Romans 5:12-21

Third Section.

Twelfth Passage (5:12-21). The Universality of Salvation in Christ proved by the Universality of Death in Adam.

Justification by faith had just been expounded; the historical foundation on which it rested, its harmony with the Israelitish revelation, the certainty of its enduring to the end all these points had been illustrated; and the major part of the theme, Romans 3:21-22, was thus developed. One idea remains still, and that the most important of all, which was expressed in the theme in the striking words: εἰς πάντας καὶ ἐπὶ πάντας τοὺς πιστεύοντας, for all and upon all who believe. Universalism was the peculiar character of Paul's gospel; justification by faith, the subject of exposition thus far, was its necessary condition. To omit expressly developing this decisive feature would have been to leave the fruit ungathered after laboriously cultivating the tree. The apostle could not commit such a mistake. He performs this final task in the last piece, the very peculiar nature of which suffices to demonstrate its importance.

Commentators have understood the idea and object of the passage in various ways. According to Baur and his school, as well as several other commentators, the apostle has in view the Jewish-Christianity reigning in the Roman Church. He wishes at once to refute and gain it, either by expounding a conception of history in which the law finds no more place (Baur), or by proving that salvation, like condemnation, depends in no degree on the conduct of individuals and their works, but solely on an objective standard, on the unconditional and absolute appointment of God (Holsten). But this piece does not answer exactly either to the one or other of these two views. The observation made in Romans 5:20 on the secondary part played by the law, cannot express the intention of the entire piece. This remark, rendered indispensable in this universal survey by the important place filled by the Mosaic law in the religious history of mankind, is thrown out too much by the way to allow of its concentrating upon itself the interest of so vast an exposition. The other view, that of the absolute determinism which Holsten ascribes to St. Paul, would no doubt serve to cut by the roots the system of justification by works; but it would be one of those remedies which destroy the suffering by killing the sufferer. For determinism excludes human merit only by suppressing moral liberty and responsibility. It is not so that Paul proceeds. In any case, it is easy to see that the apostle's direct aim in this piece is not to exclude legal righteousness; he has done with this idea. It is the universality of the Christian salvation which he wishes to demonstrate. Ewald, Dietzsch, and Gess rightly advance the striking difference which there is between the argument of the Epistle to the Galatians and the teaching of the Epistle to the Romans. In the former, where Paul is attacking Jewish-Christianity, his argument starts from the theocratic history, from Abraham; in the latter, which expounds the relation of the gospel to human nature, Jewish and Gentile, the argument starts from general history, from Adam, the father of all mankind. From the very beginning of the Epistle the point of view is universal (Gentiles, chap. 1; Jews, chap. 2).

Very many commentators hold the opinion that the apostle's purpose is to ascend to the source of the two currents, whether of condemnation and death, or of justification and life, which sway the life of mankind; or, as Dietzsch puts it, to the very powers which determine present facts, the lot of individuals. The practical aim of this investigation would thus be that indicated by Chrysostom in the words: “As the best physicians turn their whole attention to find out the root of maladies, and thus reach the very source of the evil, so it is that Paul acts.” Every reader would thus be invited by the passage to break the bond of oneness (solidarity) which naturally unites him to the head of lost humanity, and to contract by faith the new bond whereby he can have fellowship with the head of justified humanity. This view is the most widely spread, and we do not conceal from ourselves the measure of truth which it contains. But two difficulties arrest us when we attempt to make this idea the key to the whole passage. It is perfectly obvious from Romans 5:12 that the apostle is rather concerned with the origin of death than with that of sin, and that he mentions the latter only to reach the former. It is also to the fact of death that he returns most frequently in the course of this piece, comp. Romans 5:15-18; Romans 5:21. Would it be so if his direct aim were to ascend to sin, the source of evil? Then we find him nowhere insisting on the gravity of sin and on the necessity of faith for salvation. No exhortation to the reader to form a personal union with the new Adam reveals this directly practical intention which is ascribed to him, especially by Hofmann and Th. Schott. We are therefore forced to conclude that we are not yet on the right track.

Rothe starts from the idea that the first part of chap. 5 has already begun the exposition of sanctification as the fruit of justification by faith, an exposition which continues in chap. 6 The passage from Romans 5:12-21 would thus be a simple episode intended to prove that as men became sinners in common by the sin of one, so they can only become saints in common that is to say, in Christ. The piece would thus treat of the moral assimilation, either of corruption or holiness, by individual men. Such is also the opinion of Lange and Schaff, who make chap. Romans 5:12 begin the part of the Epistle relating to moral regeneration by the appropriation of the holy life of the new Adam (vi.-viii.). There is certainly mention of sanctification in the passage, Romans 5:1-11; we grant this to Rothe (comp. Romans 5:9-10: by Him; by His life), but, as we have seen, only in relation to final justification, which rests on the continuance of the action of the living Christ in the justified soul. As to the subject of sanctification thus announced beforehand, it is not actually treated till chap. 6. The relations to 6-8 are no doubt real and profound. Lange proves them perfectly. But it is exaggerating their scope to make them a reason for detaching the passage Romans 5:12-21 from the preceding context, in order to make it the preface to the doctrine of sanctification. The dominant ideas in the passage are not those of sin and of the new life; they are only, as we shall see, those of condemnation and justification, which had been the subject of the whole preceding part. This piece must therefore be regarded as its conclusion.

By the first term of the comparison (our common condemnation in Adam) this parallel certainly recalls the whole section of the ὀργή, wrath, Romans 1:18 to Romans 3:20, as by the second (common salvation in Christ) it recalls the subject of the second section, the righteousness of faith, Romans 3:21 to Romans 5:11. But this resemblance is far from exhausting the connection of this piece with all that precedes. The two terms of comparison, Adam and Christ, are not only put in juxtaposition with one another; they are put in logical connection, and it is in this living relation that the true idea of the piece is contained. With a boldness of thought which it is scarcely possible to imagine, Paul discovers, in the extension and power of the mysterious condemnation pronounced in Adam, the divine measure of the extension and power of the salvation bestowed in Christ, so that the very intensity of the effects of the fall becomes transformed, in his skilful hands, into an irresistible demonstration of the greatness of salvation. And this final piece is thus found to be at one and the same moment the counterpart of the first section (condemnation) and the crowning of the second (justification).

The following parallel falls, as it were, of itself into four distinct paragraphs:

1. Romans 5:12-14: the universal diffusion of death by the deed of one man.

2. Romans 5:15-17: the superiority of the factors acting in Christ's work over the corresponding factor in the work of Adam.

3. Romans 5:18-19: the certainty of equality in respect of extension and effect between the second work and the first.

4. Romans 5:20-21: the indication of the true part played by the law between these two universals of death and righteousness.

Exegesis has been led more and more to the grouping which we have just indicated (see Dietzsch, and especially Hodge), though the idea of those four paragraphs and their logical relation are still very variously understood.