Romans 5:21

That as sin reigned in death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Sin is personified in this verse and represented as a heartless and cruel monarch ruling pitilessly over his victims in death, meaning that sin brings death to all that are contaminated by it. Whiteside believed that "death" here is a reference to "spiritual death" only;[44] but Lard took a more comprehensive view, declaring that,

It would be quite as correct, I presume, to speak of sin reigning in the punishment after death of the finally impenitent, as of its reigning in death now. Sin reigns in all the evil that it has entailed upon man, whether time or eternity be in view. ... On the contrary, grace is here personified as a benignant king, whose reign is only partial now; but whose victory is sure in the end. Release from sin is the means or scepter through which favor is to achieve its final victory. This blessed reign is to go on, and never cease, until its consummation in eternal life "through Jesus Christ our Lord."[45]

Therefore, Paul had truly vindicated the righteousness of God in the vigorous arguments presented in this chapter. The first eleven verses showed the righteousness of God in the use of human sorrows and heartaches as disciplines leading to ultimate glory, and not to be understood as evidences of God's indifference; and in the remaining verses, he showed that the disastrous consequences of Adam's transgression had been more than offset by a righteous act of God himself through the giving of the Beloved for man's redemption, the latter action of God not merely counterbalancing Adam's disastrous behavior, but transcending it to infinity.

[44] R. L. Whiteside, op. cit., p. 127.

[45] Moses E. Lard, op. cit., p. 192.