Paul's Letter to Believers in Rome

by David M Pearce

Romans Chapter 5

Rejoicing In Hope

We have so much to be thankful for, when we are justified by faith. Peace with God is incredibly special. Now, we live in hope of being clothed with the glory of God – being made in his likeness in body and mind, as Paul writes in Colossians 3:4.

The apostle can rejoice even when he has to endure hardship and persecution for the sake of Christ. He knows that suffering is part of the preparation we must go through before we are ready for the Kingdom. We have to learn to endure patiently, and that produces character. Hope is the next virtue we develop – the quality of hanging on even when the sky is dark and others are giving up, because like Abraham we are convinced God is going to bring the Kingdom in his own good time. The wonderful love of God has found a home in our hearts. It came to us via the Holy Spirit, first through the words of Jesus and the apostles, and then through the Bible which taught us about them.

The Love of God

God saw that we were weak and unable to save ourselves, so he acted himself, as Isaiah predicted (Isaiah 59:15,16).The right time was the time God had prepared from antiquity, a time when his people were longing for deliverance from the Roman occupation, but when the same Roman power had prepared an infrastructure of roads and law and order that would facilitate the gospel being preached to the Gentiles. The New English Bible in Hebrews 9:26 calls it ‘the climax of history’.

Heroic self-sacrifice is rare. In most cases the attempt to rescue a struggling victim is made spontaneously. Parents have been known to die in place of their children by pushing them out of danger. But a pre-meditated death to save another is exceedingly rare, especially if that person is a bad person. Paul’s point is that God sent his son to deliver us when we were still sinners, and some of us were adulterers, thieves and liars – all the things God hates, 1 Corinthians 6:9–11. The cost of that sacrifice to our Father is underlined by the Apostle John when he says: ‘God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life’ (John 3:16). But we must also remember that Jesus walked to his death when he could have run away. As the Good Shepherd, he was willing to lay down his life to save his sheep when they ran panicking before the wolf of death John 10:14–15.

As unjustified sinners, we could only expect to receive the wrath of God. But as Paul puts it in Colossians 1:21–22, Jesus has reconciled us to God.

In our two verses, the apostle has two stages to our salvation. First, in verse 9 we are justified by the blood of Jesus, which saves us from God’s wrath. Then having been reconciled to God, we will be saved by the life of Jesus (verse 10). He is talking about Jesus’ return to life on the third day. If Jesus had died and stayed dead, our faith would be futile, and we would still be in our sins, 1 Corinthians 15:17. Christ’s resurrection, stamping on the head of the Serpent, was the key to our own resurrection at the last day. Paul will return to this theme in the next chapter.

Empty Tomb

Free image, Freepik

Our salvation from the grave belongs to the future, but even now we can rejoice because we can have fellowship with God.

Two Men Contrasted

Paul now draws a comparison between the first man, Adam, and Jesus, the Son of God. He makes a bold statement in verse 12. Amusingly, he then becomes distracted by looking at various definitions, and only returns to his theme when we get to verse 19, where he repeats his opening statement, and begins to develop his theme. Digressions like this can easily happen when you are dictating your letters, as Paul probably was. We could probably put brackets around verses 13 to 19 to improve the sense.

Here we have an important principle. Death came into the world when Adam sinned. We ourselves do not live in a beautiful garden where we can eat the fruit of all the trees except one. But we still die. Our sins are different. We only inherit from Adam the tendency to sin. But what exactly is sin?

Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden

Paul points out that people died in the hundreds of years between Adam’s sin and the giving of the Law of Moses to the people of Israel at Mount Sinai. People only become sinners when they break God’s laws. So, there must have been some kind of law, even before the time of Moses. Back in Romans 2:14–15, Paul has argued that even Gentiles who do not know the Law of Moses still have a conscience about right and wrong. They are a law to themselves. Adam, the forefather of the human race, brought death into the world. But, says Paul, he has a counterpart, Jesus, who brought life to the world.

It only took one man’s sin to start a process where millions have died through the centuries. In contrast, one man, Jesus, sacrificed his life, and millions of believers with millions of sins have found eternal life. Even more remarkably, that blessing is a free gift from God. If eternal life was for sale, people would queue up and hand over a fortune to buy it. Sadly, when it is offered without charge but on God’s terms, they are not interested.

Jesus on the cross

Paul concludes his set of parallels. Adam disobeyed God, and made us all sinners. Jesus obeyed his Father, and made many righteous.

Going back to verse 12 and the arrival of the Law of Moses for God’s people the Jews, Paul argues that with many more laws to keep, the opportunities for sin increased in proportion. But God’s grace can keep up.

What a beautiful summary of the argument so far!

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