Romans 5:18

So then as through one trespass the judgment came unto all people to condemnation; even so through the act of righteousness the free gift came unto all men to justification of life.

The injection of no less than seven words into this verse by the translators to make Paul say what they thought he meant was altogether gratuitous. They do not clarify at all, but merely confuse. Stripping the verse of the italicized portions of it (which make up more that 20 percent of it), we have the following:

So then as through one trespass unto all men to condemnation; so through one act of righteousness unto all men to justification of life.

This is a terse way of saying that, just as through one act of Adam all people received condemnation, just so, through God's one righteous act (of sending Christ), came the justification of life. Of course, Christ is indeed God's free gift; but not the freedom of that gift, but its righteousness, is what Paul stated here.

This is the great proposition Paul began to state at Romans 5:12. Just as a single act of Adam resulted in universal death to all mankind (as applied to natural death only), so God's one righteous act of giving his only begotten Son, the second Adam, brought life to all people, physical life to all since he came, and eternal life to all who believe and obey him. (See under Romans 5:15).

What a righteous thing it was for God to provide a means to recover the lost inheritance of Paradise! As Ironside expressed it!

A life is offered as a free gift to all who are involved in the consequences of Adam's sin, which life is the eternal life manifested in the Son of God who once lay low in death under the sentence of condemnation, but arose in triumph, having abolished death, and now as Head of a new race, imparts his own resurrection life, a life with which no charge of sin can ever be linked, to all who believe in him.[34]

This is the "new creation" of which Paul frequently wrote.

Wherefore if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature: the old things are passed away; behold they are become new (2 Corinthians 5:17).

Let it be noted that the new life is specifically limited to them that are "in Christ." Someone has described Romans as "The Theology of Salvation in Christ"; and that is the phase of Paul's teaching that he was about to develop more fully in the next chapters.

The gift of God, which is Christ with all that he means, is here said to be "unto all." Are all therefore saved? Paul wrote Titus thus:

The grace of God hath appeared, bringing salvation to all men, instructing us to the intent that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly and righteously and godly in this present world (Titus 2:11,12).

Of course, the fact in view, both here and in Titus, is the availability of Salvation to all people, and this has no reference to their actually possessing it. An old minister was once asked a question as to why some are lost. The questioner asked,

"Why is it, since salvation has been brought to all people, that some are lost?"

The old minister replied,

"Why is it that, in spite of all the crystal streams of water that have been flowing down the ermine peaks of snow-clad mountains for thousands of years, there are still dirty people?"

Richard Batey has a wonderful exposition of HOW the act of Christ reversed the consequences of Adam's act of rebellion. He wrote:

Adam desired to be like God, knowing good and evil, and disobeyed God. In the desire to be like God, Adam transgressed the limits of his creaturely existence. ... On the other hand, Christ who did not count "equality with God a thing to be grasped" (Philippians 2:6), emptied himself and assumed the form of man the creature and servant.[35]

Pride always has been and always will be the great temptation of man. It was by pride that Satan himself fell; it is pride that goeth before destruction, that leads the procession of the deadly sins, and that sets up the barriers across every pathway, whether of thought or action, that leads to life.

[34] H. A. Ironside, op. cit., p. 75.

[35] Richard A. Batey, The Letter of Paul to the Romans (Austin, Texas: R. B. Sweet Company, 1969), p. 75.