Down to Earth But Heavenly Minded

Verse 17: For if by the trespass of the one, death reigned-as-king through the one, much more those accepting the abundance of grace and of the free-gift of righteousness, shall reign-as-kings in life through the One, Jesus
Christ! It is not only that you have life, and that eternal life, in Christ: but here in verse 17 we find two kingdoms:

First, By the trespass of the one death reigned-as-king through the one. And is that not true? I travelled around this world from west to east, beginning from Chicago. As we went eastward to the older parts of the States, we saw the stones thicker and thicker in the cemeteries. Then in England and Scotland, still more cemeteries, with still more monuments to the reign of death. But when we got out to old China, I was literally appalled at the number of the tombs and the coffins! Surely death has reigned, through Adam!

But second (for the fourth time in this chapter), God now uses the words “much more,” applying them to those who accept the abundance of His grace and of His gift of righteousness, saying these shall reign-as-kings in life through the One, even Jesus Christ. Look now at this expression,
reign-as-kings in life. I am writing this during the week of the coronation of George VI of England, and have heard of the splendors with which the ceremony was attended; and we do thank God for the British Empire, and honor, with her subjects, her monarch. But, ah, believer, look closely at these words of Paul, reigning in life. Here is a kingdom before which all of earth is dust. And who are the kings here? Believers! Those whose humble faith has “received the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness”: these shall reign-as-kings through Jesus Christ.

God has “the ages to come” in which to manifest fully this mighty reigning! But it is already begun for those in Christ. Gideon, speaking of certain Israelites, asked the kings of Midian, “What manner of men were they?” “As thou art, so were they,” they answered; “each one resembled the children of a king.” “They shall reign forever and ever,” is God’s description of the saints of the New Jerusalem (Revelation 22:5). And their reign has already, in this life, begun; because they are in Christ the mighty Victor! Satan would fain
keep from your ears this news, believer, that you stand in the abundance of God’s grace; that you have received the gift of righteousness in Christ; and that you are to reign-as-a-king-in-life now and forever, through the One, Jesus Christ. May God awaken us to the facts!118 Satan is deathly jealous of the Church of God, which is already in the heavenlies, from which he is soon to be cast out. He knows that the Church will share Christ’s throne and soon reign with Him in indescribable glory. Therefore he will blind you, if he can, to
your present place of royal power of life in Christ. It will, we are sure, be a matter of fathomless regret to many Christians, at Christ’s coming, that their lives on earth were characterized by doubt, defeat and depression; rather than by victorious reigning in life in Christ. God has no favorites. Each one who is in Christ has a complete Christ. The exhortations of the Epistles are addressed alike to all. David Livingstone early wrote in his diary, “I have found that I have no unusual endowments of intellect, but I this day resolved that I would be an uncommon Christian.” Concerning such it is written, “Considering the issue of their manner of life, imitate their faith” (Hebrews 13:7). Let us refuse to be content with a Christian existence that cannot finally be summed up as “He reigned in life through Jesus Christ,”—over sin, Satan, the world, difficulties, adverse surroundings and circumstances. Let us remember the apostles, the martyrs. Reformers, godly Puritans, the holy Wesleys, and Whitefields, the Havergals and Crosbys; and the humble saints we know, whose existence is described by Paul’s glorious phrase “reigning in life through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Verse 18: So then, just as [the principle was] through one trespass unto all
men to condemnation; even so also through one righteous [or justifying] act [the principle is] unto all men to justification of life! Through one trespass [it was] unto all men to condemnation—The expression “the many” in verses 15 and 19 indicates the principle of the evil effect of the act of the one going forth to others; the expression “all men,” of verse 18, emphasizes the extent of the application of that principle: absolutely all human beings were condemned when Adam sinned.

Now do not question either God’s right or His wisdom here, or His love. He
had the right to have a judgment day of our whole race in Eden, in our head, Adam; and He did so. He always does right. Furthermore, He knew that creatures would ever fail,—there is no sufficiency in the creature, but only in the Creator. You and I would fail, as did Adam! and God desired that believers should be secure forever, by Christ’s work. It was in love He held that judgment day in Eden. In love He judged us, condemned us, in our federal head, Adam, that He might justify us in the work and Person of the other federal Head, Christ!

The ordinary conception of justification does not go beyond the pardon of
sin. This indeed is first; and we should also have confidence that our sins will never be reckoned against us—whether they be past, present, or future sins. This is seen in Chapter 4:7, 8; and in Chapter 5:9, we see ourselves “justified in His blood,” “justified from all things,” as Paul says in Acts 13:39. But this leaves the believer without a positive standing. We do not come to “justification of life”119 until Chapter 5:18.

Now it is Christ Risen who is made our “standing”: so that, as we see else where, we do not need aught else: for we are in Christ. Justification provides therefore not only release from the penalty of sin, but also a place in the Risen Christ Himself. This begins to be indicated in Chapter Four, where righteousness is reckoned to those who “believe on Him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead.” It is, of course, necessarily comprehended in the
astonishing phrase IN CHRIST JESUS,—used first in Chapter 6:11! And it is amplified and developed through the rest of Paul’s epistles. In I Corinthians 1:30 we see that Christ Himself, Risen, was made unto the believer, righteousness. Paul also in Galatians 2:20, 21 directly connects his having been “crucified with Christ” with righteousness. That is, the history in Adam of believers was ended at the cross. (Yet always remember that it was as ungodly ones that they believed!)

In Colossians 1:12 we read: “Giving thanks unto the Father, who made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light.” Then hear again that most stupendous utterance of all: “Him who knew no sin He made to be sin on our behalf; that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (II Corinthians 5:21). It is this glorious revelation, which men have been loathe to read, teach, or refer to, which we must apprehend by God’s grace,
and by that grace believe!

Now, how, in what sense, are we “the righteousness of God” in Christ?

It is at once evident that to set us in His own presence in Christ as He has done, God must ( I ) reckon to us the infinitely perfect expiation of Christ in putting away our sin by His blood; (2) make us one with Christ in His death; and (3) place us in Christ Risen, even as Christ is received before Him. All this He has done; so that He says we are the righteousness of God in Christ. If we are in Christ, we are before God in Christ, “even as He,”—“accepted in Him.”

Verse 19: For just as through the disobedience ot the one man the many were set down as sinners, even so, through the obedience of the One the many shall be set down as righteous.

Set down as sinners—the word “sinners,” here, is not an adjective (sinful), but a substantive,—sinners. 120 Verse 19 first sums up the doctrine of our federal guilt by Adam’s sin, then sums up our justification by Christ’s death.

The whole emphasis of verses 12 to 19 is upon the fact that the effect, whether in the case of Adam or in the case of Christ was produced by a federal head acting apart from any actions of those affected. There was a
judgment held in Eden, by the righteous God, the pronouncement of which
is, “unto all men to condemnation.’’121 This, of course, has no reference to eternal damnation, which is a consequence of the rejection of “the Light which has come into the world”—men loving darkness rather than light “because their deeds are evil.” But it does assert a judgment of sinnerhood, by the guilt of Adam’s action, upon the whole human race.

The whole lesson of this passage is, that just as we have Christ only as our righteousness, we have Adam only as sin and death to us. (God’s Word, however, puts Adam’s act and its effect first, as a type of Christ’s work.) We repeat these things over and over, because of their importance, both for our settled peace, and also for our enjoyment of the normal, joyous Christian life.

Even so through the obedience of the One—This was our Lord’s death, as an
act of obedience:122 “He became obedient unto death, yea, the death of the cross.” He was of course always obedient to His Father, but it cannot be too strongly emphasized that His life before the cross,—His “active obedience” as it is called, is not in any sense counted to us for righteousness. “I delivered to you,” says Paul, “first of all, that Christ died for our sins.” Before His death He was “holy, guileless, undefiled, separated from sinners.” He Himself said: “Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.” Do you not see that those who claim that our Lord’s righteous life under Moses’ Law is reckoned to us for our “active” righteousness; while His death in which He put away our sins,
is, as they claim, the “passive” side, are really leaving you, and the Lord too, under the authority of the Law?

“Justified in (the value or power of) His blood,” and of that alone, gives the direct lie to the claim that man must have “an active righteousness” as well as “a passive righteousness.” The specious assertion is, that “inasmuch as we have all broken the Law (although God says that Gentiles were ‘without
law’—and those in Christ are not under it!) and inasmuch as man cannot by his works himself recover his righteous standing, Christ, forsooth, came and kept The Law in man’s place (!); and then went to the cross and suffered the penalty of death for man’s guilt so that the result is an ‘active righteousness’ reckoned to man:—that is, Christ’s keeping The Law in man’s place; and, second, a ‘passive righteousness,’ which consists in the putting away of all guilt by the blood of Christ.”

Now, the awful thing here is the unbelief concerning man’s irrecoverable
state before God. For not only must Christ’s blood be shed in expiation of our guilt; but we had to die with Christ. We were connected with the old Adam; and the old man—all we had and were in Adam, must be crucified—if we were to be “joined to Another, even to Him that was raised from the dead.” Theological teaching since the Reformation has never set forth clearly our utter end in death with Christ, at the cross.

The fatal result of this terrible error is to leave The Law as claiment over those in Christ: for, “Law has dominion over a man as long as he liveth” (7:1). Unless you are able to believe in your very heart that you died with Christ, that your old man was crucified with Him, and that you were buried, and that your history before God in Adam the first came to an utter end at Calvary, you will never get free from the claims of Law upon your conscience.123

I say again, that the Law was given to neither Adam. The first Adam had life: God did not give him law whereby to get life! Not until Moses did the Law come in, and then only as an incidental thing to reveal to man his condition. The Law was not given to the first Adam, nor to the human race; but to Israel only (Deuteronomy 4:5-8; 33:1-5; Psalm 147:19, 20). Again, the Law was not given to the Last Adam! “The Last Man Adam became a life-giving spirit”: this is Christ, Risen from the dead, at God’s right hand, communicating spiritual life. Is He under law? It is only the desperate legality of man’s heart, his self-confidence, that makes him drag in the Law, and cling to the Law,—even though Christ must fulfil it for him! “Vicarious law-keeping” is Galatian heresy!

Our Lord said plainly that His work in this world was to die: “The Son of
Man came to give His life a ransom”; and indeed, “through the Eternal Spirit He offered Himself without blemish unto God.” True, He must be a spotless Lamb. But for what? For sacrifice! He did not touch our case, had no connection with us, until God laid our sins upon Him and made Him to become sin for us at the cross. Christ was not one of our race, “the sons of men”: He was the Seed of the woman, not the man. He was the Son of Man, indeed, for God prepared for Him a body (Psalm 40; Hebrews 10), by the power of the Holy Spirit (Luke 1:35). But, though He moved among sinners, He was “separated from sinners,” and had no connection with them ‘until God made Him their sin offering at the cross.

Christ Himself, Risen, is our righteousness. His earthly life under the Law is not our righteousness. We have no connection with a Christ on earth and under the Law. We are expressly told in Romans 7:1-6, that even Jewish believers who have been under law were made dead to the Law by the Body of Christ, that they might be joined to Another, even to Him who was raised from the dead. One has beautifully said, “Christianity begins with the resurrection.”

Verse 20: Law, moreover, came in alongside [of sin] that the trespass [of law] might abound—The reference to law here shows that Paul has justification from guilt, and not our state of sinfulness, in view. “Law entered alongside”
(pareisēlthen)124 not, in this connection, to reveal sinfulness, but that the trespass of law,—the act of law-breaking might abound. The Law, being given to neither Adam, came in alongside sin,—after sin had been there 2500 years, that vain self-confident Israel (as a public example for us all!) might see God’s standard for those in the first Adam, and promising to obey it, fail; and thus know sin in order that Grace might overflow. That so, where sin had reigned, Grace might reign-as-king, through the righteous work of Christ on the cross, unto eternal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Thus neither our sins nor our “sinful nature” has, in this passage, anything to do with our condemnation: but Adam’s act only. And not our new life in Christ, nor our walking in the good works unto which we are created (Ephesians 2:10), has anything to do with constituting us righteous, but Christ’s act of death only (verses 18, 19). As we have said, law “came in alongside,”—not as in any sense a means of salvation, but that Israel (and through Israel, all of us) might discover guiltiness by breaking law; for law
gives no power to keep law!

But, where sin abounded, grace did completely overflow. Grace began to work for Israel immediately after the Law was broken! For instead of cutting off Israel as a nation, God appointed Moses a mediator; and when sin came to a climax with the Jews’ crucifying their Messiah, the Lord’s words were “Father, forgive them.” And as we shall read in Chapter Eleven, God will indeed yet forgive them,—will take away their sins and “bring in everlasting
righteousness.” Grace will yet over flow for Israel, nationally, as it has now overflowed to us as individual sinners, both Jews and Gentiles.

“Where sin abounded, grace overflowed,” for such is ever the result of the
work of the cross. Paul, who had been Christ’s greatest enemy, the chief of sinners, declares himself to be the great example of mercy and grace: “I obtained mercy,” he says “that in me as chief might Jesus Christ show forth all His long-suffering, for an example of them that should hereafter believe on Him unto eternal life.” And again: “By the grace of God I am what I am” (I Corinthians 15:10; I Timothy 1:16).

We might turn to David and Manasseh in the Old Testament as examples of
the overflowing heart of mercy of God. Or we might call up such examples in Church History as the reckless profligate Augustine, whom God made a shining light in His Church; or John Bunyan, the profane tinker, who wrote his wonderful experience of the Divine goodness in “Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners”; or John Newton, once a libertine and infidel, “a servant of slaves in Africa,” as he wrote of himself for his epitaph,—whom God transformed into one of the great vessels of mercy of the eighteenth century, and whose hymns of praise all the saints sing. It was Newton who wrote:

“Amazing grace! how sweet the sound

That saved a wretch like me.”

and who told his own experience—so really that of all the saints—in the words of the beautiful hymn:

“In evil long I took delight

Unawed by shame or fear,

Till a new object met my sight,

And stopped my wild career.

“I saw One hanging on a tree,

In agonies and blood;

Who fixed His languid eyes on me,

As near His cross I stood.

“Sure, never till my latest breath,

Can I forget that look;

It seemed to charge me with His death,

Though not a word He spoke.

“My conscience felt and owned the guilt,

And plunged me in despair,

I saw my sins His blood had spilt,

And helped to nail Him there.

“Alas, I knew not what I did,

But all my tears were vain;

Where could my trembling soul be hid,

For I the Lord had slain!

“A second look He gave, that said,

‘I freely all forgive!

This blood is for thy ransom paid,

I died that thou mayest live.’”

On November 18, 1834, Robert Murray McCheyne, of St. Peter’s Free Church,
Dundee, Scotland, whose memory is like ointment poured forth, wrote his remarkable confession that his sins had caused Christ’s death. The title, “Jehovah Tsidkēnu,” is the Hebrew for “The Lord Our Righteousness.” Let it serve our use also, as it has that of thousands:

JEHOVAH TSIDKĒNU

“I once was a stranger to grace and to God,

I knew not my danger, and felt not my load;

Though friends spoke in rapture of Christ on the tree,

Jehovah Tsidkēnu was nothing to me.

“I oft read with pleasure, to soothe or engage,

Isaiah’s wild measure, and John’s simple page;

But e’en when they pictured the blood-sprinkled tree,

Jehovah Tsidkēnu seemed nothing to me.

“Like tears from the daughters of Zion that roll,

I wept when the waters went over His soul;

Yet thought not that my sins had nailed to the tree

Jehovah Tsidkēnu—’twas nothing to me.

When free grace awoke me, with light from on high

Then legal fears shook me, I trembled to die;

No refuge, no safety, in self could I see,—

Jehovah Tsidkēnu my Savior must he.

“My terrors all vanished before the sweet Name;

My guilty fears banished, with boldness I came

To drink at the fountain, life-giving and free—

Jehovah Tsidkēnu is all things to me.

“Jehovah Tsidkēnu! my treasure and boast;

Jehovah Tsidkēnu! I ne’er can be lost;

In Thee I shall conquer, by flood and by field—

My cable, my anchor, my breastplate and shield!”

We might multiply examples like these: but these words, “Where sin
abounded, grace did completely overflow,” with the salvation of Saul of
Tarsus as the Scripture example, will suffice. I stood on the bluff at Memphis, Tennessee, and saw the mighty Mississippi, normally a mile wide, stretch over forty miles in flood, covering deep under its multitude of waters the land as far as I could see. So, where sin abounded, the grace of God overflowed everything. 125

Verse 21: In order that, just as sin reigned-as-king by means of death: grace
might reign-as-king, through righteousness, unto life eternal, through Jesus Christ our Lord. This verse unfolds God’s great object: that Grace should have a kingdom where Death had had its kingdom: and that, of course, through righteousness,—that is, that all Divine claims should be first righteously met at the cross, and thus that all should be “through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

The question of justification is still on in Chapter Five, and not until Chapter Six is “our old man”—all we were from Adam—brought in. Furthermore, to bring into Chapter Five our sinful state by nature, is to confuse our sinful
condition with that condemnation which over and over God says was brought about by Adam’s single act, and by that only. “The judgment came of ONE TRESPASS unto condemnation,” etc.

Now if you and I were condemned in Adam’s sin, it is plain that to be
justified we must be cleared not only of our own sins, but of our
condemnation in Adam: our justification must cover all our condemnation.

Our justification, is, therefore, in this great passage, related not to our
personal sins, as in Chapters Three and Four; but to our guilt by and in Adam, from which we are cleared by Christ’s death. And Christ being now raised, we, connected with Him at the cross, now share His life: so that our justification is called “justification of life” (vs. 18).

It is true that we are not spoken of as “in Christ” until Chapter Six,
where death with Christ is unfolded and our history in the first Adam,
and our relation to sin, ended. But Paul speaks of being “justified in Christ” (Galatians 2:17). And certainly the subject in the last section of Chapter Five is justification: condemnation by Adam’s trespass, and justification by Christ’s righteous act of death.

Thus, not until we come to Chapter Six is our walk, our sanctification, taken up. It is true that the doctrine of the two men (5:12-21) makes possible of
understanding the great fact of Chapter Six,—that we died with Christ. But the subject of the latter section of Chapter Five is condemnation by Adam, justification by Christ. 103

As to the Greek text having the subjunctive in verse 1, we believe that the Authorized Version and the American Revised Version are correct in reading “we have peace” rather than the English Revised Version, “Let us have peace.” See Jamieson, Fausset and Brown, Darby, Meyer, Godet and many others. The whole context proves that “we have peace” is correct, for the passage is not an exhortation, but an assertion of facts and results, true of
all those declared righteous or justified.

104 The Romanist will go to “mass” and “confession”; and the Protestant
“attend church”; but neither will find peace with God by these things. Prayers, vows, fastings, church duties, charities—what have these to do with peace?—if Christ “made Peace by His blood”!

105 The difference may be brought out by asking ourselves two questions:
First. Have I peace with God? Yes; because Christ died for me. Second, Have I the peace of God in quietness from the anxieties and worries of life in my heart? We see at once that being at peace with God must depend on what was done for us by Christ on the cross. It is not a matter of experience, but of revelation. On the contrary, the peace of God “sets a garrison around our hearts and thoughts in Christ Jesus,” when we refuse to be anxious about circumstances, and “in everything (even the most ‘trifling’ affairs) by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let our requests be made known unto God.” Every ‘believer is at peace with God, because of Christ’s shed blood. Not every believer has this “peace of God” within him; for not all have consented to judge anxious care and worry as unbelief in God’s Fatherly kindness and care.

106 Sanday quotes Ellicott’s translation: “Through whom also we have had our access,” and adds, “‘have had’ when we first became Christians, and now
while we are such.”

And Darby comments: “We are not called on to believe that we do believe, but to believe that Jesus is the Son of God, by whom we have access, and are brought into perfect present favor, every cloud that could hide God’s love removed; and can rejoice in hope of the glory of God.”

107

1. A letter that lately came out of Northern Siberia, signed “Mary,” reads: “The best thing to report is, that I feel so happy here. It would be so easy to grow bitter if one lost the spiritual viewpoint and began to look at circumstances. I am earning to thank God for literally everything that comes. I experienced so many things that looked terrible, but which finally brought me closer to Him. Each time circumstances became lighter, I was tempted to break fellowship with the Lord. How can I do otherwise than thank Him for additional hardships? They only help me to what I always longed for—a continuous, unbroken abiding in Him. Every so-called hard experience is just another step higher and closer to Him.”

Another recent letter from “Mary” reads, “I am still in the same place of exile. There is a Godless Society here; one of the members became especially attached to me. She said, “I cannot understand what sort of a person you are; so many here insult and abuse you, but you love them all” . . . She caused me much suffering, but I prayed for her earnestly. Another time she asked me whether I could love her. Somehow I stretched out my hands toward her, we embraced each other, and began to cry. Now we pray together. My dear friends, please pray for her. Her name is Barbara”

In a letter a month later, “Mary” writes; “I wrote you concerning my sister in Christ, Barbara. She accepted Christ as her personal Savior, and testified before all about it. We both, for the last time, went to the meeting of the
Godless. I tried to reason with her not to go there, but nothing could prevail. She went to the front of the hall, and boldly testified before all concerning Christ. When she finished she started to sing in her wonderful voice a well-known hymn,

‘I am not ashamed to testify of Christ, who died for me,

His commandments to follow, and depend upon His cross!’

The very air seemed charged! She was taken hold of and led away.”

Two months later, another letter came from “Mary”: “Yesterday, for the
first time, I saw our dear Barbara in prison. She looked very thin, pale, and with marks of beatings. The only bright thing about her were her eyes, bright, and filled with heavenly peace and even joy. How happy are those who have it! It comes through suffering. Hence we must not be afraid of any sufferings or privations. I asked her, through the bars, ‘Barbara, are you not sorry for what you have done?’ ‘No,’ she firmly responded, ‘If they would free me, I would go again and tell my comrades about the marvelous love of Christ. I am very glad that the Lord loves me so much and counts me worthy to suffer for Him.’” The Link

108 “Proves, as in 3:5” (Meyer); “establishes” (Godet); “confirms” (Calvin); “manifests” (Haldane); “gives proof of” (Alford); “demonstrates” (Williams); “commendeth” (Sanday). The English word “commendeth” happily covers the double meaning of the Greek: (1) approving or establishing things, and (2) recommending persons (16:1).

109 “In sovereign grace He rises above the sin, and loves without a motive,
save what is in His own nature and part of His glory. Man must have a motive for loving, God has none but in Himself, and ‘commendeth His love to us’ (and the ‘His’ is emphatic as to this very point), in that, while we are yet sinners, Christ died for us; the best thing in heaven that could be given for the vilest, most defiled, and guilty sinners” (Darby).

110 To illustrate reconciliation: Suppose I am the master of a school and I make a rule that there is to be no profane swearing. I write that rule on the blackboard, and the whole school sees and hears it. The penalty I announce, too: there is to be a whipping if any one breaks the rule.

Now, there is a boy named John Jones in my school, a boy I am fond of. At recess-time he swears. Everybody hears him; I hear him; everybody knows I hear him. When I call the school to order, all the scholars are looking at me to see what I will do.

I have a son of my own in that school room, a beloved son, Charles. I call him, and we go outside to counsel, while the school waits. I say, “Son, will you bear John Jones’ whipping for him? He doesn’t believe that I love him. He thinks I hate him because he has broken my rule. There must be a whipping. I must be true to my word, but you know how I love John.” My son says, “Yes, father, I’ll do anything for you that you wish. And I love John Jones, too.”

I bring my boy, Charles, out before the whole school, and I say, “This is
John Jones whipping I am giving to my son Charles. The law of the school was broken by John Jones. I am putting the penalty on my boy. He says he will gladly do this for me, and for John.” Then I whip my son Charles; and I do not spare him. I whip him just as if he were John Jones, just as if he had broken the rule himself.

When the whipping is over, I say to some scholar, “Go and tell John Jones I have nothing against him,—nothing at all. And ask him to come and give me
his hand.” This breaks John Jones up, and he comes forward, in tears, and says, “I didn’t know you loved me that much! I thank you from my heart!”

Now he is reconciled from his side, to me. But you see I reconciled him to myself, first. I had to deal with his disobedience, or be myself unrighteous.

111

1.Concerning Christ’s bearing in our place God’s wrath against sin, let us say:

To regard God as “angry,” or as demanding that Christ suffer “the exact
equivalent of all the agonies the elect would have suffered to all eternity,” is to miss the whole meaning of propitiation.

1. Remember it is God Himself who “loved us and sent His Son to be the
propitiation for our sins.” God held no enmity against us. God loved us.

2. Therefore, strictly speaking, it was not punishment which Christ bore on the cross, but wrath. Punishment is personal,—against the offender; but wrath upon Christ was against the thing—sin. Christ bore that wrath which God’s being and nature always and forever sustains toward sin. The sinner cannot come nigh Him, but must die, must perish in His holy presence,—not because God hates him, but because God is the Holy One. Therefore did Christ die,—and that forsaken of God under wrath—because He was bearing our sins in His own body on the tree. So it was, that, sin being placed on Christ, judgment and wrath fell upon Him. So it is, also, that the believer has not been “appointed unto wrath” (I Thessalonians 5:9): the wrath has fallen on Christ.

3. The conception that Christ on the cross was enduring all the agonies of the elect for all eternity grew directly out of the Romish legalism from which the Reformers did not escape,—to wit: that we still have connection with our responsibilities in Adam the first; that our history was not ended at the cross. But the shed blood brought in before God on the Day of Atonement simply witnessed ‘that a life had been laid down, ended. “The sufferings of all the elect for all eternity” could never take the place of the laid down life of the great Sacrifice. God did not ask for agonies: sin simply could not approach Him! There must be banishment of the sinner from His presence—unless a substitute should come, who, taking the place of the sinner, and bearing his sin, could lay down his life. Such was Christ. He “laid down His life that He might take it again,” But remember both parts of this great utterance: (a) “He laid down His life,” bearing our sin, putting it away from God’s presence forever. But even Christ, when bearing our sin, could not, as it were, come nigh God, but was forsaken, under holy wrath against sin. Not the agonies of Christ could avail, but that, bearing sin, He laid His life down, poured out His soul unto death. Thus He owned God’s holiness to be absolute and infinite, and said, “It is finished.” (b) Now in taking up His life again, it was not that life which, according to Leviticus 17:11, was “in the blood,” because the blood was “all one with the life” (Leviticus 17:14), and therefore “given to make atonement for souls,”; “it was not the blood-life” which He took up, but newness of life” in resurrection!

God indeed permitted man to inflict the terrible sufferings of crucifixion upon His Son. But those sufferings were not “the cup” that His Father had given Him drink. The cup was the cup of Divine wrath against sin, and it involved His being “cut off out of the land of the living” under the hand of Divine judgment.

112 The Greek preposition en in verse 9, is not fully or exactly rendered by
tht English word “in”; for the Greek en here includes: in the shed blood of Christ (vs. 9), as the ground before God of our justification; in view of that blood’s power as seen by God the Justifier; in the eternal availingness of that blood before God; and the consequent eternal redemption it has procured.

Likewise, in the same construction in verse 10, we translate, “in His life”: meaning that the believer shares that risen life of Christ; that in the power of that endless life the believer will abide both now and forever: as John says, “we may have boldness in the day of judgment; because as He is, even so are we in this world,”

113 Federal: in this book we use this word as indicating the action of one
for all in a representative manner; or for the consequences of such action.

114 Death is a Divine decree: “It is appointed unto men once to die and after
this cometh judgment,” Death involves four consequences:

First, the utter ending of what we call human life.

Second, falling consciously into the fearful hands of that power under which
men have during their lifetime lightly lived, unprotected from the indescribable terrors and horrors connected therewith.

Third, being imprisoned in Sheol or Hades—in “the pit wherein is no water,” as was Dives in Luke 16. Compare Zechariah 9:11.

Fourth, exposure to the coming judgment and its eternal consequences. Of
course, the believer is rescued from all this—even physical death,—from bodily. “falling asleep,” if Christ comes during his lifetime! while it is true of all saints, those who keep Christ’s word, that they shall “never see death” (John 8:51). Death and judgment are past for the believer, Christ his Substitute having endured them.

Nevertheless, in this day of mad pleasure-seeking, it certainly behooves all of us to reflect on the fearful realities connected with death! (See also Note
on Chapter 6:23.)

115 We say, “reigned-as-king,” because the Greek word means that. Not the
power of sin to hold in bondage, as in Chapter Six, is here meant; but the royal word, basileuo, is used, denoting sovereignty, not mere lordship.

116 David Brown (in Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s excellent commentary) disagrees here, saying: “The ‘much more’ here does not mean that we get much more of good by Christ than of evil by Adam (for it is not a case of
quantity at all); but, that we have much more reason to expect,—or, it is much more agreeable to our ideas of God, that the many should be benefited by the merits of one; and, if the latter has happened, ‘much more’ may we assure ourselves of the former.”

But after all this does not disagree with what we have above said, for it is Adam, the sinning creature, on the one hand; and the infinitely great and
good God, and His grace by His Son Christ, on the other. Measure, quantity, must enter in: as, indeed, in saying of God “we have much more reason to expect,” Dr. Brown tacitly admits. “Much more,” says Paul, “did the grace”—of whom? GOD. This emphasizing God brings out everything!

117 To the student of Greek (and to others, also), it is most instructive to note Paul’s use of the words connected with righteousness: dikaios means righteous; dikaiosune means righteousness; dikaioō is to declare righteous; dikaiōsis means justification, or the act of declaring one righteous; dikaiōma, the “righteous act,” that makes justification possible.

118 When Israel inquired of the Lord about Saul, the eon of Kish, who had been anointed as their King (for they could not find him), the Lord answered, you remember’ “Behold, he hath hid himself among the stuff.” “And they ran and fetched him thence” (I Samuel 10:22-23). How sad if some of us who have received the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness, and whom God desires to be reigning in life in Christ, have gotten ourselves hidden “among the stuff,”—of earthly goods, and ambitions, “religious” traditions, and the literature of this world!

119 The expression “justification of life” seems to stand over against that
condemnation and death which came by Adam’s trespass. It is a characterizing word: What is offered unto all men, through Christ’s act of righteousness at the cross is not only a cancellation of guilt, but life in the Risen One. For, since Adam’s sin, there was only spiritual death in his race. The words of John 1:4, regarding Christ, “In Him was life,” describe the only source of life for man. And justification must be of life: for those justified are most certainly taken, out of their place of death in Adam, and given a place of life in Christ.

120 The Greek word (hamartōlos) means not merely one possessed of a sinful nature or tendency, but one who is regarded as having committed sin.
The same word is used in 3:7 and 5:8.

“Substantive, hamartōlos, a sinner; common acceptance, LXX, New Testament, etc.”—Liddell and Scott. This word is used in N.T. to designate sinners 41 times’ beginning with Matthew 9:10; five times in Luke 15:1-31, and four times in John 9:1-41; and only four times in an adjectival sense (Mark 8:38; Luke 5:8; 24:7; Romans 7:13).

121 Human reasoning is futile and dangerous here. Men form themselves into
“schools of theology” over this subject, each founding a “system” upon his notion of how Adam’s trespass affected all. But that a man may act before he is born in person of his responsible forbear is evident, as we have shown, in the case of Levi, in Hebrews 7:9.

122 Vaughan (as so frequently) gives a rendering of startling accuracy
concerning disobedience and obedience in verse 19: “The one (parakoees) is properly, mishearing; the other, hupakoees, submissive hearing. Disobedience in its essence is refusal to hearken; and obedience is bowing the ear to submissive listening.

123 “Both Calvinists and Arminians think that the flesh is not so bad that it cannot be acted on for God by Christ using the Law of God and giving it power through the Spirit”—This is Wm. Kelly’s shrewd and correct comment.

124 It is very striking to note that in verse 13 where we read “through one man sin entered into the world,” the word for entered is eisēlthen; and now law enters alongside,—the word being the same—eisēlthen—with the preposition para, alongside, prefixed. And so, “through law is the knowledge of sin.” Sin entered, and law, entering alongside, revealed the sin.

125 Two entirely different Greek words are translated, in the Authorized
Version, “abounded.” But the first, used of sin, means to increase, he augmented; while the Second, used of grace, means to abound beyond
measure, to overflow. Second (Thayer) These words come from entirely different roots, and should have been so distinguished in translation.
But one who undertakes to express in English the depth of the Hebrew, and the extent of the Greek language, will soon discover the frequent poverty of the English tongue. Hebrew seems to be the language in which God first spoke with men; it is the vehicle of praise. But to the Greeks He gave that great intellectual development of their “Golden Age” in which their endeavor to perfect their language extended even to public assemblies where the most exact possible phrasing to express an idea was decided by contest. So when our Lord came as “the Savior of the World,” that coming, according to the grand old Hebrew prophecies, was recorded in the Greek, which Alexander the Great had spread throughout the known world. The Romans, to whom had been given the power to govern, themselves admitted that they must borrow from the Greeks not only their philosophy, but also their method and manner of literary expression. Then also when the Roman Empire went into collapse, and the dark “Middle Ages” came in, the so-called Renaissance was the bringing of the Greek classics into crude Europe after the fall of Constantinople in 1453. And above all, the translation directly from
the Greek New Testament manuscripts of our English Scriptures; for men had so long depended upon the faulty Latin (or Vulgate) translation.

Perhaps the greatest wonder the last century and a quarter has seen is the
translation into over 800 tongues and dialects of these same Hebrew and Greek Scriptures—with such transforming power that It is written of one Bible-bearing missionary, a man of God, in the South Sea Islands: “When he came, there were no Christians; when he left, there were no heathen.”

How wonderful that God should have a language of spiritual praise and
worship—the Hebrew; and a language exact, intellectually rich,—the Greek, in which He could express the great doctrines concerning His Son! And both languages capable of being reproduced as to their spirit and meaning, not only in English, German, and French, but in the dialects of the most benighted heathen tribes,— “every man in his own language.”