02.11. III. Gospel-Righteousness Provides for the Believer’s Eternal Security (ch. 5).
III. Gospel-Righteousness Provides for the Believer’s Eternal Security (Rom 5:1-21).
I. Therefore being justified by faith (Rom 5:1-11). The sevenfold result of justification is shown in this passage. By reason of the gospel righteousness bestowed in response to faith, the believer has
(1) Peace with God (Rom 5:1). Christ Himself is our peace (Eph 2:14). The American Revisers have changed the we have to let us have. In favor of the former are the American portion of the Revision Committee, also H. A. W. Meyer, Godet and others. Meyer says the imperative is utterly unsuitable to the sense. On this Dr. Stifler says, The question turns on the length of a single vowel, and the manuscripts are not trustworthy on this point; they frequently confound the long and short o. The logic must decide. ‘Peace’ does not mean primarily tranquility of mind, but that state of things ensuing from a cessation of hostilities, freedom from strife (Rom 3:17; Acts 12:20). This peaceful state came ‘through our Lord Jesus Christ,’ Who averted the wrath of God. It is possible by not noting this meaning of the word ‘peace’ that the mode of the verb was changed. For justification gives peace in this sense even when there may be no settled tranquility of the heart (compare Php 4:7-9).
(2) Access by faith into this grace wherein we stand (Rom 5:2). Access means a way in. Man, apart from Christ, is shut out from God’s presence and has no way of approach unto Him. But gospel-righteousness gives him an open door, even Him who said, I am the Door: by Me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture (John 10:9). By Him we have access by faith. A standing in grace is now conferred upon the believer. The gospel has been preached unto him, which also he has received, and wherein he stands (1Co 15:1). His standing before God is the standing of Christ Himself. He is accepted in the Beloved (Eph 1:6). It is all of grace, and having become a son, the believer is exhorted to be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus (2Ti 2:1). All this is his through the Lord Jesus Christ, Who, knowing no sin, was made sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him (2Co 5:21). This is gospel-righteousness.
(3) And rejoice in hope of the glory of God (Rom 5:2). What was said above, says Dr. Stifler, on the reading ‘let us have’ is equally true here on the wrong reading ‘let us rejoice,’ The King James Version is correct. Perhaps the exhortation is necessary, in order to call our attention to what is really ours as the result of justification. The unregenerate sinner has no joy in the prospective glory of God; but to the believer it is given to rejoice in hope of that glory. Christ having made peace for him through the blood of His cross (Col 1:20), thus opened for him a way in to God’s presence and fellowship, and establishing his standing before God, the believer looks forward with rejoicing to the time when the whole earth shall be full of God’s glory.
(4) And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also (Rom 5:3). For we glory read we rejoice, as in Rom 5:2. Not only do we rejoice in the coming glory, but also the sufferings attending us on the way. The reason for this is given. The Christian may exult even in tribulation, knowing that tribulation worketh patience (i. e., endurance); and patience (or endurance) worketh experience; and experience, hope (Rom 5:3-4). And as for this hope, it is a hope that maketh not ashamed, a hope that can never bring disappointment, a hope that is sure of fruition. The reason for this is shown in the next clause of the passage.
(5) Because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts (Rom 5:5). The love of God here spoken of is not our love for God, nor God’s love for us, but just God’s own love as it pours forth from His great loving heart. Let it not be forgotten that this indwelling love is a proof that the believer’s hope will never shame him. He may boldly confess his hope because he has God’s love in his heart. We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren. He that loveth not his brother abideth in death Hereby perceive we the love of God, because He laid down His life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren Hereby we know that we are of the truth, and shall assure our hearts before Him(1Jn 3:14-19)
(6) The Holy Spirit is given unto us (Rom 5:5). He not only puts God’s love into our hearts, but He Himself dwells in us (Rom 8:9). Love is the Spirit’s fruit (Gal 5:22), borne in us by His own presence. We know that He liveth in us, because of the presence within us of God’s love. If we love one another, that fact is the proof that God dwelleth in us, and (thus) His love is perfected in us (1Jn 4:12). It is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure (Php 2:13). Nothing is more clearly taught in the New Testament than that the Holy Spirit is given to each believer as an indwelling presence (1Co 6:19; Rom 8:9).
(7) We also joy in God (Rom 5:11). This is the capstone of the magnificent temple of the believer’s inheritance resulting from gospel-righteousness. He is brought to the place of joy in God. Not merely in the blessings of God, but in God Himself. His soul crieth out after God, the living God, and only God can satisfy him. This joy in God is through our Lord Jesus Christ, through Whom we have now received the reconciliation. Atonement is wrong here. The word used is the same as the one occurring twice in verse 10. The reconciliation we have received is the changed relation between God and us. The argument for the believer’s security in Christ reaches its climax here, ending where it began. We rejoice in hope of the glory of God; that is to say, We joy in God, and this on account of the reconciliation which has been accomplished by the gospel. The steps leading up to this climax are in Rom 5:6-10, which contain a threefold antithesis arguing the proposition that the saved are eternally safe. It sets forth that this is true because (1) God, on account of His great love for His enemies, gave His Son to die for them; much more then, shall these enemies, now justified, be kept safe, through Christ, from the wrath to come (compare vs. 8, g with 1Th 1:9-10); it is true furthermore (2) because, having reconciled us to Himself when we were His enemies, He surely will preserve us who have become His friends (compare Rom 5:10 with Col 1:21-22); and it is true (3) because Christ, Who died to save us, now lives to keep us saved (compare Rom 5:10 with Heb 7:25; 1Pe 1:5).
We cannot doubt God’s love toward us, for Christ died for us while we were without strength and ungodly (Rom 5:6). Someone might be found to die for a good man, but Christ died for sinners, and this is another proof of God’s love for us (Rom 5:7-8). It follows, then, that being justified by His blood, we shall be kept safe in Christ from the wrath to come (Rom 5:9). Since by Christ’s death we who were enemies were reconciled to God, much more shall we, by Christ’s life at God’s right hand, be kept safe. Because He lives we shall live also (Rom 5:10). In a word the believer has been brought into a new state of reconciliation, and it is made evident that God will keep him in this state. Therefore he rejoices in God. To God I’m reconciled;
His pardoning voice I hear;
He owns me for His child;
I can no longer fear.
With confidence I now draw nigh,
And ‘Father, Abba, Father,’ cry.
2. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, through Whom we have now received the reconciliation (n, R. V.). It has not been sufficiently noted by expositors, said Dr. Stifler, that the word ‘received’ (Rom 5:11) is not active, but passive, equivalent to ‘made recipients of.’ The argument for the ‘assurance of salvation secured for the present and the future’ (H. A. W. Meyer) is conducted wholly from the divine side. .If it is objected that, after all, faith is a necessary condition of salvation, and if it fails, all fails, why this very point is secured by the whole argument. If when we were hateful to God He changed toward us, will He—now that we have been made recipients in His grace of that saving change— will He now not insure the condition of its perpetuity? Will God care for everything concerning the believer, support him in trials, shield him in temptation, shed His love abroad in his heart, but leave him to himself in the vital point, his faith? The reconciled man’s faith is the first and the chief object of the divine care. The single aim of the argument is the performance of justification by faith.
3. Wherefore (Rom 5:12-21). The all-inclusive aspect of Christ’s redemptive work on the cross is set forth in this passage. Adam and Christ are brought into contrast to show the effect of Adam’s sin on the one hand and Christ’s atoning death on the other.
Rom 5:13-17 being parenthetical, Rom 5:12 and Rom 5:18 should be read together. The Wherefore introducing Rom 5:12 is literally On this account. This links the new paragraph beginning here with the one preceding it, and shows that the topic is unchanged. Rom 5:12 and Rom 5:18 may be read,
Therefore, as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin; and so death passed unto all men, for that all sinned; so then, as through one trespass it (the trespass) came to all men unto condemnation; so also through one righteous act it (the righteous act) came to all men unto justification of life (Improved Version). The argument here—and the argument is elaborated in the intervening parenthetical passage, as we shall see—is that when Adam sinned all mankind sinned in him. This is proved from the fact that physical death was the common lot of all men from Adam to Moses. Irresponsible persons, including infants and the insane, died as well as others; and as these could not have died as the result of any sins of their own, and as death is the result of sin, it is argued that their death was the outgrowth of their sin when they were yet in Adam’s loins. A similar argument is found in Heb 7:9-10, where it is declared that Levi paid tithes to Melchizedek in Abraham, for he was yet in the loins of his father, when Melchizedek met him.
Before he had begotten a single child, Adam fell into sin, and, as a result, his nature became sinful and corrupt and death-dealing. And his offspring, which of course includes the whole human family, has inherited from him the poison of his fallen nature and the seeds of death. It is on this account that man dies. It is not a man’s own sinful acts in his own person that cause his death. He dies because he has inherited a dying nature, and he has inherited a dying nature because he sinned in his father Adam. This is unfolded in the parenthetical verses, Rom 5:13-17. Sin was in the world before the law was issued on Sinai, but, in the absence of law, sin is not charged against men. Nevertheless men died —”death reigned from Adam to Moses.” Now, why did they die, if death is the penalty for our sinful acts? There was no law to transgress, and yet death reigned even over them that had not sinned after the similitude (or likeness) of Adam’s transgression. Adam transgressed a law when he sinned: God had said that of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil he must not eat, and that if he ate of it, he should die. When he ate, he transgressed this law and incurred its penalty, therefore he died; on the day that he ate of it he died spiritually, being cut off for the time being from the life of God; and in due time he died physically, and this because he had transgressed the law of God. His descendants lived and multiplied through the centuries from Adam to Moses; and, although they were not under law, they died. This shows that they died because they all had sinned against law in the act of Adam while they were yet in his loins, who is a figure of Him that was to come. This little word—”Him that was to come”— points to the antidote provided of God for the awful and deadly poison of sin, and the fact that the antidote is ready and abundant and efficacious delivers God from the suspicion of arbitrary and unjust dealing with men. In the first place, their sinful condition was not due to any divine fiat; it was rather the result of wilful disobedience on man’s part. And in the second place, God has done what he needed not to do in providing the remedy. He has done it, not to discharge an obligation, but for the great love wherewith he loved us. The language in Rom 5:15-17 is very much involved, and the translators are in confusion about it. As given in the King James Version, But not as the offence, so also is the free gift and not as it was by one that sinned, so is the gift, etc., it is awkward and hard to be understood. The revisers only change the word offence to trespass and do not help much. Mr. Darby suggests a way out of the difficulty by reading, But shall not the act of favour be as the offence? and shall not as by one that sinned be the gift? But even he gives the common reading in a foot-note, showing that he is uncertain about the matter.
Conybeare and Howson render it: But far greater is the gift than was the transgression; for if by the sin of one man (Adam), death passed upon the many, much more in the grace of the one man Jesus Christ has the freeness of God’s bounty overflowed unto the many. Moreover the boon (of God) exceeds the fruit of Adam’s sin; for the doom came, out of one offence, a sentence of condemnation; but the gift comes, out of many offences, a sentence of acquittal. For if the reign of death was established by the one man (Adam), through the sin of him alone; far more shall the reign of life be established, in those who receive the overflowing fulness of the free gift of righteousness, by the one man Jesus Christ.
Moffatt’s Historical New Testament reads: But very different is the free gift from the trespass. For since the many died by the one man’s trespass, much more did the grace of God and that free gift which is by the grace of the man Jesus Christ abound to the many. And the free gift is not occasioned as by one that sinned. For while the judgment passed from one into condemnation, the free gift passed from many trespasses into justification.
Dr. Weymouth translates: But God’s free gift immeasurably outweighs the transgression (or, false step). For if through the transgression of the one individual the mass of mankind have died, infinitely greater is the generosity with which God’s grace, and the gift given in His grace which found expression in the one man Jesus Christ, have been bestowed on the mass of mankind. And it is not with the gift as it was with the results of one individual’s sin; for the judgment which one individual provoked resulted in condemnation, whereas the free gift after a multitude of transgressions results in acquittal. For if, through the transgression of the one individual, death made use of the one individual to seize the sovereignty, all the more shall those who receive God’s overflowing grace and gift of righteousness reign as kings in life through the one individual, Jesus Christ. The parenthesis ends with Rom 5:17. The American Revision should be consulted in the study of the final verses of the chapter, for the Revisers have preserved to us the definite article used in the Greek throughout the passage. Thus we read: So then as through one .trespass the judgment came unto all men to condemnation; even so through one act of righteousness the free gift came unto all men to justification of life. For as through the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the one shall the many be made righteous. And the law came in besides, that the trespass might abound; but where sin abounded, grace did abound more exceedingly: that, as sin reigned in death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. This passage clearly teaches that over against the fact that men are by nature children of wrath God has set the other fact that by His grace the Lord Jesus on the cross tasted death for every man. If in Adam’s sin, the many were constituted sinners, it is also true that in Christ’s death, the many were constituted righteous. The reason for the law is given in Rom 5:20. It entered, that the offence might abound. As Gal 3:19 puts it, It was added (to the Abrahamic covenant) because (literally, for the sake) of transgressions; and it was given only temporarily, till the Seed (i. e., Christ) should come, to Whom the promise was made. In other words, the law was given to magnify the sinfulness of sin, that sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful (Rom 7:13). But even for this condition, God’s remedy was at hand. Where sin increased, grace has overflowed; in order that as sin has exercised kingly sway in inflicting death, so grace, too, may exercise kingly sway in bestowing a righteousness which results in the Life of the Ages through Jesus Christ our Lord (Rom 5:20-21, Weymouth).
We conclude our study by quoting a paraphrase of this passage from the pen of Professor George Barker Stevens: In view of the truths which have been established, we may compare Christ, His work, and its result, salvation, with Adam, his fatal transgression, and its consequence, physical death, which became the portion of all because his sin involved as its result the sinning of all his descendants. I affirm this relation between sin and death on the ground that even before the law came in to condemn sin and to stamp it as transgression, all were falling a prey to death; even those who lived during this period and had, unlike Adam, no explicit, positive command which they could break, continued to die. (But, before carrying out the comparison between Adam and his work, and Christ and His work, note certain differences. The grace of God in Christ is more than a match for the sin which began with Adam and spread itself over all mankind. Man’s condemnation issued from one trespass, but God’s restoring grace has more power than many trespasses even, since it saves man from the power of many. We may be sure of this because it is more easily conceivable and more certain that those who receive God’s gift in Christ will triumph over sin than that all should have become involved in death in consequence of Adam’s trespass). So then— as we began to say—as by Adam’s sin all became involved in death, by Christ’s work of righteous obedience is acceptance with God opened to all, for the two cases are parallel. Christ is the second Adam, come to restore to God’s favor those who as descendants of the first Adam, are lost to it. Now the Old Testament system, whose saving function I deny, had just the purpose to bring out this indwelling sin into its greatest strength, so that the case of man was rendered even more hopeless than before; but the grace of God in Christ is able to overcome even this power of sin when thus intensified by the law and to bring man back to divine favour and assure him of eternal bliss.