Chapter 5:
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| Geneva
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| Jamieson Faussett Brown
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| Matthew Henry
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Introduction 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 Acts 1 Corinthians
Romans 5
Concise Complete
The happy effects of justification through faith in the
righteousness of Christ. (1-5) That we are reconciled by his blood. (6-11) The
fall of Adam brought all mankind into sin and death. (12-14) The grace of God,
through the righteousness of Christ, has more power to bring salvation, than
Adam's sin had to bring misery, (15-19) as grace did superabound. (20,21)
Verses 1-5 A
blessed change takes place in the sinner's state, when he becomes a true
believer, whatever he has been. Being justified by faith he has peace with God.
The holy, righteous God, cannot be at peace with a sinner, while under the guilt
of sin. Justification takes away the guilt, and so makes way for peace. This is
through our Lord Jesus Christ; through him as the great Peace-maker, the
Mediator between God and man. The saints' happy state is a state of grace. Into
this grace we are brought, which teaches that we were not born in this state. We
could not have got into it of ourselves, but we are led into it, as pardoned
offenders. Therein we stand, a posture that denotes perseverance; we stand firm
and safe, upheld by the power of the enemy. And those who have hope for the
glory of God hereafter, have enough to rejoice in now. Tribulation worketh
patience, not in and of itself, but the powerful grace of God working in and
with the tribulation. Patient sufferers have most of the Divine consolations,
which abound as afflictions abound. It works needful experience of ourselves.
This hope will not disappoint, because it is sealed with the Holy Spirit as a
Spirit of love. It is the gracious work of the blessed Spirit to shed abroad the
love of God in the hearts of all the saints. A right sense of God's love to us,
will make us not ashamed, either of our hope, or of our sufferings for him.
Verses 6-11 Christ
died for sinners; not only such as were useless, but such as were guilty and
hateful; such that their everlasting destruction would be to the glory of God's
justice. Christ died to save us, not in our sins, but from our sins; and we were
yet sinners when he died for us. Nay, the carnal mind is not only an enemy to
God, but enmity itself, chap.
1:21 . But God designed to
deliver from sin, and to work a great change. While the sinful state continues,
God loathes the sinner, and the sinner loathes God,
zechariah 11:8 . And
that for such as these Christ should die, is a mystery; no other such an
instance of love is known, so that it may well be the employment of eternity to
adore and wonder at it. Again; what idea had the apostle when he supposed the
case of some one dying for a righteous man? And yet he only put it as a thing
that might be. Was it not the undergoing this suffering, that the person
intended to be benefitted might be released therefrom? But from what are
believers in Christ released by his death? Not from bodily death; for that they
all do and must endure. The evil, from which the deliverance could be effected
only in this astonishing manner, must be more dreadful than natural death. There
is no evil, to which the argument can be applied, except that which the apostle
actually affirms, sin, and wrath, the punishment of sin, determined by the
unerring justice of God. And if, by Divine grace, they were thus brought to
repent, and to believe in Christ, and thus were justified by the price of his
bloodshedding, and by faith in that atonement, much more through Him who died
for them and rose again, would they be kept from falling under the power of sin
and Satan, or departing finally from him. The living Lord of all, will complete
the purpose of his dying love, by saving all true believers to the uttermost.
Having such a pledge of salvation in the love of God through Christ, the apostle
declared that believers not only rejoiced in the hope of heaven, and even in
their tribulations for Christ's sake, but they gloried in God also, as their
unchangeable Friend and all-sufficient Portion, through Christ only.
Verses 12-14 The
design of what follows is plain. It is to exalt our views respecting the
blessings Christ has procured for us, by comparing them with the evil which
followed upon the fall of our first father; and by showing that these blessings
not only extend to the removal of these evils, but far beyond. Adam sinning, his
nature became guilty and corrupted, and so came to his children. Thus in him all
have sinned. And death is by sin; for death is the wages of sin. Then entered
all that misery which is the due desert of sin; temporal, spiritual, eternal
death. If Adam had not sinned, he had not died; but a sentence of death was
passed, as upon a criminal; it passed through all men, as an infectious disease
that none escape. In proof of our union with Adam, and our part in his first
transgression, observe, that sin prevailed in the world, for many ages before
the giving of the law by Moses. And death reigned in that long time, not only
over adults who wilfully sinned, but also over multitudes of infants, which
shows that they had fallen in Adam under condemnation, and that the sin of Adam
extended to all his posterity. He was a figure or type of Him that was to come
as Surety of a new covenant, for all who are related to Him.
Verses 15-19
Through one man's offence, all mankind are exposed to eternal condemnation. But
the grace and mercy of God, and the free gift of righteousness and salvation,
are through Jesus Christ, as man: yet the Lord from heaven has brought the
multitude of believers into a more safe and exalted state than that from which
they fell in Adam. This free gift did not place them anew in a state of trial,
but fixed them in a state of justification, as Adam would have been placed, had
he stood. Notwithstanding the differences, there is a striking similarity. As by
the offence of one, sin and death prevailed to the condemnation of all men, so
by the righteousness of one, grace prevailed to the justification of all related
to Christ by faith. Through the grace of God, the gift by grace has abounded to
many through Christ; yet multitudes choose to remain under the dominion of sin
and death, rather than to apply for the blessings of the reign of grace. But
Christ will in nowise cast out any who are willing to come to him.
Verses 20-21 By
Christ and his righteousness, we have more and greater privileges than we lost
by the offence of Adam. The moral law showed that many thoughts, tempers, words,
and actions, were sinful, thus transgressions were multiplied. Not making sin to
abound the more, but discovering the sinfulness of it, even as the letting in a
clearer light into a room, discovers the dust and filth which were there before,
but were not seen. The sin of Adam, and the effect of corruption in us, are the
abounding of that offence which appeared on the entrance of the law. And the
terrors of the law make gospel comforts the more sweet. Thus God the Holy Spirit
has, by the blessed apostle, delivered to us a most important truth, full of
consolation, suited to our need as sinners. Whatever one may have above another,
every man is a sinner against God, stands condemned by the law, and needs
pardon. A righteousness that is to justify cannot be made up of a mixture of sin
and holiness. There can be no title to an eternal reward without a pure and
spotless righteousness: let us look for it, even to the righteousness of Christ.
Chapter 5:
| Darby
| Geneva
| Gill
| Jamieson Faussett Brown
| Johnson
| Luther
| Matthew Henry
| Matthew Henry Concise
| Wesley
| Index
| Bible Gateway |
Introduction 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 Acts 1 Corinthians
Genesis
Exodus
Leviticus
Numbers
Deuteronomy
Joshua
Judges
Ruth
1 Samuel
2 Samuel
1 Kings
2 Kings
1 Chronicles
2 Chronicles
Ezra
Nehemiah
Esther
Job
Psalm
Proverbs
Ecclesiastes
Song of Solomon
Isaiah
Jeremiah
Lamentations
Ezekiel
Daniel
Hosea
Joel
Amos
Obadiah
Jonah
Micah
Nahum
Habakkuk
Zephaniah
Haggai
Zechariah
Malachi
Matthew
Mark
Luke
John
Acts
Romans
1 Corinthians
2 Corinthians
Galatians
Ephesians
Philippians
Colossians
1 Thessalonians
2 Thessalonians
1 Timothy
2 Timothy
Titus
Philemon
Hebrews
James
1 Peter
2 Peter
1 John
2 John
3 John
Jude
Revelation
