Thus the doctrine of headship, and of a race or family depending on the head for evil or good, has been distinctly laid down; and Adam and Christ stand confronted as those respectively under whom all ultimately must be classed. This necessarily brought in a wholly different principle from the law which is necessarily individual in its character and claims from each under itself what he must do if he pretends to stand for himself before God. But the apostle does not close this part of the subject without a notice of the relative place of the law. Since he introduced the theme of sin, as distinguished from sins, in connection with the two heads, he had only alluded to the law negatively to show that sin is a deeper question than law, and, so far from depending on it, existed before it: only it is not put to account when no law exists.
Now we are told what was the true object of law. The Jew, and all Judaizers, at once assume that it could be for nothing else than righteousness. Alas! the blindness of man at his best estate where human thoughts prevail, and not the understanding of the revealed mind of God. But he is fallen; and fallen man thinks as highly of himself as meanly of Christ. Nothing but this can account for the perverse ingenuity with which, even in spite of the blessed light of the gospel, the truth as to this is eluded and opposed. What can be plainer than the inspired statement? “But law came in that the offense might abound.” One can see how it is that men dislike a sentence which annihilates their moral ground; but it is an astonishing proof of the deleterious effects of theology that Christian men can uphold their false systems of thought against such words of inspiration.
Every word is uttered with the greatest accuracy. Thus the apostle speaks of the legal state of things, and hence employs the word νόμος, “law,” here as in verse 13 without the article. It is clearly the Mosaic law that is in question; yet if it be, Middleton allows that the rejection of the article is not here authorized by any of the canons (i.e., of his own treatise). And this is true. The case is one which demonstrates the defectiveness of his theory. Even in verse 13 the preposition has nothing to do with the true solution; and his notion, though still followed by very many scholars, that the use or non-use of the article is a license after prepositions, is a total fallacy. It may call for more nicety of observation to account for cases with certain prepositions, but nothing more. The regular usage, with or without prepositions, is to present a phrase in the anarthrous form wherever a characteristic state is meant rather than a fact or an abstraction. So here it was the state of things when God gave His law through Moses to Israel which enters the discussion; and, hence, νόμος (not όν.) was the correct form. Again, the reasoning of Macknight is of no force; for it is not the point whether the Mosaic law was ushered into the world with pomp and notoriety, or privily. Not the historical fact, but the resulting state is here meant. Further, there is no need to take παρεισῆλθεν as necessarily implying an entrance by stealth or privily. The true idea appears to be that the legal state came in by the by. It was neither the original state, in which man was made, nor is it the final condition to which he is destined. It came in not directly, but ancillarily, for a special though subordinate purpose, between the entrance of sin and the coming of the Savior. Hence law in the abstract is uncalled for, even if the phrase would admit of it. But this is carefully excluded, quite as much as giving prominence to the objective historical fact, which also would be out of place.
But law, the legal state, came in by the way in order that the offense might abound. The sense is not that sin might abound: God is in no way or degree its author. Sin, as had been already shown, was in the world, quite independently of law and before it was given by Moses. But law came in, that the offense might abound; that, sin being already there, its evil might be made manifest and horrible by taking the shape of open contempt of God's known authority. This was worthy of God and wholesome for man. And such was the object and issue of the legal state. Sin, I repeat, was not created by it; but it was provoked by the restraint put on its gratification: the very presence of God's revealed claim on man's conscience made the offense to abound. The evil of man was there and at work; and the expression and authoritative demand of his duty only drew out unmistakably what was at work. Self-will only the more chafes, the more it is subjected to an authority which opposes its every desire. But this is the truth of man's moral state; and it is good, as far as it goes, that he should know the truth about himself.
There is no reason therefore to escape from the plain and certain meaning of these inspired words. Chrysostom was wrong in this, and has misled thousands. He denied that the apostle spoke of intention or aim, but only of result, and fell into the error of saying that the law was given, not that the offense might abound, but to diminish and take it away. This was to contradict the apostle, not to expound him.
So, again, Macknight asks if one can imagine that no offense abounded in the world which could be punished with death till the law of Moses was promulgated? and that grace did not superabound till the offense against the law abounded? He therefore argues for “the law of Nature,” which silently entered the moment Adam and Eve were reprieved. What can be more distressing than this confusion?
It must be evident to him who believes the word of God, and understands His dealings ever so little, that between the fall and the promulgation of the law at Sinai was precisely the time when men were left to prove what flesh is without the restraint of law; that then Israel became the proof that a legal state did not in itself mend matters, but caused the offense to abound. So the apostle instructs us in this chapter, the truth of which is otherwise apparent in the facts of the Old Testament and the condition of Israel.
“But where sin abounded, grace far exceeded; that, as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord.”
Here too it is impossible to conceive language more apposite or precise. The apostle does not say, it will be noticed, where “the offense” abounded; for this would limit the sphere to the area of the legal state. All that wherein a Jew boasted was the causing the offense to abound. What a withering of pride without an exaggeration or an effort! But grace went out in its triumph far beyond that narrow bound of law; it went out into the world where, sinful man lay, not to Israel only. “Where sin abounded, grace far exceeded.” And grace too had its characteristic purpose, or God rather by it. What was this? “That as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord.” Here if anywhere is an aim and issue which do honor even to God and His Son. In presence of such a gospel we are not ashamed, but boast. To boast of law is to boast of what condemns and kills, for it makes the offense to abound. Of grace we may and ought to boast. God delights in it. It came, as did truth, by Christ Jesus who is full of both. And specially may we boast, that grace reigned. Had law reigned, what must have been our just doom! But grace reigns (not without but) through righteousness; for the work of redemption is done, and God justifies in consequence according to His sense of its worth. Thus it is not more surely a fountain of grace than a righteous ground and channel. And hence the issue is according to God; it is eternal life, and this through Jesus Christ our Lord. He is risen from the dead, and gives life more abundantly. All is thus as secure as it is perfect. God is glorified as He should be; and this, as it ought to be, through the only One, even Jesus, who has retrieved all and turned by His death and resurrection even sin itself into an occasion of such a glorifying of God, and such a blessing of the believer, as could never else have been. These are the ways, and this the victory, of grace through our Lord Jesus.