The gift of righteousness reigns in life (Rom 5 note)

Rom 5:1-21

Key Verse 5:17

Introduction: The whole course of the argument so far is contained within 5:12–21: with the rule of sin corresponding to 1:18–3:20 and the rule of grace corresponding to 3:21–5:11

1.      [1-5] How does the justification we received change our life and perspective (1-2)? What does the new perspective help us handle hard things of life (3-4)? How or why (5)? 

Up to the end of ch 4, Paul laid a firm foundation of the truth that justification was credited to men by God through Christ and it is received by faith only. V1-11 comes to the conclusion of the train of thought on how receiving justification would come to the final or desired outcome in life.

First, we have peace with God and have gained access to this grace by faith. Justification by the blood of Christ broke down all the walls between God and man of sin as God had said in Exo 20:24, in which the entire sacrificial system relied on. This relationship has not done simply and one-time establishing peace between God and man. Men are allowed to have an ongoing relationship by giving ever-open access for those who put trust in Jesus to His grace. This accessibility concerns about life after receiving justification until he or she is fully welcomed into the kingdom of God. In between now and then, there will be many troubles of life, including hardships from the world as well as repeated sinning in weaknesses in the flesh. How do the believers are to handle these? The keyword is hope (v3). This is the hope for the glory of the Lord, in which we are yet to join when we are welcomed to His presence. This hope shall not remain just as an inward ascent but must come out with pride and boasting for the joy of this hope is far greater than all things that we could have in this world. Like this Paul laid out the map of the life of believers from the time of justification to the time when believers are welcomed to God’s presence. Yet, one important issue is left unmentioned. That is the many troubles in life.

2.       [6-11] How and when did God show his love for us (6-8)? What did he mean by v 9?
Why does it matter when and how God showed his love for us, especially as we are going under the hardships of life (9-11)?

The second part gives an answer on how to overcome the troubles, hardships, and pains in life. They come from the world and might be incurred because of our sins and weaknesses since we still carry out sinful flesh. The answer lies in the way how God imparted His justification freely to us sinners. i) God imparted to us His grace when we were powerless; This is so important on two ways: if God’s love was shown when we were powerless, then any powerlessness in our lives would not matter to the Lord for the same love that He gave us when He imparted our justification will be at work. How deep was the ditch where we fell and unable to come out? Yet in His power and His love for us, He took us out and gave us freely His justification. So from this point on our powerlessness wouldn’t be any problem for the Lord. ii) Also, it says “right” time.  The right time is the time that God has been waiting for. For the LORD, the right time is the time when Israel comes back to him in full surrender. Moses was so certain that Israel would rebel (Deut). Lev and Deut both speak of their rebellion. After that warning, God left an open door to welcome when they repent of their sins and come back to the Lord with full recognition of their sins and full surrender to the grace and mercy of the Lord. For the nation Israel, it was the time when Israel came to realize the utter hopelessness in and of themselves. Surely it is the time when Israel was left without any words of God for over four hundred years and they were under the shadow of death. What about each of us as an individual? The same principle applies to each one. God waits until one comes to recognize his or her helplessness in sin and comes to the Lord in repentance. That is the time of powerlessness! God waited for Israel’s powerlessness. Also, God waits for each of us until we become keenly aware of our powerless. For when we know we are powerless, we totally depend on the Lord and put trust only in the LORD. God saves many, but each on the right time for that person.  What does this let us know? We come to know the depth of His love for us and the mightiness of his power that He would exert on our lives, for the sake one purpose, to save us and to lead us to His kingdom. We shall not underestimate His love and His power for us. The conclusion of this section is this; we will be saved through Jesus’ life (v10). Here salvation is not what we have now in His grace but the time when we enter the presence of the Lord; the salvation of body and soul in the eternity in His kingdom. In this certainty, what do we do? We boast about this hope out loudly!

3.      [12-14] What is the outcome of one man’s sin (12)? Then, why was each one not charged for his or her sin (13; Cf. Rom 3:25; John 16:8)? Nevertheless, what reigned on human races (14a)? What implication can be drawn from the outcome of Adam’s sin(14b)? 

If v1-11 makes the ending point of the discussion on justification by faith in Jesus only, v12-21 is the sum of the entire section on 3:20-5:11. Here Paul sees Jesus’ saving work in God’s perspective, the perspective of salvific history that God began from the time of the fall of one man Adam to the time of full restoration of humanity to Himself.

From this point on Paul suddenly turned his subject to Adam’s role or place in human history. The reason to make this turn is to bring our understanding only on our personal vantage point of view to God’s vantage point, which is God’s ultimate purpose for the whole world. When our understanding of the work of Christ goes beyond our personal vantage point to God’s utmost plan for the world, we see the work of Christ fully. Otherwise, we will remain in the narrow compartment where we will lose out or fail to see the thrust of God’s power and His zeal for the world and remain under the shadow of our narcissistic indulgence of false happiness. 

In the first part of this introduction of Adam and the effect of his life in sin, Paul makes it clear that sin and death came to human races through one man, Adam’s disobedience. This is evident by the fact that all descendants of Adam died even if there was no written Law as Jews had. The Jews knew that all the violators of the law of Covenant shall be punished by death. By the fact that even before Moses, the people of the world died and this is clear evidence that sin and its punishment were on entire human races, whether they had the Law or not. Here the keyword is ‘reign’. Death reigned all of Adam’s descendants up to the time of Moses though none of them had the Law. It is reiterating the understanding that there is a law in the hearts of man, a conscience, which worked as a law to themselves long before the Law of Moses was given. 

Rom 2: 12 All who sin apart from the law will also perish apart from the law, and all who sin under the law will be judged by the law. 13 For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God’s sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous. 14 (Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law. 15 They show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts sometimes accusing them and at other times even defending them.)

This tells us clearly one thing; Adam and his sin came upon the entire human race and death reigned in power over all human races without exception. If the effect of one man’s sin overwhelmed in such a power, then it is possible that another man’s good work can work in such a power. Who is that man? It is Jesus, who opened a new influence and effect on human races. What he did is as powerful as Adam’s or even more powerful than Adam’s. How and in what way then is Jesus’ work more powerful and more influential than Adam’s?

Having established the similarity between Adam’s sin and Jesus’ work of salvation, in this section, Paul talks about the power or the way how in affected the people who came after each. The first part, the power that God exerted in Christ is totally different from how the sin of Adam exerted its power upon all men (15-17). The second part deals with the outcome of these two different powers (18-19) and this is supplemented with the power of the Law that amplified the outcome in a good way (20-21).

4.      [14b-17] How do the outcome of Adam’s sin and the outcome of the work of Jesus share commonality (14b-15)? How did each exert its power differently on human races?  (16-17)?  Discuss the will of God in making this difference.

Here he used the word trespass instead of sin. Trespass is an action against a particular law. But sin is what one committed against the Lord, even before this was put into action. Because of these differences, trespass can be itemized one by one but sin cannot be counted. Here the trespass is what Adam did in disobedience to the Lord’s command, eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Adam’s trespass flew to the next one by one. But the gift of God, since it is given by His grace, overflows to many people.  In other words, in our sins, many committed trespasses, God’s grace goes after all of them to forgive and to impart His justification in Jesus.  In a like manner, the gift of God made a provision of the abundance of grace for each one that even if one sins many times, He imparts righteousness out of His overflowing grace. How does He do this?  Here the keyword is ‘reign’. The word ‘reign’ carries the meaning of ‘authority’, and ‘power to rule over a period of time’. As sin and death have ruled human races so long, so shall the power of justification will rule from the time of the first impartation of this grace until he or she receives the fully the salvation at the last day. This is not only so in each individual but also on the entire human race until the Lord comes back in His full glory (v17). What does this speak about the Lord’s power? He let the truth of salvation reign on human races with His Almighty power! It is likely to mean this when Paul said that in the Gospel is the power of God and he was not ashamed of it. (Rom 1:16)

5.      [18-21] What is the difference in the ultimate outcomes of each of their works (18-19)? Then how does the Law that came from Moses has any value? Discuss the wisdom of the LORD who gave the Law not through Adam but through Moses.

In this final part of his conclusion, he sums up the final outcome of each. Adam’s trespass resulted in the condemnation of all and Jesus’ obedience resulted in righteousness for all since disobedience is sin and in obedience one is made righteous. After all, what God did through and in Jesus was an epochal event that made a sweeping change in human history and the human perspective of life. In him and through him, all men have a new hope to join in eternity with the Lord of heaven and earth for God’s empowerment for sinners is so graceful, so great and powerful. Let no one miss this amazing grace offered in Christ, who suffered to the point of death in obedience to the Father.

V20-21 is like an appendix to augment the theme of salvation offered in Christ. It is about the role of the Law of Moses in God’s grandeur plan to save the whole world. Earlier, the function of the law and its limitations were mentioned. It was given through Moses and did not exist before him, that is from Adam to Moses, and even without the Law, the judgment of sin came to men and that judgment was proven by their death (v13-14). Even though without the help of the Law of Moses, God’s truth about sin and its judgment on it was evident. Why then did the Lord give the Law through Moses?  When the Law was not available at hand, sin is not charged and people could easily overlook their sins, thinking that they were right. Who would have guessed that covetousness is a sin if there was no law against it? The sinful mind has a great tendency to justify or greatly lenient to his or her own wrongs. The Law of Moses corrects these things to put sin in its right place. Sin is a sin no matter how we look at it. Disobedience is a sin and there is no grey zone in between obedience and disobedience. The law made it clear and help us to distinguish sin and disobedience from right and obedience. In this way, full depth and width of sin are exposed bare to the eyes of the ordinary. Once sin is identified and exposed, no one can sit on it long. He or she has to deal with it in one way or the other. In this way, the Law pushes sinner to the corner of God’s judgment and death. Here through the Law, sin exerts its full power to reign on one’s life with judgment and death (see also the note on q2). Where one’s life is under the reign of sin and death, the grace of God that undo that reign and gives freedom and impart righteousness will look far more outstanding and clearer.   

This is the amazing wisdom of God. In His grace, God sent His son Jesus to take up our sins so that He might give us just that leads to redemption. By the law, let this be true and clear to all. No one shall be confused God’s grace with God’s patience in waiting for repentance. The law is great and without it many will linger in between the world in sin and God’s patience.