Cambridge Greek Testament Commentary

Romans 5:17

τῷ παραπτώματι. παραπτ. is used throughout of the actual fall, whether of Adam, or as repeated in his descendants, Romans 5:20.

ἐβασίλευσεν, ‘ingressive,’ gained its sovereignty: τῷ—παραπτ., the instrument; διὰ τοῦ, the agent. The one was the agent, his fall the instrument by which death entered and established its sovereignty: repeats 12a.

πολλῷ μᾶλλον. The idea seems to be that the state of those who receive GOD’s gift is far more than a mere deliverance from death; it is a new life and actual sovereignty.

οἱ … λαμβάνοντες. Here is expressed the condition for realising GOD’s gift, its reception by faith, parallel to the (unexpressed) condition of the extended sovereignty of death, the sin of each man.

τῆς δωρεᾶς τῆς δικαιοσύνης = righteousness as offered in Christ. Here again the excess of GOD’s love finds expression: it is not merely justification (δικαιοῦν, δικαἰωσις), acquittal, which is given; but positive righteousness under the operation of the new life of Christ in men.

ἐν ζωῇ. The antithesis of 1 Corinthians 15:22.

βασιλεύσουσιν. An exact antithesis would be ἡ ζωὴ βασιλεύσει; but this abstract expression would not represent the vivid thought of the condition of those who receive, etc., as sharing not only the life but the sovereignty of the Lord; cf. Ephesians 2:5-6. The future is used because of the hypothesis implied in οἱ λαμβάνοντες; it includes not only the future glorified state of the redeemed but their present share in the Lord’s already established sovereignty.

διὰ τοῦ ἑνὸς Ἰ. Χρ. It is not necessary again to emphasise the Human Nature by repeating ἀνθρώπου; it is understood. N. that Ἰ. Χρ. means Jesus as Ascended Christ. He is the Agent through whom GOD’s gift comes to men.

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Cambridge Greek Testament Commentary

Romans 5:17

Old Testament

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