_CHRIST AND ADAM_
ROMANS v. 12-21
We approach a paragraph of the Epistle pregnant with mystery. It leads
us back to Primal Man, to the Adam of the first brief pages of the
Scripture record, to his encounter with the suggestion to follow
himself rather than his Maker, to his sin, and then to the results of
that sin in his race. We shall find those results given in terms which
certainly we should not have devised _a priori_. We shall find the
Apostle teaching, or rather stating, for he writes as to those who
know, that mankind inherits from primal Man, tried and fallen, not
only taint but guilt, not only moral hurt but legal fault.
This is "a thing heard in the darkness." It has been said that Holy
Scripture "is not a sun, but a lamp." The words may be grievously
misused, by undue emphasis on the negative clause; but they convey a
sure truth, used aright. Nowhere does the divine Book undertake to
tell us all about everything it contains. It undertakes to tell us
truth, and to tell it from God. It undertakes to give us pure light,
yea, "to bring life and immortality out into the light," (2 Tim.
i. 10). But it reminds us that we know "in part," and that even
prophecy, even the inspired message, is "in part" (1 Cor. xiii. 9). It
illuminates immensely much, but it leaves yet more to be seen
hereafter. It does not yet kindle the whole firmament and the whole
landscape like an oriental sun. It sheds its glory upon our Guide, and
upon our path.
A passage like this calls for such recollections. It tells us, with
the voice of the Apostle's Lord, great facts about our own race, and
its relations to its primeval Head, such that every individual man has
a profound moral and also judicial _nexus_ with the first Man. It does
not tell us how those inscrutable but solid facts fit into the whole
plan of God's creative wisdom and moral government. The lamp shines
_there_, upon the edges of a deep ravine beside the road; it does not
shine sunlike over the whole mountain-land.
As with other mysteries which will meet us later, so with this; we
approach it as those who "know in part," and who know that the
apostolic Prophet, by no defect of inspiration, but by the limits of
the case, "prophesies in part." Thus with awful reverence, with godly
fear, and free from the wish to explain away, yet without anxiety lest
God should be proved unrighteous, we listen as Paul dictates, and
receive his witness about our fall and our guilt in that mysterious
"First Father."
We remember also another fact of this case. This paragraph deals only
incidentally with Adam; its main theme is Christ. Adam is the
illustration; Christ is the subject. We are to be shewn in Adam, by
contrast, some of "the unsearchable riches of Christ." So that our
main attention is called not to the brief outline of the mystery of
the Fall, but to the assertions of the related splendour of the
Redemption.
St Paul is drawing again to a close, a cadence. He is about to
conclude his exposition of the Way of Acceptance, and to pass to its
junction with the Way of Holiness. And he shews us here last, in the
matter of Justification, this fragment from "the bottoms of the
mountains"--the union of the justified with their redeeming Lord as
race with Head; the _nexus_ in that respect between them and Him which
makes His "righteous act" of such infinite value to them. In the
previous paragraph, as we have seen, he has gravitated toward the
deeper regions of the blessed subject; he has indicated our connexion
with the Lord's Life as well as with His Merit. Now, recurring to the
thought of the Merit, he still tends to the depths of truth, and
Christ our Righteousness is lifted before our eyes from those pure
depths as not the Propitiation only, but the Propitiation who is also
our Covenant-Head, our Second Adam, holding His mighty merits for a
new race, bound up with Himself in the bond of a real unity.
He "prophesies in part," meanwhile, even in respect of this element of
his message. As we saw just above, the fullest explanations of our
union with the Lord Christ _in His life_ were reserved by St Paul's
Master for other Letters than this. In the present passage we have
not, what probably we should have had if the Epistle had been written
five years later, a definite statement of the connexion between our
Union with Christ in His covenant and our Union with Him in His life;
a connexion deep, necessary, significant. It is not quite absent from
this passage, if we read verses 17, 18, aright; but it is not
prominent. The main thought is of merit, righteousness, acceptance; of
covenant, of law. As we have said, this paragraph is the climax of the
Epistle to the Romans as to its doctrine of our peace with God through
the merits of His Son. It is enough for the purpose of that subject
that it should indicate, and only indicate, the doctrine that His Son
is also our Life, our indwelling Cause and Spring of purity and power.
Recollecting thus the scope and the connexion of the passage, let us
listen to its wording.
[Sidenote: Ver. 12.] =On this account,= on account of the aspects of
our justification and reconciliation "through our Lord Jesus Christ"
which he has just presented, it is[75] =just as through one man sin
entered into the world,= the world of man, =and, through sin, death,
and so to all men death travelled,= διῆλθε, penetrated, pervaded,
=inasmuch as all sinned;= the Race sinning in its Head, the Nature in
its representative Bearer. The facts of human life and death shew that
sin _did_ thus pervade the race, as to liability, and as to penalty:
[Sidenote: Ver. 13.] =For until law came sin was in the world;= it was
present all along, in the ages previous to the great Legislation. =But
sin is not imputed,= is not put down as debt for penalty, =where law
does not exist,= where in no sense is there statute to be obeyed or
broken, whether that statute takes articulate expression or not.[76]
[Sidenote: Ver. 14.] =But death became king (ἐβασίλευσεν), from Adam
down to Moses, even over those who did not sin on the model of the
transgression of Adam--who is= (in the present tense of the plan of
God) =pattern of the Coming One.=
He argues from the fact of death, and from its universality, which
implies a universality of liability, of guilt. According to the
Scriptures, death is essentially _penal_ in the case of man, who was
created not to die but to live. How that purpose would have been
fulfilled if "the image of God" had not sinned against Him, we do not
know. We need not think that the fulfilment would have violated any
natural process; higher processes might have governed the case, in
perfect harmony with the surroundings of terrestrial life, till
perhaps that life was transfigured, as by a necessary development,
into the celestial and immortal. But however, the record _does_
connect, for man, the fact of death with the fact of sin, offence,
transgression. And the fact of death is universal, and so has been
from the first. And thus it includes generations most remote from the
knowledge of a revealed _code_. And it includes individuals most
incapable of a conscious act of transgression such as Adam's was; it
includes the heathen, and the infant, and the imbecile. Therefore
wherever there is human nature, since Adam fell, there is sin, in its
form of guilt. And therefore, in some sense which perhaps only the
supreme Theologian Himself fully knows, but which we can follow a
little way, all men offended in the First Man--so favourably
conditioned, so gently tested. The guilt contracted by him is
possessed also by them. And thus is he "the pattern of the Coming
One."
For now the glorious Coming One, the Seed of the Woman, the blessed
Lord of the Promise, rises on the view, in His likeness and in His
contrast. Writing to Corinth from Macedonia, about a year before, St
Paul had called him (1 Cor. xv. 45, 47) "the Second Adam," "the Second
Man"; and had drawn in outline the parallel he here elaborates. "In
Adam all die; even so in Christ all shall be made alive." It was a
thought which he had learned in Judaism,[77] but which his Master had
affirmed to him in Christianity; and noble indeed and far-reaching is
its use of it in this exposition of the sinner's hope.
[Sidenote: Ver. 15.] =But not as the transgression, so the gracious
gift (χάρισμα). For if, by the transgression of the one, the many,=
the many affected by it, =died, much rather did the grace of God.= His
benignant action, =and the gift,= the grant of our acceptance, =in the
grace of the one Man, Jesus Christ,= ("_in_ His grace," because
_involved in_ His benignant action, in His redeeming work) =abound
unto the many= whom it, whom He, affected.
We observe here some of the phrases in detail. "_The One_"; "_the One
Man_":--"_the_ one," in each case, is related to "_the_ many"
involved, in bane or in blessing respectively. "The One _Man_":--so
the Second Adam is designated, not the First. As to the First, "it
goes unsaid" that he is man. As to the Second, it is infinitely
wonderful, and of eternal import, that He, as truly, as completely, is
one with us, is Man of men. "_Much rather did_ the grace, and the
gift, _abound_":--the thought given here is that while the dread
sequel of the Fall was solemnly _permitted_, as good in law, the
sequel of the divine counter-work was gladly _sped_ by the Lord's
willing love, and was carried to a glorious overflow, to an altogether
unmerited effect, in the present and eternal blessing of the
justified. "_The many_," twice mentioned in this verse, are the whole
company which, in each case, stands related to the respective
Representative. It is the whole race in the case of the Fall; it is
the "many brethren" of the Second Adam in the case of the
Reconciliation. The question is not of numerical comparison between
the two, but of the numerousness of each host in relation to the
oneness of its covenant Head. What the numerousness of the "many
brethren" will be we know--and we do not know; for it will be "a great
multitude, which no one can number." But that is not in the question
here. The emphasis, the "_much rather_," the "_abundance_," lies not
on the compared numbers, but on the amplitude of the blessing which
overflows upon "the many" from the justifying work of the One.
He proceeds, developing the thought. From the act of each
Representative, from Adam's Fall and Christ's Atonement, there issued
results of dominion, of royalty. But what was the contrast of the
cases! In the Fall, the sin of the One brought upon "the many"
judgment, sentence, and the reign of death over them. In the
Atonement, the righteousness of the One brought upon "the many" an
"abundance," an overflow, a generous largeness and love of acceptance,
and the power of life eternal, and a prerogative of royal rule over
sin and death; the emancipated captives treading upon their tyrants'
necks. We follow out the Apostle's wording:
[Sidenote: Ver. 16.] =And not as through the one who sinned,= who
fell, =so is the gift;= our acceptance in our Second Head does not
follow the law of mere and strict retribution which appears in our
fall in our first Head. =(For,= he adds in emphatic parenthesis, =the
judgment= did issue, =from one= transgression,[78] =in condemnation,=
in sentence of death; =but the gracious gift= issued, =from many
transgressions,=--not indeed as if earned by them, as if caused by
them, but as _occasioned_ by them; for this wonderful process of mercy
found in our sins, as well as in our Fall, a _reason_ for the
Cross--=in a deed of justification.)[79]= [Sidenote: Ver. 17.] =For if
in one transgression,[80]= "_in_" it, as the effect is involved in its
cause, =death came to reign (ἐβασίλευσε) through the one=
offender,[81] =much rather those who are receiving,= in their
successive cases and generations, =that (τὴν) abundance of the
grace= just spoken of (ver. 15: χάρις, ἐπερίσσευσε), =and of the
free gift of righteousness,= of acceptance, =shall, in life,= life
eternal, begun now, to end never, =reign= over their former tyrants
=through the One,= their glorious One, =Jesus Christ.=
And now he sums up the whole in one comprehensive inference and
affirmation. "_The One_," "_the many_"; "_the One_," "_the all_"; the
whole mercy for the all due to the one work of the One;--such is the
ground-thought all along. It is illustrated by "_the one_" and "_the
many_" of the Fall, but still so as to throw the real weight of every
word not upon the Fall but upon the Acceptance. Here, as throughout
this paragraph, we should greatly mistake if we thought that the
illustration and the object illustrated were to be pressed, detail by
detail, into one mould. To cite an instance to the contrary, we are
certainly not to take him to mean that because Adam's "_many_" are not
only fallen in him, but actually guilty, therefore Christ's "_many_"
are not only accepted in Him, but actually and personally meritorious
of acceptance. The whole Epistle negatives that thought. Nor again are
we to think, as we ponder ver. 18, that because "_the condemnation_"
was "_to all men_" in the sense of their being not only condemnable
but actually condemned, therefore "_the justification of life_" was
"_to all men_" in the sense that all mankind are actually justified.
Here again the whole Epistle, and the whole message of St Paul about
our acceptance, are on the other side. The provision is for the
_genus_, for man; but the possession is for men--who believe.[82] No;
these great details in the parallel need our reverent caution, lest we
think peace where there is, and can be, none. The force of the
parallel lies in the broader and deeper factors of the two matters. It
lies in the mysterious phenomenon of covenant headship, as affecting
both our Fall and our Acceptance; in the power upon the many, in each
case, of the deed of the One; and then in the magnificent fulness and
positiveness of result in the case of our salvation. In our Fall, sin
merely _worked itself out_ into doom and death. In our Acceptance, the
Judge's award is positively crowned and as it were loaded with gifts
and treasures. It brings with it, in ways not described here, but
amply shewn in other Scriptures, a living union with a Head who is our
life, and in whom we possess already the powers of heavenly being in
their essence. It brings with it not only the approval of the Law, but
accession to a throne. The justified sinner is a king already, in his
Head, over the power of sin, over the fear of death. And he is on his
way to a royalty in the eternal future which shall make him great
indeed, great in his Lord.
The absolute dependence of our justification upon the Atoning Act of
our Head, and the relation of our Head to us accordingly as our Centre
and our Root of blessing, this is the main message of the passage we
are tracing. The mystery of our congenital guilt is there, though it
is only incidentally there. And after all what is that mystery? It is
assuredly a fact. The statement of this paragraph, that the many were
"constituted sinners by the disobedience of the one," what is it? It
is the Scripture expression, and in some guarded sense the Scripture
explanation, of a consciousness deep as the awakened soul of man; that
I, a member of this homogeneous race, made in God's image, not only
have sinned, but have been a sinful being from my first personal
beginning; and that I ought not to be so, and ought never to have been
so. It is my calamity, but it is also my accusation. This I cannot
explain; but this I know. And to know this, with a knowledge that is
not merely speculative but moral, is to be "shut up unto Christ," in a
self-despair which can go nowhere else than to Him for acceptance, for
peace, for holiness, for power.
Let us translate, as they stand, the closing sentences before us:
[Sidenote: Ver. 18.] =Accordingly therefore, as through one
transgression= there came a result =to all men, to condemnation,= to
sentence of death, =so through one deed of righteousness[83] there
came a result to all men,= (to "_all_" in the sense we have indicated,
so that whoever of mankind receives the acceptance owes it always and
wholly to the Act of Christ,) =to justification of life,= to an
acceptance which not only bids the guilty "not die," but opens to the
accepted the secret, in Him who is their Sacrifice, of powers which
live in Him for them as He is their Life. [Sidenote: Ver. 19.] =For
as, by the disobedience of the one man, the many,= the many of that
case, =were constituted sinners,= constituted guilty of the fall of
their nature from God, so that their being sinful is not only their
calamity but their sin, =so too by the obedience of the One,= "not
according to their works," that is, to their conduct, past, present,
or to come, but "_by the obedience of the One_," =the many,= His "many
brethren," His Father's children through faith in Him, =shall be,= as
each comes to Him in all time, and then by the final open proclamation
of eternity, =constituted righteous,= qualified for the acceptance of
the holy Judge.
* * * * *
Before he closes this page of his message, and turns the next, he has
as it were a parenthetic word to say, indicating a theme to be
discussed more largely later. It is the function of the Law, the moral
place of the preceptive _Fiat_, in view of this wonderful Acceptance
of the guilty. He has suggested the question already, iii. 31; he will
treat some aspects of it more fully later. But it is urgent here to
enquire at least this, Was Law a mere anomaly, impossible to put into
relation with justifying grace? Might it have been as well out of the
way, never heard of in the human world? No, God forbid. One deep
purpose of acceptance was to glorify the Law, making the preceptive
Will of God as dear to the justified as it is terrible to the guilty.
But now, besides this, it has a function antecedent as well as
consequent to justification. Applied as positive precept to the human
will in the Fall, what does it do? It does not create sinfulness; God
forbid. Not God's will but the creature's will did that. But it
occasions sin's declaration of war. It brings out the latent rebellion
of the will. It forces the disease to the surface--merciful force, for
it shews the sick man his danger, and it gives point to his
Physician's words of warning and of hope. It reveals to the criminal
his guilt; as it is sometimes found that information of a statutory
human penalty awakens a malefactor's conscience in the midst of a
half-unconscious course of crime. And so it brings out to the opening
eyes of the soul the wonder of the remedy in Christ. He sees the Law;
he sees himself; and now at last it becomes a profound reality to him
to see the Cross. He believes, adores, and loves. The merit of his
Lord covers his demerit, as the waters the sea. And he passes from the
dread but salutary view of "the reign" of sin over him, in a death he
cannot fathom, to submit to "the reign" of grace, in life, in death,
for ever.
[Sidenote: Ver. 20.] =Now law came sideways in;= law in its largest
sense, as it affects the fallen, but with a special reference,
doubtless, to its articulation at Sinai. It came in "_sideways_," as
to its relation to our acceptance; as a thing which should
_indirectly_ promote it, by not causing but occasioning the blessing;
=that the transgression might abound,= that sin, that sins, in the
most inclusive sense, might develop the latent evil, and as it were
expose it to the work of grace. =But where the sin multiplied,= in the
place, the region, of fallen humanity, =there did superabound the
grace;= with that mighty overflow of the bright ocean of love which we
have watched already. [Sidenote: Ver. 21.] =That just as our (ἡ)
sin came to reign in our (τῷ) death,= our penal death, =so too might
the grace come to reign,= having its glorious way against our foes and
over us, =through righteousness,= through the justifying work, =to
life eternal,= which here we have, and which hereafter will receive us
into itself, =through Jesus Christ our Lord.=
* * * * *
"The last words of Mr Honest were, _Grace reigns_. So he left the
world." Let us walk with the same watchword through the world, till we
too, crossing that Jordan, lean with a final simplicity of faith upon
"the obedience of the One."
[75] It will be seen that we assume, between διὰ τοῦτο and ὥσπερ,
some such implied thought as "_the case stands_." We think it may be
thus grammatically; and that even if a less simple explanation of the
_construction_ is adopted, such an insertion gives the import of the
whole passage aright.
[76] It will be seen that the rapid steps of thought lead, in this one
verse, from one meaning of the word "_law_" to another. He means that
there was sin before the Code of the Decalogue, but not therefore
before God had, in some degree, expressed His royal will, and man had
broken it.
[77] See Schöttgen, _Horæ Hebraicæ_, on 1 Cor. xv. 45. He quotes from
the Rabbis: "As the First Adam was one, was first, אחד, in sin, so
Messiah shall be the last, האחרן, for the utter taking away of
sins."
[78] So we interpret ἑνὸς, in the light of the πολλὰ παραπτώματα
just below.
[79] Δικαίωμα: the form of the word indicates not a process, or a
principle, but an act. Apparently, by context, it may mean either a
moral act of righteousness (see Rev. xix. 8, and perhaps below, ver.
18), or a legal "act and deed" of acceptance. The parallel with
κατάκριμα pleads here for the latter.
[80] We adopt the reading ἐν ἑνί. The other, τῷ τοῦ ἑνός,
amounts to the same import, but without the pregnant force of the word
"_in_."
[81] We supply this word, and not "_transgression_," because of the
parallel just below, "_the One, Jesus Christ_."
[82] As to the universality of _the offer_, it is interesting and
important to find Calvin thus writing, on ver. 18:--Communem omnium
gratiam fecit, quia omnibus exposita est, non quod ad omnes extendatur
re ipsa. Nam etsi passus est Christus pro peccatis totius mundi, atque
omnibus indifferenter Dei benignitate offertur, non tamen omnes
apprehendunt. "The Lord," thus says the great French expositor,
"suffered for the sins of the whole world," and "is offered
impartially to all in the kindness of God."
[83] Δικαίωμα: see note above, p. 150. It seems to us almost equally
possible to explain this word here (as in our translation) of the
Lord's Atoning Act, satisfying the Law for us, and of the Accepting
"Act and Deed" of the Father, declaring Him accepted, and us in Him.