Chapter 5
v1. Brethren, we are justified and are being justified by our faith. We have entered into a marvellous relationship. We have peace with God. The Law did not do that. The Law brought wrath upon us, the wrath of God. But we have peace with God, and that has been achieved through our Lord Jesus Christ. Not only so, but our faith which has given us peace has also given us access in the presence of God through prayer in the name of Jesus Christ. Even further the same faith enables us to stand in hope of the glory of God. It is these things which passionately affect our lives. It is the power of such a doctrine, properly understood, that generates emotions on the basis of truth, that initiates actions beyond Law.
Such a doctrine causes us to glory not in our flesh, but in tribulation. We know that tribulation helps us to exercise and to develop patience. Patience in its turn leads us to prove all things by our experience, and as we prove God’s power in our lives by this experience, our hope is strengthened— that God, one day, by the same power will extricate us from all our problems. That sort of hope will never put us to shame, which would happen if we put our trust in ourselves, as our flesh would let us down.
v.5 God has poured His love into our hearts, by the power of His Spirit word, to such an extent, that it rebounds in our life. Because of the love that has surrounded our lives, those same lives are now lived in gratitude to Him, who has done all things for us.
v.6 I have been speaking before of doctrinal matters, but look at the emotional response that arises out of doctrinal issues. Doctrine is no good unless it affects the heart. Consider what God has done. We could not extricate ourselves from the morass into which we have got ourselves. Not only so, but God waited until a period of the world’s history when mankind, headed up by the Jewish world, had reached the point where it had filled up the measure of his fathers. At that point of human history, Christ died for the ungodly.
v.7 Now look for a righteous man — one who lives a good life, who is perhaps aloof from all others, yet perhaps one you cannot point the finger at. You might admire and respect him, but you would not die for him. You might die for a man who is kind, who has a benevolent character, who assists you in life and shows a sympathetic understanding of your problems and lets you lean on him in times of trouble. You might die for that man, but it would have to be a daring decision, a split second decision, for any procrastination would lead to a change of mind.
v.8 Yet look at what God did. He commended His love towards us in that while we were yet in sin, Christ died for us. Think of that! He waited for some four thousand years of human history and misery to pass over the world, and allowed man to perfect his iniquity. In all that time, God’s love was so great that he was not contemplating at some point of history, making some daring decision in allowing His Beloved Son to die, but measured that off from time immemorial. Despite the crimes of mankind, he never deviated from His determination to go through with that.
v.9 Brethren, now do you know why we are justified by his blood? And if we are justified from our sins by that sort of action— an act of love, then our ultimate salvation from death is relatively easy considering the difficulties presented by our sins. For if when were enemies of God, He was prepared to reconcile us to Himself by putting His Son to death — if God was prepared to do that with the death of His son, what do you think God will do by the life of His son?
v.11 Oh, brethren, if God has achieved that part of our salvation — the most difficult part — the rest is relatively easy, isn’t it? If we can respond to God’s love in the death of His son, then the difficult part is over. Here is then a motive force in our life above Law, a power that can change the whole mental and moral approach to life. Because Christ lives forever and we can rejoice, brethren — it is not a question of God promising atonement, we have received it!
v.12 Let’s get back to the doctrinal aspects, for this is what you don’t seem to understand. The facts of Genesis are very plain. However they need to be understood. We must not superimpose upon the Genesis record the theories of mankind. Let us accept the Scripture. One man caused sin to enter in upon the world. You cannot blame God, nor yet the serpent. Man is responsible for that — and death came by sin. Death was the consequence of man’s own action, and we know by human experience that death passed upon all men. We all die, don’t we? It is because we are related to Adam that we die.
Mortality reigns because of our relationship to Adam. Evidenced in this mortality is a bias in our nature to sin, and therefore as Adam sinned and died, so the hereditary factors flow through humanity. All men sin and die. This is all traceable back to the first man. You see, it is the nature of flesh that is the problem. It is not that God puts men to death when they sin, though it is true that death comes by sin. But it is not that God judiciously says that when a man has sinned, therefore he must die, because when there was no law against sin, death was still in the world.
v.13 Yet sin was in existence — it is just that it was not all recognised as such because God had not legislated against it in all its deformity. However, even between the times of Adam to Moses, death took all men to the grave, when there was no penal code whereby they could all be individually sentenced to death. So here we have historic proof that men were dying Adam’s death, who had not committed his actual sin.
v.14 Now, in a contrasting sense, Adam was a shadow of the Lord Jesus Christ who was to come. Let me reason out the matter this way. The results of sin is not the same as the result of Christ’s righteousness. The results of sin are like this — one man sinned — many are dead.
v.15 Much more, the grace of God is such that through the gift of Grace which is by one man, it abounds unto many. The judgment upon one man was to condemnation and that condemnation came as a result of one sin, and that condemnation was passed upon the whole world because one man sinned.
v.16 Not that God held men responsible for Adam’s crime, but the effects and consequence of Adam’s crime flowed through all his seed. But look! The effect of Christ’s righteousness and the gift of Grace of God in him is different in this respect. Whilst one sin brought the condemnation of death upon the whole human race, God’s power is such that he is able to forgive people who have committed many offences.
v.18 So Adam is a figure of him that was to come in this opposite sense. Men inherit mortality in Adam though they did not commit his particular crime, so men will be forgiven in Christ though certainly they have not lived up to his particular righteousness!
v.19 So Adam is a shadow, but a shadow by contrast. Nor will it simply be a reversal of the effects of Adam’s failure, that is that we will not die, but that we shall live forever! So God will more than redress the balance. Such is the power of God’s righteousness and His grace. The effect of Christ’s righteousness in our lives is going beyond what has been done in the other direction, super-abounding, because, if by one man’s disobedience we were all constituted sinners (and we were constituted sinners — not because we committed his crime, but because of the physical effects of his crime) so by the obedience of another man, many shall be made righteous (not because we are righteous in the sense that Christ was, but because of the spiritual effects of His obedience).
To summarise the type by contrast, the sacrifice of Christ was far more effective than the sin of Adam, both in quality and quantity. In quality because sin brought death — righteousness brought eternal life. In quantity, because one sin resulted in the death of all, whereas by the righteousness of one, all in him are forgiven of their many sins.
v.20 After all that happened in the Garden of Eden, the Law came in later that it might emphasise the effects of sin, in that flesh was now rampant and could not be controlled. It was biased to sin.
v.21 However, if Law emphasised the power of sin, the gift of God’s grace in forgiving sins emphasises His power to keep ahead of sin. The power of God will not be denied by the power of the flesh, sin might reign unto death, and beyond that it cannot go, but God’s grace in forgiveness will reign unto Eternal Life. This wonderful outcome will reign unto Eternal Life. This wonderful outcome will only result if we change our moral relationship from Adam to our Lord Jesus Christ.
The Solution