The first part of the epistle ends here, (verse 11), and with it, we may say, the doctrine of the whole epistle. Our standing in Christ follows, as well as the experiences made by the soul in entering into this standing. Then we have exhortations to those who are delivered. Our standing is not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, or in Christ. But in order to be truly delivered we must indeed learn experimentally what the flesh is; then, and only then, shall we pass from a legal condition of soul into that which is spiritual in Christ, by virtue of the death and life of Jesus Christ. But we shall return to this later on. We must next consider the standing itself, or rather the two positions, and the respective teaching thereupon. It is of importance here to remark that deliverance has to do with experience, and can only he known in this way. It is otherwise with the forgiveness of sins. It is indeed true that God must teach us in all things; but to believe that something outside of me has been done, or has come to pass, is quite different from believing something about myself of which I do not find the practical realization in myself. The work of Christ on the cross, by which I obtain forgiveness and peace, in so far as it has to do with forgiveness, is a thing accomplished outside of me, and I am called to believe that God has accepted it as satisfaction for my sins. It is indeed the work of God that I believe this, but the thing in itself is simple.
A child who has to be punished understands perfectly what it means to receive forgiveness. But if anyone says to me, “If you believe, you are dead to sin;” I reply, and indeed rightly so, if I am earnest and sincere, “That is not true, for I feel its power in my heart.” Now this question, our condition, is treated of in the second part of the epistle to the Romans. Are we in the flesh or in the Spirit? Are we in Christ,’ and Christ in us? Are we thus dead to sin, or are we merely children of Adam, so that sin exercises its power in us even when we would not have it so?
Chapter 5:12 opens up the consideration of this question. The apostle speaks no longer of what we have done, as in the first part of the epistle, but of what we are in consequence, it is true, of Adam’s sin. By the disobedience of one many (that is to say, all those who stand by birth in relation to him as their father) were made sinners. “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.” (v. 12) The continuation of this statement is found in verse 18. Verses 13-17 form a parenthesis, the object of which is to show in what relation the law stands to this question, and to prove that man without having received a law from God is under the yoke of sin, and subject to judgment. Death is the proof that sin reigns over all men. Adam was under a law, he was forbidden to eat of the fruit of a certain tree. The Jews, as we all know, were nationally under the law. Now, if Adam did not observe the original commandment, nor the Jews the law of God, they were positively guilty in those points wherein they had disobeyed. They had done the forbidden. Verse 14 refers to what is said of Israel in Hosea 6:77But they like men have transgressed the covenant: there have they dealt treacherously against me. (Hosea 6:7). “They like Adam have transgressed the covenant” Adam, like Israel, stood in relation to God by a positive law. With the heathen it was otherwise, they possessed no law. They had indeed a conscience, and obedience to God was obligatory, but one could not say that in this or that point they had transgressed a known commandment of God, because there were none. No law existed for them, and so what they had done could not be reckoned to them as transgression. But sin was there; conscience was aware of all that was done contrary to its voice, and death reigned. The dominion of death proved also the existence of sin, of which it was the consequence. Each one, even if not under the law, had defiled his conscience, and death was the constant proof of the existence of sin. The Gentiles, who had no law, died just as much as the Jews.
Were the operations of grace to be limited then to the narrow circle of Judaism, because the Jews alone possessed the promises and all the privileges of a revelation, specially the word of God? On the contrary. Christianity was the revelation of God Himself, not merely of the will of God with regard to man; therefore this revelation necessarily reached far beyond the limits of Judaism. In Christianity there is no nation singled out with a law given to them. To Israel a law was given which taught what man ought to be, but it did not reveal God. It was indeed accompanied by promises, but promises which were not yet fulfilled; and at the same time it forbade approach to God. But Christianity revealed God in love in the person of the on; it proclaimed perfect redemption through His death, a perfect present justification through faith, in virtue of His death. It testified that the veil which shut out God was rent, so that access to Him is perfectly free, and the believer can draw near in full liberty by this new and living way. Thus eternal blessing is not in the first and sinful man, nor yet through the law. For this, if applied to him, could not do otherwise than condemn him, because it is the perfect and divine rule of conduct for man; and since man is a sinner, it places all who are subject to the law under the curse. The blessing of God is in the last Adam, the second and truly glorified Man, after having previously been made sin for us, in Him who met the power of Satan and subjected Himself to death, although He could not be holden of it; who bore in his soul the curse and the forsaking of God, and whom God raised from the dead and seated at His right hand as Man, having been perfectly glorified by His work. A God who has revealed Himself in such a way could not be God only of the Jews.
In verses 15-17 the apostle shows that grace far surpasses sin. If (v. 15) the consequences of Adam’s sin do not remain limited to him, but extend also to his descendants, how much more the consequences of the work of Christ abound to those who are His! According to verse 16, through Adam’s sin all his descendants are lost; but grace, the free gift, is not merely efficacious for the lost condition, but also for many fences. The abundance of grace shines forth particularly in verse 17, where it says, “For if by one Man’s offense death reigned by one; much more they” —one might have thought that it would have gone on “much more life will reign;” but no, it says “they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ.”
The parenthesis closes with verse 17, and the apostle resumes in verse 18 the thought interrupted at verse 12. The consequences of Adam’s fall concern all, just as the free gift through the work of Christ concerns all. The gospel can thus be applied to all; it goes out to the whole world, to all sinners. In verse 19 we have the positive application. Through the disobedience of one man, many, who are in connection with him, that is to say all men, find themselves in the condition of this one, which is a sinful condition. By the obedience of one man, all those who are in connection with Him, that is to say all Christians, find themselves in the position of this one, that is to say in a position of righteousness before God. Adam was the figure of the man that was to come. In the one we are lost, in the other all those who are united to Him are saved, righteous before God. The guilt of a man depends upon what he has done; his actual condition, on the contrary, upon what Adam has done. Adam and Christ are the heads of two races; the one of a sinful, and the other of a righteous race before God, and here life and standing are inseparable. The law entered as a secondary thing between the first and second man. The root of the fallen human race was Adam, the first man. The Head and the living root of the blessed and saved race is Christ,
“Moreover the law entered” as the measure of what ought to have been with fallen man, but never actually was so. The law did not give either life or salvation, but it was the rule of what man ought to have been down here, linked with a promise of life: “the man that doeth them shall live in them” (Galatians 3:1212And the law is not of faith: but, The man that doeth them shall live in them. (Galatians 3:12)); but it commanded a sinful man not to sin. Its object was, as the apostle here says, to make the offense abound, not sin, for God can do nothing to augment sin; but when sin was already there, He could give a rule that would bring its fruits to light. Thus, although the law formed the perfect rule of conduct for a child of Adam, yet as a matter of fact it was ever a secondary thing. Man was already a lost sinner, and the law brought the fruit of the rotten and corrupt tree to light. We shall see further on that it did even more than this. In this passage we are only told that it makes the offense to abound. Truly we see the ways of God in the first as in the second Adam. Man was a sinner, a lost sinner; Christ a Saviour. The law was necessary as a proof of what man was, because it required righteousness from man, according to the measure of his responsibility. The object of the law in the government of God was to manifest man’s self-will by disobedience and transgressions, for without law there is no transgression. Now that supposes sin, as indeed it can be seen in the law itself. The judgment of God will be exercised according to man’s responsibility in view of what he has done, whether without law or under law. His lost condition is another thing. He is lost in Adam; the world furnishes a proof of it in a terrible way, and our own hearts even more, if indeed we know them. The disobedience of one has alone brought in the condition. This condition is not a future judgment, but a present fact; we are constituted sinners, the whole family is, through Adam, in the same condition as he; separated from God, yea, banished in enmity against Him, shut out from His presence, and without even a desire to enter in. Man prefers pleasure, money, vanity, worldly power, fine apparel, in short anything and everything to God, even when he professes to be one who believes that the Son of God has died for him in love. There is only one object which the world will not have; namely, Christ, and the revelation of God in Him, even though it be a revelation of love. By the disobedience of one many were constituted sinners.
Thus the important truth here set before us is not the guilt produced by wicked works, and the grace by which it is removed, but the condition of the fallen children of Adam as a general principle. (Therefore the law is set aside as a secondary thing, although it was valid for the conscience of the Jews, and remains always a perfect rule of human righteousness, and it also established this rule where, supported by the authority of God, it was applied) In connection therewith we have the introduction of a new or second root of saved men, in the risen One it is true, just as Adam is the root of fallen men. Adam became head of a race after he had sinned, and Christ in fact was not head of a new creation (although God from the beginning had wrought by His Spirit) until divine righteousness had been manifested in His being glorified. Now when the righteousness of God had been revealed, and applied indeed to us, inasmuch as Christ had been glorified after He had borne our sins and perfectly glorified God in being made sin, Christ becomes for the first time the life-giving head of a new race, accepted of God; and all, from first to last, is the fruit of the unfathomable, infinite, and unspeakable grace of God. Grace reigns, but reigns through righteousness, being founded on the work of Christ. The end is eternal life, and that in its full and true character according to the counsels of God in the glory where Christ is already entered in righteousness as Man. Righteousness does not yet reign; it will reign in the judgment-day, but then human righteousness, namely, that which was obligatory on man, will form. the measure of the judgment; man will then be judged according to the duties imposed upon him towards God and his neighbor, in virtue of God’s claims. But grace is the source of salvation for man, because God is love and we are sinners; for grace is the exercise of love towards those who are utterly unworthy in themselves. And love is therein revealed, so that the angels learn to know it by God’s ways with us. But God is also righteous, and must maintain His righteousness, and His holiness cannot tolerate sin in its presence forever. He has proved the sinful condition and guilt of all men, and then He has acted in His infinite love, not merely to give forgiveness of sins (of which we have already spoken), but to prepare an entirely new position according to His own eternal counsels, and for His eternal glory according to what He is in His nature. The carrying out of these counsels, and that in virtue of the work of Christ according to His perfect righteousness, is the expression and the revelation of His infinite love. Love has revealed itself in sending His Son and delivering Him up for us to death and the curse. Righteousness is revealed in setting Christ, who has perfectly glorified Him, as man at His right hand in divine glory—in the glory which He as Son of God already had with the Father before the world was, which, however, He had acquired as Son of man, so that divine righteousness must of necessity give Him this place. And we share in this glory of God, because the work by which God has been perfectly glorified was at the same time accomplished for vs. We form part of the glory of. Christ for eternity. He would not see of the fruit of the travail of His soul if He had not His redeemed people with Him in the glory.
J. N. D.