On this account, on account of the aspects of our justification and reconciliation "through our Lord Jesus Christ" which he has just presented, it is[75] just as through one man sin entered into the world, the world of man, and, through sin, death, and so to all men death travelled, διῆλθε, penetrated, pervaded, inasmuch as all sinned; the Race sinning in its Head, the Nature in its representative Bearer. The facts of human life and death shew that sin did thus pervade the race, as to liability, and as to penalty: For until law came sin was in the world; it was present all along, in the ages previous to the great Legislation. But sin is not imputed, is not put down as debt for penalty, where law does not exist, where in no sense is there statute to be obeyed or broken, whether that statute takes articulate expression or not.[76] But death became king (ἐβασίλευσεν), from Adam down to Moses, even over those who did not sin on the model of the transgression of Adam—who is (in the present tense of the plan of God) pattern of the Coming One.
He argues from the fact of death, and from its universality, which implies a universality of liability, of guilt. According to the Scriptures, death is essentially penal in the case of man, who was created not to die but to live. How that purpose would have been fulfilled if "the image of God" had not sinned against Him, we do not know. We need not think that the fulfilment would have violated any natural process; higher processes might have governed the case, in perfect harmony with the surroundings of terrestrial life, till perhaps that life was transfigured, as by a necessary development, into the celestial and immortal. But however, the record does connect, for man, the fact of death with the fact of sin, offence, transgression. And the fact of death is universal, and so has been from the first. And thus it includes generations most remote from the knowledge of a revealed code. And it includes individuals most incapable of a conscious act of transgression such as Adam's was; it includes the heathen, and the infant, and the imbecile. Therefore wherever there is human nature, since Adam fell, there is sin, in its form of guilt. And therefore, in some sense which perhaps only the supreme Theologian Himself fully knows, but which we can follow a little way, all men offended in the First Man—so favourably conditioned, so gently tested. The guilt contracted by him is possessed also by them. And thus is he "the pattern of the Coming One."
For now the glorious Coming One, the Seed of the Woman, the blessed Lord of the Promise, rises on the view, in His likeness and in His contrast. Writing to Corinth from Macedonia, about a year before, St Paul had called him (1 Cor. xv. 45, 47) "the Second Adam," "the Second Man"; and had drawn in outline the parallel he here elaborates. "In Adam all die; even so in Christ all shall be made alive." It was a thought which he had learned in Judaism,[77] but which his Master had affirmed to him in Christianity; and noble indeed and far-reaching is its use of it in this exposition of the sinner's hope.
Ver. 15.
But not as the transgression, so the gracious gift (χάρισμα). For if, by the transgression of the one, the many, the many affected by it, died, much rather did the grace of God. His benignant action, and the gift, the grant of our acceptance, in the grace of the one Man, Jesus Christ, ("in His grace," because involved in His benignant action, in His redeeming work) abound unto the many whom it, whom He, affected.
We observe here some of the phrases in detail. "The One"; "the One Man":—"the one," in each case, is related to "the many" involved, in bane or in blessing respectively. "The One Man":—so the Second Adam is designated, not the First. As to the First, "it goes unsaid" that he is man. As to the Second, it is infinitely wonderful, and of eternal import, that He, as truly, as completely, is one with us, is Man of men. "Much rather did the grace, and the gift, abound":—the thought given here is that while the dread sequel of the Fall was solemnly permitted, as good in law, the sequel of the divine counter-work was gladly sped by the Lord's willing love, and was carried to a glorious overflow, to an altogether unmerited effect, in the present and eternal blessing of the justified. "The many," twice mentioned in this verse, are the whole company which, in each case, stands related to the respective Representative. It is the whole race in the case of the Fall; it is the "many brethren" of the Second Adam in the case of the Reconciliation. The question is not of numerical comparison between the two, but of the numerousness of each host in relation to the oneness of its covenant Head. What the numerousness of the "many brethren" will be we know—and we do not know; for it will be "a great multitude, which no one can number." But that is not in the question here. The emphasis, the "much rather," the "abundance," lies not on the compared numbers, but on the amplitude of the blessing which overflows upon "the many" from the justifying work of the One.
He proceeds, developing the thought. From the act of each Representative, from Adam's Fall and Christ's Atonement, there issued results of dominion, of royalty. But what was the contrast of the cases! In the Fall, the sin of the One brought upon "the many" judgment, sentence, and the reign of death over them. In the Atonement, the righteousness of the One brought upon "the many" an "abundance," an overflow, a generous largeness and love of acceptance, and the power of life eternal, and a prerogative of royal rule over sin and death; the emancipated captives treading upon their tyrants' necks. We follow out the Apostle's wording:
Ver. 16.
And not as through the one who sinned, who fell, so is the gift; our acceptance in our Second Head does not follow the law of mere and strict retribution which appears in our fall in our first Head. (For, he adds in emphatic parenthesis, the judgment did issue, from one transgression,[78] in condemnation, in sentence of death; but the gracious gift issued, from many transgressions,—not indeed as if earned by them, as if caused by them, but as occasioned by them; for this wonderful process of mercy found in our sins, as well as in our Fall, a reason for the Cross—in a deed of justification.)[79] |Ver. 17.|For if in one transgression,[80] "in" it, as the effect is involved in its cause, death came to reign (ἐβασίλευσε) through the one offender,[81] much rather those who are receiving, in their successive cases and generations, that (τὴν) abundance of the grace just spoken of (ver. 15: χάρις, ἐπερίσσευσε), and of the free gift of righteousness, of acceptance, shall, in life, life eternal, begun now, to end never, reign over their former tyrants through the One, their glorious One, Jesus Christ.
And now he sums up the whole in one comprehensive inference and affirmation. "The One," "the many"; "the One," "the all"; the whole mercy for the all due to the one work of the One;—such is the ground-thought all along. It is illustrated by "the one" and "the many" of the Fall, but still so as to throw the real weight of every word not upon the Fall but upon the Acceptance. Here, as throughout this paragraph, we should greatly mistake if we thought that the illustration and the object illustrated were to be pressed, detail by detail, into one mould. To cite an instance to the contrary, we are certainly not to take him to mean that because Adam's "many" are not only fallen in him, but actually guilty, therefore Christ's "many" are not only accepted in Him, but actually and personally meritorious of acceptance. The whole Epistle negatives that thought. Nor again are we to think, as we ponder ver. 18, that because "the condemnation" was "to all men" in the sense of their being not only condemnable but actually condemned, therefore "the justification of life" was "to all men" in the sense that all mankind are actually justified. Here again the whole Epistle, and the whole message of St Paul about our acceptance, are on the other side. The provision is for the genus, for man; but the possession is for men—who believe.[82] No; these great details in the parallel need our reverent caution, lest we think peace where there is, and can be, none. The force of the parallel lies in the broader and deeper factors of the two matters. It lies in the mysterious phenomenon of covenant headship, as affecting both our Fall and our Acceptance; in the power upon the many, in each case, of the deed of the One; and then in the magnificent fulness and positiveness of result in the case of our salvation. In our Fall, sin merely worked itself out into doom and death. In our Acceptance, the Judge's award is positively crowned and as it were loaded with gifts and treasures. It brings with it, in ways not described here, but amply shewn in other Scriptures, a living union with a Head who is our life, and in whom we possess already the powers of heavenly being in their essence. It brings with it not only the approval of the Law, but accession to a throne. The justified sinner is a king already, in his Head, over the power of sin, over the fear of death. And he is on his way to a royalty in the eternal future which shall make him great indeed, great in his Lord.