Verses 12-21
SECOND DIVISION
SIN AND GRACE IN THEIR SECOND ANTITHESIS (AS IN THEIR SECOND POTENCY): ACCORDING TO THEIR NATURAL EFFECTS IN HUMAN NATURE, AND IN NATURE IN GENERAL. THE SINFUL CORRUPTION OF THE WORLD, PROCEEDING FROM ADAM, AND INHERITED IN COMMON BY ALL MEN, AND THE LIFE OF CHRIST AS THE INWARD LIVING PRINCIPLE OF THE NEW BIRTH TO NEW LIFE IN INDIVIDUAL BELIEVERS, IN ALL MANKIND, AND IN THE WHOLE CREATED WORLD. (THE PRINCIPLE OF DEATH IN SIN, AND THE PRINCIPLE OF THE NEW LIFE; AS WELL AS THE GLORIFICATION OF THE NEW LIFE, AND OF ALL NATURE, IN RIGHTEOUSNESS.)
s Romans 5:12 to Romans 8:39
First Section.—Adam’s sin as the powerful principle of death, and God’s grace in Christ as the more powerful principle of the new life, in the nature of individual men, and in mankind collectively. The law as the direct medium of the complete manifestation of sin for the indirect mediation of the completed and glorious revelation of grace.
12Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death35 passed upon all men, for that [ἐφ̓ ᾧ, i.e., on the ground that, because] 13all have [omithave] sinned: ([omit parenthesis]36 For until the law sin was in the world: but sin is not imputed when there is no law [where the law is not]. 14Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned [those that sinned not]37 after the similitude [likeness] of Adam’s transgression, who is the figure [a type] of him that was to come [the coming one, i.e., the second Adam]. 15But not as the offence [fall, transgression],38 so also is the free gift: for if through the offence [transgression] of [the] one [the] many be dead [died], much more [did]39 the grace of God, and the gift by grace, which is by one man [the gift by the grace of the one man], Jesus Christ, hath abounded [abound] unto [the] many. 16And not as it was [omitit was] by [the] one that sinned,40 so [omit so] is the gift: for the judgment was [came] by [ἐξ, of] one (fall) to condemnation, but the free gift is [came] of many offences [falls, transgressions] unto justification [δικαίωμα, sentence of acquittal, righteous decree, or, righteous act]. 17For if by one man’s offence [by one transgression, or, by the transgression of the one]41 death reigned by [through the] one; much more they which [who] receive [the] abundance of [the] grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by [the] one, Jesus Christ.) 18[omit parenthesis.] Therefore, as by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life [So then, as through the transgression of one, or, one transgression, it came upon all men to condemnation; so also through the δικαιώματος, righteous act of one, or, one righteous act, it came upon all men unto justification of life].42 19For as by one man’s disobedience [through the disobedience of the one man] [the] many were made [constituted]43 sinners, so [also, οὕτως καί] by the obedience of [the] one shall [the] many be made [constituted] righteous. 20Moreover the law entered [came in besides],44 that the offence [transgression] might abound [multiply]. But where sin abounded [multiplied], grace did much more [exceedingly]45 abound: 21That as sin hath [omit hath] reigned unto [ἐν, in] death, even so [so also] might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by [through] Jesus Christ our Lord.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
[Special Literature on Romans 5:12-21.—S. J. Baumgarten, De imputatione peccati Adamitici posteris facta, 1742. S. Schott, Opuscula, i. p. 313 sqq. C. F. Schmid, Ueber Röm. Romans 5:12 ff., in the Tübing. Zeitschrift for 1830, No. IV. p. 161 ff. (A very able and sound discussion. Comp. the same author’s Bibl. Theologie des N. T., vol. ii. pp. 256–262.) Rich. Rothe (died 1868), Neuer Versuch einer Auslegung der Paulin. Stelle Röm. Romans 5:12-21, Wittenberg, 1836. (A masterpiece of exegetical acuteness and finesse.) I. Chr. K. v. Hofmann, Der Schriftbeweis, 2d ed., Nördlingen, 1857, vol. i. pp. 524–541. Jul. Müller, Christl. Lehre von der Sünde, vol. ii. p. 407 ff., 472 ff., 3d Germ. ed., 1849. H. Ewald, Adam und Christus, Röm. Romans 5:12-21, in his Jahrbücher für bibl. Wissenschaft, ii. p. 166 ff. Timothy Dwight (of Yale College), Princeton Exegesis. A Review of Dr. Hodge’s Commentary on Romans 5:12-19, in the New Englander for July, 1868, pp. 551–603. (Polemical against Hodge). A. Stölting, Beiträge zur Exegese der Paulin. Briefe, Gött., 1869, pp. 1–42. Reiche, Olshausen, Tholuck, Stuart, Hodge, and Forbes, are most full, though widely divergent, in the exposition of this passage, which many regard as the most difficult in the whole Bible.—P. S.]
[Introductory Remarks.—This section is difficult in proportion to its depth, grandeur, and world-historical comprehensiveness. Only a mind of the very highest order—to say nothing of inspiration—could conceive such vast thoughts, and compress them within so few words. The beginning, the middle, and the end of history, are here brought together in their representative moral powers and principles. Paul deals with religious truths and facts, which are much broader and deeper than the afterthoughts of our logic and theology, and cannot be squeezed into the narrow limits of particular schools and schemes. The exegesis of this part of the Romans began in earnest with Augustine, in his contest with the Pelagian heresy; it was resumed in the Reformation period, and carried further, philologically and doctrinally, in the present century, but is by no means exhausted, and puts exegetical skill again and again to the severest test. Every line bears the marks of theological controversy about original sin, free agency, imputation, limited atonement, universal salvation, and other questions which will occupy the human mind to the end of the world. The section is not a mere episode, but a progress in the argument from the doctrine of justification to the broader doctrine of a life-union of the believer with Christ, which prepares the way for the doctrine of sanctification, in chap. 6., and glorification, in chap. viii. Like a skilful physician, the Apostle goes not only to the root and fountain-head of the evil,46 but also to the root and fountain head of the cure. In bold antithetical contrasts, and on the basis of a vital, organic union of humanity, both in the order of fallen nature and the order of redeeming grace, he presents the history of the fall by the first, and the redemption by the second Adam. Adam and Christ are the two representative heads of the whole race, the one the natural, the other the supernatural: from the one, the power of sin and the power of death have proceeded upon all men through their participation in his fall; from the other, righteousness and life have come upon all on condition of faith, or a living apprehension of Christ. But the gain by the redemption greatly surpasses the loss by the fall. The main stress lies on the idea of life in its progress from Christ to the believer. The same parallelism between the first and second Adam, but with exclusive reference to the contrast of death and the resurrection, occurs in 1 Corinthians 15:21-22; 1 Corinthians 15:45-48, which should be kept in view. It is impossible to understand this section from the standpoint of a mechanical and atomistic conception of humanity and of sin, such as Pelagianism and cognate systems maintain. On the surface, all things appear separate and isolated; in the hidden roots, they are united. It is characteristic of all deep thinking, to go back to principles and general ideas. Paul evidently views the human race as an organic unit. Adam and Christ sustain to it a central and universal relation, similar to that which the fountain sustains to the river, or the root to the tree and its branches. Adam was not merely an individual, but the natural head of the human family, and his transgression was not an isolated act, but affected the whole race which sprung from his loins; just as the character of the tree will determine the character of its branches and fruits. So it is with Christ. He calls himself emphatically the (not a) Son of Man, the universal, normal, absolute Man, the representative head of regenerate humanity, which is from heaven, heavenly, as Adam’s fallen humanity is “of the earth, earthy” (1 Corinthians 15:47-48). Both were tried and tempted by the devil, the one in the garden of innocence, the other in the desert; but the one succumbed, and dragged his posterity into the ruin of the fall; while the other conquered, and became the author of righteousness and life to all who embrace Him. Christ has gained far more for us than Adam lost—namely, eternal reunion with God, in the place of the temporary union of untried innocence. The resurrection of humanity in Christ is the glorious solution of the dark tragedy of the disastrous fall of humanity in Adam. In view of the greater merit of Christ and the paradise in heaven, we may reverently and thankfully rejoice in the guilt of Adam and the loss of his paradise on earth—always, of course, detesting the blasphemous maxim: Let us do evil, that good may come. It is God’s infinite wisdom and mercy alone which overrule the wrath of man for His own glory.—P. S.]
Meyer inscribes this section: The drawing of a parallel between salvation in Christ and the ruin produced by Adam. But this does not do justice to the context of the section. Tholuck adopts Bengel’s view: “Respicit totam tractationem superiorem, ex qua hœc infert apostolus, non tam digressionem faciens quam regressum de peccato et de justitia.” [Bengel continues: ”In imitation of Paul’s method, we should treat first of actual sin (chaps. Romans 1:3.), and then go back to the source in which sin originated.” Philippi also regards this section as a comparative or contrastive retrospect and comprehensive conclusion; De Wette and Rothe as an episode.—P. S.] We differ from all these, and refer to our division of the Epistle, and to the superscription here.
1. The principle of sin and death become immanent (hereditary) in humanity (Romans 5:12-14).
2. The opposing principle of the gift of grace and of the new life made immanent (spiritually hereditary) in humanity (Romans 5:15-19).
3. The coöperation of the law for the finished revelation of sin and for the communication of the finished revelation of the grace of justification (Romans 5:20-21).
1. Arrangement of the first paragraph, Romans 5:12-14.
(a.) Sin and death, proceeding from Adam’s παράβασις upon all, under the form of an ethical appropriation by all (Romans 5:12).
(b.) Death as revealer of the improperly apprehended sin, from Adam to Moses, or to the law (not by the law, Romans 5:13-14).
2. The second paragraph, Romans 5:15-19.
(a.) The actually manifested contrast in the effects of the two principles, (aa.) The contrast between the natural and actual effects, according to their quantitative extension to persons; or the contrast in its personal relation (Romans 5:15). (bb.) The contrast between the positive effects, according to the qualitative intensity of judgment and justification; or, the contrast in its essential relation (Romans 5:16).
(b). The contrast in the potential and prospective effects of the two principles. (aa.) The contrast between the enslavemment of all personal life by impersonal (merely personified) death, and the future glory of the pardoned, immortal, and reigning personalities in the new life (Romans 5:17, at the same time a proof for Romans 5:16). (bb.) The contrast in all its ideal magnitude: One condemnation came upon all men, because of the power of the fall of one man; so, by the righteousness of one, can all men attain to the justification of life (that is, not merely of faith, Romans 5:18).
(c.) The contrast in the final effects disclosed by the gospel. By the effect of one man’s disobedience, the many are represented in the light of the gospel as sinners exposed to the judgment; finally, by the obedience of one, the many are to be represented as righteous in the judgment (Romans 5:19).
3. Third paragraph, Romans 5:20-21.
The law is designed to effect directly the developing process of sin to historical completion, in order to effect indirectly that revelation of grace which far preponderates over the development of sin (Romans 5:20-21).
First Paragraph (Romans 5:12-14)
The principle of sin and death in humanity
Romans 5:12. Wherefore [Διὰτοῦτο]. Rückert, Köllner [Tholuck, Reiche, Stuart], &c., refer διὰ τοῦτο to the entire discussion from Rom 1:17;47 Rothe, to the previous section, Romans 5:1-11, which he claims to treat of holiness; Tholuck, to Romans 5:11; Romans 5:10; Romans 5:9, &c.; Meyer, to Romans 5:11 alone.48 We refer it merely to ἐλάβομεν in the previous verse. The verb λαμβάνειν does not denote, in the New Testament, a passive reception, but an ethical, religious, and moral appropriation; for example, John 1:12. And this is here the point of comparison between Romans 5:11-12.
Because this point has been overlooked, an incredible amount of vexation has been produced in reference to the presumed anacoluthon, or ἀνανταπόδοτον [an incomplete sentence, a protasis without an apodosis]. Conjectures [concerning the construction or the apodosis corresponding to ὥσπερ, like as]:
1. According to Calvin, Tholuck, Philippi, and others, the conclusion is indicated in the words ὅς ἐστι τύπος τοῦ μέλλοντος, Romans 5:14. [Meyer also regards the clause: ”who is a type of the future (Adam),” as a substitute for the apodosis, which was swept away by the current of ideas in Romans 5:13-14.—P. S.]
2. According to Rückert, Fritzsche, and De Wette [?], Paul dropped the comparison between Adam and Christ after enumerating the points of analogy, because their dissimilarity occurred to his mind (Romans 5:15). De Wette translates Romans 5:12 : Therefore (is it) as by one man, &c. According to Origen, Bengel [Rothe], and others, the Apostle designedly suppresses the conclusion. [Bengel says simply: ”Apodosis, variata oratione, latet in seq.,” is concealed in what follows. But Rothe holds that Paul designedly omitted the apodosis, to prevent the illegitimate doctrinal inference of a universal salvation. See below.—P. S.]
3. According to Grotius, [E. V., Stuart, Barnes, Hodge], &c., Romans 5:13-17 are parenthetical; and the conclusion follows in Romans 5:18. [Against this construction may be urged, with Meyer, the unexampled length and importance of the supposed parenthesis, and that Romans 5:18 is not so much a reassumption as a recapitulation.—P. S.]
4. According to Clericus, Wolf, and others, the conclusion is already in Romans 5:12, and begins with καὶ οὕτως [as if this could be synonymous with οὕτω καί, so also, which is impossible.—P. S.]; according to Erasmus, Beza, and others, it begins with καὶ διά [which makes διὰ τοῦτο superfluous, and sets aside the comparison between Adam and Christ.—P. S.]
5. The proper view is the one defended by Koppe, in harmony with [Cocceius] Elsner, and others. The apodosis begins as a comparative statement with ἕσπερ, since ἐλάβομεν καταλλαγὴν δἰ αὐτοῦ is brought over from Romans 5:11. [In other words, ὥσπερ introduces the second member of the comparison, while the first must be supplied from Romans 5:11 in this way: Therefore (we received and appropriated the reconciliation through Christ in the same manner) as by one man sin entered into the world, &c.—P. S.]49 Tholuck remarks, that then we do not know exactly what to do with the comparison.50 But the comparison is contained in the already indicated conception of the ethical appropriation of the principle of the reconciliation on one hand, as of the principle of sin and death on the other. The antithesis, more fully extended, is the following: Διὰ τοῦτο ἐλάβυμεν τὴν καταλλαγὴν, ἐφ̓ ὧ πεπιστεύκαμεν—ὥσπερδἰ ἑνὸς , καὶ οὕτως ὁ θάνατος εἰς πάντας , ἐψὧ πάντες ἥμαρτον. It is very plain that, without the conception of λαμβάνειν, the whole of the following antitheses would appear as a series of blind natural necessities; see Book of Wis 1:16; Wis 2:24, and the explanation of ἐψ̓ ὧ, which follows below. Rothe thinks that the Apostle’s supposed anacoluthon was even premeditated—according to the idea of Origen—in order to conceal the doctrine of the apocatastasis which might be deduced from the protasis. See thereon Tholuck, p. 215.
[I cannot bring my mind to adopt Dr. Lange’s construction, which evades a grammatical difficulty only to give room for a more serious logical one, and mars the beauty and completeness of the analogy. It seems to me that the most natural solution of the difficulty is either (1) to take ὥσπερ elliptically: ”This is therefore like the case when;” comp. Matthew 25:14 : ὥσπερ γὰρ ἄνθρωπος, as a man going abroad, where ὥσπερ neither has, nor necessarily requires, a corresponding οὕτως (see Textual Note in the Amer. edition of Lange on Matthew, p. 442); Galatians 3:6; 1 Timothy 1:3, where καθώς, and Mark 13:34, where ὡς is used elliptically; or (2) to assume an intentional anacoluthon (comp. Winer, Gramm., p. 527 ff., on the two kinds of anacolutha, involuntary and intentional). I prefer the latter solution. The complete antithesis would read thus: ”As (ὥσπερ) by one man (Adam) sin (ἡ ἁμαρτία) entered into the world, and death (ὁ θανατος) through sin, and thus death extended (διῆλθεν) to all men, inasmuch as all sinned (ἥμαρτον): so also (οὕτωζκαί) by one man, Jesus Christ, righteousness (ἡ δικαιοσύνη) entered into the world, and life (ἡ ζωή) through righteousness, and thus life shall extend (διελεύσεται) to all men, inasmuch as (on condition that) all shall believe (πιστεύσονται).” We might also supply, after the second ”righteousness”: ”in order that all, being justified by faith, may be saved.” Rothe (p. 61) supplies as the last clause of the apodosis: ἐψ̓ ὧ πάντες δίκαιοι κατασταθήσονται; Philippi: ἐψ̓ ὧ πάντες δίκαιωθγ́σονται. But these are unessential differences. The great points of comparison are: (1) Sin and death, as a principle and power, proceeding from Adam; righteousness and life, as a counteracting and conquering principle and power, proceeding from Christ, upon the whole human race. (2) Death passing upon all men by participation in the sin of Adam; life passing upon all men by participation in the righteousness of Christ. But the analogy is not absolute; for (1) the participation in Adam’s sin is universal in fact, while the participation in the righteousness of Christ, though this righteousness is equally universal in power and intention, is limited in fact to believers; in other words, all are sinners, but not all are believers; all men are one with Adam, but not all are one with Christ (hence the past tense κατεστάθησαν in the case of the ἁμαρτωλοί, but the future κατασταθήσονται in the case of the δίκαιοι, Romans 5:19). (2) What Christ gained for us is far greater (πολλῶ μᾶλλον ἐπερίσσευσεν, Romans 5:15, comp. τὴν περισσείαν τῆς κάριτος, Romans 5:17, and ὑπερεπερίσσευσεν ἡ κάρις, Romans 5:20) than what was lost by Adam. Paul, therefore, in the rush of ideas suggested by the parallel, intentionally suspends the apodosis, to make first some explanatory and qualifying statements in regard to the difference in the mode, extent, and quality of the effects proceeding respectively from Adam and Christ, and then, after hinting at the second member of the comparison, at the close of Romans 5:14, he brings out the double parallel of similarity and dissimilarity in full as a conclusion, Romans 5:18-19; Romans 5:21. The whole section, as Meyer justly remarks, bears the impress of the most studied and acute premeditation; and this must apply also to the apparent grammatical irregularity in the absence of the apodosis. The Apostle might have spared the commentators a great deal of trouble, if he had, according to the ordinary rules of composition, first stated the comparison in full, and then given the explanations and qualifications; but such grammatical difficulties in the Scriptures are generally overruled for a profounder investigation and elucidaton of the sense.—P. S.]
As by one man [ὥζπερ δι’ ἑνὸς , ”by one man, single and singular in his position, and so presented as the ρύπος τοῦ μέλλοντος, the type of the one greater man;” Webster and Wilkinson.—P. S.] Not by his guilt (Meyer) [δἰἑνὸς ἁμαρτήσαντος, Romans 5:16], which would by no means suit the antithesis: Christ. But rather by one man, as the human principle, as the historical cause.51 The one man is Adam, as representative of the first human pair in their unity. The sin of Eve (Sir 25:24; 2 Corinthians 11:3; 1 Timothy 2:14) did not fully decide concerning the future of the human race, because Adam was the head. It was with his sin that the sin of Eve was consummated as the guilt of the first man [and acquired its full power over posterity]. Therefore Adam is meant as the head, as the principle, and not merely with regard to propagation. [Webster and Wilkinson: ”Adam, not Eve, is charged with the primal sin, as he received the command direct from God, and his sin was without excuse. Here, only the guilt of the transgression is in view; in 2 Corinthians 11:3; 1 Timothy 2:14, the mode, instrument, and process.” Bengel assigns three reasons for the omission of Eve: (1) Adam had received the commandment; (2) He was not only the head of his race, but also of Eve; (3) if Adam had not obeyed his wife, one only would have sinned. The omission of the mention of Satan, the primary cause of sin (comp. Gen. iii.; John 8:44; 2 Corinthians 11:3), he accounts for because (1) Satan is opposed to God, Adam to Christ, whose economy of grace is here described; (2) Satan has nothing to do with the grace of Christ. It should be remembered, also, as Forbes remarks, that in Genesis the very name of Adam, with the article prefixed (חָאָדָם, the Adam, the man), is treated as an appellative more than as a proper name, and that, in Genesis 1:27, it includes generically both sexes: ”So God created Adam (in Hebrew) in his own image, in the image of God created he him: male and female created he them;” comp. Genesis 5:1-2. It was man, or human nature which we have in common with him, that was put on trial in Adam. Paul draws a parallel between Adam and Christ, but never between Eve and Mary. The latter analogy is an unjustifiable inference, first hinted at by Irenæus, and more fully developed by Roman Catholic divines, and became a fruitful source of Mariolatry, which virtually makes the human mother of Christ the fountain of the Christian salvation.—P. S.]
Sin. [ἡ ἁμαρτία. The definite article before ἁμαρτία, and also before θάνατος, denotes sin and death as a power or principle which controls man and reveals itself in hereditary corruption, and in every form of actual sin. So ἡ δικαιοσύν̓η, which corresponds to it as its opposite, Romans 5:17; Romans 5:21, is not a single righteous act, but the power of good as a state and as a working principle. Sin is personified as a fearful tyrant, who acquired universal dominion over the human race; he ”reigns in death,” Romans 5:21; ”works death in us,” Romans 7:13; ”lords it over us,” Romans 6:14; ”works all manner of concupiscence,” Romans 7:8; ”deceives and slays” the sinner, Romans 7:11, &c. In all these cases the force of the definite article can be rendered in German, but in English, on the contrary, the absence of the article has the force of generalizing, not so much, its far as I know, from any rule of grammar, as from usage, and perhaps for euphony’s sake.—P. S.] In what sense? Explanations: 1. Original sin, or natural depravity (Augustine, Calvin); 2. Sinfulness [Sündhaftigkeit, habitus peccandi], (Koppe, Olshausen [also Webster and Wilkinson: sinfulness personified; a sinful disposition, our sinful nature; Romans 6:12; Romans 6:14]); 3. Actual sin (Limborch, Fritzsche); 4. Sin as a ruling power (Meyer [De Wette], Tholuck), or better as a principle (Rothe). Philippi, on the contrary, understands sin as the unity of propensity and deed, as also Aret., Schmid, J. Müller. But sin, as an individual deed, is expressed by ἐφ̓ ὧ,, &c. It is therefore the principial or fundamental power (die principielle Macht) of sin as the mother of death (James 1:15). [The Apostle very carefully, throughout this whole section, distinguishes between ἁμαρτία, as the generic idea, and παράβασις and παράπτωμα, as a concrete act, the transgression of a law; compare Romans 5:12-13; Romans 5:20-21, with 15, 16, 17, 18. By the παράπτωμα of Adam the ἁμαρτία entered into the human world, and this ἁμαρτια again became the fruitful mother of the innumerable παραπτώματα of his descendants.—P. S.]
Entered into the world. [εἰς τὸμ κόσμονεἰσῆλθεν; comp. the Book of Wisdom ii. .24 (in explanation of Gen. iii.): φθόνω διβόλου θάνατος εἰσῆλθεν εἰς τὸν κόσμον. Sin εἰζῆλοωε, came in; death διῆλθε, passed through; the Mosaic law παρειζῆλθε (Romans 5:20), came in by the side, or between.] Limborch: a popular personification. On the excessive personification of sin and death in Fritzsche, see Tholuck, p. 219.—Into the world. Not merely into the human world (Meyer), or into human nature (Rothe), but as ruin and destructive power in the whole sphere of humanity in general (see Romans 8:20). It is plain that the human sphere of the world alone is assumed here (according to Abelard: in hanc partem mundi sc. terrenam, in qua homines habitant), as Tholuck remarks, from the fact that, ”according to the Apostle’s conviction, evil was already in existence in another world.” [Comp. 1 Corinthians 11:3; Gen. iii.; Book of Wis 2:24; John 8:44.—P. S.] The expression indicates not only the tendency to sin and death in human nature (Rothe), but also the propagation of sin (Augustine); because the κόσμος is a conjunction of things, and means an organic connection. The words διῆλθεν and ἐφ̓ ὧ refer to the individual and ethical appropriation of sin which is in the κόσμος since Adam’s fall.
Death (namely, entered into the world). Explanations: 1. Physical death (Chrysostom, Augustine, Calov., Meyer. Reference to Genesis 2:17; Genesis 3:19);52 2. Spiritual death (Pelagius); 3. Physical, spiritual, and eternal death; or the collected evil result of sin (Olshausen, De Wette, Tholuck [Philippi, Schmid, Jon. Edwards, Alford, Stuart, Hodge]). This is no doubt correct, for physical death in itself has no biblical and ethical significance (see Romans 8:6; 1 Corinthians 15:56; James 1:15).
[The Bible uniformly connects sin and death as cause and effect; comp. Genesis 2:17; Ezekiel 18:4 (”The soul that sinneth, it shall die”); Jeremiah 31:30; Jeremiah 6:16; Jeremiah 6:21; Jeremiah 6:24; Romans 7:10; Romans 8:13; James 1:15, &c. ”Jeder Sündenfall,” says Dr. Nitzsch, ”ist ein Todesfall, und jeder Fortschritt in der Sünde ein neues Sterben.” Without sin, there would be neither spiritual nor physical death. This was symbolically intimated by the tree of life in paradise, of which fallen man was forbidden to eat, ”lest he live for ever.” Adam, if he had not sinned, might have passed to higher forms of life, but without a violent separation of body and soul, without being ”unclothed,” but by being ”clothed upon” (2 Corinthians 5:2-4), or, in the beautiful figure of the Rabbins, ”by a kiss of the Almighty.” Death and life are very deep and comprehensive terms in the Scriptures, and the connection must decide whether all, or which of the meanings are exclusively or prominently kept in view. There are three kinds of death: (1) The death of the soul (1 John 3:14; comp. Matthew 8:22; Ephesians 2:1), which is properly the first and immediate effect of sin, since sin is a separation of the soul from God, the fountain of life; (2) The death of the body (Romans 5:10; Matthew 20:18; Matthew 26:66; John 11:4; John 11:13; Acts 13:28; Philippians 1:20; Philippians 2:8), which is the culmination and end of all physical malady and evil in this world; (3) the eternal death of soul and body (Romans 1:32; 2 Corinthians 3:16; 2 Corinthians 7:10; James 5:20; 1 John 5:16), which is also called the second death, ὁ θάνατος ὁ δεύτερος (in the Revelation 2:11; Revelation 20:6; Revelation 20:14; Revelation 21:8). In our passage (as also Romans 7:21; Romans 7:23; Romans 7:5; 2 Timothy 1:10), ὁ θάνατος is as comprehensive as ἡ ἁμαρτία, its cause, and as ἡ ζωή, its opposite. It embraces all physical and moral evil, as the penal consequence of sin; it is death temporal and spiritual, viewed as, one united power and principle ruling over the human race. That the Apostle meant physical death, is clear from Romans 5:14, and from his unmistakable reference to Genesis 2:17; Genesis 3:3; Genesis 3:19; while from Romans 5:17-18; Romans 5:21, we may infer that he had also in mind spiritual and eternal death, as the contrast to eternal life, ζωὴ αἰώνιος, in which the Scripture idea of life culminates, as the idea of death culminates in eternal damnation. Ewald has an excellent note on this passage (Die Sendschreiben des Ap. Paulus, p. 373): ”Paul knew that, notwithstanding the words Genesis 2:17, Adam did not literally die immediately after his sin; consequently he must mean by death that entire inner corruption (jenes ganze innere Verderben) by which even the physical death only becomes true death; just as, on the other hand, he ascribes true life to the genuine Christians even now before the resurrection of the body. All this is so well founded in his constant use of language, that it needs no explanation.” Comp. also the remarks of Philippi in loc., and Cremer, Bibl. Theol. Wörterbuch, sub θάνατος, p. Rom 232: ”Daher ist Tod zusammenfassender Ausdruch für die gesammte gerichtliche Consequenz der Sünde, Romans 5:12; Romans 5:14; Romans 5:17; Romans 5:21; Romans 6:16; James 5:20, in welchem alles durch die Sünde bedingte Uebel sich concentrirt, synon. Verderben, ἀπώλεια.”—P. S.]
And so (death) passed upon all men. The second θάνατος was left out probably because διῆλθεμ would be referred equally to sin and death. But both are comprehended in the θάνατος in its spiritual character. The διέρκεσθαι denotes the extension, the universal progress; though a germ-like development is not contained in the word, but in the thing itself. [οὕτως (demzufolge, dergestalt, consequently) connects the universal reign of death, chronologically and logically, with the universal reign of sin, as its preceding cause. Some make καὶοὕτως, and thus, equivalent, by transposition, to οὕτω καί, so also, and regard this as the apodosis of the first clause of the twelfth verse; but this is entirely ungrammatical, and inconsistent with the main object of this section, which is to draw a parallel, not between Adam and his posterity, or sin and death, but between Adam and Christ.—εἰς πάντας , upon, all men, is equivalent to the preceding κόσμος, but differs from it ”as the concrete parts from the abstract whole; and διέρκεσθαι differs from εἰζέρκεσθαι as the going from house to house differs from entering a town;” De Wette. Luther well translates διῆλθεν: ist durchgedrungen, passed through and pervaded, as a destructive and desolating power.—P. S.]
In such a manner that [solcherweise dass, or, on the ground that; better: inasmuch as]. ἐφ̓ ᾧ (=ἐφ̓ οἷς) is as much as ἐπὶ τούτω ὅτι. It can therefore mean here: on the ground that; διότι, propter ea quod (Meyer); under the supposition that (Baur); on condition that (Rothe); in conformity with it, that. Tholuck [p. 234] favors the meaning because, with reference to 2 Corinthians 5:4; Philippians 3:12; yet he makes the because relative, and translates, so far as they all.
[It is almost unanimously agreed now, that ἐφ̓ὧ, for which the Greeks generally use the plural, ἐφ̓ (propter ea quod), has here the sense of a conjunction, and that ὧ is the neuter, not the masculine to be referred back either to εἷς ἅνθρωπος (with Augustine, some Roman Catholics, older Lutherans and Calvinists), or to θάνατος (with Glöckler, Hofmann). It can mean neither in quo, ἐν ὧ (Augustine), nor per quem, δἰ οὗ (Grotius), nor propter quem or cum quo, δἰ ὅν or σῦν ὧ (Chrysostom, Theophylact, (Œcumenius, Elsner). But it must be resolved either into ἐπὶ τούτω ὥστε, ea conditions ut, ea ratione ut, unter der Voraussetzung, unter der näheren Bestimmtheit dass, on the presupposition, on the definite ground that, on condition that (so Rothe, in a learned and subtle discussion, 1. c. pp. 17–38, and Schmid, Bibl. Theol. des N . T., 2:260 f.); or into ἐπὶ τούτω ὅτι = διότι (Thomas Magister and Phavorinus: ἐφ ὧ, ἀντὶ τοῦ διότι), propter id quod, auf Grund dessen dass, darum dass, weil, on this account that, because; comp. 2 Corinthians 5:4; Philippians 3:12, and classical passages quoted by Meyer, p. 204 f. (so Fritzsche, Rom. 1. 299 sq., Meyer, Tholuck, Philippi, Winer, Gramm., p. 368, who are followed, without further discussion, by Alford, Webster and Wilkinson, Stuart and Hodge). The latter explanation gives the plain sense, that the universal reign of death is caused by universal sin; while Rothe’s explanation conveys the more subtle idea that the actual sin of individuals is a consequence of the same proceeding by which death, through Adam’s sin, passed upon all men, or that the sin of Adam has caused the sin of all others in inseparable connection with death. I prefer the translation, so far as, inasmuch as, which gives good sense in all the Pauline passages (2 Corinthians 5:4 : ἐφ̓ὧ οὐ θέλομεν ἐκδύσασθαι, ἀλλ̓ ἐπενδύσασθαι; Philippians 3:12 : ἐφ̓ ὧ καὶ κατελήφθην). It is not so much a causal, as a qualifying and conditioning conjunction (a relative or modified ὅτι), which in our passage shows more clearly the connection of death with sin. It implies that a moral participation of all men in the sin of Adam is the medium or cause of their death; just as faith on our part is the moral condition of our participation in Christ’s life. It is unfavorable to the doctrine of a gratuitous imputation. The legal act of imputation is not arbitrary and unconditioned, but rests on a moral ground and an objective reality.—P. S.]
[All sinned (not, have sinned, E. V.), πάντες ἥμαρτον. The aor. II. presents the sinning of all as a historical fact, or a momentary action of the past; comp. ἀπέθανον, in Romans 5:15; οἱ πάντεζἀπέθανον, 2 Corinthians 5:14; and especially Romans 3:23, where precisely the same phrase occurs: ”all sinned,” as in one act (in Adam), and consequently became sinners (comp. Textual Note5, p. 128). Some take the aorist in the sense of the perfect ἡμαρτήκασι = ὑφ̓ ἁμαρτίαν εἰσί; but the aorist was chosen with reference to the past event of Adam’s fall, which was at the same time virtually the fall of the human race as represented by him, and germinally contained in him.53 ‘Αμαρτάνειν cannot mean: to be, or, to become sinful (= ἁμαρτωλὸν εἶναι , or, γίγνεσθαι), although this is the necessary result of the first sinful act; still less, to suffer the punishment of sin; but it means real, actual sinning. In what sense? The choice in the following list lies between interpretations (4) and (5), which are both equally consistent with the natural grammatical sense of ἥμαρτον; while the other interpretations are more or less strained or false.—P. S.]
Explanations of πάντες ἡμαρτον:
(1) In quo, namely, in Adam, the whole race sinned. (Origen,54 Chrysostom,55 Theophylact, Augustine56 [Beza, Brenz, Bucer, Este, Erasmus Schmid], and, as probably ”the last among Protestant expositors” [?], Benjamin Carpzov, 1758).57 The supposition here is the organic unity of the human race.
(2) Because all have become sinful [vitiati sunt, peccatores facti sunt]—that is, sinners by original sin (Calvin, Melanchthon, Flatt).58
(3) Metonymically, because all have been punished as sinners, or are involved in the consequences of the fall (Chrysostom,59 Grotius,60 Arminians and Socinians [and Calvinists of the Federal school, Macknight, Hodge]).61
(4) Some supply even Adamo peccante after ἐφ̓ ὧ (Pareus, and others; Bengel, Olshausen, &c.). Philippi, p. Rom 179: ”We must mentally supply ἐν̓ Αδάμ, or more specifically; Adamo peccante, to ἥμαρτον.” Meyer, likewise, ”because all sinned when Adam sinned, in and with him!” 1 Corinthians 15:22 [ἐν τῶ̓ Αδάμ πάντες ] has been alleged as proof of this.62
(5) The expression must be understood of the personal sins of individuals (Reiche, Rückert, De Wette, Tholuck [Fritzsche, Baur, Van Hengel, Stuart], and others).63 Meyer calls this interpretation false in view of the many millions of children who have not yet sinned64 [i.e., committed actual transgression]. Tholuck refers to the disposition of children to sin [which, however, is inconsistent with ἧμαρτον.—P. S.]. But he who finds no difficulty in conceiving that children sinned in Adam, should find less difficulty in thinking that they sinned in the womb of their mother, and least difficulty in sinking their individuality in the solidarity of their sinful ancestry. Meyer objects further, that the view that the death of individuals is the result of their personal sins, would vitiate and even contradict the whole parallel between Adam and Christ. “For as the sin of Adam brought death to all (therefore not their self-committed sin), so the obedience of Christ (not their own virtue) brought life to all (comp. 1 Corinthians 15:22).”65 Thus an absolute natural necessity prevailed on both sides! The proper consideration of the parallel, on the contrary, leads to this conclusion: As in the actual appropriation of the merits of Christ a personal ethical appropriation takes place by faith, so in the actual sharing in the guilt of Adam does an ethical participation by unbelief take place (see Romans 11:32). It is a great error to imagine that, in order to avoid the Pelagian heresy, we must cast ourselves into the arms of the Augustinian theory, and do violence to the plain text. This is done by Beza, Calvin, Philippi, and Meyer, though by each in a different way.
(6) The ἐφ̓ ὧ is understood as causa finalis: unto which, viz., death or punishment; thus making ἐπί to mark the end, or consequence, to which sinning came. (Venema, Schmid, Glöckler, and Ewald [formerly, not now].)66 Meyer observes, that this telic view implies a necessary, though not intended effect, in accordance with the idea of fate.
(7) Hofmann: Under whose (death’s) dominion they sinned. This view might be better supported by the thought in Hebrews 2:15, than by the language in Hebrews 9:15. Yet it is untenable.67
(8) Thomasius: Under which relation (namely, that sin and death came into the world by one man) all sinned, &c.It is evident that the most of these explanations are attempts, from doctrinal considerations, to avoid the idea of individual personal guilt, and by this means a relation, clear enough in itself, is obscured. The Apostle’s assumption is, the priority of sin in relation to death, and the causal connection of the two. Accordingly, the meaning is, since sin came into the world as an abnormal ethical principle, death came into the world with it as the corresponding abnormal physiological principle. Therefore the propagation of the abnormal principle of death presupposes the preceding propagation of the principle of sin in the real sinning of all. It arises from the unity and solidarity of humanity, that certain cases—for example, children born dead, or dying [and idiots]—do not here come into consideration. The definition of the ἐφ̓ ὧ, under the presupposition that, is therefore the most natural. In view of the death of innocent children, we may assume different degrees of guilt and death: “in proportion as,” or “in what measure, they all sinned.”
Romans 5:13. For until the law, &c. [Ἄκριγὰρ νόμου,—i.e., from Adam to the Mosaic legislation, comp. Romans 5:14—ἁμαρτία ἦν ἐν κόσμω. Alford: “How, consistently with Romans 4:15, could all men sin, before the law? This is now explained.” But Romans 4:15 is too far off, and treats of παράβασις, not of ἁμαρτία. γάο connects this verse with πάντες ἥμαρτον, Romans 5:12.—P. S.] The Apostle did not need to show first that the death of all was grounded in Adam’s sin (Meyer); this he could presuppose from Jewish and Christian knowledge. But he proves rather that the actual extension of death took place always under the supposition of preceding sin in the world. Therefore his first proposition: Even in the period between Adam and Moses, sin was universal in the world. It was indeed not imputed, not placed directly in the light of the conscious judgment of God, because the law, as the rule of conduct and the accuser, was not yet present. But, indirectly, its presence was made manifest by its effect, the despotic government of death; although a transgression in such a definite way as that committed by Adam could not occur in the period designated (notwithstanding many analogies: Cain, the Cainites, Ham, Ishmael, Esau). Even the transgression again made manifest by the Mosaic law does not remove the great antagonism by which, in principle, sin and death proceeded from Adam, the type of Christ, the antitype, from whom, in principle, righteousness and life proceded. Meyer supposes the Apostle to say: “The death of individuals, which passed also upon those who have not sinned, as Adam did, against a positive commandment, cannot be derived from sin committed before the law, because, the law not being present, the imputation was wanting [absolutely?]; and the conclusion which Paul draws therefrom, is, that it is by Adam’s sin (not by individual sins) that death has been produced” (!). Now, how does this agree with the history of the Deluge, and of Sodom and Gomorrah? Here, definite death is everywhere traced to definite offences. Tholuck’s view of the connection [p. 238 ff.] is similar to Meyer’s. The most of the later commentators, on the contrary, properly regard Romans 5:13-14 as an argument for πάντες ἥμαρτον (Rückert, De Wette, Neander, and others; and formerly Diodorus, Calvin, and others). Calov has correctly concluded: Since they were punished because of sin, they must have had some law.68
But sin is not imputed [reckoned, in Rechnung gebracht, Ἁμαρτία οὐκ ἐλλογεῖται]. (Philem. Romans 5:18 [text. rec.] is the only other place).69 Meyer explains: Is brought to account by God for punishment [wird in Rechnung gebracht, viz., zur Bestrafung]. His citation (Romans 4:15) is sufficient to correct him. It is with the νόμος, and the consciousness of it, that the ἁμαρτία (which is also transgression, according to the measure of the natural conscience) first receives the impressed character of conscious transgression, παράβασις, and therewith the ὀργή is first finished by the κατεργάζεσθαι of the νόμος. Therefore even the sin of the generations before the flood was not yet definitely settled by its overthrow (1 Peter 3:20; 1 Peter 4:6); therefore the people of Sodom and Gomorrah were guilty of less sin than the contemporaries of Jesus. The ἐλλογεῖν of sin constitutes therefore the reverse side of the λογίζεσθαι εἰς δικαιοσύνην; it does not denote any preliminary attribution, but the final imputation, or settlement.—Explanations: Is not imputed, a. By God; (1) Not in general (the Deluge, Sodom and Gomorrah, &c., were exceptions); (2) Not in the usual manner of sin (Bengel: peccatum non notat scelera insignia [qualia Sodomitœ, ante Mosis tempora luerunt, sed malum commune]); (3) The Arminians: the θάνατος was only natural evil; (4) Calov., better than all: the word must be understood only hypothetical. The men of the ante-Mosaic period also had a kind of law. b. By man (Ambrose, Augustine, Theodore Mopsvestia, Luther: “Sin is not minded,” man achtet ihrer nicht). c. Zwingli: By the human judge. Altogether foreign to the context. Hofmann: the proposition laid down refers only to humanity in general, and not to individuals. This is a modification of Schleiermacher’s representation of penal justice.—We must add the remark, that the imputing judge is God, but that, in the imputation, the human knowledge of the παράβασις in the light of the judgment is to be taken fully into consideration. [Alford explains ἐλλ., “reckoned, ‘set down as transgression’—‘put in formal account,’ by God. In the case of those who had not the written law, ἁμαρτία is not formally reckoned as παράβασις, set over against the command; but, in a certain sense, as distinctly proved, Romans 2:9-16; it is reckoned, and they are condemned for it.”—P. S.]
When there is no law [μὴ ὄντος νόμου]. Not: Where the law is not. [So Alford, and those who refer νόμος to the Mosaic law exclusively.—P. S.] The Apostle appears to lay down the proposition in the form of a general maxim (“where there is no accuser, there is no judge”) in order to suggest the idea of degrees of legality and imputation (see the explanation of Calov.). Here, too, Meyer would relieve the death of the generations before Moses from being caused by individual sin (see, on the contrary, Psalms 90:0). We say, with Romans 1:18 ff., that the falling of those generations into sin was, in general, a great judgment of God; but an ethical because [Romans 1:19] always precedes.
Romans 5:14. Nevertheless [notwithstanding the relative non-imputation of sin] death reigned [Ἀλλὰ ἐβασίλευσεν, emphatically put first, ὁ θάνατος]. Death, already personified, appears here as a ruler, and, according to its nature, as a tyrant.70 The universal reign of death implies the universal reign of sin as its cause, in proof of Romans 5:12 (against Meyer and Hofmann). The dominion of death embraces not only physical death with all its historical terrors, but also the consciousness of death, or the sting of death (1 Corinthians 15:56), and the consequence of death, the dreary, wretched existence in Sheol.71 [μέχρι, (until) Μωϋσ. = ἄκρι νόμου, Romans 5:13. There is no clear difference between μέκρι and ἄκρι, except that μέκρι, from μακρός, etymologically, denotes primarily extension, or length of time; ἄκρι, from ἄκρος, point of time.—P. S.]
Even over those, &c. [καὶ ἐπὶ72 τοὺς μὴ ἁμαρτήσαντας ἐπὶ τῶ ὁμοιωματι τῆς παραβάσεως Ἀδάμ]. Over those who, unlike Adam, were not guilty of a definite παράβασις, or transgression of a definite command of God. The καί may be understood as antithetical to Adam, or better, as making a distinction between sinners in the general sense, and the wicked transgressors of special laws of God, who effect, as it were, new falls of man, such as Cain, Ham, &c. Athanasius explains thus: those who committed no mortal sin; Grotius: no gross sins; Crell, and others: transgressed no law to which the threat of death was attached. But the measure is simply the παράβασις, as in Romans 4:15. The elder expositors have included here also the children [and idiots] subjected “by Adam’s sin to the pœna damni;” Brenz makes this the exclusive reference [against which Calvin correctly protests. Children are included, but not specially intended.—P. S.] Indirectly, this verse refers definitely to the connection between sin and death in the period from Adam to Moses, as has been also perceived by De Wette, Fritzsche, and Baur, but is opposed in vain by Meyer.
Who is a type of the coming one [i.e., the second Adam, ὅς ἐστιν τύπος τοῦ μέλλοντος]. Koppe comes in positive conflict with the context, when he takes μέλλοντος as neuter: of that which should come. The first Adam is the type of the second (1 Corinthians 15:45), and is the principle of the first eon, as Christ is the principle of the second, but according to the antagonism between the first and second eons. See Meyer, for similar expressions of the Rabbis; e.g., Adamus postremus est Messias. According to Tholuck, the deduction of the antithetical side should now have followed, but Paul was contented with the ὅς ἐστι, &c., in order to indicate the other half. But in our view the antithesis has already preceded (Romans 5:9-11), and is fully elaborated in chap. 6–8, after the transitional individual antitheses that now follow.
[This important clause points back to Romans 5:12, and indicates the apodosis, the other member of the comparison. Τύπος, from τύπτω, to strike, to wound, has a variety of significations which are closely related, and yet may seem in some cases contradictory (comp. the German Abbild, Urbild, Vorbild). It means (1) a blow; (2) a print, or impression, made by a blow (John 20:25, τὸν τύποντῶν ἥλων); (3) a form, image, figure (Bild, Abbild; so often in the classics, and in Acts 7:43, τοὺς τύπους, οὕς ἐποιήσατε προσκυνεῖν αὐτοῖς); (4) a pattern, model (Muster, Modell, Urbild; Romans 6:17, τύπον διδακῆς; Acts 7:44; Hebrews 8:5 : in the two last passages, however, τύπος is taken by some in the sense of copy; comp. Bleek on Hebrews 8:5, vol. iii. p. 439 f.); (5) a moral model or example for imitation (Vorbild; 2 Thessalonians 3:9, ἵνα ἑαυτοὺς τύπον δῶμεν ὑμῖν εἰς τὸ μιμεῖσθαιἡμᾶς; 1 Timothy 4:12; Titus 2:7; Philippians 3:17; 1 Peter 5:3); (6) a historical prefiguration (Vorbild), or type in the usual theological sense—i.e., a person or thing designed to foreshadow or symbolize a future person or thing which is the ἀντίτυπος (Urbild); so 1Co 10:6; 1 Corinthians 10:11, and here. Generally the New Testament antitype is related to the Old Testament type, as the substance is to the shadow, or the original to the copy.73 But Christ corresponds to Adam in the antithetical sense: Adam being the author of death for all, Christ the author of life for all. The prefigurative feature in Adam was his central and universal significance for the whole race, which was fulfilled in a much higher sense and with opposite effect in Christ, the absolute and perfect Man. In 1 Corinthians 15:45, Paul likewise contrasts ὁπρῶτος ̓Αδάμ, and ὁ ἔσκατος ̓Αδάμ, with reference, no doubt, to the Rabbinical theology, in which the Messiah is called הָאָדָם הָאַחֲרוֹן, Adamus postremus, in opposition to הָאָדָם הָרִאשׁין.74 To this personal contrast corresponds the contrast of two epochs and orders of things, σ̔ αἰὼν οὗτος and ὁ αἰὼνμέλλων. The coming one (τοῦ μέλλοντος) is not to be referred to the second coming of Christ (Fritzsche, De Wette), but to the first. Paul speaks from the historical standpoint of the first Adam.—P. S.]
Second Paragraph (Romans 5:15-19)
Tholuck remarks on the train of thought to Romans 5:19 : In the explanations of the elder expositors there is no attempt to trace the connection and progress of thought to Romans 5:19; many of the later ones doubt altogether the possibility of such a proof. Morus says: “De hac dissimilitudine agitur jam per quinque versus ita, ut quinquies idem illud repetatur, variatis quidem verbis, at re manente semper eadem.” Köllner and Rückert similarly; against whom, see Rothe. According to Tholuck, the train of thought is as follows: In Romans 5:15, the quantitative “more” on the side of the operation proceeding from Christ; in Romans 5:16-17, the qualitative “more;” in Romans 5:18-19, resumption of the parallel, including the differences pointed out. Our construction is given above.
[Romans 5:15-17 occupy an intermediate position between Romans 5:12 and Romans 5:18-19; and as Romans 5:13-14 are explanatory of the reign of death in connection with sin, asserted in Romans 5:12, so Romans 5:15-17 are qualifying, by stating as briefly and tersely as possible the disparity in the parallel between Adam and Christ, in favor of the superabounding grace of Christ. The admirable symmetrical adjustment of parts will appear from the following arrangement of the text in literal translation:
15. But not as the fall (παράπτωμα)
so also (is) the grace (Χάρισμα):
for if by the fallof the one man (τοῦ ἑνός)
the many died;much moredid the grace of God and the gift by the graceof the one man Jesus Christabound unto the many.16. And not as by one guilty transgression (ἁμαρτήμαος)75
(so also is) the gift (τὸ δώρημα):
for the judgment (issued in, or, came)from one (full)unto condemnation (κατάκριμα),
but the grace (issued in, came)from many fallsunto a righteous act (δικαίωμα):
17. For if by the fall of the one76
Death reignedthrough the one;much morewill they who receive the abundanceof the grace and the gift of righteousnessreign in life
through the one Jesus Christ.—P. S.]A. The contrast in the effects of the principles made manifest. 1. The natural consequences in relation to persons (Romans 5:15); 2. The positive consequences in relation to the intensity, the essential gradation of the effects (Romans 5:16). Romans 5:15 refers to the opposition of Christian salvation to the ruin in the non-legal period and sphere; Romans 5:16, to its opposition to the ruin in the legal world.
Romans 5:15. But not as the fall (transgression), so also is the gift of grace77 [Ἀλλ’ οὐχ ὡς τὸ παράπτωμα, οὕτως καὶ τὸ χάρισμα]. We hold that the Apostle, in his brief and pregnant expressions in Romans 5:15-16, lays down axioms in negative construction. Meyer translates Romans 5:15 : “Not as the trespass, so also the gift of grace;” and quite unintelligibly Romans 5:16 : “And not as by one who sinned is the gift.” The παράπτωμα is ἑνὸς, the κάρισυμα ἑνός. As principles which enter humanity and permeate it, Adam and Christ are alike; but in the nature of their effects they constitute contrasts.—Rosenmüller, and others, would neutralize the negation by regarding οὐκ as interrogative; but this, as Meyer remarks, is forbidden by the contrasting character of the contents. We see no reason for taking the παράπτωμα, contrary to its most natural signification, as “offence;” it denotes, with sin, a fall, an ethical defeat; yea, the fall as a medium of the fall, just as the κάρισμα of Christ is not merely κάρις, but a medium of the κάρις. [ΙΙαράπτωμα, from παραπίπτω, to fall, is not a sinful state or condition, but a concrete actual sin, the transgression of the law (παράβασις), the act of disobedience (παρακοή) by which Adam fell; comp. Romans 5:16; Romans 5:18-19, and Book of Wis 10:1, where it is likewise used of the fall. τὸκάρισμα and ἡκάρις mean nearly the same as ἡδωρεά in this verse, τὸ δώρημα, Romans 5:16, δικαίωσις ζωῆς, Romans 5:18, but they emphasize the idea that salvation is of free grace. Forbes ingeniously refers τὸ κάρισμα, the Grace which pardons the sinner, antithetically to Death, the penalty of transgression, and τὸ δώρημα, the Gift of righteousness, antithetically to Sin, which it removes and supersedes; the one is mainly the grace that justifies, the other the grace that sanctifies. See his note, p. 243 f.—P. S.] Tholuck thinks that we should expect δικαίωμα [ὑπακοή would correspond better.—P. S.] instead of κάρισυα. But the question here is concerning the natural or historical effects of both principles, while in Romans 5:16 they are presented in their relation to law and right.
For if through the fall of the one the many died [Ἐιγὰρ τῶ τοῦ (mark the definite article, which is overlooked in the E. V.) ἑνὸς παραπτώματι οἱ πολλοὶ (the many, i.e., the immense multitude of all the descendants of the one Adam) ἀπέθανον.—P. S.]. The εἰ is not hypothetical. There is an oxymoron in the expression: one fell, many died (not only the one). Why οἱ πολλοὶ, and not πάντες, as in Romans 5:12; Romans 5:18? Meyer: “The antithesis to the εἷς is made more sensible and stronger by marking the totality as multitude; for ‘possunt aliqua esse omnia, quœ non sunt multa,’ Augustine. Grotius wrongly: ‘fere omnes, excepto Enocho,’ which is contradicted by Romans 5:12; Romans 5:18.” [ἀπέθανον must be taken in the same comprehensive sense as θάνατος in Romans 5:12.; see p. 176. It is parallel to ἥμαρτον, Romans 5:12, and must be explained accordingly; see p. 177.—P. S.]
Much more. Is πολλῶμᾶλλον the expression of a logical plus,
that is, of an inference ([Chrysostom, πολλῶ γὰρ τοῦτο εὐλογώτερον] Theodoret, Philippi [Fritzsche, Hodge, Stuart], and others), or of a real plus, a comparison (Calvin [Bengel78], Rothe [Alford: much more abundant], &c.). [In other words, does πολλῶ μᾶλλον express a stronger degree of evidence, as an argumentum a minore ad majus (here a pejori ad melius), as it certainly does Romans 5:9-10, or a higher degree of efficacy?—P. S.] Meyer: This latter is contrary to Romans 5:17. This is so far right as death, viewed absolutely, is an absolute negation, and a real plus [a higher degree of abundance] is comprised already in περισσεύειν. But the logical plus involves also a real plus. [So also Tholuck.] It rests on the following antitheses: 1. The εἱς introduced here without name, and opposite to him, ὁ θεός and ὁ εἷς ἄνθρωπος Ἰησοῦς Χριστός; 2. παράπτωμα, and the opposite ἡ κάρις καὶ ἡ δωρεὰ ἐν κάριτι; 3. ἐπερίσσευσεν, in opposition to the simple fact, ἀπέθανον. The χάρις τοῦ θεοῦ is the source and spirit of the universal and personal charisma, which is Christ himself; the δωρεὰ ἐν χάριτι, &c, is its form and appearance, the positive gift of Divine adoption, with the Divine inheritance, in the pardon of sin. Both must not be resolved into an ἕν διὰ δυοῖν (Rosenmüller, and others). According to Rothe, Tholuck, and others, ἐν χάριτι must be connected with δωρεά; according to De Wette and Meyer, δωρεά stands absolutely, and ἐνκάριτι, &c., belongs to ἐπερίσσευσεν, on account of the antithesis to παραπτώματι. But in that case the article should be expected before κάριτι. Besides, δωρεἀ ἐν κάριτι forms the idea of δώρημα. The aorist indicates an event which had already taken place.
Romans 5:16. And not as by one transgression [Καὶ οὐχ ὡς δἰ ἑνὸς ἁμαρτήματος, which Lange renders Verschuldung, transgression accompanied with guilt.—P. S.]. We must first of all substitute the reading ἁμαρτήματος of the Codd. D. E. F. G., and of the Itala [Vulg.: Et non sicut per unum peccatum] for ἁμαρτήσαντος [by one that transgressed], although the latter has better authority.79 The reason lies in the text; Romans 5:16 contains only definitions of things, not persons. The opposite of ἁμάρτημα is παραπτώματα; besides, we have δώρημα, κρῖμα, κατάκρυιμα, κάρισμα, and δικαίωμα. Tholuck observes: “Those Codd. present frequently a corrupted text, one conformed to the Latin translation; and as ἁμαρτήματος is not even sufficiently attested by external authorities, it must give way to the more difficult reading.” But, at first appearance, δἰ ἑνὸς ἁμαρτήσαντος was the easier reading, for it was supposed that in every antithesis Adam himself must have been mentioned again. Meyer explains: “And not by one that sinned (ἁμαρτήσαντος) so is the gift; that is, it is not so as if it would be caused δἰ ἑνὸς ἁμαρτήσαντος.”80 Tholuck: “The gift has another character than that which came by the one who sinned.” These explanations are no recommendation to the reading ἁμαρτήσαντος. For, first, the thought that the δώρημα may have come by one that sinned himself, is far-fetched and unnatural. Second, the antithesis between the effects of the two principles is obliterated. Those who adopt the reading ἁμαρτήσαντος, propose different supplements: Grotius, and others, θάνατος εἰζῆλθεν [after ἁμαρτήσ.]; Bengel [Webster and Wilkinson, Stuart, Hodge], and others, τὸ κρῖμα; Reiche, after Theophylact, τὸ κατάκριμα; Fritzsche, and others, παράπτωμα; Beza, and others [after ὡς], τό (De Wette: and not like that which resulted from one who sinned, is the gift).81 Rothe, Tholuck, and Meyer, supply merely ἐστί [after δώρημα]; Philippi, ἐγένετο [after ἁμαρτήσ., and ἐστί after δώρημα.—P. S.]. This [which? ἐστί, or ἐγένετο?—P. S.] is sufficient with ἁμάρτημα, which means more than ἁμαρτία, and expresses the idea of guilt Verschuldung) in connection with sin (see Mark 3:28; Luke 4:12, &c.).
For the judgment (passes) from one (transgression) to condemnation [τὸ μὲν γὰρ κρῖμα ἐξ ἑνὸς εἰς κατάκριμα. Lange supplies, from the preceding clause, ἁμαρτήματος after ἐξ ἑνὸς, and translates it, in both cases, Verschuldung.—P. S.] Here, too, the verb is wanting. Meyer supplies ἐγένετο, or resulted; De Wette, turned out. But the verb is indicated by the εἰς; εἰς requires the idea of progress, development. (For the antithesis, Rothe has attempted to substitute an untenable division, τὸ μὲν, τὸ δέ). The κρῖμα might mean judgment in general (Meyer),82 if it did not refer to ἁμάρτημα, by which it becomes judgment to punishment. Explanations: reatus (Beza, Cocceius); the threatened punishment, Genesis 2:17 (Fritzsche, Tholuck); the sentence of punishment pronounced on Adam and his posterity, Genesis 3:19 (Reiche, Baumgarten-Crusius [Rückert, De Wette], and others).—From one (transgression). We simply supply the foregoing ἁμάρτημα, and translate the incurring of guilt, because the deed is connected with its consequence, and the word is connected with the idea of guilt. ἐξ ἑνός is taken by Meyer as masculine.—To condemnation [εἰς κατάκριμα]. Explanations of the antithesis τὸκῖμα, τὸ κατάκριμα: 1. Fritzsche: The threat of punishment, Genesis 2:0, and the sentence of punishment, Genesis 3:0; similarly Tholuck. Reiche: the sentence of punishment pronounced on Adam, and that on his posterity. 2. Rückert: the Divine sentence and its result, death, was declared against the one who had sinned; but from him the sentence has extended to all. Plainly, the κρῖμα, as the principle of judgment, proceeds from the one ἁμάρτημα of Adam, and passes through gradations of judgment to the κατάκριμα, which is completed ideally as the sentence of fitness for condemnation by the appearance of the gospel, and will be actually completed as real judgment to condemnation at the end of the world. Yet the antithesis here does not pass beyond the ideal judgment to condemnation. The antithesis of the one Adam and of the whole race, which Baumgarten-Crusius finds here, is only presumed; the numerical antithesis, rather, in this passage is ἕν ἁμάρτημα, πολλὰ παραπτώματα. It must be borne in mind that the expression παραπτώματα is much stronger than άμαρτήματα, and denotes the gradations of the one fall by many new apostasies (see the Second Commandment).
But the gift of grace (passes) from many falls (lapses) unto the good of justification [τὸ δὲ χάρισμα ἐκ πολλῶν παραπτωμάτων εἰς δικαίωμα, which Lange translates: das Gnadengut aber geht von vielen Sündenfällen aus fort bis zum Rechtfertigungsgut; or, in the Exeg. Notes, Rechtfertigungsmittel.—P. S.]. The personal charisma is Christ himself (see Romans 5:15), the source of all special gifts of grace (see Titus 2:11).—From many falls, or lapses (Sündenfällen). Caused by them. As the κρῖμα of Adam has become the universal κατάκριμα of humanity, so has the κάρισμα, of Christ grown to be the universal and absolute δικαίωμα. As Christ, as the Risen One, has come forth ἐκ νεκρῶν, so has He, as the Just One, the personal δικαίωμα, come forth from the place of the παραπτώματα. It was thus with the advent of Christ on earth; but the finished παδάπτωμα was the same crucifixion by which He was perfected as δικαίωμα. The usual explanations rest mostly on a misconception. Meyer: Since God declared sinners righteous. Augustine: Quia non solum illud unum solvit, quod originaliter trahitur, sed etiam quœ in uno quoque homine motu propriœ voluntatis adduntur. Better De Wette [and Alford]: “The gift of grace became, by occasion of many transgressions, justification.” Philippi: “From out of many lapses.” The δικαίωσις is neither the condition of righteousness (that would be δικαιοσύνη; Luther, Tholuck, and others), nor the declaration of God by which He executes the δικαίωσις (Meyer), but, according to Rückert and [Adelbert] Maier, the means or medium of justification (Rechtfertigungsmittel), which is in harmony with the form of the word. Meyer asks for the empirical proof; it lies right before us: Were δικαίωμα the real justification of mankind, κατάκριμα would be its real condemnation, and that would be a contradiction. Comp. also Romans 5:18, where the δικαίωμα is the presupposition of the δικαίωσις. (The explanation of Rothe, after Calvin: legal compensation in the sense of satisfactio is partly too general, and partly impinges very much on δικαίωσις). An elaborate discussion see in Tholuck, p. 258.
[Δικαίωμα, in Hellenistic usage, means usually statutum, ordinance, a righteous decree, or righteous judgment (Rechtsspruch, Rechtsbestimmung); comp. Romans 1:32; Romans 2:26; Romans 8:4; Luke 1:6; Hebrews 9:1; Hebrews 9:10; Revelation 15:4; or also. (as in classical usage) a righteous act, a just deed, as Revelation 19:8 (τὰ δικαιώματα τῶν ἁγίων); Bar 2:19 (δώσουσι δόξαν καὶδικαίωμα τῷ κυδίῳ); comp. the Hebrew םִשְׁפָּט as distinct from צְדָקָה in Proverbs 8:20, where both are translated δικαιοσύνη in the Septuagint, while the Vulgate distinguishes them as judicium and justitia. I see no good reason for departing from this meaning. It is either, in opposition to κατάκριμα, the righteous decree which God declared on account of the perfect obedience of Christ; or it is, as Romans 5:18, in opposition to παράπτωμα, the righteous act of Christ as the objective basis (or, as Lange has it, the means) of our δικαίωσις. Tholuck, after a full discussion of the various interpretations, favors (p. 261) the translation, Rechtfertigungsthat, actio justificativa, which would difer from δικαίωσις, justificatio, as the accomplished fact differs from the process. Wordsworth explains it here, and in Romans 5:18, to mean a state of acceptance as righteous by God, a recognized condition of approval; but this is without any authority. The Latin Vulgate (justificatio, Romans 5:16, but justitia, Romans 5:18), the E.V., and even De Wette, Olshausen, Robinson (sub δικαίωμα, No. 3), Stuart, Alford, and Hodge, take δικαίωμα in Romans 5:16 as equivalent to δικαι ωσις. (Alford: “As κατάκριμα is a sentence of condemnation, so δικαίωμα will be a sentence of acquittal. This, in fact, amounts to justification.” Hodge: “It means justification, which is a righteous judgment, or decision of a judge, pronouncing one to be just.”) Rothe (p. 103) calls this interpretation a piece of ”exegetical levity;” and it is evident that, in Romans 5:18, δικαίωμα is distinguished from δικαιωσις. He goes back (with Pareus, J. Gerhard, Calov, Wolf, B. Carpzov) to classical usage, quoting a passage from Aristotle (Eth. Nicom. v. 10), who defines δικαίωμα to be τὸ ἐπανο ρθωμα τοῦ , the amendment of an evil deed.83 Rothe consequently translates it, full satisfaction of justice, legal adjustment (Rechtserfüllung, Rechtsgutmachung, Rechtsausgleichung). This meaning suits admirably here, and in Romans 5:18 (where, however, the word is opposed to παράπτωμα, not, as in Romans 5:16, to κατάκριμα), and does not materially differ from the explanation of Lange. In Romans 5:18, δικαίωμα, being the opposite of παράπτωμα, and essentially equivalent to ὑπακοή, in Romans 5:19, must denote the righteous deed, i.e., the perfect obedience of Christ, and is so understood by Calvin, Este, Grotius, and Bengel. As it is not likely that the same word should be used in one breath in two different senses, it is safe to explain δικαίωμα in Romans 5:16 from its more obvious meaning in Romans 5:18. I prefer this (with Lange) to the other alternative chosen by Meyer (Rechtfertigungsspruch), Ewald (Gerechtsspruch), Van Hengel, Umbreit, who give it in both verses the meaning, righteous decree. I quote, in addition, the excellent note of Bengel on δικαίωμα in Romans 5:18, which throws light on its meaning in Romans 5:16 : “Δικαίωμα est quasi materia δικαιώσει (justificationi) substrata, obedientia, justitia prœstita. Justificamentum liceat appellare, ut ἑδραίωμα denotat firmamentum, ἔνδυμα vestimentum, ἐπίβλημα additamentum, μίασμα inquinamentum, ὀκύρωμα munimentum, περικαθαρμα purgamentum, περίψημα ramentum, σκέπασμα tegumentum, στερέωμα firmamentum, ὑπόδημα calceamentum, φρόνμα sentimentum, Gall. sentiment. Aristot. l. v. Eth. c. 10 opposita statuit ἀδίκημα et δικαίωμα, atque hoc describit τὸ ἐπανόρθωμα τοῦ , id quod tantundem est atque Satisfactio, vocabulum Socinianis immerito invisum. Exquisitam verborum proprietatem schematismus exhibit:
A.
B.
C.
D.
κρῖμα,
κατάκριμα
κάρισμα,
δικαίωμα
A.
B.
C.
D.
παράπτωμα,
κατάκριμα
δικαίωμα,
δικαίωσις ζωῆς.
In utroque versu A et B συστοικεῖ, itemque C et D, sed A et C, ἀντιστοικεῖ, itemque B et D. Versu 16 describitur negotium ex parte Dei: Romans 5:18 describitur ex parte Adami et Christi: idque in œconomia peccati minore verborum varietate, quam in œconomia gratiœ. δικαίωσις ζωῆς est declaratio divina illa, qua peccator, mortis reus, vitœ adjudicatur, idque jure.”—P. S.]
B. The contrast of potential, prospective effects.
1. The contrast between the enslavement and negation of all personal life by personified death, and of the future glory of pardoned persons in the new life (Romans 5:17).
2. The contrast in all its ideal magnitude: owing to the power of the fall of one, judgment and condemnation came upon all men; all men can attain to justification of life (that is, not merely of faith) by the justifying righteousness of one (Romans 5:18).
Romans 5:17. For if by one man’s fall, &c. [Ἐιγὰρ τῷ τοῦ ἑνὸς παραπτώματι, κ.τ.γ.]. This verse (which Rothe has improperly treated as a parenthesis,84 and which Er. Schmid has even conceived to be the contradiction of an opponent) is, in form, first of all a proof of the δικαίωμα and κατάκριμα in Romans 5:16; but it develops the consequence of the δικαίωμα, as of the καάκριμα, to a new and glorious contrast. Here, now, the personal element in Romans 5:15 is united with the material one in Romans 5:16; yet the personal predominates. From one proceeded, through one offence, the tendency toward destruction; death tyrannized over and defaced the personal life, and threatened to extinguish it; but much more shall believers become by the one Christ, on the ground of the δικαιοσύνη, the βασιλευόντες, the ruling, royal personalities in eternal life. The point of the antithesis is therefore ἐβασίλευσεν and βασιλεύσουσιν. The πολλῷ μᾶλλον is also here a logical conclusion, which involves the higher degree of real power, as brought out in the antitheses: ἕν παράπτωμα, and the opposite ἡπερισσεία τῆς κάριτος καὶ τῆς δωρεᾶς τῆς δικαιοσύνης; to which is yet added the λαμβάνοντες in contrast with the bondage of the former slaves of death (Hebrews 2:14); then again, the nameless εἷς and the one Jesus Christ; and finally, to a certain extent, ὁ θάνατος and ἡ ζωή. Meyer well remarks: “Bear in mind that Paul does not say in the paradosis, in conformity with the protasis: ἡ ζωὴ βασιλεύσει ἐπὶ τοὺς … λαμβάνοντας, but, in harmony with the matter in question, and corresponding to the active nature of the relation, he places the subjects in the active first.” This is the chief point just here. (Menochius: “suavius et gloriosus sonat.”) Tholuck: ”To be ruled, is a bound and passive condition, while, on the other hand, the quality of free movement lies in life. The eschatological idea of a ruling in the finished kingdom of God, was brought over by Christ in a more profound sense from Judaism (Matthew 19:28; Luke 22:29). Paul has especially appropriated it (1 Corinthians 4:8; 1 Corinthians 6:2; 2 Timothy 2:12).” Tholuck questions the right to make prominent, according to Thomas Aquinas, Grotius, Stier, and others, the element of subjective spontaneousness, here, “where the whole weight falls on the Divine work of grace.” But the Apostle speaks of the self-active appropriation of the work of grace in the life of believers.
Romans 5:18. Therefore, as through the fall of one, &c. [Better: through one fall (ἐνός in the neuter), Ἄρα οὖν ὡς δἰ ἑνός παρδαπτώματος εἰς πάντας , οὕτω καὶ δἰ ἑνὸς δικαιώματος εἰς πάντας ].85 This verse is, as Meyer and others remark, a resumption of the preceding contrasts compressed in one sentence (συλλογίζεται ἐνταῦθα τὸ πᾶν, Theodore of Mopsvestia). But we must not overlook the new contrast brought out here. (On the use of ἄραοὔν, see Meyer.)86 As far as the verb that is wanting is concerned, De Wette remarks: It is usual to supply here (likewise Rückert and Fritzsche), in the first member, τὸ κρίμα ἐγένετο, and in the second, τὸ κάδισμα ἐγένετο; but better, something indefinite, as ἐγένετο (thus Meyer and Tholuck); Winer, ἀπέβη. We call up the pregnant expressions in Romans 2:28-29, and repeat accordingly παράπτωμα after παραπτώματος, and δικαίωμα after δικαιώματος. ἀπέβη is sufficiently contained in εἰς. The contrast in that case is simply this: The fall of one man came ideally and dynamically as a fall upon all men unto condemnation; that is, by the common fall, all men would, without redemption, be subject to condemnation; on the other hand, the δικαίωμα of one came ideally and dynamically as δικαίωμα upon all men unto justification of life in the last judgment; that is, the δικαίωμα of Christ is sufficiently powerful to justify and perfect all men. Meyer [with Rothe, Ewald, Alford, Wordsworth.—P. S.] construes δἰ ἑνὸς here both times as neuter (one trespass, one sentence of justification), which Tholuck has properly rejected. The Greek writers, Theodoret and Theophylact [as also Erasmus, Luther, Calvin, E. V., Bengel, Fritzsche, Philippi, Hodge.—P. S.], have taken it as masculine.87 Here, as in Romans 5:16, Meyer makes the δικαίωμα to mean judgment of justification (Rechtfertigungsspruch), and rejects the translations: fulfilment of the right (Rechtserfüllung, Rothe and Philippi); deed of justification (Rechtfertigungsthat, Tholuck); virtuousness (Tugendhaftigkeit, Baumgarten-Crusius); obedience (Gehorsam, De Wette); the recte factum of Christ (Fritzsche). It is simply the same everywhere. If it be said that Christ is our righteousness, it is the same as saying that Christ is the personal medium of our justification. [Comp. the remarks on p. 184 f.—P. S.] The future ἀποβήσεται supplied by Winer and Philippi in the apodosis, is sufficiently implied in εἰς δικαίωσιν ζωῆς. We hold that the Apostle here means the final δικαίωσις, justification, which, in the general judgment, constitutes the antithesis of the κατάκδιμα, condemnation. The δικαιωμα is offered to all men, and the δικαιωσις ζωῆς is its purpose; but the realization of the purpose takes place merely according to the measure of faith. The Roman Catholic expositors assert that justification of faith itself is denoted here as justification of life [i.e., progressive justification = sanctification.—P. S.] According to Calvin, and others, it is the justification whose result is life. Tholuck: The δικαίωδις with the effect of the future completion of life. Augustine likewise. Thomas Aquinas describes correctly the ideal universality of the δικαίωμα: “Quamvis possit dici, quod justificatio Christi transit in justificationem omnium, ad sufficientiam, licet quantum ad efficientiam procedit in solos fideles.”
[ΙΙάντες ἄνθρωποι are, in both clauses, all men without exception, as in Romans 5:12; but this does not justify a Universalist inference, for Paul speaks of the objective sufficiency and intention of Christ’s δικαίωμα, not of its subjective application to individuals, which depends upon the λαμβάνειν of faith, as intimated in Romans 5:17. The distinction drawn by Hofmann and Lechler between πάντες ἄνθρωποι, all men without distinction, and πάντες οἱ ἄνθρωποι, all, without exception, lacks proof (Meyer calls it, rein erdichtet). More of this in Romans 5:19.—P. S.]
C. The Contrast of the Final Effects.
Romans 5:19. For as through the disobedience of the one man, &c. [̔́ Ωσπερ γὰρ διὰ τῆς παρακοῆς τοῦ ἑνὸς ἁνθρωπου ἁμαρτωλοὶ κατεστάθησαν οἱ πολλοὶ, οὕτως καὶ, κ.τ.λ.. According to Meyer, Romans 5:19 furnishes only a grand and conclusive elucidation of Romans 5:18 (γάρ). Tholuck likewise, in harmony with Calvin. But this contrast denotes the final antithesis of the judgment and of justification as made manifest by the gospel (see Romans 2:16). The sense is: As, in consequence of the disobedience of the one man Adam, the many (as many as there are) have been presented in the light of the gospel as sinners subject to condemnation, so, in consequence of the obedience of the one man Christ, shall the many (as many as believe) be presented in the same light as just. It is self-evident that the effect of the gospel is included in the second clause; but from Romans 5:20-21 we must infer that it is presumed also in the first clause. It is only through the gospel that this ideal general judgment is brought to pass, by which all men are presented and exposed as condemned sinners in consequence of their connection with the sin of Adam (see John 16:8-9; comp. Psalms 51:5-6). We are authorized by the language in maintaining that καθιστάνω possesses here the full idea of setting down, exhibiting, making to appear as what one is. [See below.]
[Through the disobedience of the one man, διὰ τῆς παρακοῆς τοῦ ἑνὸς . The trespass, or fall, of Adam, τό παράπτωμα, is here definitely described as an act of disobedience, which is the mother of sin, as obedience to the Divine will is the mother of virtue; for disobedience is essentially selfishness in actual exercise, the rebellion of the human will against the Divine, the false self-assertion or independence in opposition to God, to whom we owe life and all, and whose service is true freedom.—P. S.]88
The many were constituted sinners [ἁμαρτωλοὶ κατεστάωησαν].89 Meyer: “According to Romans 5:12, they were, through Adam’s disobedience, actually placed in the category of sinners, because they sinned in and with Adam’s fall.” This is Augustinian dogmatics, but no exegesis warranted by the context. [? see below.—P. S.] Tholuck: Were made, became. In this sense, according to his account, certain commentators have found the imputatio forensis expressed; others, a real becoming, in which the element of spontaneity is included. On the further complications which have arisen between Romish and Protestant commentators on the supposition of really becoming, see Tholuck, p. 268. The παρακοή of Adam himself has certainly set forth the many as sinners, but only because it has come into the light of the law, and finally of the gospel, and so far as it has now become clear: 1. As an ethico-physical causality, but not as a purely physical fatality; 2. So far as the offence of Adam has become the clear type of the sinfulness and sin of every man; 3. So far as the judgment of the finished revelation comprehends the many as in one.
So by the obedience of one shall the many be made (constituted) righteous [οὕτως καὶ διὰ τῆς ὑπακοῆς τοῦ ἑνὸς δίκαιοι κατασταθήσονται οἱ πολλο ί]. That is, not merely by the death [the passive obedience] of Christ, but also by the [active] obedience of His whole life, which was finished in His death.90 But why the future? Meyer: “It relates (corresponding to βασιλεύσουσι) to the future revelation of glory after the resurrection (Reiche, Fritzsche, Hofmann).” Tholuck also, together with Abelard, Cocceius, and others, refers the future to the final judgment. But the setting forth of believers as righteous extends from the beginning of the preaching of the gospel through all subsequent time. Beza properly observes, that the future denotes the continua vis justificandi; and Grotius, Calov., Rückert, De Wette, and Philippi, regard it similarly as a prœsens futuribile. Tholuck objects: Is not objective justification a single act? Certainly, but only for individuals; but in the kingdom of God these acts are repeated through all the future to the end of the world.
[The interpretation of ἁμαρτωλοὶ κατεστάθησαν (passive Aor. I.) and δίκαιοι κατασταθήσονται has been much embarrassed and obscured by preconceived dogmatic theories. Καθίστημι (also καθιστάω and καθιστάνω) means: (1) to set down, to place (this would give good sense here: to be set down in the rank of sinners; but see below); (2) to appoint, to elect (this is inapplicable here, as it would make God directly the author of sin); (3) to constitute, to cause to be, to make (reddere aliquem aliquid); hence the passive: to be rendered, to become; (4) to conduct, to accompany on a journey (only once in the New Testament). Reiche has spent much learning to establish a fifth meaning: to show, to exhibit; but this is somewhat doubtful. The verb occurs twenty-two times in the New Testament, three times only in Paul (twice here, and once in Titus 1:5). In sixteen of these cases (including Titus 1:5) it clearly refers to official appointment; in one it means, to accompany (Acts 17:15); in the remaining, five, viz., Romans 5:19 (twice); James 3:6; James 4:4; 2 Peter 1:8, it is, to constitute, to render. So it is taken in this verse by nearly all the recent commentators.91 But in what sense? Figuratively, or really? Chrysostom, and the Greek commentators who did not believe in original sin, started the figurative or metonymic interpretation, which was subsequently more fully developed by the Arminians and Socinians (Grotius, Limborch, Wetstein, Socinus, Crell), and advocated also by Storr and Flatt, of the school of the older Germansupernaturalism, namely, that κατεστάθησαν ἁμαρτωλοι means: they were only apparently made sinners, or accounted, regarded, and treated as sinners—i.e., exposed to the punishment of sin, without actually being sinners.92 The same view has been strenuously advocated even by so sound and orthodox a commentator as Dr. Hodge, but from the very opposite doctrinal standpoint, and in the interest of immediate forensic imputationism. He takes κατεστάθησαν, like ἥμαρτον, Romans 5:12, in a purely legal and forensic sense: they were regarded as sinners independently of, and antecedently to, their being sinners, simply on the ground of the sin of Adam, their federal representative; as, on the other hand, they are regarded as righteous solely on the ground of Christ’s righteousness, without any personal righteousness of their own.93 This interpretation, though less artificial than the corresponding passive rendering of ἥμαρτον, Romans 5:12, is not supported by a single passage of the New Testament where καθίστημι occurs, and conflicts with the connection. For Romans 5:19 gives the reason (γάρ) for the statement in Romans 5:18, why “judgment came upon all men to condemnation,” and it would be sheer tautology to say: they were condemned because “they were regarded and treated as sinners.” The phrase, then, can be taken only in the real sense, like ἥμαρτον in Romans 5:12. It means: they were made sinners either by virtual participation in the fall of Adam, or by actual practice, by repeating, as it were, the fall of Adam in their sinful conduct. Both interpretations are perfectly grammatical, and do not exclude each other. Even if the verb under consideration, in the passive, could be made out to mean: to be exhibited, to appear (κατεστάθησαν = ἐφανερώθησαν, see Wetstein, Reiche, Fritzsche), it always presupposes actual being: they were made to appear in their true character as sinners, or what they really were.94 Comp. Lange above.95 This is very different from: they were regarded and treated as sinners, without being such. The metonymic interpretation confounds the effect with the cause, or reverses the proper order that death follows sin. We are regarded and treated as sinners because we are sinners in fact and by practice. So, on the other hand, δίκαιοι κατασταθήσονται is more than the declaratory δικαιωθήσονται, and means, that by Christ’s merits we shall be actually made righteous, and appear as such before His judgment seat. It denotes the righteousness of life, as a consequence of justification by faith (comp. εἰς δικαίωσιν ζωῆς, Romans 5:18). Luther says: “Wie Adam’s Sünde unsere eigene geworden ist, also auch Christi Gerechtigkeit;” as Adam’s sin has become our own, so also Christ’s righteousness. Calvin correctly translates: “peccatores constituti sunt, … justi constituentur,” and remarks in loc.: “Unde sequitur, justitiœ qualitatem esse in Christo: sed nobis acceptum ferri, quod illi proprium est.” David Pareus, one of the ablest among the older Reformed commentators, explains δίκαιοι καταστ.: “multo plus est, quam justificabuntur. Nam justificari est a condemnation absolvi justitia imputata; justum constitui est etiam justitia habituali sanctificari, hoc est, simul justificationis et sanctificationis beneficium complectitur.” Bengel in loc.: “Apostolus talem justorum constitutionem videtur prœdicare, quœ justificationis actum subsequatur, et verbo inveniri includitur (Philippians 3:9; coll. Galatians 2:17);” i.e., the Apostle seems to set forth such a constituting of men as righteous, as may follow upon the act of justification, and as is included in the expression, being found. Alford: “be made righteous, not by imputation merely, any more than in the other case; but, ‘shall be made really and actually righteous, as completely so as the others were made really and actually sinners.’ When we say that man has no righteousness of his own, we speak of him as out of Christ: but in Christ, and united to Him, he is made righteous, not by a fiction or imputation only of Christ’s righteousness, but by a real and living spiritual union with a righteous head, as a righteous member, righteous by means of, as an effect of, the righteousness of that head, but not merely righteous by transference of the righteousness of that head; just as, in his natural state, he is united to a sinful head as a sinful member, sinful by means of, as an effect of, the sinfulness of that head, but not merely by transference of the sinfulness of that head.”—P. S.]
On the question raised by Tholuck, and others, whether this passage does not lead to the doctrine of the ἀποκατάστασις, see Doct. and Ethical, No. 12.
[The inference of a universal salvation from this verse, as also from Romans 5:15 (εἰς τοὺς πολλοὺς ἐπερίσσευσεν) and 18 (εἰς πάντας ), is very plausible on the surface, and might be made quite strong if this section could be isolated from the rest of Paul’s teaching on the terms of salvation. The same difficulty is presented in 1 Corinthians 15:22 : ”As in Adam all die (πάντες ), so in Christ shall all be made alive (πάντες ξωοποιηθήσονται).” It has been urged by some that the apocatastasis is implied partly in the indicative future, κατασταθήσονται and ζωποιηθήσονται, but especially in the fact that, as πάντες, all, and οἱ πολλοί, the many,96 are confessedly unlimited in the first clause, we have no right to limit them in the second clause. (The advocates of eternal punishment forcibly derive the same argument for their doctrine from the double αἰώνιος, Matthew 25:46). The popular explanation that πάντες and οἱ πολλοί means, in one case, Adam’s natural seed (οἱ ἁμαρτωλοί), in the other, Christ’s spiritual seed (i.e., οἱπιστεύοντες), though true as to practical result, fails to do justice to the superabundance of God’s grace over man’s sin. Paul unquestionably teaches emphatically the universal sufficiency of the gospel salvation, without any restrictions which might break the force of the parallel between Adam and Christ.97 All men are capable of salvation, or salvable (erlösbar), which must by all means be maintained against Manichæism and fatalism. If any are ultimately lost, it is not from metaphysical or constitutional inability, nor from any defect in Christ’s atonement, which is of infinite value in itself, and was made for the sins of the whole world (1 John 2:2), nor from any unwillingness on the part of God, who, according to His benevolent purpose, will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth (1 Timothy 2:4; comp. Romans 4:10; 2 Peter 3:9). But we must make a distinction between the objective sufficiency and the subjective efficacy of Christ’s atonement, between the possibility and the actuality of a universal salvation. All men may be saved, since abundant provision has been made to that end, and under this view we must approach even the worst sinner; but which, and how many, will be saved, is a question of the future which God only knows. From the great stress which Paul lays in this passage on the superabundance of grace which greatly exceeds the evils of the fall, we have a right to infer that by far the greater part of the race will ultimately be saved, especially if we take into consideration that the half of mankind die in infancy before having committed actual transgression, and that, in the days of millennial glory, the knowledge of Christ will cover the earth. It is a truly liberal and noble sentiment of Dr. Hodge when he says (p. 279): ”We have reason to believe that the lost shall bear to the saved no greater proportion than the inmates of a prison do to the mass of the community.” But from all our present observation, as well as from the word of God (comp. Matthew 7:13-14), we know that many, very many—yea, the vast majority of adults even in Christian lands—walk on the broad path to perdition, although they may yet be rescued in the last moment. Paul himself speaks of the everlasting punishment of those who obey not the gospel of Christ (2 Thessalonians 1:9), and teaches a resurrection of the unjust as well as of the just (Acts 24:15). We know, moreover, that none can be saved except by faith, which is God’s own express condition. For salvation is a moral, not a mechanical process, and requires the free assent of our will. Now Paul everywhere presents faith as the subjective condition of justification; and in Romans 5:17 he expressly says, that those who receive (λαμβάνοντες) the abundance of the grace and of the gift of righteousness, shall reign in life by the one, Jesus Christ. He contrasts the whole generation of Adam and the whole generation of Christ, and, as the one die in consequence of their participation in Adam’s sin, so the other shall be made alive by virtue and on condition of their union with Christ’s righteousness. In Galatians 3:22 he states the case beyond the possibility of mistake: ”The Scripture hath concluded all (τὰ πάντα) under sin, that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe (τοῖς πιστεύουσιν).”—Universalism must assume a second probation after death even for those who lived in Christian lands, with every opportunity of saving their soul. But such an assumption is contrary to Galatians 6:7-8, and the whole practical tenor of the Bible, and is in itself untenable and illusive. A new trial, instead of improving, would greatly lessen the chance of building up a good character. For as it is impossible, without a new creation, to return to the mother’s womb and live the old life over again, the second trial would have to commence where the first left off—that is, with a dismal outfit of neglected opportunities, broken vows, sad reminiscences, abused faculties, bad habits, and in the corrupting company of moral bankrupts, with every prospect of a worse failure and a more certain ruin. God wisely and mercifully gave to men but one state of probation, and those who improved it best, would shrink most from running the risk of a second.—P. S.]
Third Paragraph (Romans 5:20-21)
How the law is designed to bring about directly this process of the development of sin, in order also to bring about indirectly the revelation of grace.
Romans 5:20. But the law. [Νόμος δέ, κ.τ.λ. The Mosaic law is meant, though the article is wanting, as is often the case where there can be no mistake.—P. S.] The Apostle now cannot avoid to state the relation of the law or of Moses to this antithesis—Adam and Christ—especially since he had already intimated this relation in Romans 5:13. Grotius thought the following discussion induced by an objection. But chaps. vi. and vii. show that Paul could not avoid to answer this question.—Came in between [zwischenein, parenthetically, as it were] παρεισῆλθεν. Not besides, thereto (Meyer);98 nor subintravit (Vulg.);99 nor incidentally, subordinately (nebensächlich, Rothe,100 Tholuck [Reiche, Philippi], and others [contrary to the pedagogic mission of the law; Romans 3:20; Galatians 4:24]). The coming to, in addition to, lies in the παρά; the coming into, in the εἰς. Therefore, properly to enter between, to come between [Adam and Christ] (Theodoret, Calvin, Luther [Estius,101 Grotius, Usteri, Ewald], &c.), which Meyer opposes without warrant. The reference to the position of Moses between Adam and Christ may, indeed, be only an intimation; but to say that sin merely supervened in addition to sin (Beza, De Wette, &c.), is not satisfactory, because the question in the foregoing is not concerning sin alone, but the antithesis of sin and grace. Tholuck concludes incorrectly from this consideration, that the law is characterized as an incidental factor. The law incidental? (Chrysostom [Theophylact, Cornelius a Lapide, without any foundation], have understood παρά as denoting obiter, ad tempus). The Apostle has evidently the idea of an ethico-chemical process. The law had to enter into the process of the development of sin, in order to force it to a crisis. [Olshausen: ”Paul regards the law as a salutary medicine, which forces the disease that rages in the inward, nobler parts, to the surface.” So also De Wette and Rothe.—P. S.]
That the fall might multiply [ἵνα πλεονάσῃ τὸ παράπτωμα; Lange: damit der Sündenfall völliger werde (erscheine); Alford: in order that the trespass might multiply. The Apostle uses παράπτωμα here (not παραπτώματα, nor ἁμαρτία), because the law does not aim to multiply sin as such, but to make it appear and to reveal it to the conscience as a παράπτωμα—i.e., a transgression of the positive will of God; comp. Romans 3:20; Romans 4:15; Romans 7:7; and Rothe, p. 167.—P. S.]. The boldness of this thought has troubled the commentators. It is indeed not satisfactory to alleviate it by supposing that the law is intended merely to enhance the knowledge of sin (Grotius, Baur, and others); but this is one important element of its mission (see chap. vii.), and must not be rejected, with Meyer, as false. To explain ἵνα of the consequence or result (merely ἐκβατικῶς, with Chrysostom [οὐκ αἰτιολογίας, ἀλλ̓ ἐκβάσεως; Estius: “non finalem causam denotat, sed eventum.”—P. S.], Koppe, Reiche [Stuart, Barnes]), is likewise unsatisfactory; yet the Apostle has certainly inferred from the result the design and intention in the ἵνα.102 Galatians 3:19 does not serve as an elucidation of this passage, as Meyer would have it; and Romans 7:14 proves that, by the law, the knowledge of sin comes; while 1 Timothy 1:9 shows that the law constitutes a weapon against the ungodly. Reiche has called the telic construction blasphemous; in reply to which, comp. Meyer [p. 224]. He properly remarks, that sin had to reach its culminating point, where it will be outdone by grace. Only this culminating point should not be merely objective, but subjective also, in accordance with the sentence quoted from Augustine, on Psalms 102:0.: “Non crudeliter hoc fecit Deus, sed consilio medicinœ; … augetur morbus, crescit malitia, quœritur medicus et totum sanatur.” It is a fact both that the misunderstood law, according to God’s decree, induced the crucifixion of Christ—the climax of the world’s guilt—and that the same law, well understood, prepared the way for the saving faith of the New Testament. For this reason there is truth in Rothe’s explanation: All sin should ever stand out more complete under the form of the παράπτωμα. Tholuck also takes ground with Olshausen, De Wette, and Neander, in favor of the telic rendering. Reasons: 1. Nitimur in vetitum; 2. Thomas: ”When the passions dare not manifest themselves, they become more intense.” Does this apply here? Sin, even in the form of anti-Christianity, undoubtedly becomes, more intense in opposition to the gospel, but still this is mostly ecbatic consequence; 3. Luther: The accusing and condemning law awakens enmity to God. For this reason, Judaism, like all fanaticism, is angry at God. It is a prime consideration that here the law is specifically understood as the law of the letter, as designed to finish, both objectively and subjectively, the sinful process of the old world. Therefore the second ἵνα in Romans 5:21, as Tholuck well remarks, takes the sting from the first. [In other words, the first ἵνα indicates the mediate, the second ἵνα the ultimate end and purpose.—P. S.] Philippi understands by παράπτωμα merely the παράπτ. of Adam inhering in sinners. But it denotes here rather the completion of the fall of humanity itself.
But where sin multiplied [οὗ δέ ἐπλεόνασεν ἡ ἁμαρτία]. Where it was completed, came to full revelation. It is very strange that Rothe regards the head of the whole deduction from οὗ δὲ to κάρις as parenthetical. ()ὗ is not temporal (Grotius [De Wette, Fritzsche, Stölting]), but spacial (Meyer, Tholuck)—perhaps both; time being considered as an expansion—[Grace exceedingly abounded (not, much more, E. V.), ὑπερεπερίσσευσεν ἡ χάρις]. ὑπερεπερισσεύειν [supra modum redundavit] is superlative [not comparative; comp. ὑπερπλεονάζω, ὑπερνικάω, ὑπερυψόῳ, ὑπερλίαν]; (2 Corinthians 7:4 [the same verb]; 1 Timothy 1:14; Mark 7:37; 2 Thessalonians 1:3).
Romans 5:21. That, as sin reigned in [not unto, E. V.; Lange, mittelst, by means of] death [ἵνα, ὧσπερ ἐβασίλευσεν ἡ ἁμαρτία ἐν τῷ θανάτῳ. The second ἵν indicates the more remote and ultimate purpose of the coming in of the law, as the first ἵνα, Romans 5:20, denotes its nearer and mediate aim and effect; the increase of sin served merely as a means for the triumphant and eternal reign of grace. Hodge: ”The design of God in permitting sin, and in allowing it to abound, was to bring good out of evil; to make it the occasion of the most wonderful display of His glory and grace, so that the benefits of redemption should infinitely transcend the evils of the apostasy.”—P. S.] As sin wrought death, so again did death work sin (see Hebrews 2:14). But here the priority in the βασιλεία is ascribed to sin. It reigned [aor., the historic past]. It reigns no more. ἐν before θασνάτῳ is not a substitute for εἰς (Beza, and others). Meyer opposes also the explanation: by death (Tholuck, Philippi). Death denotes the sphere of the dominion of sin. But death is also the medium of the reign of sin; see the antithesis, διὰ δικαιοσύνης.
So also grace may reign, &c. [οὕτως καὶἡ χάρις βασιλεύση, κ.τ.λ.] The law would thus bring to pass the dominion of grace; and it now reigns in reality. The material medium is righteousness unto (leading to) life eternal; the personal medium is Jesus Christ our Lord; and both are identical. The δικ., and not the ζωή, is named as the medium of the dominion of grace, because the ζωή αἰώνιος is the goal. The righteousness of faith and the righteousness of life are comprised here in the idea of the δικ. (βασιλεύση is aorist, not future. Meyer against Reiche, see Colossians 3:4.)
[The last word in this section is, Jesus Christ our Lord, the one glorious solution of the Adamic fall and the dark problem of sin. Adam disappears, and Christ alone remains master of the field of battle, having slain the tyrants, Sin and Death. Forbes concludes his notes on Romans 5:12-21 with the exclamation (p. 257): “Who can rise from the study and contemplation of this wondrous passage, full of such profound views and pregnant meanings, with all its variously complicated yet beautifully discriminated relations and interlacements of members and thoughts, without an overpowering admiration and irresistible conviction of the superhuman wisdom that must have dictated its minutest details!”—P. S.]
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
[Literature on the Doctrinal Questions involved in Romans 5:12-21.—The authoritative Creed statements on anthropology and hamartiology from the Synod of Orange, A. D. 529 (comp. my Church Hist., vol. 3. pp. 866 ff.) to the Westminster Assembly, 1643. To these may be added two quasi-creeds of sectional and temporary authority, drawn up in the interest of immediate imputationism, viz., the decree of the French Reformed Synod of Charenton, 1645 (“Decretum Synodi nationalis Ecclesiarum Reformatarum Galliæ A. D. 1645 de imputatione primi peccati omnibus Adami posteris, cum ecclesiarum et doctorum protestantium consensu, ex scriptis eorum ab Andrea Riveto collecto,” in the Opera Theol. of A. Rivet, Roterod. 1660, tom. 3. pp. 798–827); and the Formula consensus Helvetica, 1675 (in Niemeyer’s Collectio Confess. Reform., pp. 720–739). Comp., in part, Winer’s Comparative Symbolik, pp. 53 ff., where the principal passages from the symbolical books are collected.—The numerous works of Augustine against Pelagius and Julian of Eclanum. Anselm, De conceptu virginali et orig. peccato. Rivet, Theses theologicæ de peccato originis (Opera, tom. 3. pp. 804 sqq.) President Edwards, On Original Sin (Works, vol. 2:303–583.) Jul. Müller, The Christian Doctrine of Sin (the most exhaustive work on the subject, now accessible also to the English reader in an intelligible translation, from the 5th German edition, by Rev. W. Urwick, Edinb., 1868). Ebrard, Christl. Dogmatik (1851), 1. pp. 511 ff.; Kirchen- und Dogmen-Geschichte (1866), 2:504 ff., 538 ff. Heppe, Dogmatik der evang. reform. Kinche aus den Quellen (1861), pp. 204 ff. Chs. Hodge (Princeton). Theol. Essays, New York, 1846, Nos. 6.–8., on Imputation, pp. 128 ff.; in Princeton Rev. for April, 1860, pp. 335 ff., and revised edition of Romans (1864), pp. 279–284. Archibald Alex. Hodge (Alleghany), Outlines of Theology, New York, 1860, chap. xvi., pp. 230–246. R. W. Landis, several articles in the Danville Review, from Sept. 1861 to Dec. 1862. Shedd, History of Christian Doctrine (1863), 2:152 ff. (and essay on Original Sin, in his ”Discourses and Essays,” pp. 218–271). Sam. J. Baird, The First Adam and the Second. The Elohim Revealed in the Creation and Redemption of Man, Philad., 1860, pp. 11–50, 305 ff., 410 ff., 474 ff. G. P. Fisher, The Augustinian and the Federal Theories of Original Sin compared, in the New Englander for 1868, pp. 468 ff.—P. S.]
1. On the internal connection of the section, as well as its organic relations to what precedes and follows, compare the inscription and the introductory foundation of the Exeg. Notes.
[2. Historical Statements on the different Theories of Original Sin and Imputation.—The Apostle clearly teaches, and our religious experience daily confirms, the fact of the universal dominion of sin and death over the human race, which dominion goes back in unbroken line to our first parents; as, on the other hand, the power and principle of righteousness and life go back to Jesus Christ, the second Adam. Sin existed before Christianity, as disease existed before the science and art of healing; and, however explained, the stubborn, terrible fact remains. It is all-important, as we stated in the introductory remarks, to distinguish clearly between the fact itself and the different modes of explanation, or between the primitive truths of the Bible and the after-thoughts of human philosophy and theology. Here lies the reason why Christian men, holding very divergent views on the why and wherefore, or the rationale of Scripture truths, may yet in their inmost heart and religious experience be agreed. The commentators have so far dwelt mainly on the negative clause of Paul’s parallelism, viz., the propagation of sin and death from Adam; but he lays the chief stress upon the positive clause, the antitype, and the life-union of the justified believer with Christ, which prepares the way for chap. vi.
The following are the principal theories on this subject:(1) The pantheistic and necessitarian theory regards sin as an essential attribute (a limitation) of the finite, and a necessary stage in the development of character; it consequently destroys the radical antagonism between good and evil, and places itself outside of the Christian system. Where there is no real sin, there is no room for redemption.
(2) The Pelagian heresy denies original sin, and resolves the fall of Adam into an isolated and comparatively trivial childish act of disobedience, which indeed set a bad example, but left his character and moral faculties essentially unimpaired, so that every child is born into the world as innocent and perfect, though as fallible, as Adam was created. It offers no explanation of the undeniable fact of the universal dominion of sin, which embraces every human being with the one solitary exception of Jesus of Nazareth. It rests on an atomistic anthropology and hamartiology, and is as anti-scriptural as the opposite extreme of pantheism. Socinianism, Unitarianism, and Rationalism likewise deny original sin and guilt in the proper sense of the term.
(3) The assumption of a pre-Adamic fall of all men, either in time—i.e., in a state of individual preëxistence of the soul prior to its connection with the body (as Origen held it), or timeless and transcendental (so Dr. Jul. Müller: ein ausserzeitlicher Urzustand und Urfall). This is a mere hypothesis, without support in human consciousness, and inconsistent with the plain sense of Romans 5:12, which, in harmony with Genesis 3:0., derives sin from the one historical Adam.
(4) The Augustinian or realistic theory of a real though impersonal and unconscious participation of the whole human race in the fall of Adam, as their natural head, who by his individual transgression vitiated the generic human nature, and transmitted it in this corrupt and guilty state to his descendants by physical generation. As an individual act, Adam’s sin and guilt was his own exclusively, and is not transferable to any other individual; but as the act of mankind in their collective, undistributed, and unindividualized form of existence, it was, virtually or potentially, the act of all who were germinally or seminally contained in their first parent, as Levi was in the loins of Abraham (Hebrews 7:9-10). Persona corrumpit naturam, natura corrumpit personam. In other words: Adam’s individual transgression resulted in a sinful nature; while, in the case of his descendants, the sinful nature or depraved will results in individual transgressions. See the passages from Augustine quoted on p. 178, third foot-note. His view rests on his deep religious experience and his interpretation of Romans 5:0., but it presupposes, as a necessary prerequisite, the original organic unity of the human race, a distinction between person and nature (which must be made also in the doctrine of the Trinity and the Incarnation), and may be philosophically supported by the Platonico-Aristotelian realism concerning the doctrine of the general conceptions, as the original types of individual things.
This realistic view of the fall of the race in Adam became the orthodox doctrine of the Latin Church. It was defended by the great schoolmen, Anselm, Peter the Lombard, Thomas Aquinas, &c. (yet with a material modification of Augustine’s conception of original sin and guilt, which scholastic theology made to consist only in the loss of original righteousness; viewing it more as a negative state of privation than as positive corruption). It was even more earnestly and vigorously maintained by the Reformers, both Lutheran and Calvinistic (who advocated afresh the Augustinian view of hereditary sin and guilt in all its severity). The various writings of Luther, Melanchthon, Calvin, and the symbolical books of the sixteenth century, abound with quotations and reminiscences from Augustine on the doctrines of Sin and Grace.
But within the Augustinian system different views of imputation were developed, especially in the Reformed Church:
(a.) Imputation, immediate and mediate,103 conjoined and inseparable. This makes the guilt of Adam’s first sin imputed, and the guilt of inherent depravity inseparable and conditional to one another. Both kinds of imputation are held in fact; but the distinction was not made before the seventeenth century. Participation is assumed as the ground of imputation. Native corruption is itself sin, and likewise punishment for guilt incurred in Adam’s sin. Hereditary guilt coëxists with hereditary sin; man is condemned, both on account of the act of disobedience which he committed in the loins of Adam, and for hereditary depravity.
Here we must distinguish again a minor difference relating to the order of the two kinds of imputation:(aa.) Some put immediate imputation before mediate in the order of things. So Augustine and his strict followers in the Catholic Church, and the Calvinists of the Montauban school, David Pareus, Andrew Rivet,104 the elder Turretin,105 and Heidegger;106—with this difference, that the Dutch and French Calvinists of the seventeenth century combined, with the Augustinian theory of participation, the federal theory of representation (see below, No. 5); and, while still holding to both kinds of imputation, they laid the chief stress upon immediate imputation—thus preparing the way for exclusive immediate imputationism.
(bb.) Others give mediate imputation, or the imputation of inherent depravity, the logical priority, so that Adam’s sin is imputed to us only because it becomes our own by propagation (to which some add, by actual transgression). Here belong, in all probability, Anselm among the schoolmen,107 Calvin,108 and Bullinger among the reformers;109 and, more clearly and expressly, Stapfer and President Edwards,110 who are often inaccurately quoted as mediate imputationists; also the orthodox Lutherans of the seventeenth century.111 It is certain that we have all to bear the consequences of Adam’s sin, and this sin is therefore the cause of our native corruption; but it is not our personal guilt independently of this corruption, and our assent to it.
(b.) Mediate or consequent imputation makes inherent depravity derived from Adam, and this alone, the ground of condemnation. “Vitiositas prœcedit imputationem.” So the Reformed school of Saumur, in France, especially Joshua Placæus (La Place), who denied that the imputation of Adam’s sin was prior to, and independent of, inherent depravity, but who claimed to be in full harmony with the teaching of Calvin on this subject. This view, “so far as it restricts the nature of original sin to the mere hereditary corruption of Adam’s posterity, excluding the imputation of the first sin by which he fell,” was condemned by the French Reformed Synod at Charenton, near Paris, in 1645, yet without mentioning the name of Placæus, who contended that he was not touched by this decree, since he admitted a mediate imputation of Adam’s sin, consequent and dependent on corruption.
(c.) Immediate or antecedent imputation as opposed to mediate imputation, makes, on purely legal grounds, the sin of Adam, as the sin of the federal head of the race, the only and exclusive ground of condemnation independently of, and prior to, native depravity and personal transgression; so that hereditary guilt precedes hereditary sin, and not viceversâ. This exclusive immediate imputationism is held by Calvinists of the supralapsarian and federal school, and gives up the Augustinian ground of participation. See below, No. (5) (b). In antagonism to this view, the New School theology of New England has departed to the opposite extreme of rejecting imputation under any form. (See No. 6.)
(5) The federal theory of a vicarious representation of mankind by Adam, in virtue of a covenant made with him. It arose in Holland in the seventeenth century, simultaneously with the development of representative federal government, and gained advocates among Calvinistic or Presbyterian divines in France, England, Scotland, and the United States. It supposes a (one-sided, μονόπλευρον) contract or covenant of the sovereign Creator with the first man, called the covenant of works (fœdus operum, fœdus naturœ), as distinct from the covenant of grace (fœdus gratiœ), to the effect that Adam should stand a moral probation on behalf of all his descendants, so that his act of obedience or disobedience, with all its consequences, should be judicially imputed to them, or accounted theirs in law. Adam’s position is compared to the relation of a representative to his constituents, or rather of a guardian to his wards, since in this case the wards were not consulted, and did not even exist at the time of his appointment. The transaction must be resolved at last into the sovereign pleasure of God.112
Here again we must distinguish two schools:(a.) The Augustino-federal school is a combination, and superadds the federal scheme on the realistic basis of participation, so that imputation is made to rest on moral as well as legal grounds. This was the view of the founders and chief advocates of the federal theory, Cocceius (originally John Koch, or Cook, born at Bremen, 1603, died as professor at Leyden, 1669), Burmann, Witsius, and is taught by the Westminster standards,113 and even in the Consensus Helveticus, although in this the Augustinian idea of participation is almost absorbed by the idea of the covenant.114
(b.) The purely federal school (from nominalistic premises, according to which the general conceptions are mere names, not things, subjective abstractions, not objective realities) denies the Adamic unity of the race in the realistic sense, consequently also all participation of Adam’s descendants in the act of the primal apostasy; yet it holds that, by virtue of his federal headship on the ground of a sovereign arrangement, his sin and guilt are justly, directly, and immediately imputed to them. The imputation of Adam’s sin, and in the same way also the imputation of Christ’s righteousness or justification, is thus made a purely forensic process, which affects our legal relation, but by no means our moral character.
This forensic theory of imputation, which excludes participation in Adam’s sin, dates from the time of Turretin, in the latter part of the seventeenth century,115 and is upheld by a number of Calvinistic divines in England and America, but has no advocate of note, as far as I know, among modern Continental divines.116
Legal representation seemed to offer an easier vindication of Divine justice than the Augustinian view.117 It involves, undoubtedly, an element of truth, but, if detached from the idea of moral participation, it resolves itself into a mere legal fiction, and greatly enhances the difficulty of the problem by removing the best reason for imputation. For how can an infinitely just and holy God punish countless millions of human beings simply and solely for the sin of another, in which they had no part whatever? The passage, Ezekiel 18:1-4, where God rebukes the Israelites for using the proverb of the sour grapes, which Julian of Eclanum and his sympathizers have quoted ad nauseam against the Augustinian theory, returns here with double force. The analogy of forensic justification is not to the point, for the righteousness of Christ is not imputed to the impenitent sinner, but only on the subjective condition of faith, by which Christ is apprehended and made our own. Justification presupposes regeneration, or an action of the Holy Spirit, by which He creates repentance of our sins and trust in Jesus Christ, and makes us one with Him. By ”being in Christ” is meant, not merely a nominal, putative, or constructive relation, but a real, substantial union; so also our ”being in Adam,” by which the other relation is illustrated, is real and vital. This analogy, therefore, leads to the opposite conclusion, that moral participation, either potential or personal, or both, must be the ground of the imputation of Adam’s sin.
(6) The New School Calvinists of New England (since the days of the younger Edwards), in radical opposition to Princeton, reject imputation altogether; but maintain that the sinfulness of the descendants of Adam results with infallible certainty (though not with necessity) from his transgression; the one class holding to hereditary depravity, prior to sinful choice, the other class teaching (with Dr. N. W. Taylor, of New Haven) that the first moral choice of all is universally sinful, yet with the power of contrary choice. This is a peculiar modification of the Pelagian conception of liberum arbitrium, but differs from it in making a nice distinction between natural ability and moral inability.118
(7) The semi-Pelagian, and the cognate Arminian theories (of which the former, since the fifth century, has gained large influence in the Latin, the latter, since the seventeenth century, in a considerable portion of the Reformed Churches, and was adopted by the Wesleyan Methodists), though by no means explicit and uniform on this point, agree in that they admit the Adamic unity, and the disastrous effects of the primal apostasy upon the whole posterity of Adam, but regard the native or hereditary corruption not properly as sin and guilt exposing us to just punishment, but only as an evil, an infirmity, malady, and misfortune, for which the most benevolent God provided a sufficient remedy for all. Zwingli taught a similar view, and distinguished original sin as a moral defect or disease (he called it, in the Swiss dialect, Bresten) from sin proper. Semi-Pelagianism holds a medium position between Pelagianism and Augustinianism; Arminianism wavers between semi-Pelagianism and Calvinism; both may, according to the elastic nature of compromises, lean now more to the one, now to the other extreme; employing at times the Augustinian phraseology, but putting, after all, a different interpretation upon it.
The stationary anthropology and hamartiology of the Greek Church occupies a similar position, but it never passed through the mill of Western controversies, and remains to this day theologically incomplete.
Most evangelical divines of the present day are divided between the Augustinian or realistic, the federal or forensic, and the Arminian theories, or they look for a still more satisfactory solution of the difficult problem by a future Augustine, who may be able to advance, from a deeper study of the Scriptures, the knowledge of the Church, and reconcile what now seem to be irreconcilable contradictions. It should be remembered that the main difficulty lies in the fact itself—the undeniable, stubborn, terrible fact—of the universal dominion of sin and death over the entire race, infants as well as full-grown sinners. No system of philosophy has ever given a more satisfactory explanation than the great divines of the Church. Outside of the Christian redemption, the fall, with its moral desolation and ruin, remains an impenetrable mystery. But immediately after the fall appears, in the promise of the serpent-bruiser, the second Adam, and throws a bright ray of hope into the gloom of despair. In the fulness of the time, according to God’s own counsel, He appeared in our nature, to repair the loss, and to replace the temporary reign of sin by the everlasting reign of superabounding grace, which never could have been revealed in all its power without the fall.119 The person and work of the second Adam are the one glorious solution of the problem of the first, and the triumphant vindication of Divine justice and mercy. This is the main point for all practical purposes, and in this, at least, all true Christians are agreed.—P. S.]
3. [In Lange, No. 2.] Criticism of the Augustinian doctrine of Sin and Grace. Augustine, in his controversy with Pelagius, has undoubtedly expressed and defended the Church’s sense of religious truth, and thereby become a rich source of blessing to Western Christendom. It cannot be denied, however, that the theologico-dogmatical expression of his sense of truth—especially his doctrine of original sin—far transcends the Scriptural bounds, and has done harm by its erroneous features. Augustine has not only supported, but also obstructed the Reformation. His explanation of ἐφ̓ ῷ in Romans 5:12, which has obscured the exegesis of this passage even in Meyer (not to speak of Tholuck and Philippi), is of itself a sufficient testimony of this. See the Exeg. Notes. It sets aside the formal freedom which remains even within the material bondage and slavery, and which, under the power of sin, becomes a λαμβάνειν of death by means of unbelief, but, under the exercise of the gratia prœveniens, becomes a λαμβάνειν of the marks of salvation by means of faith. It thus destroys or weakens the ethical signification of the λαμβάνειν itself [comp. Romans 5:11; Romans 5:17, and Notes] in the interest of the Augustinian dogmatics. The biblical doctrine of original sin is distinguished from the Augustinian mainly in the following respects:
(a.) The Bible teaches an ethico-physical fall of the human race from Adam, as a fall in principle; Augustine, a physico-ethical fall of the human race in Adam, as a completed fact.120 Therefore Augustine ignores the distinction between the inheritance of the propensity and curse of sin, or of death—which inheritance oppresses all who are Adamically begotten—and the ethical appropriation of the corruption.
(b.) With Augustine, the ideal and potential condition of condemnation—that is, the condemnableness of men, apart from redemption—coincides with a judicially completed condition of condemnation; therefore, with him, redemption is properly a new creation.
(c.) With Augustine, the exercise of grace, of the Logos, and of the Spirit of God, is theocratically and ecclesiastically bound and limited; his Christ is, in substance, not greater than the extent (rayon) of the Church; therefore he does not perceive the gradations of the hereditary blessing and of the hereditary curse within the general corruption of mankind, and still less the significance of the antithesis in Romans 2:14-15, within the whole world. His acceptation of mere gradations of evil downwardly, is in contradiction with his own system.
(d.) A consequence of this extreme view of original sin is his extreme view of the government of grace. He had in mind, probably, the great religious truth of the ethical irresistibility of all-conquering love; but in his theological system he gave it a fatalistic character in opposition to formal freedom.
(e.) Because, with him, the ideal and potential condemnation of all is aggravated into an actual condition of condemnation, he has also—in consequence of the fact that only a part of humanity within the ecclesiastical pale of this world believe and are saved—limited the extent of the effects of the ideal and potential δικαίωμα, or righteous act of Christ; while Paul teaches that the δικαίωμα has come εἰς δικαίωσιν ζωῆς upon all men.
[There is considerable force in these objections to the Augustinian system which apply à fortiori to Calvinism. But they cannot diminish the great merits of the African father, who searched the problem of sin more profoundly than any divine before or after him. He was right in teaching the (virtual or potential) fall of the whole race in Adam, and the sinfulness of our nature, or depraved will, as the source of all sinful volitions, words, and acts. But he did not take into sufficient account that there is a Divine πάρεσις and ἀνοκή, which hold the arm of God’s ὀργή, and suspend the full and final execution of the well-deserved judgment, until men make the fall of Adam their personal, individual act, and reject the offer of redemption (comp. the remarks on Romans 3:24-25, p. 134). Hence Augustine consigns even all unbaptized children to condemnation, although in the mildest form (De pecc. orig., c. Rom 36: “Infans perditione punitur, quia pertinet ad massam perditionis.” Enchir., c. Rom 93: “Mitissima sane omnium pœna erit eorum, qui prœter peccatum quod originale traxerunt, nullum insuper addiderunt.”) In this respect even the strictest Calvinistic divines of our age decidedly dissent from him, and are disposed to hold that all children who die in infancy, whether baptized or not, will be saved by the infinite mercy of God. This charitable belief and hope has a strong support in the universal sufficiency of the atonement, and especially in the words of our Saviour concerning little children, spoken without qualification or limitation (Matthew 19:14; Mark 10:14). There can be no salvation without Christ, even for children; but God is not bound to the use of His own appointed means, by which the benefits of Christ are ordinarily applied to men.—P. S.]
4. On the question why Eve is not the one human being by whom sin came into the world (Pelagius and Ambrosiaster have really held that Eve is meant),121 compare, in addition to the Exeg. Notes, Tholuck, p. 216.
5. The Apostle does not speak here of the first origin of sin, or of the fall of Satan, as Christ does, John 8:44. Although the doctrine of the devil is by no means wanting in his writings, it does not stand out very prominently. He here speaks merely of the entrance of sin into our human world from an unknown world beyond this, where it is assumed that it already existed in personified form. Now, this human world is neither the whole universe, nor merely human nature, but the human race in connection with the earth and the cosmic nature as far as it is organically connected with man (see 2 Peter 3:10, and other passages). The personification of sin and of death exhibits both as (pseudo-formative) principles which have pervaded the organism of the human world, but under the ethical conditions under which they can alone become thoroughly dominant. The individual man, in his organic nature, is connected with humanity, but as an individual intellectual being he has an existence in himself. Pelagius denied the former, while Augustine has largely ignored the latter. The organic connection implies the propagation of the sinful propensity and guilt, according to John 3:6, as well as according to chaps. 6–8 of this Epistle. In the broader sense, Christ also stood in the organic connection of humanity as the Son of Man, but only in the historical sense. Therefore He bore the burden of humanity for its reconciliation.
6. Paul calls the sin of Adam παράβασις, as the transgression of the Divine commandment standing clearly before him; παράπτωμα, as the sin which resulted in a fall; ἁμάρτημα, as a starting-point of many sins; παρακοή, as disobedience to the known will of God. These designations and statements set aside such theories on the origin of sin as that of J. Müller (that there was a previous or timeless fall of the human souls), and that of R. Rothe (that sin was the original, abnormal condition of humanity proceeding from their material constitution).
7. The relation of sin to death. Sin is death, says John (1 John 3:14-15); sin bringeth forth death, says James (Romans 1:15); sin has, as its wages or punishment, death as a consequence, says Paul (Romans 6:23). This is all the same relation, but from different points of view. The physical dying of the creature in itself is not thereby meant, but the perishableness of the creature is increased by ethical or spiritual death (Romans 8:0.); and the original transformation destined for man (2 Corinthians 5:1 ff.) has, by sin, become fearful death, in connection with corruption and the gloom of Sheol. Therefore Death itself is conquered by the death of Christ, because its sting is taken from it (1 Corinthians 15:51; 1 Corinthians 15:56). The ethical character of death and the salvation of the redeemed from death are brought to light not only in the resurrection, but also in the revelation of the original transformation at the end of the world (1 Corinthians 15:51); while the ungodly, in spite of the general resurrection, are subject to the second death (Revelation 2:11; Revelation 20:6, &c.).
8. In the period between Adam and Moses, death appeared to be merely the order of nature, because the paradisaical law had disappeared from knowledge by the fall, and the Mosaic law had not yet appeared. Nevertheless, sin was also at that time the causality of death, but not as transgression in the light of legal knowledge. The concealed sin against the law dwelling in all man (Romans 2:14-15) was, indeed, attested by the manifest, tyrannical, and terrible dominion of death. Sin, says Paul, is not imputed where there is no law—that is, not fully settled until the law. But since it is with the gospel that the full significance of the law becomes clear, it follows that condemnation can only come with final hardening of the heart against the gospel.
9. Adam and Christ appear here as principles of the old and new humanity, of the first and second æon, so far as their posterity is determined by their life. Yet it is not Adam in himself who is the principle of sin and death, but Adam in his deed—his disobedience. From the nature of sin, the disobedience (παρακοή) cannot coincide in him with personality. In Christ, on the contrary, personality and the obedience (ὑπακοή) are one. In reference to personal issue, Adam is the natural ancestor of the whole human race. Christ is the spiritual founder of the whole human race. Both constitute together a harmonious antithesis in historical consequence (1 Corinthians 15:45). But they represent the principal antithesis in so far as sin and death proceeded from one (through him), and righteousness and life from the other. The Apostle sets forth these antitheses in a series of parallels, in which, first, their homogeneousness comes into consideration (the through one, the organic development), and second, the dissimilarity (the much more on Christ’s part); then the removal of sin by grace, and the triumph of the new principle (so far as by means of the law it makes sin itself serviceable to its glory). On the construction of these antitheses, compare the general groundwork of the Exeg. Notes.
10. While doctrinal theology has ascribed to the law a threefold use or purpose (bar or bridle, mirror, rule—Zügel, Spiegel, Regel), the Apostle seems here to add a usus quartus, or rather primus, in so far as he says that the law must have brought sin to full manifestation and development. This thought is not altogether included in the use of the mirror (see the Exeg. Notes), but it is most intimately connected with it. As the knowledge of sin must come by the law, so also the revelation, the bringing of sin to light, must come by the law. The law has not produced real inward sin, but, like a chemical element, it has introduced a fermenting process into humanity, in which human nature and sinfulness seem to be identical; and by this means the external manifestation of sin is finished, in order to render possible its distinction and separation from human nature itself. The holiness of this effect is properly understood when we distinguish properly between the inward sin and its outward realization, its phase, in which the judgment has already commenced. Hence it is clear that the use of the law is the effecting of the knowledge of sin. The manifestation of sin for bringing to pass the knowledge of sin, comes by the law. The law, as letter, has completed the development of sin; the law, as the word of the Spirit, has brought the perfect knowledge of sin.
11. Although Paul, in this section, has mostly contrasted the many on the one side with the many on the other—because this expression makes more apparent the grandeur of the fundamental developments from the one—he yet declares definitely, in Romans 5:18, that the δικαίωμα of the one Christ is available for all men, with the tendency to become for them the δικαίωσις ζωῆς.
12. The Apostle makes prominent in many ways the great preponderance of the antitheses of grace over the theses of sin. The author of sin becomes to him a nameless being, who is opposed by God in His grace, and by the man Jesus Christ as the personal gift of grace. Sin itself falls immediately into the κρῖμα, and meets the κατάκριμα. But the work of grace breaks through many offences, as if invited and augmented by them, like a mountain stream from the rocky cliff; and the dominion of death on one side is only a measure of the much more powerful revelation of grace on the other. But the so-called ἀποκατάστασις, as a necessary, natural result of salvation, is no more declared in the πάντες of Romans 5:15, than the expression οἱ πολλοί is designed to abridge the universality of grace. The ethical part of the organized process, the λαμβάνειν on one or the other side, is opposed to such a conclusion. Nevertheless, it is the Apostle’s aim to glorify the unfathomableness, immeasurableness, and illimitableness of the stream of grace, and its absolute and universal triumph in the history of the world.
[“Sin reigns in death, grace reigns unto life.” On this, Dr. Hodge remarks (p. 279): “That the benefits of redemption shall far outweigh the evils of the fall, is here clearly asserted. This we can in a measure comprehend, because, (1) The number of the saved shall doubtless greatly exceed the number of the lost. Since the half of mankind die in infancy, and, according to the Protestant doctrine, are heirs of salvation; and since, in the future state of the Church, the knowledge of the Lord is to cover the earth, we have reason to believe that the lost shall bear to the saved no greater proportion than the inmates of a prison do to the mass of the community. (2) Because the eternal Son of God, by His incarnation and mediation, exalts His people to a far higher state of being than our race, if unfallen, could ever have attained. (3) Because the benefits of redemption are not to be confined to the human race. Christ is to be admired in His saints. It is through the Church that the manifold wisdom of God is to be revealed, throughout all ages, to principalities and powers. The redemption of man is to be the great source of knowledge and blessedness to the intelligent universe.”—I add a fine passage from Dr. Richard Clerke (Sermon on Titus 2:11, quoted by Ford): “Grace will not be confined. For God’s goodness cannot be exhausted. He is dives in omnes, saith the Apostle, rich enough for all (Romans 10:12). It is an excellent attribute, which is given him by St. James, πολυεύσπλαγκνος [in some MSS., but the usual reading in James 5:11 is πολύσπλαγκνος.—P. S.] In God’s mercy, there is both εὐ and πολύ: it is both free and rich; both gratiosa et copiosa (Psalms 130:0.), both bountiful and plentiful: not only περισσεύουσα, bursting forth round about, round about all ages, round about all nations, round about all sorts, but ὑπερπερισσεύουσα (Romans 5:20), surrounding all those rounds, and with surplus and advantage overflowing all. I say, not only πλεονάζονσα, an abounding grace, abounding unto all, to the whole world, but ὑπερπλεονάζουσα (1 Timothy 1:14), a grace superabounding; that, if there were more worlds, grace would ‘bring salvation’ even unto them all. St. Paul’s own parallel shall end this point (1 Timothy 2:4). It is God’s will that ‘all men should be saved.’ ”—P. S.]
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
What follows from the comparison of Adam with Christ? 1. That by the one Adam, sin, death, condemnation, and the dominion of death have come; 2. But by the one Christ, life, righteousness, and the dominion of grace have come upon all men (Romans 5:12-21).—Sin and death passed upon all (Romans 5:12-14).—Sin as the cause of death: 1. Original sin; 2. Sins of commission (Romans 5:12).—They too have sinned who have not committed the same transgression as Adam; comp. Romans 2:12 (Romans 5:14).—All sin is transgression of the law, but not in the same way (Romans 5:14).—Adam is a figure of Him that was to come (Romans 5:14).—Man a figure of the Son of Man (Romans 5:14).—The first and second Adam: 1. Resemblance; 2. Difference (Romans 5:14-19).—The difference between sin and gift. It consists herein: 1. That, through the sin of one, many have died, but that, on the other hand, God’s grace and gift have freely abounded unto many; 2. By one man’s sin many have become condemned, but one gift has abounded from many offences to righteousness; 3. By the sin of the one, death has reigned over many, but by the one Jesus Christ will many still more rejoice in the dominion of life (Romans 5:15-17).—The sole man Jesus Christ; not only (1) one, but also (2) the only one of His character (Romans 5:15).—Yet how different are the fruits of sin and righteousness! 1. The fruit of the former is condemnation; 2. The fruit of the latter is justification of life (Romans 5:18).—As condemnation is come unto all men, so also is justification of life (Romans 5:18).—The universality of Divine grace brought to pass by the righteousness of Christ (Romans 5:18).—The different effects of Adam’s disobedience and Christ’s obedience (Romans 5:19).—For what purpose did the law enter? 1. Not merely to make sin prominent; but, 2. To bring it to a crisis; and Song of Solomon , 3. To prepare for grace by Jesus Christ our Lord (Romans 5:20-21).
Luther: As Adam has corrupted us with foreign sin without our fault, so has Christ saved us with foreign grace without our merit (Romans 5:14).—Notice that he speaks here of original sin, which has come from Adam’s disobedience; therefore every thing is sinful which pertains to us (Romans 5:18).—As Adam’s sin has become our own, so has Christ’s righteousness become our own (Romans 5:19).
Bengel: God’s gift is grace, flowing from the Father upon Him, and through Him to us.
Starke: Believers are, by the spiritual life of the new birth, reigning kings over sin on earth, as they shall also be fellow-kings in the heaven of glory (Romans 5:17).—O universal grace of God, by which all may be saved by Christ! 1 Timothy 2:4; Acts 17:30-31 (Romans 5:18).—A small drop of grace can calm and engulf the raging waves of corruption (Romans 5:20).—Cramer: As no one can deny that he is mortal, so also must no one say that he is not sinful (Romans 5:14).—Nova Bibl. Tüb.: Sin has a mighty kingdom and dominion. Let nobody regard it as small and contemptible! Yet the kingdom of grace is much more mighty. The purpose of the latter is to destroy the former; where the kingdom of grace increases, the kingdom of sin declines. The former brings life, the latter death.
Gerlach: There is this great difference between the effects of the fall and of redemption: the effects of the former consist in a strongly legal judgment, which must ensure condemnation in consequence of a single transgression; but the effects of the latter are a free gift, which made amends not merely for one sin, but for all the repetitions of Adam’s transgression that have arisen from that first one; and it has made amends so completely, that it has really effected in fallen men the righteousness required by the law (Romans 5:16).—So powerfully does grace operate on those who have received its fulness, that they, by grace, become rulers in life through Jesus Christ (Romans 5:17).
Lisco: Mankind is united in Adam and Christ; therefore the sin of Adam became the sin of all, and Christ’s offering became the propitiation for all. As every leaf of the tree suffers by disease of the root, so does every one recover by its restoration; thus it is with mankind in Adam and Christ (Romans 5:12-21).—Death is the great evil that was begotten by sin (Romans 5:12).—As Adam’s sin has become ours, so has Christ’s righteousness become ours (Romans 5:19).
Rieger: This little passage is as the pillar of fire in the wilderness; dark and threatening toward the Egyptians and impenitent, but bright and clear toward the Israelites. This passage lightens and thunders against hard sinners, who treat every thing lightly; but it shines with the lovely splendor of grace upon penitent and anxious souls (Romans 5:20).
Heubner: The dominion of sin in the world is not God’s work, but man’s guilt.—The universality of corruption should not comfort, but humiliate us: 1. We should each be ashamed before all the rest; 2. We should be ashamed before the inhabitants of other worlds, who perhaps do not know any thing about sin; 3. We should so much the more bear in mind, that, amid the universal sinfulness, we shall not be the only pure ones; 4. We must therefore work out our salvation the more earnestly by prayer, and faith in Christ (Romans 5:12).—Adam is the natural, Christ is the spiritual ancestor; the former is the transgressor of the Divine commandment, the latter the fulfiller of the whole Divine law; the former is the cause of death and human corruption, the latter the author of life, redemption, and holiness (Romans 5:14).—The real ground why the operation of Divine grace is as universal as the sinful corruption from Adam, is this: that grace knows no other limits than those which man himself sets by unbelief (Romans 5:17).—The more man is pervaded by the knowledge of his sin, the richer will be his reception of grace (Luke 7:47).
Besser: By one upon all (Romans 5:12-21).—The saving counsel of God has always been one and the same to all men, not only to the children of Abraham, but to all the sons of Adam (Romans 5:12).—Death, having once stepped its foot into the world, has forced its way to all men (Romans 5:12).—Sin has become a natural power over persons, which cannot be dislodged by the blows of any club; but grace—which does not enter with compulsory power, but with the evangelical drawing of the word of God—is so powerful that it breaks the power of nature (Romans 5:12).—Death reigned. Well for us that this is said as of a ruler who is dead (Romans 5:17).—The new decree, “You shall live,” which is warranted by the empty grave of Jesus Christ, is higher and stronger than the old decree, ”You must die,” which is confirmed by millions of graves (Romans 5:17).—The Apostle once more recapitulates the abundance of doctrine which he has demonstrated all along from Romans 5:12 : Sin, death, grace, righteousness, life. These five stand thus: grace rises highest in the middle; the two conquering giants, Sin and Death, at the left; the double prize of victory, Righteousness and Life, at the right; and over the buried name of Adam the glory of the name of Jesus blooms (Romans 5:21).
Schleiermacher, on Romans 5:19 : The effects of the death of the Redeemer, so far as it was a work of His obedience.—Deichert: Has the Christ who died for us become the Christ within us?—How much more blessed to live under grace than under the law!
Lange: Adam and Christ in the internal and historical life of mankind.—As all men are comprehended in the fall of Adam, so, and still more, are they in the righteousness of Christ.—As sin and death have assumed the appearance of personal, princely powers, in order to extinguish the personal life of mankind, so does the personal God again elevate men, by the glorious personality of Christ, to a personal life in royal freedom.—The antithesis between Adam and Christ: 1. In personal effects (Romans 5:15); 2. In essential effects (Romans 5:16); 3. In the destruction of the apparently personal life of sin, and the restoration and glorification of the true personal life of grace, or the false and the true βασιλεύειν (Romans 5:17); 4. In the final aims of both (Romans 5:18); 5. In the full manifestation of both in the light of the gospel (Romans 5:19).—The glory of God’s grace in the exercise of its authority. How it has not only, 1. Conquered sin and death; but, 2. Even made them of service.—The Divine art of distinguishing the effect of the law.—The twofold character of the law: 1. Apparently a promotion of sin; but, 2. Really a communication of grace.—Adam, Moses, and Christ.—How far does Moses appear to stand on Adam’s side; but how far does he rather stand on Christ’s side?—The twofold effect of the law and of legality in the history of the world.—The twofold curse of the law: 1. The curse of the law, well understood, leads to salvation; 2. The curse of the law, misunderstood, leads to ruin.
[Burkitt (condensed): Every sin we commit in defiance of the threatenings of God is a justifying of Adam’s rebellion against God. Our destruction is in ourselves, by our actual rebellion; and at the great day we shall charge our sin and misery upon ourselves—not on God, not on Satan, not on instruments, and not on our first parents.—Henry: We are by Christ and His righteousness entitled to, and instated in, more and greater privileges than we lost by the offence of Adam. The plaster is wider than the wound, and more healing than the wound is killing.—Scott: Instead of perplexing ourselves about the incomprehensible but most righteous dispensation of God, in permitting the entrance of sin and death, let us learn to adore His grace for providing so adequate a remedy for that awful catastrophe.—As our children have received a sinful and suffering nature from the first Adam, let us be stirred up by their pains and sorrows to seek for them the blessings of the second Adam’s righteousness and salvation.—Wesley (Sermon on God’s Love to Fallen Man, Romans 5:15): The more we deal our bread to the hungry and cover the naked with garments, and the more kind offices we do to those that groan under the various ills of human life, the more comfort we receive even in the present world, and the greater the recompense we have in our own bosom.—Dwight: The subject of moral evil is too extensive and mysterious to be comprehended by our understanding. Many things connected with it lie wholly beyond our reach. But where knowledge is unattainable, it is our duty and interest to trust humbly and submissively to the instructions of Him who is the Only Wise.—Clarke: The grace of the gospel not only redeems from death and restores to life, but brings the soul into such a relationship with God, and into such a participation of eternal glory, as we have no authority to believe would have been the portion of Adam himself, had he even eternally retained his innocence.—Hodge: We should never yield to temptation on the ground that the sin to which we are solicited appears to be a trifle (merely eating a forbidden fruit), or that it is but for once. Remember the one offence of one man. How often has a man, or a family, been ruined forever by one sin!—Compare Isaac de la Peyrere’s Men before Adam (London, 1656), in which the author attempts to prove that the first men were created before Adam, and builds up a curious theological system on that supposition.—Compare also W. Buckland’s Inquiry whether the Sentence of Death pronounced at the Fall of Man included the Whole Animal Creation, or was restricted to the Human Race. London, 1839.—J. F. H.]
Footnotes:
Romans 5:12; Romans 5:12.—[Ὁθάνατος (Rec.) is found in א. B. C. K. L, some versions and fathers; is adopted by Lachmann, Meyer, Wordsworth, and Lange. Tischendorf and Alford omit it, on the authority of D. E. F. G., and many fathers. Alford considers it a marginal gloss, to define the subject of δι ῆλθεν. But the external authority for it is sufficient to overcome the doubt arising from the variation in position found in some authorities, especially as the omission may have readily arisen from the transcriber’s mistaking -ονς, which precedes, for the close of the word he was about to write: -τος (Meyer).
Romans 5:13; Romans 5:13.—[On the parenthesis of the E. V. This is to be omitted; for, although it might be a help to the ordinary reader, it is inserted on the view that Romans 5:18 is strictly resumptive, which is not in accordance with Lange’s exegesis. Even were it the case, Romans 5:13-17 comprise an argument so important, that it does not deserve the subordination implied in a parenthesis. The E. V. is frequently unfortunate in this regard: e.g., Galatians 1:7, where the very theme of the Epistle is put in parenthesis.
Romans 5:14; Romans 5:14.—[Some cursives and fathers omit μή. This probably arose from a wish to make this verse correspond with Romans 5:12, the meaning of which was misunderstood. There is no question as to the correctness of its insertion.—The pluperfect of the E. V. is to be changed to the simple past: sinned, as a more correct rendering of the aorist participle. The other emendations are not absolutely necessary, but are offered as more literal, and perhaps preferable for other reasons.
Romans 5:15; Romans 5:15.—[The word παράπτωμα, occurring five times in this section, is rendered offence in the E. V.; by the Amer. Bible Union: trespass. Both are etymologically correct, but more modern usage compels us to reject offence. Trespass would be preferable to transgression, on the ground that παράβασις (Romans 5:14) must also be rendered by the latter word; yet trespass has at present a technical meaning, which is legal, transgression, being more theological. The very slight distinction between παράβασις and παράπτωμα is sufficiently implied in the clauses where the words occur. Lange renders the latter: Sündenfall, fall, to distinguish it from παπάβασις, Uebertretung, Romans 5:14.
Romans 5:15; Romans 5:15.—[The aorist, ἐπερίσσενσεν, is to be rendered did abound, and the auxiliary did placed after much more, as indicating more plainly that much more is rather quantitative than logical.—The articles are unfortunately omitted throughout in the E. V.; the one, the many, express the definiteness of the Greek.
Romans 5:16; Romans 5:16.—[Lange adopts the reading ἁμαρτήματος (D. E. F. G., some fathers, cursives, and versions, Griesbach), urging that it is required as an antithesis to παραπτωμάτων. But this is the very reason for deeming it a gloss. Ἁμαρτήσαντος is found in א. A. B. C. K. L., adopted by Tischendorf, Meyer, Alford, Wordsworth.
Romans 5:17; Romans 5:17.—[The two renderings correspond to two various readings; in any case, man’s, of E. V., must be rejected. A. F. G. have ἑν ἑνὶ παραπτώματι (D.E., ἐν τῷ ἑνὶ π.); adopted by Griesbach, Tischendorf, Meyer, Lange. א. B. C. K. L., many versions and fathers, read τῷ τοῦ ἑνὸς παραπτώματι; adopted by Lachmann, Alford, and Wordsworth. It is a question which is correct, but Meyer’s explanation is most satisfactory. He considers the former reading the original one, “because thus the origin of the other variations are very naturally explained. For more definite description the article was added by some (D. E.); by others, ἑνί was changed into ἑνος. But since, at all events, the sense was the same as τῷ τοῦ ἑνὸς π. (Romans 5:15), this was at first added as a parallel passage, and then received into the text.”
Romans 5:18; Romans 5:18.—[The questions respecting the changes to be made in this verse are exegetical. It is only necessary to note here, that the above rendering indicates the doubt as to the precise meaning of δἰ ὲνὸς παραπτώματος, and δἰ ἑνὸς δικαιώματος; leaving the subjects indefinite (instead of retaining the italicized glosses of the E. V.). Lange supplies παράπτωμα and δικαιώμα. On all the points, see Exeg. Notes.
Romans 5:19; Romans 5:19.—[So Amer. Bible Union. Lange: herausgestellt. The rendering given above is correct; any dogmatic questions that arise cannot affect this.
Romans 5:20; Romans 5:20.—[ΙΙαρειζῆλθες, only Galatians 2:4; there, in malam partem. The above rendering is literal and exact. Lange translates: came in between. See Exeg. Notes.
[45] Romans 5:20.—[Alford suggests that words compounded with ὑπέρ have a superlative, not a comparative force.—The change in the first verb in English is to indicate that two different words are used in Greek.—R.]
[The following is the Greek text of this section, in parallelistic arrangement, from Forbes:12.A ”Ωσπερ δἰ ἑνὸς , καὶ διὰ τῆς ἁμαρτίας ὁ θάνατος, καὶ οὕτως εἰς πάντας , ἐφ̓ ᾧ πάντες ἥμαρτον·
13. ἅκρι γὰρ νόμου ἁμαρτία ἥν ἐν κόσμῳ, ἁμαρτία δὲ οὐκ ἐλλογεῖται μὴ ὅντος νόμου·
14. B
ἀλλὰ ἐβασίλευσεν ὁ θάνατος ·
C ὅς ἐστιν τύπος τοῦ μέλλοντος
D Points of disparity in the comparison D stated in Romans 5:15-17.
18.CJustification. Ἅρα οὕν ὡς δἰ ἑνὸ̀ς παραπτώματος εἰς πάντας , οὕτως καὶ δἰ ἑνὸς δικαιώματος εἰς πάντας ·
19. Sanctification. ὥσπερ γὰρ διὰ τῆς παρακοῆς τοῦ ἑνὸς , οὕτως καὶ διὰ τῆς ὑπακοῆς τοῦ ἑνὸς δίκαιοι κατασταθήσονται οἱ πολλοί·
20. B Νόμος δὲ παρεισῆλθεν, ἵνα πλεονόση τὸ παράπτωμα· οὕ δὲ ἐπλεόνασεν ἡ ἁμαρ·τία, ὑπερεπερίσσευσεν ἡ κάρις,
21. A ἵνα ὥσπερ ἐβασίλευσεν ἡ ἁμαρτία ἐν τῷ θανάτῳ, οὕτως καὶ ὴ κάρις βασιλεύσῃ διὰ δικαιοσύνης εἰς ζωὴν αίώνιον διὰ ̓Ιησοῦ Χριστοῦ τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν.—P. S.]
[46][As Chrysostom remarks in the beginning of his tenth Homily on Romans, Opera, tom. 4. p. 519, ed. Montfaucon, but he omits the positive part, which is more important.—P. S.]
[47][So also Bengel “διὰ τοῦτο refers to the whole of the preceding discussion, from which the Apostle draws these conclusions, herein making not so much a digression as a retrogression.” Hodge: ”The wherefore is to be taken as illative, or marking an inference from the whole of the previous part of the Epistle, and especially from the preceding verses.”—P. S.]
[48][Meyer: “darum, weil wir namlich durch Christum die καταλλαγή und die Gewissheit des ewigen Heils empfangen haben, Romans 5:11.” But Meyer regards Romans 5:11 as the summary of the whole preceding doctrine of justification and salvation. Philippi likewise refers διὰ τοῦτο to Romans 5:11 in such a way that it looks at the same time to the whole deduction from Romans 1:17 to Romans 5:11. This to us seems to be the most satisfactory connection.—P. S.]
[49][This construction is favored, upon the whole, by De Wette (who, however, objects to it: ”Ergänzt man τὴνκαταλλαγὴν ἐλάβομεν δι ̓ αὐτοῦ, so weiss man nicht recht, was man mit der. Vergleichung anfangen soll”), Umbreit, Theo. Schott, Wordsworth, Alford, Jowett, Conybeare and Howson. I subjoin Alford’s note in full, though I dissent from it: ”This verse is one of acknowledged difficulty. The two questions meeting us directly, are: (1) To what does διὰ τοῦτο refer? (2) ὥσπερ, like as, may introduce the first member of a comparison, the second being to be discovered; or may introduce the second, the first having to be discovered. I shall endeavor to answer both questions in connection. I conceive διὰ τοῦτο to refer to that blessed state of confidence and hope just described: ‘on this account,’ here meaning, ‘quæ cum ita sint:’ ‘this state of things, thus brought about, will justify the following analogy.’ Thus we must take ὥσπερ, either (a) as beginning the comparison, and then supply, ‘so by Christ, in His resurrection, came justification into the world; and by justification, life;’ or (ß) as concluding the comparison, and supply before it, ‘it was,’ or ‘Christ wrought.’ This latter method seems to me far the best. For none of the endeavors of commentators to supply the second limb of the comparison from the following verses has succeeded: and we can hardly suppose such an ellipsis, when the next following comparison (Romans 5:16) is rather a weakening than a strengthening the analogy. We have examples for this use of ὼ́σπερ in Matthew 25:14, and of καθὠς, Galatians 3:6.”—P. S.]
[50][This objection was made by De Wette, from whom Tholuck, p. 215, quotes. Mever calls this explanation illogical, because the universality of Adam’s corruption, which is the prominent idea in Romans 5:12, has no corresponding parallel in the protasis which is supplied from the preceding verse.—P. S.]
[51][And also the efficient cause in the same sense in which Christ is the efficient cause of righteousness and life. According to the Pelagian and Unitarian theory, Adam was merely the occasion: he sinned, and set a bad example to others, as Christ set a good example. Here Christ sinks to the position of a mere teacher.—P. S.]
[52][Genesis 2:17, where death is mentioned for the first time, speaks rather for a more comprehensive view, see below, sub (3); since the first parents were threatened with the penalty of death to be inflicted on the very day of their fall, and long before their physical death.—P. S.]
[53][Winer, p. 259, denies that the aorist is ever confounded with the perfect. Even in Luke 1:1 (ἐπεκείρησαν); John 17:4 (ἐδόξασα, ἐτελείωσα); Philippians 3:12 (ἕλαβον), and similar cases, the action is related simply as passed. The perfect expresses the past action in its relation to the present, so that the result of the action is generally, though not necessarily (see Krüger, 151, and Winer, 254), supposed to be continued.—P. S.]
[54][Origen taught a personal fall of all men in a preexistent state. In Ep. ad Rom. (Opp. 4. p. 546): ”Si Levi in lumbis Abrahæ fuisse perhibetur, multo magis homines in lumbis erant Adæ, cum adhuc esset in paradiso, el omnes homines cum ipso vel in ipso expulsi sunt de paradiso.”—P. S.]
[55][Chrysostom (Homilia X.) explains rather loosely and superficially: τί δέ ἐδτιν, ἐῤ ὦ πάντες ἥμαρτον; ἐκείνουπεσόντος, καὶ οἰ μ́ἡ ραγόντες , i.e., ”by the fall of Adam, even those who did not eat of the forbidden tree have all become mortal.” This is all he says, and then he passes immediately to Romans 5:13.—P. S.]
[56][Augustine, following the wrong translation of the Vulgate—in quo—used this passage as an argument for the doctrine of original sin and the fall of the human race in Adam. De pecc. mer. et rem. Romans 3:7 : ”In Adamo omnes tunc peccaverunt, quando in ejus natura, illa insita vi qua cos gignere poteral, adhuc omnes ille unus fuerunt.” Contra Jul. Romans 5:12 : ”Fuerunt omnes ratione seminis in lumbis Adami quando damnatus es’. … quemadmodum fuerunt Israelilæ in lumbis Abrahæ, quando decimatus est,” Hebrews 7:9-10. De Civitate Dei, l. xiii. c. Romans 14:0 : ”Omnes enim fuimus in illo uno, quando omnes fuimus ille unus, qui per feminam lapsus est in peccatum. … Nondum erat nobis singillatim creata et distributa forma, in qua singuli viveremus; sed jam natura erat seminalis, ex qua propagaremur;” i.e., ”the form in which we were to live, as individuals, had not yet been created and assigned to us, but that seminal nature was already in existence, from which we were to be propagated.” From this last passage it is evident that Augustine did not teach, as he is sometimes misrepresented, a personal and conscious coexistence and coagency of Adam’s posterity in Adam and his fall (which involves the contradiction of an existence before existence), but simply a potential or germinal coexistence. The genus homo or human nature which he represented, was not a receptacle of millions of human beings, but a single, simple essence, which became manifold by propagation. As in the doctrine of the Trinity and of the Person of Christ we distinguish between nature and person, so also here. Our human nature was on trial in Adam, and fell in him; consequently we all fell as partaking of that nature, and share in his guilt. This seems to me to be Augustine’s view. Estius, one of the best Roman Catholic commentators, gives the same interpretation on the basis of the Vulgate translation; ”Dicuntur omnes peccasse in Adam, tanquam in principio et radice totius generis, quoniam in lumbis ejus erant, quando ille peccabat.” Then, after quoting several passages from Aug., he continues, in explanation of the Augustinian theory: ”Id vero sic intellige: quia tunc quando ille propria voluntate peccavit, in quo tanquam in principio generis, omnes erant, causa data est, per quam deinceps universum genus inficeretur, et singuli constituerentur peccatores, videlicet a suo quisque peccato, quod ex illa origine contraheret; quomodo, si pater attaminatus lepra filios gignat leprosos, dicentur filii facti leprosi a patre, licet unusquisque suam ex illo contrahat lepram.” This, in a certain sense, is theologically true, but exegetically false—i.e., the doctrine of original sin, or total depravity as derived from Adam, is implied in the whole passage, especially in πάντες ἥμαρτον, but not in ἐφ̓ ᾧ. For ἐφ̓ ᾧ is not equivalent to ἐν ᾧ, (see above); ἀνθρώπον is too far separated from the relative ὧ, and the whole phrase, ἁμαρτάνειν ἐπί τινι, meaning, to sin in some one, or by one, is without example. For a modification of the Augustinian interpretation, see (4) below.—P. S.]
[57][Sam. J. Baird, Elohim Revealed, Philad. 1860, p. 417, defends the same view; taking ἐφ̓ ᾧ = ἐν ὧ, as in Romans 5:14; Mark 2:4; Luke 5:25; ἐν τῶ ̓ Αδάμ, 1 Corinthians 15:22.—P. S.]
[58][Melanchthon: ”Omnes habent peccatum, scilicet pravitatem propagatam et reatum.” Calvin: ”Nempe, inquit, quoniam omnes peccavimus. Porro istud peccare est corruptos esse et vitiosos. Illa enim naturalis pravitas, quam e matris utero afferimus, tametsi non ita cito fructus suos edit, peccatum tamen est coram Domino, et ejus ultionem meretur. Atque hoc est peccatum, quod vocant naturale.” According to Calvin, then the inherent, hereditary depravity derived from Adam is the reason why all die. This interpretation is not only ungrammatical, since ἁμαρτάνειν cannot mean, to become corrupt, but it also vitiates the analogy between Adam and Christ.—P. S.]
[59][Ἐξ ἐκείνου πάντες θνητοί.—P. S.]
[60][Grotius: pœnam lucre, to suffer punishment. He appeals to Genesis 31:36; Job 6:24; 1 Kings 1:21, for this metonymy of the effect. ἐν́ ὧ he takes = through whom. The same interpretation is more fully defended by Whitby, an Arminian, on Romans 5:19.—P. S.]
[61][Meyer calls this interpretation sheer ungrammatical arbitrariness (nur sprachwidrige Willkühr); for ἥμαρτον means, they sinned, and nothing else (p. 204). Nevertheless, it is defended by Dr. Hodge, of Princeton, even in the revised edition of his Comm. (p. 236 ff.), with a degree of dogmatic positiveness, as if there could be no doubt about it. He holds that all men sinned in Adam merely in a representative or putative, not in any real sense, and that ἧμαρτον has the passive meaning: they became legally guilty, and were regarded and treated as sinners on account of Adam’s sin by virtue of a natural and federal relationship between Adam and his posterity. ”The only possible way,” he says, ”in which all men can be said to have sinned in Adam, is putatively.” [This is begging the question.] ”His act, for some good and proper reason [?], was regarded as their act, just as the act of an agent is regarded as the act of his principal, or the act of a representative as that of his constituents” [although in this case they never elected him]. ”The act of the one legally binds the other. It is, in the eye of law and justice, their act.” But ἁμαρτάνειν never has this meaning of putative sinning. It is obviously impossible in ἁμαρτήσαντας, Romans 5:14. In the parallel passage, Romans 3:23, Hodge himself understands it of actual sinning (”all have sinned, and are sinners, or, all sinned,” p. 140). The two solitary passages which he quotes from the Septuagint (Genesis 43:9, comp. Genesis 44:32 : ἡμαρτηκὼς ἐ͂σομαι, and 1 Kings 1:21 : ἐσόμεθα … ἁμαρτωγοί, i.e., in the view of the reigning prince), are neither parallel nor decisive, as has often been shown by older commentators. When Hodge confidently appeals to the authority of ”theologians of every grade and class of doctrine, Calvinists, Arminians, Lutherans, and Rationalists,” in favor of his interpretation (p. 241), he is greatly mistaken. I know of no recent commentator of note, German or English, who agrees with him on this point. Philippi and Wordsworth, whom he quotes on his side, hold the realistic Augustinian view (which Hodge repudiates as nonsense. See next foot-note.) So does even Robert Haldane, the most rigorous Scotch Calvinistic commentator on the Romans, who says (p. 211 of the Amer. edition): “Adam’s sin was as truly the sin of every one of his posterity, as if it had been personally committed by him. It is only in this way that all could be involved in its consequence. Besides, it is only in this light that it is illustrative of justification by Christ. Believers truly die with Christ, and pay the debt in Him by their union or oneness with Him. It belongs not to us to inquire how these things can be. “We receive them on the testimony of God.” … “If God deals with men as sinners on account of Adam’s sin, then it is self-evident that they are sinners on that account. The just God could not deal with men as sinners on any account which did not make them truly sinners.” The metonymical interpretation arose from opposition to the doctrine of original sin. Hodge tries to defend the dogma of imputation on a Socinian exegesis. But by rejecting the realistic theory of a participation of Adam’s posterity in his fall, he loses the basis for a just imputation, and resolves it into a legal fiction. Only a sinful and guilty being can be the subject of the displeasure of a righteous and holy God. “We do not object to the doctrine of imputation in itself, but simply to that form of it which, ignores or denies the vital nature of our connection with Adam and with Christ, as plainly taught in this whole section. Adam is our natural representative de facto as well as de jure. He is the root of humanity, and his fall affected the stock, and every branch, by the inherent law of organic life-union. “Not Adam’s transgression outwardly reckoned, but Adam’s sinfulness and mortality inwardly communicated or imparted,” are the chief points of comparison, and placed in contrast with the righteousness and life of Christ, with whom we hold even a more intimate life-union by faith, than with Adam by sin.—P. S.]
[62] [This interpretation, which Dr. Lange treats rather too severely, agrees theologically with Augustine’s (No. 1), although it differs from it grammatically. It is defended by two of the ablest modern commentators, Philippi, and (in recent editions) by Meyer. Philippi, whom Dr. Hodge (p. 241) wrongly quotes in favor of his purely legal imputation theory (see the preceding note), says, after criticising other views: “Wir werden deshalb mit Nothwendigkeit zu derjenigen Auffassung zurückgeführt, welche, obgleich sie von den neueren Auslegern aufgegeben ist (vgl. jedoch Olshausen) und fernliegend erscheint, dennoch die nächste, cinfachste und natürlichste ist. Es ist nümlich zu ἧμαρτον im Gedanken: ἐν Ἁδάμ, oder noch präciser: ‘Adamo peccante’ zu ergänzen. ‘Non agitur de peccato singulorum proprio,’ sagt Bengel. ‘Omnes peccarunt, Adamo peccante,’ oder, wie Koppe es ausdrückt, ‘ipso actu quo peccavit Adamus.’ Dafür spricht auch der momentane Sinn des Aoristes ἧμαρτον. Der Tod ist zu Allen hindurchgedrungen, weil sie Alle sündigτen, als Adam sündigte, weil in der Sünde Adam’s ihre eigene Sünde milbeschlossen war. So würden wir also dem wesentlichen Sinde nach, wenn auch auf anderem grammatischem Wege, das Augustinische ‘in quo omnes peccaverunt,’ wieder gewinnen. Passend lässt sich 2 Corinthians 5:15 vergleichen: εἰ εἷς ὑπὲρ πάντων , ἅρα οἱ πάντες , wozu wir hier den entsprechenden Gegensatz: εἰ εἷς ὑπὲρ πάντων ἥμαρτεν, ἅρα οἱ πάντες ἥμαρτον finden. Wie ferner hier von dem ἁμαπτάνειν, so ist 1 Kor. Romans 15:22 von dem ἀποθνήσκειν Aller ἐν τῶ Ἀδάμ die Rede. Der Apostel stellt demnach die Menscheitssünde als objectiv in Adam beschlossen dar, gerade so wie er die Menschheitsgerechtigkeil als objectiv in Christo beschlossen denkt, und die Parallele erhält nun erst die rechte Präcision und plastische Anschaulichkeit.” Meyer, who is misrepresented by Dr. Hodge (p. 233) as charging Paul with forgetfulness in stating what is not true in point of fact, holds the same Augustinian view, and stated it plainly not only in the fourth edition (1865, p. 201), but in the third (1859, p. 187), and even in the second edition (1854, ten years before the appearance of Hodge’s revision!) as follows: “(ἐφ’ ὧ πάντες ἥμαρτον) auf Grund dessen dass, d. h., weil alle sündigten, nämlich (beachte den momentanen Sinn des Aor.) als durch den Einen die Sünde in die Welt eintrat. Weil, als Adam sündigte, alle Menschen in und mit ihm, dem Vertreter der ganzen Menschheit (nicht: ‘exemplo Adami,’ Pelag.), gesündigt haben, ist der Tod, welcher durch die in die Welt gekommene Sünde in die Welt kam, vermöge dieses ursächlichen Zusammenhanges der durch Adam in’s Vorhandensein getretenen Sünde und des Todes auf alle verbreitet worden. Alle wurden durch Adam’s Fall sterblich, weil dieses Gesündigthaben Adam’s ein Gesündigthaben Aller war, mithin τῷ τοῦ ἑνὸς παραπτώματι οἱ πολλοὶ , Romans 5:15. So ist es allerdings in Adam begründet, dass Alle sterben (ἐν τῷ Ἀδάμ πάντες , 1 Kor. Romans 15:22), weil nämlich, als Adam sündigte, Alle sündigten, Alle als ἁμαρτωλοὶ κατεστάθησαν (Romans 5:19), und somit der durch seine Sünde eingekommene Tod keinen verschonen kann.” The same interpretation is substantially adopted by the best English commentators of the age. Alford says: “All sinned in the seed, as planted in the nature by the sin of our forefather, and in the fruit, as developed by each conscious responsible individual in his own practice. … Observe how entirely this assertion of the Apostle contradicts the Pelagian or individualistic view of men, that each is a separate creation from God, existing solely on his own exclusive responsibility, and affirms the Augustinian or realistic view, that all are evolved by God’s appointment from an original stock, and, though individually responsible, are generically involved in the corruption and condemnation of their original.” Wordsworth: “Observe the aorist tense, ἥμαρτον, they all sinned; that is, at a particular time. And when was that? Doubtless, at the Fall. All men sinned in Adam’s sin. All fell in his fall. All men were that one man, Adam (Augustine). All men were in him, as a river is in its source, and as a tree is in its root. We are all by nature in the first Adam, as we are all by grace in the second Adam, Christ.” Webster and Wilkinson: “All sinned virtually when Adam sinned, because in him their nature became sinful.”
This good orthodox interpretation, supported by the most respectable array of authorities from Augustine and the Reformers down to Philippi and Meyer, Dr. Hodge calls mystic and pantheistic nonsense, which “does not rise even to the dignity of a contradiction, and has no meaning at all;” adding: “It is a monstrous evil to make the Bible contradict the common sense and common consciousness of men” (p. 236). We hold that all men sinned in Adam, not indeed personally by conscious actual transgression (which Augustine never said or meant; see the passages quoted in the third foot-note on p. 178), but virtually or potentially; in other words, that Adam fell, not as an individual simply, but as the real representative head of the human race, and that his fall vitiated human nature itself, and prospectively his whole posterity, in the same manner in which the disease of the germ and root will affect the tree and branches proceeding from it. This may be uncommon sense (as is the whole fifth chapter of Romans), but it is certainly no nonsense. The human race is not a sandheap, but an organic unity; and only on the ground of such a vital unity, as distinct from a mechanical or merely federal unity, can we understand and defend the doctrine of original sin, the imputation of Adam’s sin, and of Christ’s righteousness. Without an actual communion of life, imputation is an arbitrary legal arrangement. We readily admit that the Augustinian view is liable to objections (see Lange’s and our strictures in Doctrinal and Ethical, No. 2 and 3), but it is far preferable to the legal fiction theory.—P. S.]
Footnotes:
[63][So Theodoret: οὐ γὰν τοῦ προπάτορος ἁμαρτίαν, ἀλλὰ τὴν οἰκείαν ἕκαστος δέκεται τοῦ θανάτου τὸν ὅρον. Pelagius may be ranked here, for in his brief comments on Romans he explains ἐῤ ὧ πάντες ἧμαρτον: ”In eo quod omnes peccaverunt, exemplo Adæ peccant,” or ”per imitationem,” in opposition to ”per propagationem.” Julian of Eclanum, the ablest champion of Pelagianism, takes ἐῤὧ in the sense of propter quod (Aug. Contra Jul. 6:75; Op. imperf. 2:66). But both denied original sin, which may be held in perfect consistency with this interpretation of ἧμαρτον. Among American commentators it is advocated especially by Barnes and Stuart. We quote from Moses Stuart: ”There remains, therefore, only the first plain and simple method of interpretation, viz., all men have sinned in their own persons; all men have themselves incurred the guilt of sin, and so subjected themselves to its penalty; or at least, all men are themselves sinners, and so are liable to death.” Prof. Dwight, in his article against Hodge, seems to adopt this view; taking, however ἧμαρτον in a semi-figurative sense, ”so that Paul conceives of our individual, personal sinning, as summed up and centred in Adam, not because we sinned either really or putatively when he did, but because, when he sinned, the whole future results were then made certain, and so, in a sense, were accomplished” (1. c. p. 560).—P. S.]
[64][The German-original reads; ”Dogegen sagt Meyer, das Wort passe nicht auf die gesündigt habenden Kinder,” children who have sinned, instead of ”in Betreff der vielen Millionen noch nicht gesündigt habenden K.” (see Meyer, p. 203). The printer’s omission of noch nicht, not yet, makes sad work here with the argument, and caused some perplexity to the translator. Flatt, and others, raised the same objection to the above interpretation, viz., that it would include infants among actual sinners, which is not true. Hodge, p. 232 f., urges five arguments against it.—P. S.]
[65][So also Hodge: ”It would make the Apostle teach that, as all men die because they personally sin, so all men live because they are personally and inherently righteous. This is contrary not only to this whole passage, but to all Paul’s teaching, and to the whole gospel.”—P. S.]
[66][In his Jahrbücher der bibl. Wissenschaft, ii. p. 171, Ewald explained, with the rejection of the second ὁ θάνατος: “und so zu allen Menschen durchdrang das, woraufhin alle sündigten,” “and so passed upon all men that unto which all sinned,” viz., death, which in Genesis 2:17 is decreed as the punishment of sin, so that whosoever sins, sins unto death—i.e., must die. But subsequently, in his Comm. on the Pauline Epistles (1857, p. 327), Ewald translated: “Sofern alle, sündigten,” “inasmuch as all sinned,” and remarks (in a foot-note on p. 373) that this meaning of ἐφ̓ ῷ (as a conjunction) is similar to the preceding οὕτως, showing death to be the consequence of sin.—P. S.]
[67][Hofmann, Schriftbeweis, vol. i. p. 529, 2d ed., takes ἐπί as a preposition of time, and refers τω̈ to the preceding βάνατος (which is wanting in several MSS.) in the sense: bei dessen Vorhandensein, i.e., during the reign of death all sinned. He quotes, in support, Hebrews 9:15 : αὶ ἐπὶ τῆ πρώτη διαθήκη παραβάσεις. But this simple and almost trivial idea could have been expressed much more clearly. The interpretation of Thomasius (sub 8) resembles that of Hofmann, except that he takes ῳ̈̈̈ as neuter: beim Vorhandensein welches Verhältnisses. But the preceding words pronounce a fact, not an abstract relation. Comp. Meyer, p. 206.—P. S.]
[68][Hodge makes the whole doctrine and argument of the Apostle to be, “that there are penal evils which come upon men antecedent to any transgressions of their own; and as the infliction of those evils implies a violation of law, it follows that they are regarded and treated as sinners, on the ground of the disobedience of another” (p. 252).—P. S.]
[69][Outside of these two passages in the New Testament, the word, according to Meyer, occurs but once, viz., in Bœckh, Inscript. i. p. 850, A. 35. It means ἐν λόγῳ τιθέναι, λογίζεσθαι, to reckon in, to put to one’s account.—P. S.]
[70][Origen: “Videtur Ap. mortem describere velut tyranni alicujus ingressum.”—P. S.]
[71][Bengel: ”Morti adscribitur REGNUM, ut ROBUR, Hebrews 2:14. Sane vix ullus rex tot subditos habet, quot vel reges mors abstulit. Immane regnum. Non est Hebraismus. Imperat peccatum: imperat justitia.”—P. S.]
[72][Βασιλεύειν with ἐπί is a Hebraism (מָלַךְ עַל); comp. Luke 1:33; Luke 19:14; 1 Samuel 8:9; 1 Samuel 8:11; in classic Greek it rules the genitive or dative. The preposition signifies the persons over whom the sovereignty is exercised. The second ἐπί before τῶ ὁμοιώματι expresses the model to which the act is conformed; comp. ἐπὶ τῷ ὀνόματι, Luke 1:15. The whole phrase corresponds to the Hebrew כִּדְמוּה, and is equivalent to ὁμοίως τῆ παραβάσει. It must not be connected with ἐβασίλευσεν (Chrysostom and Bengel), but, as is usually done, with μὴ ἁμαρτήσαντας.—P. S.]
[73][̓Αντίτυπος, ἀντίτυρον (literally, counterblow), is, however, sometimes equivalent to τύπος in the sense of copy (Abbild), as Hebrews 9:24, ἀντίτυπα τῶν ; 1 Peter 3:21; and Apost. Const. Romans 4:14, where the sacramental bread and wine are called the antitypes of the body and blood of Christ. Comp. Bleek on the Hebrews, vol. iii. p. 591.—P. S.]
[74][Tholuck, p. 246, quotes a remarkable passage from the book, Neve Shalom R. Abraham Ben Isaac (died 1593), which shows perhaps the reflex influence of Paul upon the Rabbinical theology: “The last Adam is the Messiah; He will be higher than. Moses, higher than, the angels who serve Him, and the old sin by which death has been introduced will be abolished by Him, for in His days the dead will rise. This was the Divine intention at the creation of man, that he should be eternal; but sin occasioned death: now the Divine intention is fulfilled by the second Adam, who is the antitype of the first.”—P. S.]
[75][Or, “by the one that sinned,” if we read ἁμαρτήσαντος. See Textual Note6, and Exeg. Note below.—P. S.]
[76][τῷ τοῦ ἑνὸς παραπτώματι, the reading of Cod. Sin., Lachmann, Alford, and the text. rec. Lange prefers, with Meyer, the reading: ἐν ἑνὶ παραπτώματι, “by one fall.” See Textual Note7, and Exeg. Notes below.—P. S.]
[77][According to Lange’s translation: Aber nicht steht’s (im Sinn der Gleichmaessigkeit Adams und Christi) wie mit dem Sündenfall also mit dem Gnadengut (der persoenlichen Gnadengabe, Christus). Alford translates: But not (in all points) as the act of transgression, so also is the gift of grace.—P. S.]
[78][“Adamus et Christus, secundum rationes contrarias, conveniunt, in positivo; differunt, in comparativo.”—P. S.]
[79] [The Codex Sinaiticus, in the octavo edition of Tischendorf (1865), reads ἁμαρτήσαντος, but this is a correction by a second or third hand. In the original MS. and the large uncial edition the word is broken by the line, and reads, AMAPTH-TOΣ, which may be a mistake for ἁμαρτήματος, as well as for ἁμαρτήσαντος. The absence of the article before ἑνός is in favor of Lange’s preference for ἁμαρτήματος, for Paul always uses the article when ἑνός refers to a person, except in Romans 5:12, where it is first introduced and connected with ἀνθρώπου.—P. S.]
[80] [Meyer: “Es ist damit nicht so, als wenn es δἰ ἑνὸς ἁμαρτήσ. (wie der Tod durch Adam) verursacht wäre (es ist vielmehr ἐκ πολλῶν παραπτωμάτων zum δικαίωμα geworden).” Meyer emphasizes the one and many, and supplies simply ἐστί after δώρημα. Similar is the explanation of Rothe, Ewald, Van Hengel.—P. S.]
[81][So also Alford, who supplies τὸ γενόμενον: “And not as (that which took place) by one that sinned, so is the gift.”—P. S.]
[82] [Meyer: ”τὸ κρῖμα ganz allgemein: das Urtheil, welches Gott als Richter fällt. Denn zu was für einem Urtheil dieses in concreto ausgeschlagen ist, sagt erst das folgende εἰς κατάκριμα.”—P. S.]
[83] [This passage affords a striking parallel, and has some bearing on the question whether Paul was acquainted with the works of the great Stagirite (which, from a remote resemblance of style, the mode of close, dialectic reasoning, from Paul’s educational advantages in Tarsus, from his acquaintance with the spirit and working of the Hellenic philosophy, and even with inferior Greek authors, as Aratus and Cleanthes, Acts 17:28, Menander, 1 Corinthians 15:33, and Epimenides, Titus 1:2, seems to me highly probable). I give it, therefore, in full. In his Nicomachean Ethics, Book v. chap. 10 (according to Bekker’s ed., 2:1135; or chap. 7, in Didot’s and other editions), Aristotle says: “Διαφέρει δὲ τὸ · ἄδικον μὲν γάρ ἐστι τῃ̈ φύσει ἤ τάξει· τὸ αὐτὸ δὲ τοϋτο, ὄταν πραχθῇ, ἀδἰκημά ἐστι, πρ̀ν δὲ πραχθῆναι, οὔπω, ἀλλ̓ ἄδικον. ̔Ομοίως δὲ καὶ δικαίωμα. Kαλεῖται δὲμᾶλλον δικαιοπράγημα τὸ κοινὸν, δικαίωμα δὲ τὁ ἐπανόρθωμα τοῦ . “An unjust act differs from the unjust (injustice in the abstract), and so does a just act from the (abstract) just; for a thing is unjust either by nature or by order (ordinance). But the very same thing which) when done, is an unjust act, is not so before it is done, but it is unjust. The same may be said of a just act. But the common term is rather a deed justly done (δικαιοπράγημα); but the correction of an unjust act Just act (δικαίωμα).”—P. S.]
[84] [This is a slight mistake, occasioned by a statement of Tholuck (p. 261 f.). Dr. Rothe regards not Romans 5:17, but Romans 5:16, as a parenthesis (1. c. p. 132), and Romans 5:17 as a corroborative and explanatory reassumption of Romans 5:15, to which it corresponds in all its parts as follows:
εἰ τῷ τοῦ ἑνὸς παραπτώματι οί πολλοί ,
πολλῷ μᾶλλονἡ κάρις τοῦ Θεοῦ καὶ ἡ δωρεὰ ἐν κάριτιτῇ τοῦ ἑνὸς . κρ. εὶς τ. π. ἐπερίσσευσεν.
ει τῷ τοῦ ἑνὸς παραπτώματι ὁ θάνατος .;
πολλῷ μᾶλλονοἱ τὴν περισσείαν τῆς κάριτος κ. τῆς δωρεᾶς τῆς δικαιοσύης
διὰ τοῦ ενὸς ̓Ιησ. κριστοῦ, κ.τ.λ.—P. S.]
[85] [The Greek is here, like an exclamation, as brief and concise as possible, and cannot be intelligibly rendered without supplying some words. The E. V. supplies, besides the verb came, two nouns, viz., judgment (κρῖμα) and free gift (κάρισμα), from Romans 5:16. Lange supplies παράπτωμα and δικαίωμα from Romans 5:18, and translates: “Demnach also: wie durch den Sündenfall des Einen (ein Sündenfall) auf alle Menschen (kommt) zur Verdammniss, so auch (kommt) durch Eines Rechtfertigungsgut (ein Rechtfertigungsgut) auf alle Menschen hin zur (wirklichen) Rechtfertigung des Lebens (welche Leben ist).” Rothe takes ἐνός in both clauses not in the masculine, but in the neuter gender, and supplies only the verb came: “Wie es durch Eine Uebertretung für alle Menschen zur Verdammniss (kommt), in eben derselben Weise (kommt es) auch durch ein Rechtgenugthuung für alle Menschen zur Rechtfertigung des Lebens.” Meyer: “Wie es also durch Ein Vergehen für alle Menschen zum Verdammungsurtheil (gekommen ist); so ist es auch durch Ein Rechtfertigungsurtheil für alle Menschen zur Rechtfertigung des Lebens (gekommen).” Alford in the same way (except that he gives δικαίωμα a different meaning): “Therefore as by means of one trespass it came (ἐγένετο being supplied) upon all men unto condemnation, so also by means of one righteous act it came upon all men unto justification of life.” Wordsworth likewise takes ἐνός here as neuter, and translates: “Therefore, as through one transgression the sentence was unto all men to condemnation, so through one state of acceptance with God (so he interprets δικαίωμα), the sentence now is unto all men to justification of life.” Ewald most literally: “Also denn—wie durch Einen Fehltritt für alle Menschen zur Verurtheilung, so auch durch Einen Gerechtspruch für alle Menschen zur Rechtfertigung von Leben.”“Dr. Hodge adopts the translation of the E. V., from which he very seldom departs. The new version of the Amer. Bible Union likewise agrees with the E. V. in supplying judgment came, and free gift, but more correctly renders δἰ ἑνὸς παραπτ, through one trespass, and δἰ ἑνὸς δικᾳιώματος, through one righteous act.—P. S.]
[86] [Meyer says: ”ἂρα οὖν is conclusive: demnach nun (accordingly then, so then, therefore now); it is of frequent occurrence in Paul (Romans 7:3; Romans 7:25; Romans 8:12; Romans 9:16; Romans 9:18; Romans 14:12; Romans 14:19; Galatians 6:10; Ephesians 2:19 al.), and, contrary to classical usage (Herm. ad Antig. 628, ad Viger. p. 823), at the beginning of the ‘sentence.” Klotz distinguishes between αρα and οὖν, in that the former “ad internam potius causam spectat,” the latter “magis ad externam.” The ratiocinative force of ἂρα is weaker, and is supported by the collective power of οὖν. See Ellicott on Galatians 6:10.—P. S.]
[87] [The antithesis εἰς πάντας, and the analogy of Romans 5:12; Romans 5:15; Romans 5:17; Romans 5:19, where τοῦ ἑνός is masculine, are in favor of Lange’s view, which is also that of the translators of the E. V.; but the absence of the article before ἑνός is almost conclusive against it; for in all the eight cases of this section, where it is indisputably masculine, it has uniformly the article (Romans 5:15, τῷ τοῦ ἑνός παραπτώματι … τῇ τοῦἑνὸς ; Romans 5:17, three times; Romans 5:19, twice), except in Romans 5:12, where it is connected with a noun (δἰ ἑνὸζἀνθρώπον), and therefore unnecessary; while in Romans 5:16, where ἐξ ἐνός must be neuter, in opposition to πολλῶν παραπτωμάτων, it is, as here, without the article. The Apostle is therefore quite careful and consistent. The objection that the comparison is between Adam and Christ, rather than between the fall of one and the righteousness of another, does not hold, for it is clearly a comparison of both persons and effects. The E. V. has much obscured the force of this section by omitting the article throughout before εἶς, as also before πολλοί.—P. S.]
[88] [Tholuck quotes here the quaint and pointed remark of Luther: “Wohl setzt Adam seinen Zahn in einen Apfel, aber in Wahrheit setzt er ihn in einen Stachel, welcher ist das göttliche Gebot.” Bengel says that παρά, in παρακοή, very appositely points out the principle of the initial step, which ended in Adam’s fall, namely, the carelessness of his understanding and will, which simultaneously gave way; as the first step towards the capture of a city is remissness on the part of the guards on watch.—P. S.]
[89] [Vulgate: peccatores constituti sunt. So also Calvin. E. V.: were made sinners. Lange translates: als Sünder herausgestellt worden sind, set forth, made to appear (in their real character) as sinners. So also Ewald: als Sünder dargestellt wurden. Meyer and Philippi: “als Sünder hingestellt, in die Kategorie von Sündern versetzt wurden,” set down in the rank, or category, of sinners. Alford (with De Wette): “were made actual sinners by practice, not, ‘were accounted as’ (Grotius, al.); nor ‘became by imputation’ (Beza, Bengel); nor ‘were proved to be’ (Koppe, Reiche, Fritzsche).”—P. S.]
[90] [Meyer refers ὑπακοή, as the opposite of Adam’s παρακοή, specifically to the expiatory death of Christ, which was κατ̔ ἐξοκήν, His obedience to the will of God; Philippians 2:8. But Lechler, Hofmann, Stuart, Barnes, and others, agree with Lange.—P. S.]
[91] [Philippi doubts the meaning reddere, facere, in the N. T., and insists upon the fundamental meaning (1) to set down, sistere, constituere, hinstellen, einsetzen, and translates: in die Kategorie von Sündern gesetzt werden. But also in this case the setting down or the imputation must be based on the fact that they really are sinners, and so it is taken by Philippi.—P. S.]
[92] [Chrysostom is generally set down as the first advocate of this interpretation, but it should be remembered that he puts the metonymy not in the verb κατεστάθησαν, but in the noun ἁμαρτωλοί, which he makes to mean obnoxious to punishment and condemned to death, καταδεδικασμένοι θανάτω̣. He says that the Apostle designed merely to state the fact, that all became mortal through Adam, but not the why and wherefore. (Hom. x. Tom. ix., p. 523, ed. Bened.) It is unnecessary to prove that ἁμαρτωλός, in the N. T., means a real sinner, and nothing else. Grotius explains Romans 5:19 : “Here again is a metonymy. They were so treated as though they had actually sinned; that is, they were subject to death. So the word ‘sinner’ is used in 1 Kings 1:21, and elsewhere.” So also Whitby, one of the best English commentators of the Arminian school.—P. S.]
[93] [Dr. Hodge, though otherwise a strict Calvinist, rejects the realistic Augustinian view of a fall of the whole race in Adam, and yet makes all the descendants of Adam legally responsible for his fall. To maintain this ground of an exclusively forensic imputation, he must resort to this forced interpretation of ἢμαρτον and κατεστάθησαν. “Καθίστημι,” he says (p. 271), “never [!] in the N. T. means to make, in the sense of effecting or causing a person or thing to be in its character or nature other than it was before. Καθιστάναι τινα ἁμαρτωλόν does not mean, to make one sinful, but to set him down as such, to regard or appoint him to be of that class.” [To regard, and to appoint are two very different things.—P. S.] “Thus, when Christ is said to have been ‘constituted the Son of God,’ He was not made Son, but declared to be such.” [But in this passage, Romans 1:4, ὸρισθέντος is used, not κατασταθέντος, and even that means more than declared; see Textual Note5 on p. 56.] “Who constituted thee a ruler or judge?’—i. e., Who appointed thee to that office? So, ‘Whom his lord made ruler.” [These two passages, Matthew 24:45; Acts 7:35, imply that neither was a ruler before being appointed, and they would lose their force, were we to substitute regarded for constituted.] “When, therefore, the Apostle says that the many were constituted (κατεστάθησαν) sinners by the disobedience of Adam, it cannot mean that the many thereby were rendered sinful, but that his disobedience was the ground of their being placed in the category of sinners. It constituted a good and sufficient reason for so regarding and treating them. The same remark applies, of course, to the other clause of this verse: δίκαιοι κατασταθήσονται οί πολλοί. This cannot mean, that by the obedience of one the many shall be made holy. It can only mean, that the obedience of Christ was the ground on which the many are to be placed in the category of the righteous—i.e., shall be so regarded and treated. It is not our personal righteousness which makes us righteous, but the imputation of the obedience of Christ. And the sense in which we are here declared to be sinners, is not that we are such personally (which indeed is true), but by the imputation of Adam’s disobedience.” With the same assurance, as in Romans 5:12 (see p. 178), Dr. Hodge claims that this dogmatic eisegesis is the obvious grammatical meaning of the passage, “adopted by commentators of every class, as to theological opinion.” Of all respectable modern commentators, Philippi (a high-church Lutheran) is the only one who apparently favors it by pressing the meaning, to set down, as distinct from reddere, facere, but he does so in the realistic Augustinian sense, which he expressly vindicates in the interpretation of ἢμαρτον (see p. 178). De Wette calls the Socinian interpretation of κατεστάθησαν false, and Meyer insists that the verb means, “die wirkliche Einsetzung in den Sünderstand, wodurch sie zu Sûndern thatsachlich geworden sind, peccatores constituti sunt;” and he quotes James 4:4; 2 Peter 1:8; Hebrews 5:1; Hebrews 8:3; where the metonymic sense is impossible.—P. S.]
[94] [Tholuck, p. Rom 267: “So ergiebt sich denn für das Pass. nicht die Bedeutung: ‘dargestellt werden’ im Sinne von ‘erscheinen ais etwas, was man nicht ist,’ sondern ‘gemacht werden, werden.”—P. S.]
[95] [The latest commentator of Rom. v., Ad. Stölting (Beiträge zur Exegese der Paulinischen Briefe, Göttingen, 1869, p. 40), nearly agrees with Lange in giving the verb a special reference to the judgment. “Κατεστάθησαν,” he says, “hat hier die solenne Bedeutung des Hinstellens vor den Richter, wie ja die richterliche Thätigkeit Gottes auf Adamitischer Seite im Vorhergehenden durch κρῖμα und κατάκριμα auf das klarste bezeichnet ist.”—P. S.]
[96] [The E. V. has much obscured the meaning by omitting the article before many, as if it were antithetical to some, while the many are opposed to the one, ὁ εἶς.—P. S.]
[97] [According to Rothe, l. c. p. 155, Paul meant to suggest the idea of the possibility of the ultimate salvation of all men, but no more. ”Völlig bestimmt und unzwei-deutig will der Apostel nur die reale Möglichkeit der Beseeligung Aller durch Christi δικαίωμα aussagen; allein dabei will er doch zugleich mit völlig bewusster Absicht (und er erreicht diese Absicht durch das γάρ einerseits und durch das zweimalige οἱ πολλοί andrerseits), in dem Leser die bestimmte Varmuthung erregen, dass auch die geschichtliche Verwirklichung jener realen Möglichkeit von ihm mitgemeint sein moge; Aber auch eben nur als Vermuthung, die er durchaus nicht soll aus dem Gebiet der blossen Wahrscheinlichkeit in das der Evidenz hinuberziehen können. Gewiss, die meisterliche Kunst in der Durchführung einer so fein nüancirten Intention ist wohl zu bewundern.”—P. S.]
[98][As προζετέθη, Galatians 3:19. Beza: præterea introiit, supervened, came in the way of addition. Meyer: es kam noch daneben ein, viz., in addition to sin, which had already entered into the world, Romans 5:12. Similarly Alford: “came in besides the fact of the many being made sinners, and as a transition-point to the other result.” Hodge: The law was superinduced on a plan already laid, and for a subordinate (?) although necessary purpose.—P. S.]
[99] [The idea of secresy, or surreptitious entrance, is not necessarily implied in παρά (comp. παρεισάγω, παρεισδύω, παρεισφέρω), and must be either derived from the context, as in Galatians 2:4 (the only passage in the New Testament where the verb occurs besides our own), or be expressed by λάθρᾳ. In our passage such an idea would be inconsistent with the holy character of the law, the solemn manner of its promulgation, and the Apostle’s reverence for it (Romans 7:12 ff.). From Meyer.—P. S.]
[100] [Rothe, p. 158, translates: nebenbei zwischenein gekommen, it came in incidentally between. He thus combines the idea of the incidental coming in of the law with that of its medial position between Adam and Christ. So Olshausen: “In dem παρεισῆλθεν ist sowohl das mitten inne Treten, als auch das Beiläufige, nicht absolut Nothwendige desselben angedeutet.”—P. S.]
[101] [Estius: “Lex, prohibens peccatum, medio tempore inter Adam et Christum subingressa est.”—P. S.]
[102] [Meyer, who is a philological purist even to occasional pedantry, takes ἲνα here, and everywhere, τελικῶς, and thus seems to justify even the supralapsarian theory of sin. Alford likewise insists on the uniform telic meaning of ἲνα. It undoubtedly denotes the design here, but the mediate, not the ultimate design, as in Romans 5:21.—P. S.]
[103] [The terminology immediate or antecedent, and mediate or consequent imputation, is traced by Turretin (Instit., Pars 1. p. 556, Locus IX. de peccato, Qu. X.) to Joshua de la Place, of Saumure (1596–1655), who was charged with inventing it to evade the force of the synodical decision of Charenton, 1645. Augustine and the Reformers did not use it, and hence there has been some dispute as to the side on which to place them.]
[104][In opposition to Placæus, and in vindication of the decree of the Synod of Charenton, the distinguished Professor Rivet, of Leyden, made a collection of passages on imputation from the Reformed and Lutheran Confessions, and prominent divines, as Calvin, Beza, Bullinger, Wolfgang Musculus, Viret, Bucanus, Peter Martyr; Wolleb, Whittaker, Davenant, Zanchius, Olevianus, Ursinus, Pareus, Piscator, L. Crocius, Melanchthon, Chemnitz, Hunnius, and many others (including also Roman Catholics). But these testimonies are to a great extent general, and make no distinction between immediate and mediate imputation. The collection of Rivet is translated in part in the Princeton Review, vol. 11. (1839), pp. 553–579.]
[105] [Turretin (l. c. Pars I. p. 557) defines imputation thus: “Imputatio vel est res alienæ, vel propriæ. Aliquando imputatur nobis id quod nostrum est personaliter, quo sensu Deus imputat peccata peccatoribus, quos propter propria crimina punit, et in bonis dicitur zelus Phineæ illi imputatus ad justitiam (Psalms 106:31); aliquando imputatur id quod est extra nos, nec a nobis est præstitum, quomodo justitia Christi dicitur nobis imputari, et peccata nostra ipsi imputantur, licet nec ipse peccatum in se habeat, nec nos justitiam.”]
[106] [The Formula consensus Helvetica, a strongly partisan theological Confession, drawn up in 1675 by Heidegger of Zürich, at the solicitation of Turretin of Geneva, and Gernler of Basel, in opposition partly to the mediate imputationism of La Place, asserts that the imputatio culpæ is not the consequence, but the cause of the propagatio vitiositatis, or the corruptio hereditaria, and condemns the doctrine of those who “sub imputationis mediatæ et consequentis nomine, non imputationem duntaxat primi peccati tollunt, sed hereditariæ etiam corruptionis assertionem gravi periculo objiciunt.” Arts. 10.–12. (in Niemeyer’s Collect., p. 733). The same Confession teaches also a limited atonement, and verbal, even punctual inspiration; but it soon lost all authority. Ebrard (Kirchen- und Dogmengeschichte, 3. p. 556) calls it, rather too severely, the “ridiculous after-birth of a symbolical book.”]
[107] [Anselm (De conc. virg., 100:7) says we are not condemned because ”we ourselves sinned in Adam, as we did not yet exist, but because we were to descend from him (sed quia de illo fuluri eramus).”]
[108] [Calvin, on Romans 5:17 : “We are condemned for the sin of Adam not by imputation alone, as if the punishment of the sin of another were exacted of us (peccato Adæ non per solam imputationem damnamur, acsi alieni peccati exigeretur a nobis pœna), but we bear its punishment because we are guilty of the sin also (quia et culpæ sumus rei), in so far as our nature, vitiated in him, is held bound with the guilt of iniquity before God (quatenus scilicet et natura nostra in ipso vitiata iniquitatis reatu obstringitur apud Deum).” He then goes on to say, that we are in a different manner restored to salvation by the righteousness of Christ, viz., not because it is in us, but it is freely given to us by gratuitous imputation (gratuitam justitiæ imputationem). Ebrard (Dogmatik, 1., p. 512 f.) and Hodge (on Romans, p. 234) represent Calvin as a mediate imputationist; the former assenting, the latter dissenting. Calvin and the Reformed Confessions draw no line of demarcation between original sin imputed and original sin inherent. Calvin always guards against the supposition that we are condemned by an arbitrary imputation of a foreign act personal to Adam.]
[109] [Ebrard says, 1:100. 1. p. Rom 513: “Bullinger knows of such a reatus only which takes place in consequence of the corruptio or vitiositas, but not of a reatus which is the cause of the innate vitiositas. This would be likewise mediate imputation only. But compare the passages of Bullinger quoted by Rivet, l. c.]
[110] [The aim of Edwards, in his treatise on Original Sin, written against the Arminian, Dr. John Taylor, of Norwich, was to show that it is no absurd or impossible thing for “the race of mankind truly to partake of the sin of the first apostasy, so that this, in reality and propriety, shall become their sin; and therefore the sin of the apostasy is not theirs merely because God imputes it to them, but it is truly and properly theirs (by virtue of a real union between the root and the branches of mankind, established by the Author of the universe), and on that ground God imputes it to them” (Works, 2. p. 559). He says, moreover, that the arguments which prove the depravity of nature, establish also the imputation of Adam’s first sin, and that both are included in the usual conception of original sin. “The first depravity of heart, and the imputation of that sin [of Adam], are both the consequences of that established union [between Adam and his posterity]; but yet in such order, that the evil disposition is first, and the charge of guilt consequent, as it was in the case of Adam himself” (p. 544). Then, in a foot-note, he quotes with approbation a long extract from Stapfer’s Theologia Polemica, to the effect that the mediate and the immediate imputation are inseparable, and that one should never be considered without the other. Dr. Shedd, History of Christian Doctrine, 2. p. 163, seems to hold the same view. Edwards speaks, however, of imputation only incidentally; his main object was to defend the doctrine of native depravity by the theory of identity; i.e., a divinely constituted oneness of Adam and his race, by which his posterity should be born in his moral image, whether good or bad, according to the law that like begets like.]
[111] [The Lutherans held that the imputatio is immediata: in quantum exstitimus adhuc in Adamo (quia Adam representative fuit totum genus humanum); mediata: mediante peccato originali inhærente, in quantum in propriis personis et individualiter consideramur. The first is mediated through the second. Comp. Luthardt, Compendium der Dogmatik, p. 114 (2d ed. 1866).]
[112] [See the different definitions of this fœdus operum from the writings of Cocceius, Witsius, Heidegger, &c., in Heppe’s Dogmatik, pp. 204 ff. It is called fœdus μονόπλευρον, quia unius tantum partis dispositione et promissione constat, as distinct from a fœdus mutuum or δίπλευρον. There is no Scripture proof whatever for such a primal covenant. The solitary passage quoted, Hosea 6:7 : “For they” (Ephraim and Judah) “like men” (not, “like Adam”) “have transgressed the covenant,” refers to the Mosaic covenant. Even Turretin (Inst. theol. elenchticæ, Pars I. p. 519, of the Edinb. and N. Y. ed., 1847) admits that it is inconclusive, and may be explained of the inconstancy of men, ”ut dicantur transgressi fœdus sicut homines facere solent, qui sua natura vani, levesque sunt et fidem sæpe fallunt.”]
[113][On the Westminster divines, see Baird, Etohim Revealed, pp. 39 ff., and especially the learned articles of Dr. Landis in the Danville Review for 1861–62.]
[114] [Art. X.: “Sicut Deus fœdus operum cum Adamo inivit non tantum pro ipso, sed etiam in ipso, ut capite et stirpe, cum toto genere humano, … ita Adamus tristi prolapsu, non sibi duntaxat sed toti etiam humano generi, … bona in fœdere promissa perdidit.” Comp. also the passages quoted by Heppe, 1:100. pp. 228 f.]
[115] [Turretin, like Heidegger, holds indeed to a double unity of the race with Adam, a natural or real, and a federal or forensic, but he evidently lays the chief stress upon the latter, and prepares the way for giving up the former. He says (in his Institutes, first published in 1688, Pars I. p. 557, Qu. XI.): ”Adamus duplici vinculo nobiscum junctus est: (1) Naturali, quatenus pater est, et nos ejus filii; (2) Politico ac forensi, quatenus fuit princeps et caput representativum totius generis humani. Fundamentum ergo imputationis non est tantum communio naturalis, quæ nobis cum Adamo intercedit—alias omnia ipsius peccata deberent nobis imputari—sed præcipue moralis et fœderalis, per quam factum est, ut Deus cum illo, ut cum nostro capite, fœdus pepigerit. Unde Adamus se habuit in illo peccato, non ut persona privata, sed ut publica et representativa quæ omnes suos posteros in actione illa repræsentavit, cujus proinde demeritum ad omnes pertinet.” In Qu. XII. he quotes with approbation from Augustine, ”in illo uno multi unus homo erant,” adding, by way of explanation, ”unitate non specifica vel numerica, sed partim unitate originis, quia omnes ex uno sunt sanguine, partim unitate repræsentationis, quia unus omnium personam repræsentabat, ex ordine Dei.” In Qu. XVI., pp. 558 f., he establishes his view from Romans 5:12-14. He says of πάντες ἢμαρτον correctly, that it cannot mean the habit of sin, nor inherent corruption, but actual sin committed in the past (peccatum aliquod actuate, idque præteritum), which can be no other than the sin of Adam itself (quod non potest aliud esse, quam ipsum Adami peccatum); but then he turns it into the meaning of representative sinning: ”Ergo eo peccante censentur el ipsi peccasse.” He proves this from the analogy of Christ: ”In Christo justi constituimur per justitiæ imputationem: ergo et peccatores in Adamo per peccati ipsius impu’ationem” This is precisely the exegesis of Dr. Hodge, except that Turretin translates ἐφ̓ ᾦ, with Augustin, in quo (viz., Adamo), while Hodge, more correctly, takes it as a conjunction.]
[116] [Drs. Ridgely, Doddridge, Watts, and Cunningham, of Scotland (in his Historical Theology, Edinb., 1863, vol. i., p. 515, and in his Reformers and the Theology of the Reformation, Edinb., 1862, pp. 371 ff.), are counted on this side. Dr. Hodge, of Princeton, is the ablest advocate of immediate forensic imputationism. He states it (on Romans, p. 279) as follows: “The doctrine of imputation is clearly taught in this passage (Rom. v.). This doctrine does not include the idea of a mysterious identity of Adam and his race, nor that of a transfer of the moral turpitude of his sin to his descendants. It does not teach that his offence was personally or properly the sin of all men, or that his act was, in any mysterious sense, the act of his posterity. Neither does it imply, in reference to the righteousness of Christ, that His righteousness becomes personally and inherently ours, or that His moral excellence is in any way transferred from Him to believers. The sin of Adam, therefore, is no ground to us of remorse; and the righteousness of Christ is no ground of self-complacency in those to whom it is imputed. This doctrine merely teaches that, in virtue of the union, representative and natural, between Adam and his posterity, his sin is the ground of their condemnation—that is, of their subjection to penal evils—and that, in virtue of the union between Christ and His people. His righteousness is the ground of their justification. This doctrine is taught almost in so many words in Romans 5:12; Romans 5:15-19. It is so clearly stated, so often repeated or assumed, and so formally proved, that very few commentators of any class fail to acknowledge, in one form or another, that it is the doctrine of the Apostle.” The last is a mistake, as we have shown in the Exeg. Notes. Dr. Hodge’s hostility to the realistic Augustinian view proceeds, I think, from a misunderstanding. He does not distinguish between a virtual or potential, and a personal or individual coëxistence and coägency of the race in Adam. Augustine taught the former only; the latter is impossible and absurd, unless we hold it in the form of preëxistence, which Augustine expressly rejects.]
[117] [Watts, as quoted by Prof. Fisher, l. c. p. 506, naïvely confesses that he would gladly renounce this theory if he could find any other way to vindicate Providence,]
[118] [Comp. Stuart and Barnes on Rom. v.; Prof. Geo. P. Fisher, ”The Princeton Review on the Theology of Dr. N. W. Taylor,” in the New Englander for April, 1868.]
[119] [This idea has found familiar expression in devotional lines such as those of Watts:
“In Christ the tribes of Adam boastMore blessings than their father lost.”Bishop Ken. (Christian Year, Sunday next before Easter):
“What Adam did amiss,Turned to our endless bliss;O happy sin, which to atone,Drew Filial God to leave his Throne!”A. L. Hillhouse:“Earth has a joy unknown in heaven—The new-born peace of sin forgiven!Tears of such pure and deep delight,Ye angels! never dimmed your sight.”]
[120] [Comp., however, my remarks on pp. 178 and 192.]
[121] [Pelagius, in his superficial commentary on Romans, preserved in the works of Jerome and Augustine, explains δἰ ενος : “per unum hominem Evam.”—P. S.]
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