Romans 5:16, commentary and pictures

The judgment came through one man's single sin to condemnation upon the whole race, but the free gift answers many offences unto justification. Adam stood on trial as representative for all his posterity, and by his one disobedience brought guilt, depravity, bondage and death upon mankind, leaving the race ruined, helpless and unable to redeem itself. The free gift is God's love in giving His only-begotten Son, who clothed divinity with humanity to reach the fallen race where it is, and as the second Adam passed over the same ground where Adam fell and overcame on behalf of the race. As substitute and surety He bore human guilt and sin's judicial punishment, and His offering freely imputes His purity and righteousness so that believers stand innocent, accepted and restored to God's favor with life and immortality. This gift could not come by setting aside the law, for God's law is sacred and immutable, but avails for those who return to allegiance and obey, revealing that by the same power given to Christ men can keep the law and overcome the enemy.

Contrast Stated by Verse

The judgment came by one sin to condemnation, but the free gift meets many offenses unto justification, differing from that judgment in both its ground and its outcome. One transgression brought condemnation and loss, while the sacrifice pays sin's penalty and brings restoration despite many sins, redeeming humanity and the dominion lost and restoring the earth as the eternal home of the redeemed. As substitute and surety the guilt of Adam's descendants was borne and sin's judicial punishment endured, so that the curse of the law could be removed by self-offering. Adam's departure from obedience brought discord, unhappiness, and separation from God, while perfect obedience provides the example for all to follow and makes restoration to the divine image possible.

The gift of justification belongs to the gospel joined with God's law in a perfect whole received by faith. That united testimony of law and gospel must go throughout the length and breadth of the world as precious scripture impressed upon every heart opened to receive it. It gives light and understanding to the simple who are contrite in heart, bringing blessing to those who receive its message. It produces not nominal faith or legal religion but belief to a purpose that appropriates the richest gifts of God and pleads for the gift to give to others.

The free gift is love in giving the only-begotten, well-beloved Son, with divinity clothed in humanity. By taking humanity and combining divinity with humanity, the human arm reaches the race while the divine arm grasps the Infinite, so that name is the link uniting man to God and God to man. Human nature through faith may thus grasp the divine nature, having overcome, and through those merits be elevated to be a partaker of the divine nature. The depth of the fall justified great means to procure a ransom, because man could never rescue and restore himself, so divine benevolence in immeasurable sacrifice gave God's beloved Son, with the guiltless suffering for the guilty from infinite compassion and desire to rescue fallen man and restore moral homage. In that gift Christ stands in Adam's place and bears the test Adam failed to endure, passing over the same ground where Adam fell and overcoming every temptation of Satan, including the long single-handed fast and conflict in the wilderness with the prince of darkness where man's salvation was at stake, and thus redeeming Adam's disgraceful failure so fallen men need not perish. He clothes divinity with humanity to associate with the fallen race and reach man where he is, standing at the head of the fallen race because man can accomplish nothing without God.

Adam's transgression shows sin is not measured by the greatness of the act but by variance with God's expressed will in the least particular. Such variance shows sin reigning in the heart, with communion with the enemy and a divided heart in rebellion against God's law.

Adam's Fall and Condemnation

Adam was placed on trial not for himself alone but as representative for all his posterity, with perfect obedience to God's law required of him. If he stood the test of temptation and preserved his allegiance to the Creator, that obedience would insure acceptance and favor with God, and he would be forever established in holiness and happiness, with those blessings extending to all his posterity. Because he failed the test and revolted against God's law, judgment unto condemnation came through him, and all his descendants have been sinners.

Adam acted as a free moral agent who by his own choice abused his freedom and became a sinner. He began pure, holy and sinless, with a holy, pure, undefiled nature, abundantly supplied in undefiled Eden where everything in nature was pure, and in every way more favorably situated than Christ who later faced him as contrast. Under the smallest test of obedience, the prohibition concerning the fruit of the tree of knowledge, he listened to Satan's insinuations and deception, doubted God's wisdom, accused Him of selfishness, and believed Satan's lie. He let appetite overcome him, accepted the forbidden fruit from Eve in listening to the specious temptations of the enemy, lost his innocence and God's favor, separated himself from God, and opened the floodgates of woe upon the world.

By that one disobedience judgment unto condemnation came through Adam upon the whole race, entailing sin, deterioration, depravity, wretchedness and death upon all his posterity. His disobedience to God's express commands lost divine favor and destroyed human happiness, bringing guilt and sorrow upon the world and plunging the whole race into hopeless misery and despair under condemnation by one man's sin. There followed loss, bondage, misery, despair, deterioration, depravity, death and the sentence of death, with an inheritance of disobedience, guilt, death and fallen defects and tendencies left to children's children. Mankind was left totally depraved, ruined, helpless, degraded, hopeless, sold to the enemy, unable of itself to do good or redeem itself, and unable to make an atonement proportionate to its sin. That single disobedience carried infinite expense, requiring the Son of God to leave the royal courts of heaven to save man from the penalty of that crime.

Adam's one transgression gave Satan a claim to the whole human family, under which he rules over men, afflicts them with calamity and disease while blaming God for it, and spreads the belief that God's law cannot be kept. Satan declared that no man could keep God's law after Adam's disobedience.

Adam's transgression forfeited all right to heaven, separated man from God, and broke God's law. It brought just condemnation and lost Eden, thereby revealing the justice of God, since justice required the penalty for transgression.

Adam repented, and he is to be resurrected and restored to Eden.

Christ the Second Adam

Christ as the second Adam was a free moral agent held responsible for His conduct, beginning in purity and holiness, connected with God and beloved by God, even as the first Adam began pure, holy, sinless and undefiled in Eden. He was placed in a much less favorable position than Adam, for while Adam was abundantly supplied with everything pure and undefiled and tested only by the smallest prohibition concerning the tree of knowledge, Christ lived surrounded by sinners under intensely subtle and misleading influences. He took human nature in its fallen condition with its infirmities and degeneracy, yet without the taint of sin or sinfulness and without any evil propensity to disobedience or yielding to sin. He held fast to God and His word under temptation, resisted every temptation, kept His innocence and remained ever sinless, so that Satan found nothing in Him to answer or encourage temptation. He is man's Advocate and Redeemer, the express image of the Father's person and man's Elder Brother, whom man is to look to lest he be wearied and faint, loving every human being for His sake while looking to no human as supreme in counsel or unerring in wisdom.

He passed over the same ground where Adam stumbled and fell, standing in Adam's place where Adam stood on probation, tested and tried as all human beings are, with real temptation and real possibility of failing. He bore the Eden test that Adam failed to endure, including the long single-handed fast and conflict in the wilderness with the prince of darkness and prince of the powers of darkness where man's salvation was at stake. There He met Satan coming as an angel of light to induce Him to sin and bring the race fully under evil, meeting the three leading temptations and every test humans will meet. He lived in full dependence upon God, combining divinity with humanity so that His human arm reaches the race while His divine arm grasps the Infinite, uniting man to God and God to man. He never transgressed in one point but withstood without swerving and came off conqueror, overcoming on behalf of the human race and bearing its sins and infirmities, so that His offering would not fail and fallen men need not perish.

As substitute and surety He bore human guilt, the guilt of Adam's descendants, the Father's wrath, sin's judicial punishment, the curse and debt for past offences, offering Himself as a sacrifice to redeem men from the law's curse. Only the sinless Son of God who created man could make an acceptable atonement proportionate to sin, for humanity cannot atone for itself and even the life of an angel could not be accepted or give probation. His suffering for the world's sins was proportionate to the greatness of His purity and the magnitude of the offense, bearing on the cross the iniquity of the whole world even to feeling forsaken by God. He alone could bear the punishment of disobedience, satisfy justice, remove sin's dishonor, and restore what humanity forfeited.

Through Him fallen people have another trial, a second probation and new trial, for as Mediator He saved the race from immediate death and eternal ruin by taking man's guilt upon Himself as soon as Adam sinned. Through Christ standing in Adam's place and taking the penalty of his sin, Adam received another trial with postponed judgment and postponed day of judgment, with freedom and opportunity to choose, and Adam and Eve were given probation to return to allegiance including their descendants. That probation is now, in which every son and daughter of Adam is tested and tried whether men and women will return to allegiance to Him, and Christ's work in this second trial includes His part in temperance. By withstanding every temptation of Satan as an angel of light and redeeming Adam's disgraceful failure and fall, He gives men a new probation and trial, drawing them from following Adam's example to live under His sway in obedience, and providing redemption and opportunity to find freedom from sin and bondage.

His gift answers the many sins of the human race with hope of restoration to God's favor, redeeming Adam's disgraceful failure and fall so fallen men need not perish. He purchased humanity by humiliation and suffering, laying aside His royal robe and crown to clothe humanity with divinity and be born a babe in Bethlehem, elevating humanity in moral value with God. His work is to restore the moral image of God in man and reshape character, a gift and promise belonging to fathers, mothers and children, and to give life and immortality in contrast to the condemnation, wretchedness and death brought by Adam's transgression. He redeemed humanity and the dominion lost by the first Adam and restores what Adam lost through disobedience, taking humanity's sinful nature while remaining pure and sinless. By remaining victorious and defeating Satan He placed the race on vantage ground with God with all the treasures of heaven at its disposal, so there is no excuse for sin, and through His strength people can overcome the enemy and receive eternal life.

Law, Grace, and Justification

The free gift could not come by setting aside the law, for the law is sacred and immutable as the foundation of government in heaven as well as on earth, and not one precept, not one jot or tittle, could be abrogated or changed to meet man in his fallen condition. The provision of another trial was not an unconditional pardon, for benevolence was not set forth at the expense of justice nor the principles of righteousness set aside. To do so would have exalted the sinner in impenitence and encouraged transgression instead of abating it. Only the Son who had created man could make acceptable atonement for its transgression, since even the life of an angel could not be accepted as a sacrifice, and He stepped in to pledge His own life as the penalty so man might have another trial.

The free gift unto justification from many offences avails only for those who return to allegiance and loyalty to God and obey the law they violated. It opens a way whereby the guilty race, sold to the enemy and unable of itself to do good or redeem itself, may come to God through Christ by doing the commandments. Christ honored the law and gave dignity to it rather than destroying it, bringing man back to it and reconciling him to the Father by suffering for transgression and paying the debt for past offences. Bearing the penalty of the law He gives the sinner another chance and a second trial and reinstates him in favor, bearing past transgressions and imparting His righteousness to make it possible to keep the holy law. He will never become a party to sin, leaving no hope that sinners can be saved in their sins.

By passing over the same ground where Adam stumbled and fell and withstanding temptation without swerving from allegiance, Christ overcame where Adam failed in disgraceful fall and thereby revealed that men can keep God's law. This answered Satan's claim over the whole race and his declaration that no man could keep God's law after Adam's disobedience. The sacrifice made on Calvary was perfect and complete, and the free gift in Christ outweighs Adam's fall. The same power given to Christ is given to believers, with sufficient grace and abundant grace to work away from natural defects and tendencies, to come off more than conquerors without need to go into iniquity, and to be overcomers. To plead inability to live up to the requirements because of Adam casts reproach upon God and denies the sufficiency of Christ, who is man's only hope. His bearing of sin both provides pardon and makes it possible to keep the law.

The fall called for grace to appear in behalf of sinners, and the meaning of grace would never have been learned had man not fallen under condemnation. Grace is God's favor shown to undeserving human beings, not given to the sinless angels who serve and obey Him because they never sinned and never needed it. Man did not seek after it, but it was sent in search of man. God rejoices to bestow it on everyone who hungers for it, not because worthy but because utterly unworthy, with need itself as the qualification giving assurance of receiving the gift.

Christ's offering provides pardon for the guilty and freely imputes His purity and righteousness without price, so believers stand before God innocent and accepted. Bearing the penalty of past transgressions, He brings the race back into the Father's favor and into right relation as God's children and partakers of the divine nature. This comes through the daily quickening, reviving and strengthening work of His Spirit, eating His flesh and drinking His blood, with the promise that though dead they shall live and eternal life shall never become extinct. Only through the merits of His blood is the highest elevation possible, and without accepting Him as substitute it would be impossible. By His own merits He elevates man, having clothed divinity with humanity to associate with the fallen race and reach man where he is, standing at its head because man can accomplish nothing without God.

He humbled Himself to take the nature of man in its fallen condition with its infirmities and degeneracy, taking humanity's sinful nature in order to rescue humanity from degradation and restore what Adam lost. Yet He did not take the taint of sin or its sinfulness, remaining pure and sinless. Combining divinity with humanity, He became man's head and Elder Brother with intense interest in human beings and keen feeling of the sinfulness and shame of sin. In that union He came to prove that human beings can through the power of God live sinless lives.

Christian Overcoming and Mission

Through the strength of Christ the enemy can be overcome and eternal life received, for as the second Adam He redeemed humanity from the suffering of the fall and began redemption where ruin began, overcoming temptation so that by cooperation with divine influence men and women may be freed from sin's power through His name. He passed over the very ground where Adam stumbled, meeting every test and temptation that any person will ever meet, enduring the wilderness conflict and the assaults of the foe as an angel of light in full dependence upon God, never transgressing in one point so that His offering would not fail. Because He withstood without swerving where Adam fell, He both reverses condemnation and opens a path that believers can follow by depending on Deity as He did. Those who deny self daily, take up the cross, and follow the path He traveled will endure test and trial as He did, overcome the world, reach God's standard to win back what Adam lost, and at last be crowned conquerors with Him.

As Adam's one disobedience entailed sin and deterioration upon children's children, so following Christ's steadfast purity and perfecting faultless character leaves righteousness to future generations, improving the race and making the world as Eden instead of a desert of sin. The fall did not cause God to give a new order of energies and passions nor to implant sinful propensities, but Christ began His work of conversion as soon as transgression entered, so that through obedience to the law and faith the lost image may be regained. Through cultivation of righteous principles victory over the bias to evil may be gained, the warped senses purified, the perverted faculties restored from objects that lead away from God, a new character formed, and the debasement of sin overcome by grace bestowed from heaven.

The inheritance from Adam is disobedience, guilt, and death, but the gift of Jesus Christ to restore the moral image of God and reshape character belongs to fathers and mothers and to their children. By nature man is fallen and stands under the just condemnation and sentence of a holy God as helpless, degraded, ignorant, hopeless, and ready to perish, and that condemned state is what gospel work must address. The test of missionary methods is whether those ministered to show true conversion out of that state, for where large means and labor produce little true conversion the methods are not after the gospel order. To meet this peril Jesus left the royal courts of heaven, clothed divinity with humanity, and brought a message and way of deliverance adapted in every way to human necessity and essential for every soul who would have eternal life.

God means what He says and His commands cannot be set aside with impunity, for the single disobedience in listening to the enemy brought guilt and sorrow upon the world at infinite expense, even the humiliation, rejection, and crucifixion of the Majesty of Heaven who came to bless and to save from the penalty of that crime. Partial observance of the Sabbath is therefore not accepted, and profession whose life contradicts belief does more harm to sinners than no profession. The second trial given to man exists entirely because Christ redeemed Adam's disgraceful failure by withstanding every temptation, and His part in that second trial includes the work of temperance. Believers are to look to Him who endured the contradiction of sinners lest they be wearied and faint, loving every human being for His sake while looking to no human as supreme in counsel or unerring in wisdom.