In Romans 5 Paul provides three contrasts regarding sin and salvation. In verse 17 Paul provides a third and final contrast: “For if, because of one man’s trespass [sin], death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness [salvation] reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ.”
What does that mean?
The key to understanding this verse is to emphasize the word abundance in the phrase “[God’s] abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness,” and the thought that those who have been thus abundantly blessed are enabled to reign in life now through Jesus. To put it simply, the work of Christ in dying for us did not merely restore us to the position in which Adam stood before the Fall, but rather carries us beyond that. One commentator says, “Those redeemed by the death of Christ are not merely recovered from the Fall, but made to reign through Jesus Christ, to which they had no title in Adam’s communion.”
D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, rightly noting the reappearance of the word justification in this section (vv. 15,18), says, “It is not only that we are forgiven, but over and above being forgiven, the righteousness of Jesus Christ is put to our account, is put upon us.… Unfallen Adam was righteous, but it was his own righteousness as a created being, it was the righteousness of a man. Adam never had the righteousness of Jesus Christ upon him. What he lost was his own righteousness. But you and I are not merely given back a human righteousness, the righteousness that Adam had before he fell – we are given the righteousness of Jesus Christ. “Much more” – abundance, superabundance – give full weight to it! We receive this abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness.
If Adam had remained in a state of righteousness, he could have sung: “In my own righteousness I stand,/Soon to join God’s glorious band.” But Adam did not stand. He fell, because he was not able by his own strength to confirm himself in righteousness. Similarly, were we to attempt to stand in our own righteousness, assuming that we could attain to it in the first place, we would fall also. But we do not fall. We stand instead, and the reason we stand is that we do not stand in our own righteousness.
Moreover, it is not only that we will stand in that final day of divine judgment. We stand now, which is what the phrase “reign in life” refers to. It means that by the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion and empowering of the Holy Spirit, we are victorious now – real freedom. In this way, the gift of God in Christ far surpasses the effects of Adam’s and all other transgressions.
Maranatha!
(mar-uh-nath-uh – “Our Lord Comes”) Pastor Steve can be reached at PastorSteve@MaranathaBibleChurch.org