Romans 5 explained: Peace With God, Adam and Jesus

Peace and hope (vv. 1-5)

Being "justified" means being put right with God; Paul says this comes through trust and brings peace with God and a confident hope of sharing in his glory. He even finds reason for joy in hardship, which builds endurance, then proven character, then a hope that will not disappoint, because God's love has been poured into their hearts through the Holy Spirit.

Love for the undeserving (vv. 6-11)

Hardly anyone would die for an upright person, though someone might dare to die for a truly good one; yet Paul says Christ died for people who were still powerless, in the wrong and even God's enemies, and calls this the proof of God's love. If Jesus' death has already made peace between them and God, he reasons, his risen life will surely bring them safely through God's final judgment on wrong.

Through one man, death (v. 12)

Paul begins comparing Jesus with Adam, the first man in Genesis: through Adam sin entered the world, death came with it, and death spread to everyone since all sinned. Exactly how everyone is caught up in Adam's sin has long been debated, and Paul breaks off here, only finishing the comparison in verse 18.

Before the law of Moses (vv. 13-14)

Paul says sin existed before the law of Moses, and even without a written law, death still ruled over people who had not broken a direct command as Adam did; scholars explain this compressed reasoning in several ways. He calls Adam an advance picture of the one who was coming, meaning Jesus.

The gift is greater (vv. 15-19)

Paul stresses that the two are not equal: Adam's one wrong brought death and condemnation, but the gift through Jesus answers countless wrongs and brings life and a right standing with God. Readers differ on the word "all" in verse 18: many take it to mean those who receive the gift (v. 17), some see an offer made to everyone, and a minority read it as hope that everyone will finally be saved.

Where sin grew, grace grew (vv. 20-21)

Paul says the law of Moses came in so that wrongdoing would increase, probably meaning it named sin clearly and turned wrongs into the breaking of known commands, though interpreters word this differently. But where sin grew, grace, meaning God's undeserved kindness, grew even more, and it now rules in place of sin and death, leading to eternal life.

Key verse: Romans 5:8

Where Christians differ

Christians differ over how verse 12 links Adam's sin to everyone: Catholic and many Protestant Christians, drawing on a long tradition shaped partly by an old Latin rendering that all sinned "in" Adam, hold that all humanity shares in his sin (often called original sin), while Orthodox Christians hold that people inherit death and a pull toward wrong but are guilty only of their own sins.

Something to think about

Have hard times in your life ever produced something good in you, or have some simply been loss with nothing gained?