§ 5. The Objective Justification through Christ.
The Apostle has, in the preceding section, presented Christ as the Mediator of this justification, as the One who has brought it about through His blood, and has thus set Him forth as the Mediator between God and humanity. Christ, he says in the immediately preceding passage, has died as our substitute and has, through His death, taken away the guilt of sin of humanity and thereby appeased the wrath of God; through Him we have been reconciled with God, and in His blood we have been justified.
This idea of Christ’s mediatorship and substitution (Stellvertretung), which runs through the entire preceding section and upon which the whole doctrine of justification ultimately rests, required, however, a more comprehensive treatment and deeper grounding. Paul provides this here by placing Christ in parallel with Adam. The fundamental thoughts of this important section may be summarized as follows:
In humanity, conceived as an organic whole, a real and historical substitution takes place. Just as Adam was the representative of humanity unto its ruin, and as he became for all the originator of sin and its dreadful consequences, so Christ is the representative of humanity unto its salvation, the inexhaustible source of grace and justification.
This conception of the God-man Christ and of His relation to the whole of humanity cannot be adequately represented unless one regards Him as the second Adam, as the representative of the entire believing humanity, as the progenitor of a new, reborn race. Then Christ no longer appears to us merely as a man, but as the Man, just as Adam.
Rom 5:12. “Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and through sin death, and thus death passed to all men, because all sinned …”
The διὰ τοῦτο (“therefore”) indicates that the Apostle here draws a conclusion from what precedes. In what precedes, he had said: Christ has died for us; through His substitutionary death He has reconciled us with God; He has become for us the Mediator of grace and of life. Accordingly, Paul now continues inferentially: it is with our salvation and life as it is with our ruin and death. Just as through one (Adam) came sin and death, so through One comes reconciliation and life.
The comparison is begun but not yet completed. Paul breaks it off abruptly and leaves the sentence unfinished, because he finds it necessary to add further explanation, and because he is conscious that not merely a simple parallel between Adam and Christ is sufficient, but that from Christ something greater and more far-reaching has proceeded than from Adam. Therefore he interrupts the comparison and resumes it only later (in Rom 5:18–19), where he takes up again the broken line of thought and completes it with the corresponding second member of the comparison.
This seems to be the most natural understanding. Many interpreters (e.g., Tholuck and others) see in the words Rom 5:14, “who is a τύπος τοῦ μέλλοντος (type of the one to come),” the resumption and conclusion of the comparison, not according to form, but according to substance. Similarly Meyer and others. According to others, the apodosis begins with v. 15 or even already in v. 12. Various other views exist.
From δι’ ἑνὸς ἀνθρώπου (“through one man”), the mediating cause is expressed; under this one man, as is expressly stated in Rom 5:14, Adam is to be understood (cf. 1 Cor. 15:21 f.), and not, as the Pelagians wished, Eve as the one first deceived.
How Adam became the originator of sin in the world is not yet clearly explained in these first words; this is only indicated more fully in what follows.
The Apostle here and in what follows uses three expressions for sin: παράβασις (transgression), παράπτωμα (fall, trespass), and ἁμαρτία (sin), and the question arises how these three terms differ.
Every actual sin is a transgression of the divine command, a stepping aside from the rule which God has prescribed for us, and in so far a παράβασις. As a transgression of the divine command, actual sin is at the same time an aversion from God (aversio a Deo) and a turning toward the creature (conversio ad creaturam), thus a παράπτωμα. These two expressions therefore refer more especially to actual sin, to the sinful act.
ἁμαρτία, on the other hand, is the more general concept and often in Paul denotes sinfulness, sin as a ruling principle in man, habitual sin (cf. Rom. 6:12, 14; Rom 7:8 ff.).
Adam’s sin, considered as an actual personal sin, was a παράβασις and a παράπτωμα; but inasmuch as it became sin per eminentiam, the source and the comprehensive principle of all individual transgressions and falls of the whole race, it was ἁμαρτία.
The Apostle, however, does not always strictly maintain this distinction.
By κόσμος here is not to be understood merely the world of men, as though the expression were exactly equivalent to οἱ ἄνθρωποι in the second member of the verse, but κόσμος denotes the earthly world in general; for even nature has been infected through the sin of men, and it too groans under the burden of sin (cf. Rom. 8:20 ff.).
By θάνατος is first of all to be understood bodily death as a consequence of sin, and the Apostle has clearly in view the word “morte morieris” which God spoke to Adam (Gen. 2:17). Sin and death are correlative concepts in Holy Scripture: where sin is, there is death; and where death is, there is sin.
Yet sin primarily brought about the loss of the divine πνεῦμα, which constitutes the true life of the human spirit. The first consequence of sin was therefore the death of the soul. This death of the soul, however, necessarily entailed bodily death. When Adam fell away from God and the divine πνεῦμα departed from him, then the harmony and unity of his spiritual and bodily nature was dissolved; an inward conflict between his spiritual and bodily nature entered, and he began, in that very moment, to die.
What we usually call dying is only the final unfolding of the germ of death which man bears within himself from birth onward, the complete dissolution of his spiritual and bodily nature. (Cf. Wis. 2:24; Rom. 8:44; 1 Cor. 15:21.)
The following καὶ οὕτως (“and thus”) refers to what immediately precedes, δι’ ἑνὸς ἀνθρώπου ὁ θάνατος, and the Apostle means to say: just as this causal relationship between human sin and death exists, so the death that springs from sin has spread to all men (διῆλθεν = “spread through”).
The reason for this universal spread of death is given in the words ἐφ’ ᾧ πάντες ἥμαρτον. This phrase has been variously explained.
Following Origen and Augustine, many (Estius, Cornelius a Lapide, Klee, Aberle, etc.) refer the relative to ἐφ’ ᾧ to ἑνὸς ἀνθρώπου and translate: “in whom (namely Adam) all sinned.” They then explain: Adam, as the progenitor of the whole human race, contained all individual human beings potentially within himself; he was the representative of the whole race, as it were the root from which each individual man is only a part. Therefore, when Adam sinned and thereby lost the holiness and righteousness bestowed upon him by God as a gift of grace, all men sinned in him and shared in his guilt and loss, and are therefore born in the same condition in which Adam found himself after the Fall; they thus bear within themselves the seed of Adam’s sin and are for that reason also subject to the punishment of death.
In this sense Augustine says (Enchiridion, cap. 26): “For that first man bound his whole offspring, which he had corrupted in himself as in a root by sinning, with the penalty of death and damnation, so that whatever offspring should be born from him and from the woman who had been condemned together with him, through carnal concupiscence, would draw with it original sin.”
And elsewhere (De baptismo parvulorum I, 10): “All sinned in Adam, when all were that one man.”
This interpretation indeed gives the general sense of the whole passage correctly, but it anticipates Paul’s later explanation by reading into this single phrase what Paul only unfolds in the following verses. Grammatically, it is also difficult to justify; for ἐφ’ ᾧ can hardly directly refer to ἑνὸς ἀνθρώπου, both because it is too far removed and because, if it meant “in whom,” it ought to stand differently.
Moreover, this entire explanation arises from the effort to find here, in this shortest expression, the dogma of original sin. This dogma is indeed clearly expressed here, but not in the bare ἐφ’ ᾧ alone, rather only when we add the two following verses, in which the Apostle explains this factor more fully.
Everywhere else where ἐφ’ ᾧ occurs in Paul, it has the meaning of a conjunction and must be resolved as ἐπὶ τούτῳ ὅτι, “on the ground that,” propterea quod. Cf. 2 Cor. 5:4; Phil. 3:12; Phil 4:10, etc. The Vulgate’s in quo in our passage must therefore be resolved as in eo quod, i.e., quatenus. Examples from profane authors may be found, for instance, in Winer. Accordingly, the sense is: Through one man (Adam) sin entered, and as the effect of sin, death came into the world; and this effect of sin, death, spread from the one to all men, because in all the cause, namely sin, was present, inasmuch as, when Adam sinned, all men sinned in and with him.
This latter πάντες ἥμαρτον (“all sinned”), however, required further explanation and grounding. For one could have objected to the Apostle with the principle which he himself had previously set up in Rom 4:15: “Where there is no law, there is also no transgression.” One might therefore have asked: How then did all men sin, so that death passed from Adam to all? Was it perhaps because all imitated Adam in his disobedience to God’s command (“exemplo Adami,” as the Pelagians said)? But then how does the matter stand with those who did not yet have the positive law? Or rather, has Adam’s death — and likewise its cause, his sin — passed on to all his descendants by way of nature, through propagation?
Rom 5:13-14mPaul therefore had to explain himself more precisely concerning this πάντες ἥμαρτον, whether he meant by it personal sins or participation in the one sin of the race, Adam’s sin. He therefore breaks off the sentence, without adding the second member of the comparison, and continues: “For until the Law (that is, in the period from Adam until Moses) sin was in the world; but sin is not imputed where there is no law. Nevertheless death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over those who did not sin after the likeness of Adam’s transgression.”
The Apostle had asserted the causal connection between sin and death and said that death had therefore passed from Adam to humanity, because the cause of death, sin, was present in all. One could now have objected: But how was it in the period in which there was as yet no law, and therefore also no imputable sin? How then could death rule, when the cause, sin, was lacking?
The Apostle answers this question with the general statement: Even before the Law, sin existed in the world, but not as personal, imputable sin, since there was as yet no positive, externally given law, but — as follows of itself — as a general, natural, or racial sin.
In the words ἁμαρτία οὐκ ἐλλογεῖται (“sin is not imputed”), God is to be thought of as the one who imputes, not, as Augustine, Ambrose, and others supposed, the sinning men themselves, who would not have recognized or regarded their act as sin. Moreover, this statement must not be understood as though the mere natural law did not make sin imputable — Paul has already sufficiently clarified this above in Rom 2:14 ff. — but rather he means to say here that without positive law, actual sin, and thus personal guilt, does not come so much into consideration (cf. Rom 5:15), so that, if nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, this was not the consequence of personal sin, but the consequence of racial sin, of Adam’s sin.
Very aptly remarks Neander on these words: The Apostle regards the sin transmitted from Adam to all as a power antecedent to personal free decision, a power which in the natural state predominates over freedom, so that all personal sins in the natural state are one with original sin. Only when the external positive law is added does this unity of the sin of the person with the sinfulness of nature become more sharply distinguished, at least for consciousness, and the striving to withdraw from the sinful Adam begins to become more decisively prominent. Now personal transgression in relation to the Law begins, whereas before, the person was absorbed in nature and its sinfulness.
Instead of the present ἁμαρτία οὐκ ἐλλογεῖται, the present Vulgate has imputabatur, cum non esset lex; against this, many old Latin manuscripts likewise have the present. The sense as a whole remains the same; only the Vulgate directly applies what the Greek text states as a general principle to the time before Moses.
In Rom 5:14, however, stands the decisive point: Although in the period before Moses sin was not imputed by God, nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses even over those who had not sinned in the likeness of Adam’s transgression, that is, who had not, like Adam, transgressed a positive command.
The phrase οἱ μὴ ἁμαρτήσαντες ἐπὶ τῷ ὁμοιώματι τῆς παραβάσεως Ἀδάμ is to be resolved as: those who did not sin after the manner of Adam’s transgression. In βασιλεύειν, death is personified as a mighty ruler. It is placed with emphasis at the head: death reigned — universally, not merely here and there.
Only here can we fully survey the sense of what has been said from Rom 5:12 onward. The Apostle’s train of thought is as follows:
Through Adam, the progenitor of the human race, sin as an evil principle entered into the world; the effect and consequence of this sin was death. This death spread from Adam, as the explanation shows, to all his descendants, because in all the cause of death, sin, was present. That this death in Adam’s descendants is not the consequence and punishment of their own personal sins is shown by the fact that death reigned even in the period when no positive law existed, and thus also no imputable sin. From Adam to Moses death reigned just as later. It therefore could not be the consequence and punishment of personal sins; thus it must have been the consequence and punishment of Adam’s original sin.
This original sin of Adam must therefore be present in all men, since in all the same effect appears; all must have sinned in Adam, their progenitor; in other words: Adam’s sin must have become the sin of the race, must have passed to all through propagation.
Paul, however, does not expressly state this conclusion, but leaves it to the reader to draw it. We must therefore, as we see here from this explanation, supplement in v. 12, according to the Apostle’s sense, πάντες ἥμαρτον with: ἐν τῷ Ἀδάμ. Thus it becomes clear how fully the Church is in the right when it finds in the words of v. 12 an indication of the dogma of original sin (cf. Council of Trent, Sess. V, Decr. de pecc. orig., 2, 4).
With τὸν τύπον τοῦ μέλλοντος (“the type of the one to come”), Paul now returns in Rom 5:14 to Rom 5:12 and provisionally indicates the broken parallel between Adam and Christ. The word τύπος (“type, example”) here, as in 1 Cor. 10:6, denotes a historical type. The genitive τοῦ μέλλοντος is not neuter, as some have taken it (“of that which was to come”), but masculine, and Ἀδάμ is to be supplied: “who is a type of the coming one (i.e., Christ).”
Adam is in so far a type of Christ in that both are originators of decisive conditions for humanity, both are progenitors of generations, as each has brought forth conditions which have passed from him to the succeeding generations. Thus Theodoret rightly says (in substance): Just as Adam, by disobedience, became the cause of condemnation for many, so Christ, by obedience, became the cause of justification for many.
The Apostle here calls Christ the “last Adam,” although he has not yet appeared, because he here places himself back into the time of the first Adam.
Rom 5:15. If Adam and Christ are parallel in this, that both are progenitors of the race, they are nevertheless different in this, that the one has become the author of ruin, the other the author of salvation for men. But there are still other differences between the two, and the first is this: the grace mediated through Christ has shown itself far more powerful than the destructive power of Adam’s sin; it has namely overcome the effect of the latter which extends to all.
By χάρισμα Paul here does not mean, as below in Rom 12:6 and 1 Cor. 12:4 ff., a single gift of grace, but, as is clear from what follows and from Rom 5:17, the whole fullness of grace which has come to us in Christ. Likewise, by παράπτωμα he does not so much mean the single historical sin of Adam, as rather the effect of that sin extending to all his descendants.
Thus: Although Adam is a type of Christ, it is not the case that the grace is like the fall; that is, there is a difference between Adam’s fall and Christ’s grace. This statement contains, as it were, the theme, which the Apostle now develops in two contrasts.
He gives the first contrast in the form of a hypothetical conclusion a minori ad maius: “For if by the fall of the one the many died, much more has the grace of God and the gift in the grace of the one man Jesus Christ abounded for the many.”
The πολλῷ μᾶλλον (“much more”) here denotes a quantitative and intensive greater measure of efficacy, not, as Chrysostom and others think, merely a logical greater possibility; only thus does the difference of the two effects come properly to light. The blessing that comes from Christ, the Apostle means to say, has become greater than the evil that we inherited from Adam.
The expressions χάρις and δωρεά stand to one another as cause and effect; from χάρις, the gracious love of God, flows the δωρεά, that is, the gift of grace. The aorist ἐπερίσσευσεν refers to the actual participation of the πολλοί, those who have come to faith in Christ.
Thus the Apostle emphasizes that although Adam and Christ are parallel as heads of humanity, the saving efficacy of Christ’s grace not only corresponds to but far surpasses the destructive efficacy of Adam’s fall.
Rom 5:16. Here, in verse 16, the Apostle introduces a second distinction between Adam’s and Christ’s influence. The clause καὶ οὐχ ὡς δι’ ἑνὸς ἁμαρτήσαντος τὸ δώρημα is rendered by most: “And not as through one who sinned is the gift.” They then explain it thus: the gift of grace is not as if it were caused through one who sinned; rather, as the following makes clear, it comes through many trespasses (διὰ πολλῶν παραπτωμάτων) as the occasion. However, this explanation is unsatisfactory, since our clause must already implicitly contain what the following grounding and development (τὸ μὲν γὰρ κρίμα…) carries with it. According to that explanation, moreover, τὸ δώρημα would be almost excluded from τὸ χάρισμα, and thus everything would depend on verse 17. It is therefore better, with good reason, to supplement from verse 12: ἡ ἁμαρτία εἰς τὸν κόσμον εἰσῆλθεν and understand it generally: “And not as (that which arose) through one who sinned is the gift.” The sense then is: the gift is not like that which came into being through one who sinned.
Rom 5:17. This interpretation is confirmed by verse 17. Instead of δι’ ἑνὸς ἁμαρτήσαντος, some manuscripts read δι’ ἑνὸς παραπτώματος, and accordingly the Vulgate has per unum peccatum, although some Latin Fathers read per unum periatum. The former reading is externally better attested and deserves preference, though the sense remains essentially the same.
The clause now receives in what follows (Rom 5:16–17) a double grounding and explanation. The first grounding: “For the judgment from one (offense) resulted in condemnation; but the gracious gift from many offenses resulted in justification.” It is clear that in both parts something must be supplied. Κρίμα is the judicial sentence that proceeds from God as Judge. This judgment became a condemnation (κατάκριμα); on the other hand, the χάρισμα bestowed in Christ became a justification (δικαίωμα). Thus κρίμα and χάρισμα, κατάκριμα and δικαίωμα, stand opposed. The main emphasis, however, lies on the contrast between ἑνός and πολλῶν. The difference between Adam’s and Christ’s influence therefore also consists in this: there the judicial sentence that came upon all through the one Adam on account of one sin became a sentence of condemnation for all; here, however, the gracious gift, occasioned by many trespasses, became a sentence of justification. There it was unity; here, multiplicity as the occasioning factor.
Here then follows the second grounding of the sense of Rom 5:16, and at the same time a renewed and heightened emphasis of the thought already expressed in Rom 5:15, namely, that grace in Christ is mightier than sin in Adam. The different readings (ἐν τῷ ἑνί, δι’ τοῦ ἑνός, ἐν τῷ παραπτώματι) do not substantially alter the sense. The Vulgate, with several important witnesses, reads in uno delicto, as in verse 15, and this reading has also been adopted by Lachmann in his larger edition. However, the greatest external support and internal probability favor the reading preferred by Tischendorf: διὰ τοῦ ἑνὸς παραπτώματος.
The meaning is: “For if, by the trespass of the one, death reigned through the one, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one, Jesus Christ.” The phrase διὰ τοῦ ἑνός is added to prepare emphatically for διὰ τοῦ ἑνὸς Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ in the second half. Instead of τῆς δωρεᾶς τῆς δικαιοσύνης, the Vulgate reads donationis et justitiae. The contrasts here are ἡ μὲν παράπτωμα and ἡ δὲ δικαίωμα, then ὁ θάνατος ἐβασίλευσεν and οἱ τὴν δωρεὰν… λαμβάνοντες βασιλεύσουσιν. The Apostle does not simply oppose οἱ τὴν παράπτωσιν to οἱ τὴν δικαιοσύνην, nor ὁ θάνατος to ἡ ζωή, but deliberately shifts the subject between the two clauses. This is not without significance. In the former state, death, introduced through sin, reigned as a tyrant; humanity fallen in Adam was that over which he reigned. In Christ, however, those who were formerly ruled become themselves rulers (cf. 1 Cor 4:8; 2 Tim 2:12). In Him believers have overcome death and have taken into themselves the germ of a new and eternal life, which will come to full manifestation in the future resurrection. This blessed eternal reigning is especially in view here.
Thus the second distinction between Adam’s and Christ’s influence (cf. Rom 5:15) is also a qualitative superiority on the side of the effect proceeding from Christ. There it is a divine judicial act and as its consequence a privation; here a grace-act that far surpasses it and as its consequence not merely the removal of the privation, but a superabundant positive bestowal.
Rom 5:18 In verse 18 Paul now draws the conclusion (ἄρα οὖν) and thereby completes the comparison between Adam and Christ begun in Rom 5:12 and interrupted in Rom 5:13–17 by the detailed exposition of the contrasts. Both members of the comparison are formally incomplete, but can easily be supplied from the context. After δι’ ἑνὸς παραπτώματος one must supply: εἰς πάντας ἀνθρώπους εἰς κατάκριμα; and after δι’ ἑνὸς δικαιώματος likewise from verse 18: εἰς πάντας ἀνθρώπους εἰς δικαίωσιν ζωῆς. Better, however, with several authorities and the Vulgate, is to take both genitives as absolute, since this best fits the preceding: “So then, as through one trespass (it came) to all men unto condemnation, so also through one righteous act (it came) to all men unto justification of life.”
The word δικαίωμα, which here stands in contrast to παράπτωμα, and in verse 16 to κατάκριμα, denotes the “righteous act” or the “act that establishes righteousness,” not, as in verse 16, the judicial sentence of justification, but rather the meritorious act itself. The Apostle understands by this, without doubt, the death of Christ, which was the supreme proof of obedience and thus the highest moral act. So also Theodoret: ἡ μὲν τοῦ Ἀδὰμ ἡ παρακοή, τὸ δὲ τοῦ Χριστοῦ τὸ δικαίωμα, ἡ ὑπακοή. Objectively and in its intention, Christ has acquired justification for all men through His obedient sacrifice; hence εἰς πάντας ἀνθρώπους. Or one may say with St. Thomas Aquinas: Justificatio Christi transit in justificationem omnium, quantum ad sufficientiam, licet quantum ad efficientiam procedit in solos fideles. The εἰς δικαίωσιν ζωῆς, that is, unto a justification that delivers from death and makes one a participant in eternal life, forms the counterpart to εἰς κατάκριμα.
Rom 5:19 then gives a further explanation of what precedes: “For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one the many will be made righteous.” The first οἱ πολλοί is to be understood in the same way as in verse 15. The expression καθίστημι (to appoint, to constitute, to make) is stronger than merely εἶναι or νομίζεσθαι; it indicates a real constitution, not merely an external reckoning (Vulgate: peccatores constituti sunt). The future κατασταθήσονται refers to the second οἱ πολλοί, in whom Paul comprehends all who in the future will also attain justification through Christ.
This passage, moreover, speaks clearly for the Catholic doctrine of original sin, and at the same time clearly and decisively rejects the Protestant doctrine of justification as a merely external imputation. For according to the comparison here set forth, justification of the sinner does not consist merely in this, that his sins are not imputed to him on account of Christ’s merits, so that he appears before God as righteous without truly being so inwardly. Rather, just as man through Adam’s disobedience truly becomes a sinner and does not merely appear as such, so through Christ he is also truly made inwardly righteous, and not merely covered over in God’s sight by Christ’s obedience.
CONTINUE
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