Having spoken of Adam as typical of Christ, the apostle at once proceeds to guard and clear the statement. The point of comparison is the bearing of a head on his family. He that believed the scripture (and every Jew was tenacious of the Pentateuch) must own that Adam's fall brought a condition of sin and a sentence of death on his descendants. Such was the sorrowful beginning of the Old Testament, such the key to the history of the race ever since. It was in vain then to make all a question of law. Not so: granted that what the law says it says to those under the law. The fact was plain that the fundamental book of the law shows a far deeper, wider, earlier principle, yea, so early that it embraces all the children of Adam from the first. Could any Jew deny the scripture, the facts, or the moral ground? It was certain then, and must be conceded by him who believed the first book of Moses that Adam's fall involved in universal ruin those who sprang from him; for he, while innocent, had no son His family headship was only after he sinned.
Now if it were a righteous dealing, as no Jew would dispute, so to involve a whole race in the consequences of what one man, their father, did amiss, Israel of all men should be the last to question the principle and the wondrous grace of God in the headship of the Lord Jesus. What Adam was to his descendants in evil and its consequences, Christ is in good to all who are His by faith. Thus the first man is a figure of the Second.
“But not as [is] the offense, so also the free gift; for if by the offense of the one the many died, much more the grace of God and the gift in the grace of the one man Jesus Christ abounded unto the many.” (Ver. 15.) Thus the apostle qualifies the analogy. The difference is an immense advantage on the side of good. How could it be otherwise with such a source of goodness as God, and with such a channel and ground and object as the man Christ Jesus? To punish, smite, destroy, was a grief, so to speak, to God; to bless is His delight, and now to the full, since Christ has made it righteous by the removal of all hindrances. The superior dignity of Christ and the exhaustless fountain of God's grace of which He was the expression secure the vast preponderance for the free gift, as against the offense.
Nor is it a difference of measure only but of kind. “And not as by one having sinned [is] the gift; for the judgment [was] from one unto condemnation, but the free gift from many offenses unto justification.” (Ver. 16.) The people or parties affected were before us in verse 15; the things which indicate it are prominent here. In the former contrast “the many” were respectively made to depend on “the one,” though “much more” for those in relation to Christ. In the contrast before us one act on the part of the head that sinned sentenced into condemnation; whereas the free gift, spite of many offenses, was for a state of accomplished righteousness.
And this he confirms by the overflowing results in the next verse 17: “For if by the offense of the one death reigned by the one, much more they that receive the abundance of the grace and the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by the one, Jesus Christ.” Thus the result is triumphant, and this not only for men dead by sin, but also for those that had the aggravation of offenses under law. Believers being Christ's, let them have been what they may, Gentile no less than Jewish, receive abundance of grace and of the free gift of righteousness, shall reign in life by the one Jesus Christ. It is not merely that life is to reign, in contrast with death, but they shall reign in life through Christ. Calvin thinks these two equivalent; what is said is really far more blessed. For faith the contrast of grace with the first man always exceeds. If the balance is not so exact in rhetoric, the believer may enjoy so much the more the precious affluence of the word and the Spirit now, as he will the crowning blessedness in glory by and by.
It is evidently an argument drawn from the righteous governmental ways of God to His grace. If looking at Adam, the head of nature, it was worthy of Him not to limit the consequences of sin to him who fell, surely it was much more worthy to extend the effects of grace according to His own nature and the glory of Christ from Him who rose to all who derived their life from such a source! and this whether we consider the objects (ver. 15), the circumstances (ver. 16), or the results. (Ver. 17.)