Bible Commentaries
Romans 5

Verses 1-21

CONCILIATION

INDIVIDUAL

1 Justification is the ground of peace. Sin no longer bars us from the presence of God. Yet peace is a favor infinitely beyond justification. God's affections are not satisfied with clearing us from all guilt. He craves our love and our adoration. Righteousness alone does not give us a passport into His presence, but this further grace of reconciliation urges us into full and affectionate fellowship with Him. And we are aware that He will not rest in having us clothed in forensic righteousness only, but will make us all that He desires, to satisfy His own love.

5 His way of winning our response is to pour His own love into us first, as exemplified in the death of Christ for us while we were most undeserving of His favor. The grace of it lies in the entire lack of anything in us to draw out His affections toward us.

9 The blood of Christ is a memorial of the abiding efficacy of His death. It fends us from all future indignation. If Christ died for us as sinners, surely we have no need to fear aught now that we are justified!

10 We now take up the new subject of conciliation. We leave the atmosphere of the court for the closer ties of the family circle. Now it is not Christ dying for sinners, but God's Son dying for His enemies. The effect is not justification, but conciliation, peace. Furthermore, we are not only unafraid of future wrath, because of the abiding value of His death, as figured by the blood, but we have the living Son of God Himself as the surety of our salvation. We shall be saved by His life.

11 Christ did not obtain "atonement". That was a mere temporary covering for sin made by the blood of bulls and goats, and utterly failed to take away sin. Let us not degrade Christ's work by calling it an "atonement". But let us glory in conciliation, the ripened fruit of God's great effort to win the fealty and affection of His creatures. Few things indicate more clearly the necessity for using sound words than the constant reference to the work of Christ as "the atonement."

Conciliation-Individual

12 Death entered through sin at first, but now sin is transmitted through death. All sin because they are mortal. Christ brings life, which disposes of both death and sin.

14 The type covers the period of time up to the giving of the law, from Adam to Moses. During this period there was no transgression, for there was no law. So it is today. The law was not given to the nations, hence they do not transgress it. Nevertheless death reigns, even as it did before the law was given. The type, however, is in the nature of a shadow, whose dark outlines do not clearly depict the present grace. The reign of Sin corresponds to the reign of Grace, Adam's single offense to Christ's one just act on Calvary, bringing life where Adam brought death. But the type fails utterly in a number of particulars.

15 A simple reversal of the offense would put us where Adam was before he transgressed. But the gratuity through Christ is infinitely more than a mere recovery from the effects of Adam's offense.

16 One sin brought condemnation to all mankind. Grace recovers, not from one sin only, but from many offenses.

17 Adam enthroned death, but Christ gives believers not only a full vindication from all guilt, but life and the right to reign with Him.

18 The parallel here is perfect. Adam's one offense is counteracted by Christ's one just award. The act of Adam actually affects all mankind. So Christ's work, eventually, must also actually justify all mankind. This cannot be during the eons, hence will not be fully accomplished until after the eons are past, when all are made alive in Christ (1 Corinthians 15:22). If Adam's offense only gave each one an opportunity to sin, so that some become sinners and others not, then we might say that Christ's work brings justification to all subject to their acceptance. But we must acknowledge that man has no choice in becoming a sinner, thus also will it be through the work of Christ. Both are actual and universal.

19 The contrast here is between one and many, not between the many and the all of the previous statement. The many here are the all of verse eighteen.

20 Here we have the true character and function of the law. It crept in. It was not a normal necessity, nor did it make any vital change. Its effect was to alter the character of sin so that it became an offense. Just as Adam's sin was against God's expressed command, and thus was a personal affront to God as well as a misdeed bringing harm on his own head, so those under the law, by sinning against light, greatly increased the sinfulness of sin. Obedience to the law would have banished sin and death. Disobedience enhanced their power. But grace not only exceeds the effects of sin, but superexceeds the offenses of those under law, so that now,

Grace has dethroned sin.