Romans 5:18-19

“ So then as by one offence there was condemnation for all men; so also by one act of justification there was for all men justification of life. For as by one man's disobedience the many were constituted sinners; so by the obedience of one shall the many be constituted righteous. ”

The result on the side of righteousness is at least equal to that which history attests on the side of condemnation: the apostle could make this affirmation after the previous demonstration, and at length close the parallel opened at Romans 5:12.

The ἄρα, in consequence, introduces this declaration as a conclusion from the argument which precedes, and the οὐν, therefore, takes up the thread of the sentence broken since Romans 5:12. These two particles combined thus exhaust the logical connection of this verse with all that prepared for it.

The first proposition is the summary reproduction of Romans 5:12. The understood verb is ἀπέβη, issued, here taken in an impersonal sense (there came about, res cessit, Mey.). Philippi takes ἕνος as a masculine pronoun: “by one's offence.” But in that case we must take the ἕνος of the second proposition in the same sense, which, as we shall see, is impossible.

The κατάκριμα, sentence of condemnation, denotes the condemnation to death which has overtaken mankind, the: “Thou art dust, and to dust shalt thou return.” There is no reference here to eternal condemnation (the ἀπώλεια).

The particles οὕτω and καί, so and also, refer, the one to the moral analogy of the two facts, the other, simply to the repetition of the two similar facts. Many commentators apply the expression: by one act of righteousness, δἰ ἕνος δικαιώματος, to the holy life of Jesus, which was throughout, as it were, one great act of righteousness, or to His expiatory death, as the culminating point of that perfect life. The meaning of the Greek term, which Aristotle (Nicom. Romans 5:10) defines: ἐπανόρθωμα τοῦ ἀδικήματος, a reparation of injury, might suit either the one or the other of these senses. They are, however, both inadmissible for the following reasons: 1. It is not natural to depart from the meaning the word has in Romans 5:16; now there it forms (in a rigorously symmetrical proposition) the antithesis of κατάκριμα, sentence of condemnation; this positively determines its meaning: sentence of justification. 2. If this term be applied to the holy life or expiatory death of Jesus Christ, there arises a complete tautology with the second proposition of Romans 5:19, where ὑπακοή, obedience, has the very meaning which is here given to δικαίωμα. And yet the for, which connects the two verses, implies a logical gradation from the one to the other. 3. In Paul's terminology it is God and not Jesus Christ who is the justifier, Romans 8:33 (Θεὸς ὁ δικαιῶν). By ἓν δικαίωμα we must therefore understand a divine act. It is therefore the one collective sentence of justification, which in consequence of the death of Christ has been pronounced in favor of all sinners, of which, as we have seen, Romans 4:25, the resurrection of Jesus was at once the effect and proof. It is ever this same divine declaration which takes effect in the case of every sinner as he believes. If such is the meaning of the word δικαίωμα, the ἕνος is obviously an adjective and not a pronoun: “by one act of justification.”

The verb to be understood is neither in the present nor the future: there is, or there will be. For the matter in question is an accomplished fact. It is therefore the past: there was, as in the first member.

The sentence already passed is destined for all men with a view to their personal justification. It is this destination which is expressed by the εἰς δικαίωσιν ζωῆς, to justification of life, exactly like the εἰς πίστιν, Romans 1:17, and the εἰς πάντας (for all), Romans 3:22. The apostle does not say that all shall be individually justified; but he declares that, in virtue of the one grand sentence which has been passed, all may be so, on condition of faith. The strongly active sense of the word δικαίωσις (the act of justifying) fits it peculiarly to denote the individual sentence by which the collective justification is applied to each believer.

The genitive ζωῆς is the genitive of effect: “the justification which produces life.” By this word life Paul here denotes above all spiritual life (Romans 6:4; Romans 6:11; Romans 6:23), the re-establishing of holiness; then, in the end, the restoration and glorification of the body itself (Romans 8:11). The word thus hints beforehand the entire contents of the following part (chap. 6-8).