Romans 5:6 - Meaning and Application

The apostle here shows the fountain and foundation of justification, laid in the death of the Lord Jesus. The streams are sweet, but if you trace them back to the spring, you will find Christ dying for us. All these blessings come to us through that precious stream of Christ’s blood, and Paul expands on this proof of God’s love.

He does this by noticing three things. First, the people Christ died for, in Romans 5:6-8. Second, the precious results of his death, in Romans 5:9-11. Third, the comparison he makes between sin and death coming through the first Adam, and righteousness and life coming through the second Adam, in Romans 5:12 and following.

We were in a sad condition when Christ died for us. We were without strength, meaning we had no power to help ourselves. We were lost, with no clear way to recover, and our state was miserable and, in a sense, desperate. So our salvation is said to come in due time. God’s time to save is when those to be saved have no strength, so that his own power and grace are more clearly honored (Deuteronomy 32:36).

He died for the ungodly, not only for helpless people who were likely to perish, but for guilty sinners who deserved to perish. They were not only weak and worthless, but vile and offensive, unworthy of such kindness from the holy God. Since they were ungodly, they needed someone to die for them, to deal with their guilt and bring in righteousness. Paul explains this as an unmatched display of love, far beyond what people usually do (John 15:13-14).

It is hard to imagine someone dying for a righteous man, that is, an innocent person who has been wrongly condemned. People may pity such a person, but few would risk their own life in his place. It might be possible, though still uncertain, that someone would die for a good man, that is, a useful man who has done much good for others. Such people are often well loved, and sometimes someone may be willing to give their life for them, as Paul notes in Romans 16:4. Even then, it is only some people, and only by a bold act of courage, and even then it is only a maybe.

But Christ died for sinners, people who were neither righteous nor good. They were not just useless, but guilty and liable to judgment. They were not the kind of people whose loss would matter little, but people whose destruction would display God’s justice, since they were offenders who deserved death. Some think Paul is drawing on a Jewish way of classifying people as righteous, merciful, and wicked, similar to Isaiah 57:1.

In this, God showed his love. He did not merely prove that he loved us, which could have been shown in a lesser way. He made his love bright and unmistakable. This greatly lifted up his love and made it an object of wonder. It was as if God were saying, “Now my creatures will see that I love them. I will give them a display of love unlike anything else.” To commend his love is like merchants praising their goods when they want to make them known and accepted.

God showed this love so that the Holy Spirit could then pour that love into our hearts. He made his love known in the most winning, moving, and tender way possible. When Paul says, “while we were still sinners,” he hints that we were not meant to remain sinners forever. Christ died to save us from our sins, not in our sins. Yet we were still sinners when he died for us.

More than that, we were enemies. We were not only wrongdoers, but traitors and rebels, fighting against God’s rule. That is the worst kind of guilt, the most offensive kind of rebellion. The fleshly mind is not only an enemy to God, it is enmity itself (Romans 8:7; Colossians 1:21). This hostility is mutual, with God hating the sinner’s sin and the sinner hating God (Zechariah 11:8). That Christ should die for such people is a mystery and a paradox, one that we will spend eternity admiring and praising. It is love beyond measure. Surely the one who loved us like this may rightly command that we love our enemies.

The first and main fruit of Christ’s death is justification and reconciliation. We are justified by his blood, and reconciled by his death (Romans 5:9-10). Sin is forgiven, the sinner is accepted as righteous, the quarrel is ended, hostility is killed, iniquity is dealt with, and an everlasting righteousness is brought in. Christ has done everything needed on his part for this, and when we believe, we are truly brought into a state of justification and peace with God. Justification is being counted right with God, and reconciliation means that the broken relationship is restored.

Paul says we are justified by his blood because without blood there is no forgiveness (Hebrews 9:22). Blood represents life, and life had to be given to make atonement. In every sacrifice meant to deal with sin, the sprinkling of blood was a necessary part of the offering. It was the blood that made atonement for the soul (Leviticus 17:11).

From this comes salvation from wrath, meaning rescue from God’s judgment (Romans 5:9). We are saved by his life, Romans 5:10. When what blocks our salvation is removed, salvation must follow. The argument is even stronger: if God justified and reconciled us while we were enemies, and if he spent so much to do it, then he will surely save us now that we are justified and reconciled. The one who did the greater work, making enemies into friends, will certainly do the lesser, treating friends kindly and finishing what he began.

So Paul speaks of this with “much more” more than once. If God has dug so deep to lay the foundation, he will surely build on it. We shall be saved from wrath, from hell and damnation. The wrath of God is the fire of hell, the wrath to come, as it is called in 1 Thessalonians 1:10. This salvation from wrath includes the final justification and clearing of believers at the great day, along with all that prepares them for it. It is the full completion of the work of grace.

We are reconciled by his death and saved by his life. The life meant here is not his life on earth in the flesh, but his life in heaven, the life that came after his death (Romans 14:9).

He was dead, and now he is alive again (Revelation 1:18). We are reconciled to God by Christ in his humiliation, and we are saved by Christ in his exaltation. The dying Jesus laid the foundation by satisfying for sin, destroying the hostility between God and us, and making us fit to be saved. He broke down the dividing wall, made atonement, and reversed our guilty condition.

But the living Jesus carries that work through to completion. He lives to intercede for us, that is, to speak for us before the Father (Hebrews 7:25). In his exaltation, Christ also calls us effectively by his word and Spirit, changes us, and brings us back to God. He is our Advocate with the Father, and he finishes and completes our salvation. Compare Romans 4:25 and Romans 8:34. Christ dying was like a testator who leaves us an inheritance, but Christ living is like the executor who pays it out. The argument is very strong, if he went to the cost of purchasing our salvation, he will not refuse the trouble of applying it.

All this gives us another blessing, our joy in God (Romans 5:11). God is no longer a terror to us. He is our joy and our hope in times of trouble (Jeremiah 17:17). We are reconciled, and saved from wrath. Sin will not, blessed be God, ruin us. And there is still more. God gives us a steady flow of mercy, so we do not merely get to heaven, but go there with triumph. We do not only enter the harbor, we come in with full sail. We rejoice in God, not only because we are saved from his wrath, but because we take comfort in his love. All this comes through Jesus Christ, who is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, the foundation stone and the top stone of all our comforts and hopes. He is not only our salvation, but also our strength and our song. Paul repeats this thought often, because he delighted in it.

By Christ we believers have now received the atonement, that is, we have received the reconciliation made by his sacrifice. The sacrifices under the law pointed to this, and it is also a pledge of our future happiness in heaven. True believers receive the atonement through Jesus Christ. To receive the atonement means actual reconciliation to God in justification, which is being counted right with God because of Christ’s satisfaction for sin. It means, first, giving our agreement to the atonement, approving the way God has chosen to save guilty people through the blood of a crucified Jesus, and being willing to be saved by gospel grace and gospel terms. It also means, second, taking comfort in the atonement, since it is the source and foundation of our joy in God. Now we do rejoice in God, now we truly receive the atonement, glorying in it. God has accepted the atonement, and if we receive it, the work is done (Matthew 3:17; Matthew 17:5; Matthew 28:2).

The apostle then compares how sin and death came through the first Adam, and how righteousness and life come through the second Adam, Christ (Romans 5:12 to the end). This both explains his teaching and strongly shows God’s love. It also comforts true believers by showing that our fall and our recovery match one another, and that Christ has a far greater power to make us happy than Adam had to make us miserable. To open this up, we should first notice a general truth on which Paul builds his argument, Adam was a type of Christ (Romans 5:14), meaning a pattern or figure of the one who was to come. Christ is therefore called the last Adam (1 Corinthians 15:45). Compare 1 Corinthians 15:22.

Adam was a type of Christ in this way, that in God’s dealings with him, and in the results of those dealings, Adam was a public person. God dealt with Adam, and Adam acted, as the common father, manager, root, and representative of all his descendants. So what he did in that role, as acting for us, can be counted as done by us in him, and what happened to him can be counted as happening to us in him. In the same way, Jesus Christ the Mediator, the one who stands between God and people, acted as a public person, the head of all the chosen people. He dealt with God for them as their father, manager, root, and representative, died for them, rose for them, entered within the veil for them, and did all for them. When Adam failed, we failed with him. When Christ obeyed, he obeyed for us. So Adam was the figure of the one who was to come, the one who came to repair the damage Adam had done.

Now for a closer look at the parallel. Adam, as a public person, brought sin and death to all his descendants (Romans 5:12). We see the world flooded with sin and death, full of evil and full of suffering. It is worth asking what source feeds this flood, and the answer is the corruption of human nature. It entered through Adam’s first sin. It was by one man, and by the first man, that sin came into the world. If anyone had come before him, they would have been free from it. He was the root from whom we all come.

By him sin entered. When God said everything was very good (Genesis 1:31), there was no sin in the world. Sin came in when Adam ate the forbidden fruit. Sin had already entered the world of angels, when many angels rebelled and left their first place, but it did not enter the human world until Adam sinned. Then it came in as an enemy, to kill and destroy, and as a thief, to rob and strip bare. It was a sad entrance indeed. Then came the guilt of Adam’s sin charged to his descendants, along with a general corruption and bent toward evil in human nature. The phrase can mean, "in whom all sinned." Sin entered the world through Adam, because in him we all sinned. Just as in 1 Corinthians 15:22, in Adam all die, so here, in him all sinned. This agrees with the rule found in all nations, that the acts of a public person are counted as the acts of those he represents. What the whole body does, each member of that body may be said to do. Adam acted in this way as a public person by God’s sovereign appointment, and also by a natural order God built into creation. God, as the maker of nature, had set it as a law that human beings should produce children like themselves, just as other creatures do. So in Adam, as in a common storehouse, the whole human nature was placed, and from him it flowed down to his descendants. Since all humanity is made of one blood (Acts 17:26), the condition of that nature, whether standing or falling, is passed on from him. Adam sinned and fell, so human nature became guilty and corrupt, and that is how it is handed on. Thus, in him all have sinned.

Death came through sin, because death is the wages sin earns. When sin is finished, it brings forth death. When sin came in, death came with it. Death here stands for all the misery that sin deserves, bodily death, spiritual death, and eternal death. If Adam had not sinned, he would not have died. The warning was clear: "In the day you eat of it, you shall surely die" (Genesis 2:17).

So death passed, that is, a death sentence was handed down, as if on a criminal. It passed through all people, like an infectious disease spreading through a town, so that no one escapes it. This is the common lot of humanity, with no exceptions: death comes upon all. Everyday sorrows in human life prove this clearly. Paul says in Romans 5:14 that death reigned. He speaks of death like a powerful king, whose rule is absolute, universal, and lasting. No one is exempt from his power. This rule will outlast every earthly government, power, and authority, because death is the last enemy (1 Corinthians 15:26). Those rebellious people who will not submit to any other rule still cannot avoid this one.

We can thank Adam for all of this, because sin and death came down from him. It is fitting to say, like that good man who saw a sickness change someone’s face, “Adam, what have you done?” Paul also clears up another point. Sin did not begin with Moses’ law, but was already in the world before that law came. So the law of Moses is not the only rule of life, because there was already a rule, and people had already broken it, before Moses received the law. This also shows that we cannot be made right with God by obeying Moses’ law any more than we were condemned for breaking it. Sin was in the world before the law, as seen in Cain’s murder, the wickedness before the flood, and the sin of Sodom. So Paul concludes that there must have been law, because sin is not counted where there is no law.

Original sin means a lack of harmony with God’s law, and actual sin means a direct breaking of it. So all people were under some law. Paul proves this by saying that death reigned from Adam to Moses (Romans 5:14). Death could not have ruled if sin had not set up its throne first. This shows that sin was in the world before Moses’ law, and it also shows original sin. Death ruled even over those who had not committed actual sin, those who had not sinned in the same way Adam did, meaning infants who had never done any personal wrong, yet still died because Adam’s sin was counted to them.

This reign of death seems to point especially to those severe and unusual judgments that happened long before Moses, like the flood and the destruction of Sodom, judgments that included infants. The fact that little children, who never committed any personal sin, are still subject to terrible sickness, accidents, and death is a strong proof of original sin. That would not fit with the justice and righteousness of God unless they were also counted guilty in Adam.

In the same way, Christ, as a public representative, gives righteousness and life to all true believers, who are his spiritual children. Here Paul shows not only where the likeness between Adam and Christ stands, but also, beyond that, how Christ’s grace and love go further than Adam’s guilt and wrath. The likeness is stated most fully in Romans 5:18 and 5:19. Through the offense and disobedience of one man, many were made sinners, and judgment came on all people to condemnation.

Here we should notice that Adam’s sin was disobedience to a clear and direct command. It was also a command given as a test. What he did was evil because God forbade it. That small act opened the door to many other sins. The poison of sin is very strong and far-reaching, or else Adam’s sin could not have spread so far, or run so deep for so long. Who would guess there could be so much evil in sin?

By Adam’s sin, many are made sinners, that is, all his descendants. They are called many in contrast with the one who sinned. “Made sinners” means they were appointed or set in that condition by a judicial act, as if condemned by law. Judgment has also come to condemnation on all who were made sinners through Adam’s disobedience. We are convicted, and then condemned. The whole human race lies under a sentence, like a family under a legal curse. Judgment has been entered and recorded against us in heaven’s court, and if that judgment is not reversed, it will likely drag us down forever.

In the same way, through the righteousness and obedience of one, Jesus Christ, the second Adam, many are made righteous, and the free gift comes upon all. Paul repeats this truth often because it matters so much. Christ’s righteousness comes through his obedience. The first Adam ruined us by disobedience. The second Adam saves us by obedience, his obedience to the work of mediation, that is, his saving role as our representative before God. He fulfilled all righteousness, and then he offered his soul for sin. By that obedience, he won righteousness for us, satisfied God’s justice, and opened the way for us into God’s favor.

The result is a free gift that has come upon all people, meaning it is offered freely and broadly to all. The salvation Christ won is a common salvation. The offer is general, and the gift is free. Whoever wants to may come and take of the waters of life. This free gift belongs to all believers when they believe, leading to justification of life, that is, a right standing with God that not only frees from death but also gives title to life. Many shall also be made righteous, many in comparison with the one man who sinned, or all who belong to God’s gracious choice. Though they are only a few while scattered through the world, they will be a great number when gathered together. “Shall be made righteous” means they will be formally counted righteous, like being granted a legal charter. The contrast between our ruin in Adam and our recovery in Christ is plain enough.

Christ’s grace and love also go beyond Adam’s guilt and wrath, as Paul shows in Romans 5:15-17. He does this to magnify the riches of Christ’s love and to encourage believers. When they see the wound Adam’s sin has caused, they might think no full remedy is possible. Paul’s wording is somewhat complex, but his point seems clear: if guilt and wrath are passed on, then grace and love will be passed on even more. That fits the goodness of God. He is more ready to save by an imputed righteousness, meaning a righteousness counted to us, than to condemn by an imputed guilt. The grace of God, and the gift that comes by grace, is greater. God’s goodness is especially his glory. Mercy is what he is most ready to show, while punishing is his strange work.

If Adam’s sin had so much power, as it surely did, to condemn us, Adam being only a man of the earth, then Christ’s righteousness and grace have much greater power to justify and save us. The one man who saves us is Jesus Christ, the Lord from heaven. Adam could spread such a strong poison, but Jesus Christ can spread an even stronger remedy.

Only one offense of Adam is charged to us. The judgment came through one, that is, through one offense (Romans 5:16, Romans 5:17). But from Jesus Christ we receive a great overflow of grace and the gift of righteousness. The stream of grace and righteousness is deeper and wider than the stream of guilt. This righteousness does more than remove the guilt of that one sin. It removes the guilt of many sins, even all sins. In Christ, God forgives all our trespasses (Colossians 2:13).

By Adam’s sin, death ruled over us. By Christ’s righteousness, that rule of death is not only broken, but believers are also brought to reign in life (Romans 5:17). In Christ we receive more than a pardon. We also receive honor. We are not only freed from chains, like Joseph was lifted up in Egypt, but we are made kings and priests to our God. We are not only forgiven, but also raised up (Revelation 1:5, Revelation 1:6; Revelation 5:9, Revelation 5:10). Through Christ and his righteousness, we are given more and greater privileges than we lost through Adam’s offense. The cure is wider than the wound, and stronger in healing than the wound was in harming.

In the last two verses, Paul seems to answer an objection like the one in Galatians 3:19: “Why then was the law given?” The answer is that the law entered so that the offense might abound. This does not mean the law made sin worse in itself, except that sin takes advantage of the commandment. It means the law showed sin in its full ugliness. A mirror shows the spots, but it does not make them. When the commandment came, sin became clear and visible, like dust in a room after brighter light comes in. It was like opening and searching a wound, which is needed before healing can begin. The offense, the sin of Adam, and the way its guilt and corruption spread to us, all became more obvious when the law came.

The law also came so that grace might much more abound. The terrors of the law make the comforts of the gospel seem even sweeter. Sin abounded among the Jews, and when some of them came to faith in Christ, grace abounded even more in forgiving so much guilt and overcoming so much corruption. The greater the strength of the enemy, the greater the honor of the conqueror.

Paul explains this further in Romans 5:21. The reign of a tyrant makes the rule of a just and gentle prince look even more glorious. In the same way, the reign of sin makes the reign of grace shine more brightly. Sin ruled over us and led to death, a cruel and bloody rule. But grace rules and leads to life, eternal life. It does this through righteousness, righteousness counted to us for justification, that is, being declared right with God, and worked in us for sanctification, that is, being made holy. Both come through Jesus Christ our Lord, by the power and effectiveness of Christ, the great prophet, priest, and king of his church.