Romans 5 Study Notes

5:12-21 In this section, Paul brings his major discussion of justification by faith to a close with a complex, compressed, and controversial analogy. He shows that grace in justification reaches and affects us in Christ much more than sin and death have affected us in Adam.

5:12 Therefore gives this verse a loose connection with the previous section. Sin and death are almost personified here (cp. v. 21, “sin reigned in death”). Just as introduces a long and difficult Greek sentence. The main comparisons are clear, but some of the details lead interpreters to different opinions. Paul was thinking of how both the first Adam (Gn 1-3) and the last Adam (Jesus Christ) have a universal significance for humanity. Interpreters are divided over the phrase because all sinned. The two major interpretations are (1) all people commit sin and therefore die, and (2) somehow all humans sinned “in Adam.” The second view is more likely and entails either that Adam was the federal head of the race and acted on behalf of us all, or that Adam was the seminal head of the race and we were somehow “in him.”

5:13-14 These verses support the second interpretive option for v. 12 (see note there). Sin “reigned” (v. 21) over humanity before the giving of the law even though none had sinned in the way Adam sinned. Adam’s sin was a personal, deliberate act that plunged the human race into physical and spiritual death. All humans, including newborn infants and young children who are incapable of judging right and wrong and thus are not deliberate sinners, are under death’s domain. All people now are born spiritually dead (Eph 2:1-3). Adam’s sin had this broad effect because he was a type (Gk tupos) or prefiguration of Jesus, the Coming One, and represented all of humanity just as Jesus would do on the cross.

5:15-16 The works of Adam and Jesus have similar scope but drastically different effect. One sin plunged humanity into ruin, but God gave the gift that issued in justification in spite of our many trespasses. What was gained through Jesus is far greater than that which was lost through Adam.

5:17 Death took the entire human race into its kingdom. The author of Hebrews portrayed this vividly when he wrote about what Jesus accomplished through his death on the cross: “Through his death he might destroy the one holding the power of death—that is, the devil—and free those who were held in slavery all their lives by the fear of death” (Heb 2:14-15). Believers, who with the rest of humanity were once slaves in the kingdom of darkness (Col 1:13), were brought into Christ’s kingdom as sons to reign with him.

5:18 Adam’s sin resulted in condemnation for everyone, whereas Christ’s substitutionary death made possible justification leading to life for everyone.

5:19 The expression will be made does not refer to the last judgment, as if our salvation were pending until that time. Rather, it pictures the fact that believers are made righteous when they come to faith. Since Paul knew many people were yet to come to faith when he wrote, it was fitting to use future tense.

5:20-21 As in Gl 3:19, Paul describes the law as a subordinate player in the drama of redemption. The law was never an end unto itself. Rather, its function was to multiply the trespass by bringing the knowledge of sin. By this the need for grace is highlighted, allowing God to bestow it even more. The law also had other functions that Paul does not discuss here.