18Therefore just as one man's trespass led to condemnation for all, so one man's act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all. 19For just as by the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man's obedience the many will be made righteous. 20But law came in, with the result that the trespass multiplied; but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, 21so that, just as sin exercised dominion in death, so grace might also exercise dominion through justification leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Unlike the few verses that precede Romans 5:18-21, this passage does not identify the differences between Adam and Christ. Instead, it compares the universality of their effects on creation-effects that extend toward opposite ends, of course. In Paul's portrayal of the resemblance of Adam and Christ, he actually distinguishes their identities further apart. Through one's disobedience death enters our world, but through the other's obedience, eternal life is once more an option. The consequences of their actions could not be farther apart, but that is fitting in light of their natures: one being creation, and the other Creator.
At the start of these verses, Paul has adjusted the pronoun to 'all' from 'many' as it had been in verse 15. This particular shift is confusing: is it many, or is it all? The two words are not exactly interchangeable. According to one commentary, the 'all' and 'many' effected by Adam's sin do not correspond to the same words in relationship to Christ's obedience. The use of 'all' that correlates with Christ's work is signifying those who "belong to Christ," but for Adam, clearly all truly were condemned. Paul's use of such inclusive terms served the purpose of illustrating "the universality of justification for Jews and Gentiles." Although the inclusion of the Gentiles in Christ's justification is clearly an underlying issue and even openly discussed in the book of Romans, the deliberate parallelism and simile in this verse shows more likeness between the uses of these pronouns than this view allows. Another approach to understanding Paul's use of 'all' in verse 18 is to determine what we already know about 'all' who have been effected by Adam. "Condemnation does indeed result for all men from Adam's sin, but this condemnation is no absolutely irreversible, eternal fact: on the contrary, Christ has indeed already begun the process of its reversal." In the same way, Christ's obedience changes the consequences for all humankind, but the eternal value may be different from individual to individual. This verse is not attempting to conclude who is in and who is out of the group receiving Christ's justification, but it is spelling out the greatness of Christ's obedience: it gives the entire condemned human race hope for salvation.
To step back a little, Christ's very "act of righteousness" (v. 18) or "obedience" (v. 19) takes on its own debate over whether the obedience of Jesus refers to the obedience he displayed throughout his life or specifically to his work on the cross. Philippians 2:8 reads: "he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death-even death on a cross." This verse supports Christ's obedience to be his entire life, not just his passion and crucifixion. If Paul had the suffering servant of Isaiah 53 in mind as he wrote this, then it most likely refers to the cross in particular: "the righteous one, my servant, shall make many righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities" (Isaiah 53:11). The verb "make many righteous" clearly connects this verse to Romans 5:19, and the specific mention of 'bearing their iniquities' points to the cross, but how can Christ's lifelong obedience be ignored? Regardless of the meaning of 'obedience' in verse 19, we still agree that Christ led a life of obedience, and that justification comes through no action of ours, but only through his 'act of righteousness.'
The verb kaqisthmi, "to make" in verse 19 is, not surprisingly, also the object of dispute. Some scholars maintain that it means 'to appoint' or 'to constitute,' while others argue that it indicates 'to make.' The theological implication of this disagreement centers on how we become righteous through the obedience of the one: how much is it a descriptive fact, and how much is it a judgment? Although the verb "never designates a judgment or consideration which does not conform to the actual state of the individuals involved," it is apparent from the passive voice of the verb that the emphasis in this verse is not on the state of the individuals, but on the work of Christ. Furthermore, "God's sentence decides both destiny and quality, so�pronounced righteous, they will be so in fact as well." We cannot make ourselves righteous, but rather we have the privilege to receive God's righteousness as a characteristic that will give us justification in our relationship with God.
It is significant that Paul's use of 'righteousness' and 'sinner' do not describe the character of individuals, but the status of humankind in their relationship with God. Paul is not intending to claim that once we are made righteous we never commit another sin. He writes later in Romans 7:19: "For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do." Through his personal experience Paul can confirm that Christians are not free from sinning, and the temptation to sin remains with them. The righteousness given by God is a "status before God," an idea that corresponds well with the tension of kaqisthmi as a verb that implies judgment and observation. We are appointed to have this "status before God" and because of it we are characterized as righteous, but would never dream ourselves worthy of such status, even when we have it. This is why we are devoted to him: "not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins" (1 John 4:10).
Interestingly enough, Paul has not yet mentioned the Law, and his Jewish-Christian readers were probably wondering why he had not yet brought it up. His silence about it gives the answer that the Law simply is not as important as the fall and redemption of humankind. In verse 20, however, Paul mentions the Law and attaches it to the verb pareisercomai. This particular verb is also used in Galatians 2:4: "But because of false believers secretly brought in, who slipped in to spy on the freedom we have in Christ Jesus," which in this instance it carries a negative, scheming connotation. While Paul is not intending to slam the Law, he is certainly showing that it is subordinate and inferior to God's plan of redemption. The use of this borderline-negative verb which can be translated "entered in alongside" paired with the rest of his sentence, "with the result that trespass multiplied," leaves the reader with no doubt about Paul's feelings toward the Law. Although it was from God and served a purpose, its role was secondary and it needs to be far less emphasized by the Jewish-Christians.
Although a few commentaries insisted that the Law was given to increase sin (Schreiner, Barrett), this interpretation did not suit what I had learned so far about Paul's view of the Law as good. This concept of sin multiplying is also understood in another way-that the Law increased awareness of sin, and because awareness brings choice and responsibility, the human race not only continued sinning, but also sinned all the more. This is reminiscent of Genesis 2:17, "but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die." The consciousness of this first law led Adam to the adverse end of sin and death. Thankfully, "Man's rebellion cannot be victorious, or God would not be God," and his grace poured over the sin of Adam and into the lives of us all.
The consequence of Genesis 2:17 carries into verse 21, where Paul expresses how "sin used death as the instrument of its tyranny." The translation of basileuw in the New King James Version as "to reign" draws out this metaphor of sin's tyrannical power over people. It does not end with this oppression, however, and the parallelism of the first two verses continues again in this concluding verse. Because of Christ's obedience, grace has taken over to reign with love over humanity; the kingdom of God has come.
Unlike the single prepositional phrase "in death" in the first half of the verse, the last half has three prepositional phrases. "Through righteousness" shows that grace reigns through our status before God, which is from him. Contrasting against "in death" is "unto eternal life," which expresses the result grace's reign. Finally, if there was any doubt about who gives and upholds the reign of grace, it is explicit in the last phrase "through Jesus Christ our Lord."
In the past I have read this passage and understood it as a hope for those who do not have faith in Christ, especially for those who have not even heard of him. I still have hope for them, but now the passage makes much more sense in context. With Christ's act of obedience, we were given a place of status before God to replace the status we had given ourselves as God-a mindset that leads us to death. "The more they sought life for themselves, the more they forsook God and plunged into death." Our mindset is so fixed on ourselves that even with an explicit code of conduct we still chose to do what is wrong, even more than we did before knowing what sin is. Fortunately, God's grace is greater than the power of sin, so great in fact that our increase in sinning only magnified his grace. This status before God that came from grace is only a result of Christ's life and death, not because of anything we have done-only because God has pronounced us as righteous. Now, instead of death, we have the hope of eternal life with Christ, given to us from Christ, and continuing because of Christ.
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