Bible Study Romans 5.11-21
Firstly, it served to show up sin as a transgression against God’s will (3:19; see also Romans 4:15; 5:13). Before the law was given, the only moral guidance that humankind had was the ‘law of nature’, expressing itself through their own conscience. But after the Law was given by Moses, people were able to understand wrongdoing for what it really was: defiance of God’s will.
Secondly, the Law was given to be a teacher ‘until Christ came, that we might be justified by faith’ (3:24). Paul suggests that, as people tried to gain salvation by their own efforts at keeping the Law, they realized it was an impossible task, and so the way was prepared for God’s new act of grace in Jesus Christ.
The situation of Israel before and after the giving of the law at Sinai may then better fit the situation described by the statement. In this case the people of Israel were viewed as “alive” following their redemption from Egypt but “dead” after the giving of the law since it presented a standard they failed to keep (cf. Rom. 5:13).
The apostle Paul described Jesus as the Second Adam, an epithet associated with His salvific and redemptive work and with His role as the “first Man” of a regenerate community. “For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive” (1 Cor. 15:22; cf. 1 Cor. 15:45; Rom. 5:12–17). Although this redemptive aspect of Jesus as the Second Adam cannot be emphasized too much, it may be instructive also to view the life of Jesus as the life of the Second Adam, and to note that Jesus came not only to die but also to live. And the life He lived demonstrated by its power and perfection all that God created Adam and all men to be. In other words, Jesus fulfilled in His life the potentialities of unfallen Adam just as by His death He restored all mankind to those potentialities.
In Romans 5, for example, the only phrase that breaks the sharply stated universal alternatives in the passage is the phrase “those who receive” in verse 17: “For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace and the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ.” Though the word “receive” is a brief qualifier, it represents the essence of Paul’s view concerning human responsibility.
The first phase of the experience of salvation is often called justification. The word refers to the acquittal from the penalty of sin that God gives to those who have faith in Christ (Rom. 3:26). The noun (dikaiōsis) occurs only twice in the New Testament, both times in Paul’s letter to the Romans in relation to the work of Christ and its benefit for Christians (4:25; 5:18).
Adam and Christ: Comparison and contrast (Rom 5:12–21). The universal provision of righteousness and life for sinners through Christ is paralleled by the lethal effects of Adam’s action, whose sin has infected the entire race. Romans 5:12 may simply mean that death came upon all people “because all sinned” in the same way; yet it may contain the deeper thought that all people were somehow “in Adam” when he sinned so that sin passed to them and they were “made sinners” (Rom 5:19). But grace is greater than sin! The effect of Christ’s righteous deed far outweighs that of Adam’s sin.
Moreover the law entered (Greek pareiserchomai) that the offence might abound (Greek pleonazo). In vv. 13, 14 Paul spoke about the time prior to law to make it clear that sin predated the law and that Adam, not Moses, was the one through whom sin entered into the world. Having completed the parallel between Christ and Adam, Paul now brings the subject of law into the picture again. This time he wanted to address the purpose of the law.
The meaning of the word translated “entered” is “enter along beside.” The law came in along beside the offense. Vine gives the meaning of the word translated “abound” as “to superabound” (Dictionary 20). The law came into the picture so that sin could be seen for the monster that it is. The law brought the character of sin to light. (And as 7:5, 8 point out in some measure it actually increased the activity of sin. That will be discussed more when we come to chapter 7.)
But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound (Greek huperperisseuo). The Greek word for “more abound,” according to Vine, means, “to abound exceedingly” Dictionary (20). Though the law showed sin for the ugly monster that it is, the grace of God was more than equal to the task. It is on this verse that the words, “Grace that is greater than all our sins” are based.
In Romans Paul addressed the problem of universal sin, beginning his discussion with the affirmation that “sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned” (Rom. 5:12). Paul saw Adam’s disobedience as an act with appalling consequences for all those who followed him. He portrayed sin in personified language as a power presently reigning in the world, exercising authority over all Adam’s descendants (5:21).