Down an Unfamiliar Road

ONE OR NONE

I read this story written by Woodrow Kroll that is similar to an account in an unnamed book published in 1954. The underlying principle, however, is the same. Let it touch your heart and remind you that sometimes it’s not all that you have that counts, but that one thing you have that can never be replaced or substituted for.

A wealthy man and his son loved to collect rare works of art. They had various paintings in their collection, from Picasso to Raphael. They would often sit together and admire the great works of art. When the Vietnam conflict broke out, the son went to war. He was very courageous and died in battle while rescuing another soldier. The father was notified and grieved deeply for his only son.

About a month later, just before Christmas, there was a knock at the door. A young man stood at the door with a large package in his hands. He said, “Sir, you don’t know me, but I am the soldier for whom your son gave his life. He saved many lives that day, and he was carrying me to safety when a bullet struck him in the heart, and he died instantly. He often talked about you and your love for art.” The young man held out the package. “I know this isn’t much. I’m not a great artist, but I think your son would have wanted you to have this.”

The father opened the package. It was a portrait of his son, painted by the young man. He stared in awe at the way the soldier had captured the personality of his son in the painting. The father was so drawn to the eyes that his own eyes welled up with tears. He thanked the young man and offered to pay him for the picture. “Oh, no sir, I could never repay what your son did for me. It’s a gift.”

The father hung the portrait over his mantle. Every time visitors came to his home, he took them to see the portrait of his son before he showed them any of the other great works he had collected. The man died a few months later. There was to be a great auction of his paintings. Many influential people gathered, excited over seeing the great paintings and having an opportunity to purchase one for their collection.

On the platform sat the painting of the son. The auctioneer pounded his gavel. “We will start the bidding with this picture of the son. Who will bid for this picture?” There was silence. Then, a voice in the back of the room shouted, “We want to see the famous paintings. Skip this one.” But the auctioneer persisted. “Will somebody bid for this painting. Who will start the bidding? $100, $200?” Another voice growled, “We didn’t come to see this painting. We came to see the Van Goghs, the Rembrandts. Get on with the real art!” But still, the auctioneer continued. “The son! The son! Who’ll take the son?”

Finally, a voice came from the very back of the room. It was the longtime gardener of the man and his son. “I’ll give $10 for the painting.” Being a poor man, it was all he could afford. “We have $10. Who will bid $20?” cried out the auctioneer. “Give it to him for $10. Let’s see the masters.” “$10 is the bid. Won’t someone bid $20?” The crowd was becoming angry. They didn’t want the picture of the son. They wanted the more worthy investments for their collections. Finally, the auctioneer pounded the gavel. “Going once, twice, SOLD for $10!”

A man sitting on the second row shouted, “Now let’s get on with the collection!” The auctioneer laid down his gavel. “I’m sorry; the auction is over.” “What about the other paintings?” “I am sorry,” said the auctioneer, when I was called to conduct this auction, I was told of a secret stipulation in the man’s will. I was not allowed to reveal that stipulation until this moment. Only the painting of the son would be auctioned. Whoever bought that painting would inherit the entire estate, including the paintings. The man who takes the son gets everything!”

God gave His son 2,000 years ago to die on the cross. Much like the auctioneer, His message today is: “The son, the son, who’ll take the son?” Because you see, whoever takes the Son gets everything. “Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.” (1 John 5:12) – Dr. Robert R Seyda

NEW TESTAMENT CONTEXTUAL COMMENTARY

Dr. Robert R. Seyda

EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS

CHAPTER SIX (Lesson III)

American Bible scholar Albert Barnes gives us his thoughts on the fallacy of Christians continuing to live as sinners: “How shall we, who have become cognizant of the evil of sin, and who have renounced it by solemn profession, continue to practice it? It is, therefore, abhorrent to the very nature of the Christian profession. It is remarkable that the Apostle did not attempt to argue the question on metaphysical principles. He did not attempt to show, by complicated argument, that this consequence did not follow; he appeals at once to Christian feeling and shows that the supposition is abhorrent. To convince the great mass of people, such an appeal is far better than labored metaphysical argumentation. All Christians can understand that; few would comprehend a complex speculation. The best way to silence objections is, sometimes, to show that they violate the feelings of all Christians, and therefore, the objection must be wrong.”¹

H. A. Ironside comments this way: The very fact that our link with Adam… was severed by our association with Christ in His death tells us that we have the right to consider ourselves as having died… to the authority of sin as our master. That Israel as a whole was redeemed from slavery by the blood of a lamb. This answers to the first aspect of salvation. With their passage through the Red Sea, they died to the power of Pharaoh. This illustrates the aspect we are now considering. Sin can no longer hold sway over us, we served it in the past. But death has changed all that. Our obligation of servitude is over. We are now linked with the risen Christ and thus have been joined to God.²

Charles Hodge makes these notes: No one makes application to Christ for deliverance from sin, so they can go on living in it. Deliverance from sin is offered by Christ, and accepted by the believer. It is not mere deliverance from its penalty, but also from its power. We turn from away from sin to God when we receive Christ as Savior. It is, therefore, as the Apostle argues, a contradiction in terms, to say that grace gives us a license to sin. That is like saying that dying to something is like living in it.³

Charles Spurgeon also asked the question, that if through grace we become dead to sin, how can we go on living in it? If when we come to Christ as sinners to be saved from sin, it would be a complete nonsense to talk about being saved from sin yet continue in sin. Besides, the Apostle goes on to show that the ordinance, by which believers in Jesus are to be admitted into the visible Body of Christ will not allow them to continue in sin.⁴ What Spurgeon and other scholars are saying is that while there is no evidence of any believer once born again having ever lived a sinless, perfect life, still there should be no desire in a believer’s heart to sin. Sinful acts and behavior should be something Christians despise and try their best to avoid. That’s why even though God’s grace is always sufficient when sin does take place, no sin should be committed just to prove how sufficient it is.

F. F. Bruce had these thoughts: “No wonder that other Christians maintained that the only way to inculcate the principles of sound morality in such people was to require them to keep the law of Moses – indeed, to impose that law on them as a condition of salvation, over and above the requirement of faith in Christ. But Paul’s own experience taught him that all the law-keeping in the world could not bring the assurance of pardon and peace with God, whereas faith in Christ did so at once. He could never consider legalism as the remedy for libertinism; he knew a more excellent way. When men and women yielded their lives to the risen Christ and the power of His Spirit, their inward being was radically transformed: a new creation took place. They received a new nature which delighted to produce spontaneously the fruit of the Spirit, those graces which were manifested in perfection in the life of Christ Himself. To many people this appeared (as to many it still does) impracticably optimistic. But Paul trusted the Spirit of Christ in his converts, and in the long run his trust was vindicated, though he had to endure many heart-breaking disappointments in his spiritual children until at last he could see Christ ‘formed’ in them.⁵”⁶

Karl Barth puts it this way: “To be in grace means that we are no longer treated by God as sinners. For those who have been known by God, instead of determining of necessity our will and intelligence, sin becomes a withered, defeated, and finished thing. We died to sin. We no longer grow up from its roots, breathe its air, and abide under its dominion. How shall we any longer be able to live therein? How can we continue to live as we are, as people of whom God knows nothing? What is to become of the visible state of our will and intelligence? How can our existence remain the scene of visible sin? Yes indeed! How?”⁷ What Barth is saying here, is something that we have all come to expect: That as Christians, we should all act and live like Christians.

John Stott gives his own testimony to the death to sin: “Soon after my own conversion, I was taught the following kind of reconstruction: When we die, our five senses will cease to operate. We will no longer be able to touch, taste, see, smell or hear. We will lose all ability to feel or to respond to external stimuli. Just so, it is argued, to die to sin means to become insensitive to it. For example, if we see a dog or cat lying in the gutter, we cannot tell from a distance whether it is alive or dead. But touch it with our foot, and we will know at once. If it is alive, there will be an immediate reaction: it will jump up and run away. If it is dead, however, there will be no response at all. Just so, according to this popular view, having died to sin, we are as unresponsive to temptation as a corpse is to a physical stimulus. And the reason for this, we are assured from verse 6, is that our old nature was… crucified with Christ. For He bore not only our guilt but our ‘flesh’, our fallen nature. It was nailed to the cross and killed, and our task (however much evidence we may have to the contrary) is to reckon it dead.”⁸

Evangelical scholar Douglas Moo addresses Paul’s phrase, “We died to sin.” Moo writes: “Clearly he does not mean that Christians are not tempted by sin or that we are incapable of sinning – as his commands in verses 11–14 make clear. He uses the imagery of ‘death’ for two reasons. (1) It creates an obvious point of contact with the death of Christ, an important step in Paul’s argument (vv. 3–4). (2) It is a powerful image of a decisive shift in state. When someone becomes a Christian, Paul implies, their change of state in relationship to sin is as dramatic as a change from life to death. He spells out the implication of this change in a rhetorical question: ‘How can we live in it any longer?’ This question may be turned into a statement: We who are Christians no longer live under the domination of sin. We cannot, therefore, go on living in sin the way we used to do.”⁹

Jewish scholar David Stern has this to say: “These verses, reiterating what was said at 3:5–8, introduce the theme of Chapters 6–8 and are Paul’s answer to all who accuse the New Testament of offering “cheap grace.” He is more radical than those who merely exhort us to subdue our sinful impulses; for he asserts that by virtue of being united with the Messiah (vv. 3–6) our old self and its sinful inclinations have actually died. Dead people do not sin; rather, the dead are “cleared from sin” (v. 7). Chapters 6–8 explore how believers are to make these truths real in their own lives. On Heaven forbid! here and at verse 15.”¹⁰

Verse 3: Did you forget that all of us became part of Christ Jesus when we were baptized? In our baptism we shared in His death.

Here, the Apostle Paul makes note of a doctrinal truth that is only found in Christianity. That being, those of us who have become believers through the new birth are now alive in Christ. Our old self lies dead in the grave. Therefore, our Christian’s life is not ours alone. We are alive in Christ. So it makes sense then that we should live a Christ-like life; not allowing ourselves to return to our old way of living. Paul says that this is all symbolized through water baptism. As such, we are no longer solely in charge of our bodies, because our bodies have become the dwelling place of God, just as the Temple was God’s home.

This is how he explained it to the Corinthians: “You should know that you yourselves are God’s temple. God’s Spirit lives in you. If you destroy God’s temple, God will destroy you, because God’s temple is holy. You yourselves are God’s temple.”¹¹ Paul goes on to say: “Surely you know that your bodies are parts of Christ Himself… You should know that your body is a temple for the Holy Spirit that you received from God and that lives in you. You don’t own yourselves. God paid a very high price to make you his. So honor God with your body.”¹² So Paul then makes this proposal to the Corinthians: “Look closely at yourselves. Test yourselves to see if you are living in the faith. Don’t you realize that Christ Jesus is in you?”¹³ This should be a sobering assessment for all believers, especially when they are confronted with temptation.

Paul wanted to make sure that all believers understood this truth applied to everyone: “Some of us are Jews and some of us are not; some of us are slaves and some of us are free. But we were all baptized to become one body through one Spirit. And we were all given the one Spirit.”¹⁴ Paul also passed this on to the Galatians: “Now, in Christ, it doesn’t matter if you are a Jew or a Greek, a slave or free, male or female. You are all the same in Christ Jesus.”¹⁵ Paul bases his conclusion on this fact: “You were all baptized into Christ, and so you were all clothed with Christ. This shows that you are all children of God through faith in Christ Jesus.”¹⁶ Therefore, Paul concludes: “I am not the one living now – it is Christ living in me. I still live in my body, but I live by faith in the Son of God. He is the one who loved me and gave Himself to save me.”¹⁷

Based on this truth, each and everyone of us as Christians should remind ourselves that each time the world looks at how we speak, act, respond, and interact with them, they see Jesus in action. Are they impressed with the fruit of the Spirit they see, or are they confused by the works of the flesh that are shamelessly displayed?¹⁸ God has given us all we need to succeed, have we given Him all He needs to make it happen?

NEW TESTAMENT CONTEXTUAL COMMENTARY

Dr. Robert R. Seyda

EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS

CHAPTER SIX (Lesson II)

Theologian F. F. Bruce addresses this idea of those people claiming to be Christians who still live sinful lives: “This is not a completely hypothetical objection. In fact, there have always been people to insist that this is the logical corollary of Paul’s teaching about justification by faith; and unfortunately, in every generation, people claiming to be justified by faith have behaved in such a way as to lend color to this charge. A notable historical instance may be seen in the Russian monk Gregory Rasputin, the evil genius of the Romanov family in its last years of power. Rasputin taught and exemplified the doctrine of salvation through repeated experiences of sin and repentance. He held that as those who sin [the] most require [the] most forgiveness, a sinner who continues to sin with abandon enjoys, each time he repents, more of God’s forgiving grace than any ordinary sinner. The casebooks of many soul-physicians would reveal that this point of view has been commoner than is often realized, even when it is not expressed and practiced so blatantly as it was by Rasputin.”¹

There is an interesting story in a book by British author James Hogg that illustrates how often believers separate their devotion to God from their devotion to self. It happened in Scotland during the time when the Reformation was taking hold, and people were being saved through a revival where salvation by faith was preached, then asking Christ Jesus to be the Lord and Savior of their lives. It involved a rich, elderly gentleman who just married a young lady from a highly respectable family. After the wedding ceremony, they participated in the wedding festivities. The elderly gentleman was drinking and dancing to the music and having a grand time. Meanwhile, his beautiful bride was quietly sitting next to her favorite Pastor, talking about the goodness of the Lord.

It was customary in those days that best-man and maid-of-honor, along with a few select friends, would go to the couple’s quarters after they retired for the night, and there they would make a toast to the good health, happiness, and posterity of the happy couple. But the older gentleman was so anxious to enjoy his wedding night that he slipped away quietly to join his bride in their honeymoon suite, and bolted the door. As he turned around, he saw her sitting demurely reading one of the Gospels. He walked over and began to caress her shoulder, but as she pulled away from him, she said something about the broad way that leads to destruction. Her groom wasn’t sure what she meant since he was not as versed in the Scriptures, so he went over and began to take off his shoes and stockings.

It was bedtime, so he was anxious for his new bride to join him. But as he was untying his shoes, she suddenly said to him: “Surely, Mr. Colwan, you won’t go to bed tonight, at such an important period of your life, without first saying prayers for yourself and me.” The old man’s head raised suddenly all flushed as red as a rose and replied: “Prayers, Mistress! Lord help your crazed head, is this a night for prayers?”² The story goes on to tell how no matter how much he objected, calling prayers on such a night as being completely out of place, she insisted. However, with him lying in bed, she knelt down beside him and begin to pray fervently. After reading this, I wondered how many believers say grace before drinking their cocktails or whiskey, or say a prayer before watching an R rated movie, or say a blessing before telling a dirty joke? In the Apostle Paul’s mind, we should be dead to all of these things, and the best way to keep them from becoming part of our lives is seeing how impossible it would be to make them part of our sanctified lives.

Swiss theologian Karl Barth gives a warning against misinterpretation of what Paul says here: “God forbid that such manipulations of human logic should be current among us. God forbid that the ineffable and invisible ‘Moment’ at which the power of sin and the power of grace are equally balanced, and both are sanctioned by God, shou1d be translated into terms of mind over matter sensations and experiences which jostle and succeed one another in unabashed visibility. God forbid that we should honor and welcome sin as a cause of grace, as though they stood in a mutual relation of cause and effect. God forbid that we should piously attribute the sovereignty of God to men, and with equal piety ascribe to Him impotence. God forbid that we should play a false dialectical game with the eternal tension and polarity and antinomy³ in which we are set, and then imagine that we are acting in accordance with the divine decrees. All this is, however, forbidden by the power of the Resurrection, of which we must now speak.”⁴

John Stott focuses on Paul’s critics: “They were implying that Paul’s gospel of free grace actually encouraged lawlessness and put a premium on sin, because it promised sinners the best of both worlds: they could indulge themselves freely in this world, without any fear of forfeiting the next.”⁵ So we can see why it was imperative the Paul answer such criticism right away and not wait until some point later on in his letter. Stott goes on to say: “Paul’s answer to his critics is that God’s grace not only forgives sins but also delivers us from sinning. For grace does more than justify: it also sanctifies. It unites us to Christ (1–14), and it initiates us into a new slavery to righteousness (15–23).”⁶

Paul then likens this idea to someone who dies but is kept sitting at the dining room table in a mummified condition so they can continue to be fed as if they were still alive. This was Paul’s declaration to the believers in Galatia: “The cross of our Lord Jesus Christ is my only reason for boasting. Through Jesus’ death on the cross, the world is dead to me, and I am dead to the world.”⁷ He also passed on the same message to the Colossians: “Your old-self died, and your new life is kept with Christ in God.”⁸ Again, we find that the Apostle Peter was in one accord with Paul: “Christ carried our sins in His body on the cross. He did this so that we would stop living for sin and live for what is right.”⁹

So we find that this was not only a central theme here to the Romans, but had also been a topic in his letter to the Corinthians: “He died for all so that those who live would not continue to live for themselves. He died for them and was raised from death so that they would live for Him.”¹⁰ And the Apostle Peter came to the same conclusion: “Now you are children of God, so you should obey Him and not live the way you did before.”¹¹ Peter then goes on to say: “Strengthen yourselves so that you will live your lives here on earth doing what God wants, not the evil things that people want.”¹²

Early Church scholar Origen has this to say: “In order for this point to be clearer, let us inquire as to what it means to live to sin and what it means to die to sin. Just as living for God means living according to God’s will, so living for sin means living according to sin’s will, as the Apostle says [in verse 12] below. To live to sin, therefore, means to obey the desires of sin… To die to sin is the opposite of this; it means refusing to obey the desires of sin… If someone dies to sin, it is through repentance that he dies.”¹³ Origen goes on to expound: “Note how carefully Paul has weighed his words when he says: ‘Can we still live in sin?’ To go on in this way means to continue something without interruption. If someone does this, it is clear that he has never been converted to Christ. But it sometimes happens not that someone continues in sin but that after having broken with it goes back to his vomit and becomes most unfortunate, since after having rejected the rule of sin and death and accepted the rule of life and righteousness he returns to the control of sin and death. This is what the Apostle calls the shipwreck of faith.¹⁴”¹⁵

Martin Luther categorizes what Paul says here into the following statements: 1) We are dead to sin; 2) We live for God, this signifies that we do not yield to our sinful passions and sin, even though sin continues in us. Nevertheless, sin remains in us until the end of our life, as we read in Galatians 5:17. Therefore all apostles and saints confess that sin and the sinful passions remain in us till the body is turned into ashes, and a new body is raised up which is free from passion and sin. This is what we read in 2 Peter 3:13.¹⁶

Reformer John Calvin draws this conclusion on what Paul says here: “Christ indeed does not cleanse us by His blood, nor render God grace to us by His atonement, in any other way than by making us partakers of His Spirit, who renews us to a holy life. It would then be a most strange inversion of the work of God were sin to gather strength on account of the grace which is offered to us in Christ; for medicine is not a feeder of the disease, which it destroys.”¹⁷ Then Adam Clarke gives us his thinking of what Paul said about our being dead to sin: “The phraseology of this verse is common among Hebrews, Greeks, and Latins. To die to a thing or person is to have nothing to do with it or him; to be totally separated from them: and to live to a thing or person is to be wholly given up to them; to have the most intimate connection with them.”¹⁸ Clarke’s commentary seems to be the most logical explanation.

Robert Haldane gives us his explanation of what Paul meant when he said we are dead to sin: “It exclusively indicates the justification of believers, and their freedom from the guilt of sin, having no allusion to their sanctification, which, however, as the Apostle immediately proceeds to prove, necessarily follows… No other designation could have been so well adapted to introduce the development of their state, and its inseparable consequences, as contained in the following verses. Formerly, the persons spoken of were dead in sin, but now they were dead to it, as it is said in the 7th verse, they are justified from it. In the seventh chapter, it is affirmed that believers are dead to the law. They are, therefore, dead to sin for the strength of sin is the law; and consequently, sin has lost its power to condemn them, their connection with it, in respect to its guilt, being forever broken. In the 10th verse, it is said that Christ died unto sin, and lives to God; and in the same way, believers have died to sin, and are alive to God, to serve Him in newness of life.”¹⁹ As said before, remember that these are mystical terms or figures of speech, and best understood that way.

NEW TESTAMENT CONTEXTUAL COMMENTARY

Dr. Robert R. Seyda

EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS

CHAPTER SIX (Lesson I)

Verses 1-2: So do you think we should continue sinning so that God will give us more and more grace? Of course not! Our old sinful life ended. It’s dead. So how can we continue living in sin?

The Apostle Paul now formulates a buffer against any misinformed response to his teaching that since the law was given in order to show us that we were sinning and in need of a Savior, that the more sin there was, the more grace there would be in order to cover such sins and lead more people to salvation. So the question then becomes, should we continue sinning so that more and more grace can be made available? That would be like someone saying today that because the President of the United States has the power to offer pardons, we should all become criminals so that He will have more and more pardons to give out.

Paul covered this same subject in his letter to the Galatians: “My brothers and sisters, God chose you to be free. But don’t use your freedom as an excuse to do what pleases your sinful selves.”¹ The Apostle Peter came to the same conclusion: “Live like free people, but don’t use your freedom as an excuse to do evil.”² Even the Apostle Jude, in his letter, touches on this topic: “They have used the grace of our God in the wrong way – to do sinful things.”³ So Paul was speaking about a spiritual malady already existing that infected believers in his day.

As an example, we can go back to Joseph in the Old Testament to see how he was tempted to misuse the grace of God that delivered him from a pit into which his brothers threw him, and then sold him into Egyptian slavery. He ended up in the house of a wealthy Egyptian whose wife tempted him to commit adultery.⁴ But Joseph refused to make such a compromise, and God rewarded him. The wise Psalmist who wrote the longest psalm made this point: “I gain understanding from your instructions, so I hate anything that leads people the wrong way.”⁵ That’s why Paul answers his own question by saying what a ridiculous idea it was to conclude that more sin is good because it results in more grace.

Martin Luther sees this chapter as the Apostle Paul’s effort to show that true believers have no interest in continuing in sin. Even though, earlier, Paul stated that where sin abounds God’s grace abounds, even more, this was not an attempt to excuse sin but to glorify divine grace.⁶ In his commentary, Luther quotes Augustine who said: “This grace, indeed, appeared more obvious and manifest in his [Paul’s] case, inasmuch as, while he was pursuing such vehement measures of persecution against the Church of God as made him worthy of the greatest punishment, he found mercy instead of condemnation, and instead of punishment obtained grace. Very properly, therefore, does he lift voice and hand in defense of grace, and care not for the envy either of those who understood not a subject too profound and difficult for them, or of those who perversely misinterpreted his own sound words.”⁷

John Calvin believes that Paul’s statement here is in response to those who imagine that righteousness by grace can be given by God without the need then to walk in the newness of life. This, says Calvin, is shamefully tearing Christ apart because it does not make sense to say that the best opportunity for grace to be displayed is for people to continue bound in sin. So Paul’s intent is to disprove such nonsense.⁸

John Bengel gives his introduction to this chapter: “Up until now Paul treated the past and the present: now he proceeds to treat the future; and the forms of expression are suited to those, which immediately precedes, while he speaks respecting the ‘abundance of grace.’ In this passage, the continuing in sin is set before us. In other words, going back into sin which has been overcome. The man, who has obtained grace, may turn here or there, but must always turn his back to sin.”⁹

Adam Clarke surmises that such thinking could have come from a newly converted Gentile. He says: “Having as yet received but little instruction, he is just brought out of his heathen state to believe in Christ Jesus. From the manner in which God had magnified His mercy, in blotting out his sin [based] simply on his believing on Christ, that, supposing even if he gave way to the evil propensities of his own heart, his transgressions could do him no hurt now that he was in God’s favor. And we need not wonder that a Gentile, just emerging from the deepest darkness, might entertain such thoughts as these; when we find that eighteen centuries after this, persons have appeared in the most Christian countries in Europe, not merely asking such a question, but defending the doctrine with all their might; and asserting in the most unqualified manner, ‘that believers were under no obligation to keep the moral law of God; that Christ had kept it for them; that His keeping it was imputed to them; and that God, who had exacted it from Him, who was their surety and representative, would not exact it from them, inasmuch as it would be injustice to require two payments for one debt.‘¹⁰”¹¹

Robert Haldane sees it this way: “Many expound this objection as coming from a Jew, and imagine a sort of dialogue between him and the Apostle. For this, there is no basis of fact for such supposition that dialogue in different parts of this Epistle gives life and interest to that argument. There is no necessity for the introduction of an objector. It is quite sufficient for the writer to state the objection in his own words.” Haldane then goes on to say: “Paul, in his usual manner, and on similar occasions, strongly rejects such circumstances as the question in the first verse supposes, which implies the absolute incongruity of the assumption that Christians will be emboldened to continue in sin, by the knowledge of their being freely justified. On the very grounds on which this objection rests, Paul shows that this is impossible.”¹²

Jewish writer David Stein notes: “These verses, reiterating what was said at 3:5–8, introduce the theme of Chapters 6–8 and are Paul’s answer to all who accuse the New Testament of offering ‘cheap grace.’ He is more radical than those who merely exhort us to subdue our sinful impulses; for he asserts that by virtue of being united with the Messiah our old self and its sinful inclinations have actually died.”¹³ Stein then points out that since dead people don’t sin, therefore, those who are dead to temptation and misbehaving should also be dead to sin.

Albert Barnes weighs in on this subject as follows: “The objection refers to what the Apostle had said in 5:20. What shall we say to such a sentiment as that where sin abounded grace did much more abound? If sin has been the occasion of grace and favor, should we not continue in it, and commit as much as possible, in order that grace might abound? This objection the Apostle proceeds to answer. He shows that the consequence does not follow, and proves that the doctrine of justification does not lead to it.”¹⁴

H. A. Ironside asks: “’How shall we who have died to sin live any longer therein?’ In what sense did we die to sin? If actually dead to it we would not be concerned about either the question or its answer. That which perplexes us is the fact that while we hate sin we find within ourselves a tendency to yield to it. But we are said to have died to it. How and where?”¹⁵ Ironside asks these questions because while it would seem that we should be dead to sin, why, then, does our mind and body come alive again so quickly when sin is present? Let’s imagine this another way: when sin shows up, shouldn’t at least play dead until it goes away? But we know it doesn’t work that way. James said we are to resist the devil, not act as if he isn’t there.¹⁶ Yet Paul is not finished with his argument, so we must read on.

Charles Hodge rightly points out that Paul poses this question for the purpose of using it as a mode of presenting an objection. He intends to show that the consequence of the abundance of grace does not justify the increase of sin to show off its power and glory.¹⁷ And for Frederic Godet, he follows the same theme: “The meaning of this question: What shall we say then? can only be this: What consequence shall we draw from the preceding? Only the Apostle’s object is not to draw a true consequence from the previous teaching, but merely to reject a false conclusion which might be deduced by a person still a stranger to the experience of justifying faith. It need not, therefore, be concluded from this that the Apostle is now passing from the principle to its consequences.”¹⁸

Charles Spurgeon makes it a target in his sermon: “It is one of the vilest suggestions of Satan that could possibly come to men. If the sinfulness of man has really given an opportunity for the display of divine mercy, then the devil’s logic would be, ‘Let us commit more sin, that there may be more room for grace to work.’ But Christians have learned their reasoning in another school, and to such diabolical arguments they answer in the words of the Apostle – see verse 2.”¹⁹

Then Charles Ellicott gives a doctrinal exposition: “In previous chapters, Paul dealt with one of the two great root-ideas, ‘justification by faith;’ he now passes to the second, ‘union with Christ.’ The one might be described as the judicial, the other as the mystical theory of salvation. The connecting-link which unites them is faith. Faith in Christ, and especially in the death of Christ, is the instrument of justification… It involves an actual identification with the Redeemer Himself. This, no doubt, is mystical language. When strictly compared with the facts of the religious consciousness, it must be admitted that all such terms as union, oneness, fellowship, identification pass into the domain of metaphor. They are taken to express the highest conceivable degree of attachment and devotion. In this sense, they are now consecrated by the use of centuries, and any other phrases substituted for them, though gaining perhaps somewhat in precision, would only seem poor and cold.”²⁰

NEW TESTAMENT CONTEXTUAL COMMENTARY

Dr. Robert R. Seyda

EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS

SUMMARY OF CHAPTER FIVE

There are a lot of things that Paul discusses in this chapter. He starts out describing the peace and joy that comes to everyone who is reconciled to God. To know that the threat of the punishment for Adam’s sin is removed at the very moment we become one with Christ, is joy unspeakable. And it is all brought about by our unhindered access to God’s grace. So instead of living in fear death and spending eternity without God, we rejoice in the hope of being with God in all His glory for eternity.

But as we know in this world, sometimes what we hope for does not come true, and it leaves us sad and disappointed. But Paul says this hope will never disappoint us. That’s because it’s not dependent upon our ability to make it happen. It rests on the work that Christ Jesus did for us on the cross, and what God did through Him for us by raising Him from death. And since Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever, what He did in the past and is doing today in our lives will last for eternity. That’s why God imprinted His love for us so deeply in our hearts with the stamp of the Holy Spirit, that’s what we hold onto even when things look bleak and troublesome. So when troubles come our way, it doesn’t make us lose our way. We stand steadfast in our faith because God’s Holy Spirit standing right beside us as our Comforter.

This then sets up the formula of, “how much more.” Paul uses this five times throughout the chapter. He introduces the corollary, or sequence, that if one thing can be proven true, then what follows will also be true. In fact, Paul says that if we are impressed by what was proven true, how much more will we be amazed by what follows. He begins by pointing out that seldom will one person will die for another just because they are law abiding and upright, and even rarer will someone will die for a person who is really good and kind to all those around them. However, Christ died for us while we were prisoners of sin because of our war against Him. So once we realize what He did for us while we were still sinners, now that we stand justified before God, how much more (v. 9) will God give us that blessed assurance that the wrath for Adam’s sin will never touch us.

Then Paul points out the second sequence by saying, that once Christ freed us from the prison of sin, we were then reconciled to God. So instead of remaining enemies, we became His sons and daughters. And once we became aware that we were now friends with God, how much more (v. 10) can we be assured that because Christ died in our place, God will make sure that we are free to enjoy eternal life. All we have to do is look back and remember that God put His guarantee on this by raising His Son Jesus from death. Therefore, if we are in Christ, and He is in us, we too will rise from death to live with Him forever.

Then Paul begins to talk about what started it all. One man, Adam, disobeyed God’s orders not to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, and so the death sentence was read to Adam, Eve, their children, and their children’s children, etc., right down to this very day. So the fact that we all live with a death sentence over our heads is not our fault, but Adam’s. But God refused to throw away His creation as damaged goods. Rather, He sent His Son as a second Adam to undo the bad that the first Adam did with the good that He came to do. So says Paul, if so much evil entered the world through one man’s, Adam, selfishness, how much more (v. 15) will God gift of grace enter the world through one Man’s, Christ, selflessness.

So we see that as a result of Adam’s sin, judgment was ordered and the death penalty imposed, taking away the life God had intended for all humanity. But God did not leave mankind in such a state of despair. That’s why He sent His Son with a gift to replace that which was lost. That one act by Adam that brought such carnage to humankind was voided by that one act of Christ to remove the stigma of condemnation and replaced it with the seal of justification. So says Paul, if the sin of this one man, Adam, caused death to be king over all, how much more (v. 17) will those who accept God’s gift of forgiveness and acquittal through one man, Jesus Christ, become are kings of life.

Paul goes on to explain. Yes, Adam’s sinfulness ended up punishing all mankind so that all would die, but Christ’s sinlessness caused those who desire to become right with God can live. The picture is clear, Adam caused many to be sinners because he disobeyed God, but Christ caused many to be made acceptable to God because He obeyed. But God wanted the whole world to see how this took place. He sent the Law so that everyone would be able to understand what right and wrong was and thereby become aware of how much they were failing Him. Consequently, says Paul, if sin permeated all of mankind, how much more (v. 20) will God’s grace be made available to all mankind. In other words, the more we see our sins waiting to condemn us, the more we should see God’s abounding grace waiting to forgive us.

Based on all of this, Paul tells believers not to be surprised when painful trials come their way. Don’t get discouraged because something you don’t understand is happening to you. Instead, rejoice that you are not alone. The One who suffered for you will suffer with you in your circumstances. And just as He was victorious through His sufferings, you will be more than a conqueror when His glory is revealed in your final victory.

The Apostle Paul was using this line of thinking in order to convince us of the surety of our salvation. If mankind could have found a way to get to heaven on their own, and some religions teach this, they would have no need for a Savior. But every gate they tried to enter was locked securely. There was only one gate that opened into the kingdom of God. That Gate was Jesus Christ. And the entry through this gate could not be bought, bargained for, earned, or merited. It was a gift from God. Because we were all condemned through that one sin of the one man, Adam, God made it possible for us to be saved through that one sacrifice of the one man, Jesus Christ. Not because we deserved it, but because of His endless grace and mercy. – Dr. Robert R Seyda

* * * *

Thank God for all of you who’ve dedicated yourselves to learn more about God by reading more of His Word. May He bless you richly for your commitment to His will for your life. Our lessons on Chapter Six will begin Wednesday. God bless you is my prayer.

I read this anonymous quote, and it really made sense to me: “Do not dwell on the past. Your history cannot be erased, but your future has yet to be written, so make the most of what is going to happen instead of worrying about what you cannot change.” I don’t know who wrote it, but I suspect they may have gotten their inspiration from the prophet Isaiah who said: “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past.”¹

That doesn’t mean that we should not remind ourselves where we came from, or recall mistakes we made, so we don’t do the same thing again. But it does mean that we should not let strings to the past keep us from moving forward. Attachments to people, places, or things that are now behind us and can serve no purpose in what our future holds.

In my own life, I was one week away from becoming an FBI agent at the age of 20, but my mom didn’t tell me until twenty years later that the officer came back with the offer just two days after I left to go live with my oldest sister so I could get a job. After I had enlisted in the Army, I missed one question that kept me from qualifying for Officer Training School, which would have resulted in my staying in the military much longer. I sent my doctoral dissertation to a well-known Christian publisher for publication. They liked it but requested that I rewrite it because it was too technical for the average reader. It took me long enough to compose it the way it was, I just didn’t have the time (This was before computers when all I had was an electric typewriter). Who knows what that may have led to.

But did I wonder and wrestle over what might have been to the point that it kept me from going through the doors that God did open? No! I thank God for what He did allow me to do and accomplish for His honor and glory. In fact, if someone would have told me years ago what I would be doing today at my age, I may have asked God back then to take me to heaven early.

So am I glad for what He is doing in my life, especially what I can do for others? Absolutely! In fact, I would not be where I am today if God had not kept me from hitting all those targets I missed. Don’t let the things of the past tie you to what might have been. So dream and ask God to help you become what He wants you to be and stop having nightmares over what might have been. – Dr. Robert R Seyda

TOO MUCH OF A GOOD THING

I read this story years ago; used it in some of my teaching lessons and sermons as an illustration. But when I read this version it had a different ending. So even if you’ve heard it before, read it again, it may give you new insight on how, just like sugar, helping too much can be a bad thing.

A man working in his garden spotted the cocoon of a butterfly. One day, a small opening appeared. He kept looking, hoping the butterfly would soon appear. Several hours went by as he watched it struggled to force its body through that little hole. Then, it seemed to stop trying. It appeared as if it had gotten as far as it could and it could go no further.

So the man decided to help the butterfly. He took a pair of scissors and snipped off the remaining bit of the cocoon. After awhile, the butterfly finally emerged, but it had a swollen body and small, shriveled wings. The man watched the butterfly, expecting at any moment the wings would spread and expand to be able to support the body, which would contract in time.

Neither of these things happened! In fact, the butterfly spent the rest of the day crawling around on the ground with a swollen body and shriveled wings. It never was able to fly. What the man, in his kindness and haste, did not understand was that the restricting cocoon and the struggle required for the butterfly to get through the tiny opening were God’s way of forcing fluid from the body of the butterfly into its wings so that it would be ready for flight once it achieved its freedom from the cocoon.

Sometimes struggles are exactly what we need in our lives too. If God allowed us to go through our lives without any obstacles, we would not be as strong as what we need to be in order to cope with the world we live in. So instead of thinking that God doesn’t care, think of it this way:

I asked for strength, and God gave me difficulties to make me strong.
I asked for wisdom, and God gave me problems to solve.
I asked for prosperity, and God gave me brain and brawn to work.
I asked for courage, and God gave me danger to overcome.
I asked for love, and God gave me troubled people to help.
I asked for favors, and God gave me opportunities.
I received nothing I asked for, but everything I needed!

This is what the Apostle Paul was also saying to the Roman believers (See Romans 5:3-5). Difficulties in life can either be stepping stones or stumbling blocks. We can either see them as obstacles or opportunities. The great lady who coped with being blind like a champion, Helen Keller, once said: “Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired and success achieved.” – Dr. Robert R Seyda

NEW TESTAMENT CONTEXTUAL COMMENTARY

Dr. Robert R. Seyda

EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS

CHAPTER FIVE (Lesson XIX)

John Calvin adds that Paul was not interested in arguing against all the opposing views to righteousness as man’s gift from God instead of man’s gift to God. Says Calvin: “Paul adds the word grace, that he might more deeply imprint this truth on the memory – that the result is to be ascribed, not to our merit, but to the kindness of God.”¹ And Charles Hodge was inspired to say: “We should open our hearts to the large prospects of purity and blessedness presented in the Gospel; the victory of grace over sin and death, which is to be consummated in the triumph of true faith, and in the eternal salvation of those multitudes out of every tribe and kindred, which no man can number.”²

Calvin continues: “The absolute and universal influence of sin is figured by the empire of a monarch exercising authority in uncontrolled sovereignty. But now grace reigns. There was nothing in men to merit salvation or to recommend them in any measure to God. Grace, therefore, reigns in their salvation which is wholly and entirely a free favor [from God]. Sin is said to reign unto, or in, death. This shows that death was, in every human being, the effect of sin. The way in which death manifested its universal reign over the human race, was in causing their death. This most fully proves that infants [were born] sinners. If sin ruled in causing death to its subjects, then all who died are the subjects of sin. Death to the human race is in every instance the effect of the dominion of sin. But if sin did reign, grace [now] reigns. If the former reigned in death, the latter reigns in life; yes, it reigns unto eternal life.”

Robert Haldane had a thought on how this verse sums up all that was said before. He writes: “In this 21st verse the doctrine of the whole preceding context, of the salvation of believers, is summed up in a manner most beautiful and striking. Having exhibited in a strong light the righteousness of God,³ the Apostle returns to it in this chapter; having contrasted Christ and Adam, he brings out his conclusion in this verse by contrasting the reigns of sin and grace. Sin had an absolute sway over all the descendants of Adam. There was nothing good about them, or in any of them. Sin existed and predominated in every human soul. Therefore, it is said: sin reigned.”

Robert Haldane asks: How, then, does grace reign unto life? He answers by saying the following: “Is it by a gratuitous pardon? Doubtless, it is. But it is not by forgiving the sinner in an arbitrary way, with respect to the punishment due to sin. Forgiveness is indeed entirely gratuitous; but if it cost believers nothing, it cost much for their Salvation. Grace reigns through righteousness. – How beautifully this fulfills the prophetic declaration of Psalm 85:10-13. Grace did not, could not, deliver the lawful captives without paying the ransom. It did not trample on justice or evade its demands. It reigns by providing a Savior to suffer along with the guilty. By the death of Jesus Christ, full compensation was made to the law and justice of God. ”⁴

Albert Barnes writes the following summary on what Paul said here: “This chapter is a most precious portion of divine revelation. It brings into view the amazing evils which have resulted from the apostasy [of mankind]. The Apostle does not attempt to deny or excuse those evils; he admits to them fully; admits to them in their deepest, widest, most melancholy extent, just as the physician admits the extent and ravages of the disease which he hopes to cure. At the same time, Christianity is not responsible for those evils. It did not introduce them. It finds them in existence, as a matter of sober and somber fact, pertaining to all the [human] race. Christianity is no more answerable for the introduction and extent of sin than the science of medicine is responsible for the introduction and extent of disease. Like that science, it finds a state of wide-spread evils in existence; and like that science, it is strictly a remedial system. And whether true or false, still the evils of sin exist, just as the evils of disease exist.”

Barnes goes on to say that the fact about universal sin remains a fact. And then he gives another fact: “Christianity proposes a remedy; and it is permitted to the Christian to rejoice that that remedy is ample to meet all the evils; that it is just suited to recover our alienated world; and that it is destined yet to raise the race up to life, and peace, and heaven. In the provisions of that strategy we may and should triumph; on the same principle as we may rejoice in the triumph of medicine over disease, so may we triumph in the ascendancy of the Christian plan over all the evils of the fall. And while Christians thus rejoice, the infidel, the freethinker, the pagan, and the scoffer shall contend with these evils which their systems cannot alleviate or remove, and sink under the chilly reign of sin and death; just as people pant, and struggle, and expire under the visitations of disease because they will not apply the proper remedies of medicine, but choose rather to leave themselves to its unchecked ravages, or to use all the panacea of quackery in a vain attempt to arrest evils which are coming upon them.”⁵

H. A. Ironside offers clarity on the subject Paul has written about here that begins with verse 12 and concludes with verse 21. He states: “The intervening passage (verses 13-17) is parenthetical, or explanatory… Sin was in the world dominating man from Adam’s fall even before the law was given by Moses, but sin did not as yet have the distinct character of transgression until a legal code was given to man, which he consciously violated. Therefore, apart from law, sin was not imputed. Nevertheless, that it was there and to be reckoned with, is manifested in that ‘by sin came death’ and death reigned as a despotic monarch over all men from Adam to Moses, save as God interfered in the case of Enoch, who was translated that he should not see death. Even where there was no willful sin, as in the case of infants and irresponsible persons, death reigned, thus proving that they were part of a fallen race in union with Adam’s sin and actually possessing Adam’s fallen nature. He who was originally created in the image and likeness of God defaced that image by sin and lost the divine likeness, and we read that ‘Adam begat a son in his own likeness, after his image.’⁶ This is characteristic of all the race of which he is the head. ‘In Adam, all die.’”⁷

Then Charles Spurgeon uses his oratorical talent to frame it this way: “Just as sin has reigned, and with despotic and irresistible power has ground its subjects in the very dust, and then cast them into the flames, so does grace with irresistible goodness, constrain the chosen multitude to yield obedience, and thus prepares them for eternal bliss. See, it lifts up the beggar from the dunghill and makes him sit among princes.⁸ Mark its shining course, and behold it blessing the sons of man wherever it stretches out its silver scepter, chasing away the misery of night, and giving the gladsomeness of Gospel day[light]; sending back the monsters of discord and of cruelty to the dens from which they once escaped, and bidding the angels of mercy to keep perpetual watch and ward over the sons of Adam who have given themselves up to its sway of the kingdom of grace.”⁹

Jewish theologian David Stern has a lengthy exegesis on verses 12-21, including several theories on the doctrine of Original Sin, which is worthy of reading if you can get a copy of his commentary. But his introductory remarks gives us a good sense of what he sees in Paul’s writings here. He begins with this: “This is one of the great theological passages in the Bible; but because upon it Christians have erected the doctrine of original sin, it is for Jewish people one of the most problematic. Pivotal in Chapters 1–8 of Romans, it looks backward to 3:21–5:11, where God’s means of considering people righteous (first mentioned at 1:17) through Yeshua is proclaimed, and forward to 6:1–8:39, where Paul elaborates the consequences for the individual believer of what Yeshua has accomplished.”

Stern continues: “The purpose of these ten verses in their context is not to teach about the origin of human sin but to give assurance that the Messiah has truly redeemed us human beings from bondage to sin by paying its full penalty on our behalf. Paul makes his case by developing the parallel between the effects on mankind of Adam and of Yeshua (vv. 12, 14, 18–19, 21), while stressing that what Yeshua accomplished by His obedience to God was far greater and better than what Adam wreaked by his disobedience (vv. 15–17) and simultaneously dispelling any suspicion that focusing on these two men minimizes the importance of the Torah (13–14a, 20). But the whole argument is built on a premise which Paul assumes can be taken for granted, as axiomatic, namely, that it was the one man Adam who brought sin and death upon all humanity.”¹⁰

Stern then says this that will help us understand why Jesus had such trouble convincing the Jews that they needed salvation, and the only salvation that God the Father had approved was the one He came to explain and give His life to pay for it. Stern then adds this: “Before assessing the doctrine of original sin, we must see what it actually says. Otherwise we will find ourselves dealing with oversimplified abstractions — ‘Judaism says man is a sinner because he sins, Christianity [says] that man sins because he is a sinner,” “Judaism is less concerned with where sin comes from than struggling against it,’ ‘Christianity alone regards sin as fatal; Judaism takes it for a minor illness”¹¹

Not only did our Lord have problems trying to get this point across in His day, and all the Apostles fought an uphill battle trying to convince both Jews and Gentiles that this was the one and only way to salvation, but we have this same problem today. People don’t want to hear that they can’t do it on their own or with the help of some rite, ritual, sacrament, or ceremony. If it were not the case that Jesus is the one and only door to salvation and heaven, He would have never made this promise: “If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.”¹² It was true back then, it is true now, and it will be true until Jesus comes again.

The end of Chapter Five

NEW TESTAMENT CONTEXTUAL COMMENTARY

Dr. Robert R. Seyda

EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS

CHAPTER FIVE (Lesson XVIII)

In one of his letters, early church scholar Ambrose wrote this: “Sin abounded by the Law because by the Law is the knowledge of sin, and thus it began to be injurious to me to know that which through weakness I could not avoid; it is good to foreknow in order to avoid, but if I cannot avoid, to have known it was injurious. Thus the effect of the Law was changed to me into its opposite, yet by the very increase of sin, it became useful to me, because I was humbled. Wherefore David also said, It is good for me that I have been humbled. For by my humiliation I have broken those bonds of that ancient transgression, whereby Adam and Eve had bound the whole line of their posterity. Hence too the Lord came in obedience that He might loose the knot of disobedience and of man’s transgression. And so, as by disobedience sin entered, so by obedience sin was remitted.”¹

Then, Augustine shared his understanding of what Paul was writing here: “By this Paul has clearly indicated that the Jews did not know by what dispensation the law had been given. It was not given in order to bring life, for grace brings life through faith, but the law was given to show with what great and tight chains those who thought they could fulfill all righteousness in their own strength were bound. So sin abounded, both because desire grew more ardent in the light of the prohibition and because the crime of trespass affected those who sinned against the law.”²

“The Way” reformist John Calvin saw this was as follows: “After sin has held men sunk in ruin, grace then comes to their help: for he teaches us, that the abundance of grace becomes for this reason more illustrious. — that while sin is overflowing, it pours itself forth so exuberantly, that it not only overcomes the flood of sin but wholly absorbs it.”³ Then Adam Clarke notes: “Without this rule of right, sin can only be known in a sort of general way; the innumerable deviations from positive righteousness can only be known by the application of the righteous statutes of which the law is composed. And it was necessary that this law should be given, that the true nature of sin might be seen, and that men might be the better prepared to receive the Gospel.”⁴

On the subject of sin being such an evil thing, Robert Haldane says that it was overcome by God’s amazing grace: “This was another effect of the entrance of the law, that as, by the clear light it imparts, sin would abound in all its extent and enormity, so grace might be exhibited as abounding above sin. The grace of God, dispensed from His throne, not only pardons the most numerous and most heinous sins but also confers eternal life upon him who has sinned. It restores him to communion with God, which by transgression had been forfeited, re-establishing it not only in a far higher degree but in a manner so permanent as never again to be interrupted.”⁵

In his sermon on this subject, Charles Spurgeon said: “It was the practical result of the giving of the law that men became greater sinners than they were before, and it was the design of the law that they should see themselves to be greater sinners than before. The law is the looking-glass in which we see our spots, but it is not the basin in which we wash them away. The law has a provoking power, for such is – the perversity of our nature that, no sooner do we hear the command, ‘You shall not do so-and-so,’ than at once we want to do it. Our nature is very much like quicklime. Throw cold water upon it, and straightway it generates heat; acting, as it were, against the nature of that which is thrown on it. So, the more God says to a man, ‘You will,’ the more the man says, ‘I will not;’ and the more God says to him, ‘You will not,’ the more man resolves that he will. ‘The law entered, that the offence might abound.’ It reveals the depravity and disobedience of human nature, and lays us low before God as convicted criminals.”⁶

F. F. Bruce speaks here about the intrusion of the Law: “The verb ‘came in’ is literally rendered ‘came in beside’ (‘intruded into this process’); it is used in Galatians 2:4 of the ‘false brethren’ who ‘slipped in’ or ‘infiltrated’ (pareiserchomai) as spies into the Apostolic company. The sense of verse 20 reproduces that of Galatians 3:19: ‘Why then the law? It was added because of transgressions (‘to make wrongdoing a legal offence’), till the offspring should come to whom the promise had been made.’ Law increased the trespass by providing opportunities for violating a multiplicity of specific commandments; there may be the further suggestion that it ‘also increases sin in the sense that it makes men sin more.’ In any case, both epistles imply that the law of Moses is a parenthetic dispensation in the course of God’s dealings with the human race.”⁷

Verse 21: Sin once ruled over us by its power of death. But God gave us more of His grace so that grace could rule over us with eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord, by making us right with Him.

Now the Jewish leaders in the Roman church are given a declaration by Paul of how the sentence of death over Adam’s descendants, and their alienation from God, was removed by the issuance of grace to all of those who came into the family of God Jesus because He brought them back into fellowship with Him. This was part of John’s gospel where he makes a similar statement: “That is, the law was given to us through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.”⁸

In this narrative, Paul may be drawing more from his Jewish learning than on any new revelation. They also taught about the power over mankind of what they call “Evil Inclination or Evil Impulse.” In one place we read: “If in the future when they will be engaged in mourning and the Evil Inclination will have no power over them.”⁹ They go on to discuss the matter, and whether knowingly or unknowingly, they talk about how the death of Messiah the son of Joseph,¹⁰ brought an end to the Evil Inclination, and this should not be a reason for mourning but of rejoicing, because the power of Evil Inclination has come to an end.¹¹

And in a collection of the teachings of the Jewish fathers by Rabbi Nathan we find it said that the Evil Impulse is king over man’s two hundred and forty-eight limbs. When he goes off to some good deed, all his limbs begin to drag. For the Evil Impulse within man is monarch over his two hundred and forty-eight limbs, while the Good Impulse is like a captive in prison, as it is said, “True, he rose from prison to be king; yet, while ruling, he became poor.”¹² That is to say, the Good impulse.¹³ So in his own way, Paul shows that the Evil Impulse came from Adam while the Good Impulse came from Christ. They cannot exist in the same heart and mind with mutual cooperation because they are diametrically opposed to one another. Therefore, one will gain control over the other.

As a result of receiving such unmerited grace, Paul tells Titus to inform his congregation on how they should conduct themselves as believers, and to do so in everything they do, so that they can prove that the teaching of God our Savior is good. That is the way we should live because God’s grace has come. That grace can save everyone.¹⁴ Not only that, but the writer of Hebrews adds this: “With Jesus as our high priest, we can feel free to come before God’s throne where there is grace. There we receive mercy and kindness to help us when we need it.”¹⁵ And the Apostle Peter is also struck by the power and benefits of grace, especially during times of trial and hardship. He writes: “Yes, you will suffer for a short time. But after that, God will make everything right. He will make you strong. He will support you and keep you from falling. He is the God who gives all grace. He chose you to share in his glory in Christ. That glory will continue forever.”¹⁶

We see an excellent example in Abraham’s faith being tested by his willing sacrifice of his only son, Isaac. Faith by itself would have been insufficient. He would have been comfortable to stay at home with his faith, not wanting to risk the loss of his only legitimate son. However, to have done so would have left any proof of how real his faith really was up in the air. But his walking up Mt. Moriah with Isaac as the intended sacrifice, was only made possible because of his faith they would walk back down together. Abraham’s faith in the unseen was wonderfully augmented by his unhesitating response to God’s call. So we can see that real faith then, is more than just believing, it is acting with confidence on what we believe.

A number of early church scholars weigh in on explaining what Paul is talking about here. For instance, Origen speaks about the two kingdoms: “Paul shows that there are two kingdoms in man. In one of these, sin has taken control and leads to death. In the other, grace, reigns through righteousness and leads to life. For it is grace which expels and ejects sin from its kingdom, i.e., from our members.”¹⁷ Then, Ambrosiaster writes: “Sin reigned when it saw that it was driving sinners into death, in which it rejoiced, in much the same way as grace will reign in those who obey God.”¹⁸

A contemporary scholar of Ambrosiaster’s explains how believers should no longer be receptive to sin: “Paul says that just as sin once ruled us even against our will, because we were so used to it, so now our zeal for God reigns and will reign in us forever. Since we have been made worthy of eternal life through the resurrection and live in true and certain righteousness, we shall no longer be receptive to sin.”¹⁹ And Pelagius sees this as the beginning of the reign of grace. He writes: “Just as the reign of sin was established through contempt for the law, so also the reign of grace is established through the forgiveness of many sinners and thereafter through the doing of righteousness without ceasing.”²⁰

NEW TESTAMENT CONTEXTUAL COMMENTARY

Dr. Robert R. Seyda

EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS

CHAPTER FIVE (Lesson XVII)

Charles Spurgeon framed his response to Adam’s blunder this way: “Adam’s fall was terribly effectual, it has brought death upon the human race age after age. But Christ’s death is wonderfully effectual, for on behalf of all those for whom He died His atonement so prevailed as to put their sins away forever.”¹ Frederic Godet states: there is nothing more desperate in appearance than this great historical fact of the reign of death, and yet it is this very fact which becomes in the eyes of the Apostle a principle of the most powerful encouragement and the most glorious hope. For this terrible reign of death, established on the weak foundation of a single sin and a single sinner may serve as a measure to establish the greater certainty of the reign of life which comes to light among the justified by their freely accepted gift of God through Christ.²

Verse 18: So that one sin of Adam placed the death sentence on all people. But in the same way, Christ did something so good that it makes all people so right with God that they can experience what it really means to live free.

Paul now lays another layer in building his platform of comparing one man’s debilitating effect on humanity and another man’s delivering effect on those who believe in His liberating power. This time, he focuses on the judgment that brought the death sentence on all who were born of Adam, and the eternal life that comes to those born again through Jesus Christ. Paul shared this same message with the Corinthians: “Death comes to people because of what one man did. But now there is resurrection from death because of another man. I mean that in Adam all of us die. And in the same way, in Christ, all of us will be made alive again.”³

Early church Patriarch Cyril of Alexandria gives this explanation of how the human race contracted the disease of sin. He writes: “What has Adam’s guilt got to do with us? Why are we held responsible for his sin when we were not even born when he committed it? Did not God say: ‘The parents will not die for the children, nor the children for the parents, but the soul which has sinned, it shall die?’⁴ How then shall we defend this doctrine? The soul, I say, which has sinned, it shall die. We have become sinners because of Adam’s disobedience in the following manner… After he fell into sin and surrendered to corruption, impure lusts invaded the nature of his flesh, and at the same time, the evil law of our members was born. For our nature contracted the disease of sin because of the disobedience of one man, that is, Adam, and thus many became sinners. This was not because they sinned along with Adam because they did not then exist, but because they had the same nature as Adam, which fell under the law of sin. Thus, just as human nature acquired the weakness of corruption in Adam because of disobedience, and evil desires invaded it, so the same nature was later set free by Christ, who was obedient to God the Father and did not commit sin.”⁵

Here Robert Haldane gives his explanation: “Therefore, or wherefore, then. — There are two words in the original: the one word signifies wherefore, the other signifies then, or consequently. It states the result of what was said. By the offense of one, or by one offense. — Both of these are equally true, but the latter appears to be the design of the Apostle, as the word ‘one’ lacks the article. There is nothing in the original corresponding to the terms judgment and free gift, but they are rightly supplied by an omission from verse 16. Condemnation. — Here it is expressly asserted that all men are condemned in the first offense. Infants, then, are included. If they are condemned, they cannot be innocent — they must be sinners; for condemnation would not have come upon them for a sin that is not theirs. The whole human race came under the condemnation of death in all its extent — spiritual, temporal, and eternal. Even so, — that is, in the same manner. By the righteousness of one, or rather, by one righteousness.”⁶ Haldane is not saying that innocent children die as sinners, but because of sin.

Verse 19: One man disobeyed God, and many became sinners. But in the same way, one man obeyed God, and many will be made right.

Paul lays down one more stratum of proof to show how one bad example led all mankind away from the truth, but how another man’s good example open the door for everyone to follow Him to the truth. After all, Jesus did say: “I am the way, the truth, and the life. The only way to the Father is through me.”⁷ And this was not because Jesus was the first to do this, but that He is the only one who can do it. Paul told the Corinthians: “God made this sinless man be a sin offering on our behalf, so that in union with Him we might fully share in God’s righteousness.”⁸

In a passage of Chrysostom’s sermon on this text, we read his interpretation of how this affects a true believer: “How does it follow that from Adam’s disobedience someone else would become a sinner? For surely, if this were so, such a sinner would not deserve punishment, since his sins would not be his own fault. What then does the word sinners mean here? To me, it seems to mean liable for punishment and condemned to death. Why was this done? Paul does not say because it was not necessary for his argument.… But if you want to know what I think, I would say this: Far from being harmed or condemned, if we think straight, we will see that we have benefited by becoming mortal, first because it is not an immortal body in which we sin, and second because we have countless reasons for living a religious life. For to be moderate, temperate, subdued, and separated from wickedness is what death, by its presence and the fact that we expect it to come persuades us to do. But following on these or even before these, mortality has brought many other blessings besides. For it has made possible the crown of martyrdom… In fact, neither death nor the devil himself can do anything to harm us. Immortality is waiting for us, and after being chastened for a little while we shall enjoy the blessings to come without fear.⁹ This present life is a kind of school, where we are under instruction by means of disease, suffering, temptations, and poverty, as well as other apparent evils, in order to be made fit to receive the blessings of the world to come.”¹⁰

John Bengel has several interesting things to say by beginning with a question, how could the understanding or the will of an upright man have been capable of receiving injury, or of committing an offence? The answer: That understanding and the will simultaneously give way through carelessness. We cannot think of anything else previously existing in man besides carelessness. It illustrates the initial step of a city being taken because of a failure on the part of the guards on watch to be vigilant. Adam was seduced through carelessness and laziness of mind.

Bengel goes on to say that it is one thing for a man to be considered righteous, but it is another thing to be justified. Righteousness must exist as the basis and foundation for justification. We have both the one and the other from Christ, for both the merit of Christ’s satisfaction for sin imputed to man, who himself was unrighteous, obtains the merit by which he is justified.¹¹ This is not something mankind obtains on his own, it only comes through Christ.

Robert Haldane has an interesting way to express his opinion here on what Paul is saying: “So by the obedience of one shall the many be made righteous. — Only a part of mankind is included in that covenant of which Christ is the surety. In consequence of Adam being the covenant-head of all mankind, all are involved in his condemnation; but Christ is not the head of all mankind, but of the Church, and to all but the Church He will say, ‘I never knew you.’ So, — that is, in this way, not in like manner. — It is not in a manner that has merely some likeness, but it is in the very same manner. For although there is a contrast in the things, the one being disobedience, and the other obedience, yet there is a perfect identity in the manner.”¹² In using the term “Church,” Haldane is not referring to any one church here on earth, but the Body of Christ.

Charles Spurgeon remarked in one of his sermons that the wonderful doctrine of “the Gospel of Christ.” was being rejected in his day by people who called it simple, as well as other derogatory terms. But he saw what Paul said in the simplest of terms was this: “As by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of One shall many be made righteous.”¹³ And Charles Ellicott sees the word “obedience” to be the key here. He writes: “This term is chosen in contradistinction to the disobedience of Adam. The obedience of Christ was an element in the atonement.¹⁴ But if we interpret St. Paul by himself, we must not see in it the sole element to the exclusion of the ‘redemptive sacrifice.‘¹⁵”¹⁶

Verse 20: The law was brought in so that more people would sin the way Adam did. But even though sin increased, God’s grace increased even greater.

After Paul clearly establishes his dual concept of the first Adam bringing sin and death into God’s creation and countered with the second Adam bringing righteousness and everlasting life to rectify the first Adam’s mistake, he now makes a bold statement. He infers that the law was given to Moses so that sin could be codified and thereby result in more and more of Adam’s descendants sinning the same way he did. So how could this help the situation? Paul says that by so doing God verified beyond any doubt that all mankind could not save themselves because they were hopelessly enslaved by sin. That it would take a special act of God’s grace to rescue them. And the real miracle was that this then proved how great and sufficient God’s grace proved to be.

Paul expressed this same truth to the Corinthians, but in a different form. He wrote: “The old agreement that brought death, written with words on stone, came with God’s glory… So surely the new agreement that comes from the life-giving Spirit has even more glory. This is what I mean: That old agreement judged people guilty of sin, but it had glory. So surely the new agreement that makes people right with God has much greater glory. That old agreement had glory. But it really loses its glory when it is compared to the much greater glory of the new agreement. If the agreement that was brought to an end came with glory, then the agreement that never ends has much greater glory.”¹⁷