Romans 5
ROMANS 5
MADE RIGHT BY TRUSTING CHRIST (1:18—5:11), cont.
Righted and Reconciled by Christ (5:1–11)
In 5:1, Paul reasons from what he has just established (hence “therefore,” 5:1): believers have been righted (so 4:25) by faith (“those who believe” in 4:24). In light of this established point, Paul addresses believers having “peace” with God (5:1),1 i.e., no longer being his enemies (5:10) but being reconciled to him (5:10–11). This reconciliation is accomplished through Jesus because of his death and resurrection (4:25).
In 5:2 Paul contends that Jesus has also ushered believers into grace by faith (for grace and faith, cf. 3:22, 24; 4:3–4, 16); the perfect tense of “stand” suggests that believers remain in this grace (cf. “stand” in contrast to “fall” in 11:20; 14:4). Whereas Paul has denounced one who falsely “boasts” (kauchaomai) in God or the law (2:17, 23), Paul notes that in Jesus believers can boast in hope (5:2), in the face of suffering confident that it leads to hope (5:3–5), and in God (5:11).2 “Hope” here follows the example of Abraham’s resurrection hope in the preceding paragraph (4:18), but in this case the focus is eschatological salvation (cf. 8:20, 24–25). Believers hope for sharing God’s “glory” (8:18, 21, 30), what was lost in Adam (cf. 3:23; 1 Cor 11:7).
Like Abraham, however (cf. 4:19), Paul wants believers to trust God’s promise even when they faced obstacles that made it appear unrealistic apart from God (5:3). They would thus boast not only in hope directly (5:2), but in affliction that ultimately reinforced their hope (5:3; cf. 8:24–25).3 Paul employs the rousing rhetorical chain device of climax (or sorites) in 5:3–5.4 Because affliction tests faith, it allows one to demonstrate endurance, which is a necessary expression of faith for those who would receive eternal life (2:7). (Paul most certainly did not regard faith as saving if it failed to persevere in Christ; cf. 11:22; 1 Cor 9:27; Gal 4:19; 5:4.) Affliction first produces “tested character” (dokimē, 5:4); one’s faith was shown to be genuine through the pressures of life, and the genuineness and help of the Spirit (5:5) vindicate one’s hope of eternal life (contrast adokimos, one who failed the test, in 1:28).5
Paul climaxes with hope (5:5). When one’s hope proved false, one would be “ashamed”; the psalmist prayed that God would not let his hope in God cause him such shame (Ps 119:116). The object of believers’ hope, however (sharing God’s glory, Rom 5:2), would not put them to shame (5:5; cf. 1:16; 9:33; 10:11). The basis of Paul’s confidence in the future was the divine sign of proven character already within believers, namely, the Spirit attesting God’s love for them (5:5). Grammatically, “love of God” could mean believers’ love for God or God’s love through them, but in light of the following context it must mean God’s love for them (5:8). That is, believers can be assured of the outcome of their sufferings because God’s Spirit within them points to Christ’s death for them,6 as well as resurrection hope (5:8–10). That the Spirit is a gift (5:5), in contrast to some Jewish traditions,7 also fits Paul’s theology of grace in this letter. That the love is here “poured out” through the Spirit might evoke the promised outpouring of the prophetic Spirit in Joel 2:28–29 (cf. Isa 32:15; 44:3; Ezek 39:29), so that the Spirit here may speak to or inspire believers’ hearts with God’s love (cf. Rom 8:16).
Hope is secure because it rests on God’s love (5:5), which is demonstrated in Christ’s sacrifice (5:6–9). Paul has already noted that Christ was delivered for our transgressions (4:25); now he elaborates on humans’ state as transgressors, and how committed God’s love was to saving them. Normally a person would be reluctant to die for another person, although there would be some exceptions for a good person (5:6–7).8 But Christ died for sinners (5:8), objects of God’s wrath (5:9),9 God’s enemies (5:10). By his death he reconciled these sinners to God, overcoming the enmity, and those in solidarity with him would be saved eschatologically because of his resurrection (5:11).
These verses (5:6–11) help flesh out what Paul means about Jesus dying because of our transgressions (4:24), although Paul will also provide additional models of Jesus’s death afterward (especially 5:18–19; 6:3–10). That Jesus’s blood here propitiates God’s wrath (5:9) fits some biblical and other ancient conceptions. Because crucifixion was not primarily bloody (in contrast to execution by decapitation),10 the mention of blood is theologically significant.11 While modern theology may be often uncomfortable with the idea of God’s wrath, we ought not to suppose that Paul shared such scruples (cf. Rom 9:22; 1 Cor 1:18; 3:17; 10:8–10; 11:30–32; Phil 1:28; 3:19; 1 Thess 1:10; 2:16; 5:3, 9), including in this context (Rom 1:18; 2:5, 8, 12; 3:5; 4:15). The context of such wrath, however, highlights the depth of God’s sacrificial love here (apparently embodied in God’s costly sacrifice for humanity, again against many modern theological conceptions).
Evoking 4:24–25, Paul indicates that hope is secure not only because Christ died for us, but also because he rose (5:9–10). In 5:11 Paul may summarize his point in this paragraph: believers can boast in God (see comment on 5:2) because Jesus’s death has reconciled us to him.12 We also boast in God alone because proven character and hope come by God’s Spirit in our hearts rather than our own work (5:2–5). “Through our Lord Jesus Christ” (5:1, 11) frames the paragraph.
LIFE IN CHRIST AND THE SPIRIT (5:12—8:39)
Having addressed righteousness by dependence on Christ’s work in 1:17—5:11, Paul now turns to the new life involved in being identified with Christ (5:12—6:11) and in the Spirit’s indwelling (8:1–39). It is this new life in union with God, rather than mere human knowledge about God’s righteous law (7:1–25), that produces true righteousness.
Because Paul often transitions from one thought to the next rather than following a neat hierarchical outline, scholars often debate whether Romans 5 belongs with the previous section on justification (1:16—4:25) or the following one on life (6:1—8:39).13 In 5:1–11, however, Paul is applying to his audience principles exemplified by Abraham’s model in chapter 4; in 5:12–21, Paul shifts from the figure of Abraham to the figure of Adam, and the new life in chapter 6 follows directly from 5:12–21. Thus, with a minority of scholars (e.g., Talbert), I believe that it might be simplest to assign 5:1–11 to the previous section and 5:12–21 to the following one. At the very least, the possibility of such a division invites us to take into account the importance of both the preceding and following contexts.
Reversing the Fall (5:12–21)
In chapter 4, Paul has argued against depending on ethnic descent from Abraham. Now he reminds his biblically informed audience that all people are descended from Adam. A Jewish audience might concur with his condemnation of those in solidarity with Adam, provided he excluded those in ethnic solidarity with Abraham.14 Yet for Paul, it is apparently behavior or choices, more than genetics, that identifies one’s solidarity; he addresses those who believe like Abraham, who sin like Adam, or who are baptized into Christ (cf. 6:3). Paul affirms clearly that death entered the world through sin (5:12). Though he makes the contrast with Christ bringing life (5:15–21, esp. 18–19) only a few verses later, his never-completed “just as” (hōsper) in this verse betrays his plan to address that issue. Scholars debate the grammar in the last clause of the verse; most, however, conclude that it says that death pervaded humanity “because” all sinned (e.g., NASB; NRSV; TNIV).15 Other Jewish thinkers agreed that while Adam introduced sin, and hence death,16 each of Adam’s descendants has replicated his sin (4 Ezra 3:21; 2 Bar. 18:1–2; 54:15, 19).17
Paul digresses briefly regarding the law in 5:13–14. In 5:13 (cf. 4:15; 5:20) Paul must bring in the law’s condemning function (i.e., the law as a righteous standard, hence a criterion of judgment) to prepare for his later association of the law with death in 7:9–11. Nevertheless, sin and death clearly go back to Adam (5:14). Sin brings death, even before the coming of the (Mosaic) law; the law simply allows sin to be reckoned, or counted (5:13).18 Natural law already counted sin, but the more concrete Mosaic law invites fuller judgment (2:12–15). In mentioning those who did not sin like Adam (5:14), Paul might qualify (hence perhaps forestall objections against) his argument that all have sinned like Adam and sin brings death. Those before the law could not sin like Adam (who transgressed an express commandment), yet shared the mortality of humanity as a whole.19
Paul develops this contrast between Adam and Christ in 5:15–20. In Jewish traditions, Adam was the first-formed model for humanity,20 full of “glory” before his fall (cf. 3:23).21 (Some rabbis later than Paul even portrayed Adam as enormous, “filling the earth” by himself.)22 If Adam lost his glory through sin, Paul expects a restoration through another Adam (cf. also 1 Cor 15:22, 45–49). The structure of Genesis already connected Noah and Abraham with Adam by means of two genealogies of roughly ten generations each, ending in three sons (Gen 5:6–32; 11:10–26; cf. also m. ’Abot 5:2). The accounts of each of these three patriarchs included blessings, a commission to multiply and subdue land, and curses (Gen 1:28; 3:14–15; 9:1–7, 25; 12:1–3). Noah (Gen 5:29) and Abraham were steps on the way back to paradise (cf. Gen. Rab. 14:6); but Paul looks ultimately to a second Adam.23
Ancient rhetoric made abundant use of comparison (synkrisis), but the objects compared did not need to be precisely equivalent (as Paul indicates explicitly in 5:15a).24 Paul’s use of paired antithesis drives home the point more fully, stirringly building to a rhetorical crescendo (as is readily evident if one reads the letter aloud, the way Paul expected believers in Rome to hear it). Paul argues from lesser to greater (on the superiority of the “second man,” see 1 Cor 15:45–47), a common Jewish argumentative technique (qal vaomer)25 but one also common throughout the ancient world. Some patristic interpreters and many scholars today argue that Paul personifies Sin and Death, and personification was also a familiar rhetorical technique.26
The six uses of paraptōma in 5:15–20 recall 4:25, and might recall the transgression of Adam in Wis 10:1. The term also typically implies violation of a particular standard, hence it may prevent the hearer from losing sight of the recurring topic of violation of the law. The allusion back to 4:25 is most explicit in 5:18, which also repeats dikaiōsis (the only other use in the Pauline corpus or NT). This passage, then, continues to flesh out the meaning of the gospel summary in 4:24–25.
Emphasizing the superiority of Christ over Adam, Paul repeatedly stresses “grace” and the “free gift” (eight times in 5:15–17, and twice in 5:20–21). Righteousness is not earned, but bestowed; those who are in Christ should live righteousness, but because of God’s gift rather than in order to achieve it. In contrast to death reigning through Adam’s transgression, those who are in Christ will reign in life (5:17). This expression may refer to the eschatological kingdom,27 and in the context of Adam might allude to regaining the role that he lost (cf. Gen 1:26–28; cf. the restoration of the image in Rom 8:29). “Life” (contrasting with Adam’s legacy of death) appears in 5:17, 18, and 21, as in much Jewish usage as shorthand for the resurrected “life of the coming age” (see 2:7; 4:17; 5:10; 6:10, 22–23; 8:11, 13).28
The deliberately lopsided contrast is developed more fully in 5:18–19. Adam’s transgression introduced death to all humanity (all born as Adam’s descendants, dependent on him as flesh). By contrast, Jesus’s act of obedience and righteousness introduced righting, life, and righteousness to all who are in him (baptized into solidarity with him, 6:3; dependent on him through the Spirit, 8:1–11).29 (“The many”30 in this context refers to all who are defined by their relationship to either Adam or Christ.)
Jesus’s act of obedience that reverses Adam’s disobedience (5:18–19) alludes back to his death for us in the Father’s loving design (5:6–10). Paul elsewhere defines Jesus’s obedience in terms of humbling himself to the point of shameful execution on a cross, perhaps in contrast to Adam seeking divinity (Phil 2:6–8; cf. Gen 3:5). Adam, by seeking greater life, brought death, whereas Jesus by dying brought life. Just as Adam introduced sin, Jesus now introduces true righteousness (5:19) that stems from solidarity with his obedience. Paul’s understanding is not that Jesus merely reverses Adam’s punishment (although his accomplishment includes that),31 but that Jesus came to form a new basis for humanity, enabling people to serve God fully from the heart (cf. 8:2–4, 29).
In 5:20 Paul returns to the role of the law that he introduced in 5:13: as God’s righteous standard, it more visibly exposes sin to condemnation.32 Because law did not transform Adamites from the heart, it merely intensified their problem. Because Jewish people believed that the law as moral instruction enabled them to be more righteous than Gentiles (cf. 6:15; 7:12, 14a, 16, 22), statements like this (and 6:14; 7:5, 8–9) were meant to shock them into paying attention. The law was perfect (7:12), but meant to inform rather than transform, unless written in the heart by the Spirit (8:2). The contrast between the old and new covenant was that God’s people would observe the new covenant, the laws being now written in their hearts (2:29; 7:6; 8:2; Jer 31:33). Flesh in Adam cannot fulfill this righteousness. What the law could not do—make people righteous—God had done in Christ (8:3). Climaxing his contrast between the fruits of Adam and Christ, Paul notes that the greater the sin, the greater the grace that countered it (5:20–21).
1. Scholars debate whether the original text of Romans says “We have peace with God” or “Let us have peace with God.” Although the latter has significant textual attestation, the majority of commentators argue that the former makes more sense of the context, and the latter would be a natural scribal error (if the scribe heard a long ō for a short o).
2. We may debate whether 5:11 is a third case or a summary of the first two. If the former, it could be relevant that one might support a rhetorical thesis with three illustrations or points (Quintilian Inst. 4.5.3; cf. Cicero Mur. 5.11; Pliny the Younger Ep. 2.20.9).
3. Some philosophers (Cicero Tusc. 2.7.17 [Epicurus]; Seneca Nat. 3, pref. 11–15, esp. 12; Epictetus Disc. 3.8.6), apocalyptists (2 Bar. 52:6; cf. 1QS 10.15–17) and others (Sir 2:4–5; Sipre Deut. 32.5.5) encouraged joy during suffering. This applied especially to persecution (2 Macc 6:30; Josephus J.W. 2.152).
4. E.g., Demosthenes Con. §19; Rhet. Her. 4.25.34–35; Demetrius Eloc. 5.270; Maximus of Tyre Or. 16.3; Fronto Ad M. Caes. 1.6.4; Philostratus Ep. Apoll. 33; in Jewish circles, Wis 6:17–20; Sipre Deut. 161.1.3; b. ‘Abod. Zar. 20b. Augustine recognized this (Doctr. chr. 4.7.11, in Anderson 1999: 17–18).
5. Similar ideas appear in Jas 1:2–4; 1 Pet 1:6–7, possibly reflecting a common early Christian source (Davids 1982: 65–66).
6. The idea may include Christ sharing humanity’s sufferings (cf. 8:3) as his body (believers) should also share his (Phil 3:10), and the Spirit shares believers’ “groanings” (Rom 8:26).
7. m. Sotah 9:15; t. Sotah 13:3; Mek. Besh. 7.135–39; Sipre Deut. 173.1.3; later ’Abot R. Nat. 11, §28B; y. ‘Abod. Zar. 3:1, §2; y. Hor. 3:5, §3; y. Sotah 9:16, §2; b. Sukkah 28a, bar.; see also Davies 1973: 98. But note the Spirit as gift in Wis 9:17 (like wisdom; cf. 8:21; Sir 1:10); Sib. Or. 4.46.
8. On death for friends in Greek thought, see Epictetus Disc. 2.7.3; Diogenes Laertius 10.120; further Keener 2000a: 383–84. Jewish martyrdoms were for God (so also Origen Comm. Rom. on 5:7), and one should not even give to sinners (Sir 12:4, 7). A good man was thought to be rare (Diogenes Laertius 1.77, 88; 9.2.20; see Rom 3:23).
9. Salvation from God’s wrath in the day of judgment, appears also in 1 Thess 1:10; 5:9; for this eschatological use of wrath in Romans, see e.g., 2:5; 9:22.
10. Although John 20:25 and probably Luke 24:39–40 (most MSS) presuppose Jesus nailed to the cross, victims could even be simply tied to it. Crucifixion could be “bloody,” but that was not primary; the language points instead to the theology of guilt for innocent blood (e.g., Matt 23:35) or of sacrifice (probably here).
11. With many commentators (albeit against others). For blood and atonement, see e.g., Exod 29:36; 30:10; 34:25; Lev 4:26; 16:27, 30; cf. 1 Sam 3:14; 2 Chron 29:24. Such atonement could appease God’s wrath (Num 16:46). Sin offerings are often connected with atonement (Exod 29:36; 30:10; Lev 4:20; 5:6; 6:30; 7:7; 9:7; 10:17; 12:8; 14:19; 15:15, 30; 16:6, 11, 27; Num 6:11; 8:12; 15:25; 28:22; 29:5, 11; 2 Chron 29:24; Ezek 45:17), as are guilt offerings (Lev 5:6, 16, 18; 7:7; 14:21; 19:22). Vicarious atonement appears as early as Canaanite and Hittite ritual and was certainly widely understood in Paul’s day, both in paganism and (contrary to some proposals) in Judaism (later, among Tannaim, cf. e.g., Kim 2001–5: summarized on 143–45).
12. Cf. reconciliation in 2 Macc 5:20; for reconciliation and atonement, see Plutarch Thes.15.1; especially Fitzgerald 2001: 243, 252–53 (the most distinctive aspect here being that the offended party offers the payment, Fitzgerald 2001: 255). For reconciliation and friendship, see Fitzgerald 2003: 334–37.
13. For surveys of views, see e.g., Fitzmyer 1993: 96–97; Moo 1996: 291. Because Paul transitions gradually between points, scholars naturally find connections with both the preceding and following material.
14. For the Jewish character of 5:12–21’s content (though Genesis should make that sufficiently obvious in terms of the use of “Adam”), see e.g., Davies 1980: 36–57; Scroggs 1966: 18–58; Hultgren 2003.
15. Other possibilities abound (see Fitzmyer 1993: 413–17, who ultimately prefers “with the result that”). Dependent on Latin translation, Augustine in his later years (in contrast to earlier and later voices in the Greek church such as Origen, Chrysostom and Theodoret) thought that Adam’s descendants sinned in him and his guilt was passed on to them. What seems likelier is that, the connection with God having been broken, all begin alienated from God hence susceptible to sin (cf. perhaps 4 Ezra 3:20–22).
16. E.g., 4 Ezra 3:7; 4:30; 2 Bar. 17:2–3; 23:4; 48:42–45; 56:5–6; L.A.E. 44:3–4; Sipre Deut. 323.5.1; 339.1.2; cf. Gen 2:17. For Adam’s death being a spiritual death “in passions,” see Philo Alleg. Interp. 1.106. Through Scripture, Paul was thoroughly familiar with the ancient Israelite concept of corporate repercussions for sin (on corporate solidarity, see e.g., Davies 1980: 103–4; Longenecker 1975: 93–94; Grieb 2002: 67; in Adam, e.g., m. Sanh. 4:5). Whether he conceived Adam as an individual or “as the archetype of ‘everyman’” (Dunn 1998: 94–95) is theologically less significant, since it was self-evident that human sin had been initiated long before and pervaded all humanity (cf. Ambrosiaster Commentary on Paul’s Epistles on 5:12).
17. After blaming the fall on Adam (4 Ezra 7:118–19), a passage goes on to list their own sins (7:119–26); cf. 1 En. 98:4.
18. A cognate of the term for “reckoned” with respect to righteousness by faith in ch. 4.
19. The same might be said of infants, who did not transgress like Adam (given the high rate of infant and childhood mortality in Paul’s world, he could not but have known of such cases).
20. Wis 10:1; L.A.B. 37:3.
21. E.g., 3 Bar. 4:16; Apoc. Mos. 39:2; ’Abot R. Nat. 1 A; Pesiq. Rab Kah. 4:4; 26:3; cf. perhaps CD 3.20. For his primordial beauty, see Sib. Or. 1.24.
22. E.g., ’Abot R. Nat. 8, §22; 42, §116 B. After the fall, however, he was cut down to one hundred cubits (Pesiq. Rab Kah. 1:1; 5:3; cf. Sipra Behuq. pq. 3.263.1.9).
23. This may reverse the expectation in some Diaspora Jewish interpretation, where the first man of Gen 1 was greater than the second man they inferred in Gen 2 (Philo Alleg. Interp. 1.31–32; 2.4–5). Many Jewish eschatological texts compared the future paradise with the beginning (e.g., Sipra Behuq. pq. 1.261.1.6).
24. Some later rabbis also expected God’s benefit to the world through the righteous to exceed the multiplication of death through Adam (Sipra VDDeho. par. 12.65.2.4). For rhetorical reasons, Paul includes a series of -ma terms in the Greek of 5:14–16, especially 5:16.
25. E.g., Longenecker 1975: 117.
26. For death personified, see e.g., Hos 13:14; Sir 41:1–2; 2 Bar. 21:23; Horace Sat. 2.1.58; on personification generally, see e.g., Rhet. Her. 4.53.66. On sin as a power, see Gaventa 2004.
27. Cf. 4:13; Dan 7:22; 1QM 1.5; 12.16; Jub. 22:11–12.
28. Such life belonged properly to the righteous (1:17; 10:5), which here means those made righteous in Christ.
29. Some read these verses universalistically, in tension with statements about the eschatological destruction of some (2:5; 9:22; Phil 3:19; 1 Thess 5:3), but the context delimits the application of Adam’s and Christ’s work to those who are in each of them, remaining consistent with texts about destruction. The future tense of “being righteoused” here suggests completion eschatologically.
30. The phrase refers to the elect at Qumran (1QS 6.6–21; cf. Dan 12:3; Marcus 1956), but is here used also for the “many” in Adam (5:19a), parallel with “all humanity” (5:18); the phrase can refer to “the multitudes” (e.g., Epictetus Disc. 1.2.18; 1.3.4; 2.1.22). It is not impossible that Paul alludes to the justification of the “many” in Isa 53:11–12 (though “many” is frequent in the LXX).
31. Despite Paul’s possible use of some cognates in this section for purposes of variation, dikaiōsis in 5:18 is clearly forensic, contrasted with the “condemnation” brought by Adam’s sin.
32. Cf. 2 Bar. 15:5–6; see excursus on the law, preceding 7:7–13.