this very principle of representation to save us. He appointed a new representative, a second Adam, His own Son, Jesus Christ. All who are united to Him by faith are now "in Christ." His choice is our choice; His obedience is our obedience. His righteousness is imputed to us, just as Adam's sin was imputed to us. This is the glorious parallel that Paul unfolds here. The story of the world is the story of these two men and the two races that proceed from them: the race of death and the race of life.

Verse by Verse Commentary

12 Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned,

Paul begins his grand comparison. He starts with the "just as," but as we will see, he gets so caught up in explaining the first half of the analogy that he doesn't complete it until verse 18. The entry point of ruin was singular: through one man, Adam. What entered? Sin. And sin's inseparable companion, death, came right along with it. Sin is the disease; death is the symptom. And the contagion was total. Death spread to all men. Why? Because in Adam's sin, all sinned. This is not saying that death spread to all men because they each individually committed their own sins. The verb tense points to a single, past event. When Adam sinned, we sinned in him and with him as our covenant head. His act was our act. This is the foundation of original sin.

13 for until the Law sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law.

Paul anticipates an objection. Someone might say, "If sin is the transgression of the law, how could people be sinners before the Law of Moses was given?" Paul's answer is a crucial distinction. He agrees that sin, in the sense of a formal transgression of a written legal code, is not "imputed" or formally charged to one's account where there is no such code. But this does not mean sin was absent. Sin, as a principle of rebellion against God, was most certainly in the world from the time of the Fall.

14 Nevertheless death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over those who had not sinned in the likeness of the trespass of Adam, who is a type of Him who was to come.

This is the proof. If people were not sinners, they would not have died. But they did die. Death reigned like a king. And it reigned even over those who did not sin in the same way Adam did, that is, by violating a direct, positive command from God. Think of an infant who dies. He has not personally broken a known law. Why does he die? Because he is a child of Adam. He inherited a sinful nature and a guilty standing. Death's reign over all humanity proves that all humanity is under condemnation. Paul concludes the thought by explicitly stating what he has been building toward: Adam was a type, a prefigurement, of Christ. The pattern established in him would be recapitulated, and gloriously reversed, in the one who was to come.

15 But the gracious gift is not like the transgression. For if by the transgression of the one the many died, much more did the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one Man, Jesus Christ, abound to the many.

Now Paul begins to show the glorious asymmetry. The gift is not a mere mirror image of the offense. There is a "much more" quality to God's grace. The logic is from the lesser to the greater. If the one man's sin had such catastrophic power to bring death to the many (a term used here to mean "all who are in Adam"), how much more does the grace of God, expressed in the gift that comes through the one Man, Jesus Christ, have the power to bring life? The effect of grace is not just a cancellation of the effect of sin; it is an overflowing, super-abundant triumph.

16 And the gift is not like that which came through the one who sinned; for on the one hand the judgment arose from one transgression resulting in condemnation, but on the other hand the gracious gift arose from many transgressions resulting in justification.

Here is a second "much more." The scope is different. The condemnation in Adam came from a single starting point, one transgression. That one sin was enough to plunge the whole race into ruin. But the gift of grace in Christ does something far more astounding. It doesn't just deal with that one original sin; it deals with the many transgressions that have resulted from it. It takes the whole mountain of our accumulated guilt, original and personal, and results in a verdict of justification, a declaration of righteousness. Adam's one sin condemned us all; Christ's one gift justifies us from all our sins.

17 For if by the transgression of the one, death reigned through the one, much more those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ.

A third "much more." In Adam, death took up a throne and reigned over us. We were its passive subjects, its slaves. But in Christ, the outcome is not simply that we escape death. It is that we ourselves are made kings. Those who receive this abundant grace and gift of righteousness will reign in life. Grace doesn't just rescue us from a tyrant; it enthrones us with the true King. We move from being the victims of a reigning death to being co-regents in an unconquerable life, all through the one man, Jesus Christ.

18 So then as through one transgression there resulted condemnation to all men, even so through one act of righteousness there resulted justification of life to all men.

Paul now returns to and completes the parallel he started in verse 12. Here is the summary statement. The mechanism is the same on both sides. One man's act has universal consequences for all those he represents. Adam's one transgression brought condemnation to all men in him. Christ's one act of righteousness, His perfect life of obedience culminating in His death on the cross, brought justification of life to all men in Him. This is not universalism. "All men" in the first clause means all men without exception. "All men" in the second clause means all men without distinction, that is, all kinds of men who make up the elect, the new humanity in Christ.

19 For as through the one man’s disobedience the many were appointed sinners, even so through the obedience of the One the many will be appointed righteous.

This verse clarifies the previous one, explaining the legal basis for the condemnation and justification. Through Adam's disobedience, the many were appointed or constituted as sinners. It was a legal declaration with a real spiritual result. We were put into the category of "sinner." In the same way, through Christ's perfect obedience, the many will be appointed or constituted as righteous. God declares us righteous. He puts us into the category of "righteous" not because of what we have done, but because of what our new Representative has done for us. This is the heart of imputed righteousness.

20 Now the Law came in so that the transgression would increase, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more,

What then was the point of the Mosaic Law? Did it come to help us get out of the sin problem? No, says Paul, it came in alongside (pareiserchomai) to make things worse, in a manner of speaking. The Law's purpose was to take the general principle of sin and bring it to a head, to make it explicit, to cause the transgression to increase. The Law acts like a divine magnifying glass, exposing the sinfulness of our hearts and provoking our rebellion. It removes all our excuses and shows us how utterly sinful we are. But this was a gracious purpose. For it is precisely at the point where sin is seen in its full, ugly power that grace rushes in to overwhelm it. Where sin increased, grace didn't just meet it; it abounded all the more.

21 so that, as sin reigned in death, even so grace would reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Paul concludes this magnificent section by returning to the imagery of two rival kingdoms. In the old humanity, sin reigned on its throne, and its scepter was death. It was an absolute and cruel tyranny. But God's purpose was to establish a new and greater kingdom. In this new kingdom, grace is the reigning monarch. And how does grace reign? It reigns through righteousness. It is not a lawless grace, but a just grace, established on the bedrock of the perfect righteousness of Christ. And the destiny of this kingdom is not death, but eternal life. And the king through whom this whole reality is mediated is none other than Jesus Christ our Lord. The entire story of redemption, from the garden to the final glory, is encapsulated in this one, dense, glorious sentence.

Application

This passage is the sledgehammer that demolishes all forms of self-righteousness. Your fundamental problem is not the list of bad things you have done. Your fundamental problem is that you were born in Adam. You were born a sinner, a rebel, and under a sentence of death. No amount of rule-keeping, self-improvement, or religious activity can change your federal standing. You cannot cease to be a son of Adam by trying harder.

Your only hope is to be born again into a new family, under a new head. Your only hope is to be transferred out of the kingdom of Adam and into the kingdom of Christ. And this is precisely what God offers in the gospel. He does not ask you to fix your Adamic nature. He asks you to abandon it, to die to it, and to be united by faith to Jesus Christ, the new man. When you receive Christ, you receive all that He is and all that He has done. His perfect obedience is counted as yours. His righteousness becomes your legal standing before God. You are no longer defined by Adam's failure, but by Christ's triumph.

This means that our assurance does not rest on the fluctuations of our own performance, but on the finished work of our covenant Head. We reign in life not because we are strong, but because He was strong for us. We are righteous not because we are good, but because He was good for us. The Christian life is the daily business of learning to live like who we now are. We are no longer slaves to the tyrant sin, but sons of the king of grace. Therefore, we should live like it, not in order to be accepted, but because we have been accepted, once and for all, in the Beloved.