Context No. 2713 of 4322 · Romans

Romans 5:11-21: in context

11Not only so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation. 12Therefore, as sin entered into the world through one man, and death through sin, so death passed to all men because all sinned. 13For until the law, sin was in the world; but sin is not charged when there is no law. 14Nevertheless death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over those whose sins weren’t like Adam’s disobedience, who is a foreshadowing of him who was to come. 15But the free gift isn’t like the trespass. For if by the trespass of the one the many died, much more did the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, abound to the many. 16The gift is not as through one who sinned; for the judgment came by one to condemnation, but the free gift followed many trespasses to justification. 17For if by the trespass of the one, death reigned through the one; so much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one, Jesus Christ. 18So then as through one trespass, all men were condemned; even so through one act of righteousness, all men were justified to life. 19For as through the one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the one, many will be made righteous. 20The law came in that the trespass might abound; but where sin abounded, grace abounded more exceedingly, 21that as sin reigned in death, even so grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Paul sets two men side by side, Adam and Christ, and lets the whole human story hang between them. Through one man's disobedience sin entered the world, and death spread to everyone. Through one man's obedience comes righteousness and life. Adam, he says, was a foreshadowing of the One who was to come.

But he is careful to say the two are not simply mirror images. The free gift is not like the trespass. The ledger does not merely balance. Where one man's fall brought condemnation to many, the grace of God overflows to many far beyond it, so that "where sin abounded, grace abounded much more." Paul is not weighing equal weights. He is showing that grace outruns the ruin, reaching further and giving more than sin ever took away. The damage is real and universal; the gift is larger still.

Do I believe grace reaches further than my sin, or quietly assume my failures outweigh what God gives me in Christ?

Sources

1 Corinthians 15:22: "For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive."
Romans 6:23: "For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord."
Isaiah 1:18: "Though your sins are as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow."