Chapter Five

The fruits of justification — peace and blessedness (1–11). The harm caused to humanity by Adam has been healed by Christ (12–21).

Romans 5:1. Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, Justification gives us blessings of a twofold character — present and future. The first consists in reconciliation with God, which is grounded in the forgiveness of our sins; the second — in eternal blessedness. The latter, though it is now only the object of our hope, is nonetheless a sure hope, for its guarantee is the love of God for the human being who has been redeemed and sanctified in Christ Jesus. Thanks to this love the most difficult thing has been accomplished — we have become children of God — and what we must yet await, namely our glorification, is already a natural consequence of our adoption by God. After justification our relationship to God became entirely peaceful. It is not wrath but mercies of every kind that we can expect from Him! But what is this peace (είρηνη) or, as the Apostle expresses it in verse 11, reconciliation (καταλλαγή)? Many see in these terms the designation of a change that took place in God’s relationship to humanity: God ceased to treat the human being with hostility and became merciful toward him (so, for example, the modern commentator Richter interprets it). But this view cannot be accepted. Only among the Greeks was God the object of reconciliation and the human being the subject — that is, the human being propitiated God and by virtue of this God reconciled Himself to the human being. In the Apostle Paul, on the contrary, it is not the human being who reconciles God to himself but God who reconciles the human being; peace is established in the soul of the human being, not of God, because God could not be hostile to the human being. “God is not at war with us, but we are at war with Him. God never makes war” (Chrysostom on 2 Cor 5:20). In favor of such an interpretation speaks also the use of the expression “to reconcile” (καταλλάσσειν) in 2 Cor 5:20: “be reconciled to God.” If reconciliation (καταλλαγή) were a purely objective act taking place only in God, this exhortation of the Apostle would have no meaning (Myshtsyn, in 2 Cor., p. 132).

Romans 5:2. through whom we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. “Access” (προσαγωγή). The Apostle is not speaking of the access we always have to God in prayer. Here is indicated a once-and-for-all, completed act — our turning to Christ — the moment when the heavenly door was opened before us. — “Grace” — this is the state of Christians, the peace spoken of in verse 1. — “The glory of God” — this is the highest good that we have not yet attained. The Apostle speaks of this good more fully in chapter VIII and chapters III–V.

Romans 5:3. Not only that, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, Romans 5:4. and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, Romans 5:5. and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. Even sufferings, which are encountered so frequently in life, cannot diminish the strength of our faith and hope in future glorification. On the contrary, they even serve to nourish and enliven this hope, which grows strong in those who have endurance and proven character. For an explanation of the last two expressions see the Apostle James (Jas 1:3) and the Apostle Peter (1 Pet 1:7; 2 Pet 1:6). However, in James and Peter the term δοκίμιον is used for the designation of proven character, while Paul uses δοκιμή, so one can say that James speaks of suffering as a means of testing a person; Peter, just as Paul, understands in the word δοκιμή by δοκίμων the result that the Christian obtains from the struggle with temptations — the state of a person proved by sufferings, a state of strength and courage that has come through victorious from the struggle with temptations. The hope of the Christian puts him to no shame. Even earlier, at the very moment of turning to Christ, a person already had hope, but that was still a hope in, one might say, an embryonic state. Only in a person who has endured many sufferings without falling in this struggle does hope become a mighty force. But not only sufferings strengthen our hope. The love of God poured out into our hearts strengthens it even more. The outpouring of this love took place at a certain definite moment, and we continue to feel the results of this fact — they are in us! (this is why the Greek text says: έν καρδίαις ημών — poured out in our hearts). — “Through the Holy Spirit.” The Apostle indicates the means through which this love is communicated to us. The Holy Spirit removes all the barriers standing in the path between the heart of God and the heart of the human being, and as a result a living communion between God and the human being begins (cf. John 14:19-20).

Romans 5:6. For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. “For...” Here the Apostle continues to persuade the believers that their hope in future glory (v. 2) is fully well-founded. Through to the end of verse 11 the Apostle proves that the hope for future glorification is grounded in the justification we have already received through the sacrifice of the Son of God, and still more in the fact that the Son of God now intercedes for our glorification not through His death but through His life. Since life is higher than death, this means that the life or glorification of Christ is a greater guarantee than His humiliation or death. — “Weak” — the same as what is further described by the words: ungodly, sinful. This was not at all a state suited to draw to us the love of the Most Holy Being. — “At the right time” — from the Greek (κατα καιρόν) — in accordance with the circumstances of the time. This word is therefore better related to the expression “weak.” It will then denote the cause of the weakness: the time was such that people who were sound in spirit, righteous, could not yet exist!

Romans 5:7. Indeed, one will scarcely die for a righteous person — though perhaps for a good person one might dare even to die. Romans 5:8. But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. In explaining the importance of Christ’s death for sinful people, the Apostle says that God sent His Son to death at a time when people were still sinners. Who would be willing to die in order to help even a righteous, virtuous person? Perhaps someone would volunteer to lay down his life for his benefactor (τού αγαθού — masculine gender, in correspondence with the expression δίκαιος — righteous man — ο αγαθός is also a righteous, virtuous person, just as δίκαιος, but is in addition especially dear to another person by his personal qualities; cf. 1 Sam 1:8). God’s love for us He now, after the death of Christ, especially displays before all people — gives them, so to speak, the opportunity to evaluate (the Russian translation “shows” is inaccurate — σινίστησιν) by sending us the Holy Spirit into our hearts (Gal 4:6) — the same love that once was manifested in the death of Christ. God — the Apostle wants to say in explanation of the words of verse 5 about the pouring out of God’s love in our hearts — God does not cease to remind us constantly, in the most gracious way, of His love for us — speaking to us in our heart (love for us — more accurately: toward us — εις ημας).

Romans 5:9. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. Romans 5:10. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, how much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. The thought in both these verses is the same. We, having been justified or reconciled with God by the death of His Son, can be assured of our future salvation. Only in verse 10 is the added point that the guarantee of this salvation is provided by the fact that now Christ intercedes for us not through death but through life. Since life is higher than death, the life or glorification of Christ is a greater guarantee than His humiliation or death. — “Being enemies.” The Apostle undoubtedly ascribes the enmity not to God but to human beings. It is not God who is hostile to the human being but the human being — by his deeds — who is hostile to God, subverting His laws (cf. Rom 8:7; Col 1:21).

Romans 5:11. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation. “More than that” — that is, not only have we been reconciled with God and need not tremble in anticipation of punishment from Him — we even count God our own God now. Can there be any fear in our heart at the thought of His great judgment over the world? No; rather we ought to rejoice at the coming of the time of this judgment — such is the Apostle’s thought. And all these blessings — justification, reconciliation, complete peace of soul — we, the Apostle adds, owe to our Lord Jesus Christ. By this mention the Apostle wishes to teach Christians humility.

Romans 5:12. Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all people — because all sinned in him. In order to further strengthen believers in the thought that final salvation will be granted to them, the Apostle now compares the founder of ancient, pre-Christian humanity — Adam — with the founder of the new — Christ. Just as Adam brought forth a sinful offspring that lived under the wrath of God and died without reconciliation with God, so from Christ, through faith in Him, a new humanity is born that lives in communion with God and, after death, enters into the inheritance of eternal blessed life. Moreover, the grace brought to people by Christ is far greater than the harm caused to people by Adam, to the degree that the First stands higher than the second. “Therefore” — that is, in view of what was said above about the justification of people through Christ. The Apostle’s meaning is: since we all found our justification in Christ, there is a resemblance between our relationship to Christ and our relationship to our bodily progenitor. From Adam came ruin for all humanity; from Christ — salvation! — “Just as through one man.” In depicting the entry of death into the world, the Apostle attributes the fault of this to one man, Adam. He does not mention Eve, because properly speaking Adam at the moment of the fall was the representative of all humanity descended from him. — “Sin” (αμαρτία). This word always signifies in the Apostle Paul the anti-divine disposition of the will as an active principle, as a force that manifests itself in all individual sins (cf. v. 21; Rom 3:9). — “Entered” (εισήλθε) — “entered into the world” as something new, and entered instantaneously, at once (aorist). — “Into the world.” By “the world” (κόσμος) here, as in other places (e.g., John 3:16), we must understand the human world, all humanity. Outside of humanity, sin evidently existed earlier, according to the Apostle’s teaching — certainly among the evil spirits. But how to reconcile with divine perfection the appearance of a whole series of generations burdened with human sin? Of course, God could have destroyed the race corrupted by sin and created a new one. But that would have been an acknowledgment of Satan’s victory, and God allowed humanity to continue to exist in sin, having already chosen in advance the means for its healing. “And death through sin.” As can be seen from verses 13 and 14, the Apostle understands death as bodily dissolution. The Apostle says this, of course, recalling the narrative in the book of Genesis about the giving of the commandment to Adam. The latter was to die if he ate of the forbidden fruit (Gen 2:17). Of course the body of the human being was made of the same elements as the body of an animal and was therefore essentially perishable. But it could have gradually reached such glorification as will be granted to those people who live until the second coming of the Lord (1 Cor 15:51-52). For this the first human being needed to rise above those impulses that he had in common with the animal world: if he had, through the action of his free will, risen above the animal, he would not have shared the inevitable lot of animals — death. “And so death spread to all people.” The Russian translation here is imprecise. In the Greek text the expression “and so” corresponds to the phrase: και ούτος, which is entirely correctly rendered in the Slavonic translation with the words: “and thus” — in this way. “Spread” — more precisely: spread abroad, dispersed (διήλθεν). Just as a small dose of poison gradually poisons the blood throughout the entire organism, so death spread through all the individual members of the human race: each person was already born poisoned by the venom of Adam’s sin and death. Adam opened the door to death, and from that moment death became firmly established in the human family. “Because all sinned in him.” Here the Apostle explains the circumstance by which sin and death, having entered through one, became the cause of the death of all. But the Greek expression ἐφ᾿ ᾧ beginning this phrase is not understood identically by all interpreters, from which arises a disagreement in the rendering of the Apostle’s thought. Some see here the masculine relative pronoun, others — the neuter. In the first case this ἐφ᾿ ᾧ would refer to the word ανθρώπου (man) and should be translated: “in whom all.” In the second case the expression ἐφ᾿ ᾧ takes the meaning of a causal conjunction and receives the sense: “because all...” Although philological considerations argue against the first and in favor of the second interpretation, it is nonetheless certain that even in the second case the expression “because all sinned” must be supplemented with the phrase: “in him” (in Adam). Indeed, if the text were speaking not about Adam’s sin but about the personal, conscious sins in which all of Adam’s descendants are guilty, this would contradict the Apostle’s following affirmation that sin is not imputed where there is no law, and therefore people could not die on account of their own sins — those were not imputed to them as capital offenses. Moreover, the Apostle in the word “sinned” used the aorist (ημαρτον), which denotes a fall accomplished at one known historical moment — namely the moment of Adam’s fall. — What was the participation of Adam’s descendants in his sin? It was not conscious and free — Adam’s descendants did not yet exist as persons at that time. But since, in the Apostle’s conception, all of humanity forms an indivisible and unified organism, and each individual person has a previous existence in his ancestors and a subsequent existence in his descendants, it is evident that, in the Apostle’s view, all people already existed in Adam in the form of a common human nature. The human being participated in the transgression of Adam through his very nature. The sin that entered the nature of the first man introduced into it the principle of death, and it remained with this principle and passed to Adam’s descendants (Myshtsyn, pp. 140–144). But if the participation of all people in Adam’s sin was involuntary and unconscious, is it possible to allow that the eternal fate of a free and rational individual would depend on this act? Of course not — that would be unjust. However, the Apostle speaks here not of the eternal fate of individuals but only of bodily death. As for the spiritual, eternal existence of the personality, it depends on the individual himself, on his personal relationship to sin. It should be noted that verse 12, consisting entirely of subordinate clauses, has no corresponding conclusion (this figure of speech is called anacoluthon). The Apostle, having been diverted from the comparison begun in verse 12 to the explanations contained in verses 13–14, no longer found it possible to return to the first member of the comparison. He resumes the thought of verse 12 in verse 18.

Romans 5:13. For sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. Romans 5:14. Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come. Against the Apostle’s teaching about the origin of death from one man, an objection could be raised that Adam’s descendants sinned themselves and that this was the reason they died. To this anticipated objection the Apostle replies: sin is imputed as a transgression entailing death only by a law that establishes the death penalty. Such was the Mosaic law. But this law was given in comparatively recent times — under Moses, more than three thousand years after the fall. Nevertheless all people died as criminals who had deserved death. They did not violate any specific commandment of the kind given to Adam, yet death struck everyone (even infants). From this it is clear that the cause of people’s death lies not in their own sins but in the sin of Adam, in which they participated involuntarily and unconsciously. Against such an argument Paul’s opponents could of course point to the fact that people, even before the Mosaic law, had the law of conscience, for the violation of which God punished humanity (the flood, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah). But the law of conscience did not explicitly threaten death for its violation, and moreover those punishments that God sometimes brought down upon people were not strictly legal in character, executed according to a defined judicial standard. They were rather special pedagogical measures prompted by the development of lawlessness among people that had exceeded all bounds. “A type of the one who was to come” (τύπος του μέλλοντος). From everything said about Adam the Apostle draws the conclusion that Adam is a type of the coming Adam, that is, Christ. In place of the word “type,” however, it would be more accurate to use the expression “prefiguration,” because the word τύπος always denotes something historical (a person or thing) that, by divine design, has as its purpose to prefigure or foreshadow something corresponding to the old, Old Testament form that is future and New Testament. The Apostle views the past as a preparatory moment of development, containing in embryonic form that which is to appear in the New Testament. But if one compares both Adams — the Old Testament one and the New Testament one — with respect to their dignity, one must say that Christ (the second Adam) is the prototype, the original, while Adam (the first Adam) is the reflection, the image of Him.

Romans 5:15. But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man’s trespass, how much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many. From the fact that Christ is the prototype of Adam it necessarily follows that His action upon humanity corresponds to the action exerted by Adam. Yet there is still a difference between these actions, and it is a pleasant difference for humanity. The salvation that Christ grants us represents something incomparably more certain than the condemnation that Adam brought upon all his offspring. Why is it more certain? Because grace is more powerful than sin: the work of Adam will be destroyed; the work of Christ will endure forever! — “But the free gift.” By this he limits the parallel he has begun between Adam and Christ. — “The free gift” (χάρισμα) — this is the gracious gift that Christ made to us by out of love for us sacrificing His life on our behalf. — “Trespass” — Adam’s sin, which exerted such a ruinous influence on the entire human race. — “Many” — all of Adam’s descendants. The Apostle used this expression evidently to create a correspondence with the second half of the comparison. Not all receive the grace of Christ, but many (believers); so also those who inherit Adam’s sin are spoken of as many. — “The grace of God and the free gift by grace.” This figure of speech is called hendiadys (one thing designated by two expressions) and can be rendered as: “the grace of God, which consists in the salvation granted to us in Christ.” “Free gift by grace” — more precisely: gracious gift (δωρεά έν χάριτι). — “Abounded.” Chrysostom says: “Christ has not only repaired all that was damaged by Adam, but has restored everything to a far greater degree and in a higher measure.”

Romans 5:16. And the free gift is not like the result of one man’s sinning. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brings justification. The difference between the work of Christ and the work of Adam consists further in the fact that the grace of Christ gives deliverance not only from Adam’s sin — the sin of nature, the inherited sin — but also from all the sins subsequently committed by Adam’s descendants, from the transgressions committed by them freely and consciously. Instead of the Russian translation found in the Synodal edition of the Bible, Professor Nekrasov, and after him Myshtsyn, proposes the following translation of verse 16, consistent with the context: “and this gift is not like the gift for one who erred in a single trespass, because judgment for condemnation came from one trespass, but the gift of grace for justification from many trespasses” — that is, there, after Adam’s fall, condemnation was received as a gift by humanity, while here, in Christ, we receive a new and better gift — justification, and that from a multitude of transgressions. By justification (δικαίωμα) as the result of the gift of grace, what is meant here is the restoration of righteousness, the genuine transformation of human nature for the better.

Romans 5:17. For if, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ. It might have seemed strange that a transgression — in one case, namely in the fall of Adam, led to condemnation, while in another case — when all of Adam’s descendants turned to sin, at which time, it would seem, the wrath of God should have manifested itself with greater force — it led to justification, to an extraordinary manifestation of the love of God. The Apostle explains the different attitude of God to one and the same phenomenon as follows. There, in Adam, we yielded to the dominion of sin and death; here, in Christ, we ourselves become masters. We consciously and freely accept the gift that God’s love offers us. Adam’s fall acted upon his descendants from a distance — in most cases they did not even account for why they were suffering — while the righteousness that God grants them in Christ is accepted by them with joy. The gift of righteousness is a gift consisting in righteousness. — “Through the one man Jesus Christ.” This expression corresponds to the expression of verse 12: “through one man sin entered into the world.”

Romans 5:18. Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all people, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all people. Here the Apostle draws a conclusion from everything preceding from verse 12: there, in Adam, through the fall of one came universal condemnation; here, in Christ, through the justification of one there was brought about the justification of all, leading to true and full life. — “One act of righteousness” (δικαίωμα). — Here, according to the context, we must understand the work of justification accomplished by Christ, forming the opposite to what in this verse is called the trespass (Adam’s deed). This work of justification of course encompasses both the death and the resurrection of Christ. — “Justification leading to life” (δικαίωσις) — this is the state of those who have been justified and are believers.

Romans 5:19. For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous. Here the Apostle not only repeats the thought of verse 18 but at the same time points to the moral, hidden causes both of Adam’s transgression and of Christ’s self-sacrifice. Adam showed his frivolity by not heeding the clearly and plainly sounding words of God’s commandment — as though he had not even heard them! Christ, on the contrary, showed complete obedience to the will of His heavenly Father — this continued throughout His entire life and was most clearly expressed in His death (Phil 2:8).

Romans 5:20. Now the law came in alongside, so that the trespass might increase. But where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, Romans 5:21. so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Until now, beginning from chapter III verse 21, the Apostle had outlined the plan of salvation for all people. In this, the Mosaic law turned out to be as if entirely superfluous. The Apostle now explains that even the law had significance in the economy of our salvation. Although it neither produced sinfulness nor eliminated it, it came in alongside (παρεισήλθεν — the Russian translation is imprecise: “came”) and began to assist in the realization of the plan of the economy. In what way? It began to multiply — that is, to increase in number and to intensify — the transgressions of humanity (the Russian translation: “and so transgression increased” is imprecise. In the Greek the expression ίνα πλεονασή stands here — “so that it might increase.” This is an indication of the purpose of the appearance of the law, not its consequence). People thus began to sin consciously, which was impossible without the law, and sin itself through the law acquired special active force (cf. Rom 7:7 and following). This was necessary so that grace could manifest itself in its full measure. If sin had not been so immense and felt so keenly, there would never have been awakened in people the need for salvation, and consequently they would not have recognized the richness of God’s grace and would not have received it. — “Sin reigned in death” — that is, manifested its dominion in death (εν θανατψ) — specifically in the fact that all people died. — “Grace... leading to eternal life” (είς ζωήν αιώνιον). Grace does not yet manifest itself in life (the preposition έν is not used here as above, but the preposition είς), but for life or toward eternal life, since genuine eternal life in the full sense of the word has not yet opened up for people. — It remains for now the goal of their aspirations. This eternal life is the glory spoken of by the Apostle above (Rom 3:23), combined with holiness. “Through Jesus Christ our Lord.” The final words of the comparison begun in verse 12 point to the immeasurable significance of Christ for us. Now — as the Apostle seems to want to say in conclusion of the comparison of Adam and Christ — Adam has receded from us and Christ alone remains with us! We appropriate to ourselves the work of salvation accomplished by Him through the fact that we actually and really live in Christ, just as we once lived in Adam. There we existed in the form of an un-individualized nature and were drawn into sin unconsciously and without freedom; here we appear as already defined personalities existing outside of Christ and independently of Him. Our participation in His work is therefore rational and conscious. And how this participation is realized — how we unite our personality with Christ — is what the Apostle speaks about in the following, 6th chapter. * * * By “the one who was to come” the Apostle, according to Zahn, names Christ not in relation to the present time when the Apostle was writing his letter, but from the perspective of a person who lived before the coming of Christ.