5:1-8:39 The gospel and the power of God for salvation

5:1-8:39 The gospel and the power of God for salvation

If 'a righteousness that is by faith from first to last' summarizes the theme of 1:18-4:25, 'the power of God for salvation' captures the central thrust of 5:1-8:39. The gospel, in unveiling this power, secures not only the sinner's initial acceptance by God but his or her final deliverance on the day of judgment. 'If justified, then certain of final salvation' is Paul's overall theme, a theme that comes to expression especially at the beginning (ch. 5) and end (ch. 8) of the section. Between these chapters, Paul deals with two of the 'powers' that might threaten this eventual deliverance of the justified believer, viz. sin (ch. 6) and the law (ch. 7), showing in each case that the Christian has been delivered from bondage to these powers. The structure of chs. 5-8, then, is what some call a 'ring composition', and others a 'chiasm', in which there is a certain correspondence between the first and last components, the second and second to the last and so on:

5:1-11 Assurance of future glory

5:12-21 Basis for this assurance in the

work of Christ

6:1-23 Delivered from the power of sin

7:1-25 Delivered from the power of the

law

8:1-17 Basis for assurance in the work of

Christ, mediated by the Spirit

8:18-39 Assurance of future glory [p. 1132]

5:1-11 The hope of glory

Paul begins a new section of his letter at 5:1 (rather than at, for instance, 6:1). This is shown by the transitional 'since we have been justified through faith' in v 1; a shift, at this point, from an emphasis on 'faith' (thirty–three occurrences in 1:18-4:25 versus only three in chs. 5-8) to an emphasis on 'life' (twenty–four times in chs. 5-8 versus only two in 1:18-4:25); and by the clarity of the theme and structure outlined above. 

Echoing throughout chs. 5-8 is a question created by the tension between Paul's teaching that a person is justified before God the minute that person believes and the biblical truth that a day of divine judgment must yet be faced. How do these two truths relate to one another? Can I be sure that my justification now will do any good on the day of judgment? To this question, Paul answers in this paragraph with an emphatic 'Yes!': We rejoice in the hope of the glory of God (2b) and hope does not disappoint us (5a). In these assurances we find the heart of this paragraph.

Vs 1-2a lead up to these assurances with a reminder of what Christians who have been justified by faith now enjoy: peace with God, a relationship in which we are no longer threatened by God's wrath, and access... into this grace in which we now stand, continual participation in the blessings secured by God's grace in Christ. Paul is, however, aware of the struggles that Christians still face in this world. But these struggles, far from threatening our peace and assurance, actually give us greater assurance of them (3b-4). For sufferings are used by God to produce in us perseverance, the ability to endure. Perseverance produces character (dokimeä), the strength that comes only from severe testing, and character, in turn, produces hope. Because God so works in our lives, and because we should want so desperately this kind of character and hope, we should rejoice in our sufferings (3a). Paul here reflects a common early Christian perspective on the far greater value of divine virtues in comparison with earthly troubles (see also 8:18; Jas. 1:2-4; 1 Pet. 1:6-7)—a perspective that too many Christians today have lost.

Vs 5b-8 set Christian hope (5a) on the unshakable foundation of God's love for us in Christ. The Holy Spirit enables the believer to sense from within that God has effusively poured out [ekcheoœ] his love into our hearts. Added to this inward appreciation is the objective, historical demonstration of that love of God for us in the cross of Christ. On Calvary was shown to the world a love that far transcends the love typical among humans, a love according to which only for a good man would one conceivably die (7). It is just the nature of God's love that he sacrificed his own son for the ungodly (6) and sinners (8)—for those very people who had refused to honour and worship him (cf. 1:21-22). It is this idea that is conveyed in the phrase at just the right time (6a): at the very time when we were still powerless, Christ died for us. God has not waited for us to take the first step back to him but has intervened in an act of pure grace to provide a way for us to come back.

Vs 9-10 gather together the main pieces of vs 1-8 repeating the certainty of Christian hope (2, 5a). They are obviously parallel. Paul asserts the unbreakable connection between the believer's present status before God (justified by his blood, reconciled to him), and his or her future status (saved from God's wrath, saved). His argument moves from 'the greater' to 'the lesser'. God has done 'the greater thing' in bringing us into relationship with him through the terrible cost of his Son's blood and when we were God's enemies. We were in a state of mutual hostility in which God's wrath rested on us (1:18) and we were 'God–haters' (1:30). Surely, then, God will do what in the terms of this argument is the 'easier' thing: deliver us whom he has already accepted from the pouring out of his wrath on the day of judgment. V 11 wraps up the paragraph with a final rehearsal of some of its key ideas: 'rejoicing' (2-3); the present enjoyment of reconciliation with God (1b, 10); and, most of all, the fact that this rejoicing and reconciliation come only through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Note 1 A strongly attested variant reads, instead of the indicative verb 'we have' (echomen), the subjunctive verb 'let us have' (echoœmen). This has the effect of making v 1 an appeal to enjoy peace with God rather than a statement that we now are enjoying it. However, despite the strength of its manuscript support (the two most important copies of Paul's letters read the subjunctive) and its acceptance by many scholars (e.g. Sanday–Headlam, Murray), the indicative reading makes better sense in the context and is widely and strongly attested.

5:12-21 The reign of grace and life

The power of Christ's obedience to overcome Adam's act of disobedience is the great theme of this paragraph. Paul presents both Adam and Christ as 'representative figures' whose acts determine the destiny of all who belong to them. Just as Adam has sinned, and through his sin, brought sin and death to all who belong to him (12a, 18a, 19a), so also Christ has obeyed, and through his obedience brought righteousness and life to all who belong to him (18b, 19b). The emphasis lies on the 'so also' part of the comparison. Paul assumes the truth of Adam's sin and the reign of death that it introduced, a [p. 1133] doctrine found elsewhere with varying emphases in Jewish literature. What Paul wants to teach us here is that Christ's giving of himself on the cross has similarly established a reign—but a reign of life rather than death, of grace (see vs 15-17, 21) rather than of just deserts. Believers can be certain of living eternally because we have been transferred into this new realm in which grace and life reign (21). This teaching of the certainty of life in Christ supports what Paul has taught in 5:1-11. We can be sure of final salvation (9-10) because our relationship to Christ guarantees that we will 'reign in life' (17).

Paul begins to state his key point about the parallel between Adam and Christ in v 12, but interrupts himself before he finishes. We have, therefore, a just as with no corresponding 'so also' (most English translations signal the break in thought with a dash at the end of the verse). Only in vs 18-19 does Paul come back to state the full comparison. This just as clause presents the universal effects of the sin of the one man, Adam: it has brought death into the world and in this way (e.g. through sinning) caused death to spread to all people. Many scholars think that the 'death' Paul refers to here is physical death only (Sanday–Headlam, Godet, Murray); a few, that it denotes 'spiritual' death only. But it probably includes both, separation from fellowship with God and physical mortality as the judgment of God on sin.

The last clause of the verse explains why death spread to all men, because all sinned. (As is almost universally recognized, the Greek eph hoœ must be translated 'because'.) This may mean simply that every person dies because every person, in his or her own body, sins. But Paul's stress on the way in which one trespass, the disobedience of the one man, led to sin and condemnation for all people (this idea is repeated in vs 10a and 19a) suggests that in v 12 also he is thinking of a sinning of all people that takes place in relationship to Adam. What he may intend is that all people sin (12) because they inherit a corrupted 'sin nature' from Adam (18-19). But vs 18-19 suggest a closer relationship between Adam's sin and ours than this. It is therefore better to think that the sinning of all people in v 12 is a sinning that actually takes place 'in' Adam. Paul may think of this in a 'biological' sense: all human beings sinned in Adam because we were all seminally 'present' in him (see, for a possible parallel to this idea, Heb. 7:10). Or he may think of this solidarity in a 'forensic' sense: as our God–appointed representative, Adam's sin is accounted by God to be the sin of all people at the same time, and it is by reason of this sin that all people die. In any case, the important point for Paul, and for us, is that all people, by virtue of their relationship to Adam, are sinners under sentence of death.

Paul breaks off the comparison he began in v 12 to insert two digressions, vs 13-14 and vs 15-17. The first guards Paul's teaching in v 12 about the universality of death from the possible objection that people could not be held responsible for their sins if they did not 'transgress' the law of Moses (cf. 3:20 and 4:15). Paul responds simply by asserting the reality of universal death throughout the time before the giving of the law through Moses. The second digression (15-17) highlights two points of contrast between Adam and Christ. There is, first, a contrast in the effect of their actions: Adam's trespass brought condemnation (16) and death (17); Christ has brought justification (16) and righteousness (17). Secondly, there is a contrast in the power of these acts. Adam's act has certainly been powerful enough, bringing as it has, sin, death and misery on all the world. But, Paul asserts, how much more powerful is Christ's act and its effects (15, 17). This is because the grace of God is at work through Christ, and God's grace has power to more than conquer any act of Adam's.

In vs 18-19 Paul finally states the full comparison between Adam and Christ. The verses are parallel, each of them comparing the way in which Adam's trespass/disobedience has brought condemnation and sinfulness to the way in which Christ's one act of righteousness/obedience has brought justification and righteousness. But does the parallel between them extend to the universal effects of these results? This might seem to be the case, since Paul asserts in v 18 that the effects of both Adam's act and Christ's extends to all men. Yet Paul elsewhere plainly repudiates the idea that all people will be saved (e.g. Rom. 2:12; 2 Thes. 1:8-9), and v 17 also makes clear that it is only those who receive God's abundant provision of grace and the gift of righteousness who will reign in life. Therefore, we must understand the universalism of v 18 in terms of the representative significance of each individual: the effects of Christ's action extend to all who belong to him, just as the effects of Adam's action extend to all who belong to him. All people, without exception, belong to Adam (12); but only those who come to faith, who 'receive the gift', belong to Christ (see also 1 Cor. 15:22-23x).

The paragraph concludes with a further remark about the law (20) and a final summing up. The fact that Paul again mentions the law (cf. also vs 13-14) reveals how much Paul is preoccupied with 'Jewish' issues in Romans. His point here is that the law of Moses has done nothing to change the situation of sin and death introduced into the world by Adam. Indeed, the law has made things worse, increasing the [p. 1134] trespass by turning sin against God into a more serious rebellion against his explicit commands (see the comments on 4:15). Yet even where sin thus 'increased', God's grace increased all the more. As a result, Paul concludes, the reign of death has been replaced by the reign of grace for those who are in Christ, bringing to us a new status of righteousness (cf. 3:21-4:25) and leading inevitably to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Note 12 Therefore in the NIV translates dia touto, 'because of this'. In this context, the word dia probably has a 'final' meaning—'for the sake of, with the purpose of'—and touto is probably retrospective, referring back to the certainty of salvation theme in vs 9-10. The whole phrase, then, has the sense 'with the purpose of securing this final salvation'.