The argument is now resumed from verse 12, but strengthened by the parenthetical instruction of verses 13-17. This both enforced the analogy between Adam and Christ for evil and good over those who pertain to them respectively, and also pointed out the enormous preponderance of good over evil in Christ, as is but due to the glory of His person and the grace of His work. If the one by a single offense involved all that were his in death, the other brings blessing to His family, spite of countless offenses.
“So then as by one offense [the bearing was] unto all men unto condemnation, so also by one accomplished righteousness unto all men unto justifying of life. For as by the disobedience of the one man the many were constituted sinners, so also by the obedience of the one the many shall be constituted righteous.” (Ver. 18, 19.)
There is no reasonable doubt that the marginal correction of our English Bible (“by one offense") should be adopted, in preference to the text— “by one man's offense,” however weighty and from various sides the names which have espoused the latter. The Sinai Manuscript actually inserts ἀυθρώπου here, as we find in some minuscules also. But this is an unquestionable error. The point of the verse, as it appears to me, was to present the direction respectively, apart from the actual issues, whether on Adam's part or on Christ's. Hence the strikingly elliptic, as well as the broadly characteristic, form of verse 18. There is no need (as in the Authorized Version) to bring in κρίμα or χάρισμα from the parenthesis. If we understand ἐγένετο [it was], this suffices, though we may conform the phrase more to English ears by saying “the bearing was.” But it is more to maintain the idea of direction here by giving εἰς the force of “unto,” “for,” or “towards” rather than “upon,” which is more suited to convey the notion of the definitive effect or result. This, we shall see, it is the object of the following verse 19 to supply, and in contradistinction from verse 18. And as has been observed by another, this is confirmed by chapter iii. 22 where we have two classes distinguished—εἰς πάωτας, καὶ ἐπὶ πάντας τοὶς πιστεύοντας (easily merged into one δἰ ὁμοιοτέλευτον or the double occurrence of πάωτας, whereas it is hardly possible to conceive one clause enlarged into two). Here the distinctive force of εἰς and ἐπί is plain: the former gives the bearing of God's righteousness by faith of Jesus Christ “unto all” (and so the gospel is preached to every creature); the latter gives the result (and, as we know the gospel has its blessed effect “upon all those that believe,” and upon them only).
The meaning, then, I conceive to be that “as through one offense” all men were threatened with condemnation; so through one accomplished righteousness all had the door opened unto a justifying (not by blood alone, but) of life in Christ risen from the dead. But therein we see only the native tendency, on one side of Adam's act, and on the other of Christ's, without taking the modification of God's effectual grace or of man's persistent unbelief.
Accordingly, verse 19 is requisite to complete this part of the subject. “For as by one man's disobedience the many were constituted sinners, so by the obedience of the one shall the many be constituted righteous.” It is the final result which is here contemplated; and as this is certainly and necessarily limited to the household of faith, it would have been false to have said πάντας “all” in the last clause. For it is not a question in any of these verses of merely raising the dead just and unjust, as many divines in old and modern times have unintelligently imagined. For the vast majority of mankind, dying in unbelief, must rise for a resurrection of judgment, which is as far removed as it is possible for facts and words to make it from justification or justifying of life.
First the scope, and then the result of Adam's position and of Christ's are here set before us and explained by the Holy Spirit. As it is certain from Scripture that not all men but only such as are Christ's have life, eternal life, and are justified by faith, so in this verse, devoted to the presentation of the result, it was not possible to adopt a larger term, common to the two heads (the disobedient and the obedient), than “the many” or “the mass” (οἱ πόλλοι) identified with each. In point of fact the Adam party, according to nature and for some time, embraces the whole human race; and therefore in this way “the many” in the first clause of verse 19 may be said to answer to “all men” in verse 18. But this I must be forgiven for considering a superficial method of solving the question, and altogether unwarrantable as applied to both classes. The second οἰ πόλλοι is unequivocally and exclusively “the children” given to Christ and in no possible sense humanity as actually saved and recovered. They are not identical with the “all men” of the verse before; for there it was but the gracious aspect of the work of Christ, and therefore not (as some say) all men who receive and embrace its truth, but universal. Here it is the positive effect, and so restricted to those who believe (i. e., those who live before Christ, as the preceding οἰ πόλλοι derive their being from fallen Adam). There is no “total” in this verse, but “the [known] many” in relation to “the one” definite person who represented each his own company. It is not the same total in the two verses, nor is there any total expressed in the latter of them. As the ruin of Adam went to destroy all the race, so the work of Christ goes out for the blessing of all. As in fact the Adam mass were constituted sinners through his disobedience, so by Christ's obedience His own are constituted righteous. Here all is explicit result, and not character; and hence the article is used in Greek as pointedly as the preceding verse exhibited the anarthrous construction: in both cases with the utmost accuracy, and with a perfection altogether admirable, with which no writings of man can compare. Where the apostle speaks of “all men,” the aim is to show the tendency whether from the first man or from the Second; where he speaks of “the many,” the definitive effect is set before us.
Thus Calvinism and Arminianism are both at fault; and the truth conveyed is larger than the one and more definite than the other, refusing the fetters of human system, and yet exhibiting a precise as well as an infinite character, being the revealed truth of God.