(for until law sin was in [the] world; but sin is not put to account when there is no law;
Paul has just traced sin and death back to one man, Adam. Now he pauses to answer an objection. How could people be sinners in the long stretch of history before God gave the law through Moses? His answer turns on two things — when sin entered the world, and what it means for sin to be "counted."
The order matters. Sin was already at work in the world long before Moses, so the law cannot be what produced it.
The apostle answers a possible objection, and he proves that sin exists apart from law... So the Jew could not even make the sad boast (and what will a man not boast about?) that the law came before sin. The whole purpose of law is to prove that people sin. Sadly, sin is not limited to Israel; it is everywhere. "Sin was in the world," where the law was not. When God gave the law through Moses, it put sin to account. But sin was already there, and it spread far beyond the area the law had in view when it came. Law could not cure sinners. It could only record sin — it could not remove it.
Paul does not use the same word here that he uses elsewhere in this letter. This is the language of a ledger.
The mistake is to suppose that "counted" here means the same thing as it does elsewhere in the letter. It is really a different word. The true thought is this: sin is not put on the account, the way separate items are listed on a bill.
So were people before the law simply let off?
It is still sin, and those who sin without law perish without law. But God does not call them to account for it at once in His government.
If God kept no ledger, how do we know sin was there at all? Paul points to the graveyard.
It is true that sin is not put to account where there is no law. Still, death reigned from Adam to Moses. That showed sin was there, because death is the wages of sin, and not only of breaking a law... It was clear that death reigned just the same — it struck people who were not under the law.
If sin was already everywhere, why give the law at all?
Sin is lawlessness, and it had been filling the earth ever since Adam's fall. But as soon as God gave the law, He drew a clear line. Step over that line and a man became a definite lawbreaker. His sin could now be put to his account in a way that was not possible before. God meant Israel to give definite proof of the fallen and sinful state that people were in.
This verse also settles what sin actually is. One familiar definition of sin cannot survive it.
1 John 3:4 has often been translated, "Sin is the transgression of the law." It should read, "Sin is lawlessness." If sin were the breaking of the law, there would be no sin before God gave the law; but there was... Besides, that idea lowers the standard of God's holiness. Sin is lawlessness — refusing to be under God. The very fact of having a will of our own set against God is sin.
Paul's history lesson has a wider purpose. If sin reached people who never had the law, then grace must reach them too.
The apostle's argument is that death proved sin was there before there was any law. You cannot limit grace to the Jews. If you do, you make grace narrower than sin. Death and sin were already there, and all had sinned. So if you shut grace up to those under law and keep out the Gentiles, you make sin a more powerful thing than the grace of God.
- Sin first. Sin was in the world before Moses. The law did not create sin. It only exposed and recorded what was already there.
- No account. "Counted" here means listed like the items on a bill. Where there was no law, God did not charge particular acts in His government.
- Death still reigned. Death reigned anyway, and that proved sin was there. Death is the wages of sin, not only of law-breaking.
- The line drawn. The law drew a clear line. Crossing it made a man a definite lawbreaker, and his sin could then be put to his account.
- Grace goes further. Sin and death reached far beyond the nation that had the law. Grace must reach at least as far, or sin would be stronger than God's grace.
but death reigned from Adam until Moses, even upon those who had not sinned in the likeness of Adam's transgression, who is [the] figure of him to come.
Paul has traced sin and death back to one man. Now he proves it from history. Between Eden and Sinai there was no law, yet people kept dying. The verse ends with a phrase that turns the whole argument around — Adam is a type, a preview, of Christ.
The two names in the verse mark the two moments when God laid down a formal command. Between them, sin had a different character. There was no written law to break.
Moses gave the law. From Adam to Moses there was no law, and men had only their conscience to guide them; by it they knew good and evil... Adam had a commandment, and he broke it. Since there was no law till Moses, the generations after him could not sin in the same way Adam did. Sin is lawlessness... However, sin becomes transgression when there is a law.
If no law was in force, how do we know sin was still there? Every grave answered the question.
Adam had a law, and Moses made the law known. Between them God dealt with men by neither the one nor the other. Yet men sinned, as Scripture shows again and again. So death reigned, for it is the wages (not of transgression only, but) of sin... They sinned, they did their own will, they were corrupt and violent, and later added idolatry to their evil ways. So death reigned even over them. They were sinners, though they were not transgressors, as Adam was at first and Israel later.
Genesis makes the same case without a word of argument.
It is striking to follow the line of long-lived men from Adam to Noah, with the same words attached to the end of each short history: "and he died." Death was reigning, a sure proof of sin having come into the world.
The previous verse says sin is not counted where there is no law, and that phrase is easy to misread. It does not mean God overlooked sin. It means sin was not put on people's account the way a written law puts it there.
The mistake is to suppose that "imputing" here means the same thing as elsewhere in this letter. It is really a different word. The true thought is that sin is not put on the account, the way separate items are put on a bill... "From Adam to Moses" covers most of the history in Genesis. It is the time before law, when sin was already in the world, but had not yet gained this added seriousness.
Commentators differ over who these people are. Grant, in the same passage, dismisses the idea that infants are in view. Others read the group more widely:
I think two groups are in view here. First, the Gentiles as a whole, who were never under law, while Adam was clearly under law. Second, infant children, who die all the time, though their age makes them incapable of any actual offence.
The closing clause looks like a side remark. Yet Adam resembles Christ in one specific way: he stands at the head of a race, and what he is, his family becomes.
Adam is the fountain-head of a stream of fallen, sinful humanity — a race of sinners who share the disastrous results of his sinful act. Seen this way, he is a "figure" of Christ.
Every person stands in one of two families, under one of two heads. That makes the question personal.
Adam did not become the father of a family until after his disobedience. All his offspring stand with him under condemnation and death. Christ became head of a new and heavenly race in resurrection. All who are identified with Him stand before God forever in His acceptance and blessing... In the divine thought there has been a transfer from Adam to Christ; but are we conscious of it in our own souls?
A type does not mean a copy. Adam pictures Christ at one point. At every other point he is the opposite.
Christ comes before us in two ways: by figure and contrast. Adam, as God made him, was the figure of Christ; as he made himself in his fall, he becomes a contrast to Christ... No finer man was ever placed in finer circumstances than Adam — yet he fell. As a fallen man, he became the head of a race like himself. What can come from such a source? If the fountain is polluted we shall not expect clean waters to flow from it.
- One head. Adam's single act made him the fountain-head of a race that shares his condemnation and his death.
- One reign. Death ruled the whole stretch from Eden to Sinai, when there was no law. That proves sin was already in the world.
- One account. Without a law, sin was not written up against people as transgression. It was still sin, and death still collected its wages.
- One figure. Adam is like Christ in one way only: each is head of a race. In everything else he is the contrast — a polluted fountain against a pure one.
- One transfer. Christ became Head of a new race in resurrection, and all who are His stand in His acceptance — the question is whether we know it.
But [shall] not the act of favour [be] as the offence? For if by the offence of one the many have died, much rather has the grace of God, and the free gift in grace, which [is] by the one man Jesus Christ, abounded unto the many.
Adam and Christ each stand at the head of a family, and one man's act settles the standing of everyone under him. But this verse denies that the two sides match, and asks whether God's gift only cancels Adam's damage or goes far past it. (Some quotes below use older translations, where "trespass" reads "offence.")
The word translated "many" is more exactly "the many" — a defined group, not a rough headcount. It appears twice, and each time it covers everyone belonging to the head named.
In verse 15 the word many occurs twice just as we noticed it does in verse 19. In this verse too it is more exactly "the many," that is, those who come under each headship. Adam brought death on all those under his headship, which in fact means all men without exception. Jesus Christ has brought in the grace of God and the free gift of grace to the many who are under Him. That is, to all believers.
The verse opens by denying the likeness before it draws any parallel.
One thing we must remember as we consider them: these two accounts are not a mere balance of results. "Not as the offence so also is the free gift." If righteousness is shown in dealing with sin, the "free gift" is measured only by the grace that has given Christ for us — though of course it must be righteous, absolutely so. So His work does not merely cancel the results of sin. It lifts us into a place altogether beyond what was originally ours.
The reasoning runs from the smaller case to the greater. If our tie to a fallen man could ruin us, our tie to Christ must do more.
Verse 15 points us to the source of sin and of righteousness, of guilt and of grace. This verse clearly compares two stores. Grace wins its triumph over guilt when we look to Jesus, in whom, as in a storehouse, all the fulness of grace dwells. If God condemns us for the sin of Adam, a mere creature like ourselves, will He not much more justify us by grace for the sake of the Divine One, Jesus, who is "full of grace and truth"?
The advantage lies on the good side because of who God is.
The difference is an immense advantage on the side of good. How could it be otherwise, with such a source of goodness as God, and with such a channel and ground and object as the man Christ Jesus? To punish, to strike, to destroy, was a grief, so to speak, to God. To bless is His delight — and now to the full, since Christ has removed every hindrance and made that blessing righteous.
Paul names two things — "the grace of God" and "the free gift by the grace" of Christ. The two words look at the same blessing from different ends.
I say such a thing was a gift, a free gift; I did not earn it. How did you come to have it? It was pure grace in the person who gave it to me. One word leads me to think of it as freely given, not earned, without condition or price. The other points to what moved the person to give. The gift of righteousness is not by working or labour, or acquired fitness, or anything on my part.
The verse also settles how far grace reaches. One man's ruin touched everyone, so no single nation can keep the remedy to itself.
Shall man's offence carry further than God's gift? Death was reigning outside the law, and by the offence of one, many were dead. Should not the grace of God much more abound to the many who are burdened by that death, instead of belonging only to the Jews who claimed it? The state of sin was universal through Adam, so grace must reach just as widely.
Death came down Adam's line as a penalty. What comes down the other line is not simply the removal of that penalty.
Now Christ gives the "free gift" to "the many" who are granted to "live by Him." For them it abounds far beyond their deliverance from death, the penalty of sin. It means for them life in the abundance of its power. It is "much more" than salvation from the death they duly and rightly deserved. It is the positive reality and blessedness of living with God.
- One act. One man's deed decides the state of a whole family. That is where Adam and Christ are alike — and the likeness stops there.
- One source. The trespass came from a creature; the gift comes from God through Christ, and that difference of source is why the verse says "much more."
- One gift, freely given. No one earned it. "Grace" points to what moved the Giver; "free gift" means it costs the receiver nothing.
- Wide reach. Because ruin spread to everyone through Adam, grace must be as wide in its address, not fenced off for one nation.
- Greater result. The gift does not simply undo Adam's loss; it lifts believers past what Adam ever had, into life with God.
And [shall] not as by one that has sinned [be] the gift? For the judgment [was] of one to condemnation, but the act of favour, of many offences unto justification.
Paul has been setting Adam and Christ side by side. Here he shows where the two sides do not match. One sin brought condemnation on a whole race. So what kind of gift answers countless sins and still ends in justification?
The verse is not saying that grace does a little better than sin did. One writer weighs the judgment against the gift.
It is not only a difference of measure but of kind. Verse 15 looked at the people affected; here the things themselves stand out. One act by the head who sinned sentenced people into condemnation. But the free gift, despite many offences, was for a state of accomplished righteousness.
The verse starts from a single act. That one act brought condemnation, and it shows something about God that has not changed.
There is another contrast. One sin brought in condemnation. Such was the holiness of God, and that holiness has not changed. Yet now, after people have committed many offences, His gracious gift is of a state of accomplished righteousness.
Why does Paul move from Adam's single sin to "many offences"? One writer says Paul is raising the stakes of his own argument.
In this verse the "many offences" is there to heighten the picture… Paul says you are not going to make grace cover a narrower field than sin. Then he strengthens the argument by bringing in the "many offences" as a greater difficulty, so that grace had to be stronger and greater than the evil.
What does "justification" cover here? One writer sets it against anything law-keeping could produce.
Here it goes from many offences to a sum of recognised righteousness. It is a gracious gift — a full righteousness that God weighs up and accepts as enough. Keeping the law would make righteousness a demand on man. It would be his own righteousness, measured by the law. But here it is a gracious gift. Judgment came upon men and brought condemnation. Now a gift deals with many offences, and gives us a righteousness God Himself counts as enough. It comes by God's free gift, not by man's responsibility.
The gift does not just cancel the sentence and leave a person at zero. It sets up something that lasts.
One sin established a state of condemnation. The gift through Christ has established a state of righteousness that lasts. This settled state of positive righteousness is "much more" than being delivered out of the state of condemnation. The gift does deliver from that condemnation, and it takes full account of the pile of offences. But beyond the deliverance, it provides a state of positive righteousness, and that state is one of abiding acceptance.
A common misreading takes the excess of grace as a matter of how many people it reaches.
People often misread these connected passages by making the "over-bounding" of grace a matter of breadth instead of height. If it were a question of the number reached, there could be no over-abounding of grace at all. Christ could not reach more than fell with Adam… But the real matter is one of depth and height, not of breadth.
Another writer guards the same ground differently. Some read this verse to mean that everyone is saved in the end.
Some have used this verse and the ones after it to teach universal salvation. But that is not what it means. We must not lose sight of the condition: faith in Christ. We are all in the first Adam by natural birth. Being identified with the second Man is only possible by the new birth. That happens when a sinner believes on Christ and in His finished work.
Guilt and righteousness do not reach a person in the same way.
Verse 16 shows that grace passes on far more than guilt does. Christ justifies us not only from the guilt of this one sin, but from the heavier guilt we have run up by our "many offences" — that is, all our sins. Besides, we shared Adam's guilt because we belong to his race. We receive righteousness in Christ as "a free and gracious gift."
- One. A single offence was enough to bring in condemnation — proof of a holiness in God that has never softened.
- Many. Paul then piles on "many offences" to make the case harder. Grace must prove stronger than the whole weight of evil.
- Gift. Law would make righteousness a wage man must earn. Instead God gives a righteousness He counts as enough.
- State. The gift does more than wipe the slate clean. It sets us in a lasting standing of righteousness and acceptance.
- Height. Grace over-abounds in depth and height, not in numbers. It comes through faith in Christ, not by birth as Adam's guilt did.
For if by the offence of the one death reigned by the one, much rather shall those who receive the abundance of grace, and of the free gift of righteousness, reign in life by the one Jesus Christ)
Paul has just set Adam's one offence against Christ's one act. Here he places the two outcomes side by side: death reigns, or those who receive reign in life through one Man.
God gave the first man rule over creation. What happened to that rule explains why the verse speaks of death as a king.
By Adam's one offence "death reigned through that one man." God gave Adam dominion over creation, and Adam has forfeited his rule: he has no more dominion; death reigns instead. ... While Adam reigned in Eden, death was always a danger that could take over his reign. But those who are under Christ as Head "reign in life" — a life that is eternal, and death can never interfere with it.
If death reigned, the neat opposite would be that life reigns. Paul writes something stronger.
In verses 15-17 the apostle shows that grace far surpasses sin. Adam's sin (v. 15) did not stay with him alone; its consequences reached his descendants too. How much more, then, do the consequences of Christ's work reach those who are His! ... The overflow of grace stands out most clearly in verse 17. It says, "if, because of one man's trespass, death reigned through that one man." You would expect the matching thought to be "much more life will reign." But no: "much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ."
The verse names two gifts, and they are not the same kind of thing. One meets a bare need; the other is sheer overflow. One writer sets them beside the Queen of Sheba's visit to Solomon, quoted here from an older translation.
She brought large presents to Solomon, but she went home enriched all the same. "King Solomon gave to the Queen of Sheba all her desire … besides what Solomon gave her out of his royal bounty." In the same way, our God not only meets the actual need of the sinner who comes to Him. He at once enriches him with all the blessing of Christ Himself. So Rom. 5:17 describes Christians as "those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness." There are two things here. Righteousness is our actual need; without it we must perish. "The abundance of grace" matches the "royal bounty" of Solomon.
Both gifts come by one verb: receive. Many people assume righteousness works the other way.
The "gift of righteousness" is to be "received," you notice — not earned, as many suppose. When it is received by faith, the one who has it is sure he will "reign in life."
Escaping a tyrant is one mercy. Sitting on his throne is another. The verse promises both.
Through the offence of the one man, a reign of death came in by that one man. It has been an absolute reign — a reign of unstoppable power. On the other hand there are those "who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness." This is not just rescue from the power of death, from its reign and triumph. It is a "much more," and by it they themselves become "more than conquerors." By the power of the life grace gives them, they themselves reign.
The promise has a date still to come and a use today.
We might have thought the contrast to "death reigning" would be "life reigning." It is more than that, for the word is "they … reign in life." The time is coming when the saints will reign with Christ. Now grace makes it possible for the saint to reign in life by Christ. God's thought is that Christ should make us completely superior to the power of sin, lawlessness and self-will.
The full weight of the promise waits for one moment: when death itself is gone.
When that happens, and "Death is swallowed up in victory," God's work of making us alive will reach its final completion. Then the word that we "reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ" (Rom. 5:17) will be fulfilled. Not only in life, but reigning in it, and that for ever.
- Reign lost. God gave Adam dominion, and Adam forfeited it. Death took the throne instead, and its rule was absolute.
- Reign reversed. The verse breaks the pattern. It does not say life will reign; it says you will reign. Grace does not just repair the damage; it goes far beyond it.
- Reign received. Two gifts come together. Righteousness meets the need we cannot live without, and an abundance of grace is poured out on top. You take both by faith. You earn neither.
- Reign exercised. This is more than escape from death's power. It is victory in its place: superiority over sin, lawlessness and self-will, by the power of the life grace gives.
- Reign forever. The final fulfilment waits until death is swallowed up. Then the reigning never ends — and all of it comes "through the one man Jesus Christ."