Bible Commentaries
Romans 5

Verses 1-21

V 1-21 The Salvation of the Gospel gives Hope of Final Salvation = eternal glorification—That Paul in this chapter no longer speaks of faith leading to justification, but of sanctifying grace working in the justified, is beyond any doubt. But it is not so easy to see how many effects of this sanctifying grace (= initial salvation) he meant to single out for his description. Boylan distinguishes no less than eight: (1) peace with God, 1; (2) the hope of glory, 2; (3) gladness in tribulation, 3; (4) constancy and tested virtue, 4 God’s love for us, 5a; (6) indwelling of the Holy Spirit and abundance of infused virtue, 5b; (7) imputation of Christ’s merits, 64; (8) (confident hope of salvation and boasting in God, 9-11. Piconio counts four: (1) peace of conscience, 1; (2) the hope and joy of eternal glorification, 2; (3) joy in tribulation, 3-5; (4) joy in God our Father and in Christ our Saviour, 11-21. On the whole it would seem that the argument centres on ’the hope of heaven’ as the main point of the passage.

Many commentators prefer to call ch 5 a discussion of the certainty of the Christian hope of final salvation, because this particular aspect of the Christian hope of heaven is given by far the greatest space and prominence in 5-21. Others for the same reason go a step further and treat ch 5 as a section by itself and separate it from 6:1-8:39.

Plan. If the hope of heaven is taken as the main point, then the argument has three parts: (1) 1-4 the hope of heaven as the first fruit of salvation; (2) 5-11 the certainty of this hope proved from God’s love for us as revealed in the redemption through Christ; (3) 12-21 a second proof for the certainty of this hope of heaven: Christ the anti-type of Adam.

1-4 A First Fruit of the Salvation revealed in the Gospel: the hope of final salvation = of eternal glory in heaven—Paul begins his praise and recommendation of the salvation which he preaches by dwelling on the triumphant hope of final salvation hereafter as the consequence of initial salvation here. Initial salvation is the same as justification = sanctification = the obtaining of sanctifying grace reconciliation with God. Strictly speaking, the first fruit of salvation here enumerated by St Paul is’ peace with God’, 1. But as this is only touched upon here, its full explanation can be left to other passages, e.g.2 Corinthians 5:18-21; Ephesians 2:11-22; see also Romans 5:10 f.; 8:6; 15:33; 16:20; 1 Corinthians 14:33; Colossians 1:20; Colossians 3:15; 2 Thessalonians 3:16; Luke 1:79; Luke 2:14, etc.

1. ’We have peace with God’: So Cornely, Sickenberger, Lietzmann, Boylan. The indicative can be defended on external and internal evidence. 2a. ’Through whom by faith we obtained also our introduction into this grace. . .’: is a relative clause to be connected with 1. Its purpose is to remind us that our peace with God which is the first effect of salvation according to v 1 is no more our own doing than our ’introduction to the faith’ (= to Christianity). Both are the work of Christ. It should be noticed that the sentence does not introduce a new fruit of salvation. 2b. ’and [through whom] we also rejoice in the hope of the glory of God’: unlike those without hope, Ephesians 2:12; 1 Thessalonians 4:13, the justified can rejoice, looking forward to the glory to come. It is the hope which we usually call the second theological virtue. Its main, though not only, object is final salvation = everlasting happiness = eternal life = beatific vision. St Paul calls it ’glory of God’. Fuller descriptions of it can be derived from 3:23; 8:18; 1 Corinthians 2:9; 1 Corinthians 15:43; 2 Corinthians 4:17 f.; Philippians 3:21; Colossians 3:4; 2 Timothy 2:10. From the grammatical point of view 2b is the second part of the relative clause begun in 2a from which it cannot be separated without doing violence to the text; cf. KNT. But the unfortunate result of this grammatical connexion need not be denied. It is not in accordance with the rules of clear writing to introduce in a second relative clause the point which finally turns out to be the centre of the whole passage. 3-4 is a parenthesis like 2a. It forestalls the common objection that the Christian hope of heaven is a sign of weakness leading to inactivity and indifference here on earth. According to 3-4 the Christian hope of heaven has the opposite effect: it makes men strong in tribulation which is the time when this hope is being tested and tried, cf.Matthew 5:4; Romans 8:37; 2 Corinthians 1:3-11; James 1:3 f. 3. ’And not only so’: a difficult ellipsis. Probably = We do not rejoice in the hope of the future glory only, but we rejoice also in the present tribulations, knowing that these tribulations strengthen that hope. Boylan treats this gladness in tribulation as a third fruit of sanctification.

5-21 The Certainty of the Christian’s Hope of Final Salvation in the Glory of Heaven— In this paragraph St Paul dwells on one characteristic of our hope of heaven, its certainty. This he bases on two foundations: (1) on God’s love for us as shown in his Son’s death for us, 5-11; (2) on a comparison between the effects of Adam’s sin and Christ’s redemption, 12-21. In both cases the argument takes a form which follows the first of Hillel’s seven rules for the interpretation of Scripture, usually translated as the conclusion from the minor to the major = the conclusion from the less important to the more important; cf. 5:9, 10, 15; SB ad Romans 5:9 f. The certainty of such a conclusion must not be identified with that of a categorical syllogism in logic. Its value is rather like that of an emphatic assertion based on an objective similarity and a subjective intuition. Such an assertion has the authority of the speaker, and that is in the case of St Paul the authority of his inspiration. The originality of St Paul in both arguments can be seen from a comparison with the treatment of hope in the OT and in modern theology. The OT keeps repeating that he who puts his trust (hope) in God will not be put to shame (cf.Pss 21:6; 24:20; Isaiah 28:16, etc.), and it is a general theologoumenon today, that the certainty of our hope rests on God’s faithfulness to his promises. Such statements are so frequent that they have become commonplace. But how daring is their application by St Paul to the greatest problem of all, the reaching of heaven; cf. Prat I 237-49.

The doctrine of the Church on the question of individual certainty of final salvation was briefly stated by the Council of Trent, Dz 805, 825, 826. According to Catholic doctrine no one while on earth can be certain of his final salvation without a special divine revelation. In comparing this doctrine with Romans 5:5-21; Romans 8:28-30 it should be remembered that the Council of Trent had to check exaggerations whilst St Paul had to encourage beginnings. All the same, Paul’s teaching on the certainty of final salvation in 5-21 needs a corrective, and this corrective follows in ch 6 with its emphatic warnings against sin. This addition by the Apostle himself proves beyond any doubt that the certainty of final salvation stressed in ch 5 is not an unconditional certainty that follows irrevocably on baptism or conversion. Even in Rom there is a condition attached to it, and this condition according to ch 6 is that the Christian convert must live the life demanded by the Gospel.

5-11 God’s Love for us as the First Proof for the Certainty of our Hope of Final Salvation— The Christian’s hope of eternal glory is no illusion. It is firmly based on God’s love for men as revealed in the fact that his Son died for us though we were then still sinners, and therefore ’children of enmity or wrath’, cf.1 John 4:10. Starting from this as an acknowledged fact, Paul arrives at his conclusion—the certainty of the Christian hope of final salvation—as follows: If when still sinners (= at enmity with God) we received the grace of initial justification from God’s love in view of Christ’s death on the cross, how much more can we not now as his friends (= justified by responding in faith to his first love) expect to receive the grace of final salvation from his love in view of Christ’s life in heaven? The whole passage is difficult, the main thought being obscured by too many details. It can be reduced to this: If God’s love justified us on the day of our conversion though we then stood before him as sinners, how much more will not the same love save us on the day of the last judgement when we shall stand before him as saints = such as have been justified and redeemed by his Son.

5b is a stray thought as regards the main argument. Before enlarging on the objective evidence of God’s love for us in Christ’s death (6-8), the Apostle inserts in 5b a subjective proof to the same effect by appealing to the readers’ personal experience and realization of that divine love in the voice and witness of the indwelling Holy Ghost. 6. ’For why . . . ?’: the interrogative sentence of Vg and DV is better read as a categorical statement in accordance with many Greek MSS, cf. Boylan. ’According to a time’ = in due season, WV. This has been explained in two ways: (1) Christ died for us when we were not only sinners but also remained such for a time, i.e. during the time between Christ’s death and the readers’ conversion. (2) Christ offered himself for us at that time in history which had been appointed by the Father; cf.Romans 3:26; 2 Corinthians 6:2; Galatians 4:4; Ephesians 1:10; 1 Timothy 2:6; 1 Timothy 6:15; Titus 1:3. The second is the more common interpretation, but the first is more in harmony with the context, 8; cf. Cornely. 11. ’And not only so’: is an ellipsis, cf. 5:3; 8:23; 9:10; 2 Corinthians 8:19. It can be completed in different ways, cf. Boylan 81. The most probable completion would seem to read: we shall not only be saved on the day of the last judgement, but even now, at this present hour with all its afflictions, we glory in God through Jesus Christ, rejoicing in his love for us; cf. 5:3.

12-21 Adam understood as a Type of Christ, another roof for the certainty of the Christian hope of Final alvation = Eternal Glory in Heaven—’As in Adam all die, so in Christ all shall be made to live’, 1 Corinthians 15:22 WV, might well serve as a motto for this passage. Our physical connexion with Adam brings us sin and death with undeniable certainty; in a similar way and with a similar certainty our spiritual connexion with Christ brings us justification and final salvation. In other words, Adam’s fall is the beginning and cause of our sin and death; Christ’s redemption is the beginning and cause of our justification and final salvation in heaven. The comparison could also be arranged in this way: Adam?Sin?Death; Christ?Grace (= justification)?Eternal Life. For further details see Prat 1438 ff.; II 171-9.

This parallel between Adam and Christ and the description of the consequence of Adam’s fall as typical of the fruits of Christ’s redemption is in biblical theology peculiar to St Paul. Before Rom he had already used it in 1 Corinthians 15:22, 45-49. But there as here he puts it before his readers without any proof whatever, taking it evidently for granted that they would follow and accept his argument. Thus the idea is not likely to have been entirely unknown to his contemporaries. For attempts to trace it’ in rabbinical theology see Prat II 171; SB III 477 f. (on 1 Corinthians 15:45). At all events, the whole argument of 12-21 stands or falls with the existence of this parallel between Adam and Christ. If Christ were not the anti-type of Adam in God’s economy of salvation then Paul’s second argument for the Christian confidence of reaching eternal glory in 12-21 would collapse.

What then is the proof value of this parallel between Adam and Christ? Reason alone, excluding the doctrine of inspiration. from the argument, cannot prove that St Paul’s typical interpretation of the story of Adam is necessary from the OT point of view. But once it is pointed out—and in this St Paul seems to be original—reason cannot deny that this parallel between Adam and Christ is full of meaning and beauty. Ultimately, however, our acceptance of the Apostle’s argument as a true doctrine must be based on our belief in NT (Pauline) inspiration, cf. §§

In most commentaries on 12-21 much space is given to the discussion of the evidence for the Christian doctrine of original sin in this passage. That the idea of original sin is presupposed in the argument of 12-21 can safely be taken as certain; but it is only one of several side issues. This probably accounts for much of the obscurity of the passage in this particular respect, as the controversies on original sin constantly point out, cf. note on 5:12d; Lagrange’s special note at the end of ch 5; Prat I 213-19, 440 ff., II 57-9.

To translate guilt (guilty) instead of sin in 12-21, seven times, is a special feature of KNT. This translation, though possible according to the dictionary (cf. Liddell and Scott I 77b) would seem a precarious deviation from the traditional terminology touching original sin in this paragraph.

Plan. The passage can be sub-divided as follows (1) 12-14 the consequences of Adam’s fall; (2) 15-17 the benefits of Christ’s redemption contrasted with Adam’s fall; (3) 18-21 a recapitulation. For a detailed analysis see Prat I 438 f.

12-14 is an anacoluthon. The thought is continued in 18b and 21b: ’As sin and death through Adam, so redemption and eternal life through Christ’, cf.1 Corinthians 15:22. 12d. ?F’ ?+? p??te? ?µa?t??: is ambiguous and has been differently translated. (1) = in quo omnes peccaverunt, Vg; = in whom all have sinned, DV. Death spread to all men through Adam, ’in whom all sinned’. This is the customary explanation of the Latin text. It clearly understands the clause of original sin = the inherited consequences of Adam’s sin in the individual soul. In this sense the Latin text is quoted in the decree of the Council of Trent on original sin, sess. V, Dz 789. (2) Another translation is: ’because all sinned’. This is the common rendering of the Greek text, cf. note in WV. From Adam’s fall death spread to all men, because ever since all men sinned or had sin. Taken by itself this translation could no doubt be understood of every one’s personal sin and not of his original sin. It would mean that universal sin (cf. 1:18-3:20) was followed by universal death. The main argument against this last explanation is the fact that it does not harmonize with the context. If all die because of their personal sin then the parallelism between Adam and Christ, on which the argument of the whole passage rests, is destroyed. The parallel: Adam-sin-death; Christ-justness-eternal life is interrupted in its middle part ’sin and justness’ which become the work of the individual man. According to St Paul’s argument, however, justness is clearly the achievement not of the individual but of Christ. Moreover, in the two sentences, 13-14, which follow upon 12, Paul introduces the case of millions whose death he evidently does not understand as the punishment of their personal sins. It is the case of all those who died before Moses when there was as yet no statutory divine law threatening sin with death. Nevertheless they died, sharing Adam’s death; but then they must have had a share in Adam’s sin also, if the principle that through one man’s sin death came into the world, 12, is to be true. A simpler illustration to the same effect is the case of those who die before they are capable of sin. The practical result of the whole discussion would seem to be, that those who insist in 12 on the translation ’because all sinned’, add from the context: ’because all sinned in Adam’ = had original sin. The Latin text obtained the same result less circuitously. 19. ’Many shall be made just’: MSS as well as commentators have tried to turn this future into a past tense. To do so is necessary if the whole passage, 12-21, is understood of Christ’s justification’ as it works itself out in the Christian life on earth, i.e. before the Last Judgement. But if the whole passage (as in this commentary) is understood as referring to the Christian’s final justification in the Last Judgement, then the future tense causes no difficulty. The adjective ’just’ has a meaning wide enough to be used also for the state of ’final’ salvation.