The epistle reading in church on the first Sunday of Lent was Romans 5:12-19. It made me take a closer look at the whole chapter to see what Paul is trying to communicate in this pivotal passage. I wanted to gain a deeper understanding of what it means to “rejoice in hope of the glory of God” (v. 2), and what it is we are proclaiming when we celebrate the Resurrection.
In a recent post (blogs.christianpost.com/ambassador-of-reconciliation/does-god-love-everybody-19895/) I explored the question of whether God loves everybody or just the elect or just those who love Him and keep His commands. Romans 5 reinforces the conclusion that God indeed loves the whole world (Jn. 3:16), that is, all humanity, and that Jesus died for the whole world (1 Jn. 2:2).
Christ died for His enemies, the sinners, the ungodly—that’s us! God’s love for us is shown in the fact that Jesus died for us while we were yet sinners, when we had no strength, when we were mired in ungodliness. And now that Jesus has laid down His life for His enemies, will He ever cast them off irretrievably? No! “Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.”
Some will say that these verses apply only to believers—to those who choose to come to Christ before they die, or those whom God has chosen out of all the people on earth. But in multiple parallelisms throughout the chapter, Paul shows the full extent of Christ’s saving work. For example,
Let’s break down the passage into its parts:
18a—Therefore as by the offence of one, judgment came upon all men to condemnation,
18b— even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life.
19a— For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners,
19b— so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous.
Notice the strong parallels within and between the verses: 18a is parallel to 18b (18a || 18b), 19a is parallel to 19b (19a || 19b), and 18a-b is parallel to 19a-b (18a-b || 19a-b):
So verse 18 says that judgment and condemnation came upon all because of Adam’s sin, and justification and life came upon all because of Jesus’ righteousness. Verse 19 is a restatement of verse 18, to emphasize the fact that the extent of the justification is as great as the extent of the condemnation. “Many” certainly means all in the first half of the verse; the second half is parallel so the extent of “many” is the same!
Similar parallels happen in the preceding verses in Romans, as well as in 1 Corinthians 15:
Over and over Paul states unequivocally that Adam brought death to all and Jesus brings life to all. And in the verses that use the term “many,” we all agree that “many” means everybody (except Jesus Himself) when it comes to sin and death; the strong parallelism suggests that “many” also means everybody when it comes to grace, justification, and life. In fact, when Paul says, “But not as the offence, so also is the free gift” and “not as it was by one that sinned, so is the gift,” I think he means that the gift is far *greater *than the offense! Throughout the chapter, when Paul uses the terms “much more,” “abound,” “abundance,” he’s talking about the fact that grace far surpasses sin.
After hearing the Romans passage read in church on Sunday, I posted it on my Facebook page and gave a challenge to my FB friends, which I will give to you readers:
In an Easter meditation (blogs.christianpost.com/ambassador-of-reconciliation/true-hope-9070/) two years ago, I told about my worst Easter ever, and how I found it so difficult to rejoice in my own salvation while under the weight of believing that most people would never receive the gift of God’s grace. Now that I have assurance that “grace reigns” (Rom. 5:21) and that Jesus’ death and resurrection will completely accomplish the redemption of the world, I can fully “rejoice in the hope of the glory of God” (Rom. 5:2).
3/18/2014
I just re-read 2 Corinthians 5, which reiterates that Christ died for all and tells why:
He died not just that we might escape from hell, but that we might live for Him. The passage goes on to say that He reconciled us to Himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, so that we might call others to Him. The message is that He is reconciling the world to Himself through Christ, and He wants all people to become the righteousness of God in Him:
We are chosen to be ambassadors for Christ. God is making His appeal to the world through us, calling all to be reconciled to God and to become the righteousness of God in Christ.
