Romans 5

Romans 5:1

Therefore, being thus justified by faith, we are received into peace, favour, and friendship with God, and enjoy a pleasant serenity of soul towards him, through the righteousness, resurrection, and intercession of Christ

Romans 5:2

By whom, as our Mediator, Peace-maker, and spiritual Husband, we, under the direction and influence of the Holy Ghost, have a free and open accession into this excellent state of favour and acceptance with God, and into the actual enjoyment of all saving graces implanted in our heart—in which we, with great honour, stand on the sure foundation of God’s perfections and promises, and of Christ’s person, offices, and work, remaining firmly thereon, and rejoice in the assured hope that God will quickly and exceedingly manifest the glory of his own perfections, counsels, and operations, in making us partakers of the glorious and immediate enjoyment of himself: 3. In the exercise of which hope we triumph over, and glory in, all the distressing afflictions and persecutions which befall us in life, being persuaded, by the word and Spirit of God and our own observation and experience, that they are all wisely ordered, overruled, and blessed by God, to beget in us a calm submission to his will, and patient by whatever hardships he thinks fit to lay upon us

Romans 5:4

And this patience produces much useful experience and proof of the truth of our graces under trials, and of the emptiness of worldly things, and the excellency of things spiritual and heavenly; and of God’s wise, powerful, and gracious care over us, and of his seasonably helping and supporting us, and sanctifying his providential dispensations to us. And this experience contributes to wean our affections from the things of this world, and raise them to things above, and to encourage our hopes of their eternal enjoyment

Romans 5:5

And this well-grounded hope, we certainly know, will never shamefully disappoint us, as it rests on the free favour of God, abundantly manifested to our souls; and has an earnest of its fulfilment in that ardent love to God implanted in them by the Holy Ghost, whom he has given to abide constantly in us, as our counsellor, comforter, and sanctifier, and as a witness and pledge of his free and constant love to us

Romans 5:6

For, when we were in the most sinful and miserable condition, utterly incapable of appeasing the wrath of God, or recovering ourselves from ruin and danger, nay, profanely unmindful of, and contemning God; Jesus Christ, in the most proper season, when our guilt, wickedness, and need were increased to the highest, died for us impotent, contemptible, and ungodly creatures

Romans 5:7

Among men, scarcely could any be found who would willingly sacrifice their life for the redemption of an harmless or upright man; and but few that would have enough of courage, gratitude, or friendship, to do it for the sake of a public-spirited, bountiful man, who had been, and might continue to be, an uncommon blessing to his family, friends, and country

Romans 5:8

But God has, in the most transcendent and astonishing manner, manifested his love towards us, in that while we were, by nature and practice, highly injurious to him, and to one another, and justly condemned by his law to utter destruction, Jesus Christ, his only begotten Son, according to his appointment, died a most accursed, tormenting, and shameful death, to purchase our forgiveness and eternal life

Romans 5:9

Now, if God so loved us when we were under the power and guilt of sin, much more may we hope that, having all our sins pardoned, and our persons accepted, through his righteousness as our surety, we shall certainly be delivered from all future punishments on his account

Romans 5:10

For if, when we were not only weak, sinful, and ungodly, but even malicious enemies, rebels, and traitors against God, and he had, in his word and providence and our own consciences, declared his just indignation against us, Jesus’ obedience and sufferings as our surety satisfied his justice, and opened a way for communicating his grace and favour to us; much more, being brought into a state of favour and friendship with God, shall we be effectually delivered from all sin and misery, and advanced to perfect blessedness in the immediate and eternal enjoyment of God

Romans 5:11

Having then these views, we not only rejoice in hope of receiving spiritual and eternal blessings from God, but in God himself, as our reconfited God and chief portion and glory, and in our new covenant relation to, and assured interest in, him through Jesus Christ, our only Mediator, Lord, and Saviour; by faith in whom we, Jews or Gentiles, have now, under gospel discoveries, approved of, accepted, rested upon, and taken comfort in, his righteousness, as the only atoning sacrifice that can effectually redeem us from wrath, and recommend us to the favour of God

Romans 5:12

The fall of all mankind in the first Adam further proves the universal necessity, and illustrates the nature of a free justification through the imputed righteousness of Christ, to both Jews and Gentiles; for sin by him, as our common parent and covenant head, broke in upon all men, from his eating the forbidden fruit; his first sin being imputed, and the want of original righteousness, and the corruption of nature attending it, being propagated to them, and a sentence of death, temporal, spiritual, and eternal, being passed upon them on that account—death in all its hideous forms, in and through him as their public head, spread over all mankind, as persons who had sinned in him. 13, 14. And it is manifest that, by virtue of some law, sin was charged and its penalty inflicted in the world, before God gave the law to the Jewish nation by Moses. Nay, for 2500 years before, all along from Adam’s fall, death, the inseparable attendant of sin, had reigned over mankind, cutting off one generation after another, and even multitudes of infants, who had never been guilty of any actual sin like to that first sin of Adam, —whom God constituted a typical figure of the promised Messiah

Romans 5:15

But though Adam, as the covenant head of his natural posterity, was a remarkable type of Jesus Christ, the gracious benefit, which comes through the righteousness of the one, is more than answerable to the mischievous effects of the first sin of the other: for if, through the sinful fall of a mere man, a sentence of death was brought upon all his natural posterity as the just wages of his sin, much more must that God, who delighteth in mercy, cause his rich and undeserved favours and blessings to abound, through the imputed righteousness of Christ, to his spiritual seed, in bestowing upon them greater happiness than they lost, by the fall

Romans 5:16

And not only does the gracious favour of God, through the righteousness of Jesus Christ, remove the guilt and curse of that one offence of Adam’s eating the forbidden fruit, which brought the sentence of condemnation upon all mankind, but procures a complete forgiveness of that, and innumerable other personal transgressions, and a full acceptance unto eternal life

Romans 5:17

And, therefore, if by the destructive fall of one mere man as their representative, death in all its forms has invaded, subdued, and exercised dominion over all men, through their polluting connection with him, much more they, who are made partakers of the rich abundance of God’s love and favour through Christ, and have his infinitely valuable righteousness imputed to them, and are interested in all the superabundant blessings purchased by it, shall enjoy a glorious freedom from sin and death, and reign honourably in grace and glory, in union to, and in fellowship with, Jesus Christ

Romans 5:18

But, notwithstanding such circumstantial differences, the manner of conveying Adam’s guilt and Jesus’ righteousness is the very same in substance; for, as by one offence of Adam, sin, and through it condemnation to death, spiritual, temporal, and eternal, came upon all his natural posterity; so, by the righteousness of our one Mediator and Surety, Jesus Christ, and by that alone, pardon of all sins, past, present, and to come, and an acceptance unto life, temporal, spiritual, and eternal, came upon all his spiritual seed

Romans 5:19

For, as by the imputation of Adam’s sin of eating the forbidden fruit, all his natural posterity are legally charged with it, and so judicially constituted sinners, and, being condemned as such, are brought under the punishment of an unholy and depraved nature, prone to all evil; as by the imputation of Christ’s holiness of nature, obedience of life, and satisfactory sufferings, all his elect seed shall be judicially constituted, and in justification declared, righteous, and brought under an holy influence to sanctify their nature

Romans 5:20

For God never gave the law, moral or ceremonial, to mankind in expectation of their obtaining justification and life by it; but the covenant of works was made with Adam, and the entrance of sin was occasioned by it, as an intended mean of glorifying the exceeding riches of his grace; and the moral law was afterwards solemnly published, and the ceremonial established, in order to manifest the dreadful nature and effects of man’s fall: but in his infinite, free, sovereign, and unparalleled love, favour and mercy, God took occasion, from the extensive spread, outrageous prevalence, and high aggravations of sin, to exert and manifest the most illustrious, extensive, and superabounding power of his grace, in pardoning not only the first, but innumerable other transgressions, subduing the most powerful lusts, and advancing to higher happiness than was lost by the fall

Romans 5:21

That, as sin through the offence of Adam had prevailed and cruelly tyrannized over mankind, triumphantly rendering them obnoxious to temporal, spiritual, and eternal death; so the free favour and mercy of God might prevail, and triumph over sin, however powerful and aggravated, in pardoning, and subduing it, and spreading abroad the blessings of salvation among sinful men, recovering them to a spiritual life of fellowship with God here, and immediate and eternal enjoyment of him hereafter, through the righteousness, and by the mediation of Jesus Christ. **

REFLECTIONS UPON CHAP. V.**—Thrice happy is the state into which believers are brought by the gospel! A delightfully free justification, peace with God’s spiritual establishment, comfort, and well-grounded hopes of eternal felicity, come to us through Jesus’ person and blood. And all things amazingly work together for our spiritual and everlasting welfare. Transcendent and unbounded is the love of God manifested in Jesus’ obedience and death for us, who were so unholy, wicked, and wretched. And certain and full is our everlasting salvation through him. Since all mankind, infants not excepted, are universally plunged in sin, condemnation, and death, by Adam’s fall; God marvellously takes occasion, from that fearful destruction, to manifest the superabundant virtue of his Son’s righteousness imputed, and of his own free grace by means of it. And much greater and more effectual are the blessings brought in by Jesus, our new-covenant head, to his spiritual seed, than all the loss and want entailed by Adam on his natural posterity. O, my soul, contemplate, believe, admire, and share these glories, these blessings of redeeming grace! **