What does it mean that where sin abounded grace abounded more (Romans 5:20)?

But there is more even that this, Paul carries this grace to the highest point; he can be satisfied with nothing short of the superlative, for God will be satisfied with nothing short of that. "Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound: that as sin has reigned to death, even so might grace reign through righteousness to eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord." We understand the reign of sin, its kingdom is a kingdom of bondage with death for all within it. All the activities of men within that kingdom lead to death, for God is not the end and aim of them. But grace reigns, and that means that God reigns according to His own heart's desire and in complete and eternal consistence with His righteous character and the end of that is eternal life and the glory that belongs to it by Jesus Christ our Lord. God is greater than the devil, and grace is greater than sin.

But law did come: why it entered, and as it were, by the way, the apostle answers in verse 20. It was that (not sin, but,) "the offence might abound." God forbid that anything God gave should be said to create evil! Sin being already there, the law came to bring out its real character as directly violating God's command when he gives one. "But where sin abounded, grace has super-abounded, in order that, as sin has reigned in death, so also might grace reign, through righteousness, to eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord."

Here too it is impossible to conceive language more apposite or precise. The apostle does not say, it will be noticed, where "the offence" abounded; for this would limit the sphere to the area of the legal state. All that wherein a Jew boasted was the causing the offence to abound. What a withering of pride without an exaggeration or an effort! But grace went out in its triumph far beyond the narrow bounds of law; it went out into the world where sinful man lay, not to Israel only. "Where sin abounded, grace far exceeded." And grace too had its characteristic purpose, or God rather by it. What was this? "That as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord." Here if anywhere is an aim and result which do honour even to God and His Son. In presence of such a gospel we are not ashamed, but boast. To vaunt of law is to vaunt of what condemns and kills, for it makes the offence to abound. In grace we may and ought to exult. God delights in it. It came, as did truth, by Christ Jesus who is full of both. And specially may we boast, that grace reigned. Had law reigned, what must have been our just doom! But grace reigns (not without but) through righteousness; for the work of redemption is done, and God justifies in consequence according to His sense of its worth. Thus it is not more surely a fountain of grace than a righteous ground and channel. And hence the issue is according to God; it is eternal life, and this through Jesus Christ our Lord. He is risen from the dead, and gives life more abundantly. All is thus as secure as it is perfect. God is glorified as He should be; and this, as it ought to be, through the only One, even Jesus, who has retrieved all and turned by His death and resurrection even sin itself into an occasion of such a glorifying of God, and such a blessing of the believer, as could never else have been. These are the ways, and this the victory, grace through our Lord Jesus.

Adam had sinned, and had involved the whole race in ruin, and all that came into the world were sinners by nature; and death, the just judgment of God, was the result. But now grace reigns instead of sin; grace reigns triumphant. God is Sovereign, and does as He wills; and although all seemed hopeless, and sin seemed to have gained the mastery, He is above the sin, and grace reigns. God has come in, and, in spite of the sin, He can act in pure love towards the sinner, although there is nothing in Him to deserve it. But what about righteousness? Christ has died, and accomplished a work upon the cross; and God is so glorified by His work that He has raised Him from the dead, and set Him at His own right hand in glory, and His righteousness was shown in doing it; so that now, on the ground of the death of Christ, God can and does act in pure grace, but through righteousness; and the greater the sin, the more it magnifies the grace of God that can put it away. If sin abounds, grace much more abounds. The more the sin, the more the grace to meet it; and you can never exhaust the grace of God. Bring together all the sin in the world, and all the sins of men, the failure of Christians, and of the Church as a whole, and there is grace superabounding over it all. Thus grace reigns through righteousness. Truly He is "the God of all grace," and it draws the soul out in praise when we think of it.

Verse 20. The entering in of law was that the offence might abound; wherefore the law? not to make sin abound, but to make sin exceeding sinful, and that the offence might abound, "but where sin abounded, grace did much more abound," and abounding grace has been shown, for God gave His own well-beloved Son: and sin was suffered to rise up to its full wickedness, even in putting Christ to death, and then to show how powerless sin is in the presence of God's grace, that very thing, in which its greatest evil was shown as hatred against God, is that which puts it all away; God's grace rolls over it all, yet thus in righteousness. He has thus shown the utter impotency of sin in His presence.

Verses 20, 21. Oh, marvellous free favour of God! Do you ask, Why was the law given, if man cannot be justified by it, or if it cannot give a justified life? “The law entered that the offence might abound.” It may even have been so in your past experience. It may have entered with killing power, and the more you have struggled to keep it, the more the offence has abounded. How you may have struggled to make the flesh holy and the more you have struggled, the more you have failed. “But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound.” Do you believe God as to this? Can you now cease from works, and rest in the boundless, free favour of God? “that as sin has reigned to death, even so might grace reign” — yes, and that “through righteousness, to eternal life, by Jesus Christ our Lord.” It is not grace alone that reigns — that would be indifference to sin; neither righteousness alone, or the sinner must be condemned; but grace, through righteousness. Yes, it reigns on, on, to eternal life.

In verses 19 and 20 the effects of sin and grace are summarised, and also that of the law. “Sin abounded,” not only numerically by its multitudinous acts, but overwhelmingly, by overcoming all human efforts to subdue it. Sin's power to overcome man exceeds man's power to resist sin. Man is unable to extinguish the solicitations of the evil nature within him; but, thanks be to God, “where sin abounded, grace did much more abound.” While sin has a power to lead me captive, grace by its stronger power delivers me from its thraldom, and that power is exercised by our Lord Jesus Christ.

(Vv. 20, 21). Moreover the law made the offence abound. By forbidding sin it stirred up sin; and, moreover, it added to the evil of sin by making it transgression. Even so, where sin abounded grace did much more abound. Sin, by its reign of lawlessness, leads to death: grace, reigning through righteousness, or doing God's will, leads to eternal life. Here eternal life is viewed in its fulness in glory as the end of a course of righteousness, in contrast to death which lies at the end of a course of sin or lawlessness.

Why the Law entered. — From Adam we have been carried on to the Lord Jesus Christ, thus coming down through forty centuries of this world's history, ere the second Man appeared and died. Now between the creation of Adam and the birth of the Lord the law came in, having been given to Israel at Sinai nearly fifteen centuries before the Christian era, reckoning according to the common computation. Did then the introduction of the law set aside the principle just affirmed, that the race is involved in the consequences of the act of the head? By no means. "The law entered," we are told, "that the offence might abound" (v. 20). "It was added because of transgressions" (Gal. 3:19). God's purpose in giving it is definitely stated; and the purpose was accomplished. "By the law is the knowledge of sin" (Rom. 3:20), the apostle has already told us. "I had not known sin, but by the law" (7:7), is his recorded experience; for it brought out what man's evil nature really is, what is the mind of the flesh in him, which is "not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be" (8:7). Hence the effect was that the offence abounded, the very prohibition stirring up the deep-seated hostility of the flesh to God. But where sin abounded grace did much more abound, that "as sin has reigned to (rather, in) death, even so might grace reign, through righteousness, to eternal life, by Jesus Christ our Lord" (v. 21). Grace did indeed much more abound. Sin reigned in (or, in the power of) death, referring to the statement of v. 12. On the other hand grace, not righteousness, reigns. Had the latter been the case judgment must have overtaken every one of Adam's race, and condemnation have been their portion for ever. Thank God it is very different. Grace reigns, not at the expense of righteousness, but through it, and to everlasting life by Jesus Christ our Lord. Through Him this blessed result takes place for all under His headship.

125 How could they as sinners have communion with Christ? There could be none. When He came to meet man's need, they hated and rejected Him. But on the cross He has put away sin, and now grace can flow out without hindrance or measure: "Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound." Man is not changed, but God can act in His own way through redemption. Christ's love and glory did come out in a measure before, for "He could not be hid." But at the cross all overflowed; and looking back from that over His life, we see what infinite love, and sorrow, and suffering, filled it up.