Romans 5:19

For as through the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of one shall many be made righteous.

This is a restatement, for emphasis, of what Paul had just written; but as Thomas noted, there is a significant addition to the thought.

One point in the comparison is still incomplete. Adam's sin has not been contrasted with Christ's obedience, but with the cause of that obedience. ... It is now shown that these effects were wrought by means of Christ's obedience, the exact contrast of Adam's disobedience.[36]

Fittingly, in view of all that Paul had written, touching upon justification through the "obedience of faith," he brought dramatically to the foreground in this, the climax of his thoughts in that connection, the obedience of Jesus Christ. Implicit in this is the great fact that only by a perfect faith and a perfect obedience is it possible to attain justification in the sight of God; and how, then, may people have such perfect faith and obedience available to them unto justification? Only "in Christ," that is, by being dead to themselves, by forsaking utterly their old identity, and by perfect identification with Christ, being "in him," and thus being saved by his perfect faith and obedience, and not by their own. The greatest heresy of all ages is the proposition that a stinking sinner's faith can justify the sinner, either with or without obedience of the kind any man would be able to exhibit!

On this verse, R. L. Whiteside observed that,

"The many" here includes all that arrive at the years of responsibility. Paul does not say how these were made sinners by the disobedience of Adam, nor how they are to be made righteous by the obedience of Christ. It is pure assumption to argue that the disobedience of Adam is imputed to his offspring, or that the obedience of Christ is imputed to anybody. Neither guilt nor personal righteousness can be transferred from one person to another; but the consequences of either, to some extent, may fall upon others.[37]

What Whiteside observed regarding the fact that it is absolutely impossible to transfer righteousness from one person to another is profoundly true. It is not by transferring the righteousness of Christ into sinners that God justifies and saves the lost, but by transferring the sinners into Christ! The sinner dies to himself, effaces himself utterly, dies to sin, puts off the old man, and enters Christ, thus having a new identity "in Christ," with the consequence that the perfect faith and obedience of Christ, called Christ's righteousness, are thereupon his, actually his; for, in a very real sense, he IS CHRIST. Paul put it like this:

It is no longer I that live, but Christ liveth in me; and that life which I now live in the flesh I live in faith (not my own faith) which is in the Son of God (Galatians 2:20). (Parenthesis mine; italicized additions to text omitted).

For me to live is Christ (Philippians 1:21).

It should be noted, especially, that Paul avoided the construction of this verse in such a manner as to require its application to infants. The salvation of infants who die before attaining an age when they might either believe or obey the Lord does not come within the purview of Paul's teaching here, nor for that matter, of anything in the New Testament. The Lord did not see fit to enlighten people on how those dying in infancy are saved. Why? It was absolutely unnecessary. Human beings, however, are loathe to let a thing like that alone; and people have not hesitated to illuminate the void on this question with their own peculiar darkness. The following epitaph from St. Andrew's churchyard in Scotland is a case in point.

Bold infidelity, turn pale and die. Beneath this stone, four sleeping infants lie: Say, are they lost or saved? If death's by sin, they sinned, for they are here. If heaven's by works, in heaven they can't appear. Reason, ah, how depraved! Turn to the Bible's sacred page, the knot's untied: They died, for Adam sinned; they live, for Jesus died![38]

It has already been noted that Romans 5:19 is so constructed as to avoid its application to infants; but people have thrust that meaning into it anyway, and then have perverted it to teach, as in the epitaph, that people do not have to obey to be saved! Of course, every falsehood has feet of clay; and the unwritten words in the epitaph are that "If heaven's by faith, they still cannot appear"! But appear they will, of course. God has his own way of saving the innocent, and there is utterly no need to be concerned with it, for it has not been revealed in scripture.

[36] Griffith Thomas, op. cit., p. 158.

[37] Robertson L. Whiteside, A New Commentary on Paul's Letter to the Saints at Rome (Denton, Texas: Miss Inys Whiteside, 1945), p. 125.

[38] H. A. Ironside, op. cit., p. 77.