ROMANS—NOTE ON Romans 5:20 The typical Jewish view in Paul’s day was that God gave the law in order to reduce the human impulse to sin. But Paul claims that the law was given to increase the trespass. That is, once people had written laws from God, they were not just committing “sins” against God’s law as it was ingrained in their conscience (see note on 2:14–16); rather, they were willfully “trespassing” against his written word. Amid this increasing sin, however, the grace revealed through Christ abounded all the more.

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